Javelin - the gripping new thriller from the former commander of Special Branch (John Kerr Book 3)

by Roger Pearce

  ‘I kept it vague, and haven’t notified MI5 or the National. If they keep their mouths shut downstairs, no-one’s going to know. Mel and Jack fly to Rotterdam tonight. Henk’s providing an unmarked hatchback from KMar.’

  Kerr nodded. KMar were the Dutch Royal Military police, responsible for security at Holland’s main airports, and Henk Jansen was their principal contact.

  Fargo was studying the chart again. ‘Clacton’s showing a crosswind first thing, eight or nine knots, but Justin tells me a Cessna can handle that.’

  ‘So why is he so nervous?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’ said Fargo, prodding the North Sea. ‘He’s done less than twenty hours solo. A rookie.’

  Kerr looked rueful. ‘Not for much longer.’

  ‘Who can blame him?’

  Whatever the outcome of his undercover mission, both feared Justin’s days in the Met were drawing to a close. Disenchanted by narrowing career opportunities, skewed priorities and bullying top brass, many talented detectives of his generation were hovering around the exit. For Kerr’s young technical guru, the alternative was a no-brainer. With a private pilot’s licence under his belt and his eyes on multi-jet training, they guessed Justin would soon be trading shifts at Camberwell for stopovers in the Caribbean.

  ‘Let’s just get through the next couple of days,’ said Kerr. ‘Get him back in one piece.’

  One of Fargo’s cybercrime experts put her head round the door. ‘Nothing recovered at the bank. They’re holding the area in lockdown and extending the search radius.’

  ‘Thanks, Rosie.’

  Kerr stood up, BlackBerry in hand. ‘And I have to be somewhere else.’

  •••

  Thursday, 20 October, 11.34, The Headsail, St Katherine’s Docks

  For his meeting with journalist Vanessa Gavron, Kerr chose St Katherine’s Docks in the shadow of Tower Bridge, a square of restaurants, bars and apartments developed from abandoned warehouses around a smart marina. The brickwork and oak beams of The Headsail marked it out as one of the few original structures to have survived. It was a traditional London pub, with framed prints of the original docks, overlooking a permanently moored barge, Celestine. In the past, Kerr had occasionally used the quiet upper room for debriefing James Thompson, his secret source within MI5.

  He made his way there now and sat at his favourite corner, with the top of the Gherkin just visible through the open terrace doors. Gavron arrived in less than five minutes, easily recognisable from her byline picture in grey skirt, black jacket and patent leather flats. It was too early for the lunchtime crowd and her hand was already outstretched as she hurried across the empty bar. ‘John?’

  Kerr stood to greet her.

  ‘I know you’ve got a lot on,’ she said, nodding outside, as if the next bomb was ticking below in the marina. ‘Thanks for sparing the time.’

  They ordered drinks, a glass of Merlot for Gavron, Bloody Mary for Kerr, and settled beneath a sepia photograph of Celestine plying the Thames.

  ‘So how do you know Robyn?’ said Kerr.

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  Kerr bit his celery. ‘Not much.’

  Gavron shrugged out of her jacket. ‘Have you heard about my work on child abuse?’

  ‘Of course. Priests in Northern Ireland.’

  ‘Not just there, actually.’

  ‘But today we’re off the record?’

  ‘Oh, I already have my exclusive.’ Kerr looked quizzical, so she laughed and held up her glass. ‘Yesterday afternoon I gave information about the man I believe is planting these bombs and got blanked. As in “talk to the hand.” Which is weird, right? When I’m trying to be a good citizen?’

  ‘Who did you speak to?’

  ‘Top man.’

  ‘Finch?’

  Gavron nodded, then talked him through her investigation and Father Michael’s disclosure of the bomber’s confession in return for her silence. Speaking rapidly and succinctly, she recounted the bomber’s kneecapping in Belfast, his exile to the mainland and his claim that the terrorist campaign was being organised in London.

  Kerr listened carefully, without interruption. ‘Interested?’ she said, taking a sip of wine. ‘Or are you going to disappoint me, too?’

  ‘A full name would be nice. Obviously. And the church.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s a source.’

  ‘A witness,’ said Kerr, shaking his head. ‘A bad man with critical information about the bombing campaign.’

  ‘And I’ve passed on everything he knows. As my good deed.’

  Kerr leant forward. ‘Vanessa, you know how it works. I’ll find out, anyway.’

  ‘Special Branch spying on journalists?’ Gavron laughed. ‘Jesus Christ. Robyn was so right about you. He’ll deny everything.’

  ‘Who says I’m going to speak to him?’

  ‘If he’s telling the truth and you’re so eager, why did Finch practically laugh in my face?’

  Kerr shrugged. ‘He wants to lay this on the Real IRA. Like most of the Whitehall establishment.’

  ‘MI5?’

  Kerr nodded.

  ‘Politicians?’ she said, studying Kerr’s face.

  Kerr’s shoulders lifted. ‘You don’t have to be reporter of the year to see where Avril Knight was coming from.’

  ‘But you’re unconvinced?’

  ‘The intelligence is not guiding me to Belfast.’

  ‘And I’m offering the best lead. So why do they ignore us both and go with a lie?’

  Kerr raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s your story?’

  Loud laughter spilled from the staircase across the room as a couple of middle-aged men in waterproofs breezed in and ordered gin and tonics, bankers posing as yachties.

  Gavron lowered her voice, though the bragging from the bar made it unnecessary. ‘Finch rang my editor the moment I left.’

  ‘You told him you were going to write this?’

  ‘As soon as I reached home Charles called to spike it.’

  ‘Charles Brandon?’ said Kerr. ‘Are you going to tell me why?’

  Gavron smiled. ‘Are you familiar with Charlie’s military background? He’s on record as a liaison officer with the Parachute Regiment, but that’s a cover. During the seventies he was an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland. Special Reconnaissance Unit, then Fourteen Intell. Same business as you guys, stuffing the IRA. But he left suddenly after three years. Kicked out, resigned, and no-one seems to know why.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Things didn’t come to an end with the peace process and power-sharing. The IRA never put their weapons beyond reach and people like Charlie never stopped hating them.’ She looked away. ‘It’s a get out of jail card for IRA murderers, arrest at dawn for retired British soldiers, and all to keep the bloody peace process on its legs. A lot of people on the right feel very resentful. Betrayed, actually.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘Including intelligence officers and politicians like Avril Knight. Christ, I’m a republican and even I think it’s unfair.’ She paused to take a sip of wine. ‘I believe the London bombings are the strike back, to frame the Real IRA.’

  ‘A criminal conspiracy, you mean? That’s your exclusive?’

  ‘Are you going to talk me out of it?’

  ‘I’m asking myself how much you’re holding back,’ said Kerr.

  Gavron tilted her head. ‘And I’m wondering how much of this you already know?’ They regarded each other in silence for a moment, then Kerr’s BlackBerry was buzzing with a flagged email from Alan Fargo. ‘Give me a minute while I deal with this.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, draining her wine. ‘I’ve done my duty.’

  ‘Not completely.’ Kerr scribbled his number on a beer mat. ‘I need evidence. And names.’

  ‘Start with Derek Finch.’ Gavron gave him her business card and shook hands. ‘Take a closer look at your boss.’

  Stepping onto the terrace, Kerr scrolled
through his contacts for Polly Graham. She was evidently on the road from Porton Down, shouting to make herself heard above the Land Rover’s diesel.

  ‘Polly, you got the info about the device?’

  ‘Something about a rough sleeper?’

  ‘Looks like he picked up the bag from the bank without realising, then dumped it. Photographs to come. But it’s intact, so may give us the bomber’s signature, right?’

  ‘What are we dealing with?’ shouted Polly. ‘Cock-up or malfunction?’

  ‘Sabotage. Looks like the bomber disabled it.’

  ‘Which is not so brilliant for me if he’s buggered the mechanism.’

  Kerr could hear classical music and the crackle of an intercom. ‘I’ve got a lead on the man who planted it.’

  ‘So let’s hope we both get lucky.’

  As soon as she rang off, Kerr dialled Fargo. ‘Alan, I want you to search Mercury for Charles Brandon. Military in NI, then journalism. Focus on recent associates.’ Below, he watched Gavron hurry across the footbridge, smoking an e-cigarette, mobile to her ear. ‘And I’ll need an urgent satnav audit.’

  ‘Index number?’

  ‘Give me a couple of hours.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Friday, 21 October, 12.09, Hendrix Beach Bar, Scheveningen, The Netherlands

  Eyes hidden behind the aviator shades that Gina Costello called his ‘Jay-Bans,’ jacket wrapped around him in the pale October sun, Justin slumped in the corner of the bar’s rickety wooden couch and pretended to doze. Drained by a night of anxiety sex and broken sleep, shattered after the adrenaline rush of the early morning flight, he glimpsed the vast tract of sand stretching to the grey shoreline. Beside him, lips flecked with foam from her second draught beer, Costello toyed with a phone he had never seen before, fidgeting like a child on a sugar high. She had brought with her an unexplained holdall, now tightly wedged between her feet, and her eyes constantly scanned for watchers as the minutes ticked away to their pick-up.

  Rustic and quirkily retro, the Hendrix stood alone in the shadow of an elevated disused water tower at Scheveningen’s northern edge, well clear of the main promenade with its strip of pop-up restaurants catering for the summer rush. Isolated between the featureless beach and shifting sand dunes, the only vehicle access a narrow track winding from a distant trailer park, the bar’s remoteness was perfect for their illicit rendezvous.

  They had travelled the twenty kilometres from Rotterdam by taxi and, in the half hour since their arrival, Justin had seen only dog walkers and seagulls. Beyond the vast beach, windsurfers in wet suits scudded to and fro in a swirling panorama of bright sails, the smack of their boards carried inland on the breeze: perfect flying conditions. The Cessna had performed beautifully, picking up a tailwind as they reached cruising altitude and locating Rotterdam without deviating from the course, responding to Justin’s hands and brain, pilot and aircraft working in harmony. Pressed beside him in the right hand seat, Costello had studied the instruments and bombarded him with questions, even persuading him to hand her the controls for a couple of minutes mid-flight, then falling silent as he locked into Dutch air traffic control for the descent.

  The bar was empty except for a couple of locals in deep conversation with the manager. Through narrowed eyes, Justin watched a thirtyish couple in shades and beanies drift outside with draught beers and take the opposite couch, lounging with their legs stretched across the low table. Intimate and intense, they were just visible through a tangle of creepers around a crooked pergola, eyes only for each other as they embraced and shared a joint, the man’s left arm resting on a cushion. Justin took in Melanie’s jeans and brown calf length boots with sleeveless puffer jacket, Jack’s light waterproof and man bag. Everything was a potential hide for the tiny cameras, mikes and tracking devices the Reds routinely deployed from the Camberwell workshop. It occurred to him that Jack had travelled here less than a week after cheating death, an act of loyalty that touched him. The smoke from his friends’ marijuana drifted to him across the terrace, sweet, musky, comforting. No longer alone, Justin felt his heart subside as he pressed the button-sized transmitter sewn into his jacket, an instinctive signal of thanks.

  •••

  Friday, 21 October, 11.15, Thames House, London

  On Friday mornings, Jack Langton would bike over to the MI5 headquarters at Thames House to agree surveillance targets for the coming week with his Security Service counterparts. He and Willie Duncan, de facto head of the watchers in A4, spent their lives disrupting radicalised thugs, lone wolves and insane zealots, though neither had ever paused to calculate the number of thwarted attacks. The grandiose Surveillance Tasking and Co-Ordinating Group propagated a myth of transparency that regularly imploded, and was known to the Reds as the Seven Up, a sardonic nod to the communication lapses around 7/7.

  Today, with Langton occupied in the Netherlands, Kerr had taken his place, arriving fifteen minutes early for a private chat. Shaking hands in Reception, Duncan seemed taken aback, evidently assuming Melanie or another of Langton’s deputies would have filled in. He was solicitous about Langton’s injury. ‘Poor sod,’ he said in the lift, stabbing the third floor.

  ‘He appreciated your call.’

  ‘I told him to shift his arse quicker next time.’

  Fiftyish and overweight, with crinkly hair and a ragged moustache, Willie Duncan was one of many second career veterans disparaged by Whitehall’s élite as ‘army retreads.’ A warrant officer in Saudi and Yemen, with rusty Arabic but razor sharp insights, Duncan had recently been credited with broadening the ethnic profile of MI5’s watchers to meet the Islamist threat. Kerr had never known him wear anything but jumbo cords with brown shoes.

  Duncan led the way through the silent open plan offices to their usual spot, a bare corner room with a clear view across the river to MI6, the Security Service’s flashier, insubordinate sister service. ‘What’s on your mind?’ he said, dropping his thick bundle of papers on the table and pulling up a couple of chairs.

  ‘Gina Costello.’

  Duncan groaned. ‘Again?’

  ‘We raised her with Toby on Saturday evening.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ said Duncan, fanning through his papers. He pinched a folio at the top of the bundle. ‘You’ve seen the Belfast taskings?’

  ‘Costello will be a lot more productive.’

  Duncan shook his head. ‘Word from the Sanctuary is to concentrate on Real IRA suspects.’

  ‘But we don’t have any of those,’ said Kerr, lightly. ‘Do we?’

  ‘Targets, then. Dissidents. Extremists.’

  ‘A wish list, you mean?’

  ‘Persons of interest. The loyalists are kicking up, Brexit’s bubbling and Stormont’s in meltdown. NI want this sorted before it gets out of hand.’

  ‘So let’s take a look at Costello. She’s involved, Willie. This is ACI.’

  Duncan shook his head. ‘Give us some evidence with the complete network and we’ll reconsider. Right now we can’t waste time on European leftists.’

  Kerr’s voice dropped as he leaned in. ‘So why did A4 put a team on her?’

  Duncan looked up from his bundle. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nothing came from the desk.’

  ‘No. Toby Devereux must have ordered it, after our chat at the Silver Scrum?’

  ‘I’m not responsible for what they do upstairs,’ said Duncan, tugging at his moustache.

  ‘All received. I’ll ask Bill Ritchie to give Devereux a call.’ Kerr felt a pang of sympathy. From his first day in MI5, Willie Duncan had set his sights on a desk officer post in G Branch, eager to exercise his skills honed as an army intelligence officer embedded in the Middle East. Each year he had been rejected, a non-com disqualified by age and background for a senior grade that should have been a shoo-in. ‘Thing is, Willie, I put some coverage on her.’

  Duncan looked up, startled.

  ‘Seein
g as no-one else wants to play. And Jack gets blanked every time he brings her to Seven Up.’

  ‘What type of coverage?’

  ‘Limited.’ A group of A4 team leaders were loitering by the door, giving their boss space. Kerr smiled and threw them a wave. ‘She’s been making herself busy in The Hague, back tomorrow. Can you lend me half a team for back-up? See where she goes next?’ This was a bluff: concerned about the risk of another surveillance compromise, Kerr had no intention of covering Justin’s arrival at Clacton.

  Duncan glowered as Kerr’s mobile buzzed deep in his pocket. ‘Didn’t you hand it in?’

  Kerr’s shoulders lifted in apology as he glanced at the screen. ‘Yes or no?’

  Duncan beckoned his troops to the table. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘That Toby Devereux will be seriously pissed off.’

  An hour later, escorting Kerr down in the lift with a couple of strangers, Duncan began humming a phrase of religious music Kerr recognised from his schooldays. Willie Duncan sang as a tenor in the combined choir of MI5 and MI6, which practised in a church near Dolphin Square: insiders said St Bede’s was the only place where the spooks truly worked in harmony.

  ‘Isn’t that from Messiah?’ said Kerr, handing over his visitor pass.

  Duncan looked surprised again as they paused by the security pods, then embarrassed. ‘Christmas programme. Glory to God in the Highest.’

  ‘And peace on earth, right? Goodwill towards men?’ Kerr held out his hand. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘So don’t grass me up to Toby.’

  •••

  Friday, 21 October, 12.21, Hendrix Beach Bar, Scheveningen, The Netherlands

  Melanie relit the joint for Langton, nestled deeper beneath his good shoulder and checked the tiny screen sewn into her puffer jacket. They had three cameras between them, in their jackets and Langton’s bag, and directional microphones grafted into their shades were capable of collecting speech at forty metres. To keep tabs on Justin, a tiny tracker was built into Langton’s iPhone. Beside a prostrate Justin, his face turned away from them towards the beach, Gina Costello seemed trapped in a state of constant movement, a cycle of sipping beer, checking her phone and peering inside the bar, the holdall never moving from her feet. From the pier half a mile away came the faint scream of another bungee jumper, then the gulls again above the sounds of the sea and murmured conversation from the inside bar. Melanie understood why they had chosen this spot, away from prying eyes in The Hague; but its privacy worked in her favour, too, leaving a clear field for the targets to be photographed and recorded without distraction.