Back at the hotel, I briefed Claire. Once again, it was the usual waiting game but David had assured me it would happen – we had only two days to nail the story.
First thing the next morning, Paul knocked on my door. ‘David’s just called. It’s on for tonight.’
I got the sense that the Litvínov gang were used to dealing with bigger fish than me, and the lot last night weren’t really serious players. David, too, was just the driver with connections. Nothing more, nothing less – that was how he wanted it.
I spent the day preparing my head – there was nothing to do but kill time. We were on for 19.45. Litvínov was an hour and a half away. Usual rules applied on not filming at the first meet but the SIM in my mobile was sending a broadcast quality audio feed back to London. That phone would remain switched off at all times – the sound would be one of those slightly crackly undercover recordings where you put subtitles up. It was good enough to air, but that little detail added to the theatre. I had never ever suffered by not filming on the first date. As Harry showed, you would be more than enriched with footage later. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance – potentially, these guys could have been anybody from gangsterland.
We set off soon after four. I told everyone we needed to be firm when we got there, show them that we were the real deal and stick to the cover story at all times. I talked the boys through my Albanian nightmare one final time. The car journey was all about getting back into the part. The more miles it took to get there, the more in character the lads became. I left the hotel as Craig Summers, ready to record. I got out of the black BMW a proper East End landlord.
Litvínov had seen better days – a real northern Eastern European one-horse town – cute but with nothing really there. It wasn’t industrial, but not far off it. An oil refinery had been the traditional source of work for many. It smacked of high unemployment, and the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else. Oddly, it was the birthplace of the supermodel Eva Herzigová.
Our instructions were to meet at a bar called The Radniční Sklípek. It must have looked pretty unusual, the four of us getting out of the BMW and leaving it outside in the street. We just didn’t look as if we were from round these parts. It was that kind of place. David stayed outside on watch while Paul, Dom and I wandered in as casually as we could.
To the left was the dining area; on the right was the bar. A massive set of stairs led up to a huge Victorian-type building. We made for the left to tactically choose a table. I positioned Dom to the right and Paul on the other side. I would always take the middle ground. The boys lit up to create the mood, and ordered drinks for the table. We couldn’t just sit there and wait – every prop added to our authenticity. Adjacent to us, a couple in their mid thirties were having a romantic meal.
Dom would occasionally step out to check with David if anyone was coming – they were always on the way, he would assure us. Beyond that, I didn’t want Dom to do much of the talking. If any of the three of us was slightly less confident, it might be Dom who would say the wrong thing. I was loving my latest role though. I knew this was either going to be a complete load of bollocks like last night or I was about to meet some very tasty people.
After fifteen minutes, Paul’s phone rang. It was David. They – whoever they were – were on the way, fitting us in early before a night of drugs, prostitutes and gambling. Just like Harry. David didn’t know exactly who to wait for. He was just on lookout, a bit further up the road.
Suddenly, a car pulled up. The gangster vehicle of choice was now a black Porsche Kian – tinted windows, obviously, adding to the part.
‘This is it,’ I told the boys. I was pumping. I couldn’t wait to get started and mix it with some new thugs.
First through the door was smooth-looking Daniel, of German/Austrian descent and English speaking. He wore an Armani suit with a black polo neck – classic gangster attire. His two bits of muscle were both wearing black Puffer jackets. He was dressed to tell me he was in charge; the other two to tell me they were the hired heavies. I decided to ignore them arrogantly, waving Paul to introduce me. It was about setting your stall out as a serious player.
Paul and Dom got up to shake hands. I refused eye contact and waited for Paul to do the detail. Finally, I pulled myself out of the chair slowly and eyeballed Daniel for the first time. I knew from the cut of the suit and the way he handled himself that this was a proper gangster. The stakes had been raised. I felt no fear, just a greater awareness.
I made no effort to greet him in his native tongue. I was there to do business. I didn’t want to come across as Delboy. The other two, Milan and Martin, spoke no English. (Of course, everybody over there speaks a little English in a way that we don’t speak a lot of anything. They would pick up the odd thing here and there.) Milan didn’t need to. I got the size of him through his tone when he removed the romantic couple from the restaurant. ‘Fuck off and eat your meal next door’ was the same in any language right around the world.
I watched the couple get up to go. Their evening was over. We never saw them again. The senior waitress escorted them out, plates in hand. In a way, it was quite comical, but it also told me that these guys were feared in the local community and this was probably the normal chain of events on a Saturday night. When the boys were back in town, everybody would know to leave without even turning to glance their way. Their respect was built on fear.
The waitress locked the door. Finally, I shook hands. Then, stage two of the gangster code of conduct – phones on the table. I couldn’t know for sure if the Nokia was recording, but it had never let me down yet. I loved that buzz that they could pat me down if they wanted and we could establish the transparent trust on the first meet, but that I had broken it straightaway. I knew they would live and breathe each moment with me back at Television Centre.
The door opened. The waitress was back with a tray of drinks.
‘What are you after, and why?’ Daniel didn’t mess. Neither of us bothered with small talk. The next thing he said knocked me for six. ‘Come outside. I want to talk to you.’
I hadn’t envisaged this. If I had thought of it myself, I would have done the same. It was a smart move splitting us up. We could test each other for real. What the hell was he doing, though? My mind was racing but I stayed cool on the outside. I gave Paul that look which said that if I wasn’t back in five minutes, make an excuse to go to the bogs to find me. Daniel walked me out of the room, closing the door behind. I was on my own.
He led me down a low-lit corridor towards the toilet – the stairs were on my right. I hadn’t clocked this passage as I visually recced the room when we came in. I didn’t know there was a bog. I was playing catch-up with a hard man – never a good place to be. He had the upper hand. His concern, I’m sure, was more that we weren’t undercover police rather than that we were about to spring one on him.
‘What do you need?’ he asked me again.
And I trotted out the Albanian line as we had rehearsed.
‘We’ve got contacts in England. We can sort things out.’ He was one step ahead of me. That wasn’t what I wanted. The point of the mission was to buy here and transport home. I didn’t want this to become real back in the UK – that wasn’t my brief. Clearly, though, with more time and budget and a different agenda, he might just have been on the brink of opening up his entire bent world to me. I had to let it go.
‘I don’t know you from Adam,’ I batted it back. He was standing right up close, in my face. ‘I’m not going to ask you to do anything on my behalf. I look after my own manor.’ I threw it back, gangster to gangster.
I knew he was testing me. Either he didn’t think I was who I said I was, or he could check out my cover story. If the roles had been reversed, I would have assumed automatically that any cover story wasn’t real – but I had years of training in making up fiction. Daniel would always want to deal, once he knew he was safe. I felt comfortable, but not 100 per cent. This was the closest I had ever been
to justifying my legend. My main concern was being separated from the other two. I suspect he did that every time, and that his two heavies would report back on the body language and anything else they could figure out, sat in silence back in the bar. We had more than met our match this time. Harry should have watched and learned.
Daniel and I started to exchange small talk, but even this was a test. ‘How long are you in Prague?’ he said. ‘I have a good friend from London you should meet. He owns a nightclub in Prague. He will know your pubs.’
Luckily, I had been to watch the Hammers so many times that I had based these two drinking holes on reality. I could only come unstuck if this friend was a Hammer, too, and also used to drink at the same pubs. I had no choice but to ham it up. ‘Yeah, we could go out tomorrow if you want,’ I upped my game.
‘Yeah, yeah, I can arrange that. Maybe go to a casino, get some girls.’ His response was standard in this part of the world. I didn’t feel quite so much on my back foot now. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the room.’ He was showing me the trust – or so I thought. We never made it. ‘No, no,’ he pretended to change his mind. ‘Come out to the car.’
Shit. He had me back where he wanted me. I thought we’d just established an equal footing talking about the night out but he was just reeling me in. I knew better than to be lulled into a false sense of security but he was stamping his authority all over me. He had been in this game long enough to know that predictability was a downfall – keep moving the goalposts and you stay one step ahead. I couldn’t know what he had waiting for me outside in the car. I knew David wouldn’t get involved. I later found out he wasn’t even there.
Daniel opened the boot of the car. There was a blanket lying inside. For a split second, I wondered what lay underneath it. He really had come to do business. There was no time on either side for a formal courting process. He stuck his hand and pulled out a booklet. It could have been so much worse.
It was from the CZ factory. ‘I can get you anything in this book,’ he promised. His gang had ‘acquired’ dozens of weapons from a break-in there. I wondered how many times that place was prone to an inside job – it was after all, the main supplier to the Czech military.
Only now was he happy to go back in the bar. He must have felt that Paul and Dom might have covert gear on but that, as the main man, I wouldn’t risk it or lower myself to be the monkey. The organ grinder did the deals, not the dogsbody work.
When we re-entered the bar, the biggest waft of smoke you could ever imagine engulfed me. Paul and Dom had been chainsmoking for England. Clearly, conversation had been minimal between both sides and the boys were tense as to where I had gone. The language barrier itself, despite Dom being just about able to communicate, was an obvious obstacle to banter; the frostiness of the unknown was the bigger problem. I glanced at both of them. Their faces told me they were fine. I gave them the look back to keep it going. Then, I filled them in on the book Daniel had given me. Daniel did the same to his heavies.
Dom was picking up the odd phrase like ‘pubs in East London’ and ‘Albanians with guns’. Both he and Paul studied the catalogue like experts. Between us, we could probably navigate our way through all the weapons on offer.
We had been there around forty minutes. I felt we had earned the trust. All tests had been passed so far. Then Daniel threw in another wildcard. ‘Your pubs in East London – what are they called?’
I could answer that, of course, because my story didn’t stray too far from my reality. But it knocked me back again. A little bit of hard-man posturing, then a bit of camaraderie, a change of location and then a test … this was how he operated. I realised that there would always be tests – no such thing as being in with these guys. ‘The Boleyn and The Queen’s Arms,’ I bullshitted.
‘What’s their number?’ he came straight back at me.
‘What for?’
‘I want to check it.’ In total control, he handed me a piece of paper to write it down.
‘I’m not giving you the number. Your phone should be switched off. We said at the beginning all phones off.’ I was buying myself time.
Then I scribbled down a fictional London number. I didn’t think he would check it there and then. I backed myself that he didn’t care for the detail – it was a trick to see if I flinched at the question. Could your cover story still hold water when specific details need to be added?
I turned it back on him. ‘I don’t know if you’re police,’ I said. ‘Or if we’ve come to the wrong person.’
‘What is your number?’ he asked.
I gave him the number of the Nokia that was recording. If he rang it, he would see I was genuine (even though I obviously wasn’t.) He would get the voicemail.
He didn’t even try.
Then he let his guard down. As he turned to Martin and Milan to translate, I could see the wry smile on his face. I felt myself going up in his estimation. He paused for a moment. ‘Look, we can do business.’ The tone changed. ‘We would like to meet up in Prague tomorrow night and meet up with my friend and get to know each other properly.’
At last, he was taking me up the next rung.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I lied. ‘I have some business to attend to during the day but I’m always up for a good night. Are there girls involved?’
‘There are always girls available in Prague,’ he replied.
Dom and Paul laughed, and with it went the tension. They feigned interest in the guns, Dom saying we wanted something small.
‘That’s not a problem,’ Daniel replied. ‘We can sort that out.’
We were on, all set for tomorrow night. Martin rose from the table to shake my hand. I realised then that he probably did speak more English than he had let on – or at least understood it. They had played dumb to see if the boys would let their guard down. He wouldn’t have got up from the table if he hadn’t followed the conversation between Daniel and me.
‘I’ll sort the drinks,’ I offered, producing my customary huge wad of euros to impress.
We shook hands again on the way to the cars as David pulled up. Daniel wanted to know who he was. In his mind, he needed to account for all of us. I told him he was just our driver while we were here. In the car I made sure David floored it out of town – a massive grin lighting up his face. Now wasn’t the time to hang around or risk picking up a tail. Let’s get straight back to the hotel.
‘What are you so happy about?’ Dom asked him.
He just smiled.
‘You fucking haven’t, have you?’ Dom laughed.
‘Ah, Gumar girl, Gumar girl,’ David replied.
While we were inside mixing it with the mob, our driver had been off getting one from the local Gypsy hookers. He should have been watching out for us. We might have needed him at a moment’s notice. It was shocking operational behaviour. But it broke the ice in the car after the tension of the previous hour.
The dirty little prick. ‘Katastrofik,’ we all cried in unison. Thank God nothing had gone wrong. If his blow job had blown the job, I would have killed him on the spot. Instead, it made us come to our senses.
‘I don’t believe we fucking got away with that,’ I said to everyone. ‘We’re out of our depth here. If we had enough time and money, we could carry this on. This isn’t a news piece. This is a one-hour documentary on Panorama. We can’t go to this nightclub tomorrow. We’re now in with some serious players, and we don’t have the support.’ I never spoke like this during an op. I wasn’t frightened – I just knew our brief and, as much as it went against my instinct, I could get us all into some serious shit if I took the matter into my own hands and pursued the thing. I had no choice but to call in to Claire.
Then came the bombshell I didn’t want to hear. And it has happened to anyone and everyone in broadcasting at some point. ‘It didn’t work – there was no signal.’
Perhaps Daniel had known that all along, too. He was that good that this may have been the reason this bar was chosen. I couldn’t believe it.<
br />
‘We couldn’t call you,’ she said.
I had made the rule – no calls during the op. I was gutted. I couldn’t regret not having any covert gear on – an hour and a half from Prague in a little village where secrets stayed secrets – we couldn’t risk a pat down. Today showed how close to the bone things could get, and who knows what would have happened if our cover had been blown.
‘We need a meeting when we get into Prague,’ I told Claire.
I wanted to discuss it with Allan and I needed to ring a mate of mine in the force back in London. I was pretty confident that we had stumbled upon something bigger than what w’d come looking for. We were back in an hour. Gumar Schumacher absolutely caned it back to Prague.
I asked the boys how they felt – what had gone on when I was off with Daniel?
‘We smoked a ton of fags,’ Paul said.
‘Yeah, that was a bit scary,’ Dom said.
In turn, they asked me if I felt we were out of our depth. Harry’s Game wasn’t even in this league. All that had saved us was the cover story. It was good, but I hadn’t put it in place in anything other than a casual way. Look how close we had got, based on the minimal amount of detail. These were serious gangsters – and we didn’t have the resources. If only we had known how easy and fast it was to penetrate this underworld, I knew Panorama would have commissioned us.
Back in Prague, I met with Allan, Tony and Claire. Only one question mattered. Did we have enough for the Ten? Claire rang London. She told them everything.
I had to step out of it at this point – what followed wasn’t my call. My job was undercover and security. London thought that if we showed the original gun coming back through Dover unchallenged, then we had a story.
I suppose we did. It wasn’t enough for me though, and I couldn’t let my frustration at budget control or lack of vision in the bigger picture bother me. The need to get Allan out to Sierra Leone on another story also meant this was the end of the line. These things happened.
Bodyguard Page 17
