by Tom Marcus
Driving round in a big circle, I move into a position where I can potentially help my team without being too close in. There’s no point in saturating the area, especially when one of the brothers can see directly onto the street, and I know the rest of the team will be holding key routes out of the area too. So far, so good.
‘Stations, while we have a lull, security checks please, down the list.’
I know why the team leader is checking on the other operators in the team. In this area, the brothers aren’t the only threats we have to worry about. The only people in their cars at this time of night will be dealers or police, and because we’ve taken great pains not to look like police, we are obvious targets for gangs defending their patch. I can tell by the team’s responses as they confirm their positions that the control around the brothers is as tight as can be, and no one is in any bother from the locals.
I keep running my memory back to when the brothers came out of the door. Could the object have just been a big phone, or something else more innocuous than a pistol? It was too hard to tell at that distance, in the rain, at night, but it had still been worth putting it out to the team.
‘Charlie Nine, holding the park to the west on Villa Street.’
‘Thanks stations, Direct, back to you.’
There is barely a second between transmissions; Imran is clearly desperate to get a message out on the radio.
‘STANDBY STANDBY, SPLIT SPLIT! From Charlie Four Seven, that’s Iron Sword OUT OUT and walking west-bound towards St George’s Park and Villa Street, Stone Fist is northbound, north on Church Street. Team Leader, just before they split, Stone Fist pointed in my direction, looking aggressive. I’m going to have to front this out and hope it wasn’t me he was pointing at. If I move away now I’ll be bang to rights for sure.’
‘Charlie Nine, roger.’
The lull is well and truly over. The brothers are definitely not behaving normally. It could just be drugs paranoia, or it could be they are getting close to their endgame. The trouble is, neither us on the ground nor the intelligence officers back at Thames House have the faintest idea what that endgame is. They had both been serving long prison sentences for firearms offences when they got involved in a fight, which seemed like a deliberate ploy to get them moved to the wing where all the extremists were. Once we knew they had been converted, the agent handlers from G Branch showed massive interest, but in the six months since they’d got out we hadn’t been able to figure out what they were doing. All we could be sure of was that they could have done a hell of a lot of planning and preparation in that time.
‘From Charlie Nine, I have control of Iron Sword walking westbound on Wills Street, now at the junction of Villa Street. Stations be aware he’s just stood at the junction looking slowly at everything in front of him.’
Sat in the van, I can see Iron Sword now. He’s calmed down, isn’t looking as paranoid, but even at this distance I can see him studying everything; vehicles, houses, the odd pedestrian. The rain isn’t bothering him either. He looks as if he knows what he’s doing. This is new. The suspicion has gone, replaced by calm certainty, almost as if the brothers have been told they’re being watched and it’s just a case of finding us. If that’s true, things have progressed much further than we thought. And, more to the point, we’ll need to be at the top of our game to avoid being compromised.
‘Aargh, shit, Charlie Four Seven! Stone Fist has just thrown a brick through my back window. Driving out of the area now.’
ALSO BY TOM MARCUS
Fiction
CAPTURE OR KILL
Non fiction
SOLDIER SPY
First published 2019 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2019 by Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5098-6412-6
Copyright © Tom Marcus 2019
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