Break-In

by M G Leslie

  The Chief ignored Price’s feeble attempt at a joke and said, “OK. Speak to 5 and get some watchers assigned to him and get GCHQ to start listening in – I’ll clear it with the Home Secretary – it could still be a coincidence, but it’s worth checking out. And, get her photo’s out to partner agencies across the world – if she turns up anywhere, I want to know.”

  When the Chief said ‘5’, he was referring to MI5, but Price really want to do the work himself, so he said, “Can we follow him ourselves Sir?” although he already knew the answer if he was honest with himself.

  “You know our remit is outside the UK, Price,” said the Chief. “Whilst he’s in the UK, leave it to 5.”

  “Understood Sir,” said Price, who stood up and thanked the Chief.

  “Sit down Price,” said the Chief.

  Price looked at his Chief and sat down again.

  “Tell me about Mary,” asked the Chief.

  Price was shocked and didn’t immediately answer, so the Chief continued, “We received an anonymous tip-off providing your location from someone named Mary – at least that’s the name provided in the email – obviously, it could be an alias as we have no way of verifying the source – but it saved your life!”

  “I thought GCHQ found my Tracker Sir,” said Price.

  “Yes, but they couldn’t pinpoint your location – the signal was too weak,” said the Chief, “So, tell me about Mary – is she the cause of your repeated vanishing act in Hong Kong? Who is she and how did she know where you were?”

  Price tried hard not to give away that he knew Mary. It was his private life and he wanted to keep it that way, even though he knew that his job precluded such secrecy. Nevertheless, he’d always known the question might come up one day, so he persisted with his well-prepared answer, “The only Mary I know was a girlfriend many years ago Sir. I suspect this one may be Chinese intelligence – they were on to me the moment I landed – I saw someone give me a strange look at the airport. That’s why I ducked out of the world and went quiet for a few hours Sir. I wanted to lose whoever was following me before I met up with Lee. So I walked around the lanes in Wan Chai and enjoyed a quiet Dim Sum in a back street.”

  “Lee didn’t say anything about a tail,” said the Chief.

  “Sir, Lee’s a friend,” said Price. “But he’s also a relatively new station head. And before that, he spent most of his time as a watcher. He’s good at watching people – arguably one of the best we have in fact. But he wouldn’t see someone watching him unless they smacked him in the face. Someone noticed me when I landed – it always happens in Hong Kong because it’s such a compressed place, the mobile phone signals are everywhere and the cells are tiny. Once we formed suspicions about Mike, I decided to find a quiet place to think – away from prying eyes.”

  The Chief seemed to be convinced – at least for the moment, as he just said, “Next time inform us first – understood?”

  “Yes Sir. Apologies Sir,” replied Price, still unsure if the Chief was truly convinced, as he was notoriously hard to read.

  There was silence for a few moments whilst Price just waited. Then the Chief said, “This is not the first time you know. One more deliberate vanishing act, and you’re off active duty with The Increment and back here with a desk job. I need people I can trust – people who can take instructions and follow them with cool precision – not people who vanish for Dim Sum in some back street. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal clear Sir,” said Price. So that confirmed it – the Chief didn’t believe him, but had decided to cut him some slack on this occasion. Price made a mental note to inform SIS before doing his ‘Vanishing act’, as the Chief called it, again.

  After a further pause, the Chief appeared to put Price’s indiscretion behind him and said, “I won’t keep you any longer – just make sure you get ‘5’ on the case. And again – it’s good to have you back.”

  “Thank you Sir,” said Price. Then he got up to leave – this time making it out of the office and back downstairs to his own, from where he called the MI5 liaison officer to arrange a team to follow Mendax. Once that was arranged he contacted the FBI and CIA in North America as well as a series of agencies that collaborate with the UK across Europe – passing each of them the most recent photo of Lucy.

  An hour later, a team of 10 people were stationed in various locations near the MOD man’s home and work addresses and Lucy was officially on the intelligence services ‘Alert list’ – so Price would get to know if she showed up in any so-called ‘friendly’ countries.

  By this time, Price had been at work for over 24 hours, so he locked his office and decided to go home for a rest.

  In truth, he really wanted to get a message of thanks to Mary, but he knew that the Chief was almost certainly having his communications monitored. Whilst he appeared to believe Price, the Chief was known for being extremely thorough – so he’d have to find another way to get a message to her.

  As he drove home, Price decided the best option was the oldest one – so he stopped at a post office and bought a “Thank You” card on which he scribbled a cryptic message before posting it in a letterbox. He knew it would take several days to get from London to Hong Kong, but that was fine – it was the thought that counted – and he wanted to let her know that we was fine and extremely grateful.

  CHAPTER 12 – Watching

  Watching someone is often an extremely boring job, and this was no exception. The MI5 officers assigned to watch Mendax, discreetly followed him as he drove to work and then back home again – and again on the weekends when he took his son to rugby practise and his daughter to hockey. He and his wife did nothing even vaguely suspicious. Even the phone taps that had been authorised by the Home Secretary demonstrated that he had a very normal and uneventful life.

  Price had arranged a regular meeting with the MI5 officers and was starting to wonder if he was wrong in naming the MOD man as a potential leak. And worst still, Lucy seemed to have become a ghost – there was no news from any agency.

  Three weeks in to the surveillance, it was a cold rainy Friday morning in London when Price sat down in his office to read the transcripts of Mendax’s phone calls and Internet activity for the past week. He had been doing this since the surveillance started. He generally didn’t read them in full – the MI5 officers would have informed him if there was anything interesting – but he asked to see them nevertheless, as he wanted to form a picture of Mendax’s life in his own mind – most of which, seemed to be related to ferrying his children about from place to place – so all pretty normal for a family man.

  Price always started with the phone calls before turning to the Internet traffic summary provided by GCHQ – they had been asked to intercept all his Internet traffic and produce weekly summaries of sites visited by Mendax and other members of his household, including any emails they had sent or received.

  As he looked through the summary, he noticed that Mendax had planned a holiday weekend in Paris. “Very romantic,” he thought, but we’ll have to figure out how to follow him abroad, as he made a note to let the Chief know. Then it suddenly struck him – he’d only just read the transcript of a phone call from Mendax’s wife where she told someone about a school rugby game the same weekend and explained that the father, Mendax himself, was going to miss it. So he was going to Paris for a weekend without his wife and children. “Who the hell does that?” Price said to himself, as he picked up the phone and contacted GCHQ.

  “I need a full transcript of the traffic over the past week, including all emails please,” he said. “Mendax has booked a trip to Paris and I need to see the tickets – hotel details, everything you can get. I particularly want to cross-reference that with his wife’s phone call that talks about a game of rugby this weekend, as well as any credit card transactions and bank account activity around the same time. And I’m sorry, but this is extremely urgent as I suspect he’s about to travel somewhere abroad.”

  The person in GCHQ asked
a few questions to reconfirm they understood Price’s request, then he said, “Yes that’s right – please focus on references to the trip – everything else is secondary, and thanks.”

  Sure enough, a short while later he received a secure email from GCHQ that confirmed his suspicion – he was right, Mendax was going to Paris. In fact he was travelling later that day, returning on Sunday, and he had a ticket for one.

  As some people say about London’s famous red double-decker buses, “You wait ages, and then two arrive together,” and this happened to Price that day. Whilst he was speaking to the SIS travel office to make his reservations, he received a phone call from an old friend in the DCRI – the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence in Paris, France.

  Price immediately recognised the phone number and answered it with, “Bonjour” in an appalling French accent before switching back to English, “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure Jean?”

  His long time French intelligence friend replied, “Bonjour Monsieur Price. I would like to invite you to dinner. Why don’t you get on the Eurostar train and come over – we haven’t seen each other for many months and I’ve found the perfect place – you will love it.”

  “Really?” said Price in genuine surprise, “That’s a very kind gesture, but I am kind of busy right now I’m afraid – although strangely, I may be in your neck of the woods very soon.”

  “Now that is interesting,” replied the Frenchman, “Because someone you were hoping to see again arrived on an Air France flight today – a direct flight from Dubai. The face-recognition systems at Charles De-Gaulle alerted us as soon as she removed her glasses to pass through passport control. She has very nice eyes.”

  “I see,” said Price, “And she does indeed have very special eyes. That’s very interesting indeed – and unbelievable timing. Let me finish my booking and I’ll call you back,” then he dropped the call and said, “Yes!” to himself, as it sounded like Lucy had shown up at last and was presumably planning to meet Mendax.

  A few minutes later, Price called back his friend in the DCRI, “Hello again Jean, many thanks for your earlier call – I’m most grateful.”

  “You’re most welcome my friend. I look forward to seeing you again,” Jean replied.

  “I have information that someone here is travelling out for a meeting in Paris, so I’ll be following him there on the Eurostar in a couple of hours – I will be looking to stay on the south of the Seine, in a small hotel just off La Motte-Piquet. Does that sound about right to you?” asked Price.

  “Yes, you are correct,” replied Jean, “In Rue Cler. I think your ‘someone’ may be meeting my ‘someone’ in that case. I am staying in a private apartment just across the road, so I have the perfect view. Let me know when you arrive – we can meet for coffee and you can brief me on the background.”

  “I look forward to it,” said Price, “Again – many thanks my friend. Au revoir.”

  “Au revoir.”

  Before leaving the office to go home and pack an overnight bag, Price sent an update to the Chief of Staff and his Chief. Then once home, he picked up his SIS overnight bag that contained secret shielded compartments to enable him to take his Smith and Wesson pistol and ammunition through customs and immigration.

  Under normal circumstances, when Price travelled abroad he picked up a weapon from the local British Embassy – that way he could avoid taking a pistol through security checks. However, since he would be following Mendax on the Eurostar, he would not have the opportunity to stop by the embassy. So Price took his SIS-modified Smith and Wesson SW990L and disassembled it so that it no longer looked like a pistol. The casing of the SW990L is made from a polymer material and not metal, so once installed in the SIS bag, Price knew that it would fool all but the most determined and knowledgeable security checks. The ammunition was slightly trickier, however. But the bag had specially designed containers to hold the bullets, which positioned them so that, on a security x-ray scanner they would look like large screws holding the bag together.

  Satisfied that his gun was stowed securely, Price threw some clothes in the bag, locked up and took a taxi to the Eurostar terminal in the historic St. Pancras Station, in central London.

  Unlike most visitors, who just walk in to a station and catch their train, Price always found himself observing everything around him – he looked at the décor, the unoccupied spaces, subconsciously measuring them and determining how far apart they are and what can be seen from where. He looked for places to hide, places to take cover, the escape routes as well as the people, where the people were looking and what they were holding, if anything, in their hands – this attention to detail meant that he missed very little.

  Price had been to St. Pancras many times, but even as he took in the details again, he was still impressed by the refurbishment that taken place prior to its reopening as London’s international train terminus – “Truly an architectural marvel,” he said to himself as he walked inside the huge train shed, which, he recalled, had the largest single-span roof in the world when it opened over a century earlier.

  Walking over to Costa Coffee, Price sat down next to mid-twenties man who appeared to be playing with his mobile phone.

  “He’s in the departure lounge already,” said his MI5 contact, who then handed Price a piece of paper before continuing, “That’s his seat number and a map of where that is in the train.”

  “Thanks,” said Price, “What about the other stations between here and Paris?”

  “Your train doesn’t stop at Stratford or Calais and we have people watching the platforms at Ebbsfleet, so if he gets off there, we’ll know. But you’ll need to watch out at Ashford – our man is stuck in traffic and hasn’t arrived there yet. Sorry – it was short notice – nothing we could do.”

  “That’s OK,” said Price, “If he gets off at Ashford, I’ll want to get off as well – no point in going all the way to Paris on my own.”

  “OK. Well good luck – you’ll get an SMS confirming he’s definitely on the train as you pull out of here and Ebbsfleet, then, as I say, it’s over to you,” replied the MI5 officer, who got up and walked away, whilst Price ordered himself a Café Latte and a croissant before making his way over to the Eurostar check-in desk.

  Price was aiming to board the train at the last possible moment, so as to avoid any possibility of bumping in to Mendax. So he waited in the departure area until it was almost empty and the doors were about to close, before sprinting to the first class cabin and stepping inside.

  Almost as soon as he’d sat down, the large automated train doors were closed and locked – then a few moments later, he felt the train move and start to pull out of the station. A few seconds after that, his phone vibrated and he saw the first SMS that read, ‘On board leaving St Pancras’.

  Just under 15 minutes later, the train pulled in to Ebbsfleet station – Price just sat patiently and looked out of the window. From what he could see, very few people left the train, however, quite a few got on, which made sense – they were on their way to Paris, so, for trains departing from London, this station was really for people to join, not leave.

  A short while later, Price felt the train slow down again, so I picked up his hand luggage and walked over to the door. The SIS travel booking had placed him in the first class compartment right at the front of the train, which was a perfect position for him to watch for people entering or leaving at the station. So as the train stopped and the doors opened, Price stood by the exit and said to the door attendant, “Just stretching my legs – I’ve been suffering some cramps recently, so I like to walk around at every opportunity.”

  The attendant couldn’t have known that Price was just making an excuse to stand by the door, and just said, “Of course Sir.”

  Price watched as people joined the train – then the attendant said, “Please stand back Sir the doors are closing now.”

  “Of course. Sorry,” said Price, who was deliberately slow to move back in to the cabin
, after taking a final glance down the platform.

  As soon as the train was on its way again, Price pulled the map of the train layout from his pocket and set off in the direction of Mendax’s seat. The Eurostar train is over a third of a kilometre long – so he wanted to get a feel for Mendax’s location in relation to his.

  Price approached cautiously as he got closer to Mendax’s seat – stopping short and eying him via a reflection in the window, rather than directly. However, having satisfied himself that Mendax was definitely on the train, Price returned to his own seat and relaxed to enjoy the journey. He was grateful for the first class booking, because it meant that he was served a full three-course meal, accompanied by a glass of wine.

  The Eurostar is one of the fastest trains in the world, largely based on the French TGV, reaching top speeds of around 186miles per hour that enables it to get from central London to central Paris in around two and a half hours. And sure enough, just over two and a half hours later, Price gathered his belongings together ready to disembark at Paris Gare du Nord.

  Because of the close ties between the UK and France, customs and immigration checks occur in the departing country – in this case the UK – so as Price followed Mendax off the train, keeping a safe distance so he wouldn’t be seen, they were both able to walk straight out of the station and get in to taxi’s.

  “Bonjour. Suivez ce taxi s'il vous plait,” said Price, in the best French accent he could muster, as he pointed at the taxi Mendax had driven away in.

  Despite his poor accent and pronunciation, the taxi driver understood and smiled – after all, it wasn’t every day that someone said, “Follow that taxi.” Even though Price was fairly sure he knew where Mendax was going, he had decided to ask the taxi driver to follow Mendax just in case he wasn’t going straight to the hotel.

  As Price sat in the back of the car, he discreetly opened his SIS bag and with the top of it obscuring the driver’s view, reassembled his gun, loaded it, fitted the silencer and placed it in his jacket pocket.