Snow! The Series [Books 1-4]

by Clifford, Ryan

  Richard Castle had been summoned to the quasi-regal presence of Dame Ann Fletcher to discuss Operation Auric, and bring her up to date with progress. The plan – or perhaps it might better be described as a plot – to recover the gold in the Bank of England vaults was well advanced.

  ‘Your boy, Lieutenant Bryant, has visited all of the key locations and reports daily on his findings, and persists in making further futile recommendations. However, there appears to be no outstanding issues.’

  Dame Ann was in no mood for approximation or guesswork.

  ‘Appears, Richard, appears! Appears is not fucking good enough! This operation is critical – as well you know – and I demand that everything is in place before we start the extraction on Saturday morning. To that end, I have assigned Group Captain Andrew Brady to Bryant as a general factotum-come trouble-shooter. The man is weak, but we can use him – and he may well find himself shouldering some of the flak when things start to go pear-shaped for UKRA. Missing gold can easily be planted and traced to his doorstep.’

  Richard Castle was wary.

  ‘Wasn’t Brady your ex, many years ago? I thought you had fallen out with him over your daughter?’

  ‘You are well informed, Richard. Yes, he was my ex-husband and yes, I had a minor disagreement over mistaken paternity, but that is all now resolved. The idiot has finally conceded that he is not Chloe’s father, and I would rather have the deluded fool within my sphere of influence than on the outside trying to disrupt our plans. Agreed?’

  ‘Absolutely, Ann, but nonetheless he could prove to be a loose cannon.’

  Ann was unperturbed.

  ‘I've already said that the man’s an idiot, Richard. Just leave him to me. Bryant will send him off on some wild goose chase and we’ll frame him for something or other. Now, bring me up to speed on Auric – every detail if you please.’

  Richard Castle sat down and opened a slim folder.

  ‘I hope you take care of that file, Richard?’ warned Ann.

  ‘Naturally. It never leaves my person except at night when it's in my office safe. Only I have the combination. And any casual nosey parker will only note that it is unclassified and has unrestricted references to army uniforms on the cover.’

  ‘Maybe,’ stated Ann, unconvinced. The folder was dynamite and if it fell into the wrong hands, then all hell would be let loose.

  ‘It had better stay in my possession Richard. It's too dangerous to risk a security lapse at this late stage.’

  Castle sighed and inevitably agreed. He had a copy anyway.

  ‘And destroy any secret copies you might have Richard,’ she observed astutely.

  Castle frowned resignedly, and continued with his briefing.

  ‘Taking the Gutersloh training first. There are two main teams – one SAS, one SBS. They are well versed with the procedures for extraction and will be ready to go on schedule. We are moving them to a small, disused, but recently regenerated barracks on the French coast on Wednesday, where they will complete final preparations and rest up. They have one hell of a job in front of them and have been hard at it – non-stop – for some time now. They are not exactly spring chickens either, so we don’t want to exhaust them before they start.’

  Ann Fletcher displayed her callous nature with a biting response.

  ‘I don’t give a tuppenny fuck how long in the tooth these old bastards are. They are being paid good money to do a job of national importance. Keep them on their bloody toes!

  Richard bit his quivering lip and continued:

  ‘We have been trawling the transit camps for other expert divers and have recruited another two dozen, who are undergoing simultaneous training. They will be in position in France and in London to act as a second string, and to replace any injured personnel. We’ll have more than enough bodies to get the job done.

  I’ve already explained that it will take around twenty Chinook helicopter sorties to transfer the gold to the ship for processing, followed by onward shipment to the secure store on Guernsey. It will all be in place by the 21st of February at the latest, earlier if at all possible, and I propose that we allow access to the Swiss bankers on or slightly after that date for verification, and further forward delivery to wherever it is going for permanent storage.’

  Dame Ann listened intently.

  ‘How many Chinooks have we allocated to the task?’

  ‘Five. Three on station for transporting the gold at the Bank of England, one for troop transport and a spare. A small team of RAF technicians and refuellers will be operating from the same French base near Boulogne.’

  Ann made another interjection.

  ‘So, just run through the daily schedule for me. What will actually be happening?’ She was trying to find fault with the plan in order to close any loopholes.

  ‘Well, as I understand it, the Chinook will drop off the teams of divers who will set up shop on the top floor of the Bank. The site review team has identified a dry and secure area and fitted it out with bedding, ablutions, feeding facilities – cooks provided – and recreational facilities. These men need to be occupied when not sleeping or diving.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I'm not completely inhuman.’ Dame Ann barked impatiently.

  Richard Castle doubted that.

  ‘The Royal Engineers have already opened the vault using oxy-acetylene and access to the gold is now unhindered. Underwater lighting has been mounted and the majority of flotsam and jetsam removed. The lift device has been installed and pallets delivered. As the gold bars are brought up – in a sort of human chain – they will be loaded onto the pallets, elevated to the roof and loaded onto the helicopters. When the chopper is fully laden, it will fly out to the ship off the Isle of Wight, and offload the bars for cleaning and repacking into specialised crates of forty bars each – 1120 Imperial pounds – or around half a metric tonne. When sealed and bonded, each box will be loaded onto a pallet, fork lifted onto a Chinook and transported to the airfield in Guernsey, where they will be securely stored by your men, Bryant and Brady.’

  ‘And you reckon that the quickest time we can do this in is around sixteen days?’

  ‘Yes, Ann. Divers can only spend so much time at depth, and if we push them too hard, we’ll start to lose them. Slow and steady wins the race.’

  ‘Don’t fucking patronise me, Richard. I'm not one of your bloody Guardsmen!’

  Castle didn’t give up. He wasn’t actually afraid of Ann Fletcher.

  ‘It's not a matter of that, Ann. It's a matter of fact, whether you like it or not!’

  Ann let it go this time and continued. There would be plenty of time to deal with Richard Castle.

  ‘We can work during daylight hours only. Firstly because of fatigue, and secondly because of Flight Safety. If we rush this Ann, then we risk blowing the entire operation.’

  Ann lost it once more.

  ‘Alright, Richard. I get the picture. We work at the slowest man’s pace. Jesus, how are we supposed to build a new future without a bit of grit and determination?

  Richard Castle ignored this last remark.

  ‘When will you divert the extra gold for our personal pick up? And where do you want yours delivered?’

  ‘I’ll give you those details when I'm good and ready. I still have plans to make. What about the ship?’

  ‘It's still in Rotterdam, but is scheduled to depart on Thursday to rendezvous with HMS Richmond off the IOW.’

  ‘Don’t let any bloody nosey Navy personnel onto the Pretoria, Richard. We don’t want them interfering. Their sole responsibility is to protect the freighter and prevent any sort of attack or attempt to board her.’

  ‘Understood,’ replied Castle, ‘Bryant has already made that fact very plain to the Richmond’s captain. And another thing. Will the Pretoria be sailing direct for S Africa when the last load of gold bars flies off it back to Guernsey?’

  ‘I imagine so, there’s nothing to prevent it. I assume that forklifts and the bonded containers are already on board?�
�

  ‘Yes, the shipping office informed Bryant this morning. They are ready to move.’

  Dame Ann now seemed almost satisfied with this progress report and before dismissing him, requested that Castle give an overview of the Operation at tonight’s Cabinet, and was to report back to her on Wednesday morning.

  ***

  Patric Silver was in the same building at the same time as Ann Fletcher and Richard Castle were going over their scheme. However, he was several floors down, searching through the records of UK citizens in an attempt to find a ‘doppelganger’ for Ann Fletcher.

  The personnel featuring on the screen he was studying presented a far more agreeable picture than the ex-snow survivors he had viewed the previous day.

  Most were well-fed, clean and some were even smiling. He had set the computer file search-parameters to female, aged forty to fifty and blond. There were literally thousands of faces to scan, and he spent several hours trawling through the photographs and by 4pm had drawn up a shortlist of twenty possibles.

  He collated copies of these twenty women into one file and studied their form one more time.

  Ten were married and had surviving partners or dependents. He ruled them out.

  Two were over six feet tall, and a further two under five feet. He ruled them out.

  One was already working in the UKRA building, one was a nurse and one an RAF pilot. He ruled them out.

  That left him with three potentials. Susan Roberts, an unmarried solicitor from Manchester living in a camp near Munich; Suzanne Abbot, a divorced office worker from Grimsby living near Dortmund and Carol Leslie, a widow from Windsor working on a hospital ship as an administrator.

  All three were physically right – height, looks, weight – so he decided to interview them all before reporting to Dame Ann.

  He approached the senior civil servant running the admin section he was using and posed his questions.

  ‘If I needed to speak to these three women, urgently and in person, what is the best option?’

  The chief clerk was essentially disinterested but helpful nonetheless. He gave Patric the contact details of the RAF liaison officer on the fourteenth floor and suggested that he approach him and try to arrange heli transport from their separate locations into Brussels. He said that choppers were flitting about all over the place, and he should manage to fix transport easily.

  Patric thanked the clerk and sought out the RAF officer. Squadron Leader Bill Eaton was a helpful, jolly sort of fellow, a little overweight, but nimble and efficient.

  ‘No problem, old chap,’ he admitted, when he had heard Patric’s request. ‘We’ll get them all here by tomorrow lunchtime. Just you contact them by phone and get them all prepared to meet a helicopter tomorrow morning. If you hang on just a mo, I’ll look up the flying schedule for the twenty-first.’

  The busy little aviator opened a file on his immaculately tidy desk, and thumbed through the flights on offer. He made several notes and eventually passed a sheet of paper with three sets of times and locations to Patric.

  ‘There you go. Contact your three girls and make sure they are at these locations at these times. They mustn’t be late. Some of the flights have VIPs on board and they won't wait. You will have to ring through and organise cars for the two in Dortmund and Munich. The lass on the boat won't have a problem.’

  Patric was impressed by the Squadron Leader’s efficiency, and promised to buy him a beer at the CSC if they ever crossed paths in the bar.

  He returned to his own office and set about the task of contacting the three women. Carol Leslie was no problem and she agreed to be ready at 0830 on the ship’s heli-deck. He then contacted her superior officer and cleared her absence from duty for seventy-two hours. The women in Munich and Dortmund had to be summoned to the phone and both called him back within the hour. He made polite requests for their attendance, citing government duty as the reason. Both reluctantly agreed to travel to Brussels after Patric suggested that a couple of nights in a five star hotel, and the possibility of a permanent position was a no-brainer!

  By 5:30pm, Patric had finalised the admin arrangements, which included three cars to transport the women from the airport to HQ UKRA as soon as they landed.

  That night, whilst conveying Dame Ann to her apartment block, he reported on progress. Ann was not pleased, but did not show it. She didn’t want a shortlist of women – just one. The two extras complicated matters unnecessarily, and would need to be dealt with in due course. It was another needless complication.

  ‘Why three women, Commander?’ she queried innocently.

  ‘I imagined that you would like to interview them personally, and make the final selection yourself ma'am.’

  ‘You thought wrong Commander. I gave you the job of finding my double. You make the selection, and send the other two packing.’

  Patric was disturbed by her attitude.

  ‘That seems a bit harsh ma'am. We've dragged them into Brussels with the promise of a job, and now we just throw them back to the wolves.’

  ‘We, Patric, we? I didn’t drag them into Brussels. You did. You deal with it. If you can fix them up with a job here, so be it – but don’t let them know their job description until you’ve chosen one – and don’t let them meet each other. Clear?’

  Patric decided not to argue.

  ‘Yes, ma'am. Apologies.’

  ‘Apology accepted. Now, would you care to join me for a nightcap?’

  Patric was horrified. He guessed what she wanted, but Joanie was waiting for him at the flat on her first night out of hospital. However, Dame Ann saved his bacon, and greatly enjoyed the almost visible squirm he exhibited.

  ‘Oh, I forgot. Little Jacqui is waiting for you in the love-nest. Perhaps another time. Good night, Patric.’

  Patric heaved an almost audible sigh of relief as he walked away from her apartment gates.

  That was certainly a close shave.

  And he wasn’t sure if he could resist temptation on another occasion!

  ***

  Andrew Brady received a call from Ross Bryant, and was ordered politely to meet at the UKRA building at 1400 that afternoon, the twentieth.

  ‘Dress in civvies, please, sir. We don’t need to advertise our status.’

  ‘Fine,’ replied Brady, ‘I’ll see you at two o’clock.’

  Ross Bryant had already taken an urgent call from Dame Ann, indicating that the Group Captain was to work with Bryant on the Op Auric job. Ross wasn’t particularly pleased, but didn’t argue with the woman as he knew he would be wasting his breath.’

  ‘Yes ma'am, I’ll set him to work straight away.’

  ‘Just be certain that he stays out of my way and out of Brussels until the Operation is complete. He is a bloody nuisance and quite honestly, it wouldn't be the worst outcome if he disappeared off the end of the world.’

  ‘I’ll keep him out of your way ma'am,’ accepted Bryant with disguised good grace.

  When Brady arrived for his meeting, Ross shook his hand firmly.

  ‘Well, I didn’t think we'd be meeting again so soon, Ross. I enjoyed the evening on Saturday – and I'm happy to be working with you again. And incidentally, I think we know each other well enough to dispense with rank.’

  ‘That's okay with me Andy, but quite honestly I don’t think we’ll be seeing too much of each other to worry about titles.’

  Ross then proceeded to brief Brady on Operation Auric. He spent over an hour describing the procedures and planning involved, answering questions when Brady interjected. When they were both satisfied that Brady was up to speed, Ross dropped the bombshell.

  ‘Your job is a tricky, yet vital one. On Wednesday morning you are to fly out to Guernsey and run that end of the Operation. You are to take up residence at the airport and supervise the whole shooting match. There are several different elements involved – the bank staff, security men, soldiers, the incoming aircraft and countless other niggles. Your business is to make sure nothing goes wron
g. That gold must be secured, and stacked in the bonded store when the Swiss come to inspect. Now, do you have any questions?’

  Brady had a bagful.

  ‘This is all a bit short notice, Ross. I wanted a job to do, but I wasn’t prepared to just up sticks for a month and fly to the Channel Islands. I've got Chloe to consider for a start.’

  Ross was unsympathetic.

  ‘Take it or leave it, Andy. Dame Ann wants you involved and I need a good man – with rank – in Guernsey. She says that Chloe can move into an apartment in her block if you agree. So, that is one problem solved. We can also get you out of that hotel and into a flat in Patric Silver’s block – that's got to be better than slumming it in one of the more seedy quarters of Brussels. As for kit, you’ve got thirty-six hours to get yourself into the new flat, stock up on kit and pack your bags. To be blunt, I don’t see a problem.’

  Brady’s head was spinning, but he realised that this was his one chance to get back into the ‘system’ and he wasn’t prepared to throw it away.’

  ‘Alright, alright. Point taken. I'm in. I’ll speak to Chloe and clear it with her. She’s fed up to the back teeth with that shiity bloody hotel and I think she’ll move in with Ann if Chris can accompany her.’

  ‘Fine! You’d better get moving. Visit the admin section, where you’ll be given updated ID, cash and a UKRA credit card, a computer, an i-phone and travel documents. You can buy any new clothing in St Peter Port. Here’s a secure mobile phone for contact between us only. No other calls – that's important. Also, here’s a letter from the Prime Minister’s office giving you ‘Carte Blanche’ in Guernsey. Don’t let any petty official interfere with this mission. Just get the job done – it doesn’t matter whose nose you put out of joint, Andy. The Chief of Police in Guernsey knows that you are coming and will back you up to the hilt.’

  Brady nodded, accepting the letter and reading it before stowing it in his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘And one final thing. You’ll be needing this,’ stated Ross calmly.

  He handed Brady a SIG Sauer P226 pistol and shoulder holster.

  ‘Get yourself down to the range in the basement and familiarise yourself with this weapon. And Andy, make sure you use it if you have to. No hesitation this time around!’