Avenger bs-3

by Andy McNab

  She crossed the road and headed for the city centre: Danny said a 'See you then, mate' into the phone, replaced the receiver and started to follow.

  In the main shopping area Deveraux lingered to look in a few windows and then Danny saw her check her watch. She started off again, making for a short-term car park. Suddenly she stopped and began speaking to a man heading in the same direction.

  Danny went into a bookshop, picked up the first book he saw and, through the shop window, watched the two of them chatting across the street. The man was young; maybe a student. He was wearing trainers, jeans and a blue, chunky pullover.

  They spoke for less than a minute and the young man pointed back towards a road in the precinct. Then, as he moved towards an alleyway into the car park, Deveraux took off her jacket.

  That was it – the GO sign. As far as the exercise was concerned, Deveraux had been talking to Black Star.

  Danny left the shop and headed towards the alleyway, walking swiftly but not running and drawing unwanted attention to himself.

  He reached the alleyway and could see the car park at the end. He moved into the gloom of the building, his eyes scanning the immediate area for a glimpse of the blue pullover. He knew that the man was totally unaware that he had become involved in the operation; Deveraux had deliberately selected some unknown third party to give Danny the practice of following a real target.

  The young man had disappeared and Danny looked for EXIT signs. He could only see one; about forty metres away to his half left. He made another decision. There was no time to search for Black Star – he might already be driving out of the car park; he might just be walking straight through. But options had to be weighed and decisions made.

  Danny walked along to the exit and arrived just in time to see the young man in the blue pullover driving out of the car park in what remained of a rusting green X-reg Mini Metro. As the vehicle stopped at the main road, Danny kept walking, burning the car's registration number into his memory.

  The Metro pulled away and disappeared into the traffic. That was it, the serial was over – there was no way Danny could follow Black Star on foot. He powered up his mobile and called Deveraux. She answered after a single ring.

  'I've got a vehicle registration and a description for you.'

  'End ex. We'll debrief back at the hotel. Now turn round.'

  With the mobile still held to his ear, Danny followed the instruction. Deveraux was standing about twenty metres away next to the dark blue Vectra.

  Fergus was sitting in the car's front passenger seat.

  As Danny powered down his phone, he saw his grandfather's nod of satisfaction. Danny smiled; he'd done it.

  17

  The information that Black Star had promised arrived in the form of two e-mails, which revealed that Elena would be leaving the UK just three days later. Three days – hardly any time to make preparations, despite all the planning and hurried training that had already taken place.

  New York was the destination: Deveraux's hunch had been correct. But there wasn't the time, or even the inclination, to score points in being proved right. There was too much to be done.

  The first e-mail was an e-ticket, a return, economy-class flight from Heathrow to JFK, New York. Black Star had thought of everything; a one-way flight would have aroused the suspicions of US immigration officials. But they all knew that the bomb master had no intention of Elena being on board when the return aircraft left the ground.

  The second e-mail was a booking confirmation for a two-week stay at New York's Hotel Pennsylvania. Perfect again. The hotel was a popular and affordable destination. Black Star then sent a further e-mail instructing Elena to equip herself with a Lonely Planet guide and a city map and to prepare a cover story.

  A girl of seventeen travelling alone was unusual but by no means unheard of. And Elena had watched Friends and Sex and the City for years, so she almost felt as though she knew the city well enough to get around without a map. All she had to do was make sure she was confident and believable with her cover story. It had to be based on something that was possible, a genuine reason for being in New York.

  Deveraux ordered high-speed covert checks to attempt to identify whoever had requested and paid for the airline ticket and hotel reservation. There was a bewildering trail of spoofed IDs through Indonesia into North Africa. Finally it was discovered that both the airline ticket and the hotel room had been ordered and confirmed – but never paid for. A hacker of Black Star's capabilities had no need to pay for anything.

  Meanwhile, in a series of meetings with Dudley and high-ranking government officials, Deveraux finalized her immediate plans. But not all those plans were revealed to Danny, Elena or Fergus; yet more secrets in an operation already riddled with secrecy. But that wasn't unusual in the Security Service, where most operations were carried out on a need-to-know basis. It made operational security even tighter.

  On the day before departure Deveraux held a last meeting in the operations room at the hotel. Time was short, as she still had to go to London for a final briefing with her boss, Dudley.

  'Mission' – Deveraux paused to ensure she had everyone's attention – 'to locate and destroy Black Star. Mission – to locate and destroy Black Star.'

  Giving the mission statement twice was standard practice; that way everyone understood the exact order. From now on, nothing was more important than the mission, but Fergus knew they were getting only half of the story. No mention had been made of exactly who would be doing the destroying. But Fergus was prepared to wait for that information.

  He, Danny and Elena listened in silence as the operational commander ran through the arrangements for the flights and the arrival in New York and then reiterated procedures for making contact and passing on information once they were on the ground.

  Fergus was booked onto an earlier flight than Deveraux, Danny and Elena. He didn't argue with the decision. Travelling with a leg injury such as his brought added complications and he would need extra time to board and leave the plane and to travel to his hotel; he had been booked into the Roosevelt Hotel close to Grand Central Station.

  Deveraux pointed at Fergus. "The reason you are on an earlier flight is to stand by if any immediate help is required by either Danny or Elena when they get to their hotel. You need to be in position before then.'

  Fergus nodded. The earlier flight suited him perfectly: it would allow him precious time to finalize some of his own arrangements. Arrangements Deveraux would never know about as they involved their escape route after the job was done.

  Danny had been booked into the Pennsylvania, where Elena was staying, but the two friends had to avoid giving any indication that they knew each other. His role was to relay information from Elena once Black Star re-established contact in New York.

  'Our plane is due to land at sixteen forty hours,' said Deveraux to Danny and Elena. 'You will carry out a brush contact in the hotel reception area at exactly nineteen forty. You must both adjust your watches by the arrivals display in baggage reclaim. You should have ample time to clear the airport and check into the hotel. Understood?'

  Elena was gazing vacantly through the window towards the garden and the blue, cloudless sky, as she had been for most of the meeting.

  'Elena!' said Deveraux sharply.

  'Yes, I understand what you want me to do,' said Elena, still looking out at the garden.

  Deveraux sighed; there wasn't time for teenage angst. 'The purpose of the contact is for Elena to pass on the location of her chosen DLB and to inform us if Black Star has made initial contact.' She directed her next comment directly at Elena. 'But at no time, Elena, must you prepare anything for Danny while you are inside your hotel room.'

  Elena didn't reply, but Danny had worked out why the need for caution was essential. 'You mean Black Star might have set up some sort of bugging or surveillance device in the room?'

  'It's highly probable.' Deveraux nodded. 'He's taken the trouble to reserve a room for her.'r />
  Fergus was trying not to show his increasing feelings of concern. 'We have to realize what this guy is capable of at all times. Remember everything I've taught you.'

  'That's all I have to say for now,' said Deveraux. 'Questions?'

  Fergus shook his head. There were plenty of questions he could have asked. Questions about Danny and Elena's safety. Questions about what exactly would happen when and if they did track down Black Star. But those questions were best left unasked; he had a pretty good idea of what Deveraux was planning at the end of the operation.

  Danny as usual, had no reservations about asking questions. 'So, we're there to locate Black Star, right?'

  Deveraux nodded.

  'Well, who does the destroying? You?'

  'You concentrate on your part of the mission,' said Deveraux coldly.

  Danny sat back in his chair. The answers had been more or less what he had expected, but it had been worth a shot.

  'Elena?' said Deveraux.

  Elena had gone back to window-gazing.

  'Elena!' Deveraux repeated impatiently.

  Slowly Elena looked back at her. 'What?' she said quietly.

  'Have you any questions?'

  'No, I haven't got any questions.'

  'I'm surprised. You don't appear to have listened to a word I've said.'

  'I was listening.'

  Deveraux sighed with irritation as she gathered her papers together. 'Very well.' She turned to Fergus. 'We will liaise on my return from London. Now, I have something to do before I leave.'

  The meeting broke up and Danny and Elena were left alone after Fergus told them he was going to listen to some music on his iPod.

  'You all right?' said Danny, seeing Elena's troubled look.

  She shrugged. 'I was thinking about my dad. Wondering when I'll see him again. If I'll see him again.'

  Danny nodded. 'Are you scared?'

  'Of course. Aren't you?'

  Danny nodded. 'But my granddad says-'

  'Yeah, I know, it's good to be scared. Well, he doesn't look scared. He's always wandering around with that iPod. I didn't even know he liked music.'

  'He likes old music. Pink Floyd – something like that. Look, do you wanna watch a DVD? I hate this waiting around – makes me nervous.'

  Elena shook her head and stood up. 'No. Sorry, Danny, there's something I want to do too.'

  Deveraux was taking personal responsibility for ensuring that Black Star's instruction to destroy the hard drive of Elena's laptop was carried out. She didn't see how he could know whether it had been done or not, but it was best to go along with him at this stage, just in case. Every scrap of information stored in its memory had already been downloaded and forwarded to Security Service experts for further analysis.

  She had the hard drive and had taken a hammer from the hotel tool shed. She walked into the garden, dropped the hard drive onto the concrete path and kneeled down with the hammer in her right hand. Three heavy blows were more than adequate to shatter the casing and reduce the copper-plated component board to a twisted, tangled mess.

  As Deveraux thumped down on the hard drive for the final time, something made her look up and glance towards Elena's bedroom window.

  The teenager was watching her, her face expressionless. Deveraux suddenly felt as though she had been caught in some act of mindless vandalism. Or something far worse – in the act of murder.

  She felt exposed and slightly ludicrous, crouched down with the hammer gripped tightly in her hand.

  And as Elena stared, Deveraux was unable to stop herself thinking about the night she had killed Joey. It was unfortunate, but Deveraux didn't deal in regrets. There had been no alternative.

  The memory of those few moments came back to her: Joey on his knees, his nose pouring with blood while she crouched behind him, both hands around his neck, pulling back the thin edge of her Xda mobile phone into his crushed windpipe, gradually choking him to death.

  As Deveraux shook her head to drive away the vision, she guessed that at that moment Elena was also thinking of Joey. It was almost as if the girl knew what had happened; had somehow worked it all out.

  Deveraux looked down at the shattered hard drive and picked it up. She stood up and walked back towards the kitchen door, feeling Elena's eyes burning into her back.

  18

  Dudley emerged from his meeting with the Foreign Secretary to find Marcie Deveraux waiting for him.

  He was his usual business-like self, but the pressure was on for everyone in the Intelligence Services. And the higher up in authority, the higher the levels of pressure. Dudley nodded a brusque acknowledgement to Deveraux, and without a word gestured for her to follow him into a room that had been hastily set aside for their conversation.

  It wasn't by any means Deveraux's first visit to the Foreign Office. The main building, with its marble columns, aged colonial oil paintings and heavy chandeliers, always looked to her more like an expensive Parisian hotel than a place of government.

  Dudley led the way into one of the wood-panelled reception rooms. The heavy curtains were closed and they sat in armchairs on either side of an ornate low table, where coffee had been set out for their arrival.

  The concerned look on Dudley's usually placid-looking face was a sign that his meeting with the Foreign Secretary had not gone completely smoothly.

  'Your final arrangements have been made?' he asked brusquely.

  'Yes, sir, everything is in place for tomorrow.'

  'Good. I don't need to stress the importance of your mission, Marcie. And it is your mission.'

  There was no need for Dudley to elaborate; Marcie Deveraux fully understood the implications of his words. It was her mission. A deniable mission. She had planned it, the strategy and the tactics.

  As soon as it had been established that Black Star was in America, Deveraux was the one who had urged that the mission should remain deniable and that no MoU between the UK and the USA should be arranged. She argued that to share the information with American colleagues would delay the mission. The Americans would throw the full weight of their resources into the operation, quite possibly tipping off Black Star that they were on to him in the process.

  Better to keep it small, said Deveraux, compact, the fewer involved the better. Get in, get the job done, and get out. That was the way she operated; it had worked for her in the past and it would work for her this time. Dudley had considered her plan and had then given the go-ahead.

  If it was a success, the personal rewards for Deveraux would be enormous. Promotion certainly, and perhaps even Dudley's job. It was well known that he was to retire soon.

  On the other hand, failure was too terrible to contemplate. The Americans would go ballistic if they discovered the Brits were conducting a covert operation in New York, involving a planted Angel, and PE with the potential to kill hundreds of US citizens.

  Deveraux would be fully responsible and no one else. The Americans would be told that she was a rogue operator who had never been sanctioned to conduct an operation on US soil. She would be thrown out of the Security Service to ensure that good, if damaged, relations were maintained with the US.

  Deveraux needed no reminding. She couldn't concern herself with the consequences of failure. She just had to concentrate on the job.

  Her cover story was that she was working as a diplomatic attache at the UN. It meant she would be travelling to and operating in the USA with the comforting security blanket of a diplomatic passport. At any time she could simply claim diplomatic immunity and fly out of the country. If the mission failed, she would be able to return to the UK, but she knew that returning home would not ultimately save her.

  No one else involved in the operation had the same level of protection, and that was something Deveraux still needed to discuss with her boss. 'Watts spent years working as a K, sir, which means he's fully aware of what could happen to Danny and Elena. And to himself, of course.'

  Dudley nodded. 'Yes. And I'm fully aware of
your recommendations with regard to Watts and the teenagers if – he paused to correct himself – 'when the mission is successfully concluded.'

  'Yes, sir,' said Deveraux. 'I've always believed that they can only be considered a threat to our security. As outsiders, they know far too much and we can never guarantee they will keep silent. As for Watts himself, there's too much history. And I've decided it's too risky to have him in New York. I've made arrangements to deal with that… In any event, after the successful conclusion of the mission my recommendation remains the same. They should all be eliminated. We need to clean house after this one, sir.'

  Dudley sighed. 'I'm afraid I'm getting too old for this. I shall be glad to get to Dorset, and my bees.' He nodded again. 'It's unfortunate, Marcie, but yes, I agree. Elimination.'

  19

  Fergus was due to depart from Heathrow two hours before the others. He had kept his farewells to Danny and Elena brief when leaving Oxford, giving them a final reminder to 'take care'.

  He had made other arrangements the previous evening while Deveraux was in London. He had phoned for the DHL parcel delivery company to come and collect a small envelope addressed to Frank Wilson – an alias he had used before, and the one Deveraux had agreed to for this mission – for collection at his hotel, the Roosevelt, which was just a few blocks away from the Pennsylvania.

  Inside the envelope were three alias passports, complete with US visa waiver stubs, for himself, Danny and Elena; Fergus had made good use of his old contacts during the weeks in Oxford.

  Terminal Four was as busy as ever. Fergus checked in and then joined one of the long lines of passengers waiting to pass through the security checks before going into the departure lounge.