Wicked Game

by Matt Johnson

  COBRA, Cabinet Office Briefing Room ‘A’, was where the Prime Minister would meet with the Home Secretary, Defence Secretary and Heads from the Secret Services, along with several other senior politicians and police officers. Called out at times of major terrorist incidents the group had met after both the Selfridges attack and the shooting of PC Skinner outside his home. If Grahamslaw wanted to discover whether Finlay and Jones were part of a much larger and secret operation, he would have to ask the meeting to put pressure on the Security Services.

  At seven o’clock that evening Grahamslaw was ushered through the door at 70 Whitehall, the Cabinet Office.

  After surrendering his mobile telephone, a smartly suited civil servant showed him through a series of heavy oak doors and down a flight of carpeted stairs to the guest reception area. Grahamslaw headed towards the police room. Along with other similar offices used by the Armed Services and Security Services, the room housed support staff who were linked electronically to their representatives in the main briefing room.

  Grahamslaw wasn’t a member of COBRA; that was the preserve of police officers at the rank of Assistant Commissioner and above. As such, he knew he would have to wait until summoned to speak. He was usually at the end of a telephone, or on a computer that provided a closed-link email where he could help feed the political appetite for information. As an operational investigator, he sometimes found this frustrating: having to meet the ever-growing political need to know what was going on. Even more irritating was the fact that the traffic seemed to be one way: the information and decisions that he needed were often slow to materialise and, when they did, they were more about putting the decision-maker in a good light than furthering the progress of a police enquiry.

  He was just opening the door to the police room when his pager bleeped.

  ‘Contact office urgent.’

  Unexpectedly, the room was deserted.

  He sat at an empty desk and picked up the telephone. The call was answered quickly. It was good news. A Special Branch surveillance officer had seen Finlay in the foyer of the St Pancras hotel. Surveillance and specialist firearms teams were on their way to intercept them. Grahamslaw jotted down the name of the Special Branch Detective. He fully intended to see that the man was commended. As he finished writing ‘Stuart Anderson’ on a post-it note, the door behind him closed heavily.

  Grahamslaw glanced towards the sound. Two men stood between him and the door.

  One he recognised: it was the Home Secretary.

  Chapter 72

  The foyer of the St Pancras Hotel was busy with both residents and guests as I walked up to the booking desk. A heavily built American, dressed from head to toe in white tennis gear, was arguing with the booking-in clerk.

  I stood back while the young girl made arrangements for the man’s luggage to be collected from a taxi outside. As he gruffly departed, she greeted me with a smile. Truly a professional, she showed not a hint of annoyance.

  ‘I understand that you have a Mr Yildrim staying with you?’ I returned the smile in the hope that good manners might get me the help I needed.

  ‘We have sir, would you like me to telephone him? Is Mr Yildrim expecting you?’

  ‘No. I wonder if you could tell him that Mr James from SIS is here to see him.’

  ‘One moment, sir.’

  The clerk telephoned the Arab’s room. It was answered, much to my relief. After a brief conversation the clerk came back to me.

  ‘Mr Yildrim says that he doesn’t know you, sir.’

  I’d anticipated such a response and had an idea that I hoped would appeal to the Arab’s curiosity. ‘Could you tell him it’s about the white doves?’

  The booking clerk did as I asked and after a moment she replaced the telephone. ‘Mr Yildrim says he will speak to you, sir. You can use the telephone on the other side of the foyer.’

  She pointed to a small booth. It was discreet and private. I had hoped that Yildrim would come straight down but this was going to have to do. ‘No plan survives,’ I thought.

  I thanked the girl and then made my way slowly to the revolving-door exit. Kevin sat at the wheel of a taxi in the rank opposite, the engine running. I looked left and right and went back inside the hotel. It was the signal we’d agreed. The Arab was at home and a meet was on.

  After indicating to the clerk to put the call through to the booth, I picked up the telephone.

  ‘Mr Yildrim?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Stephen James, British Intelligence.’

  ‘I wondered when you intended making contact, Mr James.’ The accent was heavy and laboured, the speech slow. I remembered that it was a common trick to pretend lack of familiarity with a language when, in fact, you were fluent. You never knew when good understanding of an opponent’s language was going to be useful.

  ‘I … I’m very sorry sir, I … I’ve been asked to accompany you to see my seniors. I didn’t realise you were expecting me.’ I deliberately stammered. Until Yildrim was in the back of the taxi I wanted him to believe that he was dealing with a simple messenger.

  The Arab was curt. The tone he adopted told me that he might be taking the bait. ‘Not really expecting you, Mr James, your people have been watching me. I know this. Today, I see no one. I am wondering why when I receive your call. Now I know why. What do your seniors want with me?’

  I kept up the pretence. ‘I … I’m sorry sir, I was just asked to bring you to a meeting. I wasn’t told why. I was told to tell you that, while this is an invitation to a chat, your … your refusal to attend is not an option.’

  ‘And if I do refuse to accompany you Mr James, what then?’

  ‘I … I don’t know sir, I would guess there is some means to ensure that you do attend.’

  ‘Am I a prisoner?’

  ‘No, sir. I was instructed to tell you not to try and escape, though. There were rather a lot of men sent with me and they are all on the doors and outside. I will be outside your room in a few moments.’

  ‘It seems I have little choice.’

  ‘Sir, it was suggested that you may have a weapon. I have been asked to tell you to leave any firearms behind and that they will be taken care of for you.’

  I was playing the simple errand boy part quite well and, if I’d played it right, then Yildrim was thinking I was a low-level, expendable operative. British Intelligence wouldn’t risk anyone of any value in case he should be killed. He should have worked out that if the intention was to kill him then that could have already have been done. He should also have realised there was no point in trying to escape. His passive compliance would be the key to just two of us gaining control of him.

  I climbed the stairs to the third floor, followed the signs and then knocked at the door of Room 301.

  There was a voice from inside. ‘You have a car?’

  ‘Outside. If you would follow me?’ I answered.

  I didn’t have long to wait. Barely a minute passed before the Arab appeared. He was medium height, slim and wore a good-quality, cream, single-breasted suit. I studied the suit outline for any indication of a concealed weapon. There was none.

  White Dove, alias Selahattin Yildrim, alias many other names, didn’t even look at me as we walked towards the lift. It was there that I would search him.

  The first lift to arrive was occupied. I held the Yildrim’s arm to stop him from taking the ride. ‘We’ll catch the next one.’

  For the first time, Yildrim turned to face me. His arrogant expression disappeared to be replaced by one of surprise. It lasted just a fraction of a second before he regained his composure. In that same second I noticed something else. His eyes were blue. In the photographs I’d seen, he’d had brown eyes.

  The next lift was empty. Once inside, Yildrim faced the door as I searched him. I worked from behind. There was no weapon that I could find but I’d noticed something else. His hands were now shaking. Yildrim was seriously scared. I wondered if he had realised from how I searched that I knew
what I was doing, if he was beginning to realise that I was more than a simple errand boy.

  As we reached the foyer and approached the exit, I rested a hand on the Browning in my belt. I only checked it for reassurance but Yildrim saw the movement and once again I saw fear in his blue eyes. He had the look of a man about to run. As we went through the revolving door I made sure we shared a compartment.

  The lead cab on the rank opposite pulled out and did a tight U-turn in front of us. Yildrim went to move forward but I checked him. Kevin then swung his cab out from the queue and pulled alongside the first cab. I held the Arab’s arm and gestured him towards our cab. As we passed the front of the first cab, the driver leapt out. He was a fat, balding man in his late fifties. His green taxi-driver’s badge swung on a cord over a sweaty, short-sleeved polo shirt. He looked angry.

  ‘Oi,’ he shouted at Kevin, as he approached our cab. ‘What the ’ell are you playin’ at pal? That’s my fare you’re nickin’.’

  I steered Yildrim away from him and towards where Kevin was standing with our cab door open. But the angry cabby wasn’t finished. He stepped forward and grabbed hold of the door that Kevin was holding.

  Next moment, there was a loud bang. I wasn’t sure if it was a shot or a car backfiring. In the same instant Yildrim jumped sideways over the bonnet of the first cab and back towards the hotel entrance. I dived after him. The cabby was still shouting at Kevin. Christ knows what he thought the bang was or if he’d even heard it.

  Falling to the ground, I was just in time to see the Arab diving back through the door to the hotel. It was now too late to recapture him.

  I yelled to Kevin. ‘Let’s go.’

  Kevin jumped back into the driving seat and edged the cab forward a yard, to clear the back door for me to jump in. The angry cabbie seemed to have been stunned into silence. I winked at him through the glass as I slammed the door closed. Kevin gunned the engine and we raced off towards Euston Road.

  ‘The Arab?’ Kevin shouted back through the glass screen as he expertly negotiated the heavy London traffic.

  I turned to check behind us. ‘Gone … into the hotel.’

  ‘Shit…’

  Chapter 73

  My initial belief that Kevin had sworn in response to us losing the Arab was very quickly put right. As I turned to look away from the hotel, I saw, ahead of our cab, figures in black uniforms jumping out of two white vans and a Range Rover. I didn’t need to see the firearms to know who they were.

  Kevin hit the brakes. ‘I don’t fuckin’ believe this. It’s an ambush.’

  It wasn’t a trap. Not quite. The way that the SO19 boys piled out of their vehicles, their haphazard positions, the shouting at the public to get down and get out of the way told me they’d been caught on the hop and weren’t ready for us. That gave us an edge.

  ‘Put your hood on and then drive through them,’ I shouted. ‘Not fast, just at normal speed. This is a crowded street. They won’t shoot. Once you’re clear, hit the gas.’

  I hoped I was right. These guys had done the same courses I had attended when I was on Royalty Protection. I knew their instructions. They weren’t to shoot unless there was immediate danger to life. They also had to take into account what would happen if bullets passed through or missed their intended target. With crowds of frightened people darting everywhere, only someone reckless would risk a shot. Nobody had seen the guns in our cab so if we drove slowly around the unprepared policemen, there would be no immediate danger and they shouldn’t shoot. Standard procedure would be to deploy a dog to take out a pedestrian or a Stinger spike strip to take out the tyres of a car. There wasn’t time for either option.

  ‘Keep the window closed in case they have a Taser,’ I yelled.

  Quickly, we donned our flame-resistant hoods. It would stop us from being recognised. I just hoped that one of the SO19 boys wasn’t a trigger-happy idiot who would take a chance. I had come across one or two Rambo types amongst them. Today would be a good day not to meet one again.

  Kevin eased the taxi past the transfixed policemen at a little over ten miles an hour. I kept the doors locked. Two of the policemen leapt in front of us and roared a challenge to stop.

  ‘Go round them, slowly.’ I said, now trying to sound calm.

  As Kevin did as I suggested, I waved to the two police officers. It was the kind of wave that you see Royalty give. They would know I was taking the mickey and they would hate it, but at the same time it distracted them. I took their minds off whether they should make the decision to shoot. By the time the moment for decision had passed, it was too late and we were away.

  A few yards from where the SO19 officers stood watching, Heckler & Koch MP5s levelled at the taxi’s rear window, Kevin turned hard left. As soon as there was clear space in front of us, he hit the accelerator. The armed policemen were well trained and all knew the law. Shoot a fleeing suspect where there is no danger to life and you could expect to stand trial yourself. Pistol and carbine sights followed the taxi’s path. Nobody pulled a trigger.

  I breathed a deep sigh of relief and, for a fleeting moment, closed my eyes. For a short while we were in the clear. Now all we had to do was make good our escape. I looked back. Behind our taxi, uniformed and plain-clothed figures were running in all directions. Some were leaping into the Range Rover and one of the white vans, others were running up Euston Road.

  Kevin and I had devised a ‘what-if’ plan for a car chase in case we were stopped by a patrol car after snatching the Arab. What we hadn’t planned for was a scene from the Keystone Cops. We had to move quickly. In a few seconds, the radio operators at New Scotland Yard would be warning every on-duty policeman to track our progress through the London traffic. Instructions would be given not to try to stop us, but to leave that to armed response cars. I could just imagine the messages. ‘Suspects known to be armed – do not approach’, ‘Trojan units pursuing armed suspects’. What I couldn’t get my head round was that it was me they would be talking about. My mind began racing.

  ‘What now?’ yelled Kevin.

  I was struggling to think straight. I started getting angry with myself. There was a time when I excelled in situations like this. Escape and evade capture. Use your initiative. Outsmart the enemy. All the old drills started to come back, but in a confused muddle. Now we were up the creek without a paddle and I didn’t have a plan to get us out of it. So much for me being the great ideas man.

  Kevin was a highly trained driver and he swung the cab round the cars and buses with ease, but all he had to do was drive. I kept racking my brains. We needed somewhere close by where pursuit would be dangerous and which would take time to surround. Somewhere the presence of numerous people would stop the firearms cops from shooting. My first thought was to head for Oxford Street, but there was so much traffic in central London our cab would get blocked before we found a good place to run from. Regent’s Park, I wondered? Too big, too easy to surround, not enough people. Tube stations? No good, again we wouldn’t have enough escape routes. Hiding up would be no good, as dogs would soon be called in to look for us. London Zoo seemed an idea. Then I remembered the high fences and the ease with which the place could be surrounded. As I raced through the ideas I lifted the two bergens containing our equipment onto the seat of the cab. We didn’t want to leave that little lot behind.

  I started to lose focus, become distracted: The Arab, his blue eyes, the taxi driver. Had there been a deliberate plan to distract us so the Arab could escape? Was the taxi driver someone from Special Branch who had to slow us down to give SO19 time to get there? It looked like they’d been tipped off something was going down but hadn’t got there in time. I kicked myself. Leave it. Let’s get out of this jam first.

  And then inspiration came to me. I looked back, again. The Range Rover was in the lead. It was about a hundred yards behind us. That gave us about five seconds from stopping the cab to being face to face with our pursuers. Five seconds to get out, grab the kit and run. We would get about thir
ty yards if we were lucky. That meant that we needed to be out of view in thirty yards.

  ‘Head for Albany Street nick,’ I shouted to Kevin through the driver’s window.

  ‘What have you got in mind?’

  ‘Put the cab just outside the gate to the yard. Keep together. You leg it across the yard and use the roofs of the parked cars to get onto the rear wall. When you’re on the wall, give me cover fire. I’ll cover you by stopping them in the street with a couple of flash-bangs. Then, as we go over the wall, we chuck a couple more behind us for good measure.’

  ‘And after we get over the wall?’

  ‘Run like fuck. Just like the old days. Go through the estate at the back of the nick.’

  Albany Street had been my first posting as a probationer PC. I knew the area like the back of my hand. There were alleyways through the estates backing on to the police station that you could use to make ground without being seen from the road. I’d spent a lot of time walking those estates. Old home-beat PCs with nicknames like Geordie, Budgie and Norman had shown me where you could get a hot brew at any time of the day or night. They’d taught me where to hide when the Sergeant was looking for someone to report a sudden death. Now, I was to be thankful for those lessons.

  As Kevin turned hard right into Albany Street, the Range Rover was closing in. The police station was about a hundred yards further north and the diesel-powered cab was losing ground to the more powerful police car. We screeched to a stop, just as the Range Rover crew pulled up about thirty yards behind us. Our five-second head start had disappeared.

  Kevin grabbed his bergen and launched himself through the open security door to the station yard. As he ran he must have seen the ‘emergency close’ button. He jabbed his fist on the red knob as he went past. The electric winch immediately jerked into life and the steel shutters started to close. I heard the door start and panicked. It looked like I might be locked outside. There was no time to think. I rolled two flash-bangs towards the Range Rover as the policemen raised their weapons. I wanted them to think they were real grenades. It would frighten them, make them take cover, but nobody would get hurt.