Retribution

by Retribution (retail) (epub)

  ‘Exactly.’

  Richter eased himself up the bed into more like a sitting position.

  ‘If you want everybody to know what happened, I suggest you use social media. I know you think sticking pins in your eyes is much more enjoyable than using Facebook or Twitter, and you’re right, but if you start describing the ambush and the fact that the victim of the attack was injured, then I can pretty much guarantee that the story will go viral, especially if you include a couple of pictures of the carnage. Pretend that they were taken by some passer-by on his mobile. I mean, three killers wielding Kalashnikovs in the Home Counties – that has to be worth a tweet or two. Then add an official statement of some sort explaining that the victim was treated in hospital but is about to be transferred to a secure specialist unit. That should do it.’

  Simpson looked unconvinced. ‘I thought most of the people on social media were brain-dead oiks who genuinely thought that the rest of the world wanted to know when they got up and what time they had a dump and what they had for breakfast and all that sort of crap.’

  Richter nodded. ‘That’s probably true, but as a means of getting a message out to the largest possible number of people in the shortest possible time, it’s pretty much unrivalled. Whoever was behind this attack – if he’s even halfway competent, and I think he is – will be checking all possible sources of information, including local news stations and television broadcasts, but he’ll definitely be looking at social media as well. If you put a story on it, and make it interesting enough, then it will spread. No doubt about that. And all we’re interested in is the message, and getting it out there.’

  ‘You know more about this than I do, Richter. If you say that’ll do it, then I’ll get somebody working on it right away. Now, I think we can assume that it will take some time for the bad guys to regroup their forces and come up with another plan, so I don’t think that there’ll be another attack while you’re en route when we take you to the safe house, but I would expect them to try and follow us to find out where you’re going.’

  ‘With this lot,’ Richter said, ‘I wouldn’t assume anything, but you’re probably right and it will probably take them some time to arm and equip another assassination unit. So what sort of transport have you organised, bearing in mind that as far as I know, we don’t have any armoured limousines?’

  Simpson smiled wolfishly. ‘Something easy to follow, obviously, that these guys won’t lose in traffic, but quick enough to get out of trouble if anything heavy goes down, so probably the white Transit van.’

  ‘That’s good. That would work,’ Richter said, nodding, which provoked another acrimonious comment from the chief superintendent.

  ‘Are you seriously telling me that you’re setting up this man, this injured man, as bait?’ he demanded. ‘And he should be going to wherever this blasted safe house of yours is in an ambulance, not some commercial vehicle.’

  Simpson looked at him. ‘I’m not actually telling you anything, Evans, but since you raised the matter, yes, he is bait. That’s his job, or one of them anyway. And if he’s happy with my choice of vehicle, I don’t see what it’s got to do with you.’

  ‘We police the roads in this part of Britain, so that’s what it’s got to do with me. And there should be a police escort, with one or two Armed Response Vehicles in the group.’

  ‘We’re perfectly capable of providing our own armed escort, thanks, and my men are paid to take these kind of risks. Yours aren’t,’ Simpson said. ‘And on the matter of security, the whole idea of a safe house is that it’s safe. The clue is in the name. One way we keep our safe houses safe is that we don’t tell anybody where they are. So what we definitely don’t want is a convoy of police vehicles escorting us from the hospital to the house. We want the bad guys to know where we’re going, and nobody else, so we can take care of them on our own terms.’

  ‘And the absolute last thing we need is a bunch of amateurs scrambling around in the mix,’ Carpenter chimed in.

  ‘I’ll have you know that my officers are highly trained professionals. In my opinion you lot are the amateurs.’

  Richter started laughing, which didn’t noticeably improve matters. ‘I’ve never had a bunch of men basically fighting over me before,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or alarmed.’ He looked across at Evans. ‘Look, this is the kind of stuff we do, and we’re pretty good at it. We don’t need your men, and we don’t want your men. The best thing you can do is keep out of our way and make sure that your officers do the same.’

  Chapter 9

  A little under two hours later, a hospital porter steered Richter’s wheelchair the short distance between the Accident Service main entrance and where a white Ford Transit van was parked next to the section reserved for ambulances.

  Both rear doors of the vehicle were already standing open, a heavily built man waiting beside them. Carpenter had already checked the area, his midnight black skin ensuring that he could never be mistaken for Richter, and had been reasonably satisfied that there were no obvious locations from which a sniper could take a shot, because the presence of not one but two sniper rifles in the boot of the Ford suggested that a long-range kill shot was a definite possibility. The transfer from the hospital building to the Transit was done as quickly as possible, Carpenter quartering the area as he checked for any possible signs of danger, looking something like a large and lethal wasp with his black skin and yellow leather coat, and openly carrying the MP5.

  ‘Hi, Dave,’ Richter said to the bulky man standing at the rear of the vehicle as he levered himself out of the wheelchair.

  His clothes had been consigned to the hospital incinerator because of the amount of blood on them, and he was wearing blue jeans, white shirt and a leather jacket, under which was his shoulder holster and Browning pistol. The clothes had been sent to the hospital by courier from the headquarters of the section at Hammersmith. They were actually his own clothes, because one of Simpson’s rules for field officers was that each of them was required to keep at least two sets of clothing, including underwear, socks and shoes, in the building, just in case a situation arose where one of his men had to go to ground and needed a change of clothing.

  The man nodded but didn’t respond, just offered him a helping hand as Richter climbed the two steps into the back of the vehicle, both men checking all around them as he did so.

  In the rear of the Transit were eight surprisingly comfortable seats, four along either side, facing each other across the cargo area. Or what would have been the cargo area in a normal Transit, because this vehicle was rather different. Almost in the centre of the floor was a large bulge formed from a removable metal cover which had been constructed from two layers of sheet steel, the gap between them filled with sound insulating material.

  The driving compartment of the vehicle was not separated from the rear section, allowing immediate access between the two areas, and in two quick release metal racks bolted to either side of the Transit just behind the driver’s seat were a dozen Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine-guns, six in each rack, and each weapon was fitted with a fully loaded magazine. In padded boxes below the submachine-guns were three spare loaded magazines and a full box of nine-millimetre ammunition for each one, and just above those were pistol racks, again six on either side of the vehicle, and in each slot was a Glock 17, also fully loaded, and with two full spare magazines. There was no need for additional ammunition for the pistols, because although the MP5 was available in three different calibres – 10mm Auto, .40 S&W and 9×19mm Parabellum – these MP5s and the Glocks were all chambered for the nine-millimetre round.

  Another modification that was only visible from the inside of the vehicle was the windows. From the outside, the van looked like a typical builder’s vehicle, and on both sides and the rear doors the name of an entirely fictitious construction company had been sign-written, obviously without any contact details. The signs appeared to have been painted on metal panels, but in fact they were glass.
Armoured glass, to be entirely accurate. From the outside they were completely opaque, but from inside the vehicle they offered a surprisingly clear view of the surroundings.

  ‘Strap yourself in, Paul,’ Dave instructed, ‘and you too Steve,’ he added, as Carpenter followed Richter into the back of the Ford.

  Carpenter stepped forward to the gun rack and removed one of the MP5s. He checked the magazine, made sure the weapon was cocked, picked up a spare magazine and handed both to Richter. Then they took seats facing each other, and pulled the racing harnesses – proper four point belts rather than conventional lap and diagonal seatbelts – over their shoulders and strapped in.

  Moments later, the engine started with a low rumble and Dave steered the vehicle out of the hospital grounds and onto the open road.

  ‘You said you had an update for me, Steve,’ Richter said, switching his attention from the man sitting opposite him to the view through the concealed windows, checking for any sign of danger or pursuit.

  ‘Kind of, yeah, but it’s early days yet. First, the good news.’

  ‘There’s good news?’

  Carpenter waggled his left hand from side to side.

  ‘Well, more like less bad news, really. Ever since you called Simpson from the field after the attack we’ve been running counter-surveillance procedures on your apartment in London and back at Hammersmith as a precaution, and so far there’s been no sign of any observers at either location. So we can probably assume that the bad guys don’t know where you live or work.’

  ‘Or they know exactly where I live and they’re not watching the flat because they know I’m not there,’ Richter observed.

  ‘That’s possible,’ Carpenter conceded, ‘but the Intelligence Director doesn’t think it’s very likely. If these guys had known your address, it makes sense that they would have either targeted the flat itself or hit you when you were arriving there or leaving it, when you’d be a soft and easy target. He thinks, and it does make sense, that they probably picked you up when you went to check out the restaurant where Prince Nasty got a belly full of lead, and just followed you from there.’

  Richter nodded. He and the ID didn’t often see things exactly the same way, but in the circumstances his analysis seemed to be on the money.

  ‘I can’t argue with that,’ he said, ‘but what I still don’t know is why they want to kill me. Any progress with that?’

  ‘Not so far, no. The ID has tasked his minions with checking over all the operations you’ve been involved in since you joined, but so far nothing has come to the surface. I mean, over the years you’ve irritated quite a lot of people, including the government of Switzerland and most of the alphabet soup agencies in America, but none of that was very recent. And for some foreign agency to mount an assassination attempt on an employee of the British government, which you sort of are, would take bigger balls than most of them have got, because of the diplomatic shit storm that’d brew up if they succeeded. Or even if they failed, come to that.’

  ‘Makes sense. This has a kind of amateur feel to it, and my guess is that the person behind it is nothing to do with any government. Or not directly, anyway. Officially sponsored assassinations, when people like Georgi Markov, Alexander Livinenko and Gareth Williams are targeted, tend to be cleaner and more clinical, not to mention more subtle, than sending out three killers carrying Kalashnikovs.’

  ‘I thought Williams – he was the body in the bag in Pimlico, wasn’t he? – was possibly an accidental death.’

  Richter shook his head. ‘No, he was definitely topped. Simpson asked me to check the files last year. Williams was GCHQ but seconded to Legoland – SIS – and ended up dead in the bathroom of a Security Service safe house, so that’s three different British security agencies he was involved with, at least to some extent. He was found dead inside a bag that he couldn’t have climbed into and then locked by himself. The key to the padlock was inside the bag under his body. A couple of alleged experts with the same sort of build and size tried to do the same thing, to get themselves inside an identical bag, over four hundred times in ideal conditions, and neither of them could manage it even once. And the bag inside which Williams’s body was found was in a bath, and that would have made getting into it much more difficult.

  ‘He was involved in computer hacking – or rather counter-hacking, operating against hackers – and according to Boris Karpichkov, who was ex-KGB and defected in 2015, he’d been targeted by an SVR double agent working at GCHQ out at Cheltenham. When this man failed to recruit him, the SVR had no choice but to dispose of Williams because by that time he knew the identity of their established agent. Again, according to Karpichkov, they injected poison into his ear to kill him, locked him in the bag, cleaned up and walked away.

  ‘The alternative scenario, that he was involved in auto eroticism, doesn’t hold water, because there’s no evidence he had any interest in it at all. And, even if he did, and did somehow manage to lock himself inside the bag in the bath and then suffocated, there’s still the problem of why none of his fingerprints were found anywhere on the bath. Climbing into the bath and then getting inside the bag without touching any part of the bath would be almost as difficult as locking himself in the bag in the first place. In fact, no fingerprints at all were found in the bath, and that’s pretty clear evidence that somebody was there during or after the event and cleaned up.’

  Carpenter was still listening to Richter, but he was also checking the view from both the rear and side windows continuously.

  ‘You see anything?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Pretty heavy traffic, but I don’t see any sign of a tail, not yet.’

  ‘What about the three dead guys? Anything new with them?’

  ‘Not a hell of a lot, if I’m honest. We still have no confirmed IDs, so we don’t even know what nationality they are. Physically, all three of them had a general kind of Mediterranean appearance, black hair, swarthy complexions and brown eyes, so they could be French or Spanish or Moroccan or Greek or Turkish. Or none of those nationalities. Maybe they’re even Arabs, and that might be worth thinking about because you did have a run in with Al Qaeda a few years ago.’

  ‘True, but I think Al Qaeda’s pretty much a spent force, and has been ever since the Yanks tracked down Osama bin Laden and blew his brains out. The bigger problem ideologies today are probably the Taliban, but realistically they’re confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Isis or Islamic State or Daesh or whatever they’re calling themselves this week. And they’re basically in Syria and bits of Iraq, but more importantly, as far as I know I’ve had nothing to do with either of them. And if I had, I think I would probably remember it.’

  ‘And of course it’s entirely possible that whoever hired those three men is an entirely different nationality,’ Carpenter said. ‘He could be an American who just happened to decide to employ Turkish mercenaries, for example, so speculation along those lines is probably pointless. I told you before that they each had a smart phone, but that’s turned out to be a dead end as well. The SIM cards were exactly what you’d expect – prepaid, disposable, and completely anonymous. Obviously we’ve been able to find out where they were bought, which was at three separate locations in London, all of them small- to medium-sized newsagents and none of which had CCTV fitted, and we’ve also checked their call registers.’

  ‘So let me have a guess at what you found,’ Richter suggested. ‘Almost all their calls would have been to each other, and probably all those would have been made and received within the M25 ring road area. And there was probably one other mobile number that one or maybe all three of their smart phones called on a regular basis, and that was also a disposable SIM card, probably bought earlier and with more credit on it than the other three.’

  ‘Spot on,’ Carpenter said, nodding. ‘All three of the cards in the phones we recovered were bought on the same day, just over two weeks ago, and the other one, the one that’s almost certainly being used by whoever was pulling their str
ings, was bought five weeks ago.’

  ‘What about locations?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Again, probably what you’d expect. The three phones belonging to the guys you encountered were switched on almost all the time, and they were mainly located in Central and North London, basically in the area between Charing Cross and Enfield. The other mobile, the one we presume belonged to their paymaster, was only switched on at intervals. When it was turned on, it was used to call one or other of the three men almost immediately, and once the conversation was over, it was switched off again. Clearly this person didn’t want his location to be tracked. We’ve plotted all his locations that the system recorded, and they’re scattered over most of London, so we’re guessing that this guy probably travelled to some point almost at random every time he wanted to make a call.’

  ‘Did he call any other numbers?’

  ‘Way ahead of you there. There are another six numbers, most probably prepaid burner phones, that he contacted with about the same frequency, so what we’re assuming is that he may well be running three three-man cells, which is one reason why Simpson is taking this so seriously. And before you ask, within thirty minutes of the ending of the firefight that you got involved in, the paymaster – or whoever is – called all six of these other numbers, and all of them, the six burners and his phone, were switched off as soon as the calls were finished and none of them has come back on the network since. The obvious conclusion is that those SIM cards will have been cut up into small pieces and dumped somewhere, and they’ll all have bought new cards, maybe even new phones, so that looks like another dead end.’

  Richter nodded. ‘It’s interesting that he didn’t try calling the phones used by the three men who attacked me, because there’s no way that he could have found out what had happened in that field so quickly. That information just wasn’t available anywhere at that time.’