There had been a short and intense debate about whether to issue the picture to the media. The ‘no’ side were fearful it would stop the Courier from negotiating and increase the risk of him going ahead with his plan to detonate the bomb.
However, the argument was swinging towards those who wanted to get his picture published - the politicians said the public would never forgive them if they discovered the image had been withheld - when Roper was asked for his view.
“I say no. If we publish his picture he has nothing to lose and sets off the bomb. At least this way we can talk.”
That would probably have swung it anyway, but then Hooley received another message.
“I want access to the GCHQ system at noon today or else the bomb is set off.”
It was 7am on Saturday. Hooley, Roper and the Major were at a mobile police command centre on Whitehall. Roper had just returned from a long walk, this time on his own, when the message had pinged its way on to the DCI’s mobile.
He showed it to Roper and said. “What do you think about the evacuation plans, Jonathan? The view is that, since we haven’t come up with a solution, we stop all the trains coming into London and put up road blocks to stop traffic from a radius of five miles out.”
Roper took his time. “We have to stop people coming in. I don’t think he is going to try for a really big explosion, but it will be somewhere high-profile, like a tourist target in the centre: anywhere from Big Ben, to Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square, and maybe all that area around Waterloo. It would be easy to hide a vehicle around there.”
“Hard to argue against your analysis, Jonathan,” said Hooley. He was looking tired after a restless night and starting work at 5am. “What about you, Tom - any thoughts?”
“I wish I had, but I’m willing to go with Jonathan on this. We need to do something.”
“Are the rest of your drones here in London now, Tom?” Roper looked hopeful.
“I take it you mean the longer-range ones. Yes, I got a message last night. Jenkins reported they are all here and in working order. What have you got in mind?”
“Could we have one up covering the central area? And do it now, while it’s fairly quiet.”
“Give me five minutes and we can be on the way.”
The big drone was at a little over 1000 feet and had swept down the Victoria Embankment from the area of Lambeth Palace and towards the High Courts on the Strand, before heading back towards Westminster on a return sweep.
The cameras were of an astonishing quality and Roper was careful studying a slowed down feed, concentrating fiercely on the pictures slowly crossing his screen. He was studying every inch of the flight and had his face pressed close to the screen.
He didn’t once look away and Hooley could not imagine how he was able to do it without inducing a massive headache. At various times Roper stopped the feed, carefully rewound it and then studied something that had caught his attention, before carrying on.
The drone completed its first sweep of the central area without finding anything. He turned to the drone controller.
“Can you take us back over the area around the London Eye?”
Jenkins soon had the drone hovering over the spot and somehow Roper was managing to stare even more intently at the feed. Both Hooley and the Major had to fight off excitement as they sensed he might be onto something.
Roper was oblivious to what was going on around him and had started tapping at a keyboard, calling up some information; he read it carefully and then turned back to the screen showing the drone footage.
“Look there: at that area close to the London Eye. That looks like workmen are digging on the pavement.”
The two men could clearly see a large hole, an all-too-common sight for London.
“I’ve just checked, there is authorisation to be digging up the pavement at that spot - but it’s at 7pm this evening, not 7am this morning. That’s got to be the Courier and his team. He’s probably hoping people will think the 7pm start time is a mistake and it is OK to be there.”
Major Phillips didn’t need any more convincing. As he dashed away he was shouting at his team leaders to access the footage.
Inside the police command vehicle, the live footage continued to roll. Hooley and Roper watched as a man backed out of the rear doors of a van parked up on the pavement. He was wearing high visibility gear and a white protective helmet.
As his foot reached the ground he reached up and adjusted his helmet then carried on walking away from the van and over to the hole which was being dug.
“That’s him, that’s the Courier.” Roper was whispering as though frightened that if he shouted out the name the man they were hunting would hear and somehow escape.
Hooley couldn’t decide. “Are you sure?”
Roper rewound the footage. “Watch as he reaches for his hat. He uses his left hand and he has a slightly odd quirk where his right shoulder dips down. That’s exactly what happened when you found the footage of him outside the hotel.”
Hooley whistled in amazement. “For a bloke who can’t spot an emotion if it lands on his head, you have a good eye for detail.”
At that moment the Major reappeared, and they showed him the footage and told him about Roper’s conclusions.
“Well, that’s a definite go in my opinion. Brian, do you want to talk to Julie, so she can get the top table to give us the green light? My lot are more than ready to go so I’m going to start moving into position. We don’t want this bastard getting away.”
Roper and Hooley followed him outside to watch the team of troopers set off. While the majority were in the black outfits and body armour he had come to expect, the DCI noted that this group was a more eclectic mix than he had seen in the past.
Over to one side a man and woman in running gear were being intently briefed and he watched as they jogged off in the direction of the London Eye. Following them was a particularly shabby looking man who could only be a beggar and then a young Chinese couple, clearly tourists with backpacks and cagoules wrapped around their waists.
The Major spotted him looking. “Urban warfare. I had no idea what we might be up against, so I asked for all available resources. Not all are our people, but they have trained with us and know what they are doing.”
The entire team was now en-route; those in military gear would be staying well back, although a couple that looked like police officers would be getting quite close. The other pairs would be walking right up to, and past, the location of the terrorist gang. Their job was to glean any details they could.
As the Major watched his teams set off, he was being studied by Hooley. He could tell the officer wanted to be with them, but his job was to watch the feed from the drones and make sure his people had everything they needed.
“I think there may be some of that revolting coffee left in there,” he said, gesturing at the mobile command centre. “Let’s go and get some - it will take your mind off things. They know what they’re doing, and the technical people are right behind them to make the bomb safe.”
Back in front of the screens with the live feeds, they watched as first the ‘joggers’ went past and then the ‘tourists’ marched by with the ‘beggar’ lurching along behind, apparently the worse for wear from drink. He plonked himself down on a bench about fifty metres from the van.
A few minutes earlier they had watched the Courier clamber back inside the vehicle and, since then, nothing. Finally, they got the call to move in; it was the green light they wanted. But before they could move in the Courier climbed out. He was in normal clothing as he headed off towards Waterloo Bridge at a rapid pace.
“Where is he going?” said Hooley, asking the question they were all thinking.
The Major started speaking urgently into his mouthpiece as he warned that the Courier was on the move. He was closing in on the steps leading up to the Bridge when the two “police officers” appeared.
They were talking to each other, apparently oblivious to the C
ourier who kept moving forwards. But as the “officers” drew level they suddenly charged. They were two of the Major’s men and very fast. The Courier was almost faster.
One policeman went down clutching his throat, bleeding from a stab wound. But the second officer fired his Taser at point-blank range into the Courier’s face. The man stopped still and then fell twitching to the floor as he was blasted with fifty thousand volts.
Meanwhile, the main hit squad had attacked the van, specially designed power cutters ripping the door open. Inside were two men, one of whom started to move his hand towards the bomb. He was dead a few milliseconds before his companion.
The bomb team came hurtling up and spent an anxious ten minutes examining the weapon. In that time the Major had looked at pictures and seen that one of the two men was his former soldier, Richardson.
“Not quite so made for life, now, are you?” he said, so quietly that Hooley and Roper missed it.
It was hours before they got away, and Hooley was looking forward to having a pint of bitter when his phone went off. It was DI Newlove.
“Brian. I just wanted to let you know that your man Roper came up with the goods. We finally found a fingerprint in that house. It was for a right villain called Harry James. Turns out he’s moved onto people smuggling and we picked him up after he was spotted moving backwards and forwards between Folkestone and Calais.
“Funnily enough, he’s not that keen on spending the rest of his life in prison so he’s ready to name names. Says his boss is called the Courier. I was wondering if you could do me a favour? We can’t find anything about him but you might have better records.
“Any chance you could have a look and tell me what you can find out?”
“I can tell you one thing straight off: it’s a very small world.”
Chapter 57
“There’s what we call an alphabet soup of people all lining up and demanding access.”
Major Phillips had just come from the latest briefing session following the arrest of the Courier. “To name a few we have the BND, CIA, NSA, SIS, GCHQ, MOSSAD and the DGSI. Even the FSB have been demanding to be allowed in. If I started on the rest of the world we’d still be here tomorrow.
The Major had turned up at Victoria bearing gifts - coffee and muffins. Roper had pounced on them like he hadn’t seen food for days.
Hooley passed him another muffin. “As you can see, he’s recovered his appetite. He hasn’t stopped eating, and I bet the lucky so-and-so doesn’t put a single pound on.”
Roper gulped down a mouthful. “Plenty of walking and a high metabolism.”
“I need to do a bit more than walking if I eat like that. A ten-mile run with a pack would do it,” said Major Phillips, with a wistful expression.
“I’ve only got to think about eating one and I put on weight,” said an even more mournful Hooley.
It was the first time the three men had met since the Courier had been captured three days ago. Since then British security services had taken over and, it seemed, had been joined by the rest of the world’s secret services.
While Hooley and Roper were now out of the loop, the Major had remained on the inside but had insisted he be allowed to brief the pair on what was happening following the arrest.
“Let me start at the beginning with what he has told us so far. It turns out the Courier’s real name is Nigel Cross and he’s a forty-two-year-old who was born in Lewisham, South London, to a drug addict mother. He had a tough time of it. She nearly killed him before he was taken into care and was unlucky enough to find himself under the power of the worst type of abusers.
“At the age of fifteen he gave the first signs of what was to come when he made a bomb out of fertiliser and used it to kill both his abusers and destroy the block of flats they were living in. Amazingly, no-one else was hurt.
“He then disappears and a year later, despite his age, turned up in the French Foreign Legion, now calling himself Nigel Smith. They loved him, he was a great soldier, became fluent in French, and was offered a chance to become an officer before he was twenty years old.
“But he already had his eye on bigger things and left when his time was up. After that, he dropped off the radar for a while but reappeared five years on as the Courier, one of the most successful smugglers about.
“He was top of the game until he turned 30 and then dropped out of sight again. He won’t tell us what he did next, but something brought him back into the smuggling game, where his previous reputation brought him into contact with Yebedev, Sokolov and Vasilev.
“We’re now at the point where he is offering to give up those three, and lots of others that he says we don’t know about yet but played a key role. He also confirms your theory, Jonathan: that once they pulled him in, he simply took over. It was his idea to sell the dummy in west London, and also to ask for access to GCHQ secrets.
“The other thing that’s getting everyone going is his promise to reveal the location of more weapons that were buried in the ground all those years ago. The Germans have nearly had apoplexy because they’ve always believed there is stuff hidden away in the former East Germany.
“The French are demanding first dibs because of the plutonium found on their soil, and have joined forces with the Americans to demand exclusive access to him. We’re refusing because if we release him to our ‘allies’ we know we’ll never see him again.
“Just for good measure, the Israelis want in because he’s hinting there is more plutonium out there and that’s got people in the Middle East and North Korea interested. It’s even being said that the new guy in the Philippines wants a piece of the action.
“So basically, he’s given us, the British, a huge headache. We can’t possibly do a deal with him because he threatened to nuke London, and everyone else is trying to persuade us to get over ourselves and close our eyes and think of England.
“It’s at a big impasse which is how I’ve been able to get out for a while. He’s promising to give us a taster of what’s in store tomorrow morning, so when I left there was a big shouting match with the French and the Americans demanding to be allowed to sit in.
“My guess is that they will be allowed in, because when it comes to military action we’re the ‘three amigos’ so I guess we won’t be able to say no.”
“And I thought catching him was difficult enough,” said Hooley. “What have they got you doing in all this?”
Major Phillips looked embarrassed at having the spotlight shone on him. “Actually, I’m going to be one of the two interrogators who will be talking to him tomorrow morning. So far, these things have been short and sweet. He says what he wants then clams up while we think about it.
“I should be able to get back to you with an update. I heard that the Prime Minister personally intervened to make sure you were in the loop.”
◆◆◆
As he predicted, he was back the next day and his expression was grim. Roper stared at him and then said: “Sir Robert Rose.”
“How could you possibly know that? I’ve only just found out and I was in the session.”
“I’d suspected it for a while, and as soon as I saw your face I knew.”
Hooley raised a hand in the air. “Er, could anyone tell this person what on Earth is going on?”
The Major produced a rueful smile. “I think Jonathan should tell you. He probably knows more than I do even though I was there, and he wasn’t.”
Roper was unfazed. “Sir Robert Rose is worried that the UK is losing its moral courage and is being undermined by a ‘snowflake’ generation that is too frightened to stand up and fight for the things that it believes in.
“He found a willing accomplice in Maria Vasilev, who felt that her own country had gone the same way. She believes that for all the aggressive words from her leaders, they are more interested in cyber warfare than real warfare.
“Between them, they came up with a plan to explode a nuclear bomb in the UK and make sure they left enough clues to make it lo
ok like a Russian state-sanctioned operation. Sir Robert probably believes that it would be worth a few lives to achieve his goal.”
Both men were staring at him open mouthed. The Major recovered first. “You’re spot-on about Sir Robert, but he hasn’t mentioned anything about Maria Vasilev yet. How did you work that out? You’d better tell me, then. I need to report in.”
“It’s quite obvious, really. They are both from the same generation and spent their entire lives involved in a battle with each other, and each other’s people. They would have known about each other and probably even respected each other for their beliefs.
“Everyone forgets that the Cold War was pretty intense, and a lot of people were left fighting it long after it was supposed to have stopped. When we met Sir Robert there was something about him, and in my Rainbow Spectrum I could see the possibility that he might do something.
“Do you remember, during our interview, when he suddenly started talking about knowing who your enemy was? It stuck with me at the time, then I pushed it to the back of my mind. It’s only in the last twenty-four hours that I realised that he said was a clue.
“Then it was obvious he would need an ally from the other side, as it were, and Vasilev was perfect. He would have known all about her and was aware she knew where the plutonium was buried, so she would have been the obvious choice.”
The SAS man was on his feet. “Amazing, and, with that, I gotta get out of here, unless you have anything else you want to mention.”
“Well I do have some ideas about where Sokolov and Yebedev might have gone to.”
“You do? Where?”
“I think the first place they would have gone is Brazil, for cosmetic surgery, but by the time we find that location it will be too late. But I think I know where they will have headed next.”
“What, you mean together? Or just starting from the same place?”
Chapter 58
Roper and Hooley had finally got back into a routine. They were working on inquiries linked to the bomb case when security called Hooley to say that a woman named Susan Brooker was there for her interview. He went blank, and then remembered.
(Jonathan Roper Investigates Boxset Page 65
