Nom de Guerre

by Gulvin, Jeff

  The last piece of equipment he used was the metal-shafted barbell.

  Terlucci was in the kitchen before him, and glanced sideways as Boese put on his long, white apron. The guard hovered about the doorway for a few minutes, then left them. The kitchen was next door to the showers and Boese could hear Matthews and Thompson washing themselves down after their workout. Butcher and Gibbs were playing pool, the others were either in their cells or watching TV. Boese could see the tension in Terlucci, etched into his shoulders like additional packed muscle. The vein was high in his neck, and his eyes were everywhere as he took the peeler to his potatoes. The dull-edged cutting knife, which you had to press so hard to get through anything, lay on the stainless steel work surface next to him. Boese was behind him, his own home-made blade, sharper than a razor, pressed against the skin of his arm, held in place by his sleeve.

  One glance at the door was all he needed, then two paces and Boese was at Terlucci’s back, with the knife sliding into his grip. He slammed Terlucci against the work surface, and pressed the blade into the soft, fleshy skin beneath his chin. ‘Think about it,’ he hissed. ‘Between your jaw, through your tongue, the roof of your mouth and up into what little brain you possess.’ He paused, feeling the sudden trembling in Terlucci’s flesh. ‘You cannot compete with me. Do not even try.’ With that, he drew a line of blood under Terlucci’s chin and stepped back. ‘Get a plaster,’ he said. ‘You cut yourself.’

  9

  SWANN AND WEBB FORMED part of the surveillance team that watched Jorge Vaczka. Amaya Kukiel, the informant, had phoned Christine Harris with the news that they were leaving for Liverpool on the morning of Friday 5 Feb. The fixed observation point was set up in the flat across the road from Vaczka’s, on the Monday before. Posing as television delivery men, they arranged their equipment in the first-floor bedroom. The owner of the flat was retired, ex-Navy, and he was only too happy to help them. Special Branch and MI5 had primed their human sources in both Ulster and the Republic, but none of their informants had anything particular to report, which puzzled them even more. On the Thursday morning, Rafal Kestin, one of the lesser-known players in Vaczka’s team, arrived outside the flat in a hired Luton Box van. The two men in the observation point called the information back to the Yard, where Swann picked it up from the baseman. Sitting at his desk, he began to make inquiries. Liverpool meant the ferry crossing to Dublin, so he called the booking office to find out if the Luton van was booked to make the crossing, but they had no record of any vehicle bearing that registration mark.

  He imparted that information to Harris and the full surveillance team that had gathered for the afternoon briefing. Harris talked them through it, giving the information as it had been received. Two members of SO19’s specialist firearms officer black team were also present, the skipper Mick Rob and his second, Tommy Lane.

  ‘We’ll want you from 1800 hours onwards,’ Harris explained. ‘We don’t know what time they’re leaving, but there’s three of them, all main players, at target one’s house now. We’ve just had that confirmed from the observation team. The original Box 850 intel’ was weapons, possibly from Abu Nidal to some Loyalist faction in Ulster. But it’s been sketchy all the way through. What we do know is they’ve hired a Luton van and they’ve loaded boxes into it this morning from a lock-up rented by Pieter Jeconec. We don’t know what’s in the boxes, but it took two men to lift each one and there’s two dozen of them stacked in the van right now.’

  The surveillance team was over thirty strong and a great convoy of vehicles would move tomorrow if the van started rolling. Both Swann and Webb were due to give evidence at Ismael Boese’s trial, but the opening statements would take a few days, and they were not required till midway through the following week. SFO black team would accompany the surveillance, three men to a car. They would be in plain clothes, but armed with Glock handguns and MP5 carbines.

  Harris was more than a little apologetic. ‘I’m sorry this is a bit messy,’ she said. ‘But Vaczka’s a pro’. He’s set up his organization to stop infiltration, and apart from his section heads, none of the bit players know who their team mates are.’ She lifted her palms. ‘To be fair to the source, every bit of information we’ve had has proved to be good so far. Dates, times, everything. Vaczka’s been here a few years now, so has his team. We weren’t even aware of them until 850 gave us the tip-off. They could’ve been supplying the Irish splinter groups on both sides of the fence, for all we know.’

  ‘How far do you want to follow them?’ Webb asked. ‘I mean, before doing something about it.’

  ‘Depends. We’ll let them get as far as Liverpool, if indeed that’s where they’re going, and then see what happens from there. We’ll have to adapt as we go, Webby. Usual story.’

  ‘What if they do get on a ferry?’ Swann cut in.

  ‘Follow them, put bodies on the boat and prime the other side. Drop people in the Republic if we have to.’ She lifted her eyebrows and glanced towards Colson. ‘Not that we do that, of course. The Republic’s a foreign country.’

  Vaczka, Stahl and Herbisch played cards at the kitchen table, a case of Becks at their feet. At eight o’clock they sent out for pizza, and Vaczka scanned the street and buildings opposite as he paid the delivery man on the doorstep. He could not see any signs of surveillance, but he had a feeling they were there all the same. Years of experience had taught him that when you can’t see them, that’s when they’re probably watching. He looked for signs of cameras, but it was dark and the windows across the way were half-hidden in the dull orange of streetlights.

  Tal-Salem watched the caretaker take one last look around the vacant lot, which once had been the bus depot on Hanwell Broadway. He was widowed, in his sixties, spending each day in his little kiosk, watching the empty spaces around him. He walked back towards the kiosk now, jangling the set of keys he carried round the index finger of his right hand. Tal-Salem eased the stolen Range Rover in through the west gate on Jessamine Road. The caretaker looked at him for a moment, then, lifting a hand, he shouted across the freshly concreted paving. Tal-Salem ignored him and drove the Range Rover up behind the huge advertising hoarding to the left of the gate that led on to the Broadway itself. Traffic was still heavy on the other side of the vertical wooden planking.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing? You can’t—’ The man stopped, words caught in his throat, like breath too tight to exhale. Tal-Salem stared at him and levelled the 7.62 PSS silenced pistol at his chest. He smiled, thinly, briefly. Then he shot him. Barely a sound—sudden surprise in the old man’s watery eyes as he was knocked against the cold brick of the wall, blood popping in a thin ribbon of red from the little hole in his chest.

  Tal-Salem dragged him in front of the Range Rover and laid him on the ground, then he climbed back into the driver’s seat and picked up his mobile phone. Ten minutes later, a yellow skip lorry pulled into the car park and came to a stop beside the Range Rover. Tal-Salem smoked a slim hashish joint, leaning against the door, aware of the smell of the old man’s blood still in the air. His breath was visible, thickening the smoke he exhaled from the joint. Two men climbed down from the cab of the truck. Both had short-cropped hair, no earrings, no tattoos. Both wore grey flying overalls and tight-fitting lace-up boots.

  Flipping away the stub of his joint, Tal-Salem placed one foot on the wheel of the lorry and swung himself up to the heavy skip, housed between the pole and chain at the back. Heavy-duty tarpaulin was stretched across the top. He lifted it and shone the torch he had taken from the glove compartment in the Range Rover. Squatting in readiness in the base of the skip was a PKS machine gun, twin belts of 250 7.62 × 54mm rounds. Next to it, a large industrial angle grinder. He replaced the tarpaulin cover and turned to find the two men laying long canvas work-bags out on the floor of the yard. One of them noticed the dead caretaker, gave him a brief glance and continued. Tal-Salem knelt, as the first man unzipped the canvas bag and began to place its contents on the ground for inspecti
on. Ten RGN Russian antipersonnel grenades, each weighing 290 grams, 97 grams of which was the RDX explosive filling. They were spherical and smooth, made with internally pre-fragmented casings, producing 2000 fragments, and were lethal within a radius of eight to ten metres. A small safety pin was attached to the fuse casing, with a fly-off lever, and a detonating delay of three to four seconds. Tal-Salem picked one up, held it, smooth and cold against his palm, then set it back on the ground. The man produced five more and set them to one side, exactly the same as before except these did not fragment: they were phosphorus and burned. Next, he handed Tal-Salem a Vikhr 9mm submachine gun. These he had used before, in the old days before Ramas was sacrificed. They had been developed by the Institute of Precise Mechanical Engineering in Kimovsk, Russia; originally manufactured as a Spetsnaz weapon. The gun was designed to fire normal 9mm ammunition, but equally the 57N 181SM 9 × 39mm special round. Tal-Salem checked the magazine and nodded appreciatively. They were loaded now, a twenty-round clip; the shell capable of penetrating thirty layers of Kevlar, 1.2mm of titanium plate or 6mm of steel plate at a range of 200 metres. Between 700 and 900 rounds per minute was more than enough for the purpose he had in mind.

  ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Very good indeed.’ He got up, slid the Vikhr across to the passenger seat of the Range Rover and adjusted the pistol in his belt. The two men got back into the cab of the lorry. Tal-Salem climbed into the back of the Range Rover, where he settled down to sleep.

  Swann was on his way to join the surveillance team when his pager vibrated against his belt. He upturned the display and squinted at it, one hand on the wheel of his car. Call Reserve now. He picked up the mobile phone and dialled.

  ‘Swann here, Macca.’ McCulloch was baseman that evening. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Colson wants you here tomorrow, Jack. Boese goes to trial and he’s decided he wants you in London.’

  ‘What about the Polish plot?’

  ‘Got enough already. Webby’s on it, and Tania.’ Swann heard him exhale breath. ‘Old man’s orders, Jack.’

  ‘Shit, I don’t mind. Who wants to sit in a car all night waiting for some toe rag to drive off in a van. I’ll be at the Yard at six-thirty.’

  He hung up, turned his car round and headed back to his flat.

  Three a.m., and somebody spoke into George Webb’s earpiece as he snoozed, head against the misted glass of the car window. He was awake in seconds. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Target on the move.’ It was the spotters in the observation point across the road from Jorge Vaczka’s house.

  Webb looked over his shoulder at Christine Harris who occupied the back of the car. ‘You snore,’ she said. ‘How does your wife put up with it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Chrissie. I’m usually asleep at the time.’

  ‘It’s because you’re fat,’ she went on. ‘Your airway gets blocked. You need to lose some weight, George.’

  ‘Lecture over?’ He started the engine. ‘Then let’s go, shall we?’ He could not see the Luton Box van, parked as they were in a parallel street. There were thirty vehicles in all, dotted here and there, covering the available routes away from the target premises.

  ‘All units, from fixed OP,’ the voice said again in his ear. ‘Confirming three occupants in subject vehicle—Cabbage Patch, Cindy and Barbie.’ That meant Vaczka, Stahl and Herbisch; three of the four main players.

  Webb glanced in the rearview mirror at Harris’s face, pensive now; he could almost see the cogs turning. She spoke into the encrypted Cougar’s microphone attached to her collar. ‘Four/two from Kilo, respond?’

  ‘Four/two. I have eyeball. Target heading north on Wood Lane.’

  Harris looked at Webb. ‘A40,’ she said.

  Webb nodded. The chopper’ll give us their position. I reckon the M40 and M6 probably. No reason to take a circuitous route.’

  The surveillance convoy rolled, the motorcyclist ahead with eyeball, above them a circling helicopter. The motorcycle would leave at the A40M and another vehicle would slot into place. The rest of them would keep back for now, but they would stay together; all the way to Liverpool if they had to. Next to Webb, Mick Rob, the SO19 team leader, sat with his MP5 between his knees.

  Six-thirty a.m., and Boese ate a cold breakfast on his own. Though not very hungry, he ate for the benefit of the guards. Two of them watched him: Chesil and the concerned Griffiths. None of them spoke. Boese did not look at them, but ate slowly, chewing milk-soaked cornflakes with a deliberate, almost mechanical action. Chesil was watching him. Boese looked into his eyes for a moment, a cold black glance, and continued eating. He sipped his coffee and Chesil studied his watch. ‘That’ll do. Time to get changed.’

  Boese rose and they marched him across the hall to the sterile area. He undressed while they watched him, carefully laying out each item of clothing, which they searched thoroughly. Griffiths was meticulous. He had been at the SSU in Whitemoor when the three IRA men had broken out. He had had to suffer the indignity of the Antiterrorist Branch taking up residence for six weeks. He could still remember the questions, the embarrassment at the fact that guns had been smuggled in, bolt-cutters even. Chesil strip searched Boese, who stood with palms flat against the wall, while Chesil stretched surgical rubber gloves over his fingers with a slapping sound. Boese stared at the peeling blue paint on the wall. Across the yard from the newly built special secure unit was the main prison block and the interview and briefing rooms for the special escort group. The SSU had only been built the year before. The new Labour government had been concerned about the level of Irish prisoners either on remand or serving their sentences in the units at Whitemoor, Belmarsh and Parkhurst prisons, and the Home Secretary had instructed that a new one be constructed to the west of London. Reading, given its proximity to the M4, was chosen. In the yard, the three-and-a-half-ton prison truck was standing ready, along with two 827 Rovers, a Range Rover and four motorcycles. The vehicles carried respirators for the crew, together with smoke canister distraction devices. The officers from the SEG had travelled up from Lambeth an hour before, and were gathered for the briefing, now given by Chief Inspector Cranham.

  ‘Ismael Boese,’ he said, flashing up a slide of Boese’s face. ‘Responsible for the abortive chemical attack in the City last year, and the deaths of two hundred and eighty people in Rome. When he’s served his time here, they’ll extradite him to Italy, so he won’t be doing anything for the rest of his life.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Initially, I thought this would be a fully armed operation with an SFO team along for the ride.’

  ‘But it’s not.’ Phil Nicholson was the operator in the lead car. His job was to read the maps, plot the route and the alternatives, and keep the convoy moving at all times.

  ‘No, Phil,’ Cranham said. ‘Boese has been on remand for eight months. In that time, he has had only one visitor, has received no mail and no phone calls. He hasn’t sent any mail or made any phone calls.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘According to his assessors, he’s been the model prisoner.’ He broke off for a moment and cleared his throat. ‘As I said, given what the wardens have told us, I perceive there to be a general but not a specific threat.’

  ‘We’re more likely to be attacked by the public after what that bastard did,’ one of the other officers observed.

  ‘I’ve taken tactical advice,’ Cranham went on, ‘and decided that we will do this without SO19, although we will have an additional MP5 man in each car. That takes the pressure off you, Phil, and the other guys in the passenger-seats. Merely a precaution, but a necessary one.’

  The word came through that Boese was ready and being held in the sterile area, awaiting them. Cranham looked at his watch. ‘He’s due in court at ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘It’s seven-fifteen now. Whatever happens, we’re in rush hour, so let’s roll.’

  They moved out to their vehicles, three men in each car, one on a special swivel seat in the back of the Range Rover, Heckler & Koch carbine across his knees. If anything went wrong, he c
ould drop the tailgate and fire. Two more in the cab of the prison truck, and a further two in the separate, pod-like cubicles which made up the back of the truck. Boese would be isolated in a third, sitting on a plastic bench, surrounded by walls, with an escape hatch centrally locked above his head. The driver of the lead car fired up the Rover’s engine and Nicholson checked the planned route. M4 into London, A4 and then on to the Old Bailey from there. He had the contingencies agreed should they need them.

  He looked in the wing mirror as the two prison wardens brought Boese out. He was dark-skinned and dark-haired and much smaller than Nicholson would have thought. The press had tagged him the most dangerous man in the world, but he looked pretty insignificant from where Nicholson sat. He watched as Boese was marched to the waiting truck and the two officers who would secure him in the back. Once they were set, the word would come through and then it was down to him. He could feel the adrenalin pumping, as he always could on jobs like this. Today, the bridges over the motorway would be lined with pressmen. They would have choppers up, but there would be a flight exclusion zone around India 99, their own helicopter surveillance unit, which Cranham had ordered in. The press were gathered outside the prison walls already. Nicholson wished there was some way they could keep these trial dates secret. They were only released a day or so before, but that was more than enough time for the world’s media to gather. He checked through to the City firearms unit on the radio. They were already assembled and waiting outside the Old Bailey, and on the ring of steel approaches. Boese had tried to bomb them out of Snow Hill and they were looking forward to this.