Shadows of Good Friday (Alex King Book 3)

by A P Bateman

  O’Shea smiled as he picked up his glass and unhurriedly downed the remnants in one smooth motion. “Fair enough.” He placed the empty glass down onto the table and glanced at each of the men in turn. “No more booze then. Let’s get down to it, shall we?”

  Neeson stood up from his chair and walked to the dresser in the far corner of the kitchen. He opened a drawer and took out two manila envelopes, one large and one small. He hefted the smaller package in his hand, then replaced it and closed the drawer. Upon returning to his seat at the table he opened the larger envelope and tipped out a selection of colour aerial prints, which he spread across the table.

  “I commissioned a pilot friend to get these for me,” he said, proud of the array of photographs. “An hour after the last race, when the crowds have mostly gone and the big clean-up is underway,” Neeson said, gesturing for McCormick to pass the photographs around the table. “We hit the central office safe.”

  “Race?” Grant asked as he picked up a large, glossy photograph and studied the layout of buildings closely.

  “Yes.” O’Shea smiled. “Kempton Park race course. No military or armed police. Plenty of roads in and out and a hell of a lot of money on site.”

  ***

  King pulled the van into the narrow alleyway and drove steadily along, until it widened into a turning-space with a row of lock-up garages and private storage units. Leaving the engine idling, he got out of the van and walked the short distance to one of the garages. He unlocked the metal up-and-over door and raised it quickly above his head, then glanced around casually to check that no one was tailing him. Satisfied that he was not being followed or observed, he walked back to the van and parked it inside. With the vehicle locked safely away and hidden from sight he walked briskly through the alleyway, out onto the pavement, and then the four hundred metres or so to the large multi-storey car park. He jogged up the stairs to the third floor, where he crossed to the other side of the building and took the stairs to the fifth level, then crossed back over to the opposite corner, where he had earlier parked the well-used BMW 5 Series. He glanced round casually then operated the remote on the key fob.

  The art of successful counter-surveillance is to become as paranoid as you possibly can and not relax for a second. If you can be seen and followed, you can just as easily be killed. King was never entirely certain if he had been followed by some other entity, whether security forces or the very terrorists he was hunting, but changing vehicles and carrying out counter-surveillance drills could only help him to stay ahead of the opposition. He had walked to the multi-storey car park, including on his route, a one-way street against the oncoming traffic. He had crossed over the floors of the car park and changed his vehicle, so if anybody had followed him, he was confident that he would either have lost them, or spotted them.

  Once he was out of the car park and into the one-way traffic system, he took the A240 to Ewell, and then the A3 to Esher, still confident that he was not being followed. He parked the BMW in the private cobbled courtyard, which was almost completely encircled by apartments, but for the tiny entrance onto the main road. The building was mainly of limestone construction and each apartment was equipped with its own external, wrought iron stairway, with wooden banisters that added at least a little anonymity to the building’s many residents.

  King quickly made his way around the neatly tended lawn and climbed the stairs to a second floor apartment. As he approached the door he noticed the head of a tiny red drawing pin sticking out of the wooden banister. It was only a small detail, but one which told him that his MI6 liaison officer was inside. Forsyth had insisted that it would be the simplest, and possibly safest option. He knew what special operatives were like in the field, and the last thing he wanted to do was surprise an edgy King with his unannounced presence. Forsyth would have placed the pin discreetly, holding it in the palm of his hand as he climbed the stairs then simply reach for the banister on the last step and insert the pin as he unlocked the door with his other hand.

  King unlocked the door but entered cautiously all the same. “Ian?” he called quietly, as he entered the sparse hallway, but he needn’t have bothered; there was a fog of cigarette smoke wafting out of the lounge. The sweet, scented blend of Forsyth’s bespoke cigarettes.

  “Over here, old boy.” Forsyth walked breezily from the direction of the bathroom. “Time for a debrief, I should imagine. Been a jolly busy day so far.”

  The two men walked into the smoke-filled lounge and sat down on the less than comfy chairs that had been quickly provided by the residential wing of the SIS. They chose not to draw the curtains but sat away from the windows all the same. Two men meeting regularly behind closed curtains could only attract unwanted attention from a gossip-hungry neighbour.

  Forsyth had made a pot of tea and was now carrying out the ritual of swirling the tea around the china teapot, allowing the leaves and the specially filtered water to infuse. King, who had only ever been a teabag and mug man, smiled at the mannerisms of his companion.

  “Sugar?” Forsyth raised an expectant eyebrow, his hand hovering over the pile of cubes.

  King nodded somewhat impatiently. “Yes, two.” He caught Forsyth’s expression then relaxed a little. “Please,” he added, knowing that the man could not, and would not be hurried.

  Forsyth dropped two cubes of sugar into the cup and stirred it carefully before tapping the spoon against the rim. “I don’t know what it is about you soldier types, but you all seem to have the heathenish habit of ruining a jolly good cup of tea with the uncouth addition of sugar.” He smiled as he handed the cup and saucer over to King.

  “Not given the choice I suppose,” he paused, deciding to explain his comment further. “Long runs or route marches are usually broken up by a quick brew of tea. Sugar is tossed in as a matter of course, extra energy. It soon becomes habit.” He glanced down at the man’s hands noticing how immaculate they were. Neatly manicured fingernails, long but filed smooth, with a shiny appearance that could well have been a colourless varnish. Part of him seriously doubted whether Forsyth had ever done anything more strenuous in life than wield a fountain pen. However, King was not completely taken in by the man’s foppish appearance. He was sure that if push came to shove, Ian Forsyth could shove very hard indeed, although probably with a stiletto dagger and most definitely from behind.

  King sipped from his cup then replaced it to the saucer. “What have you found out? Today could very nearly have become a total lash-up.”

  Forsyth nodded and sat back in the chair with a sigh “I know. It would seem that we were very lucky indeed.” He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved his silver cigarette case, then casually opened the lid. “It would appear that both services found themselves stumbling over each other, albeit momentarily.” He extracted a rather thick-looking, handmade Turkish cigarette and gently tapped the tip against the lid of the silver case. “Yesterday morning the Security Service’s ports and airports division received an emergency telephone call from a senior officer of 14 Intelligence Company operating illegally in Eire. They had tracked known terrorists on a watch list from Ulster,” Forsyth paused. “You’re familiar with The Det I hear, did some work for them. Before signing on with The Increment.”

  “A while ago, yes. Another secondment,” King replied, not divulging anything.

  “My, you get around.”

  “Where I’m sent.”

  “Peter Stewart sees potential,” Forsyth smirked. “So I suppose we should all respect that. A little unorthodox though. What was it that got you locked up in prison?”

  “I’m sure you already know,” King replied coldly. “Anyway, back to the telephone call. What did this senior officer have to say?”

  Forsyth smiled. “Ah yes, well it would seem that four known players, PIRA boys, were followed down to Dublin and observed boarding a ferry to Holyhead. Bold as bloody brass they were, old boy.”

  “What about names? Presumably they used aliases.”

&nbs
p; Forsyth nodded, then carefully lit the cigarette. He inhaled deeply, smiled briefly, as the smoke had the desired effect, then blew out a thin plume of the mildly scented smoke. “Oh they had cover aliases old boy, but the fact remains that the agent from 14 INT positively identified them. Appears he knew two of them very well indeed,” Forsyth paused as he inhaled, then let a smoke ring drift lazily across the room, before it disintegrated in front of King’s face. “What he didn’t get was the registration number of the car. The two players that he followed down from the north did the trip in an old green Ford Fiesta. They then met up with the other two men who were driving the Sierra. The agent had to slip aboard the ship and get the details.” Forsyth chuckled sardonically and shook his head. “Would you believe that there were two identical Fords parked on the same deck? The agent contacted Five on his mobile phone, then had to wait until the ferry had docked, and the men got into the car before he could give a positive ID on the vehicle.”

  King smiled. Sod’s Law, they called it. If it could go wrong, it usually did.

  The fact that operatives from the British Army’s Northern Ireland intelligence gathering body, otherwise known as The Det (The Detachment) was operating in Ireland contravened their official brief, as they could only legally operate inside Northern Ireland. When matters went outside of Northern Ireland, they should hand all matters over to MI5, who in turn should liaise with Northern Ireland’s Special Branch, part of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). This procedure naturally resulted in lost time, and is often conveniently forgotten. The South, or Eire remains strictly out of bounds, but only for the British security forces. The terrorists used the south as a safe zone. King knew this only too well and had slipped over the border on surveillance operations in the past. It went on.

  Forsyth smiled at the shape of his next smoke ring then turned his concentration back to the debrief. “After the MI5 watchers took over at Holyhead, they followed the players using two vehicle units and a mobile control. The Provos stopped in a motorway service station, again, as bold as bloody brass. One of the watchers got a little too close for her own good. According to Howard, Deputy Director of the Security Service and Director General of Operations, the woman, Mary Vaughan was killed in the men’s lavatories,” he paused then added, “Strangled by the looks of it.”

  “Poor girl. Was she an experienced agent?”

  Forsyth nodded. “A copper for six years, then criminal intelligence for two years before being recruited into Five. She was a serving Security Service agent for four years, even spent some time over the water, Belfast apparently.” He stubbed out the cigarette in the rapidly filling ashtray then leant back in his chair. “The players were followed by several teams to an address in Epsom, where a static unit was placed on them this morning. Then, our man O’Shea was observed paying them a little visit.”

  “I know.” King took a sip of his tea, which by now had become tepid. He casually wiped a drip of tea from his chin with his sleeve, then turned back to his liaison officer. “I arrived at Holben Drive just in time to see O’Shea and Danny Neeson enter the house. After I spoke to you, and you warned me off, I followed the pair of them to a farm near Send, in Surrey. The Sierra was following them closely, along with an overeager team of watchers from the Security Service in a Mondeo.

  “What then?” Forsyth asked, leaning forwards, intrigued by the development.

  “I got this.” King pulled a Hi-8 video cassette out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. “I made my way cross-country to the secluded farmyard and got a look inside the large barn where everybody had congregated,” he paused. “That criminal, Frank Holman was there as well, along with someone else he had brought along. They set up a test for him...”

  “Who?” Forsyth quickly interrupted.

  “The guy that Holman brought with him. Cracking a safe without the use of tools. He did it as well. Used a sort of oil and chemical fertiliser compound. Pack it tight and it’s a highly volatile explosive, leave it slack and it’s an incendiary. The heat cut through the back of the safe like a thermal lance, and as long as he applied enough force to the area before it cooled then it would naturally give way.”

  “And he’s on the tape?”

  “Of course.”

  Forsyth opened his silver cigarette case and carefully extracted another handmade cigarette. They had three gold bands around the end. King remembered reading an early Fleming or Le Carré novel where the character had them custom made by Moorlands. Maybe Forsyth had read the same book.

  “What the hell are they up to?” Forsyth tapped the tip of the cigarette against the lid of the case, then closed the lid with a snap. “PIRA don’t collaborate with the English in their operations. It goes against everything they believe in.” He slipped the cigarette into the corner of his mouth, then flicked the wheel of the lighter, allowing the flame to hover perilously close to his face. “I know they use the Yanks from time to time, and Middle Eastern countries more often than not. And the Russian Mafia are getting in on the scene of late now the wall’s come down, but only supplying resources and training, not in actual operations.” Forsyth drifted the flame to the tip of the cigarette then slipped the lighter back into his pocket as he inhaled. “There’s less than a week to go before the peace agreement is signed. What the hell are they playing at?”

  “It has to be fund-raising,” King stated flatly. “They’re going to do a money job, using Frank Holman and this safecracker guy. They’re hedging their bets, getting money into their accounts for the future.”

  Forsyth nodded in agreement, then blew out a plume of pungent smelling smoke, subtly different from the smoke of his previous cigarette. “It could well be fund-raising, but we’re still left with the same question: why use the English? We know that they’ve been assisted by the Welsh, even in the bloody Scots in the past, but that’s simply a silly Celtic thing,” he added quietly. “They’re close to ETA in Spain, and the ARB, the Breton nationalists in France. Why use English criminals?”

  “Perhaps it is just that this friend of Holman’s is the only person available for a specialist job. Holman has contacts in the underworld,” King smirked. “Hell, he is the underworld. It wouldn’t be the first time that the IRA lost sight of politics. We all know that by now Northern Ireland is as much about business as it ever was about ideals. I mean, they’re into everything that makes money - drugs, protection rackets, prostitution - the whole political situation has been completely overshadowed by the pursuit of money. It’s as much about gangland control as it is about what they consider to be their freedom from Britain.”

  Forsyth nodded. “What about this team from Five?” he asked, changing the subject suddenly. “Do you think they saw you?”

  King nodded, a wry smile cracking. “They got a bit too close to me, I sent them packing. I’m surprised Howard didn’t mention it.”

  “Well, from your schoolboy expression, you got the better of them. They wouldn’t exactly advertise that, old boy.”

  King shrugged, casually dismissing the comment. “What about now, what position are Five taking on this?”

  “They have agreed to back off, too many cooks and so forth.” Forsyth smiled. “The whole operation is now in your capable hands.”

  “You mean ours, don’t you?” King corrected him warily.

  Forsyth returned a wry smile. “Of course, old boy, that’s exactly what I meant.”

  ***

  The blue Saab sped rapidly away, its headlights scything across the courtyard as Danny Neeson turned the vehicle in a tight arc.

  Frank Holman walked back into the kitchen, closed the door, and smiled at Grant who sat alone at the table. “I bet you can’t believe it, Kempton Park racecourse!” He eased his substantial bulk onto the wooden chair and reached for the whisky bottle. “What do you think to that, son?”

  “So now you know,” Grant stated flatly, the hint of a smirk on his lips. “They’d kept you in the dark all this time,” he paused. “All this time, and
Mr Bigshot knew as little as I did. What the fuck have you got us into, Frank?”

  The rest of the team had retired to watch television in the lounge, where they were enthusiastically discussing the impending heist, amid generous measures of Irish Whiskey and Scotch single malts. The operation had been outlined but nothing more would unfold until both O’Shea and Neeson were ready. This team was tight.

  Holman glared at Grant then sneered contemptuously. “Don’t go getting lippy on me, son, I’d hate to have to teach you a lesson.”

  Grant looked away from the man’s cold eyes and found himself reaching for the whiskey bottle. Perhaps it would help. “Forget it, Frank, I don’t give a damn what happens.” He looked back at him, his eyes hard and narrow. Holman was momentarily stunned; Simon Grant had always been a push-over, he had never seen the man display such calm aggression. He was about to respond in kind when Grant cut him off. “How the hell did you get yourself mixed up with this bunch of thugs, Frank? I know you’re into everything, but this? These guys are crazy,” he paused. “That mad bastard Neeson would have shot me if I’d failed the test with that safe, he wouldn’t even have hesitated. In fact, I got the feeling that he actually wanted me to fail, I could see it in his eyes. If that battery had been flat…”

  “Yeah they’re tough lads,” Holman agreed matter-of-factly.

  Grant shook his head despondently. “And why the Irish? They’re no good for anything except digging up the bloody roads! That’s what you used to say, wasn’t it?” He grinned at his old friend who was grinning back at him. Grant suddenly flinched at the realisation. “Oh shit… They’re bloody terrorists!”

  Holman sipped his drink calmly, then smiled. “Does it matter?”

  “Terrorists! Of course it fucking matters!” Grant stared at him in astonishment. “Who the hell are they Frank?”