‘We’ve just received a credible threat against you via the main informant’s handler. The Serbs had Ivan up against a wall at some point overnight. He’s played dumb but they know you’re an undercover and, even worse, they know your true identity and that you live in Camden.’ Neil’s normal calm manner was gone, replaced with urgency and concern.
This is a fucking disaster, thought Tom. He wasn’t safe, and he had to get out: now.
‘How quickly can you get yourself to a nick? I’m calling witness protection now. We need some time to assess the risk and get something sorted. Liam’s just told me about the SD card and your copy: do you still have it?’
Tom paused, his mind ticking over, assessing all the options. The SD card; that was what they wanted, and he knew they would do anything to get it.
‘I still have it, it’s safe,’ he said, calmly. ‘Who got hold of Ivan?’
‘The Brankos. They were fuming, apparently, and he only just managed to bluff his way out of it. They said they have men out looking for you and you’re going to get silenced permanently. Adebayo is making it clear there’s money on your head. Jesus, this is fucked up, Tom. I’m sorry.’
‘I thought the Brankos were out of the country? That’s what they told me.’
‘Well it seems they’re back and it also seems that their dad, Zjelko, is with them. He got out of jail in Switzerland on early release. This ups the ante. He’s very well connected and is a fully made member of the Serb mafia.’
Tom replied calmly, ‘I’ll get up to Holborn. Who shall I go and see?’
Neil sighed, the stress obvious in his voice. ‘Get yourself to the Borough Commander’s office. Mark Willis: you know him?’
‘I know him, he was there when I was; he’s a good guy. I’m leaving now.’
‘Get out of there now, Tom: they must know your address by now. Talk to no one but Mark Willis; we don’t know who we can trust.’
Tom hung up and paused for just a second, gathering his thoughts. If they knew his real identity, it wouldn’t be difficult to trace him. If you have money, anyone can be traced if they live a normal life.
He stood and strode to his bedroom and the built-in wardrobe, removing the suitcase from the floor and peeling the carpet back from the suspended floor to reveal a recessed trapdoor. He lifted the particleboard hatch to reveal a small black Nike rucksack: a legacy from his days in the military, his grab-bag. All Det members had one, to be used in the case of a compromise or emergency that required them to escape and evade. Tom didn’t know what the immediate future held, so some preparation could only be a good thing. After tucking the SD card into his sock, he grabbed his jacket and left the apartment.
*
Tom drove the short distance from his apartment to Holborn Police Station on the edge of the City of London. He decided not to go into the underground car park in case a swift exit was needed. He pulled over on Emerald Street and locked the car up, paying for an hour’s-worth of parking at the nearby meter. The wardens were particularly zealous in that part of Camden and getting towed away at that point was not a great prospect. Hoisting the grab-bag over his shoulder, he made for the rear entrance of the nick by the roller-shuttered underground car park.
He felt calm, despite Neil’s alarming call. He felt sure there would be some exaggeration involved: Ivan had always seemed a bit of a dramatist. The news that Branko senior was out of jail was disconcerting, though; the boys didn’t worry him a bit, but their dad was a different prospect.
He went to the side door adjacent to the vehicle access roller-door and used his warrant card to swipe access into the pedestrian door. His first swipe led to a blinking red light on the keypad. Frowning slightly, he swiped again with the same result. The card entry systems in the Met were notoriously fickle, but he’d never had a problem at Holborn. Swiping again only produced the same blinking red light. He pushed the intercom button and listened to the repetitive tone indicating he should wait while the reception officer got to him.
A voice behind him said, ‘DS Novak?’
Tom turned to see a well-built male, about his own age, smartly dressed in a blue suit and grey tie, with dirty blonde, buzz-cut hair.
‘Who wants to know?’ said Tom, suspicion prickling his senses.
‘I’m DS Martin Green from Witness Protection. I was coming to meet you here at the Borough Commander’s office, but I’m glad I caught you now; we don’t think it’s secure here at Holborn.’ He had a deep, resonant voice with the slightest tinge of a vaguely familiar accent.
He proffered the familiar Metropolitan Police warrant card with its standard-issue leather wallet and metal crest with braille underneath. Tom looked closely at the card: it looked brand new, the leather wallet still stiff, the plastic photocard inside shiny and unmarked. Looking at the warrant number Tom was able to estimate that the DS had a little more service than him. The name read ‘Detective Sergeant Martin Green’ and bore the familiar logo and embossed signature of the current Commissioner.
Tom took a long look at the man, noting the strong features and prominent forehead. Familiarity niggled.
‘Have we met before?’ Suspicion prickled in Tom’s mind.
‘I don’t think so. Listen, you should come with me. We don’t think it’s safe here and it may be that Holborn is the source of the leak. My car is nearby and we have a safe house we can get to quickly. I can fill you in on what we know when we get there.’ The man spoke quickly, and Tom thought he detected some urgency: or was it nervousness?
‘I’m supposed to see the Borough Commander. Neil Wilkinson made it clear.’
‘Change of plan. There’s new intelligence from Ivan that the threat is imminent. Come on, I’ll explain in the car. Neil is coming to the safe house too.’
The man turned as if to go. Tom hesitated, conflicted. He was suspicious, but he couldn’t put his finger on entirely why. How else would the DS know he had been heading there if not from Neil?
‘Okay, let’s go then.’
They walked side-by-side along Emerald Street towards Rugby Street.
‘You’re definitely familiar, Martin,’ said Tom as they walked. ‘Were you on my promotion course last year?’
‘No. I’ve been a DS for a few years now. I don’t think we know each other.’
Tom’s mind began to work systematically. The warrant card was brand new, as in just issued; the poor quality of the materials used in the cards meant they always deteriorated quickly. Something wasn’t right: the accent wasn’t right, he didn’t look right. Tom got a sinking feeling in his gut, aware he may have made a big mistake.
‘Where are you based, Martin?’
‘At the Yard,’ the man replied, keeping his gaze straight ahead. ‘But I came here straight from home on a call-out. Busy day, eh?’ He offered a slight but uncertain smile.
Tom cast his mind back to the man’s brand-new warrant card, the photograph of the smartly dressed man, in a blue suit and grey tie.
Blue suit... grey tie... The same blue suit and grey tie the man was wearing right now.
*
Martin produced a car key from his trouser pocket as they approached a blue Audi Q5 parked on Emerald Street by the dead end, unlocking the car with the remote.
‘We’ll get your car later, once you’re out of the way.’
Tom stopped and squatted down in a show of tying his shoelace, but more to have the opportunity to assess Martin from behind at a slightly longer distance. Was it just his imagination that there was a slight disturbance in the suit’s line at the back? Was that a small bulge in the base of his spine? A pancake holster? Tom knew for a fact that witness protection officers were not armed, instead availing themselves of SCO19—the specialist firearms unit—when required.
Tom wondered if he was being paranoid, but thought the consequences through quickly.
Martin turned, suddenly aware that Tom was no longer next to him, a slightly impatient look showing in his light-blue eyes.
‘We m
ust get a move on,’ he said, the slight but familiar accent barely discernible but ringing further alarm bells in Tom’s mind. It was time to act; no turning back.
Martin moved to the front passenger door, opening it for Tom as a chauffeur would, jerking his head towards the leather seat.
Tom shrugged his grab-bag from his back and went to the rear passenger door, opening it and casually throwing the bag on the rear seat. He slammed the door while mentally preparing his next move, knowing he probably only had one chance. Martin was a big guy and Tom instinctively knew he would be problematic without the element of surprise.
Tom shaped his body as if to lower himself into the Audi passenger seat. As he did so, Martin turned to cross in front of the car to the driver’s seat. Tom raised his right hand in a club fist and drove it hard, four inches below the big man’s ear, smashing into the vagus nerve chain. Martin’s knees buckled, and he hit the floor in a crumpled heap.
It was serious now. If Tom was wrong, he would be in big trouble for knocking out a colleague. But he was certain he wasn’t. He searched the man’s pockets and found that his instincts had been correct. Under his left armpit was a handgun, secured in a concealed holster.
Tom looked at the Sig Sauer P226. Not police issue, certainly not with the silencer attached to the front: an assassin’s weapon. With the subsonic ammunition that Tom was willing to bet the weapon was packing, it was very quiet. The 9mm round it fired was designed, even at low speeds, to bounce around inside the body, ricocheting off bones but staying inside, causing maximum damage.
A ticking clock in Tom’s head told him that only a few seconds had passed and, as there was no way of telling how long Martin would be out, he had to move fast. In the man’s inside jacket pocket, he found a set of plastic zip-ties. He heaved the big man up and deposited him in through the passenger door, lying him prone over both seats. He jammed the man’s legs into the passenger footwell and zip-tied his hands to the steering wheel as tight as he could manage.
Whoever Martin was, he began to stir slowly, his face pressed into the driver’s seat. A slight groan, no more than a murmur, emitted from him.
Tom continued to search his pockets and produced the warrant card, a small, fat brown leather wallet, and an iPhone. A small, zipped-up leather folded case was in the other jacket pocket. Tom grabbed his bag and put all the items inside apart from the iPhone. The bulge Tom had noted in the small of the man’s back revealed two spare clips for the Sig, which he also threw into the rucksack. He took the iPhone and pressed the home button to reveal the time and a locked screen. It was an iPhone 7 with fingerprint recognition, so Tom leant over and pressed the man’s right thumb against the reader. ‘Try again’ blinked up on the screen. He tried the left thumb and the phone unlocked, revealing minimal apps loaded. He quickly went into the phone’s settings to disable the key lock, but it required a code. Tom scowled. The phone may have elicited contacts and clues that would be useful, but he assumed it would auto-lock after a given period, normally less than a minute.
He checked the phone’s contact list, which was empty. He checked the call history: empty. Emails: empty. SMS history: empty. WhatsApp was installed but, again, was empty.
‘Damn, damn, damn!’ he muttered under his breath. This man was a professional. The deleted calls and messages could probably have been retrieved but only with a forensic download. He engaged airplane mode on the phone, so it couldn’t be remotely wiped, and threw it in his bag.
‘You’ve no idea what you’re doing or who you’re fucking with,’ slurred the man, contempt in his voice, the accent a little stronger now.
‘Well, I hope they’re better than you, sunshine. Look where you are now.’
The man strained his head up and fixed Tom with a defiant stare. ‘You’ll regret this. These people have reach everywhere. There’s nowhere they can’t find you. Give them the card and they’ll leave you alone.’
‘Well, forgive me if I don’t believe you on that one, pal.’ Realising that time was limited and any further discussion was pointless, Tom produced his own iPhone, enabled the camera function and said, ‘Smile, sweetheart.’ He took a headshot of the man, forced his feet fully inside the Audi and slammed the door shut.
Tom estimated that the whole encounter, from incapacitating Martin to slamming the door, had taken approximately three minutes. He needed to get moving quickly as, inevitably, Martin would not be alone.
He slung the now-heavier rucksack over his shoulder and made his way back to his car. The street was clear and he looked around, hoping he hadn’t been spotted. He made a snap decision; he had to get off the street somewhere safe, to get his thoughts together and plan his next move. One thing was clear: he couldn’t trust anyone in the job. There was at least one bent bastard and probably more. Given that they’d managed to track him quickly, they were also probably highly placed, with access to all police systems. Worryingly, they also had to have the highest levels of clearance and the ability to use the most secret and sensitive intelligence tools available. His mind raced, and only one name hit him as someone he could trust and who might be able to help.
Mike Brogan. Mike still owed him a big favour from that day in Iraq.
13
Tom planned as he drove along Grays Inn Road towards Kings Cross. First job was to get off the street and out of the area. He couldn’t go back home; not at that moment in any case. Whoever was tracking him would surely have it staked out as the first port of call. He needed somewhere anonymous, preferably in an area unconnected to him where he could blend in while he collected his thoughts.
He had only once chance of survival at that moment. By going dark.
He didn’t know who was his ally and who was his enemy. All the normal methods were redundant; the people looking for him clearly had access to all the resources he’d normally use to track down the most serious criminals.
He made his way out west through the heavy traffic towards the A40 and decided to head towards Uxbridge. It was conveniently placed for him to head wherever he needed to go once he’d spoken to Mike. It was an area of London he’d never worked in but was familiar with from his military days. On occasion he’d flown from the nearby RAF base when deploying on snap operations around the world, and he knew that the area was busy enough but not so rampant with CCTV as Central London.
His journey took longer than normal owing to the anti-surveillance tactics he used. He circumnavigated every roundabout fully once before exiting. He stopped and observed frequently and practised the old technique of ‘blocking’: leaving the main routes and driving around residential blocks repeatedly, looking for any followers. By the time he got to Shepherds Bush he was sure he hadn’t been followed.
He needed to lose his car. He was aware that whoever was feeding the Brankos information could, with just one phone call, have his car followed using automatic number plate recognition. He drove off the A40 towards Shepherds Bush and into the NCP car park right by the Empire Theatre, where he parked it on the first floor. Putting his car in a pay-on-exit car park would ensure it would be safe and unnoticed, unlike if it was left on the street. Parking enforcement in London was so stringent that it wouldn’t last a day without getting towed. Using a car park would also add to any confusion of those tracking him.
He picked up his grab-bag containing the liberated Sig and other items taken from Martin Green and made his way out onto Wood Lane.
He hailed a black cab and asked the sullen driver to take him to Hillingdon Station, just off the A40. He wanted to blur his trail a little further before holing up somewhere.
Traffic was busy but not solid, so the trip took about forty minutes in almost total silence, which Tom was thankful for. The last thing he needed was the archetypal London cabbie talking non-stop. As they drove, he dug out the leather wallet he had taken from his attacker. It contained a fat wad of bank notes, a credit card in the name of J Vele, and a driving licence in the name of Martin Green.
Tom was no forgery
expert, but he’d received some input from the Home Office experts at the beginning of an undercover forgery investigation into fake documents in the past. He studied the card and noted that the ink quality looked faded and that the corners of the cards were slightly unevenly cut. Genuine driving licences were machine cut, giving perfectly curved corners. That was puzzling; an apparently genuine warrant card with a forged driving licence, both produced that day if the suit was anything to go by. His puzzlement began to shift to concern as he realised the resources his enemies seemed to have access to. He couldn’t rule out that his phone was being intercepted, which would give away his exact location. At the very least, they could be tracking his position and direction of travel by using the cell sites as his and Martin’s phones tried to connect with the masts as he passed. Both phones would have to remain in airplane mode until he was more prepared.
He pulled out of his bag the fat leather pouch that he’d taken from Martin. He unfastened the side-zip and examined the contents. A syringe was secured by a leather loop with a sheathed IV needle already attached. Alongside was a small bottle marked with Cyrillic script with an English translation underneath: Sodium Thiopental.
His concern deepened even further. He had received significant medical training when he was in the military, including on the use of drugs and intravenous injections. This was a fast-acting barbiturate that would render its victim unconscious very quickly. So Martin’s intention was clear: overpower Tom, inject him with the sodium thiopental and secure him properly. Then probably interrogation until Tom revealed the whereabouts of the SD card. The silenced Sig was probably for despatching him once he had handed over the card. His wary respect for his adversaries raised another notch: they not only had resources but also the skills to obtain and administer dangerous, stupefying drugs.
He asked the taciturn driver to drop him on the approach road to the station, paying him with the notes taken from Martin’s wallet. He stashed all the items away back in his bag and got out of the car, walking briskly away.
Going Dark Page 9
