Taking the Tunnel

by James Adams

  “And while they develop their strategy and improve their tactics we scrabble around looking for a few quick headlines to keep the politicians off our backs. Not one of us sitting around this table knows what the British strategy for dealing with the IRA actually is. And the reason for that is we don’t have one.

  “Christ, if the great British public only knew what a pathetic bunch we are they’d rise up and deal with the terrorists themselves.”

  There was a slow ironic handclap from Stella

  Rimington. Thank you for your support, Bryan, but I can manage quite well on my own, thank you. As Bryan so rightly says, we have made a number of mistakes in the past and my intention is that these will not be repeated. I am familiar with the operations to which Mike refers but it is my recommendation that these remain in place until I decide on the basis of information from G Branch just when we should make a move.

  “I would remind everyone here that the responsibility for countering terrorism in England now belongs to the Security Service. If any of you want to argue with my decision then you can take it up with Secretary of State.” By invoking the authority of the Secretary of State Rimington had essentially trumped all the other cards on the table. No civil servant and certainly no policeman would dare to challenge such authority and risk a rebuff without very good cause. It was clear to everyone that this was not the occasion to push for change on such a fundamental issue.

  “Well, now that we have all taken up our positions, perhaps we can get back to the issue in hand,” Whitmore said. “As you seem to feel so strongly about all this, Bryan, perhaps you have something to offer us.”

  Rita had passed on the contents of the conversation between Adams and Kelly so there was information available. The question for Bryan was how much to pass on. In principle he was ail for sharing intelligence but information was power in this game and he needed all the help he could get. Also, he did not want Rita to become another Brian Nelson, charged with terrorism and sent to jail, when in fact she was a priceless source who had saved many British lives.

  “We have received some information recently that suggests there is a disagreement between Adams and the militants on the Army Council.”

  “Huh, that’s nothing new,” Witherow muttered.

  “True enough, but the difference is that this time

  Adams is losing the battle. Kelly and those close to him think that the campaign in England is really beginning to make a difference while Adams thinks the killing of civilians is counter-productive. He wants to rein in the team that’s here but Kelly wants to escalate. Adams lost, so we’re in for some big trouble.”

  “You seem remarkably well informed,” said Rimington. “How good is your source on this?”

  “I’m satisfied that the information is accurate,” Bryan replied.

  “Well, if it’s that good, perhaps you could tell us something about the people operating here,” Williams suggested.

  “The name of the team leader is Sean Thomas. But where he is or what he looks like I can’t tell you.”

  In any other group, the revelation of the name of the man they had all been hunting for so long might have produced whoops of joy or at least a passing expression of enthusiasm. But this was a political meeting and advantage was never conceded willingly. So the response was muted although every pencil moved along the white pads in front of each of the other participants as the name was faithfully recorded for later investigation.

  It was Bickford the lawyer who followed up. “If we get this Thomas, will your source stand up for us?”

  “There is no way I’m going to sacrifice another of my people to the clods in the judicial process,” Bryan replied, the bitterness at the loss of Nelson bubbling to the surface. “Anything you get on Thomas you’ll have to prove for yourselves, but my betting is you’ll be very lucky to get him as far as the courts. This one was born to die.” For Whitmore the meeting had been almost a total waste of time. He had nothing to offer his master and Question Time would be a bruising business. But he could have a private word just before battle was joined to hint that something was in the wind. That might straighten his spine, he thought.

  For the others, a name meant a new dimension to the hunt. Data bases could be scanned, phone taps gone over, computers programmed to trigger on the new words. At last the hunters had a scent.

  CHAPTER XI

  All the books and all the training told you that you were supposed to know when you were being followed. An atavistic response sent the shiver down the spine and aroused the tingles between the shoulder blades. If properly trained and fully aware even he should be able to pick the face from the crowd, identify the stranger whose eyes suddenly moved aside to avoid contact, who stayed too long looking in a window that had no display.

  But Jonny had enough experience of undercover operations to know it was rarely that simple. To follow one man took a minimum of twenty-four people working in shifts. You needed enough transport to make sure no car, van or motorbike was in the frame too long; enough men and women to confuse the watched; and enough clothes to keep ringing the wardrobe changes. It was also a logistical nightmare, keeping everyone on track, in touch with base and with each other and making sure that every avenue of escape was predicted and covered. For the real artists of the watching game, discovery was rare, and if the person under surveillance was untrained, it was virtually impossible.

  But for all that, he was sure that there were people on his tail. There was no hard evidence, no recurring face or car, just a subconscious registering of a regular cycle in an irregular pattern of his own life.

  He hardly thought it likely that he could be followed all this way from his home turf. But since the horror of the North Sea, the hunt for Dai Choi had taken on a different pace. He had been driven by the man for so long, the hunt had become a concrete part of his life, and now the old pain of Sam’s death had been stoked to fresh life by the attack on his sergeant and the confrontation in the North Sea. He had relived the horror of that clash over and over again. Like someone bested in a conversation he thought again and again how he could have done it differently; how if only he had fired faster, sooner; how the bullets would have looked as they entered Dai Choi’s flesh. But this time he felt different. The frustrations had become focused. This time Dai Choi had chosen to fight outside his own territory and, for the first time, Jonny felt it might be an equal match.

  When he first felt he was being watched, he dismissed it as paranoia engendered by the shootings. He had just returned from the endless debriefings that had followed the attack. The boarding party had all been killed, the coxswain had lost a leg and most of his right jaw and Captain Cole had still been in shock when he had left.

  He had planned to stay to help the police but he had been made to feel unwanted, a foreign interloper interfering with the practised routine of a manhunt. Once they had Jonny’s evidence of Dai Choi’s involvement, the secret drug investigation became an open murder inquiry. With the whole panoply of the British police forces in action, he realized there was little to be done and, rather than remain on the outside, he decided to head to the flat he currently called home. At least there was the familiarity and the comfort of Lisu.

  His suggestion of a liaison mission with the British had been readily agreed to at headquarters. His obsession with Dai Choi was no secret and he knew there had been an element of indulgence in the deal, as if by getting him out of the way life could return to a more normal pace.

  “Look, Jonny, get yourself over there, see old friends, make some new contacts,” the Chief Inspector told him. “From what I hear, they need all the help they can get with the Triads. You’ll be able to give them some good advice on that. If your ideas on Dai Choi work out, that will be an added bonus for them and us.”

  Pay rates in Hong Kong are high to take account of the exorbitant cost of housing. That, combined with the generous overseas allowance, had enabled him to take a decent flat in a service block off Sloane Square. The rate
s were low because of the absence of the annual migration of Americans who had been put off by the exchange rate.

  The trip was supposed to have been a time of renewal and opportunity for them both and it had begun well enough. It was Lisu’s first trip to London and his first visit for many years, so they were both strangers in a foreign land. His parents were dead, his family scattered and he found little common ground with those he had once considered friends. They had done the touristy things — the Tower, Madame Tussaud’s, a trip on the Thames — and it had been fun. They had recovered some of their old spark and even their lovemaking was a pleasure rather than the duty it had become.

  But still the trip seemed to make him depressed. Subconsciously he had endowed England and London with a glow that did not exist. He was shocked by the dirt, the traffic and the general air of decay; and the scale of the place made him feel intimidated. How on earth could he make a life in a city so vast among a people he didn’t know and who wouldn’t care whether he lived or died?

  He proposed a trip to recapture his roots in Newcastle. “Let’s take a couple of days. We can go on the Flying Scotsman, if it still exists, see the countryside and I’ll take you to all my old haunts.” He could feel his heart lightening at the prospect and she responded enthusiastically.

  They both needed to get away from the city but for different reasons. They had talked over dinner in their Sloane Avenue flat about their impressions of Britain just before Jonny left for the North Sea. It should have been a conversation about hopes and prospects but it became an argument about futility.

  “It’s easy for you,” Lisu said. “You were born here. You lived here. You speak the language and you’re accepted. This is a foreign country to me. I may speak the language but I’m still a foreigner and Chinese too. You see the way the people look at us when we’re together. I can see the men stripping me with their eyes. And the women just think I’m your whore.”

  “Oh, come on, Lisu. That’s unfair,” Jonny protested. “You’re just feeling vulnerable because it’s all so different. Think about it. I could get a job here away from all that corruption and frustration in the colony. I might even get a job where I’d have some prospects instead of marking time and spending all my energy fighting the system.”

  “Well, that would be fine for you. But what about me? If we move here, I will be coming to a place where everybody is going to see me as some kind of being from outer space. It’s not like Hong Kong where the Chinese community is used to gweilos. You would not be welcome among my people here and vice versa.

  “And as for living in this city, we could only afford a small flat in the suburbs somewhere and by the time we could buy anything decent we’d be too old to enjoy it. Anyway, I hate it. It’s just too big. I’m lonely and now you’re going away to leave me here with no one to talk to, nothing to do and nowhere to go.”

  Jonny saw the tears spring to the corners of her eyes. Before he would have reacted with solicitous words, but Lisu’s passivity now angered him, partly because she was expressing some of his own doubts. He did not want a dream he had lived with for so long to be so easily destroyed.

  “This was never going to be easy,” he replied. “I made my life in a foreign country. I married you and we became accepted in a community with its fair share of backward traditions, but you know we have nothing to look forward to in Hong Kong. Already younger men are moving past me on the promotion ladder and others get richer while we mark time. We’ll have to move to make a new life and Britain is the only place I know “Well, that may be so for you but it isn’t for me,” Lisu interrupted. “If you weren’t so bloody stubborn we could have as much money as our friends. We would be up on the Peak by now, and if we were going to come to England we could buy a decent house somewhere nice instead of lowering our standards even further.”

  The bitterness in her voice shocked him. For the first time he understood that while he had been holding to principles he believed in, Lisu had resented every dinner and every cocktail party that allowed others to flaunt their wealth. As the gap between them and their friends had widened, so had the gulf between him and Lisu.

  “You always told me that you supported the way I dealt with my work.”

  “That’s not the issue.” Her voice sounded tired, too tired to reflect the anger she felt at so many wasted years. “Of course I support you. But you have been trapped in the past for too long. This obsession with Dai Choi is madness. Everyone on the force thinks you’re crazy and in all your time on the force you’ve got nowhere. And now here we are thousands of miles from home chasing another fantasy with Dai Choi. It’s time to let Sam die so that we can get on with the rest of our lives.”

  Lisu watched Jonny fold his arms. His mouth seemed to draw in on itself, making his lips flatter and narrower, signals that he was drawing a mental line. She realized that further argument would be futile.

  “Look, Jonny, you go off on your trip and maybe that will produce some answers. All I am asking is for you to think of me, think of us for a change, and see if we can’t work something out.”

  Surprised by her sudden conciliatory tone, Jonny also backed off. “I understand how you feel. Dai Choi is only part of it. Ever since Sam died I’ve felt responsible for his death. If I’d been more careful, listened to the warnings, been there. Since he died, knowing who killed him and knowing I could do nothing has taken over everything. This time I really think I might be able to get the man. And after that, maybe we can make a new life for ourselves over here.”

  It was then that he thought of the north-east. Perhaps it could be the middle ground they both needed if they were to have a future together.

  They had taken the Flying Scotsman from King’s Cross. Instead of taking five hours, as he remembered, the journey had taken three, and the Central Station in Newcastle was almost unrecognizable, all red plastic and chrome in place of the stone and cold, echoing hallways thronged with people.

  In the city, Jonny found that in his absence his roots had withered and died. The place had been transformed. Whole suburbs, once the slums he patrolled, had disappeared, to be replaced by modern housing estates. Newcastle itself, which used to be a small, fairly pleasant city, appeared to have folded in on itself. Whole blocks had been destroyed to make way for a spaghetti of huge roads containing little traffic. Getting across town, which used to take twenty minutes, now took five. But Jonny could see little advantage to the change if at the same time the heart of the city had been sucked out.

  It reminded him of the children’s story of the Little Engine That Could. The city had thought itself bigger and better for so long that it had finally developed the infrastructure for a place three or four times its size.

  It may have been the feeling of being watched or it may just have been a result of feeling so apart from his roots that left Jonny feeling depressed. A trip that should have opened up new opportunities for them both had, in fact, closed them off.

  It was Lisu who suggested a visit to the Metrocentre before they caught the train home. Everywhere they had gone in the city, this had been held up to them as an example of the new north-east, a place which led Europe in both style and substance. The half-mile-long complex in unfashionable Gateshead housed shops, estate agents, solicitors and banks, as well as Metroland, an indoor amusement park and a string of restaurants. In the past two years, a mock Mediterranean village had been added so that Geordies could be transported to the Costa del Sol without the cost of actually going there.

  Jonny drove south over the new Redheugh Bridge that crosses the Tyne and then followed the signs west off the A1 to the Metrocentre. He entered a complicated one-way system that circled the vast concrete structure containing the centre. It was surrounded by what looked like thousands of cars — bees around a honey pot, Jonny thought. Each point of the compass was given a different colour so that shoppers could orientate themselves and find their way out of the maze. Jonny parked their Ford Orion in the yellow zone.

  They walk
ed the fifty yards through the car park and up the ramp and through the automatic red sliding doors. The smell hit them first and then they took in the two-storey McDonald’s on the right. Stretching ahead was a spine leading to the central walkway of the complex. They strolled idly forward, the crowd of people jostling them.

  “This is pretty impressive,” Jonny remarked to Lisu.

  “Sure is. But I bet there’s nothing here we don’t have in Central and you don’t have to drive miles to get there.”

  It was true, of course, but Jonny resented the reminder. Before he had time to reply, he heard the first scream behind him.

  He turned in time to see the automatic glass doors begin to open and the bonnet of a car plunge into the narrow gap. He watched as both doors exploded off their rails in a shower of glass. He heard a man shout “Ram raider” next to him, the latest in the spate of attacks on jewellery and hi-fi shops that Jonny had read were fashionable in the north-east. Thieves would steal a car and then ram a shopfront, seize the goods in the window and make their escape in a second car. It was a bold system that worked very well as the police were rarely able to respond to the incident fast enough to catch the robbers.

  All this flashed across his mind as he grabbed Lisu by the arm and propelled them both to the right towards a shop called Knobs and Knockers. Looking back, he could see the crowd parting. Squeezed against the shopfront, Jonny felt strangely remote from the event. He did not feel under threat, more like an observer at an incident which didn’t involve him. He watched with interest as shopping bags were crushed or brushed aside. He almost laughed as a Big Mac caught the nearside wing and was propelled into the air, bun, hamburger, lettuce and tomato forming a parabola over the shoppers.