Gray Vengeance (19 page)

Benson gave a description of what the suspect was wearing, along with the size and colour of the bike, and the sergeant phoned the control room and passed on the message. Within a minute, every unit in the area had their eyes peeled for Edward James Conran.

Despite the cold wind, Conran was sweating. A glance at his watch as he passed signs for Guildford told him he’d covered around thirty miles in two hours, which was what he’d hoped for. The plan had been to push hard until he was well clear of London, then relax the pace for the rest of the journey.

He decided to stop for a bite to eat, not because he was particularly hungry but because he knew he had to keep up his energy levels. He turned off the dual carriageway and into a small village, where he purchased a pre-packed chicken club and two cans of energy drink from a small store, then ate quickly on a nearby bench.

By the time he climbed back on his bike three minutes later, the clouds overhead were giving up their load, but Conran barely noticed it. What had his attention was the marked police car that cruised slowly past, the occupants taking a keen interest in him.

When the car pulled to a stop ten yards in front of him, Conran began to panic. Had they broken Houtman already? If they had, he suspected it wouldn’t have been down to harsh words and threats of prison. That meant that whatever lay in store for him was going to be every bit as bad.

Conran casually spun the bike around and pedalled back the way he’d come, but when he heard the police car execute a three-point turn, his fears were confirmed. All attempts at acting casually evaporated as he pumped the pedals as hard as he could. Trying to outpace the car was futile, so he turned into a side street and jumped off the bike, leaving it lying in the road.

He ran into a garden and began jumping over walls, leaping from garden to garden, knowing that he needed to get clear of the area as soon as possible. All assets would be heading his way, including dogs and police helicopters with infra-red search capabilities. What he really needed was to get to cover, and an
opportunity
presented itself as he slid over another wall and saw a woman in her sixties, wrapped in a cotton dressing gown and smoking a cigarette, outside the back door. She was clearly shocked to see the bedraggled figure suddenly appear in her garden, and
Conran
took advantage of her indecision.

He ran towards her, and by the time she managed to shake herself into action and turn to rush back inside, he was on her. He clamped his hand over her mouth and pushed her through the doorway, kicking it shut behind him. Panting, Conran kept his hand over her mouth as he peered through the window, looking for signs of pursuit. He could hear sirens in the distance, and with every passing second they got closer and closer.

Despite the pouring rain, Conran knew the dogs would soon pick up his scent and lead the police to the house, which meant he was going to be in a hostage situation. It wasn’t something he’d planned for, so it would take some quick thinking to get himself out of this mess.

Conran put his mouth to the woman’s ear. ‘Just do as I say and nothing will—’

Pain shot through Conran’s skull, and the world went black.

A splitting headache welcomed Conran back into the land of the living, and it felt as if a cow were sitting on his chest. He gingerly opened his eyes and saw that he wasn’t far wrong.

The olive-green T-shirt with the Royal Artillery motif covered a thick chest, and tattooed arms stretched the short sleeves. One large hand was around Conran’s throat, while the other held a heavy adjustable spanner, which Conran guessed was the cause of his headache.

‘What the fuck are you doing in here?’

Before Conran could answer, the elderly woman led two armed police officers into the kitchen.

‘This is him,’ she said, as if the situation needed any clarification. ‘My boy saved me.’

Conran’s mind turned to Houtman. The big Dutchman was no coward, and had a deep-seated hatred of authority. He wouldn’t have given his colleagues up without a struggle, and Conran expected much of the same. There was little he would be able to tell them, apart from the names of his two associates, which they probably already knew. It was what else they’d want to know that concerned him. Pleading ignorance wasn’t going to stop them from giving him an introduction to waterboarding or whatever tactics they used these days, and with such a low pain threshold, he knew that what lay in store in the days ahead wasn’t going to be pleasant.

He eased his right hand towards his trouser pocket and retrieved the tiny capsule. When the soldier son was asked to move aside, he had it in his mouth in a flash, and bit down before anyone could move to stop him.

A hand gripped his jaw like a vice, forcing his mouth open while fingers probed inside, but the damage had already been done. The contents of the plastic pill were already making their way towards Conran’s stomach. His last memories on the planet were of two leather-clad fingers jabbing at the back of his throat.

Chapter 27

16 December 2014

By the time the SUV returned to Haddon Hall, Harvey had already finished a lunch of tuna pasta bake provided by the onsite cook, his Honda having made better progress on the roads than the bulky people carrier. He stood at the front door of the building as the vehicle pulled up to the steps and a blindfolded Roberts was guided out.

Harvey hit a pre-set number and held the phone to his ear. ‘He’s here,’ he told Ellis.

‘Good. Hamad followed up on the number you gave us, but the phone was found in a waste bin in a park. No prints or DNA, and it looks like it was only used once.’

‘Too bad,’ Harvey said. ‘Roberts told us he was recruited by someone called Efram, and that was our only lead to him.’

‘Then lean on Roberts—he met the guy. Get everything you can, and by whatever means necessary.’

Before Harvey could clarify, the phone went dead in his hand.

Whatever means necessary.

Personally, he had nothing against that. Once upon a time he would have found the idea of stepping over the moral line abhorrent, but then the last forty-eight hours hadn’t been the typical start to the working week. The latest reports suggested more than eight thousand had died as a direct result of the attacks, with many more seriously injured, and if one of his suspects had to feel a little pain to bring it to an end, so be it.

Harvey followed the escorts to an upstairs room, where a metal chair waited. It had been bolted to the floor, and up against the wall stood a similarly fashioned table with a white cloth covering a large plastic box. The rest of the room lay bare, lacking any carpets or wall decoration.

Roberts struggled as he was manhandled to the chair, but once he was secured with handcuffs and chains, the fight petered out. A wooden chair was brought in from another room, and Harvey sat a few feet in front of Roberts, his manner relaxed. He produced his phone and turned the voice recorder on.

‘This is how it’s going to work. I will ask you questions, and as long as I like the answers, everything remains civil. As soon as I feel you’re lying to me, I let these guys take over.’

Harvey was referring to the two NSA operatives standing by the door. Neither looked particularly aggressive, but Harvey guessed that the real fear came from their detached expressions, which suggested that inflicting pain on another human being did not lie outside their comfort zones.

‘Let’s start with Efram. Describe him.’

‘Just a normal face, no scars, short black hair combed in a side parting,’ Roberts said.

‘Height? Weight?’

‘Just a bit shorter than me, about five-ten, and a slim build.’

‘You told Gray that he looked like a government type. What did you mean by that?’

‘Smarmy,’ Roberts said. ‘Full of self-importance.’

‘Doesn’t necessarily mean government,’ Harvey said. ‘That could be any captain of industry, business owner, supermarket shelf stacker, or just your regular, everyday megalomaniac.’

Roberts shook his head. ‘No, there was just . . . something about him. And he . . . well, he had a file on me.’

Harvey knew that any number of private detectives could build a file on a person, but decided to follow it up. He asked one of his chaperones to fetch his laptop from downstairs, a
nd whil
e the errand was being run, enquired about the training in Nigeria.

Roberts told him about the flight over, being met by someone called Dan, who turned out to be a sergeant, their introduction to Colonel Mitchell, which resulted in Tony Eversham getting a bullet to the brain, and then one hundred and fifty days of training in munitions, electronics and explosives.

‘How many others were at this camp?’ Harvey asked.

‘Recruits? About two hundred. I never got the chance to count the exact number. And that’s all we were, numbers. We never spoke to anyone outside our little group, not after what they did to Tony.’

‘How many were in your cell?’

‘Four,’ Roberts said. ‘Well, three, after Tony . . . .’

‘Erik Houtman’s dead, too,’ Harvey said, looking for a reaction. ‘So is Ed Conran.’

‘How?’

‘They didn’t want to answer our questions,’ Harvey said.

‘I’ve told you all I know.’ Roberts’s face had gone ashen. ‘Can I please get some medical attention for my foot?’

‘How many trainers at the Nigerian camp?’ Harvey asked.

‘Ah, twelve, I think. Yeah, twelve, including the colonel.’

‘I want descriptions.’

Roberts obliged, and a few common elements emerged: all seemed to be British, had a similar, athletic build, wore the same uniforms and had regimental haircuts.

‘How often did you see the colonel?’

‘Maybe twice a week.’

‘Would you recognise him again?’

Harvey received a nod in confirmation.

While waiting for the guard to return, Harvey asked about the explosives they’d used, and where they’d acquired them.

‘We were told to visit a warehouse,’ Roberts said. ‘It was stocked with everything we would need.’ He gave Harvey the address.

‘And how did you pay for everything?’

Roberts explained how they’d been given cash and pre-paid credit cards before leaving Nigeria, enough to keep them going for the five months of preparation. They hadn’t had to pay for the stuff in the warehouse, he said.

The door opened, and Harvey was handed his laptop. He opened it, signed into the secure server and brought up a list of government employees. There were a lot more than he imagined, and he filtered the list to show only males. That cut the number of results somewhat, though thousands remained to go through.

‘How old would you say Efram was?’

‘Mid to late forties.’

Harvey filtered the results to reflect those over the age of thirty-eight, just to be on the safe side, then further reduced the number of records by showing only those who stood between
five-eig
ht and six feet tall. He still had a formidable list to go through, but attributes such as facial hair, spectacles or hairstyle could be easily changed and weren’t reliable search criteria.

‘What about race?’

‘White, British.’

That cut the numbers once more, and Harvey stood, placing the laptop on the chair. He asked one of the guards to release one of Roberts’s hands.

‘Please stand behind him and make sure he does nothing more than use the left and right arrows to go through that list. I’m going to grab a coffee. Want one?’

Both guards asked for theirs black with one sugar, and Harvey left the room.

Instead of going to the kitchen on the ground level, he made his way to the basement and checked up on the data that had come from the phone in Nigeria. The device’s location hadn’t changed, but that meant nothing. The owner could have decided to have a day inside, or gone out and left it at home. That would be the more logical explanation, as there had been no activity since seven the previous evening. No calls, no texts,
no data usa
ge . . . .

He brought up the map and zoomed in to find the exact location of the phone. A tingle of excitement ran down his spine when he saw that it was a hospital in Kano.

Thompson came over to his station and placed her half-empty coffee cup on his desk.

‘What have you got from Roberts?’

Harvey explained what he had so far, and asked her to check out the warehouse Roberts had told him about. He also told her that he was showing the suspect a filtered list of government employees in the hope that he might pick out the mysterious Efram.

‘What about the cells?’ he asked. ‘Has the round-up begun?’

‘Not yet. Getting the police to mount simultaneous raids takes some time. If we don’t do this nationwide within a one-hour timeframe, the news channels might pick up on what we’re doing. Once that story breaks, our suspects will go into hiding, or, worse, make a dramatic last stand.’

‘Why not send out a DA-Notice to the producers?’ Harvey asked.

‘After Levinson? The press aren’t exactly our best buddies at the moment.’

Thompson turned her attention to Harvey’s screen. ‘What’s this you’re looking at?’

‘I was following up on the phone in Nigeria, the one that was used to visit the website,’ he said.

‘But their leadership was wiped out. So let’s not waste time on dead bodies, okay?’

‘Actually, the phone’s at a hospital. Takasa might just be injured.’

‘That blast levelled everything in a thirty-yard radius. What you’re seeing are his possessions sitting in a box at the morgue.’

Harvey had to concede the point. It certainly explained why there had been no activity from the phone, but the whole thing still seemed . . . contrived. Still, there was little use in trying to argue the point with Thompson. Once she’d made her mind up, there was no changing it, no matter how strong an argument he presented.

‘I’m heading back upstairs,’ he said, locking his terminal. After stopping off at the kitchen, he returned to the interrogation room armed with liquid sustenance.

‘See anyone you recognise?’

Roberts shook his head. ‘Can’t you get a doctor to take a look at my foot?’

‘Once we’re done here,’ Harvey said.

Another twenty minutes passed, and Roberts came up empty.

‘Sorry, I really thought he was government.’

‘I hope you’re not trying to waste my time.’

Roberts protested, but Harvey ignored him and picked up the laptop. He logged into the MoD server and did a search for personnel who had left the services in the last ten years, then filtered the list using the same criteria he’d used earlier. He also only wanted to see those who had served in combat units, and that brought the numbers down even further.

He put the laptop back on the chair. ‘I want you to find the colonel and the other instructors.’

While Roberts went about the task, Harvey stepped out of the room and called Ellis.

‘Nothing on the Efram lead.’ He explained that he was now looking at the Nigerian connection. ‘The problem is, Sarah isn’t happy with me chasing that up.’

‘At the moment, I can understand that. We’ve never mounted such a co-ordinated raid, so we need to focus on that for now.
Nigeria
can wait.’

One of the guards opened the door and indicated for Harvey to come back in. He told Ellis he’d call her back and joined Roberts in the interrogation room.

‘What is it?’

‘I found one of them,’ Roberts said. Harvey picked up the
laptop
and studied the face on the screen. There was nothing particularly striking about it, no obvious features that would make the man instantly recognisable.

‘You sure?’

‘That’s Sergeant Dan,’ Roberts assured him. ‘He was our main explosives tutor.’

Harvey read the man’s service record and felt the thrill of the hunt fill him with a burst of new energy. Just as quickly, though, he slumped back in his chair. Here he had his best lead to date, but neither Ellis nor Thompson would let him pursue it.

Well . . . if
he
couldn’t spend time on it, he knew someone who could.

He opened the email app on his phone and fired off a message to Tom Gray.