Gray Vengeance (5 page)

Chapter 7

9 July 2014

‘Pardon my French, Veronica, but this is bollocks!’

Andrew Harvey was sitting in Ellis’s office, and the news that he was being replaced as section lead had come out of the blue.

‘I know, but my hands are tied. The orders came from the home secretary herself.’

‘Since when was it her job to micro-manage the security services?’ Harvey stood and thrust his hands into his pockets as he paced the room.

‘It isn’t,’ Ellis agreed, ‘but since the story broke about James Farrar absconding, she’s decided to take an active role in finding out what went wrong.’

‘What went wrong was that six months ago, one of
her
judges decided to grant him bail,’ Harvey seethed.

‘Apparently, he acted within the framework of the law. Besides, she claimed this isn’t just about Farrar. The lack of progress on DSA’s new leader was another point she raised, as well as the terror suspect who vanished while dressed as a woman.’

Harvey began counting off on his fingers. ‘Farrar couldn’t be found because we needed help from external agencies, which we weren’t allowed to contact under any circumstances. DSA’s new leader has been seen by just a handful of people in its upper council, and no council members are stupid enough to let intel about their beloved Takasa slip our way. And the terror suspect who fled was being monitored by a third-party private security firm, and they had orders to contact the Home Office, who then contacted the police, who then arrived too late to find him. It was their internal procedure that let him get away, not anything
we did.’

‘I hear you on all counts,’ Ellis said, ‘and I raised these arguments myself, but she isn’t interested in anything but results.’

She pointed to the chair, and Harvey reluctantly took a seat.

‘Andrew, you know as well as I do that this close to election time, the politicians need to be seen in a favourable light. The las
t thi
ng they need is an embarrassment that could trip them up on their way to the polls.’

Harvey was well aware of the way things played out when people were preparing to choose their new leaders: broken promises were swept under the carpet as new ones were offered to a believing public; figures were massaged—or ‘seasonally
adjusted’—
to make their time in office seem a success; and bad news was
suppressed
or played down until the hustings were over.

That didn’t make his demotion any easier to swallow.

‘So who takes over from me?’

‘The home secretary is sending someone from Six,’ Ellis said. ‘Farrar used to work for them, so she thinks having them take the lead will produce results.’

Great
. Harvey had had only a few dealings with his counterparts in MI6, and none of them had turned out well. Working under one of them wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, that was for sure.

‘I’m sure this is only temporary,’ Ellis assured him. ‘Once we have Farrar and the lowdown on Takasa, we won’t need their . . . assistance.’

‘And I regain my position?’ Harvey pressed.

The question made Ellis squirm, confirming Harvey’s
suspicions
.

‘That remains to be seen,’ she said. ‘The home secretary will want a report from me as well as from your replacement. If you shine, the slot should be yours again.’

Harvey knew there wasn’t much he could do except swallow his pride and get on with the job, which should be easier now that Farrar’s disappearance had hit the headlines. He could now bring Interpol and other foreign agencies into the search, which would speed things along.

‘When does he get here? My replacement?’

‘
Sarah
will be here this afternoon,’ Ellis said. ‘If you could have your office cleared by lunchtime, that would be great.’

Harvey nodded and rose to leave. ‘I assume we’re okay to get the ball rolling on Farrar,’ he said, as he headed for the door.

‘No, just wait until Sarah gets here and let her co-ordinate things.’

‘Sure. No problem.’

Harvey went back to his office and began clearing out his drawers. He took his time, trying to gather his emotions before having to face his colleagues. He was sure they’d sympathise, but he wanted to share the news with a level head, rather than reveal the anger that was gnawing at his insides.

Finally calm, he removed his laptop from the docking station and carried it out of the office, finding an empty desk to call home.

As he turned to address his team—former team, he reminded himself—he took small consolation from being rid of the stifling office and back in the thick of things.

Chapter 8

15 July 2014

Paul Roberts walked up to the immigration desk at Heathrow, wearing the same jeans and T-shirt he’d used on the outward journey five months earlier. This time they were pressed and clean, and the man wearing them hardly resembled the scruffy thirty-four-year-old who’d left the country in the early spring.

His hair, which had once fallen over his ears and down to the nape of his neck, was now cut in a neat side parting, and the sun had bleached it a lighter shade of brown.

‘I’ve been on a voyage of self-discovery,’ Roberts said to the immigration officer, who was clearly having a hard time matching the man in front of him with the passport he was holding.

With a grunt and a stamp, he allowed Roberts on his way. After visiting the foreign exchange booth to convert five hundred dollars into sterling, Roberts followed the signs for the Tube. Once seated and pointing towards the centre of London, he went through the counter-surveillance exercises he’d been taught. He pretended to be engrossed in a newspaper, but every time the train slowed, he looked up and scanned the carriage on the pretence of checking which station he was approaching.

None of his fellow passengers seemed interested in him, but just to be sure, he alighted at South Kensington and switched to the Circle line, which he followed to Notting Hill Gate. Here he transferred to the Central line, but by the time he got to the final switch, at Bank station, he’d seen nothing to arouse his suspicions.

Confident that he wasn’t being tailed, Roberts took the
Northern
line to Oval, where he started looking for a bed and breakfast establishment that could accommodate him for a few nights. He found a place that was off the beaten track and paid for three nights in advance.

The room was sparse, with a small TV and basic coffee and tea-making equipment. The bathroom was functional, if in need of a good clean, though it was luxurious compared to the facilities in Africa.

After unpacking his few belongings, he lay on the bed and went through a mental checklist of his tasks over the next few days. Step one was to get hold of a cheap laptop so that he could receive orders from his handler and update him on the team’s progress. He had the website address memorised, along with his username and password, and he was due to check in at one in the afternoon the following day. That gave him plenty of time to source both the laptop and a phone to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, as well as extra batteries for both. He’d need them when the power went out.

He would also need to change up more of the ten thousand dollars he’d been given before he left Kano, and he heeded their warning to spread it around different change bureaus to avoid suspicion. In addition, he’d been given a pre-paid credit card loaded with another five thousand pounds sterling for those purchases that couldn’t be made using cash.

With the following morning planned out, he headed to the high street in search of supper. The streets were lively as rush hour approached, and he saw the bustling people in a different light. Six months ago, he would have walked among the crowd without thinking about it, but his time in Nigeria had changed all that. He sensed their numbers, and it filled him with confidence that the plan would work.

‘The people think they are powerless,’
Sergeant Dan had drummed into each and every one of the recruits,
‘but they hol
d th
e key to this country. We are sixty million ruled by six hundred self-serving parasites. It’s time for the people of Britain to wake up and see that this is their land, not the playground of the rich and
privileged
.’

Roberts scanned the faces of those he passed. Mothers, fathers, every one of them someone’s child. His actions would take some of their lives, and their passing would be mourned, but one day a monument would be built to commemorate those who’d lain down their lives in the name of freedom.

Roberts was up at seven the next morning, and he showered and dressed before watching the morning news with a cup of instant coffee. At eight, he set off for a local café in search of breakfast to pass the time until the shops opened an hour later.

He found a window seat and ordered the full English with toast and a coffee, then took a seat that gave him a good view out of the window. None of the passersby seemed to take any notice of him, and there were no occupied parked cars or vans that he could see.

Which didn’t mean he wasn’t being followed.

Always assume they’re on to you
, was the warning his instructor had given him.
Stay calm, yet alert. Don’t make it look like you think you’re being followed.

It was Spy-Shit 101, the kind of things people picked up from thriller novels and action films, but with all the other training they had had to undergo, there simply hadn’t been the chance to elaborate and go into in-depth techniques. It was assumed that Roberts and his ilk were so far down the pecking order that the security services wouldn’t give a damn about them until the brown stuff hit the swirly thing, and by then it would be far too late. Still, though, basic precautions were always prudent.

Just before nine, he headed towards the Tube station and once again took a circuitous route before ending up in Hammersmith. He knew a good place in his old stomping ground where he could get the equipment he needed at a fair price, but he’d been told to avoid the old area. He’d given up the bedsit, and the lease had lapsed on the old office, so he had no real ties with the place. The concern was that he might meet old friends who would question his absence, and his instructions were to avoid any such communications. If he did happen to stumble across anyone he knew, he would simply tell them that he had found religion and was done with the anarchist shit.

By lunchtime he was back in his room, with a new Acer, a Samsung phone and a sandwich, which he ate while charging the devices and reading the instructions. It took a while to get internet access, but once online he went straight to the website for the latest updates.

Houtman had already been in and left his phone number, and Roberts added it to his contacts list before leaving his own number for the other members of the cell. He then read the first set of instructions, which told him where to find a warehouse that had some of the resources he would need in the coming days. Roberts looked it up on the internet and worked out a route, then entered
vans for sale London
into the search engine. He was inundated with results, and it took him an hour to find a suitable second-hand Ford Transit. The owner was asking a thousand, but Roberts thought he could argue him down to nine hundred pounds, and he called the number in the advert to arrange a viewing.

With a meeting set up for three, he closed down the laptop and put it under his mattress, then pocketed the phone and headed back to the Tube station. It was a twenty-minute journey to Maida Vale, and when he arrived at the address he saw the twelve-year-old white van sitting forlornly in a driveway. Roberts wasn’t sure it would even start, let alone sustain him for the next few months, but the owner came out and assured him that she was a good runner, and he was selling up because his business had folded.

It sounded credible, but Roberts wanted a second opinion, and the seller agreed to escort him to a local garage to give it the once-over.

The van sounded fine on the way there, and the mechanic spent twenty minutes checking the electrics and engine before giving it a clean bill of health. Roberts handed over fifty pounds for the check-up, and then drove the owner home to complete the paperwork.

Once everything was signed over, Roberts parted with nine hundred and fifty pounds and called an insurance company to get cover. The last thing he needed was to be pulled over for not having the right documentation, especially once his van was fully laden. A search of the vehicle at that point would jeopardise the entire mission, so he wasn’t inclined to cut corners.

He paid for the insurance with the pre-paid credit card, then drove to a petrol station to fill up before heading out of the capital in search of the warehouse. He found it on an industrial estate just outside of Oxford, and after pulling up outside, he went into the small reception area.

‘I’m looking for a three-inch flange with a diaphragm base,’ he said, reciting the pass code he’d been given. The man behind the counter picked up the phone and made a hushed call, then nodded and buzzed Roberts through a door, which led to the main storage area.

He was greeted by a small, elderly man, who introduced himself as Ted. Roberts was ushered down an aisle, the shelves on either side stacked to the metal rafters with an eclectic mix of items. Ted stopped at a pallet containing dozens of red fire extinguishers and handed one to Roberts.

‘Looks authentic,’ Roberts said. ‘How does it stand up to close inspection?’

Ted released the security pin and squirted CO
2
into the air. ‘It holds about forty percent of the normal volume; the rest is the explosive. If it’s used on a small fire, it should be fine.’

All well and good, Roberts thought, except that he’d been told that at their intended destination, fire extinguishers were routinely replaced with full ones after even partial use.

‘I’ll collect these the day before I need them,’ he said. ‘Planting them early is just inviting trouble. If they’re called into action, it could tip our hand.’

Ted agreed, and led him to another aisle, where toilets and sink units dominated the shelves.

‘Okay, now I’m confused,’ Roberts said, and Ted pulled back some of the cellophane covering a toilet bowl. He tapped it with his pen, and the sound was what Roberts expected to hear.

‘The coating is just four millimetres thick,’ Ted explained. ‘The core of each unit is packed with roughly twelve kilos of C4. All you need to do is break off the outer skin of porcelain and you’ve got enough plastic explosive to bring down half of London.’

Roberts smiled at the ingenuity. ‘Detonators?’

Ted led him to the other side of the warehouse and handed over two packs of children’s colouring pens.

‘Each pen contains one detonator, so you’ve got fifty there.’

Impressive. They would be easy to transport without raising any eyebrows.

‘I was told there would be directional EMP devices.’

‘There will be,’ Ted said. ‘They’re still being manufactured, but we should take delivery within the next couple of months. W
e test
ed the government-commissioned prototypes, but the range was ineffective for some of our targets. We’re working to increase that, and then we need to provide adequate shielding for the delivery vehicle and disguise it as some kind of household appliance.’

‘Are you sure they’ll be ready in time?’

‘Absolutely,’ Ted assured him.

He led Roberts around the building, pointing out the boxes of second-hand mobile phones and several other items the plan would require.

Roberts was impressed with the ordnance, but explained that he had a few things to sort out before he could take anything with him.

‘I should be back in a couple of days,’ he said, and gave Ted a list of items to have ready on his return.

Once in the van, Roberts drove back to his room in London and spent the rest of the day looking for more permanent
lodgings
, as well as a storage company that could provide a room to store hi
s ar
senal. He’d considered a lock-up garage but worried it wouldn’t be secure enough.

By three in the afternoon, he’d arranged viewings on two flats in the area, and drove to Elegant Storage to see what they had available.

The manager was happy to show him around, and Roberts explained that he was going into business and was looking for a short-term arrangement while he tried to grow his brand.

‘What will you be selling?’

‘Money belts,’ Roberts said. ‘They’re hand-made and
personalised
. I’ll need room for two tables and a few large boxes of materials.’

The manager guided him to a large unit that contained a dozen spacious rooms, each with a steel door and a clasp to accommodate a padlock. Roberts went inside one and looked around, glad to see that the CCTV coverage ended outside the door. The two electrical plug sockets at the far end of the room would be more than enough for his needs.

‘Perfect,’ he said.

He returned to the main office and completed the registration process before handing over enough money to cover the next three months.

‘We have a good range of padlocks,’ the manager said, but Roberts assured him that he would provide his own.

It was almost dark by the time he arrived back at the bed and breakfast, and he went out for a burger before heading back to his room for the evening, pleased at the progress he was making.

For the first time in his life, Roberts felt a sense of belonging, of real purpose. His many years as an activist had been spent dreaming of the chance to make an impact, but those hopes had never transitioned into reality. Now, though, he was part of a huge, invisible machine that was rolling through the streets of Britain unnoticed, unhindered. It was still early days, but after months of preparation, he finally felt the exhilaration of seeing his long-held plan take shape.