Tracers (7 page)

They stared at each other until they heard a whistling noise emanating from the phone. Harry put it to his ear.

‘Sorry, Sandra,’ he said softly. ‘Surprised, that’s all.’ He listened, then said, ‘It was a reliable source, yes.’ Then he added, ‘OK, will do.’ He switched off the phone. ‘No Silverman. If Jennings’ information was correct and he came in on the twenty-seventh, he must have been using another name. And LH4736 originated in Frankfurt, not Israel.’

‘He took a roundabout route.’

‘Looks like it. But why?’

There was only one answer: Silverman had been laying a false trail, making it harder for anyone to follow. It made their task even worse. How to find a man they didn’t know, using a name they didn’t have? If the name was chosen at random, he could be holding a passport in the name of Mr Magoo for all they knew.

Harry checked the folder, but there were no other family names the professor might have used. He wouldn’t be the first person in the world to have acquired a second set of papers. The reasons why a professor might do such a thing would be interesting, as would be the source of supply. But that wasn’t relevant right now. It was also a pity they didn’t have access to the acquaintance who had spotted him at the airport.

‘We’re stuffed,’ Rik concluded.

‘Not yet.’ Harry waved his phone, not ready to give up. ‘Since Nine-eleven, all CCTV recordings and digital media are sent from the cameras around the terminals to an editing service near the airport for checking, enhancing and archiving. Sandra can get us inside but we’d have to sit and check the screens ourselves. We know what Silverman looks like. If we can spot him on the screens, we’ve a chance of seeing where he went.’

Rik looked sceptical. ‘She can do that? What about security?’

‘I didn’t like to ask.’

Rik groaned, his feelings clear. The prospect of spending several hours poring over flickering images was mind-numbing – even for an IT man. But it was clear that if they could spot Silverman and track him through the terminal, they might discover what direction he had taken next. It was all they had.

Harry was already redialling Sandra’s number. He put the suggestion to her, then thanked her again and switched off. ‘She says this evening, after hours. Tomorrow we’ll bounce Param.’

‘They haven’t moved from Ferris’s flat.’ Dog was in an estate car down the street, nursing a cup of cold coffee and trying to keep Jennings happy with regular reports. Mostly the reports were identical: nothing doing.

He was accustomed to sitting for long periods waiting for things to happen. His line of work had called for him to sleep in the back of the car on many occasions. It was merely another facet of his job and took patience, stamina and a subconscious alarm system for a change in circumstances. He had learned the craft the hard way, when blending in had been a life skill not to be taken lightly. Anything less got you killed.

‘They must make a move at some stage,’ replied Jennings, with a touch of impatience. ‘Sooner or later they’ll find something. There’s no back way out they could use, is there? If they find a lead to our man, you need to be right on top of them.’

‘I’ve got it covered, don’t worry. I just saw movement at the window. They’re still inside.’ He didn’t bother telling Jennings that the older of the two men, Tate, had come out twice earlier. He’d gone straight by without even looking, once with two coffees and the second time munching a bunch of grapes. He was probably becoming stir-crazy and needed the exercise. Dog knew the feeling well.

He cut the connection without saying goodbye.

A hundred yards behind Dog’s position, in the shadow of a market trader’s van on the other side of the street, another figure sat immobile in a small, dark saloon car.

The driver, named Carlisle, watched impassively as Dog’s outline shifted. So far he had seen him drink and use a mobile. Other than that, the target seemed to be made of stone, barely moving a muscle.

He stifled a yawn, dispelling any thoughts of refreshments. He’d been briefed on Dog’s reputation and knew it would be too dangerous to move. After a chance sighting of the man by another operative, which had resulted in Carlisle being assigned to this watch, he knew it would be the end of a promising career if he lost the target through carelessness.

Out of habit, he ran a check of his surroundings. The street was busy with shoppers and a regular flow of vehicles, and nobody was taking any notice of a single figure sitting in a car. He thought he’d been made at one point, though, when a man chomping grapes had hovered nearby. For a second he was sure the man was watching him. But after a while he’d moved on and disappeared.

He settled back with a sigh. It might have helped if they’d seen fit to tell him what the hell they thought Dog was doing here.

THIRTEEN

T
he centre of operations for the enigmatically named Transit Support Services was a plain, single-storey building on the fringes of Cranford. The A4 leading out of London was a steady rumble of late evening traffic a couple of hundred yards away, and a faint tang of aviation fuel mixed with car fumes sat in the air like a thin soup, a reminder of the proximity of the capital’s busy airport.

An untidy car park at the front of the building added to its air of near invisibility, as did the plain front door and the heavily silvered windows throwing back a reflection of the road and surrounding scenery. Only the powerful security lights that gave the area a day-like clarity betrayed the fact that this building was not simply a backwater business selling office stationery.

Rik parked his Audi next to a battered Nissan and switched off the engine. ‘We’re not going to run into a bunch of armed jumpsuits, are we? I thought this would be all razor wire and cameras since Nine-eleven.’

Harry dropped the latest copy of the
Telegraph
to the floor. ‘Sandra says not. To the locals, it’s an archive library and processing unit. They don’t advertise what they do, so they don’t need heavy security.’ He levered himself out of his seat with a sarcastic grin. ‘Just stick with me, laddie – I’ll look out for big hairy men with Hecklers and flak jackets.’

He approached the door and thumbed a button on an intercom unit. A woman’s voice invited them to enter and the door clicked open. Under the lens of a camera they entered a small, musty lobby furnished with two stiff chairs against one wall, a dying pot plant and a battered steel-framed desk holding a single telephone. There was no receptionist, but a small sign asked visitors to wait to be dealt with.

A door opened to one side and a woman in a white coat appeared. She was in her thirties, slim, with her hair scraped back and held by a clip. It gave her the austere look of a headmistress.

‘You must be Tate and Ferris,’ she said in a soft Scottish burr. ‘Sandra Platt in Immigration said you needed help with some images.’ She produced two visitor passes from her coat pocket. ‘My name’s Karen. Keep these clipped to your jackets at all times while you’re here and surrender them before you leave. Otherwise I’ll have to send the security guard to shoot you dead.’ She gave a dry smile that softened her features. ‘Not kidding.’

‘You don’t need to see any ID?’ Rik smiled winningly at her but she appeared not to notice.

‘No need. Sandra emailed me a very accurate description of Harry. As far as I can tell you aren’t making him bring you here at gunpoint.’ She gestured up at the camera. ‘Anyway, we have you on tape for all eternity. You want to come this way?’ She turned and stopped at the door she had come through, briefly flapping the lapel of her white coat at a small black box on the wall. ‘RFID scanner,’ she explained, and turned the lapel over to show them a small plastic stud on the inside. ‘Anyone wearing one of these gets through the door, and is tracked and logged.’

‘Tracked?’ asked Harry.

‘Yes. We can’t even go to the loo without being monitored. Welcome to the free world.’

They were in a narrow corridor running right through to the rear of the building, with doors every few feet. It was standard government issue, with a dry, overheated smell and drab paintwork, the atmosphere silent and devoid of all signs of industry. Rik and Harry exchanged raised eyebrows and followed their guide.

‘There’s no one else on duty at the moment,’ Karen explained, ‘apart from me and Andy, the security guard. He’s on a fag break out back, but don’t tell anyone. The work here is strictly process-led, and nobody volunteers to spend longer here than they can manage. Besides, we’re pretty much on top of things – at least until we get demands for some visual evidence from Immigration, the Met or one of the security departments. Then it’s all hands to the pump. I gather you’re none of the above, though.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘In a loose kind of way,’ Harry supplied vaguely.

Karen stopped at another door and waved her lapel near the black box. ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t asking. I trust Sandra not to send me a couple of potential terrorists. She’s very good like that. Anyway, what you see here wouldn’t help much if you were up to no good, believe me.’

‘Unless we wanted to erase something,’ suggested Rik.

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘Why? Is that a giant magnet in your pocket?’ She turned and stepped inside, leaving Rik flushed and confused.

The room was suffused with a dull light from discreet overhead panels, and smaller than they had expected. Four desks were crammed in the centre, each one bearing a large monitor and keyboard. The walls were lined with racks, one holding a bewildering array of DVD and CD machines, with the others holding editing equipment and printers, files, folders and tapes. A twisted spaghetti of wires bridged by rubber ramps curled across the floor between the various racks, and the immediate impression was of chaos threatening to spill over into a jungle. Yet the atmosphere was oddly calm, aided by rows of flickering display lights and a soothing electronic hum from an air-conditioning unit in one corner.

‘Cool,’ said Rik, but his face suggested he wasn’t that impressed. Harry had half expected him to be like a kid in a toy shop, with all manner of equipment to play with.

‘It’s a mess, I know,’ Karen said defensively. ‘But we can’t dig into the fabric, so we have to live with wires everywhere until somebody stumps up a decent budget for a purpose-built unit.’ She nodded at a couple of monitors and a stack of boxes piled on a side table. ‘Those are a mix of discs and hard drives from Terminal Two. Some of the areas still have old technology, but most have gone over to wireless.’ She shrugged. ‘It takes time and money, so they’re using a variety of systems depending on priorities.’ She pulled a face. ‘Pretty soon, they won’t need us any more; they’ll be able to feed and retrieve whatever they need. We’re setting up archives for retrieval and image management, but we’re the last of the steam age. I still think of this stuff as tape, but it isn’t.’

‘What’s the coverage of these cameras?’ asked Harry. He was wondering how they were going to get the information before anyone turned up and blew the whistle.

‘The entry points from airside, the various lounges and walkways, the routes down to the Arrivals door, where the meeters and greeters stand, and the concourse to the main exits. They’re all different, but if you tell me what you’re looking for, I’ll call up what I need. You’re after a passenger arriving off a flight, right?’

‘Yes. What about stairways and lifts?’

‘Stairways, lifts, side corridors and all links to the other terminals are covered. I’ve selected the recordings which run from the confirmed landing time of LH4736, to an hour after the last passengers should have come through.’ She went on, ‘Some passengers get taken short as soon as they land and head for the toilets. It’s not unknown for some to take their time coming out. If your man came through, you’ll see him sooner or later.’

Rik said, ‘There’s no way he could have avoided the cameras?’

‘Not unless he knew the location of every unit or changed his appearance between cameras.’

‘Could he have slipped out the back way?’

Karen gave him a doubtful look, but didn’t automatically dismiss the idea. ‘If he did,’ she said carefully, ‘he had inside help.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘In a place that size, anything’s possible, I suppose. Anyway, after September the eleventh, they resited a lot of the camera positions in the terminals and ran security exercises to double-check the coverage. They also increased the optical zooms and scope for clarity and control. So far nobody has managed to bypass them.’

She went over to the nearest machine and sat down, indicating that they should drag up two chairs and join her. She tapped a few keys and hit a button. Seconds later, an image flickered on to the monitor. It showed an interior shot of a terminal building, with a jumble of people standing around, apparently waiting.

‘LH4736 landed at 13.15 hours,’ Karen explained. ‘This is the Arrivals exit. I’ve prepared what we have in chronological order. It’s probably the best place to start because eventually everyone funnels through this door. Unless your man did have help, which God forbid, he’d have to pass this point.’ She looked to see if they understood, and they both nodded. ‘OK, from here, he could go anywhere in this or the other terminals. If you spot him, just shout, then we’ll switch to other cameras to follow his progress. If we don’t spot him, we’ll go back and check everywhere up to the Arrivals exit.’

The screen showed a trickle of arriving passengers coming into view through a gap in the wall. Some carried hand luggage, while others were struggling with trolleys or bags on wheels. It was a commonplace scene yet, from this perspective, oddly compelling. Like ants.

‘Christ,’ Rik breathed. ‘It’s like watching
Big Brother
.’

Karen chuckled. ‘It’s a bit more interesting than that.’

The minutes passed, the arrivals growing and receding tide-like as each planeload moved through the Arrivals chain. It would have helped if they could have identified which flight they were seeing, but there was no way the screen could pick out such details, nor if some of the figures passing through the exit had arrived on a much earlier flight and had been delayed along the way.