Storm Crow

Storm Crow

A Harrison & Swann Thriller

Jeff Gulvin

I’d like to say a special thanks to my agent and friend, Ben Camardi, whose support, consistency, and advice has allowed my career to keep rolling when it looked like the roads were closed.

Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

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27

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29

Acknowledgments

Glossary

A Biography of Jeff Gulvin

For Humphrey Price

‘… Militia members believe that the US government is part of a conspiracy to create a new world order … existing boundaries will be dissolved and the world will be ruled by the United Nations. Last year some of these militants continued to conduct paramilitary training and stockpile weapons.’

‘Terrorism in the United States’

Terrorist Research and Analytical Center,

National Security Division,

Federal Bureau of Investigation

PROLOGUE

August 1996

THE IRISHMAN SAT ON the balcony of the Chart House restaurant overlooking the Potomac River. If he thought about it, he could hear the traffic on Woodrow Wilson Bridge. A wasp hovered over his beer glass and for a moment he watched it, then flicked it away with lazy fingers, FTQ tattooed on his knuckles. He looked briefly at his watch as the Cherry Blossom steamer bumped against the jetty. It was white with yellow-piped trim, a riverboat whose massive sun-coloured paddle gleamed in the brilliance of a sky with no cloud. He checked his watch again. One-fifteen. Lifting the glass he drank, the beer crisp and dry at the back of his throat.

Boats shifted with the mud-coloured water that ebbed from the wake of another, passing down the river. The Irishman watched two girls in shorts and T-shirts sitting at the table along from him. He could smell their cigarette smoke and he wrinkled his nose in disgust. He tapped his fingernails on the table top and glanced at the mobile telephone next to the stem of his glass.

Two hours previously he had been sitting in the White Lion bar. It was cramped, slightly run-down, not the sort of place he would normally go. Billy the barman played rugby, read rugby reports from a stool and flexed his muscles. The Irishman sat upstairs on his own, reading the Washington Post and listening to the hubbub of students downstairs, and to Billy being accosted by the Coors sales girl with her three kids and no husband. She hung on his arm as he poured glasses of Bud or MGD or Newcastle Brown Ale for the regulars. The Irishman watched Kuhlmann below him. Kuhlmann had no idea he was there.

An hour before that he was in Dean and Deluca’s, sitting at a marble-topped table, dipping a bagel into cappuccino, while two men from the FBI sat deep in conversation only a table away. The Hoover building was right around the corner and mini debriefs or private conversations quite often took place in here. The deli was downstairs, below street level. It had a wide chequer-board floor, with mock marble tables and a huge metal counter, and pipes like the tentacles of some metallic monster disappearing into the wall. The Irishman liked to sit there and watch the Feds talking to themselves. He had phoned Kuhlmann from the call box on Pennsylvania Avenue, and that brought a smile to his face.

He sipped more beer and watched the boats lifting again with the swell. Humid August sunshine; he could feel it begin to burn his face. Lifting a booted foot to the vacant chair in front of him, he gazed down river towards the city. He could see the Observatory and the Boiling Air Base from this vantage point. A woman with heavy make-up walked past him. She dropped a half-finished cigarette on to the deck where it slipped between two slats and stuck, the smoke rising to irritate him yet again. He watched her go, oblivious to the hazard she left in her wake. Gold-coloured hair, brushed under her cheeks, white T-shirt over white pants overfilled with sagging, loose buttocks. Leaning forward, he poured beer over the cigarette and in the same moment looked towards the flagpole. Kuhlmann walked up from King Street.

Bruno Kuhlmann had been sitting on the grassy square within the confines of the law school, talking to some girls he used to know, when the call came in on his cellphone. He rolled on to his stomach, facing away from them as he answered. ‘Yeah?’

‘Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Alexandria. D’ye know it?’

‘Of course.’

‘There’s a flagpole just in front of it. In fact, there’s two. Stand underneath the one flying the Stars and Stripes at exactly two-fifteen this afternoon. I’ll meet you there.’

The phone went dead before he had a chance to say anything else. He switched it off and looked back at the girls. ‘You guys wanna beer?’

They had gone to the White Lion where Billy wore T-shirts and mimicked Patrick Swayze, not in the way he spoke but the way he looked, the way he stood. Kuhlmann used to listen to him go on about rugby, the latest imported sport. Contact, more contact than football. He nodded and smiled; said nothing and thought what a sad fuck he was.

He had left the girls in the bar and bought a five-dollar pass for the Metro at Foggy Bottom Station. From there he went down the Blue line and got off at Braddock Road. He could have gone on to King and walked straight down, but today was D-Day and he wanted to be especially careful; so he had bisected the streets from Braddock to Waterfront Park. August Sunday and bikers in leather cruised King Street. Wannabe good old boys with gleaming fifteen-thousand-dollar motorcycles, piss-pot helmets and drooping moustaches. Kuhlmann was clean-shaven, his hair longer now and blond, but that was for a reason. He silently mocked the Harley riders, leather-clad on a Sunday, and lawyers and doctors come Monday.

He came out at King and Royal and looked at his watch. One-twenty. That gave him time enough. He knew the area but he had not been here in a while and he needed to check his exit routes, just in case he needed them.

There were two entrances to the waterfront from King, one through the shopping mall, one slightly nearer the river in front of the Dominion. The guy with the water glasses was there, quite a crowd around him as he dipped his fingers and played tunes on the rims. They were not bad: the guy had talent, you had to say that, more than most of the so-called entertainers who hung out here on a Sunday. From where he stood on King Street he could see the flagpole and the girl who rode the unicycle, entertaining kids. The way out was clear this end. He checked the mall and figured he’d spot anyone who shouldn’t have been there. The other side of the Dominion was water, so no exit there. That only left the far end of the park itself, beyond the Chart House restaurant.

From the Chart House balcony, the Irishman sipped a fresh glass of beer and watched Kuhlmann carefully quarter the area. Ex-army, Explosives Ordnance Disposal. He must have done some covert exercises if none of the real thing—by the time EOD got involved, covert wasn’t what was wanted.

Kuhlmann marked out the territory, though, and the Irishman silently acknowledged the action. He sat and watched. With long black hair and a red bandana wrapped about his throat like a gypsy, the Irishman wore a leather waistcoat over his T-shirt, fading Levis and cowboy boots. Half a beard and black-lensed Ray-Bans. Kuhlmann walked the length of the boardwalk and disappeared round the other side of the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, he came back from the mall and stopped under the flagpole. From the breast pocket of his jacket he took cigarettes and cupped his hand to the breeze as he lit one. The Irishman looked at his watch. Not time yet. As if on cue Kuhlmann looked in both directions then sauntered up the steps of the restaurant, walking past him and on into the bar. He reappeared with a bottle of Miller in his hand and leaned on the rail not ten paces from the Irishman’s table. The Irishman slipped the phone into his pocket and stared up at the sky.

He could smell Kuhlmann’s cigarette. Rob Whiteley. That’s what Kuhlmann called himself when he was talking, quite a bit of talk now since all this began. Today would be the day when talking ceased. Kuhlmann looked at his watch, drew stiffly on his cigarette and let go smoke, most of which blew across the Irishman’s table. Not once did Kuhlmann look at him.

At precisely fifteen minutes after two, Kuhlmann finished his beer and walked back to the flagpole. The Irishman took the cloned cellphone from his pocket and dialled. He spoke without looking round.

‘You’re on time.’

‘Of course.’

‘Murphy’s bar on King Street. Ten minutes from now. Order two pints of Guinness and make sure he pours it slow. Guinness takes time to pour. Tell him not to hurl it in like water.’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘Sit at the back of the bar, to the side of the cigarette machine. I’ll make myself known to you.’

He switched off the phone and sat back in the chair. The wind had got up and the river slopped against the jetty. The Cherry Blossom moved on her ropes. He allowed two minutes, then rose and looked round. Kuhlmann was gone. He stepped down to the jetty and wandered round the back of the restaurant. A couple arm in arm were having their photograph taken in front of the riverboat. He smiled and nodded and wandered to the steamer, where he inspected the shine on her paintwork. Taking the cellphone from his pocket, he dropped it into the water. He stood a moment longer, pushed a hand through his hair, then walked up past the Arts Center.

Murphy’s bar was dimly lit, a lot of people still out to lunch. Most of the tables were taken, but Kuhlmann had secured the correct one just to the side of the cigarette machine. He sat facing him, with a view over the whole room, two tall glasses of blackening Guinness before him. The Irishman moved the length of the bar where every stool was taken, people eating and drinking. He caught snatches of English accents from two men counting coins.

Kuhlmann lifted his eyebrows as the Irishman sat down. ‘You were at the Chart House.’

The Irishman sat across from him and looked at the Guinness. He rested both palms flat on the table, head half-cocked like a dog. The beer still had not settled. ‘Did ye do like I asked?’

‘Slow, right?’

‘It doesn’t look slow.’

Kuhlmann grinned then. ‘Not like in Dublin, eh?’

The Irishman stared at him through the black of his glasses. ‘Never been to Dublin.’

‘Belfast then.’ Kuhlmann had that smug look on his face. ‘I had a feeling we’d be talking Irish.’

The Irishman leaned closer to him. ‘How do you know we are?’

Kuhlmann stared at his fingers, the tattooed letters in blue. ‘Fuck the Queen,’ he said.

‘Ah, but whose queen?’

Kuhlmann lifted his eyebrows. ‘Anyway, I was told American.’

‘Were you now?’

Kuhlmann sipped the Guinness and made a face. ‘I hate this stuff.’ He pushed the glass away and took out his cigarettes. He had half taken one out when the Irishman suddenly leaned over and closed his hand over the pack.

‘Don’t smoke,’ he said. ‘I really don’t like it, and people are eating in here.’

Kuhlmann stared at him for a moment, then at the crushed pack of Marlboro Lights. His first instinct was to hit him, but the Irishman sat there with his elbows on the table and stared at him through sunglasses. Kuhlmann could not see his eyes.

‘OK, let’s cut to the chase,’ he said. ‘My man wants to know—do we have a deal?’

‘No.’

Kuhlmann narrowed his eyes. ‘What d’you mean—no?’

‘Exactly what I say. We were paid more than that in Mexico, and that was just a few mortars.’

‘Look,’ Kuhlmann said. ‘I don’t make the prices.’

‘Then maybe someone else should be sitting here.’ The Irishman steepled fingers in front of his face. ‘Either way, the price isn’t good enough.’

Kuhlmann wiped froth from his lip and leaned his elbows on the table. ‘Listen, Mr Irish or whatever your name is, it’s a fair price. If you don’t want it …’

‘You’ll get somebody else?’ The Irishman leaned towards him suddenly, and the chill in his voice made the hairs rise on Kuhlmann’s neck. ‘I don’t think so. The price is the ten million dollars stated. No negotiation. We have plenty of customers and there’s no urgency about our business.’ He paused then and looked at him. ‘But I gather there is for you. It’s been forty years already.’

Kuhlmann ran his tongue round the line of his mouth. ‘How’m I gonna justify ten million dollars to him?’

The Irishman creased his lips. ‘I’ll tell you, Bruno. Shall I?’

Kuhlmann stiffened. ‘My name’s Rob.’

‘No it’s not. You like people to think it is, but your real name is Bruno. Last name—Kuhlmann. Your father’s name was Jens and your mother’s Heike. You were born in 1973. August. Your birthday was last Tuesday. Happy birthday, Bruno. You graduated in Dayton, Ohio, and after college you joined the US Army. Explosives Ordnance Disposal. Your last posting was at the Navy EOD school at Indian Head, just down the river there. You worked as an instructor under Sergeant Robert G. Gittings. You got a scholarship to George Washington University to study electronics to Master’s level and you graduated last year. No problem—with your EOD background.’ He sat back and sipped beer. ‘You moved back to Ohio, but got bored, so ye drifted a wee bit. Michigan, Illinois and then Buffalo, Wyoming. You met our mutual friend at a gun show in Twin Falls, Idaho. You like survivalist magazines and you surf the Internet web sites. Alt. Constitutionalist and 2nd Amendment mostly. You once submitted an open letter entitled America Awake.’

Kuhlmann was staring wide-eyed at him. ‘Your girlfriend’s name is Susan,’ the Irishman went on, ‘but she’s just Wednesdays and Fridays. You sleep with Jackie on Saturdays and you’ve got your eye on a wee lassie called Rosanne whenever you come over here. You had a drink with her and a friend of hers—Stacey her name is—today, at the White Lion bar. Diana was there. I don’t know if you know Diana, she’s the Coors sales girl who hangs around wi’ Billy.’ He grinned then and rubbed at his tattooed knuckles. ‘But that’s small fry, isn’t it. Shall I tell you what else we know?’

Kuhlmann smarted then, a faint flicker in his eyes.

‘You’re the John Doe from Atlanta.’

Kuhlmann’s face was cold. He did not say anything. The Irishman drained the rest of his Guinness and pulled Kuhlmann’s unwanted glass towards him. ‘We know everything there is to know about your man. We know what companies he runs, which ones are dummy and how he uses banks to front him with discretionary trust funds. We know about his interests in the steel industry, and in gold. We know what he does in Paraguay. We know about the hotels in Europe and the mills in Finland. We even know about the licensing problems he’s been having with the Finnish government. You see, they like to control their paper industry. It’s about all they’ve got up there.’ Again he sipped beer. ‘Still, shouldn’t cause him too much of a problem, not as if it’s a big part of the empire. Last count, Bruno, your man there was worth five billion dollars.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘Now, I think you’ll agree we’re worth the ten million.’

‘I thought it was a him, not a we.’

‘Him, them, us, her. Who knows, Bruno? Who indeed knows. But I think you understand what I’m saying.’ He smiled again and stood up. ‘You’ve got twenty-four hours to think about it. Twenty-four hours to talk to your man. Put the answer in the usual place and somebody’ll collect it.’ He glanced about the room, then he took a long, slim envelope from inside his waistcoat and dropped it in front of Kuhlmann. ‘Give that to your man as a keepsake.’

After he had gone Kuhlmann wiped sweat from his palms on his jeans. He took a cigarette from the crushed pack and noticed that his hand shook as he lit it. He glanced at the envelope, then picked it up. It was light, as if there was nothing inside, but he could feel something. He slid his finger the length of the flap, peered inside and his palms were moist once again. A single black crow’s feather.

The Irishman walked the length of King Street, then turned off for the Seaport bar. He went inside with his hands in his pockets. The familiar flagstone floor and dimly lit bar area: he could smell the coffee from the back of the room. The barman nodded to him.

‘Gimme an MGD, buddy. Will you? No glass. I’ll be right back.’

‘You got it.’

The Irishman made his way out to the restaurant area and went into the men’s room. He unzipped and urinated, the smile spreading over his face. When he was finished, he washed his hands with soap from the dispenser. Blue ink ran from his fingers. When he dried them, the knuckles were clean.

1

June 1997

JACK SWANN STOOD ON the cliff and paid out the rope, the hardware clanking on his harness as the breeze came up off the sea. Caroline fought with the travelling rug while her husband, George Webb, struggled with the buckle of his sit harness. Swann glanced over his shoulder at the shingle-strewn beach two hundred feet below him. For a moment the wind seemed to rise and he could taste it cold on his breath. But out of the wind, the sun was hot. Earlier, the week had been iffy, but this weekend was lovely. Caroline got the rug settled and sat down to squeeze Bergasol on her arms. She looked up at Swann, shading her eyes from the sun. He nodded to the rug. ‘You sure you want to put that there? We’re climbing further down.’

She looked at him again, then the rug, then stared further along the cliff path where it inclined in a steep, sweeping arc. ‘It’s too windy up there, Jack. I’ll catch more sun where I am. Yell when you get to the top and I’ll open the wine.’

Webb looked at Swann. ‘We’re doing Kinky Boots, right?’

Swann shook his head. ‘Pink Void.’ He pointed. ‘Kinky Boots is the other side of that outcrop.’ The abseil rope had hit the beach. He let it go and pointed to a jagged gathering of rocks that broke open the path of the sea.

Webb fastened his harness and sat down to pull on rock boots. He moaned about the size, then Swann reminded him that all good climbers wear their boots two sizes or more too small.

‘Whoever said I was a good climber?’

‘Right. You just wanted to look good in the shop.’

Webb wagged a finger at him. ‘There you go again, Flash. Judging everyone by your own piss-poor standards.’

Swann shook his head, feeding the abseil rope through the figure 8 on his harness.

‘We climbing on 11 or two 9s?’ Webb asked.

Swann indicated the twin coils of rope over his shoulder. ‘Steep pitch, Webby. Use the 9s, eh?’

‘Whatever. You got the right sticht plate?’

Swann patted his harness, winked at Caroline and stepped backwards to the edge of the cliff. He paused, not looking down, just allowing his weight to come to rest against the figure 8 at his middle. He stood upright, pivoting on the balls of his feet, crammed and buckled into the Asolos. He looked beyond Caroline, beyond George Webb, up the empty clifftop to the sky and beyond that. For a moment he closed his eyes. He could feel Webb watching him, sweat moved against his skin, then he looked between his feet and eased himself backwards.

At the bottom, he waited for Webb and checked the guidebook. When Webb hit the ground, they began to make their way along the short stretch of beach to the foot of the route. The sea broke against the shingle. Swann could smell salt, the damp rancid seaweed that choked the edge of the surf. On the clifftop, Caroline looked down at them and waved.

Swann knew what was going through her mind, what was going through Webb’s. He unwound the two 9mm ropes from his shoulder and laid them out carefully. Webb moved up to him, his face dusted by sea spray. Above them, a grey-winged herring gull flew across the path of the sun and cried to them on the wind. Swann felt the need for a cigarette. He had some in his chalk bag and took one out, fighting with the wind to light it.

‘Thought you were knocking that on the head,’ Webb said to him.

‘Pia, Webby. Smokes like a bloody chimney.’

Webb scratched his head and looked for a suitable rock to mount a belay. ‘That’ll do,’ he muttered, then wrapped an eight-foot sling round it and pulled it tight, before clipping in a karabiner. ‘Don’t want to go yo-yo when you peel off.’

Swann looked up at him. ‘I’m leading, then.’

‘First pitch, Jack.’

‘First pitch, my arse.’

Webb made a face. ‘Hard Very Severe, Jack. You want to know how long it’s been since I led HVS?’

‘You told me you could lead Extreme.’

‘I used to be able to dance like a Cossack too, but I’m older now.’ Webb made an open-handed gesture.

‘And fatter, eh.’

‘Shit happens, Jack.’

Swann bent to one knee, resting the length of his arm over his thigh. He looked up at the 320-foot climb that awaited him and dropped his cigarette in the shingle.

Webb stepped back and looked up. Swann tied both ropes to his harness and checked his sling full of runners. He had all the Rocks and three sizes of Friends. He even had a couple of ancient Clogs and Hexentrics. Some of the line was a bit worn now, but the knots were still good. He lowered the sling and felt the weight pull against his middle.

He looked briefly out to sea. The gull called again, then dived for something in the surf. He did not see it surface, but faced the cliff, which stretched flat and all but vertical above him, grey and brown, looking damp where the sun set the smooth rock gleaming. He dipped each hand in turn in his chalk bag and rubbed them together, then he moved up to the rock.

‘First pitch is the hardest.’ He looked above his head and to the right. ‘Need to make the groove up there.’

Webb was looking at the guidebook. ‘Says there’s a peg to tie off on.’

‘Hundred and twenty feet. See you in a bit.’ Swann dusted his hands and felt out the first holds, a thin crack that arced upwards to the main groove sixty feet above his head. ‘Climbing,’ he muttered and started.

He moved upwards slowly, feeling out the crack, testing each hold with his fingers before placing any weight on them. There were no footholds to speak of, just pressure points where the slick rubber of friction boots would hold you. It was not vertical, but it was high and exposed, with the wind sending sea spray scuttling across the flatness of the rock for the first fifty feet or so. The twin 9mm ropes dragged at him and he put his first piece of protection in at fifteen feet, a small wire runner, clipping both ropes to it through the karabiner. Below him, he could hear Webb whistling as he paid out the line.

Swann’s movements were awkward; the smoothness with which his peers would have associated him in the past was gone. Every time he did this he tortured himself in some small way. It should be a bit better now, but it wasn’t. He knew that tonight he would dream. At least he would see Pia tomorrow.

He got through the first sixty feet, which were without doubt the hardest, and rested at the groove. He placed a runner and Webb took in the slack. Swann allowed himself a moment or two to catch his breath and adjust the weight of the ropes before going on. At eighty feet it grew steep again and he placed runners at shorter intervals. The sea stretched to his left, calm beyond the initial boil of the surf where restless waves broke against one another. He could see a ship all but stationary along the line of the horizon. He climbed on, gaining in confidence, more sure of the moves. The rock face was warm and firm and polished, the crack thin, and he used his feet for poise and balance while feeding his hands up and over one another. He could see the peg for the belay and the end of the first pitch about twenty feet above his head. The next hold was slim and he reached beyond it, pivoting round on one foot for extra pressure.

His foot slipped and he fell. Ten feet, fifteen, zipping off the rock. The runner popped and he careered fifteen feet more. At the bottom of the route, George Webb hauled the ropes hard across the sticht plate and groaned as he was lifted off his feet. The belay held and Swann dangled above him like a spider.

Webb got his feet firmly on rock again and saw Swann scrabbling for handholds. The second runner had held. He got himself upright and cursed, heart thumping against his ribs, guts aching where the harness had bitten his flesh.

‘What you trying to do, Flash, give me a heart attack?’ Webb shouted up to him.

Swann said nothing, moisture gathered above his eyes and he was not sure of his voice. He looked down at the rocks and the beach and Webb seventy feet below him, where the surf gained ground on the shingle. He let go a long stiff breath, closed his eyes and for a moment he was back there with the cloud all about him, damp over the cold that gnawed through every ounce of clothing until it chafed his bones. He opened his eyes, twisted his face to the sun and breathed. The gull called again from above him.

‘You’ll have to climb it all over again now.’

He looked down at Webb, looked in his eyes and even from that height he knew. Webb cupped a hand to his mouth. ‘Go on, kidder. You can get there.’

Swann dipped in his chalk bag once more, looked up and wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘You want to get back on the wall, Flash, only my breakfast is coming up?’

‘Climbing,’ Swann said, and started.

At 120 feet, he tied off and relaxed. Webb swarmed up after him and clipped into the belay. He laid a hand on Swann’s shoulder.

‘If you’re going to peel off—tell me, eh, so I can prepare myself.’ He patted his middle. ‘Not as slim as I was.’

Swann wiped his hands on his thighs and saw that they were shaking.

‘I’ll take the second pitch, yeah?’ Webb said.

Swann shook his head. ‘No. I’ll do it.’

At the top, he wound the ropes about his neck and sat down. Webb was waving across the clifftop to his wife. Swann stared out at the ocean. One man chugged towards the horizon in an open boat, the wake washing out from his inboard in a fan of white ripples. Gulls chased him, calling to one another, their cries as part of the wind. Swann looked at his feet, then wiped the sweat from his palms.

Caroline poured white wine, chill from the cooler, into long-stemmed glasses and handed one to each of them. She had food laid out on a red checked cloth from the hamper.

‘God, you’re so civilized, Caroline.’ Swann sipped the wine and it cooled the burning at the back of his throat.

‘Good climb?’ she said.

He looked at the soles of his feet, crossed underneath him. ‘Peeled off.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yeah. Just below the first belay, hundred feet or so.’

‘I held him.’ Webb drank wine and grinned. ‘Overstretching himself as usual.’

‘You hurt yourself?’ Caroline asked him.

Swann shook his head.

He lay back then, resting his glass on a rock, and closed his eyes to the sun. It was warm across the skin of his face and he felt himself relaxing. Caroline offered him food, but he shook his head and sat up. ‘In a minute, maybe.’

Webb’s pager went off and he cursed. ‘You got your phone, Jack?’

Swann took it from his rucksack and tossed it over. ‘Tell them it’s Saturday and we’re in North Devon. They’ll have to send someone else.’

Webb walked a little way from them and dialled. Caroline laid a hand on Swann’s arm.

‘You OK really, Jack?’

He let go a breath. ‘Runner popped out. Couldn’t have set it properly. Stupid.’ He shook his head.

‘How far did you fall?’

‘Thirty feet or so. Managed to get my feet round, kept me off the wall.’

She looked at him and her eyes were soft with pain.

‘I’m OK,’ he said.

Webb came back, tossed the phone into Swann’s lap and sat down. ‘Tania Briggs,’ he said. ‘Guv’nors are having a meeting with Special Branch and A4 surveillance in the morning, they’re going to decide what to do about the target.’

‘Hit him?’

‘Tania reckons yeah. Probably Tuesday morning. We’ve got to be in by 0700 on Monday. If the old man decides to scoop him up, SO19’ll do their recce then.’

Swann nodded and took a chicken leg from Caroline. ‘They’ll go for it,’ he said.

‘Rude not to.’

‘So you two’ll be busy next week, then.’

Webb patted his wife on the arm. ‘Looks that way, love.’ He smiled and stroked his moustache. ‘Some climbing to do before then, though.’ He looked at Swann. ‘Kinky Boots next. I do like kinky boots.’

April 1997

The Northwest Airlines shuttle from Washington D.C. to Detroit reached twenty-nine thousand feet. Two men sat drinking cocktails in the business-class section at the front of the plane. Both of them wore suits and carried leather briefcases. One of them had his lap-top set out on the tray table of the seatback in front of him, and scanned the pages of a report. Next to him, the other yawned and stood up.

‘Going to the john. Hold my drink, will you?’ He handed his glass across while he eased himself out of the seat, then made his way up the aisle and through the curtain. Economy class was less than half full. He glanced at his watch, twenty minutes before they landed. He made a swift calculation, then he moved back along the line of seats to a vacant one close to the rear section of the plane. Sitting down, he took his wallet from his jacket pocket and an AT&T phone card from the wallet, then he picked up the phone housed in the back of the seat.

He dialled a London number, and a sleep-filled voice answered.

‘Wake up. It’s morning,’ he said.

‘Not yet it isn’t.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘It’s all arranged, cars and drivers. Just like you told me.’

‘Good.’ He was watching the flight attendant serve a fresh drink to a woman seated further down the plane. ‘When it’s done, call me on the number we agreed.’ He clipped the phone back in the housing and stood up.

Three-thirty in the morning and the dark-skinned man drove the old Ford Cortina in from the East End. It did not run very well, the gears grinding, but it did not have to get him far. On the seat beside him was a home-made cigar box, and on the back seat a travelling rug. He drove with care, not wishing to draw attention to himself. He passed a couple of police cars and ignored them. The second car was following, he could see it in his rear-view mirror, one car between them. He moved on towards the West End, easing the wheel through his fingers; face set, eyes the colour of coal.

Two cars back, the driver of the Vectra tapped his fingers against the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio. He smiled to himself as he saw the Cortina turn up into Soho and he indicated right. Easy money, he thought, blue eyes looking back at him from the rear-view mirror, really easy money.

Billy Williams was washing down the surface of the American Diner on the junction of Moor and Old Compton Street in Soho. Quiet now, busy till about three-thirty, but tailing off after that. Dark outside, much of the neon burning only dimly. Out in the back, the two remaining waitresses were smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. The door opened and Jack the Hat stood there looking hopeful. You could set your watch by him, this old man who lived over one of the video shops on the edge of Chinatown. The first time Billy had seen him, he thought he was a well-dressed if ageing businessman, in a blue three-piece suit and a grey fedora hat. But on closer examination, the suit was rumpled and dusty and his twill checked shirt frayed at the collar and cuffs. He carried a cane and tap-danced down Shaftesbury Avenue. His voice was weak and his eyes the liquid blue of his age. His neck hung in folds and when he took off his hat, his hair was white and sparse across the broken veins of his scalp.

Billy smiled at him and poured a mug of hot, frothy coffee. Jack made his way to the metal counter and pressed his thin frame on to a stool.

‘There you go.’ Billy slid the coffee across to him. ‘No sleep again?’

‘Bad dreams, son.’

‘Again?’ Billy leaned with his arms across the counter. Jack sipped noisily at the coffee. Outside, one of the girls from the strip club screeched at her boyfriend, who revved the engine of his car in response. Billy and Jack watched, as she belted the side door with her handbag before finally tottering away on heels that ended in needle points.

‘Tell me something, Jack,’ Billy said, ‘what d’you do before you go to bed?’

Jack hunched his shoulders.

‘What d’you eat?’

‘Chocolate. I always have a bar before I go to bed. My treat for the day.’ He half closed his eyes, holding the coffee cup with both hands, and started humming to himself.

Gone, Billy thought. Never took him very long. When he landed again, he would tell him about the chocolate. He glanced behind him to the kitchen where the girls were still gassing. He shook his head, collected a cloth from the counter and began polishing the tables.

A car pulled up outside. Billy glanced at it—Mark II Cortina, looked in quite good condition. A figure in shadow stepped out from the driver’s side, away from the pavement, back to the window. Almost immediately a second car pulled up, much newer—a Vectra. Billy watched as the first man climbed into the passenger seat and the car sped off up the road. He glimpsed the final three letters of the number plate. RAH. Behind him, Jack’s singing had grown louder and the girls were beginning to complain.

Billy went back to the counter and tapped Jack on the shoulder. ‘You’ve got to be quiet, mate. Or I’ll have to chuck you out.’

Jack stared at him, blinking a little sheepishly. ‘Can I have some more coffee?’ he said.

Billy poured it for him, but all the time he was looking at the car outside. He glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. Four-twenty. Funny time to park a car and piss off again. He passed the coffee to Jack and moved round the counter once more, then he went outside to look at the car.

He shivered. It was windy, the pavement still damp from yesterday’s rain. The metal of the car’s bodywork pinged as it contracted. Across the road, outside the Prince Edward Theatre, a drunk was trying to throw out a sleeping bag to lie on. Two women were talking together at the junction with Charing Cross Road.

Billy had a look at the car, green or blue, he couldn’t tell. Not bad condition. Not an E but a GT. The tyres looked pretty bald. Light from the Diner shone on the dashboard and he had a quick look to see if it was plastic or wood. He bent, framing his hand round the line of his eyes. Plastic. Then he saw something on the floor, poking out from under the seat. It looked like a small wooden box.

Back inside the Diner, he shut the door and lit a cigarette. Then he sat again, and watched Jack the Hat mumbling to himself. Cheryl came through from the back, filched one of his cigarettes and asked if she could go early. Billy was still looking at the car.

‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘Go now if you want to. Nothing’s happening, is it.’ Again he looked at the car and Cheryl cocked her head at him.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Nothing. Just that car. Somebody parked it there a few minutes ago.’

‘So?’

‘So nothing. They got out and got in another one, that’s all.’

Cheryl shook her head at him and went back to the kitchen for her coat. Billy sat on his stool, smoking and thinking. Jack was up in the ether somewhere. Billy looked at the car, then at the phone fixed on the wall behind him. Four-thirty now. He was off at six. Again he looked at the car, then he moved off the stool and wandered over to the window. Two lads walked past on their way up Old Compton Street. Billy stood with his hands in his pockets, nose pressed to the glass. ‘Not right,’ he muttered, then turned back to the counter and picked up the phone.

The 999 call came into the central command complex in Scotland Yard. ‘This is Billy Williams. I’m night manager at the American Diner on Moor Street. Look, it’s probably nothing, but right now I’ve got a car parked outside my restaurant. Someone drove up quarter of an hour ago, parked it and got out. He was picked up in a second car straight away.’

‘Right,’ the operator said. ‘Can you give me an exact location, sir?’

Billy gave the full address. ‘I’m probably being stupid,’ he said. ‘One thing, though. There’s some kind of box on the floor.’

‘Box?’

‘Yeah. Well, it looks like a box, poking out from under the driver’s seat.’

The operator took his number and Billy hung up. He lit another cigarette and looked across the counter at Jack. He was asleep with his head across his arms.

Detective Sergeant Jack Swann was duty officer in the combined Antiterrorist/Special Branch operations room on the sixteenth floor of Scotland Yard. The white phone linking them directly with the communications room rang on the desk in front of him and the computer-aided dispatch started printing. He glanced at Christine Harris from Special Branch, who sat at another desk, reading the newspaper.

‘Swann. SO13.’

‘We’ve just had a 999 from Moor Street in Soho. Suspicious vehicle parked outside the American Diner. Been there since four-fifteen.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Caller said there’s some kind of box on the floor by the driver’s seat. But we haven’t received a codeword.’

Swann pushed out his cheek with his tongue. ‘Hold on.’ He laid down the phone and dialled Superintendent Colson, the operational commander and senior duty officer downstairs. Colson was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘What time was the car parked?’

‘About four-fifteen.’

‘We’ve had no coded warning, Jack. The box could be anything. Standard response. It’s a West End Central decision. Let them make an assessment.’

The West End Central duty inspector was a Welshman called Wilson, with thirty years in the job. He looked at the clock on his office wall and phoned Jack Swann. ‘Inspector Wilson, Swann,’ he said. ‘Savile Row. Just letting you know—I’ve sent a car to Moor Street. I have to say though, I’m not happy.’

Swann rested on one elbow. ‘Fair enough, sir. We’ve logged it as standard response. But it’s your decision.’

‘I don’t like small boxes in cars, Swann. They have a habit of being PIRA timing and power units.’

‘We’ve received no accredited codeword, sir.’

‘Not yet, anyway. I’ll be back to you shortly, Swann. What time was the vehicle first spotted?’

‘Four-fifteen.’

‘So if it is dodgy, we’ve maybe got some time.’

Swann nodded to himself. ‘Maybe, sir,’ he said.

Five minutes later Wilson phoned him again. ‘Yes, sir,’ Swann said as he answered.

‘I’m not happy, Swann. There is a timing and power unit in that car. I’m evacuating. And I want an explosives officer here right away.’

‘OK, sir. Red response it is. I’ll task the Expos immediately. Cordons at two hundred metres.’

‘I know the drill, Swann.’

‘I’m sure you do, sir.’

Swann put down the phone and immediately lifted the black one, a direct link to the explosives officer’s suite in Cannon Row. It rang without him having to dial, then Phil Cregan’s voice sounded in his ear. ‘Cregan.’

‘Put your boots on, Phil. I think we’ve got a live one.’

2

CREGAN SCRIBBLED NOTES AS he listened to all that Swann had to tell him, cigarette smoke eddying from the ashtray at his elbow. He wanted to know everything: time, location and the full assessment from West End Central. ‘Where’s the rendezvous point?’ he asked.

‘Brewer Street.’

‘Is it clear?’

‘They’re searching it now.’

Cregan put the phone down, picked up his boots from where they lay by the chair and extinguished his cigarette. The fifth floor was quiet; night duty and only the one team working. Nicholson, his driver, was already in the corridor looking at the huge map on the wall and plotting the journey in his head. Cregan put his boots on in the lift going down to the car park.

He tied the laces quickly, bent to one knee. The last thing he needed was to be tying them when Nicholson was flinging the van through the streets. Slightly built, Cregan stood five foot nine. He was originally from Perth, and had been a Met explosives officer for five years now, a veteran of many IRA mainland attacks. Before that, he was Explosives Ordnance Disposal, part of the Royal Logistical Corps based in Didcot.

In the car park downstairs, the four Range Rovers were parked in readiness, each with an individual officer’s equipment inside. Normally it would be the two duty teams’ vehicles in front, ready for the turn around when the relief changed. Tonight, however, the big van was parked in front. One officer on duty only—there was no one to back him up with additional kit if he needed it, so everything was in the van.

Nicholson got the van started and they were rolling, blue lights flashing and siren on the yowl. It was 4.51 exactly. Cregan hung on to the Jesus bar on the dashboard as they raced through the empty streets. By 4.55, they were parked between the inner and outer cordons at the rendezvous point. West End Central controlled the perimeter, and everyone had been evacuated within the two-hundred-metre zone. Nicholson was already at the back of the van beginning to assemble the gear.

‘You want the heavy or lightweight suit, Phil?’ he asked.

Cregan made a calming motion with the palm of his hand. Nicholson was new and very keen. ‘Just hold on, Tom,’ he said. ‘Things to sort first.’

Webb and Swann waited for Cregan at the inner cordon line, facing north-east along Brewer Street. Cregan arrived, took a cigarette from Swann and cupped his hands to the match. ‘RVP clear?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Webb nodded to where Nicholson was still holding the bomb-suit bags.

‘Bit keen, isn’t he?’

Cregan spoke without looking at him. ‘JFD, Webby. Just a fucking driver, and a new one at that.’ He sucked cigarette smoke with a hiss and shivered. ‘Tell me the story again, Jack.’

‘The call came in at four-thirty. Car was parked about four-fifteen, no later than four-twenty. The caller knows the time because one of his regular night owls had just turned up for his cocoa.’

Cregan looked at his watch, a maximum of forty minutes. He pushed out his lips. The first twenty-five to thirty-five minutes after a device has been laid is known to be the most dangerous in PIRA incidents. After that, it was the twenty-minute period between one hour fifty and two hours ten. He looked down the length of Brewer Street. The target vehicle was well out of sight. Everything was very quiet, frost on the pavements glistening in the fall of light from the streetlamps. ‘No warning?’

‘No.’

‘Still none?’

Swann shook his head. ‘Decision was the local’s, Phil. PC reckons he’s seen a Provo TPU before and this is definitely one of them.’

Cregan made a face. ‘I wasn’t doing anything, anyway.’

The duty officer from Savile Row came over to them from where he had been talking to some of his officers, ensuring that the outer cordon was not breached. He was a smallish man, not much bigger than Cregan. They shook hands and Wilson introduced himself.

‘What’re we going to do?’ he said.

Cregan looked at his watch. ‘Nothing for the moment.’

The inspector squinted at him. ‘You want to stand off?’

‘Aye.’ Again Cregan looked at his watch. ‘If it is a TPU, it’ll either be a Mk 15 or 17 that’ll have a Memo-park safety-arming switch and maybe a kitchen timer, with a one- to two-hour wind-down from when he pulled out the dowel. It’s now almost five o’clock. We reckon the car was parked at four-fifteen. That gives us at least another fifteen minutes to see if it goes bang.’

‘And after that?’ The inspector was looking back at the roadblocks.

‘Soak for another hour at least.’

‘Why another hour?’

Cregan looked him in the eye. ‘Like I said, there could be a secondary timer.’

‘That’ll make it six-fifteen, then.’

Cregan nodded. ‘About that, yeah. In the meantime, any chance of some coffee?’

He sat with Webb and Swann in the back of Swann’s car. Swann took a call on his mobile from Superintendent Colson.

‘Soak period, Guv’nor,’ Swann told him.

‘Who’s the Expo?’

‘Phil.’

‘OK. Listen, I need you to get back over here, Jack. We’ve run a check on the vehicle and it’s a ringer. I want you working on it.’

‘Right, sir. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’ Swann put the phone down. He glanced at Cregan who sat in the back looking at the street plan and considering his approach path. ‘The car’s a ringer, Phil,’ Swann said. ‘So it may well be a live one.’

Cregan waited the full two hours, then went round to the back of the van and opened the armoured door. The Wheelbarrow robot squatted on its tracks in the darkness. The driver switched on the rear light and Cregan climbed into the back. Attached to the nearside wall was the TV monitor for the drive and attack cameras fitted to the upper hamper of the Wheelbarrow. He wiped the thin layer of dust that had gathered on the screen, then took down his cases, two of them, black, about the size of ordinary briefcases but made of hard plastic and deeper. One contained his tool kit and the other the various pulleys and ropes he required if a device had to be moved before the render safe procedure could be conducted. Carefully, he checked his tools, then glanced at his watch. It was beginning to get light, tendrils of grey working into the shadows that marked the edge of the night. It was very cold now, and quiet. They were some distance from the outer western cordon and he was only vaguely aware of the traffic.

Cregan hummed as he checked his equipment. This was his first call-out in nearly two weeks and sometimes the boredom got to him. He ought to be used to it after twenty-odd years dealing with improvised explosive devices. But you never did get used to it. You got better hopefully and more careful, but you never got used to it. The last call-out had been the first for his new driver. In Whitehall—an undercar booby trap left in a telephone box. He could almost see it from their floor at Cannon Row. Red response, accredited coded warning and exact location. The cordons were in and the area evacuated. Cregan had got ‘suited and booted’ behind the cordons, then walked as far as the Cenotaph for a better look. Initial reactions had been to ‘pig-stick’ it, but he could see how far the Memopark had wound down when he looked through a set of binoculars. He was watching when Nicholson spoke in his ear through the radio. Cregan nearly jumped out of his skin. Rule one broken. Radio contact is for the Expo to speak to his second—not the other way round. The last thing any EOD man needed was a voice in his ear just as he was about to render something safe.

‘What does it look like?’ Nicholson had said.

‘It’s about seven feet tall and grey with a telephone inside. Have you never seen a phone box, Tom?’ After that Cregan had wandered down and disarmed it manually. Fifteen minutes left on the timer.

The duty officer called through to Webb and Webb relayed the message to Cregan. ‘Wants to know what you’re going to do, Phil.’

Cregan looked at his watch. ‘I’ll send in the Wheelbarrow and have a look.’

Webb moved back to the cordon, leaving Cregan alone with his driver. Swann had already gone back to the Yard to start work on identifying the car. Nicholson set up the hydraulic ramp and then Cregan lifted the handheld control set, activated the robot, and drove it as far as the cordon tapes. Here, he paused. Alvis, the manufacturer, always recommended radio control as the best form of operation—which was probably true given the constraints of cable. But the last time he’d used this particular Mark 8, the radio signal was weaker than it ought to have been and the thing kept stopping and starting. He had two other options, the regular or fibre-optic cabling. ‘Use the normal cabling, Tom,’ he said, and moved into the back of the van. Nicholson set up the linkage and climbed in behind him. The ramp was up and the doors closed. Above their heads, the roof was reinforced with Kevlar and anticrush bars in case any buildings fell on top of them.

Cregan squatted in front of the TV monitor as the robot rolled along Brewer Street. The drive camera lens was wide-angle and gave a reasonable view of the road ahead. The Wheelbarrow came to the intersection with Old Compton Street. Fifty metres further on, the front of the car came into view. Cregan slowed it a fraction and scanned the area. He had the