A Covert War (3 page)

But Abdul was becoming unsettled by a subtle change in the way in which his British and American customers wanted to do business. It was almost like a collective change of philosophy; a change so fine it was almost undetectable. But pressure for results was being upped a little, and balancing the scales between his sources and his customers was causing extra friction.

In short, Abdul’s almost inviolable powerbase seemed to be coming under threat; as though some others wanted to move in on his operation and effectively reduce his influence to that of a mere cog in a big wheel. His position as a warlord was becoming increasingly untenable.

Abdul’s ability to sense danger was legendary; he had the awareness of a wild animal. He also understood that his position in the chain of operations between his powerbase and the big hitters in the West could only be undeniable so long as he held the upper hand. And he knew there was a sense of impatience in the demands being made on him, and powerful men were becoming restless.

But the American guy sitting across the table from him was not in that league, and he would often try to extract more from Abdul whenever he negotiated the deals on behalf of his paymasters. Despite his power, Abdul was no mug; he needed to keep the Americans and the British happy. But keeping the big guns happy didn’t mean he had to listen to the inflated ego of a minion. The man was becoming a nuisance and Abdul was losing his patience fast.

‘The girl has been spoken for,’ Abdul told the American. ‘She is part of my next shipment.’ He waved a dismissive hand at the American. ‘It was a mistake that you saw her. Believe me, she is not for you.’

The American persisted. ‘Abdul, my friend, who is to know if the girl has been used?’ He shrugged. ‘And we have been doing business for some time. I think you owe me.’

Abdul put up a restraining hand and stood up. ‘I owe nothing to nobody but to keep my word. And my word is that this girl will be delivered clean and untouched.’ He went to move away from the table when the American reached forward and grabbed his arm. Abdul looked down at the man in surprise. Then that emotion turned to disbelief that the American should have the temerity to lay hands on him.

He pulled his arm away and stepped out from the table. ‘You will not do that again,’ he said quietly, but venomously. Then he walked over to the door of the room and pulled it open.

The American stood up and was about to say something when the two men who had been in the room with them stepped forward and blocked his path. Abdul nodded his head sharply and left the room. If the American was wondering what was happening, he was about to find out. The moment Abdul closed the door a crashing fist sent the American into oblivion.

Fifteen minutes later the two men carried the American’s body out of the farm house and tossed it into the back of a Toyota pick-up truck. There was no sign of Abdul, just the faint trail of dust from his Landcruiser that signalled his departure.

The two heavies climbed into the pick-up. Beyond them was an enormous expanse of wasteland; an enormous expanse in which to dump the dead American.

THREE

Marcus followed Susan into Old Street Underground station. He had put on the sunglasses and zipped his leather jacket, relying on an amateur like Susan to have no idea she was being followed by a professional. Marcus liked that word; it made him feel good. Susan was easy to keep in sight, probably because she had her mind on other things. Marcus was intrigued as well, but not by what she had said; more by what she had unwittingly revealed to him.

He used his Oyster Card to walk through the turnstiles at the station and followed Susan down to the Northern Line platform. She was heading south. He stood about twenty feet away from her, losing himself among the other travellers and listened out for the rush of air that would signal the presence of an oncoming train.

From time to time he would glance at Susan and have little fantasies about her. He wondered what she would be like on a date, and how far he could get with her. Would dinner be sufficient, he wondered? Would he have to impress her with conversation, with his dress sense or with his worldly knowledge? She was certainly an attractive woman, and she hadn’t said anything about having a husband or a boyfriend, or a partner even.

He spun round quickly as Susan turned and looked in his direction, then he turned back after a suitable pause and saw that she was no longer facing him, but was staring directly ahead towards the huge adverts on the far side of the track. He began to fidget with an imaginary object in his pocket, and then cursed himself for being so unprofessional. He had to act normal, cool he told himself. If he was to persuade Susan that he was worth employing, he had to convince himself that it was worth a gamble; after all, it could end terribly for them both.

The train rumbled in and eased to a halt. The doors slid open and the people on the platform crowded on to the train. Marcus sat half a carriage length away from Susan and kept an eye on her as covertly as he could. He tried to remember what he had read in the police training manuals about surveillance techniques. Not that he had been in the police force, but there was an enormous amount of information on the internet and in the public libraries.

During the time he was on the train, he kept amusing himself by imagining all kinds of scenarios that could fit the picture as far as Susan’s brother David was concerned. He came to the conclusion there was no chance of ever finding out, but he did conjure up vivid pictures of himself performing a heroic rescue straight out of the pages of a good, Special Forces novel. And at the end of the epic adventure, Susan would fall into his arms and pledge undying love and devotion for rescuing her brother.

The train jolted a little as it stopped at Clapham Common and woke Marcus just in time to see Susan stepping off the train. He leapt up and made it through the sliding doors as they were about to close. He was the only other passenger to alight at that station, but Susan did not notice because she had disappeared down the exit tunnel before Marcus could compose himself.

He ran to the exit and saw her walking out on to the street, turning right out of the station. He followed and kept a safe and reasonable distance from her until she turned into a road of semi-detached, Victorian style houses.

Marcus was about fifty yards behind Susan when he saw her turn into a gateway. He kept his eye on the opening where she had disappeared and walked past it, glancing at the bay windows and patterned glass door beneath a small arch. He saw the number and continued on until he was well past the house.

The next stage of Marcus’s master plan was to find an internet café and pay for a booth. He found one in the High Street populated by a mixture of ‘gangsta’ rap aficionados covered in ‘bling’. The owner of the café looked like he could have easily gone the distance with the world heavyweight boxing champion, and won.

Once he had logged on Marcus went on to British Telecom and entered Susan Ellis into the search box for residential numbers. He added Clapham and came up with fifteen people named Ellis. Nine of them had the initial ‘S’.

Using the back of the sheet of paper he had been doodling on back in his office, he wrote all the numbers down and then logged off. He paid for his time and then went in search of a public phone box.

Some of the numbers rang and eventually left him with an answering service to talk to. When he did get through to a person on the other end of the line, he pretended he was an Eco representative who could insulate the house and reduce its carbon footprint. He got short shrift for that and Susan Ellis was no different; she certainly wasn’t interested because she lived in a flat. Sorry and all that.

Marcus smiled as he put the phone down and underlined Susan’s number on his scrap of paper. All he had to do now was move on to stage two of his plan and find out more about the mysterious Mister Cavendish.

***

Chief Master Sergeant Danny Grebo drove out of the gates at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in Suffolk and motored the four miles to the town of Brandon with a lot on his mind. The information he had received was not good; it looked like the far end of the operation was experiencing some unexpected difficulty, but it hadn’t come to his attention soon enough. That was part of the reason for having a great deal to think of; the lack of a strong link between his end of the operation and the source. When information came in at such a slow rate, it was difficult to act upon it with any degree of confidence. Everything had to be locked down tight, no gaps. But now a single crack was beginning to show and the organisation was having to act on it.

He pulled into the car park of The Flintknappers in Market Hill and pulled the Buick over to the far side, away from the main road. He knew he was expected and hoped that he wouldn’t be kept waiting.

Danny Grebo was a naturalized American. His parents were Bosnian immigrants who had moved to America before the civil war broke out in Yugoslavia. Danny’s real name was Danvor, but the kids in his neighbourhood always called him Danny. The name had stuck, even though Danvor was the name he used when he joined the United States Air Force.

Grebo was in logistics. It was not his choice of employment when he enlisted, but service in some of the hotspots of the world had taught him an invaluable lesson: good logistics was the key to a successful campaign. Whatever the guys up front wanted or needed, the people in logistics had to come up with it. And Grebo was good; so good he had made a substantial living out of supplying what was needed at the right time, legit or not.

Grebo was a wealthy man, but most of his wealth was secreted in offshore banks in the Caribbean. It wouldn’t do for a non-com to show considerable wealth on a chief’s pay packet. He was due for release within six months and he intended moving up the ladder of the organisation and taking a more proactive role in it. For now he was a small, but important cog in a big chain and part of his role meant acting as a messenger from time to time. And that was his role for the present; to pass on a message to another important cog in the wheel.

The man waiting for Danny Grebo was propping up the bar, his big fist wrapped round a bottle of Budweiser. He turned as Grebo walked in and straightened up.

‘Hey Danny!’

Grebo winked at him. ‘Hey, Chuck.’

They shook hands. Grebo asked the bartender for a Budweiser.

When the bottle had been opened, but not poured because the Yanks couldn’t get used to the quaint idea of having their beer poured into a glass, Grebo and his companion adjourned to a table beside a window. There was a loud speaker above them with soft music burbling from it, mingling with the occasional roar of traffic in the High Street. His friend took a swig of beer and banged the bottle down on the table.

‘What’s the panic, Danny?’ he asked.

His name was Dale Berry, and he and Grebo went back a long way. He was called Chuck after the sixties pop singer, Chuck Berry. He was in transport, but not motor vehicles. Chuck Berry flew; he was a Hercules pilot. He had been an F15 combat pilot, but an accident in the Iraq conflict had meant an enforced change for him and he had converted from single engines to the four engined Hercules.

‘We lost a guy,’ Grebo answered, and took a mouthful of beer. He belched and studied the label on the bottle for a moment. ‘I didn’t find out until yesterday.’

‘What happened?’

Grebo glanced around the bar and then at Berry. ‘He disappeared, never came back.’

‘Did he do a runner?’

Grebo shook his head and curled his lips. ‘Not this guy, he was making too good a living out of it.’ He shrugged. ‘I got word that the fucking ragheads have topped him.’

Berry studied Grebo’s expression for a few seconds. His own was stern and thoughtful. ‘When did this happen?’ he asked.

Grebo leaned forward and whispered through clenched teeth. ‘Two fucking months ago.’

Berry knew better than to press Grebo on the details, but it was important to him, for his own sake that he knew why it had taken so long for the news to filter through.

‘Why did it take so long?’

Grebo relaxed. ‘Diplomatic sources,’ he told Berry. It was a euphemism that Berry understood. He didn’t know who Grebo worked for directly, but he did know that Grebo was a small link in a very big chain, and it was these very senior people that Grebo was referring to as the diplomatic sources.

‘So what happens now?’

Grebo took another pull at his beer. ‘They’re gonna try and smoke the raghead out. They’re gonna put a team in and they want you to do the drop.’

Berry nodded thoughtfully, rolling the Budweiser in his hand and settled back in his chair. ‘What will be my cut?’

Grebo shrugged. ‘The usual, but there’ll be no pick-up this time. That’s all I can tell you. But listen up; none of the team that go in knows of the connection between the raghead and the diplomats. By using you, we are keeping this in house. The drop has got to be right.’

‘What about getting them out?’ Berry asked, knowing that once the team had been parachuted in from the Hercules, they were no longer his responsibility.

‘Once the job is done, the team will be brought out by helicopter.’

Berry understood the reasoning behind the decision to get him to fly the Hercules transport. He was due to begin another tour of duty in Afghanistan the following week at the American military base at Khost, and he was one of the very few men who were part of a highly secret cartel who owed little allegiance to their flag. There had been times before when he had flown a covert mission to extract a live cargo, but the live cargo had always been women and children and he had never flown them to any allied air force base but always to a remote strip somewhere near the Turkmenistan border, in the north west of Afghanistan. For that he had always been paid a handsome sum. And he had never questioned the morals or ethics of what he was doing.

***

Marcus picked up the phone and dialled the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. There was very little delay when a charming, female voice told him that he had reached the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and how could she help him?