Wilson’s cosh — virtually the twin of Dawson’s, and modelled on those carried for self-defence by CIA officers operating in Europe in the 1960s — crushed the back of the Russian’s skull.
‘And who are you, exactly?’
The inspector from CO19 didn’t look particularly impressed as Richter ambled into the briefing room at New Scotland Yard. He’d been due there twenty minutes earlier, but the traffic had been particularly heavy.
The room was already crowded with people, none of them known to Richter. Most were wearing civilian clothes, though several carried pistols in shoulder or belt holsters.
‘Smith,’ Richter said. ‘From Vauxhall Cross.’ Two statements, both factually inaccurate, and confidently delivered to a roomful of armed police officers. It probably wasn’t a good start to the day.
‘Let’s see some identification,’ the inspector demanded.
‘Another fucking spook,’ someone muttered.
Richter walked forward and proffered the identity document he’d collected from Hammersmith that morning.
The inspector looked at it and frowned. ‘Is your name really Smith?’ he demanded.
‘It might be,’ Richter replied, ‘and that is what it says there.’
‘And we all believe that, of course. So what’s your role in this exercise?’
‘I’m just an observer.’
‘An armed observer, I note.’
‘Well spotted.’
The inspector had seen the butt of the Glock 17 protruding from the holster under Richter’s left arm. He always preferred to carry a revolver, but there was a very good reason why Simpson had told him to take the automatic pistol.
‘Right, have a seat. All we’ve heard so far is the intelligence summary from the CTC briefer, and I’ve just outlined the assault plan.’
As Richter sat down, the inspector decided to have some fun with him. He took up a pointer and gestured towards a diagram pinned on a board behind him. ‘For Mr Smith’s benefit, we’ve got six players at Tango One. We’ve two gunships, one of them a flounder, waiting at the jump-off here, plus two horses, each four-up. The premises are covered by fifteen footies, that’s eleven plods and four plonks. When we kit-up at the FUP, don’t forget your QRVs and HVCs. All clear about that, Mr Smith?’
Several people in the room chuckled. Richter looked up at the CO19 officer. ‘Ever thought of a career on the stage, Inspector? Or are you hoping for another tour as senior dinosaur at Jurassic Park?’ The chuckling suddenly stopped. ‘I know the jargon as well as you do, so you can dispense with the comedy routine. I think what you mean is that you’ve got two unmarked Armed Response Vehicles, one of them a black cab, in place and ready to proceed as soon as you give the order. The horses — that’s Trojan Horses, derived from the “Trojan” callsign that CO19 uses — are unmarked vehicles each carrying four officers. The target premises — Tango One — are occupied by six suspects and watched by fifteen surveillance officers, eleven male and four female. And I’m quite sure all of us in the room will remember to put on our high visibility caps and quick-release vests when we assemble at the forming-up point.’ He paused, then added, ‘After all, we wouldn’t want this turning into a clusterfuck, would we?’
For a few seconds the briefing room fell absolutely silent. The inspector smiled, then laughed out loud. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he said, ‘a professional at last. I was getting really pissed off with all these pimply-faced geeks Thames House keeps on sending us. Welcome aboard, Mr Smith, or whatever your real name is. I’m Jessup. You’re right about everything. The only other thing you need to known is that SO15 — the CTC — is the lead agency on this excursion, because their patrol stumbled across the cell. So apart from the spooks, it’s just them and CO19.’
Forty minutes later the inspector wound it up. ‘To recap, we’ve got surveillance groups in place at street level to take off any of the players who decide to walk. There are CO19 sniper teams covering all building entrances. There are known to be six targets using the flat, and once we’re certain that they’re all inside we’ll take them down.’
With a glance at Richter, Jessup added: ‘We would have been able to carry out the raid a couple of days ago, when we knew for sure they were all in the flat, if we hadn’t had pressure from a certain organization not far from Vauxhall Bridge. Right, the last report was that two of the players were mobile, with footies in attendance. As soon as we’ve confirmed they’re heading back to Tango One, we’ll get everything prepped and hit them five minutes after they get inside. We’ll be making broadcast calls to your pagers from the Special Operations Room here, with the baseman using the callsign “Golf Tango”. As usual, all CO19 units will employ the callsign “Trojan” followed by their designated number. Any comments or questions?’
‘I’ll need a pager,’ Richter said.
‘No problem. See me as soon as we’ve finished. Any other questions?’
Richter stood up with everybody else, and walked to the front of the briefing room.
‘Sorry about that,’ Jessup said. ‘I’ve been a bit pissed off the way Thames House and Vauxhall Cross have been trying to run this operation.’
‘And I happened to be in the firing line?’
‘Exactly.’ Jessup opened a briefcase and pulled out a pager. ‘I’d like that back, please, once the show’s over. You don’t need to do anything with it except turn it on. It’s already pre-set to receive all the messages GT sends. Now, one question. What are you really supposed to be doing in this op?’
‘I’ve been tasked with observation, Inspector,’ Richter said, ‘but I have to get inside the flat as soon as possible. I need to identify one of the targets, because he may have links to an operation we’re currently running.’
What Richter didn’t say was exactly why he needed to identify one of the suspects. But Jessup — and everyone else — would find out very soon after they kicked down the door.
Four minutes later, both Americans climbed down from the truck. Wilson closed and locked the door. The device was now safely in their hands, and the remainder of the transaction could now be executed.
When they’d first conceived the plan, the Americans had intended to kill the three Russians as soon as they’d got their hands on the weapon, but caution prevailed. A third death would have saved the Americans having to raise two million dollars, but that wasn’t the overriding factor, and Wilson had already worked out a way around the money.
But the unexplained death or disappearance of three PO Start personnel, on the same day, would be too much for any investigating officer to ignore, and that would lead to an in-depth investigation at Zarechnyy. Which, in turn, could result in the discovery of the theft before the Americans had even cleared the area, and would render their documentation useless — they’d be stopped and held at the first road-block.
Their second choice was to play it straight, shake hands with their co-conspirators, hand over the passbooks to the three Swiss bank accounts as promised, and then go their separate ways. But that went totally against the grain, not least because the two million dollars they’d agreed to pay wasn’t actually theirs.
So they’d decided to go with what they’d taken to calling Option One Alpha, which had necessitated taking Borisov partially into their confidence almost from the start.
The two dead technicians would accompany the weapon — at least on the first stage of its journey from Kondal, until Wilson and Dawson could find a suitable spot to dispose of their bodies — and Borisov’s documentation would specify that Nabov and Devenko were the driver and escort for a consignment of ‘machine tools’ in transit to Turkey. The two Americans would wear the technicians’ jackets and carry their identification. There wasn’t a marked similarity in their appearance, but the pictures on Russian identity cards were usually small, grainy and very poor quality and they were, in conjunction with the other documentation, probably adequate to allow them to pass through a routine checkpoint.