Authors: Stella Rimington
‘How do you mean?’
‘Say from much further away than the usual Channel ports. Like Scandinavia – ferries from Norway come here, don’t they?’
‘Sure, though that wouldn’t help them escape detection. There isn’t a port within five hundred miles east of here that hasn’t been given the details of the vehicle we’re looking for. And just to be safe, we circulated them to Ireland too. In fact, unless this lorry’s coming from Brazil you don’t have anything to worry about. If it sails, we’ll know.’
‘All right,’ said Peggy, tempted to ask him to cover Brazil as well, but even she could see that was absurd. ‘Thank you,’ she added, realising that perhaps she had been a bit rude. She was getting very tense. It wasn’t just the aftermath of Seurat’s death and the absence of sleep, it was the absence of developments. No news was usually good news, but right now Peggy wanted something to happen.
It had been a really tedious few days. Maureen Hayes had wanted to take the week as holiday because her son was home on leave from Afghanistan, but she’d been told she had to work. Wally Woods, her A4 controller, had said that they needed all the resource they could muster to cover what was thought to be a developing terrorist plot.
But so far nothing had happened. The target Maureen and her team were covering, Zara, had gone reliably as clockwork every day of the week from his hostel, Dinwiddy House, to SOAS, where he had attended lectures, sat working in the library and drunk coffee in the snack bar with other students. He did not seem to have any close friends whom he met regularly but he chatted in a friendly enough way to whoever was around. She and her team had been unable to get near enough to overhear any of his conversations but everything looked perfectly natural. Then at about five or six in the evening, he had left the university area and gone back to Dinwiddy House, where, according to her overnight shift colleagues, he had stayed until the following morning. If he was plotting a terrorist outrage, thought Maureen, he must be doing it from his room, as there were no outward signs of a conspiracy.
Today was Friday, and at the early morning briefing before they took over the surveillance, she and her team had been told to be extra-vigilant. Something that had happened the previous day in Paris had led the desk officers to think that a group of possibly up to six people would be arriving in Britain, if they were not already here, and Zara would be meeting up with them. They were thought to be intending to carry out some form of terrorist attack, but what, where and when was not known. It was vital, they had been told, that if Zara broke his routine or met a group of people who had not been seen before, they reported at once; and above all that they did not lose him.
So Maureen and her team were very alert this morning, and rather disappointed when Zara came out at the usual time and headed off to SOAS just the same as on all the previous days. Marcus Washington went into the building and reported that Zara was in a lecture. After the lecture he went to the library, where he was reported by Marcus, by then sitting two places away from him, to be concentrating on a large book from which he was taking notes. Just before twelve noon, he looked at his watch, packed up his things, returned the book to the desk and came out of the library.
‘On the move,’ said Marcus quietly into his microphone as Zara left the library to be picked up by Maureen and her partner, Duff Wells, as he came down the steps.
‘Having an early lunch,’ reported Maureen to the Control Room. But instead of heading off to the snack bar where he usually went at lunchtime, Zara walked quickly out into Tottenham Court Road, ran straight across, narrowly avoiding being run over by a bus, and headed fast towards Goodge Street underground station.
‘He’s doing anti-surveillance,’ reported Maureen as Wells, who had anticipated the move and was already on the other side of the road, went into the station ahead of Zara. Maureen caught up, arriving at the station as Zara and Wells with a small group of passengers were waiting for the lift to take them to the platforms. Maureen, Wells and Zara, with about fifteen other people, piled into the ancient lift, which creaked its way down and juddered to a halt at platform level. Zara was first out, hurrying along the tunnel to the southbound platform.
‘Doesn’t look as though he’s going to see his mum,’ reported Maureen. ‘Euston is north.’
Then began a short tour of the underground system as Zara, with Maureen and Wells accompanying him, went south on the Northern Line to Tottenham Court Road, west on the Central Line to Oxford Circus and finally back north on the Victoria Line to Euston, where he took the exit for the mainline station. Each time he changed trains he hung back and tried to be the last onto the train, but Maureen and Duff Wells knew all about that anti-surveillance ploy and, helped by the crowded platforms, one or other of them managed to board the train after him without drawing attention to themselves.
Half an hour later, as Maureen, now ahead of Zara, emerged up the stairs from the underground onto the concourse of Euston Station, she was relieved to see another colleague, Fred Watson, standing in the crowd in front of the departure board.
As she followed Zara towards the booking hall and watched from the door as he collected a ticket from the fast ticket machine, she heard Fred talking to the Control Room. ‘There’s a Manchester train at one o’clock; we’ll go with him if he catches it. Gets there at seven minutes past three.’
‘OK,’ came back from Wally Woods. ‘I’m alerting the police to meet the train at all the stops. I’ll get a team out to meet you in Manchester. Keep us posted.’
Back in the main concourse Zara joined the crowd in front of the departure board, where he stood waiting, watched from different directions by the three pairs of eyes of the A4 team.
As soon as the platform for the 13.00 train to Manchester Piccadilly flashed up on the board, Duff Wells moved fast, ahead of the crowd, towards Platform 5 and Fred Watson followed, more casually. Maureen stayed in the concourse waiting for Zara to move too. But Zara didn’t move. Maureen muttered into her microphone, ‘Watch out for a last-minute rush. He’s still here and he’s very alert for surveillance.’ At 12.55 Zara was still on the concourse.
Then suddenly he moved fast, out of the concourse, towards the platforms. ‘On the move,’ said Maureen. She was trying to keep up with him, but she lost sight of him in the crowd of people now rushing to get seats on another train. ‘Control lost,’ she shouted as she ran towards the platforms.
Fred and Duff were still waiting at the top of the ramp leading down to platform 5, but there was just a trickle of latecomers now and Zara was not among them.
‘Pretty sure we haven’t missed him.’ It was Duff Wells. ‘Fred got here before anyone else. Between us we’ve clocked everyone who got on.’
As Maureen ran up to join them, Wally Woods said, ‘Try the next train’, over their headphones. ‘Thirteen-oh-three, Platform seven, for Birmingham.’
‘I’ll wait here till this train leaves in case he’s just delaying,’ panted Maureen as Duff and Fred set off running to Platform 7 where the stragglers were still boarding. Duff waited at the end while Fred sprinted along the platform, scanning the passengers without much hope of seeing his target, but then near the far end of the platform he spotted Zara, just about to get onto the train.
‘Got him,’ he shouted. ‘Second carriage. I’m boarding now.’ Duff joined a chattering group of grey-haired men dressed in walking clothes who were getting into a carriage in the middle of the train. Last to arrive was Maureen, clambering into the final carriage, just before the doors were locked and the guard signalled the driver to go. She stood leaning on the door, gasping for breath, her heart pumping at twice its normal speed. I’m getting too old for this, she thought to herself.
‘Phew,’ she heard Fred say. ‘That was a close one. But we’re still with him. I’ve got eyeball. He’s just three rows in front of me.’
‘OK,’ said Wally from Thames House Control Room. ‘Well done.’
‘The train stops at Rugby, Coventry and Birmingham International; Birmingham New Street is the last stop,’ continued Fred.
‘Get off where he does, but I’ll try to get the police to be at the stops along the way – I’m hoping they’ll be able to take him on if he gets off before New Street. I’ll get our teams to meet you at New Street in case that’s where he’s going.’
Rugby and Coventry came and went and it wasn’t until Birmingham International was announced that Zara got up and joined the line of passengers waiting to get off the train.
What on earth is he up to? wondered Maureen. Don’t say he’s going to a conference – not after all this trouble.
But it wasn’t to the Conference Centre he was heading. As soon as he left the train, he made a beeline for the Skyrail to the airport and got on the first train that came in, with the A4 team in hot pursuit.
‘What do you want us to do if he checks in for a flight?’ asked Maureen.
Wally replied, ‘You’ll have to let him go. But get all the details.’
But at the airport Zara didn’t go to the departure hall; he went instead to the arrivals hall, and straight to the Hertz car-hire desk.
‘He’s hiring a car. We’ve got no wheels so we’ll have to let him go or hire one ourselves.’
‘Get the number and make of the car and we’ll pick him up on the road. There’s a police team coming out now to join you.’
As the A4 team watched, Zara hired a dark blue Ford S Max and drove off, heading for the airport exit.
While Wally Woods in London passed the target to the police surveillance teams, Maureen and her colleagues went off in different directions to get some lunch in the airport cafés. By the time she had finished a not very enticing salad, Maureen heard over her headphones that Zara’s car had been picked up by the cameras, heading towards the M6 Toll. That was a silly choice if he’s trying to avoid surveillance, she thought. He’ll be on camera all the way.
Peggy had been staring out of the window, feeling as sluggish as the Thames at low tide, when the phone on Liz’s desk rang.
‘Hi, Border Agency here. I think we have something for you.’
‘Where?’
‘Hook of Holland. They called five minutes ago. There’s a Stena Line ferry leaving for Harwich at fourteen thirty their time; that’s half past one here, so fairly soon. Scheduled arrival time at Harwich is twenty hundred hours, British time. The lorry came in just before the deadline – they have to be quayside sixty minutes before sailing. It’s got the markings you’re looking for, though it’s carrying Turkish registration plates.’ He read out the registration number. ‘Just one driver, Turkish passport, name of Deniz Keskin, date of birth thirtieth October 1963.’
‘I bet that’s a false passport. If that’s our lorry it’s come from Dagestan and he’s not Turkish. What’s it carrying?’
‘Mattresses. Lots of mattresses, according to the manifest.’
Plus a few other things, thought Peggy. And she asked, ‘Has anyone looked inside?’
‘No. The Dutch are giving it a bit of space – as we requested. You said don’t scare them off.’
‘That’s right.’
‘It was weighed – all the vehicles are, so that can’t have aroused suspicion; it was apparently normal weight for its declared load. But it’s hard to tell much without looking inside. We can have Customs search it when it arrives if you want. Easy enough to do.’
‘No, thanks. We don’t want to risk alerting them at this stage. But please ask them to try and put the marker on as it goes through.’
As Peggy put the phone down she was hoping she’d taken the right decision. It was a big risk to allow into the country a lorry that she was pretty sure was carrying weapons, detonators and heaven knew what else, intended for a group of jihadis who had gone off the map and could be anywhere in the country. But she didn’t have much time to worry about it. As soon as she put the phone down, she picked it up again and rang Wally Woods in the A4 Control room.
‘Hi, Liz.’
‘No, it’s Peggy. Liz is out today.’
‘Oh?’
Obviously the news from Paris hadn’t percolated to the A4 control room. Peggy said, ‘I’m running the op until Liz gets back. I’ve just heard news of our lorry from the Border Agency. It’s on board the Stena ferry at the Hook of Holland coming to Harwich.’ She passed on the details she’d been given. ‘They’re going to get the marker on at Harwich.’
‘OK. We’ll be there. You still reckon it’s headed for one of those warehouses?’
‘Yes. But we don’t know which one. If I learn anything else I’ll let you know. Anything new on Zara?’
‘Yes. He’s made a move. I was just about to pick up the phone to tell Liz when you rang. Is she OK by the way? It’s not like her to leave her post just as things start hotting up.’
‘Yes. She’s fine but someone close to her has died.’ She hoped she’d said enough and not too much.
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Wally and went on, ‘Zara took a train to Birmingham.’
‘Birmingham?’
‘Yeah. He’s doing anti-surveillance but not all that cleverly. He took the Skyrail from the train to the airport and now he’s in a hire car. Last seen heading towards the M6.’
‘Oh God. Have you lost him?’ asked Peggy, thinking of the lorryload of weapons she had just agreed to let into the country.
‘No. Not as you might say “lost”. We’re not with him at the moment but we know roughly where he is and what car he’s in, so the police teams will be behind him soon. He’ll be on the cameras, and if he takes the M6 or the Toll, he’ll be snapped every few hundred yards. And we can always stop him at the Toll gate if we need to. The paying system can break down for a bit.’