Authors: Douglas Stewart
Biggin Hill, South-East London
Just over twenty-seven minutes later, the Vauxhall Insignia pulled off the A233 between the blue signs announcing Biggin Hill Passenger Terminal. The famous wartime airbase had evolved over the years and was now home to executive jets and other pleasure craft, some of them not much bigger—and a few even smaller—than the Spitfires that had once dominated the runway. For about the hundredth time, Ratso checked his watch. Zandro could not be ahead of him—not after that gut-wrenchingly wild ride as Brian had skilfully scythed his way through the afternoon traffic like an F1 driver.
He tried Jock’s number but it was still not ringing. Forget it, Ratso! Now, everything was about arresting Zandro. He checked with Central 3000 who linked him to Wensley Hughes. The news was good: the helicopter, India 99, had Zandro under observation just over four miles from the airport in heavy but moving traffic, closing from the northwest. The team from SCD11 were holding well back, leaving India 99 to make the running. “You’ll have a team of covert armed officers,” Hughes explained. “They are near Bromley.”
“Something and nothing, sir. That could be just a few minutes away or too bloody late depending on traffic.”
“There’s also a people carrier full of uniforms scheduled deliberately to arrive soon after Zandro.” Wensley Hughes wished him luck before adding a final comment. “Incidentally, how did you know Zandro would do a runner via Biggin Hill?”
“That’s for later, sir, I’m arriving.” Ratso had responded as the red and white barriers at the entrance appeared. The Insignia squealed to a halt t. The barriers were set about sixty meters back from the road and beside them was a small but solid-looking building that housed security. An efficient-looking woman in a navy blue uniform emerged almost at once. Ratso flashed his card.
Ratso leaned out of the window and flashed his I.D. “Are you alone? What’s your name?”
“My colleague George is inside. I’m Moira Gardner.”
“Right, Moira. Get George out here,” Ratso ordered. “And quick. And then come with me.”
The woman looked startled, her eyes narrowing as if to say she did not trust this clapped-out, unshaven bloke who looked more like a criminal than a detective from the Metropolitan Police. But after only briefly hesitating she hurried in to find her colleague. Seconds later she returned leading a rather older male.
“George, this is the start of a major police operation. We are going to arrest someone who will arrive in a black Mercedes in the next few minutes. He will give his name as Altin Vata but in fact it is Boris Zandro.”
“Boris Zandro,” the man echoed. “He’s a regular!”
“Despite his false credentials, let him through but don’t rush. He’ll be in a black Mercedes saloon. On no account show any suspicion. He may be armed. He is certainly dangerous. Got it?” Ratso saw the man as a solid, safe pair of hands. “Good. Also arriving will be Assistant Commissioner Wensley Hughes and more police support. Don’t waste a moment letting them through but only after Zandro is in the building. He must not see them arrive.”
“Understood, sir.” The guard half-saluted respectfully while Moira Gardner piled into the back seat beside him. “Move it,” Ratso ordered Brian, who surged forward, the car heading straight for the squat red-brick control tower. At the last moment he lurched sharply right to pull up in front of the terminal entrance. Both passengers tumbled out and hurried through the glass door into the compact welcome zone. Straight ahead, Ratso saw two counters—one for reception, where a woman was talking on the phone and another on the right for what he assumed was a commercial company called Executive Handling. Had there been time, he would have briefed the woman sitting there in her smart tunic but there was not. Ratso could almost feel Zandro’s breath on his neck. “Moira, take me to Special Branch and as we go, talk me through how Zandro will reach his jet.”
Immediately, they turned away from the raised seating area to their right where a couple of passengers and a pilot were sipping coffee. They ignored the reception desk and turned toward the large glass windows that looked out to the apron. “That’s Zandro’s.” Moira pointed outside to the rain swept tarmac. Just over forty meters away, gleaming white with a single line of red piping running along the fuselage, was a Gulfstream V, its twin Rolls Royce engines fitted just in front of the tail. The jet was certainly longer than a cricket pitch but not by that much. Along the fuselage were six windows. Behind the cockpit, the steps were down ready to receive passengers. Ratso felt a moment’s envy thinking what he had to show for years of honest toil by comparison.
“Someone from Executive Handling will probably take him to UK Border Control,” Moira explained. “He will pass through that after his passport has been checked. He will then pass through security and the woman from Executive Handling may walk him right through to the Departures Lounge. If ready, the pilot may cross the apron to meet the passenger or he may stay in the cockpit doing final checks. The Executive Handling woman will swipe her card at the secure door leading outside and may either just let him through or may help him with his baggage.”
By this time, they had passed through an empty zone with the words UK Border Control just below the ceiling. It was unmanned and anything less like the queues and rows of desks for immigration officers at Heathrow or Gatwick was hard to imagine.
“Someone will check Zandro here?”
“Executive Handling will arrange for someone from Immigration to be here,” Moira acknowledged, slightly more relaxed now. She led him a few steps farther. “The security checks are then done just there.” She pointed to a small belt which fed the scanner, taking the typical Gucci, Hermes and other designer luggage of the rich and famous through to airside.
As Ratso took in the layout, a tall but well-built figure appeared. He was aged late thirties with Bradley Wiggins-style sideburns. There was an aggrieved look on his face at the intrusion. “What’s going on here?” The man’s strong Brummie accent made him sound as gloomy as a donkey with a sore throat.
The question was addressed to Moira Gardner but before she could answer, Ratso had shown his ID. “I’m conducting an operation that will take place in the next few minutes. And you are?”
“Rogerson. Mark Rogerson, Special Branch.”
Before the man had a chance to say anything more, Ratso jumped in. “Excellent.” He explained in headline terms what was happening to arrest Altin Vata and Rogerson’s attitude changed instantly. Ratso judged that after months of nil excitement, Rogerson was pleased to be seeing some action.
“You’re arresting him airside, then?”
Ratso had every reason neatly marshalled. “Once he’s airside, he can’t escape. He could be armed though.”
Rogerson was dismissive. “We have the top specification scanners here.”
Ratso gave a half smile. “That’s one good reason for tackling him airside. It reduces the chance of him being armed. He’s rich, well-connected but beneath that he’s a bruiser, a streetfighter. He will not go quietly. We can immediately hold him for using a false passport but we’ve years of shit to throw back at him.” He saw Rogerson was in synch. “Will Zandro recognise you? Your colleagues?”
“There’s two of us on duty. Me and Keith Groom. Yes, he’ll have seen us both.”
Ratso’s phone vibrated. “Yes?”
“Target has just turned into the airport,” reported Tosh. “He’s approaching some type of security barrier now.”
“Confirmed.” Ratso turned to Rogerson. “He’s arrived. Anyone in the departures lounge?”
“Quite a few city types. They’re waiting for fog at Geneva to lift.”
Ratso was pleased. “When Zandro enters the airside lounge, I want your colleague Keith to block the exit to landside so he cannot turn back. I want you to be mingling with the other waiting passengers. We’ll nab him by the door leading to the apron. Be armed and have the cuffs ready. Go now. Get your mate sorted.” He paused. “Ah, Moira: tell the control tower that the flight must not, repeat not be cleared for take-off. In fact, no flight must be cleared for take-off. Understood?” As the listeners turned to hurry away, he added, “I’ll be in the airside lounge. He doesn’t know me.”
Ratso walked through the body scanner, which was turned off—just as well, because the knuckleduster buckle on his belt would have triggered the alarm, as might his chunky steel cufflinks. For a moment he thought back to when he had unclipped the knuckleduster in the slums of Freeport. Then, it had been an unnecessary precaution; now he freed the buckle again and slipped the aggressively meaty device onto the fingers of his right hand. Just in case. He rolled up the belt and slipped it into his left pocket.
He glanced back but there was no sign of Zandro in his Altin Vata disguise. You had to give it to the guy. He was well-prepared. His escape plans must have been fine-tuned for an immediate departure—plans that clearly did not include his shopaholic young wife. Ratso entered the final departures lounge where there were about a dozen young executives of both sexes. Their body language shouted their frustration loud and clear over their delay. One or two nodded toward him in a friendly but remote manner, more acknowledging his presence than wanting to talk. Sorry, guys. You’ll just have to wait for your in-flight Romanée Conti and rare fillet steaks. Jealous, Ratso? After only a bacon buttie and a coffee on the incoming flight from Spain? You bet.
Ratso now had a moment to think. He had only been in the terminal for four minutes and had achieved a great deal. But what have I overlooked? He could think of nothing yet a nagging doubt remained. So long as everybody else did their thing, surely nothing could go wrong. He tried to look like a billionaire awaiting his private flight as he strolled restlessly, pausing to gaze out at the five impressive jets that were parked at varying distances from the exit beside him.
In Zandro’s waiting Gulfstream, he could see the pilot … and a co-pilot. Shit! A co-pilot. He had forgotten about him. Giles Mountford had someone seated next to him. But who could it be? What does the co-pilot know, if anything? Nothing. Giles would never have confided that he was a grass, a snout for an officer in SCD7. It was too risky to phone Giles now with someone seated beside him. Sure, Giles would not take off without ATC clearance. That was a given. But the colleague? What would he do? Or what if Zandro kept a gun on board? What if Zandro got aboard and threatened the pilots with a gun? Forced them to take off? Shit! He should have thought of this before. Too late now.
Zandro must never reach his jet.
He looked anxiously back toward the door leading to the security zone. Where the hell was Rogerson? Zandro would be here any moment and only Rogerson had the cuffs. And where was Wensley Hughes and the promised support? Surely they had arrived? He dialled and heard Hughes’ gentle tone, calm and reassuring. “We are under a mile from the airport, well clear now of Bromley. Okay?”
“It might be.” Ratso was looking anxiously over his shoulder. “Gotta go.” He turned to look at the Gulfstream, imagining the tall, slim figure of Giles Mountford sitting in the cockpit. God! I’m placing a load of trust in him. Under threat, who would he back? Too late to agonise now.
Would Giles or the co-pilot personally be escorting him to the steps into the aircraft? Even as he looked, the light rain became a sharp shower that beat down harder, the raindrops bouncing off the tarmac. In these conditions, more likely someone from the terminal with an umbrella would escort any passenger across to the aircraft.
Once banged up, Zandro would be very suspicious of how he had been traced to Biggin Hill. Maybe I should let Zandro think he was followed by a team on the ground. Ratso felt an overwhelming duty to protect any informant like Giles. It was the feeling every copper had for someone who took risks to make a few quid. If Zandro ever discovered the truth, then somehow, someday, Zandro would have Mountford killed—that, or murder his wife and two kids.
With most snouts, the desire to protect them as a source was matched by contempt that someone would sell his mates down the river for money. Ratso occasionally felt like that with the lowlifes but Giles Mountford he saw very differently. The pilot had not wanted money. Worse still, he knew he would lose his job once Zandro was arrested. But he despised Zandro. Ratso thought back to that day, seven months back, when he had traced Mountford to the Coal Hole pub on the Strand in central London. He had cornered him, got chatting and then taken him to dinner up Wellington Street. There he had produced the before-and-after photos of young Freddie. The sight of them had turned him.
“I’ve two kids myself in a vulnerable age group. I despise the drug trade.” Before dinner was over, he had agreed to do what little he could to destroy the man who paid him. But is he to be trusted if Zandro reaches the plane and threatens him? Answer: don’t let Zandro get near the Gulfstream.
As he gazed round the room, he saw with relief that Rogerson had joined the throng of thwarted passengers. Sorry, guys. Even if the fog lifts now in Geneva, you’re not going. Rogerson immediately immersed himself in conversation with a small group that were tapping their feet, standing close to the door to the tarmac as if their proximity would make the Swiss fog lift. Then Ratso saw him—a total stranger who appeared from the direction of the scanner. He knew it was Zandro but not from his appearance. He was being escorted by a woman with a large umbrella; she wheeled a small roll-along and he was carrying an executive case. Good on you, Boris, Ratso thought.