Tango One (31 page)

Robbie was curled around his pillow, snoring softly. Donovan shook him.

“Come on, it's time to get up.”

“Five more minutes,” said Robbie sleepily.

“You don't have five minutes,” said Donovan. He pulled back the quilt.

“Come on, rise and shine.”

Donovan opened the curtains wide and went downstairs. He switched the kettle on and made toast, but when he opened the fridge he realised that he'd forgotten to buy butter. Or marmalade. He filled bowls with Sugar Puffs and poured milk over them, then made a pot of tea. Then he poured two glasses of orange juice. Upstairs he heard the shower in Robbie's bathroom burst into life.

The doorbell rang and Donovan went to answer it. It was Alex Knight carrying a leather briefcase and a moulded black plastic suitcase. He seemed to be wearing the same dark blue blazer and black slacks that he'd had on the previous day. He smiled cheerfully at Donovan.

“Didn't get you up, did I, Den?”

“Bloody hell, Alex, what time do you call this?”

“The early worm catches the bird,” said Knight, carrying the cases in to the hallway.

“I'll start in the study, yeah?”

Donovan showed him through. Knight swung the suitcase up on to Donovan's desk and unlocked the lid. It was packed full of electrical equipment. Knight took out a small black box the size of a paperback book and showed it to Donovan. There were two lights on the front, one green, one red, and an LCD readout.

“Hookswitch bypass detector,” explained Knight.

“It'll also tell you if the line's tapped. Two for the price of one.”

Donovan nodded. He'd seen similar devices before, but not that particular model.

“Green light means it's safe to talk. Red light means they're listening in. The LCD tells you if the phone's active. If it is, your best bet is simply to pull it out of the wall.” He winked at Donovan.

“Or make sure that anything you say, you want them to hear. I'll put one on every phone, then I'll sweep the walls.”

“You want a coffee?”

“Black with four sugars,” said Knight. He grinned.

“What can I say? Sweet tooth.”

“I'm surprised you've got any teeth left at all.”

Donovan went back into the kitchen and made coffee for Knight. As he was carrying it through to the study, Robbie came rushing downstairs.

“There's cereal on the table. Sugar Puffs.”

Robbie frowned at Donovan's robe.

“You're not driving me to school in that, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why aren't you dressed?”

Donovan gestured with his thumb at Knight, who was taking apart the telephone on the desk.

“I'm sort of busy here, Robbie.”

“Typical,” sneered Robbie. He turned his back on Donovan and went into the kitchen.

“I'll call you a minicab,” said Donovan.

“I'm not going to school in a grotty minicab.”

“So walk.”

“Mum always ran me to school,” said Robbie.

“Yeah, well, she had fuck-all else to do except spend my money and shag my accountant.”

Robbie took a step back as if Donovan had pushed him in the chest. Tears pricked his eyes.

Donovan realised he'd gone too far.

“Oh God, Robbie,” he said quickly.

“I'm sorry.”

Robbie picked up his backpack.

“I'll walk.”

Donovan put a hand on his son's shoulder but Robbie shrugged him off.

“Look, I'll call a cab. I know a firm, they've got Mercs. How about that, you can go in a Merc?”

Robbie ran down the hall and slammed the front door behind him. Donovan cursed and took Knight's coffee into the study.

Knight was still pretending to examine the phone on Donovan's desk.

“You got kids, Alex?” asked Donovan.

“I haven't been blessed yet,” said Knight with a straight face. He pushed his black-framed spectacles further up his nose.

“Probably best,” said Donovan. He looked at his watch.

“I've got to make a call.”

“Landline here's okay,” said Knight.

Donovan picked up one of his mobiles.

“Nah, I'll use this.”

Knight nodded at the mobile.

“You know they can key into those, even the GSM digitals?”

“Yeah, but only if they know the number. I'm going through Sim cards like there's no tomorrow.”

Donovan took the phone into the back garden, padding over the grass in his bare feet. He called Underwood at the number where the detective had said he'd be. It was a public phone box about half a mile from Underwood's flat in Shepherd's Bush. Underwood answered immediately.

“I'm late for work,” the detective complained.

“What did you find out?” asked Donovan.

“He's an art dealer, known to us. Thought to be receiving, but never been proved. Just whispers. To be honest, it's a resources thing. Take too much time and effort to target him. There are bigger receivers around. He's got a legitimate business that makes money, I think he just dabbles with stolen stuff. There's a couple of drugs busts, but both were small amounts of cannabis and he was warned both times. String of motoring of fences but he's still got his licence. Just.”

“No chance that he's one of yours?”

“He's not a registered informer, and they're all registered these days. No registration, no case, you know that.”

“Cheers, Dicko.”

“What's the story on this guy?” asked the detective.

“He's sold some paintings for me, that's all. I had him around the house and I just wanted to be sure he was clean.”

Donovan thanked the detective and replaced the receiver. Donovan hadn't expected any revelations from Underwood. He had a sixth sense where undercover agents and grasses were concerned, and Jamie Fullerton hadn't set off any alarm bells. He was a bit too keen, but that was no bad thing. He'd certainly done a great job selling Donovan's paintings and delivering the bank drafts to Rodriguez. Fullerton's drug-taking was a potential problem, however. The last thing Donovan needed was to be caught anywhere near a Class A drug.

Donovan gulped his tea in the kitchen, then took the back off the mobile phone and took out the Sim card. Donovan took the card upstairs and flushed it down the toilet before shaving and showering. When he went back downstairs he was wearing black jeans and a Ralph Lauren blue denim shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Knight was in the sitting room working on the phone there.

“Soon be done downstairs, Den.”

“All clear?”

“So far. You sure they're looking at you?” . “No doubt.” Donovan nodded at the black box that Knight was attaching to the phone.

“They're foolproof, yeah?”

“For the standard surveillance stuff, yeah. Money-back guarantee. And the hook switch gizmo is infallible. Your worry would be if it were spooks and they were watching you through satellite or microwave relay. Cops or Customs couldn't do that, but Six and Five could. That wouldn't show up this end.”

Donovan pulled a face. Since MI6 and MI5 had been allowed to switch their attentions to drug running and money laundering in addition to their standard national security remit, there was every chance that the spooks would be on his case. Not that it mattered. He always regarded all landlines as suspect, with the exception of randomly chosen public call boxes.

“Do you want me to show you the portable MRF detector?”

“Sure.”

Knight went over to his suitcase and took out a blue and white box. He opened it and slid out a white polystyrene moulding inside which was a grey plastic box the size of a beeper, with a belt clip on one side. There were three jack points on one end and a digital display on the other. Knight removed a rechargeable battery from the polystyrene and tossed it to Donovan.

“Charge it up overnight. Charger's in the box. They say it'll last five hundred hours, but that's when it's on stand-by. Figure on forty-eight hours, so that's six days at eight hours a day.”

“I should call you when Robbie needs help with his maths homework.”

Knight took a second battery out of his jacket pocket and inserted it into the back of the detector. He went over to Donovan and clipped it on to his belt, then took a length of cable with a jack plug on one end and a thin Velcro strap on the other. He gave the strap to Donovan and told him to thread it through his shirt sleeve and to run the strap under the band of his Rolex. While Donovan ran the wire up his sleeve, Knight slotted the jack plug into the detector and switched it on.

When he'd finished hiding the strap under his watch band, Donovan rolled down his sleeve. The wire couldn't be seen and the strap was pretty much hidden.

“Clever,” said Donovan 'but does it work?"

Knight went over to his suitcase and took out a small tape recorder and switched it on. He motioned for Donovan to come closer.

“Do I have to keep my arm out or anything?” he asked.

“Nah, just walk normally. It should pick it up within six feet or so.”

Donovan took another step forward. Then another. When he was two paces away from Knight, the box on his belt began to vibrate.

“Yeah, there it goes.” He took a step back. The vibration stopped. He moved forward and it started again.

“Excellent.”

“It's even more sensitive to listening devices,” said Knight. He clicked the tape-recorder off and put it back in the suitcase. He took out a much larger black box, this one the size of a telephone directory, and two small speakers.

“Now this you'll like,” he said. He placed the box and speakers on the coffee table and ran a power lead to the nearest socket.

“Acoustic noise generator. White noise, all frequencies. It'll absolutely render every type of listening device useless, providing that you're closer to the speakers than you are to the bug. Switch it on and sit close to it, keep your voice down and the white noise will swamp what you're saying.”

“Downside is, they'll know that I'm trying to keep something from them,” said Donovan.

“Not necessarily,” said Knight, flicking a small red switch. A red light glowed and the room was filled with a static-like noise. Knight turned a white plastic knob and the volume increased.

“They're more likely to think they've got a technical problem. Vary it. Turn it down when your conversation's innocuous, turn it up when you're secret squirrel. It'll drive them crazy.” Knight stood up.

“Right, why don't I sweep the downstairs, show you the weak points, then I'll fix the phones upstairs.”

He took a portable RF detector from the suitcase. It looked like a small metal detector with a circular antennae on one end that was the size of a table tennis bat. He showed Donovan how to switch it on and how to read the LCD, then ran it along the skirting board. Donovan was already familiar with the procedure: he'd often swept the villa in Anguilla himself.

The phone rang. Donovan walked over to the sideboard and picked up the receiver, automatically checking the lights on the monitor. The green light was on. Safe to talk. It was Robbie. Donovan expected him to apologise for running out of the house, but Robbie had something else on his mind he'd left his sports kit behind and he was supposed to be playing soccer that afternoon. Donovan said he'd take the kit to school for him and arranged to meet Robbie outside the gates at half past twelve.

They called it the Almighty. Major Allan Gannon wasn't sure who had named the secure satellite phone system, or when, but now it was never referred to by any other name. The briefcase containing the Almighty sat on a table adjacent to Gannon's desk when he was in his office at the Duke of York Barracks in London, a short walk from the up market boutiques of Sloane Square, and went everywhere with him.

Gannon was standing by the window, peering through the bombproof blinds at the empty parade ground, when the Almighty bleeped. It was an authoritative, urgent sound, none of the twee melodies so beloved of mobile phone users. The Almighty's ring broached no argument. Answer me now, it said. This is urgent. Not that Gannon needed to be told the urgency of calls that came through the Almighty. The only people who had access to the Almighty were the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office, and the chiefs of MI5 and MI6.

Gannon strode over to the satellite phone and picked up the receiver.

“Increment,” he said curtly.

“Major Gannon speaking.”

The head of MI6 identified herself, and then began relaying instructions to Gannon. Gannon made notes on a pad attached to a metal clipboard which was pre-stamped with "Eyes Only Top Secret. Not For Distribution'.

The call was short, less than two minutes in duration. Gannon repeated the information he'd been given, and then replaced the receiver. The major's SAS staff sergeant looked up from his copy of the Evening Standard.

“Game on,” said Gannon.

“Freighter heading for Felixstowe. Interception as soon as it's in our waters. Possible drugs consignment.”

“Customs?” asked the sergeant, a fifteen-year veteran of the SAS.

“Spooks,” said Gannon.

“Specific instructions not to liaise with Customs at this point.”

“They do like their little games, don't they?” said the sergeant.

“Force of habit,” said Gannon.

“Since the Iron Curtain went down, they've got bugger all else to do. Still, ours not to reason why. Eight bricks should do it.” The Special Air Service and Special Boat Squadron units that the Increment had access to were split into groups of four, known as bricks. Each brick had a vehicle specialist, a medical specialist, a demolition specialist and one other with an extra skill, such as languages, sniping or diving.

“We'll go in with inflatables, no need for choppers.”

“Fifty-fifty split?”

“I think so,” said Gannon.

“Wouldn't want our lads to think they were being left out of it. No choppers, though, we'll be using inflatables. Get the SBS to pull out a sub skimmer No reason to expect any firepower at their end, but we go in fully equipped.” The major looked at his watch.

“Full briefing at eighteen hundred hours.”

Donovan found Robbie's sports bag by his bed. He put it on the passenger seat of the Range Rover, and was about to get into the car when he had a sudden thought. He went back into the house and got the portable RF detector and ran it over the outside and underneath of the Range Rover, then climbed into the back and swept the antennae over the inner surfaces.

A car pulled up in the road outside. Donovan looked up, feeling vulnerable. He relaxed when he saw it was Louise, at the wheel of an Audi roadster. She waved and climbed out of the sports car. Donovan wondered what it was about girls who worked in the lap-dancing bars. They all seemed to want to drive powerful cars.

He got out of the Range Rover and waved back.

“I hope you don't mind me popping in on you like this,” she said. She was wearing a sheepskin flying jacket and blue jeans that seemed to have been sprayed on to her, and impenetrable black sunglasses.

“Kris told me where you lived.”

“No problem,” said Donovan. He looked at his watch.

“But I'm just on my way out.”

Louise's face fell.

“Oh. Okay. I just wanted to say thanks. Buy you a coffee, maybe.” She kept looking at the RF detector in Donovan's right hand while she was talking. Donovan put it in the back of the Range Rover.

“Tell you what, why don't you give me a lift to my boy's school? I've got to drop off his soccer kit. Then you can take me for coffee.”

Louise smiled. It was, thought Donovan, a very pretty smile. He'd only seen tears and a trembling lower lip when he'd been around at her flat. She turned and went back to the roadster and Donovan found himself unable to tear his eyes from her backside as she walked. He could see why she was able to afford a car like that. She looked over her shoulder and caught him watching her.

Donovan quickly looked away. He took Robbie's sports kit out and locked up the Range Rover. She was gunning the engine as he got into the passenger seat.

“Nice motor,” he said.

“My toy,” she said.

“You can navigate, yeah?”

“Does all right, doesn't he?” said Shuker, swinging the SLR camera around to photograph the departing Audi.

“First the blonde, now the brunette. Both lookers. See the body on that one?”

Jenner put down his binoculars and wrote down the registration number of the roadster. The blonde had turned out to be a lap-dancer, and Jenner was prepared to bet money that the brunette was in the same line of business.

“If you had the millions he had, you'd probably have totty like that, too.”

“Hey, I do all right,” said Shuker, offended.

“Of course you do. Tell them you work for HM Customs and they go all misty eyed, don't they?”

“It's the bike. Birds love bikes.”

“Nah, birds say they like bikes until they get married. Then they want you to sell the bike and buy a car.”

“Not the sort I go out with. But Donovan, he's got the lifestyle, hasn't he? What do you think the house is worth?”

Two and half. Maybe three."

“Can't they sequester his assets?”

“He's the Teflon man. House is in his wife's name, I think. Or a trust. Untouchable, anyway. Even if anything was proved against him.” Jenner yawned. The two Customs officers were working a treble shift and would be in the room for a full thirty-six hours. They took it in turns to sleep on the single bed whenever Donovan left the house, and it was Jenner's turn for a nap.

“What do you think about tagging his car?” asked Shuker, rewinding his film.

“You saw him checking it. No point if he's going to be doing that every day. We'd just be showing our hand. That's what I'm recommending, anyway.”

“He knows we're watching him. Operator like Donovan, he knows surveillance as well as we do. And that guy this morning. The nerd. He's got to be counter-surveillance, right?”

“We'll know when the registration check comes back, but yeah, he looked technical. If he is, there's no point in us wiring up the house. Not unless we just want to annoy him.”

“I'm up for it,” said Shuker “It's not our call,” said Jenner, 'but I'm going to be suggesting laser mikes. See if they'll run to it. I think we'll be wasting our time, though: Donovan's not going to say a dickie bird in his house or on the phone."

Donovan gave Louise directions to Robbie's school. She handled the car confidently and was a far better driver than Kris. She was quick, but whereas with Kris his heart had been in his mouth at her sudden changes of speed and direction, he was able to relax with Louise at the wheel.

“Kris told me what you did,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“It was nothing.”

She flashed him a sideways look and he saw his reflection in the black lenses.

“It was one hell of a thing, Den. You took a risk doing that.”

“Nah, he was out of condition. A middle-class wanker.”

“That's not what I meant. You weren't scared of ... repercussions. You went right ahead and did what you did. For me.”

“Repercussions? Like him wanting to get his own back? Don't worry about that. His type are cowards. That's why they hit women in the first place, to make themselves feel big.”

The traffic lights ahead of them turned amber and Louise brought the car to a smooth stop. She reached over and switched on her cassette. Oasis. Donovan smiled at the coincidence. It was the same tape he'd been playing in the Range Rover.

“I meant the police. The cops could have been called, but you weren't worried. You just went right on in.”

“Like a bull in a china shop, you mean?”

Something vibrated on Donovan's hip. He wondered if it was the car, and he shifted position, but the vibration continued.

“You weren't hot headed. You were cold. Calculating.”

Donovan reached into his pocket, figuring that it must be one of his mobile phones that was vibrating. Then he remembered that device that Knight had given him and he stiffened.

“What's wrong?” asked Louise, looking at him sideways.

“Cramp,” lied Donovan. It was the RF detector. The car was bugged. He was talking about beating a man to within an inch of his life and the car was bloody well bugged. She was setting him up. Louise was leading him on, getting him to talk about it, getting him to confess. He made a play of rubbing his side. What the hell was he going to say? What had he said already? Had he given them enough evidence already?

The Oasis track ended. The lights changed to green and Louise pulled away, but she kept looking across at him.

“Are you all right? Do you want me to pull over?”

Donovan shook his head. The next track started. Suddenly realisation dawned. He reached out and switched the tape off. The detector stopped vibrating immediately.

“Not an Oasis fan, huh? Thought you would be, both being from Manchester.”

“How do you know that?” asked Donovan. He hadn't told Kris where he was from.

“Oh, give me a break, Den,” she laughed.

“That's hardly an Oxbridge accent you've got there.”

Donovan pressed the start button again. The tape restarted. So did the vibration. He switched it off. The vibration stopped.

“Make your mind up,” she said.

Donovan smiled and relaxed back in the bucket seat.

“Sorry,” he said.

“I'm jumping at shadows at the moment.”

They arrived at Robbie's school. Robbie was waiting outside the gates, peering down the road. He didn't notice Donovan sitting in the passenger seat of the Audi.

“Won't be long,” said Donovan, climbing out of the sports car with Robbie's bag.

Robbie frowned as he saw Donovan getting out of the Audi.

“Who's that?” he said, looking through the windscreen.

“A friend,” said Donovan, holding out the sports bag.

“A girlfriend?”

“She's a friend and she's a girl, so that would make her a girlfriend, right? Now do you want this, or not?”

Robbie took the bag.

“A thank you would be nice,” said Donovan.

“Who is she?”

“She's just a friend. Okay? I helped her and she came around to the house to say thank you. Then she said she'd give me a lift to drop your gear off. You know I hate driving in the city.”

“You're a terrible driver,” Robbie mumbled.

“I'm a great driver,” Donovan protested.

“You lose your temper too easily. You keep hitting the horn. And you don't use the mirrors enough.”

Donovan stood up.

“I'll pick you up tonight, yeah? In the Range Rover.”

Robbie nodded.

“Okay.” He held up the bag.

“Thanks for bringing this.”

“You give them hell. Score lots of goals.”

“I'm a defender, Dad.”

“Defenders can score. Don't let them put you in a box. You see an opportunity to go for the goal, you take it, right?”

“It's a team game, Dad,” laughed Robbie, and he ran off.

Donovan went back to the car. He grunted as he climbed back into the passenger seat. He felt too old to be getting in and out of low-slung sports cars.

“Everything okay?” asked Louise.

“He thinks you're my new girlfriend.”

“As opposed to an old one?”

“As opposed to his mother.”

“Ah,” said Louise, putting the Audi into gear.

“Starbucks okay?”

“My favourite coffee.” He stared silently out of the window.

“Penny for them?” asked Louise, stopping to allow a pensioner drive her Toyota out of a side road.

“Robbie says I'm a crap driver.”

“And are you?”

“I don't think so, but what guy does, right?”

“Quickest way to end a relationship,” laughed Louise.

“Tell a guy he's lousy in bed or that he's crap behind the wheel of car.”

“You in a relationship right now?” asked Donovan. Immediately the words left his mouth he regretted them. It was a soppy question.

Louise didn't seem bothered by his probing. She shrugged.

“Difficult to have any regular sort of relationship, doing what I do,” she said.

“Great way to meet guys, though,” said Donovan.

Louise raised her eyebrows and sighed.

“Yeah, right. I'd really want to go out with the sort of guy who thinks shoving twenty-pound notes down a girl's g-string is a sensible way to spend an evening.”

“Beats sitting in front of the TV,” said Donovan with a smile.

“And would I want to go out with a guy who knows what I do for a living? What does that say about him?”

“You mean, if a guy really cared for you, he wouldn't want you to do what you do?”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe he'd think it better you have a career. My soon-to-be ex-wife never did a day's work in her life. She went from her father's house to mine. From one provider to another.”

“Soon-to-be ex-wife? You're getting divorced?”

“Something more permanent, hopefully,” said Donovan. Then he shook his head.

“Joke.”

“Didn't sound like a joke,” said Louise.

“I'm still a bit raw,” said Donovan.

“You'll heal. Here we are.” She parked the car at a meter and jumped out before Donovan could continue the conversation. She fed the meter and locked the car, then went into the coffee shop with Donovan. He reached for his wallet but she slapped his hand away.