Meltdown bs-4 Read online

  The main part of Operation Meltdown was seeking out and destroying the DMP and everyone involved, but finding out how the drug was distributed in Europe was also part of the mission. Dudley needed to know who picked up the drugs and where they headed after that. He would pass on that information to his European counterparts so that they could identify and take out the rest of the Meltdown network in their own countries.

  As he drove past, Danny watched the coaches pull well away from the road towards the cover of tall trees. He continued for about 400 metres and found a side track where he could hide the Corsa. He grabbed the handycam and headed back cross country towards the car park.

  As he got closer to the dead ground that was the target, he dropped to a crawl, stopping every few minutes to listen for any signs of activity ahead of him. Fergus watched as the big guy ate as though it was his last ever meal. Plate after plate of food was delivered to the table; Fergus guessed that he'd often gone hungry in the old days, during the Bosnian war. There had been so little to eat in that ravaged country. He was certainly making up for it now.

  Teddy and Will soon gave up trying to keep up with the big man's appetite and just picked at their food. From what Fergus could see, it looked as through their contact was doing most of the talking, with big, expansive hand-gestures and an occasional deep belly laugh which rang around the terrace, causing a number of diners to glance over at their table.

  Finally, as the Bosnian paused to savour something delicious, Fergus saw Teddy get in with a question.

  The big man finished his mouthful, chewing slowly.

  He swallowed and then smiled broadly before replying.

  The twins exchanged a look before Teddy continued, and the conversation proceeded more quietly, with all three heads close together across the table. Then the waiter came up to clear the plates and the Bosnian leaned back in his chair, laughed out loud, reached for the menu and started talking to the waiter again.

  Fergus could tell from the twins' body language that they weren't finished with the conversation, but it was also clear that they weren't going to get any more from their contact until he'd finished ordering yet another course. Teddy was looking anxious; Will had a restraining hand on his arm.

  Fergus just hoped that the twins would hold it together enough not to look in his direction and give his position away. Danny could hear engines coming up the hill. He had just a few metres to go before the dead ground came into view and he pushed himself forward more quickly, the sweat on his face now covered with dust.

  Four sets of headlights entered the car park and illuminated the coaches. It was difficult for Danny to see if the twins' crew were outside the coaches as the headlights swept through the darkness.

  Powering up the handycam and the little PC, Danny pushed the nightspot button on the camera forward. He avoided using the LCD screen, as the light it generated could give away his position, and looked through the viewfinder. The light from the infra-red torch on the handycam was invisible to the human eye but illuminated the area enough for the darkened coaches and the men to be clearly visible through the nightspot lens. The images fed straight to the PC and via the Bluetooth connection to the G3 mobile.

  Danny punched a speed-dial number on the mobile. He pressed record on the handycam and the minidisc gently whirred. More than seven hundred miles away, in the darkened Operation Meltdown control room deep inside GCHQ, Dudley watched over the operator's shoulder as the surveillance video images streamed from Danny's G3 phone direct to the main screen in front of him. The frame rate was not good and the images were low res but they came through clearly enough for him to see the action as it happened.

  GCHQ is the electronic ears of British Intelligence; it looks a bit like a modern football stadium, ringed with massive satellite dishes. It sits on the edge of Cheltenham. Racegoers get a good view of the place from the ring road on their way to Cheltenham racecourse.

  As Dudley watched, the four vans reversed up to the coaches one by one. The drivers turned off the van lights, got out, opened the rear doors and lowered the tailgates, and the transfer began immediately. A human chain was formed from the coaches to the first van. Once that had its quota of Melt, they moved on to the next van.

  'It's like an EU summit down there,' said the operator as Danny's images zoomed in on the Spanish, German, Italian and French plates on the four box vans. The registrations were noted and immediately fed through to Dudley's European network so that the vans could be tracked to their final destination. No moves would be made against the shipments until Dudley gave the word.

  The operator was focused on the images on the screen. 'He's done well getting that close without being pinged. And the camera-work's as steady as a rock.'

  Dudley nodded. 'Well done, young Watts,' he breathed. No sound of voices drifted up into the hills. The operation was quick and efficient and Danny realized that George and the rest of the twins' crew must have started removing the drugs from their hiding places on the way up to the meet. Ignoring the trickle of sweat running down into his eyes, the thorns pricking through his jacket and the tension in his arms from the strain of holding the handy cam steady, Danny silently filmed the whole twentyminute operation, making sure that he zoomed in as close as he could on the faces of the men so that they could be identified later.

  It was only when the engine of the first van fired up that Danny allowed himself to relax a little. He felt as though he'd been holding his breath throughout the whole operation. The vans departed one by one, two in one direction, two the other, and soon after the coaches followed, taking the road back down into Barcelona.

  Danny lay still in the dust for a few minutes, listening hard, not wanting to move until he was sure that everyone had left the area. Then he cut the connection to the phone, slipped the minidisc into an inside pocket – just in case the phone hadn't done its job – stuffed the phone and the rest of the kit into his jacket pocket and tracked stealthily back to the Corsa.

  He packed the little handycam back into its bag in the boot of the car, then paused for a moment to look up at the stars in the velvety dark of the Spanish night. He felt pretty pleased with himself. After everything that had happened over the past few days, at last something had gone exactly to plan. Danny smiled, knowing his grandfather would be pleased. As the big Bosnian paused to savour something delicious, he took a call on his mobile. Fergus summoned his waiter and paid the bill. He needed to be ready to move as soon as the twins left the restaurant. Not for the first time, he wished he still had Lee available to follow the Bosnian, but he knew he was more likely to get int from the twins if he stuck with them.

  The big guy didn't stop chewing as he nodded in response to whatever was being said for the few seconds the phone was at his ear.

  He smiled at the twins as he put away his mobile. His plate was empty – it seemed he had finally eaten enough. He pulled a wad of euros from a trouser pocket and paid the bill in cash, adding a huge tip for the grateful waiter.

  Then he looked over his shoulder, along the road, and lifted an arm. Immediately the headlights on a vehicle parked fifty metres away lit up and the car moved out into the road and cruised up to the restaurant.

  Fergus glanced over at the vehicle; it was a huge black Mercedes with tinted windows at the rear. In the front seats sat two heavy-looking characters. The backup.

  The big man stood up, delved into the inside pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a couple of tickets, which he handed to the twins.

  Will and Teddy stood up to shake hands with him before he left, weaving his way steadily through the packed tables towards the car.

  From the back window of a VW van parked down the road from the restaurant a camera began to click furiously. It wasn't the first time it had been put to use that evening.

  It continued clicking as the Bosnian got into his car and was driven away.

  And then Teddy made a mistake. He was a bag of nerves. He slumped down in his chair, turn
ed and looked directly at Fergus.

  In the parked van, the camera began clicking again.

  28

  Phil was driving along a wet and busy road, desperately trying to read the road names through rain-streaked windows. The streetlights were making his task even more difficult. He pressed his gear-stick radio pressel.

  'You sure he turned left into Hayward Street?'

  The voice coming back in Phil's ear was slow and monotonous; it had all the enthusiasm of a bank clerk counting out someone else's money.

  'Correct. Target now halfway along Hayward Street.'

  'Roger that.'

  Phil kept on checking left as he pushed his way through the traffic, with the vehicle's windscreen wipers battering to and fro.

  The Predator operator was having no such problems with the rain. His Portacabin, erected on a vehicle trailer, was full of TV monitors, and bird's-eye views of Manchester were being picked up from two massive portable satellite dishes sitting outside on the runway.

  He could see vehicle lights moving slowly along the busy streets. People were just white shapes against darker backgrounds as they walked along the pavements.

  But the operator was concentrating on one vehicle in particular: the Mini with the bright white stripe that had been sprayed over it.

  Phil had done his follow-up work from the Mini's number plate and had discovered that the redheaded guy he'd called Carrot-top was a young graduate chemist by the name of Freddie Lucas.

  Now, Fiery Fred was being tracked by a Predator drone that the operator was guiding remotely. It was circling 40,000 feet above the city.

  The Predator, a UAV, looks a bit like a glider, with a wingspan of around fifteen metres. It has been in service since 1995 and was first used during the war in the Balkans as a battlefield surveillance device. It had been used to track Bosnian soldiers like the twins' contact as they fought the Serbs, and later the gangsters when they started to run heroin into Italy.

  Unlike a glider, the Predator has a propeller engine and can fly at anything up to 50,000 feet while sending back to the monitors a real-time feed of what is happening on the ground. It means that military commanders can view a battlefield as easily as turning on the TV to watch a traffic report.

  And now the operator talking to Phil could easily track a single vehicle in a heavily congested city.

  The Predator contained a number of different cameras, ranging from one that could pick out a newspaper being read by someone at a bus stop, to thermal imaging, which showed heat as white. The hotter the target, the whiter it appeared on the screen.

  The camera the operator was using to track Fiery Fred was an FLIR coupled with the UAV's powerful infra-red torch. Just like the handycam Danny had used, but millions of times more powerful, the torch shone an infra-red beam down to flood the area around the target and illuminate the invisible IR paint for the FLIR to pick up. The surveillance devices could easily see through cloud, smoke and darkness. For a Predator, it was always a bright, sunny day.

  Since 2000 a new dimension had been added to the capability of the Predator. Some boffin had come up with the idea of strapping Hellfire anti-tank missiles and a laser beam alongside the infra-red torch. The idea was that if the operator saw an opportunist target – armoured vehicles, say – he could switch on the laser beam and 'splash' the target before kicking off one of the fourteen missiles beneath the Predator's wings. The Hellfire is a laserguided missile, so it picks up the laser through the detector in its nose and follows the beam to the target.

  This was how many terrorists were being located and killed in places like Afghanistan. The Predator flies so high, it cannot be seen or heard. So when the terrorists leave the protection of their cave hideouts and travel in their pickups to attack British soldiers, the Predator operator, hundreds of miles away, can mark the targets with the laser beam and kick off the Hellfires.

  High above Manchester, the Predator was following every move of the Mini, and the operator watched on a green-hazed screen.

  'The target is now turning right. That's right onto… wait.'

  He checked the sat nav monitor, which showed exactly where the target was.

  'Right onto Maple Street.'

  Phil's voice came back immediately in the operator's earphones.

  'Roger that. I'm halfway down Hayward.' In the Mini, Freddie had not the slightest idea that he was being tracked by so many million pounds worth of technology.

  Freddie was worried. He was thinking about Albie. The news of his death had shocked him. Not that he would shed any tears over Albie; he was worried about himself.

  Like everyone on the team, Freddie had been only too delighted to join the Meltdown set-up when the twins came calling. He'd known Teddy and Will since university, where they had been popular, with their good looks and endless amounts of Mummy's cash to throw about.

  Freddie had never been popular. His name, his flaming red hair, his obsessive behaviour, his volatile temper, everything had conspired to make him an easy target for the cruel jokes that everyone thought were just a laugh. He knew that the twins had chosen him because he was a loner. They weren't friends. They despised him just as much as he despised them.

  But he was making big money, so why should he care – about the twins or anyone else? None of the team working for the twins gave a toss about the victims of the drug they were producing; about the damage, destruction and death it was causing.

  Suddenly everything seemed to be turning sour. The burned-out coaches, the attack on Teddy, and now Albie's death… Nothing much was known about Albie – it was merely a brief item in the Manchester Evening News reporting the discovery of his body. But of course there was going to be an inquest, and Freddie was only too aware of what that would reveal.

  He was thinking about getting out while he still could. But that wouldn't be easy. Even though Albie was dead, the twins still had plenty more muscle around for retaining their workers' loyalty. And there was the money. Freddie was good at earning it, but he was even better at spending it.

  'One more job,' he said to himself as he eased the Mini down the street. 'One more, maybe two. Then I'll just go – some place where they won't find me. America maybe. Or Australia.'

  He flicked the Mini's indicator and began to slow.

  *

  In the Portacabin, the operator got back on the net.

  'The target is stopping… Wait… Wait… He's parking on the left, three quarters of the way down Maple Street.'

  'Roger that. On Maple now.'

  The operator watched the pure white shape that was Freddie get out of the paler Mini; paler because it was heated by the engine.

  'He's foxtrot, on the pavement… W a i t… Wait… He's feeding a parking meter, two cars in front of his Mini.'

  Phil drove along Maple Street and saw the parked Mini and then Freddie.

  'Phil has Fred. Keep the trigger on the car. I'll take Fred.'

  The operator kept the Predator flying in a wide circle above the Mini as he watched Phil's vehicle park up just short of Freddie's car on the opposite side of the road.

  'Roger that, Phil. Trigger is on the car.'

  He watched the white shape that was Phil get out and start to follow Freddie, who was already walking away.

  The operator could hear the propeller of a second Predator start to rev up on the runway in preparation for take-off. There had to be twenty-four-hour coverage of the city: the team hoped to locate the DMP by following Freddie – he was the only lead they had, and the reasoning was that he would go there one day. With luck it would be one day soon.

  Until then, each Predator would take turns to spend its maximum of thirty hours in the air over Manchester.

  *

  Phil stood in an estate agent's doorway and watched Freddie disappear into an Indian restaurant. 'Loner,' he breathed.

  He thought of Freddie inside the restaurant, seated at a table set for one, trying to look as though he was enjoying himself as he avoided the pitying
glances from couples and groups at other tables.

  It was all depressingly familiar. Phil smiled and pulled up the collar on his jacket. 'He's not the only one,' he said to himself.

  It was going to be another long wet night.

  29

  The pale, watery sun was rising behind the spires of Barcelona cathedral. It was a magnificent sight, but Dudley was in no mood to appreciate the view.

  Events had moved on at a furious pace and in a totally unexpected manner. And Dudley had a longstanding aversion to the unexpected – or anything beyond his control.

  The call to GCHQ had come through in the middle of the night. Several terse phone calls later, Dudley was driven at high speed to RAF Northolt in West London and flown out to Barcelona in a private jet.

  The fierce arguments, accusations and recriminations had continued the moment he arrived at the safe-house apartment at the top of a block overlooking the Gothic quarter of the city.

  As he sipped at a cup of coffee, Dudley felt angry with himself for not anticipating or even considering this development.

  And the arrival of the Spanish edition of that day's Times newspaper had brought yet another serious blow. The headline made horrifying reading.

  THINK-TANK PREDICTS EUROPEAN MELTDOWN

  There had been a leak. Someone on the inside had given The Times its 'world exclusive'.

  The source of the leak didn't matter at that moment; what mattered was the catastrophic effect the revelations would have on public confidence and morale.

  The think-tank's nightmare scenario – police forces throughout Europe being unable to cope, health services breaking down under the pressure on the system and, worst of all for Dudley, Meltdown falling into the hands of some terrorist organization – was all there in black and white for anyone to read.

  And following the revelations of the last few hours, it appeared that the feared terror link might well turn into a reality.