Brigands M. C. (37 page)

‘So where are you now?’

‘Hotel near Cambridge,’ Dave explained. ‘There’s about fifty refugees here. We pulled out not long after you and the coach. The Führer’s livid at Sealclubber. The Brigands’ reputation is in tatters.’

‘Never should have poured out of camp like that,’ James agreed. ‘Made us look proper muppets. How’s about your bike?’

‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ Dave said. ‘The Führer lost his bike. Teeth’s had his new Speedster less than a month and it’s nothing but a charred frame. There’s gonna be a war over this. Inside the Brigands
and
out.’

James knew this was bad. When studying the background for the mission he’d read about wars between outlaw biker gangs in Canada, the USA, Holland, Australia and Scandinavia. They’d resulted in shoot-outs, bombings and dozens of dead bodies. Out of all the countries with large biker communities Britain was the only one that had never seen a major turf war, but the Tea Party incident looked set to change that.

‘You know I’m loyal,’ James said. ‘So did you call to check on me, or was there something else?’

‘I did have a proposition,’ Dave nodded. ‘It’s something that could earn you a good deal more than your crêpe flipping job, but it’s a matter for face to face conversation. I should be back in Salcombe by this evening. Could you meet me at Marina Heights sometime tomorrow?’

‘I’ve got school,’ James said. ‘But I can be there by about four.’

*

McEwen and Neil had spent the night in the BMW, taking turns to watch the shed, making sure that the weapons weren’t moved. When it got to one in the afternoon and they still hadn’t been relieved, Neil called his boss, Ross Johnson.

‘I do understand your position, sir,’ Neil said into his handset. ‘But we’ve been on duty twenty-seven hours straight. We need to be relieved. If someone comes in and grabs those weapons now, McEwen and I are in no proper state to follow them. We’re in the middle of nowhere. I’ve barely put a crumb past my lips since yesterday afternoon.’

Neil relayed his boss’ explanation to McEwen. ‘Ross says he’s had problems because there’s no overtime budget and he’s had to send six of his best people to start an investigation into the trouble at the Rebel Tea Party. Our relief has arrived, but they’ve just gone to check into their hotel.’

McEwen’s eyes shot open. To Neil’s alarm McEwen snatched the mobile from his hand. ‘McEwen here,’ he shouted. ‘Now listen here, you candy-arsed penguin-poking bottom-bandit. I haven’t eaten, slept or shat. I’m sitting here in a car that’s as hot as hell, and you’re telling me that my relief has gone to check into a bastard hotel! What the hell else are they gonna do before they make it up here? Sit down for a cheese ploughman’s? Play nine holes at the seafront pitch-and-putt?’

As a Chief Inspector, Ross Johnson wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, especially by a twenty-two-year old like McEwen.

‘Now you listen here, young man,’ Johnson roared.

‘Don’t you
young man
me, you goat’s dangler,’ McEwen bellowed, as Neil shrivelled into his seat with embarrassment. ‘When you work with CHERUB you do what
we
say. And I’m saying get your people to stop whatever they’re doing and drive here and relieve my arse
now
… Who goes and checks into their hotel when the surveillance team hasn’t eaten for eighteen hours?’

McEwen threw the phone at Neil so hard that it bounced off his lap and hit the door, making the battery compartment fly off.

‘Glad to get that off your chest?’ Neil inquired.

‘No offence,’ McEwen said. ‘But I spend a lot of my time working with the police and the great majority of them are dipshits.’

Neil sighed. ‘Ross isn’t a bad guy. We just don’t have the budget or manpower that we really need.’

McEwen got out to stretch his legs as Neil reassembled his mobile. Standing up gave McEwen a better view and he couldn’t believe what he saw.

‘Binoculars,’ McEwen yelled, as he leaned into the car.

The magnified view confirmed that there was a police van parked by the trees on the far side of the shed, plus two armed officers taking up positions behind a hedge.

‘What are they doing here?’ McEwen shouted into the car desperately. ‘They’ll blow our whole operation.’

McEwen grabbed his security services ID from a jacket thrown over the back seat and started running flat out across the field. By the time he’d reached the front of the shed there were six uniformed officers coming towards him and a megaphone blaring out.

‘This is the police, stand still and raise your hands.’

‘Go swivel,’ McEwen shouted as he carried on steaming towards a sergeant.

A warning shot fired out of the bushes, hitting the grass about five metres behind McEwen. They were in the middle of nowhere and even if the locals hadn’t seen the police driving up to the fields, half the neighbourhood would have heard the gunshot.

‘Do not move,’ the megaphone blared. ‘Drop to your knees and place your hands on your head.’

McEwen swore as he dropped to his knees and the cops surrounded him. The senior officer was a burly sergeant all done up in riot gear. He directed four men towards the shed before pulling his baton and glowering at McEwen.

‘Think you need all that gear to storm a wooden barn?’ McEwen asked sarcastically, as he waved his ID. ‘I’m intelligence service. That barn is under surveillance and you just blew a major operation.’

The sergeant snatched McEwen’s ID and stared at it sceptically. He wasn’t the first policeman who didn’t recognise a security service identity card when he saw one.

‘Where’d you get this, sonny? Did you buy it in the pub, or laminate it yourself?’

The sergeant laughed as his colleagues used a battering ram to smash the door off the barn.

‘You’re gonna be in the shit when my people hear about this,’ McEwen shouted.

‘Cuff
that
, and stick him in a van,’ the sergeant told a female colleague as he swaggered uphill towards the barn. But by this time Neil Gauche had arrived, waving a more recognisable metal police badge.

‘He’s with me. Sergeant Neil Gauche, National Police Biker Task Force. What’s happening here?’

A cop shouted out from the barn. ‘We’ve got the guns, sarge. Whole van is packed with ’em.’

The sergeant looked at Neil and shook his head. ‘I don’t know who you are or what’s going on here. All I know is that this got called in by the Chief Constable for Devon. So if you want to know why we’re here, you’d better ask him.’

Neil pointed at McEwen. ‘He’s with me, can you let him up?’

‘I suppose,’ the sergeant said, and gave McEwen back his card. ‘Intelligence service, eh? You don’t exactly look like James Bond, do you? Or even very intelligent for that matter.’

The sergeant laughed at his own joke, but stopped abruptly as McEwen grabbed his riot clothing and nutted him.

Chairwoman Zara Asker had cooked her Sunday roast, but instead of eating it with her family she’d had to drive to the RAF airfield near CHERUB campus and take a small jet down to Exeter.

Chloe met her in the terminal and they drove to a conference room she’d booked at short notice in a nearby hotel. As one of CHERUB’s most junior mission controllers Chloe was nervous around her boss.

‘Ross Johnson can’t make it,’ Chloe explained as they walked across a sunny car park and into the hotel’s bland lobby.

Zara wasn’t in a good mood. ‘If I can make it all the way from campus when I’m seven months pregnant, why the hell can’t he get from London?’

‘He’s in Cambridge,’ Chloe said. ‘He’s got the press on his back after the Tea Party riot.’

‘So who is here?’

‘Ross’ deputy, an Inspector named Tracy Jollie.’

‘And she’s cleared to know about the CHERUB operation?’ Zara asked.

‘We cleared the three,’ Chloe said. ‘Ross Johnson, who knew about CHERUB already, Neil Gauche and Tracy Jollie. The rest of Ross’ team know about the fake weapons buy, but not about the CHERUB operation.’

Zara nodded as they turned out of the lobby and began walking down a long corridor lined with the closed doors of banqueting suites.

‘This was the only place I could find near to the airport at short notice,’ Chloe explained.

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ Zara said, sensing Chloe’s nerves. ‘What about the three kids? How are they taking the news of the police raid?’

‘Lauren and James have been on enough missions to expect things to go wrong, Dante’s more of a worry. He has such a big personal investment in this mission. He really wants to see the Führer go to prison.’

The conference room had windows overlooking the runway of Exeter’s small airport and all the standard features: long table, overhead projector and flip chart, plus a plate of biscuits and a Thermos of hot water for making drinks.

Everyone had waited more than forty minutes for Zara. Neil and McEwen still hadn’t slept and stayed alert by pouring sachets of Nescafe coffee granules on to their tongues. Lauren sat with her head slumped on the desk, while James and Dante had built a tower out of miniature UHT milk cartons.

Zara came in and quickly shook hands with Tracy, then sat at the head of the table.

‘OK,’ Zara said, as she pulled in her chair. ‘What do we know about these police raids? How and why did they happen?’

Police inspector Tracy Jollie began to answer. ‘I’ve been on the phone with the Chief Constable for Devon and I’ve met with the inspector who ordered this morning’s raid. Last night Neil and McEwen watched four men unloading weapons from the trawler
Brixton Riots
. One of the crew was a young lad named Julian Hargreaves. Our teams dropped surveillance on him after he left the scene.’

‘Why?’ Zara interrupted.

‘Manpower,’ McEwen said. ‘It was me, Neil and Chloe. We chose to follow the weapons.’

Tracy continued. ‘It’s my understanding that Julian left his friend Nigel and then went to his home in the Marina View apartments. When Julian arrived he started thinking about what he was involved in and got worried about what the guns and weapons he’d smuggled would be used for.’

James had heard the story already and snorted dismissively. ‘Julian isn’t the kind of guy who lets his conscience keep him awake. It’s more likely that he smoked enough dope to scramble his brain, then got paranoid about getting nicked.’

‘Maybe,’ Tracy nodded. ‘It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Julian decided to approach his father and confess to what he’d done. Jonty Hargreaves is a crown court judge with a background in criminal law. He set about doing what any father with a legal background would do, which was to find the best possible outcome for his son.

‘So the Honourable Jonty Hargreaves got Julian to write and sign a statement, explaining how he’d been dragged into the smuggling operation by Paul Woodhead in order to save his friend Nigel from a beating. Jonty then called his old friend the Chief Constable for Devon, and they carved up a deal.’

‘How did Julian know where the weapons were stored?’ Lauren asked.

‘Woodhead must have mentioned something when he was on the boat,’ McEwen suggested, before Tracy continued her story.

‘First thing this morning, Jonty and Julian presented themselves at the police station. Julian handed his written confession to an inspector hand-picked by the Chief Constable. Julian had admitted to a serious crime,
but
his father knows that his son is seventeen years old, Julian has no previous criminal convictions and he’s making a confession that will lead to the seizure of a large shipment of illegal weapons and the arrest of Riggs and Woodhead.’

Zara nodded. She understood how the law worked with juveniles better than most lawyers and finished the story herself. ‘So Julian will have to go to court and plead guilty to a couple of minor charges, but the judge will give him credit for confessing. And, as Julian’s still seventeen, he’s a juvenile so he won’t even have a criminal record beyond his eighteenth birthday.’

‘That’s it in a nutshell,’ Neil sighed. ‘But Judge Hargreaves’
get out of jail free
scheme for Julian has wrecked any chance we had of following the weapons to their destination and getting evidence that links the Führer and other senior Brigands to the smuggling racket. The icing on the cake for us is that we’ve paid a three-hundred-grand deposit which we’ll probably never see again. It’s a
massive
embarrassment.’

Dante sprang up, making his chair shoot backwards, then slammed his palm on the table top. ‘That bastard,’ he shouted. ‘The Führer’s gotta be the luckiest dirtbag on the planet. Nothing ever sticks to him. Give me a gun, I’ll stick it in his face and spray his brains all over his front doorstep.’

Chloe stood up and moved towards Dante. ‘Calm down, mate,’ she said soothingly. ‘Everyone here wants to see the Führer put behind bars, but we always knew that this mission was a long shot.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Dante said furiously. ‘For all you lot the Führer is a target. Some you win, some you lose and if you lose you’ll get on with the next job. But I watched him take a gun and kill four members of my family.’

Zara stood up and spoke in a firm voice. ‘Dante, I know you’re having a hard time with this. But even CHERUB isn’t totally above the law. There are countries in the world where the government goes around killing anyone they don’t like, but I’m glad that I
don’t
live in one of them.’