Brigands M. C. (43 page)

‘Are you familiar with the protocol?’ the guard asked, as he led them up thickly carpeted stairs, with chandeliers hanging overhead.

‘Just about,’ McEwen said. ‘But remind me anyway.’

The guard wore the uniform of a regular security company, but was actually an MI5 operative. ‘We’ve had a technical crew working up here for the last two nights making your access point. Of course, it goes without saying that there might be a major diplomatic incident if you were caught.’

‘We’ll do our best not to be,’ McEwen said, smiling cheekily. ‘I promise.’

‘I got picked for tonight’s assignment because I worked with a CHERUB agent many years ago,’ the guard said. ‘Lovely girl named Amy Collins. She was only eleven, but my
god
did she know her stuff. I often wonder what became of her.’

‘Better not to ask,’ McEwen said gruffly. ‘You know how it is.’

‘She’s not at CHERUB any more,’ Callum said. ‘She’s in her twenties now.’

McEwen flicked Callum’s ear and told him to shut his mouth. The guard looked at Callum guiltily but didn’t say anything more until they reached the third floor and crossed a meeting room fitted with a long oak table.

‘The shaft is only about two metres long and leads to a ventilation grille inside the embassy,’ the guard explained. ‘I’ve been up there and cleaned out every speck of dirt so that you don’t spoil your clothes. The office workers will start arriving here in a couple of hours, but I’ll lock this room and nobody will come inside.’

The guard reached up and pulled a large picture off the wall, revealing a crude plasterboard hatch directly behind it. Callum looked inside, and could see the embassy’s polished wooden floor through the grille about half a metre above his head.

‘You can make tea or coffee, there’s biscuits,’ the guard continued. ‘If you need to urinate there’s a flask, and I think that’s everything. I’ll give you a call when I see Steve Nolan arriving at the embassy.’

‘All sounds good to me,’ McEwen said. ‘We stopped to pick up newspapers and some breakfast on the way in, so we’ll just squat here until show time.’

7.22 a.m.

Connor liked a good blast in the shower when he woke up in the morning, but he couldn’t go near water because of the make-up job and he felt grotty as he met with Steve Nolan in the hotel lobby.

‘So you’re my new nephew,’ Steve said airily. ‘How lovely to meet you.’

Maureen didn’t like Steve’s tone and spoke sharply. ‘Concentrate on what you’ve been taught, Mr Nolan. Remember, you only earn your get-out-of-jail-free card if this all comes off perfectly. Have you got any questions?’

‘Is there anywhere around here where I could get a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel?’ Steve asked. ‘I’m not used to being up this early and I don’t want to start feeling queasy.’

Maureen was slightly irritated by the request, but Steve was going undercover with no training and she had to do everything she could to keep him calm. They rerouted their driver so that they passed a branch of Bagel Factory and Steve satisfied his craving as they took the fifteen-minute drive to Regent’s Park.

The embassy was regarded as a likely terrorist target. Concrete bollards protected it from car bombs and a miserable police officer stood by the main door, looking damp. The lobby had a mahogany reception desk and walls decorated with Aztec shields.

The rugged-looking suspect introduced himself as Ramiro and was surprised to see Connor.

‘Last-minute thing,’ Steve explained. ‘My brother’s away on business and this little fella has a habit of not making it to school if you don’t watch him walk through the gate.’

Ramiro laughed. ‘The same in my country,’ he said. ‘My daughter at school is very good. My son’s not so much. It’s not a manly thing to study hard. Now, if you don’t mind.’

They’d crossed a small marble hallway, but the main part of the embassy building was behind an airport-style security checkpoint. An embassy guard stood up as Connor and Steve placed their backpacks on the conveyor belt. When he was satisfied with their bags, he spoke in bad English, ordering them to remove their belts and shoes and turn out their pockets before passing through a metal detector.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ Ramiro said. ‘But there are drug wars and terrorists in my country. We must do this to everyone.’

‘Not a problem,’ Steve said politely, as he pushed his feet back inside his shoes.

The guard was less friendly. He swivelled the LCD display from the X-ray machine towards Steve and tapped accusingly on the outline of a dark purple contraption.

‘What is this?’

‘Weighing scales and an optical magnifier.’

‘What for?’

Ramiro broke into a broad smile. ‘Sergeant, Mr Nolan is my guest.’

The guard turned sharply towards Ramiro. ‘You do your job and I do mine. You either get clearance from the ambassador, or your friends pass through security the same as everyone else.’

‘It’s not a problem at all,’ Steve said, as he unzipped his pack. ‘Look all you like.’

The guard seemed to consider this for a few seconds before giving a wave. ‘Take it through.’

Connor saw an exchange of nasty looks between Ramiro and the guard as he stuffed everything back into his pockets. He reckoned the guard knew Ramiro was up to something dodgy. But was he an honest man who’d seen one too many sets of gemstone scales on his X-ray machine, or was he just looking for a cut of Ramiro’s profits?

Not that it mattered right now. According to another diamond merchant to whom Ramiro had tried selling his haul of illegal diamonds, he met clients in a third-floor office. If he was taking them to a different part of the embassy their whole plan was completely down the toilet.

Connor tensed up as they entered a tiny lift, with barely room for the three of them. He felt some relief when Ramiro pressed the button for the third floor, but he was now seconds away from the trickiest part of the operation.

As the elderly lift clattered upwards, Connor reached into the pocket of his school blazer and wrapped his hand around a cricket ball. He made sure he was last out of the lift and as Ramiro and Steve turned left and started walking, he dropped the leather ball, making sure that it ran backwards down the corridor.

Ramiro heard the crack on the floorboards and turned back to see Connor jogging down the hallway after his ball. Steve yelled at his fake nephew, before tugging on Ramiro’s suit to hurry him along

‘I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve got so much on this morning,’ Steve said.

Connor trailed the ball down the hallway to a spot partially obscured by a structural column and a leather sofa. He’d been told that there were no security cameras in these private areas of the embassy, but he still felt paranoid as he picked up the cricket ball and tapped it twice against the wall. Almost instantly, a metal ventilation grille behind the sofa opened and Callum emerged.

The twins eyed each other briefly.

‘Good luck,’ Connor said half-heartedly, as he passed the cricket ball to his brother.

Callum pocketed the cricket ball and began jogging towards Ramiro and Steve, as Connor crouched behind the sofa and disappeared through the grille. The switch had taken less than ten seconds. Callum was dressed identically to Connor, but Lucy had fitted him with a tiny earpiece, he had a microphone in the cuff of his blazer and a backpack filled with surveillance equipment.

‘Butterfingers,’ Callum told Steve, which sounded innocent but was actually a codeword telling him that they’d switched successfully. A moment later, Callum passed Steve a bunch of keys.

‘I meant to hand your keys back when we left the house.’

‘No worries,’ Steve said cheerfully. ‘I hadn’t forgotten them.’

They’d worried that Steve seemed highly strung, but he was keeping his cool. Ramiro looked at Callum, then turned away and used his embassy pass to go through a set of double doors into a grandly furnished waiting area.

There was a table covered in old magazines and a receptionist’s desk, but Ramiro always arranged his illicit meetings either before the receptionist arrived or after she went home.

‘Wait out here,’ Steve told Callum. ‘It won’t take long. You won’t be late for school.’

As Steve went into Ramiro’s office, Callum unzipped the backpack, revealing three boxes of tricks. The first was gun-shaped and filled with tiny microfilament listening devices that could be fired into carpets, cushions or seats. However, these would only pick up sounds in the reception area and all the important meetings took place in Ramiro’s office. Fortunately the latest generation of laser microphones was capable of turning the most minuscule of vibrations into audible sounds. The only problem was, the invisible laser beams had to be pointed at a large flat surface like a door or window, which meant they couldn’t be hidden out of view like a normal bug.

Callum picked a spot on the side of the secretary’s desk, removed a sticky pad no bigger than the nail on his little toe and stuck it on. He then placed another on the far wall, in a shadow under an oil painting. He raised his blazer cuff up to his mouth.

‘McEwen do you copy?’ Callum whispered.

‘Copy,’ McEwen said, his voice coming through a tiny invisible earpiece in Callum’s ear.

‘Laser mics one and two are in position. Can you calibrate the beams and signal check?’

‘Will do.’

Calibrating the laser microphones involved aiming the tiny laser beams across the room until they found the point on Ramiro’s office door where they got the strongest signal. While Callum waited for a response, he moved around the room firing a dozen microfilament bugs into chair cushions.

McEwen sounded happy when he came back through the earpiece. ‘I’m listening to Steve and Ramiro loud and clear. Signal is strong, no need to put in a signal booster.’

Callum raised his wrist up to his mouth. ‘Cool.’

‘Job done,’ McEwen said. ‘Pick up a magazine and wait for Steve to come out.’

Callum allowed himself a satisfied smile as a busty secretary came into the room.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, as she took off a damp raincoat.

‘I’m just waiting for my dad to come out of a meeting,’ Callum explained, pointing towards Ramiro’s door.

He instantly realised that he should have said uncle, but it wasn’t the end of the world. By the time the secretary sat down, Steve and Ramiro were coming out of the office with huge grins on their faces. Ramiro’s smile only lasted until he saw his secretary.

‘You’re early,’ Ramiro said.

‘So are you,’ she replied curtly.

They took the stairs back down to the lobby. The security guard pressed a button to let them through an exit gate and Ramiro gave Steve a quick wave as he walked back towards the lift.

‘Did you do it?’ Callum asked, as the driver pulled out into traffic.

‘Uncle Steve was a good little spy,’ Steve nodded, as he handed the bunch of keys back to Callum. ‘I didn’t touch every stone, but I rubbed my hands on the key fob like I was told.’

‘It’s a chemical marker,’ Callum explained. ‘Anyone who touches those diamonds now will become contaminated with minute quantities of a complex man-made carbon molecule. It just looks like dust through a regular microscope. Don’t forget to give your hands a good wash before eating anything.’

‘Is it toxic?’ Steve asked, giving his slender fingers a look of concern.

‘It won’t kill you,’ Callum said. ‘But it won’t do you much good either.’

‘I bought three stones,’ Steve said. ‘They’re absolutely
fantastic
quality. One is completely flawless. You’d pay ten times the price at an official diamond auction.’

‘Good for you, I guess,’ Callum replied. ‘Not so good for the poor kid who’s up to his knees in mud in an illegal diamond mine, with some corrupt general threatening to shoot him in the head if he doesn’t work harder.’

The bugs planted in the embassy eventually led to the arrest of RAMIRO along with seventeen of his associates and five diamond dealers distributing illegal stones in London and Amsterdam. Ramiro was able to return home due to his diplomatic status and did not face prosecution in his own country due to close personal ties with the president. Members of the smuggling racket without such powerful connections received prison sentences ranging between three and seven years.

Despite being given a break by CHERUB and MI5, STEVE NOLAN’s jewellery business went bankrupt in early 2009. He can now be seen on TV’s ShopMax channel, selling his own line of jewellery. All of this new range is made with artificial diamonds

The girl CALLUM and CONNOR met at the bowling alley found out that they were twins and assumed that they’d played a trick on her. She called them both perverts and threatened to slap them if they ever came near her again.

The twins got back on speaking terms a couple of weeks later.