Maisie sipped at her tea. There was a pause.
“You want to know what it’s going to be like?”
David smiled. “Yes.”
“It’s fascinating for a certain type of person. You have to be a people watcher. You have to be rather sedentary too. Action seekers will find it rather boring, mundane. I love it. I see so much. I can pick a piece of information here, one there and another and a story unfolds. I deduce, weigh the evidence and before I know it I’ve a corrupt policeman on the hook or a dodgy land deal uncovered. It’s painstaking work.”
“I like the idea of watching. I was on customs before this. I didn’t want to be a manager. I wanted to be on the front line looking at people, reading them. I’m sure I’ll like it.”
“You seem a little poignant?”
Again David smiled. “Yes I’m missing my son and my wife is pregnant with our second. Being here for two weeks is going to be hard.”
Maisie leaned forward, patting his hand in a motherly way. “It will pass soon, then every day at home for three months. Think of that.”
David smiled once again.
“You have a good broad and friendly smile David.” She sipped at the last of her tea, draining her cup. “Anyway the two weeks will pass soon and quite uneventfully.”
“I rather hope so. I mean the hand gun and the unarmed combat training is fun and exciting, but I’m not sure I’m the all action hero.”
“It’s so rare for anything to happen. There are big events from time to time. I’ve been involved in one or two myself.”
David raised an eyebrow, Maisie smiled.
“I’ll tell you one day, though obviously having signed the act it’ll be secret.” She winked.
“Ay.” A pause. “Do you have children?” David asked.
“Yes I have a daughter. She lives in Birmingham. That’s why I live in the Midlands. I moved to be near her. Mind you part of my watch is the chemical works around that part of the country.”
“Chemical works. That’s quite a responsibility. Well I would have thought so given the demographics of the Midlands.”
“Yes. Mind you it’s not only me watching that area; there are two of us there, given the spread of the works. It’s on a DIC border line, which is the M6. Where do you live?”
“Dover.”
“Oh a very historic town and quite a vital watch what with the port and Folkestone nearby. I take it you’ve done the war time tunnels?”
“Many times, I had hoped to see Churchill’s ghost, but no luck. Your father knew Churchill I take it, being in the original DIC.”
“Yes my father was the first head of DIC, hand picked for the job. Churchill didn’t trust the Secret Service, with their aristocratic roots and stock. Later on Burgess and McLean showed him to have been right about that, with hindsight. Dad was head of Inland Revenue, a customs man like you. He had adventures too, especially early on.”
David, on an impulse looked at his watch.
“Dear god, I’m seriously late! I’d better go. I lost track there.” He stood and leaned over. “You had me quite entranced.”
“I’m flattered. If your duty travels bring you to the Birmingham have your partner and self stop over, so much friendlier than a hotel.”
“Won’t your husband mind?”
“Well spotted on the ring, too easy, but I’m a widow.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. In fact it’s the IRA who has to be sorry. He was army bomb disposal.”
“I see. My father was a peacekeeper in Northern Ireland with his regiment. Can I e-mail you to chat; it’s nice to have a kindred spirit in work.”
“Of course, I’d like that. We all use the network to keep in touch. They don’t discourage the use of internal encrypted e-mails for friendship, as long as you’re not profligate. We’re one big family here. That’s why I visit.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
With that David dashed away. Maisie cast a glance around and caught another known and friendly eye. She wandered over and shared a light, warm embrace with a severe looking woman of about forty. They fell to talking animatedly.
The morning wore on in the Euston building, information streaming in at thousands of gigabytes a second and every last byte being scanned, stored and sifted.
When David got to the Duty Team Office Jack Fulton and a muscular looking Afro- Caribbean man with grey hair, rimless spectacles and a grey moustache were engrossed by the images on a large LCD computer screen.
“Are you looking for the four illegal entrants from Scotland?”
“David! Jack Beaumont, David McKie.”
“Wow a big man and a Scot too.”
David shook hands. Beaumont had serious heavy lidded eyes. Looking at his physique David could tell that he kept fit. If it hadn’t been for the grey hair no-one one would have thought he was just forty, which he was.
“Jack was a security expert for private firms, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about that later.”
On the screen in front of Beaumont a section of CCTV was running whilst at the top of the screen there were Dewey’s four images; a sketch of Charlie Cobb, two fuzzy satellite images of Mason and Spencer, taken with high intensity satellite imaging, and finally the Nikon close up of Wheeler. There was also an image of Spencer from the airport
“These four were picked up by Michael Dewey at Port An-eorna, just on the Atlantic coast. Some blip appeared on the radar, just appeared, had to be a sub. This was just before dawn this morning. Now Michael saw one face by match flare and sketched it.” Jack Fulton pointed to the sketch. “He didn’t show up on satellite even though Dewey guessed one would head for a boat and scanned the harbour at Plockton. The harbour man, according to Dewey, said an American was taking a boat out, pre-arranged.”
“Well he’d be heading down the west coast in that. “ Beaumont interjected.
“We’ve got harbour and Marina bookings being checked down the west coast.”
“He might not put in. Anchor and swim in.”
Fulton nodded.
“That’s true enough. Now this one,” he pointed to Mason, “he had to have his ticket pre-arranged as Duirnish is a request stop and it was an early train. This one,” he pointed to Spencer, “was picked up by chopper. “ He waved a hand at Beaumont about to interject. “CCTV for Inverness, Perth and Aberdeen are being monitored and past hours checked so we should get something soon. That chopper had to be arranged too. The last one,” he pointed to Wheeler, “his motorbike was sitting waiting. We’ve put the license plate and picture out to police. There’s an approach with caution note attached.”
He walked to the door and turned.
“We’ll find out whose submarine it was. Decryption department are working the armed forces sites as we speak. For now,” he wagged a finger severely, “we assume they’re up to no good, positively dangerous and someone in the UK brought them in. The question is who or what are they? What are they going to do? I’m having the leads and vital information fed directly into the duty team offices and that means you two here. Remember brains David, not brawn. Work this one out and fast.”
David sat in a padded swivel chair his knees were half way up his chest. He struggled to reach the lever. Beaumont stepped over and worked the lever.
“Thanks Jack.”
“Call me Beaumont. Anyway, we’re a team for two weeks, partners. So let’s take a walk, get a sandwich and when we come back decryption will have cracked MOD and the rest. Plus the watchers will have found at least one face and we’ll have a lead. Come on.”
David hesitated.
