'Ideally we won't ever meet again after today.' He gestured at the laptop.
'This is a safer way of keeping in touch.'
Fullerton sat down in an easy chair and put his coffee on the table by the laptop.
'And you'll be handling the others?'
'The others?' said Hathaway, frowning.
'The other members of the team.'
Hathaway's frown deepened.
'Team? What team?'
'I just thought .. .' Fullerton left the sentence hanging.
Hathaway pushed the computer away and sat back, looking at Fullerton through slightly narrowed eyes.
'You do understand what's being asked of you, Jamie?'
'Undercover work,' said Fullerton.
'Deep undercover. Longterm penetration of criminal gangs.'
Hathaway nodded slowly.
'That's right, but not as part of a team. You'll be working alone. You'll have on line access to me, and an emergency number to call if you're in trouble. If necessary we'll send a shed load of people to pull you out, but while you're undercover you're on your own.'
'Okay. Got it.' Fullerton ran his hand through his fringe, brushing his hair out of his eyes.
'But what I don't get is Latham's insistence that we don't get any training. What about firearms? Anti- surveillance techniques? Things like that?'
'You watch gangster movies, Jamie?'
Fullerton was nonplussed by the apparent change of subject, but he nodded.
'See how the bad guys hold their guns? One handed, waving them around, grips parallel to the ground? Half the gang-bangers in Brixton hold them that way now. Couldn't hit a barn door, but they see it in the movies so that's what they do. Okay, so I put you through a police firearms course. We'd teach you to shoot with both hands, feet shoulder width apart, sighting with your stronger eye, exhaling before pulling the trigger, blah, blah, blah. You'd hit the target every time at twenty-five yards, but first time you ever use a weapon in anger you might as well have a flashing neon sign over your head saying 'COP'. Any techniques we give you will identify you as a. police officer.'
'Okay, but what about anti-surveillance? What's the harm in teaching me how to shake a tail?'
Hathaway grinned.
'You've been reading too many cheap spy novels, Jamie.'
Fullerton felt his cheeks flush red and he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms defensively.
'If anyone follows you, it's best you deal with them in whatever way you come up with yourself,' continued Hathaway.
'Use your instincts.'
Fullerton nodded. What Hathaway was saying made sense, but there was an obvious flaw to his argument.
'What if I'm on my way to see you? If I can't shake them, that puts you at risk.'
Hathaway tapped the laptop screen.
'Like I said, that's what this is for,' he said.
'We won't be meeting face to face. All contact will be online.'
'But my cover,' said Fullerton.
'You'll be giving me my cover, right?'
'I'm going to help you with that, of course, but basically we'll be sticking to your true background.'
Fullerton grinned.
'And that includes the drugs, yeah?'
'Sure,' said Hathaway.
'One of the things that trips up a lot of undercover agents is that they can't touch drugs. No court is going to convict if one of the investigating officers turns out to have smoked a joint or snorted a line. You're in a different league. You do whatever comes naturally, and if that involves getting high, then that's up to you.'
'Okay if I do a line now?' Fullerton asked.
Hathaway flashed him a humourless smile.
'I'd rather you didn't.'
'I was joking,' said Fullerton. He could see from the look on Hathaway's face that they didn't share the same sense of humour.
'But won't my drug-taking affect the cases I'll be working on?'
'In what way?'
'Won't my evidence be tainted?'
'No, for a very simple reason. You won't ever be required to give evidence in court. You'll be supplying us with information and leads which will be passed on to the appropriate investigating teams, but it will be up to them to supply the evidence to convict.'
Fullerton picked up his mug of coffee and sipped it slowly.
'So I'm getting official permission to snort coke? Funny old world, isn't it?'
'There's nothing official about this briefing, Jamie,' said Hathaway.
'From the moment you agreed to Assistant Commissioner Latham's proposal, everything has been off the record.'
Fullerton's lips tightened and he put the mug back on the coffee table.
'That's what I figured,' he said.
'Nothing in writing, nothing on file.'
'It's for your own protection, Jamie,' said Hathaway.
'The Met still has more than its fair share of bad apples.'
'Is that going to be part of my brief, too? Corrupt cops?'
'Absolutely,' said Hathaway.
'And will you be giving me specific targets?'
Hathaway smiled.
'You're getting ahead of me, Jamie, but yes, we will be asking for you to look at specific targets. Tangos, as we call them.' There was a document pouch on the side of the laptop case, sealed with Velcro. It made a ripping sound as Hathaway opened it. He took out a large glossy colour photograph and slid it across the coffee table to Fullerton.
'Meet Dennis Donovan. Tango One.'
Cliff Warren picked up the photograph and studied it. It was a man in his mid to late thirties. He had a square face with a strong chin, pale green eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across a broken nose. The man's chestnut- brown hair was windswept, brushed carelessly across his forehead.
'Tango?' he said.
'Tango is how we designate our targets,' explained Hathaway.
'Dennis Donovan is Tango One. Our most wanted target.'
'Drugs?' said Warren.
'One of the country's biggest importers of marijuana and cocaine. Virtually untouchable by conventional methods. He's so big that we can't get near him. Den Donovan never goes near a shipment and never handles the money. He never deals with anyone he doesn't know.'
'And you expect me to get close to him?' said Warren, bemused. He passed the photograph back to Hathaway.
'Unless you haven't noticed, I'm black. Donovan's white. It's not like we went to the same school, is it? Why's he gonna let me get close to him?'
'We don't expect it to happen overnight,' said Hathaway.
'Donovan is a longterm project. He's not even in the country at the moment. Most of the time he's in the Caribbean. I'll supply you with details of his known associates, and as you go deeper all you have to do is keep an eye out for them. It's going to take time, Cliff. Years. You build up contacts with his associates, and use them to put
