“Don’t worry,” he reassured her, “I’ve done the fast car course so I know what I’m doing.” The fast car course was given to officers who worked on specialist squads and were required to drive high powered, unmarked cars on blues and twos. It was one down from the pursuit course in terms of skill level.
“I can tell,” Susie said, fearfully.
They were on their way to Sussex. As SIO, Jack knew that he really ought to have remained at the office to maintain overall strategic control of the operation and leave Dillon free to implement tactics out in the field for him. The trouble was, Jack liked being hands on whenever he could, especially when the stakes were as high as they were in this particular case.
Leaving Carol Keating to run things in his absence, he had grabbed hold of the log book and keys for the last remaining car in the building, an aging Vauxhall Astra covered in dinks and dents, and dragged Susie off with him in a mad dash down to the Sussex coast.
Dean had sent a CAD message to IR asking them to notify Kent and Sussex Constabularies that an unmarked MPS car was about to enter their territory on an emergency run and to request that their Traffic patrols give it free passage and not try to stop it if they came across it.
The van’s Sat Nav had yielded the address that Winston was holed up in, and to everyone’s surprise and annoyance, it hadn’t been in either of the two hamlets that AMIP officers had been staking out since the fake text had been sent. In fact, it had been located in a tiny settlement consisting of half a dozen properties about a third of a mile further along the road.
Dillon had passed the information onto PS Newman, the SFO team leader, who had immediately dispatched an officer to carry out a recce while Dillon rushed off to obtain an out of hours search warrant.
Jack knew it was going to be ridiculously tight, but he wanted to be there when the armed entry was made; he wanted – needed – to see Winston dragged away in handcuffs.
They were making good progress and had already crossed the Queen Elizabeth Bridge at Dartford. Jack didn’t have a Sat Nav of his own, and he was having to rely on the map reading skills of his co-pilot. Luckily, Susie seemed to be a very competent map reader, unlike Tony Dillon, who usually got them lost at least once whenever he was charged with getting them anywhere.
“Okay, we’re going to stay on the M25 till we reach the Sevenoaks by-pass, at which point we take the A21 and stay on that until we get to the A268, “Susie said after checking the map again.
Jack’s phone rang.
“Get that for me, would you,” he said, removing the handset from his inside jacket pocket and handing the mobile to her, all without taking his eyes from the road.
“DCI Tyler’s phone,” Susie said, balancing the Geographia on her lap and tracing their route along the page with her left index finger while holding the phone to her ear with her other hand. She listened for a few seconds, said, “Wait one,” and turned to face Tyler. “It’s Tony Dillon,” she informed him. “He’s got the warrant and is just leaving the Magistrate’s house to return to the target address and meet up with PS Newman and his team. He reckons they’ll be ready to effect entry in around thirty minutes.”
Jack considered this. “Tell them our ETA is about forty minutes. I would prefer they await my arrival unless operational safety makes it necessary to make entry before then, in which case they should just crack on.”
Susie relayed the information and there was a brief pause while she listened to Dillon’s response.
“Tony says he’s happy to wait, but he wants you to be aware that they don’t have visual control of the cottage because the area around it is far too exposed to park a car up in.”
Jack wasn’t impressed. “Can’t he just put someone out on foot, get them to hide behind a tree or something?”
Susie dutifully passed this suggestion on and then listened to Dillon’s reply. “Apparently, the SFO who scoped out the property said it’s too risky to deploy a footie,” she reported back. “Tony says there’s no cover whatsoever, and they would stick out a mile unless they were wearing a ghillie suit.” A ghillie Suit was a type of specialist camouflage clothing, typically worn by military snipers, designed to help its wearer blend into the background.
Susie made a few ‘uh-huh’ noises as Dillon provided further information, and when he stopped speaking she turned to Tyler. “Tony says someone did a drive-by about twenty minutes ago, at which time there were lights on in the downstairs living room but no sign of movement.”
Jack grunted his disappointment and shrugged. “It is what it is, I guess. Tell Dill to do whatever he thinks is best.”
Susie passed the message on and said goodbye. As she put the phone down, a Kent traffic car materialised behind them, its blue lights flashing.
“For fuck sake,” Tyler fumed, “why can’t these poxy County Mounties just do as they’ve been told and keep out of our way?” He knew he would have to pull over; otherwise, the idiots might put it up over the radio as a fail to stop, but he would give them the bollocking of their lives for slowing him down.
At that point, the Traffic car pulled into the middle lane, accelerated until it was level, and the female operator mouthed the words, ‘follow us,’ and gave them a friendly smile. With that, the car slipped in front of them and took up station
