‘I’m not a big believer in facial-recognition programs. They’re too unreliable, too many ways to throw them off, particularly when you’re working in real time. In the lab, after the event, yes, then you might get something you can use. But live, well, I’d back myself to get past any system that I know of, and Tyzack will too.’
‘Maybe we have systems you don’t know about.’
‘Try me.’
‘That’s enough!’ Dame Agatha’s voice cut through the verbal wrist-wrestling match. Mother was losing her patience. ‘I find this pointless male need to compete deeply, deeply tedious. It is my judgement, which is shared by the Home Secretary, that we need to consider Mr Carver’s information seriously. And I would add that both I and Mr Grantham have reason to respect Mr Carver’s professional abilities, if not always his tact. Let us assume, for now, that we are facing a threat from a former member of the special forces whose personality is amoral, cunning and utterly ruthless. Let us also suppose that he may be making some form of airborne attack. So, Assistant Commissioner, perhaps you would be good enough to talk us through the existing precautions, before we move on to anything else?’
‘Certainly,’ said Manners, getting to his feet. A 50-inch screen was fixed to the wall at one end of the room, linked to a laptop. Manners bent over the keyboard and aerial images of south-west England, followed by central Bristol, appeared on the screen. Just as Tyzack had done when talking to Arjan Visar, he described the journey that would bring Lincoln Roberts on Air Force One to RAF Fairford and then on by helicopter to College Green. Then he turned his attention to the presidential motorcade.
‘Basically it’s a combination of British and US vehicles and personnel,’ he began. ‘In the lead we have armed motorcycle outriders from the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department. They’re followed by three cars containing our officers from S015, running in front of and to either side of Cadillac Two, which is one of the presidential limousines. The Chief of Staff will ride in that, along with the Emergency Satchel. Inside the satchel is everything the President needs to order the launch of a nuclear war, so we try to keep it safe.’
‘So I should hope,’ muttered Jack Grantham, who had remained silent during Manners’s argument with Carver, preferring to enjoy it as a form of spectator sport.
Manners chose to take the remark as a joke and gave a forced chuckle. ‘Absolutely! Wouldn’t want to lose that. So… There then follow several more escort vehicles, split between SO15 and the US Secret Service. Their occupants are very heavily armed, and trained in close-quarters combat. With the greatest of respect to Mr Carver and Mr Tyzack, they are capable of taking down any conceivable ground-attack short of a full-scale military assault. Anyway, these escorts drive fore and aft of Cadillac One, in which Mr Roberts will be riding. There will also be a number of minibuses filled with White House staff and members of the press, all vetted in advance, of course.
‘I have to say that the only form of attack that I can envisage having any sort of success against this motorcade would be some kind of guided missile, though it would have to be very powerful indeed. Cadillac One is as well armoured as a Challenger battle tank. Serious question, Carver: does Tyzack have access to that kind of ordnance?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Carver. ‘And I don’t see him going for a missile, even if he could get one. Whatever he does, he’ll want to be there. This is about him as much as the President.’ Carver gave a wry chuckle. ‘With Damon Tyzack it’s always personal.’
This time Manners’s smile was genuine. ‘Well, in that case, he’ll be looking for an opportunity at the speech itself.’
He put another image up on the screen. ‘This is Broad Quay. They’re putting the stage at the waterside, here, facing inland, with the President’s back to the water. As you can see, there are a number of newly completed or renovated towers along the right-hand, eastern side of the quay. These contain offices, hotels or residential properties. All will be repeatedly searched in the run-up to the speech. All rooms with windows giving a clear line of sight to the stage will be emptied and secured. All roofs will be occupied by our people and/or US Secret Service. Aside from that, the site comprises an open expanse where the crowd will gather, with wide roads on either side, running back several hundred metres, wider by the stage, but narrowing the further it gets inland. On the west side of the quay, that’s the left as you look at it, there’s nothing but low buildings all the way back, very few of which have flat roofs. So there are virtually no potential shooting positions, even if any would-be assassin could get in those buildings in the first place. And we will be making sure that he can’t.’
‘How about underground access to the site?’ asked Carver.
‘All checked, rechecked, guarded and sealed,’ said Manners. ‘Every sewer, every drain. The rats must be wondering what hit them. So, to continue… Once the President arrives, all the close guarding work will be handled by his Secret Service personnel. Our efforts will be concentrated on the crowd. We’re planning body, bag and shoe searches, very much like airport security, with walk-through scanners, explosives dogs and extensive video monitoring of the crowd. And don’t worry, Mr Carver. We’ll be relying on good old-fashioned human observation as well as fancy technology, and we’ll be watching out for troublemakers, known terrorists, anyone who even scratches their arse in a suspicious manner. And just in case anyone does get a gun past security, and makes it somewhere near the stage, the President’s autocue will be a reinforced, bullet-proof shield. As I say, we’re taking this very seriously indeed.’
80
Damon Tyzack was a man for whom the phrase, ‘I know where you live,’ was more than a figure of speech. He had long known exactly where Bill Selsey went at the end of a working day. Now he was also certain that Selsey had been blown. All the more reason, then, to dispose of him as soon as possible.
One of Tyzack’s men, Ron Geary, had trailed Selsey from the moment he stepped on to the street outside the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, obeyed the signals that took him across several lanes of rush-hour traffic and stepped up to the platform at Vauxhall railway station, where he took a train to the terminus at Waterloo. There he made the five-minute walk across to the suburban services at Waterloo East, spent ten minutes browsing magazines at a WHSmith bookstall and buying a cup of Earl Grey tea before getting on his regular evening train to Lee in the south-east suburbs of London.
Like most of Tyzack’s more reliable employees, Geary was a Special Forces veteran. He was therefore well able to spot the tail that MI6 had put on Selsey and make sure that he was not spotted himself. Along the way, he sent pictures of both MI6 officers from his phone to Tyzack, who was being driven south in the back of a white Ford Transit van, as anonymous a form of transport as the roads of Britain provide.
Geary stayed on the train, handing over the surveillance to another one of Tyzack’s people, who picked up Selsey as he came out of Lee station and turned right on to Burnt Ash Road. Neither Selsey nor his MI6 tail noticed the harassed-looking woman smoking a cigarette and pushing a baby-carriage who followed them along the busy commuter route, still laden with the last dregs of evening traffic trying to get on to the South Circular.
Her name was Raifa Ademovic. She had arrived in Britain five years earlier as an illegal immigrant, imported by Tyzack just as he was establishing his own trafficking network. With her greasy hair, prominent nose and almost permanent scowl, Raifa was never going to be of much value in the brothel to which she was first shipped. But the remarkable number of credit cards, banknotes, driving licences and wallets that she managed to lift from her paltry clients suggested that she might have other, exploitable talents. When she reacted to a john who tried to give her a playful smack by punching, clawing and biting him into the nearest A &E department that impression was confirmed. Tyzack had been making good use of her bad attitude ever since.
Raifa turned into the side road on which Selsey lived and watched as he approached and entered his semi- detached home. With a sullen defiance typical of her character, she stopped directly opposite the house, in full view of anyone inside it, or standing guard outside. She walked round to the front of the baby-carriage and briefly made encouraging noises at the small child – borrowed from a friend – who sat there, doped to the gills with motion-sickness tablets. Then she lit another cigarette, turned her back on the captive toddler and dialled a number on her mobile phone. In the genteel, middle-class area where Selsey lived, plenty of respectable citizens might disapprove of such blatantly bad mothering, but none would suspect her true purpose.
‘He is in house now,’ she told Tyzack. ‘I see three other men. One following Selsey, he go inside house with him. Another man, he meet them at door, stay in house also. Final man in car outside. He watch Selsey go by,
