ignition of her grey ten-year-old BMW 318i estate. “Ready and waiting,” she said.
As the taxi emerged from the top of Kensington Church Street and turned right, Maureen gave it five seconds, then sidled out into the traffic and took up a position two cars behind. Various other anonymous vehicles pulled out from their parking places and slotted into the traffic. Rykov, sitting in the back of the taxi, was reading a newspaper, giving no sign at all that he was alert to possible surveillance.
He must just be going home to the Trade Delegation in Highgate, mused Liz to herself, as the taxi proceeded up Albany Street, through Camden Town and Kentish Town to the bottom of Highgate West Hill.
“Bravo team alert,” called Reggie Purvis over the microphone, “Chelsea 1 is coming your way.”
Nothing obvious changed on Hampstead Heath, but a scruffy young man sitting beside the boating pond shifted position imperceptibly and higher up the hill, from a small plantation of trees, a couple strolled out towards the open ground.
At the foot of Highgate West Hill, where the buses turn round, Rykov’s taxi stopped and he emerged and walked slowly on to the heath and up the hill towards the bench, under close scrutiny from the A4 team. At almost the same time, a tall, powerfully built young man in a windcheater emerged from the trees and started walking down the hill.
“Chelsea 2 is here and about to make contact,” came over the loudspeaker in the Ops Room.
“Tell them to stick with him and leave Rykov alone,” said Liz to Reggie Purvis.
The instruction was radioed out. “Roger that,” came back from the heath.
For fifteen minutes there was silence in the Ops Room, then the radio crackled. “Targets are moving. We’re taking on Chelsea 2.”
And for the next ten minutes radio messages went back and forth as the unknown man repeated his movements of two weeks before, leaving the heath on the south side. Again he waited at the bus stop, until a C2 bus appeared. As he got on and walked towards the stairs leading to the upper deck, he passed A4’s Dennis Rudge, already on the bus, sitting downstairs by the window at the front. The bus itself was followed patiently by Maureen and her A4 colleagues in their nondescript cars, as it worked its way south, down into London’s West End.
When Chelsea 2 got off the bus outside Liberty on Regent Street, along with half a dozen other passengers, Dennis Rudge stayed on board, watching as the young man crossed Regent Street and cut down a side street, followed by three A4 colleagues who had emerged from nearby cars. By the time the procession entered Berkeley Square, Maureen in the BMW was parked at yet another meter, and she had a clear view as their target walked to the southern end of the square, entered a large office block and disappeared.
“Can they find out which floor he goes to?” asked Liz, by now warming to the chase.
Purvis relayed the request. “I’ll have a go,” said Maureen.
Liz and Reggie waited tensely, sitting silently, for almost five minutes until Maureen’s voice came through the speaker on the table.
“Fifth or sixth,” she declared. “Multiple occupants and a security guard on the desk.”
“Okay. Leave it now,” said Liz. “We’ll sort it from there. Please say thanks to everyone.”
“Stand down all teams. Well done,” said Purvis.
“Roger. Out,” came back from the heath and Berkeley Square.
12
B y the standards of his earlier career, it was not an exotic view. On Geoffrey Fane’s first posting abroad, in Syria twenty years ago, his office had overlooked the souk, noisy with its milling crowds, quiet only at prayers. Later, in New Delhi, he had watched labourers arrive on bicycles, wearing flip-flops and shorts as they went to work in the liquid heat, erecting a flamboyant new Middle Eastern embassy building across the road.
Here in Vauxhall Cross, high in the office block that sat like a postmodernist Buddha on the south bank,
As the taxi emerged from the top of Kensington Church Street and turned right, Maureen gave it five seconds, then sidled out into the traffic and took up a position two cars behind. Various other anonymous vehicles pulled out from their parking places and slotted into the traffic. Rykov, sitting in the back of the taxi, was reading a newspaper, giving no sign at all that he was alert to possible surveillance.
He must just be going home to the Trade Delegation in Highgate, mused Liz to herself, as the taxi proceeded up Albany Street, through Camden Town and Kentish Town to the bottom of Highgate West Hill.
“Bravo team alert,” called Reggie Purvis over the microphone, “Chelsea 1 is coming your way.”
Nothing obvious changed on Hampstead Heath, but a scruffy young man sitting beside the boating pond shifted position imperceptibly and higher up the hill, from a small plantation of trees, a couple strolled out towards the open ground.
At the foot of Highgate West Hill, where the buses turn round, Rykov’s taxi stopped and he emerged and walked slowly on to the heath and up the hill towards the bench, under close scrutiny from the A4 team. At almost the same time, a tall, powerfully built young man in a windcheater emerged from the trees and started walking down the hill.
“Chelsea 2 is here and about to make contact,” came over the loudspeaker in the Ops Room.
“Tell them to stick with him and leave Rykov alone,” said Liz to Reggie Purvis.
The instruction was radioed out. “Roger that,” came back from the heath.
For fifteen minutes there was silence in the Ops Room, then the radio crackled. “Targets are moving. We’re taking on Chelsea 2.”
And for the next ten minutes radio messages went back and forth as the unknown man repeated his movements of two weeks before, leaving the heath on the south side. Again he waited at the bus stop, until a C2 bus appeared. As he got on and walked towards the stairs leading to the upper deck, he passed A4’s Dennis Rudge, already on the bus, sitting downstairs by the window at the front. The bus itself was followed patiently by Maureen and her A4 colleagues in their nondescript cars, as it worked its way south, down into London’s West End.
When Chelsea 2 got off the bus outside Liberty on Regent Street, along with half a dozen other passengers, Dennis Rudge stayed on board, watching as the young man crossed Regent Street and cut down a side street, followed by three A4 colleagues who had emerged from nearby cars. By the time the procession entered Berkeley Square, Maureen in the BMW was parked at yet another meter, and she had a clear view as their target walked to the southern end of the square, entered a large office block and disappeared.
“Can they find out which floor he goes to?” asked Liz, by now warming to the chase.
Purvis relayed the request. “I’ll have a go,” said Maureen.
Liz and Reggie waited tensely, sitting silently, for almost five minutes until Maureen’s voice came through the speaker on the table.
“Fifth or sixth,” she declared. “Multiple occupants and a security guard on the desk.”
“Okay. Leave it now,” said Liz. “We’ll sort it from there. Please say thanks to everyone.”
“Stand down all teams. Well done,” said Purvis.
“Roger. Out,” came back from the heath and Berkeley Square.
12
B y the standards of his earlier career, it was not an exotic view. On Geoffrey Fane’s first posting abroad, in Syria twenty years ago, his office had overlooked the souk, noisy with its milling crowds, quiet only at prayers. Later, in New Delhi, he had watched labourers arrive on bicycles, wearing flip-flops and shorts as they went to work in the liquid heat, erecting a flamboyant new Middle Eastern embassy building across the road.
Here in Vauxhall Cross, high in the office block that sat like a postmodernist Buddha on the south bank,
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