they won't crack whatever the provocation, that they'll continue to hold on to their identity even with a gun against their head, and it takes a special kind of person to be able to handle that sort of pressure. Vokes was one of them, so was Stegs.
One time, eighteen months ago, that capability had been put to the ultimate test. The two of them had been working on an assignment to infiltrate and gather evidence on a south London-based coke and cannabis smuggling gang led by a psychotic thug named Frank Rentners. Rentners, an ex-boxer who'd served time for manslaughter, had ambitions to tie up the dope and coke market in his patch of south-east London, and he ran a sophisticated and lucrative operation in which the drugs were brought in on lorries overland from Spain among consignments of fruit and veg. At the time of the assignment, it was estimated that Rentners and his crew were turning over close to a million a year in sales, and were expanding fast thanks to their policy of undercutting (quite literally in one case) the competition.
Once again, the two of them had posed as buyers from the provinces looking to set up an ongoing business relationship with Rentners to purchase quantities of his imported gear. An informant had introduced them to a small-time player called Jack Brewster who knew someone else within the gang. This is usually how it works in the criminal world: word of mouth. Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody else. It's a good way of working because so many people get involved that by the time the bad guys are nicked they're not sure who it was who actually grassed them up. That was the theory anyway.
Brewster, who'd had no idea that the people he was representing were police officers, had been promised a commission by Stegs and Vokes if he could get his contact within the gang to set up a meeting between them and Rentners. Feelers had been put out and eventually Rentners had agreed to see Stegs, Vokes and Brewster in a pub in Streatham for an initial chat. If all went well, then they'd take it to the next step: a test purchase.
So when they'd gone to the pub, there'd been no reason to suspect that things were going to go wrong. It was just a first meeting. He and Vokes weren't even wearing wires, relying instead on the fact that officers from SO11, Scotland Yard's intelligence-gathering unit, had put a tracking device under Rentners' car, just in case they changed venues. Brewster, who'd met the two of them in a Burger King just down the road, had been laughing and chatting, and was keen to know when he could expect some money. Stegs remembered that he'd told him it wouldn't be too long and that he had nothing to worry about because he, Stegs, was a man of his word. Brewster had seemed happy enough with that.
Rentners had been in the pub with three of his men. They all looked pretty much identical: shaven-headed, powerfully built, and togged out in three-quarter-length black leather jackets, black jeans and Timberlands. Like a doormen's barbershop quartet - not that Stegs expected this lot to break out in song, not unless it was the Funeral March anyway. Rentners had been shorter than the rest, and older - probably about forty-five - but you could tell from the way he stood in the middle of the group, one elbow resting on the bar, that he was the leader. He had a black goatee beard modelled along the lines of one Satan might wear, and a similarly fiendish half-smile. All that was missing were the horns and forked tail.
He'd looked the three of them up and down slowly and
silently, trying to maximize the menace, then said straight away that they were going somewhere else. No-one had argued, this sort of welcome being par for the course, and the seven of them had left the pub through the back entrance that led out to a tiny car park. Two Mercedes, both black, were parked next to each other. Brewster was ushered into one along with two of Rentners' goons, while Stegs and Yokes were invited into the back
One time, eighteen months ago, that capability had been put to the ultimate test. The two of them had been working on an assignment to infiltrate and gather evidence on a south London-based coke and cannabis smuggling gang led by a psychotic thug named Frank Rentners. Rentners, an ex-boxer who'd served time for manslaughter, had ambitions to tie up the dope and coke market in his patch of south-east London, and he ran a sophisticated and lucrative operation in which the drugs were brought in on lorries overland from Spain among consignments of fruit and veg. At the time of the assignment, it was estimated that Rentners and his crew were turning over close to a million a year in sales, and were expanding fast thanks to their policy of undercutting (quite literally in one case) the competition.
Once again, the two of them had posed as buyers from the provinces looking to set up an ongoing business relationship with Rentners to purchase quantities of his imported gear. An informant had introduced them to a small-time player called Jack Brewster who knew someone else within the gang. This is usually how it works in the criminal world: word of mouth. Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody else. It's a good way of working because so many people get involved that by the time the bad guys are nicked they're not sure who it was who actually grassed them up. That was the theory anyway.
Brewster, who'd had no idea that the people he was representing were police officers, had been promised a commission by Stegs and Vokes if he could get his contact within the gang to set up a meeting between them and Rentners. Feelers had been put out and eventually Rentners had agreed to see Stegs, Vokes and Brewster in a pub in Streatham for an initial chat. If all went well, then they'd take it to the next step: a test purchase.
So when they'd gone to the pub, there'd been no reason to suspect that things were going to go wrong. It was just a first meeting. He and Vokes weren't even wearing wires, relying instead on the fact that officers from SO11, Scotland Yard's intelligence-gathering unit, had put a tracking device under Rentners' car, just in case they changed venues. Brewster, who'd met the two of them in a Burger King just down the road, had been laughing and chatting, and was keen to know when he could expect some money. Stegs remembered that he'd told him it wouldn't be too long and that he had nothing to worry about because he, Stegs, was a man of his word. Brewster had seemed happy enough with that.
Rentners had been in the pub with three of his men. They all looked pretty much identical: shaven-headed, powerfully built, and togged out in three-quarter-length black leather jackets, black jeans and Timberlands. Like a doormen's barbershop quartet - not that Stegs expected this lot to break out in song, not unless it was the Funeral March anyway. Rentners had been shorter than the rest, and older - probably about forty-five - but you could tell from the way he stood in the middle of the group, one elbow resting on the bar, that he was the leader. He had a black goatee beard modelled along the lines of one Satan might wear, and a similarly fiendish half-smile. All that was missing were the horns and forked tail.
He'd looked the three of them up and down slowly and
silently, trying to maximize the menace, then said straight away that they were going somewhere else. No-one had argued, this sort of welcome being par for the course, and the seven of them had left the pub through the back entrance that led out to a tiny car park. Two Mercedes, both black, were parked next to each other. Brewster was ushered into one along with two of Rentners' goons, while Stegs and Yokes were invited into the back
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