Going Rogue, page 13
part #2 of Tom Novak Series
‘Possibly,’ Tom smiled as the barman placed the juice in front of him.
‘Chips will only be five minutes,’ said the barman as Tom paid.
Tom surfed the internet on his Samsung, with his peripheral vision fixed on the entrance to the pub. His initial visual sweep of the pub had not revealed anyone of interest, the occupants being mostly couples dining together. The pub was busy and bustling with a pleasant hum of conversation complementing the soft background music. It struck Tom as an unusual place for a far-right terror group to meet a possible new recruit. In fact, the more Tom considered it, the more it made him feel like he was being tested, and possibly watched to ascertain if he was actually alone. Not for the first time he was glad that they had decided that he should go solo and without backup. His only means of communication was the Samsung, on which he had deactivated the open transmission function, but which did have live GPS tracking activated.
He sipped at the orange juice and stuffed one of the fat chips into his mouth that the barman had put in front of him. They were hot, crisp and delicious. He was just reaching for some more when he felt his Samsung vibrate in his hand.
Another WhatsApp message. ‘Alleyway to the right of the pub, car park 2 min, wait under lamppost.’
Tom ate another chip, deleted the message from the phone, and stood up.
He nodded at the barman and then left the pub, turning left and immediately left again to where a paved area led to a small, dimly lit car park. He walked up to the lone lamppost that cast a dim, orange light, bathing the area in an insipid, sickly glow. He heard a car engine and turned to see a dark Land Rover Discovery with dark, impenetrable windows edge out of the parking space at the far edge of the car park.
The Discovery halted in front of Tom and as he walked over the front passenger window slid smoothly down to reveal Danny in the passenger seat.
‘All right David?’ Danny smiled showing teeth that glowed orange in the sodium streetlight.
‘All good. I like your tradecraft.’
‘We have to be careful. Wait there a second.’ The rear door opened and a powerfully built, cropped haired man alighted from the back of the vehicle. He was a full head taller and at least thirty pounds heavier than Tom.
‘This is Chas, he’s one of the team,’ said Danny, as he too got out of the front of the vehicle. ‘We just need to perform a security sweep of you before we get going. Arms out to the side and spread your legs.’
Chas stared directly at Tom with barely concealed hostility. Arrogance and suspicion exuded from him as he carried out a systematic full body search that left Tom in no doubt that it was a task he had carried out on a number of occasions. The search revealed only Tom’s worn and scratched Samsung, an Oyster card, a fold of money totalling about eighty pounds and a single key. Chas handed the phone to Danny, who looked at it briefly.
‘Code?’
‘Why?’ Tom asked quietly, but assertively.
‘Security, mate. Boss’s orders.’
‘You’re not the boss, then?’ Tom asked, quietly.
‘Nope, but I am the boss of you for now. Code, please?’ Danny repeated with a slightly unpleasant smile while holding the screen towards Tom.
Instead of answering, Tom extended his index finger and drew the unlock pattern on the Samsung.
‘Thank you.’
Danny briefly thumbed at the phone, presumably looking at the message, calls and internet history.
‘No messages, no calls and no internet browsing history. You’re a careful man, Dave. I like that,’ Danny smiled.
‘Always careful.’
Danny didn’t respond but snorted with amusement. He didn’t return Tom’s phone, instead taking a small canvas wallet from his pocket, slipping the phone inside and zipping the wallet shut.
Tom didn’t say anything, instead raising his eyebrows in a question.
‘Faraday pouch, mate,’ Danny replied to the silent question. ‘We all have to do this when we are going to meet the Major. No chance of being tracked if no signal can get into or out of the phones.’
‘The Major?’ Tom asked.
‘You’ll meet him soon. He wants to satisfy himself about you before inducting you into our team. Keep your limbs spread.’
Danny produced a handheld device which had a small antenna on top and indicator lights on the front, reminiscent of a walkie-talkie. He ran the device across Tom’s limbs and body.
‘You want to tell me what you’re doing?’
‘This is a GSM and RF detector. Just in case you are wearing any type of electronic recording or tracking device that may be unwelcome. Standard operating procedures, Dave. All clear by the way.’
‘I couldn’t be more pleased. Where are we going, then?’ Tom asked, pleased that he had resisted the suggestion that he should wear some kind of tracking or recording device.
‘It’s on a need-to-know principle only. Do they have that in Slovenia?
‘Of course.’
‘Maybe once we are satisfied with your credentials, we can bring you closer in. Get in the car, we’ve a little trip to go on.’ At that, Danny climbed back into the passenger seat and nodded towards the rear of the car. Chas climbed in ahead of Tom and shuffled across the seats to behind the driver, Tom getting in behind the passenger seat.
‘Driver is called Rocky,’ Danny said.
Tom caught the eyes of Rocky staring at him from the rear-view mirror and gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement. Rocky looked wiry and tough and had piercing dark eyes that shone with cunning. He had short, tousled hair and a well-clipped beard.
‘Right, let’s go. But first we need you to put this on, Dave,’ Danny said as he passed a dark, cotton hood back to Tom.
‘What the fuck is this about? You guys want me onside and now you want me to wear a fucking blindfold?’
‘Major’s orders, mate. He doesn’t want you knowing the location we are about to go to until he is personally satisfied that you are kosher. It’s only for about an hour, no more.’ Danny spoke without hostility and almost apologetically.
Tom sighed and pulled the hood over his head. ‘I hope I am getting fucking paid for this.’
Danny laughed. ‘Ever the mercenary, eh? We are all here for ideological reasons, Tom. Don’t worry, we all get generous expenses that I doubt you could earn anywhere else.’
‘Well I fucking hope so,’ Tom said bitterly as the car moved off and he settled down into the Discovery’s soft leather seat.
He felt a little uncomfortable knowing that he was now entirely isolated from any backup: no signals would be received or transmitted while the Samsung was in the Faraday pouch. He wasn’t nervous, he had felt no hostility from Danny or Rocky; if anything, he had detected a feeling of respect. Chas seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder but that was of no concern to Tom.
He tried to make a mental note of the turns and speed but soon realised that it was a futile exercise and so he closed his eyes and relaxed.
24
‘So where the fuck is he, then?’ Buster demanded as Tiny sat in front of his bank of monitors, staring at the screens with a perplexed look on his face.
‘I could give you a highly technical answer, Buster, but I’m afraid that the reality is that I haven’t got a bloody clue. I last pinged his GPS on his phone in Forest Hill. Up until then the malware we had installed on Tom’s phone was mirroring all calls and activity on the screen so we could actually see what Tom could see. After he received the WhatsApp message about meeting in the car park at the back of the pub, we lost him. The phone just disappeared off the net.’ Tiny looked a little confused as he scratched his thick thatch of untidy hair.
‘What about the number that sent the text?’ Jane said.
‘Burner phone on a free sim that has no top-up data recorded. No other information on it. Can’t tell where it was purchased or anything. As soon as Tom’s phone went dark, so did the burner phone. It was only activated just before sending the message to Tom’s phone and only hit the same cell mast that Tom’s phone was hitting immediately before it went dark. No data on it before or since. We have run the handset IMEI number through the database to see if it has been used before, but it looks like it’s a new handset: a one-call burner phone. We are trying to trace the handset but that will take time.’ Many criminals were aware enough to switch SIM cards when engaging in criminality, but not so many were aware that the unique phone handset identifying number, the IMEI, could be checked to see what SIM cards had been used on the phone in the past.
‘Christ, they are being very careful. We are dealing with good tradecraft here. Isolating their own phones as well as Tom’s,’ said Buster. ‘What about CCTV?’
‘I have accessed local authority cameras remotely but there is no trace at the moment. I suspect that they probably selected the pick-up-point with cameras in mind if their general preparedness is anything to go by. There may be other cameras near the pub that are not web-enabled so will need to be manually downloaded. We could dispatch someone to go look and retrieve. If we get a vehicle plate, we may be able to interrogate the ANPR cameras to give us a direction of travel and route.’
Jane nodded. ‘Buster, just make sure that whoever you send has a good cover story for why they need it.’
‘On it,’ said Buster, picking up his phone.
‘So, Tom is on his own, then?’ Jane asked, a worried look on her face.
‘Looks like it,’ said Tiny.
Buster finished his call and turned back to them. ‘Borat will be fine. He knows the score and I don’t know anyone better than him at thinking on his feet. His legend is tight, and the “shooting” will surely have convinced the Nazi twats that Tom is, in fact, a very nasty Slovenian white supremacist.’ He mimicked the quotation marks with his fingers as he spoke.
‘Well, I hope so, Buster. I hate the idea of him there with no backup.’
‘Jane, he managed to sort out half the fucking Serb mafia pretty much single-handed last year. If anyone can handle a few tinpot racists, our Tommy can.’
‘You’d better be right. As of this moment we have absolutely no idea where he is or who he is with. Keep looking for CCTV and keep working the phones in case he pops back online. I also want our leaky Kent researcher watched like a hawk for any checks she performs on any computer anywhere, okay?’
Tiny nodded and busied himself at his computer terminals.
‘For the second time in a year, Tom is on his own with the worst kind of people. These bastards are mass murderers who wouldn’t turn a hair at cutting Tom to pieces. We have to find him, and fast.’
25
Tom estimated that they had been travelling for less than an hour when he felt the road surface change from smooth tarmac to what felt like a rough track. Very soon the vehicle drew to a halt and Danny spoke for the first time since they had set off.
‘Right, keep the blindfold on, mate. Just till we get inside.’
Tom felt the door open to his left and a hand take his upper arm, directing him out of the vehicle. He could hear a dog barking nearby and the sharp tang of animal manure assailed his nostrils as he was led across a rough earth clearing: a farm of some sort. The air had a definite chill to it, and he shivered in his thin hooded sweatshirt. He made a mental note of the distant roar of a motorway that he could just detect on the faint evening breeze.
He felt himself entering a warmer space as they entered a building and his hood was suddenly pulled from his head, leaving him blinking against the bright light. Looking around he noted that he was in a large, country-style kitchen. A log burner roared in the corner and a large Welsh dresser stood at the side of the room. The room smelled pleasantly of spices, onions and garlic, and Tom’s stomach rumbled at the aroma.
‘Have a seat, mate. The Major will be through in a moment.’ Danny left the room leaving Tom, Chas and Rocky all sat at the large scrubbed wooden table in silence. The other men looked slightly nervous.
Chas fixed Tom with a direct, almost challenging stare, his eyes blazing with a mix of suspicion and disdain. ‘How did you come to be in England, my Slovenian friend?’ Chas asked in a surprisingly high-pitched voice with a broad Welsh accent.
Tom returned his stare with a half-smile. ‘Many reasons. Let’s just say it suits me at the moment.’
‘Running scared from the Muslims, I heard,’ Chas said with a slight sneer in his voice.
Tom snorted with mild amusement, not taking his eyes from the other man’s.
‘What’s so funny?’ Chas asked, annoyance obvious in his voice.
‘Your attempts to intimidate me, Chas. It’s amusing and a little pathetic. Are we not supposed to be on the same side?’
‘Chas, leave it mate,’ Rocky spoke quietly.
‘Shut up, Rocky. We don’t know who this fucker is. He’s not even fucking English. We don’t need fucking Eastern Europeans on this job; we need proper fucking soldiers.’ Chas was visibly colouring, and his rough features hardened.
‘I was a soldier,’ Tom said, flatly, his eyes never leaving Chas’s features. The bigger man’s face coloured a little more and his jaw tightened.
‘Some fucking Micky-Mouse tinpot shit unit, I bet,’ Chas said, his tone deliberately mocking as he stood, his shoulders square and his chest puffed out.
Again, Tom just let out a further snort of amusement at the bigger man’s display. ‘Come on then, Chas. What unit were you in, SAS, SBS, Paras?’ Tom was not about to present as submissive in the face of this challenge.
‘I was PWRR, you cheeky foreign twat. You need to watch your mouth.’ Chas was beginning to lose control now. He stood towering above Tom, who remained seated and simply angled his view upwards so he could continue to meet Chas’s stare.
‘Chas, for fuck’s sake sit down. The Major will be here any second,’ Rocky interrupted with a little panic in his voice.
‘Yeah, listen to your friend, Chas. You really do not want to do this; I can promise you.’ Tom’s voice was icily calm, and his eyes showed not a trace of fear.
Chas let out a rush of air and his shoulders sagged just a touch as he sat down again, slightly deflated that his intimidatory act had been utterly ineffective.
A large grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner of the room, adding to the sense of tension in the room. Tom studied the room as he waited, assessing the exits and any potential weapons that could be utilised, if necessary. He noted the knife block on the work surface, five steps away. The poker by the fire, seven steps away. The lightly boiling kettle on the Aga, ten steps away. The kitchen had weapons on every surface that Tom hoped he would not need to use.
He studied the two men out of the corner of his eye. Chas was powerfully built with short, neat hair, a broken nose and cauliflower ear. He was clearly either a boxer or martial artist of some type. He was wearing a tight t-shirt that barely contained his bulging biceps and Tom could clearly see the latent power that lurked in the man. He was breathing shallowly and had a sheen of light sweat on his brow. Rocky looked lean and sharp with his short, untidy hair the colour of straw and a far more relaxed air about him. His eyes were focused and shone with intelligence.
Footsteps became audible outside the door which then swung open, Danny leading the way followed by a short, wiry man with neat, grey hair and a clipped moustache. Chas and Rocky shot to their feet and stood to attention, ramrod straight. Tom stood in a slightly more leisurely fashion and fixed the newcomer with a steady, even gaze.
The Major approached and extended his hand. ‘Mr Vidmar, it’s lovely to meet you. I have heard much about you.’ His mouth stretched into a smile which was, on the surface at least, warm and charming. He wore spectacles but there was no mistaking the fierce intelligence that sat behind the twinkling, icy-blue eyes which spoke of contradictions. The crow’s feet suggested a readiness to smile, but the smile itself was cold, hard and unpleasant. Tom had seen that smile before in the eyes of the killers that murdered his father in Bosnia all those years ago. A steely resolve gripped him as he took the proffered hand and shook firmly.
‘I am so very pleased to meet you, David. Welcome to The Aryan Defence Force. You can address me as “Major”.’
26
The Major cast his eyes over the three men at the table in front of him, clearly relishing the tension in the room. Looking at each man in turn, he upturned the corners of his mouth in what should have passed for a smile but conflicted with the hard, flinty look in his eyes. His gaze settled upon Tom, who held his gaze with a neutral expression.
The Major eventually spoke in an accent that, whilst cultured on the surface, seemed to be disguising something that Tom detected as a firm working-class edge. ‘Gentlemen, would you excuse us for a moment.’ The Major looked at Chas and Rocky, who slid their chairs back and walked sullenly out of the room.
‘I take it you have managed to get acquainted with them?’ the Major asked with a note of sarcasm in his voice.
‘You could say that. Chas seems a little uptight,’ Tom smiled.
‘Yes. Chas is loyal, brave, and ruthless but he is a little suspicious. He is not fully aware of the steps we have taken to test your loyalty at this stage. I like to operate the need-to-know principle as much as possible, David. May I call you David?’ He spoke with a degree of superficial charm.
‘Fine by me; it’s my name.’
‘Well, David, we are glad to have you on board. My sources in Belmarsh have been good enough to allow me access to some footage of the incident where you stepped in to assist our brother who is currently incarcerated. Very impressive, I must say, how you managed to disable all three without actually landing a blow. Where did you learn to defend yourself like that?’
‘I’ve been fighting all my life. I have wrestled and boxed since I was a child, but those guys were clowns and presented no challenge.’
The Major chuckled mirthlessly. ‘You are too modest, David. I happen to know each one of them was a violent Muslim terrorist.’
