James Barrington - Overkill

‘What made him agree?’ Westwood asked.

‘The possible diplomatic repercussions, I think,’ said Lacomte. ‘If he had refused permission for the lorry to be stopped, and it later turned out that you had been right, his career would be at an end.’

‘Everyone else’s career would probably also be at an end,’ Tony Herron interjected.

‘Quite,’ said Lacomte. ‘But by allowing your SAS to participate, if it all goes wrong he can claim that it was some sort of a British cowboy action that he knew nothing about. In fact,’ he continued, ‘he has instructed me to ensure that the SAS personnel take charge of the assault on the convoy, and that French involvement is to be kept to a minimum.’

‘To make it more deniable, of course?’

Lacomte smiled. ‘Of course.’

‘Machiavellian old devil,’ Richter said.

‘Yes. That is his reputation.’ Lacomte rubbed his hands briskly and gave instructions to one of his colleagues, who left the room. ‘To business,’ he said. ‘Let’s start with the convoy.’

‘Right,’ Richter agreed, and opened up the file again. ‘First, the route. Orlov wasn’t completely certain about it, but the point of departure was almost certainly going to be Minsk. It will have travelled through Poland, probably Czechoslovakia, and then into Germany and should enter – or have entered – France at Strasbourg.’

Lacomte glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t think it has entered France yet,’ he said. ‘I gave instructions this morning for a total watch operation to be put in place on all French overland borders apart from that with Spain, for obvious reasons, and for any vehicles demanding diplomatic immunity to be delayed as much as possible without making it obvious.’

‘Thank you,’ Richter said, nodding approval.

‘We have heard nothing, so I think we can be sure that the convoy is still in Germany. What time-scale did Comrade Orlov give you?’

Richter referred back to the file. ‘He said that the London weapon was scheduled for positioning the day after tomorrow.’

‘Right, and with point of entry Strasbourg. I think the roadworks at Strasbourg are going to cause the convoy some delays in getting on to the autoroute. I think we can guarantee that it won’t reach Reims until tomorrow mid-afternoon at the earliest.’

‘And are there roadworks at Strasbourg?’ Westwood asked.

‘There will be in less than an hour,’ Lacomte replied, and gave instructions in French to the remaining DST officer. As he left, the other DST man returned, arms laden with maps of northern France, which he spread out on the conference table.

‘And after Strasbourg?’ Lacomte asked. ‘What route then?’

‘Orlov believed the convoy would stay on the autoroutes as much as possible, so it will probably route from Strasbourg either to Metz or possibly Châlons-sur-Marne and then on to Reims. After that there’s not much scope for diversions. It will almost certainly pick up the A26 autoroute to St Quentin, and then route past Cambrai to Calais for the Channel crossing to Dover. The crossing will certainly be from Calais, and they’re probably aiming for a night sailing, tomorrow.’

Lacomte had been tracing the possible routes on the map while Richter had been speaking. When he stopped Lacomte smoothed out the central section and looked at it with interest. ‘So where do we stop them?’ he asked.

‘To be perfectly honest,’ Richter said, ‘I haven’t got that far yet. I was thinking about faking a diversion off the autoroute, and hitting the truck on some quiet road somewhere. I thought maybe the assault team could pose as French truck thieves.’

Lacomte looked at him. ‘I won’t pretend that we don’t have gangs who specialize in stealing entire lorries, but it would, I think, be a very optimistic or very stupid gang which took on a diplomatic-plated lorry and two or three cars full of armed couriers. No, I think we apply a bit of cunning here.’ He thought for a few moments. ‘I like the idea of the diversion,’ he said, ‘but let’s do it backwards.’

‘Backwards?’ Richter asked.

‘Instead of diverting the convoy off the autoroute, we divert everything else off it, except the convoy.’

‘That’s sneaky,’ said Tony.

‘It’s brilliant,’ Richter said. ‘That gives us plenty of room to work and a complete absence of eyewitnesses. Can you fix it?’

‘Of course,’ said Lacomte. ‘We’ve done it before.’ He took a pencil and paper and drew a rapid sketch. ‘First,’ he said, ‘we choose a section of autoroute without service areas, and we flush all vehicles out of the parking areas on both carriageways. Then, we wait for the convoy to pass here,’ he said, drawing a parking area to the south of the section he had marked, ‘where we will position one of our vehicles with a radioman. As soon as he signals confirmation of the convoy’s position, we prepare for action.’ He pointed at the drawing of an intersection. ‘As soon as the convoy passes this junction, we block the inbound access and erect barriers across the carriageway to divert all the following traffic on to the national roads. The convoy will be slow, and they should soon be the last vehicles on the northbound section. If any other vehicles do lag behind it, we will have them stopped and detained by gendarmes.’

Lacomte was warming to his theme.

‘As soon as we close the northbound carriageway we will also close the southbound section, two junctions to the north, to ensure there are no witnesses to the operation. Then, when all the traffic is clear, your SAS men and our assault forces will stop the truck.’

If you said it quickly, it sounded easy. It could even work, but Richter wasn’t certain it would be quite as simple as Lacomte seemed to believe. ‘Fine,’ Richter said. ‘I have no problems with any of that. But stopping a lorry isn’t that easy. If the driver simply decides to keep going – and he will probably have orders to do exactly that – what then?’

‘We arrange an accident,’ Tony Herron said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We have to allay their suspicions. The Russians will probably notice the absence of traffic heading south, and the fact that nothing is overtaking them going north, and they will be expecting trouble of some sort. So we arrange an accident – a big one, one that blocks the northbound carriageway altogether – and put rescue vehicles on the southbound side. Lots of flashing lights and confusion, people running about.’

‘Yes,’ said Lacomte. ‘That should work.’

‘The convoy will have to stop, and with all the vehicles stationary it should be fairly easy to immobilize the escort. Perhaps a gendarme could approach the cars and ask if anyone is a doctor, or demand their first-aid kits or something. Something to distract their attention.’

‘That’s good,’ Richter said, and turned to Lacomte.

‘Can you organize that?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘We’ll take two articulated lorries and jack-knife them across the carriageway, as if they collided when one was overtaking the other. It happens often enough in France,’ he added.

‘We can leave the details of the actual assault until I have spoken to the SAS officer,’ Richter said. ‘But we should identify the location of the operation now so you can prepare.’

Lacomte nodded and turned his attention back to the maps. The other DST man returned to the room and advised them that a main water pipe had burst just outside Strasbourg and that access to the autoroute for all heavy goods vehicles was very slow. Private cars, he added with a smile, were able to get through without too many problems.

Half an hour later they had identified the site. The operation would take place between Chambry, junction number 13, just to the north of Laon, and the Courbes junction, number 12, on the A26 autoroute between Laon and St Quentin. There was even a convenient military camp just south of the autoroute between Vivaise and Couvron-et-Aumencourt, which could possibly be explained away as the origin of any small-arms fire which might be heard.