James Becker - Echo of the Reich

“We saw two men here, but we couldn’t catch them,” one of the officers said, declining to explain what had actually happened. “That dozer’s a bit of a mess, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s an old one, and it was coming up for a major service anyway, so it’s no great loss. The insurance company won’t be happy, but that’s their problem. I’ve already called one of my people to come out here and sort out that gate,” Heaton added. “Get the place secure again, until the next time some comedian decides to have a little fun in here.”

“Right, sir,” the second officer said. “If you’ve got everything in hand, we’ll be on our way.”

“Thanks again. Oh, we’ve got a new security system here. If it recorded anything useful I’ll leave a copy at the local nick.”

Heaton watched the car reverse out of the open gate and head off down the street. Then he walked across to the locked office at the back of the yard, feeling in his pocket for his keys.

The new security cameras had been installed only a few weeks earlier, and Heaton still wasn’t sure they were in the right places and were working properly. He decided he’d look at the tapes-sorry, the solid-state hard drives, as the installer had emphasized to him several times-on-site before he handed over the pictures, if the system had done its job and taken any, to the police.

The security company had fitted two cameras, both tucked neatly out of sight. One covered the main gates, the obvious place for any intruder to effect an entrance, and was linked to the alarm system, so it would have started recording the moment the gate swung open and broke the contact. The second camera provided a wide-area view of the yard, and would show exactly where any intruders went and what they did. It was, the security company had claimed, state-of-the-art equipment, and would provide the best possible chance of identifying and apprehending anyone who entered the premises illegally.

In his office, Jeremy Heaton sat down at his desk, switched on the LCD screen that hung on the wall opposite his chair and somewhat uncertainly negotiated his way through the various menus that controlled the security system. He finally found what he was looking for and settled back to watch the video sequences.

The pictures were incredibly clear, the faces of the two men in sharp focus. The system actually seemed to be working far better than Heaton had expected, even better than the installer had promised, in fact.

One of the menu options offered Heaton the ability to make copies of the video recordings. He clicked the appropriate key, then followed the on-screen instructions that told him where to insert a blank DVD disk. He’d deliver that to the local police station, as he’d said he would, not that it would help much. Heaton had no illusions about the likelihood of the two criminals being apprehended, unless they already had records and could be identified from the images.

Once the copying process had finished, he extracted the disk and slipped it into a case. Then he opened his drawer again, took out a second blank disk and inserted it in the machine. He’d make another copy, he decided, and this one he wouldn’t hand over to the police.

He had a much better idea what he could do with that recording.

21 July 2012

The moment Chris Bronson followed Eaton into the office at the back of the old warehouse situated at the edge of a trading estate in Essex early the following afternoon, he knew something was badly wrong. He’d been expecting to see one or two other members of the group there, probably Mike and maybe the man Eaton had referred to as “Georg.” In fact, Bronson found himself staring at Mike and half a dozen tough-looking men with unfriendly expressions on their faces.

But that wasn’t what worried him the most. Bronson’s attention was caught and held by a plasma TV set in the corner of the room, the picture frozen, but perfectly clear. It was a remarkably sharp image of his face, and below that the caption: “Police officer implicated in act of vandalism.”

And even as he registered that, Bronson was grabbed from behind by two other men who’d been hidden behind the door of the room. He twisted and turned, struggling to free himself from their grasp, but they were too strong. They hustled him across to a stout wooden chair positioned near the center of the room and forced him to sit down. Then, assisted by two of the other men there, they tied his wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of the chair, completely immobilizing him.

“I knew there was something that didn’t smell right about you,” Mike began. “We caught this on the news this morning. I recorded it, because I thought you might want to see it. Your fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak.”

He turned round, picked up a black remote control from the desk behind him and aimed it at the digital receiver mounted just below the television set.

The screen sprang into life as the announcer’s words filled the room: “…caught on a security camera at a construction equipment yard not far from the site of the Olympic stadium.”

The picture changed-two men entering through the gate, heading straight toward the camera. Then it altered again, to a view of the yard from above this time. The two figures could be seen approaching a bulldozer, and then one of them, the bigger of the two men, began hammering at something on the side of the engine.

The newscaster continued explaining the sequence of events, just in case any of the channel’s viewers were too dense to grasp what they were seeing.

“The two men were recorded by the security system as they broke in through the locked gates, carrying heavy hammers and other tools. Once inside, they made straight for this bulldozer and caused several thousand pounds’ worth of damage to the engine and controls, according to the company’s owner. Sky sources have positively identified this man”-the image shown on the screen returned to the still picture of Bronson’s face-“as Christopher John Bronson, a police sergeant living in Kent. The identity of his companion is so far unknown, but-”

Mike clicked a button on the remote control. The recorded program vanished and the live news feed was displayed. He pressed another control and the sound was immediately muted.

“When I first met you,” Mike continued, his tone conversational, almost friendly, “I thought you could be an undercover cop, but then I decided I had to be wrong, because not even the Metropolitan Police would be that stupid. Well, guess what? They really are that stupid, and now here you are, up shit creek without a paddle. Or even a canoe, for that matter. You’ve got no way out of this, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” Bronson snapped.

“You got that right,” Mike sneered.

Bronson’s mind was racing, figuring the angles as he tried desperately to find some way out. The only asset he had was the Llama pistol, tucked into the rear pocket of his jeans and under his leather jacket. Nobody had searched him, probably because most British police were still rarely armed, and even undercover officers seldom carried weapons. But to get to the pistol he needed at least one of his hands free, and right then he didn’t see how he was going to achieve that.

What he did know was that there would be no point in appealing for mercy. From what little he knew of the man, Bronson guessed that compassion wouldn’t be very high on Mike’s list of qualities. If indeed it featured at all.

He hadn’t had the radio switched on in his car when he drove out to this rendezvous, the time and location specified in a telephone message from John Eaton, and neither Curtis nor anyone else at the Forest Gate police station had called his mobile. He’d walked into the situation cold.