James Becker - Echo of the Reich

“First, I didn’t fire it at anyone. I shot out the front tire on that van just so I could get away from the industrial estate. Nobody was in any danger, and it cemented my relationship with the group, that’s for sure.”

“That’s one point of view, certainly. Unfortunately, Shit Rises has a rather different slant on what happened. He thinks you’ve gone renegade, some kind of odd variation of Stockholm syndrome. There’s a warrant out for your arrest-a real warrant, not something intended to help build your cover-and it’s gone countrywide. With your picture plastered all over Sky News, and every copper in Britain with a copy of your photograph, you’ve got no place to hide.”

Bronson felt a cold shiver pass down his back. Despite what he’d told Eaton and Georg, he had hoped that he would have been able to continue what he was doing with official support.

“That’s bloody ridiculous, and you know it.”

“What you know and I know won’t make any difference,” Curtis replied. “Davidson has made the decision, and he’s sticking with it. He figured you’d probably call in, and I’ve been ordered to pass you the official line: you should surrender yourself and the weapon-I gather it’s only a twenty-two-caliber pistol-to any police station. The fact that you were operating undercover will be a mitigating circumstance at your trial, but I think you can be certain that your career as a police officer is over as of now.”

Bronson was silent for a few seconds, his mind racing. He tried one last appeal.

“Listen, Bob, you know as well as I do that that’s not going to happen. If I was going to turn myself in, I’d make bloody sure the weapon never saw the light of day. There are a thousand ways I could lose it-even if I chucked it into a skip you’d never find it-and any halfway competent defense barrister would be able to convince a jury that there was no proof I’d ever had possession of it, or that I was the person who fired the shot.”

“What you’ve just said is almost an admission of guilt. How do you know I’m not taping this call?”

“Taping a mobile isn’t as easy as taping a landline phone. That’s why I called you on this number. And it probably wouldn’t be admissible as evidence in a trial anyway. So are you taping it?”

“No,” Curtis conceded.

“Good. Now listen. I still think this group is just a front for something else, something much more deadly. If I can just have a few more days, I’m certain I’ll be able to find out what it is.”

“You’re back on that conspiracy theory kick, Chris, and it won’t wash. I ran it by Davidson, put the best spin on it I could. No dice. Because of what happened today he thinks you’re just trying to save your own skin by inventing some kind of a terrorist plot. Take my advice. Get rid of the pistol, yeah, that’s a good idea, but if you walk into a police station of your own free will that’ll help your case. If we find you and arrest you, that’ll be completely different.”

“You know I won’t do that.”

“I didn’t think you would, but I had to tell you. You’ll do what you have to do, I guess. Oh, I presume you’ve picked up a different mobile, which is a good idea. There’s a tracking chip on the motherboard of the one we gave you, so I suggest you lose it.”

“Gosh, I wish I’d thought of that,” Bronson said, and rang off.

22 July 2012

Ten minutes after he ended the call to Bob Curtis, Bronson had watched two police cars traveling at speed down the main road through Epping, blues and twos on, following the same route as the bus he’d taken about an hour earlier. He guessed that the driver and passengers on the vehicle were about to have a fairly interesting encounter with the thin blue line.

John Eaton rang about half an hour after that, by which time Bronson had moved to an entirely different location in the town, staying off the main streets as much as possible.

“Where are you?”

Bronson had already noted the name of the street he was closest to, which was just off the main road. “Epping. North end of the town,” he said, “near the main drag. Where do you want me to be?”

“That’ll do,” Eaton replied. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Same car. Watch out for me.”

“Got it.”

Bronson waited seven minutes by his watch, then got up from the bench he was sitting on and covered the short distance to the main road. There was a fairly long and relatively straight length of road in front of him, and he reckoned he’d see the Vauxhall easily as it approached.

As it turned out, Eaton drove along the road almost by himself, a white van about fifty yards in front, and only a lone motorcyclist following behind him. The moment Bronson saw him, he stepped to the edge of the pavement, waited for the car to stop and climbed in.

Eaton pulled smoothly away from the curb.

“Any problems?” he asked.

Bronson shook his head. “Nobody took any notice of me,” he said. “Just shows the power of TV advertising. Maybe a dozen people looked right at me, but none of them recognized me.”

“Bloody good thing, too. Right, with any luck you’ll be on the road in half an hour. Georg has sorted out a car for you, and he’s got a couple of passports as well.”

“Genuine ones? Because when I get to Dover they’ll probably scan it, and a fake’ll show up immediately.”

“As far as I know they’re the real deal, but you’d better ask him yourself.”

Fifteen minutes later, Eaton pulled the Vauxhall to a stop on a concrete drive outside a very ordinary semi-detached house, a typical three-bed, two-recep, large garden, deceptively spacious, early viewing recommended, so beloved of estate agents everywhere.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of place Bronson imagined Georg using, but he supposed it was the sort of location the German would occupy briefly and then move on. Maybe it belonged to one of the members of the group, or perhaps they’d rented it for a month or so to use as a safe house.

As the two men approached the front door, painted classic suburban blue with a large brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin, it opened and Mike peered out.

“You made it, then,” he said, his tone suggesting that he, personally, would rather Bronson hadn’t gotten away, or was at the very least indifferent to his fate.

“Looks like it.”

Mike stepped back and Bronson walked in, closely followed by Eaton. There was a narrow hallway, a staircase with a wooden handrail ascending on one side, and three doors opening off it. The nearest one stood open and as he stepped forward Georg appeared and beckoned him inside.

The room was a lounge, white paintwork and magnolia walls, a settee and a couple of easy chairs in cream leather the principal furnishings. A wide-screen plasma TV dominated the far wall, a Sky box sitting on a shelf underneath it, alongside a DVD player. Below that was a gas-effect electric fire where fake flames flickered slightly, though the heating elements weren’t switched on.

“Eaton explained what happened at the industrial estate,” Georg said. “Thank you for your quick thinking, and for what you did to get the two of you past the police van.”

“It was self-interest as much as anything,” Bronson replied. “If they’d managed to make me stop, I knew what would happen to me.”

“Well, thank you anyway. Now…” Georg turned away and picked up a couple of British passports that lay on the glass-topped coffee table in front of the fire. “Two members of the group bear a slight resemblance to you, and have agreed to loan me their passports.”

“For a fee, presumably?” Bronson asked.

Georg smiled at him. “This lot don’t do anything unless they get paid,” he said.