James Becker - Echo of the Reich

Bronson nodded. “A few years, yes. But I was in the army on a short-service commission before I joined the force.”

Curtis smiled again and looked to his left, toward the officer sitting at the adjacent desk. “That’s a tenner you owe me, Jack.” He swung back to face Bronson. “Had a small wager running,” he explained. “Jack figured you for another graduate fast-tracker like Davidson. But I reckoned he was wrong because you look like you’ve been around the block a few times.”

Bronson thought that worked out as a compliment.

“I hadn’t planned on making chief constable,” he replied. “For one thing, I’m not a Mason, and in any case I don’t think I could handle the bullshit that comes with the job. Talking of jobs, what’s this nasty surprise you’ve got planned for me?”

“It’s not that nasty,” Curtis said. “In fact, you might even enjoy it. But it is really important, because we’re running out of ideas.” There were about half a dozen files sitting in an irregular pile on one corner of his desk, and he reached across and pulled out the bottom one, which was also the slimmest. He flicked through the first couple of pages before looking up at Bronson again.

“Let me give you the background. Pretty much ever since London won the bid to hold the twenty twelve Olympics, there’ve been cases of sabotage and malicious damage at the various venues. At first, we thought it was the usual mindless vandalism that you get in every major city, but over the last three months or so it’s become clear that we are looking at a concerted plan. There seems to be a definite objective to the damage. It’s not just a case of breaking a few windows or daubing graffiti around the place, though there’s been a fair amount of that as well. But these guys, whoever they are, seem to be targeting the machinery on the building sites, doing their best to ensure that the work won’t be completed on time.”

“Hang on a minute,” Bronson said. “The Games start in exactly ten days’ time. I thought that everything was pretty much finished-and all the construction work was completed ages ago.”

“Dream on. The government and all the other talking heads are just saying what they think the public wants to hear. Most of the building work has been completed, that’s true, but there’s still a hell of a lot of finishing-off to do before the opening ceremony. I reckon that the paint inside some of the buildings will still be wet when the athletes arrive.”

Bronson nodded. “I hadn’t realized that. But what do these vandals want? What’s their motive? I thought most people believed that the Olympics would be a good thing for London, not just because of the income that’ll be generated during the Games themselves, but also because of all the redevelopment of the East End. Surely everyone will benefit to some extent?”

“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But this bunch seems to have a different agenda.”

Bronson glanced at the thin file in front of Curtis. “From the look of that,” he said, “you haven’t got very much to go on.”

“You got that right. We know that they usually work at night, but so far we’ve made no arrests. In terms of evidence, about all we have got are the damage reports from the construction companies, and statements from our own people about how they broke into the sites.”

“But surely the Olympic sites are guarded? There must be cameras, nightwatchmen, patrols by security companies? And this close to the event, the work will be going on twenty-four hours a day, won’t it?”

“All true, and when the work stops the nightwatchmen are posted, but these people have a knack of knowing the odd corner or length of fence where the surveillance cameras don’t have total coverage, that kind of thing, and there are so many sites involved that they’ve got plenty of choice about where they hit each time.”

“Have you got any leads at all?” Bronson asked.

“A few whispers on the street, but that’s about it. We think the gang is based somewhere in this area, because on the odd occasions when any of them has been spotted and chased, they’ve always managed to slip the net down alleyways, side streets and so on. That suggests detailed knowledge of the area.”

“Or it could just mean that they’ve done a thorough reconnaissance of the target area beforehand,” Bronson said, “or even that they’ve invested in a bunch of really good quality GPS units.”

Curtis nodded. “I can’t argue with any of that. We think they’re a local bunch, but we really don’t know. And we’ve no idea what their objective is.”

Bronson shook his head. “I can see how frustrating this must be,” he said, “but surely it’s only an irritant? Why can’t you just double the number of nightwatchmen and CCTV cameras and increase the regular patrols around the sites? Surely that would be enough to neutralize this bunch of idiots.”

Curtis smiled at him. “Until about a week ago, I’d have agreed with you. Then two things happened. First, we got a lead on the name of the man who seems to be the head of the group, and that does tie up with some of the graffiti we’ve found. At several of the sites they hit, we found fresh graffiti that looked a bit like a capital “M” with a lowercase “u” directly underneath it. In fact, we’d started referring to them as the “Mu Gang,” though we had no idea what the symbol was supposed to mean.

“Anyway, one of our informers finally came up with the name Wolf, spelling uncertain. He thought that was the man’s surname, and that his first name might be Mark or maybe Marcus, but he wasn’t sure. He also told us that the graffiti, the “Mu” symbol, was meant to represent a wolf’s head, the “M” being the ears and the “u” the snout, so that all seemed to hang together.”

“Interesting, but not particularly helpful,” Bronson commented. “What was the second thing?”

“The second thing changed everything. Five nights ago, what we believe to be the same gang launched an attack against one of the stadiums. They got in undetected by cutting through the boundary fence, and made their way over to where some construction equipment was still being stored. They did a fair amount of minor damage to some of the most expensive equipment they could find, cutting diesel fuel lines, putting sugar in petrol tanks, all that kind of thing, because there isn’t much else you can do to a bulldozer or a crane to stop it working. Unless you’ve got a wrecking ball or cutting equipment, that is.

“Then it all went wrong. We think the nightwatchman on the site saw something on the CCTV cameras or maybe heard the gang. Whatever happened, he dialed triple nine and then headed out to try to stop them. He was by himself, and from the recordings we’ve looked at, there were at least six of them.”

Bronson had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming.

“He tried to tackle one of them, but he was set upon by the gang and beaten up. That was bad enough, but he wasn’t that young and his heart gave out during the attack. By the time the first patrol car arrived, he was already dead and the intruders were long gone. So what started out as just a bloody nuisance has now turned into a full-scale murder inquiry.”

“I presume you don’t want me to help out with that?” Bronson asked.

“No. We’ve already got a full Murder Room running, not that they’ve got very much to go on because of the lack of any useful forensic evidence. But Shit Rises has got a better-or at least a different-plan in mind, and that’s where you come in. He’s under a hell of a lot of pressure from the top to get this sorted. The clock’s ticking, and we absolutely have to find this bunch of thugs and get them off the streets before East London is flooded with athletes and spectators. He’s been looking for a volunteer for this for a few days, pretty much ever since the killing of the nightwatchman.”