James Becker - Echo of the Reich

“Right, Bronson,” he said-the use of Christian names now seemed to be off the menu-“I’m taping this call and as soon as we’ve got your location from the computer, Davidson will be sending out the cavalry. You are so deep in the shit that you’re going to need a scaffold tower to climb out of it. What the hell have you been doing?”

“And good afternoon to you, too, Bob. I reckon the trace will take no more than three minutes, but I’ll be off the line in less than two. You don’t need to talk, just listen, because this is serious.”

With one eye on the second hand of his wristwatch, Bronson told Curtis what he’d discovered in Berlin and at the Wenceslas Mine, and what he believed the German terrorist group intended to do at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

“And you’ve got proof of this, obviously,” Curtis said, when Bronson finished, “otherwise you wouldn’t be wasting my time telling me.”

“Of course I can’t prove it,” Bronson snapped. “What are you expecting? A signed note from Marcus-and I’ve found out who he is, by the way, or at least where he lives-saying that he intends to blow up half of northeast London?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s all too little, too late, and far too bloody vague. Sounds to me like you’ve been reading too many thrillers, my friend, and you’re trying to create a smokescreen you can hide behind. The best thing you can do is stand right where you are until the patrol car gets to you, and then come in quietly.”

“That comes from Davidson, doesn’t it?” Bronson asked. “He’s not going to listen to anything I say, is he?”

“You got that right.”

“Okay, then, Bob. I’ve got a piece of advice for you. You’ve been taping this call, so I suggest you make a copy of that tape and stick it away in a safe place somewhere, so that when northeast London goes up in flames you can tell the official inquiry that I gave you fair warning. That way, at least you can save your own skin, even if Davidson fries for it.”

For a moment, Curtis didn’t reply.

“You’re that certain?” he finally asked.

“I’m that certain,” Bronson replied, and hung up the phone.

As he drove out of the village on one of the minor roads, heading more or less west toward London, Bronson spotted a Volvo police car traveling in the opposite direction along the main road, at speed, lights flashing.

“That’ll be the cavalry,” he remarked to Angela. “I don’t think Bob Curtis believed a word I said to him. I was right: we’re on our own.”

“Suppose I called the police?” Angela asked. “Or even the newspapers?”

“I doubt if the police would listen to you. You’re tainted because of your association with me. They’d just assume I’d prompted you to tell them the same story. If you went to the newspapers they’d note down what you told them, but before they did anything else they’d talk to their friendly Media Relations Officer at the local cop shop. He’d do some checking before he gave the go-ahead to print anything, and the result would be the same: your name would be mud because of me. And if by some miracle a newspaper reporter did believe you, and thought the terrorist threat was real, the paper still wouldn’t run the story because the police would tell them not to, to avoid panic.”

“Like that strange American expression: we’re between a rock and a hard place,” Angela said. “Time’s running out because the opening ceremony is tomorrow evening. What do we do now? What can we do?”

“Two things,” Bronson replied, sounding suddenly determined. “In fact, three things. First, tomorrow you don’t go to work at the British Museum, but stay in your apartment, because I want you well out of harm’s way. I’m pretty sure the target will be the opening ceremony, but we don’t know how big or powerful the device is, and if it is some kind of a dirty bomb, the fallout could spread for a long way. In Ealing, you should be safe enough.”

“What about you? You won’t be hiding away somewhere, will you?”

“No, but that’s my job. I have to do whatever I can to stop this attack, and if I don’t have to worry about your safety, that’ll make things easier for me.”

Angela shook her head, but didn’t argue the point.

“You said there were three things, so what else will you do?”

“I’ll be making a phone call to a friend, because I’m definitely going to need help on the ground. And then I’m going undercover again.”

“Not to that same group?” Angela sounded alarmed.

“No. I mean deep undercover. I need to be able to move around the Olympic complex without anybody seeing me, or at least without taking any notice. And there’s one group of people that almost everyone ignores, who can go wherever they want without anyone bothering them.”

“Who? Policemen?”

Bronson smiled at her.

“No,” he said. “Almost the exact opposite, actually.”

27 July 2012

The following morning, just after five thirty, Angela drove the BMW four-by-four east out of London to pick up the M25. The plan she and Bronson had come up with was of necessity simple. She’d just dropped him off in northeast London, where the streets were still largely deserted, and was going to drive out of the city on the M11 motorway as far as Stansted Airport. There, she’d leave the BMW in the long-term car park, where a vehicle on foreign plates would be less likely to attract attention, and hire a car.

She knew it was possible, or perhaps probable, that her credit card purchases were being monitored by the police, in case she led them to Bronson, but he was miles away so it really wouldn’t matter if she was stopped and questioned at the airport. And she had all morning to complete the transaction.

In the event, nobody-neither the Avis booking clerk nor a couple of patrolling police officers bristling with weapons and body armor who were lurking nearby-took the slightest notice of her, and twenty minutes after she’d handed over her credit card, she was driving back down the M11 toward London, in a one-year-old Ford Focus.

And worrying about Bronson.

Bronson was cold and, he hoped, invisible. He certainly thought he looked the part. In a restaurant, nobody really notices waiters-they’re just members of staff who take orders, deliver plates of food and clear the tables. On the streets of London, and most other capital cities, the homeless and the beggars are the nonpeople, shapes hunched in doorways or lying on cardboard, perhaps with a plastic cup in front of them holding a few low-value coins. But for the most part, people notice them but don’t see them, averting their eyes or stepping around them. And that’s what he was counting on.

He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days-not a deliberate or planned move, just dictated by the circumstances and their movements in Germany and Poland-and his face was grubby with what looked like ingrained dirt, an effect it had taken him some time to achieve. He was wearing the oldest pair of trainers he owned, dirty and torn jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a camouflage-pattern jacket that he thought he’d thrown out years ago. Angela had recovered all of those from Bronson’s house in the early hours of the morning, but only after they’d spent twenty minutes making absolutely sure that the property wasn’t under surveillance. He also had a battered rucksack that contained a handful of chocolate bars, cans of soft drink, a couple of sweaters, Angela’s mobile phone, which was switched off, and the silencer and spare magazines for the Walther. The pistol was in his pocket, just in case. Beside him was a grubby old sack, inside which were the two Heckler amp; Koch submachine guns and extra magazines, each wrapped up in a couple of old sweaters and a tattered blanket.