The Geneva Trap

Chapter 33

Peggy was in the A4 control room, sitting on the old leather sofa that was kept there for anxious case officers while a surveillance operation was in progress. Wally Woods, the A4 controller, set strict rules in the control room: case officers could be present provided they didn’t speak except to answer questions. Yet he did find it useful to have them there, as surveillance operations rarely went entirely as predicted and it was helpful to be able to involve the case officer in the quick decisions that often needed to be made.

This was the third day of surveillance on Park Woo-jin. It was a miserable morning, unseasonably cold and spitting with rain. It was 8.30 when Reggie Purvis bought a coffee in the old-fashioned coffee bar on Broadway and stood by the window sipping it. Unusually for him, he was wearing a suit and tie under a raincoat. They made him indistinguishable from the civil servants and office workers who stood around him, having a quick shot of caffeine before starting work. Like many of them, Purvis had iPod plugs in both ears, and his face bore the vacant expression of someone listening to an interior orchestra the outside world couldn’t hear.

Ten minutes later as another wave of passengers emerged from the subterranean bowels of the District line on to the pavement in front of St James’s Park Underground Station, Purvis spotted his target: a young man in a new-looking leather jacket. He was short, five foot six at a stretch, with cropped black hair and Far Eastern features. He paused briefly outside the station entrance and bought a paper, which he tucked under his arm, then he stood for a moment, putting his change away and looking around. But there was nothing particularly vigilant about his gaze, and he seemed completely unaware of Stephen Sachs, who had been in the same carriage all the way in on the train from Ealing Broadway, and who now passed him without a glance.

The young man walked to the corner and Purvis quickly swallowed the dregs of his coffee and went out into the street. It was raining harder now, and Purvis turned up the collar of his coat, walking quickly, following the man in the leather jacket as he crossed Broadway on to Queen Anne’s Gate, heading for St James’s Park. This was the same route the man had taken on each of the previous days, and it was clearly his standard morning routine.

But why did he get off the tube at St James’s? One further stop would have brought him to Westminster, much nearer the MOD building where he worked. Getting off here gave him a ten-minute walk. Fair enough, if the day were fine – perhaps he liked the exercise – but today nobody in their right mind would want a longer walk to work. Not in this rain.

The iPod sitting in Purvis’s jacket pocket was a two-way radio, and the plugs in his ears weren’t bringing him the dulcet notes of Coldplay or Adele. ‘Tonto’s heading to the park. Same route as usual,’ he said, lowering his chin, so the mini-mic that doubled as a tiepin would pick up his words.

‘Got it,’ said a voice in his ears. Duff Wells, in tracksuit and trainers, was jogging slowly around the lake in St James’s Park. Further along by Horse Guards, Maureen Hughes, dressed in a smart black mac and black tights, was holding an umbrella with one hand and a small Schnauzer on a lead with the other. His name was Buster, and he belonged to one of the doormen at Thames House. In the foyer of the MOD itself, Marcus Washington sat like someone waiting for an appointment, but in fact making sure that the man in the leather jacket made it to work.

According to the A4 team, on the last three mornings Park Woo-jin’s walk had followed the same pattern: down through Queen Anne’s Gate and into the park, across Horse Guards Parade and then through the Arch into Whitehall and the MOD. It was like the performance of a play with a constantly changing cast, though the lead character remained the same.

They were all wondering how long they would keep following the Korean, who so far had gone innocently to work and back each day, returning home alone to his flat in an MOD-owned house in Ealing, never venturing further afield than the Thai restaurant at the end of his street and the DVD shop a hundred yards further along, where he had up to now rented Toy Story 2 and a Kung Fu film.

Purvis slowed down as he neared the park. Along Birdcage Walk the buds on the trees were turning into tiny leaves, still too small to give shelter from the steady downpour. Rain was beginning to soak through his coat as he stood waiting at the lights while taxis chugged by, sloshing more water into the gutters at the side of the road. Duff Wells had certainly drawn the short straw today. He must be drenched jogging out there in the park.

Then through his earphones Purvis heard Wells’s voice come to life. ‘Tonto has sat down on a bench. Halfway along the side of Birdcage Walk. He’s reading a paper.’

‘In the rain?’ It was Wally Woods in the control room.

‘Yep. Hang on a minute… he’s up. Walking again, approaching Horse Guards. Towards you, Maureen.’

‘Got him,’ came Maureen’s voice.

‘Why’d he stop?’ Wally Woods enquired.

‘Dunno. Looks odd. And he’s left his paper in the bin.’

In the control room Wally looked at Peggy. ‘Do you want that paper?’

Her eyes were shining. Something was happening at last. She thought for a split second. ‘No. Tell them to leave it and wait. Prepare to follow if someone collects it.’

The instruction was relayed to the watchers. There was a pause. Purvis crossed Birdcage Walk and went into the park. He could see the bench in front of him. Several office workers were hurrying along the path, their heads down against the rain. As he approached the bench, he saw a man coming towards him, walking more slowly than the office workers, his hands in his pockets, seemingly oblivious to the rain.

‘I think we may have contact,’ said Purvis into his tiepin. He pressed a button in his pocket and a concealed camera started to take pictures of a heavy-set man in a dark overcoat. ‘I reckon he’s Chinese. Definitely not a Westerner.’

Wally looked at Peggy with raised eyebrows. But before she could speak Purvis’s voice came over the speaker again. ‘He’s stopped right by the bench. He’s looking around.’ There was a pause, and the tension in the control room was building when, ‘Bingo!’ Purvis exclaimed. ‘He’s taken the paper out of the bin.’

‘Ask them to follow him. We need to know where he goes,’ said Peggy.

‘I have Tonto,’ said Marcus Washington from the MOD. ‘He’s gone inside.’

‘Unknown target heading north across the park now, towards The Mall and Waterloo Place.’ That was Maureen on Horseguards Parade.

Some fast deployment by Wally Woods meant that by the time the target emerged on to Pall Mall, where he turned left heading for St James’s Street, he was being trailed by a black taxi containing two men and a woman. When finally he turned into the door of the Stafford Hotel, he was still apparently unaware that his progress from St James’s Park had been logged and photographed all the way.