The Geneva Trap

Chapter 42

At first it seemed like just another routine surveillance job. Follow target codename Tonto from the MOD to his residence in Ealing. Same every night, thought Duff Wells. Leaves MOD dead on five, walks across St James’s Park, through Queen Anne’s Gate to the tube station, and takes the District line to Ealing Broadway. A short walk home. Job done.

This evening Duff Wells was covering the tube journey. Stephen Sachs had come in on the tube from Ealing with the target this morning, so this evening he’d just kept a weather eye on him from a distance as he crossed the park. He was probably still there, waiting for the ‘stand down’ from Wally Woods in the control room. Maureen Hayes had watched Tonto leave the MOD building in Whitehall and would get on the train at Westminster Station, in case Wells needed back-up. Not likely, he thought. This was one of the most predictable targets he’d had for a long time.

Meanwhile, out in Ealing, Marcus Washington was waiting in a white builder’s van a hundred yards down the street from the MOD house where Tonto was staying, just to make sure that he went home and stayed there. Unusually, Washington was on his own tonight, as an urgent operation in Tottenham had come in late in the afternoon, and Wally Woods had taken the risk that solo cover would be enough – it seemed more than likely Tonto would conform to his usual pattern and stay put for the evening.

Wells was standing at the front end of the carriage behind Tonto’s. He could see him, sitting comfortably reading the Evening Standard, ignoring a white-haired lady with a large bag who was standing in front of him. Wells had heard through his headphones that Hayes was safely on board the train, two carriages further back. Wells was thinking about his daughter’s birthday in two weeks’ time and whether they could afford to buy her the Smartphone she wanted. It wasn’t the cost of the phone itself that was the worry but the two-year contract you had to take out with the phone company. Then there was the problem of monitoring who she was texting and emailing, to say nothing of the wider world of the internet. And she was only thirteen.

Tonto stood up and Wells’s daughter was forgotten. Was Tonto offering his seat to the old lady? No, he was getting off at the next stop, Chiswick Park, three stops before his usual one. Wells sent a quick alert to Maureen Hayes and the control room and prepared to get off too. This was a bit more like it.

He stood on the platform watching Hayes walking briskly up the steps to the exit, in the midst of a few dozen commuters, followed a few yards behind by Tonto. Wells waited till they’d both gone through the exit barriers then followed on behind.

In Ealing Marcus Washington suddenly sat up behind the steering wheel of his van and turned on the ignition. With a squeal from his tyres, kicking up a little fountain of gravel, he accelerated out of his parking space. Unlike ordinary builder’s vans, his was equipped with a three-litre engine, but it didn’t do him much good in the local rush-hour traffic and it still took him fifteen minutes to get to Chiswick Park. There he saw Wells casually strolling down the pavement that ran along the north side of a little park. Responding to the voice in his ear, he drove straight past then, fifty yards further on, pulled over and sat, with engine running, waiting for his colleague to reach him.

‘What kept you, sunshine?’ asked Wells with a grin.

Woods and his team in the control room were receiving the pictures that Maureen Hayes was taking now as she strolled through the park. They showed the target sitting at one end of a bench, at the other a Far Eastern-looking man; they seemed to be talking.

Woods picked up his phone and dialled. ‘Peggy? I need you up here straight away. We’ve got choices to make.’

Two minutes later Peggy Kinsolving was standing next to him, listening to transmissions from the team on the ground.

Wells: ‘Tonto and the new arrival are still talking. It’s the same guy who picked up the drop in St James’s Park.’

Hayes: ‘I can see the car that brought the new target. It’s a minicab – got the sticker on the back window – looks as if it’s been told to wait. Here you go.’ And a photograph of a blue Peugeot saloon, its registration clearly visible, came up on the screen in the control room.

Woods turned to Peggy. ‘What do you want us to do? There’s not enough resource to take on both targets. Who shall we go with?’

Peggy thought for a split second then said, ‘Stick with the new target. Let’s try and house him. I’ll trace that minicab back to its firm and see what I can find out from them about their customer.’

‘OK,’ replied Woods. ‘We’ll do our best. But we’ve only got the one van on the job, so no guarantees.’

While Woods relayed the new instructions to the team, Peggy went back to her desk to set about identifying the minicab company and driver.

Ten minutes later the new arrival stood up, leaving Park Woo-jin sitting on the bench, and walked back to the waiting minicab. The Peugeot saloon drove away from the park, unaware that the innocuous builder’s van a hundred yards behind, which now contained all three of the surveillance team, was following it. The minicab made its way to the Hogarth roundabout where it joined the A4 heading west.

Traffic was heavy, but Marcus Washington managed to stay close, though he had to cut up a dawdling commuter near Hounslow and drew a horn blast from an irate lorry driver as he speeded past him just as he was about to overtake. When the Peugeot turned off at the Heathrow exit, Washington was two cars behind it and he managed to stay in that position all the way in through the tunnel. But as they emerged into the airport proper, he was caught by a red light, which he wasn’t able to jump. He could see the Peugeot ahead as it moved into the left lane for Terminal Two. He waited impatiently until the light turned green then shot ahead, but suddenly had to jam on his brakes for a little saloon car that had stalled at the very beginning of the entrance road to the terminal.

The air in the van turned blue as the three occupants cursed in unison. Duff Wells leaped out and ran to the car where he found a near-hysterical young woman at the wheel. She seemed to have run out of petrol. With the help of a policeman, who had come to investigate, he pushed the little car over to one side. Leaving them to sort out the problem, Wells leaped back into the van, which was now blocking a long line of hooting cars.

Washington drove fast along the drop-off lane, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man getting out of the minicab. But there was no sign of him or the blue Peugeot, which must have dropped him and driven straight off. There was little chance of finding the man in the crowded terminal, especially as they had no idea what flight he was catching.

Just as they were preparing to admit defeat and sign off the job, a further instruction came through from Wally Woods. Peggy had traced the owner of the Peugeot and found out that he was employed by a minicab company based in Chiswick.

Trees Taxis occupied a small basement underneath a hairdresser’s shop in Chiswick High Road. A hand-painted sign hung on the railings outside. Maureen Hayes climbed out of the van a hundred yards past the premises and walked back. Down a short flight of concrete steps she found an open door and a very small room with a counter barring the entrance. A fat Sikh in a blue turban was leaning his elbows on an open appointments book on the counter, while behind him a much younger counterpart, sitting at a switchboard, was talking into a microphone.

‘Yes?’ said the Sikh.

‘I’m from the Home Office,’ announced Hayes, waving a pass. ‘I would like to speak to the owner.’

‘That’s me,’ said the Sikh, ‘and him,’ he added, indicating the young man behind him. ‘He’s my son.’

‘Are you Mr Tree?’ asked Hayes doubtfully.

‘No, ma’am. I bought the business off Mr Tree five years ago when he retired. How can I help the Home Office? You’ll find all our drivers are fully registered and licensed to drive public carriage vehicles. We are all British citizens. No illegal immigrants here.’ He laughed at the very idea.

‘Do you have an office where we could talk privately, Mr…?’

‘Gurpal Singh. No, I don’t. This is our entire premises. But I have no secrets from my son.’

‘One of your drivers, in a blue Peugeot, took a fare to Acton Green about two hours ago. He waited for him and then drove him to Heathrow. Terminal Two, I believe.’

‘Yes, that’s right. It was Charlie did that job. For the Chinese bloke. What’s he call himself, Mo?’ He threw the question over his shoulder to his son.

‘Mr Dong,’ replied Mo. ‘He rang last night. Same as before. Pick up at Heathrow, drive to his hotel in town, maybe drive here and there. Then, after a day or so, drive him back to Heathrow.’

‘How long has he been a customer?’ asked Maureen.

‘He first booked us about six months ago. Could be a bit longer. Comes every now and then. Is there something wrong with him?’

‘I’m not sure yet. One of my colleagues may want to come and talk to you further. Perhaps ask you to let us know next time he rings – and please don’t tell him we’ve been asking about him. We’ll be in touch. Thanks for your help.’

‘It’s always a pleasure to help the Home Office,’ replied Gurpal Singh with a grin.

Hayes turned to climb back up the steps. Then something occurred to her.

‘When you pick him up at the airport, does he give you the flight number?’

‘Yes – in case the flight’s delayed.’

‘So where’s he fly in from?’

Mo answered, ‘It’s always the same. Air France from Marseilles.’