Echo of the Reich

7

20 July 2012

He got the call he was expecting at ten minutes past six, and the man who phoned him-Bronson thought it was probably John Eaton, but he couldn’t be sure-simply gave him a time and a place, and then rang off.

Fifty minutes later, Bronson parked his Ford in one of the side streets close to the West Ham Cemetery. The street was quiet and largely deserted-parked cars occupied most of the available spaces, but very few people were visible. Lights were on in the majority of the houses that lined both sides of the road.

He was sure that nobody had followed him to the rendezvous, but he still sat in the car for almost five minutes, checking his surroundings. Reassured, he took out the Llama pistol, dropped the magazine out of the weapon, unloaded it and then reloaded it with its maximum load of ten rounds of ammunition. He left the box of cartridges in the glovebox, because if he needed more than ten bullets he reckoned he was going to be dead anyway. Then he clicked the magazine back into place. He was very aware that semi-automatic pistols, unlike revolvers, are prone to jamming, and that the commonest reason for a stoppage is a cartridge not feeding properly into the breech from the top of the magazine. Unloading it allows the magazine spring to fully extend, and many people believe that that helps to reduce the possibility of a misfeed.

Then he bent forward and slid the pistol under the driver’s seat of the car, because at that moment he’d had a change of heart, deciding it would not be wise to carry a weapon, not to that meeting.

His logic was simple enough: if Eaton and his cronies were still unsure about him, it was likely that he might be searched, just in case he was wearing a wire or another type of recording device. And the last thing he wanted was for any members of the group to discover that he had a weapon. That was his ace in the hole.

Bronson opened the door, stepped out onto the pavement and glanced around him; nothing he saw or heard gave him even the slightest twinge of concern. He took out his A to Z of London, located the street he was standing in, and where he needed to get to, which was literally just around the corner, memorized the layout of the immediate area, and slipped the book back into his pocket.

The rendezvous was another pub, the Lamb and Flag, but this time Bronson had been instructed to wait in the car park behind the pub, rather than go into the building. He could, of course, have parked his Ford in the car park, but he was concerned about being boxed in if he did so, not to mention one of the group somehow being able to trace the Ford’s registered owner. So he’d decided that his best option was to leave the car nearby instead.

He was also unsure about who he would be meeting but, because he’d been told to wait outside the building, he guessed the pub was just a first point of contact, and that he would be given further directions by whichever members of the group were there.

As he turned the corner, he spotted the pub on the right-hand side of the street, about seventy yards in front of him, and slowed his pace slightly. This road was noticeably busier-cars and vans driving along it, pedestrians walking along the pavements and milling across the street. Several people were clustered outside the front of the public house, sitting at the handful of metal tables or just leaning against the wall of the building, almost all of them smoking furiously.

He waited until the traffic flow eased and then crossed the road so that he could walk past the building on the opposite side of the street as a final reconnaissance, not that he expected to learn anything from doing so-it was just a pub, significant only because of the man, or perhaps the men, he was supposed to be meeting there-but this served as a final check, a last reconnoiter.

The pub looked as if it dated from the early part of the twentieth century, the lower half of the structure built from red brick, some parts of which needed re-pointing quite badly, while the upper story had been rendered and painted. Originally it had obviously been white or maybe magnolia, but the years had not been kind, and several sections of the render had fallen off to expose poor-quality masonry underneath, while the paintwork that remained was faded and discolored. It had the appearance of a building that nobody loved, or even liked very much, but the truth was probably simpler: the important thing about a pub was the location and the interior, the ambience, the food, and the quality and price of the drinks it served, not what the exterior looked like. And judging by the number of people Bronson could see inside through the windows, as well as those he’d already noticed standing outside, this pub was popular.

Bronson walked about fifty yards beyond the public house, waited for another gap in the traffic and then crossed back to the opposite side of the street to retrace his steps. He walked past the main entrance and turned left down the roadway that led to the car park.

Almost as soon as he left the street, the sounds of traffic faded, replaced by the buzz of dozens of separate conversations that floated out through the pub’s open windows, voices rising and falling, and punctuated by the occasional shout of surprise or burst of laughter. All very comforting and normal.

The car park at the back of the building was, in fact, more like an area of waste ground. There were no parking bays or markings, and the dozen or so cars left there had been positioned around the perimeter, allowing just enough room for each to maneuver and get back to the road when the owner returned to the vehicle.

Bronson walked slowly, checking the interior of each car as he did so, but they were all empty. Whoever had been sent by the group to meet him had yet to arrive. He glanced back down the access road, but nobody was visible.

At that moment, he heard the sound of an engine and glanced round to see a white Transit van driving down the access road. He moved over to one side of the parking area and watched as the vehicle braked to a halt a few feet away from him.

The passenger door swung open and John Eaton climbed out, a kind of wand with a circular sensor in his hand. He nodded to Bronson and beckoned him to walk over toward the van.

“Sorry about this, Alex,” he said, sounding not the least bit contrite, “but we still don’t really know you, so I have to do this. Orders,” he added briefly.

“What, you think I’m carrying a weapon?” Bronson asked.

Eaton shrugged. “Maybe,” he replied, “but actually Mike is far more worried that you might be wired for sound. He still thinks you could be a cop.”

“If he really thinks that,” Bronson snapped, deciding that going on the offensive was probably his best option, “why doesn’t he just tell me to get lost?”

“Simple. He thinks your army training might be useful to us, what you know about explosives, that kind of thing. So he’s cutting you a little slack while he decides what to do. Mind you, if it turns out that he’s right and you are a cop…Well, let’s just say he’s got a nasty temper, Mike has.”

Without a word, Bronson raised his arms sideways to shoulder height, assuming a crucifixion pose while he waited for Eaton to carry out his check.

The other man clicked a switch on the wand, which emitted a single beep to show that it was active, and Bronson silently applauded his forethought in leaving his pistol in the car.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he realized something else. He had half expected to be searched, but what he had anticipated was a pat-down, a physical search of his body and clothes, not this type of high-tech procedure. Metal detectors of various sorts were common, readily available and comparatively cheap, but the instrument Eaton was holding was different. It was expensive, highly specialized and rarely seen except in the hands of qualified security personnel, and usually only at sensitive locations like airports. The fact that the group Bronson was trying to infiltrate possessed one was yet another indication that it was well organized and had access to expensive equipment. That told him a little more about the organization he was facing, but it was hardly good news.

Eaton ran the detector over Bronson’s torso, front and back. When he passed the wand down Bronson’s right side, it emitted a series of rapid beeps and Bronson reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. Eaton nodded and continued his scan. When it beeped again, Bronson produced his mobile phone, but Eaton found nothing else.

“Okay,” he said, “you’re clean, so get in the van and we’ll get this show on the road.”

“Where are we going?” Bronson asked.

Eaton tapped the side of his nose and shook his head, then swung open the rear doors of the vehicle. “You’ll find out when we get there.”

Bronson nodded, climbed up into the Transit’s loading area and sat down on a thinly padded wooden bench seat screwed to one side. The back doors slammed shut and he was left alone in the darkness of the vehicle. Moments later, the engine started, the driver reversed the van a few feet, and then drove it back down the access road.

At the end, it turned right onto the street and accelerated, and after that Bronson had no idea at all where it was going.