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“Mornin’, Timothy.”
Pete Simmons threw his small rucksack onto the bed in the front bedroom of the little terraced house in Burnley. It was 4 am.
Tim Argent pulled his glasses off his nose, rubbed his eyes and yawned.
“Mornin’, Peter.”
Simmons peeled off his jacket and dropped it on top of his bag.
“Is there a brew on?”
“Yeah, Farooq’s just making it.” Tim replaced his glasses, stood up and stretched. “Nothing to report. The blue minibus is still there, hasn’t moved all night and there’s been no comings or goings,” he said, yawning again.
“Fine,” Pete replied, slipping into Tim’s vacated seat. “You stopping for one or getting straight off?”
Tim lifted his jacket from the coat hook on the back of the bedroom door. “I’m out of here. Just want to get to my bed now.” He gave Simmons a wan smile then made to leave the room, stepping back momentarily as Farooq Hussein entered carrying two steaming mugs. “See you later, Farooq,” he said as he left the room.
“Yep. See you, Tim,” Farooq replied absently, placing Pete’s mug down on the desk in front of him before pulling up a chair and sipping his tea. He watched the three screens on the desk, images from miniature cameras in the eaves of the house, front and rear.
“Mover one....Silver clear to exit,” the voice whispered from the encrypted radio Simmons held to his ear. “Silver, yes yes,” Tim’s voice replied.
Farooq sipped his tea again. It would be another hour before Simmons’ colleague Ben, arrived. Only then would he be able to get to his bed. And so it’d been for the last month. Two mobile, one static, one day off. Four teams of two each. Under normal circumstances, it might’ve been adequate, but El-Hashem was a savvy customer when it came to his anti-surveillance drills. They’d soon realised the inadequacies, requesting an increase almost from the start.
Having lost him a couple of times, they’d decided to put a tracking ‘lump’ on his hire vehicle. It all seemed to be going quite well until a drive past of the vehicle, parked on double yellow lines in Bolton, found it empty. They’d watched it for an hour and a half when its position attracted the attention of a Police foot patrol. The Officer was obviously checking its details on the PNC when he was approached by a white male in his late forties. As they watched, the male gesticulated towards the inside of the driving compartment then opened the door taking something from behind the driver’s sun visor and showed it to the Officer, along with a sheet of paper he’d taken from the pocket of his jeans.
Through their local Special Branch liaison officer, they ascertained the white male was the hire company rep who’d been contacted by the hirer to recover the vehicle. They needed to recover the ‘lump’ and salvage something from the day. The vehicle was impounded.
So physical surveillance all the way it had to be, but that presented further problems. El-Hashem had started to employ a multiple vehicle, multiple driver strategy, using a network of Muslim owned small hire companies and they found they’d embarked upon a hit and miss intelligence-gathering exercise. The fact that all the vehicles they followed used basic anti-surveillance drills such as frequent random turns, u-turns and multiple circulations of roundabouts hadn’t helped at all. On some occasions, they picked what they thought was the right vehicle only to find it contained a body double. Sometimes they were lucky and obtained usable photographic intelligence. Several times, they’d been to the seaside on either side of the country and simply watched El-Hashem and others eat ice cream; on one occasion they’d watched him and Nazim go for a walk in the woods at Delamere.
It was obvious to them they were dealing with a man who’d a lot to hide but their requests for more people received the inexplicable answer that the situation did not warrant such a move. During the last week though, they’d been told more staff had been sanctioned but it couldn’t take place until the following Monday.
Pete Simmons, as the overall Team Leader, understood the logic. He was the only member of the group who knew of the existence of a ‘mole’ within El-Hashem’s sphere of influence, although he didn’t know their identity. His senior officer told him Abdul Azeez’s arrogance had grown and he was speaking more openly to audiences throughout the North than he had before. Important information was being gathered. All Simmons had to do was keep the morale of the team up. Not the simplest of tasks in the circumstances.
Later that morning, Ben and Pete were sitting watching their targets gather. The house was diagonally opposite, five doors down. Nazim and Hakim arrived first and were standing on the pavement talking. Next to arrive, Amir. All three were well known to the surveillance crew. The last had been Salim, an occasional visitor they considered a minor player. Pete watched the screens while Ben was taking photographs.
“Another day, another dollar,” Ben said quietly.
“So it seems,” Pete murmured. It wasn’t unusual for there to be activity at this hour. Suddenly, they heard footsteps on the stairs.
“I thought you’d be ready for something to eat and a cuppa.” It was Noor. “I’ve done you both some fried egg sandwiches with tomato sauce and a mug of tea for you, Peter, and a coffee for you, Benjamin.” Noor was not a fan of name shortening. She placed the tray on the desk in front of the screens. “I don’t like those two. They’ve not got a pleasant reputation around here and that Nazim, I don’t like the way he looks at me. Gives me the shivers.”
Ben had known Sahid and Noor since university. It was Sahid who’d tipped him off when El-Hashem had come to live in the same street.
“If you need anything else, I’ll be downstairs but I’ve just got to pop out later on for some shopping and Sahid’ll be back at four.”
Ben sat on the bed and ate his sandwich, taking occasional sips from his mug. Pete remained watching the monitors at the desk, tomato sauce dripping onto his plate as he munched away. They’d both just finished and were wiping their hands on the paper towels when Pete leant forward peering at the screen and exclaimed: “Game on! They’re off.” He quickly picked up the handheld radio. “Eagle, Mover one.”
“Mover one.”
“Eagle, all five subjects now in the blue minibus. Standby...” he paused, writing down the time on his log sheet, 09.43 hrs, then: “Mobile now towards Burleigh Street.”
“Mover one, yes yes.”
Amir drove the minibus to the junction with Burleigh Street and turned left. At the junction with Brougham Street, he turned right, carefully easing his way past the large bin lorry that was stationary on double yellow lines outside the hairdresser’s, before continuing towards the B6434 at the end of the street. Mover one pulled away from the kerb reaching the junction within ten seconds.
“I have the eyeball. He’s right, right, right, onto Brougham towards the B6434. Shit!”
The white, two axled, box truck pulled out of the street opposite and stopped with a jerk, at an angle to the waste management vehicle. The driver started to shout and gesticulate at the occupants who returned the compliments.
“Mover one, I’m blocked Brougham Street. Lost the eyeball.” He knew where Mover two and three were positioned; effectively prevented from taking over. “Mover one, Mover four?”
“Mover four, yes yes, at the Asda. I’ll pick him up at the roundabout.”
Amir arrived at the small roundabout next to which stood the Asda parking area and supermarket. He drove around it twice before taking the exit into Rectory Road which served a small industrial estate and two rows of houses running parallel to the main carriageway.
“Mover four, I have the eyeball, twice round the roundabout now taking a left, left, left into Rectory Road.”
Mover 4 left the Asda service road and took the same exit. Meanwhile, the two truck drivers were face to face in the middle of Brougham Street. Fisticuffs were imminent.
“Mover four, he’s taken the exit from Rectory onto the B6434. Fuck me!” the operator said, slamming on his brakes, as an articulated truck and trailer emerged from the side road to the industrial units and stopped at the junction blocking his path. “I’m blocked on Rectory Road. A fucking artic. Temporary loss.” He banged on the horn and shouted out of his window. “Move, you fucker, come on!” The truck driver looked back at him and shrugged his shoulders. Mover 4 threw the vehicle into reverse gaining enough space to mount the grass verge to his right.
Selecting first gear, he started to drive over the grass hoping to circumvent the truck, but as he did so, it slowly pulled out onto the main road blocking him, taking up both lanes. He waited for it to straighten up, but it didn’t, by which time he now had three vehicles in the outside lane impeding his access to the grassed central reservation, waiting for the same thing. Several more vehicles joined the queue. He was screwed. He banged the steering wheel several times, shouting “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” then over the radio, “Mover four, lost the eyeball. Last seen towards the motorway.”
After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality no more than two minutes, the lorry, after much grinding of gears, started to move, slowly, straightening up jerkily. Nobody seemed to feel the need to let Mover 4 out into the outside lane, so it was only when he’d reached the roundabout that he made any progress.
Amir took the M65 motorway; east to Nelson, the next town. Somewhere, in the anonymous traffic behind him, a calm quiet voice: “Whisky three with the eyeball.”
They left the minibus in Forest Street, boarding a waiting people carrier. Rejoining the M65, Amir headed west towards Preston and the M6 motorway. He didn’t know it yet, but they were on their way to Delamere Forest. Mover 4 flashed past them on the opposite carriageway.
Meanwhile, at the other end of Stoneyholme, the driver of an articulated lorry parked in Monk Hall Street, close to its junction with Danehouse Road, heard: “India one and two clearing.” He picked up his radio and said: “India four yes yes,” then drove the vehicle right onto Danehouse in the direction of Nelson. It was a tight turn that held up the traffic but he managed it.