THE LONDON DRUG WARS (5 page)

The next morning at eight sharp
Brookes was in his office on the phone to DAC Groves, telling him that if the
offer was still open he would happily head up a dedicated squad targeting
Bronchi. Groves confirmed it was and added, “What changed your mind?”

“The man is out of control. He is
responsible for the death of a young student here in Hackney. I doubt he did
the actual killing himself but the death has his trademark. No witnesses of
course. I want him brought down and I want to be the one to do it.”

“OK, put together your team and let
me know your game plan. I’ll have you replaced at division. Once you’re up and
running I’ll give you twenty-eight days, by which time I want something to show
for it. Then we’ll talk again.”

“Thank you sir. I’ll start straight
away. I will want to take most of my team from here with me. Is that OK?”

“Yes John, I told you this job is
high priority; anything you want, ask. If I can get it for you I will. Good
luck, or should I say good hunting?”

As Brookes put the phone down Brigid
knocked on his door and entered. She had a wad of papers in her hand. “Some
news on the house to house in Cutler Street, sir. One of the neighbours reports
that a man with a foreign accent knocked at her door the morning of Amanda’s
murder asking if she know a young woman who lived locally with blonde hair,
held in a ponytail who went out jogging. He told the woman he’d seen her drop a
purse that he’d picked up and wanted to return to her. She pointed him in
Amanda’s direction.”

Brookes shook his head in disbelief.
“Why the hell didn’t she call us when she heard of Amanda’s death?”

“She said she thought that was a
suicide and the foreigner had nothing to do with it.”

“Anyway that confirms what I’ve got
from her boyfriend.” He went on to tell her of his interview with Robins. Then
he told her the news about the squad he was to form and gave her a list of the
detectives from his current team and a few from elsewhere who he wanted to take
with him. The rest of the day he spent handing over his responsibilities to DCI
Hedges, who would run his current office until a new detective superintendent
arrived.

That evening Brookes had his date
with Liza. After a nervous start it had gone wonderfully well. He hadn’t been
sure whether or not to get her a bunch of flowers. In the end he’d decided to,
but thought red roses might send the wrong message. So he bought tulips which
earned him a peck on the cheek. Then they went to the restaurant and, after a
splendid meal and a great deal of laughter, he’d dropped her off at her north
London home and got a kiss for his troubles. She was an old-fashioned woman and
hadn’t invited him in, this being their first date.

But she had offered to cook him
dinner the coming Saturday and he looked forward to moving the relationship on.
He was a little nervous at the prospect of intimacy as he’d been on his own for
some months. But the thought excited him. And now that he was ready to do
battle with the bad guys, his cup was full.

*

Starting the following Monday, it
took Brookes most of the week to get his set-up organised. They were based in
an anonymous-looking office block on the south bank of the Thames named Cundell
House. There was an underground car park in which Fred Middlemiss assembled a
fleet of nondescript vehicles including a communications van, two people
carriers, a black London Cab, several assorted saloon cars, and two
motorcycles.

Meanwhile
DS Bill Moore, Brookes’ office manager who he’d brought with him, set up an ops
room with radio and telephone communications and computer terminals with
internet access. In addition there were two smaller offices and two interview
rooms. All were furnished with desks, chairs, filing cabinets and visual
display boards on the walls. A private company frequently used by the Met
provided twenty-four hour security for the building and the offices; it
wouldn’t do to have private citizens wandering in and observing what was going
on.

Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Staff Sergeant Angus Fraser of 3 Squadron, 22 SAS, lay
flat on his stomach watching the activity in the valley below. He’d chosen the
spot with care. The public perception of the SAS was that they were an
execution squad. In fact, they spent most of their time doing what Fraser was
doing at this moment; watching and gathering intelligence behind enemy lines.

He lay in a shallow scrape on a bare rocky ledge. The
scrape had probably been scoured out of the rock millions of years ago by a
glacier. Not that Fraser cared too much how it got there, all that concerned
him was that it was just deep enough to accommodate his burly frame. With a
camouflage scrim stretched over him he was virtually invisible from any
distance away. Experience had taught him to avoid the rocky outcrops that would
provide natural cover. The Taliban were not fools and th
ose
would be the first place they would
look for an observer. He’d also chosen a part of the mountainside devoid of
vegetation so no wandering goat herd was likely to stumble across his hiding
place

A streambed meandered along the bottom of the valley
below. Beside it, five hundred feet beneath Fraser’s feet, stood a rough stone
hut. Next to the hut was a rough lean-to. To one side a small paddock
surrounded by a low stone wall. In the paddock was a small herd of miserable
-
looking goats waiting to be milked.

A woman dressed in the garb of an Afghan peasant stood
beside the hut and three small children played in the dirt at her feet. The
woman’s eyes were on a group of men climbing a path up the hill on the far side
of the valley. Two of the men led heavily laden donkeys; surrounding them were
six Taliban soldiers
,
each
with a Kalashnikov rifle strapped to his shoulder.

In the rocky soil alongside the stream grew a field of
poppies. But these plants bore little resemblance to the rich red flowers that
blossomed amidst the wheat and barley in the fields of Fraser’s native Scotland
for these were opium poppies and here the poppies
were
the crop.

In the three long days and nights Fraser had been
here, he’d had plenty of time to think about the briefing given to him before
setting out. Until a month ago the British Army’s policy had been to slash and
burn any opium poppies they happened to find under cultivation
,
and not seek out the hundreds of
other fields they knew to be scattered about the country.

Now it seemed the policy had changed. His instructions
were clear. He and his team were to find the route the smugglers took across
Afghanistan. At last someone at HQ had woken up to the facts. Seventy per cent
of the world’s supply of heroin came from the poppies grown here in the
mountain valleys of Afghanistan. In addition to the deaths and misery caused by
the sale of the drugs on the streets back home, profits from the smuggling of
the crop helped finance the Taliban’s war against the UN troops.

Fraser had listened carefully to the lecture on how
the heroin was extracted from the poppy. Once the plant had flowered and the
petals had dropped, a tulip
-
shaped
seedpod remained at the top of the stem. The poppy farmer then scored the skin
of each pod with a sharp blade. Over the next few days gum oozed from the
scores and solidified. The farmer then harvested his crop by scraping the gum
into a sack. A one
-
acre field gave
him up to a kilogram of gum for which he was paid US$250. This was twice what
he could get per acre for a cereal crop grown in the rocky soil and ensured he
could feed his family through the following winter. It was little wonder that
so many Afghan farmers, existing on or below the poverty line, chose to grow
the opium poppies.

Once the gum was collected it was taken to a site
nearby where, together with the crops of other local farmers, it was first
processed. All that was required for this process was a few empty oil drums, a
ready supply of water, some basic chemicals and a fuel supply to heat the
water.

First the gum was boiled in water mixed with lime. The
sediment dropped to the bottom and the opium formed a scum on the top. This
scum was then collected and boiled again; this time in water mixed with
ammonia. The result was a substance called opium base. In this process the bulk
was reduced tenfold
,
making it easier
to smuggle across the border to Pakistan or Iran. Once across the border a
chemist would carry out the more sophisticated process that would extract the
pure heroin from the opium base.

Blocks of the drug were then smuggled into Western
Europe and America by one of several routes. One led north to the former USSR
satellite states of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan into Russia; then west across
Central Europe
.
Another by ship
to the Mediterranean ports of Italy and France, or onward to North America
.
There was a third route through Iran
to its Mediterranean ports that the Americans were tracing whilst the British
concentrated on the trade through Pakistan.

Fraser had been gobsmacked when he’d heard of the
profits involved. A kilo of pure heroin would fetch upwards of $150,000 in New
York or London. There the distributor would ‘cut’ the heroin by adding inert
substances such as baking powder and sell it to the street dealers. The
‘cutting’ increased the bulk by more than eighty percent and the profits
accordingly.

Weeks ago the poppy field below Fraser’s vantage point
had been spotted by an unmanned drone flying thousands of feet above and armed
only with a camera. The photos taken had shown the poppies to be in full bloom.
Then, a week ago the drone had returned, this time the camera revealed that the
flower petals were falling. This had been the signal to send in Fraser. He’d
been dropped by helicopter
ten
kilomet
re
s to the south and tabbed across the
intervening mountains to take up his lonely vigil.

On paper the mission looked simple; wait for the
Taliban to come and collect the raw drug then follow them to the processing
plant and report its location
;
r
egular troops would do the rest.

In reality it was the most difficult of tasks. The
Taliban were at home in these rugged mountains and full of tricks. They
regularly mined the tracks they used or set ambushes for anyone following. They
were also ultra-observant and, if Fraser managed to keep sight of them, it was
just as likely they would spot him. But the boffins had come up with a gizmo
that would help
,
or so they
thought. Fraser had been provided with a tiny tracking device; all he had to do
was attach it to something the Taliban took with them and a satellite would do
the tracking.

Fraser had smiled at their naivety. How the hell was
he supposed to plant the stupid thing? These people must think he’s a fucking
ghost. But he’d taken it anyway and last night he’d got an unexpected chance to
use it.

It had been well after midnight when he’d been woken
by the sound of the farmer’s dog barking. It was a mangy looking thing that
slept chained at the front of the hut. But it was obviously a good guard dog or
the farmer wouldn’t have fed it. Putting on his night vision goggles, Fraser had
looked to see what had excited the animal.

As he watched a light came on in the farmer’s hut. It
flooded out as the front door was opened. The farmer came into view carrying an
oil lantern in front of him. In the glow of the lantern Fraser saw a group of
armed men approaching the cottage.

The farmer stepped forward and greeted the leader like
a long-lost brother, kissing him on both cheeks. Quieting his dog, he signa
l
led for the men to go into the hut.
Fraser counted six as they trooped through the door.

Then another man came into view leading a heavily
laden donkey. The farmer greeted him with the same enthusiasm he had the
Taliban leader. Then he helped him unload the pack from the donkey and lead the
animal into the lean-to beside his own beast. The other man took two small
sacks from the pack they’d taken off the donkey and, at the farmer’s
invitation, disappeared into the hut
,
taking the sacks with him. Picking up the lantern, the farmer followed
him and closed the door.

Fraser spent ten minutes surveying the area around the
hut. Finally he was satisfied they hadn’t left a guard outside. Then he sat
watching, waiting for the light to be extinguished in the hut. They were
obviously intending to spend the rest of the night there and would no doubt leave
the next morning. If Fraser was to plant his tracking device it would have to
be in the hours before dawn.

Finally the light in the hut was extinguished. Fraser
pulled a radio from his Bergen and switched it on. Plugging the receiver into
his ear, he waited a few moments for it to warm up. Then he spoke into the
mouthpiece, his voice just above a whisper.
“
Echo One, this is Falcon, a message, over.
”

There was a crackling sound from the receiver but no
reply.

He repeated the message.

This time there was a response
.
“
Go ahead with your message Falcon,
Echo One over
.”

“
The birds are in the nest. I repeat, the birds are in the
nest, over.
”

“
That’s received, how many are there, over?
”

Fraser had to think for a moment how to tell them what
they needed to know in the code they’d chosen. Then he said,
“
Six fully fledged and one additional
fledgling
,
over.
”

There was a pause whilst the person at the other end
worked out his meaning, then the reply came.
“
Message received and understood. Plant your egg in the nest
over.
”

Fraser almost laughed out loud. In an affected tone,
mimicking that of the caller, he said,
“
Wilco, over and out.
”

As he switched off the radio and stuffed it back into
his Bergen, he mumbled,
“
Stupid
fucking Rupert, he must think I’m some kind of twitcher.
”
‘
Rupert
’
was the less
-
than
-
complimentary term the men in the
regiment used for an officer.

Next Fraser took from his pack a small metal flask
he’d been provided with. Unscrewing the lid, he sniffed the contents. He almost
gagged as he caught the strong stench of donkey urine. Holding his breath
,
he spread the stuff all over his
face and hands. Then he upended the flask and wiped the remainder of the
contents over his clothing
,
not
forgetting his boots and rifle.
“
Shit!
I smell like a fucking stable,
”
he
mumbled to himself.

The night was quiet; too quiet for Fraser. If he made
a single sound there was nothing to disguise it. In his mind he rehearsed his
approach.

Finally, he got up, turned to the left and made his
way slowly along the ridge
,
away
from the hut. He stopped after four hundred yards and paused to look and
listen. Nothing stirred. His senses were alert; all that is
,
except his sense of smell
,
that was useless thanks to the
donkey urine. His night vision goggles enabled him to choose a route avoiding
the loose stones and boulders scattered everywhere.

With the greatest of care he began to descend the
slope. It took him twenty minutes to reach the valley floor. Pausing again
,
he stood for several minutes looking
and listening. There was not a breath of wind. Making a wide circle, he put the
hut and lean-to between him and the dog. He then began his approach. He
estimated he had a hundred yards to go. Daylight was still four hours away so
he had plenty of time. And it was now over an hour since the light had gone out
in the hut and he hoped they were all sleeping soundly inside.

He approached literally one step at a time, pausing to
listen before taking the next step. Twenty minutes later, he was just ten yards
from the rear of the hut. The dog hadn’t stirred but the donkeys in the lean-to
had picked up his scent. They moved restlessly but didn’t seem to have
disturbed the dog. A thought crossed his mind that caused him to giggle to
himself. He hoped the donkey piss the boffins had given him was not from a
female in heat; he’d hate the though
t
of one of those in the lean-to trying to mount him. Pulling his mind
back to the task in hand he started forward again.

Then he stopped in mid-stride, his heart skipping a
beat. He’d heard someone stir inside the hut and the scrape of a boot on the
ground. But there was no window in the rear of the hut and the door was on the
opposite side; there was no way they could have heard him. He gently lowered
his foot to the ground and stood listening.