In due course there was an ambulance and two fire engines. The latter hosed the wreckage with white foam u
ntil the flames were gone, but there was nothing the paramedics could do for the slumped and fire-consumed figure in the front seat. What was left of him was removed and taken away to become yet another accident in a country-road statistic.
The mortuary team accomplished the distasteful job of identification. The rear trouser pockets of the victim had survived the worst of the blaze. There were credit cards, more or less undamaged. And a driving licence. The unfortunate who had been driving far too fast was identified as Robert Thompson, a civil servant resident in London, where he also worked.
Without the quiet influence that was brought to bear, the incident might not have hit the media, but it made the papers the following evening and the day after that. In fact it achieved more coverage on radio, TV and the papers than it might normally have merited. Such quiet influence is an aspect of British official life of which, like the iceberg, very little is ever observed.
The phone call followed the appearance of the morning papers. Sir Adrian had secured the fullest cooperation of both MI5 and GCHQ at Cheltenham. The first provided the telephone numbers, which would have proved a considerable surprise to those who actually owned those numbers and thought they were secure.
Thames House, home of the Security Service, is only a few hundred yards down the river from the mother of parliaments, but democracy invisibly ends on the doorstep. The mass expulsion of Russian spies posing as diplomats after the flagrant use of the Novichok nerve agent on the streets of Salisbury had caused chaos in the hitherto active espionage machine that Moscow operated in London.
Linkages were broken, ongoing operations stultified, relationships discontinued. The newcomer, Stepan Kukushkin, had lately become the Rezident inside the Russian embassy and he needed more time to work his way in. The same applied to his new deputy, Oleg Politovski, who had been a lowly press officer. Both men thought their private mobile phones were secure. They were not; they were tapped.
Outside the embassy were the on-contract servants of Krilov, among them Vladimir Vinogradov, a gang boss and professional criminal, and an oligarch and billionaire who had moved into London, bought a football club and lived in a £10 million apartment in Belgravia. He was the one who made the call. It was tapped. GCHQ had seen to that. Sir Adrian was not surprised. He knew that, behind his façade of football-match-attending bonhomie, Vinogradov was a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Back in the Russia of Yeltsin, Vinogradov had been a fully paid-up member of the gangster underworld, racking up convictions for protection, racketeering, rape, murder and armed robbery. He had served time in Lefortovo prison in Moscow. When the theft of Russia’s natural assets began, he was at freedom and raised several million dollars. With the help of corrupt bureaucrats, he was able to buy a small Siberian oil field at a peppercorn price. This made him a billionaire. Then he threw in his lot with the rising Vodzh. Mysteriously, his entire criminal record was voided, stricken from the record. Newly respectable, he emigrated to London and became a lavish host.
Even though Vinogradov thought the line was secure, he was circumspect in what he said. The call was to a notorious Albanian gangster who ran his mob in south London, where the Richardson gang, rival of the Krays, once ruled the roost. Bujar Zogu had worked for him before. Always contract work and always involving violence. Sir Adrian had a transcript of what they said within an hour of the call.
Vinogradov was giving the orders, and they were simple. The operation is over, finished, cancelled. Get a message to your friends. Do not use any means of telecommunication. Drive personally to their location. Get rid of all the evidence – I mean, all of it – leave no trace and return home.
Clearly, time was of the essence. Once Zogu reached the place his thugs were holding the girl, she would be killed.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea had Zogu’s car details in seconds. A modest dark blue Volvo saloon, registration number such-and-such. Weston’s next call was to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lucinda Berry.
‘Lucy, can you help me?’
‘If it is legal and possible. What is it?’
‘There is an Albanian gangster motoring out of his south London base. Destination unknown.’ He dictated the car details. ‘I have reason to believe that when he reaches his destination a child will be murdered. Can we intercept him?’
‘Good God, we must.’
London is ringed by the 117-mile-long M25 orbital motorway. It is constantly cruised by patrol cars but most of all it is surveyed by thousands of HADECS-3 speed-control cameras, centrally linked and computer-obedient. One of them got the Volvo on the southern arc of the motorway, heading for the Dartford Tunnel under the Thames.
There are toll booths there and cameras. The passage of the Volvo through the tunnel and on to the northern arc was noted. Ten miles later a patrol car slid out of Junction 29 to take up the tail. It was warned to pull off at the next intersection.
Bujar Zogu noted the police car in his rear-view mirror but he also noted that it pulled off at Junction 28. By then a police helicopter had found the blue car beneath it. The chopper held station until the Volvo left Essex county, still orbiting London on the motorway.
An unmarked police car had the tail until Junction 16, when the Albanian pulled on to the M40 motorway heading north-west towards the Midlands and Wales. Thames Valley Police took over, then another police helicopter.
After two hours’ driving it was plain the Albanian was heading into Wales, specifically north Wales, one of the most sparsely occupied portions of the UK mainland.
The easy way would have been to intercept Zogu and flag him down. But Scotland Yard had drawn down their file on him. This said he was smart and cunning. He would know, having stuck to the speed limit all the way, that there was no reason to flag him down. And the authorities still did not know where he was going, in what isolated place he and his team had hidden their prisoner. He might have it on his satnav screen, but he could wipe that even as the officers were walking towards him. Months of interrogation would never drag it out of him.
Sir Adrian did not have months. The only good news was that Zogu had abided by his orders. He had made no attempt to use his mobile phone to warn his team that he was coming, or why. But he still had to be stopped before he got there. At that point, there might be only seconds to spare. That was when Sir Adrian called on help from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment at Credenhill.
By late afternoon the roads the Albanian was following were becoming narrower and more isolated. He was on the A5, heading for Bangor. He was just turning off, following the guidance of his satnav, towards Denbigh Moors, when the SRR helicopter came up behind him. It was high and in his blind spot. He did not see it, but the six troopers on board saw him.
The troopers had been told only that a kidnapped child was being held against her will and if the man in the blue Volvo beneath them reached the hideout she would be murdered. That was enough. Soldiers become really angry about people threatening children.
The Denbigh Moors are a wilderness of heath and scattered farmsteads. The Volvo pulled off on to a narrow track that led to such a farm two miles ahead. There was no other building on that lane.
From his vantage at a thousand feet, the pilot of the Dauphin drawn from the Joint Special Forces Aviation Wing could see that the track ended just beyond the farm and went nowhere. The farm appeared abandoned, a single van in the yard. A working farm would have more than that.
From behind his windscreen Bujar Zogu saw an unmarked helicopter sweep overhead in the same direction as himself then drop out of sight behind high ground that rose ahead of him. What he did not see was the chopper descending into the valley, or the two men in camouflage uniform with machine pistols leaping out.
Until he crested the rise. The helicopter was gone – off down the valley and out of sight. The two soldiers were in the road. He did not notice that their MP5s were silenced. He could not fail to notice that they were waving him down. He slowed and stopped. The men approached his car, one on each side. Beside him was his folded jacket. Under it was his handgun.