‘I introduced him to MI6. He’s been helpful.’
‘Is this anything to do with Alyshia?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Boxer. ‘He’s come to London because of her, but the information he’s brought with him is to do with something else.’
‘You’re not telling me things again.’
‘Only because it doesn’t concern you,’ said Boxer. ‘It’s not material to Alyshia’s release.’
‘So, Deepak’s in love with her,’ said Isabel. ‘That’s why he’s here, isn’t it?’
‘Have you got any objections to him?’
‘I liked him, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s whether Frank likes him that matters.’
‘I’ll work on that.’
‘Always the negotiator.’
‘Think positive, look to the future,’ said Boxer. ‘I told you, I like being where things matter.’
‘Have you spoken to Amy yet?’ she asked, and the question sliced through him.
‘She refuses to speak to me. I called her at my mother’s; she cut the line.’
‘That’s what matters, Charles; nothing else,’ said Isabel. ‘You’re just concentrating on things that you can control, while what matters to you spins away.’
Once he’d seen the other members of his gang in custody, and Mercy had played the CCTV footage of the VW Transporter in Branch Place, and his fever had edged up another degree, Hakim Tarar’s resolve finally cracked. He gave Mercy the Boleyn Road address of Saleem Cheema’s house. Mercy was glad. She didn’t want to have to bring in the owner of the vehicle, Ali Wattu. That would have been dangerous, because she’d assumed that the Pride of Indus restaurant was close to where Alyshia was being held and she didn’t want any possibility of the new kidnappers being alerted.
At 6.00 p.m., a blue transit with Jack Romney Decorators on the side entered Boleyn Road and drove past the house where Saleem Cheema lived. It pulled into an open space, just beyond the house on the other side of the road. The driver got out, threw a coat on over his paint-spattered overalls and walked away. In the back was a Metropolitan police surveillance team.
The two men sitting in the back watched a monitor, which showed images from a camera mounted in the ‘O’ of Romney. Nothing happened for half an hour. Then the front door opened and Saleem Cheema came out, turned right. The surveillance team called in a ground force, taking it in turns to follow Cheema, who went to the greengrocers and bought a selection of fruit and vegetables. Nobody went anywhere near him.
Mercy’s caution was rewarded because Saleem Cheema’s next move was to go around the corner into the yard behind the Pride of Indus restaurant and pick up the VW Transporter he’d driven last night. A mobile unit was called in to follow the van, but it only went as far as the house on Boleyn Road, where Cheema reversed it up to the garage doors, turned off the engine and went into the house.
At 6.15 p.m., the four members of the EOD squad got dressed in G4S security uniforms, miked up and, carrying electronic jammers, walked out to the two cars mounted on podiums under a canopy outside the Olympic stadium. They had a quick chat with the previous shift of security guards and positioned the jammers.
They had decided on simultaneous inspection of the two batteries. The two EOD teams were linked to each other and to an operations room in an EOD vehicle at the entrance to the Olympic Park. They opened the front doors of the cars and pushed the seats forward. They opened the rear doors, unlocked the back seats, folded them forward and once more into the footwells. This revealed the batteries, which powered the cars. A visual inspection revealed nothing extraordinary and they retreated to the command post.
Two technicians sitting next to each other in the command post began operating the remote controlled vehicles, known as Wheelbarrows. These were mobile laboratories mounted on narrow caterpillar tracks. From these Wheelbarrows, each technician had four images displayed on screens, as well as a whole range of detection monitors, ranging from radioactive material to electronic pulse, sound, radiowave and odour.
‘Let’s take some more X-rays first,’ said the supervisor, ‘and run a comparison between the two. See what that throws up.’
The new X-rays came up on the screens. The technicians and supervisor looked them over. One of the techs pointed to a central part of the battery in the car on the left.
‘These batteries should be exactly the same,’ said the technician. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘That’s what we’ve been told,’ said the supervisor. ‘Have we got the images from the battery manufacturers?’
The images were brought up on the monitors and again the technician pointed to the central part of the battery in the car on the left.
‘The battery from the car on the right is exactly the same as the image sent by the manufacturer,’ he said, ‘but this one, that central section isn’t quite right.’
‘What was that?’ said the other technician.
‘I didn’t see anything.’
‘On the electronic monitor. There was a pulse.’
They replayed the digital recording from the Wheelbarrow and, sure enough, there was a small electronic pulse from the battery in the car on the left.
‘These batteries are supposed to be completely uncharged,’ said the supervisor.
The technician checked the output terminals. Nothing.
‘So there’s something in there,’ said the supervisor. ‘Let’s get her out.’
Boxer went up to the Royal Suite in the Savoy, which occupied the whole of the fifth floor. D’Cruz’s Indian assistant took him through the wood-panelled office to the sitting room. D’Cruz was standing at one of the windows, looking out over the Thames. There had been no improvement in his state of mind. His face was flaccid and dull. He looked immensely lonely. Boxer had no intention of giving him any of the intelligence he’d gleaned from Simon Deacon. The pressure was clearly on D’Cruz, who might be inclined to pass anything on to his ‘intermediary’.
‘I met an old colleague of yours last night,’ said Boxer.
‘Who would that be?’ asked D’Cruz, not turning round.
‘Deepak Mistry.’
Now D’Cruz’s face came alive. Boxer saw it in the window’s reflection: the eyes narrowed, the lips tightened, the facial muscles trembled with rage under his slack skin. He turned, looking murderous.
‘And what is he doing here?’ said D’Cruz quietly.
‘He told me who was responsible for the first kidnap, and why.’
‘Go on.’
‘Chhota Tambe.’
Silence. D’Cruz blinked, confused.
‘Chhota Tambe? I haven’t seen him in twenty years.’
‘He’s been following your career very carefully – and obsessively.’
‘I’ll tell you who does know Chhota Tambe, or at least used to know him very well, and that’s Sharmila.’
‘Right, the gangster’s moll,’ said Boxer. ‘Isabel mentioned that.’
‘They met in Dubai. He pursued her. There was some financial enticement until she realised his intentions, which she wasn’t interested in. She came to me. I gave her a job. We got involved.’
‘So, a double obsession.’
‘Double?’
‘You stole his girlfriend and he thinks you were responsible for the death of his elder brother.’
‘Bada Tambe?’ said D’Cruz, puzzled. ‘Is he mad? Bada Tambe was killed by a bomb outside the stock exchange in the 1993 Mumbai attacks.’
‘That bomb was made up of a military explosive known as RDX, Research Department Explosive, from Pakistan. He thinks you landed it when you were working for Dawood Ibrahim.’
‘I didn’t work for Dawood Ibrahim in 1993. I was already in the movies.’
‘Chhota Tambe begs to differ. He said he knows you were involved in heroin smuggling out of Pakistan. A business that had been given to Dawood Ibrahim by Amir Jat, who I understand you also know quite well.’
‘Was that what he meant by the “demonstration
of sincerity”?’ said D’Cruz. ‘Was he looking for some kind of admission of guilt? Because if he was, I wouldn’t have got there in a million years.’
‘Deepak thinks he intended to punish you,’ said Boxer.
D’Cruz seemed to get locked in position. His face was in the dark, with only a low lamp on in the room. Behind him the lights of the Royal Festival Hall and the National Theatre glittered in the ceaseless black flow of the Thames. He couldn’t seem to move his feet, as if too much processing power was being used up elsewhere.
‘You know, Frank, the one person you can confide in is me. I’m not going to talk to anyone,’ said Boxer.
‘Why should I?’ said D’Cruz, reanimating himself.
‘Because it might make you a happier man.’
‘You think happiness is important to me?’ said D’Cruz, stabbing himself in the chest with his finger. ‘Happiness is for people who believe in dreams. It’s for people who are content with the deluded life. It’s just something that’s written into the constitution of the United States of America.’
‘And Alyshia is what to you?’
He turned back to the window, his breath fogging the glass.
‘Look at yourself,’ said Boxer. ‘You look like that because you think you might lose her.’
‘I lost her when she left Mumbai.’
‘Why did she leave Mumbai?’
‘Because I found out the son-of-a-bitch she was having an affair with was spying on me.’
‘And you told her that,’ said Boxer. ‘Did you tell her that Deepak didn’t love her? That he only got involved with her because it made spying on you easier?’
D’Cruz nodded, his whole body juddering.
‘And did she tell you what she’d seen?’ asked Boxer. ‘Sharmila delivering children so that Amir Jat could abuse them.’
‘Shut up!’ roared D’Cruz, arms raised, thumping the window with both fists. ‘SHUT UP!’
He turned away from the window, walked into the room, sat down in front of Boxer, hands clasped between his knees, searching the air in front of him for answers.
‘Chhota Tambe,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Chhota Tambe. You know, I assumed that Deepak was spying for someone really important, like the Mahale family, but Chhota Tambe? He’s just a small-time crook. A hood. A goonda.’
‘Envy and jealousy are big emotions in a man,’ said Boxer. ‘Remember what I said to you at the very beginning about women?’
‘But all this was so long ago. It’s like ancient history after what India has been through over the last twenty years.’
‘You take his woman, you’re a movie star, you become successful through your connections to the Muslim community, while a grieving Chhota Tambe sits in Dubai, hitting the arm of his chair with a clenched fist,’ said Boxer.
‘He’s right,’ said D’Cruz, suddenly looking up, catching Boxer’s eye. ‘He’s right about the heroin. I did one shipment for Dawood Ibrahim. I had no choice. It was my payment to him for being given a break in the movies.’
‘Your first lesson in man-management,’ said Boxer. ‘That should help you understand why Deepak Mistry had to do that work for Chhota Tambe.’
‘Deepak Mistry betrayed me. I gave him everything and he betrayed me,’ said D’Cruz, jabbing the air with his finger. ‘He betrayed my daughter, too.’
‘What about Chhota Tambe’s allegation about landing the Pakistani military explosive?’
‘The RDX? I had nothing to do with that. Dawood Ibrahim only used Muslims for that work. It was a religious battle. Jihad. There’s no way they would have let a Catholic anywhere near the RDX. Chhota fucking Tambe.’
‘When Alyshia gets out of this, she’s going to need someone,’ said Boxer.
‘She was crazy about Deepak,’ said D’Cruz. ‘She wouldn’t believe me. She thought I’d cooked the whole thing up. The electrician finding the recording device, Deepak going into hiding, all the recordings on his computer, his handwritten notes. She thought I, her father, had fabricated the whole thing. And, yes, she told me what she’d seen at the Juhu Beach house. No, that’s not quite right, she didn’t just tell me, she lashed me with it. She whipped me to the bone. That was how much she loved him. That was how much she hated me. After all I’d done for her. And after the lie he’d perpetrated to bring her close.’
‘Do you want your daughter to love you again?’
‘She will never love me again.’
‘No, not like before, but that’s the nature of knowledge. You both have to come to terms with it.’
‘And what are you proposing?’
‘That when Alyshia is released, you won’t stand between her and Deepak, if that’s what she wants.’
‘No, no, no. That is not acceptable. He will never go near her again. I’ve already saved her from one son-of-a-bitch; I won’t let another destroy her.’
‘Then you will never be happy and nor will Alyshia. There’s nothing more destructive than the love that could have been. She’ll just be waiting for you to die.’
Silence.
‘Why are you doing this?’ asked D’Cruz, suddenly baffled by the level of intimacy in this conversation. ‘What do you want out of it?’
‘To be happy myself.’
D’Cruz gave him a grunt of recognition.
‘I’ve warned Isabel about you; you know that, don’t you?’
‘What did you say to her?’ asked Boxer, going cold at the possibility he might have told her his dirty secret.
D’Cruz saw it, realised his power.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, smiling. ‘I just told her not to get involved with a man whose problems are worse than her own.’
‘For the second time, you mean?’ said Boxer, hating him now.
D’Cruz looked up; they locked eyes.
‘Sometimes I don’t like you, Charles Boxer.’
D’Cruz suddenly seemed livelier. The charisma wasn’t turned on yet, but some shape had come back into his face. Boxer had seen this before, playing cards with players who’d suffered a long losing streak before finally getting a couple of winnable hands.
‘Do you know where Chhota Tambe is now?’ asked D’Cruz.
‘Deepak says he’s in London.’
D’Cruz stood, walked back to the window and looked out over the river, with his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded to himself.
‘If Deepak wants my forgiveness, then I’ll want my own “demonstration of sincerity” from him,’ said D’Cruz. ‘If he wants to see Alyshia again, you tell him, he has to kill Chhota Tambe.’
34
11.15 P.M., WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH 2012
Whitehall, London SW1
The COBRA meeting was reconvened with the same people present. Natasha Radcliffe gave a summary of the EOD Ammunition Technician’s report.
‘On finding some visible differences between the two X-rays of the batteries in the Stratford cars, the EOD squad decided to remove the suspect battery from the car. They took it to a protected warehouse for dismantling and found a small device, using PETN explosive attached to an enclosed metal phial, which they have not opened, but which they are concerned might contain radioactive material.
‘The explosive was sufficient to have blown the car apart and disperse this radioactive material, in the current weather conditions, over about four square miles. The detonator was connected to a timer set for eight-thirty a.m. tomorrow, but with a mobile phone override, so it could be triggered manually. They’re working on the SIM card now. They’ve moved their command post to the City and are awaiting our instructions. Simon?’
‘The CIA have confirmed that the metal phial is a physical match for the one found on the arms smugglers’ mule train in northern Afghanistan in January this year.’
Natasha Radclife turned to the Met Police Commissioner.
‘All rooms with a line of sight to the City cars have been identified and I’ve been assured that they will all be empty by midnight tonight. I have officers on the ground and a
number of CO19 armed response teams in the event of any attempt to trigger the devices.’
‘Joyce?’
‘Electronic jammers have already been installed under the podiums of the cars during the shift change of the security guards in the City, and the mobile network will be shut down at midnight.’
‘What’s your problem, Mervin?’
‘The Tokyo market opens at midnight UK time,’ said Stanley.
‘There are no traders at their desks after nine p.m.,’ said Joyce Hunter. ‘I checked.’
‘Just one other thing,’ said Stanley. ‘You gave the order for the Stratford bombs to be defused at three-thirty and this report is timed at eleven-oh-five. That means it took them just over seven hours to deal with one bomb.’
‘I understand that bomb disposal is not a rush business,’ said Barbara Richmond.
‘But now they’ve got two bombs in the City and only eight and a half hours.’
‘First of all, they’ve learnt a lot from dealing with the Stratford bomb,’ said Joyce Hunter. ‘Secondly, there will be two teams, one working on each car, and we don’t yet know whether both cars contain devices. Thirdly, the first four hours of the operation were spent analysing the two batteries, removing the suspect one and transporting it to a safe warehouse for dismantling.’
‘So you’re saying that the bombs will be out of the City by four o’clock in the morning?’
‘Inshallah,’ said Hunter.
‘Any news on Alyshia D’Cruz?’ asked Natasha Radcliffe.
‘We have identified her whereabouts. We know the number of people holding her. We’re just waiting for the right moment to go in there and take her,’ said the Met Police Commissioner.
‘We want to ensure that we have the best possible chance of taking the gang leader, Saleem Cheema, alive,’ said Barbara Richmond. ‘The intelligence rewards could be enormous.’
‘The EOD technicians will be told to start work at midnight,’ said Natasha Radcliffe. ‘The mobile phone network will be shut down from now until the batteries are out of the area.’