Agent of the State by Roger Pearce Read Free Book Online

his waist, don’t you agree, Brian?’
    Weatherall turned to Brian Perkins, one of the two uniforms she had brought with her. Perkins was Silver, her rostered deputy. Weatherall was a firm believer in deputies: they provided a convenient ditch to shovel the blame into when things came unstuck. A superintendent in Public Order Branch, Perkins found himself sitting beside Weatherall because he was on call that day for any critical incident. Beside him was Bronze, last in the chain of command, a fresh-faced chief inspector from Colindale, who already wore the look of fall-guy-in-waiting. Perkins opted for safety. ‘Difficult to tell. It’s a possibility.’
    Weatherall swung back to Fargo. ‘Why did no one brief me about this operation?’
    ‘I can’t say, ma’am.’
    ‘I saw Mr Kerr tearing off somewhere early this morning. He is aware, presumably?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am. Definitely.’
    ‘So why isn’t he here?’
    ‘He’s mobile.’
    ‘Who’s in command on the ground?’
    ‘Mobile and on the ground, ma’am.’
    ‘He’s also supposed to be a manager. Tell him I want him in here.’
    In the confines of the room Fargo felt the explosion of breath on his cheek. ‘He was on the way back when we got the alert. Went straight to the plot.’
    ‘Then get him on the link.’
    Fargo turned to Alice, but she was already transmitting. ‘Alpha from Zulu, receiving, over?’
    Kerr’s voice crackled back: ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘I have Gold for you.’ Alice flicked the comms to speaker.
     
    Kerr was cruising along Effra Road, parallel to Brixton Hill and a few hundred metres from the plot. Traffic from the mainset crowded his thoughts because, in addition to Channel Five for the surveillance operation, he was also monitoring other Central units on Channel Eighteen as he awaited the call from the leader of the firearms teams, blue-lighting from their headquarters in the City. The Tactical Firearms Branch, known as CO19, had teams on standby 24/7. They were known as Trojans and used the call sign ‘Challenger’. The Trojans responded to any incident involving a firearm or deadly weapon and were routinely called upon to assist in counter-terrorism operations.
    Weatherall came through on Five. Her voice was brittle, several notes too high, leaking anxiety into the calm stream of surveillance messages. ‘What’s going on down there? What are you doing there? Why the priority?’
    The echo made Kerr cautious because it showed she was on the speaker. ‘Because of the provenance and the sourcing.’
    ‘But he’s done nothing for three days.’
    Later, Fargo would tell Kerr of his astonishment at this. Weatherall had just suggested Jibril was carrying a bomb under his coat, but now she was suggesting he was low priority. Many of the new bosses camouflaged their inexperience by bullying the experts down the chain. ‘Aggressive indecision’ was how Kerr described it.
    Now Jack Langton’s deep Geordie voice broke in: ‘Back-up three minutes from the plot.’
    ‘Received, confirm your units are carrying,’ said Kerr.
    ‘Yup.’
    Kerr checked the time. The rest of the Red team, summoned by Langton to provide emergency support, had made it from Leyton in fourteen minutes. ‘Gold, I’ll call you on the landline.’ Kerr pressed the speed dial without a pause. ‘Jack, do you have the location, over?’
    ‘Still heading south on the eighty-eight towards Stockwell Underground, we have the bus in view. Melanie with him.’
    Kerr could hear Weatherall’s insistent ‘Hello’ on the mobile. He cut the mike and spoke into the hands-free, his brain automatically processing the operational traffic.
    ‘Ma’am, this man’s total inactivity is the reason we have to treat this as urgent. He’s spent three days dry cleaning.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Being evasive, trying to draw out surveillance. This morning he broke the pattern and we believe he’s out to do business.’
    ‘What do we know of his contacts?’
    ‘Nothing. That’s