Going Rogue, page 11
part #2 of Tom Novak Series
‘You’re well informed,’ Tom said flatly, fixing the man with a cool stare.
‘We have our sources. I also know that it was alleged that you were a member of Blood and Honour, who were taking the fight to the Muslims, Jews and faggots until the police dismantled them after you left.’
‘Just allegations, my friend. Just allegations. Nothing was proved.’ Tom smiled, disarmingly.
There we have it, thought Tom. Even if they only had picked up the breadcrumb trail that had been left, they clearly had a source within the police.
‘I take it that Lenny told you about us to some degree. What do you know?’
‘I know very little. I know that you have some resources and that you have carried out some effective operations recently. I know that perhaps we share a common goal.’
Danny smiled. ‘We do have access to some resources, and it is true that we do need to recruit one or two dedicated and motivated professionals to assist us. We won’t reveal much to you at this stage as we need to be sure of your commitment to our cause. How committed are you?’
‘To what?’ Tom was conscious of the mobile phone that sat on the table before them, hopefully recording their every word.
‘To taking the fight to the enemy. To stop the Islamification of Great Britain and Europe. To wrest back control of our country from the Jew. How committed to that end are you, David, and how far will you go to demonstrate your commitment?’ A fire took hold deep in Danny’s eyes and his soft voice blazed with hatred.
‘I will do what is necessary, Danny. I have watched the enemy destroy Slovenia and its neighbours with their fake religion, but I am also a soldier of fortune. I need money to survive and take the fight to the enemy.’
A wide smile spread across Danny’s face. ‘Oh, David, David, David. We are all professionals; we are all fighting for our cause but we all want to be paid as well. You will be compensated for your time, skills, and loyalty. None of us are doing this for the cause alone. The reason we will succeed is that we only use the best people and for that you have to pay them and pay them well. Our sponsor values loyalty and expertise and he will ensure that loyal soldiers are well remunerated. We will not recruit in large numbers, as other organisations that have tried this have failed in the past. They failed because of having too many members with loose lips. We will remain small and agile but will pack enough of a punch to bring the country to its knees.’
Tom sat back in his chair and held Danny’s stare. ‘Well as long as we understand each other. I believe in the fight, but I want to make money as well. So, what’s next then?’
‘My superiors will want you to prove your loyalty and willingness to do what is required for the cause. How far are you willing to go?’ Danny asked, his eyebrow raised.
‘Depends what is at stake,’ Tom replied, deciding that he needed it spelt out for the benefit of those listening.
‘We need you to take one of the fuckers out. Do that, and we can be sure that you are on our side and not an agent of the corrupt government. If you carry out your orders, you will become one of us immediately. Time is of the essence, David; we must strike at the enemy hard, and soon. Can you do that?’ Danny’s eyes were wide with the question.
Tom realised that this was a point of no return. He was being asked to kill in order to prove his worth. Tom had to think quickly, knowing how big the stakes were, how many lives depended on him and how the security of the whole country was relying on him. His mind fizzed with the consequences of his next words.
Tom fixed Danny with his flat, almost black eyes, paused, and spoke with a smile. ‘No problem. Just tell me who, where and when.’
19
Two days later, Abdi leaned against the wall in the grimy street that bisected Victoria Park, looking at the scuffed and battered phone he had taken from Ali at midnight. He looked at the last received WhatsApp message from the filthy junkie whore: Lucy, or whatever her name was. She was a real bottom-of-the-pile addict, desperate for three of the clingfilm-wrapped rocks of crack that Abdi currently held in his mouth. She would be there soon, ready to hand over forty quid for the three rocks.
Ali had said that she had already bought four times that day, handing over filthy bank notes that she got from selling her services to punters. Abdi could never understand how anyone could want to fuck her, ever. She was a skinny and greasy junkie with a mouth full of rotten teeth like broken gravestones and sores all around her mouth. But she was a good customer, and Chipz was keen that they kept her onside and kept her buying his product.
Whatever Chipz wanted, Chipz got: everyone was shit scared of him. He was older than Abdi and Ali, and had a terrible reputation for violence. He had been in and out of prison for years, all for violence which he had meted out amongst the upper-tier drug dealers whilst enforcing debts. After his last sentence—a five stretch for shanking a rival dealer—he had decided to set up his own drug line and take all the profits for himself. Very soon he had a thriving line selling crack and heroin in the Hackney area just by the park and was heading up the Somali gang gaining notoriety as the “Somali Money and Love Crew”, or “MLC”. They soon gained a reputation as one of the more violent of the East London gangs, controlling a significant amount of the territory in that part of the capital.
Chipz controlled the area rigorously, and any other dealer who showed his face was quickly dealt with and left in no doubt how unwise it was to deal on his territory.
Abdi saw Lucy wobbling along Grove Road towards him, bathed in the orange glow of the sodium street lights which made her complexion look more washed out than normal. She looked more out of it and skinnier than normal with her pale and mottled legs almost twig-like, crammed into stiletto heels.
She cracked a smile as she saw Abdi waiting for her, ‘Abdi, babes. How ya doin’? Ali’s been sorting me out; where ya been, ya cunt? You got some for me?’ Her voice was thick and slurred, and her bleary eyes were unfocussed as she spoke in a broad cockney accent, desperation just below the surface.
Lucy was the epitome of a crackhead. Nothing else mattered to her and whatever money she had, be it a tenner or a grand, she’d spend it on rocks of crack cocaine to be smoked out of a makeshift pipe. Abdi could have felt sorry for her, but he didn’t give a fuck. Stupid Kuffar bitch, he thought. Despite his drug dealing, Abdi had been convinced by others from the Somali centre that as long as he only dealt to Kuffars it was not “haraam”, or forbidden.
‘Shut up Lucy. Not here, there’s fucking CCTV everywhere. Come on.’ Abdi led her from Grove Road and into the wooded area on the edge of Victoria Park, out of sight of the numerous cameras that were sited all over the borough. Lucy tagged along behind him, dragging her feet as they entered the park area. She swore as she tried to follow Abdi to the relative anonymity of the wooded area but stumbled and fell.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ muttered Abdi, retracing his steps to find the stoned drug addict.
As he reached the park entrance, he was met by the sight of Lucy being helped to her feet by a short stocky Pakistani male in his thirties. He was casually dressed and wore a Yankees baseball cap pulled low over his face, baggy jeans and a hooded top. Abdi couldn’t recognise the man, whose face was bathed in shadow, but he immediately knew he was bad news. Being “on road” gave you a sixth sense about people.
‘Who are you, bruv? She’s with me,’ Abdi demanded, suspicion in his voice.
‘Well, cuz, looks like she wants me to sort her. Snooze you lose, bruv.’ The other man displayed no fear whatsoever and something about him told Abdi that he should be careful. There was something intimidating in the shaded face.
‘Listen, bruv, this is Chipz’s turf. You gonna get fuckin’ strapped if he finds you. Now fuck off.’ Abdi tried to sound intimidating but he knew he was having little effect on the man.
‘Fuck off, son. You Somali cunts should get back where you belong, this is our manor. I’m serving this lady and once she’s had some proper stone from me, she’ll stick with us.’ He spoke with conviction and malice and showed no fear whatsoever of the younger man.
Abdi pressed his hand against the shank he routinely carried tucked in his waistband but then thought better of it. Instead he produced his smartphone from his pocket, opened up the camera app and began to film the Asian male.
‘You better get that camera out of my face, you little dickhead, or I will shove it up your Somali ass,’ he said, advancing towards him menacingly.
‘Fuck you, Paki. Chipz is gonna see exactly who you are,’ he said as he began to record.
Suddenly a battered small hatchback screeched to a halt right alongside the trio and a tall, lean man exited the car. He wore a baseball cap and had a scarf pulled up high on his face, obscuring his features. He strode wordlessly towards the Asian male, pulling a small black revolver from his waistband and pointing the weapon at the man as he approached. The pistol spat twice with a crack like a loud firework and the Asian man dropped like a stone with a cry, clutching his stomach hitting the ground with a thump, his face a mask of agony.
Abdi and Lucy just stared wordlessly, stunned at what they had just witnessed.
With that, the man returned the pistol to his pocket, got back in the car and sped off along Grove Road in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
Abdi turned to look at the Asian male, who now lay silent on the floor. A bloom of blood, black under the sodium lights, began to spread across the front of his light grey hoodie. He was stunned; he had just witnessed a shooting and didn’t know what to do next.
A piercing scream from Lucy made him jump with shock. She was terrified and continued to cry out in terror. ‘He’s dead, he’s dead. Abdi, what are we gonna do?’
The distant wail of a siren jolted Abdi back to reality.
‘We need to get the fuck out of here. The Feds will be here any time and I ain’t getting nicked.’ He sprinted off into the depths of the park, wanting to be as far away from this as possible.
Lucy stared in horror at the prostrate form on the ground as the black and sticky blood continued to spread. Her fogged brain was unable to process what she had just witnessed. Reaching into her bag she produced her phone and dialled 999.
‘Police and ambulance. A man just got shot and I think he may be dying,’ she mumbled into the handset as she sat on the bench on the pavement. She struggled to organise her thoughts as the ambulance pulled up in front of her a few minutes later. Her mind was whirring as she recounted to the crew what she had just witnessed as they busied themselves with the casualty.
As soon as she heard the wail of the police car approaching Lucy decided that enough was enough and she needed to make herself scarce. She needed to score and Abdi probably still had three rocks for her.
*
The Astra response car screeched to a halt by the ambulance just as the casualty was being hoisted onto the gurney. The first uniform officer, a short and stocky sergeant, approached the crew, pushing through the small clutch of onlookers who were now gathering with camera phones pointed at the casualty. ‘What we got, chaps?’ he asked in a rapid cockney patter.
‘Called by a female who has just departed, two gunshots to the torso, significant bleeding. We need to get him in urgently as I think we have significant internal bleeding,’ said the paramedic, a slim, tall female holding an IV drip. ‘Is someone coming with us, just in case he doesn’t make it?’
‘Yeah, I’ll come,’ the sergeant said, adding, ‘Pete, start sorting a cordon out and get these lot back. Backup is on its way.’ His colleague nodded and began moving the onlookers away from the scene. More wailing sirens became audible as the ambulance crew and the sergeant climbed into the ambulance, the doors slamming shut behind them. The casualty, strapped into the gurney, was breathing in a shallow and fast pattern. The two bloody ragged holes sited in his lower abdomen suggested that he was the victim of a shot to the gut. Painful, and usually slowly fatal.
As the ambulance pulled forward, its siren blaring, the female paramedic stifled a laugh as she said to the casualty in northern tones, ‘Nice work, Naz. I was convinced.’
The man’s eyes blinked open and a huge smile spread across his face. ‘I reckon I’ve got a future as an actor, Lin, although these things really fucking hurt when they went off.’ He unzipped his jacket to reveal two ruptured fake blood bags linked to a remote-control high-pressure device that had simulated the impact of bullets hitting their target.
‘All that rehearsal yesterday was obviously worth it,’ said Buster as he removed his cap. ‘The live feed from Tom’s camera looked fucking bang-on, and it looks like that scabby little dealer was filming it at the time. I bet that’s on Instagram within the hour. Couldn’t be better.’ He chuckled at the facade they had just created.
‘Where’s Tom now?’ Lin asked.
‘He’s heading back to his Lewisham pad then calling it in to Danny that the task has been carried out. Hopefully the news coverage and press release will convince the ADF twats that Tom has shot up a drug dealer, as ordered.’
‘Will they buy it?’ Lin asked.
‘I can’t see why not. A few choice leaks to the news outlets and we will have it released that an “unnamed male remains in a critical condition in an unnamed hospital being kept secret in case someone is trying to finish the job.” It’ll be fish and chip wrappings by tomorrow, anyway.’
That was the unfortunate truth with non-fatal cases. After the initial flurry, the media tended to lose interest, especially given the high level of serious youth violence in the capital.
‘Aren’t the locals or Trident shooting team going to want to know why they aren’t dealing with the shooting?’ Lin asked.
‘As I understand it, the boss is going to arrange for the “enquiry” to be transferred to a new unit that is testing capacity for a new serious youth violence project, or some such bollocks.’ Buster mimicked quotation marks with his fingers as he spoke. ‘No one will give a fuck. They are all swamped with shootings and stabbings and will be delighted not to get a new one to deal with.’
That, once again, was unfortunately true. With the current under-resourcing across almost all of the police, the teams usually responsible for a shooting like that would simply be relieved not to get an extra serious case on their workload.
‘So, it’s up to Tom, again?’ Lin said.
‘Yep. Hopefully Borat can take it to the next level. I hope so, in any case. Fuck knows if the country could stand another bomb attack like we’ve had. Another one and I am pretty sure the country will descend into chaos. We can’t fail.’ For once the normally cheery Buster looked genuinely worried.
20
Tom parked the Ford on a side street close to the Lewisham flat. He tucked the keys into the exhaust pipe, ready for it to be recovered shortly by a member of the team. Its destination after that was most likely a breaker’s yard, where it would be turned into a small metal cube.
He quickly walked back to the flat and let himself in, pulling the revolver—a Smith and Wesson 38—from his pocket. As he sat down, he opened the cylinder and removed the two blank shell cases that he had discharged in the staged shooting earlier. He reached into his pocket and replaced them with two spent cases that he had removed earlier after test firing the handgun. He was fairly confident that Danny would not want to get the pistol back after it had been used in a shooting, but just in case it made sense that the two empty casings were the correct ones. He tucked the two spent blank cases into an envelope that he folded tight, then lifted a corner of carpet and lifted a floorboard he had earlier loosened. He tucked the envelope under the board and replaced the carpet. Those would be retrieved later on by another team member as part of the evidential chain, if required.
After the meeting with Danny a couple of days before, Tom had received another message via the Gmail draft folder giving a map link and directions to a dead letter drop in a scabby industrial estate in Camden. He had precise instructions as to where and when he should collect the package for use in his “test.” The instructions were simple and came via a separate message in the Gmail drafts folder.
‘Soon after midnight in 2 days’ time you are to travel to Victoria Park at the location highlighted in the attached map and screenshotted street view image. Each night drugs are sold by a Muslim gang to addicts from the local area. Your mission is to engage any member of the gang with the item secreted at the DLD, the location of which is highlighted below. Once the mission is complete, report back in the normal manner. These instructions must be memorised and no copies taken.’
Tom had read and digested the information and had then deleted the message. He found it faintly amusing that the instructions had been delivered using the military vernacular. The nature of the delivery and briefing had reminded Tom of his Special Reconnaissance Regiment selection training course, where the candidates had been required to absorb verbal or written orders quickly and would then be tested in depth about them later on.
All the rehearsals, authorities and technical arrangements for the staged attack had been made by the rest of the team while Tom maintained his cover. The whiff of corruption relating to the PNC checks on Vidmar and the ADF’s seeming sense of general professionalism made the decision for Tom to stay properly undercover a sensible one to take.
Later that evening, Tom had located the dead letter drop and found the Smith and Wesson exactly where the instructions had described it would be.
What the whole exercise had demonstrated was just how careful the ADF were in their tradecraft. Their operating procedures were exactly those an intelligence agency might utilise behind enemy lines. Once again, it reinforced to Tom that they were not dealing with amateurs.
Reaching for his phone he opened the news app. The shooting wasn’t a national headline. It wasn’t even a London News headline. In fact, it was the third story down.
