The target had been taught not to assume anything, go through the drills, and only then, if nothing untoward was apparent, to assume he was temporarily free of observation.
Mel saw the target remove a mobile phone from a pocket and make a call, speaking very briefly indeed before replacing it.
Back at NSY Dusty scribbled down the time and the postcode of the area the call had been in, handing it to an assistant who got busy on the phone.
“With a bit of luck.” The Commissioner said to his guests. “We should learn the targets cellular number and the number of whoever he called, plus wherever that contact is.”
It took ten minutes for the information to become available.
“Ok.” Dusty said, as he looked at the details his assistant had written below Dusty’s own writing. “I think sir, we are looking at a potential third eye in the town centre.”
Henry Shaw was intrigued.
“What does he mean, a third eye?”
“It is easier for a person to spot someone following someone else, so Dusty thinks our man just called a friend to watch who is behind him.”
“Dusty… any clue as to this other guy?”
“Unfortunately yes, the number he called was a landline, not another mobile. He telephoned the shopping centre CCTV control room.”
“How are you going to handle it, isn’t it too risky to go following him in?”
The Commissioner looked over at Dusty.
“Well?”
“We don’t follow him sir, we know where he is going and he has to come out of there. Once inside he will do something, something to cause a reaction from any footmen. It won’t need to be much, just ducking down for a minute would do that, and the third eye will be watching for someone who is looking about just a little too much in order to regain contact.”
A few of the senior officers clearly disagreed, and the more senior voiced his concerns.
“Commissioner?”
“Yes Commander Aires?”
“I disagree with this, uh, Constables assessment. We should flood the area with our footmen, put a dozen inside and that way we will keep contact no matter what he does.”
Rather than automatically support him as he had expected, the Commissioner passed the commander suggestion to Constable Miller.
“Dusty?”
“We would just be giving the target and the third eye more officers to spot, I think it’s a stupid idea sir.”
The Commanders hackles rose.
“Oh really, Constable?”
He was not used to the junior ranks saying anything other than, ‘yes sir’ to his suggestions.
“Well I have decided that the decision should come from above your pay grade… ”
The Commissioner cut him off in mid flow.
“I agree Commander!” however the Commander’s satisfied smile soon disappeared.
“Dusty, any footmen already in the shopping centre, pull them out and run this as you see fit.”
“Yes sir.”
In Swanley, the target reached the end of Sycamore Drive and dodged the traffic in Bartholomew Way to arrive in the shopping centres car park, where he broke into a run, heading for the entrance.
Mel let him go, and carried on walking without so much as a turn of the head along the road to rendezvous with a vehicle parked a little away from the town centre.
Thirty minutes later, their man re-emerged onto the street. He still used shop windows in order to look behind himself but he now walked with an obvious sense of purpose.
In a way the boys and girls of the SCG were disappointed as they watched their man drive out of the railway station car park in another vehicle. The game was nearly over now, they could sense it, and although they no longer had the aid of a tracking device they could see the suspect was relaxed, and no longer a challenge for their skills.
At no time during the following forty minutes did any of the surveillance vehicles follow directly behind the target. There were always at least two genuinely innocent vehicles between the ‘eyeball’, and the target as he wound his way home.
By 3pm that afternoon the Commissioner was satisfied their suspects had been ‘housed’, and returned to his office to make a telephone call to the Chief Constable of Surrey.
Udi had been late for work and the dressing down he had received from his shift supervisor had jarred his hung over state.
Unshaven and having slept in the same clothes he had worn the previous day, Udi had hardly presented a picture of the reliable worker.
Udi had weathered the storm and made the right noises about it being a one off lapse that would never be repeated. Apparently satisfied that Udi had gotten the message the supervisor had handed across a work order.
Udi had been scheduled to monitor the ongoing surveillance at the centre for the next two days, so he was surprised.
“Zinayev is handling that, I’m not having you looking like a tramp and stinking like a distillery whilst the auditors are here.”
Fortunately there was little enough blood in Udi’s features that the rest draining away was not noticeable.
“The auditors are coming today?”
“They are here already; now get a move on before someone sees you.”
After all the worry over the impending audit, Udi felt a calm resignation replace the shock of the news that it had at last arrived.
Udi had travelled to Noginsk, 100 kilometres from Moscow, and removed surveillance devices from the home of yet another senior officer to have displeased the premier.
No stealth or guile had been required to enter the house; it had been emptied of its occupants by the arrest team that had come with the dawn for the late Admiral Petorim’s wife and children. Udi was not to know that the entire family had been executed within hours, but he shivered and looked over his shoulder several times as he worked, so certain had he been that the eyes of the dead were upon him.
It took only an hour to complete his task, and then he had returned to Moscow, to his apartment where he had half expected to find internal security awaiting him, but the flat had held no unwanted visitors.
He had forgotten to switch off his computer the previous night, and had left for work so hurriedly that morning that it had continued to chalk up an increasing debt on the meter. However, the thought of the state power company attempting to extract payment from his corpse now gave him some amusement.
The atmosphere in the house at Noginsk had not prevented him from raiding the well-stocked larder there, filling one of the late families suitcases with cheeses, hams and other delicacies, which he now gorged himself on before approaching the keyboard and monitor.
If he was going to be shot for spying on those in power, he may as well get his money’s worth. According to his monitor, the program had completed its task of wiping the download free of interference, so he opened two windows on his monitor’s screen, allowing him a view of the hallway and upstairs room.
It was apparently quite warm in the occupied room, Torneski had removed her greatcoat and unbuttoned her tunic, and sweat speckled the brows of the young officers.
All four occupants heard the main door open, and Torneski gave a nod to the men who removed their uniform tunics and quietly took up position behind the door, so that only the KGB chief would be in view once the girl opened the door to the room.
So, thought Udi, the girl thought she was there for a meeting with the KGB chief but was about to get herself beaten or killed.
Udi expected the girl to jump when the door was slammed closed behind her, but her languid stride never faltered. In the centre of the room she halted, with feet set apart, hands on her hips and her weight resting over on one leg, where she turned at the waist to speak to the three officers, and he got to look at the face of a girl who was heart-stoppingly lovely. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, via the firm breasts and drum flat belly of course, she was pretty damn perfect as far as Udi was concerned.