Half an hour later, as Maureen, now ahead of Zara, emerged up the stairs from the underground onto the concourse of Euston Station, she was relieved to see another colleague, Fred Watson, standing in the crowd in front of the departure board.
As she followed Zara towards the booking hall and watched from the door as he collected a ticket from the fast ticket machine, she heard Fred talking to the Control Room. ‘There’s a Manchester train at one o’clock; we’ll go with him if he catches it. Gets there at seven minutes past three.’
‘OK,’ came back from Wally Woods. ‘I’m alerting the police to meet the train at all the stops. I’ll get a team out to meet you in Manchester. Keep us posted.’
Back in the main concourse Zara joined the crowd in front of the departure board, where he stood waiting, watched from different directions by the three pairs of eyes of the A4 team.
As soon as the platform for the 13.00 train to Manchester Piccadilly flashed up on the board, Duff Wells moved fast, ahead of the crowd, towards Platform 5 and Fred Watson followed, more casually. Maureen stayed in the concourse waiting for Zara to move too. But Zara didn’t move. Maureen muttered into her microphone, ‘Watch out for a last-minute rush. He’s still here and he’s very alert for surveillance.’ At 12.55 Zara was still on the concourse.
Then suddenly he moved fast, out of the concourse, towards the platforms. ‘On the move,’ said Maureen. She was trying to keep up with him, but she lost sight of him in the crowd of people now rushing to get seats on another train. ‘Control lost,’ she shouted as she ran towards the platforms.
Fred and Duff were still waiting at the top of the ramp leading down to platform 5, but there was just a trickle of latecomers now and Zara was not among them.
‘Pretty sure we haven’t missed him.’ It was Duff Wells. ‘Fred got here before anyone else. Between us we’ve clocked everyone who got on.’
As Maureen ran up to join them, Wally Woods said, ‘Try the next train’, over their headphones. ‘Thirteen-oh-three, Platform seven, for Birmingham.’
‘I’ll wait here till this train leaves in case he’s just delaying,’ panted Maureen as Duff and Fred set off running to Platform 7 where the stragglers were still boarding. Duff waited at the end while Fred sprinted along the platform, scanning the passengers without much hope of seeing his target, but then near the far end of the platform he spotted Zara, just about to get onto the train.
‘Got him,’ he shouted. ‘Second carriage. I’m boarding now.’ Duff joined a chattering group of grey-haired men dressed in walking clothes who were getting into a carriage in the middle of the train. Last to arrive was Maureen, clambering into the final carriage, just before the doors were locked and the guard signalled the driver to go. She stood leaning on the door, gasping for breath, her heart pumping at twice its normal speed. I’m getting too old for this, she thought to herself.
‘Phew,’ she heard Fred say. ‘That was a close one. But we’re still with him. I’ve got eyeball. He’s just three rows in front of me.’
‘OK,’ said Wally from Thames House Control Room. ‘Well done.’
‘The train stops at Rugby, Coventry and Birmingham International; Birmingham New Street is the last stop,’ continued Fred.
‘Get off where he does, but I’ll try to get the police to be at the stops along the way – I’m hoping they’ll be able to take him on if he gets off before New Street. I’ll get our teams to meet you at New Street in case that’s where he’s going.’
Rugby and Coventry came and went and it wasn’t until Birmingham International was announced that Zara got up and joined the line of passengers waiting to get off the train.
What on earth is he up to? wondered Maureen. Don’t say he’s going to a conference – not after all this trouble.
But it wasn’t to the Conference Centre he was heading. As soon as he left the train, he made a beeline for the Skyrail to the airport and got on the first train that came in, with the A4 team in hot pursuit.
‘What do you want us to do if he checks in for a flight?’ asked Maureen.
Wally replied, ‘You’ll have to let him go. But get all the details.’
But at the airport Zara didn’t go to the departure hall; he went instead to the arrivals hall, and straight to the Hertz car-hire desk.
‘He’s hiring a car. We’ve got no wheels so we’ll have to let him go or hire one ourselves.’
‘Get the number and make of the car and we’ll pick him up on the road. There’s a police team coming out now to join you.’
As the A4 team watched, Zara hired a dark blue Ford S Max and drove off, heading for the airport exit.
While Wally Woods in London passed the target to the police surveillance teams, Maureen and her colleagues went off in different directions to get some lunch in the airport cafés. By the time she had finished a not very enticing salad, Maureen heard over her headphones that Zara’s car had been picked up by the cameras, heading towards the M6 Toll. That was a silly choice if he’s trying to avoid surveillance, she thought. He’ll be on camera all the way.
Chapter 52
Peggy had been staring out of the window, feeling as sluggish as the Thames at low tide, when the phone on Liz’s desk rang.
‘Hi, Border Agency here. I think we have something for you.’
‘Where?’
‘Hook of Holland. They called five minutes ago. There’s a Stena Line ferry leaving for Harwich at fourteen thirty their time; that’s half past one here, so fairly soon. Scheduled arrival time at Harwich is twenty hundred hours, British time. The lorry came in just before the deadline – they have to be quayside sixty minutes before sailing. It’s got the markings you’re looking for, though it’s carrying Turkish registration plates.’ He read out the registration number. ‘Just one driver, Turkish passport, name of Deniz Keskin, date of birth thirtieth October 1963.’
‘I bet that’s a false passport. If that’s our lorry it’s come from Dagestan and he’s not Turkish. What’s it carrying?’
‘Mattresses. Lots of mattresses, according to the manifest.’
Plus a few other things, thought Peggy. And she asked, ‘Has anyone looked inside?’
‘No. The Dutch are giving it a bit of space – as we requested. You said don’t scare them off.’
‘That’s right.’
‘It was weighed – all the vehicles are, so that can’t have aroused suspicion; it was apparently normal weight for its declared load. But it’s hard to tell much without looking inside. We can have Customs search it when it arrives if you want. Easy enough to do.’
‘No, thanks. We don’t want to risk alerting them at this stage. But please ask them to try and put the marker on as it goes through.’
As Peggy put the phone down she was hoping she’d taken the right decision. It was a big risk to allow into the country a lorry that she was pretty sure was carrying weapons, detonators and heaven knew what else, intended for a group of jihadis who had gone off the map and could be anywhere in the country. But she didn’t have much time to worry about it. As soon as she put the phone down, she picked it up again and rang Wally Woods in the A4 Control room.
‘Hi, Liz.’
‘No, it’s Peggy. Liz is out today.’
‘Oh?’
Obviously the news from Paris hadn’t percolated to the A4 control room. Peggy said, ‘I’m running the op until Liz gets back. I’ve just heard news of our lorry from the Border Agency. It’s on board the Stena ferry at the Hook of Holland coming to Harwich.’ She passed on the details she’d been given. ‘They’re going to get the marker on at Harwich.’
‘OK. We’ll be there. You still reckon it’s headed for one of those warehouses?’
‘Yes. But we don’t know which one. If I learn anything else I’ll let you know. Anything new on Zara?’