Her sister was so drunk she did what he asked. When it was over she had tried to get out of the car but the constable had grabbed her arm and said she hadn’t done enough to persuade him; he wanted the younger sister to meet him at the same place, the same time next week. Her sister had agreed just to get out of the car and escape from him.
The two sisters had argued. The younger one couldn’t believe her sister had agreed to do what the policeman had asked. The older sister didn’t want to have to go to court to face a charge of buying booze for her sixteen year old sister; nor did she want her workmates dragged into it. In the end she persuaded the young girl to meet up with the policeman. The following week the young girl had left her home and walked to where the car had been parked the previous Friday night and waited for the police car to arrive.
When it pulled up by the pavement and switched off its lights, she got in and asked what he wanted from her. He told her to take her sweater off and she had sat next to him in her bra. He didn’t make any attempt to touch her, but he touched himself and she could see he was aroused. He asked her to pleasure him with her hand. She had told him she had never done it before and was frightened; he had laughed at her and gripped her wrist tightly and thrust her hand down and encouraged her to get on with it.
It was over very quickly and then he told her that she could go home. He said that he would continue to keep an eye out for her and her sister and that if they wanted a lift home anytime he would always be available. When she had run into her house crying, her sister had rushed downstairs and told her parents what was going on. They made a formal complaint. It took two years before the case got to court. After all that delay he had pleaded guilty as soon as the charge was put to him.
PC Donald MacDonald was single and lived at home with his invalid father. He had been in the force for twenty seven years. The girl had complained that the sentence was only half the amount of time she and her sister had had to deal with what had happened to them. “I think he got off lightly” she was reported as saying “he kept us hanging around for two years and then he pleaded guilty.”
The judge had referred to MacDonald’s actions as ‘sleazy; if not rather pathetic’; he was a man who used his position to make inappropriate sexual advances to young women. However, he judged that given his family circumstances and the nature of the offences, a custodial sentence would be disproportionate. He stressed that a community order should not be viewed as a soft option; the officer would be expected to address his inappropriate behaviour and correct it, so that the young girls of Dunfermline could walk the streets at night in safety.
“What do you think of this one Minos?” Erebus asked the former judge.
“The punishment doesn’t fit the crime” replied Minos.
“Any recommendations?” the old man enquired, looking around the table.
“Castration perhaps?” said Athena.
“Were these two sisters his only victims?” asked Thanatos.
Erebus looked at the supporting documents that had arrived with the background story.
“It would appear that several colleagues flagged up their suspicions about MacDonald in the past, without anyone following up on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if he turned out to be a serial offender. We’ll get our people to step up the search for more victims and in short order I believe we’ll uncover additional evidence to support a more permanent solution for the Dunfermline problem.”
“Who do you have in mind to deal with this?” asked Athena.
“If today’s sortie is successful; then this could be an assignment for Phoenix.”
Athena was clearly not happy about this and Erebus asked her to explain her obvious displeasure.
“Are you sure he could remain objective? He lost his only daughter to an attacker that had a preference for young girls. We should wait until he returns from this first mission before we commit ourselves.”
Erebus nodded.
“As you wish; if only I could persuade you to trust Phoenix, he pays such attention to detail. Whatever we throw his way he’ll cope with by methodical planning and efficient execution, of that I have no doubts.”
“We’ll see” replied Athena “let’s move on to the next item on the agenda; I fear it may keep us occupied for some time.”
“In that case I suggest we break for an early lunch” said Erebus.
The meeting was reconvened in the drawing room; Erebus looked up towards Thanatos.
“Over to you old chap, let’s hear about the make up of this terrorist cell.”
Thanatos stood in front of a white screen that had been brought into the room while they were at lunch; Erebus didn’t like visual aids or modern technology invading the splendid rooms in his family home. On this occasion though, it was a vital tool to assist in understanding the complex nature of the enemy they were facing.
“We must understand that Al-Qaeda’s cell structure differs from the typical Western style because of cultural differences. Their minimal core leadership group is a ring network, with each leader heading their own particular hierarchy. All the ring networks overlap, like links in a chain if you will. Trust and personal relationships are paramount and there are far more instances of family and in-group linkages than in the more bureaucratic Western model.
This makes these in-groups extremely hard to infiltrate. We have operatives working on compromising certain fringe members of rings operating in the UK but progress is slow.”
Thanatos drew circles on the white board and linked them with arrows.
“The core group is a ring, superimposed on an inner hub and spoke structure of ideological authority. Each core member forms another hub and spoke system; the spokes lead to sub cells which support the infrastructure and sometimes operational groups. In this way it’s possible for an operational cell to become autonomous of the core.”
“So they maintain a ‘positive control’ from the core, but specific roles can function without reference back to them for every action they take” commented Erebus.
“In essence” said Thanatos “but they can also be more random and unpredictable, which makes them far more dangerous.”
“Do we have a handle on the names of any of the participants in the chain we’re most concerned about?” asked Alastor.
“We’re getting names, the different camps they trained at, the hierarchy and evidence of a degree of in-fighting. Certain factions want to move far quicker on operations than the core. We may be able to use this weakness in the future. What we have avoided so far is opting for a ‘catch and release’ programme. None of the cell members associated with this chain have been picked off the streets and brought here to Larcombe for Level Three interrogation. We don’t want to create distrust of any individuals lower down the ladder by the central core. We may increase our intelligence but at what cost?”
The group continued to analyse the infrastructure of the cells for the rest of the afternoon. Gradually, the white board was covered in names, dotted lines, solid lines and question marks. After a short break for their evening meal, they shut themselves away again.
The full extent of the threat facing the country in 2012 and beyond was all too apparent. Their surveillance section had highlighted around twenty terrorist investigations that the national security sources were currently working on. The Olympus Project’s in-house capability for tracking and monitoring internet and phone traffic was equal to anything out there in the big wide world, so there was nothing they couldn’t keep tabs on.