The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

The target would be hoisted up, propped upright on his feet. A circle of men and women around him, all huge in their stab-proof or bulletproof vests. The target’s rights would be recited in his ear, not that he would understand, not then. The violence of an arrest was partly down to the need to be safe and not let a guy slip away, but also down to the fear lived with by all of the team, and all of the other teams, and the dread of having to crowd around a TV set and watch the carnage played out live, and know that within hours the suits would be probing in the archive looking for who had cocked up, searching for an opportunity to blame. A ferocious world out there . . . The cars would scream away with blue lights revolving on the roofs, and the target would be sandwiched on a back seat, and the guns would go back into their cases. Some of the team would have to write up a report on the lift, and the others would head to a pub, and there would be drink taken and importance lived . . . and little solved. Another sticking plaster smoothed on.

The motor home was one of the smaller models, a Toyota HiAce with an elevating roof, but was an ideal size for an elderly couple, Baz and Mags, and so much easier to drive than if they had been towing a caravan. It had UK registration plates. They were in a far corner of the parking space behind a fuel station on the north side of Cologne. Loaded into the vehicle satnav were the autobahn routes of the E314 and E40 and, via Aachen and Maastricht, their destination was the ferry port of Zeebrugge. They sat in darkness and waited for the headlights of a car to approach them.

“Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a pee?”

“Better not, Mags, better to wait and keep them crossed, if you can.”

A little chuckle between them. The motor home had been hired for the trip. They had taken possession of it in the north of England, had driven via the ferry link to the German city, had spent two days of sightseeing there – “A bloody boring place this, Baz, not my cup of tea”, and a response of “Not disagreeing with you, love”. They had done the basic minimum of what the guidebook demanded, and had been told they should play the part fully, keep the cover alive. They had left Cologne in the early evening and had driven slowly, in the heart of the commuter queue on the main route heading north and west, had left the Rhine behind them and had turned off at the fuel station, had filled up, and had parked in this remote corner and waited. It was a comfortable vehicle, one that normally would have been beyond their reach either to rent or to buy . . . But times were looking up and this was a new departure for them and promised to swell their finances.

No lights illuminated them. Other vehicles came and parked but not close.

They were not supposed to smoke in the vehicle but they did, failed to open the windows, smoked and, predictably, tension crackled between them. It was the first time they had done a courier run on this scale and with such a reward dangled in front of them. And the promise of more to come. They had almost clean records, nothing that would have jumped off a charge sheet and bitten them, and it was difficult to see why, back home, the police, or the customs, should be concerned with them: would be the green corridor and a cheery wave to the uniformed officials, and another rendezvous at another car park, and then they’d be on the way home, and a fat brown envelope would be in his hip pocket or at the bottom of her handbag. “Piece of cake”, how they’d described it to each other when it had been put to them.

He checked his watch again. “Right, Mags, reckon it’s time to get things in place.”

He moved into the back of the camper. He lifted the bench which they sat on when the foldaway table was erected. It was where they had placed spare blankets in case the weather turned cold. Below the blankets were sheets of tinfoil, folded neatly, that they had bought in a German hardware shop; it was a precaution, the tinfoil, because of the need to mask the smell, given off by the cargo they now expected. But there was much that Baz and Mags did not know . . . did not know how much of a recognisable smell would be given off by a Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot 7 grenade launcher. With it were coming six grenades that could be fired by the RPG-7 launcher, fitted with PG-7 HEAT, all good for anti-tank operations and those against defended buildings. The length of the package they waited for would be a metre, and the combined weight of launcher and grenades would be 40 pounds. They did not know the smell, nor did they know that the weapon had been tracked by Croatian homeland security from the time the package had left Bosnian territory on its first leg from the fought-over city of Mostar. Then it had been watched, on distant “eyeballs”, by the Slovenians, then by Austrian domestic intelligence. And they had no idea that the parking lot in which the motor home was now parked was under the surveillance of units of the BfV, the German counter-terror organisation . . . Baz and Mags knew none of this.

Night-sight intensifier lenses were trained on them but their ignorance was blissful . . . Little squeals of excitement as headlights caught the camper, blinded them, then the brilliance was killed. Nothing said. A car slid close. Two men out of it and fast. The side door of the motor home squealed as