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

the public had called in but there had already been a warning from the Border Force vessel people. They were deployed because there was a fear, a mood shoved out from the Security Service in London, that “returnees” could come back in the cover of a migrant trip, be snuggled up close to Iranians or Syrians or any of the others who’d take to the water in the hope of better things to come. Except, the weather the last night had been horrific and it would have needed serious courage, big time, to attempt to cross. Every time they had been deployed they had been confronted with a little huddle of pitiful wretches, shivering, teeth chattering, and looking as threatening to public order as a flock of cowed sheep.

“What I’m saying – just eavesdropping – there was a guy with them, brought them across. Took on the smuggler clan and saw them off, then took them into the water, saved the life of one of the kids who had a ducking. Then started singing, a hymn and a psalm, and sung over and over like an old record with a scratch on it. They called him an angel, an angel of God.”

“Which one is he?”

Dominic was single; late twenties, more pounds on his gut than there should have been. Took too little exercise because for the last seven years he had been a part of a small county force firearms team. Looked at the little group that didn’t seem to possess the resolution to “take on” a smuggler group – cruel bastards, what their briefings said, and good at handing out rough stuff – nor the sanctity of that elusive angel.

“That’s the problem. Not there. That’s what they’re saying.”

“Meaning?”

Babs, married and with a daughter who would now be heading for school, was six years older, wore her looks well. She shrugged.

“He led the singing, kept them afloat, literally and mentally. Brought them through. They had sight of the beach and he called to them, ‘I was never with you’. Went over the side . . . They’ve gone dumb now, you noticed that? Like he was a no go area and shouldn’t have been talked of.”

“Shit, bloody hell.”

“Went over the side. Ditched them. Can you add that one up?”

“Nine marks out of ten for a cluster-fuck . . . and a half-hour start on us. Be a bad boy, wouldn’t he?”

She said he would be a bad boy. Gone into the sea to avoid being picked up. It had started out as pretty routine, now was heading into territory beyond their immediate experience. Left them flattened . . . She went back to the car where she would not be overheard by the crowd that had gathered in a half-circle near the migrants. It would set alarm bells pealing when she reported in.

He’d had his coffee, eaten his pastry.

Jonas was in the garden behind Thames House, sitting on a bench, and the low sunlight came through the canopies of the trees.

A man worked with a rake and tidied where there was nothing to tidy. He saw him often enough, had never spoken with him, and liked the dedication that brought the fellow to these gardens, unchained the gates, kept them in a state of perfection, fulfilling a duty. He had his barrow, and at his waist were secateurs, and after he had raked he would clear the rubbish bins and painstakingly pick up each cigarette butt thrown on the grass or the paths, and if birds had defecated on the historic gravestones then the faces would be wiped clean. A troubled man; the garden would have been his best home . . . Jonas had heard it said that the man had done service for a Five operation in southern Spain. He seemed humble . . .

Jonas was ready to confront his own day. He went to the side entrance. The police were there, close to the end of their own shift.

One said, “Morning, sir, looks like a lovely day.”

The other said, “Let’s hope, sir, that’s what we’re in for, clear blue skies.”

And Jonas said as he passed them and their loaded firearms, “Have to hope that – yes – that things don’t change. Can but hope.”

Chapter 5

Room 3/S/12 was deserted. Almost every day, Jonas was first in. Not that day. Clear evidence that the team had been and gone.

A mess covered the circular table; some of their screens showed the “save” images: dogs, cats, children, beach scenes. There were coffee beakers, single-use, and the wrappings of sandwiches and pastries were stuffed in the bins. In one corner was a pile of lycra, what the joggers and cyclists wore for the journey to work . . . He did not know where they had gone, what had called them out.

He went behind his own partition, unfastened the handcuff and chain at his wrist, and began to unlock his filing cabinets and his desk computer. Next he would remove the sandwiches from his briefcase, and the flask. No note had been left for him, hardly surprising.

He was permitted to beaver away behind his screen, and had the patronage of the AssDepDG, was safe behind his firewall, and his insights and predictions went on a roundabout cruise along the corridor and up the stairs and landed on the desks of more senior managers – and his patron – and then came back down and were slotted into the workload of the team.

He took off his jacket and arranged it on the hanger; another reflex action was to straighten his tie, then to loosen a reef in his belt to make sitting at his desk more comfortable. Other than for comfort breaks, visits down the corridor and near the emergency stairs, he would not move until the scurried departure out of the building, back along the river and into the station for the journey home.

Not something he had looked forward to, but the first task of the day was to transfer an image from his phone and play it through his printer. The machine spluttered into action. The main working