Tested by Fire by David Costa (brene brown rising strong .txt) 📕

the police just in case we need to move about in a hostile environment. Everybody happy?’

Everyone nodded their agreement.

‘Right, I’m off to have a chat with our SAS friends to borrow a few items. Mary, stay here, I’ll be back shortly.’

Reece found the SAS team already tooled up and ready to go.

‘Geoff, I need two MP5s and four mags of thirty, plus a couple of flak jackets. Can you help me please?’

‘No problem. Mickey, can you get these for David?’ he asked of the nearest trooper, who left the room to return a few minutes later with the requested items.

‘If you need to use them, I don’t want it coming back on me so as long as you involve us in the fun, I’m saying nothing,’ Middleton said with a grin.

‘Don’t worry, if we need to use them, you’ll be the first one, I call.’

Reece then briefed the troops on what the SG9 team would be doing and their call signs.

‘We’ll keep things simple. I’ll be Tango One and the rest of the team will use the Tango callsign followed by a number so that you know it’s us. Can you get your boss to get the local police to put the area out-of-bounds so that we don’t have any snoopy wooden top straying where they shouldn’t be?’

‘Good idea, Geoff, Northern Ireland Rules, eh?’

‘Big boy’s rules always worked for me.’

When he’d worked in undercover operations in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, they always put the area they were operating in out of bounds to local forces to prevent them spooking the targets or getting involved in a Blue on Blue where the security personnel could end up firing on each other by accident. Undercover people would refer to it as part of the Big Boys Rules when involved in operations that were likely to result in a shoot-out with the terrorists.

‘David?’

It was Joe Cousins.

‘The Cheshire Police are quicker than we thought. DCI Connor has just sent through the CCTV from Glazebrook Station, it’s not great but there is only one person on the platform just after the car was set on fire. I think it’s our hooded Asian.’

Reece and Geoff followed Cousins back to the comms section where the grainy black and white images were already on the big screen, they were in black and white and again the suspect had his hood up. There was no way they could identify him but this time he had a sports holdall with the Nike logo on the side.

‘The bag gives us something else to look out for,’ April said.

‘Can we track where he went?’ asked Reece.

‘He got on a train for Manchester but got off at Irlam, then the cameras lost him when he turned right out of the station towards the streets where we know the car was parked up,’ Broad replied.

‘So, he goes back to the nest tonight. No one picks him up that we’ve picked up,’ said Reece. ‘We need to get out there and try to find out exactly where he went. OK, everyone, let’s do this.’

This was the part Reece liked best; when they had something to go on, everyone knew the task ahead, and they could get out there and do something positive. Now the jigsaw was coming together Reece felt the same adrenalin he’d felt when extreme danger was around the corner in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. The type of feeling you get when a car swerves towards you. You know the danger but the knowledge that in a short period of time you could be killed or seriously injured can spur you into the action that will make the difference over life and death.

 

 

Chapter Forty-five

‘This is Alpha One, comms check?’ said Reece.

His team responded.

‘Alpha Two, clear.’

‘Alpha Three, clear.’

‘Alpha Four, clear.’

‘Alpha Control, all clear signals.’

‘Tango One, clear and on the edge of town, over.’

‘OK, everyone, loud and clear,’ Reece said. ‘I’m going to take a drive around the Kings Road area. Alpha Two, park up on the main road through Irlam, Tango One, hold position.’

Two voices replied, ‘Roger that.’

Mary was in the back of the BMW being driven by Reece. Sitting beside him, Joe Cousins had a clipboard with a notepad, watching every movement in the streets as they passed.

Mary soon worked out that Cousins was writing down the registration numbers of cars in the street and on driveways, passing them onto Alpha Control for a search of ownership. Every car registration they checked out came back to the house address they were parked outside.

The centre of Irlam appeared to be one long main street about a mile long with shops, bars, and take away food stores A typical English high street thought Reece, a bit run down with a mixture of old and new buildings.

As Reece had turned into the Kings Road, the narrow street had two more streets running to the left two dead ends with a further street running to the right another dead end. Kings Road itself was also a dead end all the streets surrounded by the fencing of an industrial estate.

The first street on the left was Henley Avenue which was the smallest of the three streets branching off Kings Road having about ten houses in all a dead end with a turning space at the bottom. Although it was dark, the street lighting was good so Reece drove in slowly then, after driving through each of two other streets once and, making sure Cousins had all the registrations he needed, he drove to the top of Kings Road and turned left onto the main street stopping a few hundred yards from the Kings Road.

‘Alpha One to Alpha Three, come in, over.’

‘Alpha Three send, over.’

‘We had a drive around Kings Road and the streets off it.