Three Weeks in September Page 9

  “There he is,” said the passenger, “he’s stopped at the lights up ahead.”

  “That was lucky,” said the driver. “I wonder how many drop-offs Chauhan has got?”

  They were in for a trip around the districts dotted around the town centre. It would be a long morning.

  In Rawmarsh, it was ten o’clock. Yusuf Shirani had just dropped a fare outside the Post Office. The fifty-one-year-old father of five would operate his taxi until after midnight today. He took the occasional break, for a cigarette. A nasty habit he started at school. Yusuf did try to stop. His wife kept telling him his health and wellbeing suffered, but he couldn’t stop altogether. If the fares dried up after lunch, he could grab a bite to eat. Yusuf hoped to drive via Parkgate and attend the Eastwood Mosque this afternoon. The taxi driver wasn’t a devout Muslim, but he always tried to find time on Friday to go to prayers.

  Gus Dickerson contacted the lead agent in the van tailing Shirani.

  “Everything okay in Rawmarsh this morning, lads?” he asked. The first communication he’d made with either of the locally based vans today. Phoenix was listening. He noted the fact but passed no comment.

  “No worries, boss,” came the reply, “our man is standing by his open taxi door, blowing smoke rings at the minute.”

  “Don’t get too bored, will you?” laughed Dickerson.

  Phoenix interrupted.

  “Just remember Shirani’s a villain, same as the rest. That taxi has been used to traffic girls around Rotherham for the past five years. He’s got girls at home the same age as the ones being raped and prostituted, and he still does it. The guy is an animal. Concentrate on the job at hand, He has to become another mysterious missing person this afternoon.”

  Nobody said a word in the other two vans. Phoenix hoped the message hit home. Nothing incriminating had come through on Dickerson from Larcombe yet. There was still time.

  The clock ticked on. Phoenix and Rusty continued to keep Osman Hassan under surveillance. One van delivery didn’t differ much from the next. Park the van as close to the restaurant as possible, regardless of how it affects the traffic flow. Ring the doorbell to attract someone inside’s attention. Open the side door of the van, consult the delivery sheet and carry the required sacks and boxes to the door. Leave them stacked by the door, blocking half the pavement. Ring again if there’s no immediate response. When the restaurant doors are open. Help get it inside and signed for, so you can drive to the next destination.

  Rusty checked the time. He sighed. It was only twenty past ten. They had hours of this yet.

  The teams in Bramley enjoyed a slow start. The two guys with Aziz Chauhan last night in Sheffield were late risers. Ejaz Rizvi was a twenty-four-year-old marketing manager who drove a flashy sports car. Jamshed Sadat, who lived at the other end of the village was twenty-eight and married, with no children. He worked for Tesco, as a buying manager. Rizvi’s wife worked for Yorkshire Bank. They earned a combined salary, without the drug income, which she knew nothing of, totalling over sixty thousand.

  Sadat’s marriage had been arranged by the two families. The couple tolerated one another. His wife enjoyed the company of friends she met through work. She liked to spend money on beauty products, clothes, and shoes. Jamshed liked to party. He left her at home four nights a week while he worked on the club scene in the local cities. Malik paid him and Rizvi well for their efforts.

  Both Sadat and Rizvi had a violent streak. It wasn’t uncommon for a few drugs to be slipped to a new client in a nightclub as part of clinching the deal for more regular business. Why not sample the merchandise? Then, when you need more, come and see me when I’m in the club next week. The trouble was, now and then, someone ran up an unsecured line of credit. That resulted in the lads putting the frighteners on the person involved.

  One late-paying client heard his mother’s windows had been smashed when she called him after he got home from work. Another received a phone call telling him his fifteen-year-old-sister would be late home from school. It was up to him whether she remained intact or not when she arrived home. Word soon got around. Pay up, or Malik’s crew would hurt your loved ones.

  Rizvi and Sadat operated as a pair. As much as they liked terrorising young men, it was young women they loved to attack. Female clubgoers suffered systematic physical and sexual violence at the hands of the two men.

  “Who got assigned to Tariq Malik?” asked Rusty.

  “Gus Dickerson,” replied Phoenix.

  “Call him,” said Rusty. “In fact, call them all, to check they’ve got eyes on their targets. It’s too quiet for my liking.”

  Phoenix checked the time; eleven forty.

  “Exactly,” said Rusty, “this morning has dragged. Why didn’t we snatch them out of their beds at six o’clock this morning? Why is the window Zeus specified so special?”

  “Zeus had his reasons,” replied Phoenix, “and one would have been to reduce the number of people who saw them disappear. Many of these men have families. They live on streets filled with people. Olympus always attempts to carry out its missions without revealing its identity, you appreciate that.”

  Phoenix received a call from Giles Burke seconds later.

  “Yes, Giles, what do you have for us?”

  “Artemis dug deep into Dickerson’s track record since joining Olympus. He’s been walking a fine line. She found frequent examples of him being late filing reports, losing contact whilst on undercover operations, but somehow snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Artemis said his colleagues in Nottingham, where he worked before moving to Sheffield, described him as a ‘chancer’.”

  “Thanks, Giles,” said Phoenix, and ended the call.

  “Olympus teams? This is Phoenix. Report your current position and status.”

  One after the other, the teams relayed the information.

  Qureshi was working in the shop. Sadat and Rizvi were still lazing at home, recovering from last night. Chauhan left Deepdale and now visited Parkgate. Shirani had picked up a fare and drove towards Wickersley. Phoenix could see Hassan fifty yards away with a sack of okra on his shoulder. That left one team to report back.

  “Gus, care to join us?” asked Phoenix.

  Silence.

  “Waste of space,” muttered Rusty. “I bet he’s sloped off for a late breakfast.”

  “Hello, Phoenix?”

  It wasn’t Gus Dickerson. Phoenix recognised the voice of his colleague.

  “Report your position and status. Do you have Tariq Malik under observation?”

  “We stopped for diesel and temporarily lost sight of him.”

  “I repeat, do you have Malik in sight?”

  There was a pause, and then Dickerson spoke.

  “Stop worrying. You’re an old woman. What did you say earlier, he’s a creature of habit? We’ll find him at one of his haunts. Anyway, we’ve got loads of time.”

  Rusty tutted. Phoenix shook his head.

  “Find him,” he ordered.

  It was almost noon.

  “The rest of these crews better be on their guard,” said Phoenix.

  Rusty shrugged his shoulders.

  “One bad apple…” he replied.

  “We’ll sort Dickerson out once this mission is successfully completed. I won’t let him foul up things.”

  Osman Hassan had one more trip to make. It was one of his favourites. A family-owned restaurant in Barnsley. The owners were brothers, and the eldest lived in a large house on the outskirts of the town. He had seven children, five of them still at school. Osman dealt with the son, Faizal on most deliveries. Faizal was in his mid-twenties and talkative. The two men got on well.

  In July, the third eldest child left school. Hasina was sixteen and started to waitress in the restaurant straight away. Faizal laughed when he asked about her and told him she was not destined to be an academic high-achiever. When Osman first set eyes on her, he had wondered if she was simple-minded. Hasina may not have been clever, but she was beaut
iful.

  Osman Hassan hung around the restaurant, taking his time over getting the sacks and boxes inside every Friday since. He snatched a few minutes with the young girl every chance he got. Faizal didn’t cotton on that Osman was grooming her, and his real intentions. Faizal was unaware of the Rotherham man’s involvement in the trafficking of young girls for sex.

  Phoenix and Rusty tailed Hassan’s van as it motored along the M1. The time was now half-past twelve.

  “This has to be our man’s last drop-off,” said Rusty. “A fifteen-mile trip to Barnsley, and then return to Masbrough. He’ll be home well before two o’clock.”

  “Our surveillance teams indicated that he stretches this visit out,” said Phoenix. “I don’t care why. It’s not going to matter.”

  Hassan parked in the restaurant car park. A young man opened the side doors and waved.

  “Hassan’s popular here,” said Rusty. “He didn’t have to ring two or three times to get someone to answer.”

  A young girl appeared in the doorway to the storeroom. She watched as Hassan and the young man carried the deliveries from the van.

  “That young girl can’t take her eyes off him,” said Rusty, “at least we know the reasons for the lengthy stops. She’s a stunner too, even if she’s half his age.”

  “Such a shame,” said Phoenix. “A blossoming romance nipped in the bud.”

  They watched and waited as Hassan chatted to the girl each time he passed. In time, the stocks had been replenished. The young man disappeared inside the restaurant. Hassan and the girl were deep in conversation. He got his mobile phone out of his pocket and took a selfie of the two of them stood by the storeroom door. The girl giggled and closed the door. She waved at Hassan as he drove out of the car park.

  “That’s one photo that won’t reach the grubby hands of Salim Qureshi and his partygoers,” said Phoenix. “The poor girl doesn’t realise how lucky she’s been.”

  Hassan drove back to Rotherham and called into the offices of the firm where he worked. He handed in his timesheet for the week and then set off home to Masbrough. He could spend a quiet afternoon relaxing before the busy weekend. It would be fun. The promise of a new face among the girls he partied with had moved a step closer today. Hasina would soon see many more of the towns and cities that surrounded Barnsley.

  Osman Hassan looked at the clock on the van’s dashboard. It was one fifty-three. The dark blue van that had overtaken him slowed. Why had the van indicated left? There was no left-turn on this quiet road. Could it be a police vehicle? Hassan knew he hadn’t been speeding. He couldn’t remember running a red light. The van pulled into a lay-by and stopped. Hassan stopped behind it, waited.

  A man walked around from the passenger’s side. Hassan lowered his window.

  “What’s up?” he asked, “why did you pull me over?”

  The speed with which the man struck took Osman Hassan by surprise. Rusty rendered him unconscious and transferred him to the back of the Olympus van before another vehicle drove past. He returned to the delivery van to switch off the engine, lock it, and then ran back to join Phoenix.

  “Not bad, now make sure he’s secure,” said Phoenix, “we should hear from the others shortly,”

  Aziz Chauhan became one of the missing at one fifty-four. The team assigned to take him had followed him home to Whiston. He was alone, as their background files told them when one agent rang the front doorbell. His colleague entered the house through a bedroom window. When Aziz opened the front door, the agent shoved him in the chest, hard. As he stumbled back, he fell into the arms of the agent who had just run downstairs.

  A minute later he was in their van and driving towards the Sheffield rendezvous point.

  “Rizvi and Sadat were together when we took them,” Phoenix heard from a team leader. “Sadat drove to his friend’s house at one forty-five. That was the first time we had seen him today. It must have been a great night, last night. We waited outside until the appointed time and knocked on the door. They weren’t pleased to see us, and there was a brief struggle.”

  “Any problems?” asked Phoenix. “The neighbours weren’t alerted?”

  “No, Phoenix,” came the reply, “it was a very brief struggle. They’re sleeping like babies now.”

  “Good, see you at the safe house,” said Phoenix.

  The next two calls came from the teams tailing Qureshi and Shirani; the two oldest abusers. They were the ones who had been in the grooming gang for between fifteen and twenty years.

  “His language was vile, but he proved no match for two men,” said Qureshi’s agent.

  “We picked our taxi-driver up while he had a crafty cigarette in a no-smoking area,” said the agent assigned to Shirani. “At first, he thought he was getting a fine for dropping litter. Now he’s dazed and confused.”

  “Six down, one to go,” said Phoenix, “and all registered between one fifty-three and two o’clock. Inside Zeus’s seven-minute window.”

  “We will arrive at the safe house together around the same time,” said Rusty. “Do you want to avoid that?”

  “We’re using the A630 Parkway, which takes us on a direct route,” said Phoenix. “You know me well enough by now, don’t you? The team that had the furthest to travel are following us. Others are taking longer diversions. Our arrivals at the safe house will be staggered. Thirty minutes between first, and last; maybe more if the traffic is bad.”

  “We haven’t heard from Dickerson yet,” said Rusty.

  “I’ll call him,” said Phoenix.

  “Crew leader? Status report, please.”

  “Almost there, Phoenix.” The reply came from the agent riding with Dickerson again. “Malik was visiting one of the B&B’s the council used to house troubled families. It might bear looking into in more detail. The place has a dozen rooms filled with vulnerable people. Most are women with small children. Battered wives, that sort of thing. Malik seemed to know most of them.”

  “Did you pick Malik up in the agreed time frame?”

  “Give or take a few minutes,” said Dickerson, deciding to answer at last.

  “Any problems?”

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle,”

  Phoenix heard groans in the background.

  “Is that Malik? Was he injured?”

  “He didn’t travel to the B&B alone, Phoenix,” said the other agent. “We never found him until the last minute. We needed to grab him quick. His bodyguard carried a gun. I had to shoot him. Malik pulled a knife, and Gus needed to stop him using it. Malik has a stomach wound, he’s bleeding like a pig. I’m not sure if he’ll make it to the safe house.”

  “What a nightmare,” muttered Rusty.

  “Dickerson, you realise you’ve put the whole operation at risk? Every dark blue or black van with tinted windows will be stopped and searched by the police once they learn about the bodyguard.”

  “They won’t find his body, it’s in the back, alongside Malik,” said Dickerson.

  “Not much consolation,” said Phoenix. “Someone at the B&B will have seen your van. Where are you now?”

  The driver relayed their position. Phoenix spoke to the other five van drivers: -

  “Whichever one of you is closest, sort out the nearest place to meet quick, make a detour and collect the four of them. Then destroy the van. If the police find it burnt-out a few miles from the shooting incident, that should stop us being chased all the way to Sheffield.”

  Phoenix and Rusty arrived at the safe house without incident. It was two forty-five. Rusty lugged Osman Hassan inside.

  The vans containing Chauhan, Qureshi, and Shirani arrived at ten-minute intervals. Each team off-loaded their target, and then the agents told to return home. Their work was done. They would get a call when Olympus next needed them on a mission.

  It was four o’clock when the last van drew up outside the front door. Sadat and Rizvi had arrived. Gus Dickerson and his fellow agent brought them indoors.

  “Where’s Malik?” as
ked Phoenix.

  “He died on the way over,” said Dickerson. “I told the other team to dispose of the bodies. No point hanging on to them. The team will return to pick us up later.”

  “Do you think it acceptable to ask someone to do your dirty work for you?” asked Phoenix.

  Dickerson didn’t reply.

  Rusty looked at the six prisoners sat on the floor. He spoke to Dickerson’s colleague.

  “When they get back, you’ll get these men into the van and do the necessary. Is that understood?”

  “Understood,” the agent replied.

  Rusty drew his gun and pointed it at Dickerson’s chest.

  “Get me his gun,” he told the other agent, “he’s staying with us.”

  Dickerson gave Rusty a surly stare.

  “Sit down,” said Phoenix.

  The Olympus van turned into the driveway of the safe house at five minutes to five. The neighbours would have been excused for thinking the people who lived there were getting a new carpet in every room. The six men got rolled up in old carpets, carried out and thrown into the back of the van.

  “You can’t beat forward planning,” said Phoenix as the van drove away.

  “You can’t keep me here,” said Gus Dickerson.

  “We don’t intend to,” said Phoenix, “but before you leave, you need to listen to a story. Our orders were to keep our seven targets under constant supervision. They needed to be snatched, with no one being the wiser, in the seven minutes between one fifty-three and two o’clock. Your conduct throughout threatened a successful outcome. Everyone who joins Olympus learns that at the summit is someone with the code name, Zeus. He has a wife and three children. His daughter was engaged to be married in 2007, but on the afternoon of the fifth of September, her fiancé was on a search and arrest operation in Iraq. A colleague heard gunshots behind him and turned to see his friend on the ground. It was one fifty-three. There was a brief firefight with the sniper in a nearby building, but he escaped. Zeus’s future son-in-law was tended to by his colleagues, but he had received a mortal injury. He gasped his last breath at two o’clock. The whole mission hinged on the fact it was seven years ago, to the day, to the minute.”