For the Love of God and the Arab Rising

  Chapter Nineteen: Back at the house. We start to unpack our bags, lay the gear out on the floor and have a good check of our basic survival setup. The temperatures are freezing at this time of year and the weather forecast is bleak. Any idiot can sit on wet ground, shiver and suffer. Sod that. Jeff’s mobile rings and he appears to be in deep conversation with someone. ‘Who was it Jeff’. Our luck appears to be on the up, his brother is coming round in two hours. We have two hours to shop for some outdoors gear: coats, gloves, ground sheets, binoculars and a bivvy for shelter from the rain and elements. We have not long returned when there is a knock on the door and in walks Kevin, all 15 stone of 6ft Cray Boy. He has an old worn out Puma holdall he is holding at arm’s length. His size and strength belies the effort taken to carry the bag; but the bag gives the game away, as the handle is clearly stretching. Pleasantries are exchanged. He places the bag on the dining room table and reaches into the bag. He removes 2 objects and places them on the table; each object is wrapped in dirty rags and connects the table with a metal on wood ‘clonk’. The first is unwrapped and reveals some sort of revolver that is in a reasonable condition. The next object reveals itself to be a sawn off shot gun, it looks a little older, scratched and mistreated. Cat and I reach over and take hold of a piece each, spinning and splitting to test the operation of each unit. ‘Bloody Hell Jeff, is this it’. ‘This isn’t a bloody gun shop in New York you know’. ‘There’ll do Kevin; any ammo?’ ‘Yep’ Another reach into the holdall produces a plastic bag of shells for the shotgun and a box of rounds for the revolver. Cat jumps in: ‘What’s the price for these works of art’? ‘That’s funny Cat, very funny. To you, a good friend of the family: seven hundred and fifty quid.’ ‘I don’t think so. Four fifty.’ ‘Six fifty.’ ‘Five hundred pounds sterling.’ ‘Done; money by tomorrow.’ ‘Possibly’ ‘You’re the wife of Jeff’s best mate, no problem. I know you are good for it.’ Kevin leaves the guns and the bags; he shakes Catriona’s hand, and then Jeff’s hand, in that order. And then he gives Jeff a longer, hard look of communication, as if they have a differing agenda and are far ahead of the present situation than the other present parties could possibly know about. I noticed it, but could not put my finger on it; so you leave it, what else can you do.

  We settle down over coffee and toast to discuss our plan. Catriona and I agree to travel to Surrey and book into a hotel. From there we will monitor the drop zone throughout the suspected day of the drop, literally from 0000hrs through to 2400hrs. At some point the Detective Peter Bramley will contact us and arrange to meet up for a briefing on whatever sting they have put into place. At this point we can inform them of our location and negotiate the way forward. Jeff’s brother interjects and wants to know more detail. Jeff holds him back, but I know this lot can be trusted and so we proceed to give them a little more. Look here Kevin; I have an ordinance survey map, the latitude and longitude coordinates point to an area of ground just outside Furner’s Green, which is on the A275 Lewes to Crawley road. It’s about 70 miles from here. Jeff, has someone got a car we can borrow? Other than the Jag, which people have seen already? ‘Take my work van, it’ll be ideal’. ‘Cheers mate’. It’s now approaching 5pm on Thursday and I would guess that the drop could be at anytime in the next thirty one hours. As we do not know the time of the drop, we will cover the drop area from midnight tonight, as dictated by the information we gleaned during the stake out in New York. The moral issues of letting 4 tonnes of Cocaine and god knows what else into the country worries myself and Cat; but I can honestly say at this time, I am more concerned with getting McGovans crew locked up so I can live my life with some degree of sanity. It’s time to get a move on, the Jag is outside, so I drive away from the house again to ensure my mobile is not triangulated. It is not until I am 5 miles away that I switch on and wait for the call from Tom.