Free Liz Carlyle - 05 - Present Danger by Stella Rimington Page A

retirement age, and though he’d been delighted to be called back by the service, he was feeling all of his sixty-four years. Still, he told himself, mustn’t grumble; far better to be sitting here than pretending to be enjoying some Golden Age of retirement with Moira, his wife of forty-one years, with his days spent walking the dog in Tulse Hill.
    There was a shortage of trained surveillance officers, they’d explained – with the terrorist threat increasing every day, A4 simply didn’t have enough good men to go round. Or women, Arthur told himself, since Maureen Hayes, who was sitting in a car not sixty yards away, could be sensitive about that sort of thing.
    He knew they didn’t want him for mobile surveillance; he was too old for that game now. He’d thought he’d just be helping out part-time in London, providing back up when Thames House found itself short of people to man the observation posts. But it had turned out to be more than that – here he was in Northern Ireland of all places, working full-time too until the powers that be could find enough permanent bodies for posting here.
    Jerry Rayman was another old lag brought in to help, which suited Arthur as they had worked together in A4 for years. Jerry read a lot and had a quirky sense of humour that helped pass the time. And who knew how long it would last? Enjoy it while you may my son, he told himself, thinking again with relief of those dog walks he was missing.
    The two men sat in a room on the second floor of a Victorian brick office building in the middle of Belfast. It had been refurbished and newly leased to a software group that had not yet moved in – and were therefore happy to rent out a single office at the front for the temporary use of a company (Dodd’s Ultra Logistics) that had offered two months’ rent up front.
    Directly opposite, across the street, was another, much more modern office building, all glass and steel. Its first floor was let to Fraternal Holdings, the object of Arthur Haverford and Jerry Rayman’s scrutiny. This was only the third day of surveillance from this temporary observation post, and so far it had been quiet. Quiet? thought Arthur. More like stone dead. From this vantage point they had a good view of the parking lot, which had four spaces; until this morning not one of these spaces had been occupied. Maybe now it would pick up, thought Arthur, as through his headphones he heard Maureen Hayes announce, ‘The Audi’s parking now. In the managing director’s space.’
    Below on the street, sitting for the last half hour in a Peugeot 405 directly across from the parking lot, Maureen Hayes was apparently reading a book, as if waiting for someone. She lifted the paperback slightly as she turned a page, which allowed her to point the slim camera inside in the direction of the Audi, where a man in a leather jacket was getting out of the driving seat. Someone in the back was also getting out – a thin, greying man dressed in a suit and tie. Must be the MD, she thought, as the shutter automatically clicked open and shut repeatedly while the men walked towards the entrance to the building. ‘Two in,’ announced Maureen to the microphone in her lap.
    The reception area of the company was at the front of the building opposite, behind the huge plate glass window, and from his chair set back behind a partially drawn blind, Arthur had a clear view of it. He put down his tea and took up the binoculars, focusing on the reception desk. Twenty seconds later the lift must have opened (he could not quite see it), as the same two men entered the reception area. Neither stopped at the desk, but simply walked on, disappearing into the back of the building.
    Arthur spoke into his microphone. ‘The targets have entered Fraternal’s offices.’
    After this brief excitement, nothing happened for another hour. Inactivity was a watcher’s enemy, but Arthur and Jerry were old hands, and knew how to make the time pass – usually