Chapter 23

 

Three weeks to go. Three weeks before the two biggest rival countries in modern history went to war on a battlefield once again … only this time the battlefield was to be a football pitch.

While the result of the match between Germany and England was as meaningless as the Christmas Day no-man’s-land kick-about between the two countries during the First World War, the stakes had never been so high since the two clashed in the World Cup final in 1966.

FIFA had narrowed their shortlist of bidding countries to host the World Cup in 2006 to these two. Their decision was coincidently expected within the weeks after the match and the winner would secure a windfall of billions of pounds ploughed into its economy.

While the bid organising committees’ campaigns focused on the benefits that such a tournament would bring to their countries, the media had concentrated their coverage on the story that everyone wanted to read and watch.

Football officials, politicians, even the Prime Minister and Chancellor, were all roped into the debate as counter-accusation followed accusation that each other’s nation was incapable of hosting such an event.

The football hooliganism problems plaguing England’s national team had cast a huge shadow of doubt over its bid and the Germans were slight favourites to land the biggest show on earth.

Of course, if England fans ran amok in Germany in three weeks time, as they had done on their previous trips abroad over the last 14 months, then the coffin lid would be firmly nailed down and England’s bid would surely be buried once and for all.

Milton was again reminded of this during his latest conference call with his hierarchy. They had come out of the French trouble relatively unscathed, with the French authorities carrying most of the responsibility due to their unwillingness to co-operate.

Word had also got through to Jacks and he was fuming. The sole intention of his ruthless campaign was to position the nation as a white, Christian country unable to control its spiralling undercurrent of thugs and show that England was not a place for foreigners anymore.

“It appears, men, that we wasted our time in France,” he said at a classroom session. “France was a write-off. We’ll go all guns blazing into Germany and finish this job off once and for all.”

He was concocting a plan that would involve all the men at Expatriatedotcom, which meant some 50 trained fighters - specialist football hooligans.

Life for Milton at Expatriatedotcom was never going to be the same. On the one hand, he truly admired Jacks for bouncing back from such a terrible experience all those years ago. But, on the other hand, he was fearful of what he may be capable of.

Jacks was calling the German match ‘the Big Bang’ and said it was time to gain revenge for the torture that country had put their fathers and grandfathers through during the two world wars. The men were being whipped up into a frenzy at each session and Milton knew they would be like a crazed pack of wolves by the time they reached Munich.

In the meantime, back home Waite was enjoying a better relationship with the German police than he had experienced with the French force and everything seemed to be running to plan.

However, one thing did not add up for Milton, who was continually fighting his inner self over theory after theory. With no one alongside him to bounce ideas and scenarios off, he was playing his own devil’s advocate.

Since the France game, Jacks had made two trips to Germany alone and Interpol transport records showed that he had flown to Berlin, not to Munich where the match was being played.

He also recalled that Jacks had made two ‘business’ trips to Berlin in the weeks running up to the France game. Munich was some distance from Berlin. There was no point planning trouble there because Jacks would not have the backup of his thousands of foot soldiers who inadvertently played a huge part in his successful missions.

Neither would there be the TV and newspaper entourage in Berlin. Without them, his operations were a waste of time and effort. The unwitting propaganda juggernaut carried his anti-everything-not-English message to the world.

He could not be flying to Berlin for a connection on to Munich because it was easier to fly direct to Munich from Dubai.

Things weren’t adding up.

He had to find out why Jacks was flying to Berlin and what he was doing there. The excuse that he was there for work did not stick anymore. His opportunity would come during the week before the game was to be played.

Milton found out through Stardust that he, Jacks, Chalky and JT would be flying to Munich as the initial intelligence gatherers. Stardust let it slip that Jacks would be flying to Berlin first to tie up a few business loose ends and would catch them up in Munich the following day.

Milton had become convinced that Jacks had an ulterior motive to his football hooliganism operation and was sure that the answers lay in Berlin.

He could not go himself - that would be far too risky - so he put his trust in Waite, who booked a flight to arrive in Berlin the day before Jacks was expected to descend.

Such was Milton’s fear about a breach of security that he and Waite were the only two to know about this plan. Waite simply told the team that he was taking a couple of days off to be with his sick mother.

Waite was to trail Jacks’s every move from when he stepped foot off the plane in Berlin to the time he left.

“I want you close enough to smell his aftershave,” said Milton. “But stay out of sight. This man is a master at communications remember, but we have surprise on our side. He will never suspect that he is being followed, I am sure of that. If you are compromised, Waite, your life will be in danger. Just be careful.”

 

* * *

 

Although Waite had never actually seen Jacks in the flesh, Milton had supplied plenty of pictures. The image of Jacks as a teenager on his mother’s wall and the grainy CCTV images from his barbaric attack were also still fresh in his mind.

Most of the new pictures were from the barbecues held at Jacks’s villa, but they were good enough for Waite to recognise him immediately as he came through the arrivals gate at Berlin.

Waite trailed him like a customs officer through to the pavement outside the arrivals hall, where he was surprised to see him climb into a waiting limousine with darkened windows. The uniformed driver welcomed him with a salute and opened the door to allow him into the back seat.

Hmmm, Waite frowned to himself. What are you up to?

Waite summoned the next passing taxi and trailed the black car through the busy streets.

They followed the limo for almost an hour until it pulled up at an official-looking building which had the German flag proudly flying over its entrance. It looked like a civic building of some sort.

Jacks got out and was welcomed at the foot of the building’s steps by two suited middle-aged men who warmly shook his hand and led him indoors.

Waite paid the taxi driver and walked to a small coffee shop across the street. From its window he could monitor the front door of the building.

“One tea, please,” he said, placing his order before the approaching waiter had time to speak. “That building across the road is very impressive. What is it?”

The waiter finished writing Waite’s order down on his small pad.

“Ah, sir, I have had the pleasure of looking at that magnificent building from this window for 14 years. It is the pride of Germany,” said the waiter, who appeared to be reminiscing about past times.

“Yes, indeed,” said Waite. “But what does it house? What is inside?” He gestured with his hands to make the importance of his question clearer.

“It is the Ministry for Local Affairs. I think you would call it in England the Home Office?”

What the hell would Jacks be doing at the Home Office in Germany? Waite felt very uncomfortable.

The hours passed and Waite was struggling to keep his eyes open. Surveillance just wasn’t his field and the waiter’s grasp of English wasn’t quite good enough to talk about anything other than football and that damned building across the street.

“I remember once when your Maggie Thatcher came here,” he said whilst cleaning the table next to Waite. “Whatever happened to Maggie Thatcher?”

By now, he was well and truly bored and was willing to talk about anything.

“She’s now a page three girl,” he joked, knowing full well that his new-found friend had no idea what that meant.

The waiter simply appreciated the information.

Waite, in his boredom, imagined that during the course of the next week that same waiter would be saying to an Englishman sitting in the café, “I remember once when Maggie Thatcher came here. She’s working as a page three girl now you know.”

Four hours had gone by and the light outside was fading fast. Not too dark for Waite to see the building opposite, though.

Finally Jacks emerged from the building side by side with a man who had become well known to Waite, and to just about everyone else who owned a television set in the Western world.

“Hans Schmidt,” he said to himself in disbelief, but the waiter heard him.

“That is right, sir. Hans Schmidt,” he repeated.

Schmidt was a German MP appointed two years earlier to head up his country’s bid for hosting the World Cup 2006. He was a national iconic figure and had been on television dozens of times over the past weeks pushing Germany’s bid and berating the English effort.

He garnered the sort of respect from the people of Germany that Jacks enjoyed in his own small world in Dubai. Schmidt was climbing the political ladder fast and a successful bid for the World Cup was expected to lead him to the country’s top job, that of Chancellor. Time and time again he had gloated to the world’s media about how England was unable to control its hooligan problem, and yet here he was, laughing and joking with the biggest exponent of the English disease.

The penny dropped. Jacks and the Germans shared the same ideals and goals. Both wanted England portrayed as a far right nation allergic to foreigners. Jacks’s reason was to exact revenge on a country that had disowned him during his time of need; the Germans’ to ensure they won the right to host the world’s biggest event of any kind.

“I do not believe this,” said Waite as he clambered out of the café for a closer look.

The two spent a little time exchanging jokes next to the open door of the limo before embracing and going their separate ways - Jacks into the limo and Schmidt back into the building.

Waite had seen enough. The light was too dull to get pictures, so he ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the nearest phone box and frantically tapped in Milton’s number at the hotel.

Milton had deliberately taken the day off sick - citing the pain of his facial wound - so that he could wait by the phone.

“Sir, we have opened a can of worms here now,” said Waite.

He went on to tell Milton the lot.

“Hans Schmidt!” was all Milton could muster.

“Yes, sir. Jacks must be collaborating with the Germans. He has been festering after the way he was treated all those years ago and now he is about to unleash one hell of a revenge.”

“Hans bloody Schmidt?” Milton was still struggling to accept it.

“What do we do now, sir?” asked Waite.

Milton rested the phone to his side as he gathered his thoughts. He had to find proof linking Jacks to Schmidt. There was only Waite’s word so far linking the two. In hindsight he wished he had assigned a full surveillance team, but not in his wildest dreams did he expect to uncover such a twist in Berlin.

He had honestly suspected that maybe it was a business trip to Berlin. Maybe Jacks had a woman there? Maybe he was meeting fellow hooligans? Never in a million years did he suspect that Jacks would be meeting a Minister.

He had to find out what they were up to. In court, they could quite easily say that they were inking a deal to buy 10,000 German flags from Expatriatedotcom.

In reality, though, Milton was sure that they were inking a deal to unleash terror on the streets of Munich a week later.

Of course, it was all starting to make sense. Riots on the streets of Germany initiated by the English would virtually guarantee FIFA giving Germany the nod. However, if Milton could piece together the jigsaw in court and reveal that Germany was actually working with a rogue band of English hooligans to instigate the trouble, that would surely rule them out of the equation and England would be victorious in its bid.

Milton told Waite to return back to base immediately to co-ordinate the operation on the ground and he would be in touch. He cautioned him not say a word about this to anyone else just yet.

It left him pondering in his hotel room.

Why would Jacks want to become an ally of the Germans if he was so patriotic?

Why?

Then it dawned on him.

All that stuff in the classroom about patriotism, about helping England to be great again, was bullshit. He had brainwashed his men into believing that they were on some crusade to put the ‘Great’ back into Britain when all the time he was betraying his country.

It was now becoming clearer why Jacks was making his journeys to Berlin alone. If Stardust, Chalky, or any one of the men really knew what he was up to, he was sure they would lynch him.

Then he remembered the other thing that Jacks kept close to his chest - the company accounts.

Milton had never been able to understand how the business could pay such high wages to so many men without going bankrupt. Of course, there must be a source of money coming from elsewhere and that source must surely be the Germans.

However, it was all circumstantial evidence and nothing that could stand up in court. He needed hard evidence: a paper trail; or, more importantly, a money trail.

It was obvious now to Milton that the beating and the rape had stirred up a deep hatred and feeling of betrayal towards England and this was his way of exacting revenge.

The incident in Turkey was followed by his own regiment, which had in some respects become his family, kicking him out. The mission to free the Arab sheikh was dismissed by the British Government and that must have pushed him over the edge. Ensuring that his mother thought he was dead meant he had no reason to return to the country that had turned its back on him. He had been biding his time for revenge.

He had patiently recruited his own followers, who had unwittingly been used as pawns in his determined bid to make England pay for what it had done to him.

Germany was to be his swansong and he had to be stopped - and what a swansong he was planning.