Agent of the State (13 page)

Hussain rolled back his chair, slid behind his desk opposite Malik and typed in three passwords. ‘Who knows? The boy’s capture is regrettable but the hysteria in the British press shows the attack was a success.’

‘The woman who authorised his visa, is she contained?’

‘She lives in fear, totally in our grip.’

‘You must be careful, Rashid.’

The Syrian was checking his mobile phone for messages. ‘I directed Harold to create a firewall between her and the immigration office. The trail cannot lead back to us,’ he said. ‘Our operation is secure, believe me. I know about these things.’

Rashid Hussain always spoke with confidence. Malik depended entirely on him to control his blackmail operation, but still had difficulty in accepting all of his judgements.

‘Rashid, are you sure the intensive police activity around Jibril will not make us vulnerable? Can we still use him for the last phase?’

‘The cops will be no problem,’ smiled Hussain, relaxed as ever. ‘The boy will be released. You have my promise.’

They paused as one of the young women associates knocked and entered the office with the draft contract for a real-estate deal. Malik smiled at her as she turned to leave. ‘Give me a moment, please, Esra.’

To conduct his legitimate commercial affairs Malik employed five graduates from the city’s ancient university, including two women. They worked in an adjacent open-plan office, and the women wore the
hijab
. The door to his own office was secured by three locks and always alarmed at night.

He waited until the woman had closed the door behind her. ‘You are certain this allows us sufficient latitude for Operation English Rose?’

‘The timing is perfect. The overseers will brief us for final clearance for the removal when they visit next week.’

Malik pressed the buzzer to summon Esra. ‘We must return to this.’

‘I am telling you, Malik. We have the woman in our grasp. We will use English Rose to crush her. Then topple her government like a rotten tree.’

Thirteen

Friday, 14 September, 07.55, Room 1830

‘I’m telling you, the databases are clear. Excalibur has been wiped. Everything on Jibril has disappeared.’ Fargo was taking it personally. Despite his promise to John Kerr that he would rest, he had obviously spent most of the night in 1830, searching his magic box. He was wearing a different crumpled shirt, probably a stand-by stuffed into his drawer for emergencies, but the same trousers, still flecked with dust and debris from the explosion. His damp hair showed he had used the shower next to the ops room, but he still looked wrecked and sweaty.

‘Access denied, you mean?’ said Justin.

‘No,’ said Melanie, quietly. ‘I think he means destroyed.’

Kerr’s team were in what Fargo called the reading room, a tiny glass-screened area, with a single desk and computer terminal, squeezed into a corner of Room 1830. As soon as he had heard the alarming news from Fargo in the early hours, Kerr had decided to collect them together. Kerr, Langton, Melanie and Justin crowded round the small table while Fargo squatted on the airvent with the tower of Westminster Abbey looming behind him. Kerr had brought in double espressos from the sandwich bar in St James’s Park station across the road from the Yard. When Fargo had immediately knocked his over, dousing his notes and spilling coffee into the airvent, the others had laughed and accused him of finally killing off the aircon.

‘Let me show you.’ Fargo leant across Justin to type in the search. ‘Look, the old intelligence has gone, and if there’s anything new we’re not getting it.’

‘Since when?’ said Langton.

‘Since hours after his arrest. Or even minutes.’

‘Who put the block on?’ said Melanie.

‘Inter-agency politics,’ groaned Justin, shaking his head.

‘Or something more sinister?’ said Melanie.

They looked at Kerr, but he had done his thinking hours before and wanted their ideas. The pressure of their fast-moving surveillance operations meant Kerr’s team spent most of their time together on the street, or in cold vehicles and freezing observation posts. Compared with that, Alan Fargo’s cramped workstation was sheer luxury. Everyone was pretending this was just another day, but this morning they looked damaged. The gauze dressing visible beneath Justin’s woollen hat was a reminder of his own narrow escape from death. Justin was a brilliant Durham University engineering graduate and held down the most sensitive job in SO15. But this morning he was in his jeans, T-shirt and baseball boots, and Melanie told him he looked just a kid.

Melanie had bruised her upper arm when she was thrown against the bus and Kerr saw her wince when Justin accidentally pressed against her. She had been the first to arrive after Fargo and looked all right, dressed for a normal shift at the office. Langton had winked at her and mouthed, ‘OK?’ as he squeezed alongside. In jeans, polo shirt and motorcycle boots, he looked uncomfortable without his leathers, eager to return to the street.

‘So, Joe Allenby gives us a terrorist from Yemen under the wire,’ continued Melanie. ‘Then somebody in London presses the button and the bad guy suddenly becomes a clean skin. What does that say to you?’

‘Jibril is being brought into the UK by MI5 as, I dunno, some sort of Al Qaeda mole?’ said Justin, frowning. ‘And whoever it is forgot to tell Joe Allenby. Isn’t it inconceivable that MI5 wouldn’t involve the man on the ground?’

Melanie gave a short laugh. ‘Five not speaking to Six, you mean? Come off it, Justin. We’re talking serious power games here. And budgets, and sucking up to Number Ten.’

‘If Jibril was recruited in Yemen they’d need Joe to set the whole thing up,’ said Langton. ‘He would have known about it from day one, probably made the actual pitch.’

‘I still think it’s completely possible MI5 would keep Joe in the dark,’ said Melanie. ‘Perhaps they were going to approach Jibril in London and we ruined the master plan by arresting him.’

‘OK, so who paid for his flight?’ said Justin. ‘I say Joe would have to have been in the loop.’

‘That’s the other piece of crap news,’ said Fargo. ‘Allenby has disappeared. I tried the MI6 office in Yemen last night but it was switched to voicemail. Closest I got was Vauxhall Cross. Night-duty officer blanked me.’

They shot another glance at Kerr.

‘So what about the intel?’ asked Melanie.

Fargo shrugged. ‘Vauxhall wouldn’t say.’

‘So, Jibril is either a terrorist or an agent. And if he’s on our side everyone kept it from Joe, right? And now we’re getting radio silence.’ Kerr was staying cool, but this concerned him as much as the interference with Excalibur. He needed cover from Allenby because he had defended himself to Weatherall and Ritchie solely on the basis of his friend’s tip-off. ‘Remind us, Al,’ he said, ‘what was the info from Yemen? What were Allenby’s exact words?’

‘He scanned a handwritten message to our unit in Heathrow with Jibril’s details, pic and flight number,’ said Fargo, wiping coffee from his notes. ‘Quote, “This is to return a favour. Please forward urgently to JK. Take care and good hunting,” unquote.’

Kerr was frowning. ‘I helped him last summer with an agent pitch at Terminal Four on the hurry-up, but that’s nothing special.’

‘It was Sunday afternoon. Allenby had time on his hands.’ Justin shrugged.

‘None of it makes sense,’ said Melanie, ‘because people like Allenby, working in a country as volatile as Yemen, have a motive for everything. So let’s not waste time on the cock-up theory.’

‘She’s right, John,’ agreed Langton. ‘This has to be a calculated act. MI6 don’t do return favours unless there’s something in it for them. If Allenby short-circuited the normal reporting channels to London it was for a reason.’

Kerr was beckoning to someone in the outer office. Detective Sergeant Karl Sergeyev, unfailingly correct, gave a courteous tap on the glass before squeezing round the door. Russian by birth, he was over six foot three, powerfully built and always immaculately dressed. This morning he was wearing a charcoal suit with white shirt and yellow tie. The cufflinks were gold, and the black shoes Italian. He took a long look at them all as they greeted him, and gave Melanie a special smile. ‘I heard about Hackney,’ he said, in his deep bass voice, the only person explicitly to mention her ordeal the day before. ‘I suppose you look pretty good, considering.’

Justin reached out to test the wool of Sergeyev’s jacket. ‘And nice of you to slum it with the lower orders.’ He shifted up to make room, but Karl joined Fargo on the airvent, carefully avoiding the pool of spilt coffee.

Karl Sergeyev worked the Rest of the World desk, just along the corridor from Room 1830. Known simply as ROW, it covered global political extremism apart from Al Qaeda, including counter-espionage. A natural intelligence officer, he was firmly plugged into London’s
émigré
community and seized every opportunity to cultivate visiting big cheeses from Eastern Europe. Karl was popular, the kind of guy everyone was happy to have alongside them. He was also attractive to women, a trait that, according to the rumour mill, was about to cost him his marriage.

‘Looks like I’m a bit late, boss,’ he said, tapping Fargo’s empty cup.

‘Perfect timing,’ said Kerr. ‘You can imagine what I’m getting from my gang of conspiracy theorists. Anything happening on your radar?’

The others exchanged glances. At some stage during the night, Kerr had obviously briefed him on the whole story.

Karl slowly shook his head. ‘On my side everyone’s got clean hands, these days. It’s all about protocol and trade. With the focus on energy, of course. Cold War forgotten, relationship reset,’ he said. After sixteen years in the Branch his accent was as strong as ever, the sentences short and spare. ‘These are the days of co-operation. Joint investigations all over the place, especially against fraud and trafficking. Ambassadors taking tea with the commissioner. Multiple exchanges of criminal and political intelligence with us and other EU partners. Terrorism in the UK? None of the people I’m interested in would risk getting their hands that dirty. To me this looks straight Al Qaeda. Sorry, guys.’

‘That’s fine, Karl. So let’s concentrate on Jibril himself. Can you have a quiet recce at Paddington Green, Mel? See what they’re up to?’

‘I already called my contact. Uniform sergeant in the custody suite. There’s something strange occurring there, too. Couple of MI5 girls pitched up almost as soon as Jibril. Plus a bloke he thinks must be from Joe Allenby’s lot at Vauxhall Cross because the women don’t seem to want him there.’

‘Probably arguing about who has the lead,’ said Langton. ‘But why would Five and Six want to muscle in on a UK police investigation? It’s totally against protocol. Why isn’t Finch telling them to fuck off?’

Melanie shrugged. ‘Whatever, between them they’re trying to hijack the whole thing.’

‘I’ll take a look at that,’ said Kerr.

‘It’s a bit pathetic, actually,’ continued Melanie, ‘and Jibril is staying dead silent, of course.’

‘Who’s he got for his lawyer?’

‘A woman no one’s ever heard of. Julia Bakkour. Smart, polite and confident, like she’s defending some hotshot City fraudster. Office in Manor Park, the smart end of East Ham. Wears a headscarf but she’s Westernised and affluent, not one of your
pro bono
community-worker types. “
Jilbab
and jewels” is how my contact describes her. A real piece of work.’

‘Who called her?’

‘No one seems to know. But I already did a look-up and Bakkour has no background in defending terrorists.’

Kerr frowned. There was a well-known cadre of lawyers specialising in terrorism cases, so the sudden appearance of Bakkour on the scene was highly unusual. ‘Did Jibril ask for her?’

‘Not according to my contact,’ said Melanie. ‘And there’s no record of anyone instructing her. She appeared out of nowhere, apparently, pacing round Paddington Green front office almost as soon as they’d banged Jibril up.’

‘OK. Say thanks to your guy, Mel. And tell him to watch his back. I don’t want him taking any more risks for us. Hold on, everyone.’ Through the window in the door he saw Bill Ritchie enter 1830, pick up the daily secret intelligence brief and head for the reading room. ‘Sit back,’ said Kerr, minimising the screen.

Ritchie paused as he spotted them, then put his head round the door. ‘What’s new?’

‘Just doing the welfare debrief,’ said Kerr, as Fargo covered his papers.

‘Well done yesterday, folks.’ Kerr nodded at Karl, the outsider on this particular operation. ‘And you’ve all been for a med check, yes? Justin?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Melanie, lying for them all.

‘Can you spare me a few minutes after this?’ asked Kerr.

‘Wall to wall meetings,’ replied Bill Ritchie. Kerr couldn’t decide whether he was still pissed off with him. ‘Give me a call late this afternoon.’ Or perhaps he was hiding something.

When he was gone the team made faces at Kerr, as if he was in disgrace.

Kerr exhaled loudly, his mind made up. ‘So stuff them,’ he said, ‘we’ll work this among ourselves. Let’s find out how Ahmed Jibril got into the country. Can we track down his passport, check out his other possessions?’

‘All embargoed by the investigators,’ said Melanie.