Catalyst (53 page)

He raised his head and looked again at the sea of faces in front of him. The lights on the tree were reflected in the tears standing in his eyes. His voice was hoarse but carried easily to the farthest corners of the church.

“Let this be Alma's legacy. Amen.”

After a moment's silence, the whole congregation responded.

“Amen.”

Afterwards, Jad was taken out through the vestry entrance, but with people a dozen or so deep surrounding the church, it was impossible to keep him from the public's attention. Extra police were speedily drafted to the scene, abandoning the plan for lowprofile control of the event, and three motor-cycle out-riders – in an arrow-head formation – were needed to part the crowds ahead of the security vehicle returning him to Pentonville.

The Multinational's Global Headquarters resided in Chicago, Illinois, in spite of its name suggesting it should be somewhere else. The Hilton Düsseldorf, then, would not seem the most obvious venue for a high-level meeting involving key members of the Company's Board. The Senior Vice Presidents for Finance, Operations and Logistics had flown in to Schipol Airport early the previous day for a pre-meeting at the company's European Head Office in Amsterdam, and then travelled the 140 miles across the border to the hotel in a chauffer-driven car during the evening. The effects of jet-lag had been completely off-set by the prospect of the meeting – unprecedented in the experience of any of the participants and with potentially huge significance for both parties.

The meeting the following morning began at 10.00 am, after a late breakfast, and business was concluded by 1.30 pm. The deal was struck, smiling handshakes were exchanged and papers signed. The two groups went their separate ways. The US contingent adjourned to the hotel's luxurious Axis bar for a celebratory drink and light lunch. Theirs would be an early night at the hotel; the following morning they would catch the Lufthansa flight from Nordrhein-Westfalen Airport direct to Chicago. The previous two days' exertions and excitement began to catch up with them, and two of the three were asleep in their designer chairs by the time the rolls and salads arrived.

The three-strong UK delegation stepped out into the freezing cold and walked along Georg-glock-strasse, towards the Rhine. They crossed the Kaiserwerther Strasse and weaved their way through the streets to the embankment, heading south along Robert-lehr-ufer flanked by the river on their right and Rheinpark to the left. The temperature was around thirty degrees Celsius lower than in the Board Room on the mezzanine floor of the hotel and it took the whole of the mile-and-a-half walk to the Canoo Restaurant for their lungs to get accustomed to the change. They had just about stopped hurting when they took their seats at a table overlooking the delicate structure of the Oberkasseler Bridge, crossing the river just a little further upstream.

They ordered drinks – a Becks each – and chose starters and mains from the extensive lunchtime menu. One of the two men excused himself – ‘a comfort break', he said – and left the room. The other two members of the party looked smilingly into each others eyes, their expressions reflecting both the success of the meeting and their delight in each other's company.

The convoy of four unmarked vehicles made its way northwards as inconspicuously as possible along the M6, stopping briefly at the same motorway services where Detective Chief Inspector David Gerrard had purchased his sandwiches six months previously. The vehicles were directed to a secure area, cordoned off by high boards. In addition to the armed guards in the escort, a dozen local police officers from the Special Firearms Unit awaited their arrival in the screened-off zone. Half-an-hour later they resumed their journey, soon leaving the motorway and heading north-east into the dramatic winter landscape of the West Pennine Moors.

Two of the vehicles parked up on the outskirts of the small town, the others picking their way through the narrow streets before crawling silently and carefully up the short ice-covered lane to the terraced house which was their destination. The door of the house was already open; a young man wearing a heavy military overcoat sat just inside the doorway in a wheel-chair, nervously wringing his hands and occasionally wiping tears from his anxious face. John Deverall looked across at him from the rear seat of the leading car as it stopped at the curb, and his own tears ran freely. The young woman sitting by his side reached over and held his hand, her own eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway.

EPILOGUE

On the morning following the broken mug incident in the kitchen at Etherington Place, bleary-eyed through lack of sleep, but with a renewed sense of purpose, Tom Brown slipped into the chaufferdriven 700 series BMW which had crawled silently up the drive to his house at 6.30 am.

His errant children had informed Mags by text at around 3.00 am that they were staying over with friends and going directly to college the next day. He had finally slipped into bed in his room – he was now separated from Mags by half the house – at around 4.00 am, placing the half-dozen pieces of the mug on his dressing table and setting his alarm to wake him at 6.00. It was cutting it a bit fine, perhaps, to make the 6.30 pick-up, and so it proved; it was a few minutes before 7.00 am when he descended the three steps to the driveway.

“Morning, Paul,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Morning, Home Secretary,” his driver replied, opening the rear door with a brief salute. “And don't worry, sir. I'll get you there in time.”

Paul Webster closed the door as Tom settled into the leather sofa which served as a rear seat. He had not had time for any breakfast, but he had shaved and showered, and coffee and croissants would await him at the meeting. As they pulled out of the drive, a second vehicle, with two Special Branch officers inside, slipped in behind them to escort them to Westminster.

Within a couple of minutes he found himself slipping into a shallow sleep. As he drifted off, his last conscious thought – of a group of young men heading fearfully into the unknown – faded then re-formed into a vivid memory from his own past.

Sierra Leone, September 2000. He was with the SBS involved in a coordinated rescue operation – official codename ‘Barras', but dubbed ‘Operation Certain Death' by the Special Forces involved. Their objective was to free soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment, who, whilst on a UN peacekeeping mission, had been captured by units of the rebel militia, known as the ‘West Side Boys'. Eleven hostages had been taken, of which five were subsequently released. The remaining six had been tortured and held to ransom, the rebels making various demands of the British authorities for money, arms and concessions in return for their release.

They were being held in Geri Bana, one of three villages fifty miles east of Freetown on the Rokel Creek River, where the rebels were encamped. Tom was in command of one of two integrated SBS-SAS observation teams who, using inflatable raiding craft and under cover of darkness, penetrated the jungle upriver of the camp. They successfully delivered intelligence on rebel numbers and positions and, vitally, information that ruled out either a land or river operation. As a result of this, it was decided that a direct aerial assault, although very dangerous, was the only option. The main attack would be carried out using Lynx helicopter gunships to fire on rebel positions and Chinooks to land Paras close to where the hostages were imprisoned.

As the observation teams set off, Tom, seated at the front of the leading Raider, looked over his shoulder at John Deverall just a few feet away. As with all the high-risk operations they had shared, the anxiety showed on his face. He returned Tom's look with wide eyes but without the hint of a smile.

The vivid recollection of that fearful look on the face of his best friend briefly dominated his consciousness as he awoke suddenly from his disturbed sleep. In his mind's eye, he saw that expression, intensified a thousand times, transposed onto each of the faces of a group of young men – a group with a similar age profile to the one he had commanded on that day.

They too would be heading across the water into the unknown; but theirs would be a feeling of utter hopelessness rather than anxiety; a feeling fully warranted by their circumstances. They would not be clinging to the hand ropes around the edge of a Rigid Raider, but to a hope that they would soon awake from their nightmare. They would not be bouncing precariously against the surge of a rushing river, looking forward to the completion of their mission, but gliding smoothly towards a living oblivion from which there was no possible return.

“… the children of the wicked shall be cut off… ”

Jad's words from the pulpit came back to him. He checked his watch. In less than two hours' time, at 9.00 am, the irreversible step would be taken, and the start of the process would mark the end of everything for the occupants of the vessel. He had been to the place himself. He remembered it well, how he had stepped forward and been greeted with ‘Look out, lads, here comes the Hotel Inspector.' There had been a touch of genuine humour at the time; not today.

He was momentarily shaken; a rare and unnerving experience for a man whose entire life had been driven by absolute certainty in the justification of his actions.

He reached for his phone.

“Hello, Grace Goody.”

“Hi, Grace. It's so good to hear your voice. I'm really sorry to call you this early but… ”

“That's okay. I told you – any time – day or night. What's wrong?”