Dreams to Die For (21 page)

Three weeks after Easter, the man known to Fadyar as Claude Carron lunched by arrangement in a small restaurant in Mennecy, just off the main A6 due south of Paris. He sat and waited. A few minutes later he was joined by a middle-aged, white woman dressed in a smart black suit. He ordered a bottle of the house red wine. A little later they were eating their meals, all the while chatting about nothing in particular. A casual observer would think them office colleagues. Without changing her voice, the woman suddenly said to Carron.

“Are you sure you have a contact that is suitable? This is an important operation for us.”

“I believe so, but of course you haven't yet told me precisely what it is” Carron coolly replied.

“You wouldn't expect me to Claude. All I will say is that we have certain information about the movements of one of our relatives that has come from our London office. Someone who speaks fluent English would be needed. The full details will be passed only to the person you nominate, and I remind you that person is to receive every assistance from you thereafter.”

Carron was pleased and smiled. An operation in the UK was just perfect for Fadyar. She had all the attributes and spoke fluent English; and she was becoming very restless. This would be her chance for glory or martyrdom.

“This will be an ideal operation for whom I have in mind. Indeed I would say the person I am thinking of will be eminently suitable, believe me.”

“Then it is settled. Please pass me a contact number. We shall not meet again after this Claude.”

Carron wrote down Fadyar's mobile telephone number on a spare serviette and the nameless woman slipped it into her handbag. They finished their meals and paid the bill. On the way out, Carron walked with the woman to her car. At the door, she turned and looked in the handbag for her keys and said, “You must now be very careful, Carron. You will be told the date of our operation in time for you to leave France. If anything goes wrong, you must not be captured.”

She opened the door and sat behind the wheel, put the key in the ignition and lowered the window. She then leaned her head out slightly and said goodbye, and with a wave of her hand drove out of the car park. Her job was almost finished as far as this operation was concerned. She did not need, nor want, to know whom Carron would choose to carry out the mission. It was a rule that information exchange was to be kept to an absolute minimum to protect each other and to safeguard their organisation. What one didn't know, one couldn't reveal under interrogation. Two hours later Carron's lunch time companion was on a scheduled flight to Ankara.

Fadyar left the office that evening, and was walking along the Rue Chabonais in the midst of the usual throng of scurrying commuters and languid tourists when she heard the distinctive dual tones of her second mobile phone informing her she had a text message. She knew it had to be important. No one other than Carron was aware of its number. As soon as she was inside her flat, she excitedly accessed her message. It was headed ‘Wednesday', which told her that the message had been written in Code 4 – Wednesday being the fourth day of the week. She retrieved her codebook from the small fireproof safe in the corner of her bedroom cupboard and turned to page four. An average observer would not have realised that seven of the sheets of paper inside the notebook represented codes. The codes had not been placed on adjoining pages but scattered at random throughout the book, and each page of the thirty page book was individually numbered but not in sequence. Anyone glancing at the book would wonder what on earth the various letters and numbers referred to and, even if a page was more closely scrutinised, it was only a one in four and a half chance that they would be looking at one of the real codes. She set about deciphering the garbled text on the small screen before her and an hour later looked at what she had written down.

Fadyar was so thrilled she shouted out, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” She remembered that ‘Father in Law' was the American Secretary of State, Dean Assiter, and ‘friends' clearly related to him being guarded by some protection officers. She was going to be given three associates to help in the operation. Her supervisors at the training camp had told her that it was understood any operation took weeks if not months of planning, and once set and agreed the leader of the group, Fadyar in this case, was in sole charge of timescale, logistics and method, though in this case the timeframe for her mission seemed already determined. There was no mention of where she was to hand Assiter over to those who would be keeping him in captivity, assuming her kidnapping of him was a success. It appeared her masters would leave that to her or possibly provide details later.

Elated, she turned on her laptop and spent the next couple of hours browsing the internet, learning about Dean Assiter and researching location NH 0701502488 where Assiter and his wife were going to be in September for ten days. She very quickly assimilated all she needed to know about her target, which in reality turned out to be remarkably little and, having downloaded a few pictures of him and his attractive wife, turned her attention to the grid reference. It surprised her that according to the UK Ordnance Survey website the location was in the North of Scotland and that she would require the Landranger series of 1:50000 maps, numbers 33, 34, 40 and 41. Combined, these maps would provide her the necessary detail of both the general area and precise location of her assignment, though an even greater detailed series of maps were available if she needed them. Fadyar picked up the mobile and, deliberately not encoded, typed ‘
Great'
and sent the innocuous message to a different number. There was no going back now. The next morning she would hand in her notice to Pethane and leave her crap, stifling job one week later.

As soon as she had sent her acknowledgement, Fadyar removed the sim card from her mobile phone, placed it in her study room guillotine and cut it in half. She then went for a walk and crossed the river Seigne by her favourite bridge, the pedestrian only Passarelle des Arts – or Pont des Arts as she and most Parisians refer to it. Darkness had fallen, and although beautiful by day, the bridge – with its own illumination, and that of the city and of the nearby Louvre – was simply stunning at night. She never hurried across this bridge, never tired of the panoramic vista, never wished to think of the day she might leave it behind. The enemies of Islam may be infidels, but they too can create beautiful cities. Tonight she ambled more slowly than usual, her light steps muffled by the wooden planks that were laid across the bridge, and paused frequently to look down at the river, much like any tourist. The lattice steel side barriers were not high, ideal in enabling her to drop the sim card pieces and the phone into the water at different intervals without arousing suspicion.

Fadyar slept easily that night. She had been chosen. The next seven days passed slowly and well before she finally left the factory, she had finished going through the contents of her flat and identifying any items she would need for her initial, fact-finding visit to the United Kingdom. Although there was plenty of time between now and September, it was her responsibility to plan and execute the mission and she was determined to ensure that every detail had been considered and properly evaluated. There was a further reason for making an early visit to the UK. She had no idea with whom she would be working and she had to be certain that they would be reliable and have the necessary skills for what she would demand of them. She knew that they would have received specialist training in handling weapons and were, like her, dedicated to the cause, but the last thing she wanted was to work with fools or hotheads. If they did not come up to her expectations, they would be changed. They also had to be unquestioningly loyal to her. She was in charge and gave the instructions, and she would expect those to be obeyed. In due course, she would inform her comrades of the precise mission and detail their own particular role in it. Every bit as much as her, it would be vital that her team became familiar with all aspects of the assignment long before they were required to implement it.

She decided to pack virtually all her clothes, plus the contents from her small safe. The latter included her French passport and identity card, plus her codebooks and various papers, including the authorisation documents for the Chalthoum bank account should she require access to it. She pre-purchased her cross channel ferry ticket using the internet and paid for it on her own Visa card, booking an open-dated return journey within the next month. This would lessen any suspicion from British Immigration that she might be contemplating staying in the UK and anyway there was little to gain by remaining in Britain until September, which was four months away. She loaded her blue Peugeot 205 with her two suitcases and made a final look around her flat to check she had missed nothing.

Driving carefully through the eastern suburbs of Paris, she joined the E15 motorway and headed northwest. The drive to Calais was uneventful and boring. She arrived at the ferry terminal stiff and tired just after 7:30pm. The ship was not due to depart for another two hours, giving her time to take a quick meal, but the prospect of eating the food at the dockside cafe did not appeal so she made a short journey into town where she found a small family-run restaurant and enjoyed a homemade chicken fricassee. An hour later, she drove back to the terminal and joined the queue of cars waiting to board.

Fadyar had used her fake passport once before, when she visited Crossland. That visit had suited her well. Her cover story, if apprehended, was that she was on a courier mission personally delivering some papers – the address of which was fictitious, but in reality that trip had been a test of the identification provided for her in order to establish a normal life in France. If her passport and other documentation had failed, the punishment meted out by the French or British authorities would not be severe as the documents she was carrying were quite innocuous and her organisation would learn from her arrest. Fadyar herself also had to prove to her superiors that she could, and would, successfully carry out instructions given to her. Both Fadyar and her identity documents passed the test.

As she drove slowly towards the brightly-lit car deck deep in the bowel of the ship, she was in a relaxed mood listening to the radio. She lowered the volume as she presented her pre-printed booking and passport. The girl sitting in the booth gave Fadyar a cursory look, punched some keys on her keyboard and waited a few seconds before handing back the passport with her boarding card. She put the car in first gear and moved forward. She was waved through at the customs and police checkpoint for European Union travellers and proceeded to drive onto the ship – her little car anonymous and insignificant amongst all the other vehicles swallowed up into the cavernous belly of the vessel. Once the ferry was underway, she was able to exchange her remaining Euros for Sterling. Added to those she had exchanged the previous week, her bag now held in excess of a thousand pounds. She had left the Hannet-Mar account untouched. She would only use that if it became absolutely necessary, meanwhile she would use her own funds and reimburse herself later.

Driving off the ferry two hours later, she entered the lane marked for EU visitors. Her passport was looked at by the immigration control officer whilst another scanned underneath her car with a circular mirror placed at the end of a long pole. As he returned the passport to her the officer asked a couple of routine questions.

“What is the purpose of your visit to Britain?”

“I'm taking a holiday.”

“And how long do you intend to stay?”

Fadyar smiled at him, her white teeth prominent against the dark skin of her face. She looked directly into his eyes, “That depends on your British weather! I have an open return ticket for up to a month, so can come back earlier if it rains a lot!”

The few checks on her and her car completed, the officer wished her an enjoyable vacation and she drove carefully out of the port, remembering to drive on the left, and soon joined the A2 stopping overnight at the first hotel she saw. Within half an hour she was asleep, with Assiter very much on her mind. The next morning she turned off the trunk road and drove towards Canterbury, stopping on the outskirts of town at a small shopping complex of ten retail outlets that included an electrical store. She purchased a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone, and as soon as she had activated it and was satisfied it was working properly, drove back to the A2 and resumed her journey. At lunchtime she used her new phone to call an international number she had memorised from her training. A recorded voicemail message asked her in English but with a noticeable Arab accent to select the language she wanted to use. She chose English and waited.

“Yes” a male voice

“Fadyar” another wait. Fadyar's heart beat a little quicker.

“Please tell me your date of birth”. She did.

“Your mother's name, please”

“Halima”

“Finally, what relative are you seeking information upon?”

The question both surprised and impressed Fadyar. She knew that the person at the end of the telephone would not have a clue what relevance the questions had, only that they were to be asked if and when a Fadyar called the number.

“My Father-in-Law. Can you help?”

“Not personally, but I will get someone to call you. As you have not set your phone to mask its number on outgoing calls, I have it. Keep it switched on.”

The line went dead. Fadyar wished she had checked the phone defaults before making the call and made a mental note to alter the privacy setting at the earliest opportunity. Twenty-five minutes had elapsed when the ring tones finally sounded.