Stealing People (36 page)

34

14.00, 18 April 2014

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Neonatal ICU

T
his was the day, ninety-two days after Isabel’s admission for the emergency C-section, that Boxer took delivery of his son, weighing in at five pounds and three ounces, to bring him home. He’d called him Jamie. He didn’t know why. He just liked the sound of Jamie Boxer. The baby had been breathing on his own since the middle of February, when he’d also taken to kicking his legs out as if he needed to make progress out of the aquarium of his incubator. Boxer had been to see him every day since he’d got back from Morocco.

It had not been easy to extricate himself from that mess. The first call he’d made on the satellite phone that Jensen had thrown him was to Simon Deacon. He was the only person he could rely on completely who could influence the outcome of his predicament. Deacon had taken the number and told him to await further instructions. Boxer then wiped the gun he’d used to kill the two
CIA
operatives and tucked it into Rampy’s belt.

As soon as Boxer had straightened out the scene to his satisfaction he’d gone to see the hostages again and called them together. He stood amongst them, told them to hug each other and him. They began to cry at the release from shock and stress. He got the two girls to look after Sophie and Yury while Wú Gao and Rakesh Sarkar went with him to make mint tea. He made them sing and tell each other stories and stayed with them until they were all sleeping.

At dawn, two helicopters landed in the valley and four army vehicles arrived and drove up to where Boxer was waiting for them on the roof of the main building. A man from the Moroccan secret service, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, introduced himself as Youness Benjelloun. He said they were going to remove the bodies first and take them to a nearby military base. Boxer told him about the bodies of Mercedes Puerta and Françoise Lapointe and led him up the rock face behind the building to point out where Ken Bass’s body had fallen a hundred feet below.

Once the bodies in the compound had been removed, the hostages were led out and driven down to the helicopters, which flew them to a military base on the outskirts of Marrakesh. Boxer was kept separate from them. Later he found out that a private jet had come in from London City airport during the early evening and taken them all back to the UK.

Boxer’s debrief started on the night they brought him in. It was not as civilised as he’d expected. As Benjelloun set about breaking him down through a process of sleep deprivation with loud music, bright light, freezing conditions, no bedding, poor food, no washing facilities and constant interrogation, he realised that his role in the scenario was far from clear to the
DS
T.

First Benjelloun wanted to know what he’d been doing up there in the High Atlas using a passport belonging to Chris Butler. Boxer didn’t lie, he just omitted things: how he knew Mercedes, buying the gun from Ali Mzoudi, meeting al-Wannan. His story was looking thin. Benjelloun set to work on him. He wanted to know how he’d found out about Rampy’s involvement and the Moroccan connection. He spent several days wearing down Boxer’s considerable resistance to revealing that the connection to Mercedes Puerta had been Omar al-Wannan. He jabbed and poked him about his relationship with Françoise Lapointe, then hit him with the bombshell that they’d arrested Ali Mzoudi, who under heavy interrogation had admitted to supplying Boxer with a Springfield XD-S 9mm, which was one of the weapons found on the body of Evan Rampy. That opened up a whole new avenue of investigation, as Benjelloun now wanted his confession that his role had not been as passive as he’d maintained.

Boxer told him of his intention to kill Jensen and free the hostages, but with Mercedes and Françoise dead, he had no way of proving the one incontrovertible truth as to why he had been at the scene: Rampy had kidnapped him and taken his weapon. Before the hostages had been flown out they’d revealed that Rampy had brought Boxer into the room where they were being held, and he had told them he was going to get them out of there. This was a source of great confusion to Benjelloun. Whose side was Boxer on?

Benjelloun also didn’t believe that Jensen and Rampy were straightforward kidnappers. The money blowing up in London, the organisation required to deliver the hostages to the High Atlas and the characters involved all led him to believe there was a subtext that Boxer was not revealing.

‘You’re not getting out of here,’ said Benjelloun, ‘until you come clean about Jensen and Rampy’s objectives and your own role in this business.’

Boxer’s second week in the military base outside Marrakesh was one of the most uncomfortable of his life. He still refused to admit that he had a hand in any of the killings, but realised that Benjelloun had to be thrown a bone. He told him Jensen’s story: that he was acting for the
CIA
in order to wipe out a politically motivated rogue cell within the agency. Benjelloun asked him why he hadn’t told him this before and Boxer said that it sounded too fantastic, that he wouldn’t believe him.

‘You’re right,’ said Benjelloun. ‘I don’t.’

On 8 February, Simon Deacon was finally allowed to see him.

‘We’ve done everything we can from our side,’ said Deacon, after they’d hugged and Boxer had apologised for his beard and high odour. ‘But the
CIA
won’t back up the story Jensen’s fed you about this rogue cell. They say it’s a complete fabrication.’

‘Have they offered an explanation for Jensen’s behaviour?’

‘Only that he’s an ex-contractor turned crackpot.’

‘I suppose they have to,’ said Boxer. ‘Can’t go around admitting the agency’s been compromised. What did they have to say about the four
CIA
operatives and Ken Bass found dead in the High Atlas?’

‘They were on a rescue mission to free the hostages.’

‘What’s your reading of it in MI6?’

‘We’re getting the same confirmation through our
CIA
channels,’ said Deacon. ‘They were the good guys.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m going to ask you a question as your friend,’ said Deacon. ‘What were you doing out there?’

‘I’ve told Benjelloun a hundred times over: I went to kill Conrad Jensen and free the hostages. I got the lead about Rampy from Kushner and pursued it. Everything else that happened was out of my control once Rampy kidnapped me in Marrakesh. From that moment onwards I can only tell you what I saw and what I was told. But where does that leave me as the lone survivor?’

‘I’ll be honest with you,’ said Deacon. ‘You’re in a deep hole, but we’ll see what we can do.’

Three days later he was free. He wasn’t sure what had happened but he could sense that Benjelloun wasn’t happy about it, that the order had come from well above his head. On his arrival in London, five kilos lighter, Deacon met him off the plane. He too was reticent, said it had been the result of a combination of diplomacy and a cover story they’d invented about him acting for MI6. He was taken into Vauxhall Cross for two days of debriefing, staying with Deacon and not communicating with anybody in the outside world.

They released him in time for Isabel’s delayed funeral on 12 February. The service was held at St Mary Abbots church, and afterwards there was a wake at the Orangery paid for by Frank D’Cruz.

It was the first time Boxer had seen Amy, Mercy and Alleyne since that night in Streatham three weeks ago. He was still physically weak and the emotional funeral, with more than two hundred people in attendance, followed by their reunion left him exhausted. Alyshia and Deepak Mistry came over to talk to Mercy, Amy and Marcus about the baby. They’d all been seeing each other during their regular visits to the neonatal ICU. Mercy took Boxer off for a walk in the cold, damp gardens where she told him about George Papadopoulos getting shot.

‘He lost a kidney and he had some paralysis in his legs, but, thank God, that’s cleared up. He took his first steps a couple of days ago.’

‘Is he going to get back to work?’

‘Not for a bit. A few months, I’d have thought, and then maybe not in the special investigations unit.’

‘And Amy? How’s she been?’

‘I took her back to the shrink. That thing with Siobhan’s changed her. Something … intense went on in there,’ said Mercy, tapping her temple. ‘I thought she should talk to someone. She seems to be all right, but she’s anxious. She wakes up every morning inexplicably edgy.’

‘Two people got killed in front of her,’ said Boxer. ‘Siobhan took a bullet meant for her and her own father shot someone in the head. It’d be unusual if she didn’t wake up anxious. How about you and Marcus?’

‘What about us?’

‘Still good?’

‘That’s not what you meant,’ said Mercy. ‘I know you.’

‘Have you told
DCS
Hines about his criminal career?’ asked Boxer. ‘Or are you waiting for the next time?’

Mercy sighed.

‘Hines is never going to let you go,’ said Boxer, ‘not now. You’re his star performer. Probably the only woman who’s ever impressed Ryder Forsyth.’

‘Ryder and me,’ said Mercy, smiling. ‘You know, he invited me to Brize Norton to meet the hostages off the plane from Marrakesh with all the parents.’

‘How did that go?’

‘Very emotional. The six of them walked off the plane holding hands. Wú Dao-ming fainted when she saw her boy. I’d been talking to Anastasia Casey before the plane arrived. Ryder had told me how tough she was. All I saw was this great bruiser of a woman beside herself. And Yermilov. I didn’t think Yury was going to survive the hug he gave him. Emma and I were already close. She’d told me she wouldn’t have been able to keep going if anything had happened to Sophie. Her head was full of how she was going to tell her daughter she no longer had a father. The Germans were very un-Germanic. And the Sarkars turned up with about twenty family members, including the ambassador. It’s good to see that even the super-rich are as vulnerable as the rest of us.’

‘So you and Ryder…?’

‘Inseparable,’ said Mercy. ‘I’ve even asked him why he’d denied knowing you.’

‘Did he tell you?’

‘He said he didn’t want the personal to get confused with the professional.’

‘Nicely done, Ryder.’

‘I like him.’

‘Simon’s told me Ryder’s come out of this thing smelling of roses.’

‘You make that sound as if he should be stinking of something else.’

‘Depends how wonderful you think the Kinderman Corporation is,’ said Boxer. ‘And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you still haven’t told me what you’re going to do about Marcus.’

‘Let’s talk about you, shall we?’

‘Me?’

‘You’ve got a son, remember?’

‘Who needs a mother,’ said Boxer.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Mercy. ‘Amy’ll tell you it’s not my strongest card.’

‘Not you.’

‘Amy’s not ready for anything like that.’

‘Not Amy,’ said Boxer. ‘I was thinking of Alyshia.’

‘Alyshia,’ said Mercy, nodding. ‘Are we talking adoption?’

‘I think that would be the fairest way.’

‘And you’d be all right with that?’ said Mercy. ‘What if she went to India … permanently?’

‘We’d have to talk about that,’ said Boxer. ‘I’m just thinking about it at the moment. She loves the baby. She loved her mother. She and I have got closer over the last couple of years.’

‘It’s a big decision.’

‘It came to me as I was flying back from Marrakesh,’ said Boxer. ‘I couldn’t see myself looking after a baby in my flat in Belsize Park. The boy should have a family life, more of a family life than I had, with parents and other siblings maybe.’

And with those words came the flickering image of the Betamax cassette tape on his kitchen table, along with Conrad Jensen’s revelation to him in the High Atlas, and the other reason for giving his son away. It was something that had gripped him throughout his ordeal in the Moroccan prison: the bad seed being passed from father to son. Perhaps that could be contained or even reversed by nurture from a different parent. He looked at Mercy and in that instant thought, no, this was not for her, and realised that once again he’d become a man with secrets.

‘Let’s go back inside and have a drink,’ he said.

Towards the end of February, Boxer was feeling stronger. He’d got his sleeping patterns back to normal and was eating properly. He spent some time turning the Betamax tape over in his hands but doing nothing about it, not even finding a player to view it.

He met with Simon Deacon regularly and they talked about what had happened in Morocco, and MI6’s analysis of his debrief, which had not included the name of the group that Jensen was trying to extinguish nor the fact that he’d revealed himself as Boxer’s father, and certainly not that he would be contacted by Louise and was expected to follow up on Ryder Forsyth.

‘The first thing the analysts at the Cross still can’t work out is why Siobhan employed you to look for Jensen,’ said Deacon.

‘Nor can I,’ said Boxer. ‘But Amy released those recordings of my initial interview with Siobhan, so I hope there’s no doubting my word on that.’

‘No, no, we don’t doubt you, it just doesn’t make sense.’

‘I can’t help you,’ said Boxer. ‘What’s the second thing?’

‘There was never any trace of Jensen out in the Mauritanian desert. Benjelloun informed the
CIA
of Jensen’s intentions as soon as you told him. The Americans have very powerful satellite technology. I’ve heard it on good authority that he never showed up on any of their scans, and their field agents haven’t picked up on him anywhere in west Africa.’

‘Maybe he went off and became a tourist in Agadir instead,’ said Boxer. ‘Or maybe the
CIA
didn’t really look that hard.’

‘The third thing we’re uncomfortable about is this rogue
CIA
cell?’

‘I saw what I saw and heard what I heard. They offered Jensen money to walk away. That’s why Bass had a satellite phone. Sutherland confirmed their involvement in the Benghazi debacle. Nobody wants to believe me and I’m sure the
CIA
don’t want anybody to believe me either.’