The Cassandra Sanction (25 page)

McCauley led them onwards through Barnes, until they reached a quiet residential street and the Smart car’s left indicator came on before it pulled into a driveway. Following fifty metres behind, Ben slowed as they passed the house. It was a small and unexceptional semi-detached 1960s property
that, in this part of London, had to be worth a couple of million. Given what McCauley probably earned in his crusade against the world, the house was probably a family hand-me-down. Ben cruised a little way further down the street, and pulled up at the kerb.

‘Let’s go,’ Raul said, reaching for the door latch.

‘Not yet,’ Ben told him. He angled the rearview mirror so he could see the house.
Sat still behind the wheel and watched as McCauley got out of the Smart car carrying his satchel, bleeped the locks and walked up a little path to the front door. No Mrs McCauley came to greet him. McCauley opened the door and disappeared inside.

Ben counted to a hundred.

‘Okay,’ he said to Raul. ‘
Now
let’s go.’

Ben grabbed his bag from the back seat, and they left the car and walked
quickly through McCauley’s front gate. The garden was overgrown and unkempt, and the woodwork on the house needed painting. Too busy battling injustice and corruption to have time for basic maintenance, obviously. The brass surround of the Yale lock was tarnished and weather-stained.

‘Do we knock, or do we smash the door in?’ Raul asked.

‘Neither,’ Ben said, taking out his wallet. He unzipped
a little compartment that he seldom needed to open. It was where he kept a set of bump keys that could open any standard Yale lock, especially an old one like this, made before manufacturers had got wise to the ease with which burglars could bypass their security. Ben quickly found the right key, inserted it into the lock, and three seconds later they were in. Ben put his finger to his lips
to shush an astonished Raul as they slipped through the small entrance hall into an open-plan living room.

The room was empty, and smelled vaguely of incense and spices. McCauley’s decor was heavy on the ethnic style, with a mix of African, Indian and South American furnishings and sculptures and wall hangings. There was a giant framed picture of Nelson Mandela over the fireplace. Next to
an open-tread staircase hung a poster showing a caricature of an obese banker with multiple chins, a sleazy grin and a giant Havana, bearing the caption ‘
YOU SAY “GREEDY CAPITALIST PIG” LIKE IT’S A BAD THING
’. On the wall opposite was a large glass-framed print of the classic Pulitzer prize-winning photo of the 1968 execution of a Viet Cong guerrilla. Ben had seen that harrowing image a hundred
times before, and seeing it again now was all the proof he needed that there was unlikely to be a Mrs McCauley living in the house. Ben hadn’t met a woman yet, not even the redoubtable Commander Darcey Kane of the National Crime Agency, who would tolerate a glossy 16×20 of a terrified man about to get his brains blown out with a .38 Smith & Wesson snubnose hanging pride of place in her living room.

The leather satchel was lying on an armchair where McCauley must have carelessly tossed it as he came in. Ben stepped over to it and undid the clasp to check the contents. A notebook and pen, a mobile, an iPad, a spare pair of glasses. Ben closed the bag, then moved to the stairs and heard the muted patter of the shower coming from above. He nodded to Raul, and they climbed the open treads.
Thick polished wood, no doubt from a sustainably managed forestry source. The staircase walls were lined with framed photos of McCauley in his journalistic exploits all over the world, posing surrounded by smiling African children in one, standing on an oil-slicked beach in another, all spruced up and receiving his Press Gazette award in another.

Upstairs, the bathroom door was ajar and the
sound of splashing water was louder. Ben peeked through another door, saw it was a bedroom, and led Raul through it. The bedroom was small and orderly, with a wardrobe and a bed and little else. Ben and Raul positioned themselves by the window and waited. Soon afterwards, the water stopped. They could hear McCauley mooching about in the bathroom. Then he stepped out, skin rosy from the hot water
and wearing nothing but a short towel around his waist, and strolled nonchalantly into the bedroom. He was in surprisingly good shape, with the lean muscularity of a man who needed to keep himself fit and strong for challenging assignments in sometimes dangerous places. So much for the whole vegetarian open-toed sandal thing, Ben thought. Maybe McCauley was more than he seemed at first glance.

The journalist’s hair and beard were still wet from the shower, and his glasses were steamed up with condensation. He removed them, wiped the lenses on a corner of his towel, put them back on, and his eyes opened wide in alarm as he saw his unexpected visitors standing there. He froze, and said, ‘Whoa.’

‘Keep the towel on,’ Ben said. ‘We’ve seen enough unpleasant sights lately.’

McCauley
took a step back. His fists were clenched. He was more outraged than frightened. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘Relax, Mike,’ Ben said. ‘We’re here to talk to you, that’s all.’ He motioned to the bed. ‘Take a seat.’

McCauley hesitated. Flicking his gaze warily from Ben to Raul, he stepped to the bed and sat. The muscles in his shoulders were bunched tight, and his face had flushed scarlet. ‘I
said, who the fuck are you? What are you doing in my home?’

‘This is Raul Fuentes,’ Ben said. ‘We have reason to believe you’re acquainted with his sister.’

McCauley stared up at Raul, his anger subsiding, confusion taking its place. ‘Catalina? You’re Catalina’s brother?’

Raul tore his passport out of his pocket and tossed it into McCauley’s lap. ‘There’s the proof. Look at my name.
Look at the birth date. We’re twins.’

‘No,’ McCauley said, still peering closely at Raul as if studying his face. ‘No. I don’t need to. The family resemblance is obvious, now that I think of it. But what—?’

‘What am I doing here?’ Raul said. ‘What do you think? I’m looking for her.’

‘I … I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ McCauley said. ‘That’s insane.’

‘I apologise for
the rude entry,’ Ben said. ‘You’ll appreciate that it needed to be a surprise, under the circumstances. There are some bad people looking for her, too. But you already know that as well, don’t you? Come on, Mike. We came a long way to talk to you. Don’t be a disappointment.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ McCauley said. ‘You’re mistaken. Catalina Fuentes died. Her car went over a cliff. It was
all over the news … I mean, surely you must know that? Her brother, of all people?’

He stared at them both with such an earnest look of absolute blank stupefaction that Ben was rattled by it. In that moment, the awful thought struck him that McCauley genuinely knew nothing. Or, even worse, that it was true, and that Kazem had been wrong, or lying.

‘She’s alive!’ Raul snarled, and stepped
towards McCauley as if he was going to hit him.

Ben put a hand on Raul’s shoulder. McCauley might actually hit back, and that wasn’t going to help their situation much. ‘You were in contact with her,’ he said to McCauley.

The journalist frowned, playing it cagey. ‘What makes you think I was in contact with her?’

‘There isn’t time to play games,’ Ben said. ‘Your email address was on
her private computer. The messages themselves were deleted. We need to know what that correspondence was about.’

‘And that’s why you broke into my house, to find out about a bunch of emails?’

‘We didn’t break in,’ Ben said.

‘The door was locked.’

‘It still is,’ Ben said. ‘Nothing got broken. Therefore, technically, not a break-in.’

‘You’ve got the look,’ McCauley said. ‘Ex-military.
It’s virtually written on your forehead. Think I haven’t met people like you before?’

Ben said nothing.

McCauley pointed at Raul. ‘Okay, so he’s Catalina Fuentes’ brother. Do you have a name?’

‘You can call me Ben.’

‘He’s just a friend,’ Raul said.

McCauley gave a grunt. ‘Peculiar kind of friend to have. One who can get through locked doors and slip into people’s houses like
some kind of fucking ninja assassin. Did you follow me here from the office? Have you been watching me?’

‘You can trust us,’ Raul said.

McCauley paused, narrowing his eyes and scrutinising Ben and Raul with the thoughtful, cautious look of a seasoned investigator. ‘Then you need to let me get some clothes on,’ he said. ‘We’ll go downstairs and discuss this like civilised human beings,
and I’ll tell you what I know.’

Chapter Thirty-Six

‘All right,’ McCauley said a few minutes later when the three of them were sitting around the table in his tiny kitchen, by a sliding glass door that looked out onto his even smaller million-pound back garden. McCauley’s hair was combed and he’d put on a denim shirt and a pair of baggy green chinos. The kitchen table had the look of being handcarved by indigenous people
of somewhere or other. The coffee was Fairtrade stuff from Guatemala, served in stoneware mugs. McCauley had fouled his with soya milk. Raul hadn’t wanted any. He was already wound up enough. Ben took it black. It tasted pretty good.

McCauley took a deep breath and looked at Raul. ‘On July sixth, a woman calling herself Carmen Hernandez called the
Probe
offices and said she wanted to speak
to me. When she was put through to my personal line, she apologised for the deception and said that her real name was Catalina Fuentes. Naturally, due to her celebrity, I already knew who she was. It’s not unheard of for famous people to go by false names now and then, but I was surprised that she had contacted me. I was even more surprised when she said she wanted to meet, somewhere we could talk
confidentially. She said she was aware of the kind of journalism I did, had been following my work and so on and so forth, and that she had something to tell me that would be of great interest to me. I could tell right away that something odd was going on, and that she was deeply afraid.’

‘So you met with her?’ Raul asked.

McCauley nodded. ‘In Munich, three days later, on July ninth. She
set the whole thing up, paid my travel expenses by wire transfer. A car turned up to collect me from the airport, drove me to a dingy hotel in a less salubrious part of town, and dropped me off with instructions to go to room 22. A little weird. Not exactly what I’d expected.’ McCauley gave a tight smile. ‘As you might imagine, unorthodox and clandestine meetings are hardly unusual in my line of
work. But those are normally with crooks, whistleblowers or informants, not with glamorous television stars. After I’d been waiting alone in the room for ten minutes, wondering what the hell this was about, she arrived. I wouldn’t have recognised her. She was wearing a blond wig and dark glasses. That’s when I knew she really was serious. And scared out of her wits.’

Ben sipped coffee. ‘Go
on.’

‘It took her a while to compose herself. I got the impression that she was nervous of me, at first. I mean, here she was meeting this total stranger in a seedy hotel room. Evidently not the kind of thing she was used to. I could sense that she was having second thoughts about the meeting, and was verging on running off at any moment. I did my best to put her at her ease, and after a few
minutes she began to open up to me.’

‘What did she say?’ Raul asked.

‘First, she apologised for having made me come all the way to Germany. Said it wasn’t because she considered herself so important that people had to come to her, but rather that she was nervous about coming to London to see me because she believed she was being followed, and she didn’t want to implicate me. She was convinced
that someone was trying to do her harm, because of something she’d become involved in through her work.’

‘Her scientific work?’ Ben said. ‘Solar physics?’ His green bag was propped against his feet, full of Catalina’s solar research notes and the William Herschel file. He’d been half hoping that McCauley could shed some light on this stuff.

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ McCauley said,
killing Ben’s optimism at a stroke. ‘She didn’t elaborate, and it was a short meeting. Nor did she reveal to me specifically who was apparently threatening her, or what reason they might have had for doing so. A very cautious woman.’

‘Didn’t she tell you anything at all?’ Ben asked.

McCauley shrugged. ‘Like I say, we didn’t talk for long. I think she just wanted to see me face to face
that one time to sound me out. Like a preliminary interview, to decide whether she could trust me enough to tell me more. She kept asking me if I thought I could help her. Offered to pay me whatever price I wanted, as long as it could be strictly secret. I replied that I didn’t want money, and there was little I could do, without more information. She said she was sorry for being so secretive, and
that when I knew the rest I’d understand why it had to be that way, and why she’d chosen me to confide in, and how much of a huge deal this was. We exchanged private email addresses, and then she was gone. We hadn’t been together for thirty minutes. An hour later I was getting on a flight back home to London.’

Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘What kind of a huge deal are we talking about?’

‘What
can I tell you?’ McCauley said. ‘But think about it. Why come to me? My job is to expose corruption in high places. That’s what I’m known for, and it’s fairly safe to assume that’s why she chose me out of a thousand other guys. I could only assume this was something very big indeed, involving the kind of major high-profile players I have a record of chasing after. That’s as much as I was able to
glean, reading between the lines.’

‘What about the emails?’ Raul cut in.

‘There was only one,’ McCauley said. ‘When I got back to London I found a message from Catalina in my inbox. She thanked me for my time, apologised once again for the strangeness and brevity of our meeting, and promised to be in touch soon. I didn’t feel the need to reply to it, and I never heard from her again.’

Ben had the timeline firmly in his mind. In the three days between contacting the journalist and the meeting taking place, Catalina must have heard about Sinclair’s death in the Greenland light aircraft crash, making whatever anxieties she already had even worse. Then, the day after their meeting, Lockhart had been murdered at home in New Zealand and Ellis had apparently gone on the run. That
news must have been the tipping point, after which events had started rolling so fast that she hadn’t had time to contact McCauley again. Within a week of the hotel room rendezvous, she’d disappeared herself.