The Hijack (48 page)

Raz finally looked up and the two men stared at each other, unable to do or say anything.

Abed had heard the anguish and sincerity in Raz’s voice and it had touched something inside of him. The man he had hated with all his heart only seconds ago had disappeared but he could not understand who had been left in his place. Abed could not reach out and touch him, nor could he back away. He could not hate him, nor could he embrace him. He did not feel love of any kind, but neither did he feel fear any more. Time and space had momentarily stopped for both men.

The sound of running snapped them out of their trances and Raz glanced over his shoulder to see several troops approaching. He took his identification badge from his pocket, raised it for them to see and shouted something in Hebrew.

The soldiers stopped and did not come any further.

Raz looked at his son, then over at Stratton.

‘What happened here today?’ Raz asked Stratton.

Stratton could not tell Raz the whole truth, not about the atom bomb, but if Raz was going to let Abed go he needed to be able to tell his bosses why. Abed was on videotape, and there were witnesses to Raz conversing with a young Arab at the scene that would need explaining if the Arab was suddenly gone.

‘This man,’ Stratton said, indicating the dead Russian. ‘His name is Zhilev. He’s former Russian Spetsnaz. Stockton’s in there . . . what’s left of him. If Zhilev had succeeded with his plan, you, me and a lot of other people, we would all be dead. Abed played a major role in preventing that.’

Raz could only guess at what Stratton was trying to tell him and it did not sound encouraging, but that was not the point of the Englishman’s revelation. He was offering Raz information that would help him let Abed go.

Raz put his gun into his pocket. ‘Since you work for MI6, you are a guest in this country. It sounds like I must thank you,’ he said to Abed. ‘One word of advice before you go . . . Never come back.’

They held each other’s gaze for a moment longer, then Abed slowly stepped towards Raz to move past him.

‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Raz said softly.

Abed paused alongside his father.

‘I was by her side yesterday,’ Raz said. ‘She went peacefully. I told her I was sorry and that I always loved her.’

Abed could feel a lifetime of emotion churn inside of him, all too much for him to digest. This man had represented everything that was vile, but he could see none of that now. He was his father. He had given him his life, and had now done so again. He must have felt something for his mother to have been by her side when she died. He was saying sorry to Abed and to his mother in the only way he could, and Abed could not hate him any more.

The tension eased from Abed’s eyes and as he walked away, Raz turned to watch him go, past the soldiers and down the walkway until he rounded the corner out of sight.

Raz looked back at Stratton, who was watching him, and wondered what the man was thinking.

‘Will you report this?’ Raz asked, without making it sound like a plea or request.

‘Report what?’

Raz believed him. He turned and shouted something to the soldiers and they started to move in.

‘We’d better get you to a hospital,’ Raz said. ‘You don’t look so good.’

‘To tell you the truth, I feel like shit,’ Stratton said.

‘And then we’ll talk and maybe you can tell me what happened on my patch.’

‘Absolutely,’ Stratton said.

Raz knew Stratton would fabricate enough of a story to explain Abed’s release, but perhaps they could also do some dealing. That was the true fun of the intelligence world. It was like a marketplace where things were bought and sold and exchanged like anything else.

Raz looked back to see if Abed was perhaps still there, but he was not, and he knew he would never see or hear from his son again.

Sumners sat behind a desk in his tiny office on the tenth floor of MI6 headquarters on the south side of the Thames, a stone’s throw from Vauxhall Bridge.The one window overlooked the river and was some consolation for the size of the room, which was, in fact, not exceptionally small for the building. His boss’s office, on the floor above, was only marginally larger and did not have a view.The room was clean, tidy and as lacklustre as one might expect for a civil servant’s office.

Chalmers walked in without knocking, placed a file on Sumners’ desk and left without either men saying anything, which was quite normal. On the surface, life in the firm hadn’t changed for Sumners. From a psychological point of view, he had dealt with his situation back in Israel and succeeded in putting it behind him. Two months had passed since that horrible day on board the C130 on the tarmac of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport but, as time went by, he thought about it less and less. Even the presence of Chalmers and his boss evoked few memories of that day, other than perhaps the slightest of fleeting images. It was simple enough for a man like Sumners to put it out of his mind. He had taken the logical approach and reasoned that he was never going to get another crack at running a field operation, and it was wise to believe so for the healing process to take effect. To that end he re-accepted his long-time role as a desk officer - and a damned good one at that - and continued to exert the confidence and authority he had enjoyed before the incident, which was considerable. A handful of people in the building might have had an inkling of what had taken place, but the majority would not. If it had been a major scene and Sumners had lost control and thrown a wobbly then perhaps that much of the story might have got out. But since it was a top-secret operation, explaining Sumners’ little moment would require far more detail than would be deemed acceptable. Sumners was as aware of that as anyone and it aided his rehabilitation.

There was a knock and Sumners asked the caller in without looking up from his computer monitor until the door opened, whereupon he instantly stopped what he was doing and stared at his visitor. There was, of course, one person who would always remind Sumners of his folly, and as he walked into the room the memory of that day, as well as the intense embarrassment and implications of his character flaws, came flooding back.

Stratton looked remarkably well, which was not a surprise since he had not been involved with work since Jerusalem save for a couple of debriefs where the debriefers came to him. After two days in Israel he flew home, and a week later was walking around looking normal. In less than a month he went on his first long jog and a week after that his first workout in the gym. A Navy surgeon had told him that he could expect to be barred from diving but that would depend on how well his lung healed, and in the same sentence he suggested an operational necessity might supersede such a barring unless he was drastically impaired. He had spent much of his time off kicking back in the South of France, enjoying the quiet off-season, eating well, exercising and catching up on his reading. He should have been feeling depressed considering his mindset throughout the operation and the months prior to it, but the explosion and the injury had been a kind of cleansing. For reasons he could not precisely put a finger on, Stratton felt better than he had for a long time and the nearest explanation he could find was that he was more in control. Walking into the MI6 headquarters only confirmed the feeling. No one he passed in the labyrinth of corridors knew him, although there was a glance and a subtle nod from two senior-looking suits as he walked through the high-security entrance that suggested they knew who he was and approved of him. A few months prior, had he walked into Sumners’ office, much as he hated it he would have felt as if he had his cap in his hand. Now he felt strangely superior. He was not, and he didn’t approve of it because it was far too egotistical for his liking, but nevertheless that’s how he felt and he could not help it.

‘Stratton.To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Sumners asked, looking as businesslike as always and masking any animosity he had towards his subaltern.

‘I came by to drop off some things,’ Stratton said as he placed his MI6 ID, credit card and some receipts on Sumners’ desk.

Sumners looked at the ID and then at Stratton, wondering if there was more to this than met the eye. He had wanted to ask for them back but refrained for a number of reasons. First and foremost, he did not want to talk to or even see Stratton again, even though he knew it was unlikely such a wish would be granted, he felt that the longer he could delay such an encounter the better. Another reason was that asking for the return of the ID might have suggested he was cancelling Stratton’s secondment and look like a vengeful act to those in the know, namely his boss, which would have been augmented if Stratton was suddenly required for something and it was discovered he was no longer on the assignment-standby list. Stratton was the one aspect of Sumners’ rehabilitation that he had no control over. He could only pray the man did not recover or lost interest in the job. But that was obviously too much to hope and his sudden presence proved it, for here he was, standing in front of him in his office, his hands in the pockets of his grubby, old leather jacket and looking at him in his usual expressionless, cold manner as if nothing had happened between them. The only positive thing that Sumners could think of regarding the visit was that Stratton had come to quit.

‘How are you feeling?’ Sumners asked, chirpier at the thought that this might well be a farewell visit. It was also possible it was a subtle move by Stratton to announce his fitness, declaring himself ready to return to work, and wanting Sumners to ask him to pick up the ID and await a call. Sumners put that thought aside because it did not give him any pleasure to contemplate.

‘I’m fine. Feeling better than ever. First good rest I’ve had in years.’

Sumners groaned inwardly as Stratton began to sound very much like someone who was looking forward to returning to work. ‘You spoken to anyone else?’ he asked.

‘Chalmers, outside,’ Stratton said, as he went to the window and looked down on to the river. ‘He was surprisingly chatty. I still think he’s a walking computer but he sounded quite human just now.’

Sumners wasn’t sure about Stratton’s mood. He sounded chipper enough all right, but that really meant nothing. ‘You had a post-op report?’ he asked, knowing Stratton had not. Stratton was entitled to a closing summary of the operation but Sumners’ only reason for offering it was a personal interest in one major aspect of it.

‘No. Any fallout?’ Stratton asked.

Sumners sat back and exhaled deeply as he thought the summary through. Talking operations was his favourite pastime and he could do it with anyone, even Stratton. ‘The Russians have been put under immense pressure from Downing Street to reveal the whereabouts of their sabotage hides in Britain. Washington has been doing the same regarding the hides in the US. The Russians have unsurprisingly refused to give the locations but then came back with a promise to remove the dangerous contents, a damned stupid suggestion that has created an enormous furore. How on earth they expected anyone to agree that they be allowed to transport nuclear and biological weapons across sovereign states without the assistance or even knowledge of the home government, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s where we’re at at the moment, but Russia is in an untenable position and will have to concede something, and soon. Interestingly, Israel has also brought some pressure to bear on the subject. Question is, how did they know about the nuclear device?’ Sumners stared at Stratton, watching for his response to the last comment, which was the subject of his greater interest.

Stratton glanced over his shoulder at Sumners, giving nothing away. ‘Smart cookies, those Israelis,’ he said. Stratton had handed over the plutonium to Chalmers who met him at the trauma unit of Jerusalem’s Ein Karem Hadassah hospital on his arrival, leaving no real evidence among the debris that followed the explosion in the old city. It was possible their forensic experts could have put something together that might have suggested it was a nuclear device, but without the plutonium it was a tough one to prove. Stratton had no guilt about bartering Abed’s safety with a clue about the seriousness of the event the young Palestinian had helped avoid. It was only fair. Besides, he could not see what harm there was in Israel supporting the removal of Russian nuclear bombs from secret arsenals around the world. Sumners would no doubt have a good reason against it, but Stratton did not care to hear it.

‘What happened to Abed?’ Stratton asked, steering the conversation away from the nuclear device.

It made Sumners even more suspicious that Stratton had something to do with the Israeli interference. If he could find out how, he could close the door on Stratton in an instant, but short of the man admitting it himself, it was unlikely Sumners could prove such a thing. Manachem Raz sure as hell would not be of any help. Sumners decided to table it for now but he would never forget.

‘We brought the Palestinian back here where he co-operated in a detailed debrief of the tanker operation. Because of that, and the assistance he gave you in locating Zhilev, he was placed in a protection programme. He’s currently living in Glasgow under a new name and working as a bartender with class-one restrictions.’