Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel)

by Giles O'Bryen

  ‘I left her up there.’ Nat wiped her eyes and hugged herself. ‘Etienne was a devil, but she says he was her husband and there are things she must do.’

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ said James.

  They ran down to the DS, ignoring the astonished looks of the residents who had gathered on the street. James drove in a daze, flooded with relief and euphoria. Nat sat in the back, soothing Sarah, arranging her frizzy hair and telling her everything was going to be fine. James’s hand started to bleed through the rag, so they stopped and Nat bandaged it with strips torn from the gentian blue dress she had never worn.

  ‘I can’t believe you came back for me,’ Sarah kept saying. ‘I can’t believe it. Thank you.’

  They drove to the airport and bought her a ticket for the next flight to London.

  ‘Go airside straight away,’ said James, ‘and stay there.’

  She nodded. ‘Will I see you again?’

  ‘We could have a drink at the Lamb and Flag,’ said James.

  ‘The place where we met?’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Guess I deserve to be reminded.’

  She thanked them again and they watched her join the queue for security.

  ‘So, is this over now?’ asked Nat.

  ‘Not quite,’ said James. ‘Time to get back to the hotel. We have visitors.’

  They watched the three MI6 men arrive in the lobby of the Hotel el-Djazaïr, trailing overnight bags and with expressions on their faces that suggested their journey to Algiers had not been accompanied by much in the way of good-natured badinage.

  Sir Iain Strang saw them first and marched over, mouth fixed in a grin so determined it looked capable of causing physical injury.

  ‘Dr James Palatine,’ he said. ‘Thanks for setting this up at such short notice.’ He reached out to shake James’s hand, then saw the blood-caked blue cloth and withdrew. ‘You’re hurt. Anything I can do?’

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned to Nat.

  ‘And you must be—’

  ‘Natalya Kocharian,’ she said.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Ms Kocharian. Clive Silk you both know – but Dr Palatine, you haven’t met Nigel de la Mere, who is about to retire from our North-West Africa Office.’

  De la Mere gave the merest possible nod of acknowledgement.

  ‘I’ll see if the hotel can find us somewhere private, yes?’

  ‘No,’ said James. ‘We’ll talk here.’

  ‘The meeting gets off to a frosty start,’ said Strang. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, after what you’ve been through.’

  ‘Quite a bit of which seems to have been arranged by you,’ said James, sitting down next to Nat on a sofa with its back to the window. The MI6 men took chairs in a semi-circle opposite.

  ‘Are you OK, Clive?’ asked Nat. ‘There’s a bathroom just beyond reception, if you need to be sick.’

  Clive Silk gave her a poisonous look.

  ‘You needn’t worry about the IPD400, anyway,’ she went on. ‘It’s on its way back to Grosvenor.’

  ‘We heard from Sir Peter. Great news,’ said Strang. He leaned towards James, weapons-grade smile still primed and cocked. ‘Dr Palatine, why don’t you tell me what’s been going on out there in the Western Sahara? The intel is so confused it’s given Nigel early onset dementia.’

  ‘The Moroccans and the Polisario have been scrapping again,’ said James. ‘Now, my turn. What do you think the public reaction would be to information proving that the terrorist organisation known as al Bidayat was created, funded and operated by MI6?’

  Sir Iain Strang smoothed with one hand hair that did not need smoothing. The smile had gone.

  ‘Disbelief? Laughter?’

  ‘One of yours, is it, Nigel?’ said James.

  Nigel de la Mere had sunk so low in his chair that it looked as if he’d elected to let his large, misshapen knees represent his interests while the rest of him hid. None of them spoke.

  ‘I know al Bidayat is an MI6 op and I have the evidence to prove it,’ said James.

  ‘We’re terrorists now, are we?’ said de la Mere. ‘A jihadi cell at the heart of SIS. Never knew I had it in me.’

  ‘Al Bidayat isn’t a terrorist organisation, Nigel, it’s a fake. The wannabe terrorist goes to the al Bidayat website, watches a couple of inspiring videos courtesy of Sheikh Ibrahim al Haqim, sees the offers of finance and support and gets in touch. Only the man he gets in touch with isn’t al Haqim, it’s Claude Zender, and he passes the sucker over to you. You get to monitor a bagful of fledgling bin Ladens and Zender gets his fat fee. You called it Operation Anemone.’

  ‘A bit far-fetched,’ mumbled Clive Silk.

  ‘Far-fetched doesn’t begin to describe it,’ said James. ‘But I expect you persuaded yourself it was brilliantly innovative – a cyber-Trojan, wheeled into the mother-node of the terrorist network. Anemone, the world’s first wholly virtual entrapment op.’ He gave an abrupt laugh. ‘Of course, this is the sort of hokum Clive specialises in. Nigel’s far too old school. Anemone is Clive’s brainchild, if you can call it that. Bravo, Clive Silk.’

  Silk declined to acknowledge the congratulations.

  ‘Was it you who nicknamed al Bidayat the Terror Consultancy?’ James asked. ‘Nice touch. Wasn’t reeling them in, though, was it? Ref Anemone, no significant activity to report.’

  ‘This is highly classified information,’ said Silk weakly. ‘We shouldn’t be discussing it here.’

  ‘Of course, you had to be able to deny everything when the need arose,’ James went on, ‘so you hired Zender to run Anemone for you.’

  ‘That was a mistake,’ said Nat.

  ‘Wasn’t it,’ said Strang, staring aggressively at Silk. ‘One of many.’

  ‘I imagine you thought that a rock-strewn no-man’s-land with no formal government was the perfect location,’ said James. ‘I don’t know how Zender persuaded Professor Ibrahim al Haqim out of Cairo University to be the front man. Blackmail, I would guess.’

  ‘So what’s your point, Dr Palatine?’ said Strang. ‘We’re in the intelligence business and we gain intelligence via Claude Zender’s operation in the Western Sahara.’

  James was pleased to hear the acid in his voice.

  ‘Mansour Anzarane,’ said James, ‘the second man Zender hired for Operation Anemone. You must have thought him the perfect recruiting agent: a noisy fantasist, tenuously connected to any number of atrocities, as well as being a devoted former student of Ibrahim al Haqim. And if one of his targets should discover that al Bidayat was a trap, he was entirely dispensable.’

  The hangdog look on Clive Silk’s face told James that this was the truth, or very near to it.

  ‘Your intention was that he should confine himself to gaudy speeches on the al Bidayat website. But as far as Zender was concerned, he was just another employee – quite a useful one, since he seemed happy to see a bit of blood on his hands.’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ said Nigel de la Mere.

  ‘Unless you have anything useful to contribute, Nigel, you’d better say nothing at all,’ said Strang. ‘James, I apologise. You were telling us about Mansour?’

  James stared at de la Mere until the MI6 man looked away.

  ‘Zender put Mansour on the team that abducted me,’ James went on. ‘The irony of using an al Bidayat hireling paid for by MI6 to help steal the IPD400 would have appealed to him. Mansour thought he was taking instructions from al Haqim and working in al Bidayat’s holy cause – but the orders were actually coming from Zender. He had Anzarane execute a man called Hamed, who helped lure me to Oran.’

  ‘We had nothing to do with your abduction,’ said Strang, ‘as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘It’s telling that you feel the need to deny it,’ said James. ‘But it wasn’t concern for me or the IPD400 that was getting you out of bed in the morning, was it?’

  ‘On the contrary, we were always—’

  ‘The real crisis hit when you heard that your very own Manso
ur Anzarane had been named by the Moroccans as prime suspect in the Agadir Bombing.’

  ‘Nobody believes that,’ Clive Silk said. ‘Pure politics.’

  He seemed about to say more, when Strang subjected him to a look of such ferocity that Silk instinctively raised his hands in submission.

  ‘I believe it,’ James lied. ‘I had a chat with Mansour Anzarane while I was a guest at Zender’s pleasure. He swore blind he was the Agadir Bomber. Quite certain on that point.’

  The three men stared at him. Even Strang had been silenced. It was de la Mere who recovered first.

  ‘Anzarane specialises in exactly that sort of preening self-aggrandisement. I can guarantee he’ll give a different answer next time he’s asked.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time,’ said James. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I killed him. His last words were, “I am the Agadir Bomber.” The Moroccans will be delighted. What will the papers say, do you think? British scientist confirms that Mansour Anzarane of MI6-funded terrorist group al Bidayat murdered sixty-seven holidaymakers in Agadir.’

  ‘You know full well that isn’t true,’ said Strang.

  ‘The Moroccans think he did it. I can back them up. What will you tell them, Strang? That it can’t be al Bidayat because al Bidayat was dreamed up by Clive Silk one night after a bad curry? Too late for that: if you force the Moroccans to admit they were wrong about Mansour, they lose their chance of implicating the Polisario in Agadir. Much better for them to tell you that you accidentally had a real terrorist on the payroll and had better keep quiet about it.’

  Nigel de la Mere emitted a laugh like a seal choking on a fish bone. ‘Sounds to me like the old bits and bytes have been leading you up the garden path, Palatine,’ he said.

  ‘What a bind you were in! Your virtual terrorist outfit suddenly brought to life by the pesky Moroccans. They say Mansour Anzarane is the Agadir Bomber; I know that the very same man is paid for out of MI6 funding for Operation Anemone. What will happen if that gets out? Service disgraced. Careers in ruins. Next thing you know, the Moroccans are planning to march into the Free Zone and turn the compound upside down in the hunt for evidence that Anzarane was consorting with the Polisario. You can’t let that happen or the IPD400 will fall into their hands. Worse still, you think I’m there and you think I’ll talk – or if not, they’ll find out some other way that Anzarane is on the Anemone payroll. It’s knowledge you can’t let them have. So you decide to tip off the Polisario and hope they can stop the raid in its tracks.’

  ‘I wondered when the conspiracy theory would pop up and say hello,’ said Strang. ‘Perhaps the Royal Family are behind it.’

  James ignored him. ‘That must have taken some nerve – you nearly started a war out there. Not the sort of behaviour expected of a permanent member of the UN Security Council. But you knew the Polisario had as much interest as you in removing any trace of Mansour and al Bidayat from the compound, so you made the call and tried to pretend you were doing it for them.’

  ‘This is becoming ridiculous,’ said Strang, though his eyes had the look of a fox that is running out of cover.

  ‘That just left me,’ said James.

  ‘You always did take yourself far too seriously,’ said de la Mere.

  Nat had been struggling to contain her hatred for the drab, shifty men in front of her. James was striking the right note, and she wanted to let him finish. But listening to their evasions and denials was unbearable.

  ‘He didn’t know anything about Operation fucking Anemone,’ she said furiously. ‘It was just a stupid word. He didn’t find out until we got to Algiers.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Strang.

  ‘Oh, you follow just fine,’ Nat said. ‘Clive told Manni Hasnaoui to get James killed and he had to find out why. That’s when he went looking for Anemone. That’s how he discovered about al Bidayat. If you’d left him alone, none of this shit would have come out. You could have dug a deep hole and buried it.’

  ‘Quite true,’ said James. ‘Until I spoke to Hasnaoui, I assumed you were monitoring al Bidayat, rather than funding it.’

  ‘The very idea that MI6 would authorise—’

  ‘We’re not talking about MI6,’ said James. ‘We’re talking about Iain Strang, Nigel de la Mere and Clive Silk. Three men facing certain disgrace.’

  ‘I know nothing about this,’ said de la Mere. ‘It was Clive who spoke to Hasnaoui – went to see him in person, as I recall. He’s always had a thing about you, Palatine, ever since Kosovo. This begins to make sense.’

  ‘You fucking sent me to Algiers, and you told me exactly what to say!’ said Silk.

  ‘And Strang told him what to say,’ said James. ‘The point is, your superiors sent you so that they could deny it.’

  Silk clambered to his feet and stumbled over to James, fists clenched by his sides, face scarlet. ‘So what fucking difference does it make? Anemone is over and you, you always were a cunt.’

  James stood and faced him. ‘The difference is—’

  ‘Every move I make, you’re there with your public-school sneer, showing off your scars and calling me an office boy. Fuck you, Palatine. I’ve worked my way up from nowhere. I’ve only ever done what’s best for my country, and you—’

  James took Clive by the lapels of his jacket and dumped him back into his chair.

  ‘Nigel, why don’t you take Clive up to bed,’ said Strang, ‘while I finish with James.’

  De la Mere was already on his feet, staring contemptuously at Clive. The two men gathered their cases and towed them off across the lobby.

  ‘I blame myself,’ said Strang. He’d managed to freshen up the grin and haul it back into position.

  ‘Me too,’ said Nat. ‘Fish rot from the head down.’

  ‘I should have throttled Anemone at birth – it would have been a kindness. I’m ashamed to say one part of me was quite keen to see Silk preside over a cock-up.’

  ‘It wasn’t Silk who got everything wrong,’ said James. ‘It was you.’

  ‘Yet here we all are, safe and sound,’ said Strang smoothly. ‘Do you know who paid Zender to steal the IPD400?’

  ‘You don’t?’ said Nat. ‘Wow, you have some dreary spy-work ahead of you.’

  ‘It makes no difference,’ Strang said quickly. ‘So, Dr Palatine, the corpus of British intelligence is manacled to the bed and awaiting your pleasure. What exactly is your pleasure?’

  ‘I haven’t decided,’ said James. ‘But there’s no hurry, is there? Think I’ll take a nice holiday.’

  ‘Let’s resolve things here and now, yes? End it properly?’

  ‘What would you suggest?’ said Nat.

  ‘For a start, I’d like you to come and work for us at MI6, Ms Kocharian. And we might confiscate the IPD400 from Grosvenor, put it out of harm’s way.’

  Nat and James looked at each other, then stood up.

  ‘Just remember this, Strang,’ said James. ‘I have the Anemone files. So behave.’

  They left the Director-General of MI6 to stew and got the concierge to open the hotel shop. They bought a swimsuit, trunks and plastic beach shoes. When they got back to the lobby, Sir Iain Strang had gone.

  ‘He ran off screaming into the night,’ said Nat. ‘It’s awful for them when someone else gets hold of one of their secrets. They shrivel up and go mad. What will you do with them?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t prove they tried to kill me, not unless I can get Hasnaoui in court. As for Anemone, it can sit in the archive for fifty years, along with all the other skeletons.’

  ‘You’re not going to the press?’

  ‘Thing is, Nat, leaving them dangling, not knowing what’s going to happen to them – that’s the cruellest thing I could possibly do.’

  ‘Bad man,’ said Nat.

  They set off for the harbour. When they reached the narrow gangway that led to the moorings, Nat stepped ahead of him. Even the way she walks makes her desirable
, James thought. The composed energy, the neat, even roll of her hips. And yet her feet were slightly splayed – a hint of the duckling. . . The insight brought a powerful, almost melancholy urge to protect her, to shield her from all the harm the world had shown it could inflict.

  They found a fishing boat preparing to sail. James asked the captain how much to drop them off the coast of Spain and the captain gave them a suspicious look and waved him away. James persisted and they arrived at a price. The captain showed them to a narrow berth in the bows which they had to share with two barrels of diesel and a dismantled winch.

  ‘This must be the honeymoon suite,’ said Nat.

  It was a burly vessel and its way with waves was to bludgeon them aside. They spent the night chattering in each other’s arms, listening to the slaps, thumps and shudders that marked their progress north. At ten, the coast of Spain came into view. They changed into their swimming things and stepped up onto the sun-warmed deck.

  ‘What are the currents like here?’

  ‘For boat, no problem,’ the captain said. ‘For swim, I no try.’

  The coast was about half a mile away. A small town sprawled from the back of a bay a little way over to the east. They went to the side of the boat and slipped into the water. It was calm with a gentle swell. The boat surged away to the south and they listened to the crew joking behind them, their voices startlingly clear across the undulating blue-green surface of the sea.

  ‘What day is it?’ asked Nat, enjoying the feel of James’s limbs in the cool water.

  ‘Sunday. The day of rest.’

  ‘Rest?’ said Nat. ‘No chance. Race you to the shore.’

  James watched her body ripple through the water. She’s a swimmer, too, he thought. I’ll never catch her.

  Epilogue

  Sunday Tribune, 16 December 2006

  The Home Secretary today announced the surprise resignation of Sir Iain Strang, Director-General of the foreign intelligence service MI6. Sir Iain, 53, has held the post only since June 2004. A graduate of Manchester Grammar School and the University of Nottingham, his appointment was intended to herald a new departure for the Oxbridge-dominated SIS, which has come under fire in recent years for what critics perceive as its archaic methods and inflexible approach. Sir Iain Strang was not available for comment.