‘Can I get you a coffee or a drink perhaps?’ she asked as he clambered to his feet.
‘A diet coke, please…and unopened if you don’t mind.’
‘Ok, sit there.’ She gestured towards an armchair with her Beretta and he sat down in it and remained very still.
She gave him a tight-lipped smile and disappeared into the kitchen. She came back with a bottle and watched him ostentatiously inspect the plastic seal before twisting off the cap.
‘Now you’d better tell me your version of what happened,’ Gerry said.
‘It was a car crash as you probably know; Philip Barrett and his driver Myers, who was an American Marine sergeant out there, were run off the road and rammed by a truck. Dean Furness set it up. It was no accident. It was a hit.’ Gerry kept quiet as he related the story, partly to contain her emotions and partly to make sure the voice recording she had set up when she was in the kitchen was clear.
‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Philip?’
‘Listen, Gerry. You help us find Furness and we’ll get some answers from him. That’s for certain!’
She stared at him for a moment. ‘Well I don’t know why he came to see me. He told me he knew Philip in Abuja, and told me he’d been lucky not to be taken out too. Then he rambled on about this ancient king in Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh.’
‘And have you any idea what he was talking about?’ Samms asked.
‘Not a bloody clue. Do you?’ Gerry replied.
‘Did he say he’d get in touch with you again?’
Gerry shook her head. ‘Actually he seemed a bit pissed off with me; said I was a complete waste of space and that he was going back to the States. Between you and me he seemed a bit of a nutter. I certainly wouldn’t trust him.’
‘Ok, well if he ever does get in touch, you be sure to call me, ok?’ Samms insisted.
Gerry shrugged her shoulders. ‘Ok, if you like.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Next morning Gerry woke up at early. She was still exhausted having lain awake until two o’clock in the morning and then slept only fitfully since then. Maybe she could get onto the computers at work and find something about Jasper White, Dean Furness and this whole Gilgamesh business. She showered and dressed, grabbed some breakfast and then rode the tube to the office. As she went through the security channel she was flagged up and one of the gate keepers beckoned her over.
‘Good morning Miss Tate. The system says you’re on leave so I’m required to ask you why you’ve come in and give you a secondary check.’
‘I’ve just come in to pick up some personal items,’ Gerry explained.
‘Ok. Now gaze into the scanner, please.’
Gerry waited impatiently while the computer confirmed her iris scans and then hurried to the elevator hall. She went to her personal locker in the basement physical training centre and took out her squash racket in case the same gate keeper saw her leaving. Next she found an empty conference room and switched on the computer. Rather than using her own password she logged on using the security code of a colleague named Sylvia Brookes whose password she had surreptitiously noted when they were on a case together some months back.
The CIA personnel records listed Dean Furness and recognition codes to be used in the event of a joint operation, but as he was not based in Europe there was no other information. Gerry filled in a request for further details citing the reason that an operation was being considered but she doubted that she would get any response, except perhaps a summons from Cornwall asking her to explain the request.
Jasper White turned out to be a senior figure in the CIA, an ex US Marine Colonel with an exemplary record and an expert on the Middle East, but Sylvia Brookes’ clearance level could reveal nothing further. Next she entered Gilgamesh into the computer but drew blank. She slumped back in her seat and gazed at the screen, then printed out the meagre information on White and Furness. She walked out the building past security with her squash racket prominently in view and set off for home.
Gerry emerged from the Richmond underground station in bright sunshine and wandered along The Quadrant and George Street wondering what to do about her recent contacts and occasionally gazing into the shop windows. Then she walked onto the green and sat down on a bench and thought about Phil and their life together. She watched young children playing together with their mothers looking on, or perhaps they were nannies, she decided when she realised that the women looked very young. She was aroused from her reverie by the sound of distant thunder and she saw the skies were turning black with rain. She began to walk home, wishing she was carrying an umbrella rather than a squash racket. As the rain came down she regretted her earlier dawdling and she was fairly soaked when she reached her road, then as she turned the final corner she came to an abrupt stop. Outside her building were three police cars and a crime scene van.
Gerry examined her options. She could go in and find out what had happened. She could return to the office and report that a crime had apparently taken place at her home and ask the duty officer to establish the facts, or she could get away as fast as possible and then find out what happened from a safe distance. She looked over at her car parked opposite and a hundred metres up the road; she would have to pass the two constables stationed at the entrance to her flat. She had nothing with her but the clothes she was wearing and the contents of her handbag and her squash racket, but option three seemed safest for the moment and she turned round and walked back down the road towards the town.
A silver Ford Mondeo drew up to the pavement beside her and the driver’s window slid down. ‘Get in, Gerry!’ the driver ordered. It was Jasper White. She opened the passenger door and climbed in.
‘What the hell’s going on? Why are they there?’ she demanded.
‘The body of a male aged about forty has been found shot in your apartment. You’re wanted by the police.’
‘Oh shit!’ said Gerry. ‘Who is it? It’s not Dean Furness is it?’
‘Let’s go somewhere we can talk,’ he suggested.
He drove to the river bank and parked the car and they walked to a large pub with a terrace overlooking the river. It was fairly quiet on a Tuesday afternoon before the working day had ended. Inside White found a corner seat suitably distant from any loudspeakers so that they could have a quiet conversation.
‘Have a drink?’ he asked.
Gerry considered her resolution not to drink alcohol while she was pregnant and decided to revoke it for the day. ‘Dry white wine, please.’
White returned after a few minutes with her wine and a clear bubbling drink for himself with ice and lemon which could have been anything from a sparkling water to a vodka and tonic. It irked her that she did not know what it was. He sat down, looked around, took a sip of his drink.
‘Do you have a cast-iron alibi for where you’ve been today?’
‘Not all of it,’ she replied. ‘You think I’ll need one?’
‘Do you mind telling me where you’ve been?’
‘Why should I tell you, Jasper?’
‘Listen to me hard arse! Dean Furness was a good friend of mine; we go back a long way. I think he came to London because he knew I would help him out. He asked me to find out about you; who you were, where you lived; what you were like. He was in some kind of deep shit but I don’t know the details. He spoke to me last night. He told me he’d seen you and we agreed that we would meet up with you this afternoon. I drove round to your place and found all this shit happening.’
‘Yes he came to see me briefly yesterday. He told me Philip was murdered in Abuja.’
‘Did he talk to you about Gilgamesh?’
‘Yeah he mentioned him. Is it some kind of code word? I didn’t have a clue what he was on about.’ Gerry put her wine glass down with a bang. ‘How do I know it wasn’t you who shot this guy Furness?’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ snapped White. ‘Don’t you care what happened to your guy Philip out there in Africa?’
‘Of course I do, you bastard, and Neil Samms told me that Dean Furness had him killed!’
White hesitated a moment. He noted her rapid breathing and clenched fist, the small white scars showing clearly across her knuckles. ‘You heard that Philip died in a road accident on his way to the airport…right?’ Gerry gave a small nod. ‘Dean was due to be riding in that car as well. He realised his head was on the block and he’s been running scared ever since. Samms is mistaken, and I wonder why he told you that.’
Gerry’s combative mood evaporated; she stared up at the ceiling fighting off the wave of nausea engendered by the repetition of the story of Philip’s death.
‘Look, unless you’re considering running off, you’re gonna have to talk to the police sooner or later,’ said White. ‘Maybe we should level with each other and take it from there.’
Gerry saw that his angry expression had been replaced by a look of concern. She sighed and nodded. ‘Ok, but first tell me why you’re helping me.’
White stared at her for a moment. ‘Because I want to know the truth, and if I thought for a moment you’d killed Dean, you’d be lying on the sidewalk back there.’
‘Well that’s pretty direct.’ She stared down at the table, twiddling her glass and then looked at him. ‘How did Dean contact you?’
‘He called me from Algiers. Dean was a smart guy. He told me that he’d worked his way into the CIA office there, impersonating one of the local staff. Then when he got to London we used an old drop box. As I said, we go back a long way, me and Dean. Now listen, you can be placed at your office for much of the morning, but that doesn’t get you off the hook entirely; it doesn’t cover the whole time you were away.’
‘Why should I need to cover the whole time? I didn’t shoot anyone!’ Gerry insisted, ‘and anyway what’s my motive for killing Furness?’
‘Maybe because Neil Samms told you that he killed Philip.’
‘He’s a bloody creep.’
‘Don’t you underestimate him; he might seem like an idiot with that stupid grin and that ponytail, but he’s dangerous. He’s trained, same as you are.’
Gerry drained her glass and stared into the bottom of it. ‘Furness was going to tell me what he knew about this Gilgamesh operation. You don’t suppose there might be something left in my flat about it?’
‘No, whoever shot him would have cleared it out. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that me and Dean took your friend Rashid Hamsin over the border from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait back in February. He was to meet up with a guy called Hakim Mansour who was a close associate of Qusay Hussein.’
‘Mansour’s the guy I escorted from Kuwait to Frankfurt and back. He met with Hugh Fielding and your guy Robert Bruckner,’ said Gerry. ‘That’s where I first met Dean.’
‘So let’s say that you have a problem with this…situation with Dean. I’ll give you an alibi. Say I called you on your cell phone and I arranged to meet you off the subway and we’ve been together the whole time. How does that sound?’
‘That sounds ok, I suppose,’ Gerry nodded.
‘Look we should go back to your place now, otherwise it’ll seem suspicious. No doubt they’ll have some questions for us.’
It was nearly eight o’clock by the time the police car took Gerry and Jasper White back to her flat. They had spent a long afternoon writing statements and being interviewed several times over. Neither Gerry nor White had accepted the offer of a lawyer which had made the inspector in charge even more suspicious. After a couple of hours a sergeant had entered the interview room and handed a sheet of paper to the inspector who was asking Gerry to relate her movements for the fourth time. He had read through the paper then stared at her, comparing her appearance to a picture on the sheet. ‘Ok. My jurisdiction has been superseded by Special Branch. Apparently they deal with you people, and I’m told to release you.’
He had stood up abruptly and left the room and shortly afterwards she and Jasper White had been driven back to her flat. She packed an overnight bag, collected her computer and accepted a leaflet from the police officer in charge. This explained the process by which her flat would be off limits until she was notified that its status as a crime scene for the purpose of preserving or gathering evidence was ended. Then it recommended a choice of cleaning companies who were experienced in the removal of the evidence of violent bloody death. She accepted it with a brief nod and followed Jasper to his car.
He drove her to a local hotel; small in size but still high in price in this expensive part of London. Jasper carried her suitcase to her room. ‘Now you get some sleep and I’ll call you about ten o’clock…ok?’
Ok, thanks Jasper.’ He smiled at her and left the room.
She spent the next hour on her computer filing an incident report with the night duty officer to be passed on to Richard Cornwall first thing in the morning and then finally fell asleep, exhausted at 10pm.
Gerry slept badly, waking up frequently and turning over the events of the previous days in her mind. She was woken again by the dawn chorus, fairly loud in this semi-rural suburb. She found some earplugs that she had taken off her last British Airways flight, stuffed them in her ears, and then the next thing she heard was her telephone rousing her from a deep sleep at 9.05am.
‘Hullo,’ she mumbled after pulling out her earplugs.
‘Tate, this is Cornwall. We want you in the office now. Where the hell are you?’
‘I’m in the Raleigh hotel in Richmond.’
‘Well get in as soon as you can then.’ He ended the call. A moment later the phone rang again.
‘Yes?’
‘Stay where you are. Vince Parker will come and pick you up, and don’t even think about doing a runner!’
‘Why should I think…?’ she began to reply but already he had broken off the call. Puzzled and anxious, Gerry resumed getting ready. She had of course anticipated being called in to describe what had happened in her flat but this abrupt summons was disconcerting. Why would they think she might run away? Where to?
Thirty minute later she was peering out through the hotel’s revolving glass door as Vincent Parker drove up in a Porsche. She trotted down the steps opened the passenger door and climbed in.
‘Nice car. Didn’t know we had Porsches in the car pool,’ she remarked.
‘Er, it’s my own actually,’ he replied.
‘Well would you believe it? Are the men in the service secretly on much higher pay scales than women?’ Gerry asked.
‘Sorry; parents died; left me a fair amount; are you sitting comfortably?’ Without waiting for a reply he pulled out and set off towards the office.
‘I’ve been directed not to talk to you about the incident,’ he said, ‘but I think you should get your thoughts in order.’
‘Well thanks for the gratuitous advice!’ she said. They drove in silence for a couple of minutes and then Gerry said ‘Sorry, that was out of order.’
‘That’s ok. Crap thing to happen to anyone.’
Gerry found that for the first time since she had joined the service she had forgotten to bring her ID card. Vince waited while she reported to the security desk and picked up a temporary ID and then he told her they had to report to the blue conference room.
‘We’ll take the lift; it’s on the fourth floor,’ he declared walking to the main elevator bank.
‘I know. I do work here actually,’ Gerry replied acerbically. She marched to the lift and then had to give way to him because her temporary ID would not let her operate the call button.
‘Are you ready to enter the lions’ den?’ he asked as he knocked on the blue door. There was a clunk as the lock released.
Inside she found Richard Cornwall and his boss, Operations Director Donald Jarvis sitting at a small conference. In the corner of the room she saw Sir Hugh Fielding staring up at her. ‘The court of inquiry has assembled,’ she thought to herself.
‘Sit down please, Tate.’ Jarvis ordered.
The door closed and she
was alone amongst them.
‘Now just tell us what happened, starting from when you left the office last week.’
They listened to her without interruption as Gerry described her journey to her mother’s home. She described meeting Jasper White on the drive back to London. She reported her meeting with Dean Furness at the café. She told them that she had left the office yesterday and then been with White until arriving back at her flat to find the police had taken it over. She finished her story at the point she had received Cornwall’s telephone call at 9am that morning. The three men exchanged glances and then Richard Cornwall spoke.
‘We have subsequently heard from the Americans. They say that one of their people Neil Samms warned you that Mr Furness, a renegade American agent was responsible for Philip Barrett’s death. Samms suggests that you shot Furness but he calls into question any plea that it was in self-defence.’
‘What plea?’ Gerry broke in angrily. ‘Why should I have to plead anything? Especially in front of this bloody kangaroo court!’
‘Furness was unarmed and your apartment contained a surprising, alarming was the word the police used, variety of weapons besides the gun used to kill him. Ballistics has confirmed that your gun was used to fire the fatal shot and your fingerprints were the only ones found on your gun. DNA testing has so far revealed no other intruders, but we have a witness that places you at the scene at the time of death.’
He paused. Flabbergasted, Gerry stared at him.
‘This is ridiculous. I wouldn’t shoot Furness on the say-so of one man, especially a creep like Neil Samms. That witness must have been mistaken.’
‘At first the Americans believe that you killed Furness under our express authority. We assured them that this wasn’t the case.’
‘But I didn’t shoot Furness,’ Gerry protested. ‘I was with Jasper White after I returned from the office! This is preposterous!’
The Gilgamesh Conspiracy Page 15