My Name Is Nobody
Page 18
‘He’s not there. Alpha 2?’
‘He’s either gone round along Portcullis House way or right towards Parliament Street. No visual.’
Vine worked his hands up his cheeks and pressed at his eyes. The footage on the screen kept whirring, a meaningless blob of people.
‘Try switching back to the station concourse camera,’ said Vine.
‘What are you thinking?’ asked Rose. Her voice had remained calm and smoothly professional. ‘He never left?’
‘I don’t know. Or it’s a courier job of some kind. He’s thrown off a tail to collect something. Then back down the entrance on the other side.’
Montague switched the footage. And then, suddenly, there he was. Yousef was making his way back through the ticket barriers and walking now down the two flights of stairs to platform 1, no obvious attempt to hide from surveillance.
‘He’s relaxed. He knows he’s untouchable,’ said Rose.
Vine stared at the insouciant stride, Yousef teasing the cameras. ‘It’s as if he wants to get caught.’
Rose moved closer to the screen, trying to pick out a detail. ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘Tucked under his left arm?’
‘A package,’ said Vine, adrenaline coursing through him. ‘Alpha 2, target is back in the station with a package.’
‘Platform 1,’ said Rose. ‘Straight back through St James’s Park to Victoria.’
‘Alpha 1. Target most likely heading back to Victoria. Are you there?’
Waugh again: ‘No. Just about to board at Green Park.’
‘We need you at Cumberland Street as soon as possible.’
They watched as Yousef got on the train. The carriage disappeared from view just as Anderson reached the bottom of the platform steps.
‘We need to see the platforms at St James’s and Victoria,’ said Vine.
As the Tube pulled into St James’s Park, they scanned every passenger to make sure he didn’t get off. Then they endured the few minutes onwards to the chaos of Victoria. Vine prayed they hadn’t missed anything as the train came to a halt.
He watched as Yousef headed right towards the glow of the exit signs, going blank for a minute as he tramped up the flight of stairs in the crowded rush. They picked him up again as he scanned his Oyster and took another right towards the main exit up to the train station.
Vine stood mute as he saw Yousef’s pace slow. He looked phlegmatic, shuffling with an almost inebriated calm. The camera changed to the view from the top of the Tube station.
Yousef continued through the rush of the exit from the Tube station into the train station proper, suddenly shrinking in the cavernous space of the main concourse. He was past the snaking ticket queue on his right, now moving towards the odd selection of stalls cluttering the middle, one man rattling a bucket for a dementia charity, another a phone provider luring new customers with unseasonable free ice creams.
Yousef reached the middle of the station thoroughfare. He turned his head to the right as if spotting the circular wall clock with its ponderous hands and roman numeral markings for the first time. Then he stopped.
The swirl of commuters began shaping round him, barely glancing up from their phones.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Rose.
‘See if there’s a camera there,’ said Vine, feeling his voice thin. ‘Zoom in if you can.’
With a few clicks, Montague summoned up a different camera and went in closer. Vine could feel his gut begin to churn as the screen was filled with the face of Ahmed Yousef staring up directly at them. There was the trademark smirk across his jawline, the fearless set of his eyes. It was as if he alone, of all the hundreds of oblivious commuters, could see the eye monitoring them all.
‘Seriously, Solomon, what the hell’s he doing?’
Vine didn’t answer. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. He watched the odd, slow movement of the arms, inching up horizontally, scarecrow-like. With a queasy hit, he saw the left armpit of Yousef’s jacket was now clear. The package he had been carrying had vanished completely.
Yousef was taunting them with its loss like a magic trick, a smile etched on the corner of his lips.
45
Vine loaded up the Gmail login screen and went through the familiar routine of entering the email address and password. He tried to blank out all thoughts of Ahmed Yousef and the way he had played them with the brush pass. He knew he could spend hours torturing himself trying to deduce what could be in that package. But it would be no use. Yousef was a skilled operator, fluent in the arts of unsettling an enemy. For all he knew, the package could have been nothing more than a prop. They were still no closer to having any concrete information on where Yousef was planning to strike.
Vine waited as the screen whirred into life. He had neglected Newton’s investigation for too long, dishonouring the trust that had been placed in him. During all the sessions at Prince’s Gardens, Vine had been unable to shelve the parts of Newton’s investigation that remained unsolved, working away feverishly in the back of his mind. Deep down, he knew it stemmed from more than just a hatred of not knowing. He still smarted at the idea that Wilde would have the last word, garlanded with silent praise from Downing Street to the Oval Office. He knew it was petty, deeply irrational, unbecoming of a fellow officer. But the betrayal had buried itself so deeply, smuggled into every pore. Newton had discovered a truth that apparently changed everything on the night he died. Whatever else, Vine wouldn’t rest until he knew what it was.
He clicked on the drafts folder again and then on to the second draft which had been saved on 11 April. He took a sip of black coffee, the kick of it banishing the last of the drowsiness. He leaned forwards in the seat and read through from the top, Newton’s words followed by those of his mystery correspondent:
Circumstances have changed. We may not have as much time as we think.
How so? Are you altering the plan?
No. But I fear that my life could be in danger.
How?
That’s not important. I do, however, have insurance that needs to be kept safe if the worst should happen.
What type of insurance?
Very minimal. But it could be crucial to our joint endeavour.
What would need to be done?
They would only eliminate me if they felt it also eliminated the evidence. The insurance must be safeguarded before that time. It would be used only in the event of my death to tell the world the truth.
How difficult would it be to safeguard?
The logistics would be easy. The fear factor worse.
Are you asking me to keep it?
I am asking you nothing. It must be your choice, and yours alone.
And you’re sure there is no other way?
I’m sure of nothing. But time is limited. If we don’t act now, the truth could be lost for ever.
Would it be following the usual protocol?
Yes.
So be it.
Good. Until then …
Vine clicked off the draft and sat back in his chair. So many of the phrases jostled for position in his mind.
I fear that my life could be in danger …
… insurance that … could be crucial to our joint endeavour …
It would be used only in the event of my death to tell the world the truth …
What was the insurance? What was the truth that they needed to tell the world? Something to do with the MIDAS operation or the Nobody mole? And what made Cosmo Newton think his life was in danger months before he died?
Vine laid out all the pieces of the case in front of him again: Yousef’s testimony about a mole codenamed Nobody somewhere within British intelligence; the MIDAS operation that started in September 2011; Gabriel Wilde’s mission to convince Islamist groups that he had turned double; the insurance Cosmo Newton had, presumably relating to either the MIDAS operation or the truth about the Nobody mole; and the anonymous correspondent in this email account also involved in what Newton called ‘our joint
endeavour’. Did any of this information lead to an alternative hypothesis? Was he so blinkered by his emotions that he was twisting the facts to his own design?
Yet still that knot of suspicion refused to leave. He picked up Gabriel Wilde’s translation of The Odyssey again now and flicked through to the line that continued to terrorize him. He could see the smirk on Wilde’s face as he read: My name is Nobody. There were only two possible explanations. Either Cecil was right, and the Nobody mole Yousef mentioned in his confession was simply Wilde in his guise as double agent. Or Wilde had played them, using the double agent operation as a cover for what he had been doing all along. It would be the ideal mask, a classically elegant deception. Vine found himself thinking of the shooting of Yousef that day in Istanbul, the day everything had started. He had always assumed the shooter meant to kill, but the ripple effects now seemed too honed and calculated: taking him out of the action for a start with the set-up; stopping Yousef divulging vital information about the existence of the Nobody mole; and scotching any further official surveillance, freeing up Yousef to carry out an attack when the time was right. The near-miss was actually perfectly calibrated, setting in motion a plan of quiet beauty. Was that what Newton had discovered the night he died, the details of the MIDAS operation somehow providing definite proof?
Vine turned his attention back to the email account and clicked on the final draft, saved on 6 June. It was shorter than the others. He started reading.
Did the insurance arrive safely?
Yes. Confirm receipt.
Good.
Does the situation remain the same?
Yes.
Should we stop?
No. We must go on. The truth is too important.
Even if the truth gets you killed?
It would be an honourable way to die.
Inter arma enim silent leges.
Vine scanned the last line again, about to click off the draft and log out of the account. Then he paused, the words catching his attention. He had noticed it during the first scan through. But now its full importance began to hit him, the change in style suddenly deafening. The line contained only five words, but they managed to undo the cultivated blandness of the two previous drafts. It was the one mistake the anonymous correspondent had made, a fatal slip. Vine recognized the line, summoning the last of the Latin he had to translate it.
Inter arma enim silent leges.
In times of war, the law falls silent.
The meaning was secondary; the usage was key. It was a single speck of data that could be used to build up the pattern, an anomaly that winnowed down the possibilities. Identifying Newton’s correspondent was still improbably hard. But Vine had a foothold now, something to work with.
He clicked off the account and began trying to draw up a list of the most likely candidates to use a phrase like that: senior Foreign Office mandarins, perhaps, or the loftier echelons of the legal world; maybe even a source used to the verbal eccentricities of Westminster.
As he began jotting down names and ideas, forcing himself to think of any other possibilities, a familiar noise began humming beside him, rattling on the surface of the desk.
He looked down at his phone, the screen alive with a new message. As he started reading the words, he found his thoughts immediately switching back to Prince’s Gardens, the sight of Ahmed Yousef ducking free of their attention. He checked the number again, trying to spot any flaw. But he knew whose number this was, every digit memorized.
A shiver ran through him, his throat tightening unbearably.
The games are over. Now is the time to talk …
46
It was madness. Vine knew it in his bones. But he felt any last patience break. They had tried ordinary channels, clinging to immaculate tradecraft in the hope it would save them. It was doomed to failure. They weren’t competing with a clean skin. Ahmed Yousef was versed in the rules of the trade. Vine knew he should call this in and wait for authorization. But Yousef would never be found out by conventional means. Only by breaking the rules could they have a hope of breaking him.
Vine moved from the shadow of the street, checking his tail, making sure there was no one behind. He wondered whether Yousef had sprung some final trap, expertly reeling him in with the message. And then there was another voice, a nagging insistence as he watched Yousef fool them through Westminster Tube station, the smirk at Victoria. He thought further back to the scene at the mall, Yousef deliberately pausing within their sightline, exhibiting his counter-surveillance measures. He hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint what was wrong, but now he thought he knew. There was something far too confident about all of it, as if Yousef knew for certain when and how they were watching him. The choreography was too perfect to be mere chance. But how could he possibly have been so sure?
Vine felt the shadows leave him as he walked across to the front door, his movements exposed by the dribble of toffee-coloured light from the streetlamp. He stopped, alert to any sound. But there was nothing.
All he could hear were the words from the message Ahmed Yousef had supposedly sent him a matter of minutes earlier; a final, impossible taunt.
The games are over. Now is the time to talk …
He moved towards the door, tightening the strap on his bag to avoid unwanted noise. At any minute, he expected the whirl of police cars behind him, or an alarm to erupt. But the deathly quiet continued. There was only the faint screech of a car accelerating somewhere in the distance.
He scoped the door first. He could break it down or pick the lock, but both would take time. Instead, he tried it and felt a curious absence on the other side. The door was giving.
Vine began to experience a worm of unease as he pushed the door open fully, tensed in case there was anyone lurking behind. There was a light on in the hallway, the rest of the house cloaked in darkness. He thought about calling out, then decided against it.
He continued moving and started to get a sense of the place. There were too many corners here. Any hostile could hide away while still having a clear shot at him.
He took in the layout of the ground floor. There was a kitchen, a small living room and another door leading to a utility room, perhaps, or storage. He stopped and listened for any sound, answered by an empty silence.
The ground-floor rooms would need to be checked off first, before conducting a fuller search of the house.
He waited for another second, then darted forwards. The kitchen was clear, plates piled on the bench waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher. The living room contained nothing more than a sofa, a TV propped neatly on a stand and a pile of magazines and journals stacked on a wooden coffee table. Next he checked the last remaining ground-floor door. It was a utility room, the lights on a small washing machine and tumble dryer flashing in the gloom.
There was still no further sound, so Vine moved towards the stairs, climbing softly upwards, spotting a corridor to his left with two further doors.
The first was a bedroom, a light on the bedside table spraying the room with a dim glow, Yousef’s clothes draped over the top of a chair.
He walked through and examined the en-suite bathroom, then backed out and crossed the hallway. The second door was a spare bedroom, the smell mustier, not recently used. He was back at the end of the hall, about to go down the stairs again, when the light from the small window above him changed. Headlights, probably, the finer glow showing a further door straight ahead.
Vine went towards it, gently pushing it open. The light from the window dimmed again, temporarily obscuring his view. He tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness and get a handle on the layout before him. Just as he was about to walk further in, he stopped in the doorway.
Ahmed Yousef was sitting with his back turned, lolled forwards against his desk.
Vine called out to him, inching across, reaching out a hand and pushing at Yousef’s shoulder, trying to budge him awake. He began applying more pressure, forcing Yousef back to consciousness, as if rousing h
im from a deep sleep.
Eventually, he stopped. He slid his right hand towards Yousef’s pulse, the skin flimsier than he remembered, desperate to hear the metronomic tick answer, that drumbeat of life against his fingertips.
Then, slowly, he tilted the head back, a delicate manoeuvre, as if the entire facial structure could shatter at any moment. Blood had soaked through the shirtfront, only sparse patches of white still visible against the deep stain that had spread right down to the top of the trousers.
He took a breath, letting the pause last as long as possible. Then he forced his eyes upwards to the throat. There was a single wound, expertly done; it would have been over in seconds.
For the briefest of moments, Vine experienced nothing. There was no sudden rush of pain or anger, just a haze of disbelief, numbness circumventing his training. All thoughts and strategies and plans were temporarily annulled. He stood motionless for a moment, feeling any last pattern fall loose and scatter.
When he finally reached for his phone, he saw that his right hand was sticky with blood.
47
It was in the moments between reaching for his phone and dialling that he saw it. He didn’t call the emergency number, but pocketed the phone for another moment. The shock was starting to fall away, training kicking back in. The temporary lapse of emotion was retreating, and reason taking its place.
Vine eased Yousef’s body backwards, watching the heavy weight slump against the top of the chair. Then he looked at the desk, seeing a dull glimmer shape into an object. It was a phone – newish, with the aftermath of a box-fresh shine. Reaching over and picking it up, he saw there were finger marks on the screen, as if it had been used recently. He pressed the home button, watching it blink to life. The phone was locked. He needed a passcode or some other means of opening it.
Vine looked at Yousef’s body, not giving himself time to regret his next action.