Vine started to follow, feeling an irrational surge of hope. Amory hadn’t alerted the Diplomatic Protection Group officers stationed inside the entrance to Portcullis House. There was still a chance this could work.
‘I know Newton gave you the insurance,’ said Vine, his voice cutting through the rain. ‘I just need to know what the insurance is. Whatever it is, it could be the final clue that makes sense of everything that’s been happening. Newton’s death, Yousef’s death … all of it.’
The figure in front of him stopped. He turned slowly, the annoyance on his face softening. He walked back to Vine and pursed his lips. ‘You’re asking me to help someone who is currently a fugitive from the law? Someone who is suspected of murdering a man I have been actively defending?’
Vine opened his bag and slowly drew out the first sheet of paper from Newton’s file and handed it to Amory. ‘This is the paper,’ he said. ‘The paper Newton entrusted to me. All I’m asking is for one more shred of loyalty to him. Help me find the missing piece of Newton’s puzzle and you will never see me again. Once I’ve looked at it, you can even hand me in. But something awful could be about to happen. Something far bigger than Ahmed Yousef or Cosmo Newton. The information about the MIDAS operation could be the only thing that can stop it.’
Amory dipped his head and sighed loudly. A gloved hand removed a speck from his eye as he returned his gaze to Vine. He handed back the sheet of paper. ‘How long were you waiting out here?’ he asked.
Vine frowned. ‘Several hours.’
‘Ah.’ He twitched at the top of his trilby and straightened one of his brown leather gloves. ‘Then I take it you haven’t yet seen the video?’
Vine stopped. ‘The video of what?’ He felt the damp clasp of his clothes against his body, every bone convulsed with cold.
‘The British hostage, in a prison uniform, about to be executed.’ He shook his head. ‘If you really think this is connected, then I suppose we don’t have much time.’ Spotting an approaching taxi emitting a yellowish gleam, Amory raised his arm and waited for it to stop.
He opened the door and looked back at Vine. ‘If we’re going to talk,’ he said, ‘we can at least get somewhere dry.’
52
The footage played on constant repeat: Sky News, CNN, BBC News. The bedraggled face of Gabriel Wilde in an orange prison uniform kneeling in front of the camera. Behind him, a man in a balaclava held a knife to his head and ponderously repeated a prepared script. Vine translated the Arabic himself: ‘For too long the British government has attacked us. This man has been part of that work and must suffer the consequences. If the British government makes another attack on us, we will be forced to seek further vengeance. To the British Prime Minister we say one thing: if you value the life of your people, you must leave our lands.’
Vine pressed the mute button, allergic to the medieval flourish. He knew he would never be able to fully forget the sight of Gabriel Wilde’s face scabbed with blood, the deadened way he stared at the camera. But he couldn’t afford to let emotions skew reason. The video was designed to provoke an immediate physical reaction in an audience, to let the heart override the head. There would be no better way to discount yourself from suspicion than staging a hostage video, burgling instinct and sympathy. As Vine peered at the screen again, he was more convinced than ever that the whole thing was a play, a stunt, a warm-up, ensuring the forthcoming attack obliterated all other news stories on both sides of the Atlantic. This was far bigger than any of them had ever realized, Ahmed Yousef only the lieutenant to a much greater plan.
He felt sick and shivery, the effect of the hours of rain beginning to seep through his body. He took the towel and rubbed it against his head, working out the worst of the moisture.
He placed the sodden towel to his right, sank back into the cushiony warmth of the sofa and thought of Rose. He wanted to call and hear the sound of her voice. But still something stopped him.
The door opened. Valentine Amory was newly changed into a pair of burgundy cords and a dark-blue jumper. He saw the footage on the screen.
‘I presume you know who that is,’ he said. ‘One of ours?’ Up close, Amory’s voice was fruitier than Vine expected, the demotic varnish put on for the cameras. Curls of silvery hair flowed back over his head. His face had a brownish tan to it, as if he boasted some exotic ancestry or spent half the year in the south of France.
‘Yes,’ said Vine. ‘Head of Station in Istanbul.’
Amory picked up the single sheet of paper from the coffee table, the one Vine had shown him on Westminster Bridge. ‘This is Newton’s handwriting, I take it?’
Vine nodded. Amory unfurled it carefully and reached for his reading glasses. He read it once, then again, lowering his glasses when he finished.
Vine took a sip of brandy and felt it banish the spine of ice running through his body. ‘The insurance Newton mentioned in the email account. I presume you have it?’
Amory folded the piece of paper. He placed it delicately on the coffee table and then took off his glasses, rubbing them on the bottom end of his jumper. He nodded. ‘This way,’ he said.
Vine followed, into the hall and right up the stairs. There was a glimpse of a bathroom, then a bedroom. Straight ahead was a locked wooden door. Amory took out the key from his pocket, opened it and switched on the light. Inside stood a vast study, dominated by a broad oak desk and two leather armchairs.
Amory shut the door, locking it again as a precaution. Then he turned to face Vine, doubt still written across his face.
‘Before we go any further,’ he said, ‘I must ask one thing. I need you to tell me everything you know. Right from the very beginning.’
53
Vine nodded, still taking in the room. Behind the large desk was a portrait of Amory in his Commons office, the grandeur of the portcullis sign on the green-leather chair complementing the blaze of colour from his purple socks through to his Old Etonian tie.
Amory poured two drinks, handed one to Vine and then took the armchair on the left and waited. Vine continued to stand, happy to pace as he talked. He had never divulged the full story to anyone. But he had no one else to turn to. Any moment now Valentine Amory could still pick up the phone and call the police. Vine knew he had one chance to make his pitch convincing.
‘It all started four months ago,’ he began. ‘I was a senior member of MI6’s counter-espionage team, spending most of my life on planes travelling between different embassies. My schedule had changed unexpectedly and I found myself in Istanbul. When I arrived, word reached me that Ahmed Yousef, who was on the National Security Council’s Most Wanted list, had been detained. The Head of Station, Gabriel Wilde, was about to conduct an interrogation, and I joined him. It was largely fruitless. Yousef was too practised to be fooled by any of our tricks. But his own pride began to trip him up. He kept boasting that he knew a secret that would secure his release.’
Amory’s expression was unmoved, his eyes beady and inquiring. ‘Did he tell you what this secret was?’ he said.
‘Not at the time, no. Midway through the interrogation, we were called away by the RMP guard on duty. They are instructed to only interrupt a live interrogation if contacted either by the Ambassador or directly by the switchboard at Vauxhall Cross, so I knew it had to be something important. Gabriel’s wife, Rose, had called earlier as well, and he had to leave for some domestic emergency. So I took the call alone.’
‘What was the call about?’
Vine had reached the end of the room, and started turning back. ‘It was Cecil himself, telling me that I had to release Ahmed Yousef immediately.’
‘Did he tell you why?’
‘No. He didn’t give a reason. I tried to question it, but he refused to elaborate any further. Gabriel had left, so I decided to take some time outside to collect my thoughts. But not before I made a crucial mistake. I ordered the RMP guard to turn off all the CCTV cameras.’
Amory didn’t react, just a vague tilt of the h
ead upwards. Vine could see why he made such an imposing committee chair, forcing a witness to strain for reaction. ‘Why?’
‘Somehow I realized I couldn’t obey the order,’ said Vine, trying to recall his own internal logic. ‘Whatever secret Yousef knew, he thought it was enough to get out of jail free. I was well aware what he was capable of, and I couldn’t face letting him back on the streets. I thought I could keep him for further questioning and blame any CCTV issues on a power cut.’
‘And instead?’
‘I was outside for twenty minutes. When I returned, Ahmed Yousef was on the floor of the interrogation room. He had been shot. Blood was everywhere. I ordered an emergency medical team and then asked the guard to find out who had been in the building. He checked and returned to say my card had been used.’
Amory looked more intrigued now, the lawyer in him stirred by contradictory evidence. ‘Despite the fact you were outside the whole time?’
Vine nodded. ‘Yes. Someone was trying to set me up. The only evidence against me was my card and my order to disable the CCTV coverage. But, together, it was more than enough. I was immediately suspended from duty.’
Amory took another languorous sip of his drink, letting the information settle. ‘Which is when Cosmo Newton recruited you for a spot of private enterprise?’
‘Three months later, I got a postcard from Newton asking me to meet him in St James’s Park,’ continued Vine. ‘He told me that Gabriel Wilde had disappeared from his post as Head of Station. Blood had been found at his flat in Istanbul, and it looked like a kidnap. He said Cecil was acting oddly, closing ranks. But Newton suspected something else was wrong. He asked me to go and interview some of the key people Wilde knew: Olivia Cartier, his old don at Oxford and his Deputy Head of Station who was back for some annual leave.’
‘Did you find anything?’
Vine could hear the words from those interviews, phrases that had jostled for position in his mind ever since. ‘I found evidence that Wilde’s behaviour had changed in the run-up to his disappearance. He had become very vocal in his opposition to US and UK foreign policy; there was talk he had converted to Islam. He had even been a member of a group called the Prophets at Oxford. Just as I was gathering all the evidence together, Cosmo Newton called me to say he had discovered something. Something that changed everything. He asked me to meet him at Paddington station that night. I went, but he never arrived. That was the night he died.’
Amory shifted in his seat, crossing his arms and bowing his head, as if deep in thought. ‘What were his exact words?’
Vine knew them by heart, each one etched into memory. ‘I’ve been doing a spot more research after our conversation. I think I may have found something. I’m travelling back to Paddington on the last train. Best not to speak on an open line. Meet me there at 11.45 … If I’m right, this changes everything.’
‘This changes everything?’
‘Yes.’
Amory nodded. His expression still gave nothing away. Vine couldn’t tell whether he bought it.
Eventually, Amory asked: ‘Did you have any idea what he meant?’
‘Not then, no. But I knew the Whitehall machine would crank into gear before too long, so I immediately went to his house to see if I could find anything that might shed more light on what he’d discovered. In a drawer in his second-floor study, I found an envelope addressed to me. Inside was a gold key for a safe deposit box at Coutts bank on the Strand. The safe deposit box contained two documents. One was a single sheet of paper with three words in Newton’s handwriting: MIDAS, Hermes and Caesar. The second sheet had the transcript of an interrogation from January this year between Yousef and Cecil. In it, Yousef offered information about a mole codenamed Nobody working inside British intelligence. In exchange, he wanted guaranteed immunity from prosecution.’
Amory got up from his seat and began pouring himself another drink. ‘So you figured out that Hermes and Caesar were login details for the Gmail account?’
‘That part was relatively simple,’ said Vine. ‘You just had to know how Newton’s mind worked, the play on associations. Hermes was the messenger god; Caesar gave his name to the Caesar Cipher. It was the two other words that refused to make sense. So I tracked Newton’s final movements before he died, finding a fallback at Cheltenham train station which led me to Buckland.’
Amory smiled. ‘Whitehall’s secret gem.’
‘Yes. There I found a redacted file on the MIDAS operation dated 2 September 2011. It had been deliberately scourged from the computer system, but someone had forgotten to burn every paper copy. One of them still existed. Newton must have been checking it out on the day he died.’
‘And the identity of the Nobody mole?’
Vine moved over to the empty chair and drew his bag to him. He opened it and eased out the copy of The Odyssey that Wilde had sent him, feeling the weight of it in his hands. ‘The more I investigated, the clearer it became that the Nobody mole could only be one person – Wilde himself. His maternal family had been involved in financing groups linked to Islamist activity. He had been a member of the Prophets at Oxford. His behaviour had changed dramatically recently. And this arrived with an inscription from Wilde himself. To reach me when it did, it must have been sent just before he disappeared.’
Vine handed over the book to Amory, who put down his glass and began carefully flicking through the thick pages.
‘There was one line in particular that I was sure confirmed his guilt,’ said Vine.
Amory had already found it, tucked away near the middle. ‘Book nine. Odysseus speaking to Polyphemus,’ he said. ‘My name is Nobody.’
Vine nodded. ‘I thought it was Wilde trying to taunt me, a boast about his defection. But I needed more evidence. During a conversation with Olivia Cartier, she indicated that she had access to Wilde’s MI6 file. If there was suspicion of him being a double, I knew it would most likely be in the file. So I broke into the Palace of Westminster and tried to find out if she still had it. But I was caught and arrested by the authorities. That was when Cecil hauled me in himself.’
Amory handed the book back and scooped up his drink. Vine had expected a frown at this point, the MP bridling at the overreach of the secret state, storing the information away to use at a later date. Instead, there was a look of mild appreciation. ‘Impressive feat.’
Vine placed the book back in his bag and closed it again. ‘Cecil inducted me into a top-secret operation he had been running with Downing Street and the White House,’ he continued. ‘After the Snowden leak and the rise of IS, Cecil had launched a daring HUMINT play to try and persuade Islamist groups in Syria that Wilde was a double agent, willing to pass on product from MI6. Actually, he was passing on disinformation, helping Langley better target their drone programme and take out senior commanders in the field.’
‘So Wilde was the Nobody mole. But working for us all along?’
‘Cecil put together Yousef’s testimony about the Nobody mole and Wilde’s top-secret operation and decided they must be the same thing.’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘It’s one theory.’
‘If true, though, everything you’d found was cover?’
Vine started pacing again, somehow unable to remain still. He had feared Amory would shop him to the police immediately, or recuse himself because of his work on the ISC. But he was still there, still listening. Vine allowed his initial doubt to fade, replaced by the slightest hint of optimism.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Wilde needed to make it look like he was an actual defector. Hence letting people see him with a prayer mat and the exaggerated disdain for Western foreign policy. It was part of building his legend. But it had another effect. Ahmed Yousef had always denied he was an active Islamist agent, merely an academic supporter. But, by telling Cecil about the Nobody mole, he appeared to be inadvertently condemning himself.’
Amory returned to his seat and took another slow sip of his drink. ‘I see. The only way
he could know about a mole within British intelligence was if he was in collusion with Islamist groups.’
‘Exactly. Cecil assumed Yousef was talking about his own operation. So while Cecil agreed to give Yousef immunity from prosecution, he was actually making another play. Cecil could use Yousef as bait to identify every Islamist agent and sympathizer on our shores, buying his way back into full favour with Number 10 and restoring MI6 to its former glory … until the events in Istanbul changed everything.’
‘Almost overnight, Ahmed Yousef became a martyr, a symbol of state oppression.’
Vine debated how to frame his next sentence, before deciding against diplomacy. ‘Suddenly, MPs like you were writing op-eds and appearing on TV demanding an inquiry. Cecil’s grand plan to use Yousef as bait no longer worked. In the teeth of a scandal, there was no way he could get ministers to sanction official surveillance of Yousef any longer.’
Amory had finished his second helping. He reached over and placed the glass on the corner of the desk, then swivelled his attention back to Vine. ‘So he turned to you?’
‘He commissioned a small team to mount an off-the-books surveillance operation. Following Wilde’s unmasking, Cecil believed there would be a revenge attack, using Yousef to carry it out. It was the perfect situation. Yousef was now beyond reproach. There was no one better.’
‘Until his death complicated things?’
‘Throughout the surveillance, I felt something was wrong, but I could never pinpoint exactly what. He seemed too certain that we were watching him. Then, out of nowhere, I received a message directly from Yousef himself. It said simply: The games are over. Now is the time to talk. We had made no progress with surveillance, so I went round to his house on Cumberland Street to confront him. I wasn’t sure what I would do. But when I got there, I found Yousef had been taken out. Worse still, I saw messages on his phone that explained everything we had tracked him doing: the counter-surveillance measures, the brush pass in the Tube. All of them had supposedly come from my number. Yousef had been nothing more than a decoy, distracting us from the real preparations for an attack. And someone was trying to finish off the work they started in Istanbul, taking me out of the picture by framing me for Yousef’s death.’
My Name Is Nobody Page 20