‘They wanted you to run.’
‘Yes.’
There was silence for a moment. All Vine could hear was the soft thrum of cars on the street outside, the odd snatch of conversation. He had to pray that Amory believed him, despite everything.
Amory nodded again, still refusing to exhibit any direct emotion. After a pause, he said: ‘So tell me … why you?’
54
Vine didn’t answer at first. He looked at Amory, saw the studied blankness in the face, the former barrister in him adept at wheedling out inconvenient truths. ‘Whoever is behind all this is planning something,’ he said, at last. ‘Something big. And they know that I could stop them.’
‘But why you specifically?’
It was the question that continued to needle him. The set-up in Istanbul, Wilde’s translation of The Odyssey, the messages on Yousef’s phone – all of it had been calibrated for him, anarchy undoing reason. ‘My role in counter-espionage for a start,’ he said. ‘Then my connection with Newton.’ Vine paused, wondering how much he could risk sharing with Amory. He couldn’t let emotions appear to cloud his judgement, yet it was pointless denying the obvious. ‘And something more personal as well …’
‘Personal?’
‘I think Gabriel Wilde is behind all of this.’
‘But the video … ?’
‘The video is a fake. I’m sure of it. We trained together and worked together. We shared the same goals, the same aspirations, even loved the same woman. He won her, and he’s now trying to bury me for good. It is the perfect act of deception. Wilde can pretend to be what he has been all along. Every indiscretion is forgiven, every betrayal sanctioned by the fifth floor. Wilde is Nobody. But he isn’t working for us. He’s working for them. He always has been.’
‘And what about MIDAS?’
Vine stopped pacing, the question rooting him to the middle of the floor. Expressing the thoughts out loud, he was more convinced than ever that the evidence trail could only lead back to Wilde. But there still wasn’t enough to prosecute. It was a blend of gossip, assumptions, inferences and speculation. He needed proof, something that gave Wilde motive and means.
‘In the file he left for me, Newton included the page with the word MIDAS on it and the transcript about the Nobody mole,’ he said, at last. ‘Somehow he must have thought that the two were connected, one shedding light on the other. The truth about the MIDAS operation has to be the smoking gun that nails Gabriel Wilde. It’s the only explanation.’
Amory didn’t respond at first. He was rubbing his palms against each other, emitting a soft, powdery rasp. ‘And the possible attack? You said Cecil thought something was being planned?’
‘Cecil told me there had been increased chatter from Islamist cells since Wilde’s disappearance. He thought there would be a revenge attack on London because they’d found out about the deception operation. Wilde wanted us to think that, of course, to concentrate on Yousef and miss the bigger picture. It was all working perfectly until Yousef broke the protocol, contacting the sender directly. I got the message, and so they switched to a back-up plan. Frame me, get me on the run, render me powerless to stop whatever they are planning. The timing of the hostage video will be for a reason. It’s a warm-up for the main act. The only question is where they choose to strike.’
Vine went silent for a moment, then he turned back to Amory, his tone sharper, more urgent.
‘In Newton’s correspondence with you, he talked about “the insurance” that you would safeguard in the event of his death,’ he said. ‘I’ve now told you everything I know. I believe Newton wanted me to pick up his trail, following the evidence to the same conclusion he reached before he died. I need to see whatever he left you to safeguard. Whatever it contains is the only information that will make sense of everything. Do you have it?’
Amory looked reluctant, staying seated for a moment. Then he got up and walked over to the painting behind his desk, lifting it up carefully to reveal a grey safe. He tapped in a passcode, reached inside the safe and drew out a single box. He placed it down on the centre of the desk.
‘Don’t ask me how Newton got this, or why,’ said Amory. ‘I suspect not by legal means. But I am just the courier. Newton had some romantic notion that Cecil would think twice before ordering a raid on the home of a parliamentarian. That’s why he picked me as his fallback. Hence the Gmail account. From what you suggest about his visit to Buckland, he must have been trying to work up the case from legitimate sources before he died.’
Amory brushed a layer of dust off the top of the box, then opened it and reached inside, carefully lifting out a thin USB stick, balancing it in his hands like a prized object. ‘You really think this can help you stop Gabriel Wilde?’
‘Yes,’ said Vine, more sure of the answer than of anything else. ‘I think it’s the only way to stop Gabriel Wilde.’
‘Very well.’ Amory clung on for another moment, before slowly passing the USB stick over to Vine along with a piece of notepaper containing two passcodes. ‘Whatever is on there …’ he began.
Vine didn’t let him finish. ‘Delete the Gmail account,’ he said, as he pocketed the USB stick and started heading for the door. ‘Cover your tracks. And, don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.’
55
He barely noticed the hit of cold outside. Anticipation coursed through his body, a tingling rush. He hailed a cab, asked for Westminster, then checked behind and around for any sign of a tail. Minutes later, as the cab pulled into the Derby Gate entrance to Parliament, Vine paid and walked to the other side of Parliament Street. Then he quickened his pace, on to King Charles Street and down past the side of the Treasury on his left and the Foreign Office on his right. He ducked left at the end, crossed, then turned right into Old Queen Street. He hailed another cab and asked for Hugh Street. He checked for a final time, sure he’d lost any tail.
Once back in his room, Vine allowed himself a moment to order his thoughts. He took out the USB stick Amory had given him and considered it for a moment. The information it contained could be the final clue that proved Gabriel Wilde’s treachery, showing how the MIDAS operation linked to the Nobody mole. He felt his pulse rise, a nervous sweat bristle all over his body. This would be enough to explain away Yousef’s death, allow him back to his rightful place at Vauxhall Cross. The exile could finally end; he could come in from the cold.
He waited for his MacBook Air to jolt to life. Then he inserted the USB stick into the laptop and watched nervously as it loaded.
The first screen asked for an identification number.
He typed in the first number from the notepaper. Correct.
The second screen asked for an authorization code. He typed the second number in. Correct.
Then he waited as the screen whirred. He listened closely for any further sound nearby. Would a Special Branch team already be inside the hotel? Had they managed to creep up to his door without him noticing? He glanced towards it, knowing any second now it could splinter to nothingness.
The dial spun for the last time, opening up an ordinary-looking file named with a long series of digits. Inside the file was a single PDF document. He double-clicked and then peered closer. It looked like a scan, the lettering which had been redacted in the paper version at Buckland now clear. Vine read the top of the page.
TOP SECRET
STRAP 4
MIDAS OPERATION
The first thing that was unusual was the classification level. The header indicated that only those with STRAP 4 clearance could read the file. That excluded the bulk of the intelligence services and any Cabinet minister apart from the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary and Home Secretary, alongside specially cleared aides in Whitehall.
The file was set out as a series of memos. Vine started reading through each one, pausing at certain passages, his confusion beginning to build.
MEMO: 2 September 2011
FROM: CSIS
TO: NSAWH, DNI, DCI
A
CC: DGSS, AGOHMG
… I am writing to you following our recent Washington visit to confirm Downing Street’s commitment to extending US–UK cooperation. As you know, the new operation has been designed to allow the UK to continue our special relationship beyond Five Eyes and be a full partner in your ongoing RPA programme. While political sensitivities domestically have thus far precluded action beyond a traditional military context, we are now convinced Special Forces can effectively partner the CIA in this exciting new frontier. The new US–UK operation will be codenamed MIDAS …
MEMO: 12 September 2011
FROM: CSIS
TO: NSAWH, DNI, DCIA
CC: DGSS, AGOHMG
… Since our previous exchange, I can now confirm that sign-off has been received for the MIDAS operational base at RAF Waddington. The select team there will be liaising closely with the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron at Creech and the wider 732nd Operations Group, under the management of a Joint Special Operations team reporting directly to Vauxhall Cross …
MEMO: 3 October 2011
FROM: CSIS
TO: NSAWH, DNI, DCIA
CC: DGSS, AGOHMG
… I am delighted to say that legal approval for the MIDAS operation has been received from the Attorney General’s Office, addressing all previous concerns about ROEs. Downing Street has therefore signalled that the MIDAS operation can now begin in earnest. Our two nations have a long history of intelligence sharing, from our role at Bletchley to defeating the threat of Soviet communism. Through the MIDAS operation, HMG very much looks forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you once again in this vital work for the national security of the United Kingdom, the United States and, indeed, the world …
Vine looked down at the next document and read on.
ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE
OPINION: 3 October 2011
FROM: AGOHMG
TO: CSIS
… it is therefore our view that the MIDAS operation meets the necessary standards required by international law to protect HMG and CSIS from potential future legal difficulties …
As soon as he’d finished, Vine read through the memos again, then a third time, a savage sense of disappointment starting to crash through him. There had to be some terrible mistake. He had been convinced – more certain than anything in his life – that the truth about the MIDAS operation would finally confirm Gabriel Wilde’s treachery. Newton had been clear, the file in the safe deposit box hinting at nothing less: the two pages had been deliberately placed together to suggest a connection, a causal thread that linked them both. Why else write MIDAS on the first sheet and then include a transcript about the Nobody mole on the second? Why would Newton risk everything, illegally stealing this file from Vauxhall Cross’s own air-gapped system – or, perhaps, even infiltrating Langley’s records – and asking Amory to safeguard it in the event of his death, unless it was the key to everything?
For the first time, Vine felt his confidence in Newton slip its moorings. He had always been so sure, nourished by an unblinking faith ever since that sunny afternoon in Cambridge sixteen years earlier. But what if that faith had been tragically misplaced? Newton had been old, frail, pensioned off from MI6 and given the role at the JIC as a last hurrah. But, even so, surely this couldn’t be what Newton had meant? For a start, there was no mention of Gabriel Wilde at all. Vine began hurriedly combing through the acronyms and the dehydrated Whitehall jargon: RPA stood for remotely piloted aircraft, drones in other words, the lethal unmanned machines raining fire halfway across the world. ROEs, meanwhile, referenced military Rules of Engagement.
He turned to the distribution list and the bunched letters at the top of the memos: NSAWH meant the White House’s National Security Adviser, the President’s closest aide on security matters; DNI was the Director of National Intelligence, the person in charge of coordinating intelligence across the US government; DCIA referenced the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. These were the high priests of the US intelligence world, for sure. But, no matter how hard he tried, Vine couldn’t spot any link with Gabriel Wilde.
Struggling to maintain his composure, he moved his attention to the final part of the file. Frustration began to bite at him as he read the location names, the meaning once again drifting tantalizingly out of reach.
OPERATION LOG:
MISSION 1: 08.10.11. Location: Pakistan. Read out: sixty-one casualties. Summary: one confirmed target, sixty non-combatants.
MISSION 2: 24.10.11. Location: Pakistan. Read out: forty-two casualties. Summary: one confirmed target, forty-one non-combatants.
MISSION 3: 05.11.11. Location: Yemen. Read out: twenty casualties. Summary: two confirmed targets, eighteen non-combatants.
MISSION 4: 10.11.11. Location: Yemen. Read out: thirty-two casualties. Summary: no confirmed target, thirty-two non-combatants.
None of this made sense. The MIDAS file, the document Newton had risked everything to find and confirm, seemed unrelated to anything Vine had been pursuing, shedding no light on the investigation whatsoever. Almost despite himself, he began adding up the numbers, the ghastly bureaucracy of death. He looked again at the words – sixty non-combatants, forty-one non-combatants, eighteen non-combatants, thirty-two non-combatants. He considered the distribution list again. It was evidence of many things – mass extra-judicial killing, even a potential war crime, a black op at the very top of the British state – but he still couldn’t see how it related to the case against Wilde, the truth about Nobody, the reason for Newton’s death.
He closed his eyes and tried desperately to refocus. He rubbed them awake and turned to the bottom of the screen and the sender, the architect of the MIDAS operation. Was this what Newton had meant to direct him to? He checked it against the acronym at the top of all the other memos. It seemed the only possible linking thread, the sole echo of the words from Newton’s file, a final hope that Vine felt himself cling firmly to now.
MIDAS operation terminated – ref CSIS.
CSIS. Chief, Secret Intelligence Service. MI6.
None other than Sir Alexander Cecil himself.
56
Vine closed the laptop lid and got up from his chair, feeling the walls of the hotel room lean in on him now, the crushing smallness of the place almost suffocating. A blast of different emotions whirled through his body: disappointment, anger, confusion. He had been so sure the truth about the MIDAS operation would be the key to everything, his ticket back to sanity, out of this room, wiping away the madness of the last few months. And yet he was left with nothing, just information about an obscure black op that resulted in mass casualties in the more dangerous corners of the world.
He took a deep lungful of breath, letting his arms rest by his side, closing his eyes to cut out all distractions. He drew up the information again in his mind, ordering it more neatly and then tracking through every detail to see what he could be missing. The first key point of interest was obvious: the scale of the civilian casualties. The MIDAS operation had undertaken four joint UK–US drone missions, with a horrendous loss of life. The numbers played in front of him again.
… one confirmed target, sixty non-combatants …
… one confirmed target, forty-one non-combatants …
… two confirmed targets, eighteen non-combatants …
… no confirmed target, thirty-two non-combatants …
The figures alone, if ever made public, would be enough to bring down careers and ruin reputations beyond repair. Inquiries would be launched, questions asked in Parliament, newspaper columns filled with calls to prosecute those who had signed off on what amounted to a war crime. Though it was well known that the CIA had carried out lethal strikes outside a traditional military context, the British government had always fiercely denied that MI6 had ever done so. If the MIDAS file was correct, Parliament and the public had been deliberately lied to.
Vine flicked back up to the text of the memos in his mind, sieving it for any further info
rmation that could prove useful, be teased out into a possible connection with Gabriel Wilde, the Nobody mole, a retaliatory attack on London.
… the MIDAS operational base at RAF Waddington … will be liaising closely with the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron … under the management of a Joint Special Operations team reporting directly to Vauxhall Cross …
The MIDAS operation had bypassed all the usual military command structures, placing an elite Joint Special Operations team and the power to order lethal strikes under the command of the Chief of MI6. To do that, Downing Street had signed off on a secret base at RAF Waddington.
…I am delighted to say that legal approval for the MIDAS operation has been received from the Attorney General’s Office, addressing all previous concerns about ROEs.
The final memo confirmed that legal authorization had been provided by the Attorney General’s Office, sanctioning the drone missions and ensuring that a way had been found to circumvent the normal Rules of Engagement that governed the conduct of British troops in battle.
Vine kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, scrolling back through all those details, parsing them for any more clues. He could feel his muscles tense further as he exerted every last ounce of concentration, willing himself to spot whatever speck or fragment he was missing, the same particle of information that Newton had glimpsed the night he died which brought everything into focus. But somehow all he could see were the facts, the gruesome procession of numbers and words.
Frustration began to well up inside him again, massing like an explosive force. Vine tried to let his muscles relax, his concentration sag, allowing his eyes to flicker open and take in the flaking paleness of the room.
My Name Is Nobody Page 21