Failsafe Query

by Michael Jenkins

  ‘Interesting,’ Sean said. ‘Meanwhile, it looks like there are a few of us lined up, from a few agencies, to try and uncover this type of evidence.’

  ‘Plenty of dodgy nuclear trading going on,’ Jonny said. ‘Question is, can we find evidence of it getting into Iraq or to AQ terrorists?’

  Jonny explained that there were likely to be other officers in the region with the inherent mission of finding intelligence to show that Uzbekistan was supplying ‘yellowcake’ uranium to Iraq, which could then be enriched and used as weapons-grade material for nuclear devices.

  Had Sean read the ultra-secret MI6 dossier on this critical intelligence objective, which he wasn’t privy to, he’d have known Dominic Atwood was on a similar mission to his own. Neither knew of each other’s objectives but the intelligence they were providing was being graded at the highest compartmented level within the intelligence services – and shared with the Americans.

  The Great Game of the modern era had arrived in Central Asia with similar duplicitous, clandestine and murky activity to the last – this time it was configured to propel the US onto a platform for war across the region. The fallout from this road map would eventually be cataclysmic for politicians and spymasters alike in the UK and US over the coming decade.

  *

  Sean closed the train window and walked slowly back to the compartment, eager to learn more from Yuri. He was impressed with the detailed and diligent documenting of Yuri’s intelligence operation, and wanted to help him reap high-grade intelligence to enhance the bird’s-eye view of illicit radiological trading in the region.

  Yuri had arranged with Davitadze to let Sean see for himself the routes and tactics being used for smuggling from Bokhara. The stage was set for Sean to look at the front-line activity and get amongst the live intelligence collection operations on the ground.

  The long desert journey came to an end and was made all the more worthwhile when Sean finally stepped out of the carriage and into the searing heat of Bokhara train station. He sensed the magnificence of the place, seeing the high minarets in the distance. There was no platform – he jumped out of the carriage onto the red sand and noticed a few small huts acting as the station entrance. He stood and watched for a few moments. Uzbeks were sat alongside the rails, proffering their wares from trestle tables, and smoke wafted from the station charcoals on which shashlik was cooking, as the vendors escaped from the direct sun by sitting under large parasols, chatting and drinking chai. Bokhara was an oasis in the sands and was to become a place of great curiosity for Sean, who was immediately captivated by its mystique.

  Sean and Yuri walked the short distance to the centre of the city, which was often dubbed the most interesting in the world because of its murky and mysterious history. Named after the Sanskrit word for monastery, vikhara, the city could not have been more inappropriately labelled given its image of iniquity, which had reached a nadir with the reign of the deranged despot Nasrullah in the nineteenth century.

  Sean saw little evidence of such historic cruelty and death – but he recalled the history of the Great Game, which he had read at length, knowing that it was here that two British officers had been executed by the emir in 1838. It was chilling for Sean to walk amongst this evocative memory of British history, but he was mesmerised by its impressive gems and by the breathtaking blue and white brickwork of its mosques, minarets and mausoleums. Walking alongside Yuri, he felt every bit a tourist on a very special tour, clad as he was in rucksack, sunglasses and black cap.

  They stopped for a while in the huge central square, sat in the shade and gazed at the impressive Kalon minaret. Sean started sketching on a small pad. The square was surrounded by a colonnaded arcade of columns and arches and was a peaceful sanctuary for Sean to enjoy a reflective moment in the late-afternoon sun. He treasured such moments. He paused to wonder about his own life, grappling with his vision of one day following the duty trail into Civvy Street, holding down a steady job and wage, and having a family. He heard himself entertaining these domesticated thoughts as he took in the magnificence – but could he see himself ever being fully extracted from this life of chaos? He wondered if he’d be forever looking over his shoulder at the trail of nemeses left in his wake. He had a yearning deep inside him, at the very core of his being. Some indefinable sense that one day he could cleanse his soul of the killing and death he had been embroiled in – and that one day, maybe, he could find peace with himself. And with another.

  Yuri’s voice made him flinch as he was brought back to reality.

  ‘Tonight, you will see your radioactive sources, Sean. We’ll take you to a fleet of trucks parked in the desert, and to one in particular which has been waiting for a call forward by the Iranians.’

  Sean lifted his sunglasses to look Yuri in the eye.

  ‘How do you know the material is on board? How long has it been there?’

  ‘Two days,’ Yuri said. ‘My team have been watching the smugglers for weeks and Dimitri has confirmed the vehicle has got the material on board. He’s arranged the transit across the border for tomorrow afternoon. We’ve also got some equipment for you too – to confirm the radiological source.’

  Sean wanted to make sure that Yuri’s intelligence and operation were legitimate and not a set-up – but he grappled with how he could do this other than by trusting that Yuri was being totally up front and not staging the whole event just to get a free defection pass to the UK.

  Nevertheless, Sean would now carefully look at the smugglers’ methods and verify that real fissile material was in play. He knew it would be risky getting himself on-board the vehicle at night unnoticed, so he had no option other than to trust his gut feeling and the competence of his Uzbek intelligence hosts.

  As they walked to their small hotel, Sean kept an eye out for any recurring faces in the crowds.

  Chapter 4

  Karakum Desert, Bokhara, Uzbekistan, 2002

  Uzbekistan was remote. It was like virtually stepping back in time. The deserts surrounding Bokhara gave Sean a sense of history as he thought about how British officers had first traversed this great land in the nineteenth century. He felt privileged to operate in this mysterious region as he travelled covertly across the sands, just as his forebears had done over 150 years ago.

  Sean was driven that evening to the outskirts of Bokhara and onwards to the edge of the Karakum desert. They travelled in an old Gaz van with sliding passenger doors – Sean sat on an old sofa in the rear compartment, where he used a hand-held GPS receiver to track his route and position. Sat between him and Yuri on the corrugated metal floor was a small black Pelco case containing a high-tech radiation detector, a small endoscope and a range of small hand drills. He was dressed in a black fleece, gloves and beanie hat to ward off the plummeting desert temperature. Dimitri sat in the front of the Gaz navigating the driver along the M37 to a conurbation about fifteen kilometres to the west of the city. Sean sat quietly in the back, contemplating the hours ahead.

  The journey took less than thirty minutes and Dimitri turned to let Sean know they were now on the approach. He would lead Sean and Yuri to the target vehicle and then prepare the lookouts, allowing Sean to climb on-board and search the vehicle. Dimitri assured Sean that there was a radiological cargo on-board, but he didn’t know what type. It was destined for Turkmenistan and the money transfer with the Iranians would happen the next afternoon, just before the border guards were bribed to let the vehicle through.

  They arrived in total darkness at a sprawling warehouse complex with an outdoor market, some bonded warehouses and a large overnight lorry park situated next to a rickety accommodation block. Sean quickly walked the few paces to a small shack, where he was greeted by two bearded men sitting on canvas chairs around a small trestle table. They both rose to shake his hand.

  ‘We have plenty of time, Sean,’ Yuri said. ‘Let’s have a coffee and my good friend Akram will tell you about the vehicle – I’ll translate for you.’

  ‘Good �
� can he show me the exact location?’ Sean replied. ‘I’ll be running this task from now on and these guys need to know that.’

  They sat down, and Yuri slid the hand-drawn plan of the car park across the table so that it faced Sean. Akram pointed to the location of the target vehicle next to the lorry park accommodation block. Sean was annoyed to see how close the vehicle was to the external ablutions. He could easily be disturbed.

  ‘I’ll need to get into the cab as well as the trailer – can your guys do that for me?’

  ‘Akram is an expert in this,’ Yuri said, pointing towards his tool box. ‘It’s the kind of thing we would do as a kid – nothing more than a simple wire coat hanger and some plastic banding is needed. He’ll make it happen for you.’

  Sean explained exactly how he wanted the operation to happen and gave precise instructions on actions on, i.e. what to do if they were spotted, compromised or failed to get into the vehicle. His nerves began to tingle, and his sense of anticipation began to increase.

  Akram led the way to the lorry, taking a convoluted route behind the warehouses, with Yuri and Sean following. Sean made sure their night vision was suitably adjusted by making all four of them sit outside in the cold damp air, gently regulating their eyes to the reduced light conditions. No specialist equipment was being carried, no night-vision goggles and no radios – just the basic tools needed to get into the truck, as well as the radiation-detection equipment Sean had decanted into his small black rucksack.

  Sean observed the dark areas across to the lorry park, paying attention to the low-level illumination, which gave a gentle fuzziness of misty light across the park. It seemed quiet, with very little human activity, as he scanned the approach route to the target lorry. He sat and watched for a full twenty minutes, watching the comings and goings from the main accommodation block about sixty metres to their left, and the lights of the restaurant slightly further on. Sean could just make out the faint noises of dinner plates being washed through the open windows and the gentle hum of a generator behind the kitchen block.

  Somewhere in front of him lay the target vehicle, still unseen behind a row of other articulated lorries, each neatly parked across the huge expanse of tarmac. Sean reckoned there were around eighty-five vehicles in all, probably destined for travel down the busy M37 and into Turkmenistan.

  They moved in pairs and emerged just behind the target vehicle – a large, Czech-made, four-tonne Tatra lorry. Sean signalled for them to all go to ground then made his way around the truck, looking for the best access points into the cab and superstructure. The truck had standard canvas belts securing the canopy, which provided easy access for him to the rear of the truck.

  He looked at his watch. 1.20am. ‘Perfect,’ he thought, happy that the darkness would allow him to operate with some degree of autonomy and safety. He switched on his beta and gamma detector – it gave him an immediate reading of 145 millisieverts. He took a sharp intake of breath from shock at such a high reading.

  This was a live source. This was a real situation. The intelligence was spot on. He wanted to know whether it was beta or gamma radiation being emitted, and needed to enter the lorry to confirm what the radiation source was. He was taking a huge risk putting himself in front of a live radiation source: he knew if it emitted more than 400 millisieverts per hour he would be permanently damaged; if it reached 600 he would be dead within a day or two. This was the risk these smugglers were taking all the time. He grimaced and hoped the smugglers had shielded the source with some sort of lead container.

  He pulled out his red filter torch and began to undo four large buckle straps at the side of the trailer next to the cab. This gave him enough of a gap to push his rucksack in and then lever his body inside – he struggled at first to get a foothold on the underside of the superstructure, but eventually managed to get himself inside the canopy. It was ungainly wriggling that finally got him inside – he groaned and tutted at his lack of grace. He crouched inside the truck with his back against the freezing-cold metal tailgate while he tried to get a grip on his breathing. Then, once he was composed, he switched on his green torch and looked around. It was empty except for two large crates strapped to the bulkhead near the cab. He looked at the detector screen. The reading from half a metre away was now 280 millisieverts per hour.

  ‘Madness,’ he muttered, with a degree of trepidation. It wasn’t just some sort of radioactive dust: this seemed to be a fully-fledged strontium or caesium device. But he needed to measure both the beta and gamma emissions to be able to identify the type of source they were smuggling. He knew it was vital to identify the radiation source to confirm what the Iranians might secretly be using it for. His mind raced as he pulled out his hand drill. He made a hole in the underside of the crate with a five-millimetre bit, gently pushing the probes into the crate.

  Just as he had finished pushing the probe inside, he heard footsteps outside. He froze.

  Another scrunching noise. ‘What the fuck was that?’ he whispered as the sound stopped. Then it began again. He waited, quietly moved into a sitting position and remained still. The footsteps appeared to have gone. Was it Akram walking around? Was it someone moving to their vehicle? He could only hear the distant howl of wild dogs scavenging the conurbation for food.

  He waited for the silence to engulf him. It was a soak time, to judge the threat. He continued, and felt the gooseflesh tingling on the back of his neck. He was exposed – had a trap been set? A whiff of kerosene caught his throat. Was it a liquid used to keep the radioactive source stable? Could be strontium, he thought. The probe readings were a little too high for comfort but he needed to take additional readings through a small aluminium plate to confirm what the fissile object was.

  He prised open a small wooden slat, creating a hole large enough to see what kind of shielding was in place. He struggled with the pungent smell of kerosene and was now convinced the source was strontium, with all the dangers it brought. He swabbed the metal casing with a chemical trace kit and took a few more readings, deciding it was safer to analyse them back at the hotel. He knew any extended length of time spent in front of this material would kill him.

  Sean clambered through the canopy and dropped to the floor.

  Bang! Something hit him hard on the back of the skull. He reeled, felt a searing pain and turned to see two men attacking him with brutal force. His sight started to blur as he crumpled to the ground, sensing death. The next blow came in the form of a hefty boot to his kidney.

  With reflexes, and fierce instinct, Sean used all his power and kick-boxing skills to roll away from the danger zone, lashing out instinctively with his right leg in an arcing motion, catching the first man straight on the shins. He fell to the floor yelping as Sean lashed out again – striking from a coiled position and blitzing the man’s head with a brutal kick. With lightning speed and ruthless force, Sean moved out of the second man’s grasp and jab-kicked his hamstring behind his left knee. The man buckled. Sean launched two scything jabs to the nose, followed by a straight kick to the man’s shins that made him collapse to the ground at his feet, screaming in pain.

  Crack. The vacuumed air broke.

  The first gunshot whistled through the truck canopy, and a second shot zinged past Sean’s face directly into an adjacent lorry. He was under fire from another gang member. Yuri had sensed the attack and sprang into action, firing rapidly down the alley and killing the first attacker from eight metres away. Sean grabbed the second attacker and ripped his eye sockets with two fingers. He held him in a headlock and reached for the Makarov pistol in his waistband. He pumped two shots into the man’s neck before releasing his grip, allowing the body to fall to the floor like a crumpled mannequin. Just as he did so, a bullet ripped through the air directly into Yuri’s torso, propelling him backwards into the dirt.

  Yuri screamed in agony. Akram ran to him, desperately trying to stem the massive blood loss as he lay on the ground. Crack. Sean heard the thump as the second bullet ripped into his le
ft shoulder, feeling a searing pain as the bone was crushed. Blood oozed garishly. A third attacker continued to spray rounds down the alley before Yuri lurched over to fire three shots – each of them penetrating the attacker squarely in the head.

  Sean sat back against the lorry wheel, clutching his shoulder, agonising at the disastrous end of the operation.

  He looked to his left and moved numbly on his knees towards Yuri, who was now in a state of deathly, slow breathing, calm. Sean held Yuri’s head in his hands as he watched his life drain away. He grimaced as a man’s dream of a better life lay shattered in his hands.

  Sean lay there gutted, wondering who the hell the attackers had been and at the enduring damage they had caused. This was his second compromise of this mission and, this time round, a fatal one. Who was it that was behind all this? Who the hell had the inside track on him and General Yuri? Who was leaking information? And to whom? This was a catastrophic security breach – and he was incensed that it had cost Yuri’s life.

  His pain fused quickly with fierce anger – anger that he had been compromised and that someone, somewhere had leaked secret information that had led to the death of a good man.

  Chapter 5

  Two Years Later

  Central London, 12 October 2004

  The metal detector went off as Sean walked through the security archway as he entered the Metropolitan Police Service HQ in Victoria. Already late for a critical meeting, he cursed as the security officer conducted a full body search of him. He found New Scotland Yard tedious to navigate, with its cramped spaces, and being late for his third counterterrorism meeting of the day meant that things were not looking good for him. These were frenzied days for Sean in his new role.