Whoosh! Zing! The passive infrared sensor hidden in the hedge had initiated the explosive projectile which was five metres further forward and precisely three feet off the ground on an aiming stand. The copper inverted itself and, with a loud crack, formed a high-speed jet of metal that seared through the passenger door at thousands of metres per second directly into the occupant of the car, killing him instantly.
The car slewed to a halt, and Sean heard the second projectile flash and boom as the rear vehicle went straight into its escape drill of a handbrake turn to turn back on itself. Swartz had armed the PIR sensor after it had gone past, knowing full well their drill would make them turn to escape, straight into the ambush.
The front vehicle had halted abruptly, and Sean watched intently as it was engulfed in flames. The rear door opened, and Sean took a few paces forward, raising his weapon with two hands to chest height. A dark figure fell to the ground in the foetal position, looking up to see Sean raise the Glock to eye level. He double-tapped the weapon twice. Only the sounds of the gushing flames and an aircraft high above broke the deadly silence. Sean walked to the vehicle and made one last check before jumping the fence into the meadow.
‘That’s called a re-gain,’ he muttered as he fired the Enduro up.
Chapter 51
London, 4 May 2016
Jack caught his normal morning train from the home counties and felt fully vindicated by his judgements and his work on the case. He was a very happy man and smiled as he caught the Tube to go and see his boss for a debrief on the case. He decided to walk along the Thames from Westminster, wanting to have a long early morning walk.
He walked along the river past Victoria Gardens and onwards to Millbank, taking in the chilly but clear spring day. He stayed on the river side of Millbank and then crossed to his office in Thames House. He wondered how this meeting would pan out, what decisions had been made about Sir Joe and what would constitute finality for this case.
He then entered Thames House and made his way immediately to see ‘D’, the Director General of MI5. The Director was expecting Jack, and his secretary ushered him into the large office.
‘A splendid result all round I would say, Jack. It has really helped a lot so thank you for all your magnificent efforts.’ D invited Jack to take a seat on the comfortable chesterfield sofa. ‘I wanted to see if you agreed with the next steps I’ve put in place this week, and also wanted to check we haven’t missed anything.’
Jack relaxed, gave a slight smile and replied. ‘Of course I was delighted to help and, yes, I think in the end it worked out perfectly, albeit with some small collateral damage last week. All in all, it was a good result given the complexity of it.’
D then explained his thinking to Jack. ‘I certainly didn’t think we would get to find a Russian sleeper agent in all this, but she has given us some extra value with the Russians. It could work rather well as a bargaining chip when we need one and will help with any plans for a new government, if you get my meaning? In the meantime, we’ll let her, the Russians and some ministers stew whilst she sits awaiting trial. We can expose her at will and it’s unearthed a lot of other stuff, some of which will be helpful to start disrupting their active-measures cyber campaigns. We found some good stuff on her devices and it seems we have plenty to go on from her house search too.’
Jack could see that D was delighted at having unearthed a deep agent and he knew he had a number of interrogators probing Natalie and her secret life. D settled into his brown-leather seat, straightened his dark red tie and unbuttoned his grey suit jacket.
‘Anyway Jack, it’s bloody good work how all this has panned out. Some first-class revelations have come to light and it’s given us some bargaining power. It’s a bloody good job we knew about that devious ambassador bastard some years ago passing stuff to the Russians and others. It’s never a great thing to have an ambassador exposed but the damage is done, and I have a thought about him for later. His head will be Sean’s prize.’
Jack listened intently as D leant forward to pour some coffee for them both. He added some milk and lifted his Walpole bone china cup to his mouth. Jack watched him savour the taste.
‘I’m rather delighted about everything else though. Anyway, I plan to do the Home Secretary a favour that might just elevate her into the spot we’d all like. I see her as Prime Minister soon and it would be a great improvement for us here if that was to happen. We have a rather special plan for that already underway for next month, the month when Britain will no doubt vote to exit the European Union.’
Jack looked up at D somewhat bemused.
‘You see, Jack, the world of operating in the shadows is changing and we need to adapt to the way the Russians have operated by operating in cyberspace, hacking, generating disinformation campaigns and using the media as a vehicle to help us. Operating in the dark web, hacking to steal secrets and running better deception operations is what we need to get better at. They are bloody good at it, as we have seen, and you can bet your bottom dollar the Russians already have a hand deep in the US Presidential elections. It’s a new world of hybrid warfare, Jack. They taught the Stasi the dark secrets of manipulating the populace, using active measures and influencing agents by growing Department X in 1962 and implementing its doctrine – Auftrag Irreführung, or Mission: Deception.’
D paused and stood up. He walked with his coffee to look out of the large window overlooking the Thames. He looked across to the London skyline as he continued.
‘Brexit, Jack, will be our catalyst for change. Make no mistake about that. It will be a year of disinformation and propaganda the likes of which we have never seen before in this country – and it will surely divide us all. But we have planned for that landscape of disinformation and we will use it to our own ends to get the team we need into Downing Street.’
D turned from the window and smiled at Jack knowingly.
The intelligence services had long been sidelined since the Iraq war as being untrustworthy and D saw the time was ripe to change all that. Now was the time to harness the trust of any frontrunner to take over from the current Prime Minister and D saw Sandra Wolstenholme, the current Home Secretary, as exactly the person the intelligence services needed to bring them back into the fold with the government. Intelligence chiefs had been derided for too long.
‘Enough of the future… Let me tell you about now,’ D said as he sat back down.
D explained to Jack that it was time to drop Dominic in it and put him out of the game. And the time was right to expose Sir Joe as being the spy he was. The Home Secretary would then see the value of D and his operations for retaining the integrity of HM Government, whilst opening the door again for MI5 to the inner workings of the Home Office, instead of Dominic acting as the gatekeeper, as he had for so long.
D had always been incensed by Dominic Atwood’s devious methods within the Home Office and his incessant win-at-all-costs nature, together with his ambition of becoming the Chief of SIS, and it was now high time to declare him persona non grata. ‘Enough is enough, we will out him,’ he said.
‘My only regret in all this, Jack, is that I suspect C may have told the Americans about the plan young Alfie had to expose all these secrets. They clearly had him killed, probably by non-agency people. I suspect because it was too much for the Americans to bear with all these whistle-blowers running amok and spilling all the US secrets, just as elections were looming. If that’s the case, it was a foolish error by C.’
Jack smiled and concurred with everything his boss was planning before D continued. ‘And so, to the business of the day. Let’s get Sean brought back into the fold. You were right to identify him for this. And the next episode – he has all the right skills and attributes for our small team. It was foolish to have such a talent wasted and you’ve looked after him well, Jack. Well done. Let’s mould him and bring him into the team. These Russians are about to play a nasty game in the coming years and we need to be on top form for all this.’
/> D sat back down, placing his cup on the small glass table. ‘You know what Jack… Churchill once called Russia “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. He may well have been talking about your splendid operation too…’
Jack smiled. ‘Right you are sir, I’ll get Sean on-board. And thank you.’
Jack stood up to leave. ‘Sean came very close to turning you know. And who could blame him? But his nerve and loyalty came through in the end.’
‘A good test of mettle, Jack.’
‘Indeed sir. It verifies his resilience for us. He still thinks it’s all an MI6 set-up, so I’ll need to read him in properly to the court and our small team. I’ll also need to let him know that Natalie is the daughter of an ex-KGB general – and that there is a price on his head now.’
D nodded and politely shepherded Jack to the office door. He gave him a pat on the back. ‘I’m very pleased that the secret of C remains very much in our safe hands, Jack. And not in C’s. Get the file closed down in good order.’
Chapter 52
Tuscany, 7 May 2016
‘No one in the secret services can keep a secret,’ Sean said to Melissa. ‘They are all treacherous bastards, you know.’
‘Incredibly devious too. You were right not to trust anyone, Sean. That’s for sure. You’ve been proven right all along.’
Jack had debriefed Sean on Friday and, that evening, Sean and Melissa had flown from London to Pisa for a few days rest and recuperation in Tuscany. Sean had managed to finish drawing his i2 intelligence map after Jack’s discussion and finally all the pieces had fallen into position.
Sean marvelled at his piece of artwork, which now had all the scribbles, lines and faces of all the key players in this game. It included ‘C’, ‘D’, Sir Joe, Jack, Natalie, Alfie, the Russians and the Americans who had killed Alfie. WYNTHROP and FITZROY remained central to his drawing. He made all the connections of who had passed information to whom, and who was running whom. The picture came alive and Sean smiled at it all. He would turn it into a painting one day.
Sean and Melissa were free – for now. Free to explore their own journey whilst the grand and murky politics of the British establishment whirred away in England before the news bombshells would fall. Sean smirked at his vision of the media headlines and the field day they would have each and every day for the coming weeks. What would happen would rock the establishment like never before, he thought. And he wondered if D had judged it right and that Sandra Wolstenholme might now be propelled towards being the next Prime Minister. Only time would tell – but he felt D was a master of all the dark forces that were operating.
Sean and Melissa hired a car in Pisa and drove to a small villa overlooking San Gimignano. The countryside was spectacular in mid-May and the weather a pleasant twenty-three degrees with wide blue skies. The villa was magnificent – it was situated in the hills, with superb views looking across to the old medieval town. It had lush vineyards and quiet walking trails in the hills, and its swimming pool was located next to the old Tuscan cottage. Orange and lemon trees grew in the gardens and it was an ideal place to linger and relax, with one eye to the future.
They spent their time relaxing by the pool, and visiting the splendid old cities and towns of Tuscany. They explored the hills and walked amongst the vineyards, smiling at the quirk of fate that had inadvertently brought them together. Melissa had entered the agency underworld, unaware of its deadly traps and deceptive nature, and Alfie had paid a vicious price for straying from the fold. Sean felt he owed Melissa some explanations about the intricacy of the circumstances that she and Alfie had found themselves caught up in – and the subsequent aftermath. He took his time over the days to explain the story.
Melissa sat in a purple bikini at the poolside, where they had the small pool and sun loungers to themselves.
‘So, you mean to tell me that this was all about protecting one Minister? And that Alfie had uncovered something so sensitive that it led to his own death?’ Melissa asked.
‘That’s pretty much the case but, of course, what Alfie was also going to expose would have pissed off the Americans massively,’ Sean answered. ‘He was giving away some of the biggest secrets about their Iraq cover-ups. He was going to directly implicate them in the killing of Wilshaw, and the impact on certain American officials would have seen many of them jailed. This was huge. I admire how he investigated the secret list of moles though. It must have taken him months to do it properly.’
‘Bastards. But where did Alfie get it wrong then?’
‘Well, his fatal mistake was to inform the editor of the Bureau that he had this list of spies among many of the other devastating secrets he had found through hacking.’
‘Yes, but he did all that to give credence and strength to his plan to expose the secrets, very much with the intention of showing the editor the veracity of what he had.’
‘I know. But unfortunately, the editor then contacted D directly to explain what Alfie had – and what he wanted to expose. The editor was a long-running source from the media into MI5 and had been close friends with D for many years.’
‘Bugger,’ Melissa exclaimed.
‘D then informed the current C that Alfie was about to expose thousands of secret files, and C in turn probably informed the Americans. He didn’t know about the list of spies. MI5 monitored Alfie for some considerable time, but the Americans chose to take the easy line and kill him just before MI5 could get to him. Not sure we’ll ever find out who killed him, which is a big shame. But it seems he’s probably an agent living in Missouri, from Liz’s forensics.’
‘This is so sad though, Sean – there was no real reason to kill Alfie and why did the security service not do anything once he left his post?’
Sean touched Melissa’s arm and smiled at her, whilst trying to think how best to answer that.
‘Well, you know, even I was amazed at how all this came about. There are some smart, very smart, people in the intelligence services, but the smartest guy I have met in a long time is Jack.’ Sean collected himself to explain the intricacies of the operation.
‘The whole episode was devised by Jack in MI5 – on behalf of D. He is the genius in all this. It was Jack who spotted how he could influence an irregular side operation to trap Dominic, put the microscope of suspicion on him and, at the same time, find Alfie and his files.’
‘I’m confused now though. How did Jack do that?’
‘Well, it wasn’t a side operation at all – it was an MI5 counter-espionage operation all along. Authorised by D and only known about by a very, very small team subservient only to D known as the ‘court’ – a special compartment group within MI5.’
‘Fascinating. So, Jack led this team?’
‘Pretty much so. Jack spoofed me and Dominic into thinking it was a side operation. Jack set the bait, hooked him, played him for a while and then smashed him. And we bagged a Russian red under the bed for good measure.’
Sean continued to explain the foggy complications. ‘It was all very risky stuff for the Director of MI5,’ he said. ‘If it all went wrong he needed a scapegoat, to avoid him and Jack carrying the can for any fallout. Their careers and the reputation of the service were at stake. He decided that the only way to operate was to have a high-level fall guy that the Home Secretary could blame and cull if it went wrong.’
‘This is brilliant,’ Melissa said, ‘if it weren’t for the suffering everyone’s gone through. They certainly had balls going through with this.’
Sean glanced across to the vineyards, watching the gentle spin of the sprinklers spraying the hard soil. He noticed a Tuscan hare dart into the bushes.
‘Jack would see Dominic on a daily basis and the two of them had built a very close working relationship. Jack knew the WYNTHROP case would need a side operation to avoid the inevitable chit-chat across intelligence circles. It was a calculated gamble. Jack’s shrewd judgements were proved right. Dominic had an inner anger given that MI6 had moved him out of the se
rvice and into the backwaters of the Home Office. This operation, carefully proposed to him, would give him an opportunity to get back in as the chief. Power and control were Dominic’s addictions.’
‘An arrogant bastard, eh? How did the Russians find out though?’
Sean had thought about this for a while through the fog of war on this job.
‘Sir Joe told his closest friend that his name was on the list of moles. His friend is a cross-party peer in the House of Lords, knew for many years of Sir Joe’s connections with the Russians and had protected him all along. It was their secret that they would take to their graves. That is until Natalie found out – and she then warned Moscow.’
‘Bloody hell – you mean honey-trap stuff then?’
‘Indeed. Sir Joe’s friend had been having sex with Natalie for many years on and off, and was inadvertently giving away a number of secrets and sensitive matters to Natalie. It seemed innocuous at first to Natalie but, on one occasion, he told her about Sir Joe being horrified that he may be exposed as a Russian spy. Natalie just listened and plied him with more red wine.’
Sean grabbed a beer and then explained to Melissa one of the biggest secrets he had unleashed. ‘One of the journalists I leaked to plans to run a series of articles on how an inner sanctum of dodgy lawyers and ex-police officers manipulated evidence for the Iraqi Historical Allegations Team.’
‘Juicy stuff then.’
‘Yes, and the paper will reveal hidden files, taped meetings and testimonies of ex-policemen and lawyers which will show how a small, Mafia-style cabal ran amok with racketeering on IHAT and other private contracts.’ Sean smirked as he knew the entire exposé in the press would see an outcry from the public, who hated seeing British soldiers being hounded. It would create thunder throughout the entire political establishment.
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