In his bed, Corrie had been drowsy, the post-operative numbness wearing thinner. A young man he knew vaguely, tall and cheerful, gangly and fidgety – SIS liaison with the Security Service – had shuffled in. No chocolates, no flowers and no preamble. He’d blustered, ‘You have to understand, Corrie, that nothing had been heard of you and it was assumed you were dead. Described as “missing” but no contacts made and no ransom demanded. This isn’t easy for me or for Maggie. It just happened, we drifted together. Sort of moved on. We were engaged two weeks ago and there’s a wedding next month, down in the Maldives. She doesn’t want to see you because it would just be tears, recriminations, wouldn’t help either of you . . . and she thinks she’s pregnant. That’s how it is, I’m afraid. I’m not inside the loop of what happened to you, and Maggie’s not need-to-know either – where you’ve been and the case history. I’d like to tell Maggie that we’ve your blessing, water under the bridge, no hard feelings, and—’ He’d thrown a glass at him, a plastic one, and it had caught the guy on the cheek and glanced off without breaking the skin.
Corrie had never shed a tear for a lost love; after the second operation and his return to the building, he had sometimes glimpsed her, with the bump growing, but they had never spoken. Once, months later, he had seen her with a baby in a sling and on her way to the Service crèche. No woman had been in his life since. It was what he had said to the audience: Trust would be the casualty. Where might it have gone? Up an aisle? Her and him, an item, declared out loud? Commitment? Babies? Truth was that he did not know and had not analysed the relationship: what he had done was cling to that image, her face, and clutched it through nightmare hours. He had a strong ego, had needed it to escape from them, but the ‘other guy’ had trashed it, and it took some time to summon it again.
On the morning he had come back for the first time, he had been using a hospital crutch and his face was a blistered and reddened mess; anyone in the atrium that morning would have known that a fellow in their trade had been in sight of hell-fire, within touching range of extreme danger, death. There had been – real and never heard of before – little clucks of approval, and scattered but spontaneous applause. All a long time ago.
He stepped into the lift and went up to the Third Floor, in the east sector, where he had a prime position. In that work area there was a circular table in the centre where ten could be seated, all peering in at their screens, but also a row of booths offering flimsy side walls that gave a greater degree of privacy. Some of those who had snaffled the best places alongside him had used adhesive to fasten pictures of their loved ones, best pets, or their kids, and some also had postcard views of summer beaches. Corrie Rankin’s were blank: no decorations, nothing special that spoke of what was important to him. His view was special, though, over the river and towards the great buildings of State. Sometimes he spared Westminster a glance and sometimes he did not bother to. The significance of that work area was that its occupants had no particular responsibility. They plugged holes and awaited a vacancy into which they could be dropped. He had not been called, felt surplus to requirements. He suspected that the name of Corrie Rankin might sound like an echo from the past, ill-suited to present times.
He knew of nothing that might disturb him that day.
Henry Wilson had sent her message but had not expected a response. The sun was up and dust billowed out behind them, and more of it flew from the tyres of the vehicle in front, coating the windscreen of her vehicle. Henry Wilson and her driver, and escort, travelled in a mist of dirt that obscured the scenery. The heat was rising and there was no air-conditioning; without open side-windows she would damn near have suffocated. The man, Jericho, had made a liar of her.
The roads of Yemen, metalled and unsurfaced, were among the most dangerous in the world. They went cross-country to hook up with the N5 trunk route, but all the roads were plagued by dangerous drivers playing games of chicken, overtaking on the inside or the outside, forcing herdsmen and their livestock off the road. They had travelled at night when the chance was good of driving fast into an unlit army roadblock, bursting through it, and so being shot at, or through an AQAP barrier intended to intercept a wayward military patrol. If she had not received Belcher’s message, the risk would not have been entertained. Her best driver had been woken from his sleep. A corporal would sit beside him. Three more men, likely stoned from qat-chewing, were in a back-up vehicle with an American made .50-calibre machine gun. The recent rains had caused landslides and potholes; they were running late for the rendezvous and it seemed to matter to Henry that she might keep Jericho waiting, pacing, impatient. In a context of what she did, her lie was a small one.
Her parents were from Bristol, in the west of England. Her father sold houses and her mother worked in local government. They were not affluent, had scrimped to send her to a convent school. One of her teachers there had lectured a class of fourteen-year-old girls on the importance of truth after one of them had told a small lie. It had been dinned into the class. Now Henry had dragged out five men from the unit, and they would drive through the night and cover two hundred rough miles, and she had told the sergeant that equipment she needed was being flown into Sayun airport from Muscat. Her sergeant had respectfully queried whether she needed to go herself – did the items require Customs clearance, was a night journey – with all its dangers and discomfort – really necessary? Should the sergeant check first with his officer at the Marib garrison for the security situation in the Sayun district? She had been abrupt with him. She needed to go herself. No clearance was needed, she had a schedule to maintain.
The screwed-up piece of paper (it would have come from a torn-off part of a sheet of toilet paper, the size used to roll a cigarette) was in her bra, right-side cup. That had been a big decision. She had not read it, but did not think she needed to: she was a courier, nothing more. She had no more status than the kids who roamed London on pushbikes, cutting up cursing cabbies and delivering small packages. She would have to lie again if the officer at the garrison learned she had demanded to be ferried as far as Sayun, and in the night. They slowed. She peered ahead, past the driver’s and corporal’s shoulders, and the dust cloud thinned.
Three oil drums made a chicane. A rifle was raised ahead of them. Other men, dressed in tribal clothes, not military, were at the side of the road, rising from behind rocks. The machine-gunner would have been cut down before he’d even cocked his weapon.
That was how it was – and long had been – in Yemen. A back-end of nowhere, without a witness, no Apache riding high over them. Out of a car, a blindfold slipped on, arms pinioned, dumped in the bed of a pick-up. Negotiations opened, protracted. The worst that could happen was a rescue attempt, local Special Forces or US Seals – even worse if the two combined. Her breath came in little stampedes. The driver was out. She could see neither the driver’s face nor that of the man advancing on him as the sun came down on to the bonnet and reflected back and into the rear of the pick-up cabin. The piece of paper seemed to itch against her skin. All her adult life she had dreamed of digging in the ruins of Sheba’s civilisation, amid the temples dedicated to the moon god, Almaqah, and the Throne of Bilquis . . . Jericho had trapped her, had oiled his way into her life.
Her driver and the tribesman with the assault rifle hugged each other. The corporal leaned towards her window, where she shivered, and said they were cousins. The tribesmen protected the road from terrorist advances, and it might have been true, or not.
Another day in Yemen, another dollar. Fear coursed through her as she felt the paper against her skin. They drove on.
Jericho watched as two vehicles came steadily, slowly, towards an army roadblock on the airport perimeter. He checked his wristwatch with a trace of annoyance, and heard the guttural throat-clearing beside him. Jericho had flown with his driver. The Gurkha veteran wore a Glock in a shoulder holster. He carried a canvas bag weighted with grenades and an H&K rifle along with magazines. Passport checks had been negligible. Custo
ms were not troubled and little wads of rials had been handed out. He had landed on time. She was late.
His stomach padding was back in place making him sweat. He was on a balcony, trying to cool down in the breeze, but the sun was well up and the temperature high. Too much damage had been done to the Sayun terminal building for the electricity and plumbing to be anything other than basic. The opposition had fought their way inside a few months before, chucked bombs around and sprayed automatic fire, destroying the control tower. That had been repaired and the rest was scheduled ‘soon’. The cross-winds had freshened and the pilot of the Golden Eagle, Jean-Luc, had brought her in pretty much visually, ‘the sensible way to do things’.
It was always chancey when amateurs were signed up. Henry Wilson was an amateur, lacking sophistication. She climbed from the back of the lead vehicle, stretched and rearranged her headscarf so that most of her hair was hidden. She saw him. He gave a half-wave, nothing effusive, and she headed for the building. He didn’t go to meet her.
Few flights used Sayun. There was no more than a daily service to Aden or Sana’a, assuming the aircraft were serviceable. The morning ones had gone and arrived, and the afternoon ones were not scheduled for hours; the terminal was deserted and the one coffee outlet was closed. The strip was alongside a mountain escarpment, which funnelled winds and created turbulence, and they had passed the wreckage of two small aircraft as they’d taxied. It was what Jericho did for a living – he was semi-autonomous, ‘free-range’. Results mattered. He could call up resources and cash, and they’d be dumped on him, but the pay-back was results. He depended on them. Beside his driver’s feet was a sealed cardboard box loaded with junk, old newspapers, a few tired magazines, but with a top layer of trowels and shovels and lightweight brushes. For results he needed kids like Henrietta Wilson. Easy enough to drag her in. The bar and restaurant he’d been in the previous evening had worked well for the pick-up.
He’d headed for his usual table, but a woman had caught his eye and beckoned him to come and join her. She was a nurse, married to a British former soldier who now mentored the Omani forces. She was a talent scout, and was having a drink – Coke and ice and lemon – with a younger woman: a pretty little thing, lovely hair, able to turn a man’s head. This had been several months back, and the band had played softly and the lights were dimmed, and he’d done the daft bit to start with while pumping her gently and discovering where her dig-site was. Perhaps Henry, as she called herself, had been too long alone; perhaps she needed to talk and be listened to: who she was, where she came from, her archaeology obsession and the travel it had involved. The exodus of foreigners after a series of warnings from the foreign ministries in Europe had left her stranded here: there was always one who could crack the system, in this case a major in the defence ministry in Sana’a whose uncle was prominent in the agriculture ministry and whose son had a senior position in the National Museum. It was the way things worked in that neck of the woods. Henry Wilson was in place and also ran a clinic for basic ailments. The community around her had affection for this nomad in their midst; it would be good for dead drops and good for surveillance. In fact, better than good – excellent.
She didn’t do fashion. Her feet clattered up the steps to the first floor. Hard-wearing boots, thick socks inside them, baggy trousers, a blouse with long sleeves and a shawl over her shoulders obscuring her throat, and a headscarf. No cosmetics and no jewellery. His memory told him that it was the same outfit she’d worn when he’d propositioned her after the nurse had slipped away, left him to get on with it. Henry approached him now, shrugged as if to acknowledge she was late and that matters were beyond her control, and then, so naturally, groped a hand under the shawl, between the buttons of her blouse. The paper was tiny. He barely saw it in the palm of her hand. She gave it to him.
He unravelled the crunched paper. Then smoothed it. He squinted as the sun’s light bounced off the scrap of paper and read the message. Time to call for a bottle of a good vintage. He savoured the moment, then read again. His people – at his insistence – had invested heavily in the agent they had code-named Belcher. At the end of the day, and this gratified Jericho, it came down to the old ways – human intelligence, an inserted agent, a dead drop and a courier – and the electronics were left trailing in the wake. Today he had replaced the cricket blazer with a linen jacket. He took out a handkerchief and buried the paper in it, folded it with care, and returned it to his breast pocket.
‘Thank you.’
‘Is that it?’
‘You’ve delivered it. I’ve expressed gratitude. We have a box which contains something useful, and the rest you can hide, then burn, and we’ll help you take it to your wheels. Have a decent journey back. Again, thanks.’
‘Don’t I get an indication of the message’s value, what it means?’
‘No you don’t.’
His Woman Friday, Penelope, had told him that his ability to act the idiot would have qualified him for lead roles in Shakespearian comedy. Not now; he was earnest and brusque. His experience said that hanging around with agents and larding them with praise was seldom time well spent. He gestured for his driver to lift the cardboard box, hold it against his hip. His other hand had the bag containing the weapons.
‘OK, that’s me done then.’
He heard the spark in her voice. Familiar ground. Agents habitually inflated their own importance, wanted their egos massaged, even this young woman. Her face was almost lovely when the frustration lines at the sides of her mouth and her forehead were prominent.
‘Best you do what’s asked of you, Henry.’
‘I am putting at risk my life and my life’s work. People believe in me and now – from you – I’ve learned deceit. Whatever’s going on in Yemen is hardly my problem, is it? You may want – whatever your name is – to play games with my safety, my scholarship, but you’ll have to do a better job of persuasion if—’
He smiled at her, not cheerful and not sympathetic, and said, ‘Be a good girl and get back to your trowel-scraping. If you are called on again, then you jump. What you are doing for me is a privilege not drudgery, so enough whining. A privilege, hear me.’
‘I can just walk away. I do not have to be your doormat.’
The smile grew colder. He suggested she might care to learn about the Faraday Fracture, said it might be a good place to secrete evidence of mass murder.
‘I do not know about any bloody fracture . . .’
He was walking away. His driver carried the parcel down the staircase. She had good cause to be concerned for her life and health, for these were cruel times and this was a cruel place.
The pilot lounged on a bench on the ground floor and Jericho made the sort of gesture that landed gentry would have employed to a coach driver to get the horses up and ready. The guy grinned back at him, as if appreciating that the buffoon was ready again to act out his part. He needed to be gone, back to his den where the secure communications were housed. There would be a long evening there, assessing Belcher’s message, the implications of it, and what could be done.
Henry followed him, stamping her boots on the steps and hurrying past the bullet pocks. It was a lively war that was being fought here, but the shockwaves of it were felt far beyond Yemeni air space. She was about to catch him to launch a further volley. If it were known that she did couriering for him, if the AQ folks learned that, then her life would be forfeit damn quick, as if she were a cockroach on a bathroom floor, only fit for stamping on. He called over his shoulder as the driver passed her the box. She lurched under its weight, and others were running towards her to take the load off her. Jericho rather liked her. There was a feistiness that appealed and he thought she was a good character and would stay the course. She might need to. He doffed his straw hat, and managed a chuckle in his voice.
‘Look it up, my dear, the fracture, then consider your responsibilities. They might be bigger than merely grubbing in the dirt.’
The Ghost – Shabah
– understood the significance of the Faraday Fracture. And was familiar also with the locations of the Iceland Basin and the Rockall Trough.
In his office at the German embassy in Sana’a, the career intelligence officer with the BND, Oskar, knew him as the Ghost; not far away was the British embassy and there Doris, the spook of the Secret Intelligence Service, tucked away in her bleak and barricaded quarters, also knew him by that name. In grander accommodation, with staggeringly complex electronics to help his work, Hector also referred to this young man by either the English word or the Arabic counterpart. They had nothing else to call him. The Ghost had heard that; it had been passed to him via a source who operated inside the Public Security Office. He enjoyed the name and thought it fitted him well.
The Ghost had made it his business to know the names of all the fractures, basins and troughs in the seas of the mid-Atlantic. He knew the distance of each one from London’s Heathrow airport or Charles de Gaulle outside Paris, or from the big hubs in Amsterdam or Frankfurt. Great depth was what they had in common, and darkness. Any debris that fell into them would be near to impossible to retrieve. He knew the flying time from each of those airports to the great fissures, and how much difference turbulence might make to an aircraft’s speed.
Jericho's War Page 5