Dead Spy Running

by Jon Stock

  ‘So we’re heading for Fairford,’ Carter said. ‘In my untracked vehicle, not yours.’

  Denton’s phone started to ring. He answered it, listened, then hung up. ‘That was Anne. They’ve come for you in the office, Marcus.’

  Marchant had been lying on the charpoy for over an hour, waiting for his moment. The guard stood up from his chair, glanced in his direction, and walked down the hill towards another man who had called him. They were both laughing at something.

  Marchant had spotted the old Nokia handset while he had been talking to Dhar, but assumed that he would take it with him. It was partially hidden under a copy of The Week, an Indian news magazine, in a pile on the dusty floor. Had Dhar left it there on purpose, knowing he would find it? To create a diversion, buy Dhar some time? He swung off the bed, one eye on the doorway, and picked up the phone. He pressed the power button and rolled it up in his shirt, hoping to muffle any start-up tone. It vibrated briefly.

  He knew that there was a high risk that it was a targeted unit, but he had to get news about Dhar and his father to Fielding. He may not have the name of a mole in MI6, but at least he had an explanation for the unorthodox trip to Kerala that had so concerned the Americans. He pressed at the familiar digits with shaking fingers, praying that the phone had international access. Then he heard the ringing tone of a London number, and breathed in deeply, a sound that was heard two thousand miles away, in the headphones of a young operator at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland.

  Denton clipped the safety belt across his lap, and looked around the small cabin of the Gulfstream V: six seats, all buttermilk leather and chrome, a single divan and a mahogany-panelled buffet unit. Fielding fastened his belt opposite him, and caught Denton’s wry smile. The irony of senior intelligence officers fleeing Britain in a plane used for rendition flights was not lost on either of them. Carter was up with the pilot, briefing him on the route. He lifted a headphone from one ear and turned back to talk to them.

  ‘The pilot’s just filing some dummy flight plans,’ he said, louder than he needed to. ‘We’re operating under special status, but he says UK traffic control’s gotten a little stricter in recent months.’

  ‘Like hell it has,’ Denton whispered to Fielding, as Carter put his headphone back on and faced the front again. ‘Did you see where they put them?’

  ‘I didn’t want to look.’

  ‘Behind the buffet. Enough to put you off lunch.’ Denton had glanced through the door that separated the back of the plane from the main cabin. The contrast with the plush interior couldn’t have been greater. All the fittings had been stripped, leaving the bare-ribbed shell of the plane. Fixed to the matt metal floor were two small steel rings, three feet apart. There was a dark mark between them, where Denton assumed the human cargo had sat, feet and hands restrained. It might have been blood, or something worse, but the traces of pain remained. Had Daniel Marchant been shackled there on his flight to Poland? And, before him, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

  ‘Welcome to Air CIA,’ Carter said, sitting down next to Denton. ‘Twelve hours till touchdown in New Delhi.’

  Denton hadn’t heard him. He was watching the blue flashing lights on the road beyond Fairford’s perimeter fence. At the same moment, the pilot called for Carter to return to the cockpit. Denton caught Fielding’s eye, and nodded out of the window.

  ‘There’s still time for you to go, Ian,’ Fielding said. ‘You don’t have to be here.’

  Denton ignored his Chief. He knew they were right about Leila. Earlier, the three of them had entered the airbase with little difficulty. As far as the RAF was concerned, Fairford was now a standby facility. The USAF ran the place, keen to ensure the safety and secrecy of its B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers, as well as the occasional rendition flight. The guards on the main gate knew Carter well and had waved him through, but Denton feared that the phones would be ringing in Whitehall and Washington. It all depended on how much authority Carter still wielded, whether Straker had done the maths, and concluded that he was working with Fielding.

  The twin turbojet engines whined as the pilot nursed the plane across the tarmac towards the end of the three-kilometre-long runway. Denton unclipped his seatbelt and went forward to Carter. For a moment, Fielding thought he was taking up his offer to get off the plane.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Denton asked.

  ‘We’re just clarifying with Langley that I’m on official Company business,’ Carter said.

  ‘You mean a rendition flight.’

  Carter laughed. ‘Routine Clandestine work.’

  ‘Have you seen the police activity on the perimeter?’

  ‘Relax, it’s nothing. Just a bunch of plane-spotters, happens all the time. Guess the Spirit’s flying today. We always ask your police to clear them away. Nobody knows the Vicar’s on board, Ian. We don’t do passport control on these planes.’

  46

  William Straker sat back in the DCIA’s office in Langley, Virginia, and looked at the photos of his two boys on his desk. He had been an only child, and envied the camaraderie that his sons already enjoyed. He hadn’t checked, but he guessed Harriet Armstrong in London was a single child, too. She shared his natural distrust of others.

  ‘It’s a final green, Harriet, we’re going in now,’ he said on speakerphone. ‘Fort Meade picked up the call earlier. The strike point’s been relayed to the USS Independence.’

  ‘The Prime Minister has requested that Daniel Marchant is taken alive,’ Armstrong replied.

  ‘I was afraid you’d say that. The DNI wants all threats in the region eliminated. And Dhar’s currently top of the lone-wolf list.’

  ‘Marchant might be useful,’ Armstrong said.

  ‘You’re not going soft on me, Harriet, are you?’ Armstrong said nothing. ‘India won’t allow Predator use in their airspace, so we’re sending in Seals, supported by some token Black Cats to keep Delhi onside. I’m sure your Prime Minister appreciates we can’t take risks with a presidential visit. There are too many already on this trip. Monk Johnson’s a wreck.’

  ‘We understand the threat, of course we do, but Marchant is a British citizen, and the PM is adamant he is not killed. We currently have an SAS unit on standby in Delhi, ready to help.’

  ‘You know, I think we can manage this on our own, but thanks for the offer. Here’s what I’ll do. Once we’ve pulled Marchant out of the jungle, he’s your prisoner. You might get a bit more out of him than we did in Poland. How does that sound?’

  Not great, Armstrong thought. Body bags didn’t make great interviewees. ‘I’ll inform Cobra of the offer. It’s convening now.’

  ‘Your cooperation is appreciated, Harriet. You and I think the same. You saw the TX details of the call?’

  ‘Earlier, yes.’

  ‘Jesus, we were right about Stephen Marchant. Like father, like son. But what about Marcus? Daniel’s put through to his home, then the Chief chooses not to report the conversation to anyone. And now he’s gone AWOL. I thought this guy was on our side.’

  ‘It also bothers the PM.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Straker said, failing to detect much sincerity in Armstrong’s reply. ‘Does the PM know about Chadwick, too?’

  ‘David?’

  ‘Sir David, knight of the realm.’

  ‘What about him?’ Armstrong tightened her grip on the phone. She had always liked Chadwick, even fancied him in her earlier Whitehall days. She wouldn’t hear a bad word said against him.

  ‘Seems like he’s been signing up to some illegal websites over here. The FBI passed over the credit card trail this morning, thought we should know.’

  Armstrong, her resentment rising, wanted the conversation to end. She didn’t believe a word. The Americans were still on the warpath after removing Stephen Marchant, but this was new territory. They would go after the PM next.

  ‘How illegal?’

  ‘I hope he hasn’t got children.’

  Marchant slipped the mobile phone back
under the magazine and lay on his charpoy again, watching the guard walk back up the hill towards him. He looked in briefly on Marchant then sat down, picking at his teeth. It had been good to hear the Legoland receptionist’s voice. The best ones worked on the emergency number. Her warm, reassuring tones had contrasted sharply with Anne Norman’s brusque manner.

  Fielding had said very little. They both knew that the less time they spoke, the less chance there was of the call being traced. But it had been hard to convey everything quickly and cryptically. The most important thing had been to provide Fielding with the real reason for his father’s trip. He had also wanted him to know that Dhar might be turned. Dhar would never work for America, but the notion of him spying for Britain was suddenly not so implausible.

  The implications of his father’s revelation had not yet fully sunk in, he knew that: the opposite lives his sons had led, each one’s existence on a separate continent, unknown to the other, despite being born within months of each other. Marchant knew that by ringing Fielding, immersing himself in his old professional world, he was avoiding the personal consequences. His father, who had spent a lifetime uncovering other people’s secrets, had been carrying around the biggest one of all. Did he think worse of him for it? He feared the Americans might.

  A commotion outside broke in on his thoughts. A man was coming up the hill with a large sheet of cardboard, cut out in the shape of a human figure. He was talking excitedly, a small group of men following him, looking at the effigy. Marchant couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he heard Salim’s name mentioned, and recognised the figure. It was of the previous US President, wearing a cowboy hat and boots.

  One of the men barked an order at another, who pulled out a cigarette lighter and held it to the image, dropping it to the ground when the flames caught. But before the curling fire had reached the President’s head, Marchant saw quite clearly that there was a small hole between the eyes, made by a single bullet.

  Spiro leant in towards Leila and touched her hand. ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ he said, maintaining the contact longer than she would have liked. ‘The threat level is high. There are others who can take your place.’

  ‘Like Baldwin? He doesn’t seem very pleased to see me here.’

  ‘The guy’s a loser,’ he said, looking around the restaurant. ‘All hat and no cattle.’

  Spiro had been drinking all evening – their last chance for the next forty-eight hours, he said – and was starting to worry her.

  ‘It’s important I’m there. My mother will be proud that her daughter’s showing the US President around the biggest Bahá’í temple in the world. It’s important for me, too. I need to draw a line under all that’s been said, reassure the doubters.’

  ‘Who cares what Baldwin or the Brits think?’ Spiro said, topping up her glass with wine. She shouldn’t have agreed to dinner, but she was indebted to Spiro, and needed his ongoing support. She glanced around the restaurant. It was on the roof of their hotel, the lights of New Delhi spread out beneath them as two musicians from Rajasthan worked the candlelit room. With a different man the scene might have been romantic, she thought, trying not to picture herself and Marchant together.

  ‘They’re pulling the Vicar in, too,’ Spiro said. He was pumped up, unrelaxed, his leg bouncing beneath the table. ‘Never liked the guy.’

  Leila knew all about the allegations Fielding had made, that she was working for Iran, but she hadn’t heard of his apparent suspension.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Daniel, your former squeeze. Seems he made a call to London. Spoke to Fielding on a phone used once by Salim Dhar. Thank God Fort Meade had their pants up and their headphones on for a change.’

  Leila was relieved to hear that Marchant was still alive. She had feared the worst after the Gymkhana explosion. What remained of the book at the club’s reception had confirmed that a ‘David Marlowe’ had been signed in as a visitor, but his body was never found. She hoped one day to talk to him, explain it all, but time was running out.

  ‘Where was he calling from?’ she asked, struggling to conceal her interest.

  ‘Somewhere south of here. We were right to man-mark him in London, Leila. You did a fine job. It turns out the whole lot of them were at it: Marchant, his father, Fielding.’

  ‘Was Daniel with Dhar when he called?’ Her voice was more anxious.

  ‘We sure as hell hope so. But you don’t need to trouble yourself about him. What do you say to a drink back in my room?’ He forced his leg between hers under the table.

  ‘I must do a bit more reading up on the Bahá’ís,’ she said, pushing back her chair. ‘I’d hate the President to think I’d just screwed my way to the top.’

  ‘I’m not sure you heard me,’ Spiro said, holding her forearm. She looked around the restaurant for support, but no one had noticed. Spiro’s breath was sour, his lips oily from the earlier biryani. ‘I’ve been asked a lot of questions in recent days, told a lot of folk to trust you. Men like Baldwin. I think that deserves a little payback, don’t you?’

  47

  Marchant heard the mobile phone begin to ring moments before the Sikorsky Seahawk came in low over the treetops. He rushed to pick it up just as the guard outside fell to the ground, a single sniper shot to his chest.

  ‘Get out of there now,’ a familiar female voice urged. As he tried to place it, a loud explosion ripped the roof off the hut, knocking him to the ground. He started to crawl, but his eyes were filling with warm blood from a cut to his forehead. Wiping his face, he rolled across the dusty ground to the back of the hut, where he slid out through a hole that had been torn in the palm-woven panelling. The air was thick with the sound of gunfire, urgent shouts – American, Indian, Middle Eastern – and the cry of crows.

  Marchant kept thinking of the crows, what they were doing in the middle of a firefight, as a group of Black Cats moved down the hillside towards him. They must have walked, taken the long route, he thought. If it hadn’t been for them, he would have escaped. Two of them lifted him up and dragged him semi-conscious towards the winch rope of the Seahawk, now hovering above the clearing.

  ‘No Dhar,’ Marchant heard one of the Black Cats say into his helmet mike, as he rose above the coconut canopy into a cerulean sky.

  * * *

  Leila looked up to the very top of the temple ceiling, where a lotus-flower pattern blossomed at its apex. Early-morning sunlight was streaming in through the windows, bathing the interior in an ethereal glow. Pews had been arranged in neat rows across the large open space, and Leila sat down at the end of one of them. The temple was almost deserted, except for a few cleaners polishing the floors and a group of Indian police officers who stood at the main door. The temple complex had been swept four times in the last twenty-four hours by the Secret Service, and would be checked twice more before the President’s visit in the evening.

  Leila glanced around, then pulled out a piece of paper and began to read from it quietly, tears filling her eyes. ‘O thou forgiver of sins, open thou the way for this awakened soul to enter thy kingdom, and enable this bird, trained by thy hand, to soar in the eternal rose garden. She is afire with longing to draw nigh unto thee: enable her to attain thy presence.’

  She had heard the news about her mother two hours earlier. Something had made her want to ring Tehran from the moment she had woken. Already her mind was playing tricks, rearranging the sequence of events so that she somehow knew her mother was dead before the woman on the phone had confirmed it. The woman, a neighbour, had been sitting with her mother all night, comforting her as she slipped away. She shouldn’t have told Leila, but clearly she needed to speak to someone.

  ‘She is afire with longing to draw nigh unto thee,’ Leila continued, the words blurring in front of her. ‘Enable her to attain thy presence. She is distraught and distressed in separation from thee. Cause her to be admitted into thy Heavenly mansion.’

  The past twelve hours had been the worst of her life. She h
ad stayed up late reading about Fariborz Sahba, the Iranian architect behind the temple. Her mother had spoken often of him and his wonderful house of worship, which she had visited soon after its completion in the 1980s. Sahba had chosen the metaphor of a blossoming lotus flower in the hope that a new era of peace and religious tolerance would emerge out of the ‘murky waters’ of mankind’s history of ignorance and violence.

  Spiro was ignorant of many things, but last night was the first time he had been violent towards her. She had tried to resist, to talk him out of it, but he had threatened to tell Monk Johnson that she was behaving erratically. Nothing could jeopardise the presidential pageant, or the leading part she had been asked to play in it, so she had followed him out of the restaurant and back to his hotel room.

  Afterwards, in her own room, she had taken a shower, sobbing as she scrubbed herself with sandalwood soap. Then the tears had cleared and she had set to work, researching the Bahá’í faith online with the zeal of a dying patient desperate for a cure: the simple process of religious conversion that required a ‘declaration card’ to be filled out; how the rural masses had been targeted by Bahá’í missionaries in post-Gandhi India, many of them signing up to its appealing message of a united mankind with a single thumbprint. And the British weapons inspector David Kelly, who had converted to Bahá’ísm four years before his mysterious death.

  By the time dawn broke, her research had better prepared her for the news of her mother’s death, which only seemed to confirm in her tired mind the belief that she had known about it already. She felt closer to her mother, understood her life better, and knew how to pray for her in death. Her understanding of the Bahá’í faith was still nothing compared to her mother’s, but it had grown in recent months, preparing her for this day.