Deception

by Adrian Magson

  Harry couldn’t see the faces of those sitting in front of him, but he felt sure there was nobody he’d recognize. He slid into a chair and waited.

  The talk ended a few minutes later with a few desultory and pre-prepared questions from the media pack. Then a woman from the press office stepped forward and said, ‘That’s it, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid we have to wrap it up there. General Foster has a very busy schedule. There are briefing notes by the door for you to pick up on the way out. If you would like to take photos now?’

  Harry waited while the snappers did their job, before they headed for the door in a flying wedge, eager to send in their photos and copy and get to the nearest pub. As the numbers diminished, General Foster collected his papers together and walked down the aisle between the rows of chairs, head bent listening to an aide feeding him his next agenda item. As the officer neared him, Harry stood up and showed his Security Services card.

  ‘General Foster, if you have a moment?’ He was relying on a tone of authority to cut through the inevitable smokescreen around the general and confuse the suits and aides into letting him speak long enough to gain the officer’s attention.

  Foster slowed, eyeing the card and then Harry, his concentration broken. He stopped.

  ‘What is it?’ Up close, he was tanned and lean, exuding confidence and gravitas. He would have to, given his job, Harry thought, and realized he was only going to get one punt at this.

  As he opened his mouth to reply, a minder in a suit tried to intervene, placing a hand on Harry’s chest and pushing without even bothering to look at his card. ‘That’s not possible. Step back. Apply through the press office in the approved manner.’

  Harry looked down at the hand, then eased it away, applying just enough pressure on the tendons with his thumb to draw a gasp from the man. He dropped the hand and looked straight at General Foster, estimating that he had about five seconds before the minder got over his surprise and wounded pride and yelled for back-up. Another three and security guards would be jumping all over him. ‘General, I need to ask you about Lieutenant Tan. Have you any idea where she might have gone?’

  Foster’s eyes were a dark shade of green, Harry noted, full of intelligence and, no doubt, the weightiness of his position in the war against the Taliban, coupled with his role as a military diplomat. But there was a disturbing blankness in there, too, echoed by the frown edging his brow, and Harry experienced a moment of startling revelation.

  The general said, ‘Sorry – I think you need to speak to personnel on any issue like that.’ Then he was gone, surrounded by his acolytes, and Harry was left with two large security guards hustling him towards the exit.

  As he stepped out into the sunlight over Whitehall, Harry realized he’d been wrong. His assumption about the senior officer being protected from any fallout and therefore off-limits to Harry was way off-target. The simple fact was, General Patrick Foster, Deputy Commander Afghanistan and Lieutenant Vanessa Tan’s immediate boss, hadn’t got the faintest idea of who Harry had been talking about.

  FIFTY-TWO

  ‘Cutting it fine, Harry. I was beginning to have my doubts about you.’ Clare Jardine answered Harry’s call on the fifth ring. She sounded amused and even faintly smug, as if she’d been expecting his call all along. ‘I’m glad I was wrong.’

  ‘What do you want?’ He was only fifty yards from the MOD building, and curiosity had got the better of him.

  ‘Come on, don’t be like that.’ Her voice took on a more businesslike tone. ‘Look, sorry about the teasing. If we work together, Harry, we can both get what we want. I help you, you help me, friends forever.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Not over the phone. There are too many ears in this city for my liking. Choose somewhere public if it makes you feel safer.’ The amused tone was back, giving Harry cause to wonder at Clare’s mental state, her mood veering from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Horse Guards Parade opposite the lake. Fifteen minutes.’ Horse Guards, where armed police were stationed in cubicles, watching the government’s back and the passing public. If Clare was thinking of trying any of her knife work there, she’d have to be suicidal.

  Her laugh echoed down the line. ‘Horse Guards is good. But fifteen? From where you’re standing right now, Harry, it should take about four minutes, tops, a fit man like you. Don’t be late . . . and don’t bring the Milky Bar Kid or I might have to give him a slap.’ Then she was gone, leaving him with a prickly feeling on the back of his neck.

  He refused to turn round and look; he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

  Five minutes later, Clare joined him on the edge of the parade square, within sight of an armed police guard. She was dressed this time in pressed trousers and a smart jacket, every inch the office worker on a break, fitting easily into the background the way she would have been trained. She carried no bag, he noticed, but that didn’t mean she was harmless; he’d seen how quickly she could move and how she could produce her little compact knife faster than many sleight-of-hand artistes.

  ‘Mmm . . . clever,’ she congratulated him, eyeing the guard. ‘You really don’t trust me, do you? And after everything we’ve been through. I’m almost hurt.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Tell me why I should trust you.’

  ‘OK. Fair point. Straight down to business, then.’ She set off at a dawdle along the pavement, keeping a body’s width apart from him, hands clasped in front of her. Amazingly, she looked almost demure, as if butter wouldn’t melt. ‘I know Paulton is working with the Protectory,’ she announced. ‘Don’t bother asking how, I just do. He’s a wheeler-dealer and he must have seen them as a prime source of money. Only he doesn’t have any secrets of his own to sell, does he? Who the hell cares about MI5 stuff that’s over a year out of date? And officers or agents he was running have long been pulled out. But he has contacts in all sorts of unlikely places. He must have been storing away names for years, hoping that one day he’d have a use for them. He might not have planned on this kind of use, but he’s resourceful; he knows how the Protectory works: they get their hands on a few prime military personnel who are desperate for a new life and safety away from guns and bullets and IEDs and whatever crap they call their home life, and sell whatever they’ve got in their heads.’ She paused for breath; she’d been talking fast, a professional pitch to sell the idea of chasing Paulton and not letting Harry go. And was that a hint of desperation in her voice?

  ‘That’s the Protectory. Where does Paulton fit in?’

  ‘Simple: he’s got something to bring to the table. He knows people who know people and he can get buyers for the kind of stuff on offer. The Protectory’s problem is they don’t have the reach or the contacts and never have. They’re strictly small-time; soldiers cut adrift, looking to flog off a few details here and there. Negotiating without a gun is not their strong point, and they’ve probably been ripped off plenty of times. Paulton’s argument is that he can get them in front of some real buyers . . . and in the process take a nice cut for himself. It’s a neat fit.’

  She was right. Paulton had been in the security and intelligence game a long time. It was a world away from the kind of spheres Deakin and his friends inhabited. The kind of information that had passed across Paulton’s desk over the years would have included names, positions and locations of people looking to get hold of whatever Britain and her allies were developing in tactical equipment. Names men like Deakin and Nicholls would never even have heard of.

  But he still wasn’t sure how knowing this would get him to Paulton. Clare answered that in a way he hadn’t been expecting.

  ‘I don’t want to tell stories out of school, Harry, but you know Ballatyne’s playing you, don’t you?’

  He stopped, forcing her to do the same. He knew this might be a ploy, Clare playing SIS-type mind games to drive a wedge between him and Ballatyne. Divide and rule, as old as the hills. Yet a part of him found i
t difficult to contradict her outright. ‘Go on.’

  ‘They’re only using you for one thing: to track these guys down so they can take them out. They don’t have the manpower to do it themselves, and don’t want to get their hands dirty if it all goes public and shit-shaped. So they’ve dressed it up, with Paulton now in the frame in the hope that you can kill two birds with one stone. They knock the Protectory out of the game, you get Paulton . . . everyone’s happy.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I told you: I’ve got friends. They have connections. Word is that a dribble of information has been coming out of the Protectory for about three months now. Bits here, snippets there; nothing huge, but it’s enough to tell them what the group is doing. At first the government didn’t want to know; they looked on the Protectory as no more than rumour, a small group of ex-army misfits not worth bothering with. Then about a month ago the decision was taken to shut them down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They were becoming the stuff of legend; celebrity renegades, would you believe? Robin Hood and his merry men in desert camos. You know what squaddies are like; coop them up in forward operating bases for weeks on end and they’ll talk up Jack the Ripper as a hero. Make it a group helping out deserters and they’re like the X-Men and the Magnificent Seven all rolled into one. It gives those with even a vague notion of jumping ship the idea that it might just work if they had somewhere safe to run. That’s not good for morale.’

  ‘Neither is killing deserters who refuse their help.’

  ‘It might have pushed the MOD’s thinking along a bit, but I don’t think that was the catalyst. Why would the MOD care about the odd dead deserter? As far as they’re concerned, it’s a problem solved. Close the files, delete and move on.’

  The MOD’s decision had nothing to do with Tan’s disappearance, either, Harry realized. If what Clare was saying was true, Tan had kicked off at least three weeks ago now, some time after the decision had been made to go after the Protectory. But why? Coincidence, or simply a realistic anticipation that the longer the conflict in Afghanistan went on, the situation could only get worse and more high-value targets would leave and be chased down for what they could sell?

  ‘These friends,’ he said, turning to continue walking. Too long in one position here and the police would begin to take an interest. And he hadn’t finished with Clare yet. ‘Are they in Six or the MOD?’

  She shook her head with an enigmatic smile.

  ‘OK. The information coming out of the Protectory . . . do they know who’s leaking it?’

  ‘The main money seems to be on a guy called Colin Nicholls, formerly a major in the Intelligence Corps. He went missing about eight years ago while on leave from Iraq. He found his way into the original Protectory, which was just a bunch of guys helping each other stay below the radar. But they weren’t selling anything, not like now.’

  So far, so correct. ‘Why Nicholls? There are others in the group.’ He told her about the American, Turpowicz, as an example.

  ‘There are thought to be half a dozen regular members, spread all over, but I don’t know any names. Nicholls probably has the best background for feeding information through the system to the authorities without being traced. Maybe after all these years, he’s developed a conscience – I don’t know. What they have picked up is that he’s become disenchanted with the way the others in the group are taking it and wants out. His messages have been sounding increasingly despondent.’ She paused. ‘Hasn’t Ballatyne been telling you all this stuff?’

  ‘No. You know they’ll go after your friends, don’t you?’ He wasn’t giving away any secrets; Clare and her contacts might be a little naïve to think they could pass her information for ever without being caught, but they weren’t completely stupid. In the end, something always gave whistleblowers away, if only the whistleblowers themselves, victims of over-confidence or inflated egos. ‘They’ll go on a rat hunt and clear them out.’

  ‘I know that. So do they.’ She sounded subdued. She must have been harbouring the knowledge for some time. ‘They’ve been thinking of leaving, anyway. Time to move on.’

  They had come as far as Birdcage Walk. Harry turned about, then stopped.

  ‘Thanks for helping Jean, by the way.’ It was something he’d been meaning to say. It would never be enough to make them friends, but it warranted something of a truce between them, if not quite full trust.

  ‘No problem. You helped me in Georgia, got me out of there when you could have left me behind. Consider us quits.’ She looked and sounded sincere. Another mood swing or a glimpse of the real Clare? He still wasn’t sure.

  ‘Quits.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘I thought you were going to tell me. You seem to have a lot of facts.’

  ‘Basics, that’s all. What I do know is, after what happened at Jean’s place, you must be top dog on the Bosnians’ hit list. They’re probably feeling bruised by that failure. We neither of us know where Paulton or the Protectory are hiding out, but from the Bosnians to them is a fairly straight jump, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Find the Bosnians, find Deakin and Paulton?’ It was a tantalizing thought, but offhand he couldn’t think of another. He’d already staked himself out as a goat once, so he might as well try it again. ‘Where can I find you?’

  ‘You have my number. Just call and I’ll come running.’ She smiled archly and walked away, her heels going click-clack on the hard ground.

  His phone buzzed. It was Rik.

  ‘Harry, I’ve got something on Vanessa Tan. But you’re really not going to like it. She’s dead.’

  FIFTY-THREE

  Harry sank into a chair in Rik’s flat, and felt a wave of tiredness wash over him. They were too late. The Protectory had got to her after all. But why kill her? ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘She died in a house fire.’

  ‘When?’

  Rik paused for dramatic effect, then said, ‘Six years ago.’

  ‘What?’ Harry was stunned. If Tan was recorded as dead, then how—?

  ‘It was in Huntingdon, in a squat used by animal rights activists. The others knew her only as Vanessa, a supporter. The police never managed to match it to the address in north Wales, so she was named as Vanessa X by a local newshound. I only spotted the name by chance in a local newspaper archive. There’s no photo but the activists gave a good description. One of them said she had a faint Welsh accent.’

  Harry sighed. At least it explained what had happened to her after university. ‘That must be when they made the switch.’

  ‘Well, maybe not. That’s the weird thing.’ Rik sounded excited. ‘When I was still searching for anything related to Lieutenant Tan, I went through every record I could find on the command structure for ISAF in Kabul. There were pictures of all the officers, from every national force represented – puff pieces, mainly, with links to their careers, training and so on, who they knew, what sports they played, everything but who they were sleeping with. There were even shots of the support staff, right down to security guards, drivers, admin workers, chefs and valets. The only person consistently missing was Tan.’

  ‘Nothing?’ It wasn’t impossible but it seemed highly unlikely that one person – even an impostor working by design – could have missed a military photo session every time.

  ‘There were a couple of entries listing Lieutenant V. Tan as an aide to the Deputy Commander, but no pictures. She doesn’t appear in any of the group shots, background photos or staff registers. There’s no sign of her in shots of the command staff with local tribal leaders or ministers, which there would have been if she had the local languages. Can you imagine what the more politically correct wonks in the MOD would have made of that one? Here’s a young woman in a key position in a war zone . . . blah, blah, blah.’

  He was right. It would have made political capital good money couldn’t buy.

  ‘Even the gallery of leaving parties at the time has nobody who remotely resem
bles her,’ Rik continued. ‘Blondes, brunettes – even a redhead or two – but not a single Anglo-Chinese. I checked the rosters for rotations in and out; nothing there, either.’

  ‘Regimental records and officer training?’ Harry asked, although he could guess the result there, too.

  ‘She’s on the strength, but listed as on temporary secondment to ISAF – but no photo. There’s a V. Tan on the officer training rolls, but no further details. It’s like she was a cipher; there but not there.’ He took a deep breath and added, ‘I, uh . . . I also took a peek at the MOD flight manifests for trips out to Afghanistan and back.’

  Harry looked at him. ‘You did what?’ That was dangerously close to restricted territory. Troop movements were jealously guarded for basic security reasons: find a particular member of the military on the move, and you were within an ace of knowing which regiment was going where. Find a specialist and you knew what the concentration and focus was going to be. Allowing access to that sort of information also exposed individual personnel to danger and security leaks.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Rik quickly. ‘I didn’t leave a footprint. I used a relay through the regimental records office. It’ll stop dead at a terminal with open access. She wasn’t on any of the manifests. No outs, no returns.’ He sat back, pleased with himself.

  ‘Good work. So what’s your conclusion?’

  ‘This Vanessa Tan was just a name on a list. A real looker, but not a real person.’

  Harry stood up and did a turn around the room. Was that the real answer to this? That Vanessa Tan had been impossible to find because her entire existence had been a hoax? A fabrication? It hardly seemed credible, but stranger things had happened. If it were true, it explained why Ballatyne hadn’t wanted him talking to General Foster, and why Foster himself had looked totally blank on hearing her name. He hadn’t been included in the plan.

  Then he had an idea and cursed himself for being slow off the mark. He’d missed an opportunity to get here much faster than this. What was it Mrs Crane had said about her?