‘What?’ Grunt. His eyes opened; focusing. ‘Sam! Goodness, you’re here. And awake. And talking! How are you?’ He was sat on the edge of his chair now; excited - like a puppy. That almost made Sam choke again.
‘It’s not Derwent.’ Sam was hungry now. She craved sugar. Next to the pile of wrappers were two Mars Bars and a Bounty. She hadn’t noticed them earlier. She reached for the Mars, ripped off the end and bit off a big chunk. She wouldn’t be able to talk for a few seconds.
Frank was on his feet.
‘What do you mean? Did you discover something on the way here?’ He was up by the board, a marker in his hand ready to scribe.
Sam tried to say something, but the words came out all caramel. She chewed and swallowed.
Then, ‘Look at the names on the board: F Derwent and Lakeland Industries. What’s the connection?’
Frank looked at the board. He stepped back and looked again. He shook his head.
‘Sorry. Can’t see it.’
‘Cumbria, Frank. Derwent water. Lakeland Industries. They both have Lake District associations. And Helvellyn. It’s a mountain in the Lakes.’
‘Is it a code?’
Sam had the rest of the Mars Bar in her mouth and was reaching for the Bounty. She chewed. And chewed. And then gulped.
‘Can we get some tea. Like, with lots of sugar?’
Frank looked confused. ‘Yeah, sure. It’s …’ He went to point and then headed dutifully to the corner of the office.
Sam was on her feet and staggered, wavered, and then sat back down again.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean …’ Sam had started to apologise to Frank.
‘Don’t worry. Tell me the connection.’ It was Frank’s turn to interrupt. He shouted over his shoulder as he reached the kettle.
‘It’s not a code. It’s … the man from Switzerland. He’s making up names by some form of geographical association. And he’s chosen The Lakes.’
‘Why?’
Sam heard the chinking of mugs.
‘Lots of sugar please, Frank. Because. I don’t know. Because the Lakes are important to him? He comes from there? He went to school in Cumbria?’
Frank didn’t reply. She heard the kettle boil and saw steam rising. A few seconds later Frank was back. He was carrying two mugs in one hand and his phone in the other.
‘Sam?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve had an alert from the duty officer.’ He paused and looked at her. This wasn’t going to be good news. He looked back at his phone. ‘The Carabinieri have discovered a body in Taranto. The body was carrying Gareth Jones’s passport. He’s the man you described to me. The report says he’d been shot and mugged - last night.’ Frank stood awkwardly. The two mugs were in danger of spilling.
She looked at him. He was wearing his genuinely sorry face.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered.
Sam’s brain hit a juncture. It wavered. One avenue took her back to desperation. To blackness. Where curtains closed. The other way was madness. Shutters open. Hair on fire. A bath full of energy draining at a rate that couldn’t be filled. Who knew where it would end?
‘He kept his passport and his money together. In a Mulberry man-bag. He was gay, for Christ’s sake.’ Sam whispered. She had clarity, even though her brain fizzed. Decision made. Path chosen. ‘I need to do the photofit of … Brit-Swiss-man … F Derwent. And then we need to get it to the UK police, the DVLA, all the schools in Cumbria, Carlisle University. Anywhere where someone might remember his face. We have to find his real name.’
She was on her feet. She took an offered mug from Frank whilst reaching down for the second small bar of the Bounty. She stuck the whole thing in her mouth.
‘Sure. I’ll boot up Cynthia’s photofit.’
‘Good.’ Chomp. ‘And, as you do that ...’, chew, gulp, ‘... explain the rest of this to me.’
Frank did both things. His explanation was clear and succinct.
‘So. We have Brit-Swiss-man using the ‘Ndràngheta Mafia to coordinate the attacks?’ She confirmed.
‘Seems so. Although Jane is unconvinced.’
Sam ignored the comment.
‘And he’s funding this through 296 accounts split between in The Caymans, Jersey and Geneva - to varying degrees?’
Frank nodded from behind the desk. ‘Yup.’ Sam glanced his way. His screen was black with a green grid. He pressed a key. The outline of a blank face emerged.
She paused in thought.
‘I saw something at the wedding. Brit-Swiss-man. He was moving plates and cutlery around on a table. It was all very OCD.’
‘Hmm?’ Frank was both questioning and agreeing with her, whilst working the screen.
Sam now had the marker pen in one hand, and mug in the other. She wrote MONEY next to the title.
‘He only works in straight lines. Clear boundaries. He’s accurate. Very particular. You said something about the ricin attacks being haphazard?’
Frank stopped and spun in his chair.
‘Yeah. Jane commented on that. She thought it was a bit rushed. Not quite the previous MOs.’
Sam chewed at the end of the pen.
‘And the latest threat. The intelligence is clear, concise? But yet to manifest itself in an attack?’
‘Yeah. What, you think the latest stuff isn’t him?’
‘Possibly. Or, after the ferry … which was huge and disproportionate in comparison to all of the other attacks, he expected that to be the finale?’
‘But it wasn’t? Something went wrong? And now he’s making it up as he goes along?’
Sam took the pen from her mouth. She underlined MONEY.
‘Maybe.’ She glanced across at Frank’s screen. She really didn’t want to do the photofit thing. Describing and then seeing his face was going to send her into spasms of something.
‘Wait.’
Frank waited.
Sam turned and reached for the final Mars Bar. She opened it.
‘It’s about money, Frank.’
Frank didn’t say anything.
Someone shouted from a recess in her mind.
‘Boot up the London FTSE index. Find its value a year ago. And now.’
Frank worked the keyboard deftly. Sam took a bite of Mars Bar.
‘7,210 then. 4,592 now. That’s a 34% fall in a year. That’s massive.’ He looked at her. Their eyes met. ‘What are you thinking?’
She closed her eyes. She squeezed them tight.
‘I’ve no idea. Except, how do you make money when the world goes batshit?’
Frank didn’t reply immediately. Then, ‘Gold.’
Sam opened her eyes.
‘That’s it!’
‘What?’
‘Get the price of gold up. Now - and a year ago.’ She barked.
‘Which country?’
‘London.’
Frank tapped and tapped.
‘£1,004,21 per ounce a year ago, £1,451.07 now.’
Sam span round. She screwed her face up in disgust.
‘Shit, that’s not it.’
‘What, Sam?’
She was pacing now. Short steps up and down the aisle between the desks.
‘He’s about lines. Exactness. I was hoping there’d be a link. You know. Sell shares and buy gold early. Send the world into a spin. Shares plummet. Gold rises. And then, at some predetermined point ... some line in the sand, drawn by a man where precision counts more than anything, the line gets crossed. Then you stop the chaos just before everything melts. There’s a pause as everyone takes a breath. And bingo! You sell gold and buy shares. People forget about the chaos. The market rebounds - because, as we know, the economic numbers are all good …’
‘And you make a killing?’ Frank finished Sam’s sentence.
‘Exactly!’ She blurted the word with a little too much enthusiasm. Out loud her explanation didn’t make as much sense at it did in her head.
Frank didn’t answer. He was working the screen.
&nb
sp; ‘It’s not gold per ounce, the usual US/UK scale.’ He spoke quietly, with a sense of incredulity.
‘What? What do you mean?’ She asked.
‘As at last night, the FTSE 100 stood at 4,659 points. Gold was retailing at £41.12 per gram.’ Sam was at his shoulder looking at the numbers. Frank worked the screens like a 12 year old on a PlayStation. Fifteen seconds later he had the price of gold per gram and the FTSE 100 graphs on the same grid, stretching back over the past 12 months; the FTSE’s vertical, y-axis in ‘points’ on the left of the graph, the price of gold in ‘£s per gram’ on the right. Time ran along the bottom. The FTSE was in freefall left to right; the price of gold the opposite.
Frank had constructed a horizontal line through 4,500 points and £45. Both graphs were very close to crossing that line. One upwards; one downwards. The biggest jump and fall was four days ago, after the ferry attack. But it hadn’t been enough to make the lines cross.
That’s the cause of the impromptu ricin attacks? Keep the momentum going?
Sam stood up, stretching her arms to the ceiling. Frank pushed back in his chair.
‘It makes sense to me?’ But it was a question from Frank, not a statement.
‘No. No it doesn’t. It’s a fluke, that’s all. Do you know why?’ Sam asked.
Frank was staring at the screen, hoping for inspiration.
‘Nope. Sorry.’
‘Because the markets won’t recover. Not quickly. Not for a long while. Without a line drawn under the series of NT attacks, nobody will think it’s over. Not for certain. Unless someone’s in jail, there will be talk of a pause. People will still want answers. And if NT just closes down, the world will not go back to the way it was. There will still be unease. Continuing disquiet. People will be waiting for something deadly to happen. There needs to be an almighty closure. Arrests. Publicity. Success! Death. I just can’t see how that will happen. You don’t plan this and then get caught in order to bounce the markets.’ She chewed on the end of the pen again. ‘No. It’s a fluke. We were looking for something. And we found something. But it’s not the right something. Sorry, Frank.’
There was quiet for a moment. Sam felt the burden back in her shoulders. She looked at Frank. He was staring at his shoes. He had the demeanour of a man who needed a decent night’s sleep.
It was rubbish.
An open hand and a bunch of straws. One wasn’t even close to clutching at the other. They were miles away.
Come on.
A quiet voice. A nudge. From within. She wasn’t done yet. The bath was still full.
‘Tea, Frank? And then the photofit?’ He looked up at her.
She continued. ‘And then, I don’t know, a road trip to Switzerland?’
Headquarters SIS, Vauxhall, London
‘I should be back at about lunchtime, Claire. Can you get me a flight to Rome? Say, early evening. Unless something positive comes out of the JIC, I’m heading out there. C’s orders. Is that OK?’
Jane was standing at Claire’s desk. She wore a long, light-blue Mammut waterproof jacket over her work clothes, she’d changed her brown slip-ons for a pair of ageing walking shoes and she had a floppy, blue-waxed, brimmed hat in her hand ready to stick on her head the moment she braved Westminster Bridge. She knew she would look like either Bill or Ben, but needs must. She’d chosen to walk because, according to the Met’s secure link which she had open on her machine, there were already 300,000 people in and around Trafalgar Square, with 50,000 arriving every hour, most of them using the tube. They’d suggested to the PM’s office they close one or two of the mainline routes - maybe a fake terrorist attack at Reading - to blunt the influx, but that had been immediately dismissed. Twenty minutes ago the latest post on the Met’s link predicted a march of close to two million people. It was going to break the capital.
‘Sure. Rome’s nice this time of year?’ Claire grinned. Jane had checked the weather there a few minutes ago. The west coast of Italy had been suffering from major flooding and the rain wasn’t due to let up any time soon.
‘Possibly not.’ Jane forced a smile back.
‘I’ll put an Op Peacock pack together for you. Do you need anything else?’
Jane thought for a second.
‘Carla’s out until mid-morning, I think. Make sure the latest update from Frank has been passed around the team. And once Carla is back, get her to look over the Cayman accounts again in light of Sam and Frank’s madcap gold and share price theory. But it’s not to divert her efforts from finding an address for this Freddie chap. And, key, I want to know as soon as we have anything on Sam’s photofit Frank just sent through. Oh …’ Jane stopped and looked at Claire. She was writing all of her instructions on a pad in shorthand, whilst looking intently at her.
What would I do without you?
‘Go on.’ Claire prompted. Her pen wavering above the pad.
‘And I need to know as soon as we have anything on the Bentley, other than its number plate.’
Claire was still looking at her. Jane’s instruction was written down before she’d finished the sentence.
‘And?’
Jane didn’t say anything. Instead, she theatrically stuck her hat on her head with each hand on opposite sides of the brim; the room immediately grew darker.
‘Keep your head up. We wouldn’t want you bumping into ‘His Handsomeness’, would we? Not looking like that.’ Claire quipped.
‘I think you’ll find, Claire, that beauty is both in the eyes of the beholder and only skin deep.’
‘Sorry. Of course. I forgot that. But keep your head up anyway.’
‘Just sort the blooming flights out …’
Claire smiled.
And Jane waved.
Crowd dependent, it would take her 20 minutes of brisk walking to get to Whitehall. She’d come back to the office and pick up her overnight case, unless something between now and her flight forced her to stay in the UK.
Frank and Sam’s argument - that Freddie (unknown surname) was masterminding the NT attacks using the ‘Ndràngheta Mafia - was even more persuasive this morning. There was nothing particularly new in terms of evidence, other than Sam identifying that many of the case’s components were linked by name association to the Lake District. But the underlying, Italian organised-crime connection was too strong to ignore. And, frankly, there were no other substantive leads.
Frank’s brief, which he’d emailed through an hour ago, concluded with a conjectural thought. Sam and he had run a scenario where the attacks were purposefully driving the price of gold up, and share prices down. And that at some predetermined point, the gains and losses would be big enough to warrant selling piles of gold and buying undervalued shares. She had read the words, agreed it was a fanciful theory, but stuck it in Carla’s brief anyway.
It wouldn’t, however, be in this morning’s briefing to the JIC. Most of her slides focused on the Italian connection and the ‘Ndràngheta Mafia. She had included a slide on the mysterious Freddie, and a couple of slides on where other nations had been making some progress. France’s DGSI were now certain their ricin and fake-ricin letters had been pulled together over the border in Turin, Italy. She’d had a telephone one-to-one with DGSI’s deputy first thing. The French had tracked down an apartment in Turin’s Santa Rita district from where they believed all of the letters had originated; they currently had an obs team in place, and taps on appropriate phones. Interestingly they hadn’t included AISE in the op for fear of leaks. It was highly unusual for EU countries to work in this manner, but these were highly unusual times.
The one notable success was from the US. Last night the FBI had arrested two men in Baltimore; the Bureau were convinced the men had links to last week’s Seattle bombing. The men were ‘explosive experts’, although the ‘experts’ bit was tongue-in-cheek. Both men had worked in a quarry and had access to half-decent plastic and detonators. It was crude stuff, but the pipe bomb used in the attack was crude. What was interesting to her was that the ar
rested men were immigrants from Libya. It was an afterthought at the end of this morning’s update from Linden Rickenbacker on the continuing threat to a ‘high profile individual’.
‘Libya?’ She’d asked.
‘Yes, why?’ Linden had replied.
‘It’s the Italian connection again.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, it’s the fact that, as well as two other nations, Italy, Libya and Eritrea have not been targeted by NT. Libya and Eritrea are both ex-Italian colonies. Your bomb makers are from Libya. Bingo. Is that too much of a coincidence?’
‘This is your ‘Ndràngheta Mafia connection. I read your latest brief an hour ago.’ Linden added.
‘Correct. Currently it’s our only viable line of enquiry. In fact, I’m heading to Rome later today. The Chief wants me to personally press AISE’s director to rip the ‘Ndràngheta apart. He reckons that’s best done face to face.’
Linden hadn’t replied immediately.
Then, ‘I’ll join you. I’ve not been to our Rome office since I took over this job. And we have nothing better here.’
That’ll be nice.
Linden continued. ‘And you’re still after that Freddie Derwent chap. The Brit billionaire mischief-maker? That line doesn’t do well here.’
‘Yes. And I can see why you are struggling with the connection. Again, it’s the best we have.’
‘OK. I’ll get Christy to send my travel details to your Claire. Meet you by the Trevi Fountain. I’ll be the one wearing the Redskins cap.’
‘Aren’t spies meant to be incognito?’
‘You’re right. It’ll be a Crimson Tide cap.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Alabama. They’re a lesser known team.’
And that’s where they’d left it.
So, unless someone at the JIC came up with something more substantial, and having read the initial reports that seemed unlikely, she’d be spending an evening with Linden Rickenbacker, the Deputy Director of the CIA. Thankfully she’d packed at least one thing less frumpy than a green woollen suit and a cream blouse.
Chapter 17
Via Palestro, Rome, Italy
On the Back Foot to Hell Page 34