The Mortal Maze

by Ian Richardson

  ******

  On entering the apartment, he sees there is a single message. As he had hoped, it is from Binnie. As always, there are no wasted words. “Someone has hacked our website and locked us out of it. Stay around and I’ll call you back.”

  Jackson immediately phones Mack with the news.

  “Do you think it really was your mate?” he asks.

  “It sounded like him, but I have to admit that his voice isn’t particularly distinctive and also the line was a bit crackly. He’s going to call again.”

  “Right. I’ve done a careful piece for London. They still can’t see why we don’t go hard on it, especially as the Americans say they believe it and claim to have carried out the drone attack with the agreement of President Hasani. Maybe the photograph has been faked because Bin Hassan was blown to bits and your call was from someone else trying to seed confusion.”

  “Maybe, but the caller used my first name ‘Roger’. Very few people know that.”

  “Well, let’s see what you can learn when this person calls back.”

  Jackson ends the call, but another one comes in almost immediately. This time it is Thomas.

  “Right, Jacko, it’s action stations for you!”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “It means that you are now working primarily for us, with the bonus of getting more brilliant scoops for your other masters.”

  “I’m not! I’m not! I’m not working for you!” roars Jackson.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes! You are,” replies Thomas coldly. “Your old mate, Binnie, must be stopped at all costs and you have an obligation to play your part. You owe it to civilised society. And there’s plenty in it for you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like two million US dollars.”

  “How much?”

  “Two million US dollars, Jacko – a gift from a grateful White House. And if you don’t believe me, check your Roger Smith account and you’ll see there is a down payment of $250,000. This is your big opportunity. You’ll become an international hero and you’ll have the chance of your lifetime to give yourself your much-desired new start in life. You can shake yourself free of any need to gamble. Don’t you see that?”

  Jackson is staggered by the offer and although he doesn’t wish to admit it, Thomas’s argument is attractive. “So what exactly have you in mind for me?”

  “Well, here’s the situation: There was no drone attack, of course. We don’t have drones here. We made that story up. We hacked the Soldiers of Allah website to spook Bin Hassan and his boys by declaring him to be dead. We are confident this is causing all sorts of confusion and panic in his group and among those who are funding and co-operating with him. The website was used as a route for coded messages, but we’ve stopped that. It’s now under our control. He can’t get into the website, nor can he remove it. Above all, he’ll need to re-establish his authority by being seen to be alive and well.”

  “I can see that’s a rational assumption, but I still don’t get where I’m supposed to come into it.”

  “You come into it because we want you to be ‘lifted’ again for another interview.”

  “Forgive me for being obtuse, Thomas, but I still don’t get it. How will that help?”

  “It’ll help us track down his location.”

  “I don’t see how. I haven’t the faintest clue where he takes me. You know that. As I’ve said in my broadcasts, we couldn’t see where we were and our phones were taken away and switched off. No-one except Binnie and his boys know where we are taken.”

  “Ah, but we will because when you’re lifted you’ll have a tracking device on you. You can hide it in your cameraman’s kit, like you did with the bug you planted for us in Khaled Mohamed’s office.”

  “There’s just one flaw with that proposal, Thomas. Pete was made to leave his kit behind with our driver. The interview was filmed with Binnie’s own camera.”

  “Hell! I didn’t realise that. Never mind, I’m sure our technical guys will have another solution.”

  “Maybe, but you have to keep in mind that I never know when these interviews are going to take place. Only Binnie knows that.”

  “Yes, we’re working on that problem.”

  The call ends and Jackson rings Mack to suggest that any stories about the reported death of Bin Hassan should not go into detail about why there are suspicions about the website. He says he will explain later and tells his boss that he is going to stick around at the apartment in case Binnie calls again.

  Jackson leaves the phone off the hook for a few minutes while he goes downstairs to the nearby ATM. He accesses the Roger Smith account and sees that the promised $250,000 is there, although when he tries to make a withdrawal, he gets a message that the money is “not yet available”.

  On his return to the apartment, Jackson pours himself a beer and waits for Binnie’s next call. He has now convinced himself that he will be acting in the best interests of western society by helping to capture Binnie, and that the American money is no more than a fair reward for the risks he is taking. Two million dollars is a lot of money, but he rationalises that it is quite modest when compared with the $25m offered for Osama Bin Laden.

  There is a knock on the door and he finds Samira there with a man he has never seen before. “Hello Jacko, this is my husband, Nigel,” she explains. “We were just passing and I thought you’d like to meet him. We’ve also come to offer our condolences.”

  Jackson and Nigel shake hands. “Very sorry to hear about your mother, Jackson,” says Nigel. “It must have been an enormous shock.”

  “Yes it was a bit, but it’s very nice to meet you at last,” says Jackson, “I know that Samira has been missing you. I’d invite you to stay for a cup of tea, but I’m expecting an important phone call any moment.”

  “That’s okay, Jacko, we weren’t planning to stay,” Samira assures him. “Nigel urgently needs to sort out a few things and I must return to the bureau to do the monthly accounts.”

  Jackson and Nigel shake hands again. “Well, now you’re back, we must have a proper chat over a meal somewhere,” says Jackson.

  “Yes, indeed,” says Nigel.

  The phone rings. “That’s my expected call, so I’d better take it,” Jackson says as he hastily ushers them out the door.

  It is Binnie again. “Those lies about my death are taking hold,” he reveals, “so we’ll have to do another interview. We’ll do it in two days from now.” The line goes dead.

  A couple of minutes pass and the phone rings again. It is Thomas. “We’ve just heard your mate’s call. As always, it is too quick for us to get to him. But our plan is working, so we’ll ratchet up the claims that he really is dead and that Soldiers of Allah is disintegrating without his leadership. By the way, the tracking problem has been solved. Our boys tell us they have a device that can’t be detected.

  “How come?”

  “Because you stick it up your arse.”

  “Oh Christ! You are joking, I hope.”

  “No, it’s not a joke. It’s plastic and flexible and about the size of a small tampon. It even looks like one with a cord you use to remove it.”

  “Are you really suggesting that I go around with a tampon up my arse all day long?”

  “No, of course not. You only have to insert it when you go anywhere your terrorist mate might lift you.”

  Jackson is still unable to get his head around this proposal. “Okay, so let’s imagine that I do have this thing stuck up my bum. Does it mean that you’ll be tracking me all the time while I wait to be lifted?”

  “No, that’s not it. The battery might run flat. What you do is when you’ve finished your interview, you make an excuse to go to the toilet, where you remove the tracker, switch it on and stick it somewhere out of sight. We’ll have armed snatch teams scattered about the city and they’ll give you 10 minutes to get clear before grabbing Bin Hassan and anyone with him. Then bingo! You’ll be the speedy recipient of the rest of your reward a
nd have yet another brilliant scoop. What’s not to like about that, eh!”

  “It might work. When am I going to get this ‘tampon’ thing?”

  “It’s just been delivered to my apartment, but unfortunately I’m about to leave town for a few days.”

  “Where ‘out of town’, may I ask?”

  “You don’t need to know. Let’s just say that I’m off the coast and among friends.”

  “So how do I get the device?”

  “I’ve phoned Flip and told her that it’s a microphone you accidentally left at the embassy during one of your interviews and I’ve stressed that she should take it to her centre in the morning for you to collect first thing.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Okay Jacko. Let me know as soon as you have any contact of any sort with Bin Hassan. I can only guess how he’s going to set up the interview without alerting us. I’m sure he knows we monitor his calls to you.”

  “Yes, he does, but he’ll come up with something I’m sure. He’s a smart bugger.”

  ******

  Jackson’s maid turns up with a supply of fresh food and spends an hour tidying the apartment. He explains away the broken bathroom mirror and the cut on his hand as a “silly accident”.

  As the afternoon wears on with no further call from Binnie, Jackson decides to treat himself to a meal at The Cedar Tree. Jamil agrees, reluctantly, to charge it to Jackson’s account. When Jackson returns to the apartment, he finds messages from Binnie and Thomas.

  Binnie’s message is in code: “You and your cameraman must be outside the headmaster’s office near your bureau immediately after the metalwork class finishes.”

  Jackson is baffled at first, then understands the message. He calls Thomas with his interpretation. “I’ve worked out when it’s going to happen.”

  “Excellent,” says Thomas. “I had no idea what he was talking about when we monitored his call.”

  “It’s simple really. I’ll be picked up at midday outside the café called Room 10 about a block away from the bureau.”

  “How did you figure that out?”

  “It’s code from our days together at school. Everyone knew the headmaster’s office because of the large polished brass numbers on the door. Anyone who got into trouble would be told ‘go to Room 10’.”

  “What about the day and time?”

  “That’s also easy. Binnie and I hated metalwork classes, which were always on a Wednesday – that’s tomorrow – and they always finished at midday in time for the canteen lunch.”

  “That looks sorted then, Jacko. You’ll have plenty of time to collect the tracker from Flip before being picked up, and if all goes well, by the end of the day Ahmed Faisel Bin Hassan will be ours and no threat to anyone, anymore.”

  ******

  Jackson phones Mack with the news. It is agreed that no mention will be made to London of the advance warning given by Bin Hassan. “The interview will be a nice surprise for them and two fingers to the Daily Mail and their lot,” says Mack. “Yassin can pick you and Pete up first thing and we can then discuss exactly how you should conduct the interview. Meanwhile, have a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be another big day for you.”

  “Thanks, Mack, but before you go, one more thought: How about I alert CNN and Al-Jazeera that there will be another interview and promise them a few clips that they can broadcast immediately after us? They’re good guys and I don’t want to drop them in it again with their bosses.”

  “Mmm,” ponders Mack, “good idea. I’ll have a private chat with them in the morning.”

  Jackson pours himself a modest whisky and phones Pete to inform him of the proposed interview. He will see him downstairs at 9am. Pete is excited by the prospect of another meeting with a now-notorious terrorist.

  Jackson phones Felicity to make sure that she will have the “microphone” with her when she goes to the centre in the morning. She tells him that it is already in her bag, so that she won’t forget it.

  Felicity sounds unhappy and Jackson wants to know why. “Things are getting difficult at home,” she admits, “I really don’t know what’s…”

  Jackson interrupts. “Before you go any further, whose phone are you using?”

  “My own, of course! Why?”

  “Hang up and ring me again from the landline phone in Thomas’s study.”

  “Okay,” she says, baffled. A couple of minutes later she calls again, using Thomas’s phone.

  “It’s a security issue,” he explains. “My phone is probably bugged, but as Thomas is a diplomat dealing with commercial matters, calls from his phones are encrypted and can’t easily be unscrambled.

  “Oh, I see. That makes sense.”

  “You can now speak freely,” he tells her. “What’s your problem?”

  “Thomas is my problem, to be honest. He’s very stressed out and getting more and more secretive and difficult to deal with. Even the kids have noticed that he’s changed. And another thing: I believe he’s a spook.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “He accidentally left some documents lying about in the study a few days ago and they were all about snatch squads and military reports and that sort of thing. When I asked him about them he flew into a rage and told me to keep my nose out of his business. He’s now gone off somewhere, but wouldn’t say where. He said he’d be back later this week, but would be out of touch until he returned.”

  “I wouldn’t get too alarmed,” Jackson tells her. “There’s no doubt a simple explanation – linked to the pressures arising from the American Embassy bombing.”

  “Maybe, but there’s more to it. Because of my suspicions about what he’s really doing here, I’ve been going through his study. I found where he’d hidden the keys to his desk and in one of the drawers were several photographs of a pretty young woman. On one of them there was a handwritten message: ‘I’ll remember last night for the rest of my life. Thank you’. It was signed by someone called Katherine.”

  “What’s she look like?” he asks.

  “Dark hair and aged about 30. Quite good looking, I have to admit. Do you know a Katherine?”

  Jackson realises that the girl is probably the receptionist at the British Embassy, but he chooses not to say so.

  “Maybe it’s someone from his past, before his marriage to you,” Jackson suggests.

  “Absolutely not,” she replies, “it’s got a date stamp on it from a few months ago.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing for the moment. I need to think it through.”

  “Would you leave Thomas?”

  “If the affair’s still going, I may have to, especially as he’s been lying to me all this time about his job. There’s no trust left in our relationship.”

  Jackson says nothing for a few moments, then poses a question. “Is there any chance we might get together again?”

  “No, Jackson,” she says firmly. “You know that. I can’t cope with the constant worry about your addiction.”

  “I’m not addicted,” he insists, “in fact I’ve already given up gambling. I won’t need it any more. I’ve had the big win that I always knew I’d get. I’m sure, that given a chance, I can prove it to you.”

  Felicity gives a big sigh. “No, Jacko, I’d be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. I still love you dearly, but I don’t believe you can give up gambling. There’s such a need in you. I hope that we’ll always be friends but that magic required for an intimate relationship has gone. And now I have the kids to think of. They love their dad despite his faults.”

  “Let me prove myself. Stick with Thomas as best you can, and we can talk again in six months. If I haven’t gambled between now and then, maybe you’ll give me another chance.”

  “Sorry, Jacko, but I’m too tired and too stressed to give you such an assurance.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Jackson wakes early the next morning, having had a restless night worrying that something mi
ght go wrong with the Binnie interview. He has a light breakfast – a couple of pieces of toast washed down with coffee – then goes downstairs at the appointed time. Pete is already waiting, and so is Yassin.

  “Another exciting day ahead of us, Jacko,” declares a grinning Pete.

  “Mmm, it looks promising,” replies Jackson, trying his best to appear totally at ease. “I will, at least, have time to give some proper thought to my line of questioning.”

  “Yep, it’s looking good,” says Pete as he and Jackson get into the Range Rover.

  Jackson tells Yassin that they need to call by the Fouad Rehabilitation Centre to collect a microphone.

  “What microphone?” asks Pete. “Does Felicity Fulham think it’s one of ours?”

  “Not sure,” replies Jackson, anxious to drop the subject.

  “I’m not missing one, so it must be someone else’s. I’d definitely know if I were missing one. Give her a call and tell her, so we can go straight to the bureau.”

  “No,” snaps Jackson, “her husband, who works at the British Embassy, says it’s definitely got our label on it, so maybe it was left there some time ago by a visiting crew. It’ll take only a few minutes to collect.”

  Yassin starts the car and drives away. He gets barely a couple of hundred metres along the almost-deserted street when his path is block by a Mercedes estate that pulls out of a side street and forces the car into the kerb. A second Mercedes pulls in behind them. They are the same cars and the same men who lifted them in Hasini Square. Two of the men jump from the estate car, waving hand guns, and run to the BBC vehicle.

  Jackson and Pete know the routine. They give up their phones and are quickly frisked before getting into the estate and lying down on the rear floor. Yassin also hands over his phone and is told to remain where he is until Jackson and Pete return, and not to make contact with anyone in the meantime.

  The car speeds away and Jackson and Pete are told to pull a blanket over their heads. This time Pete is relaxed and looking forward to an adventure. Not so, Jackson. He realises that Binnie has outsmarted everyone and that the grand plan to capture him is rapidly coming apart at the seams.