by Duncan James
***
By close of play on Monday, there had still been no contact between Washington and London. Surely they would hear something on Tuesday? The five-hour time difference really was a nuisance. It would be the afternoon before they heard anything, whatever day the news came through. But it was obvious to both the Prime Minister and his Cabinet Secretary that Tuesday was going to be yet another long, and anxious, day. A day when they could do nothing but wait patiently for America to catch up with them, and pass on their decision - go or no-go. But there was plenty of routine Government business to keep both men busy while they waited. And at least, so far as they could see from Andrew Groves’ morning briefing, there had been no whiff of a leak about their grand strategy. In fact, there was almost encouraging news, in that the President of Sinn Fein, Martin McFosters, had announced that he was to pay yet another visit to America the following week. This could just present a golden opportunity to take some action in pursuit of their long-term objectives.
Sir Robin Algar was able to punctuate an otherwise terrible day, during which some unpleasant decisions had been taken, with a pleasant lunch with his old colleague, Alistair Vaughan. They sat quietly at one of the small alcove tables upstairs at Simpsons, and chatted amicably until they had tipped the carver who had served them from the trolley, and were tucking in to their rib of beef.
Vaughan’s role at the Bank of England was to oversee and protect all the Bank’s operations, from the physical security of cash and bullion to the security of its many complex and highly sensitive computer systems. But to protect them, he had also to know how they could be compromised, and this was where Algar needed to probe. Normally fool proof and impenetrable procedures would have to be thwarted if he was ever going to be able to siphon off the vast reserves of cash built up by all the terrorist organisations operating in Northern Ireland.
Understandably, Vaughan initially refused any help whatsoever, although he had been impressed by his quick look at the contents of Clayton’s envelope.
“What you propose is quite illegal, as I’m sure you know,” he said. “If I should help you to breach the accounts you say you have details of, then you or your staff would be able to use that information to breach almost any account you wanted, or pass the information to an accomplice who could do the same.”
“That isn’t actually what I’m seeking from you,” corrected Algar. “I don’t need your direct help or involvement, now or at any time. What I need to know is whether what I have in mind is possible, given all the countermeasures which I'm sure you have in place to prevent such a thing, and secondly whether you know of any genius anywhere who might be able to achieve such a thing. At worse, you might have to turn a blind eye in an effort to assist the Government in achieving what I’m sure even you would agree is a worthwhile objective - denying terrorists the wherewithal to carry out their murderous activities.”
“Well,” replied Vaughan, helping himself to another glass of excellent Claret, “I suppose that is a bit different. But I can tell you that I wouldn’t be prepared to go even that far unless the Prime Minister personally discusses this with the Governor, and I get the green light from him. It’s my career we’re talking about here as well, you know.”
“Of course, I quite understand that, and what you ask can easily be arranged. Do I take it, from what you’ve said, that there is someone, somewhere, who could help us achieve this?”
“Well,” replied Vaughan cagily, “I think there could be, but whether you'd want him to act as your agent is another matter. And getting through all the accounts on your list would take some time, especially those in the States and Switzerland.”
“Are we talking about days, weeks or months?” asked Sir Robin.
“Certainly a week or so, working full time,” replied Alistair.
“We could live with that,” responded Sir Robin. “But any longer would allow the opposition to gather their wits about them and start moving cash around, which would then make the task even more difficult.”
Vaughan nodded.
“Who is this man, by the way?”
“He used to work for the Bank, in our computer organisation. Only young, but a real wizard and an expert programmer,” replied Vaughan.
“So why do you have doubts about us wanting to use him?” asked Algar.
“Because he’s already in gaol. Serving eight years for fraud, doing exactly what you propose - lining his pockets by hacking into our own computer systems and transferring cash from other people’s accounts into his own.”
Sir Robin Algar grinned. “I’ll let you know. Can I offer you a glass of Port?”
The two men arranged to meet again in a day or so.