by Roger Pearce
‘Christ, Jack.’ Kerr reached across the desk to the nearest chair and swept away a pile of time sheets and expense claims awaiting his signature. ‘Sit down.’ The kettle was half concealed on the floor and he flipped the switch with his foot. Nearest him on top of the safe was a giant RPO merchandise cup Gabi had bought him, but he discreetly slid it back and spooned Langton’s coffee into a regular Interpol mug.
Still in his biker’s leathers, Langton revolved the helmet on Kerr’s desk to reveal a deep indentation that had almost penetrated the metal. ‘Two hundred quid down the tubes,’ he said, holding his hand against the wound as he checked the cloth.
‘Put it on the sheet,’ said Kerr, with a nod at the papers on the floor. ‘I’ll sign.’
‘Sure.’ Langton opened the neck warmer, revealing the black fabric ripped and shiny with blood. ‘Shrapnel. Nails, I think, but it’s not bad. Anything on my back?’ He stood up again and Kerr saw that the left shoulder and calf were ripped.
‘Afraid so.’
‘Bike got hit, too. Just after the flaming respray.’
‘We’ll get it redone,’ said Kerr. Langton rode a Suzuki GSX R1000 and Kerr had only ever known it to be caked in dirt. Kerr wanted to ask about Fargo and a thousand other things but knew he had to let Langton work through his shock. He took his time with the coffee. ‘Where’s Alan?’
‘I dropped him at Tommy’s A and E. He got hit in the face and neck.’
‘Bastards.’
‘We were lucky.’
Kerr took a breath. ‘What about Pauline?’ Kerr had got to know Fargo’s sister from her visits to the Yard and had often taken them home in his Alfa Romeo, sometimes dropping into his apartment on the way.
Langton shook his head and looked down. Kerr let him alone for a moment, but the click of the boiling kettle seemed to revive him. ‘We found her. Elsie, too.’
Kerr topped Langton’s coffee with a slug of rum from his bottom drawer. ‘Alan?’
‘He just picked up Pauline’s final voicemail. You can hear the bomb go off.’
‘So who’s…?’
‘Gemma’s up there with him. But he’s coming back in,’ said Langton shortly. ‘Soon as they stitch him up.’
‘Of course,’ said Kerr, nodding slowly. ‘And how about you, Jack? Want to talk about this now, or take a break and get cleaned up?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Okay.’ Kerr sat back. ‘Remember Operation Topaz?’
‘Of course. 1997.’
‘Six.’
‘Our last operation in London against the Real IRA. Bombs at electricity sub-stations around the M25. Timed to knock out the capital’s power supply in one strike. And they almost succeeded.’
‘Correct. So is this morning a coincidence, or do you think they’ve come back?’
Langton sipped his coffee and winced. ‘Do you?’
‘MI5 raised the mainland threat level in May,’ said Kerr. ‘But you’re the man on the ground.’
‘Put it this way,’ said Langton, feeling round for the tear in his jacket. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had an Irish surveillance target.’
Kerr pointed at his screen. ‘May 2001, according to 1830. But they’ve been dead quiet ever since.’
‘So far as we know.’
Kerr was looking over Langton’s shoulder into the main office. ‘Let’s ask the expert,’ he said, as Langton swung round.
A heavyset man in a dark suit, the jacket flapping open, trousers baggy and creased, was heading at speed for the Fishbowl. The head of Kerr’s source unit, the man everyone knew simply as ‘Dodge’, was stabbing the air with the forefinger of his right hand as he spoke hands-free on the phone, his angled head burying the mobile in the flesh of his neck. Dodge had been a highly successful agent handler in the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch who had relocated to London with his wife and daughter after two attempts on his life. These days, he did the same work for John Kerr.
Dodge was speaking on high volume, his untamed growl audible through the Fishbowl’s open door from ten paces. He rested his head against the doorframe while finishing the call, legs crossed at the ankles, jangling the change in his pocket.
Kerr exchanged a glance with Langton. Dodge was obviously speaking to a friend in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, or PSNI, the replacement to the RUC.
‘That was Billy Docker,’ said Dodge, replacing the phone in his breast pocket. ‘Nothing going down in west Belfast. You all right, Jack?’ he asked, inserting a podgy finger through one of the shrapnel holes in Langton’s jacket as he squeezed behind him for the other spare chair.
‘He’s quick off the mark.’
‘And Phil called me from South Armagh the minute the news broke,’ said Dodge, offloading a pile of surveillance logs onto the floor. ‘The Irish border is also a nil return.’
‘Any others?’
‘Yes. Ouch, that’s bad.’ Dodge had grabbed the helmet from the table and was studying the dent. He leaned over to check for damage to the back of Langton’s head. ‘I’ve already had three conversations and another two missed calls.’
‘So they still love you over there.’
‘They can read the signs. The code, the station, and all coming after Hammersmith Bridge. They know the shit London’s going to be throwing at them. And Gemma played me back the bomb threat. How long ago did you hire me, John?’
‘Too long.’
‘Well that call is the most rubbish attempt at Irish I’ve heard since getting off the plane,’ he said, nudging Langton. ‘Even worse than your man here.’
Kerr pointed to the coffee but Dodge shook his head. ‘So is anyone laying this at the IRA?’
‘It’s stronger than that, John. This is definitively not the IRA. That’s what PSNI is saying. Anyone who matters, at least. Phil sounded pissed off I’d even asked.’ Dead on cue Dodge’s phone rang. He sat back in the chair, crossed his legs and listened intently for thirty seconds. His black shoes were scuffed and dull, the leather of the right heel worn from driving. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ was all he said as he rang off. ‘That’s a no from north Belfast. Nothing’s floating around there to suggest a return to violence. You know how it is these days, guys. Belfast is a café society, poncy bars, pedestrian malls and not a body searcher in sight.’
‘With Derry a cultural icon,’ said Langton.
‘If you believe that shit,’ murmured Dodge as Kerr’s phone rang.
‘We’ll be right round,’ said Kerr, putting the receiver down and swinging sideways to open his safe. ‘That was Gemma. They’re back.’
‘Where? 1830?’ said Dodge, incredulous.
‘And telling me to bring the BG,’ said Kerr, bending down to spin open the safe and remove a slim, heat bound document marked Secret.
The Blue Global was the UK’s monthly intelligence assessment drafted by the Joint Intelligence Committee. Circulation was restricted to the highly vetted Whitehall intelligence circle and the copy routinely forwarded to 1830 had been lying in the Fishbowl since Friday afternoon.
‘So no-one in PSNI is putting their hands up, right?’ said Kerr as the three of them walked round the corridor. ‘Is that what you’re saying, Dodge?’
Dodge had fallen a step behind, reading a text on the move. ‘No indications of any dissident activity, period,’ he said, ‘including on the mainland.’
‘But what if PSNI has taken its eye off the ball?’
Dodge held up his mobile. ‘These are good people, John.’
‘Or the intelligence function has been so degraded there’s less coverage than anyone’s making out,’ said Langton, shrugging at Dodge. ‘I’m not blaming Phil, or Billy. Or any of them…’
‘Is it possible the dissidents got clever again without anyone noticing?’ said Kerr, swiping them into Room 1830. He took a step back to let the others go first, thinking fast. ‘Is there a big fat hole in Ireland where the intelligence used to live?’
Chapter Six
Monday, 10 October, 13.36, Room 1830, New Scotland Yard
The Terrorism Research Unit, Room 1830, was a square double aspect office on the south side of the Yard with the two farthest walls extending six windows from the corner. The office overlooked the old Battersea Power Station and Vauxhall, though someone had dropped the venetian blinds a long time ago: thick with dust, discoloured by age, their dented slats shut out all natural light apart from a lopsided triangle in the far window. A haphazard cluster of old-fashioned fluorescent strips flickered, hummed and buzzed with tinnitus-like persistence. They covered everything in a dirty white shroud, penetrated only by the glow of a dozen computer screens pulsing with secret intelligence.
Fargo shared the room with six officers. There were four regulars to assist him with intelligence assessment, terrorist finance investigations and cell site analysis, and a pair of newcomer detectives, specialists in cybercrime who looked like they had come straight from college. They were crammed into a corner next to Fargo’s reading room, a glass partitioned space even smaller than the Fishbowl, but as Kerr looked around they seemed perfectly at home.
Jacket hanging unevenly from the back of his chair, shirt sleeves rolled up, Alan Fargo was sitting at his desk diagonally to the left of the door. He drank from a can of Red Bull as he worked his computer, his black framed glasses reflecting the light from the screen. The left side of his neck was dressed with white cotton and a plaster and there were two red weals on his cheek.
As the door thudded shut behind him, Kerr watched Fargo sit back and look at each of them in turn. His pale blue shirt, open at the neck, was stained with blood and debris. ‘Before you ask, yes, I’m okay. And no, things won’t get better away from the office.’ His voice was slow and measured, the accent stronger than usual, as if he was speaking from Falmouth. Kerr waited as he wrestled with his bottom drawer, pulled out a clean shirt and held it up to them, as if a change of clothes would make everything all right. ‘I’ll get a shower later. Okay?’
Kerr dropped the Blue Global onto his desk.
‘Cheers,’ said Fargo, as if this was a Monday like any other and Kerr had just made his morning. But Kerr was not fooled. Fargo’s face was empty, all expression and emotion drained away, and when he turned from the screen there were shadows behind his eyes. It was a look Kerr recognised, the blank grief of parents after the discovery of their murdered child, the killer still roaming free.
The tone missing from Fargo’s voice was incomprehension. ‘I’ll get myself sorted as soon as we find who did this,’ he said, nodding his head back and wincing as the dressing pulled.
By ‘we’ he was referring to ‘Mercury’, the GCHQ server named after the Roman god of messages, eloquence, trade and trickery. Installed by Cheltenham’s engineers six months earlier, it stood directly behind Fargo’s desk, a featureless dark red rectangle the height and width of a human. Protected within a Perspex shell like a piece of modern artwork, almost fluorescent in the dull room, Mercury was the UK’s ultra-modern hi-tech channel for circulating top secret and encrypted intelligence between Fargo’s office and MI5, the Security Service. It had replaced ‘Excalibur,’ a caged monster of grey steel twice the size but with half the processing power, whose imprint was still visible on the tiled floor.
Dodge circled behind Kerr to lay a hand gently on Fargo’s shoulder, and the gesture seemed to energise him. Fargo drained his Red Bull, crushed the can before tossing it into the bin, pushed his chair back and grabbed the Blue Global. ‘Let’s talk in here,’ he said, minimising his screen and easing past Langton into the reading room.
‘It’s like this, guys,’ he said while they were still squeezing round the table. ‘I appreciate your concern. Really. But it’s better if I stay here. The only way I can help Mum and Pauline now is to find out who did this. For the other victims, too. This is what I’m here for, and right now it’s the only way I can function.’
‘Nice try, but you’re staying at mine tonight,’ said Kerr.
‘Already sorted, actually,’ said Fargo, and colour flooded his face for a moment as Kerr nodded in understanding. He touched his cheek and gave a rueful smile. ‘She’s been raiding Reserve’s first aid box since we got back. I’m well looked after.’
‘Does Bill Ritchie know you’re here?’
‘He’s got COBRA. Already left. They called it within an hour of the bombs. Home Sec’s chairing.’
‘COBRA’ was Whitehall-speak for ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’ at 70, Whitehall, the nation’s modest equivalent to America’s Situation Room in the White House. Usually chaired by a minister, it was the first stop for managing a national crisis such as a terrorist attack, attended by experts from the Yard, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. COBRA sprinkled ministers with machismo, checked their dodgy decisions and spread a safety net against political fallout. It ranked high on the options menu of successive prime ministers, who invoked it for anything from flooding to volcanic ash.
‘That’s a bit swift,’ said Langton, with a short laugh. ‘So everyone’s panicking that the IRA are back…’
‘Which they’re not,’ said Dodge.
‘…and they never told us first,’ said Langton. ‘Alan and I saw everything back there. No suicide bomber remains. Devices placed in rubbish bins. A coded warning intended to mislead. This isn’t ISIS. MI5 can’t pitch up at COBRA and make out this was a couple of jihadi thugs with rucksacks and a chip about Syria.’
Kerr looked at Fargo. ‘What’s Mercury telling you?’
‘Nothing, and that’s the point.’ Fargo grabbed the Blue Global and flipped through it. ‘Have you read this yet?’
Kerr shook his head. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Don’t bother. It starts off with Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq. Al-Qaeda in west Africa. Then section five, the usual on terrorist fundraising, followed by radicalisation of sex-starved boys in Bradford wanting to bomb the crap out of us.’
‘Which these definitely weren’t.’
‘Quite. Then it goes all Computer Weekly, Chinese spies hacking into big business servers.’ He slid the document across the table. ‘Irish extremism is like the epilogue. All about flags, marches and the Disappeared. Remnants of the paramilitary groups no more serious than violent criminals, too busy drug dealing and kicking the shit out of each other to pay us a visit.’
Kerr frowned. ‘So why did they raise the threat level?’
‘The usual.’ Fargo shrugged. ‘Covering all the bases before the EU Referendum.’
‘So if this is what it looks like, everyone’s unsighted.’
‘Caught with their pants down,’ said Langton.
Dodge’s mobile was vibrating again as Kerr studied him across the table. ‘And no-one picked up anything?’
A gold lighter rotated in Dodge’s left hand as he checked the screen. ‘I should take this.’ He looked like he needed a cigarette, too.
Kerr was shaking his head. ‘Not possible,’ he said, quietly.
Chapter Seven
Monday, 10 October, 16.38 local, Cool Rivers Country Club, Ngong, Kenya
Mark Bannerman absently circled his last slice of ostrich meat around the plate, leaving a faint red smear on the white china. ‘So will you bring him to me, Rico? Spruced up? Fed and watered?’
The African held out his palms and laughed. ‘How can I refuse?’ His hands were small and neat, with well-manicured nails, and a rose gold signet ring clinked against his plate.
‘That’s settled then,’ said Bannerman, spearing the ostrich.
They fell silent as the wine waiter, impeccable in black trousers and white jacket, crossed the lawn to refill their glasses. Bannerman’s tiny gesture for another bottle was unnecessary, for by now the discreet staff of the Cool Rivers Country Club knew the men’s exact requirements.
The sun drifted from behind a cotton wool cloud and bleached the table cloth a starker white. Old-fashioned sun visors angled from Bannerman’s spectacles like an extra pair of eyelashes. He flipped them down, leaned in and clinked gl
asses. The deal maker looked Rico straight in the eye, but kept his own hidden behind the lenses. ‘Always good to do business with you, my friend.’
As usual, they were drinking Whispering Jack chardonnay from South Africa’s Western Cape. Rico had introduced his elegant British counterpart to the wine within a week of Bannerman’s posting as second secretary to the British High Commission in Nairobi, less than an hour’s drive to the east. Over the years the wine had become their private joke, the perfect tipple for a couple of spooks, a parody of their profession.
A pastel murmur of laughter, flirtation and propositioning hovered in the warmth over the dozen or so tables set apart around the lawn. But conversation between the two men over by the acacia tree never rose above a dark shade of grey, as unobtrusive as the honey bees foraging in flowerbeds bordering the lake.
Bannerman was wearing his usual cream linen suit with green socks, pale blue tie and worn suede shoes. A battered straw Panama lay on the grass beside them, covering one of his mobile phones. His counterpart was a middle-ranking operative in Kenya’s secret intelligence agency, known as the National Intelligence Service, NIS, and had special responsibility for ‘Icecap,’ its top secret special interrogation section. African internal politics were notoriously difficult to read, but Bannerman had access to the NIS small print that told him Rico was on the rise. For their official meetings at NIS headquarters Rico power-dressed in a navy chalk stripe three piece suit and crisp white shirt with the collar swept back and a plain tie. But their private, off the record encounters were always social affairs. This afternoon Rico, too, looked relaxed in linen trousers, open-necked patterned shirt and expensive brown slip-ons.
‘So how many in the lock-up?’ enquired Rico. ‘Apart from your good self?’
Bannerman raised his forefinger. ‘A trusted friend from London.’
‘Reliable?’
‘Deniable.’ Bannerman looked west beyond the lake and across the vast plain to the Ngong hills. Wispy cloud crossed the sky like streaks of lint, parting around the highest reaches to throw shadowy contours around the slopes. ‘My dear Rico,’ he murmured, seeing the follow-up question forming on his guest’s lips. ‘Cheque’s in the post.’