Agent of the State

by Roger Pearce

  He could still taste the smoke and dust, and smell the burning. Waiting for the reaction to kick in, he poured a large brandy and opened the French windows onto the balcony. The light was failing, but the rain had lifted. Filling his lungs with cool air, he thought about the dead and injured. The body parts of four terrorists, two Trojans and a police driver were being laid out in mortuaries across London, as were those of four residents of the flats; they had been shredded by flying glass. The conviction that he could have prevented it filled him with sadness.

  He knew the loss of life, of comrades and civilians, would have a profound effect on everybody. At such times, their immediate reactions might differ. But within hours, invariably, every single officer felt the same compulsion to return to work, to do something to mitigate the tragedy. Kerr discouraged this because he knew it made the families feel excluded, incapable of comforting or understanding their loved ones. Melanie, in particular, had been through hell in the past twenty-four hours, and badly needed to spend time with her husband and two young children. But whatever orders he and Jack Langton gave about rest and recuperation, Kerr was certain she would soon reappear at the Yard, alongside Alan Fargo, Justin and the others.

  Back in the bedroom he dumped his clothes in the wash basket, threw his torn jacket aside and took a long shower. Collapsing on the sofa in his towelling robe, he switched on Sky News for the full story. The fleshy face of Derek Finch, counter-terrorism co-ordinator, filled the screen. Finch had a dual role. He was responsible for mounting national counter-terrorist investigations but, as overall head of SO15, he was also Paula Weatherall’s boss. While Weatherall’s officers worked invisibly behind the scenes to generate secret intelligence on extremist suspects, Finch’s much larger team of detectives investigated terrorist crime. Through their forensic examination of bomb scenes, interrogation of terrorist prisoners and pursuit of leads anywhere in the world, his officers linked the evidential chain, working with Crown Prosecution Service lawyers to prepare the case for trial. Weatherall’s job was to prevent the attack; but when the intelligence failed and the bombers got through, it was Finch’s task to extract every speck of evidence from the scene and track down other conspirators to the farthest corners of the globe.

  Kerr caught Finch in mid-flow, reciting dire warnings lifted from the current MI5 security assessment: ‘. . . all the indications are that we face a serious threat of further imminent attacks. It is a question not of “if” but “when”. I am urging the public not to panic but to remain vigilant and report anything suspicious . . .’

  Kerr pressed ‘Mute’ and checked his BlackBerry. All the messages were connected to the attacks. There was an email from his anxious parents, in Miami South Beach, who had just seen the news on the NBC breakfast show, and a text from Robyn, Gabi’s mother. Robyn’s text was as curt as ever: ‘gabi worried confirm ok’.

  Kerr felt a stab of pleasure that his daughter was asking after him. Gabi was now a music student. She shared a London flat with two other girls. She was staying for a couple of days with Robyn in Rome. His estrangement from his daughter more than half a decade before had deeply wounded him. Gabi was warm-hearted and kind, politically aware and always on the side of the poor and downtrodden. That was the way Kerr and her mother had raised her.

  Kerr sometimes felt their relationship had died alongside the boy he had strangled in the toilets at Green Park station in June 2005. Later that Wednesday, when he had tracked Gabi down and told her, she had been inconsolable, screaming that she hated his cold-blooded violence even more than the young man’s bomb. ‘Why did you have to kill him, Dad? You’re a fucking hypocrite, just like all the rest! And I so wanted you to be different,’ she had said, sobbing into his chest.

  From the safety of her mother’s flat in Rome, Gabi had ignored all his calls for more than three weeks. On Tuesday, 26 July, five days after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, she had finally answered one. But it was only to blame him for not preventing the slaughter of an innocent man.

  For nearly two years she had refused to visit him, though Kerr always kept the guest bedroom made up for her. When, finally, he had persuaded her to stay over again, they had circled each other warily, like an unhappy couple staying together for the sake of the children. Occasionally she would open up over a glass of wine, arguing passionately about the oppression of minorities around the world. And Kerr was always encouraging, not just to keep her close but because he truly believed she was right.

  Then something had changed her. In the past two years she had dried up. Kerr knew she had become an activist in a couple of splinter groups working for peace in the Middle East, but he could never get her to talk about it.

  Now he saw that Donna, Weatherall’s PA, had also emailed. She had been trying to contact him all day. The rubber-heelers had been screaming for him, and Bill Ritchie needed confirmation the team was safe. He rang Fargo and Melanie. Both refused point-blank to go to hospital and insisted on coming in the next day. ‘This is a horrible time and I need to keep myself occupied,’ said Melanie, wide-awake and energised, her kidnap trauma shoved aside.

  Suddenly Kerr felt shattered. He had been on high alert for more than ten hours without a break, fighting, tearing through the streets, protecting his team and arguing the toss with people who should have known better. He kept himself fit with late-night runs around the local streets behind the market, but now his muscles ached from the fight in the stronghold, and his heart from the terrible human loss.

  Thinking back to the stand-off in Weatherall’s office, he was also beginning to feel vulnerable. He called Ritchie, who took a while to pick up. His boss sounded strained, and Kerr guessed he must have a thousand things to do. He told him about his visit to Gallagher’s widow and reassured him about Fargo, Melanie and Justin. ‘And I suppose everyone wants a piece of you, Bill,’ he said, trying to inject some lightness.

  ‘Make sure they get themselves checked out,’ he retorted, ‘and yourself as well.’

  ‘I’m coming back in.’

  ‘No. You’ve done enough for today. My phone’s still red hot with incoming from Hackney.’

  ‘And that makes you doubly pissed off, yeah?’

  ‘Your hostage rescue put yourself and Melanie at unnecessary risk.’

  ‘If I hadn’t she’d still be there now. Or dead.’

  ‘John, I need to get off the line. Watch some TV. Pour yourself a double and get an early night, whatever.’

  ‘We should meet tonight to get this sorted. You know, all that bollocks from the commander.’

  ‘Speak tomorrow.’

  ‘We never got this shit when Laura Mills was in charge.’

  ‘Mills never had to front a situation like Jibril.’

  ‘I was right to countermand her. Jibril would have led us to the bomb factory. You know it, Bill. It’s exactly the point you made to Weatherall.’

  ‘John. Leave it.’

  ‘We could have followed him to the bomb factory and taken them all without loss of life. I feel bad about that, Bill. Don’t you? It’s all going to come out.’

  Kerr kept pressing him, but the longer he persisted the more Ritchie seemed to push back. ‘Let’s wait and see,’ was all Kerr could get him to say.

  When Ritchie eventually cut him off, Kerr brewed black coffee and made himself a ham and cheese omelette, a stomach-lining standby from bedsit days.

  Then he dressed to return to the office.

  Twelve

  Thursday, 13 September, 18.45, Knightsbridge

  The voice that had terrified a hundred victims retained its richness. He smiled and his eyes twinkled while he made his demand, as if he were doing the woman a favour.

  ‘Another fast track, you say?’ she said. ‘Harold, it’s simply not possible. You know I can’t do that again. It’s too risky.’

  The man picked a speck of fabric from his lapel. ‘This is not a request, my dear. We all have to do things we find disagreeable.’ His voice was mellow, each rounded w
ord chosen with purpose and enunciated with the assurance of one who enjoyed life at the top of society’s pile. There was no trace of the poseur’s drawl. When Harold spoke, resistance was futile. And whatever lay behind the eyes was harder than granite.

  Immaculate in his dark suit and she in a low-cut, black cocktail dress that rode up when she crossed her legs, they sat in matching brown leather armchairs in a private room off the main hallway of a grand house in Knightsbridge. They were waiting for Harold’s other party guests to arrive. For now, the house was silent, except for the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. On one arm of each chair a line of high-grade cocaine lay on a strip of glass.

  ‘You said they would leave me alone after Jibril?’

  ‘This will be the last for a while. The requirement is for another student visa, my dear.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Only a sleeper. This lucky boy will disappear into the north until they decide to wake him.’ He held up a slip of paper. ‘Whatever, it’s for our Turkish masters to know and for us to obey.’

  The woman was a minister in the Home Office and, in her late forties, at least a decade younger than Harold. She had a strong, pear-shaped body, with short fingers, brown hair in a bob and hard eyes that she somehow managed to soften for her TV appearances. She had come straight from the office, changing from her dark ministerial suit in one of the bedrooms. Later she would have to return to work to help manage the bombing crisis. She was high-powered and successful, but let Harold lean over and slowly ease the paper into the front of her dress.

  ‘They have directed him to attend our embassy in Islamabad at ten o’clock next Tuesday morning, local time.’

  She transferred the paper to a zipped pocket deep inside her handbag. ‘Too soon. It’ll set off alarm bells.’

  ‘He travels overnight on Sunday to Heathrow. Via Dubai.’

  ‘Harold, I can’t do this.’

  ‘Neither of us has any choice, my dear, so you have to be imaginative.’ There was the sound of bolts being slid back as the Turkish assistants opened the front door. Automatically Harold glanced at his watch: twelve minutes to seven. He was the host, and was always punctual. ‘It’s what politicians like you are good at. They do it for their nannies and lovers, don’t they? Whenever they think they can get away with it?’ The grandfather clock in the hallway, exactly ten minutes fast, was chiming the hour as they paused to snort the cocaine through rolled banknotes.

  ‘Christ, you know how easily they can track these things.’

  ‘Relax. Just think of your husband and children. Of the things that matter to you.’ They heard laughter in the hallway from a couple of early arrivals. ‘There is another name on the paper I just gave you, an official who will contact your private office about an unconnected matter.’

  ‘And then we get the girl? That’s the deal, right?’ asked the woman.

  He stood and moved behind her so that he could look down her dress. ‘They will deliver our English rose on Saturday. So you can relax, my dear. But now we should get ready. My guests will soon be arriving,’ he murmured, trailing his fingers around her throat and chin, making the hairs stiffen on the nape of her neck.

  She arched back in the chair to meet his eyes and splayed her legs, the dress riding up to reveal lace stocking tops and the plump white flesh above. ‘In a minute. No more business, Harold,’ she said. ‘I need you to warm me up.’ He smiled. This was how she reacted whenever their masters made professional demands of her. Her pleading, almost childlike, never failed to arouse him. The drug kicked in, making her feel desirable. Leaning over, he slid his hand down her dress and cupped her breast. He had the hands of a much younger man, twisting her nipple until she winced, but instead of crying out she gripped his hand through the material, urging him on.

  At two minutes to seven, one of the Turkish assistants smiled and nodded when he found the two middle-aged lovers sharing one armchair, mouths locked together, the man’s fingers working hard between her legs. But by the time they joined the party at exactly seven, jacket buttoned, cleavage concealed by a silk scarf, they were respectable again, like a married couple who had just celebrated Evensong in the church across the street.

  Friday, 14 September, 09.40 local time, Istanbul, Turkey.

  Abdul Malik, Turkish entrepreneur and devout Muslim, was a thirty-five-year-old multi-millionaire who operated out of a modern office in downtown Istanbul. Handsome and respected, his love of expensively tailored suits and hand-made shoes reflected his high position in Turkish society.

  Malik’s intelligence, dynamism and commercial instinct were exceptional. Through Malik Finance House, he laundered millions of dollars of yesil sermaye, ‘green money’, withdrawn from the US by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states after 9/11 and infiltrated into Turkey, often in suitcases. Through a second company, Malik Holdings, he reinvested the cash in automotive projects, petroleum, electronics, construction, shopping centres, and any other product likely to bring a healthy return. A Sunni Muslim, Abdul Malik was also exceptional by virtue of his quiet devotion to Islam.

  He was a strong supporter of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, often accused of harbouring a hidden Islamist agenda on account of its deep roots in Turkey’s religious communities and alleged links to banned Islamist parties. Since its victory in the 2007 elections Malik had prayed fervently that the AKP would inject strong religious values into its political programme. Years earlier the prospect of a clash between the AKP and Turkey’s ‘deep state’ of the army, judiciary and intelligence services had been real, and Malik would have welcomed it. He believed the new government should have turned the people back along a path of righteousness, following the will of Allah. Instead he had watched it race down the highways of infidel materialism in pursuit of the devil. To his dismay, the nation he had once loved was no better than the depraved and godless states of the European Union it had become so desperate to join.

  To maintain the security of his jihadi operation in Britain, the tiny circle who knew about his work referred to Malik simply as the Director. His room was spacious and airy, with plenty of natural light. Working at a contemporary blond-wood desk with three slim computer screens, Malik operated the paperless office of any successful modern business in a thriving European city. In one corner was a water-cooler, in the other a printer with secure fax, and coasters on a coffee-table carried the Malik Holdings logo. An electronically operated safe housed the encrypted server Malik used for receiving emails and photographs from his associates in London.

  He looked up as his partner entered the office, jacket slung over his shoulder, to brief him on the previous day’s catastrophic events in London. Rashid Hussain, a Syrian, worked closely alongside Malik. Over a decade older than his partner, he was slim, with dark hair, recently cut. Like Malik, he wore the shirt of a successful businessman, with blue stripes and a starched white swept-back collar. But his face bore the mark of a fighter. A red scar, thin as a strand of cotton, ran from just below his left ear and across his cheek to disappear into his neatly trimmed moustache. For their secret business they spoke in English. ‘This matter of the arrest yesterday in London, it is serious, yes?’

  Hussain slipped his jacket over the back of his chair, revealing a flash of pale blue silk lining, and shrugged. ‘No, it is nothing. Ahmed Jibril will tell the British police to screw themselves.’

  ‘How did they get to him?’

  Hussain rolled back his chair, slid behind his desk opposite Malik and typed in three passwords. ‘Who knows? The boy’s capture is regrettable but the hysteria in the British press shows the attack was a success.’

  ‘The woman who authorised his visa, is she contained?’

  ‘She lives in fear, totally in our grip.’

  ‘You must be careful, Rashid.’

  The Syrian was checking his mobile phone for messages. ‘I directed Harold to create a firewall between her and the immigration office. The trail cannot lead back to us,’
he said. ‘Our operation is secure, believe me. I know about these things.’

  Rashid Hussain always spoke with confidence. Malik depended entirely on him to control his blackmail operation, but still had difficulty in accepting all of his judgements.

  ‘Rashid, are you sure the intensive police activity around Jibril will not make us vulnerable? Can we still use him for the last phase?’

  ‘The cops will be no problem,’ smiled Hussain, relaxed as ever. ‘The boy will be released. You have my promise.’

  They paused as one of the young women associates knocked and entered the office with the draft contract for a real-estate deal. Malik smiled at her as she turned to leave. ‘Give me a moment, please, Esra.’

  To conduct his legitimate commercial affairs Malik employed five graduates from the city’s ancient university, including two women. They worked in an adjacent open-plan office, and the women wore the hijab. The door to his own office was secured by three locks and always alarmed at night.

  He waited until the woman had closed the door behind her. ‘You are certain this allows us sufficient latitude for Operation English Rose?’

  ‘The timing is perfect. The overseers will brief us for final clearance for the removal when they visit next week.’

  Malik pressed the buzzer to summon Esra. ‘We must return to this.’

  ‘I am telling you, Malik. We have the woman in our grasp. We will use English Rose to crush her. Then topple her government like a rotten tree.’

  Thirteen

  Friday, 14 September, 07.55, Room 1830

  ‘I’m telling you, the databases are clear. Excalibur has been wiped. Everything on Jibril has disappeared.’ Fargo was taking it personally. Despite his promise to John Kerr that he would rest, he had obviously spent most of the night in 1830, searching his magic box. He was wearing a different crumpled shirt, probably a stand-by stuffed into his drawer for emergencies, but the same trousers, still flecked with dust and debris from the explosion. His damp hair showed he had used the shower next to the ops room, but he still looked wrecked and sweaty.