by Roger Pearce
Employees in A Branch had their own civil-service career structure, quite separate from other MI5 units, with less scope for promotion. Often ex-military, like Duncan, their job was to act in support of the officers who set the operational priorities. A few managed the transition to mainstream work, but it was rare for a watcher to climb MI5’s greasy pole, and Kerr suspected this was another reason Duncan enjoyed the choir. If his work excluded him from the professional heights, his voice was as acceptable as that of any rising star. No one ever discriminated against his singing. The choir, Kerr guessed, was the only part of MI5 to which Willie Duncan truly belonged.
Walking across from the Yard, Kerr edged the door open as they were reaching the end of a piece he did not recognise. The choir stood at the front of the church just below the nave, facing the middle-aged conductor, spindly and hyperactive, whom Kerr recognised as a one-time MI6 deputy director of training. There were eighteen singers, including nine women sopranos of various ages in the front row. He recognised an analyst, three or four desk officers, a couple of agent handlers from way back and a signals clerk. It was cool in the church and some of the women had kept their coats on.
From his bulk Duncan should have been a baritone or bass, but Kerr located him in the row of tenors, hair prematurely grey with an untidy moustache covering his upper lip, his face bright red from exertion. Kerr slipped into a pew at the very back of the church, concealed by a pillar, and waited in the gloom for the singers to disperse. Most of them left by the vestry door, which shortened the walk to the pub in the side-street, but Duncan spotted Kerr straight away. Music under his arm, he trotted down the nave and eased into the pew in front of Kerr, concealing him from view. Duncan was wearing heavy cords, polished brown boots and his usual heavy coat complete with hood and winter lining. He had to twist round to reach Kerr’s outstretched hand, which made him look uncomfortable. ‘Christmas programme. Bit rough and ready but it’s early days.’
‘Very nice,’ said Kerr. ‘Fancy a pint?’
‘Business or pleasure?’ asked Duncan, his face clouding.
‘Depends.’
Duncan’s cheeks were still red, but from awkwardness now. ‘You’re a bit persona non grata at the moment, John. No offence.’
Kerr knew Duncan had served in Saudi and wanted to use his knowledge of Arabic and intelligence-gathering skills in G Branch, the MI5 section that dealt with the international terrorist threat. But when he had applied for a desk officer’s job they had rejected him for a London University post-grad in Oriental studies. Duncan had reached his MI5 career ceiling at thirty-nine, destined to spend the rest of his life working for the fresh-faced novices of the professional grades, and Kerr always felt a little sorry for his surveillance counterpart.
‘None taken,’ said Kerr. ‘Because I had a look at that house, you mean? In Marston Street?’
‘And the job last Thursday,’ said Duncan, quickly. ‘Jibril. He wasn’t on the target list. You should have consulted us.’ He glanced back up the aisle. A clutch of singers was still gathered round the piano, and one of the men was pointing his thumb to the door. ‘Be right there,’ his voice echoed to them, as he held up five fingers. ‘Now is not a good time,’ he said quietly. ‘Looks a bit odd. Can’t it wait till next week?’
Kerr sat forward, head lowered, hands between his knees as if in prayer.
‘No need to involve anyone else, my friend. We can sort it right here. What was Marston Street about? I mean, who was the sponsor?’
‘You don’t need to know that, John.’
‘Willie, you can drop the holier-than-thou routine. Jack Langton assisted you at very short notice on Saturday night, so I think you should level with me.’
For a moment Duncan looked as if he was about to cross himself. Instead, he clapped his hands on his knees. ‘I have to go.’
‘What did they take out of the house that night, Willie? Just tell me that.’
‘Leave it, John. I just organise the watchers, do what I’m told. We can talk about it at the tasking meeting.’ Duncan began to stand. ‘That and the Jibril mess-up. You caused me a lot of grief there.’
‘Jibril can’t wait till next week. I’m going to deploy surveillance on him from tomorrow,’ lied Kerr.
‘No.’ Duncan sank down to the pew. ‘We’re already covering him.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since he was released.’
‘Really? So what about associates? We can take them off your hands.’
‘There aren’t any.’
‘You sure about that? Don’t fuck me around, Willie.’
‘You shouldn’t swear in church, John. It’s offensive.’
Kerr was already walking away. ‘So is lying.’
He had his BlackBerry ready even before he reached the street. Ritchie’s coded warning plus Duncan’s evasiveness had triggered his instinct for self-preservation.
Stark naked, Justin Hine was lying in bed while his girlfriend gently massaged oil into his back.
‘Justin, you OK to talk?’
‘No worries, boss.’ They were listening to Michael Bublé, who always turned her on, and Kerr had rung just as he was about to flip over and invite treatment to his uninjured front.
‘I think I need some extra security at my place.’
‘I agree.’
‘Can we install it tonight?’
Justin glanced at the bedside clock as she gently worked on his shoulders. ‘Bit tucked up at the moment, actually, boss. Physio session. But if it’s really, you know . . .’
‘No, tomorrow evening will be good,’ said Kerr. ‘If I’m not there I’ll tell the concierge to let you in. And thanks for what you did today, back at the safe-house. You took a chance and it was smart work.’
‘No problem at all, boss. Leave it with me.’ Justin turned over.
‘Hey, sorry to ruin whatever it is I’m interrupting. This was a bad call.’
‘No, not at all.’ The massage had stopped abruptly, the atmosphere broken. Justin watched his girl sashay into the bathroom, her job done. ‘It’s fine, boss, honestly. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Much later that night, a couple of miles upstream at Hammersmith, in her modest flat marketed as within easy reach of the river, Olga emerged from the shower and defended herself to her lover. She had not dropped the blinds, and the lights of a houseboat moored upstream from Hammersmith Bridge punctuated the blackness. Wrapping the towel around her, she shook her damp hair. ‘Darling, it was one evening. Some trade thing in the City, completely boring,’ she said, in Russian, almost their first words since his phone call.
Karl emerged from the kitchen with scalding black coffee. Half drunk and suffering, he sat on the sofa and took off his shoes. At short notice his friends had insisted on taking him for a few beers at a pub only a stone’s throw from the Yard. ‘What time did you get home?’
‘Karl Sergeyev, you are pissed, you can hardly see straight, and you look and sound ridiculous.’ Olga stood in front of him, drying her breasts and underarms. ‘And you think I want to screw your new boss, is that it? You think I am that crazy?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Karl, rubbing his temples in pain. A couple of the older guys from Special Branch days with grown-up kids and tolerant wives had stayed till chucking-out time. He had bought double shots of vodka for two of the locals from Ashburn House round the corner and then, from habit, almost caught the last train to the home he had shared with Nancy.
‘Don’t be such a big cry-baby,’ said Olga, vigorously towelling her hair. She walked away and he heard her flick the kettle on. ‘And don’t forget who got you your stupid job.’
The little man in Karl’s head went to work with a hammer again as he bent to put his shoes back on. There was a dried spattering of something on the toecaps: why did vomit always look like tomato skins? He downed the last of his coffee and whipped his jacket off the back of the chair. ‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘Go find Tania,’ came the shout from th
e kitchen, like a bullet. The door slammed as she switched the hairdryer to top speed.
Thirty-five
Wednesday, 19 September, 11.34, Berkeley Square, Mayfair
Three days after the Sunday-afternoon meeting at his apartment, Kerr summoned the team for another secret update away from the Yard. One thing was certain: as he moved against the establishment, association with John Kerr would become toxic. It made him acutely conscious of the need to protect his gifted officers, who were laying their ambitions on the line.
Six days after the bombings the media were still cranked into Doomsday mode. Spurred on by Finch and off-the-record MI5 briefings, reporters were speculating that the explosions were the first in a new series of planned Al Qaeda attacks by terrorists embedded in the UK. And because a climate of fear was good for security budgets, the message ringing out from New Scotland Yard and Thames House was not if, but when.
Everything Kerr’s team was unearthing convinced him that Ahmed Jibril, the man Finch had released as an innocent, was one of those embedded, perhaps the prime suspect, with the suicide bombers disposable cannon fodder. The energy Philippa Harrington and his own bosses used to condemn him only served to strengthen that belief. And the cryptic note left for Jibril by Julia Bakkour propelled suspicion into conviction: ‘Suit delivery 4.30 on day instructed. Fitting in Afghan shop not Saudi. Await confirm call.’
To Kerr and Alan Fargo, unravelling this message took absolute priority with the first code recovered from the water heater in Jibril’s tiny kitchen: ‘13 + ED-TA - 4’. They shared the same conviction: Justin had recovered two linked operational instructions giving notice of another pre-planned terrorist attack. And they assumed that the trigger for this attack would be Omar Taleb, the man who had called Jibril minutes before he left the safe-house on the day of the suicide bombings.
Fargo had secretly circulated Taleb’s name to contacts in intelligence agencies throughout Europe, but with no result. He had searched every legal directory he could lay his hands on in Europe and the Middle East, but nowhere did the name of attorney Omar Taleb appear. Gaps in knowledge were anathema to the head of Room 1830. They always increased his anxiety, and he knew the time remaining to prevent more bloodshed might be very short. Fargo had already circulated the note to each of his team individually, asking for urgent ideas, to see if they came up with the same possibilities. There was one common thread in their feedback: ‘suit fitting’ was the type of code terrorists often used to trigger attacks.
One of Kerr’s neighbours in his Islington apartment block was head of business-space investment at a classy property company in Mayfair. It took a single call that morning for him to make one of his ground-floor meeting rooms available to Kerr, no questions asked. The company was based in Curzon Street, less than twenty metres from the old MI5 headquarters, and the contrast to the Yard could not have been starker. The complex was low-build, clean, modern and minimalist, all glass, stainless steel and black wood, with fresh coffee, sparkling water and Diet Coke laid on in meeting room G3.
Reception had five visitor passes made out for them in false names invented by Kerr. They arrived separately. Melanie was first, businesslike in a charcoal grey suit and white blouse, ready for another meeting that afternoon. Justin turned up five minutes later in his customary denims, trainers and woollen ski hat: even pulled low over his ears, it did not quite cover the plaster protecting his head wound. Langton came straight from the surveillance plot in East Ham and sat in his motorcycle leathers with the helmet on the ash-wood table, the unzipped top spilling down over his waist.
Kerr was late. Since spotting the surveillance outside Theo Canning’s headquarters, he had slipped back into the dry-cleaning methods he had routinely deployed as an undercover officer years before, taking a circuitous route from the Yard. He spotted nothing suspicious, but was not reassured. The surveillance was either very good, or the watchers knew he had checked their vehicle on the Police National Computer and were holding back. Either would be bad news.
The only absentee was Alan Fargo, who rang Kerr from 1830 when they were already assembled. Kerr thought he sounded anxious, or just excited. He told Kerr he had just taken a call from Islamabad and was awaiting results on a couple of important leads, but would definitely be along. He wanted Kerr to keep everyone there until he arrived.
Langton reacted instantly when Kerr reported Willie Duncan’s claim the previous evening that A4 surveillance were covering Jibril. ‘That’s bullshit, John,’ he said, his leathers squeaking and farting on the chair as he leant forward. ‘Jibril’s only left that safe-house twice since release. If Willie’s A4 teams were anywhere near we’d have flushed them. So why is Willie standing in that church lying to you?’
‘Perhaps I took him by surprise. Maybe he got the MI5 spin all wrong. Whatever, we stay with it, Jack.’
‘Sure.’ Jack looked at the others. ‘And now we’re all dying to hear about your river trip.’
Kerr popped a Diet Coke and shot a glance at Melanie. ‘Guys, you’re not gonna believe it.’
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in King Charles Street stretches from St James’s Park to Whitehall, a fading white monument to an era when Britain ruled the world and international borders were decided over whisky in Pall Mall clubs only a stroll away. As John Kerr walked the team through his meeting with Kestrel on the Thames, culminating in his agent’s bizarre escape, Alan Fargo was hurrying there across St James’s Park, in hot pursuit of his best lead yet.
The previous winter Fargo had spent a month assisting the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Counter-terrorism Policy Unit, omitting to hand in his photo-pass when he returned to 1830. Fargo was acquainted with the warren of haphazard offices, staircases and corridors converted into open-plan offices, and friendly with the custodians who protected them. As he reached the top of Clive Steps he took the laminated pass from his pocket and looped the distinctive blue ribbon around his neck. The pass bounced off his stomach as he hurried through the arch into the inner courtyard, originally designed to accommodate horse-drawn carriages but now abused as a car park for the privileged. The custodian by Reception told him it was long time no see, and flashed him through.
Fargo checked his watch: 12.03. The policy unit held a weekly meeting at eleven-thirty each Wednesday in one of the conference rooms, lasting exactly one hour. This gave him a window of twenty minutes tops.
The department had about eight staff spread out in a jumble of disconnected offices on the second floor. Fargo’s objective was tucked away in a separate room in the roof, reached by its own staircase. Access was through a heavy oak door with its original brass handle, protected by an old-fashioned four-button coded lock. Fargo was banking that no one would have thought to change it.
To reach his old office Fargo had to walk to the other end of the building nearest the park, then climb two flights to reach a landing almost two metres wide. It would take him six minutes, which left him only fourteen to find what he needed and get away.
The corridor to the right of the staircase led to the department’s small conference room, where Fargo was relieved to see the ‘Engaged’ sign on the door. Beside it, a short staircase led to a kind of attic, which housed the document room; once committed, there was no other way out. The staircase took one turn back on itself, concealing Fargo from the main corridor, and the locked door was less than a metre from the top step. The combination was 5231. Puffing from the climb, he had to make two attempts because the buttons were so worn, and the door handle had lost traction through a century of use.
Inside, six desks were crammed into an office large enough for two, built into the sloping roof. It was even more claustrophobic than he remembered. The stale air, desktops with locked screens, jackets on the backs of chairs, rucksacks and scattered papers were signs of very recent occupancy. At the farthest end, in a section beyond the far wall where Fargo had based himself, three secure steel cabinets with combination locks shared space with a photocopier and a shredder
. The doors were closed, but Fargo guessed the locks would have been left ‘on the click’, a lazy habit that enabled the next user to open each safe with a single half-turn anti-clockwise.
The cabinet Fargo needed stood in the left corner, marked ‘UK Entry Documentation’. He switched the photocopier on, carefully turned the combination dial until he heard a satisfying click, and pulled open both doors. It was stacked with box files and loose folders, a memorial to the pre-computer age, with no reference to global region or date.
The photocopier was warming up noisily, masking any signs of activity from the staircase. He moved the boxes around until he found a ring binder marked ‘Yemen and Ethiopia’ hidden on the bottom shelf. The file was overfull, the rings forced apart so that a few papers became dislodged as he lifted it onto the nearest desk and riffled through. Fargo knew these were the papers flown back to London by diplomatic bag. Each document contained original handwritten notes of the entry-control officers at the embassies in Sana’a and Addis Ababa, with the visa decision marked at the foot. Batches of documents had been inserted in rough date order, with no alphabetical index. Fargo sprang the ring lever, removed some papers and worked back ten days.
He found what he wanted in less than thirty seconds. The document relating to his target was buried in a clump of regular applications and confirmed everything his contact in Islamabad had told him. It was a photocopied letter occupying three paragraphs on Home Office notepaper, initials only. Headed ‘Special Access Visa Authorisation (SAVA)’, it was a requirement for the issue of a student visa to Ahmed Mohammed Jibril, who would attend the embassy with his passport on Thursday, 6 September. There were unreadable initials where the authorising signature should have been.
The photocopier was ready. Fargo placed the letter on the glass, whipped it away as soon as the light went out and replaced it in the file. He stuffed the copy into his jacket and checked his watch: 12:19. He replaced the papers in the ring binder, squeezed it back into the bottom shelf and closed the doors, locking the combination with a gentle half-turn to the right.