She pointed out of the window. ‘Low floor perhaps, but the view from here looks pretty clear to me.’
Chapter 42
In the Athens office of UCSO, the shock of Maria Galanos’ death had begun to wear off, to be replaced by an atmosphere of oppressive gloom. The usual high spirits of the Greek girls were dimmed, and Mr Limonides had become even more withdrawn. Katherine Ball was due in from London the following day, and Mitchell Berger was hoping that her brisk professionalism would lighten the mood and return them to normality.
Claude Rameau had come back from ten days in Rwanda, and Berger had been trying to keep track of her – not an easy task since she clearly regarded the office as merely a convenient place to drop in to from time to time when it suited her. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Claude Rameau was the source of the leak about the UCSO shipments. An accomplice, possibly, but not the prime mover. For a start, she wasn’t in the country enough, let alone in the office, to know in detail what was going on – or to keep an eye on the ships’ manifests.
No, the obvious suspect was not someone in the office at all. Berger’s suspicions were now focused on the shipping agent, Mo Miandad. Acting on these suspicions, he had followed Miandad the previous week when the man left the UCSO offices in the late afternoon after one of his regular visits to Mr Limonides. When Mo got on to a bus, Berger hailed a passing cab and, to the obvious delight of the taxi driver, told him to follow the bus. They’d stopped and started, keeping closely behind the bus as it made its way for two miles or so across the city, until Berger saw Miandad alight. The taxi driver had been disappointed when Berger leaped out and paid him off. He’d asked if he should follow on slowly behind, ready in case he was needed again, but Berger told him to go away.
They had ended up in a part of Athens that Berger did not know – a suburban enclave of flats and small houses, which from the look of the pedestrians on the street seemed to be occupied largely by older people, with a good smattering of ethnic minorities. He followed Miandad from a distance, and spotted him turning into a terrace of stuccoed houses where he opened a front door with a key. This must be where he lives, thought Berger. That seemed to be confirmed when, minutes later, an Asian woman and a teenage girl, both wearing headscarves, came out of the same front door.
There was nothing suspicious going on here, it seemed, and Berger turned away to return to the office. It was as he was walking back to the bus stop that he noticed a name on one of the streets that rang a bell with him. He’d seen it somewhere before, but couldn’t recall where. It was only as he was sitting on the bus that he remembered – he’d seen the name in the police report on Maria’s murder. It was the street where she had lived.
Now, a week later, Mo Miandad had come into the office for a morning session with Limonides. Berger hovered in the corridor, keen to see if the Pakistani would go and talk to the newly returned Claude Rameau. He didn’t, but when the Frenchwoman left early for lunch, followed only a few minutes later by Miandad, Berger decided to follow the shipping agent again.
This time Miandad stayed on foot, walking quickly through the middle-class neighbourhood where the UCSO offices were situated, heading towards the harbour. Berger found him easy to track. Though he was comparatively short, he was wearing a hat – an old-fashioned fedora, which could be spotted from a good distance. Berger followed him through a commercial zone of rough bars and fast-food outlets, then into a better neighbourhood with modern office buildings and an American chain motel three storeys high.
Mo walked on, past the entrance to the hotel’s reception area. And then suddenly he turned and went up an external flight of stairs which led to the walkways that ran around the second and third floors of the motel. He must be meeting someone in a room up there, thought Berger, with increasing excitement. Maybe it was Claude Rameau – she could have taken a cab and be waiting already inside the room.
Quickening his pace, Berger followed him up the same staircase, listening for his quarry’s steps on the treads above him. Tonk-tonk-tonk. The metal stairs reverberated as the man climbed. Then suddenly the noise stopped; Berger stopped too. When the steps resumed he continued climbing, treading lightly, two steps at a time, until he reached the third floor where he paused just short of the top of the flight of stairs. Slowly he extended his head and peered cautiously along the walkway, first in one direction, then the other – where he saw, at the far end, almost a hundred feet away, the familiar figure of Mo Miandad. There was someone else there, in front of him – a blonde woman with her back to Berger, wearing what looked like a black raincoat. It could be Claude Rameau; Berger’s pulse quickened. Mo Miandad looked back for a second and then they both disappeared around the corner. Had he spotted Berger?
He sprinted after them along the gallery, then slowed as he reached the corner, listening for footsteps. He saw another stairway leading down and could hear footsteps on the treads. He went to the top of the steps and peered down. Two floors below he spotted Mo and a fleeting glimpse of the blonde woman, just as she left his field of vision. Damn!
He ran down the staircase without any thought for the noise he was making – his only aim now was to catch up with them and confront them. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he hesitated. There was no one in sight. He turned along the passage which led past the long line of ground-floor rooms. A door halfway along was ajar, as if someone had just gone inside. Running towards it, he realised that he didn’t know what he was going to say to explain why he was there – but it was they who needed to do the explaining.
As he came up to the open door he slowed down. Inside, the room was pitch black. He stepped through the doorway, reaching out for the light switch. He flicked it on and at the same moment felt a hand on his back. Before he could turn around, the hand pushed him – hard – and he stumbled forward, landing on the concrete floor with a painful crack to his knees. He winced and tried to get up to confront his assailant. But the door behind him closed with a sharp click. Trying to ignore the pain in both his legs, Berger reached for the door handle. It was locked.
He looked around and saw that he was trapped in a service cupboard, facing two brooms and a row of mops, bolt upright in their buckets. A trolley against one wall held piles of clean sheets and folded towels. On the wall, bottles of disinfectant and liquid cleaner crowded a shelf. This was obviously not where Mo conducted his assignations.
Going back to the door, Berger began to pound on it with his fist. When there was no response, he shouted, ‘Help!’ Then ‘Help!’ again. He felt very stupid. He had fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. I’m past it, Berger thought to himself. He remembered his old colleagues in the Agency. How they would love to hear about this.
Chapter 43
Tahira did not usually wear the hijab, just a scarf loosely thrown over her hair when she went out. But today, before she went into the café, she carefully adjusted the scarf, pulling it forward to cover her hair entirely. She had swapped her heels for flat walking shoes, and her shalwar kameez covered everything else, including her ankles. It would be unusual for a lone woman to go into the café, but no one could say she was dressed improperly.
Several pairs of eyes watched as she went inside. A4 were stationed at various strategic points in the street outside and inside the café. They knew her quarry was inside; they had been watching him most of the day.
Tahira collected a small pot of mint tea from the woman behind the counter and walked with her tray towards a table by the window. Only as she crossed the room did she look up, and it was then she saw Malik in the corner, staring at her.
‘It’s Tahira, isn’t it?’ he called out. She smiled at him shyly.
‘I’m Malik, a friend of your brother’s. Are you meeting someone?’ He stood up, looking around the café. Only two other tables were occupied, by groups of much older men who were not paying them any attention.
‘I was supposed to meet my cousin here. But he’s just rung me to say
he can’t make it.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘I thought I would have some tea anyway.’
‘Come and sit with me,’ said Malik, and giving her no chance to protest, he took the tray from her hands and led her to his table.
Sitting down, they looked at each, and Tahira adopted an expression of modest embarrassment.
‘Do you not remember me, Tahira?’ asked Malik.
In fact she did recognise him, but only just. She knew vaguely that she’d seen him in her brother’s company. They had certainly never been introduced; none of Amir’s friends from the New Springfield Mosque had, for her father had forbidden them to enter the family house.
‘Of course I remember you, Malik. Amir often spoke of you.’
‘Not badly I hope,’ he said, though he didn’t sound worried.
‘Of course not.’
‘Have you heard anything from Amir?’ he asked.
‘Not lately,’ she said. She knew her parents were too ashamed to have confided in anyone about their son’s whereabouts, not even extended family. And the woman from MI5 had been confident that word would not have got out about Amir’s capture and imprisonment in Paris.
‘Is he still in Pakistan?’ Malik asked, though Tahira sensed he knew the answer to his question.
‘We don’t know where he is. Our family out there said he went travelling. That’s the last we heard.’ She faltered. ‘I just hope he’s all right. We are very worried about him.’
Malik shot a comforting hand across the table, though he stopped short of touching her. ‘Don’t worry, Tahira. He’s fine, I’m sure of it. Your brother knows how to look after himself.’
‘You think so?’ she asked, trying to sound hopeful and pathetic.
‘Yes, I’m sure. It’s not as if he’s in enemy territory out there. Now in America, who knows what could have happened to him. They lock you up over there, you know, just for practising Islam. Half the inmates in Guantanamo didn’t even know how to spell Al Qaeda, much less belong to it. Their only crime was being Muslim.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. The Jewish lobby sees to that. Look at the media there – the television stations, the newspapers. All owned by Jews. And they control the views people have all over the West. When was the last time you saw anything favourable about Islam on TV or in the Western newspapers, tell me that? They’ll praise Dubai all right, run features about its new hotels, and the way it lures white English people to spend their money on gambling and drinking and all sorts of decadence. But nothing about the real faith that is Islam.’
Tahira nodded submissively, knowing that he didn’t want anything but agreement from her. Malik went on, ‘You can be sure that Amir wasn’t going there. He is a messenger of true Islam, your brother, and he would only visit those places where Allah is respected. I am sure of that.’ He waved one hand dismissively, and Tahira sensed he didn’t really want to talk about her brother. What he really wanted to talk about was himself.
‘You know, I have always been interested in you.’
She stiffened slightly – it was important for her to seem demure. Malik quickly added, ‘Not improperly, Tahira. I mean, your brother always spoke of you in such a way that I thought you must be a very good person.’
‘We are very close,’ she said. ‘But,’ she paused, ‘we are so worried about him. Do you think the imam at the mosque might know where he has gone? I thought perhaps I could ask him. Would that be a good thing to do?’
‘Abdi Bakri?’ Malik stared at her, his eyes suddenly suspicious. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.’
‘Why not? Amir always spoke respectfully of him.’
‘I am sure the imam thought he was a good and loyal student.’ Malik paused for a moment. ‘Someone else has been asking the imam about Amir. Someone who said he was his cousin.’
‘Really?’ She was as genuinely surprised as she sounded. ‘Who was that?’
‘A bloke called Salim. I know him pretty well but he never said before that he was related to your family. Is he?’ Malik sounded casual, but his eyes were hard now and searching.
‘It’s possible. Even my father sometimes has trouble keeping up with all the relatives we have over here. Especially on my mother’s side.’
‘But you don’t know Salim yourself?’
‘No,’ she said.
He seemed satisfied by this. ‘I thought not, somehow. Anyway, it’s better not to ask the imam yourself. Let me make some enquiries.’
When she nodded her agreement to this, his face lightened momentarily then grew serious again, though this time there was nothing hard about his eyes. ‘Tahira, I am going away soon.’ When her eyes widened he looked pleased. ‘To Pakistan. It is something of a . . . mission, you could say.’
‘It sounds serious.’
‘It is, and possibly quite dangerous. I must ask you to tell no one I spoke of it.’
‘Of course not, Malik. When will you go?’
‘Quite soon, and it may be some time before I come back.’ He hesitated, and Tahira wondered if he expected to come back at all.
‘I will miss you,’ she volunteered, then realised how absurd this might sound – this was the first time they’d met. She blushed. ‘I mean, it is very nice speaking with you. I have so often heard Amir talk about you that I feel as if we have known each other for a long time.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ he said approvingly. ‘Perhaps before I go, we could meet again? I have enjoyed this talk.’
‘I would like that very much,’ Tahira replied with a smile. It was after all just what she’d been aiming for.
Chapter 44
Geoffrey Fane had reluctantly conceded that it should be one of Liz’s colleagues, rather than one of his, who would join the crew of the Aristides on its next voyage from Athens to Kenya. But it seemed that he was still trying to run the operation. Liz had been astonished to receive an invitation to what he was describing as a ‘co-ordination meeting’ at Vauxhall Cross. She suspected that he had not been completely frank with her about the extent to which he had already involved the Americans, and that he was now trying to ‘uninvolve’ them and hoping she could help.
Not much chance of that, she thought, once Langley had got a sniff of it. She wondered who else he had invited to the meeting. The room would probably be full of people, all vying for position: Bokus and colleagues from the American Embassy, a team from MI6, probably the Navy, the SAS, the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office . . . and heaven knows who else. It was all far too premature, and would be sure to result in a muddle.
She decided to go to the meeting alone and let them all talk. Her aim was to avoid anything happening that might mess up the operation in Birmingham which, now she had Tahira in play, she felt might at last be getting somewhere. All this had put her in a thoroughly bad temper, and she was crossly putting her papers away in her security cupboard, ready to go across the river, when Peggy came in with the latest update on the monitoring of emails from the mosque.
‘I can’t stop now,’ Liz said, ‘or I’ll be late for the Fane jamboree.’
‘I think you’d better read it before you go over there,’ said Peggy. So Liz sat down and read:
URGENT
Re: New Springfield Mosque Communications
We have had some success in analysing the internet communications from the New Springfield Mosque. A variety of machines are in use, mainly laptops which appear to be used by different individuals and are probably brought into the premises and used in some sort of library or study room. A4 surveillance linked with emanations has enabled us to identify several individual users.
There is one particular machine that remains in place. It has an Arabic keyboard. We believe, again from A4 observation, that this machine is used only by Imam Abdi Bakri, and is probably situated in his office.
Bakri sends messages to a variety of radical Islamic groups throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, he is a contributor to message boards bas
ed in Europe but consulted by Arabic-speaking users. Many of Bakri’s contributions could be considered inflammatory or even illegal under existing UK incitement laws, but none so far has suggested involvement in or planning of actual terrorist missions.
The exception is a series of messages, increasing in number in the last five days, which are clearly designed to be unbreakable by monitoring. These messages go to a parallax repository, which functions as a depot to which outside visitors travel; in that sense it is not unlike a bulletin board in a chat room. The key difference is that access is restricted, and the identity of visitors is technically almost impossible to back-trace as they arrive through a series of relays, each of which can involve half a dozen different ISPs as well as literally dozens of different national boundaries. At present we cannot identify individual visitors to the depot.
Attempts at decryption are complicated by the twin facts that a) the encryption is double-ended and intrinsically hard to crack; and b) it is changed algorithmically every hour – which means we have effectively to decipher an algorithmic adjustment within another algorithm every sixty minutes to keep up to speed with the contents of the transmitted messages.
Nonetheless some deciphering has taken place. Particles and conjunctions – ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘or’, etc. – have been relatively easy to decipher and freeze, and increasingly we have isolated recurring proper nouns as well as base verbs and nouns. For example . . .
Rip Tide Page 21