Sam had Victoria Mitchell’s face framed against the winter gloom of the interior of the house. She could make out every change of expression.
But there was nothing. Just confusion. No sense that Sam had touched a nerve; that the woman might be about to be asked some questions she’d have difficulty fielding.
‘What questions? Why now?’
Sam was no closer to getting inside the house. This would need to be good.
‘I’m following up on some of the route choices made by you and your husband. One of my responsibilities is the FCO’s travel advice website. Its style hasn’t been revamped since your trip. Clearly our advice wasn’t anywhere near direct enough when you were planning your route. I’d like to work on that - and I’m visiting a number of people who, and I don’t mean to underplay the horrors you experienced, had trouble on overseas trips because we, well, hadn’t given clear enough advice.’
Still no apprehension from Victoria Mitchell. Sam thought she sensed an overwhelming sadness, but no guilt. She took another drag of her cigarette.
‘I don’t think the advice we got was anything other than exemplary. It was my husband who was dogmatic. Pig-headed more like.’ She paused, as if she were recounting a memory. Sam couldn’t tell if the woman’s tone were[RJ27] chastising or one of affection. Perhaps a bit of both?
‘But I’m happy to take any questions. Would you like a cup of tea?’ She pulled the door fully ajar. The defences were down.
‘Would you like to see my ID?’ Sam hoped she didn’t. She had illegally kept her ‘protocol officer’ card from Moscow. It was clearly a Foreign Office ID, but the Moscow Embassy top line would need a little explanation.
Victoria Mitchell smiled as she directed Sam inside.
‘No, that won’t be necessary. You look trustworthy enough. And who else would think up such a bizarre story?’
‘Indeed.’ Sam replied, following the woman through the large, wood-panelled lobby into the Laura Ashley-patterned sitting room.
Sam found the next 30 minutes unremarkable. Victoria Mitchell gave no sign that she thought her husband was anything other than dead. And the sitting room (and a corridor and one of the downstairs loos - Sam had asked to go) looked as Sam expected it to look if it were the case. The rooms were feminine with no distinguishable male touches. But, in one corner of the sitting room was a baby grand piano whose top acted as a photograph depository. Among 20 or so silver-framed photos were a couple showing Victoria and Paul Mitchell. One was a wedding photo; she was dressed beautifully in a plain, long ivory-white, silk and tulle dress - and he was wearing tails. A second was a holiday photo of the pair of them on a motor yacht off the coast of, what was probably, Italy. The third was Paul Mitchell on his own, holding a trophy. On inspection Sam saw that it was The Queen’s Award for Enterprise. The date on the trophy was 2012, a year before his kidnap.
Whilst Sam looked over the photos, Victoria Mitchell had recounted the story of her husband’s abduction. She chain-smoked as she spoke.
‘It was bizarre. He was out of it, submissive almost - from the moment I spotted the pirate boat hunting us down. There was no way we could outrun them. And the American Navy, who answered my distress call, didn’t arrive until over an hour later. Paul was quickly tied up and taken on board their RIB. He made no attempt to fight, or to argue. He just let it happen.’
‘I kicked and screamed and, as a result, got a rifle butt in the face - it knocked me out cold and left a scar on my forehead.’ She pointed to a Harry Potter-like mark just below her hairline. Her makeup hid the nasty scar well.
‘When I woke, my head spinning like a top, he was gone. And there was blood everywhere. At first I thought that maybe they’d killed him, but then I realised that the blood was coming from my head. I was just about to wash it down when I heard a helicopter half-a-mile to starboard. It took them a while to get the winch down, but about ten minutes later I was in the arms of a hunk of a Navy[RJ28] Seal. And I was in the surgery of the American ship 40 minutes later, accompanied by a blinding headache.’
Sam had stopped looking at the photos. She studied Victoria Mitchell, who had taken another drag of her cigarette. She seemed vacant - disinterested. The end of the story possibly signalling the end of her life - certainly a major chapter in it.
Their eyes met. The woman fidgeted.
Do you want to tell me something?
Victoria Mitchell took another drag.
‘The rest is history, I suppose? They didn’t pursue the pirates’ RIB because I had to be seen by a doctor. They took the safe choice even though, over the drone of the helicopter blades, I shouted at them to forget about me and to find Paul.’ She was back in the room now. Any hint of being distracted was lost.
‘It must have been very hard on you?’ Sam asked kindly.
Victoria Mitchell turned away from Sam and stared out of the window, across the lawn in the direction of the Golf.
‘You could say that.’ She paused and gave a short, feminine laugh. ‘Money’s not an issue, you know? Paul made a lot of it when he sold the business before the trip. And we were advised by your people not to pay a ransom, although finding $5 million was going to be tough against the timeframe they had given us. So there was, sorry, is, plenty of cash hanging about.’ She paused again. Sam moved a couple of strides towards the woman, but checked herself.
‘But …’
Sam couldn’t see her face; the woman was still facing the window. Again, she sensed a wistfulness. Which was odd because Victoria Mitchell didn’t seem like a woman who was either vague or distracted.
‘... I do miss him.’ She turned now, and their eyes met. Sam thought she saw dampness in the corner of her eyes. That was to be expected?
‘Anyway. Look, I have someone coming here for a meeting in …’, she looked at the tall grandfather clock that had been chiming every 15 minutes since Sam had been close enough to hear, ‘about 20 minutes. Do you have enough?’
Sam tapped on her phone theatrically. She had been using it to take notes - like any conscientious FCO staff officer. She had also been using it to take the odd discreet photo.
‘No, that’s, err, perfect. Thank you. You have been most generous with your time. It will help with the website redesign. And thank you for revisiting what must still be a very harrowing affair.’
They talked about nothing as Victoria Mitchell led Sam to the door of the sitting room. She paused. Sam thought the woman was about to add something of consequence. They both stopped and looked at each other. Sam wanted to shout, ‘Come on, … let it out!’. But thought better of it.
Nothing. Just a weak smile.
But there was something there?
‘Can I text you my number? In case there’s something else you think of. Something that you might want to tell me.’
Confusion again from Victoria Mitchell. Why would she want this stranger’s number? Sam studied her face closely.
She dithered. And then said, ‘Yes, of course. Why not. If I think of anything I’ll give you a call.’
She then read out her number - Sam tapped it onto her phone. Five seconds later she had pressed ‘Send’. Her SMS read:
if you want to tell me something, this is my number. Sam Green
They shook hands again and said their goodbyes. As Sam jumped down the steps she heard the door close behind her.
She walked slowly back down the gravel path, more slowly than she ordinarily would have. It crossed her mind to turn around, to go back and ask some more penetrating questions. To allow the woman to release what Sam thought she was hiding. But she didn’t.
Just before she reached the end of the drive Sam did turn her head for one last look at the manor. And that’s when the enigmatic Mrs Victoria Mitchell got just slightly more interesting.
Sam could see her at the open window. Not looking Sam’s way, but silhouetted against the interior’s lighter background. She was on the phone. Sam was too far away to hear any of the conversation, but it was clear t
hat Victoria Mitchell was having a very heated discussion with someone. Her free hand was emphatically slicing the air.
And then the silhouette turned, and all motion stopped.
She’s looking at me?
At which point Victoria Mitchell closed the open window and pulled across the curtain.
Flemingstraße, Munich, Germany
Wolfgang paced up and down the small space in the cellar between the stairs and his terminals. He had been speaking to Sam and he needed inspiration. She’d just finished with Paul Mitchell’s wife, Victoria. Sam was convinced there was something more to Victoria than just bereft widow. Something that Sam couldn’t put her finger on.
‘When we chatted she was the perfect [RJ29]rich man’s ex-wife. But, once or twice, I really felt she wanted to tell me something. But didn’t. Or couldn’t. And then when I left she was straight on the phone to someone.’ Sam had said. ‘Can you access her calls?’
‘Not without her phone number. Any chance?
‘No, not her landline, but I do have her mobile.’ Sam had gone quiet and then Wolfgang noticed an alert on one of his screens. He had the number.
‘She smokes Embassy Number 1s, if that adds anything to anything.’ Sam had come back with eventually.
If it were a joke, he had no witty comeback. He was in the cellar. There was no humour here.
‘I’m tired Wolfgang. And hungry. I’m going to eat something more substantial than a thin slice of pork between two bits of white bread. And then I’m going to use your generous expense account to buy myself some clothes. I then need a plan. You think about it. I’ll think about it. And let’s talk later.’
They’d said their goodbyes and hung up.
She needed him to spark - he knew that. And he needed inspiration.
Which frustrated him, as he knew he was close to his limitations. He had pushed the boundaries of his hacking - mostly using the Dark Web. If he pushed any harder he’d have to cut corners and that would leave him exposed. He’d set up a number of peer-to-peer encrypted links on the Dark Web, with other ‘unknown’ hackers who seemed to hack for the sake of it. A couple of them appeared to enjoy tracking The Church’s e-dollar transactions. Having sifted through pages and pages of their data and days and days of his own work, he had been able to piece together the outline infrastructure of The Church of the White Cross. He’d paid for their services, but it had been worth it and saved him a lot of time.
The Church had a number of ever-changing, ever-moving exclusive websites. The layered encryption and the number of intermediate server-jumps made it almost impossible for him to access a single site without being asked to join - ordinarily you could only get onto a site having been given a username and password. This was the usual Dark Web process. When, eventually, he’d been able to access a site using very complex hacking algorithms, it had closed before he was able to interrogate it in detail. In a very brief window what he did get was the usernames of a number of visitors to the site - which he’d then tracked via other routes. He came across a second Church site by accident. Here he was able to download some generic information about the organisation’s vision and further add to its top-level structure.
What was interesting, but maybe not surprising, was that he’d uncovered more about individual Church members using Clearnet (the Dark Web’s term for the World Wide Web), email and social media interactions, than through his Dark Web hacking. That was because some people were lazy - or just arrogant; they obviously thought that they could get away without the secrecy afforded by the cryptography employed on the Dark Web.
Whatever, he was at an impasse. He had done as much as he could. Three years of work had built a structure; defined an organisation. It had delivered intel on 30 or so members of The Church. What he was waiting for now was for one of them to make an electronic mistake. To slip up. For a website to remain open long enough for him to interrogate it in detail. But even then, the output would be two-dimensional. Electronic. Ones-and-noughts. Sought and captured from a distance.
What he really needed was that third dimension. He needed for the amorphous to come into sharp relief. Flesh on the bones.
And for that he needed Sam Green.
Computers didn’t do inflection; not really. That’s why business people still liked to meet face-to-face. Computers, and the images they generated, didn’t have a pulse. They didn’t sweat. He’d been on the ground with Sam when they had blundered into The Church of the White Cross in Berlin. Smacked headlong into it. His mother had been a victim of their unspeakable cruelty. Sam and he were to be next. Somehow, they had made it out alive. Much of that was due to Sam’s tenacity, combined with the timely intervention of the German polizei. He’d been close to death at that point. A minute later and she would have been shot dead. And he would have succumbed to loss of blood and raging hypothermia.
But, even though he had been at death’s door, he’d felt more alive then than he did now.
The sun. Rain. Wind. Flesh. Bullets. Blood. Pain.
Fear.
They were real. You could feel those. Sense them. Smell them.
That’s how you get to know what’s really going down.
He knew he couldn’t be exposed to them again. He was too frail. Too … weak.
But Sam could.
She was out there now. Blundering around. What was it she used to say? Pressing buttons. Sensing. Feeling. Breathing.
But now she needed direction. And he needed to help her find it. He had to be her wingman. Help her get ahead of those who were already chasing her.
He stopped pacing and moved quickly back to his chair. He pulled the keyboard towards him and got typing. In a search box he had designed for working deep in the Dark Web he typed: Paul Mitchell - e-dollar.
The off-white box, filled with the black text he had just written, stood out against the charcoal-grey screen.
He pressed return; his state-of-the-art computers flashed up a page of search results. Biting on the forefinger of his left knuckle, he scrolled down the list using his right hand. There were 26,543 entries. He flicked them down a page at a time.
Ten minutes later. Nothing.
Another ten - the list was getting more and more obscure and less and less relevant.
He flicked the screen again and then, abruptly, stopped himself. He slowly scrolled up again.
There was an indecipherable entry which looked interesting:
10shge_pmitchell/hja67>Hyg4fg/account/k/walteringrisbank/ghed7&/
From that search line three key words struck a chord: pmitchell; account; walteringrisbank.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to follow the link from the current page - that would require a much more detailed workout[RJ30] with the Dark Web. Instead, he opened a Clearnet Google tab, one that any mortal would recognise.
He typed in: walter ingris bank. And pressed return.
And there it was. The first entry in Google:
Walter Ingris Bank | Investment Bank, Nassau, The Bahamas.
Wolfgang sat back in his chair. He had 15 other tenuous links from Church individuals with ‘finance transactions’ in The Bahamas. The results had been account numbers, but no names - and he had failed to find details of a bank that might be being used for The Church’s financial dealings. He had tried numerous times to complete the chain. Searching the net was like that. Just now if he had typed: Paul Mitchell banking details, which he knew he had done before, the search criteria would have delivered a completely different set of results. That was the way it worked.
It didn’t matter. He had a potential bank now.
He checked his watch. It was 5.15 pm. An hour before Elisabeth would call him and Inge for supper. He focused back on the screen, his hands hovering over the keyboard, imaginarily typing.
And then he got to it.
Headquarters SIS, Vauxhall, London
Jane stared at the screen. She had a couple of secure tabs open.
One was the Paul Mitchell file, which had been closed in
early 2014 and, as far as she could tell, hadn’t been revisited since. Piracy and kidnapping weren’t her bailiwick, so this was the first time she had looked at the file in any detail. In the case of Mitchell’s kidnap it seemed to Jane that SIS’s role had been as an observer whilst the FCO and the family, actually just Victoria Mitchell, dealt with the ransom demand - which was a hefty $5 million. The FCO desk officer in London liaised with the skeleton-manned Embassy in Mogadishu, whilst keeping the SIS desk officer at Babylon informed. In return, SIS had used their single case officer in Mogadishu to monitor signals traffic and work his agents. He ran an informant who was embedded in another pirate grouping. The pair of them had tried to piece together what the Mitchell kidnap team looked like.
For operations such as these, SIS brought together a bespoke multi-agency team. In the Mitchell case staff were co-opted from Defence Intelligence, GCHQ (the UK’s signals/wire intercept organisation), the Met Police (with links to Interpol and Europol), Special Forces (to effect[RJ31] a rescue op should it be on the cards), and one of the embedded CIA staff on exchange from Langley. There were 25 pages of case notes in the file. The team, based in Babylon, had worked relentlessly.
Sadly, however, they hadn’t been able to prevent Mitchell’s murder.
Jane scribbled down on a pad the post-operation report’s headlines:
- the family dithered over the ransom payment;
- the in-country FCO liaison stalled the pirates for three days;
- the pirates cut all communications on the fourth day;
- day five, SIS’s Mogadishu case officer, Steven Field, learnt from his local informant that Mitchell had been killed;
- Field was taken to see the body three days later (day eight), after which he confirmed that Mitchell was dead;
- the pirates subsequently burned the body; no repatriation was possible.
For Good Men to Do Nothing Page 10