False Friends ss-9

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Now, regarding any European involvement, the fact that Spider’s going to be suggesting that the arms are being brought in from Serbia might help,’ said Button. ‘Once we’ve planted the idea of weapons from Europe, we could perhaps suggest a test firing over there. Then if they are in contact with other groups it’s not too much of a stretch for them to think of involving them.’

  ‘I worry that we might start overcomplicating matters,’ said Hargrove.

  ‘It would be something of a coup if we could nail terrorists across Europe, especially if they have links with Breivik. Obviously Ray, Dan and Jimmy are the men on the ground and of course they have to play it by ear. It’s just something to think about.’ She closed the file and pushed back her chair. ‘Well, thank you so much for coming in.’ She stood up. So did Hargrove and Shepherd.

  Hargrove shook her hand. ‘Probably best if Dan is the conduit, as you suggest,’ he said.

  Button nodded enthusiastically. ‘I think that’ll be best,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if he stays here for a while? I’ve some admin business that I need to run by him.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Hargrove. He picked up his briefcase.

  ‘I’ll get someone to show you out,’ said Button. She took him to the door and handed the chief superintendent over to a young man in a blue blazer. As they headed for the lifts, Button went back into the meeting room and smiled apologetically at Shepherd. ‘For an undercover agent you’re not very good at hiding your emotions,’ she said. ‘I can see from the look on your face that you’re not happy about what just happened.’

  ‘I can’t believe you did that,’ said Shepherd. ‘It made me look like I’d gone running to you, telling tales out of school.’

  Button sat down, frowning. ‘What?’

  ‘Look at it from his point of view. He’s running an undercover operation for the Birmingham cops and I’m brought in to help. A few days later he gets called into Thames House and told that Five is now pulling the strings. He puts two and two together and thinks that I told you that he’s not up to it.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Button. ‘First of all, you and he have worked together and he knows you wouldn’t pull a trick like that. But, more importantly, we haven’t taken the operation from him.’

  ‘You just told him that all intel on the case now goes through me to you.’

  ‘With his full knowledge. It’s not as if we’re doing it behind his back.’

  ‘It still makes it a case of us and them. And telling him about the grenades.’ Shepherd gritted his teeth in frustration.

  ‘What?’

  Shepherd sighed. ‘That could only have come from me,’ he said. ‘So in that case I definitely was going behind his back.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. No use crying over spilled milk.’

  ‘It had to be done, you know that. This is turning into too big a case.’

  ‘It sounds like it,’ agreed Shepherd.

  ‘How did the training go with Chaudhry and Malik? I gather you tied up half our watchers for a day.’

  ‘They needed bringing up to speed on the basics of counter-surveillance,’ said Shepherd. ‘Plus, the watchers wanted to do some training themselves so we ended up killing two birds with the proverbial stone.’

  ‘And you think they’re capable of spotting a tail now?’

  ‘Put it this way, they’re a hell of a lot more prepared than they were. Any chatter on that front?’

  ‘Nothing significant,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘If there is you’ll be the first to hear about it.’ She sat back in her chair and tapped the file on the table. ‘This Birmingham case has given me an idea,’ she said. ‘I know I mentioned it before but I’m even more convinced now that we should be a bit more proactive with Chaudhry and Malik.’

  Shepherd frowned. ‘I said it wasn’t a good idea then and I still think that.’

  ‘Hear me out,’ said Button. ‘You’re up and running as an arms dealer. Khalid and his people are planning a terrorist attack for which they’ll need equipment. If there was any way that we could put you in the mix, it’d make for a much better case and give us the inside track from the get-go.’

  ‘But Raj and Harvey are students. What reason could they have for knowing me?’

  Button wrinkled her nose. ‘That we’d have to work on, but I’m sure there’s a way. And if we have Khalid coming to you for weapons then we can wrap this up with no risk to the public.’

  ‘But one hell of a risk for Raj and Harvey,’ said Shepherd. ‘This is Khalid’s show. He gives the orders and they do as they’re told. Alarm bells are going to start ringing if they go from being foot soldiers to players.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’ll be easy, the circumstances would have to be right and it’ll take a lot of planning, but in a perfect world it’d make everything a lot easier.’

  ‘Yeah, well, the world’s not perfect, not by a long chalk. And I don’t want to put them in harm’s way any more than we have to.’ He folded his arms. ‘These guys are just amateurs. It has to be kid gloves.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Button. ‘I’m not suggesting we do anything to put them at risk.’

  ‘With the greatest of respect, any form of proactive behaviour is going to do just that. These guys have already done far more than any member of the public can be expected to do. They gave us a top al-Qaeda team, the location of a training camp in Pakistan and they found Bin Laden. And they’ve risked their lives to do it. The least we can do is to watch their backs.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Button. ‘It’s precisely because they have taken risks that they’ve achieved so much. They could have just informed us about Khalid and his people and left it at that, but they were prepared to go to Pakistan and undergo al-Qaeda training, and that led directly to MI5’s best-ever intelligence coup. Do you think we would have found Bin Laden if they hadn’t taken risks? All I’m saying is that we need to keep this investigation moving forward and one way of doing that is to put you in play.’

  Shepherd could see that there was no point in arguing with her so he shrugged and said nothing.

  ‘Look, Spider, no one is saying that we’re going to rush into anything. Just give it some thought.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But can we look at a way of getting me into the mix without involving Raj and Harvey? Five must have other al-Qaeda assets we can use as a pipeline.’

  Button nodded. ‘I’ll ask around, see what’s available.’ She stood up, bringing the meeting to an end. As he left the building Shepherd couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d lied to him.

  He waited until he was outside Thames House before calling Hargrove on his mobile. ‘I just wanted to say that I had no idea that was going to happen,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Hargrove. ‘Though I do feel as I’ve just been mugged at knifepoint.’

  ‘If I’d known I would have at least warned you.’

  ‘Spider, you work for MI5 now and Charlie’s your boss. And I’m a big boy. I know the way things work.’

  ‘She’s put us in a bastard position, though. If Superintendent Warner up in Birmingham finds out that we’re going behind his back he’s going to hit the roof.’

  ‘Hopefully that won’t happen,’ said Hargrove. ‘And frankly she does have a point. If Kettering is planning a terrorist incident then with the best will in the world the West Midlands cops aren’t geared up for dealing with it. If it was the Met then it would be a different story, but the chances are that if Warner does realise that Kettering is a terrorist rather than a vanilla criminal he’s going to be picking up the phone to Five anyway. This way Charlie can hit the ground running if the call comes.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was worried you might be annoyed.’

  ‘I’m not happy, but I’ll get over it,’ said Hargrove. ‘My main worry is that Five will take all the credit for our hard work, but that wouldn’t be the first time.’

  Hargrove ended the call and Shepherd rang Jimmy Sharpe. ‘
Can you talk?’ he asked.

  ‘Till the cows come home,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Why can’t anybody just answer that question with a straight yes or no?’ said Shepherd. ‘Fancy a drink?’

  ‘You read my mind,’ said Sharpe. ‘When and where?’

  ‘I’ll come to you,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just name a pub.’

  Chaudhry’s mobile rang. He didn’t recognise the number but he took the call. It was Khalid. Khalid routinely changed SIM cards and once a month he replaced his phone. The intelligence services now had the capability to track a phone and monitor its calls no matter what SIM card was being used and wherever possible Khalid would use a public phone instead.

  ‘Have you been to evening prayers, brother?’ asked Khalid.

  ‘I have, brother,’ said Chaudhry. He and Malik had gone to the Dynevor Road mosque for the Maghrib prayers, which had to be performed just after sunset. It tended to be the busiest of the prayer sessions as those Muslims that had day jobs could conveniently drop by on their way home. The fourth of the five daily prayer sessions consisted of two rak’at prayed aloud, and the third in silence.

  A teenager who had been praying in front of Chaudhry had neglected to turn off his mobile phone and during Chaudhry’s silent rak’at the boy had received a text message. He had then taken out his phone and begun texting, much to Chaudhry’s consternation. Chaudhry had been just about to say something when the imam had clipped the teenager’s ear and told him to be more respectful. Chaudhry was becoming increasingly frustrated at the mosque; many of the men going there to pray seemed only to be going through the motions and he had smelled alcohol on the breath of several of the worshippers.

  ‘Permit me to buy you and Harveer dinner,’ said Khalid. He never referred to Malik by his westernised name. Equally Raj was always addressed as brother or as Manraj. ‘There are two brothers who I would like you to meet.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Chaudhry.

  ‘Half an hour from now, then, brother. At the Aziziye Halal. You know it?’

  ‘Of course, brother.’

  The Aziziye Halal was a traditional Turkish restaurant on the ground floor of the Aziziye Mosque on Stoke Newington Road, next to a halal butcher where Chaudhry bought most of his meat. The mosque had started life as the Apollo Picture House in 1913 and had shown soft-core sex films during the seventies before being converted into a mosque in 1983. It was much larger than the Dynevor Road mosque, with room for two thousand worshippers, and it was far more salubrious, if for no other reason than the Dynevor Road mosque was underground and the Aziziye was on the upper floor with large windows. It was the Turkish community who had pressed for the cinema to be converted into a mosque, and generally it was only Turks who worshipped there. The Turks were as protective about their mosque as they were about the business they controlled in the area.

  Malik was lying on the sofa reading a book on Japanese cooking.

  ‘Khalid wants to see us,’ Chaudhry said. ‘At the Aziziye.’

  ‘The mosque?’

  ‘The restaurant. Get ready.’

  ‘I hope he’s paying.’

  ‘If he doesn’t you can ask him for the receipt and get MI5 to pay.’ Chaudhry could see from the look on Malik’s face that he thought he was serious. ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ laughed Chaudhry.

  Twenty-five minutes later they were removing their shoes at the entrance to the restaurant. Khalid was inside, talking to a waiter. Standing with Khalid were two young Asians. Chaudhry recognised them from the mosque, though he had never spoken to them.

  The waiter, dressed in a black shirt and black trousers, headed over to a stack of menus as Khalid turned and saw Chaudhry and Malik. He walked towards them and kissed them on both cheeks. He was wearing a blue and white striped dishdash and a white skullcap, holding a chain of wooden prayer beads, and smelled of garlic and cheap cologne. He waved over his two companions. ‘This is Lateef and Faisal,’ said Khalid.

  ‘It’s an honour, brother,’ said Lateef, shaking hands with Chaudhry then pulling him close into a hug. He patted him on the back with his left hand. ‘A real honour.’ He was an inch or two taller than Chaudhry with the looks of a Bollywood leading man; his hair was gelled and slicked back.

  Faisal was short and stocky with darker skin and cheeks mottled with old acne scars. He stepped forward and hugged Malik. ‘Salaam, brother,’ he said.

  The waiter returned with the menus and took them along to their cubicle. Most diners in the restaurant ate in small cubicles, divided up with chest-high partitions. They varied in size from small ones that accommodated just two people to family cubicles where more than a dozen could eat in comfort, sprawled on red patterned cushions around low tables.

  The waiter held open the door of the cubicle and one by one they filed in and flopped down on the cushions. Khalid sat down at the head of the table. There was an LCD TV screen behind him showing advertisements for the restaurant. Khalid pointed at the TV and nodded at the waiter. The waiter switched it off and handed out menus. Khalid waved the menus away and ordered for them all.

  Unlike many of the Turkish-run Muslim restaurants in the area, the Aziziye Halal didn’t serve alcohol. The waiter brought a tray of fruit juices and water, and then disappeared to the kitchen. Khalid poured water into glasses for each of the men.

  ‘So, Lateef and Faisal will soon be following the glorious path that you both trod,’ said Khalid. ‘I thought it might be a good idea for you to tell them what they can expect.’

  ‘Was it amazing, brother? Being with the mujahideen?’ asked Lateef.

  ‘They were not with the mujahideen,’ said Khalid. ‘They are mujahideen. That is what happens over there. You go as men who want to take part in jihad but you return as Islamic warriors, as mujahideen.’

  ‘The training, was it hard?’ asked Faisal.

  ‘It has to be hard,’ said Malik. ‘You don’t know how weak you are until they get to work on you.’ He sipped his water. ‘I can play five-a-side all evening and never break a sweat,’ he said. ‘But after half an hour of physical training in the desert I thought I was going to die. We did obstacle courses and route marches; we walked in the hottest part of the day and we walked through the night. We ran, we crawled, we hid in trenches for hours. They teach you discipline like you wouldn’t believe. I lost about five kilos while I was there.’

  Chaudhry nodded in agreement. ‘It opens your eyes to what they go through every day,’ he said. ‘Here we’re soft and weak, and without training you wouldn’t last a day out there.’

  ‘And they teach you to fire guns and stuff?’ asked Faisal.

  ‘Not just to fire them,’ said Chaudhry. ‘They show you how to strip and clean weapons, how to fix them, how to store them.’

  ‘AK-47s, right?’ said Lateef.

  ‘All sorts,’ said Chaudhry. ‘The AK-47 is the workhorse but they taught us about the Uzi and the guns that the Americans use — the M4 carbine and the M9 pistol.’

  ‘They make you strip and reassemble them blindfolded,’ said Malik. ‘You think you’ll never get the hang of it but eventually you do.’

  ‘And what’s it like, firing an AK-47?’ asked Lateef.

  ‘It’s louder than you expect, and you smell the gunpowder for hours afterwards,’ said Chaudhry. ‘It doesn’t kick as much as you’d think.’

  ‘But the Uzi kicks,’ said Malik. ‘The Uzi kicks like a living thing. It’s like trying to hold on to a struggling cat.’

  A man with a long beard moved by their cubicle, followed by two women covered from head to foot in black burkas, their eyes shielded behind black mesh. There was no way of knowing whether they were his wives, his sisters or his elderly aunts.

  The men fell silent until the new arrivals had made their way to their cubicle and seated themselves.

  ‘Did you shoot anyone while you were out there?’ asked Lateef.

  ‘Brothers, this was a training camp,’ said Khalid softly. ‘You go to train to be mujahideen, not to fight.
You are too valuable to risk in a desert gunfight.’

  Lateef lowered his voice. ‘We heard that sometimes they kill prisoners in the camps. For practice. Is that true?’

  ‘I have heard that,’ said Chaudhry. ‘But it did not happen while we were there.’

  ‘Did you fire missiles, the sort that can bring down helicopters and planes?’

  ‘We didn’t fire them ourselves but we saw one being fired and we know what to do,’ said Chaudhry.

  ‘That must have been awesome,’ said Faisal. He looked over at Khalid. ‘They should give us surface-to-air missiles here,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine what we could do? You can see the planes landing at Heathrow from miles away.’ He mimed firing a SAM missile launcher and made a whooshing noise.

  Khalid was about to admonish him when the cubicle door opened and the waiter appeared with their food. He knelt down and put dishes on the table: stuffed vine leaves, filo pastry stuffed with feta cheese, fried meatballs served with chopped onions, salad and naan bread. When the waiter had left, Khalid leaned forward. ‘It is not about the weapons, brothers. Weapons are only the means to an end. Becoming a mujahideen is an attitude of mind. That is why you go to Pakistan. You go to become focused so that you can best serve Allah. A true mujahideen doesn’t need a rocket or a gun to kill the infidel. But he needs the mental toughness to commit himself.’

  ‘They toughen you up over there, that’s for sure,’ said Chaudhry. ‘They explain a lot too. You think you know everything about what it means to be a Muslim, but until you’ve seen what they go through. .’ He shrugged. ‘Our lives here are so easy. We forget that our brothers are being slain all over the world.’

  Faisal and Lateef nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘What else did you learn, brothers?’ asked Faisal.

  ‘They taught us how to resist interrogation,’ said Malik.

  ‘What do they do?’ asked Lateef. ‘Do they torture you?’

  ‘They rough you up a bit, but it’s more psychological intimidation,’ said Malik.

  ‘Did they waterboard you?’ asked Faisal.