Trojan

by Alan McDermott

  ‘I asked myself that, too,’ Harvey admitted. ‘Qureshi could have brought it with him and we’d have been none the wiser. Maybe they figured that with our people spread out all over the city, we might have got wind of it, but by concentrating all our efforts on al-Hosni, it gave them the freedom to weaponise the agent and set it off before we get a sniff of it. Or perhaps they don’t know our capabilities and, rather than hope we wouldn’t find out about it, they decided that the best option would be to swamp our resources.’

  Ellis stared off to Harvey’s right for a few moments, something she did when she was processing information.

  ‘Let’s say you’re right,’ she said at last. ‘It’s taken days to get everything we have on al-Hosni. How do you plan to prove Khan has the X3 in the limited time we have left?’

  ‘We’ll have to bring him in.’

  CHAPTER 25

  Wednesday, 16 August 2017

  Muhammad Khan picked up his new passport and tucked it into the side pocket of his duffle bag, ensuring the zip was closed. He took one last look around the room and, confident that he hadn’t forgotten anything, walked into the hallway, where a full-length mirror stood by the front door.

  He checked his appearance. It was somewhat humiliating to see his reflection dressed in a black burka that covered him from head to toe, but recent events made the disguise necessary. News of Imran al-Hosni’s abduction had reached him quickly, Nabil Karim’s false trail working all too effectively. By now, al-Hosni would be at a secret location, being interrogated by the best Britain could muster. It would only be a matter of time before al-Hosni cracked and the truth came out, and when that happened, the police would be looking for the real name behind the upcoming attack.

  The doorbell rang, startling him, but when he checked through the spyhole, he saw the two people he was expecting. He stood behind the door and opened it halfway to let them enter, careful not to expose himself to anyone who might be watching outside.

  ‘Did you see anything suspicious?’ Khan asked the tall, elderly male.

  ‘No. We drove slowly and saw nothing.’

  The woman who accompanied him was dressed exactly the same as Khan, and her height was a perfect match, too.

  ‘Very well. Take my bag to the car.’ He turned to the woman. ‘Stay away from the windows and do not open the curtains.’

  The old man struggled to lift the duffle bag, but the car was only a few yards away, and Khan was sure he could manage it. He followed the man’s slow progress down the garden path and watched him bundle the bag into the back of an old Nissan. Khan climbed in behind the driver’s seat and put his seat belt on.

  ‘Is this the best you could manage?’ Khan asked as he scanned the bleak interior.

  ‘It is very reliable, and our journey is not that far,’ the old man assured him.

  It was too late to do anything about it, so Khan sat back and watched the suburbs flash past his window.

  He wouldn’t miss London. The free council accommodation had been adequate at best, and he had relied on government handouts for the last four years, but free money hadn’t been enough to make up for the decadent society and anti-Muslim sentiment that flowed down every street and alleyway. There were those who preached inclusion and multiculturalism, but just because they used government buzzwords didn’t mean that everyone had bought into them. He saw the cultural clashes day in, day out, and the slogans daubed on the walls near the mosque left no doubt as to the real feelings on the street. Despite its Muslim mayor, he had little hope for the city.

  Muslims and infidels could not live happily side by side, that much was clear to him, and he was proud to have played his small part in widening the gulf between them. On Friday, his masters in Syria would claim a great victory, and anti-Muslim sentiment would ratchet up another notch. Young Islamic men would be persecuted for their beliefs, but there would always be someone willing to lend a sympathetic ear and steer them towards their true calling. The infidels would call them radical Islamists, but they were freedom fighters willing to lay down their lives so that Islam might rise in the West.

  The car suddenly plunged into the darkness of an underground car park.

  ‘There’s no CCTV coverage in this area,’ the driver said, handing over the keys to a BMW. ‘It’s the one to your right.’

  Khan waited a couple of minutes to ensure they hadn’t been followed into the car park. Once satisfied, he slipped out of his disguise and left it in the rear footwell.

  ‘Is your accomplice ready?’ he asked.

  The plan called for the driver to walk around the shopping mall directly above them and a second woman, wearing the same clothes Khan had just discarded, to be waiting on the enclosed stairwell to take Khan’s place and perpetuate the charade.

  ‘I sent her a text message. She is in position.’

  ‘Then enjoy your shopping,’ Khan said with a smile. With one last check of the vicinity, he got out of the Nissan. He moved his bag to the boot of the BMW and climbed behind the wheel. The engine purred into life and the display told him he had a full tank.

  Khan checked his reflection in the mirror. His long beard had been trimmed to a goatee, and the kufi he always wore on his head was gone, leaving him feeling slightly naked. It was all necessary, though. His appearance now matched the photo in his forged passport, one that would take him to Denmark initially, and eventually home to Syria.

  He entered his destination into the satnav and turned on the police scanner he’d asked to have installed, then eased out of the parking space and headed for the exit.

  While Sarah drove, Harvey called ahead to the team assigned the job of watching Khan’s house.

  ‘Are you in position yet?’ he asked.

  ‘We arrived about ten minutes ago, and there’s already been some activity. An old man and a woman entered the house and stayed for about three minutes, then they left carrying a bag. It looked heavy. They got into a faded-green Nissan. I’ve sent you pictures and the plate number.’

  ‘Okay, remain where you are, we’ll be there in five minutes.’

  Harvey checked his inbox and opened the message the team had sent. The old man wasn’t anyone he recognised from Khan’s list of known associates, and he had no existing relatives in the country. There wasn’t a lot to be learned about the woman, dressed as she was. He decided the best thing to do was to forward the details to Farsi and have someone work up them up.

  ‘It’s the next street on the left,’ Sarah said, as she pulled up to the side of the road.

  ‘Then we just wait for SO15,’ Harvey replied. One of the downsides of the job was that he had no power to detain or arrest anyone. That task was left to the people of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. While he waited, he took the automatic from his shoulder holster and checked that he had a round in the chamber before replacing it inside his jacket. It had been Ellis’s idea to go armed and, given the stakes, he had been happy to sign the weapon out.

  One thing that puzzled him, though, was Ellis’s hesitance when he’d said he wanted Sarah along on the ride. They’d been out on assignment together scores of times; he wondered why his boss wasn’t keen this time.

  ‘Any idea why Veronica didn’t want you to come along?’ he asked.

  Sarah shook her head. ‘Just being overprotective, I expect.’

  Both of them had read Khan’s file, and the man had a reputation for violence. Still, that hadn’t seemed enough to split up their pairing.

  ‘But why all of a sudden? We’ve handled trickier cases than this.’

  Sarah remained silent, staring out of the front window.

  ‘Is it anything to do with what happened a few days ago?’

  A tear formed in the corner of her left eye, and Harvey knew he’d hit the spot. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. ‘Please, tell me what it is. You keep saying it’s not the right time, but I have the feeling that day will never come. If I’ve done something to upset you, you have to tell me.’

  Sarah t
urned to face him. ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Of course I do. I wouldn’t let anything come between us.’

  ‘Not even a child?’

  ‘No, of course n— Wait . . . Are you saying you’re pregnant?’

  Sarah managed the faintest of nods, and Harvey’s jaw dropped. He was struggling for words when she snatched her hand away.

  ‘I knew you’d react like that.’

  ‘What? No, wait . . .’

  Harvey searched for the right words but then realised he didn’t know what he wanted to say. The revelation had been so far from what he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure how he felt. Elation was the prevalent emotion, but confusion and fear were battling for dominion.

  It wasn’t as if they’d ever openly discussed having children, but it was far too late for that conversation. It was going to happen, and it was that certainty that gave him a burst of clarity.

  ‘I’m so happy!’ He threw his arms around her as best he could in the confined space and squeezed her close.

  Sarah pulled back and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Are you sure? You looked a bit gobsmacked for a minute.’

  ‘I’m positive. If we were sitting here discussing the possibility, I might have had some doubts, but now that you have a little . . . Is it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’m only eight weeks. It’ll be another three months or so before I find out.’

  ‘Well, now that you have a little person growing inside you, I’m over the moon. We’ll need—’

  Harvey’s phone buzzed, interrupting the moment, and he suddenly remembered the reason they were sitting in a car in East London.

  ‘Harvey.’

  ‘This is Sergeant Bury, SO15. We’ll be at the location in fifteen seconds.’

  ‘Roger that. We’ll meet you at the door.’

  Sarah pulled out and turned into Khan’s street. She could see the two cars packed with armed officers stopping near the target house, and she screeched to a halt behind their vehicles.

  ‘Wait here,’ Harvey said, but Sarah ignored him and jumped out.

  ‘Sarah, please.’

  He got a glare in response, and knew further protestations would be useless.

  Three men were sent to the rear of the building and Harvey waited impatiently for them to report in. When the call came, Bury, a tall, bluff veteran cop, marched up to the front door and rang the bell. He waited ten seconds, and when no-one answered he pressed it again and shouted through the letterbox.

  ‘Khan, open the door!’

  Bury gave the occupants a couple of seconds, then beckoned the officer carrying the enforcer, a red steel tube used to gain a quick – if undignified – entry.

  ‘On my mark, go, go, go!’

  The old wooden door caved on the first blow, and Bury was first inside, closely followed by several of his men. Harvey came next, and he could see the team entering the rear of the house, their weapons raised as they cleared the kitchen. A team went up the stairs, and when Harvey heard one of the officers shout something, he headed for the living room.

  Four men were surrounding a woman, who was sitting on a couch. She was dressed completely in black and had her hands on her knees, as if she had been expecting them to call.

  ‘Has she been searched?’ Harvey asked.

  ‘Not yet. We’re waiting for a female officer to arrive.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Sarah said, and gestured for the woman to get up. Her instructions ignored, Sarah grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her to her feet before patting her down.

  ‘Where’s Khan?’ Harvey asked her, but the woman refused to speak.

  A uniformed officer stuck his head through the door. ‘The house is clear.’

  ‘So is she,’ Sarah added.

  Harvey got on his phone and called the surveillance team, instructing them to join him in the already crowded house. They arrived within a minute.

  ‘Is this the woman you saw entering the house?’ he asked them.

  ‘It’s hard to tell, guv. She’s certainly dressed the same way.’

  Harvey turned to the occupant, who was still standing. She looked to be about five-nine, exactly the same height as Khan. It was clear that Khan had slipped away, and the manner in which he’d done so removed any doubt as to his guilt.

  ‘Take her in,’ Harvey told Bury. ‘Khan’s wife died a couple of years ago and he didn’t remarry, so she’d better have a phenomenal reason for being here.’

  Harvey got on the phone and called Farsi. ‘I sent you details of a green Nissan a few minutes ago. I want you to check all CCTV cameras in this area and find out where it went. I think Khan switched places and is dressed as a woman. Also, enter his details into PAP.’

  The Police, Airport and Port system had been introduced a year earlier. Prior to its inception, MI5 would have had to register a notice on the Police National Computer, which would have informed all forces. They would then have had to send out an All Ports Message, which covered the major air and maritime ports, and then contact each of the smaller airfields and marinas individually. PAP did away with all that, allowing them to flag suspects UK-wide within minutes.

  Harvey added details about the clothes he suspected Khan to be wearing and asked to be updated as soon as they had anything.

  ‘Let’s get back to the office,’ Harvey told Sarah. He led her out to the car and got into the passenger seat.

  ‘What the hell was that all about?’ Sarah asked as she slipped behind the wheel.

  ‘What?’ Harvey said, confused.

  ‘Telling me to wait in the car, that’s what.’

  ‘You’re about to have our baby,’ Harvey said.

  ‘In seven months’ time! Do you plan to wrap me in cotton wool until then?’

  ‘Of course not, but if I can keep you away from dangerous situations, I will.’

  Sarah sighed as she started the car. ‘If I’d known you were going to be like this, I wouldn’t have told you until it became obvious. I hate the idea of spending the next six months tied to a desk.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that. I just don’t want anything happening to you.’

  They drove the rest of the way back to Thames House in such silence that Harvey was glad to re-enter the chaos of the office.

  Harvey swiped his way onto the office floor and walked over to Sarah’s desk.

  ‘As requested,’ he said as he took a prawn sandwich and feta salad from the carrier bag he was holding.

  Normally he would have let a subordinate do the food run, but after hours of sitting at a desk staring at his monitor, he was glad of the fresh air and exercise. It also gave him a chance to clear his head. Some people had an aptitude for sifting through CCTV footage, but after a couple of hours it turned Harvey’s brain to mush.

  ‘Maynard’s here,’ Sarah said.

  As Harvey looked over towards Ellis’s office, his boss opened the door and beckoned him over.

  ‘Andrew, if you will . . .’

  Harvey put the bag containing his own sandwich on Sarah’s desk and walked over to the glass palace, where the Home Secretary stood next to Ellis’s desk.

  ‘Sit,’ Maynard said.

  Harvey would have preferred to remain standing, knowing Maynard wanted the psychological advantage of looking down at him, but one look from Ellis and he did as he was told.

  ‘What the hell happened to my suspect?’ Maynard barked.

  ‘Al-Hosni? Your people grabbed him, from what I understand.’

  ‘I’m talking about Malika Ali. I came here to instruct you to prepare a handover and I find out she’s dead!’

  News of Malika’s demise had reached the office an hour earlier. No-one had shed a tear, but Harvey had seen it as the signal for the brown stuff to start flying, mostly in his direction.

  ‘It wasn’t something we could have predicted,’ he said in his defence. ‘She didn’t come across as suicidal.’

  ‘Well she clearly was!’

  ‘Obviously,’ Elli
s said. ‘But I’ve read the report and, while regrettable, there are lessons to be learned.’

  ‘Lessons? You guys are supposed to know how to kill a man with a paper cup, and you didn’t think there was anything wrong with leaving her alone in a room with a metal can?’

  ‘That’s not the business we’re in,’ Ellis shot back. ‘And you know it. Malika’s dead. It’s time to move on.’

  Maynard wasn’t about to let them off the hook that easily. ‘Someone is going to pay for their incompetence,’ he said, directing the barb at Harvey. ‘In the meantime, prepare the remaining three prisoners for departure. My men will be here in fifteen minutes. Do you think you can keep them alive that long?’

  Ellis ignored the remark. ‘You won’t get much from them. You’d be better off concentrating your efforts on al-Hosni.’

  ‘He’s a dead end,’ Maynard said, straightening his tie. ‘Literally. I want transcripts of every interview you’ve conducted on the prisoners within the next half-hour, but before you start on that, I want to know what you’re doing to dig yourself out of the shit pile you’ve created.’

  ‘We’ve switched our efforts—’

  ‘—to other members of the mosque al-Hosni attended.’ Ellis cut Harvey off. ‘Some have been on our radar for a while, and though we haven’t actually seen them with al-Hosni, we haven’t been able to ascertain who he’s spoken to once inside the building. One of them holds the key, I’m sure of it. Everyone else he had contact with has been eliminated from our enquiries, which means one of these new names must have knowledge of the X3.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, for your sake. If the Friday deadline you told me about is accurate, that doesn’t leave you long to save your career.’

  Maynard stormed out, and Harvey waited until he’d been escorted off the main floor before turning to Ellis.

  ‘You’re not going to tell him about Khan?’

  ‘Hell, no! The last thing we need is that egomaniac micromanaging our investigation. Let him chase ghosts all he wants, as long as it keeps him out of our hair.’