by Andrew Smyth
I thought back to Sayed’s brother and the unnecessary suffering caused by what were essentially easily preventable diseases. The historical incidence of measles alone was quite horrific but it was clear that considerable progress could be made. But there simply weren’t the resources to be able to monitor standards throughout the country and terrorist groups were not interested in increasing the life expectancy. They were only interested in reducing it.
I signalled for another Kingfisher but then thought better of it and decided I’d take a walk outside the hotel.
The opportunity to stretch my legs relaxed me a bit and I almost missed Ranish who was locking his car around the corner. I caught up with him as he entered the hotel, but he hadn’t seen me so I called out to him. He turned and I could see immediately that he was not bringing good news. ‘Ranish, what’s the matter?’
‘Let’s go upstairs.’ He walked to the lifts without waiting for a reply.
I followed him and after I’d shut the door to my room, I asked him again what had happened.
‘I went back to the driver’s house.’ Ranish sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.
I got a glass of water from the sink and gave it to him. ‘What happened?’
Ranish looked up. ‘He hadn’t got back and his wife told me he shouldn’t be long, so I waited with her. We made small talk for a while and then there was a screeching of tyres outside. We rushed out to see him being thrown from the back of a truck.’
‘Jesus! What happened to him?’
‘He’d been beaten up badly so we got an ambulance. I think he’ll survive but it was touch and go.’ He managed to drink some of the water. ‘I told you it was too risky. We nearly got him killed.’
‘We did? How?’
‘He had a sign around his neck saying, “YOU NEXT”.’
‘In English?’
‘Yes. And since neither the driver nor his family spoke any English, I can only think it was aimed at us.’
‘The poor man. I should have done it myself but it never occurred to me that it would be dangerous. I should have realised who we’re up against. What about his family?’
‘Distraught, as you’d expect. I don’t think they quite understand my involvement. They certainly don’t understand why he was attacked.’
‘Just as well. You’ll have to think of a story to cover this. We can’t afford to let this get public. Somehow you’re going to have to speak to the police.’
‘I’m already on it. I’m going there in the morning.’
‘Why would anyone do this? He was only a driver. Why attack him to get at us?’
‘And possibly destroy a family in the process. He’s going to find it difficult to get another job – assuming he pulls through. We’ll have to ask London if they can do something for them. We might have to if we want it kept quiet.’
‘So that leaves the crucial question; did he manage to plant the tracker?’
15
‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ I said. I was back in London being debriefed by Ken Maxwell who’d also received Ranish’s encrypted report. ‘Even if he did manage to get the tracker into one of the boxes, if they’ve been loaded into a container then we won’t get a signal until they’re unloaded again – presumably in Mombasa?’
‘We managed to track it to the vicinity of the Bakaar factory.’ Ken Maxwell was staring at his laptop which showed the western half of the Indian Ocean with not very much on it. ‘So we know it was working, but when the signal stopped we don’t know if that’s because it was put into a container, or whether they took it off the driver and smashed it.’
‘Are you able to do anything about the driver’s family?’
‘We’re looking into that, but I think probably. According to Ranish, he was effectively working for us at the time so we’re responsible.’
‘It’s certainly raised the stakes and now we’re running out of time. We have to do something.’ I went over and picked up the computer. ‘Full of tricks, I suppose?’
‘Plenty,’ Ken said, taking it back from me. ‘There’s nothing more easily infiltrated than laptops, especially when they’re connected to the Internet and particularly when it’s an open one like yours. But we use it with a satellite phone which links it to a secure network.’
‘But it’s safe to use anywhere? Encryption courtesy GCHQ?’
‘They’re the experts. I access their main computer and even an international hacker can’t see what I can see. Which,’ he added, ‘at the moment is not very much.’
‘Nearly 3,000 miles from Mumbai to Mombasa, say eighteen knots for a routine freighter. About a week. It’ll be days before we know.’ I poured myself another coffee then waved the pot at Ken but he shook his head. ‘So that’s about it.’
I sat down and sipped my drink. ‘Unless we manage to get a signal from the tracker we seem to have hit another dead end. As far as we can tell, Bakaar is clean, so where do we look now? I still think Comar’s got something to do with it.’ I banged the desk in frustration. ‘Jesus! Can’t we raid these places? We can’t sit here and do nothing, we haven’t much time left.’
‘If we carry out raids and don’t find anything then we’ll face claims for damages and even if we do, they’ll just change the supply route and use another method of delivery. Our best lead is still to wait for the tracker. If we haven’t picked up a signal in a few days we’ll have to start again and think of another way of tracing the counterfeits.’
Ken snapped his laptop closed and stood up. ‘I suppose we can let you get back to your skipper’s duties now. There’s nothing much more you can do.’
‘Hey, not so fast. I can’t let it go – I need to follow this through. I can still use the Orion cover story and go back and make some more enquiries in East Africa.’
‘For all we know your Orion cover was blown. If they picked up the driver then they must know about Ranish and so it’s likely they also know about you.’
‘Perhaps, but there’s no reason the driver should have known about me. He only ever met Ranish.’
‘Given what happened to him it would be pretty dangerous to chance it. You could have been rumbled so if we’re going to try again we’d have to use another agent.’
‘But I know more about the pharmaceutical supply chain than any of your agents. They won’t necessarily know what to look for.’ I wasn’t going to let him pass this onto someone else after all I’d done. ‘I can’t leave it. I have to see it through, whether it’s with your help or without it.’
‘I suppose I could ask, but I don’t think that would work. I’ll see what they say back at Vauxhall Cross.’
I felt a great sense of anti-climax after I’d shown Ken off the boat and watched him walk away along the pontoon. I’d forgotten how keyed up I became when out in the field. My few days in India had brought back all my training and I realised how much I was missing the action. But there was nothing more I could do, so I tried to resign myself to going back to work on the boat, but at least I’d get to see Greta who was taking me out for dinner that evening. I was looking forward to seeing her again although I wasn’t sure quite how much I could tell her about my trip. It would at least take my mind off it and I realised that I was starting to think of her more often.
In the morning, I tried to concentrate on the work schedule on the boat, but my mind wasn’t on it. Until we knew whether the tracker had been placed we had no leads to follow up. It seemed that the opposition – whoever they were – had covered their tracks too well.
As I climbed reluctantly into my work clothes, the phone rang. It was Ken but frustratingly he wouldn’t tell me why he needed to see me so urgently, but I realised that it must have been important if I was finally being allowed into their inner sanctum at Vauxhall Cross. Most intriguing of all was his curt explanation: ‘We’ve picked up a signal. Zanzibar. I’ll tell you more when you get here.’
Ken came down to meet me at reception. ‘It seems the driver was able to plant it after al
l,’ he told me as he took me through security and up to a meeting room overlooking the Thames. ‘They appear to have offloaded in Zanzibar Island – not on the mainland at Mombasa. They must have sent it airfreight, not by ship.’
I knew Ed Carpenter from the MHRA but not the man or the woman who sat opposite him. ‘Sue is from our East African desk,’ he explained, ‘and Brent Hillman, here, is from the FDA. The US Food and Drugs Administration Agency,’ he added by way of introduction although it would be difficult to mistake Brent for anything other than an American. He was a big, jowly man, with short, gingery hair and a permanent sun tan.
‘They keep a watching brief over counterfeit pharmaceuticals,’ Ken Maxwell continued, ‘especially in Africa, so we thought they’d be interested in this.’ He sat down next to them and turned to me. ‘As I told you, we’ve picked up the signal in Zanzibar. Somehow the consignment has been offloaded although the plane manifest said it was for Mombasa. This might be a breakthrough – smuggling is one of Zanzibar’s major industries but we’ve always thought it was narcotics. Now it seems they might’ve added counterfeiting to their repertoire.’
‘So it seems you might be able to help us after all,’ Ken continued. ‘Our East African agents are still monitoring the Tau facility and the docks in Mombasa, but Brent here thinks your cover could still be useful. The FDA’s been pretty active in the region and he thinks they’ve become too high profile. A newcomer might be able to draw attention away from them and could remain unobserved.’
I looked across to Brent.
‘That’s right, Phil,’ he said in a rasping voice and I cringed at his familiarity. ‘Looks like you’ve turned up something interesting.’
I nodded and turned back to Ken. ‘So you want me to go to Zanzibar?’
‘I’m afraid we do. Somewhat against my better judgement, however. What do you think, Brent?’
The FDA man sighed as though facing a prospect not of his choosing. ‘They told us about your record, kid,’ he said and I winced again. Why did he have to lay it on so thick? ‘You’re army taught, accustomed to working under cover. You can obviously look after yourself and you’ve had some training in the pharmaceutical business. I suppose it’d be a waste not to use you. But as they say back in the old country, if that’s where you want to go, I wouldn’t have started from here.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, although it wasn’t the most ringing endorsement I’d ever heard. I turned back to Ken Maxwell. ‘Perhaps you should offer me a job?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had transferred.’
Interesting, I thought. ‘Do you have anyone else in Zanzibar?’
‘Not yet but we’re having someone fly across. Dickson Kogo; I’m told he’s highly competent.’
‘So the plane made an unscheduled stop on its way to Mombasa? How did they manage that?’
‘We were hoping you could find that out.’ Ken picked up a remote control. ‘You’ll see,’ he said as the blinds closed and a screen came down from the ceiling. ‘This is the track we’ve recorded from Mumbai.’ Ken brought up a satellite photo of the western Indian Ocean. ‘You can see the signal disappearing as it went into the container in Mumbai and then it appears again here.’ He pressed some buttons on his remote control and the picture zoomed into Zanzibar Island.
‘There’s the container port,’ he said pointing towards the centre. ‘It’s next to the capital, Stone Town, but you can see that the track doesn’t start again there. They must have used a ULD airfreight can – that’s a lightweight container that fits inside the aircraft hull – and then unloaded the container at the airport – it’s not possible to get access to an individual container while it’s still on the plane. You can see the track starts again a few miles north and stops.’
He fiddled with some more buttons and the picture zoomed in even closer. ‘It’s an industrial area – you can see the oil storage tanks in the background – but they appear to have unloaded the container here in this building. He pointed to a long roof close to the beach. ‘It seems to be a warehousing facility of some kind. There’s an island over a mile opposite – Grave Island. We think that’s privately owned.’
‘Did the track go there directly,’ I asked, ‘or did it stop somewhere along the route?’
‘No. While it was in the container we didn’t get any signal. Only when it was unloaded.’
I looked around the table. ‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘The same as you did in Mumbai, but with a slight difference,’ Ken replied. ‘You’ve still got your cover from Orion. You go in there and say you’ve heard that you might be able to buy pharmaceuticals on the cheap and see if they bite.’
‘Sounds dangerous. After what happened in Mumbai they could be expecting us.’
‘I can’t see we have any choice. We’ll have to take the chance – this is the only lead we’ve got.’
‘We know that Zanzibar is a centre for narcotics.’ This was Brent, the FDA man. ‘It’s got a long history of lawlessness. Hundreds of years, in fact.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ I said.
‘But what we’re really interested in,’ Ken Maxwell took over, ‘is to find out whether there’s any connection with Islamic groups. They’ve been spreading down from Somalia through northern Kenya. Zanzibar is nominally part of Tanzania, but it acts as though it’s entirely independent. Pemba, the island next door, is even worse – it’s East Africa’s equivalent of Spain’s Costa del Sol. Heads of organised crime have estates out there, knowing that no one can touch them.’
‘Sounds charming,’ I said. ‘If I don’t come back are you going to finish off the barge?’
Ken ignored me. ‘We’ve booked you on a flight to Nairobi in the morning, and then a connection onto Zanzibar. Dickson will meet you there. Oh, before you go, Sue will give you some lessons on the secure laptop you’re taking with you.’
Sue stood up and I nodded a general goodbye to the table and followed her out along the corridor into an office, which was little more than a corridor leading to a small internal balcony. On the table were a laptop and a cable leading outside to what looked like an early brick-like mobile phone. ‘It needs a clear view of the sky to get a signal. Links to the geo-stationary satellites, but operates at a much faster speed than an ordinary satphone. Also, it can only be hacked by another computer using our software, so look after it.’
She opened the laptop and booted it up and plugged the phone into the USB port. ‘Email works in the normal way and we’ve programmed in contact details here at Vauxhall Cross. Video conferencing works like Skype.’ Sue showed me which drop-down menus to choose from. ‘And this is a new app that you’ll probably need.’ She clicked on an icon on the desktop and a map of the world appeared. ‘It’s a bit like Google Earth, but it’s in real time. You zoom into the area you’re interested in and you can see the picture’s changing to a live satellite image.’ She held out the mouse to me. ‘Try it.’
I moved the cursor over Zanzibar Island and clicked on the zoom button. The picture jerked as the image lagged behind the cursor movement, but it grew bigger until finally I could see the same view that Ken had brought up on his screen. ‘Grave Island, wasn’t it?’ I asked, moved the cursor across to the oil storage tanks opposite and then zoomed in further to see an aircraft container parked outside a long building. ‘Amazing. Why didn’t we use this before?’
‘Because it’s not possible to track individual containers on ships, let alone planes,’ Sue said. ‘Also, there’s a slight drawback because it needs light so it doesn’t work at night.’ She took back the mouse. ‘It does have a tracking function, however.’ She zoomed out until a ship appeared on the screen and then clicked on it. ‘It’ll track that ship now. It’s a bit like an optical radar.’
‘So what happens at night?’
‘It’ll lose the target but can extrapolate the future position based on the speed and heading. It’s really very simple.’
‘If you happen to have
a constellation of satellites handy.’
Following Sayed’s phone call, I checked with Ali but he told me that he wouldn’t be able to make it and told me to go ahead without him. For a change, I decided that I’d go up to North London to meet Sayed, instead of asking him down to Wapping. In a funny sort of way, I hoped that he wouldn’t have anything of importance to tell me because I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to handle it, but there was no point worrying about it until it happened.
The melting pot of that area of London had seen countless immigrant communities established, but not without a cost of social division. Walking through the streets, I could see graffiti tags indicating the presence of rival gangs. I’d forgotten exactly where the park was where I’d met Sayed and took out my phone to check, but as I turned the corner I realised this was a mistake.
Facing me was a group of youths. ‘Nice phone, mister,’ one of them said, approaching me with his hand outstretched. ‘D’you want to hand it over?’
This was the last thing I needed. I took a step backwards and slipped the phone into my pocket. They didn’t like that and spread out. I turned with my back against the garden wall which would at least provide some protection.
‘Don’t get involved,’ I said. ‘It’s not worth it over a phone.’ I realised how stupid it sounded, since common sense told me to hand it over, but I was damned if I would. If they wanted a fight, I’d give them one.
‘It’s an iPhone, right?’ the boy said. ‘Cost a lot?’ He was clearly taunting me, but I said nothing and watched them carefully. The others seemed to be waiting for a sign from the leader, so I should take him out first. It was then that he brought out the knife.