by Henry Porter
‘Which brings me to your husband,’ said Lazarus with a reassuring smile. ‘Broadly, it’s good news. He’s stable and is responding to treatment. We’re seeing improvements every hour in his general condition. Analysis has shown that this agent was a precursor to Novichok. Basically, it’s a concentrated organophosphate, a pesticide, though the chemical structure is new to the toxicologists who have been working on this case, and we wonder if this variation in the structure is responsible for the seizures. He suffered another today, which is disappointing. We’ve given him a pretty large dose of Diazepam – you probably know it as Valium – which is effective at suppressing seizures, but we really wish he wasn’t having them at this stage.’ He placed his hands together and put them to his lips.
‘The nurse said he squeezed her hand.’
‘He did, and mine, also. He’s on the edge of consciousness, but we don’t want him to come round yet. He needs rest. The first twenty-four hours of nerve-agent attack are unpleasant and traumatic, and really terrifying for the victim. We still don’t know the extent of damage to his peripheral nervous system. He may have some problems walking and his sense of touch may be affected. But, look, we’re pleased and we are ninety per cent certain that he’s going to pull through. He’s fit and tough. I gather he’s been through some rough times and is used to hardship.’
She nodded. ‘What about his mental capacity?’
‘A little slow to start with, but it will take time to assess if there’s any long-term cognitive impairment. We need to control the seizures that cause that kind of damage and we want to make sure that he isn’t going to be left with temporal lobe epilepsy, which is one possibility that I have to warn you about. It’s a long road, but I’m hopeful he will make a full recovery.’
‘How long?’
‘Six to nine months, but a lot of rehabilitation can take place at his home.’
‘I’m thinking about his business.’
Lazarus shook his head. ‘You can probably forget the next three or four months. He won’t have the concentration, or the stamina. Someone is going to have to take his place. Is that a problem?’
‘Jesus. The business is all in his head – it’s all literally locked up in there.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.’ He got up and took her hand. ‘We’ll keep you in touch with any developments, and I’ll see you at the end of the week. Good luck, Mrs Hisami.’
Chapter 9
Düppel
There were two employees at GreenState that Samson thought he could tap for information on Zoe. Rob, the volunteer organiser, was one, although the appalling Desmond had almost certainly told him about Samson’s ‘harassment’ of Ingrid Cole. There was also Francis, a bright lad in Digital who had shared the volunteer room with Samson for most of the time he had worked there, using the name Michael Ash; he might not have been told why ‘Ash’ had been told to go. Francis left work promptly at five thirty every day and walked to St James’s Park Tube. On one occasion Samson had accompanied him and they’d had a drink in a noisy pub full of tech people who worked around Whitehall. Many of them were gamers and Francis dropped in most evenings to talk to his gamer pals.
Samson bought himself a pint of lager and took up position near the door. Francis appeared bang on time with his odd, lolloping walk, hands sunk deep in his trouser pockets and a bag slung across his body. ‘What’s up, Michael? You weren’t in today, right?’ he said, flicking his forelock back and grinning ambiguously.
‘No, couldn’t make it. And I’ve got to admit, I had a problem with Desmond – he didn’t like me reading up about GreenState’s business structure.’ He ordered Francis a pint.
‘The guy’s an arsehole. Knows fuck all. Total wanker.’
‘On that we agree,’ said Samson. ‘Why are they so sensitive about it all? I mean, it’s just like any NGO, right?’
‘It’s different. It’s got a huge membership, which is like three or four times the size of any political party, and it’s really, really rich. Members’ income has got to be over twenty-five mill’ a year, and that’s not including all the donations and what have you.’
‘Ingrid was saying something similar.’
‘You talked to Ingrid? No one talks to Ingrid. She’s scary.’ He sank half of his pint in one long draught and gave Samson a sideways look. ‘But she’s really hot,’ he concluded, wiping foam from his upper lip.
‘You see her today?’
‘Nope, she’s on compassionate leave. Away for the next couple of weeks – a family bereavement, apparently, which is totally mortifying for the guys in Digital.’
‘Someone close?’
‘Has to be for that length of time off, right?’
‘I’m not sure what she actually does?’ Samson wanted Francis’s take.
‘She’s an all-rounder. Totally gets digital. She can code and she’s terrific at messaging and video – has a lot of great ideas. She’s literally the only senior person who knows what they’re talking about in meetings. For example, she can read the MRP results really well.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Multi-level regression and post-stratification polling. That’s a survey on attitudes by using very large samples – maybe as many as a hundred thousand. It’s all about using demographics to predict the way people are going to feel about certain issues. It’s pretty cool. Ingrid is really good at the analysis side – she has that kind of bent.’
Samson thought and looked down at Francis’s empty glass. ‘Want another?’
‘Yep, if you’re buying.’
‘So this is basically where Ingrid sits – right at the top of that mound of data.’
‘Nah, she has input on what GreenState is going to research, but she doesn’t have access to the whole database – that’s restricted. Nobody does, except maybe the people at the top – the PR guy, some others.’
‘Who’s the PR guy?’
‘Jonathan Mobius. He sold his Mobius Strand for millions. Seventy-five mill’, I think. He’s part of some big-dick US corporation and he works for them and does GreenState.’
‘Does GreenState?’
‘Chairs it – and he’s still at his own company.’
‘None of that is very clear on the Web.’
‘There are a lot of fake stories out there, a lot of ghosts and mirages. Düppel!’
‘Düppel?’
‘Otherwise known as chaff – radar-fucking countermeasures, developed in the Berlin suburb of Düppel by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.’
‘Whose radar?’
‘Anyone’s.’ He looked at Samson with amusement from beneath his forelock. ‘We couldn’t decide whether you were fired because you were stalking Ingrid or because you were some kind of spook. Everyone noticed you getting the jump on Ingrid before she left the office – the water-bottle thing – so we assumed that you were, like, hot for her. People watch each other really closely in a place like GreenState. But then we reasoned that if that fuckwit Desmond was telling everyone that you harassed Ingrid, then it had to be the other thing. The spying thing.’
Samson grinned. ‘I’ll get that pint.’ He waved at the barman. ‘What about Mobius?’ he went on.
‘You didn’t say which you were doing – stalking or spying.’
‘Neither. Really! Now tell me about Mobius.’
‘I don’t know anything about him – except Jonathan Mobius is worth a fortune. We never see him except once a year, when he brings in doughnuts and gets down, dirty and digital, but he hasn’t the first fucking clue. You can see him for yourself at the GreenState rally in a couple of weeks. It’s free. They need numbers. They’ll let anyone in – even a fucking stalker.’ Francis snorted into his beer.
‘Good speaking to you, Francis,’ Samson said, sliding off the stool. ‘I gave you my number before – yes? So, if anything occurs to
you, dial it.’
‘What’s that mean?’
Samson placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke to his ear. ‘I think you know I’m a good guy. That’s why you’ve talked to me. If you have anything you think a good guy might want to hear, call me, okay?’
Francis gave him a knowing smirk. ‘Okay, Mr Spy.’
Chapter 10
The Pit
The word ‘Düppel’ played in his mind as he circled two blocks then went through St James’s Park Tube station and exited on the western side to lose any watchers he might have picked up. If GreenState had taken so much trouble to obscure its ownership structure, it had much else to hide, and that was surely what Zoe Freemantle was there to find out. He wondered where the Edgar Building fitted into the picture.
He spent an hour going through his dry-cleaning routines. Certain that he wasn’t being followed, he made his way to a backstreet on the Fulham side of Putney Bridge, which was conveniently close to the Tube line, bus station and the river-boat service Zoe often used to travel in to GreenState.
She lived there as Ingrid Cole in a recently converted two-storey building called Sail Maker’s Yard, in which there were eight apartments of various sizes used for short-term rentals. She had one of the smaller ones – Number Eight, also called ‘Jib’. He’d been there twice before and on one occasion had managed, through the letting agency, to gain access to the building and have a look round Jib. It was coming free at the end of June and Samson said he was looking for somewhere for the Wimbledon fortnight in July. He had no desire to poke around Zoe’s things, but he did want to see if she was living there full-time and whether she had a partner, in which case his job of keeping an eye on her security would perhaps be a little easier. A sponge bag and toothbrush, on charge, were in the bathroom, and a little basic make-up sat by the mirror in the bedroom. There were very few personal items other than three small framed photographs on the windowsill, which he guessed were part of Ingrid Cole’s backstory and meant nothing to Zoe Freemantle. He was unable to look in the wardrobe, because the letting agent was with him, yet he reckoned that everything in the flat belonging to Ingrid Cole would probably fit into the medium-sized suitcase standing in the corner of the bedroom. Ingrid Cole’s residence was only lightly touched by habitation and there was, of course, no sign that this sparse, unbelievable existence was shared with anyone.
He knew she spent some nights at the flat that overlooked the street because he had followed her there, but it appeared she was elsewhere that evening. The curtains weren’t drawn and no light came from inside. He moved to the doorway of the bookshop directly opposite the flat, climbed the three steps to the door and stood on tiptoe. It was hard to see, but he was sure that the three photograph frames had vanished from the bedroom windowsill.
His phone went. ‘Macy!’
‘Where are you?’
‘Looking for Zoe. Any news?’
‘Tulliver was in touch. Denis is still in a coma. Looks like he won’t recover any time soon – it’s a long process. A couple of years ago, when Anastasia went home after the kidnap and he was released from detention by the Department of Homeland Security, they put a lot of measures in place. She’s got power of attorney and is taking over everything, so I expect to be hearing from her directly . . .’
‘Hold on, Macy! There was a sound of the electronic buzzer that opened the double gates that accessed a tiny enclosed garden and all the flats. He saw no one but heard footsteps and some wheels bumping over the paving flags beyond the gates. ‘I think this might be her. I’m going.’
Someone had unlocked the iron gates but was waiting to move into the street. A car came round the right-angle bend near the Tube station at the bottom of the street and moved slowly towards him. The driver was looking for an address. He stopped outside Sail Maker’s Yard. The gate swung open and Zoe appeared, towing the suitcase he’d seen in the flat; a red bobble was tied to the side handle to make identification at an airport carousel easier.
She shoved the suitcase on to the back seat and followed. As she was exchanging words with the driver, a motorbike rounded the corner. This, too, was moving slowly. Just as Samson saw the blue livery of the bike and a pillion passenger holding the phone in his palm, Zoe’s car moved off. The bike roared up the street, drew level with the car and slowed so the pillion passenger could lean down and look inside. The driver sounded his horn, made as if to steer into the bike then accelerated away. The bike shot ahead of the car and turned right at the end of the street. They weren’t interested in Zoe, so the only conclusion must be they were searching for him, and he knew exactly how they’d found him, but he couldn’t do anything about that now. He left the doorway and sprinted the 150 yards towards the Tube station. As he reached the right-angle bend he heard the bike behind. He ran across the street, vaulted the barrier and tore up the stairs of the Victorian station. A District Line train was standing at the platform. It was going north. He leapt on as the doors closed and looked back to see a figure in a hoodie reach the top of the stairs as the train drew out.
On the train, he turned off the three phones he carried and took the batteries out. The only way they could have found him was to track one of his numbers. He changed lines and went to Victoria, where he used a payphone to call Cedar’s reservations number. He got through to Ivan; his maître d’ stand faced the entrance to the restaurant and gave him a good view of the street. Having worked at Cedar for twenty years, Ivan knew the street better than anyone and was on good terms with the club doormen, the prostitutes that trawled for Middle Eastern men and the security details of nearby embassies that made up the particular Mayfair ecosystem.
‘Notice anyone strange hanging about the place today?’ Samson asked. ‘Two men on a motorbike; one is large and freakish. Can you put the word out on him?’
‘Nothing of that nature so far,’ Ivan replied. ‘Most of the freaks are in the restaurant.’
Samson laughed. ‘What are our numbers like tonight?’
‘Good – a hundred and sixty-five-plus covers.’
‘Excellent. There’s something I need you to do. There’s a box in the office beneath my desk. You can’t miss it. Can you bring it in a cab and pick me up at Victoria Station, by the Gatwick Express entrance.’
Half an hour later Ivan arrived in a cab with the box. As they travelled back to the restaurant, Samson unlocked it and replaced the two phone sets inside with the three in his pockets. Ivan gave him a quizzical look.
‘It’s a Faraday box. Blocks all signals. The phones can’t be accessed or tracked when they’re in it. One of these has been giving away my position. Any news from your street network, Ivan?’
‘Maybe some surveillance earlier in the day, but there’s always something going on and it’s hard to say who the hell the target is.’
‘You got that information quickly.’
‘We’ve got a message group to alert each other to problems. The girls started exchanging information on police in the area, men to avoid, high rollers from the clubs – that kind of thing. Our group is called Mayfair Ladies.’
Samson grinned. ‘No one’s seen the big fellow on a bike yet?’ He opened up one of the new phones and found the film of the Matador on social media. He froze it and took a screengrab, which he sent to Ivan’s phone. ‘Can you circulate that to Mayfair Ladies? He had a go at me with a knife yesterday and followed me this evening.’
‘Then we must make sure he doesn’t have another opportunity,’ said Ivan, seemingly untroubled by the news that someone had tried to murder his boss, which was, after all, not an uncommon event.
At Cedar, Samson took a screen grab of the man who had poisoned Hisami at the Rayburn Building, and sent it together with the one of the Matador to a number belonging to Vuk Divjak. Vuk had helped Samson on the search for Naji and had been at Narva. He was well connected to the Balkan underworld. If there was anyone who’d be able to help Sa
mson find out about the pair it would be him, although the information would undoubtedly arrive scrambled in Vuk’s version of English.
He sent his new number to several people, including Macy Harp, his assistant, Imogen, Naji and Jo Hayes and then called Jo, wondering if she was going to spend a second night at the flat. She’d brought a bag with her the night before and he couldn’t remember seeing her leave with it. There was no response to the call, or his earlier message. He phoned down to Ivan. The street appeared to be clear, but he left by a side entrance and worked his way north to a mews where he met the cab ordered by Ivan.
The taxi dropped him about a short walk south of the Junction and he approached on foot. He passed through it twice on either side, noting one or two lights springing from different parts of the Edgar Coach and Engineering Works, and by the time he took up position in Cooper’s Court – where he’d left the motorbike, which had vanished – he was sure that no one else was watching the building; at least, there was nothing like the operation he’d seen a couple of days before. This seemed odd, given Jo’s insistence that the place held a special interest for the security services and the two members of MI5 had more or less confirmed that at the meeting in Carlton House Terrace.
He pulled out the small binoculars from his jacket and scanned the building, but saw nothing. After half an hour, his attention was drawn to a car that issued from a loading bay a little way along Herbert Street, to the east of the Junction. Previously, he’d ignored the loading bay because it was so far from the entrance, but it was conceivable that it served the Edgar. He crossed the road for a better view and placed himself in a recess between a locksmith and a wine warehouse. Knowing that an encounter with Zoe was extremely unlikely, he decided to give it another half-hour before leaving for his flat.