Gray Vengeance

by Alan McDermott

  ‘What the hell have you done? I told you we need him alive!’

  ‘Relax, Andrew. I just zapped him with the Taser. That’s someone else’s blood.’

  Harvey approached Farrar’s prone form, knelt and found a pulse on the man’s neck.

  ‘Hamad, bring the car round. We need to get going,’ he said, turning to Gray. ‘Have you identified any of them?’

  ‘The one in the front room looks to be Michael West, the guy you asked me about a few days ago. I don’t recognise the others.’

  ‘Front’s clear,’ said Sonny, arriving at the landing and pausing to take in the scene.

  Harvey pulled out his phone to take pictures. If any of the bombers could identify them, it would help to cement the case against them.

  ‘Go and see if you can find any evidence of Farrar’s involvement,’ he told Thompson, who’d joined them on the landing. ‘I know this guy. He’ll have something. Flash drives, phones, laptops, bring it all.’

  Harvey photographed the corpse lying next to Farrar. Clearly it was Efram, aka Joel Haskins. In the front rooms, they had West, who was a known player, and another soldier who wasn’t. He checked the rear bedrooms, and found Thompson and Gray going through Farrar’s luggage. Two USB drives had already been separated, as had a few CDs.

  He walked back in the hallway, where Farrar was coming to, Sonny standing over him.

  ‘Hello, James. Some people back home would like to have a word with you.’

  ‘I want my solicitor.’

  Harvey laughed. ‘You think you’re going back to a nice comfy cell to await trial? Fat chance. You’d be on to the home secretary asking her to pull some strings.’

  Farrar glanced over to where Joel lay, the blood already coagulated around the head wound, his eyes staring up, unseeing. He turned back to Harvey. ‘So where are you taking me?’

  ‘South, to a little chunk of American soil.’

  ‘Guantánamo?’

  ‘Right first time. Come on, up you get.’

  Harvey dragged Farrar to his feet as Gray emerged from the bedroom with a small bag.

  ‘I think that’s everything,’ he said. ‘Is there anything you’d like us to bring along, James? Anything that might incriminate the home secretary and save your own skin?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Save it for your waterboarding sessions,’ Gray said. ‘Sonny, get something to secure his hands.’

  Sonny disappeared downstairs and returned a minute later with some electrical tape. He bound Farrar’s wrists behind him and led him down the stairs. Outside, Farsi was waiting with the car; Sonny opened the rear door and pushed Farrar in, climbing in beside him.

  Thompson took the front seat, while Harvey gave Gray the keys to the other car before taking the last seat in the vehicle.

  ‘We’ll wait for you on the top road,’ Harvey said, and told Farsi to go.

  Gray and Smart set off into the trees at a jog, their ride four hundred yards through the trees, but they’d barely broken sweat by the time they reached the car. Gray had just pulled onto the highway when flashing blue lights appeared in the rear-view mirror and turned off towards Farrar’s residence.

  Chapter 44

  23 December 2014

  Andrew Reed sat behind his ornate desk, hands folded in front of him and a grim countenance under his greying hair. He felt like he’d aged a decade in the last few hours, and the file that had been delivered to him that morning was the reason. He considered thumbing through it again, but the contents were already etched deep into his mind.

  A knock on the door to his private office roused him from his thoughts.

  ‘Come.’

  Juliet Harper walked slowly into the room and stood before him.

  ‘Prime Minister.’

  ‘Take a seat, Juliet.’

  Harper sat opposite him and straightened out her skirt.

  ‘I received this file relating to the interrogation of James Farrar a few hours ago,’ the PM said. ‘So, where do we begin?’

  ‘Andrew, you must understand that everything I did was for the benefit—’

  Reed slammed his hand down on the desk. ‘Don’t you dare pretend this was about the good of the people! You killed thousands of them!’

  ‘That was never the intention,’ Harper said, her composure never waning. ‘I envisaged only a handful of casualties. Farrar took my brief and manipulated it for his own purposes.’

  ‘Ah, so it’s all his fault.’

  ‘It is. We need Brigandicuum, and without last week’s attacks, you would have left it in mothballs indefinitely. Yes, people died, and I sincerely regret that, but we now have a defence mechanism greater than any nuclear arsenal. We can stop terror attacks while they’re still in the embryonic phase.’

  ‘So it was just a means to an end, is that what you’re saying?’

  Harper nodded, and the prime minister rose from his desk and began pacing, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘When I came to power,’ he said, ‘we’d been sitting on the opposition bench for over a decade. We watched from the sidelines as the country spiralled into debt, education standards slipped and welfare accounted for the biggest percentage of our budget for more than thirty years.

  ‘To inherit all that was already a major challenge, but when my predecessor told me about Brigandicuum, I made my feelings clear to you. The country was still reeling from the PRISM revelation, so there was no way I was going to activate something that made that look like amateur hour at the junior detective society.’

  ‘If you had, none of this would have been necessary,’ Harper said.

  ‘Necessary? Are you mad? I made the executive decision not to bring it online, and that should have been good enough for you. If you didn’t like it, you should have resigned, not planned a terror attack to have it activated.’

  Juliet sat very still and spoke softly. ‘My job is to protect the people of Britain from terror attacks. You were denying me the best possible tool to carry out that task. We’re now safeguarded against anything our enemies can throw at us, and yes, people died in the thousands, and they’ll be appropriately remembered, but what we did this week will guarantee our country’s safety for years to come.’

  Reed returned to his seat. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. I’m taking Brigandicuum offline.’

  Harper leant forward in her seat, her face colouring. ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘I can, and I am. What’s more, I’ve a good mind to reveal its existence. No-one should have this tool. Not us, not the Americans.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be so foolish. That would damage this country more than the attacks. The Americans would simply find another way to implement it, and our relationship with them would be over. That’s just for starters. Once people find out that the five major phone manufacturers and the dominant search-engine provider were complicit, those companies will be finished, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the UK alone. Never mind the effect on their investors and suppliers. With people thinking twice about using their phones and computers, commerce across every sector will be affected. This could knock the country back thirty years!’

  Reed knew she was right. He’d already considered the implications of revealing the details contained within the file, and it didn’t bode well for an already struggling economy. He would have to step down, of that there was no doubt, but that was a small sacrifice compared to what the people had endured.

  Those facts aside, someone had to pay for the heinous crimes committed in the name of national security.

  ‘Okay, so I don’t make an announcement, but I still need to decide what to do with you.’

  The faintest of smiles appeared on Harper’s face. ‘As you just said, this can’t reach the public domain. You appointed me to protect the people of Britain, and
I intend to do that for some time to come.’

  Reed was stunned by her brazen attitude. ‘You expect to walk away from this unscathed?’

  ‘The official line is that Takasa died in an explosion last week, along with the rest of the DSA hierarchy. No-one knows that Takasa was actually James Farrar, and they don’t need to. The smaller players are either dead or in custody. If you make me take the fall for this, I guarantee the details of this operation will reach the media.’

  ‘Are you blackmailing me?’

  ‘I’m just saying the loose ends are tied up, so there’s no need to dwell on it.’

  ‘You seem to be forgetting that Joel Haskins, along with Michael West and his men, were massacred in Cuba at the weekend. Then there’s James Farrar to consider.’

  ‘I already spoke to the Cubans,’ Harper said. ‘They believe a local drug lord was eliminating a new player. As for Farrar, he’s no longer a problem.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘As you probably already know, he has a set of recordings that could expose our role in the attacks. As long as he contacts a Swiss solicitor every ninety days with a new password, those details remain buried.’

  ‘Yes, I read about his leverage in the file,’ the prime minister said, not liking the way the conversation was going.

  ‘A close contact in the CIA tipped me off that Farrar had been taken to Guantánamo Bay. He’s since been moved out of the country, safely under lock and key. I took the liberty of sending someone to explain to him that he will stay there until we need him again. It could be months, it could be years, but he’ll remain incarcerated until that day arrives. Just as long as he plays ball.’

  ‘You’re seriously thinking of letting that madman loose again?’

  Harper shook her head. ‘Hardly, but it’s the only hope he has left.’

  Reed rose and began pacing again. ‘That isn’t the end of it, Juliet. What about the people who brought him in? There are several names in that file, and one of them is Tom Gray. Given that he knows your role in this, history tells me he won’t let this go.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to take care of him. Offer him money, anything, just keep him quiet.’

  ‘And if I can’t?’

  ‘Then you’ll be known as the PM who brought his country to its knees.’

  Reed sat back and stared at her, disgusted by the smug look on her face. What was particularly chilling was that Harper was considered by many to be his natural successor when his stint as party leader was at an end. He was looking at the woman who would one day lead the nation, and he had only a few moments to decide if he could let that happen. Could he allow such an extremist to take over the reins? If he didn’t, the alternative had already been spelt out in plain terms.

  ‘You make a very convincing case,’ he said at last. ‘Send David in on your way out. I have some arrangements to make.’

  Harper smiled as she rose. ‘You know it’s the right decision, Andrew.’

  Reed nodded, then turned to face the bulletproof window as she made her way out. A minute later, his personal assistant knocked and entered.

  ‘Take a seat, David. We’ve got a lot to do.’

  Epilogue

  24 December 2014

  Tom Gray handed his daughter another strand of tinsel and lifted her up so that she could hang it on the Christmas tree.

  ‘Wow! Looks like we’ve got an interior designer in the family,’ he said, even though the tree looked like it had survived an explosion at a bauble factory.

  The decorations were put on hold as the intercom announced a visitor at the gates, and Gray carried Melissa over to the control panel, where he saw Andrew Harvey sitting in his car.

  ‘Come on up,’ Gray said, pressing the gate release.

  Two minutes later, Harvey knocked on the door and Gray let him in.

  ‘This is for you,’ Harvey said, handing Melissa a large, colourfully wrapped present. She immediately began tearing at the paper, and Gray put her down on the floor while she ripped it apart to reveal a fluffy bunny rabbit toy.

  ‘Thanks,’ Gray said. ‘I was just about to make coffee.’

  ‘Just one sugar for me. I’m cutting down.’

  Harvey sat in a chair and watched Melissa getting acquainted with her new friend while Gray disappeared into the kitchen. He was back two minutes later with a couple of steaming mugs.

  ‘I trust you saw the PM’s announcement,’ Harvey said.

  ‘You could hardly miss it,’ Gray told him. Every channel had interrupted regularly scheduled programming to show the live news conference in which Reed had revealed the real people behind the recent atrocities. ‘Do you think he’ll survive this?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Harvey said. ‘I think he was telling the truth when he said he had no idea it was going on, but will the public really buy it? And if he didn’t know, then he seems incompetent, right?’

  Gray nodded.

  ‘Also,’ Harvey said, ‘he’ll have zero American support after revealing Brigandicuum. It took them years to set that up, not to mention tens of billions of dollars, and now it’s worthless—and a horrible embarrassment. I can’t see them wanting to deal with Britain while Reed’s still in command.’

  ‘He must have known that was coming.’

  ‘I’m sure he did,’ Harvey agreed. ‘Ironic, really. We get an honest prime minister, and it costs him his job.’

  ‘At least Harper’s going down with him,’ Gray said.

  ‘And I don’t think she’ll ever be released,’ Harvey said. ‘There are even calls on Facebook for the death penalty to be reintroduced in time for her trial.’

  ‘That’s hardly new,’ Gray said. ‘People are always asking for that, and we both know it’ll never happen.’

  ‘No, it won’t.’

  They sat in silence for a while, before Gray asked about James Farrar.

  ‘He’s on his way back from Incirlik air base in Turkey.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll be able to keep him inside this time?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Harvey said. ‘They’re recommissioning an old prison to hold everyone involved. They’ll all be held in solitary until the trial, which is expected to take place late next year.’

  ‘Why so long?’

  ‘There are more than one hundred and fifty defendants. It’ll take a long time to organise their defence teams, and the decision has yet to be made about whether they’ll all be tried together, or in smaller groups.’

  That made sense to Gray, but he didn’t like the idea of having to wait almost a year to see justice done. And he was sure he wasn’t the only one. Just about everyone in the country either had been a victim or knew someone who had. The news he’d watched that morning said it would still be months before the country fully recovered from what they were now calling Twelve-Fifteen, and for many it would live with them forever.

  ‘Veronica wanted me to pass on her thanks,’ Harvey said.

  ‘It wasn’t just me,’ Gray reminded him. ‘You and Hamad did most of the leg work.’

  ‘I think specifically she wanted to thank you for not shooting Farrar when you had the chance.’

  Gray smiled. ‘In that case, she owes me big time.’

  Melissa abandoned her new toy and began rummaging in the box of decorations. Quickly, she found a long red and silver garland and began towing it around the room.

  ‘Have you got plans for tomorrow?’ Gray asked. ‘You’re welcome to come over. It’s just going to be me and Melissa, and we can’t finish a whole roast between us.’

  ‘I’d love to, but Sarah already invited me over to her place.’

  ‘Really? Let bygones be bygones, eh? Despite her running Mackenzie?’

  ‘Turns out he was Farrar’s idea. He figured that once his disappearance made the papers, you’d get involved somehow. Mackenzie was supposed to be hi
s insurance.’

  ‘If he was Farrar’s man, why go to the trouble of having Roberts take me out? Why not Mackenzie? Not that I’m complaining, but he would have done a better job.’

  ‘Farrar wanted your death to look like just one of many during the attacks. If Mackenzie took you out, the trail would lead back to Harper, and ultimately to him.’

  Andrew nodded, his coffee mug hiding his smile.

  ‘Well, I hope you two make a go of it,’ Gray said. ‘Think you can keep hold of this one?’

  ‘She already knows what I do for a living, so my long hours aren’t going to be a strain on this relationship. I’m surprised you didn’t spend Christmas with the in-laws, though.’

  ‘I think they were less than happy at being dragged out of their home,’ Gray said. ‘I’ll give them a few months to calm down, then pop over nearer Melissa’s birthday.’

  Harvey’s phone beeped, and he checked to find a new text message.

  ‘Still using a smart phone?’ Gray asked. ‘After all we’ve been through?’

  ‘Brigandicuum is officially offline,’ Harvey told him. ‘This morning I spoke to Tony Manello, the guy heading it up, and he confirmed that the auto-kill function was activated. No more data will be collected from anyone’s devices again.’

  ‘You sound like you’ll miss it.’

  Harvey shrugged. ‘On the one hand, we’re still combing through the data we downloaded over the last week, and it was tremendous. We’ve identified over three hundred new potential threats from it already. On the flip side, once those threats are neutralised, there’ll be another thousand to replace them, and we won’t know about them until it’s too late.’

  ‘Sobering thought,’ said Gray.

  ‘Yeah . . . . From a security point of view, it’s irreplaceable, but personally, I never liked the idea of everything I typed or said being scrutinised.’

  ‘Then we’re on the same page,’ Gray said.

  Harvey finished up his drink and placed the cup on the table, then removed an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Gray.