I dialled his cell and got a ‘number unobtainable’ signal. That was a bad sign as this was a mobile Dallman always kept on silent alert, even during meetings. I didn’t want to call his office number, so I tried his home. Dallman’s wife Victoria came on the line and as soon as she spoke, I knew there was something wrong. She told me Dallman was in Afghanistan and had not been in touch for several days. I explained that I needed to put into effect an emergency arrangement I had agreed with her husband. At first, she pretended not to know about it. When I pressed her she said ‘I can’t do anything without James’ say-so’. I pressed harder and she finally agreed that I could come to the flat but her tone suggested that whatever camaraderie had existed between our two families had for some reason dissipated.
When I arrived in Willesden Green, it still smelled of smoke. There had been protests overnight after police raided the local mosque. Cars had been burned, a Jewish-owned laundrette looted, and several streets were still cordoned off. Willesden Green was a suburb that hung in the balance, poised to go up or down in the social scale, as areas of London often seemed to. Once predominantly a Jewish area, second only in prosperity to neighbouring Golders Green, it consisted mainly of large homes now mostly divided into flats. It also had many poorer residents moved in by the council and local housing associations. But there was also new money coming into the area, much of it Asian. Some of the houses were being restored and gentrified by traders and entrepreneurs looking for the kind of quiet suburban life their Jewish predecessors had once sought.
Fortunately, Dallman lived some distance away from the mosque and there weren’t many police about. His road contained a typical mixture of property, with every gradation of prosperity from the newly wealthy to the re-housed homeless families. It was deserted except for a small group of tough-looking kids kicking a football about between the lines of parked cars. At the approach of an adult, they looked defiant, signalling an unspoken challenge to anyone who might tell them not to put the parked vehicles at risk. But as I approached and they got a closer look, they stopped playing and moved a little further down the street, before starting to kick again. I realised I had unconsciously re-acquired the look which warned anyone capable of reading faces to be careful of confrontations with me.
What a difference a day made, I thought wryly. All the work I had put into cultivating a friendly, easy-going persona had gone in a morning. The BBC selection board already seemed a lifetime away. All of a sudden I felt ridiculously cheerful. It was completely illogical. I was in deep shit with no sign of an easy way out, but for better or worse, I was back in my own world. I had enjoyed working for the World Service. I liked the people, the work was interesting and I genuinely believed it was worthwhile. Yet it was everything I had never wanted in a career: safe, worthy and dull. In my own private terms, it was a second class life. After the Geneva fiasco, I had accepted that I had no choice but to make the best of it. Now, all that was over and I was back in the survival game and would have to clear my name or go under in the attempt.
I turned into the Dallmans’ entrance and rang the bell for the top flat. Victoria Dallman came down immediately, looking flustered and ill at ease. She was in her late thirties, pretty in a well-bred county kind of way, and would have looked more at home in a country house surrounded by dogs and horses. They had bought the flat when Dallman had been posted to the Ministry of Defence, but I’d always felt they would end up somewhere in fashionable countryside. Victoria led me upstairs and I was shocked by what I saw. The lounge, which had looked so stylish when I had last been in it, some months before, now seemed distinctly shabby and unlived in. There was dust on several pieces of furniture and the loose covers on the huge white sofa had not been washed recently.
‘Sad isn’t it,’ Victoria said in a subdued voice.
‘What happened?’
‘We’re splitting up. It’s all gone horribly wrong, I’m afraid. Faults on both sides. But you don’t want the sordid details. You want your money and your car and I’m afraid I can’t give them to you. James has volunteered for a special assignment in Afghanistan. I don’t know when he’ll be back and he’s left me pretty short of money, while the lawyers fight.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, well. I’m sorry you’re in trouble, whatever it is. But I have no money and if I give you the car, I won’t be able to get a replacement, she hesitated, ‘the card won’t stand it. When James gets back, he’ll repay anything he owes you, of course. He’s still a man of honour and all that.’
The edge of irony in her tone suggested many long nights of fighting and weeping and I said simply, ‘ Tori, I’m really sorry. I won’t stay. Could I just go upstairs.’ Before she could say anything, I added quickly, ‘As far as you’re concerned, I’m going upstairs to the loo. If anyone asks, you can say truthfully – on oath if necessary - that I came here to borrow money. You refused and I went away.’
‘Of course. And as soon as James calls. I’ll tell him to get in touch.’
‘He won’t be able to reach me for a while,’ I said, ‘ but don’t worry, we’ll sort it all out later.’
My ‘safe place’ was a walk-in cupboard in the attic that had once been a maid’s room when the building had been a complete house. It was large, almost the size of a closet, and secured by combination locks. I released the door and examined my stores. The clothing was a disappointment. There was a short rack of garments but I hadn’t been diligent enough in keeping the cache up-to-date and most of them were much too heavy to wear in the current heat wave. I changed into the only pair of chinos that would be bearable and put my lightweight suit into the empty canvas holdall. I also packed some underwear and two extra shirts and a pair of sandals, then turned my attention to the technical items. They at least were fully up-to-date. There were three more SIM cards purchased by a colleague in the Middle East and a specially adapted iPhone, which had been kitted out with some seriously illegal software by another former colleague who had developed what he called a ‘Black Apps store.’
I packed them all in the holdall, together with a high quality digital camera, flash cards, spare battery and charger, and a military night-vision scope which was no longer state-of-the-art but was still very effective. I also put in some rudimentary materials to achieve rough disguises. Most were pretty crude but good enough to fool someone reviewing CCTV footage.
Next came the much more difficult decision of whether to take any weapons. There was a Glock automatic pistol, but I had thought the question over on the drive to Willesden Green and already decided against taking it. I had no licence for it and if I were found carrying it, the police would have a good excuse, with my background, to lock me up under anti-terrorism legislation beyond any chance of appeal.
I had access to other weapons elsewhere if things got really rough but I decided that for now I would choose a catapult that had been custom-made to my specifications. It was my favourite personal weapon and, used correctly, as lethal as a gun. It was constructed in metal sections which folded flat into a compact and innocent-looking metal block, with the rubber inside. With it was a special waist belt which contained twenty ball-bearings. There was also a manual called ‘Hunting with a Slingshot’, the American term for a catapult. It was meant as cover to give the weapon a more harmless look, but I left it in the cupboard. In these circumstances, it would fool no-one. I put on the belt, put the catapult and the rest of the items into the holdall, added a field survival kit and some first aid gear and went back downstairs to say good-bye to Victoria.
‘I don’t expect all this will slow you up for long,’ she said, ‘James always said that you used to treat bloody great obstacles as minor setbacks. Anyway, I’m sorry. It just can’t be helped.’
She offered me tea but I refused, said good-bye and went back to the car. I drove well away from Willesden Green then parked near a recreation ground, ostensibly to watch a scratch game of cricket and took stock of the situation.
I knew I had to assum
e the worst possible scenario: that SIS would set up a full trace operation, sending uniformed police to my flat, and probably leaving an overnight watch. But I needed money urgently. I knew my cards would be blocked but it was just possible the process hadn’t been activated yet. I decided it was worth a try, but I had to be careful which ATM to choose. The first time I used one, SIS would be alerted and my location advised, and that would be the starting point for any search.
After some thought, I chose Blackheath as the best place to try a cash machine. It was a comfortable middle class suburb with no police station nearer than Greenwich. Blackheath had at least four bank machines and I chose one near the station, which was in a side street, with alleys around to make a quick escape. In the end, my careful planning came to exactly nothing. I inserted the card and it was immediately swallowed by the machine, with the notification that I should contact my bank. I sprinted back to the car and headed back to ‘Ocean Dream’. It was now official. I was on the run and the security services had already launched a Category One hunt.
Chapter 6
‘Disgraced intelligence officer wanted for murder in Italy on the kill again in World Service newsroom brawl.’
Those were the words that greeted me when I got back on board Ocean Dream. I read the UpstairsBackstairs headline looking over Kate’s shoulder at the Powerbook screen. When I arrived back, Kate took me straight to the office. She didn’t speak and it was clearly an effort for her to stay in control.
‘You’d better read on,’ she said quietly.
I did as I was told and saw the material was laid out like a news agency despatch, but intercut with tabloid clichés and gossipy innuendo.
‘John Saxon, butter wouldn’t melt editor in Auntie’s most staid Holy of Holies – the BBC World Service – turns out to be a former undercover spook who killed an Italian army officer who was having an affair with his wife.
Now he’s surfaced again to have a second go at another man he half-killed once before – yes you’ve guessed it – also for having an affair with his wife.
Today’s fight in the World Service newsroom was a re-run of one in plush Hostaria dell’ Orso, Rome’s canteen of the rich and famous.’
Underneath there were two still pictures side by side. One showed me trying to dislocate Omar’s shoulder in the newsroom fight. The other showed me holding Omar in a headlock over a restaurant table as a distraught waiter watched. Both had links to a series of pictures of each fight.
There was also a link to what U-B called its ‘gallery of characters.’ There were pictures of all players in the morning scene, with the captions beneath, inviting anyone to become a citizen reporter.
‘What do you know about these people? Who are they? What were they doing in the World Service newsroom. Post your data here.’
My photo was central and beneath it were those of Ray Vossler, Ali Omar and Jeremy Simpson-Carr. There was also a photo of the woman I didn’t know, who had been standing with them in the newsroom. The photos were camera-phone quality and had obviously been taken during the fight.
This was the U-B’s basic scatter-gun newsgathering technique: set up a situation, post pictures of all those involved then, as the results flooded in, shape them roughly into story form. The posts were in so fast it was impossible to keep up.
Kate watched as I read on. Finally, she said, ‘I’ve spent the last hour reading this and wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into, she said. ‘I have a lot of questions.’
‘Ask anything you like,’ I said, and I meant it. Kate was risking a lot to help me. With so much out on the internet, there was nothing to be gained from holding back.
‘OK’, Kate said, ‘here are my questions. Are you a murderer?’
‘No’.
‘Are you a spook?’
‘Not any longer, but I was.’
‘What kind?’
‘I worked for British intelligence’
‘Doing what?’
‘I was a field agent in the Secret Intelligence Service, SIS.
‘Is that like MI6?’
‘It is MI6. SIS is its proper title but the names are interchangeable.’
‘And now the woman’s question,’ Kate said. ‘Are you married?’
‘No. I was married. My wife is dead. Her death is right at the centre of all this.’
Kate looked thoughtful and slightly relieved.
‘I didn’t do too badly,’ she said, ‘I figured you were a spook, I didn’t figure you for a murderer but I wasn’t sure about the wife. Now, you’d better tell me what the hell’s going on.’
‘It all goes back three years,’ I began. ‘I was running an undercover investigation in Iraq and Jordan. It was about massive-scale corruption. I started uncovering truths that powerful government players in both Washington and London wanted to remain hidden. They included some of my own masters. The three men you saw in the newsroom were the main suspects, but the one that matters is the older American. Ray Vossler.’
‘That is Vossler as in Vossler Group?’
‘You know them?’
‘Sure. Private Equity Company. Mega-huge. They’re one of the biggest sponsors in ocean racing.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said, ‘then you must know the Vossler brothers, Ivan and Mark.’
‘Ivan once presented me with a trophy,’ Kate said, ‘had his teeth pretty tightly clenched too as the Vossler name was stencilled all over the boat I beat!’
‘Yes, well Ray Vossler is the third brother,’ I said, ‘the one you never hear about. Ray is the dark side. He’s probably the world’s biggest money launderer. The Vossler Group is the vehicle to which he funnels money. Ivan and Mark are the respectable face of private equity. Relentless grippers and grinners. Good military records. Golden boys in Washington. And the Vossler Group also has strong CIA connections.’
‘Ray Vossler too?’
‘Especially Ray. Also, he’s a leading Neocon, ultra right-wing, at least on the surface. In reality he has no politics and no morality. He’s laundered money for Saddam Hussein, for the Oil-for-food scammers and for the war profiteers who are making millions off the back of the invasion of Iraq.’
‘Where does Rome come in?’
‘There was a big arms conference in Rome. Everyone was there. Ray Vossler hatched a scheme to shut down my investigation.
‘In the course of it, my wife was raped and killed and I accidentally killed an Italian intelligence officer. They managed to fix it so that I was accused of murder.’
‘Jesus,’ Kate said, ‘how did you get out of it?’
‘I didn’t. I was forced to do a deal to keep out of prison.’
I was just about to go into more detail when another image flashed on the screen. It was a shot of the speedboat taken from the lower deck of HMS Belfast. The U-B layout left one side of the split screen on permanent refresh so that new material was dropping in every few seconds but the speedboat remained at the top of the column and a caption was quickly added.
‘Saxon escapes – but who is helping?’ ‘Who is at the wheel? Then underneath, ‘Blog here if you know this boat.’
It took less than a minute for the answers to start coming in. Then there were more pictures of the boat taken from different angles. I was identifiable in all of them but it was not until the fourth that there was a side view of Kate’s face.
The response to that was almost instantaneous. Between the pictures the posts began to flow in, first naming Kate, then adding fragments of biography and news stories about her sailing exploits.
‘We have to get out of here,’ I said.
‘Why? There’s nothing to link me to this boat.’
‘It’ll take a good investigator an hour, two at most. The River police will identify the boat. They’ll go to the yard.’
‘No-one there will talk.’
‘Yes they will. Your friends may not talk, but your acquaintances will and it won’t take an investigator long to compile a list of all the places in
London you have a link to.’
‘Then maybe we should separate,’ Kate said.
‘We can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not safe with Omar on the loose.’
‘So where do we go?’
‘I don’t know. There is a safe place, but it’s in the country and I need to stay in London tonight. Also, I need money and transport and the country place is no good for those.’
‘You didn’t get money in Willesden Green?’
‘No.’ Briefly, I told her what had happened without naming the Dallmans.
‘I could probably get a car and money,’ Kate said.
I started to object but she cut me short.
‘I’m going to trust you,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you why later. But you have to trust me. Look, I get it, OK? It’s life or death for you and maybe me too. Just leave me to do my thing. I need to make some calls.’
There was no point in arguing. ‘Use this,’ I said, passing her my doctored cell phone.
Kate took it and disappeared into one of the forward cabins and I was left to watch a bizarre parody of my life unfolding on the Powerbook screen.
The images and text posts were coming in thick and fast. It was as though anyone who had ever had any connection with my life – or Kate’s - wanted to share their bit of information. It was a strange phenomenon. The posts were all anonymous, with everyone using bizarre log-in names so no reflected glory by association was rubbing off on them. Most of the damaging material was clearly coming from official sources, but there were entries too from wannabe journalists and straightforward gossip about me and Kate.
One of the contributors had to be Moira Claiborne. My affair with Marie-Helene was something I’d kept very private. Moira was one of the very few people who knew her surname and she had come on that by accident, when she had taken a call from Eurostar about a booking mix-up. Now even that thread was running. A sly little post, obviously from Moira, named my girlfriend as Marie-Helene Demonteuil. Within five minutes there was a picture on the site of Marie-Helene in full robes pleading before a court in Paris, then another of her riding in the Bois de Boulogne.
The Saxon Network Page 5