‘You’ll drop him in deep shit if anyone finds out,’ Kate said.
‘Don’t worry. He can’t get fired because he doesn’t exist. When I joined the BBC, I made a few emergency arrangements, so I could check on Human Resources files, management notes on me, things like that. As a loyal and trustworthy BBC employee, you don’t want to know the details.’
Kate laughed and it was a welcome relief from the tension. ‘Like hell I don’t. I love all that stuff. Computers are as much a part of a sailor’s life these days as the keel.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘first I logged in as a regular supervisor.’
‘Yes, but how?’
‘I used software I had from my intelligence incarnation. It’s a key-logging programme. It monitors the keystrokes on a PC. I used it on one of the supervisors and it provided his password. Then I logged in as him and used his privileges to create Aaron Zakowski, who has access to everything.’
‘Couldn’t the supervisor tell when he logged in himself?’
‘No, I erased the traces after I’d set up Aaron’s super-account. The turnover in the Help Desk is very high so no-one notices an extra IT guru on the network.’
When the installation was finished, I rebooted the laptop and showed Kate that it now had the familiar BBC desktop wallpaper with icons for all of the corporation’s main programmes. From my store of technical kit, I took a SecureId token, a piece of metal, half the size of a credit card. On it were a series of numbers which changed every minute. The numbers were synchronised with a server at BBC’s Television Centre. If the correct numbers were keyed in at the correct moment, together with a four-digit pin number, the person logging in was identified as an authentic BBC user.
‘Aaron’s not mine, of course,’ I said as I keyed in a series of numbers and logged in to the BBC network.
‘I’m impressed,’ Kate said, smiling, ‘I really did believe your ‘I’m a techno thug from the dark ages’ act. Start with ENPS.’
I opened the Electronic News Production System and navigated to the folder which served as the World Service newsroom notice board.
Under ‘visitors’, I found an entry but it was only a note to the duty assistant editor saying that three unnamed guests would be brought to the newsroom on Saturday morning. It noted that they had a special interest in the Middle East but would not require an interpreter.
‘We need to see the facilities management log,’ Kate said, ‘I presume Aaron has privileges to read items in the facilities folders?’
‘Oh yes, Aaron is incredibly senior. Only God has more privileges’
The Facilities Unit kept a master log of all visits to be organised in Bush House and for each one, there was a section for feedback. It showed that comments on the Vossler visit were to be copied to a World Service management accountant, Peter Osman.
‘Damn,’ Kate said, ‘it would be an accountant. The accounts department don’t use ENPS much. There is one chance though. He must do some business travelling, and if he visits the overseas bureaux, he’ll have an entry in the visa file.’
I went back to the ENPS system, pressed more keys and eventually turned up a file on Peter Osman, kept by the woman in the foreign travel department responsible for applying for visas. It gave his passport number, his age, forty-one, a home address, and listed a wife, Serena, as next of kin.
The address was Crowsfoot House, in a village in Kent called Upper Weedon. A quick check on Google maps showed Upper Weedon was less than ten miles away.
‘I’ll look on Eclipse,’ I said.
‘Aaron really is only just below God,’ Kate said admiringly.
Eclipse was a commercial programme with a very expensive subscription. It gave access to the UK electoral roll and listed the voters in every house in the country. It also listed all basic residential data for people not on the roll. BBC Assignment editors use it to try to locate neighbours of people who were in the news, so that they can be contacted for information, or to ask if their homes could be used as camera positions.
The programme told us that Peter and Serena Osman lived at Crowsfoot House, with no children of electoral age listed. They had been at the address for eleven years.
‘So what’s the connection?’ Kate said, ‘Vossler or anyone in the group could be friends of Osman, or friends of a friend. There just isn’t enough in here. Can Aaron read e-mails?’
‘Yes’
‘Anybody’s e-mails?’
‘Yes.’
Kate grinned. ‘Isn’t computer security wonderful. You might as well put your private information on a billboard outside Bush House.’
The search didn’t take long but the results were disappointing. I logged in first to the server where all the computer accounts for World Service users were stored and established that Osman’s login name was OSMAP11 and his password was IOU98P. I went to his account and found that he was not logged in. Then I opened up his Microsoft Outlook and did some quick searches, using the key words ‘visit, newsroom, Vossler, Omar and Simpson-Carr.’ Eight e-mails clicked into the find box but the first rush of anticipation quickly faded. There were no-emails from any of the trio, which is what I’d been hoping for. All the e-mails were exchanges between Osman and the BBC Facilities Unit to arrange the visit to the newsroom. There were more than usual only because Osman had wanted the visit to take place on a Saturday, which initially Facilities did not want to agree to. Then, on the very last email, we struck gold. It was a brief note from Osman thanking the manager of the Facilities Unit for agreeing to bend the rules and allow a weekend visit. ‘Crispin,’ it read, ‘many thanks. Just returning a favour to my next-door neighbours who are very keen to see round the place. You’ve made my life a lot easier. Regards Peter.’
‘Brilliant,’ Kate said, ‘we’re almost there.’
A simple final search on Google Earth showed there was only one property that could possibly be regarded as next door to Osman. It was nearly a mile away, but it had to be the one: a riverside mansion called Spring House.
Google maps gave a reasonable idea of the terrain around it, but we got much more from a programme called ‘Virtual Rambler’ which allowed anyone planning a walk through the area to view exactly what they would find. I studied it with a professional eye and determined there was no dead ground to allow easy access to the perimeter of what was a small estate and the only decent observation point was a thickly wooded hill to the west of the house.
I had long since stopped being amazed at the amount of information about anything that could be plucked from the Internet. But I had also learned by long experience that no matter how complete the virtual data seemed to be, you always had to be ready for gaps that only real-world observation could fill.
With Spring House, however, the surprise was even bigger than I had anticipated. From Virtual Rambler, I worked out that the most suitable Observation Point was in a wood on the eastern side of the house. The wood was publicly owned and there were several paths through it, marked as having Right of Way. One linked up with the path along the side of a nearby canal. The other went directly into Upper Weedon. A third looked the safest. It would take us to the part of the wood we needed and wasn’t likely to be heavily used. We set off without delay but when we got there, we hit a problem Virtual Rambler hadn’t prepared us for.
We parked in a glade well away from the area and picked our way through the trees. When we reached the track, we saw that, in a clearing overlooking it, a makeshift encampment had been set up. It consisted of two battered motor caravans, a wreck of a VW camper van, and a couple of saloon cars which looked as though they were a couple of days away from being scrapped.
‘Gypsies?’ Kate whispered.
‘No. Not real gypsies,’ I said, ‘they probably call themselves tinkers or travellers, but I doubt if they’re even that. Probably on-the-road homeless trying to use the law protecting gypsy encampments.’
‘Whatever they are, they’re all over the place,’ Kate said, ‘what do we do?’
/> ‘We wait. Waiting is the stock in trade of the recce team. We just sit tight and wait for a chance to get into that oak tree over there.’
From a ditch at the edge of the field, we watched the camp. Loud rock music blared out from one of the caravans and two scruffy-looking teenage girls and a boy who looked little more than thirteen or fourteen were sitting on up turned buckets smoking and staring into space. Much more of a concern was a group of four men in their early twenties, dressed in shabby combat trousers and stained T-shirts who were walking through the woods accompanied by dogs.
At the village end of the lane, a middle-aged couple who looked like farm workers approached the stile, saw the travellers and hesitated. One of the travellers gave them the finger. Another provoked his dog into rearing up and snarling in their direction, and they quickly turned back. It bothered me that the men seemed to be hanging about in the lane for no apparent reason. It was a blazingly hot afternoon, there was no shade where they were standing and nothing to interest the dogs. One possibility was that they were there to scare the villagers. Everyone in this type of rural area hated travellers. Their camps were dirty and noisy and as soon as travellers moved in, thefts in the area usually soared.
We waited in silent frustration for more than half an hour and eventually the travellers strolled back to the camp. But just as I had given the signal to Kate to make a dash for the oak tree, two women with a couple of small children appeared by the stile. One woman was carrying a picnic hamper and they immediately decided that the base of the big oak tree offered most shade. I consulted the Virtual Rambler to find an alternative observation point, but before the picnickers could settle in, a rough-looking man in his thirties appeared and walked up to the picnickers.
‘Not a good idea to stop here,’ he said brusquely.
‘Why not?’ one of the women asked.
‘I’m gamekeeper for these woods and those travellers down there been causing a lot of trouble,’ he said, pointing towards the camp, ‘not safe for the kids till they’ve moved on.’
Seeing that the family did not like being given orders, the man added more politely, ‘we’re doing our best to clear them off, but you know what councils are, with magistrates so slow to act. It really is best for the kids if you don’t stay around here. They’ve been throwing beer cans and stuff around the place. It could be dangerous.’
Reluctantly the women obeyed and I wondered if this was all part of an unofficial security system set up to protect Spring House. But that would need much more checking; we were not even sure that Vossler was there.
We had pulled ourselves up into the tree before the women had left the lane and from the crown of the canopy we had our first proper view of Spring House.
At first sight, it looked very similar to the country estate Cronin had originally sent us to. But when I took out my long lens I was immediately struck by how decrepit and rundown it was. There was no sign of life and the buildings looked shoddy and badly maintained. The lawns had not been mown for some time and the paths were unkempt. There was a swimming pool at the side and though the water looked clean, the surrounds were untidy.
‘There’s something very wrong here,’ I said, ‘this is a dump and that’s not Vossler’s style at all. He loves luxury and he’s an Olympic class spender. It would be torture for him to live in a place like this.’
‘Back to square one again?’ Kate said ruefully.
‘My guess is yes,’ I said, ‘but now we’re here, we’d better wait to see if anyone surfaces that we know.’
We waited for almost an hour. I took more than a hundred photographs of the house, recording every detail visible from our vantage point, but there was no sign of activity. Then finally, just as we were considering giving up, the pool area came to life. Ray Vossler came out of the house first and made his way to the pool side As I watched through the vision-scope, I didn’t think I was imagining the look of distaste on Vossler’s face as he settled into a lounger by the deep end of the pool. He was wearing long shorts and a country club polo-shirt but he did not look as though he was anticipating a leisurely afternoon. I suspected they had simply been driven outdoors by the weather. In the heat wave, it was impossible to prefer to be indoors. English houses lacked the deep, cool shuttered rooms favoured in the Mediterranean regions for escaping from heat. Even the tattered awnings beside the swimming pool would always be preferable. Anyway who cared? What mattered was that we had found Vossler’s base at last.
Then Omar came out, dressed in swimming trunks and carrying a black hold-all. I was pleased to see that his shoulder was heavily bandaged and he was limping badly. Behind him came a young hard-faced Arab in his early thirties and two women. The other Arab – I couldn’t recognise him - was also in swimming trunks and the women were in tiny bikinis with matching beach towels. Within a few minutes the women were topless and stretched out in lounge chairs having drinks served by a young waiter who had trouble not staring at the bare breasts and minute thongs. The shabbiness of the pool made it look like a parody of gracious country living. The elements were technically in place but the tiles around the pool were cracked and worn, and the stains deeply ingrained. The surrounding out-buildings had peeling walls and there were several broken window panes in the changing hut. Vossler started to read a magazine, carefully ignoring the female display.
‘Happy lot, aren’t they?’ Kate whispered as we examined the scene. ‘Even the tits don’t seem to be stirring much enthusiasm.’
‘I just can’t believe Vossler took this place,’ I answered. ‘He’s one of the vainest and fussiest men I’ve ever known. Everywhere he goes, he picks at details and squabbles with everyone until they reach his idea of total perfection. This must be hell on earth for him.’
‘So at least we know the location is important,’ Kate said.
‘I’m interested in the other man,’ I said, ‘his face is familiar but I just can’t place him. I’m sure I know him from the first time around in the Gulf but he doesn’t look old enough to have been active then.’
We watched for a while, but nothing of interest happened, and I concentrated on getting several photographs of the other Arab as he chatted to Omar. After a while, Omar started to flirt with the women and tried to persuade one of them to swim. When she wouldn’t oblige, he opened his hold-all and took out a black cross-bow and a leather pouch of bolts. He took some empty beer cans from a bin and arranged them on the wall opposite the pool. He hit three of the tins with the first three bolts, but finding them no challenge, he looked around for other targets. Seeing nothing of interest, he pointed the loaded crossbow at one of the woman, smiling as he brought the tip of the bolt down line with her stomach.
The woman shuddered and said something to try to make him stop. Vossler was watching now, interested for the first time. Omar went on grinning and made a gesture with the crossbow, indicating that she should get into the pool. Nervously the woman got up, and teetered unsteadily to the edge on her high-heeled sandals. Omar gestured again. She took off her sandals and dived clumsily into the pool. At the instant of the dive, Omar whirled around and aimed, not at the woman but at a young blackbird that had come down to bathe in an ornamental birdbath right on the edge of the pool area. The shot was perfect. The bird exploded into a cloud of feathers and the force of the bolt, drove the tiny corpse twenty yards beyond the birdbath and into a shoddy rose bed at the end of the wall.
Omar punched his fist in the air, his look of triumph turned to a sulk when he saw that that the two women were staring in horror, not admiration. The woman in the water turned her back and swam away, but Omar stared hard at the one in the chair until she sniggered nervously and made a mock gesture of clapping her hands.
Omar was putting down his crossbow when Simpson-Carr appeared. He sat beside Vossler and began an intense conversation. Omar looked annoyed at being excluded and made a gesture to the women to come with him.
‘I presume they’re hookers,’ Kate said, as the women followed Omar in
to the house.
‘Probably. Sometimes Omar trawls night clubs for girlfriends but he usually can’t be bothered.’
The men beside the pool showed no interest in Omar and sat deep in conversation, their backs to the pool.
‘We need audio equipment,’ I said.
‘Can you get any?’
‘Probably, but we’d be lucky to pick up anything. They won’t discuss anything sinister round the pool and they can easily shield any conversations inside. Anyway, I think we’ve seen all we can for now.’
‘So where now?’
‘Back to our own base. To Ravenswood. Time to regroup and rethink.’
What I didn’t say was that I had a real sense of foreboding. Kate seemed to have worked up some enthusiasm and I didn’t want to bring her mood down again. But I knew we were amateurs blundering around in a pro game. We didn’t have the resources, the kit, or the personnel for what needed to be done. Something had to change but at that moment I had no idea what.
Chapter 14
When we reached Aunt Tillie’s farm, her welcome was hearty and blunt. She shook hands with Kate, gave me a hug and said: ‘Welcome to Ravenswood. You’ll be safe here and anyway I’m the only one in the family who’ll have you.’
Tillie was a huge woman, almost six feet tall, strong boned and bulky without being fat. Her white hair had thinned to a few straggles but her eyes were bright in a deeply weather-beaten face.
I began to apologise for intruding but she brushed it aside.
‘My daughter Mary is being a bit of an arse,’ she said, ‘she’s convinced you’re going to ruin Tim’s life.’ She laughed. ‘Tim’s just been given a big SAS training job at Hereford. Mary’s got this fantasy that he’ll stay there until his time’s up and then settle down with the lovely Rachel and provide several adoring grandchildren.’
‘Is that what Tim wants?’
‘I doubt it. He may well stay with Rachel – she’s a real babe and sharp as a razor – but I can’t see him settling down in the way Mary fancies. Anyway that’s Tim’s business. He’ll find out soon enough about you and he’ll decide for himself whether he wants to get involved.
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