by Rob Sinclair
White line, five minutes.
Cox put the phone back down and went over to the crumpled sofa covered in a faded sheet, where her high-spec laptop sat. The city may be in ruins, but Cox wasn’t without budget, and if you had the resources you could still get all the mod cons in Aleppo one way or another – electronics, mobile phone signal and even Wi-Fi. Up in the safe house, operated by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, Cox had all that and more.
She flipped open the lid on the laptop and went through the familiar routine to initiate the white line – a voiceover IP line that was encrypted through a secure real-time transport protocol, or SRTP for short. It meant that both of the devices on either end of the conversation were encrypted, as was the line itself. The system wasn’t foolproof, nothing involving the Internet was, but it was as secure a communication channel as SIS had for transnational conversations with active agents.
Of course, the multi-layered security on the line was to prevent sophisticated computer hackers from listening in, but did nothing to deter more classical eavesdropping techniques, which was why the otherwise plain-looking safe house was professionally soundproofed, and why Cox swept the place every day for listening devices, just to be on the safe side.
‘Rachel Cox on the line,’ she said when the call connected after a few seconds.
‘Cox, it’s Flannigan and Roger Miles here,’ came the crackly voice of her immediate boss after a short delay – the less than perfect sound quality a result both of the geographical distance and the heavy security measures.
Cox did her best not to let out a groan. Henry Flannigan, the man she reported to, was a level four supervisor back at Vauxhall Cross in London – SIS headquarters. She’d worked for Flannigan for several years and the two of them had plenty of professional baggage between them. Their shared headstrong nature meant they regularly clashed, but overall she thought he was an okay guy, as long as she did as he asked (and if his arrogance and general superior attitude could be excused). Roger Miles was a level six director, the highest rank before numbers stopped and plain old extravagant titles took over, just a few small pay grades from the SIS Chief himself, right at the top of the food chain. Cox didn’t know too much about him on a personal level, just that when he got involved in matters it generally meant there was a problem. Often it felt like the problem was her.
‘Evening,’ Cox said. ‘You’re both still in the office?’
She looked at her watch. It was gone eleven p.m. in Aleppo, so after nine back in London.
‘Your request was urgent so we dealt with it urgently,’ Flannigan answered.
Cox felt herself tense up. She could almost tell by the way he said it what the answer was going to be.
‘Miss Cox––’
‘It’s still Mrs, actually,’ Cox said, cutting off Miles without thinking, that ‘single’ title sending a flurry of unwelcome thoughts through her mind. ‘Just call me Rachel. Or Cox. Whatever.’
‘Rachel, I’ve looked through all of the information you provided, and I’ve discussed this at length with Henry too, and I’m afraid the conclusion I’ve come to is that I have to turn down your request for Trapeze assistance at this time.’
Now Cox did let out her groan. ‘But sir, the evidence I––’
‘Well that’s the problem, Cox,’ Flannigan interrupted. ‘There really isn’t much by way of evidence. Assigning the resources of the Trapeze team is a serious and expensive step to take––’
‘Which is why it needs level six approval,’ Miles butted in.
‘. . . And it’s just not clear that there would be any benefit to your work in doing so at this stage. In fact, it might jeopardise events down the line if we’ve extended our reach without good justification.’
Cox gritted her teeth as she bit back her retort. The way she saw it the term good justification was basically a movable feast that could be placed wherever those at the top end of the hierarchy wanted it. For months her work had seen her edging closer and closer to the identities and the truth of a group of extremists that she’d colloquially labelled the Thirteen.
After 9/11, Cox was placed on a special investigation to track the activity of family groups of known terrorists. Every year, thousands of children were brought up in extremist jihadi households across the Middle East – it was her job to track those kids to adulthood, and do her best to prevent them from becoming the next wave of terrorists to threaten the region, and ultimately the West. What had begun as a mind-numbing exercise in basic local surveillance had transformed into something Cox felt held far-reaching significance. It was in Iraq that she’d first come across tales of a group of young boys being trained in a secret and secluded institution, and her work since had led her to believe that those tales – as tall as they often were – held real truth.
Her boss at SIS had agreed, and had sanctioned a formal investigation with Cox’s remit to identify and track down the Thirteen and the facility they were being trained at. Although she firmly believed the notorious Aziz al-Addad was likely one of the key players behind the group, she’d not yet come close to completing her mission. For weeks now it felt as if she’d been hitting brick wall after brick wall. In fact, several months ago, even the few small leads she had dried up overnight. Despite her best efforts, she no longer had any active intelligence on where any of the Thirteen were, as though they didn’t even exist any more. To Cox that meant one thing: bad news. The graduates of destruction were likely now out in the world awaiting activation. Yet the lack of tangible evidence she had on who the Thirteen were, and where they were, meant the bigwigs at SIS were fast losing interest – and patience – in the investigation.
Cox, on the other hand, remained unmoved in her belief that the Thirteen formed not just a potent potential weapon, but also an immediate threat to the UK and indeed the whole of Western Europe. So far she was having a hard time convincing Flannigan of that.
‘I think you’re wrong,’ Cox said. ‘And I think the longer you delay giving me proper assistance for this investigation the greater the risk to us all.’
Getting access to the Trapeze team – a highly sophisticated surveillance unit operated out of the UK government’s GCHQ – would finally give her the resources she needed to help track down the Thirteen and enable the authorities to stop them. Roger Miles had already turned down Cox’s previous request some three months ago, and given Flannigan’s attitude towards her of late she was beginning to question the level of influence he had over the decision, too. Was he deliberately trying to scupper her work behind her back? But why would he do that?
‘Can you imagine the public reaction if the Thirteen initiate an attack that could have been prevented?’ Cox added.
‘Public reaction?’ Flannigan said. ‘Sorry, but is that a threat?’
‘What do you think? I’m not in this for public recognition, you must know that about me by now. But I have to stop this group before it’s too late.’
‘You don’t even know the Thirteen exist!’ Flannigan blasted. ‘For all we’ve seen it’s just your wild, personal theory.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Of course they exist, they––’
‘Existed, perhaps. We know very well the recruitment techniques of these jihadi outfits, including those run by the so-called Teacher. And yes, I’m certain there are many young boys who were kidnapped or otherwise forced into training under that vile man. But to suggest there’s some group of thirteen kids who sit above all that, and are about to bring the world to its knees, is just . . . baseless.’
‘According to you.’
‘According to fucking everyone except you actually!’
‘Okay, Henry, let’s keep this level,’ Miles said. ‘Rachel, I know you’ve put a lot of time and sacrifice into this, but the problem is I’m seeing little tangible progress––’
‘That’s because you’re having me operate with my hands tied behind my back!’
‘Enough! Let me be very clear with you. For a while now I’ve tri
ed to see this operation from your point of view, and I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt plenty. But it really is getting to the point now where I have to decide whether continuing this work remains in the public interest.’
‘You have to trust me.’
‘I do. Which is why I’m giving you another two weeks. But if you don’t have any new evidence before then – and I mean real, solid, tangible evidence that we can act upon – then I’m shutting this operation down.’
Silence fell for a few seconds and Cox wondered whether they were expecting her to respond. She didn’t. What could she say?
‘Do you understand?’ Flannigan asked.
‘Of course,’ Cox said.
‘Okay, good,’ Miles said. ‘Then I think we’re done for now.’
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ Cox said, before reaching out and ending the call.
She was fuming. Sod them both. If they wouldn’t help her she’d just have to do things her own way. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d broken protocol to prove she was right. The last time she’d been able to dismantle a small cell planning a car bomb attack at the British embassy in Cairo. For her efforts she’d been given a formal reprimand, and had her promotion to level four rejected. Yet she firmly believed her actions then were justified, as they were now.
Cox shut the laptop lid and picked the phone back up. She saw there were two missed calls from Subhi, a local asset of hers who officially worked for the Military Intelligence Directorate of Syria, though for the last eighteen months had been passing intel to her – payback after she’d helped his mother and grandma escape the war-torn country to Egypt.
He’d left no message – neither text nor voicemail. She was still thinking what to do, how to respond to him, when another call came through.
‘Hi,’ she said, expecting a coded response in return, perhaps a request for them to meet somewhere to discuss whatever he’d so urgently been calling about.
‘Rachel, have you seen the news?’
Cox frowned. ‘The bomb attack?’ she said. She’d heard it on the news but hadn’t paid much attention. Such an attack, although horrific, was becoming par for the course in the beleaguered city. In fact rarely did a day go by without an atrocity of some sort, committed by any one of the many sides in the war. A few hours ago, towards the end of the working day, a lone man had walked through a crowded open-air food market in the centre of the city and blown himself and over twenty other people into pieces.
‘Check the news,’ Subhi said. ‘Then call me back.’
‘Wait,’ Cox said, hoping to stop him before he ended the call. He sounded harried, and she could sense his anxiousness. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just tell me.’
Subhi let out a deep sigh. ‘She was there, Rachel. In the market when the bomb went off. I’m sorry, but she’s dead.’
Subhi didn’t need to say anything more than that. Cox slumped. She knew exactly whom he meant, and what it meant for her investigation.
FOUR
Paris, France
Aydin’s first focus as he drove off in the Fiat was simply to leave Paris as quickly as he could, and get some breathing space. He initially headed south, away from where he really wanted to be. He had a phone in his pocket that his people would surely try to trace. He couldn’t keep it on him for long, but he had to at least hope that a simple subterfuge would hold the chasing pack off for a short while.
He drove on for two hours in the clunking Fiat before he stopped at the side of the four-lane highway. He stepped from the car. There were no other vehicles in sight, everything quiet and serene compared to the inner city, and an uncomfortable contrast to the turmoil in his mind and to the chaos that would surely follow him from there.
He dropped the phone to the ground and stomped on it until it was clear the device was smashed beyond reasonable repair. Not dismantled fully, but then he didn’t want it to be. He wanted its pieces to be found. He picked the remnants of the phone back up and flung them into the overgrown verge. No point in making things easy for them.
He didn’t know why but for the next few seconds he just stared off into the dark distance, unable to pull himself away. He thought about Paris. The apartment. Khaled’s bloodied and lifeless body. He wondered how long it would take the police to find out about the murder. Was it murder? Two hours into his drive there hadn’t been a single siren or flashing light in sight. Did that mean the police weren’t yet after him?
Or, before they hunted him down, would his own people get to the apartment first and remove the body, cover it all up as if neither he nor Khaled ever existed?
Aydin wasn’t sure which outcome was better or worse.
He wrenched himself from his thoughts and got back into the car. With the bait set, he looped back around Paris, heading north but giving the city a wide berth. It was gone two a.m. by the time he ditched the car in a lay-by four miles from the port of Calais. The thick cloud above stifled the moon’s illumination, and once he was away from the orange glow of the streetlights the surrounding land was pitch black.
That’s where he headed, into the darkness. It sucked him in and he wondered if he’d ever escape it. He traipsed across soggy fields of overgrown grass, using the distant lights from the line of the road a hundred yards to his right to guide him further in.
Even in the darkness the place felt eerily familiar, and before long he saw the first signs of life. Torchlights. Phone screens. Flickering flames and the wispy smoke of campfires. The hunched forms of sorry people huddled together with nowhere better to go and nothing better to do.
Above the sweet smell of the grassy fields, and the salt from the nearby sea, was the stench of smoke and chargrilled food and festering human waste. All around the people in front of him, past where the eye could see, were a mishmash of tents and plastic tarpaulins stretched over wooden supports, torn metal sheets propped up on poles. Like a holiday campsite gone wrong.
He was in the area known commonly as the Jungle, though the reality didn’t fit that word at all. There was no dense vegetation, no thriving eco-communities of wondrous beasts. Shitpit was closer to the truth.
A few years ago the Jungle lined the area immediately outside the ferry terminal and Eurotunnel station in Calais. Refugees from Syria and Libya and elsewhere had flocked there hoping for a free ride to the UK. Many had made it to the promised land in those initial waves, but those days were long gone. The much smaller camp was a few miles further back now, but then, the Jungle remained an ever-evolving beast. The French authorities did their best to destroy the hastily erected shantytown at every opportunity, but as quickly as the bulldozers flattened, the people simply set up shop somewhere down the road. They were beyond desperate and simply had nowhere else to go.
But while the location of the masses of people and their hand-built shelters was forever changing, the place and its people remained familiar to Aydin. He’d seen areas like the Jungle countless times all over Europe and beyond.
He knew exactly what he was looking for.
He had his hood pulled up and kept his head down as he squelched through the thick mud underfoot. There’d been no rain that night but the grassy fields that had been taken over by the camp remained churned. As expected, he didn’t get a single glance from the first several groups of people he passed. They felt safer not interacting with the outside world, just sticking in their groups and their imaginary safe bubbles. That wasn’t a problem. It told Aydin they weren’t the ones he was looking for, that they couldn’t help him.
Then he spotted someone who could. The man, standing under the beam of a flashlight, dangling from what looked like a wooden sentry post, was tall and beefy with a shaven head and a thick nose that was squashed to his face. The angle of the light made his deep-set eyes seem like two pools of black. His arms were folded over his chest as he barked at his friend next to him. The friend was a near carbon copy except he was shorter and slightly thinner, and the way he h
eld his body showed he wasn’t the one in charge. The two men weren’t anything like the others in the camp. Not just in the way they looked, their lighter skin, round faces, high cheekbones, either – typical Slavic features. The biggest difference of all was the lack of desperation and fear. Instead, Aydin saw greed and malice.
The big man looked his way and Aydin quickly darted off to the right, sheltering behind a falling-down wooden hut. The man didn’t see him and turned back to his friend. Aydin was in the shadows, while the man’s face remained well lit by the light above him. Aydin watched the two men for a short while, straining so he could hear their gruff conversation. In the quiet of the night he heard their words clearly, but he couldn’t understand them, their language not one that he spoke or was even familiar with.
Born in England, Aydin still spoke that language with a native, southern accent. His father was from Turkey and had taught him Turkish at home. Through his training at the Farm he’d become proficient in a half-dozen other tongues; Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Russian, French, German. But these men were speaking something else, a language with a whole host of unfamiliar guttural sounds. Together with their looks, he could only guess they were from Eastern Europe, or perhaps the Balkans, but that could still be one of tens of countries he wasn’t particularly acquainted with.
What he did know was who the men were: gangsters or low-level mafia who’d travelled west and found a home in France for the simple reason of exploiting vulnerable refugees for financial gain.
Aydin quickly put his ill feelings for the scumbags to the side. As much as he detested men like them, he had to see them for what they were: his ticket out of France.
Two weary-looking and scruffily dressed young men walked up to the brutes. There was a quick exchange of words and the big man pointed away into the distance. The two refugees skulked off in that direction. The big man checked his watch once. Then again a minute later. Aydin sensed what was brewing.