More Harm Than Good

by Andrew Grant

  “Don’t worry,” Jones said. “I’ll see them. And I’ll sleep as late as I can.”

  “Tim?” I said, as Melissa disappeared into the corridor in front of me. “Keep a close eye on this guy. He seemed pretty depressed when I was talking to him, earlier. It would be terrible if his demons got the better of him and he, say, threw himself out of the window, like the guy in Finland...”

  Melissa waited till she was sure the door had shut behind us before heading for the stairs.

  “How are you feeling?” I said, falling into step beside her. “After what just happened?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “It was hardly a unique experience.”

  “I know. But in your own home? Are you going to be OK, going back there?”

  Melissa shrugged.

  “I suppose so,” she said. “The cleaner will get there soon - the real one - and he’ll do a good job, I’m sure. Still, I might give it a while, though.”

  “That would be smart,” I said. “Have you got anywhere to go?”

  “I do have friends, you know. And anyway, this is London. It’s not like there’s a shortage of hotels. But I’ll worry about that later. There are things I need to update you on first. Although, after what’s just happened, they’ll hardly qualify as breaking news.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Tell me anyway.”

  “I will. But I could use a drink. Do you fancy an adult beverage to go with the conversation?”

  The OXO Tower has its own wine bar, so there was no need to go too far out of our way. The place was a mob scene by the time we got there. The customers were mainly men in suits and women in power dresses. Some sat in pairs, but most seemed to be part of larger groups. All the tables were taken, but the moment we walked in I saw three people gathering their coats together at the end of the main, horseshoe-shaped bar. It wasn’t a great spot for looking out over the river and the grand buildings beyond it, but it was ideal for not being overheard. We slipped in to their places as they were leaving, and before they were five yards away I saw one of the woman trip and turn her heel. The sole of her shoe was a vivid red.

  “Look,” I said. “Louboutins. You should get a pair of those, if you’re going to do that eyeball trick again. It would cut down on the need for cleaning.”

  “In my dreams, perhaps,” Melissa said. “Have you seen the price of those things?”

  “No. But seriously, how much could a pair of shoes cost?”

  “Oh, David, you’ve got a lot to learn. Let’s get some drinks ordered. Then I can explain women’s shoes to you.”

  Melissa poured over the cocktail menu for a couple of minutes, then asked for a pomegranate martini. I ordered a glass of champagne, and wondered what had become of the bottles I’d left in the hallway outside her apartment.

  “So,” I said. “Tell me about the world of shoes.”

  “I’d love to,” she said. “But perhaps I should tell you my news, first.”

  “Perhaps you should.”

  “Well, as you probably guessed, it’s about Stan Leckie. After you left Thames House I made a few calls. One to him, about meeting us this evening. And several to people who’d been around the Service when he’d been. He was quick to respond. The others, less so. In fact, it took most of the afternoon before I made any progress with those at all.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “It wasn’t so much, ‘what.’ It was more, ‘how.’”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Remember I told you he’d been kicked out for abusing witnesses? Well, I’d drawn a picture in my head of some strong-arm tactics. Heavy duty ones, obviously, to be bad enough to get himself fired over. But I wasn’t in the right ballpark.”

  “How far over the line did he cross?”

  “Well, if you hadn’t seen for yourself, I doubt you’d believe me. Remember the workhouse, in Luton? The wall, with the holes from the wrecking ball?”

  “What about it?”

  She stayed silent, waiting for the pennies to drop on their own.

  “That was Leckie?” I said, after a moment.

  “It was,” she said. “That’s how he broke the al-Aqsaba’a case. The original one.”

  “The man’s a psychopath.”

  “Well, his tactics were extreme, that’s for sure, but the outcome wasn’t all bad. He did stop them killing the diplomat’s baby.”

  “Melissa, he killed people. Horrifically. I don’t see why he isn’t in jail.”

  “He saved an innocent life, and held together a diplomatic alliance in a critical and volatile situation. Plus, no one wanted the scandal. It was much more appropriate to just usher him quietly out of the back door.”

  “On to the golf course. And into a comfy chair at St Joseph’s, where it seems he hasn’t made much progress in reforming his character.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “But you cancelled the meeting with him.”

  “I did. I wasn’t sure what this all really amounted to, but his behaviour was so extreme I felt like we needed to talk about it before taking another step.”

  “You were right,” I said, then paused while a waitress delivered our drinks.

  “Did Jones tell you the first three guys who attacked us had yours and my photos with them?” I said, when she was a safe distance away.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Melissa said.

  “And one them worked at St Joseph’s. I recognised him.”

  “Add that to what the guy we captured told us, and the outline of this thing is getting clearer.”

  “Clearer, but by no means definitive. It just narrows the options. It tells us Leckie’s either a deadly threat, or he’s in mortal danger.”

  “Agreed. But which one? And how can find out, quickly enough? The State Opening is tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should just go and ask him.”

  Melissa’s phone started to ring before she could respond. She pulled it out of her bag, looked at the screen, then held it up for me to see.

  STAN LECKIE - MOBILE

  “Careful what you wish for, David,” she said, then answered the call and talked for a couple of minutes.

  “Well, this might put a new perspective on things,” she said, double checking the call had ended. “He was calling to tell me the cameras in the corridor outside the caesium vault have failed again.”

  “Failed?”

  “Good question. He said they’re not working, anyway.”

  “Since when?”

  “They went out of service about five minutes ago. His staff reported it to him, he immediately put out three extra teams to cover the area, then called me. He didn’t know what the right procedure was, given that there isn’t actually any caesium in there, now. Just the dummy container.”

  “Is there any sign of a break-in?”

  “No. He said not.”

  “That doesn’t mean much, though. There wasn’t any damage after the robbery, either. Whoever put the container back must have known the code.”

  “But the code’s been changed, now.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything, either, if there’s a leak.”

  Melissa shrugged.

  “What about the independent camera your people installed?” I said.

  “Let me check,” she said.

  Melissa speed-dialed a number at Thames House, and concluded her conversation almost as quickly.

  “It’s working fine,” she said. “As far as they can tell. Apart from one small hiccup in the signal.”

  “When?” I said.

  “Four minutes ago.”

  “What about the container? Is it still there? Can they see it?”

  “They don’t know. The camera’s facing the door, remember. They wanted face shots of anyone going in.”

  “What about the tracker?”

  “No signal’s being received. They’re pinging it right now, trying to bring it back on line.”

  Neither of us spoke for a momen
t.

  “You know what that means?” I said.

  Melissa nodded.

  “We need to look inside that room,” I said.

  Melissa called Jones from the taxi on the way to St Joseph’s. He was still at her place when he answered, and said he was feeling suddenly under the weather. I guessed the adrenaline level in his bloodstream had crashed, making way for the impact of the beating he’d taken to replace it.

  “Just the two of us tonight, then,” she said to me, slipping the phone back into her bag. “I told him - two things. Medic. Then bed.”

  “Wise,” I said. “If this whole thing kicks off early, we don’t need to be carrying any passengers.”

  Leckie was waiting for us at the rear entrance to the hospital when the cab pulled over to the side of the road. He stepped out of the shadows, opened Melissa’s door for her, and led the way into the hospital grounds.

  The three of us stayed together through the courtyard, into the Admin building, down in the lift, and all the way along the purple corridor until we reached the pair of security guards Leckie had stationed there. Then I continued on my own. I entered the code into the keypad - getting it right first time, without the impediment of the heavy gloves - and cautiously entered the room. The silence from the radiation alarm told me I didn’t need to worry about caesium. Booby traps were another matter, however, so I moved no more quickly than I had done on my last visit.

  My view of the room was much clearer without having to look through the fuzzy visor. At first glance it seemed that nothing had changed in the last two days, but I scanned each area nonetheless, not moving on till I was happy that everything was exactly as I’d remembered it. The broad strokes were certainly the same, but without the time pressure of the diminishing oxygen supply, or the physical barrier of the thick suit, I was able to fill in many more of the details. I could see from the every day clutter what kinds of biscuits the people who’d worked there liked, and how many of them had milk in their coffee. But the biggest revelation came from the posters on the walls. They were exactly the same style and format as the ones in Mark Jackson’s office. They had similar titles, like ACHIEVEMENT, AMBITION, and INSIGHT. Only now, I could read the smaller text underneath. And I could see that the scientists held a different view of the philosophy of management. My favourite was CONSULTATION. It showed a handshake between two faceless men in sharp suits over a caption that read, ‘If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.’

  When I was sure it was safe, I stepped further into the room and turned my attention to two things. The camera MI5 had concealed in one of the smoke detectors on the ceiling, and the cage that secured the caesium containers.

  It took around forty seconds to be sure of my conclusion regarding the camera. And less than a fortieth of that time to assess the state of play inside the cage.

  I didn’t need any words when I rejoined Melissa and Leckie at the end of the corridor. My expression said enough on its own.

  “We’ve got a bite?” Melissa said.

  I nodded.

  “What do you mean?” Leckie said. “What did you find?”

  “Exactly what I was afraid of,” I said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  There wasn’t a projection screen in our customary room at Thames House, and rather than try to find one that late in the evening, Chaston just hooked a little portable projector up to his laptop and aimed it at the wall.

  “The signal GCHQ sent did the job,” he said, as a map of central London slowly came into focus opposite us. “They got the tracker reactivated within a few seconds of Melissa letting them know there was a problem. They’ve confirmed it’s mobile. And any moment now, we’ll see where it’s got to.”

  Ten seconds ticked away, and then a pulsing red dot appeared in the centre of the image. It was hovering above the junction of Bressenden Place and Victoria Street, then started to move east.

  “Well?” Hardwicke said. He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes firmly closed. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s heading away from the hospital,” Melissa said, leaning forward. “Towards the river. Still on Victoria Street. Right into Artillery Row. Left into Greycoat Place. Right. Now left into Medway Street. OK. It’s stopped. It’s still not moving. It’s still stationary. Maybe it’s reached its destination. Can we get in closer? We need to see exactly where it is.”

  Chaston fiddled with the trackpad on his laptop and the image zoomed in until the individual buildings were visible. The dot, still pulsing steadily, was inside a kind of courtyard behind a large complex which was set back several yards from the street.

  “Would you look at that?” he said. “We’ve gone full circle. You know what that place is?”

  No one spoke.

  “Well?” Hardwicke said.

  “Judging by the layout, it can only be one thing,” Melissa said. “A fire station.”

  Melissa’s words hung in the air for a moment as the three of us allowed the implications to fully sink in.

  “Which fire station?” Hardwicke said. “The one your trigger happy fire fighter was based at? The chap who first got this ball rolling?”

  “No,” Melissa said. “We never positively identified who that was. But I don’t think St Joseph’s is in the catchment area for this one.”

  “OK,” the DG said. “Then, what is in its catchment?”

  Chaston rattled the keys on his laptop, and the projection on the wall changed from the map to a series of search forms and finally a list of streets and addresses.

  “Well, if there was any doubt about what we’re dealing with, I don’t think there is any more,” he said. “There it is. Top of the list.”

  “20 Dean’s Court, Westminster?” Melissa said.

  “Oh,” Hardwicke said.

  “I don’t follow,” Melissa said. “What’s in Dean’s Court?”

  “I take it you’ve never written to your MP, then,” Chaston said. “That’s the official address of the Houses of Parliament. They use it for post, and to avoid drawing attention to the real identity of the place.”

  “Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hardwicke said. “What else is on the list?”

  “Let’s see,” Chaston said. “Westminster Abbey, obviously. The Hall. A couple of schools. Channel Four’s offices. Assorted government offices. We all know what’s there. It’s only just up the road.”

  “Is our office on the list?” Melissa said.

  “No,” Chaston said. “But really? A fire station that covers Parliament? A container someone thinks is full of caesium? Add that to a thousand odd gallons of water, then trigger an evacuation? You could contaminate hundreds of people – MPs, Lords, maybe even her Majesty – before anyone knew what was going on. Then you’ve got to think about where all the water will go, afterwards. Down the drains. Into the Thames. Into the water table. And what about the people who’ll have to clean it up?”

  “And don’t forget there’s another batch of caesium missing somewhere,” Melissa said. “They could be coming from both sides. Spiking the sprinklers inside the building, and the fire engine outside.”

  “Not a pleasant prospect,” Hardwicke said. “If you’re right about their plans.”

  “I think I am,” Chaston said. “We should get people there right away.”

  The DG suddenly opened his eyes and moved for the first time since Melissa and I had arrived, sitting forward in his chair and glaring at Chaston.

  “Why aren’t they there now?” he said. “I ordered round the clock surveillance.”

  “Of the fire station?” Chaston said. “How could we have known to…”

  “Of Parliament,” Hardwicke said.

  “We have people at Parliament,” Chaston said. “I meant the fire station. In case they dissolve the dummy liquid in the water in a fire engine. If they leave the container behind, there’ll be no way to track them.”

  “You meant the f
ire station?” Hardwicke said. “Then you should have made yourself clear. That’s how misunderstandings come about.”

  “Yes, sir,” Chaston said.

  “Good,” Hardwicke said, leaning back in his chair again. “Now, there’s no need to draw this out. It’s late. Tomorrow will be a big day. Send a team to the fire station, then all of you – go home. Get some sleep. And make sure that when we meet again tomorrow night, we have something to celebrate.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t hungry. Or thirsty. Or too hot. Or too cold. And it wasn’t noise that disturbed me. But at three minutes past three in the morning – after less than two hours in bed – my eyes snapped open and I was suddenly wide awake.

  For a moment I was tempted to just roll over and wait for sleep to wash over me again. But the words that were dancing around at the back of my mind didn’t want to settle back down. They came from snippets of that last conversation at Thames House. They wanted attention. And they were forming patterns I just couldn’t ignore.

  I reached across to my nightstand, released my phone from its charging dock, and dialed Melissa’s number.

  “David,” she said, answering on the eighth ring. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then this better be important. I’d only just dropped off.”

  “It is. I need you to find something out for me.”

  “Can’t it wait till morning?”

  “No. I need to know right away.”

  “Know what?”

  “Do you remember you told me Leckie had foiled an attempt by al-Aqsaba’a to kill the baby of some foreign diplomat?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “I need to know where the kid is, now.”

  “Why?”

  “Specifically, if he’s still in London, what school he goes to.”

  “Why?”

  “What did Leckie’s snout tell you, right before he died?”

  “They were planning something that would close down the government.”

  “No. That was a rationalisation. A dubious one, pushed through to fit in with Chaston’s questionable logic. You told me the snout actually said, ‘bring down the government.’”