‘More information than I needed, Lex,’ said Button. She pulled the chair away from the dressing table, took off her coat and hung it over the back before sitting down. She picked up her briefcase, rested it on her knees and clicked open the locks. ‘It’s about Spider,’ she said. ‘He needs our help.’
Harper sat down on the bed. ‘You mean us personally or MI5?’
She smiled tightly. ‘This is off the books, Lex. Everything you do for me is off the books. You should know that by now.’ She took a manila envelope from the briefcase. ‘What name did you use to fly over?’
‘An untraceable one,’ he said. ‘And I came in through Ireland so no one knows I’m here.’ He nodded at the envelope in her hands. ‘Are you offering me a legend, because I won’t say no.’
She handed it to him. ‘Here’s a passport in the name of Alex Harwood,’ she said. ‘Close enough to your own name so that you won’t forget. Just in case you have to pop overseas. Also two credit cards, one Amex and one Visa. And a debit card linked to an account with five thousand pounds in it. If you need more, contact me through email.’
Harper put the envelope on the bed next to him.
‘I’ve got a receipt for the flight over.’
‘I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed.’
‘It was first class from Bangkok to Amsterdam. That was all they had at short notice.’
Button sighed. ‘I won’t be quibbling about the cost,’ she said. She took another envelope from her briefcase, several times thicker than the first one. ‘Here’s ten thousand pounds in cash,’ she said.
‘That’s my fee, is it?’
‘Expenses,’ she said. ‘For the things I don’t want receipts for. Your fee will be paid into an offshore account.’
‘How much exactly?’
‘That depends on how successful you are.’ She closed her briefcase and slid it on top of the dressing table. ‘Spider’s been taken hostage in Pakistan. I need your help to get him back.’
Harper’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re not expecting me to go to Paki-land,’ he said.
‘I need your help here, in the UK,’ said Button. ‘He’s been taken by al-Qaeda in Pakistan. We don’t know where exactly, but I’m hoping you can come up with a location. We’re pretty sure that an al-Qaeda paymaster by the name of Akram Al-Farouq is with Shepherd, and another former MI5 agent, a British-born Pakistani called Manraj Chaudhry. Manraj, Raj we call him, was undercover in a Bradford mosque. A fundamentalist imam took Raj under his wing and sent him over for training in Pakistan. The imam’s name is Mohammed Ullah, he’s a Bangladeshi-born Brit. It looks as if Al-Farouq has been sending money to Ullah, and Ullah has been sending out fresh jihadists for training. I’ve got the names of some of the men who went from the Bradford mosque. Two of them are now back home.’
‘Sounds like you already know everything,’ said Harper.
‘I wish that was the case, but trust me, I’ve come to this very late and with Spider in jeopardy I don’t have the time to play this by the book. This Ullah has avoided surveillance for years, he’s an expert at flying below the radar, so conventional techniques aren’t going to work.’
Harper grinned. ‘So I fall under the heading of unconventional techniques, do I?’
‘I just want the job done, Lex. I want Ullah to tell us where Al-Farouq is. Or at least a way of getting hold of him.’
‘No limits?’
‘As I said, I just want the job done. Do whatever you have to do, just spare me the details.’
Harper flipped open a pack of cigarettes and lit one. He grinned as he saw a second look of contempt flash across Button’s face. He leant over and pushed the window open. ‘Please don’t give me any health and safety crap about not smoking,’ he said.
‘I wasn’t planning to,’ she said.
He blew smoke through the open window. ‘So how much trouble is Spider in? Are they open to a deal?’
‘They’re not negotiating. They haven’t even gone public. It’s not about ransom or a prisoner swap. Not at the moment, anyway. But even if they do open negotiations, that’s not going to happen.’
‘That’s right, the only terrorists that the British government negotiates with are the IRA,’ said Harper. ‘Oh, and we happily pay off Somalis when they take our ships.’ He saw that Button was about to say something and he waved apologetically. ‘Sorry, yes, I shouldn’t sound so bitter and twisted.’ He took another pull on his cigarette. ‘It’s an expat thing. It’s only when you leave that you see how our country is changing.’
‘Everything changes, Lex. Nothing stays the same.’
‘Yeah, well, sometimes things get better and sometimes they don’t,’ said Harper. ‘The whole Middle East thing has been a bloody disaster from start to finish. Tony Blair and George Bush have a lot to answer for.’ He grinned and shrugged. ‘Sorry. Political speech over. Time-wise, how long do you think we have?’
‘If we’re lucky, a few weeks. But if things get heated over there, it could be a matter of days.’
‘Spider’s been trained in surviving interrogations. He’ll cope. What about this Raj character?’
‘He’s a civilian,’ said Button. ‘Spider gave him some training but not much.’
‘And what happens if and when I get a location?’
‘At the moment I’m taking it one step at a time, Lex.’
Harper flicked ash through the window. ‘Better we get started straight away,’ he said. ‘Have you got a file I can look at?’
Button shook her head. ‘Nothing in writing. I’ll brief you verbally. Make notes if you want, but the fewer the better.’
‘I don’t have Spider’s photographic memory,’ said Harper. ‘But I’ll do my best.’
The Gulfstream jet turned off the runway and taxied towards the VIP section of the general aviation terminal. A black stretch limousine was parked close to the terminal. A big man in a dark suit and impenetrable sunglasses was standing by the side of the car, his hands clasped in front of him. There was an earpiece in his left ear and a thin black wire disappeared into the collar of his gleaming white shirt. A black sedan was parked some distance away and two equally large men stood by it, their eyes scanning the terminal building. The occupant of the limousine was the Secretary of State for Defense and he never went anywhere without at least half a dozen Secret Service agents. Another two agents emerged from the terminal building. One stayed by the door, the other jogged over to the limousine.
The jet came to a halt and the twin engines powered down as a set of steps unfolded from the fuselage.
A Secret Service agent appeared from the rear of the limousine, followed closely by the Secretary. He was wearing plaid golfing trousers and a canary-yellow sweater. His trousers flapped around his ankles as he strode across the tarmac, flanked by the Secret Service agents. One jogged up the steps first and disappeared inside. He reappeared after a few seconds and nodded at his companion, who then followed the Secretary up the stairs.
Richard Yokely was already on his feet and he grinned when he saw the Secretary’s attire. The Secretary of Defense returned the smile. ‘Generally Mohammed comes to the mountain, Richard. I’m assuming this is important.’
‘Would I pull you away from the golf course if it wasn’t?’ said Yokely. He shook hands with the Secretary and waved him to one of the beige leather seats, bigger than anything in the first-class cabin of a scheduled airliner. ‘Have you got time for a drink?’ he asked.
‘I’m good, Richard,’ said the Secretary.
‘Then I’ll get straight to the point,’ said Yokely, sitting down opposite him. There was a manila file on the table between them and Yokely flicked it open to reveal a surveillance photograph of an Arab man with a greying beard and circular spectacles. ‘Akram Al-Farouq is a high-value target,’ said Yokely. ‘One of the highest. Number three or four in the al-Qaeda leadership, depending on how you draw the flow chart. Between 2007 and 2009 he was behind a series of bombings that took hundreds of lives. His speci
ality has been truck and car bombings.’
The Secretary picked up the photograph and studied it. ‘I’ve heard of him, of course. But I don’t recall him being a bomb-maker.’
Yokely shook his head. ‘He isn’t. He’s an organiser. A facilitator. A planner. He puts people together to carry out the attacks and arranges the financing. One of his truck bombs killed a hundred and thirty-five people in the main Baghdad market in 2007. In April the same year we believe he was behind a series of coordinated car bombs that killed two hundred people across Baghdad. In August he organised four suicide bomb attacks in the Kurdish towns of Kahtaniya and Jazeera that killed almost eight hundred people. He was still at it in 2011; we have photographic evidence that he was behind three consecutive car bombings that killed a hundred and thirty-three people.’
‘And I presume you know where he is?’
‘I hope to have a precise location in the very near future.’
‘Where exactly? Iraq?’
Yokely shook his head. ‘No, not Iraq.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I think he’s on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.’
‘The border?’
‘Well, I suspect it will be on what the Paks will claim is their territory.’
The Secretary looked pained. He removed his spectacles and polished them with a pristine white handkerchief. ‘That’s awkward, as you know.’
‘Not as awkward as Abbottabad. The area is one of those movable feasts. Afghanistan has as much a claim over it as the Paks, it’s just the Paks seized it back in 1947 and as there’s nothing of any value there nobody kicked up a fuss. To be honest, the Paks don’t even control the territory. It’s run by the Taliban. The border is a mountain range but that’s it. There’s no border guards, no line in the sand. You’d walk across it and never know.’
‘It’s clear you’ve never worked for the Diplomatic Corps,’ said the Secretary. ‘I think you’ll find that countries are always keen to defend their borders, whether or not there are lines in the sand.’
‘The point I’m trying to make in my clumsy way is that if we were to mount a cross-border operation, we’d only be dealing with the Taliban, not the Pakistani military. If anything, we’d be doing them a favour.’
‘I doubt that they would see it that way.’ The Secretary put the photograph back in the file. ‘What sort of cross-border operation are you suggesting?’
‘A small snatch squad. Navy SEALs. In and out with a minimum of fuss.’
‘Not helicopters, I hope.’
‘I’m not a big fan of helicopters,’ said Yokely. ‘They have a nasty habit of crashing.’
‘And you want me to take this to the President, is that it?’
Yokely shook his head. ‘I don’t want the President informed,’ he said.
The Secretary frowned. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘He needs plausible deniability,’ said Yokely.
‘In case something goes wrong?’
‘I’m not planning for that eventuality, but yes.’
The Secretary sighed. ‘So you want me to give you the go-ahead for an operation that if it goes wrong will mean us going toe to toe with the Paks again?’
‘Do we care what the Paks think? Half the al-Qaeda leaders are on their territory. And do either of us really believe that they didn’t know Bin Laden was holed up in Abbottabad? They’re not our friends. Never have been and probably never will be. Let’s not forget they’ve already agreed to sell nukes to Saudi Arabia.’
The Secretary held up his hands. ‘I hear you, Richard.’
‘All I need is your approval so that I can take this to Virginia Beach. I don’t see it’ll need any extra funding, it can all be done within their budget.’
‘And if it’s successful, what do we do with him?’
‘I’m not suggesting a trial, obviously. Interrogation followed by a deal if he cooperates. No one knows more about the workings of al-Qaeda than Al-Farouq. He’d be a gold mine. With his cooperation we could set the organisation back years.’
The Secretary stared at Yokely with unblinking pale blue eyes. ‘Are you telling me everything, Richard?’ he asked eventually.
‘How long have you known me?’
‘Long enough to know that sometimes you have more than one iron in the fire.’
‘And have I ever let you down?’
‘Not once.’
‘So you know you can trust me?’
‘Now that is a non sequitur if ever I heard one.’ The Secretary leaned across the table towards Yokely. ‘Let me just ask you this, Richard. Are you putting me in a position where I will have plausible deniability?’
Yokely smiled. ‘Would you want that, rather than being told something which might come back and bite you on the arse?’
‘That’s a good question,’ said the Secretary, sitting back. ‘One that is probably best left unanswered.’ He stood up and offered his hand.
Yokely shook it.
‘Be lucky, Richard,’ said the Secretary. He turned and walked down the steps to the waiting limousine.
The cockpit door opened and the pilot appeared in a short-sleeved white shirt with epaulettes. ‘Everything OK, sir?’ He was in his forties with greying hair and nicotine stains on the fingers of his right hand.
‘Everything is just fine and dandy,’ said Yokely. ‘Could you file a flight plan to NAS Oceana?’ Naval Air Station Oceana was the military airport located in Virginia Beach, home to the Navy SEALs. Yokely fastened his seat belt as the pilot returned to the cockpit.
Button’s driver dropped her outside her front door and waited until she had let herself in before driving off. It was almost midnight and she was dog-tired but she still had work to do. She opened her laptop on the kitchen counter and made herself a cup of tea while it booted up. She put three Jaffa cakes on a plate and sat down on a stool with her tea and launched the browser. The website that logged all the calls and messages to Taz Bashir’s phone was password protected and also required her to press her index finger on to a fingerprint reader that she had plugged into her USB slot. For a few seconds the page seemed to hang but then it cleared and she was looking at a spreadsheet showing all the activity on the phone since Singh had installed the surveillance software.
There had been a text message sent from a Pakistan mobile shortly after Bashir had left the safe house, presumably while he was in the car. ‘Are you OK? Did you get there? XXX’. There was no name but the three kisses suggested a girlfriend.
Bashir had replied with ‘Will call soon. Miss you lots. XXX’.
Fifteen minutes later the Pakistan number had called Bashir’s phone but he hadn’t answered. A few minutes later the Pakistan number sent another text message. ‘Where are you? XXX’.
Bashir had replied with ‘In the car. Can’t talk now. XXX’.
Bashir had phoned the Pakistan number about ninety minutes later, using the iPhone’s Skype app. Button clicked on the speaker icon to the right of the number and the call began. ‘Salma, baby, hi, it’s me.’
‘How are you calling me, I don’t recognise the number?’
‘I’m on Skype. It’s cheaper.’
‘What happened, honey? Was your plane late?’ She had a Pakistani accent but Americanised, as if she had studied at an international school. Button reached for a pen and wrote down the number, and ‘Salma’.
‘It’s OK, it just took a while for my bag and I didn’t want to talk in the taxi.’
‘How long are you going to be in London?’ asked the girl.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bashir. ‘They haven’t said.’
‘Are you in trouble, honey?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because of that thing going wrong? The agent you were trying to rescue.’
‘I don’t think that’s anything to do with it,’ said Bashir.
Button frowned. When he’d lied about the taxi she’d thought he was following protocol, but telling an outsider about an ongoing operation was a total
breach of MI6 rules.
‘They’re not blaming you, are they?’
‘Why would they blame me, baby? I was just the agent handler, I wasn’t there. I was in Islamabad all the time.’
‘It’s just not fair,’ said Salma. ‘I want my baby here with me.’
‘You could come to London. If I’m here for a while.’
‘Do you think it’ll be that long?’
‘I don’t know, baby. Look, I’m going to sleep now, I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight honey. Love you.’
‘Goodnight, baby.’
The call ended. Shortly afterwards there was a spate of text messages declaring undying love, then silence. Button nibbled a Jaffa cake as she stared at the spreadsheet. Whoever the mysterious Salma was, she seemed to know more than she should about Taz Bashir’s work for MI6.
Shepherd heard them in the corridor outside his cell, muttering between themselves, so he had time to prepare himself. There would be no point in fighting, he knew that. The first time they hadn’t expected him to lash out so he’d managed to hurt two of them. They wouldn’t make that mistake again. His survival now depended on playing weakness. They clearly weren’t planning to kill him, at least not in the short term. They would hurt him until he passed out or until it looked as if he couldn’t take any more, so he had to convince them he was at death’s door. Suffering in silence was supposedly what heroes did, but when it came to surviving torture the best strategy was to scream your lungs out.
The bolts drew back and Shepherd tensed. The door opened and his eyes instinctively closed. He squinted up through his fingers. A bearded man waved a Kalashnikov at him then stepped to the side. Two big men rushed in and grabbed an arm each. Shepherd didn’t resist as they pulled him to his feet.
They dragged him out of the cell. The big man had moved down the corridor and was pointing the barrel of his AK-47 at Shepherd’s chest. It was a stupid thing to do because at that range the bullet would probably go right through Shepherd and hit one of his colleagues who was standing at the other end of the corridor.
Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies Page 22