by Alan Porter
‘Phillip, I haven’t mastered email yet. I don’t know anything about computer code.’
‘It’s not computer code. There are seventeen characters. It’s a secret code used by the Americans during the war. They used it now because it would be virtually impossible to find unless you knew what you were looking for. We only found it because we had some of the code used by the encryption system, and that’s stored in the partition. We found the outside by knowing a little bit about what’s on the inside.’
‘This secret code: it’s Navajo, isn’t it,’ Leila said.
‘Yes. It was used in the war because no one understood it. But Google does, with a bit of help. Well, a lot of help. Well, actually it’s total crap, but I tried some searches and got a translation in the end.’
‘And it’s not al Sahm?’
‘No. It’s Black Eagle. Is that what al Sahm means?’
‘Al Sahm means The Arrow. We’re linking it with Islamist extremists. Does that seem to fit?’
‘I don’t know. I linked whoever posted the video to a Langley partition called Black Eagle. That’s all I could do before someone stole my disks. And the police have taken away the rest of the computer. This one’s very slow.’
‘Right. We need to get you out of here. We’ve got people who can work through what you’ve found.’
She stood up. Bones was now standing right behind her.
‘Phillip ain’t going anywhere with you.’
‘I have to take him in. He’s got information that could stop another attack. And he needs to be somewhere safe.’
‘Like he says, he’s safe now. Out there, he’s not.’
‘I really need to get him where he can talk to someone who understands this.’
‘Maybe, but not now. If he’s going anywhere, we’ll do it tonight,’ Bones said.
‘Tonight? Why tonight?’
‘There’ll be trouble tonight. We can get him out so no one sees him go. That man who kill his fambly, he’s going to be back. But he’s a white dude. He gonna show up at night.’
‘Fine. Ten o’clock, I’m coming back here for Phillip. You stand in my way, I’ll arrest you. Aiding a terrorist organisation and obstructing an investigation. Phillip has his ways of getting things done: so do I.’
‘You come back here without trailing anyone behind you, you got him.’
Bones stepped back and Leila pushed past him.
‘Detective Sergeant Reid?’ Phillip called after her.
‘Yes?’
‘In the cupboard at the top of the wardrobe in my bedroom I have a box. I need it.’
‘A box? Why? What is it?’
‘I need a better computer. I have some parts there; I can build one.’
‘Why do you need a better computer?’
‘I want to know what Black Eagle is. Don’t you?’
28
Security had been massively increased around the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. What had long been armed roadblocks now bristled with security staff toting machine guns. British police were flagging down vans and trucks approaching along Park Lane and checking drivers and cargos. Others pulled over seemingly random cars to quiz their drivers. They were planning for a car bomb that went off yesterday.
Leila had retrieved Phillip’s box of esoteric computer parts from his room (she told the constable standing guard at the flat door that she was collecting evidence) and exchanged it for her gun and phone back in the Martlesham car park. She had not called in the fact that she was leaving without the boy, but had driven straight down to Westminster, parking as close to the Embassy as she could. By now Harris and Field could already have left, but she doubted it. The Americans would have kept them waiting. It was possible they hadn’t even started their meeting yet.
As she approached she looked up at the huge gold eagle that stood, wings outstretched, above the Embassy’s main entrance. Would anyone plotting from within the US government really be stupid enough to codename the operation ‘Eagle’? Or was this just the fantasy of a socially retarded, conspiracy-mad kid with too much time on his hands?
Reid handed her warrant card to the guard in the east pavilion.
‘I’ve got a meeting with the Special Liaison Officer.’
The guard radioed through her credentials for scrutiny within the building. It was confirmed that Harris and Field were still inside, but the meeting had started some time ago. The guard handed back her warrant and directed her across to the main door. She glanced up as she jogged up the steps; she still couldn’t decide which of the eagle explanations seemed the more implausible.
She was checked again by a plain-clothes security officer at the door of the huge pale stone lobby then directed over to the reception desk. A young man strode purposefully from the lifts towards her.
‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she said before he could speak. ‘I was meant to be here half an hour ago. CTC, with your Political Liaison Section.’
She handed over her warrant card and he examined it minutely. The officer offered neither a name or position, but everything about his bearing and manner suggested an ambitious junior diplomat. The British diplomats who occupied the ground floor office of 10 Downing Street looked like men on a break from their gentleman’s club; the US diplomatic corps looked like men on a break from a black-ops assassination job. Seemingly satisfied with her credentials, he handed back her ID.
‘I think you’ve missed most of the meeting,’ he said. ‘Please leave your gun, mobile phone and any electronic devices at reception, then follow me.’
She handed her stash of contraband to the concierge on the front desk then followed her escort to the lifts. On the fourth floor, he directed her through hushed corridors to a door towards the rear of the building. He knocked and opened the door.
Inside, Harris and Field were sitting at their leisure with a man wearing a pale linen suit.
‘DS Reid?’ Field said.
‘Sorry I’m so late. Got caught up on a transfer.’
‘Were you scheduled to be in this meeting?’
‘Of course, didn’t Commander Thorne text you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you can call him if you need to check.’
She walked over to the American and held out her hand. He stood and shook it.
‘Detective Sergeant Reid, Counter-Terrorism Command,’ she said.
‘Michael Holt,’ he said. He did not offer either rank or department.
‘DS Reid,’ Harris said, ‘if you’re going to sit in on this, please take a seat.’
‘I won’t be staying,’ she said, declining the offer of a chair. ‘I just need to clarify a couple of points that have come up in the investigation.’
‘I was just telling your colleagues here that our Embassy has put itself at your disposal, anything you need to find whoever’s behind this outrage. Our government will offer whatever intelligence we have that might prove relevant.’
‘Which amounts to what so far?’
‘Both Langley and the Pentagon are collating data on Harakat al Sahm as we speak.’
‘That’ll be useful.’
‘As I said, whatever we need to do.’ He seemed entirely oblivious to the sarcasm.
‘What can you tell me about a woman by the name of Ghada Mussan?’
‘Who?’
‘Originally Abulafia, but her US passport has the name Mussan.’
‘Should I know anything about her?’ Holt was still looking at the two men sitting opposite him.
‘It seems she’s one of yours,’ Leila said.
Holt laughed. ‘There are upwards of a hundred forty million currently valid passports in the US. You must forgive me if I don’t recall the name on every one of them.’
She glanced at Field who was smiling at the American’s wit.
‘That’s not quite what I meant by ‘one of yours’,’ she said. ‘But never mind. We’ll find her.’
‘And anything we can do to help you, we will be more than happy to do. Now please, unless there
is anything more… pertinent… we were in the middle of a discussion.’
‘OK. There is one more thing. Tell me about Black Eagle.’
‘Black Eagle?’ Holt said. He sat up a little straighter in his chair. His eyes met Leila’s for the first time and she let him size her up. ‘You’ll have to help me out there again, I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘It’s what got an innocent family killed last night. I just want to know what it is.’
‘I can’t tell you anything…’
‘DS Reid, this is not part of our enquiry here,’ Harris said. ‘Mr Holt has agreed to see us as a courtesy, not to be interrogated.’
‘So you’re confirming,’ she said to Holt, ‘that you know nothing of a covert CIA operation by the name Black Eagle.’
‘You think that’s what this is?’ Holt said. ‘I can assure you, Detective Sergeant Reid, that if the US government were operating on British soil, your people would have been fully informed. And if you are implying that the we are in any way complicit in the deaths of British citizens, you are treading on very sensitive diplomatic ground.’
‘I’m not implying anything,’ Reid said. ‘I just want to know if Black Eagle is real.’
‘And do you?’ Holt said. She looked at him for several silent seconds.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
29
DCI Lawrence sat at his desk drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. Like Commander Thorne, he was beginning to think that bringing Reid in had been a big mistake.
It was not that Leila was incompetent. Far from it: she had an intuition that had on many occasions saved them days of painstaking trial and error. It was more that she never knew when to stop, when that intuition for the truth slipped silently into fantasy. And in a delicate and fast-moving investigation like this, fantasy was the last thing they needed.
He had just got off the phone to Commander Thorne who had been the last in a cascade of trouble that had started right at the top echelons of the US Embassy. Michael Holt had contacted David Bates at SIS who had contacted Sir Malcolm Stevens at MI5 who had contacted CTC. Reid had thrown a grenade into already frosty negotiations and no one was happy.
Lawrence took his personal mobile from the top drawer of his desk and dialled her number. It rang once.
‘DCI Lawrence,’ Reid said. ‘Your personal cell again. Are you trying to tell me something?’
‘There are a lot of things I’d like to tell you. And the first of them is the get the hell off this case. Where are you now?’
‘I’m approaching the west end of Hyde Park. Wanted to take another look at the site. I need to reconnect with the origin of this thing.’
‘Well don’t. You’ve caused enough trouble in the last hour to last us a year. What the hell were you thinking?’
‘You’ve spoken to Holt at the Embassy? Has he confirmed Black Eagle?’
‘No and no. I’ve had my ear bent here because you very nearly lost us vital US cooperation.’
‘On Black Eagle.’
‘No, not on your bloody Black Eagle. On al Sahm, on the vipers’ nest of middle eastern political Islam. The real issues of the day.’
‘The real issue is Black Eagle, and Holt knows about it. He was like a rabbit in the headlights as soon as I mentioned it. The man would make a crap poker player. I’m telling you, Harakat al Sahm might have been behind the bombing, but Black Eagle are behind them. The kid, Phillip Shaw, found the name on the Langley computers.’
‘Stop, stop, stop! Have you any idea how crazy you sound? You’re basing your theory of everything on the say-so of some kid who claims to have hacked the CIA? Reid, even if there’s a shred of truth to it, you know damn well we can’t go anywhere with intel like that.’
‘I agree. That’s why I went to see Holt. And it’s why you need to bring him in. The CIA knows more about what happened yesterday than anyone. And they know what’s coming next. They’re the key to all of this.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting we bring a senior diplomat in for questioning? Apart from the fact that it’s legally impossible, we’ve got no evidence.’
‘Then go and see him. Talk to him. You’ll know I’m right.’
‘I’m sorry, but it’s just not enough. Unless you can bring the Shaw boy in for formal questioning, your part in this is over.’
‘Shaw won’t come, and it would be a big mistake to arrest him right now. He’s feeding us useful information.’
‘That’s highly debatable.’
‘What about Abulafia’s father? Have you questioned him yet?’
‘No. SIS are being evasive about his citizenship, and anyway, I seem to remember it was you who suggested we keep our distance. He’s got no political affiliations, no legal problems. He doesn’t even seem to be associated with any of the local mosques. We’ve questioned neighbours and the few that knew anything at all say that Ghada was a rare visitor. Seems they weren’t close. We will talk to him, but unlike you we need to go through the right channels to do so.’
‘You haven’t even told him his daughter’s dead?’
‘Until we get forensics matches back, we don’t know one hundred per cent that she is. She’s involved in this somehow, but until we know for certain she was the bomber…’
‘I’ll go and talk to him.’
‘No! You won’t go anywhere near Abulafia or anyone else. Go home, Reid, now. Get some rest then call me tomorrow morning. If I can get it approved by any of the people you’ve gone out of your way to piss off in the last twenty-four hours, you might be useful processing evidence.’
‘What evidence? You seem to be ignoring all the main leads.’
‘We’ve got a whole department, plus MI5 liaison, gathering data and interviewing people. We’re flooded with leads on ISIS returners and they’ve all got to be picked through. This was a sophisticated bomb, yes, but it was a lone, lucky strike.’
‘Using military grade explosives?’
‘Nothing ISIS don’t have access to. And we’ll find out soon enough how they got the stuff into the country. We’ve got a lead on a Turkish clothing exporter.’
‘Well, you must have nearly solved it then.’
‘I’m going to ignore that. Reid, go home. You need to get some perspective on this. Black Eagle is a blind alley, if it exists at all. Al Sahm were running a lone sleeper cell, simple as that. There’s no evidence that there are going to any more attacks.’
‘What about Mapleton?’
‘It’s secure. SHIELD Doppler fence on the perimeter, guards everywhere within the cordon.’
‘CIA?’
‘There’s no US presence at the house. The PLO were insistent on that. It’s just their guys, the Israelis and the PM’s close protection. Met police and MI5 outside. So no Black Eagles swooping in through the darkness.’
‘So you’re still discounting a link between the move to Mapleton and the bombing.’
‘We’re discounting anything we don’t have evidence for. Remember? It’s how we do things. We cannot make a connection, nothing. And we’re so snowed under investigating what we do know that we don’t have time for flights of fancy. Now clock off before I really do fire you.’
The line went dead. She scanned the incoming call list to see if she had missed any other calls while the phone had been quarantined at the Embassy. There was nothing. Only Lawrence’s.
She walked a few more steps and sat down on one of the benches overlooking the Serpentine. Hyde Park was back to normal again, almost. If not for the increased police presence it could just have been another hot summer afternoon in London. Japanese and American tourists wandered by the lake edge with bright shopping bags from the city’s most iconic shops; a child rode past on a tricycle with his mother following closely with a pram; two girls in St Mary Abbots School uniform sat on the grass throwing their uneaten lunch to the geese. Kensington Road was open again and the traffic rumbled past behind her.
Would he really fire her this time? Had she really bee
n so wrong?
Six months ago she had been wrong. CTC had been alerted to unusual trafficking activity by the Drugs Unit monitoring a known South Asian gang. Three million pounds-worth of heroin had been tracked from Afghanistan through Libya and into Southern Europe. It turned up in London but never made it to the streets. What had alerted the Drugs Unit to its possible terrorism connection was that this deal was vastly out of proportion with anything the South Asian gangs had been involved in before. It stank of arms funding.
Progress on tracking the money in Britain had been slow. The importers were careful and since their shipment had disappeared into the Met police’s evidence lockers, they had gone to ground. For CTC it was also a fairly routine case and not one that demanded much attention.
For Leila it had been different. She felt – knew – it was a key to something big. Over the next three weeks she dug deeper and deeper into what little they knew. Everything pointed to an imam associated with a mosque in south London, but her CTC superiors refused to move until they had enough evidence to justify the storm of protest that treading on such delicate ground would bring.
Leila knew she had the evidence, but it was fragmentary, impossible to tie together into the kind of cohesive narrative her superiors demanded. It was a tip-off here, an untraceable transaction there, cell phones that came and went from traces, cars bought for cash in Yorkshire and found burned out in London. Something was in the pipeline and no one but her could see it.
Her mistake had not been in her intuition, but in her impatience. She had leaked what she knew to the press in the hope of ripping away the basis of any plan that was in the offing, and bringing more intel out of the shadows. The story had caused howls of indignation from the opposition back-benchers in the Commons and brought the secretive work of CTC more attention that Commander Thorne cared for. There were street protests, accusations and recriminations. And, of course, her actions had been highly illegal.
The story had eventually led to five arrests. The cell had been blown, the ring-leader sent down for twenty-five years. Even Thorne admitted she had been right. His hands had been tied however, and she too had been sent down for a stretch of garden leave while the IPCC investigated.