by Daniel Kemp
“So who ordered Henry Mayler into Syria if Higgins was dead?” I asked.
“I did, Patrick. All was done by machine. We never spoke.”
“How did you get his instructions chalked up on the wall he told me of?”
“Sorry, more of that later.”
“How about Liam Catlin? Who sent him in?”
“Yes, that was me too.”
“Who's playing who here? Catlin's a killer, not a tracker, as you and I well know. Henry is the type to go out and find people, then upstairs call in people like me and Liam Catlin to kill them or decommission them at our commander's behest. I'm becoming very worried at the way this is unfolding. First I'm told there's a 'hands off' notice on Razin pasted there by the Americans, and then along comes Mayler with a tale of a fire-fight leaving a body who in Mayler's words could have been American. Somewhere in that mess Bernard Higgins and a CIA agent have a knees-up leaving heartbroken Henry Mayler alone and forgotten about. Perhaps Catlin is going to kill at least one American and put some indigenous agitators in the frame. Are you running the whole operation from here, Fraser, and telling those up high sitting on Mount Olympus absolutely nothing?”
“No, not nothing, Patrick, I tell them as much as they need to know. Bernard being dead is not what they need right now, nor is the real reason for Catlin's visit. As for Henry, there is no need for me to inform anyone.”
“Why did Geoffrey Harwood refer to Mayler as one of your pets, Fraser? You've intimated that he knows nothing of Henry Mayler.”
“Hardballs knows nothing of Henry's real interest to me. All he knows is that he's an asset who I ran personally for a time and he's now in need of a babysitter. That's where his knowledge ends and his resentment begins. He was of some logistical use to me. Now he's fretting around hiding any reference to him being aware of Henry. He has no idea what Henry has done for us and if he looked he would only find trivia. What was it he called you when he was selling the head of Group to you; a meat and potato agent, was it?”
“Yes, something pretty close to that. Is Lavington Street wired to your office here, Fraser?”
“If you can remember that far back Lavington Street was my department's property once. It was I who let you and Job use it. A few years ago it was being redeveloped, so of course I had it soft-wired. Geoffrey's people found most, but not them all. But you don't have me to worry about. When Geoffrey moved from Lavington Street he made sure that his AIS at Greenwich had eyes and ears on your domain at Group. He has two cameras and three listening devices. I have noted the positions on this paper. Take it and do what you want with it.”
I took it and briefly looked at it. The listening devices were of little importance, but one of the cameras was overlooking the lounge of the upstairs flat. I reflected on why that would be and what I could do with it. My deliberation was cut short by Fraser's perseverance.
“The tunnel that leads to the exit at Stamford Street is the only place where you have complete freedom from any outside interference. There are two lengths of the tunnel where all piping and cables are sunk into impervious tubing so any bugs would have to be mounted on the surface, and easily visible as would the work installing them. Although you cannot be intruded upon along those stretches you can transmit from them. You have my word on that.”
I looked at him and worried why I would have need of a safe place to speak with anyone. Just how important was this Henry Mayler and what did he know?
“How deep are the Americans in this?” I asked.
“It's not just the Americans, laddie. I wish it were. It would make things a whole lot easier. No, not just them, it's a world within our own world and I don't mean our intelligence world. I mean the whole world.”
“How long have you known Fyodor Nazarov Razin, Fraser? And precisely why is there a 'hands off' from the Americans?”
Chapter Eight: The Savoy
Straight after lunch with the Ugherts, I was bombarded with facts about how we had interfered in other countries' affairs to the advancement of what Fraser called the British State. Next came how European countries had tried but failed to curtail that advancement, and how the world was not only divided by ideology and religion that ended at defined borders, but by states within states; secret corporations existing for their own solitary benefit. Of course the obligatory mention of various American intelligence services allied to their Russian equivalent were introduced to the one-sided discussion. Then finally we came to Liam.
“I hid Liam, Patrick. That was my decision alone. Part of the plan was thought up by the Irish Office thinking of Catlin's welfare. They, and his section leader at special forces, were mindful of the operations he'd undertaken on this country's behalf, twice as many as you incidentally, and proposed an enforced leave from frontline duties. They knew he would refuse, hence that's where I came in. I hooked my plan onto the aftermath of the pub bombing and hey presto Liam Catlin, as Liam Catlin, was no more. But it never ended there. The final say on all matters rested at the Joint Intelligence Committee and I saw to it that the thick blotting paper in that office absorbed it all. Catlin was moved sideways to sit in the waiting room biding his time. It was as easy for me to maintain Catlin's cover as it was to hide Henry. There was nobody for me to answer to other than the parliamentary head of the Home Office and his counterpart at the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office, neither of whom would have any interest in an assassin able to run to the national press at any given moment provided I kept him below their sights.”
“Was my appointment timed for Liam's scheduled arrival in Syria or for Razin's appearance in London?”
“For Catlin's re-emergence, laddie. As I've previously said I want you to supervise Mayler's departure and settlement out of the game. Razin's untimely arrival is, I think, to announce that he's not finished with Henry.”
“You do realise I'll go to Syria if needs be don't you, Fraser?”
“Yes, I know you'll probably try. But I don't want you somewhere you will be wasted in both senses of that word. There is a colossal amount of footage to unfold on that arena within the next few years for which the foundations are only just being laid. You can't just jump in and play the spy whenever the fancy takes you, Patrick. There's no point our Director General of Group being out there doing a collection job when I have Catlin with a Kurdish Syrian we trained at Hereford already in situ. The two of them have history together in that part of Arabia. Some of it highly unusual.” He refilled the glasses, then on lighting his pipe he began to recall one moment of unusual excitement.
“They were on a British Airways flight that landed in Kuwait the day Saddam Hussein sent his army to invade in 1990. We had prior knowledge of that invasion but not the date. As soon as the pilot of the aircraft in which Liam and Narak Vanlian were travelling heard the news he thought about turning around and flying back. His request went through British Airways to Number Ten. The Prime Minister asked me for my advice. I told him I wanted Catlin and Narak Vanlian to land. The decision was made and transmitted to the pilot to allow flight to continue. As you can imagine the chaos and confusion on the ground aided the two to slip away into the country. Over a period exceeding a year, they cultivated several friendly groups of Kurds that might be useful at some future date, through Iraq and into Syria. Catlin uses Aleppo to travel home from and arrive at. It's his local. He's returned to Syria to meet up again with Vanlian who stays there preaching the gospel. I have need of you on home shores, Patrick, because it will be here where the lasting tomorrows will be constructed. There's one last thing before I must leave you and have my afternoon nap. I want your help in flying someone into Afghanistan without Geoffrey or any other service branch knowing. This AIS department he's put together is a bastard to circumnavigate if entering the country, but I'm hoping it's not so clever looking into departures.
“Hang on a minute, Fraser, let's backtrack a bit. What will those 'friendlies' that Liam's meeting be used for?”
“Whatever benefits civilisation, Patric
k, for the good of the majority.”
“And who decides what civilisation wants; you, or a committee chaired by Geoffrey and his ilk from Guildford?”
“No, it's not as cold-blooded as that. And I'm not about to tell you any more on the subject. Just ask yourself this—if the intelligence we are getting is correct and there is going to be a huge upheaval in the Middle East in the next few months and years, who would you want making those decisions—the governments of the West or the thugs of the Politburo with power-mad zealots sitting beside them?”
“Given the choice, and having the ability to enforce that choice, then neither option would I choose, but sitting on the fence wouldn't solve any crisis would it? I haven't an argument of a third choice to put forward. I'll shut up and leave you to carry on installing the good guys.” He made no effort to reply to my lack of decision. He simply grinned and carried on.
“There's a flight leaving RAF Northolt at 06:23 tomorrow bound for Cyprus. I want you to register this person,” he passed me a business card with what appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphics written at the top of it, “as a captain in the Engineering Corps and get him on board. Use the name on the card. You will have to conceal his passage out from RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus on another military flight into Basra. But I want him in Basra by the early hours of Tuesday morning at the latest. Incidentally, while I'm still awake, at both the coalition bases in Khost and Kabul there is an active CIA attachment on station. I have to consider that Bernard Higgins discovered a connection between that agency and the invisible state that I've mentioned. Let's hope I'm wrong.”
“And there was I thinking that Catlin had gone to shake native Bedouin by the hand and exchange gifts. Just as long as I'm not treated like a meat and potato street plod by you as well, Fraser,” I laughed but was not fully convinced by his answer.
“Never, laddie, not my style.”
* * *
I spent most part of Monday going over what Fraser had said, the files that I had and searching for things Fraser had not told me. I put my day shift Solomon, Michael Simmons, in charge of arranging and setting up a meeting with Razin for the following day. Simmons had served three years on attachment to the Queen's Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment during one of the few peaceful periods in British military history, being stationed overseas in Poland and Estonia as well as doing another three years in the intelligence service in America before being called home with the expectation of the top position at Group on his mind no doubt. His record was impeccable, but more importantly he'd done the boring legwork in all of those overseas places. I needed his experience, plus I wanted to smooth away any rough edges that might be left after he had been passed over in favour of my own promotion. What I asked of him was not impossible, however it did need a surreptitious hand.
As far as anyone was aware Fyodor Nazarov Razin had not been followed since his arrival by any agency, nor had anyone suspicious been seen approaching or being approached by him; but Simmons knew the drill—
'Always suspect there is someone watching, but never look too hard in case you scare them off. Keep them interested in the sting so they miss the trick!'
As a professional he was aware of the precautions to take. As was I. Razin called me on Tuesday morning using the one-time-use phone number from the mobile telephone Simmons had managed to slip into his pocket at Notting Hill Gate station. It was then that I changed the rendezvous point from the Silver Vaults to the Savoy Hotel, not telling a soul until it was all was in place.
When Michael Simmons passed the phone to Razin he included a sealed note of mine. Simmons reported that the Russian had surprised everyone on the platform that morning by reading the note without taking any precautions. He then nodded his compliance in Simmons' direction adding a nonchalant, 'okay' as if an additional spoken word was necessary to confirm his agreement. That casualness was in conflict with all my training in tradecraft experience on the street while out on the spy. I could think of only two reasons why he would be so carefree: one, he was so important that nobody dared to follow him, and two, he wanted to be seen speaking to British intelligence. Whatever it was, I was taking no chances, hence the change of venue.
Since time began, and England had any semblance of a security service in need of information about other countries, the Savoy Hotel close to the geographical centre of London acted as a source of intelligence gathering. When Group was inaugurated during the War to end all Wars those in charge took advantage of the plethora of loyalists to the Queen and flag one could rely on being employed there. It was there in the early 1930s that the late Jack Price worked as a young pageboy passing on gossip to the intelligence gathers of the day. A fledgling MI5 security service used him as a listening post in the days of Mosley's fascists and some intelligentsia in favour of Nazism. There was nobody in London more accustomed to home-grown spies using the Savoy than the doormen and front desk of that prestigious hotel.
At the rear of the highly polished, imposing, mahogany front desk, where the concierges stand and survey the sumptuous lounge floor with its scores of tapestry-covered chairs spreading out before them, there is an innocuous door blended in the panelling that leads to where extra diaries are kept along with catalogues of regular guests and their wants and needs. It is also used as the place for a sneaky cigarette with a cup of tea whilst resting weary feet. If one does not know of it, then its coordinated exterior has worked, and its function kept secret. My sealed note explained how Razin should ask at the concierge desk for Mr Jones of Seaworld Corporation and then he would be shown the door. We met as the kettle was boiling and my cigarette was alight in a freshly emptied ashtray.
“I read that you're not a Freemason,” he declared as he let go of my welcoming handshake.
“Wow! That's some opening you have there. Shall I pop out and buy the necessary regalia while you wait here for me?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, Mr West. I prefer it that way,” he replied with no semblance of a smile. “You will not be burdened by the rituals of the Freemason lessons and degrees. They can be overbearing at the best of times. To know nothing of visits to the entrails of the earth or how to rectify your soul in order to find the hidden stone of the true philosophers is really no disadvantage in our present trade. Or is it?” Like Geoffrey Harwood he didn't overburden himself waiting for an answer.
“But no, I am all good as you say in the West. Fantasy is an unknown world to me, unless you count Russian politics as fantasy. I'll have a tea, Mr West, and smoke a cigarette like you.”
The file never lied about Razin's age. He was every inch as old as the file said, but at fifty-seven years, only five ahead of me, he looked wrinkled and ancient. His skin was ravaged by wind and rain, motley, blotched and red-veined. The lines across his forehead were of agricultural proportions being deeply cut trenches with the corrugations around his mouth almost as deep. There was a blanched three-inch-long scar on his left cheek and an inch long one under his right eye that appeared younger in age. The whites of his eyes were a washy-grey and the iris, a much faded brown. His small hooked nose was in disproportion to rest of his oblong, hollowed out face where his thin lips rested halfway between a permanent smile and a permanent grimace, giving him an enigmatic expression impossible to read. He had brown hair, parted on the left side and worn at a cropped military length. A pair of spectacles were removed from the inside of that distinctive coat of his which sounded heavy as he laid it across a chair tucked against the wall by the door. Under the coat he wore no jacket against the cold of a London December, just a sleeveless grey sweater, white shirt, and black trousers with highly polished, matching leather shoes.
“I guess you must find London mild at this time of year compared to Moscow, Lieutenant General?” I asked as I offered a light for his cigarette. “The last time I was in Moscow it was very warm. Two years ago at Easter time, stiflingly hot in fact. My daughter Stefanie is the principal ballet master with The Vaganova Academy in St Petersburg. She was in Moscow with three eleven-
year-old students from the academy who were undergoing some training with your own Royal Ballet company who were visiting Russia.”
“Couldn't our lot go to St. Petersburg? That would have saved your daughter the trip,” I said, not knowing why, but it elicited a curt reply that I wasn't expecting.
“No. If they could they didn't.” He exhaled some smoke in my direction. With a distinct display of annoyance I wafted it away.
“Was it at the State University in Moscow that you learned to speak my language as well as you do, General Razin?” I had no reason at that stage to show any disrespect but my politeness escaped my guest.
“I'm not here to waste time chatting amicably over cups of tea, Mr West, as pleasant as that may be. My government does not know of my close connection to yours, so to save some time I'm going to cut through all the bullshit and get right into why I am here in England which I imagine is what you would dearly love to know? Approximately two years ago, I informed British Intelligence that the Pakistani ISI was taking an active role in several Al-Qaeda training camps. The ISI helped with the construction of camps for both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. From 1996 until this time last year the Al-Qaeda of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a separate state within the Taliban organisation. Bin Laden sent Arab and Central Asian Al-Qaeda militants to join the fight against the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. Among them was Bin Laden's elitist fighting force; the 55th Brigade. The aim behind the intervention was to create a global Islamist revolution. Remember those words, Mr West—global Islamist revolution, as they might haunt you very soon.
“According to the American Joint Task Force counter-terrorism analysts' report I have read, the 55th Arab Brigade was integrated into the Taliban's military where an Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi was asserted to be in direct operational control. Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil was his second-in-command. Don't worry about the names as I've written them all down for you. The Americans are making huge noises saying they have Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi in Guantanamo and they're saying Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil was killed in Afghanistan, but I know that all to be a bag of shit they are trying to sell to the Western press to make themselves look better than the fools and liars they are. I am swiftly getting to the point and no, I cannot supply the evidence at this moment in time, you will just have to accept what I'm saying as the truth. More tea, Mr West, and shall I be mother?” I accepted his offer, smiling at the memory of his not so long ago retort of not staying for tea.