The Widow's Son

by Daniel Kemp

  “I'm beginning to doubt your suitability for this end of our business, Hannah. We are not the James Bonds of movie excitement, nor are we priests in civilian clothes offering salvation to the sinners. We are like Suzanna. Bastards dealing with bigger bastards who would willing chop our hands off to break free. We make sure it's their hands, feet, head and anything else we fancy that gets chopped off and fed to the pigs on the farm. We are not nice. I am not nice. I don't want you thinking any different.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Tuesday Early Evening

  The rain, sleeting snow and the inevitable Christmas traffic had delayed our journey by at least an hour, and to start with the atmosphere I had created by chiding Hannah hung heavily over us all. My attention was diverted by calls from seemingly everywhere asking about Harwood, Mayler and Razin and then the drone strike. It was Hannah who broke our chains.

  “I hadn't intended to say anything until we were alone, sir, but you are so busy that I doubted when that time would occur. I was not criticising the methods at Beaulieu, nor would I ever. I was expressing my concern for you as my boss. I thought the treatment of Mr Harwood alienated something inside of you. Whatever it was, it was pulling you apart, sir. I must reiterate that I'm not advocating a softer approach. I am trying to know you better and if I'm able to do that then I will be able to look after you better. When you're head of a company you don't have to clean the toilets, do you? The nasty things should be left to the nasty people. If we have cause to speak to Mr Harwood again why don't I request a television link where you can address him without having close contact? He can be dressed and presented in a more favourable and dignified manner. It would save that side of you that is being pulled under from further harm. That's what I meant by the look I gave you. It's my role to make your role easier, sir.”

  “Bloody hell, laddie, you have some PA there, boy, and no mistake. It will be wise to listen to her, Patrick, and to keep her close.”

  * * *

  After making small talk with the ensemble gathered in Molly's dining room and exchanging Christmas pleasantries, Hannah and I answered Fraser's summons to his office. He had Christopher Irons on hold.

  “I have Patrick West here with me, Christopher, along with his PA, both of whom you know. Patrick is the new Chairman of the JIC. I'm going to put you on loudspeaker so we all can hear. Hold on a sec. They we are. You're on.”

  From the little I knew, Christopher was a slow, deliberate speaker, a person who gave lengthy deliberation on each and every detail including the number of bran flakes he ate at breakfast, if breakfast was relevant. He was a good agent and luckily, bran flakes were not included in his agenda. His deliverance was quicker than I envisaged. When summoned I had just that moment driven my fork into Molly's roasted brisket of beef. As I rose to leave I lovingly looked at the crispy golden potatoes and the shredded beef that filled one side of my plate. It would have been my first cooked meal since I could remember.

  “Don't worry, I'll put your plates in the oven to keep warm with Fraser's,” Molly offered and I pictured the warmed crispy potatoes tasting like rubber. But there were other more crucial disappointments to overcome after Irons' succinct exposition.

  * * *

  “We had made base camp on Swan's Island in Jericho Bay earlier that evening but because of the conditions we were forced to wait longer than we planned. It became a bad night for visibility but eventually a good night for Suzanna to ride the swell in and out of where we were and where she was going. According to the satellite map the target was six clicks from the shoreline in a well concealed house, cleverly cut into a clearing of the forest below the Bubbles Mountains. When she came back she was shot up bad. By the time I tracked her radio beacon she must have lost four or five pints of blood and was clinging to life by a hair from a horse's tail. One wound had found an artery in her leg. There was nothing I could do other than run. By then there were three boats in the bay coming out of Mount Desert Island with searchlights buzzing over every ripple of water. I put her out of her misery, stuffed the pressurised tubes in the inflatable with rocks, tied her and boat together and towed her out towards Rockland where we had left a rental car. Ten kilometres out I sank the boat with Suzanna's body. I'm sorry, but there really was no alternative.”

  “When was all this, Christopher?” I asked as Fraser poured himself and me two large glasses of the obligatory whisky. Hannah preferred to pour her own.

  “Suzanna set off, local time, Monday 22:40. We had a cloud clearing warning for around midnight for fifteen minutes that we had to avoid, Patrick. The weather was dreadful, as I said. She was back at base 23:21.” As he finished speaking I checked my watch. I made it just past midday Eastern Standard Time.

  “Why did it take so long to call it in?” I asked.

  “I had to dump the rental, clean the motel room and then I backtracked to Canada before calling you and going light again. I had good cause to suspect it would not have been left un-investigated by the aggrieved party. There was nothing I could do for Suzanna but I risked exposure if I wasn't careful. There was a hell of a lot of firepower on that island, sir. The noise of it travelled to where I was.”

  “Did Suzanna manage to say anything, Christopher?” At last Fraser was in the conversation.

  “Bits and pieces, yes. She said she got a shot off at a man answering the description she had of the Israeli who was on the terrace overlooking the garden. It wasn't the plan to go hard on Monday night. She must have been spooked. Her idea was to gain entry and lay up until the house was quiet, then take one subject at a time, nice and quietly. Finish them when she'd done with them, and hog it out of there. There was never mention of any long range stuff. Her handgun was packed purely for defence.”

  “Are you on your way back, Christopher?” Fraser asked without any sign of emotion.

  “Yes, I am, sir.”

  “Good, I'm pleased. Get yourself out of there as quickly as you can and contact me as soon as reach home soil. I have a far less dangerous job for you.”

  That's how I ended the call and closed the connection. I then turned my attention towards Fraser. He seemed okay physically but I had no idea what was happening inside his mind. It wasn't just another life lost in the ever-playing game of world domination. Suzanna was Fraser's link to his active participation in the past. All those years in the field play a tremendous role in shaping who it is that orders the possible death of others. Fraser had been a great champion for truth in his duties both on the ground and in his various sedentary positions, but it was my belief, which I did not share with anyone, Suzanna had been sacrificed in a cause that was not ours to meddle in. We could have, and should have, stood off and watched as the commercial situation unfolded. Our primary concern lay with the hardware somewhere on the ground facing either American forces or our own.

  “I have an opinion to air,” I stated, fighting back the emotions I felt. “I reckon this inner circle of yours, Fraser, pushed an alarm bell when the Shorehams were murdered. The Israeli guy had surrounded himself with protection. I doubt you will get that close to any of them again.”

  * * *

  After our warmed-through dinner we were seated in Fraser's inviting office with our feet up and three glasses of the golden nectar to warm ourselves with, as he recited one of his many tales of entrapment which should have relaxed our profound mood. It didn't, but first he asked what should have been an innocent question.

  “What did the message say about Belmokhtar, Patrick?”

  He had not told Molly of Suzanna's death. Perhaps that was because of the company around the table that now awaited Geraldine and her fiancé's imminent addition to their number. It was not my place to comment on what he told her and what he did not. I ignored his grief and waded on.

  “Usual intro from GCHQ then the identity of source; Antelope and the message that Antelope is at the harbour awaiting tanker, Fraser.”

  “Fine, okay! Let me tell you a story about the target of that drone strike. I first came
across Arif Belmokhtar as Paul Gardener over twenty-five years ago when he was newly qualified and teaching about the transfer of wealth at the London School of Economics in London's Aldwych. He was a completely dedicated trouble-making Communist using the German philosopher Karl Marx as his spiritual guru. He had the ability to turn those innocent, inquiring minds into robots following a path to nothing more than defeatism. At that time in his life he was a middle roader in the Communist Party of Great Britain and a trophy in the Labour Party who cared nothing of his other religious convictions. I got him early by dangling sex in his face. Literarily I bumped into him on a winter's night similar to those of late. He was walking past the Waldorf on his way home when my companion, a beautiful young girl name of Sally, shoved him quite hard into the side of a stationary bus. You and she, Hannah, would have stopped the traffic in Trafalgar Square. All those cab drivers would have got out their cabs to worship you both. Anyway, less of my romantic notions and more of the solid stuff.

  “She apologised of course, said she thought he was a friend of a girlfriend who abused her with his fists. He was all bulging eyes and horny thoughts, it didn't take much for me to persuade him to share my room in the hotel with her, with me looking on. The economics of a thousand-pound cash sweetener was too inviting for him to refuse. She was good at her job. I installed her in a nice flat near where he and his wife with their three-month-old son lived and he couldn't resist. Came visiting several times, filling reels of photographs for me to catalogue. I used her several times in fact. It was a sad loss to the service when she got herself arrested for extortion. Somewhat ironic that, considering extortion is a branch of our trade.

  “I threatened to show the juiciest photos to his employers and his wife. I told him I'd keep the negatives for someone to show to his son when he grew up if he didn't do as he was told. He was mine from then on. He used his brains and got an invitation to join the Fabian Society. Once there he marked a few cards with the gold sickle and hammer, told his comrades of like thinking pinkos in British politics, and lo and behold I had the makings of a Labour Party unit leaning nicely to the far left that I manipulated now and again. Unfortunately for me, he found jingoistic Islamists spouting their ideology and he jumped ship and country.

  “I gave Gardener to Razin for us both to share by promising that Russia would not punish his wife and son for his imprudent lack of respect towards her secrets. Razin paid nothing for Gardener's agreement to sign the transfer papers and he duly joined the Russian side in the great game. He left his family, his job, everything including his razor. Travelling with the clothes he stood up in with his curriculum vitae detailing actions as a British spy against the Soviet Union, he became part of a Maoist group calling themselves the Afghanistan Liberation Organisation. He worked both sides of the war. Working with the mujahideen against the Afghan government then moving on to work for the Russian army the next day and vice versa. He was a prolific liar, winning the hearts of many. Now you two are wondering what on earth all that has to do with what's going on now, aren't you?”

  I said I was and refilled all our glasses in anticipation of what was to come.

  “Let's cross the T's and dot the I's then. Before going to Afghanistan, Gardener spent time in Pakistan at a compound, or commune, which may be a more accurate description of the place which was the home of the man Razin told you of when you met in the Savoy Hotel, Patrick—Ayman al-Zawahiri. It was partially Paul Gardener's intel of Ayman al-Zawahiri that allowed Fyodor Nazarov Razin's Federal Security Service to track all the CIA flight traffic to Turkey and Baku, in Azerbaijan. Henry Mayler met with him once in Peshawar, and as I understand things Liam Catlin was in the background of that meeting and the subsequent one when Gardener was introduced to Razin. But there are inconsistencies with that GCHQ signal. Catlin never uses Antelope in message traffic. He decided that, not I. He said it was a mindless piece of crap having an agent in the field using his trade code name also as his signal code. If the trade one was found, he or she would be easily exposed. He hated anyone at Centre being able to track him by any signals he had to send. The other consideration is that ending of Antelope is at the harbour awaiting tanker. At the harbour awaiting tanker was Razin's back pocket cry for help, Patrick.” The room fell silent with just the odd crack of a burning log spitting out its disgust. It was Hannah who spoke first.

  “Why am I thinking that the death of a known terrorist in Syria is directly tied to Suzanna's death in America and Razin asking for help? Ordinarily it wouldn't make sense, but if news of what happened at Jordan Pond filtered down and rocked Razin so much that he wanted out he could well have fingered Gardener as his ticket.”

  “Possibly, yes, Hannah, that could be the case. But if it is then he would have to expose himself to get Paul Gardener killed. And why risk that?” I answered as Molly entered carrying plates of mince pies and cream.

  “Freshly made today. We have heaps more, Patrick, so please make sure you and Hannah eat them all and keep Fraser away from them. He will be allowed one on Christmas Eve and no more. They are no good for his diabetes, or his heart. But my husband has no willpower. Which is obvious because you've heard me tell him about his pipe and his drinking too often to remember.”

  As the door closed behind her he lit his pipe in defiance, topping up the three glasses with more of his whisky. Hannah tried to refuse but he ignored her protests and added only a small drop to her glass. The low-level table lamp lighting could not cast sufficient shadow to hide the evidence of the whisky-induced reddish glow that tinged her high-lined cheekbones above the full lips that I longed to kiss. It was more than my service position that stopped me. The ability that some are endowed with to refrain from an overindulgence in what harms them has never been my blessing. I fought against the image of our lips together and the height of ecstasy that would follow. I was winning the battle inside myself and I would not jeopardise the outcome by adding another memory to eat me alive. Maybe it was because I never showed enough love to the subjects of my memories that now they hated me and needed to destroy whatever it was they felt for me. It was as I gave in to another addiction and lit a cigarette that Molly's word of willpower unzipped my memory.

  “I have one possible answer to the why kill Arif question, but although it's a long shot I think it's worth mentioning. When I met with Razin at the Savoy Hotel, he got himself into a showing off mode. Russian flowery bits about how important he was inside the Federal Security Service. He gave the full 'admire and fall in love with me' bit. After he was satisfied he had my attention he tells me an allegorical story of a garden which was full of weeds but the weeds kept growing no matter what he did. He said he loved the garden and could put up with the weeds because of the colour it gave him and his friends. Then he added what I imagined was a warning for me to stay at arm's length. He said: 'I will abandon that garden if I feel my friends are laughing at my lack of control. I will kill the flowers and leave the weeds if I feel one drop of rain, Mr West.'

  “If his fictional garden was Paul Gardener, who we know he knew, then his lack of control could mean he's in too deep and can't get out. The main fault with my idea is he never mentioned any of that when he called. Now I wonder why that would be?”

  “Maybe because Henry Mayler's suicide had lifted some pressure?” Hannah answered, pushing her glass towards me. My eyes were filled by the vision of me as a smiling fool dressed in a clown's circus outfit.

  “I've been had like the fool I am,” I shouted, almost knocking over the table that held our glasses.

  * * *

  The house at Draycot Foliat had been scrubbed clean and the body taken to the pathology laboratory in Swindon, about five miles away. It was late when we arrived, and specially opened for us. The Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police met me at the door and led Hannah and me to the body. It was as I had eventually suspected, the body of Fyodor Nazarov Razin and not Henry Mayler. I had swallowed his impersonation without one thought of it not being Razin. Henry's story of his
own death had bought himself more time to escape. Heathrow was only an hour away by car, giving him a huge time advantage in the search for his whereabouts.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Whitehall

  That Tuesday night I picked up some of my clothes from Lavington Street and moved into one of the two huge apartments that came with the post of Chair of the JIC. I missed the Hub and the Hole as soon as I did. Perhaps it was the mood of the place with the spilling-over energy and togetherness that I found the hardest to let go of, but I was determined to turn my new accommodation into my permanent home. I left a message for the man at Acquisitions and Disposals sections of the Audit Office that Harwood had given me, asking him to put my Canary Wharf apartment up for sale.

  Before taking advantage of the bed in my new palatial surroundings I contacted the Commander of the British attachment to the Joint Task Force Southwest Asia, based in Saudi Arabia. He set in motion the mechanism to track down the origin of the drone strike that killed Arif Belmokhtar. The military use of drones was a relatively new concept in warfare against terrorists. The strike capabilities they delivered was still being assessed and evaluated. The strike against Belmokhtar had been clinical and error-free and would, I suspected, rate highly within American Joint Command. I pulled every mention I could find on Arif Belmokhtar when plainly known as Paul Gardener, settling down to one of the privileges of my new position; a bottle of 40-year-old Isle of Jura single malt whisky drunk from a crystal glass thistle tumbler. The cupboards, fridge and even the freezer were all well stocked as was, according to the cellar book, the whisky allocation. The only thing missing was someone to use the space with, and to share the bed.