Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  Leaving Bertie in a bit of a mess, she’d picked up her valuables and made her way to the ladies room. Ten minutes of poor grooming later, she still looked unkempt. But her need for coffee was overwhelming. It was certainly more important than the five or six thousand hairs that were sticking out at strange angles, making her look like an undernourished Viking.

  Oh well. It’ll have to do.

  And that’s when they’d started to talk—back in the restaurant. Her with a white china cup and saucer of coffee, him with some mint tea. There was not much by way of words, just preliminaries. But neither of them seemed inclined to lead.

  Sam’s explanation had actually been very close to the truth, no matter how dishonest it seemed. She’d visited the crash site to pay her respects to Uncle Pete. She’d spotted Wolfgang and, mainly because he stared at her in an unnerving and penetrating way, had decided to follow him. She told him that she knew someone who worked for the police at home, and this person had, against all agreed protocol, found Wolfgang’s address. The rest was pretty much as he’d seen on his iPad. Implausible it may be, but she was struggling to find another more believable version.

  He explained that he had a great interest in plane crashes and other major accidents. His view was that Flight FY378 had been brought down on purpose, along with, over the years, a good number of other aircraft. He told her that he thought many other large-scale disasters—he didn’t name any—were also preplanned. He’d gone to the Abondance valley to see if he could get some leads, to feel the place. He needed to soak up the emotion. It helped him with his research.

  “Everything is connected. It’s all connected.” He’d kept repeating that.

  In a moment of detail, he told Sam that he had felt vindicated when, last week, the American news reported that the 1979 US nuclear accident on the Pennsylvanian coast could well have been staged. Sam had scoffed at this, but Wolfgang had insisted that he had always thought that the accident was so unlikely that it had to be preplanned. And now a man had come forward and said that he had fixed a valve, so that the pressure in the reactor couldn’t be released. Result? Nuclear meltdown.

  “You see, everything is connected. These accidents aren’t all accidents. Someone is pulling some strings.”

  When she’d asked for more examples, he’d remained silent.

  She pressed him. “Well, come on. then. Tell me more.”

  Nothing. He shook his head. “Your turn first.”

  And that’s where they were: absolutely nowhere.

  She’d had enough.

  Sam knew she needed to check her tablet for any direction from this morning’s Op Glasshouse meeting. And then she should go home. She would ask Wolfgang where he wanted to be dropped. It was the polite thing to do. She had the time to take him to Berlin, and then she could drive due west, across northern Europe, to the ferry.

  She was still staring out of the window. She was tired and overwrought. If she let herself think about it, her uncle’s death was still massive. Even having visited the site, it was still stalking her, waiting for an opportunity to break her down. She felt the room closing in. The huge glass windows becoming opaque. She needed to get out.

  “Why was my apartment wrecked by that man?” Wolfgang had let her stew for a bit.

  The darkness lightened just a touch.

  Sam thought and, while doing so, twisted her mouth to one side so her nose bent a bit. Her little pointy nose was one of her best features—her Mum had told her. She used that facial expression to aid concentration. She turned, looking back at Wolfgang.

  “He was a thief.” She was shaking her head. How could he be so paranoid? “You’re a rich man and weren’t at home. There’s a lot of valuable stuff in your apartment. He may have been opportunistic. It happens all the time.” And then she added under her breath, “It’s not complicated.” The last sentence wasn’t necessary.

  If her retort hurt Wolfgang, he didn’t show it. Instead, he pressed on.

  “No he wasn’t. You haven’t watched the video yet.”

  “Video? You have a copy?” He had her attention again now.

  “Look . . .” Wolfgang leaned forward, opened his iPad, typed a few lines, and swiped here and there.

  “Watch.” He pressed the “Play” button and held the screen so they could both see it.

  Sam couldn’t believe it. The man—whom, after about thirty seconds, she reckoned she could pick out from a line-up of over a thousand—was looking for something. He searched meticulously, room to room, locker to locker. Only then did he trash the place. To make it look like burglary.

  She watched with incredulity as he removed the hard drive from Wolfgang’s computer and put it back together again as if it hadn’t been tampered with. Of course, if he now smashes it . . . yes, that’s what he’s going to do—so nobody would think the hard drive was missing.

  Hang on. This is my bit.

  Sam’s mouth dropped open as she watched herself move tentatively into the apartment, down the hall, and across the sitting room. And then she watched this stranger bring down a thief. For the last bit she visibly flinched and half turned away from the screen. Once it was over she looked back at Wolfgang. He was smiling openly at her.

  “Neat work, Lara!”

  It took Sam a second to get that Wolfgang was comparing her to Lara Croft. She half smiled at his rubbish joke. Typical German.

  So it wasn’t burglary. Wolfgang’s apartment had been targeted. Someone was looking for something, something Wolfgang had. It was either tangible or, if they could read the disk, electronic.

  “Was there much on the disk drive?”

  “No. All of my information is wired into a backup facility in Munich. I don’t save anything on the machine. There may be some ghost files that might be able to be recovered. But the security on the disk is the very best, so I’d be surprised if anything could be accessed.” He had lost his smile and was sitting back in his seat. He looked weary. It was his turn to look out of the window.

  “I’m onto something. There is”—he waved his hands about—“something connecting a number of these major incidents and disasters. I know it. Your uncle’s flight fits a pattern—the manifest was a combination of professional people and tourists. Kill all of them—hide the murder of one.” His German accent was stronger when he was serious. He was looking back at her now.

  “What?”

  He leaned forward and dropped his voice.

  “Mass killing, disguising murder. Who would guess?”

  It hung in the air.

  Sam thought for a second and then dismissed it. She had the look of amused disbelief again.

  “No, no. That doesn’t make any sense at all.” But Sam’s head was working through so many conflicting thoughts. Professional ones: this is the worst conspiracy theory ever. Madness. Personal ones: What made Uncle Pete’s plane crash? Could he have been murdered?

  She shook her head as if to empty it for further use.

  “It’s rubbish. It’s . . .” She interrupted herself. “How do you account for the US nuclear meltdown? No one was killed when the accident happened.”

  Wolfgang took the final swig of his tea.

  “I don’t know. Yet. But it’s all connected. I can feel it.”

  They were interrupted by Sam’s secure phone vibrating silently on the table. It was moving slowly toward the edge. She stopped it before it fell on the floor.

  It was Jane.

  “Look, Wolfgang. You’re as mad as a fish. A typical blooming aristocrat. I’ve got to take this.” She was pointing at her phone. She pressed the green “Receive” button and raised it to her ear.

  “Hang on . . .” She looked back at Wolfgang, covering the mouthpiece with her free hand. “Can I have a copy of that video? I know some people . . .”

  Chapter 8

  SIS Headquarters, Vauxhall, London

  Jane had left the Op Glasshouse meeting with the same level of frustration as everyone else. There was little new intelligence. T
he only tangible evidence they had was Sam Green’s white truck, which could be placed at both the terrorist training camp and the compound in Hajjah. GCHQ had intercepted a mobile signal that had come from the compound. It was received by a handset that was located within a couple of hundred metres of the Daesh safe house in Sana’a. It had lasted seventy-four seconds, but there was nothing in the call that could corroborate the SRR soldiers being held at either location. All in all, it wasn’t much. And time wasn’t on their side.

  At least there would be another satellite pass in a couple of hours, enabling Sam and Frank to look over a new set of images to see if there were any changes that might influence the decision making.

  The SAS squadron was operationally ready at RAF Akrotiri. David had given his team only the broadest outline plan—even among the very highest echelons of the British Intelligence Services, everything still operated on a “need-to-know” basis. H-hour was confirmed as 2.30 a.m. local; that would be 11.30 p.m. in the UK. A small recce group would be parachuted in early from a Hercules air transporter; the assault group flown in by two SF Chinook helicopters within minutes of H-hour. They would all be collected by Chinook when the operation was over. She knew it would be much more complicated than that, but at least she could picture the scene.

  Sam! I must phone her.

  Jane dialled Sam’s number and waited for her to pick up. Initially Sam was having a conversation with somebody, and then she said, “Hello.” The melodic bleep in the background reminded both of them that the call was insecure.

  “Who’s that you’re talking to?” Jane was confused.

  Bleep. Bleep. Sam didn’t reply straight away.

  “Oh, it’s someone I met at the crash site.”

  Bleep.

  “How’s it all going?”

  “Fine. Thanks.” Jane heard Sam let out a long breath. “I’m on my way home now. I should be back in the UK first thing tomorrow.”

  “Where are you?” Jane could have come out and asked, “What the bloomin’ hell are you doing near Berlin?” However, she felt the need to test Sam.

  Bleep, bleep. Was Sam searching for an appropriate answer? Bleep.

  “Sam, are you still on?”

  “Yes, Jane. I’m here.” Bleep. A further pause. “Look, it’s complicated, and I’d rather talk all this through with you when I get back to base. D’you mind?”

  No lies so far. That made Jane feel a little better. Bleep. It was her turn to think for a second.

  “Mmm, OK, Sam. Come and see me as soon as you get back.” She held the phone to her ear and stared over her desk at the door to her office. She was looking for some inspiration.

  No. She couldn’t let Sam gallivant around Europe and abuse her security clearance by e-mailing international organisations without authorisation. Not without being pressed for an explanation. And Jane couldn’t continue to tread on eggshells just because Sam was always on the edge of a breakdown.

  “And you’d better come with a decent explanation as to why you’ve been e-mailing Interpol and the BfV. And why I’m talking to you within a stone’s throw of Berlin. Which, if I remember rightly, is nowhere near the Alps.” She inwardly flinched when she said it. At this distance, who knew what Sam Green would do now?

  Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. A sigh.

  “I will. It’s a short and unbelievable story. But all done in good faith. And, Jane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks for not jumping down my throat on this. What I did was wrong, but the outcome may be of use—certainly for me in beginning to come to terms with Uncle Pete’s death.”

  “That’s fine, Sam. We’ll talk about it when you are back.” Jane changed tack. “There should be some new images through in the next hour or so. As things stand, the operation is on for tonight. What do you think?”

  Bleep. Bleep.

  “I’m not convinced, Jane. But what else is there to do?” Bleep. “I’ll have a look at the photos when they come in. Where will you be tonight?”

  “In the office. David is heading across the river.” Jane almost said, “to the JIC,” but stopped herself from breaking security protocol in time. “I could phone you when we have something.”

  “That would be great, Jane. Thanks. See you tomorrow morning. And, hopefully, if things go well tonight, we’ll be going to the pub to celebrate.”

  “After I’ve given you a bollocking for e-mailing the BfV?” Bleep. Bleep. Then in a softer tone, “Sure, that would be great. Drive carefully.”

  Jane hung up.

  Sam Green. What are you on?

  Jane reached for her landline and, using one of the secure lines, dialled the number of her oppo at the CIA in Langley. They might have something new on Manning and Bell.

  Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin, Germany

  Wolfgang waved good-bye to his new, if rather odd, friend Sam as she drove away in her bright yellow VW transporter. By the time she had dropped him at the main station in Berlin, they had started to get on reasonably well. That is, they were passing more than just the time of day with each other.

  There was something about her that he couldn’t fathom. She was sharp-witted, intelligent, obviously very fit—she’d beaten him over four hundred metres from the apartment to the van—and had lightning-quick reactions. He’d clumsily let his phone slip from his hand when they were walking together back to “Bertie,” as she called her campervan. Before it had hit the ground, she had dropped her shoulder, reached down with her good hand, and caught it. He’d given up the moment he had fumbled.

  Conversationally, it was slightly more tricky. Both of them were guarded, but he thought she was hiding much more than he was. At least he was honest about what he wasn’t telling her. She’d ducked and weaved her way around his questions, often giving a monosyllabic “No” to something she wasn’t going to answer.

  She didn’t work for the health service, that was for sure. Back at Bertie, after they had finished breakfast, he had casually looked across at her, sitting on the back seat. She was working with a very expensive and ruggedised tablet. He thought he saw her use her thumb to access the machine biometrically. And by her side she had a pinkish red passkey, which, a little earlier, she had used to obtain what he had assumed was an additional password. At that point, Sam had spotted him looking and she had turned her back to him, hiding what she was up to. No, she didn’t work for the medical profession.

  She couldn’t be a spy, even though the equipment she used was stuff he would choose to keep state secrets secret. Certainly not a spy in the conventional James Bond sense. There was something “missing” about her, which Wolfgang thought made her vulnerable, almost breakable. For him, she was too fragile to work for her country’s intelligence services. Not that he was an expert.

  He noticed her vulnerability most when she had been looking out of the restaurant window whilst they were at the tankstelle. She wore a hesitant, faraway look. Yes, she was attractive, in a basic, uncomplicated sort of way. She had a delicate nose, dark green eyes, and skin that smoothly covered midheight cheekbones and, every so often, gave way to an explosion of freckles. Her hair, which had been a mess at the crash site and even more so now, was thick, auburn, and unfathomably curly. Yes, she was schön. No, that wouldn’t do. The English word cute was such a more descriptive word.

  But it was her vulnerability mixed with her alarming efficiency that, when added to the casual way she looked and dressed, attracted Wolfgang. Please—not in a physical sense. Just in an “I want to look after you” sort of way. And that was the curious thing. He felt she needed looking after. Yet, she’d managed to fight her way out of his apartment against a man twice her size.

  It was all very perplexing and, as he’d never felt like this before, a little bit alarming. She was unlike anyone else he’d ever met. After just a few hours in her presence, he wanted to get to know her better. But that was a hopeless thought—wasn’t it?

  He really should stay well clear of relationships.

 
Now she was gone. At least for the moment. She had to get back to work—whatever that was—with her high-end tablet and furtive ways. He needed to return to Munich to try to piece together what the last thirty-six hours had been about. His chance meeting with the Koreans had been interesting. Professor Lim was clearly a great loss to the world of emerging energy supplies—he’d need to investigate that avenue further. And, while he’d been away, his tower had accessed three accounts that required further study.

  Along with Sam, to whom he had sent a copy of the break-in video, he should also study the clip and see what clues might be forthcoming. It would also give him a chance to see her in action again.

  Most of all, he needed to practise his violin. He wasn’t a man who suffered from any particular stress, but the events of the last couple of days had taken their toll. His way of relaxing was to play Bruch’s quite glorious Violin Concerto. A number of times.

  Bad Auetal, Tankstelle, Hanover, Germany

  Sam pulled into the next tankstelle as soon as she could after her phone had pinged. The new images were in.

  Those of the compound taken by the satellite showed little change. It was devoid of activity. Which was odd. The absence of normal. Was it more than a coincidence that every shot they had gotten of the place showed no signs of life? The previous set of images had the those coming from the well, and she had picked out that the white truck had moved. The new group seemed to show an additional set of tyre tracks in the compound’s yard—the tread was different—she’d make note of that. But, so far, not a single shot of a human. Or even some cattle—or a camel. It wasn’t as though the village was deserted; panning out, she could pick out a number of people wandering about close by. It didn’t make sense.

  There was nothing in the compound. It was as though they knew the satellite was overhead and, for the fifteen- or twenty-minute pass time, they had all scurried indoors.

  Surely they couldn’t know the timings of the satellite passes—could they?