Operation Certain Death

by Kim Hughes

  Muraski didn’t let him finish. ‘Stick to the point. I really don’t need your war memoirs right now,’ she said brusquely. Now she knew the Russians were involved, she seemed keen to get to the end of his story. ‘So, after O’Donnell told you about the Russian man and the woman…’

  ‘I went to Dunston Hall to see my grandparents, who happen to know a thing or two about Russians. I was going to let them press the alarm button, because they’d be taken seriously. Much more than me. I found out that Grandpa had been taken and Grandma locked away. I was just about to get to the bottom of it when some cowboys started lobbing grenades about.’

  ‘Perhaps they over-reacted,’ Muraski admitted. ‘They came in heavy because you had a weapon.’

  ‘It was my grandmother’s gun.’

  ‘It was apparently next to you. So, the incident commander decided to play it safe.’

  ‘Well I’d hate to meet him when he is feeling reckless. What has my grandma said?’ Riley asked.

  ‘Nothing yet. She is still sedated. Did she say anything useful about the man who had taken her husband?’

  ‘That she had never seen him before. But that she knew what he was and who he was,’ said Riley. ‘I’d like to see her. My grandmother. In person.’

  She nodded impatiently, not wanting to lose the thread. ‘And?’

  Riley took more of the tea. ‘And that’s just when the heavy mob came in.’

  ‘Ah. Bad timing.’

  ‘You’re not kidding.’ He put the mug down and ran through all that his grandmother had told him before they were so rudely interrupted. ‘There was one thing she remembered about the intruder. My grandpa called him by his name.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Yousaf Ali.’

  Muraski jerked as if she had been plugged into the mains. She reached down into the tote bag and extracted a thin file. She placed it on the desk in front of Riley and invited him to open it. There was a series of photographs, including one of his grandfather as a much younger man.

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘That is Yousaf Ali. “Bomb” Ali, as he was known.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of him. He was a study on the High Threat course.’

  ‘I think he is behind the bombs here.’

  Riley shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. One, Bomb Ali only ever operated in US territory. It was the Americans he hated. And more than them? The Russians. From what I know, he wouldn’t put in his lot with anyone from the former Soviet Union. Ever.’

  ‘Then…’

  The sentence died before it had even got going. He could see her struggling to compute. Riley had had plenty of time to think this through. He reckoned he had a working theory of how it all fitted together: the Russians, the bomb-maker and Yousaf Ali. He was careful not to sound patronising.

  ‘I have an idea how it all fits together. Let me lay it out for you.’

  * * *

  Inverstone Lodge is not marked on any Ordnance Survey map produced after 1914. It does not have a postal code. It is not on any commercial satellite maps. The entrance is down a small, unmarked track off a B-road, hard to find during the day, virtually impossible at night. So, as Yousaf intended, they pulled over to settle down and wait for dawn.

  They found a place to do so just past the memorial to the Commandos, most of whom had trained in the area during the Second World War. Out in the darkness beyond his window, Henry knew only too well, was lovely scenery – lochs, mountains and forests – that hid the inhospitable wind-blasted hillsides and bleak moorland where men were made to do forced marches or turned loose with minimum rations and asked to fend for themselves for four or five days then make their way to a pre-arranged rendezvous. And then, in the midst of it, was Inverstone Lodge, in many ways the most secret of all the covert establishments dotted across the Highlands.

  It was known for a while as The Cooler and later as Camp Zero. It was officially Number 7 Special Workshop School. But few of the people who were sent there underwent any training in a workshop. Some volunteered to make equipment for Company Linge, part of the Norwegian Resistance, which was sent over via the boats known as the ‘Shetland Bus’. Most, however, simply cooled their heels. Hence the nickname.

  Inverstone’s function back in the Second World War was as a holding camp for those secret agents of Special Operations Executive (SOE) who had failed the rigorous training in sabotage and subversion – for being unreliable, inept, violent, drunk or too loose-lipped around the opposite sex – and needed to be sequestered.

  In another country they might have simply been shot to prevent them imparting information about SOE – back then a name that was never even spoken – to the enemy. Some were incarcerated there (‘retired’ in SOE speak) for as long as four years. Several were rumoured to have gone mad. But there was no chance of escape, as they were guarded by tough members of the Highland regiments and a dozen dogs that were almost as fierce as the men in kilts. The guards were given permission to use lethal force if necessary, to prevent any absconders making it to the local railway station, the only realistic option to flee the region.

  After the war most of SOE’s assets were absorbed by MI6, which had long considered SOE a bunch of dangerous amateurs, and the agency disbanded. Inverstone, however, was taken over by MI5, where it was used for training and debriefing, although its distance from London, an advantage in wartime, became an inconvenience in peace and it was mothballed. Until, that is, Six came asking if there was a suitable venue for something called Operation Homegrown.

  When they had picked a spot off the road and parked up, Yousaf fetched a blanket from the boot of the Renault and tucked it around Henry. ‘It’ll get cold. Are you okay?’

  Henry actually felt like he had been hit by an express train, but he just nodded. Yousaf switched on the interior light and looked at him. ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’ll live,’ he said glumly, wondering where this sudden concern had come from. ‘Why do you care?’

  Yousaf laughed. ‘I don’t want you pegging out before we get there. You have a role to play yet.’

  ‘So you keep saying,’ he said irritably. He was done with this man’s games and riddles. ‘What role? And why? How can I stop whatever you are planning?’

  The bomber rolled up the left sleeve of his coat and then his shirt and displayed his forearm. It was covered in rows of what looked like black tear drops. ‘You know what this represents?’

  ‘All the people you killed?’ guessed Henry.

  Yousaf gave a bitter laugh. ‘Oh, no. Each one of these is a bomb I made that went off and killed someone. But usually many more than one. I couldn’t fit the number of dead on my arms if I was an octopus. I have a similar number of tears on my right. With space for just one more.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Going out with a bang,’ Yousaf said, turning off the light.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Henry.

  ‘No. You wouldn’t. All will become clear in the morning. Try and get some sleep.’

  ‘But what did you mean when you said that I could stop it?’ Henry demanded again.

  Yousaf sighed. The words came reluctantly, as if they had to be dragged out, one by one. ‘I mean, Henry, that there is a way you could find out where the bomb is and have it rendered safe.’

  ‘And how’s that?’

  Henry could sense rather than see the sardonic smile on Yousaf’s face. ‘It’s very simple. I have the location on me. But you’ll have to kill me to get at it. Get some rest, Henry. Big day tomorrow. It’ll be just like old times.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Paul Oakham scanned Kate Muraski’s hastily scribbled notes from Riley’s stream of suppositions and guesses. ‘Riley might be right about the DNA. Poor Jamal might have led us up the garden path.’

  She grunted her agreement.

  ‘But two bomb-makers?’ he asked, unable to hide his disbelief. ‘They’re not like London buses, you know.’

  ‘But it explains a lot.
Yousaf is here, but his focus is Clifford-Brown, for some reason. The Russians, on the other hand, have their own tame bomb-maker, who has a side interest in Riley. Remember the car bomb at his daughter’s school?’

  Oakham nodded. ‘So isn’t it possible that someone is also trying to get to Riley by taking his grandfather?’

  ‘Possible,’ she admitted. ‘I still think we’re looking at two sets of actors here.’

  ‘So who did what? Three bombs – Nottingham, the Islamic Centre and Riley’s at the school. Are they the work of both? Or just one for all three?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  He shook his head, still not convinced. ‘I’m not sure I buy all this. Where is Riley now? Still in the interview room?’

  ‘No, I’ve told him to get some more sleep.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘Riley? I think I do,’ Muraski said. ‘I’m not certain he has all the answers. But I don’t think he is the loose cannon we thought.’

  ‘You thought,’ he corrected. ‘Riley is sure that Barbara Clifford-Brown has it right that her husband called this man Yousaf?’

  ‘Absolutely certain. Think about it. It means that one of the bombers has kidnapped Henry Clifford-Brown and taken him to some unknown destination. Possibly to set off another device.’ She tried hard to keep the sense of vindication from her voice. She had been right about Yousaf Ali all along. True, she hadn’t figured in the Russians but, for the moment at least, that was an unexpected bonus.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Oakham, ‘your man Riley has been busy spinning us a Jackanory. IRA? Russians? Is there anyone who isn’t planting bombs in our country according to him? The radical wing of the Wombles perhaps?’

  Muraski didn’t know who the Wombles were, so she let it pass. ‘Look, sir, if Riley is right and it was the Russians who bought up the IRA bomb kits, wouldn’t it make sense for them to front the bombs with a Taliban terrorist? He would act as a cut-out. It makes us look in the wrong place. It’s a classic distraction and diversion technique. That’s what the bomb at the Islamic Centre does. Has us chasing our tails when far-right dipsticks jump onto the bandwagon and claim responsibility. The country tears itself apart while GRU or FSB get on with their real agenda.’

  ‘Bearing in mind that you love to see Reds everywhere…’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Let me finish. Even taking that into account, there is some plausibility in it. By some I mean this much.’ Oakham held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. His phone rang. He picked it up. ‘Yes?’ he snapped impatiently. He listened for a few seconds, lips pursed in displeasure. ‘Very well. Keep me posted.’ He stared into space for a second, digesting the information he had just received, and then spoke to Muraski.

  ‘You know, if there is a Russian dimension to all this, I should call Roger in.’ Roger Altrincham of the Russia desk.

  They’ll take it away from you.

  ‘Well, that link is only so much speculation and the word of a murderer, this George O’Donnell, who might have his own reason for leading us on a merry dance.’

  ‘That’s the fastest U-turn since I last watched something with Jeremy Clarkson in it.’

  She laughed, not at the joke, but because he was right. She did not want Roger Altrincham waltzing in, patting her on the head and telling her to run along, that he’d look after it from now on. ‘I think the priority right now is to find Yousaf and Clifford-Brown. We can worry about who is pulling the strings later. No sign of them, I assume?’

  ‘The BMW was abandoned not far from Dunston Hall,’ he said. ‘We have no idea what vehicle they are travelling in. And the amount of CCTV footage to analyse… there’s just not the manpower.’

  ‘Barbara Clifford-Brown might have an inkling about where he would take her husband. We should talk to her as soon as the doctors allow.’

  ‘She might well know something,’ admitted Oakham. ‘But that phone call I just took? It was to tell me that Barbara Clifford-Brown has gone missing. Given her escort the slip while going to lavatory and disappeared into the night.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Her mind quickly scrolled through the possibilities. Could the Clifford-Browns be playing some extended game? Was she being befuddled by old hands from Six who might just possibly have been turned? She felt like she was staring into an abyss and her head span for a second. She needed some sleep too. ‘Look at page three of my notes. Another thing she mentioned to Riley before the grenades went in. Operation Homegrown.’

  Oakham frowned, but out of puzzlement or annoyance she couldn’t tell. ‘Homegrown? Where did he get that?’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Only since you started digging around… Fuck.’ He slapped a palm against his forehead, admonishing himself for some unknown transgression or stupidity.

  ‘What is it?’ Muraski asked.

  ‘Shush. Let me think.’ Oakham picked up one of his pencils and began to drum a little tattoo on the desktop. ‘I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. I think I know where they are.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Clifford-Brown and his pet bomber.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Go and grab a coffee and get ready for a trip, this might take some time.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Whistling up some back-up. Be ready to leave here…’ He looked at his watch. ‘Sometime in the next few hours.’

  ‘Are we going after Yousaf then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In which case we need to bring Riley along.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yousaf Ali is a bomb-maker. A specialist in booby traps, no doubt. It might be a good idea to have our own tame bomb disposal man, don’t you?’

  Oakham paused mid-dial. ‘Brief him, will you?’ On what? she was about to ask, but the next sentence made her heart flutter a little. ‘And you’d best draw a weapon.’

  MONDAY

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Dawn brought a countryside mostly shrouded by a wet, low mist. A few distant peaks, still snow-capped, were visible, but the loch and the woods were completely blanketed. Henry unfolded himself from the car as if he were made of seasoned wood rather than flexible flesh and bone. Every joint seemed to creak as he stood and he staggered a little as one knee gave way. There was no sign of Yousaf. The driver’s seat was empty and he wasn’t within the hundred yards or so he could see in each direction. Call of nature, perhaps. His own bladder was uncomfortably stretched.

  ‘Hello?’ he shouted.

  Nothing, just the noisy chatter of an invisible flock of crossbills. It was, he remembered, a great place for birding, not just the startling red crossbills, but lapwings, choughs, grouse, of course, and, on the coast, the memorable sight of the rare and majestic sea eagle lording it over the lochs. He would have brought Dominic up, had it been practicable.

  He walked over to the edge of the gravelled area and relieved himself. As he zipped himself up, Yousaf loomed out of the mist, carrying what looked like two coffees.

  ‘You were snoring, so I thought I’d get some breakfast.’

  ‘Don’t tell me they’ve opened a Starbucks up here.’

  ‘No, there’s a café about a mile that way. I noticed it last night. Breakfast from 6.30.’

  ‘Weren’t you frightened I would run away?’ asked Henry.

  Yousaf just raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about it. It was just that he wouldn’t get far. And after his pathetic attempt to out-box the man, maybe he would decide it was easier just to kill him. ‘No, perhaps not.’

  From his jacket pocket Yousaf produced a small, wrapped parcel. ‘Bacon roll. You need some food. Go on, I’ve had one.’

  ‘You’ve had bacon?’ Henry asked in surprise.

  ‘Egg.’

  ‘You still believe?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Strange, isn’t it? When you brought me up here, hooded, in a van with no windows, I was Joseph Shaftab Khalid, the confused young Muslim and petty criminal. By the time I left, I was Yo
usaf the bomb-maker, the freedom fighter, ready to take on the Russian army on behalf of my brothers. I had the passion of the convert. Some of it still burns, Henry.’ He looked Clifford-Brown up and down, like a butcher might examine an animal ready for the slaughter. ‘Do you believe in anything?’

  ‘Not any longer. As the end grows near, you’ll find that it all seems more and more like desperate fairy stories we tell each other.’

  ‘We’ll see soon enough, Henry.’ There was anger in his voice.

  Henry didn’t like the sound of that, nor the slightly crazed smile that came with it. He was in no hurry to test the veracity of the fairy tales. He realised the nice, polite, breakfast-buying Yousaf was just a veneer. Underneath was still the monster they had created years before. A monster very capable of killing him and leaving his body on a cold Scottish mountainside.

  He placed his coffee on the roof of the Renault, leaned against the rear door and tucked into his hot and salty snack. He felt a little life coming back to his stiff, cold limbs. How was Barbara faring, he wondered, stuck in that cellar, wondering what was happening to him? His gut feeling was that all this would be over soon and he could get back to her. At least, he hoped so. The alternatives were unbearable. He finished the roll in three large bites and started work on the drink. Unbearable.

  ‘That bad?’ asked Yousaf.

  Aware that he must have spoken aloud, Henry became flustered. ‘No, no… not the food. It’s good. I was… I was hoping Barbara is well.’

  ‘She has something to eat, drink, heating. Everything except communication. She’ll be fine.’