Act of Vengeance

by Michael Jecks

  She kept the facade as long as possible but, when the next knock came to her door, she was already so exhausted it was hard to force herself to her feet to answer the summons.

  It was Lomax. He smiled thinly as she stood aside to let him in, staring wide-eyed at the people milling outside her house.

  ‘I have a statement for you to read and check,’ he said.

  She took the paper from him and glanced at it, but shook her head. ‘I can’t… Explain it, please?’

  ‘It’s a statement for the media that states our position: that Mo was kidnapped from here by the police or security services, you don’t know who took him, why he was taken, or where he was taken to and as far as you know, he has never been involved in criminal or terrorist activities, and has not broken the terms of his incarceration here at home. It says,’ he continued, ‘that Mo is an innocent, kind husband and father, and that you are desperate to have him back. It says you and he are being punished for something but you have no idea…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said impatiently. ‘I understand that. What now?’

  ‘You sign this, and then I begin to twist the legal knife in their guts. I start to demand details about who was responsible and—’

  ‘They will deny it, won’t they?’ she said weakly. ‘What then?’

  ‘Not all the police are corrupt,’ Lomax said grimly. ‘Someone there will see your distress. Soon as they see how you’re affected, they’ll regret their actions. They must come to appreciate how you’re suffering.’

  ‘What if they don’t?’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ he said soothingly. ‘This is my job, to rattle the cages and demand. Yours is to sit and try to hold things together, Sara. You have to be strong. For Mo.’

  While they spoke, Sara saw, from the corner of her eye, a man in grey coveralls with a tool kit in his hand at the open front door. He stood smiling.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Sorry if it’s not a good time. You’ve got an old NTE5?’

  She held her hands open despairingly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry, love – British Telecom. It’s the box coming into the house,’ he said, glancing at the wires on the skirting board. ‘There it is. Mind if I swap it out?’

  ‘But it’s all been fine!’

  ‘Even your computer speed? This new one’s faster with broadband.’

  ‘We aren’t allowed computers,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Well, when you get one, it’ll be faster,’ he said reassuringly. He knelt as he spoke and unscrewed the box cover, removing the front plate and fixing a new one.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, rising.

  Neither Sara nor Lomax noticed that the little box beside it that had duplicated the tag on Mohammed’s leg to make it appear that he was still in the house, was now gone.

  *

  08.21 London

  Karen called Starck.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to see you, please. Now,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll be a joy and delight,’ he said with that sneering manner of his.

  She replaced the receiver, refusing to be intimidated or irritated by him. He was a dinosaur who saw everything in black and white, like so many older members of the Service. There were allies and enemies, and the two should never mix, in his opinion. And he resented being passed over in favour of a woman, of course, especially one who was younger than him. That was a double insult to him. Tough.

  She stood and walked to the window. Not yet high enough in the hierarchy to have a view over the Thames, at least she did have her own room. Glass walls gave her a view of the analysis centre for the Middle East, and she watched the men and women at their desks for a while as she waited, considering her moves with care as her fingers played with the cross at her neck.

  He knocked, and she pressed the little button to release the door. One of the innovations she had implemented on this floor. Since so much data was held in offices like hers, it made sense to make sure that it was as secure as possible. She had a key, and the security desk downstairs had a master key in the safe, guarded day and night by two armed guards on secondment from the SAS. They were known by the agents as the Gorillas: burly, over-muscled fighters with a contempt for all Intelligence staff.

  ‘What is it, Karen?’ Starck asked mildly.

  He walked in and sat on a chair, crossing his legs.

  She slid the printouts over the desk to him.

  ‘Have you seen these?’

  He picked them up and nodded slowly, whistling through his teeth. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘There are no more reports about him. The tunnel report came from the internet, not our agents. I’ve already asked Orme in Seattle to see if he can make any contact, but there’s no news as yet.’

  ‘Ruddy hell,’ Starck muttered, reading the report of the tunnel shootings again. ‘What are they up to?’

  ‘I don’t know. But clearly Jack has rattled a few cages. We do not know what he has found, if anything. Someone clearly thinks he has.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘God knows. Was there anything Lewin was involved with that could have led to this? All Jack was supposed to do was find the bloody journal, for Goodness’ sake!’

  Starck nodded, but he was reading down the page again.

  ‘I don’t get it. This has all the appearance of an assassination. Who’d want to kill off our Jacky?’

  ‘He has some enemies,’ Karen murmured. ‘But for now, he is growing to be an embarrassment, and I won’t have him coming back to give us problems.’

  ‘So you want them to kill him, you mean?’ Starck smiled, yellow teeth showing. ‘Good corporate attitude, Karen. You should be in HR.’

  ‘If possible I want him back without any problems,’ she said defensively. ‘But if this gets nasty, we don’t want it to hurt us here.’

  ‘We?’ Starck smiled. ‘Sounds like you’re more concerned with the perpendicular pronoun.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind, dear. You’re worried in case the Brothers in America realise he’s with us, I suppose? You don’t want them to know we have one of ours over there without permission, do you?’

  ‘We have scrabbled our way back to the top table with America. It’s taken us years to get here,’ Karen said. ‘When you were a junior agent, we had Philby, Burgess and MacLean, then Blunt, and constant whisperings about another spy. Remember? It’s taken us all this time to win the Americans over again, and prove to them that we were worth dealing with. If they learn we’re working over there, in their jurisdiction, they’ll be furious. And I don’t want that.’

  ‘So, having sent him out there, now you want what, exactly?’

  ‘I want you to start concocting our exit strategy. I’d hoped he’d be back here in a day or so without any trail, but he’s failed. Get me a means to deny him.’

  ‘How?’

  She threw a copy of the cell phone report across the desk to him. ‘Speak to his wife. If it goes tits up, I want to be able to prove he’s a loose cannon, entirely on his own, nothing to do with us.’

  Starck lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t be a moron, Paul.’ Karen took a deep breath. ‘Ask her about McNeill. Make sure she knows our suspicions.’

  ‘There was nothing proved.’

  ‘I didn’t say there was.’

  ‘What good will it do?’ Paul asked.

  ‘If she thinks he did it, she could try to contact him. Ask him. And that would tell the Yanks about him and McNeill.’

  ‘You want me to speak to her so she lets them know Jacky’s a murderer, you mean,’ Starck said, and his lips curled up into a cynical smile. ‘What a clear-thinking mind you have.’

  Karen thought it looked as though he was snarling.

  *

  09.32 Anchorage; 18.32 London

  Jack was at the airport in plenty of time for his 11.55 flight. A
cab took him down L Street, into Minnesota Drive, then along W International Airport Road to the Ted Stevens airport, and Jack marvelled at the lack of traffic. Anchorage was the biggest city in Alaska, but it felt like a small town – friendly and safe.

  He made time to speak at some length to the car hire firm, and learned that Frank Rand had already called them to talk about the car. Jack had a number of documents to sign, but apparently Frank had told the hire company that the car itself would have to remain at Whittier until the CSI team had been through it. They could arrange for its return afterwards. There was little for Jack to do, which he was glad of.

  It was a pleasant airport. The decorations of Native American Inuit peoples were everywhere, and even after the horrors of the last days Jack was aware of some regret to be leaving. He would have liked to have visited this land for longer. As it was, he was looking forward to seeing the consulate and passing over all the information he had: the description of Danny Lewin’s journal, the roll of cuttings, and the men he had written about: especially Roger Sumner. That was surely a man who was worth hunting down and speaking with. Trouble was, Jack knew he’d be in trouble. He’d lost the journal itself.

  Idly, he wandered about the airport. There was a display of the Iditarod, with photos of mushers calling to their dogs, the sleds rushing over virgin snow, and Jack stood staring for a moment. To pit yourself against the land like that, you had to be a particular kind of man. He would have loved to have done it himself, when he was younger. To live on the trail with a pack, travelling over a thousand miles in a race, pitting himself and the dogs against mountains, frozen lakes, and the brutal winds – that was life. He could almost taste the cold air in his mouth at the thought.

  He had booked in, and now he submitted to the searches for weapons, and once airside, fetched a coffee and loafed about with his book, and all too soon it was time for his flight to Seattle. It took little time to line up and filter onto the small Boeing, and he took his seat in the window, glancing out at the terminal building as the airplane’s engines whirred quietly.

  And then Jack froze as he saw in the window of the departure area the square face and short hair of the man in the hospital. The man in the car in the tunnel: Ginger.

  *

  19.49 London

  It was past supper time when Claire returned with the dogs.

  Her daily routine was rigid, now that Jack was gone again. She would rise at half six, go out to check on her chickens and the pony, and then have breakfast by eight. Soon after, she would take the dogs out along the road, over the main road, and down to Fatherford. It was her duty, she felt.

  The walk followed the river all the way from the Okehampton College towards Belstone, and she would wander up it, past the great shelves and cliffs of granite, the waterfalls and gentle pools, up to the high moors, where she could stop and rest a moment. Remembering.

  Her daily act of remembrance was a penance, she felt, for those few weeks when she had been unfaithful to her husband. A time of joy and sudden freedom that she had not expected. To be free, truly free of London and the round of socialising with men and women from the Service, because no one outside was fully trusted, ever, was a wonder. She had felt like a teenager again. And then it all went horribly sour.

  Claire had a job with a local kennels, which was easy enough. It paid appalling money, but she was happy just to leave the cottage for a while, and while cleaning up after a kennel-load of dogs was hardly stimulating, the company of the dogs was relaxing. Playing with them, grooming them, feeding them. All menial enough tasks, but she didn’t have to worry about other people talking about her behind her back or hushed conversations quickly stilled as she entered a room. Instead she was granted the unjudgemental companionship of up to thirty dogs. It was enough for her.

  Today, still feeling tense in Jack’s absence, she had eaten an early supper and taken the dogs out again. The Spaniels bounded about the roadway, all along to the main road and over to the copse at the bottom, where they scurried about searching unsuccessfully for rabbits or cats. For an hour she walked about the copse until she felt ready to return home, and then she called to the dogs and made her way back.

  The dogs in their bed, she walked through to the kitchen and set the kettle on the Aga, before turning on the radio.

  It was then that the phone rang. Without thinking, she picked it up and gave her number.

  ‘Claire, my darling, is that you? It’s Paul. Paul Starck.’

  She felt her face freeze.

  ‘Paul. What do you want?’

  ‘Only a chat, Claire. Only a chat. Are you in all day?’

  ‘No. I’m busy.’

  ‘Then tomorrow.’

  ‘No, I will be…’

  ‘I do need to speak with you, Claire. And it won’t make any difference if you try to put me off,’ Starck said gently, but there was iron in his tone.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, and put the phone down, slowly.

  And then, as the foul memories returned to her, she sobbed, quite quietly, into her hands as the kettle whistled and rattled beside her.

  *

  16.21 Langley; 21.21 London

  ‘He is on the flight.’

  ‘Good. To Seattle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Amiss put the receiver down and sat back.

  ‘He is on his way.’

  His assistant, Bruce Stilson, was sitting in the upright chair opposite his desk and nodded, ‘You want me to get over there and deal with things?’

  ‘I hope there’s no need. There’s nothing he’s got that could connect to us. Not now he’s lost Lewin’s book, and while there is the list at the back, I doubt whether this guy will have made connections from that to us. I think we’re in the clear.’

  ‘But he knows the book’s gone. He knows someone’s been chasing him, and from the look of all we’ve heard, he saw the guys at the hospital and in the tunnel. He knows we’re after him.’

  ‘It’s a serious business to kill an ally’s agent. He’s supposed to be a friend to America.’

  ‘But he knows someone’s tried to kill him. What if he starts to piece things together?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Amiss frowned to himself. ‘We can leave the local Feebies to keep an eye on him. They’re already in place. Hopefully in a day or less, he’ll be on a plane out of here.’

  ‘He’s lucky to make it.’

  ‘Yes. Our efficiency has been sorely strained in the last few days. We need to tighten the training. He should not have made it from Whittier. Still, if he leaves us, it will be better than him dying here. And at least we have the journal.’

  ‘What if there was a message in the journal that he read and understood?’

  ‘A coded message for another English spy?’ Amiss grunted as he considered. He remembered times in Vietnam and in the Gulf, when risks were assessed, possible options evaluated. It was always better to be prepared for the worst. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Go and join our team. Activate them and monitor. Keep a close eye on this Brit. Just in case we need to remove him. We can’t afford to have any more balls-ups, though. Remember that, Stilson. If I give you the order, I expect results this time.’

  *

  22.43 London

  Karen Skoyles drove to her apartment in the Barbican and parked her VW Beetle convertible in the bay in the underground garage. She left it, pressing the fob until the lights flashed, before making her way to the lift.

  In her flat, she set her case down and walked to her sitting room. From here she had a clear view all over London. The landmarks, from St Paul’s cathedral down there, over to the river, and beyond. A panorama of perfection, she thought. And she wanted to weep at the thought she might soon lose it all.

  Her career had progressed nice and steadily until now. Hopefully by abandoning Jack Case she could retrieve things. But it was only as she sat and went through things today that she realised the emotional impact her decisions must take. It was one thing to evict a man like Case fro
m his position in the Firm, to leapfrog Starck and make his life miserable in the hope he would take redundancy, and another to order that a man should be deserted, perhaps even killed.

  And it would probably come to that, she knew. Case was too much of a threat to her, even if he didn’t realise it.

  Karen had begun to work with the CIA some years before, when she had herself been seconded to a liaison role. At the time only GCHQ staff had been give the US liaison jobs, but she had argued that it would be good to have an analyst on the team, and Richard Gorman had agreed.

  When Amiss had spoken to her about a new operation, she had been pleased. It proved that the Americans were keen to involve her with their plans. And all they asked was a few clues about suspects. They were allies, so the information they wanted was justifiable, she felt. Why not help Britain’s allies? Especially since they intended using the data to help in the war against terrorism.

  Yes. At the time it had seemed so logical. And Amiss had in return ensured that her influence was remarked upon. The Americans praised her, and that helped her at the Service.

  But if news of her passing on information so that Americans could capture people for torture came to the ears of the DG or DDG, her career would be ended.

  She trembled at the thought. And then she picked up a telephone and put a call through to the number Amiss had given her.

  If she gave out Case’s name and details, the Americans would soon find him. And then her problems would disappear. If Case was dead, her secret could remain just that: secret. It was the only way she could ensure her own safety.

  And she knew how to make the Americans keen to kill him.

  Wednesday 21st September

  16.32 Seattle; 00.32 London

  Frank Rand cut the call and returned to his desk.

  The local FBI offices off 3rd Avenue, Seattle, were all new and modern, with Steelcase desks and partitions and trunking that hid the cable runs from the main computer servers. Roy Sandford was shut away in his own private little chamber over on the left, with separate feeds in from the main comms boxes up on the next floor, and this area before Frank was where the main team congregated. Not just now, though. Most of the men were out in the field, at the airport, at the ferry terminals, at the coach station, all of them searching for the man they knew as Hansen.