The Ultimate Truth

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Right,’ Grandad said. ‘Well, let’s see what I can find out.’

  ‘Do you want to use my mobile?’ I asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m going to use the phone box across the street.’

  ‘The phone box?’

  ‘Modern technology is all well and good, Trav, but sometimes the old ways are still the best.’

  25

  I didn’t know who Grandad was calling, but the only time I’d known him use a phone box before was when he’d had to get in touch with one of his old army intelligence contacts, so I guessed he was doing something similar now. And I assumed from what he’d said about the old ways still being the best that he felt safer using a public phone than a mobile or a landline because there was less chance of the call being bugged.

  As I sat on the bed waiting for him to come back, it suddenly struck me how weird everything had become. Here I was, sitting in my room at eleven o’clock on a Friday night, while my grandad was outside making clandestine phone calls from a telephone box, trying to find out the connection between a seemingly straightforward missing persons case and a shadowy security organisation known as Omega whose agents might or might not have arranged a riot to cover up a break-in at my mum and dad’s office . . .

  How had it all come to this? I wondered.

  And where was it all going to end?

  It was still too much for me to think about. I tried for a while, going back over everything Grandad had told me – trying to understand the bits I hadn’t understood the first time round, and trying to make sense of the bits that I had understood – but there was just too much of everything again. Too much information for my brain to digest.

  I looked at my watch Grandad had been gone for about twenty minutes now I got up off the bed went over to the window and looked down the street. The telephone box was about thirty metres away, outside a pub called the Live and Let Live. I could see that Grandad was still in the phone box, and I could also see a bunch of young thugs hanging around outside the pub, shouting and laughing, making a lot of noise. They looked like trouble, but I wasn’t worried for Grandad’s safety. He might be getting on a bit now, and he’s certainly not as fit and strong as he used to be, but he’s still more than capable of looking after himself. He’s a very tough man, my grandad. He’s not aggressive or anything and I’ve never seen him lose his temper, but I’ve seen him in action a couple of times. Once when he helped a woman who was getting mugged in the street, and another time when a fight broke out at a football match. Grandad in action is an awesome thing to see. It’s not nice – he fights hard, and he fights dirty – but it gets the job done, and sometimes that’s all that matters. ‘If you have to fight someone, Travis,’ he once told me, ‘and I don’t mean in the boxing ring, I mean a real, life-or-death fight, you can’t afford to mess around. You have to hit your opponent before they hit you, you have to hit them as hard as you can – preferably with something other than your fists – and you have to hit them wherever it’ll do the most damage. That’s all you’ve got to remember, OK? You put them down as quickly as possible, and you make sure they stay down.’

  He was coming out of the phone box now, and even from a distance I could tell that he was deep in thought – walking briskly, his eyes fixed straight ahead, his grizzled old face determined and grim. As he passed by the group of thugs, one of them – a mean-looking guy in a tracksuit – made some kind of stupid remark, laughing and pointing at Grandad. Grandad didn’t even glance at him, just carried on walking as if he wasn’t there.

  I was sitting on my bed again when Grandad came back into the bedroom. He didn’t say anything at first, he just quietly closed the door, went over to the window, and stood there with his back to me, gazing out at the night. I was desperate to ask him who he’d just called and what he’d found out, but I guessed he was still thinking things through, and I knew better than to disturb him when he was thinking. So I forced myself to keep quiet and wait. After a minute or two I saw him straighten his back, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly, and I knew then that he was ready to talk.

  26

  The only thing Grandad would tell me about the person he’d called was that he’d known him a long time, that he was still an active agent with one of the national security services, and that he trusted him as much as he trusted anyone in the security business.

  ‘Which isn’t much,’ he admitted, lowering himself into the armchair. ‘Not that you can blame them for lying all the time. I mean, they’re spies, they tell lies for a living. If you spend your whole life lying and cheating and twisting the truth, you get so used to it that you don’t even know you’re doing it most of the time.’ Grandad looked at me. ‘That’s part of the reason I got out when I did. I didn’t want to end up as cold-hearted as the rest of them.’ He paused for a moment, thinking about something, then carried on. ‘Anyway, I’m pretty sure my contact didn’t tell me everything he knows, but I’m also reasonably certain that he didn’t lie to me either. That’s usually how it works with him. If there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me, or something he can’t tell me, he doesn’t lie about it, he just doesn’t tell me. So the stuff he does tell me is almost always the truth.’

  ‘Almost always?’ I said.

  Grandad smiled ruefully. ‘Never trust a spook, Trav.’

  ‘You used to be one,’ I said, grinning. ‘Does that mean I shouldn’t trust you?’

  ‘It’s pointless asking someone if you can trust them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if you trust them in the first place, there’s no need to ask. And if you don’t trust them in the first place, you’re not going to believe what they tell you. So either way there’s no point in asking the question, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not . . .’ I muttered, scratching my head.

  He watched me for a moment, quietly amused by my confusion, then he lowered his eyes and his face became serious again.

  ‘Do you remember those spy stories I used to read to you when you were little?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I’ve got another one for you. Only this time it’s real.’

  On 6 April 2009, two days after Bashir Kamal’s sixteenth birthday, his older brother Saeed was killed in a suicide bombing in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Saeed had been on holiday at the time – seeing the sights, visiting his parents’ birthplace – and as far as anyone knows, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The place was a street market, the time three o’clock in the afternoon. The suicide bomber was a twelve-year-old boy dressed in school uniform. The intended target was unknown. Twenty-one people were killed in the blast, ninety-eight others were seriously injured. Taliban insurgents claimed responsibly for the attack, but according to CIA sources it bore all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation.

  ‘Although I don’t suppose it mattered to Bashir and his parents who actually did it,’ Grandad said bitterly.

  ‘All that mattered to them was that Saeed was dead. An innocent victim of a pointless atrocity.’

  I stared at the floor, my mind numbed. I tried to imagine a twelve-year-old boy, walking through a market place at three o’clock in the afternoon with explosives strapped to his body . . . a twelve-year-old boy, just a year younger than me . . . knowing that he was about to die . . . knowing that he was about to kill and maim dozens of people. How could he possibly do that? And why? Was he forced, threatened, brainwashed? What was in his head? How did he feel? What did he think about what he was doing?

  I couldn’t even begin to imagine it. It was so far beyond me, so utterly incomprehensible, that I just couldn’t get my head round it.

  ‘I don’t know for sure how MI5 got to Bashir,’ Grandad continued, ‘but knowing the way they work, I’d be willing to bet they started watching him pretty soon after his brother was killed.’

  ‘Why would they watch him?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, first of all, they’d want to
make sure that Saeed really was just an innocent bystander. They’d have already checked out his background, so they were probably fairly sure that he didn’t have anything to do with the bombing. But after all the mistakes they’ve made in the past, MI5 always double- and triple-check everything these days, just to be on the safe side. Once they were satisfied that Bashir was clean, they would have started working out how to use him.’

  ‘Use him for what?’

  ‘His brother had been murdered. He was angry, vengeful, eaten up with hatred and bitterness. He despised the people who’d caused his brother’s death. He’d do anything to strike back at them. At least, that’s how MI5 would have seen him. Even if he wasn’t angry and vengeful, it wouldn’t take much persuading to make him that way. He was vulnerable. Vulnerable people are easy to persuade. All MI5 had to do was convince him that if he worked for them, he’d be hitting back at the people who killed his brother.’

  ‘So Bashir was working for MI5?’

  ‘They recruited him as an informant, and within a year he’d infiltrated a home-grown terrorist cell in London. The members of this group were mostly British-born Pakistanis. MI5 had been watching them for some time, so they knew they’d been visiting al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq and Yemen, and they knew they were planning an attack somewhere in the UK, but they didn’t know where or when. Bashir not only managed to get in with the terrorists, he actually ended up living in the same house as them in Stratford. That’s how he eventually found out that they were planning to attack the American Embassy in London. Apparently it was a very sophisticated plan, and if it had gone ahead . . . well, thank God it didn’t.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The details are a bit sketchy, but it seems like it was a very close thing. From what I can tell, Bashir only just managed to warn MI5 in time for them to stop it. When counter-terrorism officers raided the house in Stratford, the bombers were already making their final preparations. Fortunately they were all there at the time, and every one of them was safely apprehended and arrested, including Bashir.’

  ‘To prevent his cover being blown,’ I said.

  Grandad nodded. ‘He’d done an excellent job, and MI5 were hoping to use him again. And apparently Bashir was quite happy to carry on working for them. But he never got the chance.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Grandad sighed. ‘Well, this is where it gets a bit complicated. It seems that when MI5 found out that the terrorists were targeting the American Embassy, they decided not to share this information with their American counterparts, the CIA. I’m not sure why they wanted to keep it quiet, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Security services the world over are notorious for keeping things to themselves. But, of course, the CIA eventually found out about the planned attack, and because it was the American Embassy that had been targeted, they immediately started pressing the British government to release all the details of the thwarted bombing and the arrested terrorists. The way they saw it, because the bombers had planned to attack the US Embassy and US civilians, they should be tried and sentenced in the USA.’

  ‘That would have blown Bashir’s cover,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. And MI5 didn’t want that to happen. They didn’t want the USA to kick up a big fuss about it either. Mainly because that would bring everything out into the open, which they wanted to avoid. But also because the UK needs all the help it can get from the US, and a flat refusal to give them what they wanted wouldn’t have been good for international relations. So in the end, MI5 did what they always do. They didn’t agree or disagree to anything, they just let their lawyers take over and hoped they could drag things out for as long as possible.’

  ‘Did the CIA know about Bashir?’ I asked. ‘I mean, would MI5 have told them that one of the arrested terrorists was actually an informant?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Grandad said thoughtfully. ‘But if you asked me to guess, I’d say no. From their point of view, the fewer people who knew about Bashir, the better.’

  ‘So if the CIA did find out about him, they might actually think he was a terrorist?’

  ‘Quite possibly.’ Grandad looked at me. ‘Are you following all this so far, Trav? I mean, I know it’s all a bit confusing . . .’

  I nodded. Although I didn’t understand everything he’d told me, I was beginning to see where the story was going. Bashir had tried to do the right thing . . . he’d done the right thing. But he’d ended up being an innocent pawn in a sinister game of chess.

  I remembered what Grandad had told me about the rivalries between different intelligence agencies. so There were so many different organisations involved, all of them with different strategies and different motives, that sometimes it was almost impossible to get anything done . . . it was so complicated and confusing that after a while a lot of us became totally disillusioned. And that’s where Omega had come in, I recalled. A group of intelligence officers who really believed in what they were doing but were sick of being constrained by all the rules and politics of intelligence work.

  I thought about that for a while, then looked at Grandad and said, ‘What happened to Bashir? I mean, what did MI5 do with him?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Grandad said. ‘That’s where it all went wrong.’

  27

  It was getting late now, almost midnight, and I could see that Grandad was getting tired. I was kind of worn out myself – physically and mentally – but despite feeling drained and exhausted, there was a part of me that felt strangely buzzy and excited. It was an odd feeling, not unpleasant in itself, but somehow it just didn’t feel right to be excited about any of this. My mum and dad were dead, and there was a distinct possibility that all this stuff about Bashir and spies and terrorists was somehow connected to what had happened to them. And there was absolutely nothing exciting about that at all, not in a million years. Losing Mum and Dad had ripped out my heart. It was the worst thing in the world. How dare I feel anything other than emptiness and despair? How could I? How could I even think of anything else?

  It was hard to work it out.

  Too hard for me.

  I wiped my eyes and turned my attention to Grandad.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked me.

  I nodded. ‘You were telling me about Bashir,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Right . . .’ he said hesitantly, a worried look on his face.

  ‘What happened to him after the arrests in London?’ I asked.

  Grandad cleared his throat. ‘Well, he should have been looked after by his MI5 handler, the agent who’d recruited him in the first place. The agent should have made sure that Bashir was safe, and kept him under wraps until all the wrangling with the CIA and the US government was over. But that didn’t happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Grandad rolled his eyes. ‘Because, believe it or not, the agent was fired by MI5 after a Sunday newspaper ran a story about his wife’s involvement in some stupid political scandal. Apparently she was paid a lot of money for some incriminating photographs she took of a so-called Very Important Person. It’s not clear whether her husband was actually involved in the scandal himself, or whether he was just duped by his wife into providing her with sensitive information. Either way it was acutely embarrassing for both MI5 and the government.’

  ‘MI5 sacked him because he was an embarrassment to them?’

  ‘They not only sacked him,’ Grandad said, ‘they also closed down all the cases he was working on and terminated the contracts of his undercover assets. They basically washed their hands of him.’

  ‘So where did that leave Bashir?’

  ‘He was given assurances that his undercover work wouldn’t be revealed to anyone, and that his name would be kept out of everything, but apart from that . . . well, he was pretty much left on his own.’

  ‘They just let him go?’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Is that why he left London and moved to Barton?’

  ‘Probably. From what I can gather, it seems as i
f MI5 were true to their word. Because for a couple of years everything went OK for Bashir. He moved back in with his parents, concentrated on his boxing, and just got on with his life. No one bothered him, no one was looking for him, no one seemed to know who he was or what he’d done. But then . . .’ Grandad shook his head. ‘I don’t know how it happened. Maybe someone in MI5 slipped up and mentioned Bashir’s name by mistake. Or it could be that they’ve got a leak somewhere. But somehow the CIA found out about his involvement with the Embassy bombers. Once they had his name, it wouldn’t have been hard to find out where he was.’

  ‘He wasn’t actually involved with the bombers though, was he? I mean, just because he lived in the same house as them, that doesn’t make him a terrorist.’

  ‘The CIA wouldn’t see it like that. When they’re dealing with potential terrorists, their principle is guilty until proven innocent. Bashir knew the bombers, he lived with them . . . that’s more than enough for the CIA to assume he was one of them.’

  ‘Do you think they’ve got him?’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose. Anything’s possible. I mean, he might have gone into hiding himself.’ Grandad paused for a moment, thinking. ‘If the CIA have got him though, I don’t understand why MI5 agents are still sniffing around. If the CIA already had Bashir, he wouldn’t be in Barton any more. He’d be locked up in a cell somewhere in the USA. Or worse.’

  ‘If Evie Johnson’s right about seeing Bashir in the Audi,’ I said, ‘and the Audis are MI5 vehicles, that means that Bashir was meeting with MI5 agents before he disappeared.’

  ‘It also means that MI5 are interested in you.’

  ‘Or Courtney. It was her car they followed.’

  ‘They’re probably keeping an eye on both of you.’ Grandad paused, thinking. ‘The way I see it, that can only be because you’ve been looking into your mum and dad’s investigation into Bashir.’

  ‘Why would MI5 suddenly be interested in Bashir again?’ I asked. ‘I mean, they didn’t want to know him two years ago, did they? What changed their minds?’