“But if Tom was the mole, why would he invent this story about O’Phelan?”
For the first time Liz felt a slight chill, as their discussion moved from motivation to murder. “To divert attention from the real reason O’Phelan was killed. Which was to shut him up.” Liz didn’t need to wait for the next question. “And yes, that means in my view Tom murdered O’Phelan. Just as I think Tom is the mole. There’s another thing too,” added Liz, almost as an afterthought. “Tom told me his father was killed in a road accident, but Margarita told Peggy that he committed suicide in New York.”
Wetherby was staring across the street, apparently distracted by the interminable television interview. The lack of attention was unlike him. “Charles?” she said questioningly.
He didn’t answer. Liz said, “The problem is that we can’t prove any of this. If Tom was recruited by O’Phelan for the IRA, he was never activated. He will never admit it. So unless we can tie him to O’Phelan’s murder, I don’t see what we could charge him with.”
Charles still didn’t seem to be listening. What’s bothering him? thought Liz. Is Joanne ill again? Or one of the boys? She said, with a trace of impatience, “We’ll have to do something, Charles, won’t we? I mean I know it may not seem urgent, but—”
Wetherby interrupted her. He said softly, “It is urgent, Liz. That’s what’s bothering me.” He sighed and clasped his hands together, leaning forward to sit on the edge of the bench. “I didn’t tell you before, because it wasn’t relevant to your investigation. And I didn’t want to jump to conclusions that might have affected your own. But after Dave Armstrong missed the terrorists in Wokingham, he came to see me. What is not widely known—because we’ve kept it secret—is that the terrorists vacated the house only after Dave had requested Special Branch go in. We know exactly when they left because one of the neighbours spotted them, leaving in a hurry.
“Dave decided there must have been a leak: the terrorists’ departure was too hasty and too well timed—twelve hours later and we’d have got them. The leak could have come from anywhere—the local police, the estate agent who let the house. Except Dave thinks the same thing happened at Marzipan’s bookshop—when the three men didn’t show up. Someone tipped them off as well.”
Wetherby sighed, as if he knew he had to finish the argument but dearly didn’t want to. “The only people who knew about both operations were in Thames House. If there was a leak, and I believe there were two of them, we have to think they came from within the Service.”
“You mean there’s another mole?” asked Liz. No wonder Charles looks preoccupied, she thought. Compared to this immediate threat, an IRA informer who never went to work must seem small beer.
She was about to say this when Wetherby asked, “Did you ever hear the story about the man who’s scared to fly in case there’s a bomb on the plane?”
“No,” said Liz, thinking this was unlike Wetherby. He had a fine, dry sense of humour, but didn’t go in for jokes, especially in situations as tense as this.
He fingered the knot in his silk tie and sat back on the bench. “He’s sufficiently scared that he won’t fly anywhere, so one of his friends tries to help. He tells the man that the odds of there being a bomb on his flight are at least several million to one. But the man isn’t satisfied—even these odds seem too short for comfort. So then his friend points out that the odds of there being two bombs on the same flight are more than a billion to one. Therefore the obvious solution is for the man to take the flight, and bring along a bomb.”
Liz laughed, but Wetherby’s expression grew serious. “I hope you see my point,” he said. “The odds of there being two moles in MI5 are about the same as the odds of having two bombs on the same flight.”
Liz felt a sudden sense of alarm. “You mean, that if Tom’s the IRA mole, he also tipped off the terrorists?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. I just don’t know why. There’s something else I should tell you,” said Charles. “I think you were at the last FOXHUNT operational meeting. You may remember that Dave said that the Dawnton woman, the one who lives next door to the house where the suspects were living, had told him that a white man had called at the house next door. Dave said that she’d seen this man clearly and thought she could identify him. That wasn’t true. Dave made it up to see if it flushed anyone out. It did. After the meeting, Tom went to see Dave to find out more. He was clearly worried.”
“I wondered what Dave was doing when he said that.”
Liz’s mobile rang, and she looked at the number on the screen. “Excuse me, Charles, it’s Peggy. I’d better take it.” She pressed the green button and said a quiet “Hi.”
“I can’t find him, Liz,” Peggy said at once. “He’s not in the building and he hasn’t been seen since this morning. No one knows where he is. Dave Armstrong tried his mobile, but there was no reply.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Liz, and turned to Wetherby. “I sent Peggy to look for Tom, but he’s nowhere to be found. And no one’s heard from him.” Which was very odd: it was a cardinal rule, especially for such a senior officer, to be contactable in case of emergency. An hour, two hours out of touch might be excusable—a mobile phone failure, a family emergency. But not eight hours during the middle of a crucial investigation. He’s gone AWOL, thought Liz.
“I see,” Wetherby said grimly. “Please ask Peggy to find Dave Armstrong and have him meet me in my office in fifteen minutes.”
When she’d rung off, Wetherby stood up. “I had better get back,” he declared, adding easily, “Why don’t you walk with me? If Tom’s done a runner, it doesn’t matter if we’re seen talking together.”
Liz said, “When Peggy went to see Tom’s ex-wife this morning she was convinced she was being followed. Then afterwards, she thought someone tried to push her off the platform at High Street Ken—just as the train was approaching. It sounds unlikely to me, and Peggy admits she may be wrong about this, but I thought it best to be on the safe side. I sent her to find Tom on a pretext, so he’d realise she’d already briefed me on her meeting. That way, if he had any idea of silencing her, he’d know it was too late.”
“You were right to try and protect her,” Wetherby said, “though I’m sure you’re right to think Peggy was imagining it—she’s very young and inexperienced. Still, she shouldn’t go home tonight for her own peace of mind. Could you have her to stay with you? I’m going to have Dave start looking for Tom, though I don’t want word to spread. If by any chance Tom does come back with an explanation for his absence, I don’t want to alarm him until we have all our cards in order. But my hunch is, he’s gone.”
She nodded in agreement. Wetherby gave a weary shake to his head, and looked out over towards the politician who was still being interviewed. “What we have to work out is what Tom’s next move will be. I have a terrible feeling we haven’t much time. We know the nature of his IRA link, but not what his connection is with the terrorists.”
“Could it have started in Pakistan?”
“Possibly,” said Wetherby pensively. “I think you should go and talk to Geoffrey Fane. I’ll ring him as soon as we get back.”
“I’d better talk to the ex-wife as well. She’s the only family connection to Tom we have.”
They crossed the street and passed the small patch of green where, his interview finished at last, the Minister was heading with several minders towards a large parked Jaguar. The television cameraman, still standing on the grass, shook his head at the reporter. “Six takes,” he shouted, in a loud exasperated voice. “For about twelve seconds of film. And people say politicians are too glib.”
46
Impressive, thought Liz, as she entered Geoffrey Fane’s office. It was a large eyrie, beautifully appointed, high up in the postmodern colossus on the South Bank that is the headquarters of MI6. Fane was one floor above the suite of C, the head of the Service.
Fane was on the phone but when he saw Liz in his outer office, he waved her in. She sat do
wn in a padded leather chair in front of his old-fashioned partners desk. He was speaking to South America. Liz’s eye was caught by the framed sets of mounted trout flies on the wall and she got up to look at them. She knew Fane was a keen fly-fisherman and she remembered Charles saying that he had been invited to join him for a day’s fishing on one of the best beats—the Kennet or the Test.
All the time she was mentally reviewing what she was going to tell him. He’ll be surprised, she thought, though I bet he won’t show it.
“Forgive me,” said Fane, putting down the phone and standing up to shake hands. “Our man in Bogota is a little verbose.”
He wore a blue pinstripe suit, which accentuated his height, and an Honourable Artillery Company tie. With his high cheekbones and aquiline nose, he cut a dashing figure, though, as Liz already knew, he was hard to warm to. His manner of talking was articulate and often amusing, and like Wetherby he spoke with an air of appreciative irony, but unlike Wetherby, his irony could suddenly turn to biting wit. For Geoffrey Fane, professional matters were personal. He needed to win and Liz knew that he could suddenly, capriciously turn on people. In their few encounters, Liz had never found him entirely trustworthy.
They sat down again, and Fane looked out the window. “Rain’s coming, I’m afraid.”
In the distance Liz could see the office blocks in Victoria Street and a tight blanket of scudding cloud fast approaching. The windows at Vauxhall Cross were triple-glazed against mortar attack, and this cast a grey-green filtered tint on the world outside, making it sombre on even the sunniest day. She went straight to the point. “I wanted to see you about this Irish business.”
“Ah yes, the peculiar legacy of Sean Keaney. Tell me, how is Peggy Kinsolving working out?”
This is not what Liz wanted to talk about. “She’s very good,” she said swiftly. “She’s helped make an important discovery.”
Fane raised an eyebrow. “Discovery?”
“Yes. We’ve come to the conclusion that there actually is a mole.”
“Really? In place. Planted by the IRA?” Fane sounded incredulous.
“Originally,” said Liz. “But we think he’s moved on.”
Fane shot both cuffs rather carefully, and Liz suppressed a smile. For all his patrician air, he had a dandy’s showman instincts. Wetherby had precisely the same habit, but with him you felt it was done out of a desire for sartorial order; with Fane, she decided, it was designed to show off his cufflinks.
“Left the Service, you mean? Do you know who he was?”
“No. I don’t mean left the Service. He’s still here. We think it’s Tom Dartmouth.”
“Tom Dartmouth?” Fane could not disguise his surprise. “Does Charles share this view?” he said with sharp scepticism.
“He does,” she said coolly. She was not going to be bullied by Fane.
“Are you sure about this?”
“The evidence so far is entirely circumstantial.”
Fane sat up straight. He looked ready to challenge her, so she continued quickly. “It’s likely to remain that way for the moment, too, because Tom has vanished.”
“Vanished?” said Fane, his aggression suddenly deflated.
“Obviously we wanted to let you know right away,” said Liz. “Particularly because of Tom’s secondment to Six. But I’m also here to find out more about his time in Pakistan. We’re concerned that he may have moved on from the IRA and that he is helping a small Islamic terrorist group we’re trying to find. It’s the group you know about from the CTC. The bookshop group. Operation FOXHUNT. We think it’s possible he first made contact with them in Pakistan.”
“Yes, of course I know about FOXHUNT, but what has that to do with the IRA?” said Fane. “I must say, Elizabeth, this seems completely confusing.” By the time Liz had explained her thesis, Fane’s expression had turned from scepticism to gravity. “Well, as it happens, our station chief in Islamabad is with us this week. He’s been over at the Foreign Office but he may well be back by now.”
A few telephone calls later, and Miles Pennington, MI6’s head of station in Pakistan, walked into Fane’s office. Pushing fifty, Miles Pennington had receding hair and a bluff manner. According to Fane he was an “old Asia hand”—six years in Pakistan, a stint in Afghanistan, another in Bangladesh—and with his deep tan and lightweight khaki suit he certainly looked the part. Extending a firm, dry hand for Liz to shake, he sat down and listened while Fane explained they needed his help. Liz broke in to ask for his signature on the indoctrination list for the mole hunt. “I already have your signature, Geoffrey,” she said. The indoctrination list, activated for the most secret operations, not only meant that the operation could only be discussed with others on the list, but also produced a complete index of those in the know, in case there should be a leak. As he looked at the sheet which Liz handed him and saw how very few names there were on it—Liz, Peggy, Charles Wetherby and Geoffrey Fane, C of MI6 and DG of MI5, as well as the Home Secretary and a few other names he didn’t recognise, Pennington blanched. That sort of list indicated a very serious operation indeed.
“We want to talk about Tom Dartmouth,” said Fane, all languor gone. “Elizabeth will explain what we’re looking for.”
Liz and Fane had agreed that Miles Pennington did not need to know about the IRA angle and so she focused only on the immediate problem. “We are urgently trying to locate three suspected terrorists here in the UK. They are all British, but of Asian origin—there’s one we have identified and he’s from a Pakistani family in the Midlands. The other two are unknown to us.”
She paused, aware that Pennington must be wondering what this had to do with Tom Dartmouth, whom he knew only as a junior colleague, seconded from MI5. Taking a deep breath Liz said, “We have reason to believe that Tom Dartmouth has been in contact with the terrorists, and in fact may be actively helping them.” She ignored Pennington’s stunned expression. “Unfortunately, he’s gone to ground. So we’re trying to understand what’s behind all this.”
Pennington managed a hesitant nod, but was clearly still trying to take it in. Liz said, “Could you give me your view of Tom? One of the problems we’re having is that he’s only been back here in London for four months and before that he’d been with you for four years. What did you make of him?”
Pennington took some time to respond. At last, choosing his words with care, he said, “Intelligent, fluent Arabic speaker, worked very hard—without getting too intense about it.”
“Intense”—how typical, thought Liz. The cult of the English amateur—legacy of a Victorian public-school ethos—still alive and kicking in the offshore stations of MI6. Work hard but pretend you’re not, make the difficult seem easy—all from an era when gentlemen ran the vestiges of an empire.
“What about life outside work?” she asked. “Did you see much of him then?”
“Yes. We are all pretty close, given the circumstances in Pakistan. Though of course he was in Lahore and I’m mainly in Islamabad. He seemed to fit in pretty well. That doesn’t always happen when we get someone from Five.” Pennington suddenly looked embarrassed, remembering where Liz worked. “He liked a drink, but not to excess. There was the odd girl around, but again nothing improper—he’s divorced isn’t he?”
“Was there anything strange about him, anything remarkable?”
“Not really,” said Pennington, who spoke with a hint of a drawl. “He wasn’t the most outgoing of colleagues.” Liz could see he was struggling to remember the attributes of a man he had never envisaged occupying centre stage. “He wasn’t mysterious or anything like that. Even with the benefit of hindsight,” he added, glancing at the indoctrination form, “I’d still say that.”
He gave a low sigh, half regretful, half resigned. “I suppose the right word to describe him would be ‘detached.’ Not so much as to make one notice; as I say, he fitted in well enough. But thinking about it, I’d say he was always keeping something in reserve.”
“Can you tell
me about his work?”
Pennington looked relieved to move to less psychological ground. “Bit of a mixed bag really, but quite straightforward. He kept a sharp eye on the madrasas, to see which were kosher, so to speak, and which were up to no good. In particular, he watched which ones were trying to recruit any of the young British Asians coming out to study. Contrary to what the papers say, many of these students coming from the UK only get radicalised once they’re in Pakistan. They go out with perfectly respectable religious motives, then fall under the sway of extremist imams.”
Pennington scratched his cheek lazily, comfortable again. “He was liaising with Pakistan Intelligence much of the time.”
“How did Tom report to you?”
“Directly,” said Pennington confidently. “We spoke almost every day, unless one of us was travelling, and once a fortnight he’d come in for our station meeting. He’d always put something in writing—a summary of what he’d been doing.”
“Did you see his reports to MI5?”
Pennington looked startled. “Not all of them personally, but they would have been duplicates of what he gave us, plus anything else he thought would be of specific interest to your lot. The ones I saw were chiefly about the people he was watching.” He stopped and glanced at Fane, who was studiedly looking out the window throughout this recital. “And of course his own efforts.”
“Sorry?” said Liz.
Pennington explained. “Part of his job was to try and turn anyone we thought either had been or might be recruited—by the extremists. It’s always a long shot, but worth a go.”
“And did he have any success?”
“Ultimately no. But for a while he was working on one boy in particular, someone who’d come over for six months.”
Secret Asset Page 22
