‘Not really,’ said Jake mildly. ‘It’s useful to know.’
A table was booked at Two Rivers, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant in the five-star hotel where Tom was staying, and they arranged to meet for drinks at seven.
‘This is how it’ll play. Frank and Jimmy won’t be there,’ said George beforehand, once they’d got back to the office. ‘They’ll turn up later. He’ll want twenty-five minutes to size you up on his own. I’ll cry off too, so he can get his money’s worth. You be OK with the big white shark?’
‘I think I can cope.’
Over vodka and tonics Jake said, ‘We could have done the tour of the local curry houses, lovely though this is. Still could, if you like.’
‘Great idea,’ said Tom. ‘But I don’t think my friends would agree.’ He arched an eyebrow towards the minders posted near the door, as close to a public announcement as could be imagined that their principal was of interest. ‘They tell me I’m a marked man,’ he chuckled. ‘Something to do with being antsy with a bunch of terrorist hoodlums. Now, let’s get to talking before Frank and Jimmy arrive.’
Jake looked at him.
‘You Brits know this espionage business. Didn’t you invent it? Frank and Jimmy, great guys but they’re kinda … linear. They don’t have that rat cunning you guys have. That guile.’
‘I’m utterly without guile myself,’ said Jake seriously.
Tom grinned. ‘You bet. You have to say that with a straight face. I love it. These guys, though, are straight up and down. They’re my guys, which is the most important thing, and I look after them good.’
‘OK.’
‘We want this to succeed. We want it real bad. We’ve worked hard on this asset and it’s great to see us working together on it. Sends the right message up the chain. A lot at stake. Both sides of the Atlantic. Know what I mean? How do you see it working through?’
‘Depends. We’re working on the assumption that sooner or later he’s going to be asked to be involved in an attack, right?’
‘Hell yes.’
‘And our aim is to prevent the attack and prosecute the others involved. As many of them as we can get evidence against.’
‘Prosecute the shit out of them, yeah.’
‘Then gather up as much intelligence as we can to lead back to the people that are directing this stuff, so that we can do something about them.’
‘Check.’
‘Then you need to think carefully about evidence. Unless you want Frank and Jimmy testifying?’
‘Hell no.’
‘Here, if a piece of information exists, and is relevant, it’s evidence. The days when we could put the fix in and make ourselves disappear are long gone. Long before my time. I doubt they ever existed. It comes down to relevance, and you don’t need to hire an expensive lawyer to realize that you guys may well already have relevant things to say. They could be central. I’m certainly expecting to be called myself.’
‘I see,’ said Tom and became momentarily quiet, before grinning. ‘You know, that’s the exact same thing George said. You just trying to talk our guys out of the case, Jake?’ Tom laughed.
‘I told you I was utterly guileless, Tom. Why would I want that?’
‘Nice work. I like it. You guys are a class act.’
Jake shrugged. ‘I did at least try. Apart from that, I’m just worried about our friend. This bearded man, for instance. I’m not sure he exists. He may be inventing him for some purpose.’
‘What purpose?’
‘I don’t know. I’m paid to be sceptical and suspicious. I doubt everything I’m told until I can verify it.’
‘Good policy.’
‘It means I worry about getting things right.’
Tom sipped from his drink and leaned back into the black leather. ‘I like you, Jake,’ he said. ‘What’s your background?’
Tom and his people would have gone through his bio with a fine-tooth comb. ‘I was born in New Zealand. English mother, Kiwi father.’
‘Wow. Ain’t that great? All Blacks? Rugby? I love that game.’
‘I like rugby, yeah.’
‘The haka. Those Maori guys.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you grew up there?’
‘Came to England when I was six.’
‘Why’s that? Family break-up?’
‘No. We all came over. Two reasons: money and family. My mum and dad could earn more here, and my mum’s parents were ill.’
‘What did your pa do?’
‘Does. He’s still working. He’s a bus driver.’
‘OK.’ Tom had done his due diligence, checking Jake’s answers for veracity against his database. The American version of guile. ‘Hey, here come the guys now.’
The case began to rumble a little. Mysteriously, the famous five began to be gingered up in preparation for the deed. The gofer perhaps wasn’t a gofer but someone more significant. ‘Beard. Guy wears traditional gear. Salwar kameez,’ said Abu Omar. He was taken through books of photographs but could not place any of the men as this gofer.
It was at this point that, abruptly, Frank and Jimmy excused themselves from future meetings. Though they didn’t say so, and Jake didn’t ask, the fear of British courts must have percolated through the system and done for them.
‘Hey, we got, like, total confidence in you, man,’ said Jimmy laconically. ‘We’re just figuring four’s a crowd as we approach the finish line. We’ll compare notes after meetings.’
Was this the beginning of Jake’s disillusionment? Not by a long chalk, but beginning, middle or end: what did it matter? He was becoming a different person, and one he didn’t like.
The meetings, already captured by the four cameras in the safe-house room, had been beamed down, encrypted, to a secure room in the US Embassy where Frank and Jimmy could share a bucket of popcorn and a gallon of Coke while they watched. After each meeting the handlers would discuss what had gone on and any next steps.
There was talk of the boys travelling to London to attack the transport system. For reasons that were difficult to grasp, the idea died a death over a period of two weeks. Abu Omar made vague references to the difficulties of the logistics, and observed that there were plenty of jihadis down there already.
The analysts tried to stitch together an overall picture of what was going on. Was there some kind of strategic purpose to the stateliness with which Abu Omar and the others seemed to approach their life’s calling? Or was it simply that there was no brain behind this: these men had just been sent to do whatever they could, whenever they felt like it? Against this was the presence of the other man, the bearded robe-wearer who might be a gofer or a director.
The debate, in meetings and in papers, which attempted to extract all the meaning and more from the paltry pieces of information available, and sew together the rudimentary fabric of a narrative, came to no conclusions. Some of the meetings involved the Americans, some didn’t. Their message was that this would take time and everyone should just chill until the time comes.
‘All good things come to those who wait,’ said Frank to a frosty reception at one meeting.
‘It’s not you Americans who are at risk,’ said one of the less house-trained police analysts. ‘We should pull the plug.’
Cue a little frenzy, kept invisible to the transatlantic partners, between Stuart and the police. A conference took place in London at the end of October, during which the American view prevailed. ‘We’ve got an opportunity to deliver a real blow, to undermine their confidence, to stop a huge thing in the making in your country, to strike at the heart of these people and tell them they can’t operate with impunity in our free democracies,’ said Tom, who’d travelled over, as Jake suppressed a yawn. ‘The President would be upset if we missed this chance. Your call, guys, though. Of course.’
Eventually, the plot started to thicken, to a consistency that resembled something that might actually take place. The idea of mounting an attack in London was refined to
an explosion at a transport hub in the city. This meant, effectively, the mainline railway station, the bus station or the tram and bus interchange.
Salman was spotted one day leaving the tower block on his own and identified as an Algerian who’d been living in the city for four years, not a veteran of the conflict. Frank and Jimmy’s view that Abu Omar shouldn’t be challenged about this prevailed over Jake’s, for the moment. They argued that Abu Omar shouldn’t be unduly perturbed by trip-hazard trivial questioning of his motives. He might walk. From the identification of Salman it was a short step to finding the others too: children of immigrants who’d been born in the UK. Abid’s parents had moved to the city when he was four, Jamal had moved there from Glasgow in 2014, and Hassan had been born in the city’s maternity hospital nineteen years earlier. Each was estranged from his parents, each was a benefit claimant, and according to the discreet enquiries Jake set in motion none attended any of the city’s mosques any more. It wasn’t conclusive, but there was no record of any of them ever having left the UK.
There was the sense of an unravelling, an unusual thing as a case sped to its fruition, an odd feeling of lassitude rather than energy as issues came close to the surface yet were not articulated, so disenchanted with each other were the various parties. Yet this particular hamster wheel was not one from which Jake could disembark. Frank and Jimmy had become fractious, apparently believing that perfidious Albion had by sleight of hand designed the law so that they could no longer have direct contact with their asset. Abu Omar was deprived of the presence of his comforters and whinged about the refreshments at the safe house, the personal hygiene of his co-conspirators and what he described as the amateur-hour quality of the venture. The notion became embedded in Jake that he was steering this enterprise ineluctably on to the rocks, with no means of stopping it.
It was all running through his fingers: time, control, purpose, optimism. At his next meeting with Abu Omar, in mid-November, he said, ‘I thought it’d be useful to run through a few things that still aren’t completely clear to me.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Before things get too busy.’
Abu Omar was bored and regarded him with dull eyes.
‘When you first got to know Frank and Jimmy …’
‘Yeah?’
‘How did you come to get seized by the Americans in the first place?’
‘We were doing an assault. Not normal, for us foreign fighters at that time. Mainly there for display. Other stuff.’
‘What other stuff?’
‘Not much. Anyway, I just got caught.’
‘How?’
‘Like I say, me and this other guy, we were heading around the back of this garage or workshop or whatever, and there they were.’
‘Who?’
‘Troop of GIs. Waiting for us. Anyway, I’m nabbed.’
‘What about the other guy? He get back?’
‘No. That’s what I’m saying, man. They shot him. He was dead and I knew I wasn’t getting nowhere. Put my hands up.’
‘What happened next?’
‘They cuffed me. Put me in the back of some armoured vehicle. Bit of a blur. Took me back to their base. And the rest is history, man.’
‘Not quite. Was it Frank or Jimmy you saw next?’
‘Both of them. Didn’t they tell you the story?’
‘They may have done. But I want to hear it from you.’ Jake thought of Frank and Jimmy watching this. He hardly cared any more.
‘Don’t you trust me or something? Or don’t you trust them?’
‘It’s not a matter of trust. I’m trying to fill in the gaps. How long were you held before they appeared?’
‘Couple of days or so.’
‘Were you in a compound with other prisoners?’
‘No, I was in this cell.’
‘Aware of any other prisoners nearby?’
‘No.’
‘How were you treated?’
‘You know, not bad, like.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means it weren’t that bad. Pushed around a bit.’
‘But no one interrogated you until Frank and Jimmy appeared?’
‘Something like that.’
‘That, or something like that? Which?’
‘Yeah, that was it.’
‘And did you agree to help them straight away? Or did you suggest it?’
‘More or less. Bit of both. I weren’t liking it anyway. Seen too many lads dying. I wanted out.’
‘And this was your way out. So what happens next?’
‘They got all the information out of me there is, then we talked about the future.’
‘Which is?’
‘Get back in there.’
‘Weren’t you frightened?’
‘Course I was. Shitting me pants. But I didn’t have no option. They tell me this is my exit plan. Otherwise it’s formal detention as an enemy combatant – and who knows what’ll happen?’
‘How long was it before you went back?’
‘Three or four weeks. They called it the getting-to-know-you period. I suppose I had to prove meself. And there was all this training to do. Communications, drills, meetings.’
‘So you went back after three or four weeks?’
‘May have been five.’
‘What was your story?’
‘Wounded in battle. The Yanks shot me through the top of my arm to make it real. Bloody painful, but they said it was the only way. Insistent, like.’
‘Must have been tough.’
‘You haven’t lived it, mate. Least of me worries. The Yanks made sure it wasn’t infected and then I went back. Made up some story about trying to get back across the lines but not making it. Said I holed up for a couple of days, then found a village where some family looked after me.’
‘And this was agreed with Frank and Jimmy?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Were you checked up on?’
‘Wouldn’t know, would I? I said the family was in a village that the Americans took. Everybody moves around there anyway, it’s almost impossible to find anyone. Territory changing hands all the time. The brothers seemed to accept it.’
‘And they just sent you over here?’
‘More or less. Once I’d been given the get-go, I contacted Frank and Jimmy. And here we are.’
‘These other boys.’
‘Yeah?’ said Abu Omar.
‘You said they’re from North Africa.’
‘Right.’
‘What if I told you that three of them grew up here, in this city, and the other one has been here four years?’
Abu Omar shrugged.
‘One even went to the same mosque as you for two years.’
‘So what? Hundreds of people go to the mosque. I can’t know everybody. Why don’t you get off my case?’
‘I just want us to sharpen up our act. We need to be completely on it.’
‘I am.’
‘So you were in battle with these boys?’
‘Did I say that?’ said Abu Omar warily.
‘I think so.’
He waited. Abu Omar didn’t respond.
Jake continued. ‘As far as we can tell, none of them has ever left this country.’
‘I think I said they wanted to fight out there.’
It was Jake’s turn to wait.
‘You got the wrong end of the stick, man.’
Jake smiled. ‘Tell me about the man with the beard again.’
‘What can I say, man? You’ve heard it all.’
‘Then I’ll hear it all again.’
‘The first time, we met in this flat on the ninth floor.’
‘Does he live there?’
‘Like I said, man, I dunno. I don’t think so.’
‘Have you seen him anywhere else? With anyone else?’
‘Would have told you, man, wouldn’t I?’
‘How does he arrange the meetings?’
‘Just calls us on a mobile that’s
left in the flat.’
‘What’s the number?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Have you tried finding out? On the phone itself, like I told you?’
‘Too tricky with them others around. Not risking that.’
‘Describe him.’
‘He sits in the corner. On the floor, cross-legged. Won’t let us near him.’
‘Accent?’
‘From here, like.’
‘Height?’
‘Like I say, he’s sitting. Never gets up.’
‘Age?’
‘Not a Scooby. He has this light switched on between us. Can hardly make him out. Obviously he wants to make out he’s like the big men over there.’
‘And he’s giving instructions?’
‘Yeah. Calling the shots. Knows what’s what. Knows the city. Look, I’ve had enough. Got to get back. How many times we been through this?’
Jake sighed. ‘We’ll call it a day, then.’ Head. Brick wall. Hardly any point any more.
Was this the point where in hindsight the accumulation of doubt should have become overwhelming? When Abu Omar had shown himself to be wrong about all of his co-conspirators or, worse, actively misleading? It seemed now, as he waited for the corridors to empty so that he could make his unobtrusive exit, so obvious. Yet it hadn’t been at the time, as he recalled. No one else showed a lack of faith in Abu Omar apart, perhaps, from George, but then George displayed a fierce, defensive scepticism about every source that walked the earth and crossed the path of his team. Sure, Abu Omar was sometimes flaky, evasive, off the pace. Which agent wasn’t?
But doubt isn’t like that. It isn’t the gradual tipping of a balance. It’s either there or it isn’t. And Jake knew he’d boiled like a frog.
Then, quite suddenly, it had been upon them. It was often like this, Jake reflected, that startling shift from inaction to it all happening, it all being on. The feeling of being unprepared, too – of knowing only half the story and getting that part wrong as well – was familiar, though it was magnified in this case. He replayed each of the dialogues with Abu Omar in his head, didn’t respond to the increasingly poisonous missives from Frank and Jimmy in text messages or voicemails – it seemed they didn’t actually want to speak to him, just to pass venom under the cloak of sickly sweet, encouraging dispatches embroidered liberally with ‘How’re you doing, buddy’ and ‘We’re right there with you, pal’ – and got down to running this as best he could, against time, against the odds.
A Fatal Game Page 11
