by Guy Roberts
‘So what happened?’ Cleo asked quietly.
‘I was taken hostage by an Afghani Warlord. Tortured. Beaten.’
‘Couldn’t David do anything?’
Jack’s lips twisted into a sneer. ‘He could have… but he chose not. He left me there, ‘in play’, as he described it. I found out later that he actually denied two requests by my home company to try and rescue me.’
‘But why? Why would he do that?’ Her voice was confused.
‘He was trying to recruit the man holding me prisoner.’
‘Your brother tried to recruit the man keeping you in jail?’ Cleo frowned, unable to comprehend such a choice. ‘Who was he, this Afghani?’
‘Sheik Omar El-Hoori Izz-al-din.’ Jack felt his lips curl back in disgust as he uttered the name. Cleo said nothing, letting him fill the silence at his own pace.
‘The Sheik was a survivor. He’d lived through every feud and profited from every war in Afghanistan. The old King, the PDPA, the Soviets, the Mujahideen, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance – he played one against the other, one after another, getting richer and more powerful with every deal. He was able to play nice with the Americans – the CIA loved him once he started tipping them off about Taliban strongholds. Except sometimes the targets he listed were Taliban, sometimes they were just his private enemies. He decided that he wanted a captive British officer – a little piece of insurance to make sure we never dared doublecross him.’
‘But why didn’t they try and get you back?’
‘Risk.’ Jack conceded the point grudgingly. ‘The Sheik had standing orders that a bullet was to be put in the back of my head the moment his stronghold came under attack – I was a hostage in that sense of the word. But that wasn’t an issue to David – he wanted the Sheik’s cooperation against the terrorists. If that meant the Sheik needed a hostage, then let it be so. That’s why they didn’t push too hard to get me back – they didn’t want to risk losing such a valuable resource like Sheik Izz-al-din. I was his insurance policy. If the USA ever wised up and tried to dump him then I’d be killed within minutes – probably on video, for everyone in America and Britain to watch. That would have looked bad, so instead, they let him keep me and I became just another piece of collateral damage – an acceptable loss in a stupid war. The Sheik let his pet torturer practice on me, a giant albino Afghani… I’ll never forget his face…’
Jack paused, his mouth dry. It was a long moment before he could continue. ‘I was left tortured, beaten and forgotten. If my own brother didn’t want to save me, why would anyone else?’
‘But how did you escape? Were you rescued?’
‘Some Afghanis you can’t trust. Some you can.’ Jack shrugged. ‘I was rescued by a ten-year-old kid with a knife and a sense of obligation. Shahram Azar. I’d saved his father’s life once. When he heard I was in trouble, Azar came and saved my life to pay his debt. I’d still be there, or in a grave, if it hadn’t been for him. He was one amazing kid. I haven’t seen him since I reached a CIA barracks outside Kandahar.
‘And your brother?’
This time, the silence stretched out over minutes.
‘I was put straight into hospital, then transferred back to the UK.’ Jack’s voice was heavy with sadness. ‘They weren’t sure what to do with me – I could have been brainwashed, I could be a security risk. During my first debriefing, I realised that they had known about my situation for the entire time – and that David had thought it better to leave me there.’ Jack’s voice was very controlled. ‘That was the end of the debriefing. I chose not to cooperate after that and one month later received a dishonourable discharge.’ Jack’s lips were tight across his angry face. ‘That’s when I went to his home in Dorset Square and asked him why he hadn’t helped. He said…’ Jack swallowed for a moment. ‘He said…“better if you had stayed there – we could have used your presence when negotiating with the Sheik.” This was my own brother.’ Jack bit the words off. ‘He saw me as a chess piece – it didn’t matter I’d been trapped in the hands of a butcher who tortured me half to death. I wasn’t a person – just a tool.’ His hands were clenched white on the steering wheel. Cleo was silent.
Jack frowned, battling the pain of remembrance. ‘I never forgot what he said. And I’ve never told anyone that he said it. After that conversation I had no brother. Nothing was left for me here. After the dishonourable discharge, word got around that I’d betrayed the regime, that I’d given the Sheik and his albino torturer information that was used against our soldiers... and they were right.’ Jack’s voice broke. ‘They did things to me. I told them everything I knew. When I came back to England, I read through the records and pieced things together from the news. Twenty-three ambushes and bomb attacks against my boys over the next three months. Twelve soldiers killed or injured and the Afghanis who had been helping us were murdered in their own beds. The idea of walking down the street in London and seeing one of my boys missing an arm or a leg… I couldn’t stay.’ Jack was speaking quickly now. ‘I ran for it, like a coward, straight to the USA. A friend in the Government got me a green card and I spent ten years working up and down the east coast, bouncing at bars, labouring, doing protection work… trying my hand at different things.’ Jack pursed his lips for a moment, thinking about the past. ‘I guess I’d been trying to forget who I was, what I had been. Until a week ago, when a postcard from my brother turns up on my doorstep.’ He laughed a short laugh like the bark of an angry dog. ‘That changed things. And now here I am. Alive and on the run.’ There was a ring of bitterness as he spoke the words.
She scanned his face for a moment. ‘Alive,’ she repeated the word, but filled it with sympathy and possibility. One hand reached out to press his gently. Jack’s eyes stayed focused on the road ahead, but he let her hand remain.
‘We’ll be in Brixton soon,’ Cleo said gently. ‘It’ll be safe. I’ve got friends there.’
0100 hrs 16 June 2015, COBRA, Whitehall, London.
GR 51.503721, -0.126270
‘So what the bloody hell happened?’
Brice was sitting at the head of the COBRA table, sweaty, surly and exhausted, a look of pure anger stamped across his face. It had been a long night filled with panicked telephone calls between different branches of government. The Prime Minister’s Press Secretary herself had been called in to help cool down the PR disaster that COBRA had unwittingly been unleashed. The singer and her boyfriend had left the local police station at midnight, in the full glare of the TV cameras. Their lawyer had stood outside the building and questioned the competence of the police. His understanding tone made the MET force, as a whole, look extremely foolish.
‘Stupid cow,’ Brice muttered, as another image of the singer appeared on the TV screen. ‘She’s in on this somehow, just you wait and see.’ Highgrove gave him a sharp look of dislike before looking down at the papers again.
‘The Aston Martin does belong to her,’ she announced. ‘And from what we’ve pieced together this evening, it was parked outside her home near Piccadilly at 4pm yesterday afternoon, before being taken by a young lady of similar build and hair style at seven pm in the evening.’
‘I’m not interested in the bloody hair style, you idiot,’ Brice snarled savagely. ‘I want to know how that Library girl we’re after managed to swap cars!’
‘The singer is claiming she parked the car in her street at 4pm yesterday and it was there when she and her boyfriend went for a late night drive last night. The paparazzi said they were told she’d be on the A4 that evening with her new boyfriend, which is why there were so many of them following her.’ Highgrove’s voice was resigned. ‘We can take her in for questioning again, but it’ll produce some very bad publicity for the government.’
‘Publicity?’ Brice spat the word out. ‘This is a national security issue!’
‘The Prime Minister’s Press Secretary is aware of that,’ Highgrove faced Brice down, ‘as is the Cabinet Secretary. But if we challenge the singer’s version of t
he story she’ll go public once again, and both Secretaries feel that would be a bad outcome.’
Sir Johnathon nodded supportively at her comment.
Brice swallowed. The Prime Minister’s Press Secretary was rightly feared as the closest thing to a dragon Britain had seen since the days of St George – her name in the corridors of Whitehall was the ‘Dragon of Downing Street.’ The last thing Brice wanted to do was rattle her cage a second time. Besides, Brice realised to himself, if things go pear shaped, I’ll be off the hook - the order to leave the singer alone came from the top – my hands are tied. ‘Ok, you’re right,’ Brice nodded carefully, ‘no doubt the singer will simply claim the car was stolen if we push it and it would be extremely costly in political terms for such a nationally popular figure to be arrested again without proper charges being laid…’ Brice knew the Prime Minister would be very displeased with such an outcome. ‘But I want 24 hour surveillance on her and her boyfriend!’ He sagged back into his chair, clearly unsatisfied. ‘So how did they do it? I can’t believe that singer is a Russian agent, so how did Starling and the woman get away? Where did they go?’
Highgrove typed quickly and a number of images were thrown up onto the screen as she explained. ‘CCTV at the end of Paxton Road showed Starling and the girl leaving the scene in a 1982 Range Rover that had been parked in the street for… well, for at least a week, which is as far back as the CCTV footage is kept. Perhaps it was prearranged with the singer…’
‘Forget the singer,’ Brice interrupted, waving the matter to one side. ‘Focus on Starling and the woman.’
‘Right,’ Highgrove continued after a moment’s pause, ‘the vehicle was found about fifteen minutes ago next to Ruskin Park in Denmark Hill. We’ve got footage of both targets leaving the car and entering a late night market, but the cameras lost them shortly afterward - we’re looking at every nearby CCTV camera we have, but coverage is pretty patchy there. Unfortunately we don’t know when the Range Rover arrived in Paxton Road, we don’t know who drove it there, and we don’t know who drove it to Ruskin Park. We might be back at square one.’
‘Shit.’ Brice breathed out in a heavy sigh. ‘Does anyone have anything we can go on?’
There was a long silence and then Sir Johnathon delicately slid a manila folder onto the table. ‘The man knocked out by Jack in the basement of Apsley House,’ he declared. The video monitor overhead filled with a video stream of the swarthy, befuddled looking man Jack had knocked senseless. Now the man was wearing a prisoner’s uniform, sitting on a tiny stool in a concrete lined room, looking around nervously.
‘His name is Waldimir Powolovski.’ Sir Johnathon pronounced the foreign name without difficulty. ‘A minor criminal of Polish extraction, wanted in connection with several thefts, arson and three cases of extortion. He is currently being held without charge, assisting us with our enquiries.’
‘And?’ Brice shifted impatiently, eyes narrowed.
‘And the comments made to me by Mr Starling at Apsley House may be grounded in fact.’
‘Which were?’
Sir Johnathon shifted awkwardly in his seat for a moment. Several of the officers in the room flickered their eyes across to him in surprise at seeing ‘Obi Wan Kenobi’ looking nonplussed.
‘That… erm…’ Sir Johnathon cleared his throat. ‘That David Starling was murdered by a French criminal because he knew the location of a significant cache of gold bullion hidden during the Napoleonic era.’
All noise in the room ceased as every worker silently assimilated Sir Johnathon’s words.
There was a gurgling sound from the table and heads twisted to see Brice’s face red with derision. ‘Are you mad?’ Brice sneered at last. ‘We have a dead Briton, a dead Russian and a criminal from the former Soviet Union under guard and you’re telling us about Napoleonic gold? What about the girl from the Library? Or let me guess, she’s here to find Charlemagne’s missing diamonds?’ Brice shook his head in disbelief. ‘The Russian government has paid blood money to kill a British official and you’re talking about Napoleon? We’re trying to find a bloke who murdered his brother in cold blood, not some mysterious French criminal. This is about Russia, not bloody France!’
Sir Johnathon nodded slowly. ‘I understand how strange it sounds, but Powolovski was insistent that he had been sent by Pierre Deschamps into Apsley House to find a specific item and that Mr Starling was a known threat to his activities.’ Sir Johnathon gestured to another screen, where video of Jack punching the Polish criminal to the ground was replayed. ‘Why else would Jack Starling have been there, if not to find the same thing?’
‘Will you stop trying to muddy the water, Sir Johnathon,’ Brice put sarcastic emphasis on the title. ‘You said it yourself, you were a target for Jack – just count your lucky stars that those workers were in there as witnesses, otherwise he’d have shot you down without question!’
‘Then why was Powolovski there?’ Sir Johnathon demanded.
‘Because Jack Starling was working for the RUSSIANS!’ Brice shouted the last word. ‘Powolovski was probably the handler, trying to sort out the situation with Starling and the woman, except clearly Jack Starling has decided to play his own game. We’ve already sorted through David Starling’s active files. He was working on the Russian situation – and just the Russian situation. Nothing in his office or his house showed any interest in some French criminal.’
‘Apart from his academic work on the Napoleonic wars.’ Sir Johnathon pointed out.
‘That was a hobby.’ Brice snapped.
‘And his home office had been ransacked,’ Sir Johnathon continued, ‘which means anything about the gold could have already been taken.’
‘And the blonde woman was searching through his papers at the British Library.’ Highgrove chipped in.
‘Starling was working on the Russia question!’ Brice declared obstinately. ‘He was not some pie-in-the-sky conspiracy theorist with too much spare time and his dick in his hand every Tuesday afternoon.’ Brice lowered his voice and glared dangerously at Sir Johnathon. ‘And last time I checked, Sir Johnathon, neither are you. Starling was working on the Russian question, this Powolovski character is bloody as close to Russia as you like – that’s why David Starling’s home was ransacked – the Russians are trying to find out everything they can about his work on the peace treaty. You don’t have to like it, but the simplest explanation is that Jack Starling was working for the Russians when he sorted his brother out with a damn carving knife. All we need to do is find the evidence – and find Jack Starling.’ Brice’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve been put in charge of this case personally, by the Prime Minister and if you want to phone up Washington and disrupt a Summit Meeting with the US President because of a conspiracy theory about Napoleon Bonaparte then be my bloody guest. But otherwise,’ Brice glowered at the civil servant with bloodshot eyes, ‘shut up and let someone with a bit of sense run the show for once.’
Brice shut his mouth with a snap, daring Sir Johnathon to respond. Inwardly he was exhilarated – he had lost his temper, true, but the old boy was taking it without raising a finger in self-justification or excuse – which meant that Brice’s instincts were right: Sir Johnathon had nothing to go on but empty theories about mysterious Frenchmen. I’m on a roll! The sooner we bust this Russian link the better! Brice shook his head. The old man was losing his touch – and talking about Napoleon made him sound senile at best. So much for the power and subterfuge of the Grey Ghost of Whitehall. Brice had wondered at those rumours that had swirled around Sir Johnathon over so many decades – those loud hearty chums of his, down in the City, who had told drunken sob stories of the slight figure crushing their political dreams and aspirations before they had even begun – each one had dreamt of a career in high office, before brushing across Sir Johnathon Fairchild and being politically destroyed. Yet here Sir Johnathon sat, silent in the face of Brice’s onslaught.
Brice reached for his iPad once again. Of course, he pursed his lips, vi
ctory over the Chairman of COBRA wasn’t the point. The point was to find Starling and stop these Russian agents from waltzing across London with impunity. Nothing could be resolved while Starling remained at large. But that was only a matter of time; once Starling had been caught and charged with the murder of a high-ranking security official then Brice’s influence in the PM’s office would rise – and speed the day when Brice could sit in Parliament himself. A self-satisfied smirk drifted across Brice’s lips. That would show his doddering old father who was in charge. With a success like this under my belt, there’ll be no stopping my climb to the top!
‘Mr Brice?’
Brice frowned, shaking his head to clear away the alluring reverie.
Highgrove was looking at him with a judgmental eye. Another troublemaker, Brice decided. Have to get rid of her, despite those looks. Brice wondered for a moment what she would be like in bed. Bloody dynamite, he decided, with that figure and that cool way of working in the office. Just aching to get home and unwind.
‘What is it?’ Brice snapped at last.
‘Your orders on Starling? Do we go public?’
The prompt was enough to get Brice back on track. ‘No, not yet,’ he declared. ‘Too much of a risk, especially after that run-in with the singer.’ He scratched his nose. ‘But keep his face on the police bulletins as a person of interest – and the blonde’s face too. We have to find them! Why isn’t the CCTV coverage working? We found Starling in Aldershot, why can’t we find him in Brixton?’
He looked across the table belligerently. A staffer blanched under his inspection then shuffled some papers and spoke up reluctantly.
‘We were able to follow Starling and the woman to a late night street market, but the trail ended there; we simply lost them in the crowd about two hours ago and since then neither target has turned up on any other camera in the Metropolitan network. For the moment, we are doing close monitoring on all Brixton cameras, with another team reviewing all footage connected to city exit arterials on a 1 to 50 search pattern, so we can be confident that they are still somewhere in the city itself – even if we don’t know exactly where.’
