Red Station

by Adrian Magson

  His phone rang. It was Rik.

  He read out a number followed by an address. ‘The number’s her direct line. After you call her, dump the phone; they’ll probably have an automatic trace on it.’

  ‘Right. How long will it take to access the server?’ He didn’t want to use the name Clarion over the phone.

  ‘That’ll take a bit longer, and I’ll need your help.’

  ‘Me? What do I know about computers?’

  ‘I need you to act as a spotter. Once we start, we might trip over a Guardian – that’s an automatic alarm-and-trace system, set up to monitor unauthorized access. If Bellingham’s being really clever, he’ll have a team on standby ready to jump all over us.’

  Harry was in a quandary. He had to speak to Rudmann. According to Mace, she was the only person with the clout who could help him. Anyone else would merely pass the ball. If it reached Bellingham, it was likely to be fatal. But without proof of Bellingham’s use of Clarion, and any messages it contained, he would have nothing to convince her that he was telling the truth.

  ‘Where are you now?’ He decided to go for Clarion before Bellingham shut it down. ‘You ready to do this?’

  ‘Yes. I’m near Piccadilly. Can you head for Maddox Street?’

  ‘Maddox— Jesus, why there?’ Maddox Street was a stone’s throw from Grosvenor Square, home of the fortress known as the US Embassy. After Thames House, Vauxhall Cross and the headquarters of the Met, it probably housed more police and security officials than anywhere in London.

  Rik’s voice held a chuckle. ‘Traffic. Electronic and people. We can get lost if anyone gets on our tracks. There’s a place called Café Risoux. See you there.’

  Thirty minutes later, Harry entered the Café Risoux. It was long and narrow, given the illusion of space by large wall mirrors at strategic points. It wasn’t yet lunchtime, and held a mixed clientele of young women shoppers, elderly tourists and a few suits, and two men with American accents who were collecting bagged snacks to go. Rik was hunched over a table at the rear, close by the fire exit and staring at the screen of a tiny laptop.

  ‘All set.’ Rik waved him to sit. ‘I’ve done some tracking already; he’s not as clever as he thinks. I’ll be two ticks. Can you get coffee? Americano – four sugars.’

  ‘You’ll get nervous and fat.’ Harry went to the counter. While his order was being prepared, he checked the street outside. He’d been careful on his way here. The likelihood of being spotted by someone from MI5 was remote, but fate had a habit of turning and biting you when you least expected it.

  When he got back to the table, Rik was looking pleased with himself.

  ‘I’m in,’ he breathed, and checked the nearest customer, a student type using a laptop two tables away. He pulled a chair round and nodded for Harry to sit, blocking the man’s view. Then he bent back to his keyboard.

  ‘What I’m doing,’ he explained softly, ‘is accessing Clarion, then checking all the outgoing lines to see if I can spot a pattern or a name which looks good. It might take some time.’

  ‘Time we have,’ said Harry, and hoped he was right. ‘But is it safe?’

  ‘Sure. Unless I trip any of the numbers.’

  ‘How will you know when you’ve got the right one?’

  ‘By a process of elimination. I reckon he’ll have been using the same number all along. It’s his set-up, and I bet he didn’t share it with anyone else or change his settings.’

  Harry drank his coffee while Rik worked, and kept an eye on the room via the wall mirrors. No sign of anyone who didn’t look natural.

  ‘Got it.’ Rik sounded quietly triumphant. He’d been scribbling numbers and codes on a notepad, and underlined one of them.

  ‘You sure?’ Harry read the number. It was an alphanumeric string and made no sense to him at all. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘It’s our way in. But we need to take a chance.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Have you got a spare throwaway?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry took it out of his pocket. It was unused.

  ‘Cool. We need to ring the number in the middle of this string.’ Rik jabbed the digits he’d noted down. ‘It looks like a mobile number, but it’s the only one that stands out among the regular callers. I think it’s the mobile Bellingham calls from to access Clarion and pick up messages from Red Station.’

  Harry glanced sideways. The student sitting two tables away was looking at them. He must have picked up the air of excitement emanating from Rik. When he saw Harry looking, he ducked his head.

  ‘What if this doesn’t work?’

  ‘Then we go the other way, into Clarion. That’s when we might need to be quick on our feet.’

  ‘Why not do that first?’

  ‘Belt and braces. If we get confirmation it’s Bellingham, we know we’re on to it. He won’t know my voice, and I doubt they’ll have it on the voice recognition database. I’ll call and pretend to be a misdial, and you listen in case he speaks.’

  ‘But I don’t know what his voice sounds like. If he doesn’t say his name, we’re no further forward.’

  ‘Shit.’ Rik looked crestfallen. ‘I didn’t think of that.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Harry handed him the mobile. ‘Do it, anyway. We can’t sit around here all day.’ He checked the mirrors again. The customer turnover was regular, with no-one staying for long. The student was just getting up and leaving.

  Rik finished dialling, then plugged in a small pair of earbuds and handed them to Harry.

  The number began to ring.

  Harry checked the mirrors and adjusted the earbuds. The student was at the counter, talking animatedly to the manager.

  They turned and looked at Harry and Rik.

  The number kept ringing.

  The student scurried out of the door with a backwards glance. The manager picked up a mobile and dialled.

  ‘We’ve got to go—’

  ‘Bellingham.’

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  ‘This will do.’ Rik stopped in front of a doorway and motioned for Harry to follow. It was a small independent coffee bar in a side street. It carried a notice advertising wireless facility. They were both breathless after leaving the Risoux Café, hurrying past the manager who was shouting into his phone. Harry had heard enough to realize that the man had called the police.

  Grabbing a passing cab, they had jumped out near Charing Cross Road, amid a tangle of cafes, restaurants and bookshops.

  Rik set up his laptop at a spare table at the rear and dialled the access to Clarion. ‘OK, this is where it gets touchy,’ he said, flexing his fingers. ‘Can you time me for five minutes?’

  ‘OK.’ Harry glanced at his watch and kept one eye on the door. He turned and saw a fire escape notice above a narrow stairway in one corner. It would be their escape route if they suddenly got company.

  ‘I’ll go in as far as I can,’ said Rik. ‘But I might trip an alarm. If I do, depending on the level, we’ll have anything up to twenty minutes before they come and kick the door in.’

  ‘Do it.’

  Harry didn’t bother watching the screen as Rik worked; it would mean little to him until Rik accessed the message files – if they still existed – and he didn’t need to clog his brain with unwanted information. If they got the messages, it would prove a link between Bellingham and Clarion. What it wouldn’t prove was that he had sent Latham to Red Station with instructions to kill. But it was better than nothing. At the very least, it would be enough to put a scare into Bellingham and start an internal enquiry.

  ‘Got it,’ Rik hissed. His fingers flew across the keyboard. He was breathing like an athlete, eyes fixed on the screen, and Harry could feel his excitement. It was a small insight into what made hackers tick. ‘How are we for time?’

  ‘Edging on four minutes.’ He was amazed by the passage of time.

  Rik muttered to himself and carried on tapping away before taking out a data stick and plugging it into the side of the lapt
op. He hit a series of keys then sat back.

  He was smiling.

  ‘What are you so happy about?’

  ‘I recognize some of these messages. Mostly from Mace.’ He tapped the keyboard. ‘Here’s one I sent last week. Seems weird being back here now.’

  The front door of the café rattled open and two office workers strode in. The sound of a police siren drifted in behind them, distant and fading.

  ‘Christ!’ Rik sat forward, jerked out of his bubble of concentration, and reached for the data stick.

  ‘Easy,’ cautioned Harry. ‘It’s moving away.’

  Rik relaxed and breathed out. ‘If you say so. How much shall I copy?’

  ‘As much as you can . . . names, dates, subjects, whatever proves we were there and that Bellingham was running the operation.’ He had a thought. ‘Does it include Mace’s report about Stanbridge?’

  ‘Yeah, I just saw it. How are we doing for time?’

  Harry checked his watch. ‘Six minutes gone.’

  ‘We’re pushing it.’ Rik looked annoyed with himself and explained, ‘I may have tripped an alarm on the way in. It’s not easy to tell.’

  Outside, a car blew by with a roar of a powerful engine. There was a squeal of brakes and someone shouted. The crackle of a radio voice echoed along the street.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Harry didn’t want to push their luck. They had enough to use and he knew they were on borrowed time.

  Once they were clear of the area, they stopped off for Rik to copy the files to a second data stick, and for Harry to buy a small jiffy bag and scribble an address on the front. He placed the stick inside with a note, then sealed it and stopped to speak to a motorcycle courier perched on his bike and eating a sandwich. A quick exchange of notes and the courier nodded and dumped his sandwich.

  They walked away as the bike took off down the street.

  ‘Right,’ said Harry, as they reached Oxford Circus station. ‘Go home and get lost. Take your mum out for dinner or something and meet me at the National Gallery at nine tomorrow morning.’

  Rik nodded. ‘Fine by me. What did you say in that note?’

  ‘I said I’d call her tomorrow at ten with information about a rogue operation involving MI5 and MI6, and a government hit squad.’ He smiled. ‘A slight exaggeration, that last bit, but it should get her attention.’

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  ‘What’s the plan?’ They were in the cafeteria of the National Gallery at the top of Trafalgar Square, and Rik was restless.

  Harry had deliberately chosen the cafeteria as a start point. It was busy, it was anonymous and a short walk from Whitehall. With the usual crowds of tourists and workers in the area, it would make surveillance and pursuit difficult if they had to move quickly.

  He checked his watch. Nearly nine. He took out another mobile. ‘If this all goes wrong, you know what to do with that other data stick.’

  ‘Yes. Hit the media with the full story, then disappear until the dust settles.’ He looked confused. ‘You said you’d call her at ten.’

  ‘I lied. Don’t worry – she’s already there.’

  He hit dial and waited for Marcella Rudmann to answer.

  ‘Does he have to be here?’ Harry nodded at the security guard standing inside the door. They were in Rudmann’s office off Whitehall, and he had been kept waiting no more than thirty seconds before being ushered upstairs. Instead of leaving, the man had stationed himself by the door, six feet from Harry’s right shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’ Rudmann seemed very calm, he thought, with no obvious signs of concern at having a man she probably looked on as a renegade in her office.

  ‘You think I mean you harm?’

  She said nothing, but he thought he saw a faint flicker beneath the skin of one cheek.

  ‘If you think like that,’ he said finally, ‘you should try changing your routine.’

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You left your flat in Dolphin Square at seven thirty this morning, carrying a burgundy briefcase. Your front door hinges need oiling, by the way. You turned left out of the entrance and left again down St George’s Square, accompanied by your minder. He’s sloppy; he thinks anyone carrying a cardboard box and waving a delivery note is a driver and therefore to be ignored.’

  ‘You followed me.’ She looked shocked. ‘How did you know where I lived?’

  ‘I’m in the game, remember? He allowed traffic to get between you when you crossed Bessborough Street. I was close behind you when you got into your cab on Vauxhall Bridge Road, and could see the tiny run in your right leg. You might want to check that when you get a moment.’

  Her face went red. Harry wasn’t sure if it was through the obvious lapses in security, or because of the fault in her tights. One thing he would lay money on was that her minder would shortly be joining the ranks of the jobless. But he was past caring how she felt; she, like Paulton and Bellingham, had been arrogant enough to believe themselves fireproof, to the degree that they thought men like Harry Tate were toothless.

  ‘I think I get the picture,’ she said quietly, and looked at the security guard behind Harry. A toss of her head and he left.

  Harry doubted he would be very far away, though. Rudmann and her kind did not lose their badges of office too easily, and a minder was one of the most visible and potent imaginable.

  ‘All right,’ she said when the door had closed. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You know what I want. If you looked at the files on the stick and checked my personnel records, you’ll know.’

  ‘I looked at them, Mr Tate.’ Rudmann smoothed her skirt over her knee. ‘What I don’t know is why you have come to me . . . or what you claim to have found.’

  ‘I’ve just returned from a foreign station set up by Sir Anthony Bellingham of MI6 and George Paulton of MI5. It was conceived as a hole-in-the-wall base to use as a training area. At least, that’s their story. In fact, it was where they sent employees who had defaulted in some way; employees who might prove an embarrassment if their mistakes ever went public.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘If you do, you’re quick off the mark. I was the most recent posting, and I was sent out there while the dust died down after the shooting of the two kids and the armed copper in Essex. They did it to keep me away from the press.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re mistaken.’ By the way Rudmann avoided meeting his eye, Harry knew she was lying. ‘Setting up a training base is hardly a criminal offence, is it?’

  ‘Maybe not. But queuing up security service defaulters to act as bait for trainee operatives is one thing; quietly disposing of anyone they saw as a threat, or any officers who threatened to blow the lid on underground or black operations is something else.’

  Rudmann blinked. ‘That’s an outrageous suggestion.’

  Harry ignored her. ‘The first posting was an MI5 analyst named Gordon Brasher. He was sent home after a while and died of a drugs overdose.’

  Rudmann’s expression suggested scepticism. He ploughed on. ‘The next was a fast-track MI6 recruit named Jimmy Gulliver. He decided he didn’t want to stay in the middle of nowhere, shovelling forms and leaflets, so he left and came back under his own steam. I believe Gulliver was dangerous because he knew far more than anyone in his position had a right to know. Someone overestimated his capabilities, promoted him up the chain until he cracked, then panicked and sent him somewhere where he couldn’t do any harm. He decided to jump ship and head for home, which made him a loose cannon. He knew things and there was a danger he might talk about Red Station. I mean, it hardly looks good, does it, squirrelling people away in the middle of nowhere on the public budget just to keep them quiet?’

  ‘Can you substantiate these claims?’ Rudmann’s look was wary.

  ‘Only one. Apart from a conscience, Gulliver suffered from chronic vertigo. I’m sure if you check his training record, you’ll find he was graded unfit for active work; he got dizzy standing on tiptoe. But so
meone decided his brain could be useful as long as they didn’t ask him to climb anything higher than a career ladder.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. What has his condition got to do with this?’

  ‘Gulliver disappeared on his way back. He never made an agreed rendezvous. Yet his file was closed and he was reported killed in a climbing accident. Question one: with his fear of heights and after months of being posted to Red Station, when all he wanted to do was get back to Vauxhall Cross, would he have really gone climbing? I doubt it. Question two: how did they know to close his file? Files only get closed on death.’

  ‘I see.’ Rudmann looked at a point above his head for a moment, then said, ‘How do you know about his medical background?’

  ‘Stuart Mace told me. Mace knew of his problem, had done so since he was a kid.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Jimmy Gulliver was his nephew.’

  Her mouth opened but she said nothing.

  Harry waited, trying to gauge how much was play-acting, how much was genuine.

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Mace told me that Gulliver also had a morbid fear of flying, so he chose to drive back to the UK. He hired a car locally with an agreement to drop it off in Calais. Neither Gulliver nor the car ever arrived.’

  She tapped a glossy fingernail on the desk. ‘You mentioned trainees were used. What was their function?’

  ‘They were rotating four-man teams Paulton had in place watching the members of Red Station around the clock, to see that nobody took off or misbehaved. They were nicknamed the Clones by Red Station staff and their job was strictly watch-and-report.’

  ‘That’s good security, surely, given the circumstances?’

  ‘Says you. The Clones were changed every few weeks as part of a training schedule. That way they didn’t get close to Red Station and none of the staff knew they were British, much less part of an official operation.’ He shifted in his chair, and wondered what activity was going on in the corridor outside Rudmann’s door. Too late now, whatever it was. ‘But Sir Anthony Bellingham also had a team,’ he continued. ‘They were called the Hit. They had a different agenda. I should say have, because I don’t know if they still exist.’