by Andy Maslen
“Spaghetti alla puttanesca. Sorry, but it means ‘tart’s spaghetti’. Tomatoes, anchovies, olives and capers. It’s all I had in the fridge.”
“Where did you learn to cook like that?” Lauren said. “Because it sure wasn’t the Army.”
“My mother used to show me how she made things. But I did learn while I was in the Army. Not from the Army, they were more concerned about getting large quantities of fuel down the men. But on leave it was my hobby. Look.”
He pointed at a shelf in a corner of the kitchen. It was packed with cookbooks, folders and magazines, some lying flat along the tops of the others. There must have been over three dozen.
“And you’re single, right?” Lauren said. “I know you’re not gay,” she glanced across at Britta. “So how come no Mrs Wolfe?”
“Would it be too much of a cliché if I said I haven’t met the right woman yet?”
“Oh, honey, I think maybe you just did, ’cause with cooking like that I’d be willing to emigrate.”
They took their coffee through into the sitting room. Britta and Lauren on the sofa and Gabriel facing them in a squashy leather armchair.
“Now I feel like I’m being interviewed,” he said.
“Which brings me to next steps,” Lauren said. “I’ve set up an interview with Maitland for the day after tomorrow. High-functioning or not he’s got a typical psychopathic personality. Man, you could wander inside that ego and never find your way out again.”
“Lauren’s going to see if she can get anything we can use against Maitland after he’s dealt with. We can’t have a legend growing up around him,” Britta said.
Down. Dealt with. It was sounding less and less like they wanted a judicial solution to the problem of Sir Toby Maitland. Which suited Gabriel just fine.
“Couldn’t you just plant a story with the press?”
“We could,” Britta said. “But half the papers and TV channels in this country are controlled by his friends, so it has to be true. Or at least true enough to be true.”
“He’s trying to organise a military coup,” Gabriel burst out. “Surely that’s enough to paint him as the villain of the piece. He’s like Oswald Mosley and Pol Pot rolled into one. Do you know what he’s got planned for this country? You’d be in trouble for a start, Lauren!”
She raised her hands, palms out.
“Gabriel, I know you’ve been spending too much time with him. And I’m sorry for it. He’s evil, OK? And we’re going to take him out. But you have to stay focused. And in character. Letting it out here is fine, hell, it’s essential, but I just need for you to hold it together for a few more days. OK?”
“A few more days? So that’s our timeframe?”
“Yes, Gabriel,” Britta said. “The Prime Minister is coming down to Andover in three days’ time, on the 23rd. She’s making a speech to some of the soldiers stationed at Army HQ but mainly it’s to speak to the brass about defence cuts if she gets back in.”
Lauren cut in.
“The one thing we can’t be sure of is where and how Maitland’s planning to attack.”
Maitland had never explained the precise details of his plan to Gabriel, but now he had an idea. He couldn’t understand why it had taken him so long to put the pieces together.
Chapter 35
Gabriel leaned forward in his chair. He looked at Britta.
“How is the PM getting from London to Andover?”
“Helicopter. A military flight. I think the brass want to get some personal time with her before she even gets down here.”
It was perfect. An attack on a car – a convoy – would be too difficult to orchestrate. Too many alternative routes, too many possibilities for other vehicles spoiling the shot. But a helicopter? Undefended, no obstructions. One hundred percent chance of a kill. If not from the .50 cal rounds then the crash itself.
“He’s going to shoot down the PM’s helicopter.”
“Shit!” Britta and Lauren said in unison.
“He’s got two .50 cals, right? Heavy machine guns. He’s going to set up two fixed positions with non-overlapping fields of fire then he’s going to wait.”
“Why HMGs?” Lauren said. “Why not a ground-to-air missile? Something guided, more precise?”
“That’s very good question. Do you suppose the Prime Minister flies in any old aircraft?”
“No. Of course not. I assume the Air Force or the Army lays something on.”
“Exactly! They do lay something on, a helicopter equipped with anti-missile defences. They can detect the active electronics in guided missiles and either deflect them or destroy them. So although they’re crude, the Brownings are a much better proposition.”
“So where’s he going to put them?” Lauren said.
“I don’t know, but his estate lies between London and Andover, in fact he owns most of that part of the country. He could cover the flight path.”
“Not so fast, Gabriel,” Britta said. “They’ll have three flight plans. Basic security for heads of state. The Swedish Prime Minister does it. They all do. So with two firing positions, Maitland’s got a problem.”
“You know what he’s going to do about that?” Lauren said.
“No. Not yet. I’ll find out tomorrow. He’s called a meeting of his war council as he likes to call it. One way or another I’ll get it out of him.”
“OK, easy there cowboy,” Lauren said. “When you say, get it out of him?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on waterboarding him. I meant I’ll play dumb and ask him. Or play smart and ask him. Whatever seems like the best approach.”
“Sorry, Gabriel. I shouldn’t have even said it.”
“No, I’m sorry. Look, I’m tired, you’re tired. We can’t do anything else for now, so let’s change the subject.”
“OK,” Britta said. “I know. Best gig you’ve ever been to. Me first. I saw Björk at Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. August 2012. Awesome.”
They continued playing for another hour. Stories overlapping, shared tastes in music discovered, and occasional good-natured arguments over the quality of someone’s memory all part of the banter. In the end, Gabriel was the first to quit. He said goodnight and headed upstairs to sleep, explaining about bedrooms and spare towels. As he trudged up the narrow staircase he could hear the women laughing. Something about a concert they’d both been at in Los Angeles.
The eastward crossing of the Atlantic had tricked his brain into thinking it was two o’clock in the afternoon instead of ten o’clock at night so he felt both tired and alert, a horrible combination. The voices from downstairs were an indistinct murmur. All the high frequencies were filtered out by the ceiling, floorboards and carpet, so he couldn’t make out words, just tones. He tried emptying his mind and concentrating on his breathing, but all that created was more space for Maitland’s poisonous philosophy. Then the images of all the dead men. He’d last seen that many bodies on active service in Bosnia, but the fighting then had been sanctioned by the rules of war. The previous week’s carnage was illegal, perpetrated by Meeks, and by Maitland, wild-eyed behind the Brownings or eerily calm as he sat facing Shaun Cunningham across the kitchen table in Venter’s farmhouse. It was with these bloody images crowding his brain that Gabriel fell asleep.
The smell of frying sausages and coffee woke him the next morning at 7.30. He wrapped himself in a soft cotton dressing gown and wandered downstairs, the nubbly carpet on the stair treads massaging the soles of his feet. The jet lag made him feel like his head was full of feathers. As he reached the kitchen, he heard Britta and Lauren talking, Britta’s voice first.
“… You’re right. Most times, Special Forces is for the men. But in Sweden we’re a bit more enlightened. There were only three of us but that counts for something, right?”
“And did you run all the same ops as the guys?”
“Honestly? No. Not for all theatres. The brass figured YouTube videos of a female soldier being raped and beheaded would shut the whole program
me down. But we were involved in counter terrorism in Sweden, and some fun up in the Arctic Circle keeping our big neighbour out of our back garden.”
“Seriously? You were fighting the Russians up there?”
“Not fighting exactly. But a little bit of infiltration, some logistics disruption. We went into commando mode.”
Lauren shrieked with laughter. “You went commando? In the Arctic Circle? Oh baby, that must have been kinda cold for you.”
“What? I said something funny?”
Lauren evidently leaned closer to whisper because the next thing Gabriel heard from his vantage point in the kitchen was Britta’s high-pitched laugh.
“Oh. OK. Well, maybe not that. But, yes, I was on active service for a good while before I left. How about you? What’s your story?”
“My parents were both lawyers. My Mom was a partner in a Chicago law firm and my Dad was the Attorney General for the State of Illinois. They both wanted me to follow them. They used to say, ‘Lauren, the law is the foundation of everything this family has achieved’. Like a motto, you know? I went along with it for a while, did my bachelors degree and went to law school. But then, one day, something made me change my mind.”
“What happened?”
“It was our graduation ceremony. Huge bunch of kids wearing gowns and mortarboards; proud parents; media, on account of we had more African American women in our class than white men; the Governor: it was a regular three-ring circus complete with a stage decked out in banners and helium balloons. Then there were these loud pops. Like someone had stuck a pin in the balloons or something. Two of my classmates were shot: one was just getting her diploma from the Governor. They were both brilliant students but one, Nora, well, she was in another league from the rest of us. Some of us even then were talking about her as the first woman President of the United States. You could just feel it when you were with her, this kind of huge intellect but coupled to such passion, and such empathy for people who were hurting. It was like a hot sun.”
“Oh my God, who was it shooting?”
“A dorky guy called Mark Walters. He’d been kicked out two years before for dealing drugs on campus. He wanted the Governor but her security detail had her smothered on the ground as soon as he missed with his first shot.”
“Did they arrest him?”
“Once he realised he missed and the cops were going to get him, the little shit dropped his weapon and just lay down on the ground, mild as a lamb. A female officer got to him first. She Miranda’d him and had him cuffed before the others reached him. That day changed me. I decided I’d go into law enforcement. I wanted to be like her. To try to stop guys like Walters before they did something, not spend my life in a courtroom trying to stop them from doing it again.”
Gabriel decided this was the moment for him to join them. He pushed the door open. Both women were dressed, leaving him feeling like he was in a dream where you’re naked in a meeting, or at your old school.
“Any of those sausages going spare?” he said.
“Hey, sleepyhead, nice robe,” Lauren said, looking him up and down.
As they sat round his table eating breakfast, Lauren ran through their jobs for the day.
“So, Gabriel, you’re over with Maitland at his place today, meeting his charming friends. Britta, you’re talking to the people you trust at MI5 to see what we can get in the way of men on the ground.”
“Or women.”
“Or women. And I’m taking the day to scope out Maitland’s place and liaise with some people in your Secret Service. MI5’s too toxic right now even though counter-terrorism’s their bag.”
“One thing, Lauren,” Britta said.
“What’s that?”
“Your cover. You are a journalist, right?”
Lauren nodded at Britta over the rim of her coffee mug.
“Won’t he have checked you out by now? He’ll see there’s no magazine. No … what was your name again?”
“Boudicca Johnson. Jesus, the guys in ICO” – she pronounced it “Eye-Koh” – “were pissing their pants at that one.”
“ICO?” Gabriel said.
“International Covert Ops. Anyway, our IEC team set me up with the whole shebang. Website, LinkedIn profile, interviews.”
“Sorry, Lauren. Again, IEC?”
“Oh man, I’ve been working for the Federal Government too long. Identity Erase and Create. When we need to go undercover they just work a little magic on the web and ta-dah, you can be whoever you want with a Facebook page, Twitter, Google results, your own website, whatever you need.”
“Wow. Seriously. I thought none of those tech companies were too keen on co-operating with the Government. Yours or anyone else’s.”
“Oh, honey, that’s sweet. You do know who invented the Internet, right?”
“Yes I do. Sir Tim Berners-Lee.”
“Wrong. He invented the web. The Internet came from a military network called DARPANET. And in case you’re not a geek, which I sincerely hope you’re not, the DARPA bit stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. With the accent on ‘Defense’. It’s military, honey. Always was, always will be. They put on a show of independence, but those CEOs living the high life? They know which side their bread’s buttered on. So they play nice with Uncle Sam. They’re patriotic Americans. Especially after 9/11. That kind of changed things.”
“I’m a little lost here,” Britta said. “So are you saying Maitland won’t see through your cover?”
“Not unless he’s got X-ray vision better than Superman’s. Validus has a website, an editorial advisory board of real folks you can call on the phone, staff you can email, the whole nine yards. And my resumé – which, by the way, is very impressive – is scattered all over the web where even a blind man would trip over it. I thought the Pulitzer Prize was too much but IEC said Maitland would lap it up. Some DoD shrink profiled him. He’s into status and respect, ego food.”
“He’s a nutter,” Gabriel said. “I watched him take out those Hells Angels with the .50 cal. He was laughing as he did it.”
“He passes for normal, but, basically, yes. A Grade-A whack job.”
Diagnosis complete, they cleared away breakfast and were all on the road by 8.30: Gabriel to Rokeby Manor, Britta to London and Lauren to the countryside around Maitland’s estate. Their reports that evening would be crucial in determining what happened next.
Gabriel arrived at Rokeby Manor at 8.50 am. Maitland had given the political team the day off. At any rate, there was no sign of them in the old billiards room as he put his briefcase down by his desk. He was in the kitchen making himself a cup of tea when the butler appeared at the door.
“Excuse me, Sir, Sir Toby asks that you join him in the drawing room.”
Carrying his cup on its saucer, Gabriel made his way down the dark corridor to the drawing room. Its double doors were closed so he reached for the knob with his free hand. He paused. Maitland was not alone inside. He listened, stilling himself. He heard a man’s voice. Not Maitland’s. Older.
“And you trust him, Toby?”
“Yes, I do. He was impressive with Meeks. He kept his cool with the clean-up. And he has the outlook I need for an enforcer.”
A woman spoke. She sounded a little like Vix, but her voice was deeper.
“I thought he was going to be your head of communications?”
“That was just to pique his interest. Listen, he’s a soldier. A man of action. Ex-SAS for God’s sake. Men like him are always ready to get rough. Little more than trained attack dogs really.”
Gabriel was concentrating so hard on listening through the oak doors he almost missed the crisp click-clack of high heels coming down the hall. Before their wearer turned the dogleg corner and discovered him eavesdropping, he twisted the faceted glass doorknob and walked into the room, shoulders back. He strode across to Maitland, still carrying the cup and saucer and shook hands.
“Toby. Good morning.”
“Gabriel. Good morni
ng to you. You seem in a good mood, if I may say so.”
“Good night’s sleep, couple of square meals. A soldier’s pick-me-up.”
“Very good.”
The wound on Maitland’s scalp was healing, though the blood was still visible through the man’s blond hair. He’d swapped the bandage on his hand for a couple of small circular plasters. “Well, now that you’re here, let me make a few introductions.”
As he said this, Lizzie Maitland came into the room, wearing a pinstriped suit jacket over a white silk blouse tucked into faded jeans. Black patent stilettos with contrasting red soles added four inches to her height.
“Morning, Daddy,” she said. “Morning,” she offered to the room in general, crossing to the sideboard and pouring herself a cup of coffee from the silver pot.
Gabriel turned to face the group of people standing around the room, drinking tea or coffee and eating biscuits for all the world like delegates at some expensive executive training course. Two older men, early sixties or so, erect bearing, old-fashioned three-piece suits. A woman, fiftyish, elegant, helmet of dyed blonde hair. A silver-haired man in Army uniform, the jacket bedecked with medal ribbons – a Major-General. A couple of younger men in their forties, with a bit more flair to the cut of their clothes.
“Gabriel, I’d like you to meet Gordon Foster. Gordon is one of the men who encouraged me in my political ambitions. He is also a Deputy Director at MI5.”
The man leaned towards Gabriel and shook hands.
“This is Sir William Cragg. William is the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He advises me on law and order.”
Another handshake, the man’s hand dry to the touch, a large gold signet ring digging into Gabriel’s fingers.
The blonde woman stepped forward before Maitland could introduce her.
“Marcia Hollands. When this is over I’d like to run a profile of you for my paper. The readers would lap up your story.”
Gabriel recognised her from Newsnight and other, lighter TV fare, being interviewed by fawning presenters on Day-Glo sofas. Marcia Hollands was the high-profile editor of a right-leaning daily newspaper. At general elections, the leaders of the main parties could be seen hobnobbing with her at receptions, writing guest editorials in her newspaper and inviting her for talks at this country house or that central London office, desperate to impress upon her their fitness for office. All, it would seem, for nothing this time around.
