by Henry Porter
She shook her head. ‘So this screensaver works like a virus?’
‘Not quite. It’s more targeted than a virus. For one thing it doesn’t reproduce itself, and for another it’s got a very short life span. If the correct procedure isn’t followed at the right moment the message disappears. And here’s the beauty of it. If the screensaver is intercepted, all you get is fish. Nothing else. It doesn’t work unless you’ve got the software that goes with it – the male plug and the female socket, if you see what I mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good pillow talk, no?’
She nodded. ‘What do you think it means?’
‘That Rahe was a shit-load more important than we thought he was.’ Dolph looked out on the muddy evening sky. ‘The men at the airport, why do you think they were all dressed like Senegalese lottery winners? What was that about?’
‘Reverse camouflage,’ said Herrick quietly. ‘The more noticeable your clothes, the less people look at your face. It’s the opposite effect to the one you achieve, Dolph.’
He ignored the remark. ‘Like having a parrot on your shoulder?’
‘Yes. Can I ask something else?’
‘You have my full attention.’ He began to fold his napkin.
‘Do you think the two things were connected at Heathrow?’
‘Of course they were. I quote you the product law of probabilities. “When two independent events occur simultaneously their combined probability is equal to the product of their individual probabilities of occurrence.” That means it was bloody unlikely that the two events were unconnected. They were syzygial – yoked, paired, conjoined, coupled – like we should be.’
He finished the origami with the napkin and balanced it on his shoulder.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘A parrot – so you won’t notice what I look like.’
CHAPTER SIX
The silence ended with a single dramatic sentence. ‘Youssef Rahe was ours.’ Richard Spelling said it with studied understatement. ‘He was our man.’ He folded his arms and looked at her over a pair of slender reading glasses.
Herrick was not totally surprised. She had been at the point of articulating Rahe’s double role for herself, but hadn’t gone the whole way because of the surveillance operation. Why had they put all that effort into watching a man who was already working for them?
‘Was?’ she said.
‘Yes. His body was found in the boot of a car near the Lebanese border with Syria. He had been very badly treated and finished off with a shot to the head which, without going into detail, made him practically unrecognisable. As well as this, the car had been set alight. However, we are absolutely certain it is Rahe.’
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Was he killed by the second man on the Beirut flight?’
‘We’re not sure. We suspect he had something to do with it but there were others involved.’
She asked herself why they were telling her this. Not out of any sense of obligation, that was for sure. She had been summoned to the high table and was being told an intimate secret for a reason. She looked around the room and wondered what they wanted from her, apart from silence. The constituent parts of this late night gathering were altogether odd. Colin Guthrie, head of the joint MI5-MI6 Anti-Terrorism controllerate, well, you would expect him to be there, but not Skeoch Cummings and Keith Manners from the Joint Intelligence Committee. The JIC provided intelligence assessments for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and wasn’t responsible for making or implementing policy, yet here they were, comfortably ensconced in the inner sanctum of the intelligence executive. And why Christine Selvey, the deputy director of Security and Public Affairs? What the fuck was she doing there, with her powdery skin and brittle, bouffant hair which Dolph had described as ‘South coast landlady with a passion for china dogs and young actresses’?
There was one other man there and his presence baffled her most. As she entered he had risen, turned and offered her a soft, cool hand and asked after her father, a pleasantry which seemed out of place and was calculated, she thought, to wrong-foot her in some way. Walter Vigo, the former Head of Security and Public Affairs. Isis knew perfectly well that her father would have nothing to do with him. Why was Vigo there and not the Chief? What did Vigo’s presence mean six weeks before the handover from Sir Robin Teckman to Spelling? Vigo was the outcast, the defrocked prelate who’d been exposed by a former SIS man, Robert Harland, for his connections with a gun runner and war criminal named Lipnik. She’d got some of the story from her father, who had trained both Vigo and Harland at different times during the Intelligence Officers’ New Entry Course. Vigo had escaped prosecution because he was in a position to make life seriously unpleasant for the entire Service. Instead he had been declared a pariah, with Teckman forbidding all contact with him and the members of Mercator, the security consultancy he ran in tandem with an antique book dealing business called Incunabula Inc.
There was silence. She was expected to ask a question. ‘If he was ours, why was he under surveillance?’
‘Our relationship was a very, very secret matter,’ Spelling replied. ‘We shared his product, but not his identity with anyone. Only four people knew that he worked for us. Those were his conditions when Walter Vigo came across him two years ago and we abided by them.’
Vigo stirred to give Spelling a nod of gratitude.
‘The surveillance was to give him credibility?’ persisted Herrick. ‘Was that why we laid it in on with a trowel?’
Spelling whipped off his glasses and folded them in his left hand. There was something unpractised and self-conscious in the gesture. ‘Yes, he was worried he’d been tumbled.’
‘Can I ask whether you knew about the operation at Terminal Three in advance?’
He shook his head. ‘No. No, we don’t think even he knew what was happening, though he had told us in the morning that he was going to a meeting with some important people. We were hoping for big game. But we had no notion of the switch you spotted and that means he didn’t have any idea what was to happen at Terminal Three. We now think he believed he was being observed by them at Heathrow and was worried about making a call to us. No doubt he hoped we were there watching him too and we were, which is how you noticed what had happened. We realised he was in trouble when you called in, but by this time things were unravelling, and it’s fair to say we lost sight of what was important. A few hours later he contacted us from a room in the Playlands Hotel in Beirut. They said the meeting would take place in the next few days and that he should stay put until they got in touch with him. Very shortly after making that call he vanished. We didn’t have time to get anyone over to the hotel.’
Guthrie coughed and said, ‘All of which underlines the thesis implied in your report on the events of May the fourteenth, that the alert over the President’s man was a…’
‘A strategic diversion,’ offered Vigo, with his eyes closed.
‘To achieve several things,’ said Guthrie, ‘among which was enticement of Rahe out of the country.’
‘Can I ask you if the information about the hit on Norquist came from Rahe’s computer?’
Vigo shot her a look of interest.
‘What do you know about Rahe’s computer?’ asked Spelling sharply.
‘I assumed that if he was working for us you must have had access to any information that came to him via his PC. After all, he barely left that shop and we had his phone covered so I imagined it was simply a matter of interception somewhere along the line.’ This was feeble but she had to protect Andy Dolph. ‘I’m simply asking if the information about the possible hit on Norquist came from Rahe, by whatever means. From the outside that seems to be the important point.’
‘There was an oblique reference to it amongst the usual blazing rhetoric,’ said Guthrie. ‘But this was released after he left for Heathrow. Another source confirmed in some detail what was to happen.’
Spelling moved to take control. ‘We believe he was unmasked
during WAYFARER. As most of you are aware, this was the operation to track a hundred-odd kilos of sulphur and two hundred of acetone from Rotterdam to Harwich and then on to a factory in Birmingham. They must have examined their security arrangements after that and come up with Rahe’s name. He was involved in some of the shipping arrangements.
‘The important thing is that Rahe was tortured very badly indeed. He will have told them everything he knew about us before he died, which owing to Walter’s deft handling was kept to a minimum. Still, he wouldn’t have failed to learn quite a bit during the course of the twenty-odd months he was working for us, if only from the questions we asked him. And we must assume certain techniques are now in the hands of the terrorists.’
There was a pause. Vigo had listened to this expectantly, as though waiting to make a bid at an auction, but he said nothing. Christine Selvey seemed to be readying herself for something – a straightening of the back, a pluck at the front of her Sunday blouse.
‘We heard you were out at Heathrow yesterday,’ said Guthrie in what was clearly a planned intervention. ‘What were you doing there?’
‘Trying to tie up some loose ends for my own satisfaction. I wondered if the murder of the lavatory attendant and his family had anything to do with the man who was seen watching aircraft landing from the public viewing terrace. You see I hadn’t heard from-’
‘Yes, well, no more blundering around like that,’ said Spelling fiercely. ‘This is a very delicate situation and we can’t afford the local police or anyone else putting it all together and feeding the theory to the media. Nobody – I repeat nobody – must know that we appreciate the real significance of the events at Heathrow.’
Given that she’d spotted what was really significant that day, Herrick didn’t much feel like the gesture of submission that was called for, but she apologised nonetheless, saying that it was often difficult for someone at her level to see the whole picture.
‘There is one thing,’ she said, levelling her gaze at Spelling. ‘Won’t our discovery of Rahe’s body in Beirut mean they expect us to go back over his movements at Heathrow? After all, he was meant to be in Kuwait or the Gulf States, not the Lebanon, and that might very well lead us to check which plane he boarded and so go over the film.’
‘It’s a good point,’ said Vigo. ‘I’d like to know the answer to that one.’
Spelling shook his head. ‘We didn’t move the body. His wife doesn’t know he’s dead and I’m afraid we’re going to leave things that way. She must believe he’s alive in order for our operation to go ahead. And they must believe we’ve lost him. It will be essential to the safety of the people we’re going to put in the field over the next few days.’ He cleared his throat. ‘As you know, the Chief has asked me to oversee the setting up of RAPTOR, the name of our response to the events of May the fourteenth. You will hear in the next few days what your part will be – the arrangements are being finalised at the moment – but I wanted to speak to you this evening because everyone involved must understand that this is an exclusively transatlantic operation. We are going to work very closely with the Americans on this, but not with the Europeans.
‘International cooperation in the war against terrorism is still at a very early stage of development. Everyone pitches in and there have been some notable achievements in the sharing of information, but we’re a long way from full cooperation. You’ll remember Djamel Beghal, one of the men who was planning to blow up the US Embassy in Paris. He was arrested on his way back from Afghanistan and began to talk, providing valuable names and addresses, top grade material in fact. The counter-intelligence services of France, Spain, Belgium and Holland ran a joint surveillance operation in their individual territories to watch the cell at work. But then details were leaked to the French press, with the result that most of the network escaped. One or two were arrested, but there wasn’t enough evidence to put them away for any length of time. In our opinion it was a serious loss not to be able to observe and watch these people’s MO, the way they moved their money, communicated, planned, provided themselves with false papers and the supplies necessary for the large-scale attacks that they need to keep their movement alive. That’s something we’re not going to allow to happen again. Owing to your excellent work at Heathrow – a superb piece of intelligence gathering – we are now in a position to watch eleven individuals who are currently under surveillance as they merge into their new covers. We and the Americans plan to observe these men and get a fix on the person running the European networks. We know next to nothing about him, but believe him to be in Europe.’
‘The same man who planned May fourteen,’ she said. It now seemed more like fact than opinion.
‘Possibly – certainly a very ambitious mind was deployed that day, someone who sees an operation as a means of achieving several things at once. It was daring and well thought-out to pull off an assassination of that order while shuffling his men around Europe.’
‘But surely-’ she began.
‘If you wouldn’t mind.’ Spelling gave a tight smile that indicated he wouldn’t suffer the interruption. ‘I should have mentioned that tests have been carried out and there’s no doubt that the bullet came from the machine pistol in the first van. Abdul Muid was the assassin. I gather that will be the finding of the inquest that opens tomorrow. It will also make plain the pattern that the two men – Muid and Jamil Siddiqi – were pulled from our midst to perform these acts of terrorism. Neither of their backgrounds suggests training by al-Qaeda in any formal sense, which I think is an interesting aspect that the Security Services will want to explore. There is still no trace of the lorry driver, which perhaps indicates that he was an integral part of the plot, rather than someone who was caught up in the incident.’
Skeoch Cummings nodded. Guthrie brushed the end of his nose twice while Vigo looked into the distance with an expression that suggested he had not even heard what was being said.
Fine, she thought, they’re running with that fiction. The possibility that a British bullet had killed Norquist was not going to be contemplated, which obviously suited both sides. The Americans knew what had happened, but when it came to their closest allies they were capable of miraculous forbearance. After all, they had absorbed the blow of Israeli warplanes attacking and sinking the USS Liberty spy ship in the Six Day War without any public comment whatsoever. Norquist had already been buried at the Arlington National Cemetery with full military honours. His widow had received the folded Stars and Stripes from the President himself and not a word of official complaint had been made. Not in public, at any rate.
But it was another matter in private, she thought. The White House must have used Norquist’s death to maximise the US position. They would have received something in exchange and it was likely to be the contents of her report passed up to Number Ten through the Joint Intelligence Committee. She imagined a telephone conversation between the White House and Number Ten during which the President insisted that the US be involved as an equal partner in the pursuit of the live cell. That meant the continental intelligence services would be kept in the dark.
Now she understood why Teckman was not there. The Chief had either lost the battle to keep the Europeans involved, or was standing back waiting for his successor to make a hash of things while he was still in control. Whatever the tactic, it was his absence that gave the meeting its furtive air. This, and Vigo. Spelling may have been in the chair but it was Vigo’s return that established a new era of transatlantic exclusivity.
Spelling put on his glasses again and read something from the paper in front of him. Then he looked up, as if to address the whole room, and began to outline RAPTOR. Each of the eleven men so far identified and tracked would be allotted an entire team that would remain permanently on that individual’s case. In effect the teams would mimic the classic cell structure of terrorist organisations, shadowing the suspects and bedding in around them with an equal regard for cover and security. Herrick would be in one of those teams,
and those involved would be expected to drop everything for the operation. That requirement had had some influence on the personnel being chosen: men and women with families would take roles where they could be inserted and removed without rippling the surface. Both the CIA and MI6 would call on the services of retired intelligence officers used to long-term surveillance operations, who would bring the field skills that were perhaps lacking in some of the younger generation.
‘This is about close surveillance of an exceptionally discreet order,’ he said, splaying his fingers on the table. ‘It may go on for months, even years, because that is the timescale the terrorists work with. We will have to match their stamina and patience. Every step of the way will be monitored by us here and the Americans at Langley and Fort Mead. The risk assessment for the entire operation will be provided by the staff of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which will report three times a week. The Americans have agreed to abide by their recommendations though I stress that these reports will not define policy. The JIC will simply gauge the degree of menace presented by these men at any given moment. The Americans will naturally take their own view of how things are progressing and have insisted that each surveillance team has access to armed back-up. That means they can move against a target and arrest him if the situation requires. And so can we.’
Spelling’s confident presentation of the battle plan didn’t fool anyone. If the Americans and British, already welded together in an exclusive eavesdropping treaty known as Echelon, were to start killing or seizing suspects on European soil, untold damage would be done to an already shaky Western alliance. The resentment would last for years. This was to say nothing of the risk – or in Herrick’s mind, the certainty – of one or other European agency catching on and, out of justified concern or sheer bloodymindedness, preempting the situation by arresting the suspect and causing the others to flee. She also knew that the terrorists were nothing if not close students of Western intelligence trade-craft, and that the mastermind who had planned the switch at Heathrow would be the kind of man who had set up trip-wires to give early warning of just such an operation. Sooner or later, someone would stumble across one.
