A Spy's Life

by Henry Porter

  ‘How much is this all going to cost?’ said Harland, when Eva went to get her things.

  ‘No more than three thou’ – we’ll sort it out when the invoices come in.’

  ‘Thanks for organising it – thanks for everything, Cuth.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. I want to get this fucker as much as you do.’ He paused. ‘Terrible shame about your lad.’

  ‘Yes.’ Harland paused. ‘Cuth, you understand that Vigo will have us followed to the airport and he will get the flight plan within a few minutes of us taking off. He’ll know where we’re going and it won’t take him long to work out that you fixed this all up. Are you sure you want him on your back?’

  ‘Fuck him. Too slippery by half is Brother Walter. I didn’t like the way he descended on that hospital one bit.’

  Harland collected a few clothes, a phone, his map and the computer he’d need in order to download the images from Norman Reeve. Ten minutes later, Cuth’s Range Rover exited the underground car park and sped out of London towards Blackbush. A dark red Ford, a motorcycle and a blue Nissan tracked their progress but were left behind when they drove through the aerodrome gates. Well before anyone had time to prevent them from leaving, the Gulfstream had taken off.

  Almost subconsciously Harland settled himself in the rearmost seat of the little jet opposite Eva.

  If he hadn’t been so concerned for her he would certainly have been thinking about the risks of travelling on another plane. Once they were airborne, he snapped off his seat belt and leaned forward to hold both of Eva’s hands between his. She smiled weakly, but her eyes quickly turned away, down to the English countryside lit golden in the early-afternoon sun. He knew she didn’t want to talk.

  Harland closed his own eyes to think about the task ahead, but within a short time he had fallen asleep. He was awoken by a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘We’ve got less than hour.’ The Bird was looking down at him. ‘We need a plan of attack.’

  Harland glanced out of the window to see the Alps ahead of them. A feather of vapour was trembling on the Gulfstream’s wingtip.

  ‘What information about this place do you have?’ asked The Bird. ‘Should we try to get as near as we can tonight, or wait until tomorrow?’

  Harland showed him the position on his map.

  ‘That’s got to be an hour or two hours’ drive from Sarajevo. It’ll be dark long before we get there. Have you got the latest pictures of the site?’

  ‘Blast,’ said Harland, rubbing his eyes. ‘I meant to log on before I left and collect my e-mail. I forgot.’

  ‘That’s all right. There’s a phone socket by your elbow. You can log on through the plane’s communications system.’

  Harland downloaded his mail.

  There were three messages – two from Norman Reeve with attachments and a third from an address he didn’t recognise. The first included the picture from the day before, which showed the vehicles as little more than specks on the hillside. Harland made out some rocks and a road that had been cleared to the position of the four vehicles. The second picture was greatly magnified and had obviously been taken later in the day. It showed two trucks, a digger and a long loader. In the middle of the photograph was a black scrape where the snow and rocks had been removed by the digger. Around it were the marks of caterpillar tracks.

  The Bird peered down at the screen from over Harland’s shoulder. ‘Could be anything,’ he said. ‘They might be making a reservoir.’

  ‘At this time of year? Besides it’s near the top of the hill. You can see from the light and shade. Who makes a reservoir at the top of a hill where there’s no catchment area?’

  He closed the picture and pulled up the second e-mail. Reeve had written: ‘This was taken at 11 GMT, noon local time. Hope you bring home the bacon, Mr Harland – NR.’ He opened the attachment. The trucks had changed their position, but the digger and loader were in more or less the same spot. They had been joined by a fifth vehicle, a smaller green jeep or pick-up. Harland squinted at the screen so that he could see the dots which made up the picture. He was sure the shape of the scar on the mountainside had not grown. He wondered: are those tiny strokes of shadow people?

  He turned the laptop round to Eva. ‘We may be in time. Nothing seems to have happened today.’

  She looked at it doubtfully. ‘I wonder if he knows this can be seen,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Well, they’re lucky to have got the shots,’ said The Bird. ‘They’ve been having a lot of snow. We’d better get ourselves a bloody good vehicle if we’re going to get up there.’

  Harland had been on the point of saying something, but the thought left him. ‘Any ideas where we can get that?’

  The Bird said he had, but it would take the evening. They talked on for a while until the pilot shouted through the open door that they were twenty-five minutes from landing at Sarajevo. The Bird sat down on the other side of the aisle and fiddled with his seat belt. Harland scrolled through his inbox and found the third e-mail which came from an AOL address that meant nothing to him. It took him a few moments to see that it was from Tomas because the message was only signed T after the heading, ‘Crash solution’. He realised that it had been sent just a few hours before his death. It was probably the last act of his life.

  He decided to say nothing to Eva and began to read. It was clear that the material had been copied from various websites because of the different formats and typefaces used. All the quotations concerned high-powered microwave weapons and a new, cheap variant called a Transient Electromagnetic Device, which produced a devastating spike of energy. Harland glanced over a diagram showing a tube wrapped in copper wire and packed with high explosive at one end. It seemed that the detonation of the explosive sent a shockwave down the tube, generating a pulse of electromagnetic energy in the coils of wire. This issued at great speed from the nozzle of the tube and tore through every electrical circuit in its path.

  Harland immediately realised the implication. A portable version of this weapon must have been set up along the shoreline of the East River and fired at the Falcon jet as it rushed across the water to land. The electrical circuits in the plane would have been instantly fried, causing a catastrophic loss of control which in every way mimicked the effect of a wake-vortex.

  Suddenly he understood the meaning of Ollins’s questions. The failure of the lights on the Falcon was only significant in as much as Griswald had held up his computer to use the screen’s light to see what he was doing. When the pulse of energy struck the plane, the protective cladding of the laptop shielded the computer’s circuits and – crucially for Harland – the phone in Griswald’s pocket.

  His respect for Ollins had taken a quantum leap. It was damned smart of him to have worked it out. But it was even smarter, not to say heroic, of Tomas to spend his last hours, paralysed and choked with fluid, battling through the problem.

  The pilot announced they were beginning their descent and would be landing in fifteen minutes.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Harland, overcome with emotion. ‘This e-mail is from Tomas. He’s found out why the plane crashed in New York. It’s incredible. He did it from his bed and sent this last night. What’s more, the FBI reached the same conclusion long before he did. They knew it was sabotage and they’ve kept it quiet.’

  Eva and The Bird listened intently as he explained the theory in quick clear sentences.

  ‘Why would the FBI have covered this up?’ asked The Bird. ‘What was in it for them?’

  ‘Who knows? I suppose they might not want to publicise the potential of this weapon. It would scare the shit out of a hell of a lot of prospective passengers. But perhaps we’re looking at a cover-up involving all the major intelligence agencies of the United States and Britain. God knows!’

  ‘Are you saying the US helped bring down that plane?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Maybe Frank Ollins got to the bottom of the investigation and someone told him to forget the whole thing and go
along with another theory involving the wake from the jet that had just landed. I don’t know who pulled the levers and I don’t know their reasons for doing it. But it certainly seems like a cover-up.’

  ‘It would need careful planning,’ said Eva quickly. ‘They would have to know the likely times of departure and arrival and the runway that was going to be used. A lot could change at the last moment.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. But remember Kochalyin owns an aviation company. Hell, he’s used it to transport arms all round the world. Taking one of these devices into the States wouldn’t prove very difficult. More important is that the people who work for Corniche-HDS Aviation must know a thing or two about listening into communications between a pilot and the control tower.

  ‘Christ, I wish you’d saved this until later,’ said The Bird. ‘It’s giving me the bloody jitters.’

  This made Harland suddenly concentrate.

  ‘What was that you said just now?’ he demanded of Eva.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘About the satellite pictures. You wondered whether Kochalyin knew he could be seen. What were you thinking?’

  ‘It occurred to me that Oleg appreciates what can be photographed from a satellite. Everyone knows that the graves around Srebrenica were picked up by US satellites and spy planes. I remember seeing the pictures in the newspaper.’

  ‘So what would be a better way of gaining our attention and luring us out here than digging up that grave?’ asked Harland.

  ‘It’s a bit late to have that thought now,’ said The Bird, shifting in his seat.

  ‘And why hasn’t there been any further digging today?’ Harland persisted. ‘Maybe he had done enough to gain our attention and ordered the work to stop.’

  ‘But he would have to be sure that you knew about the excavation,’ said Eva.

  At that moment the pilot dimmed the cabin lights: the plane was on its final approach. They had banked sharp right and were coasting along the side of a mountain. Harland could see houses, each with one or two lights shining in the prolonged dusk of a snowy landscape. On the starboard side he glimpsed the city of Sarajevo sprawling in the bowl of the valley. He heard the whine from the landing gear being lowered.

  He unbuckled and rushed forward to the cockpit. ‘I can’t explain this now,’ he shouted at the back of the pilot’s head, ‘but it’s just possible some kind of device will be fired at us which will knock out all your electrical circuits. Can you land without them?’

  The co-pilot turned round and shifted his headset. He plainly thought Harland mad.

  ‘Can you land it without any electronics? Because that’s what you may have to do.’

  ‘Take a seat, sir,’ said the pilot calmly. ‘We’re very close now.’

  Harland looked ahead of them and saw the lights of the runway approaching.

  ‘Two thousand feet,’ said the co-pilot.

  The radio sounded and the pilot moved the flaps down. Harland heard the engines throttling back.

  ‘Fifteen hundred feet,’ intoned the co-pilot. ‘One thousand. We’re fully configured for landing, sir. Please sit down while we pop her on the deck.’

  Harland reeled back through the cabin, knowing that it was now too late for him to avert the disaster. He dropped into the seat beside Eva and fastened his belt.

  And then the miracle happened. They touched down – so quietly that it took a few moments for Harland to realise they were on the ground. The jet skated past a checkered military control tower and began to slow down as it headed towards the end of the runway.

  ‘Welcome to Sarajevo,’ said the captain with pointed calm. ‘The local time is ten minutes past five. It’s a clear evening. The temperature is minus seven degrees centigrade, nineteen degrees Fahrenheit. Wind-chill factor is high. Wrap up warm and have an enjoyable stay. We’re aiming for a fast turnaround to get on our way to Athens, so I’d be grateful if you could leave the aircraft quickly.’

  From sheer nervous energy, Harland had already flipped off the seat belt, risen and put on his anorak.

  ‘Bloody hell, Bobby,’ said The Bird. ‘I’ll think twice before getting on a plane with you again.’

  Harland felt slightly foolish.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought he’d planned the whole thing so he would take the plane out when we came in.’

  The aircraft came to a halt at the end of the runway. Eva got up.

  ‘There’s a truck in our way,’ said the captain. ‘It’s going to lead us into the terminal. We’ll just be a few minutes so you may as well make yourselves comfortable.’

  Eva bent down and peered out of the window between their seats on to the uninviting wasteland of the airfield. Suddenly she recoiled back into Harland who was also looking out.

  ‘Down!’ she cried.

  Harland had seen the flare of orange a hundred yards away, out to their right. But he hadn’t reacted as quickly as Eva and only when the rocket hit the tailplane on the starboard side did he understand what had happened.

  The pilot was also quicker to grasp the situation. He increased the power in the engines and the plane lurched forwards, sending his three passengers hurtling backwards.

  The plane surged over the edge of the concrete runway and began to head across the snow towards the terminal building. The engines were kicking up a storm of ice crystals that were being whipped forward by the wind in rhythmic billows.

  Harland struggled to his feet and threw himself towards the cockpit.

  ‘What the hell’re you doing?’ he shouted over the noise of the engines.

  ‘Trying to get away from him. There’s no one out here who’s going to help us.’

  Harland looked out of the side of the cockpit across the deserted airfield to the small terminal building. Nothing moved. Ahead of them was a truck, on the back of which stood two men. One jerked something to his shoulder. The rocket fired and passed just to the left of the cockpit. The pilot whistled in relief. Harland instinctively ducked.

  He felt a tug on his arm. He turned to see Eva, pulling at his jacket. The Bird had both hands on the lever of the port door and was preparing to jerk it upwards. Harland lunged to snatch his and Eva’s bags and turned to see The Bird wrenching the door inwards and then pushing it against the cabin wall.

  The deafening scream of the engines entered the cabin with a blast of cold air. The Bird gripped Eva, but she signalled for him to go first. He jumped and she followed. Harland dropped out of the door shortly afterwards and crashed to the ground in a kneeling position. In the blinking light coming from the plane’s belly he saw The Bird helping Eva to her feet. The plane had gone about thirty feet from him. At that point a third rocket hit it on the starboard side of the fuselage. Before the explosion ripped through the fuel tank on the far wing, a lone figure dropped out of the door.

  The plane continued for a fraction of a second longer, then seemed to pause before shuddering and collapsing away from them. At that the second fuel tank exploded with much greater force and blew the fuselage apart. Harland got up and ran to where the man had fallen and recognised the co-pilot. He was lying in the snow. He called out that he’d hurt his leg and wasn’t sure if he could walk. Harland could already feel the intense heat of the flames through his clothing. He took hold of the man’s shoulders and hefted him upwards so he could drag him across the snow. The Bird rushed over to help him. Together they carried the co-pilot to a concrete block where they laid him on the ground and propped his head against the concrete.

  Harland bent down with his hands on his knees, heaving from the effort.

  ‘Better you don’t tell them we got out. Play dumb. Say you don’t know who else got out. It’s very important. Can you do that?’

  The man nodded groggily.

  ‘It’s just for twenty-four hours,’ said Harland. ‘Then you can get your memory back.’ He straightened and turned to The Bird and Eva. ‘Right, let’s find a way out so we’re not seen.’

  They ran towards the per
imeter fence, away from the jet and the truck. Two military fire tenders had emerged from the terminal area and were lumbering towards the plane. From the centre of the airfield came a pair of military vehicles, bumping over the ruts in the snow.

  Harland reached the fence first and looked back. The truck had vanished into the dark of the airfield in the east. He indicated that they should make for the terminal which was about 300 yards away. They passed a padlocked fence, then a single-engine Cessna whose wings were tethered to the ground, and continued along the fence until they were fifty yards from the concrete apron in front of the terminal building. All hell had broken loose. Troops had disgorged from the building and were rushing to their vehicles, while what seemed to be the entire staff of the airport were milling about, watching the fire.

  No one noticed Harland approach and look through one of the windows. The terminal was a rudimentary affair, in fact little more than a large warehouse with its guts on display. Heating and wiring ducts were in the process of being installed and the customs and immigration posts looked more like ticket booths. Neither was manned.

  He turned and waved the others forward. They walked smartly through the door and past the immigration post and in no time at all found themselves in a deserted car park on the other side of the building. Because the last of the commercial flights had landed there were no cabs to be found. They stamped their feet in the cold and searched each other’s faces.

  ‘You’re a member of the UN staff,’ exclaimed The Bird, eyeing a row of white four-wheel drives, each emblazoned with a UN crest. ‘And you are on an important mission for the Secretary-General.’

  They moved quickly along the line of cars until they came to an Isuzu with its sidelights on and the keys still hanging from the steering column. The driver had obviously left in a hurry to see what was happening on the airfield. They got in without a second thought and drove sedately from the compound into a desolate, ill-lit boulevard flanked by burned-out buildings.