Dirty Little Secret

by Jon Stock

  He needed to get out of the country, but he didn’t have access to his own passport or the half-dozen cover-identity passports he kept with it. They were in his flat in Pimlico, which would be under surveillance. He had no money either – just a phone he couldn’t use. Perhaps Lakshmi could help him. He was reluctant to involve her any further, but he had nothing to lose, now that her career was effectively over. He also wanted to be with her – too much.

  Whatever he did, speed was of the essence. It was still only 6 a.m. If he could get back to Kemble, he might be able to reach Gosport in the Morris Minor and return it to the car park before its owners noticed it had been stolen. But it wouldn’t be out of honesty. He wanted to borrow something else from them.

  Before that, though, there was another person he needed to visit. And Marchant wasn’t sure how pleased he would be to see him.

  39

  ‘I gather he wasn’t even armed,’ Spiro said, turning to Denton. The two men were in a group of US and British officials, some in uniform, who had assembled in the officers’ mess of RAF Fairford. On a big TV screen in front of them, the Prime Minister was giving a hastily arranged news conference about the capture of Salim Dhar.

  ‘No resistance at all,’ Spiro continued. ‘Stripped to the waist and sitting cross-legged on a carpet. Just sitting there, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch. Maybe it was a magic carpet, and he was worried about flying under the influence.’

  Denton ignored Spiro’s laughter. He was trying to listen to his PM, who had been woken early in anticipation of Dhar’s capture.

  ‘Today we should all salute the bravery of our British special forces and the intelligence services, who have worked tirelessly to capture Salim Dhar. As is often the case in such matters, those who deserve the greatest praise must remain anonymous. But they know who they are, and it is thanks to them that our world is a safer place this morning.’

  ‘I guess that made it harder to shoot him,’ Spiro said.

  ‘And let this be a warning to anyone else who seeks to destroy our values and democracy with violence and terror. We will hunt you down, however long it takes, wherever it takes us …’

  ‘Our instructions were to capture him alive,’ Denton said.

  ‘This morning, I ordered Dhar to be handed over to our American allies at RAF Fairford, a historic airfield that symbolises our close relationship.’

  If you ignored all the ‘Air CIA’ rendition flights that had passed through Fairford, Denton thought. Politicians had conveniently short memories.

  ‘Come on, Ian. You know how these things are,’ Spiro said. ‘Trials are wasted on these guys. And they’re too high-maintenance in jail. Nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Dhar left British soil thirty minutes ago on a United States Air Force plane – an official flight, registered with UK air-traffic control – and will be brought to trial in accordance with international law. I spoke with the President of the United States a few minutes ago, and he assured me that justice will not only be done, but will be seen to be done.’

  ‘Seems like your President has other ideas,’ Denton said. Spiro wasn’t about to go away, and he had to work out how to deal with the idiot. At least he had kept his word and pulled his troops out of Vauxhall. The bridge had reopened for business by dawn.

  ‘Dhar’s my prisoner now. It’s anyone’s guess what might happen when he squeals. Where’s Marchant, by the way?’

  ‘We’re still looking for him. According to Forensics, he was at the house with Dhar shortly before the raid. Left through a priest hole.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A secret hiding place once used by Catholic priests to flee persecution.’

  ‘Tell me you’re making this stuff up.’

  Denton didn’t have the energy for a history lesson. It was already a matter of acute embarrassment that Marchant had slipped the net.

  ‘We’ll find him.’

  Denton still felt bitter that Fielding hadn’t told him the full facts about Marchant and Dhar.

  ‘By the way, are we bothering to keep Marcus in the loop, or has Elvis already left the building?’

  ‘He’s still Chief, and will remain so until the Foreign Secretary decides otherwise. That’s the way these things tend to work in Britain.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Spiro said, putting an arm around Denton’s shoulders before walking away.

  40

  Marchant had only been to Paul Myers’s cramped digs in Montpelier in Cheltenham once, but he could still remember the squalor: empty pizza boxes on the floor, a bike with two flat tyres, remote-control planes and computers covering every surface. If anything, things were worse this time as he picked his way across the floor, cleared a BLT sandwich wrapper off the sofa and sat down. In addition to the bank of computer screens, some of which were on, there was a pile of circuit boards, bits of phones and other electrical equipment scattered across the unmade bed.

  ‘You need to get a cleaner,’ Marchant said, noticing that the bike was now on its side in the corner.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Myers asked, coming into the room with two mugs of tea. He was always drinking tea. ‘I thought it was what the magazines call scruffy chic.’

  ‘You look better than I feared.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Actually, you look shit. But you’re alive, which is something. And you’re not about to die slowly of radiation.’

  ‘It’s true about the dirty bomb, then?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  Myers whistled, which always struck Marchant as odd. He didn’t know anybody else who whistled. Then again, he didn’t know anybody like Myers.

  ‘You’ve seen the latest news?’

  ‘About Dhar?’ He had heard a scratchy bulletin on the car radio.

  ‘They caught him in the Cotswolds. That won’t have done much for his jihadi credentials. I guess the tourist-information people recognised him when he asked for the nearest tea shop.’

  Myers laughed awkwardly, then gulped at his tea when he saw that Marchant wasn’t smiling.

  ‘You were right about the SAR helicopter,’ Marchant said. ‘He must have got the Russian to make the emergency call, knowing we would have recognised his voiceprint.’

  ‘And taken the chopper to wherever he wanted to go on his sightseeing trip. What was he playing at?’

  ‘He went to my father’s house. I was there too.’

  Myers nearly choked on his tea.

  ‘I need your help, Paul,’ Marchant continued. ‘The Americans are on my back.’

  ‘When weren’t they?’

  ‘I need a phone that won’t give away my location, some money and regular updates from the GCHQ grid.’

  ‘Is this about Dhar?’

  ‘The Americans didn’t take too kindly to one of their jets being shot down.’

  ‘I won’t ask what you were doing in the cockpit.’

  ‘Damage limitation. Let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘Do you know how many calls are made on UK mobile networks each day? Two hundred million. Not even Echelon can listen to them all. The only way people like me are going to be alerted to a keyword or recognise a voiceprint is if we’re already monitoring the number you’re dialling from or the number you’re calling. Having said that, your best bet is talking over the internet using VOIP. Put your call through an anonymous routing network and a proxy server, throw in a botnet for luck, and you’re safe.’

  ‘What happens if I don’t have internet access?’

  ‘Buy a bunch of unlocked pay-as-you-go phones. They’re ten quid at Tesco. Use each one once, then chuck it away. And vary the network operators. One call on Orange, the next on Vodafone. That’s what the drug dealers do. Keep a phone just for incoming calls and give me the number. If you need to call me, I’ve got a pay-as-you-go that I haven’t used.’

  ‘And if I want to contact someone whose line is monitored?’

  Myers didn’t answer. In keeping with his dysfunctional manner, he stood up without expla
nation and started to rummage through the pile of electronic detritus on his bed.

  ‘Try this,’ he said, holding up what looked like a regular pair of bud headphones and a mike. ‘It’s a hands-free unit – with a difference. When you talk into the mike, it modulates your voice.’

  ‘And makes me sound like Darth Vader?’

  ‘Same principle, but no. It just plays around with your vocal cavities and articulator patterns. Enough to confuse the NSA’s voiceprint-recognition software. What sort of updates are you after from the grid?’

  ‘Anything to do with Dhar.’

  ‘That’s a big ask.’ Myers bent over one of the computers and scrolled down a list of websites. ‘The traffic’s gone haywire since news of his capture broke earlier. Literally hundreds of jihadi chatrooms. The guy’s got a following bigger than bin Laden.’

  ‘What about Iran?’

  Myers cast his eyes downwards. ‘I’ve only just been put back on the desk. I asked for a transfer after, you know, all that business with Leila. It was too painful.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Leila had been half-Iranian, and Marchant wasn’t the only one to fall for the MI6 officer’s exotic charms. Myers had been obsessed with her.

  ‘My line manager kept me away from the region for a while, then said she couldn’t do without me.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  Myers was GCHQ’s leading Iranian intel analyst, fluent in Farsi and, crucially, the complex ways of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

  ‘Could you listen out for any mention of Dhar? Particularly along the Iranian border with Afghanistan?’

  ‘I thought he’d been dumped by Tehran?’

  ‘Seems they’re interested in him again.’

  ‘There’s been a lot of IRGC activity along Iran’s eastern borders recently. They’re trying to counter what they think are proxy terrorist attacks by the CIA. Jundola, Mojahedin-e Khalq, the usual suspects.’

  Marchant was glad Myers was working for the West. His knowledge was forensic. ‘If Dhar’s sent to Bagram, which seems likely, the Iranians will definitely try to spring him.’

  ‘And?’ Myers asked.

  ‘I just need to know, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t you think the whole world might know if Salim Dhar escapes from Bagram?’

  ‘I want to know before it happens.’

  41

  Fielding looked around his office, knowing it was for the last time. Most of the pictures were from the government’s private collection, except for the two Turners, which he had borrowed from Tate Britain. They would be returned across the water by his successor, who was more into Lowry, but he was damned if the Matt cartoon would stay. It showed a man in a trenchcoat and dark glasses on top of a Christmas tree, where the fairy should be. He had commissioned it for the Service’s centenary year Christmas card, and knew exactly where it would hang in Dolphin Square.

  Anne Norman, his principal PA, had provided him with a clear plastic box for his personal possessions. He felt like a prisoner checking into jail. It hadn’t taken long to fill the box: desk photos of his twelve godchildren, his Montblanc pen and a bottle of green ink (a present from Hugo Prentice when he became Chief), the ten-volume Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Sir Richard Francis Burton’s 1885 limited edition) and a photograph, kept in his top drawer, of Kadia, the woman he might have married if his career hadn’t intervened.

  As he put the framed Matt cartoon in the box, face down in a half-hearted attempt to conceal it, he heard Ian Denton outside, talking to Anne. He might have had the decency to wait, Fielding thought. Only a few minutes earlier he had been in a meeting in St James’s with the Foreign Secretary, at which he had offered his resignation. Instead, it had been agreed that he would go on sick leave for the foreseeable future. Denton would step up as acting Chief.

  ‘We don’t want to make a fuss,’ the Foreign Secretary had said. ‘Not now. The coalition’s in a fragile state. I’m sure you understand. It’s the Cold War all over again, only this time with our closest ally.’

  Fielding listened to Denton’s voice outside. Anne was being polite, but she was clearly stalling him, knowing that it would be awkward for him to enter the office before Fielding had left. If she had to, she would physically block Denton’s way. She had done it before, shielding him, in her formidable crimson tights and red shoes, from pushy politicians. Fielding would miss her.

  He walked back over to his desk. There was still the safe to check. Unlike others in the building, only the incumbent Chief and the Foreign Secretary knew its combination, which changed twice daily. Traditionally, it contained documents that were for C’s eyes only – ‘God’s access’. Some of them – deniable operations, details of crown jewel assets – were enough to bring down governments if they were ever made public. Fielding had always played by the rules of the Service, but there was one document he didn’t want his successor to see, regardless of whether he was or wasn’t Moscow’s man.

  It was a single watermarked sheet of A4 paper, handwritten by Stephen Marchant, and read many times by Fielding over the past few years. Beginning with the thoroughness of a witness statement, the former Chief had outlined his recruitment of Nikolai Primakov in Delhi in the 1980s and how the Russian had, on his return to Moscow, risen to become head of K Branch (counter-intelligence) in the KGB’s First Chief Directorate.

  The document went on to describe – in increasingly charged language – how Moscow Centre had, over time, become suspicious of Primakov. In order to protect his source, Marchant had taken the controversial decision to let himself be recruited by Primakov. Operating with the sole knowledge of his then Chief, Giles Cordingley, Marchant had proceeded to hand over high-grade American product to Primakov, none of which compromised Britain, in return for the continued flow of priceless Soviet intelligence.

  Denton had been heavily involved with the running of Primakov, but he had not known that Marchant was effectively a Moscow asset. No one had, particularly not the Americans. To this day, Washington had no knowledge of Primakov, let alone the pact that Stephen Marchant had signed with him. Now, with Denton due to become Chief, or at least acting Chief, it would only be a matter of time before the Americans became convinced of what they had long suspected: that Britain could not be trusted as an ally. Denton would be sure to tell them about Primakov and the US intel, given that he owed his promotion to Spiro.

  Fielding knew, as he started to spin the numbers on the heavily oiled wheel, that he had to move fast. The Americans wouldn’t just point the finger – once again – at Stephen Marchant. They would accuse him of guilt by association: he should have informed them of what amounted to treachery by proxy when he had first become Chief. Daniel Marchant wouldn’t come out of it well either.

  ‘I’m afraid the combination’s already been changed.’

  Fielding paused for a moment and then stood up. Denton was inside the office, standing by the door. Anne had uncharacteristically failed to keep him at bay. Then another figure appeared beside Denton, and Fielding understood. It was a member of security, thick-necked, no smile. Had it really come to this?

  ‘No problem,’ Fielding said, clicking shut the plastic lid on the box. ‘The contents of the safe are your responsibility now. To be honest, it’s a relief to be free of the burden that comes with them.’

  ‘If there’s anything personal in there, I can have it sent round to Dolphin Square, with your other possessions,’ Denton said, nodding at the box on the desk. ‘I’m sure Anne will arrange it. Once it’s been checked.’

  For the first time, Fielding tried to look at Denton as a Moscow asset. If he was, he guessed it was a recent development – five years, at most – which made it marginally less unpalatable. If Denton had been working for Moscow during the 1980s and 1990s, Primakov would have been blown, given that Denton had helped to run him. But Primakov wasn’t blown, nor was he used by Moscow to feed false information to London. The intelligence had always checked out.

>   ‘One word of advice, Ian,’ Fielding said, walking to the door. ‘Never ignore a gut feeling. If you find you don’t like working with Spiro, there’s probably a good reason.’

  As Fielding passed through the door, Denton called out behind him.

  ‘That Matt cartoon. I was looking forward to seeing more of it. I’ll tell security it was yours, shall I?’

  Fielding didn’t answer. Anne had her eyes cast down as he passed. He wasn’t sure if there weren’t tears welling, too.

  ‘Perhaps you could bring the box yourself,’ he said quietly, pausing by her desk. ‘Then we could say goodbye properly. Maybe share a pot of fresh mint tea, extra sweet, just how you like it.’

  Before she could reply, he was gone, watched by cameras into the lift, and again as he crossed the foyer towards the row of security pods by the main entrance. He walked through one of them, conscious that the guards were keeping a closer eye on him than usual, and collected his company mobile phone on the other side. He was surprised that it hadn’t been withheld. They would send for it shortly, like an ex asking for her CDs. But there was no official car to take him home. Instead, he turned right and headed over Vauxhall Bridge, knowing that he would have to move fast if he was to leave the country.

  42

  It was 10 a.m. by the time Marchant arrived back at Gosport Marina. He had hoped to be there earlier, but it had taken longer to buy the five pay-as-you-go phones, each one from a different shop so as to avoid suspicion. He had borrowed £500 from his old friend and received an assurance that Myers would keep him updated about any intel relating to Dhar and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. There was no one at GCHQ who knew the region better.

  After leaving the Traveller parked on the road outside the marina, Marchant walked towards the grid of floating jetties, keeping an eye out for police. The older man had talked about having a lie-in after their long Channel crossing, but Marchant assumed that they would have raised the alarm about their missing car by now. As he approached the boat he spotted him in the cockpit, drinking from a Scottish mug. There was no sign of the younger man. Their bags were stacked up on the stern. It was clear that they hadn’t been to their car or spotted Marchant.