‘More annoying than urgent,’ she said. ‘I’ll catch you later.’ She looked at Fane appraisingly. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, and left the room.
‘You were saying?’ Blakey reminded him.
‘I was wondering how we could help you. I might ask the Athens Station if they have anyone on their books that we could put into your office there to do a bit of quiet investigation. We have a new Head of Station and I could ring him this afternoon. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ Blakey said, looking relieved that Fane was willing to help.
‘I take it this man Berger can be trusted? An American, you say?’
‘I trust him absolutely. As I said, he’s the one who first pointed out that we might have a problem.’
‘Good. Tell him someone will be in touch. They can talk over a cover story.’
‘What should I do about the London end?’
Fane smiled benignly. ‘Why don’t we focus on Athens for now? I’d say that’s a much more likely source of any leak. But keep an eye out here; if anything strikes you, let me know and we’ll take it from there. What about your deputy – Katherine, was it? Is she in on the picture?’
‘No, not at present.’
‘I’d keep it that way,’ said Fane. ‘“Need to know” is always best in this sort of operation. We can widen the net later if we have to. There’s one other thing: when is your next big shipment going past the Horn?’
‘Berger and I discussed that. It’s not due for six weeks.’
‘I might suggest that we put someone on board, but I’ll discuss it with Athens Station. Tempting though it is, I’m not going to run this operation myself.’
‘You see it as worthwhile then?’ asked Blakey. ‘You don’t think I’m wasting your time.’
‘Oh, no, old chap,’ said Fane, standing up. ‘This could give us a much-needed lead into these pirate gangs.’ And that would be a great coup for the Service, he thought. It would also provide good bargaining chips to use with the allies.
He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got a meeting back at Vauxhall. Let me ring you after I’ve talked things through with the Athens Head.’
The two men rose, and Blakey ushered Fane out through his own door into the corridor. As they headed towards the lift, Fane noticed that the door to the ante-room, where Blakey’s PA normally sat, was ajar, even though Blakey had closed it firmly when they’d first come through.
It was going to be difficult to keep anything secret in an environment where most work was done in an open-plan floor and people wandered in and out of offices without knocking. Of course, it only mattered if Blakey was right to think there was a link between UCSO and a group of pirates. It would have seemed improbable a week ago, but so would the presence of a British Pakistani in a pirate’s skiff.
Returning to Vauxhall Cross, Fane’s mind was pulling together the strands of information that all seemed connected to UCSO. He decided the next thing was to find out what Liz Carlyle had discovered in Paris.
As he walked into his outer office, his PA said, ‘Liz Carlyle rang. She’d like a word ASAP.’
Great minds think alike, thought Fane. He admired Liz Carlyle. Pity she didn’t reciprocate.
Chapter 11
Liz sat in her office in Thames House, gazing out through a steady drizzle at the river, mud-brown at low tide and sloshing against a litter-festooned strip of sand on the far bank. She thought of Paris, the warm sun as she had left Martin’s flat, the bistro in the square where they’d eaten supper at a pavement table under the plane trees. And Martin himself – when they’d said goodbye the following morning he hadn’t returned to the subject of her moving to Paris, but there’d been a questioning look in his eye that suggested the topic wasn’t going to stay buried for long. Paris . . . how tempting it seemed on this gloomy London morning.
But then she thought of the young man in the Santé prison. Why was he there? What had pulled him away from a respectable Birmingham family to a pirate boat in the Indian Ocean? She turned with a sigh as Peggy Kinsolving came into her office, looking eager, a file clutched in her hand and her spectacles firmly in place. Peggy smiled and said, ‘Don’t tell me – it was sunny in Paris.’
‘Naturally.’ Liz waved her to a chair. ‘Did this DI Fontana have anything more to say?’
‘No. I told him not to go near the Khan family until you were back.’
‘Good. I’ll ring him. I want to talk to the Khans myself, but if he knows them, it might be best if he came with me.’
Peggy nodded then said, ‘There’s one more thing. One of our agent runners has a source in the part of Birmingham where the Khans live. It’s a young Asian who’s a member of one of the radical mosques there. I thought he could be useful.’
‘He might . . . we need all the information we can get. The Khan family won’t necessarily tell us everything they know about their son – that’s if they know anything themselves. Who’s the agent runner? I’d like to have a word.’
‘It’s Kanaan Shah. He’s in the office today; I saw him earlier. Let me see if I can find him.’
Peggy bustled out and returned a few minutes later escorting a tall, dark, good-looking young man, wearing chinos and a blue open-necked shirt.
‘Have a seat, Kanaan,’ Liz began.
‘You’ve pronounced it correctly,’ he said with a smile. ‘Most people don’t. That’s why I’m called “K” around here.’
‘How long have you been in the Service?’
‘Three years. But I’ve only been running agents for a few months. I was in protective security before. “Agent”, I should say,’ he added with a grin. ‘I’ve only got the one.’
‘That’ll change once you get the hang of it. You’ll soon find you’ve got a whole stable of them.’ She remembered her own first days as an agent runner – and one particular agent, the boy in the Muslim bookshop, codenamed Marzipan. He had helped to prevent a serious terrorist incident, but had later been killed – his identity blown to the extremists by a mole in the Service. That had been the worst period of Liz’s career. She’d almost resigned over it, even though none of it had been her fault. Now here was young Kanaan, starting out on his career as an agent runner. He’d be asking people to put their lives in his hands in the national interest; making the compact with them that he would look after them in return for their information. It was a compact made in good faith but one, as Liz knew only too well, that was never without risk.
She asked Kanaan about his background; there were still comparatively few Asians at the operational end of the Service. He told her he was from a Ugandan Asian family. His grandparents had been forced to leave when Idi Amin drove out the Asian community. London-born, Kanaan had grown up in Herne Hill and gone to Alleyn’s School for Boys, then he’d read Politics and Economics at LSE. Personable, obviously intelligent, he could have had any number of jobs; Liz asked him what had attracted him to the Security Service.
‘Adventure,’ he said with a boyish grin that was infectious – she found herself smiling back. ‘And,’ he added, the grin disappearing, ‘I wanted to give something back. My grandparents came to Britain with nothing but a single suitcase, but my family has done very well here. My father became a GP, then he changed direction and now he’s a partner at Morgan Stanley. And he’s made sure I’ve had every opportunity to do what I want to do.’
Liz nodded. She was charmed by Kanaan’s willingness to express sentiments that many would find old-fashioned. Her own father had had a very strong sense of duty, of service to his country. He’d carried it through into civilian life from his days in the army, and it had rubbed off on her. That, she thought ruefully, was why she couldn’t just pack it all in and go off to live in Paris. Not yet anyway.
‘Tell me about your agent,’ she said. ‘Peggy says he’s in Birmingham.’
‘That’s right.’ And Liz listened carefully as K began to tell her about a young man in Birmingham called Salim Alavi, codename ‘Boatman�
��. He was the son of first-generation immigrants from Pakistan. His mother worked as a cleaner; his father was a mechanic in a local garage. Salim had done well at school, getting three good A-levels; he didn’t go to university but instead applied to join the West Midlands Police. His application had been unsuccessful: he’d passed his written tests with flying colours, but he’d failed the medical exam – there was some problem with his eyesight. Yet he was so obviously keen and bright that one of the recruiters had mentioned him to Special Branch and in time he’d been drawn to MI5’s attention.
After his application was rejected, Salim took a job in a hardware store run by his uncle. He seemed to have become embittered by his experience with the police and, for the first time in his life, became extremely religious. He joined a small, recently founded mosque, the New Springfield, and went there daily to pray; he also spent his free time listening to clerics preach and began to participate in discussion groups. If you had asked him why he had previously wanted to become a policeman, Salim would have told you it had been a mistake, a youthful error committed when he hadn’t realised he would be doing the Infidel’s bidding by becoming a copper. He would not have told you about his monthly meetings with an officer of MI5.
After almost two years of faithful attendance at the mosque, ‘Boatman’ was asked to join a small study group, under the tutelage of a cleric named Abdi Bakri who had recently arrived from Pakistan. He agreed at once. At first the sessions were merely versions of the larger discussion groups he still attended. Islam was always on the agenda, and the overriding theme of the talks was how to follow the faith while living in the secular and corrupt society of the West.
But gradually the tenor of the cleric’s study sessions became more political – and Abdi Bakri shifted emphasis from adhering faithfully to Islam to defeating its enemies. This transition was noted by Boatman – and reported to his new MI5 controller, Kanaan Shah.
‘How did Boatman take your arrival on the scene?’ asked Liz. Agents usually hated any change to their controller – such relationships were of necessity close ones, and made closer by their clandestine nature.
‘I think he was a bit surprised. He was recruited by Dave Armstrong and I took him on when Dave was posted to Northern Ireland. I’m sure he was expecting another white man, and at first he was suspicious of me. But the fact we were both Asians helped – even though I’m Indian and a Hindu, not Muslim.’ He added with a little laugh, ‘Boatman was willing to overlook this flaw when he discovered that I hated cricket too.’
Kanaan continued with his account. In this new elite group, Boatman slowly felt his way; it took him over a month even to learn the names of his fellow members. But his patience paid off, and one of them in particular, an old hand named Malik, seemed to trust him. It was from him that Boatman learned that there had been earlier incarnations of this little group, taught by another cleric now thought to be in Yemen, and that some of his disciples had travelled to Pakistan.
‘And what happened to them after that?’ asked Liz.
‘Most came back. I got three names from Boatman and they’re under surveillance. But the interesting thing is that at least two others don’t seem to have returned.’
And now those in the present group were being offered the chance to travel to Pakistan as well, to ‘study’, they were told, with a renowned imam near the Afghan border.
Kanaan said, ‘Boatman is asking me what he should do. We’re stalling for the moment, but they’ve started to put him under pressure. Boatman told Abdi Bakri he couldn’t afford to leave his job for long – they’ve said he’d be gone at least two months. But now the imam has explained that all his costs would be met, and that if he lost his job they would help find him another one when he returned.’
If he returned, thought Liz. ‘Who’s they?’ she asked.
‘The imam and his associates at the New Springfield Mosque.’
Liz thought hard for a minute. If Boatman went to Pakistan, he might be able to discover what had happened to those who didn’t come back. But the pressing requirement was for information about people in England, particularly Amir Khan. ‘When has he got to give them a definite yes or no?’
‘Pretty soon, I think. As I say, they’re beginning to put the pressure on and if he doesn’t either agree to go or come up with a convincing reason why he can’t, they’re going to get suspicious. I’m afraid he may be frozen out and then we’ll lose our access.’
Liz told Kanaan about Amir Khan and how he had come into the hands of the French Navy off the Somalian coast.
‘That’s not a name that rings any bells,’ Kanaan said with a shake of his head. ‘But I’ll look back at my reports to see if it’s been mentioned. There’d be a trace in the files if Boatman ever said anything significant about him.’
‘There isn’t. Peggy has looked him up.’
‘I’ll ask if he can find out anything.’
‘Tell him to go easy,’ Liz cautioned. ‘I’d sooner he did nothing than have his cover blown.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be careful. He’s pretty sensible. But what do you think about Pakistan? Should he go? He doesn’t want to, but he’ll do it if I tell him it’s important.’
‘I’m going up to talk to Khan’s parents tomorrow with the local DI. Let’s wait till we hear what they have to say. Who’s your group leader?’
‘Nicholas Carraway.’
Liz nodded. She didn’t know him well, but he had a good reputation. ‘OK. Let’s all get together when I come back from Birmingham and we’ll make a decision then. If anything comes up in the meantime, let Peggy know.’
Chapter 12
Liz had half an hour before she needed to leave to catch the train for Birmingham. She closed her office door and started to type a note for the file about her conversation with Amir Khan. She hadn’t completed more than a few words when the door opened a crack and a familiar face peered in. Her heart sank.
‘Good afternoon, Elizabeth,’ said Geoffrey Fane. She was convinced he used her full name just to annoy her.
‘Geoffrey,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘To what do I owe the honour?’
‘Just passing through. Had to see Charles on a minor matter, and my secretary said you’d rung.’
At the mention of Charles Wetherby, Liz’s eyes narrowed. She suspected Fane had brought his name up on purpose. She saw very little of Charles these days, and Fane, who prided himself on knowing everyone’s business, would be aware of that.
Fane himself was divorced and never seemed to have any close female companion. Peggy was convinced that he was keen on Liz and had been jealous when her relationship with Charles Wetherby had grown close. Now that it no longer was, perhaps he fancied his chances.
Liz’s professional dealings with Fane had always been edgy, but they’d hit rock bottom a few years ago at the time of an investigation into a Russian illegal in Britain. That case had ended badly, with an unnecessary death – tragic by any measure. Fane had been deeply shaken, and for a time it seemed to Liz that he’d been humanised by his role in the débâcle. But in the last year he had gone back to his former ways: arrogant, patronising and manipulative.
Now he said, ‘So how are things across the Channel?’
‘Where precisely?’
‘In Paris, of course,’ Fane said cheerfully. ‘I gather you’re there quite often these days. Our mutual friend Bruno Mackay says he’s run across you several times.’
Liz face was expressionless as she looked at him How dare you? she was thinking. Standing here in my office, in your beautifully cut suit, with your arrogant expression, poking around in my private life. But all she said was, ‘Yes, my work does take me to Paris from time to time. As you know I’m our main liaison with the French services on counter-terrorism.’
‘I know there’s one French service you are very involved with,’ he replied, and she could see he was struggling to keep a smile off his face.
‘I wouldn’t believe everything Bruno Mackay tells yo
u.’ Mackay was number two at MI6’s station in Paris, and an old sparring partner of Liz’s. Clever, self-confident (over-confident Liz would have said), charming if he wished to be, yet often simply arrogant, Bruno had always enjoyed teasing her. So he knew about Martin Seurat, she thought crossly. She was perfectly happy for people to know she was seeing Martin, but she disliked the thought of being gossiped about, especially by Bruno Mackay and Fane.
‘Sadly I’m going to have to find a new source of information from Paris.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Liz. She had seen Bruno at the embassy only last month.
‘We’re posting Bruno.’ And before Liz could ask where, Fane leaned over her desk and said teasingly, ‘Will you be my source of Paris social news then, Elizabeth?’
She gave a thin-lipped smile and shook her head, hoping he’d had his fun and would now get to the point. She said, ‘I have a train to catch – and before you ask, no, it’s not to Paris.’
‘What I was wondering,’ said Fane, sitting down in her visitor’s chair, ‘was how it went with this Amir Khan character. I heard that the French had asked for your help. Did you get anything out of him?’
‘I was just writing up my report when you came in. Khan hasn’t opened up at all to the French and he wasn’t much more forthcoming with me. I was going to come and tell you about it.’
‘He wouldn’t talk at all?’
‘Silence wasn’t the problem.’ She told him about Khan’s long-winded monologue, and how he’d obviously decided to try and bury her in words. ‘We’ve learned he went to Pakistan eight months ago and didn’t come back. I tried to get him to say how he’d got to Somalia, but he just fed me a cock-and-bull story. He even claimed the pirates had taken him prisoner. ‘
‘That’s disappointing,’ said Fane, with a note of mild reproof.
‘I thought so too,’ admitted Liz cheerfully. ‘But then he slipped up.’ She waited while Fane looked at her with undisguised curiosity. ‘I asked him who had given him his orders in Pakistan, and before he thought, he said that it hadn’t been in Pakistan.’
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