by Andy McNab
It was twenty minutes since Whistler had put in a call to Langley and he was still on hold. The CIA operative supposedly in charge of Homeland Security Liaison had called in sick and no one had been called to deputise.
‘So much for joined-up intelligence,’ Whistler said to the Vivaldi coming out of his cell phone.
The person who did pick up had to go away and double-check Whistler’s credentials before routing him to a department called Asset Registry. He asked a dreamy-sounding woman called Cheryl for available background on asset codename Solomon and was told that it wasn’t available ‘at this time’.
‘What time would it be available then, Cheryl?’
She snorted. ‘Like never. You don’t have the clearance, Hon.’
Whistler had had enough of being given the run-around. Blackburn had thrown down the gauntlet. What would Whistler say if Blackburn had something? How would it feel to be the one who dismissed him? He often thought of those guys who chose not to follow up on the suspicious trainee pilots who went on to down the Twin Towers. Would he have done the same? Would he want to live with that?
So Whistler did something that was bound to earn him a reprimand. He called Senator Douglis’s office and asked to speak to him. To his amazement he was put straight through.
‘Sir, I’m the agent detailed to follow up on Sergeant Blackburn.’
‘Very good to hear from you, Agent Whistler. How can I help?’
Whistler told him the gist and the Senator said he’d get right on to it. Three minutes later his cellphone chirped. It was the Deputy Director of Homeland Security, a man he had never met.
‘Whistler, you trying to get yourself fired?’
‘Sir, I’d rather be fired for trying to get a question answered than be the one who didn’t ask the question.’
Half an hour passed. Whistler took Blackburn a cup of coffee.
‘I want you to know that I just put my career on the line because of you.’
Blackburn didn’t respond. He was too busy experiencing the first cup of coffee he’d had since this whole nightmare started.
Another half an hour passed and three men he had never seen before came in, accompanied by Whistler’s immediate boss, Dumphrey, red-faced and still in his golfing kit. All three had the same grim expression. The shortest and baldest one carried a large ring binder of ID photos.
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
‘This better be worth it, Whistler, or you are in so much shit.’ whispered Dumphrey.
90
Paris
‘Okay, okay, okay. Just give me a minute, gentlemen.’
Bulganov was discovering depths of humility he didn’t know he had.
‘Gentlemen, I apologise. We are Russian. We are an excitable people. When we have our falling out — it can be bad. Thank the Lord God no one was armed — thanks to your rigorous security. If you wish me to get the Interior Minister on the phone I will make a personal apology right now.’
The hint that Bulganov had friends in high places stalled them for a moment. But Officer Giraud, Senior Airport Security Officer at Charles De Gaulle, wasn’t one to have rank pulled on him by some fat cat Russian oligarch.
Giraud ignored Bulganov for the moment. He was giving Dima a close look. The man was a mess. He appeared to have dust in his hair. There was a faint smell of urine. He had examined the Iranian passport, heard Bulganov’s quick-witted account of him being a fugitive from the regime. And he wasn’t convinced. Besides, he thought he had seen this face somewhere. He would have to check.
Dima was silently cursing himself for the futile attack on Solomon. Another mistake. He was unravelling. But crowding out all coherent thought was what Solomon had just told him.
He wouldn’t have given up on the Bourse because of the security. Solomon never gave up on anything. Either he had already placed the bomb before the guard was doubled or he had gone in there as part of the guard.
Bulganov was still trying to negotiate.
‘If you would consider, on this occasion making an exception and releasing my man back into my custody, I will be forever indebted to you. .’
Giraud was taking no notice. He was looking at a mugshot image on his iPhone. His eyes suddenly widened. ‘Dima Mayakovsky. You are coming with us.’
91
New York City
The one in charge of the ring binder was Gordon, from the CIA’s New York office. Smaller and fatter than Whistler, but oozing the natural superiority of Langley’s finest.
‘Gentlemen, if you would stand away from the desk when I open the binder, thank you. These are classified images. I don’t need to remind you this is a highly unusual situation we find ourselves in, showing photos of CIA assets to a felon.’
Whistler heard his boss let out an indignant sigh before complying.
Gordon placed the binder on the table in front of Blackburn. They all watched as he turned the pages. There were fifty mug shots in the binder. Blackburn took his time. Despite the coffee, whatever they had sedated him with was still coursing through his system, weighing down his eyelids. He recalled Harker’s turbanned executioner. He remembered the face on the bank security screen. Solomon, the name Al Bashir had uttered with his dying breath. He turned the pages, examining each face one by one.
One of the Homeland guys sighed and glanced at his watch. He was going to take his time. He was going to get this right if it was the last useful thing he ever did.
92
Paris
Nine-thirty. They cuffed Dima and put him in the back of the Renault, between two airport security officers. A third officer sat up front beside the driver. The sun was up. The downtown expressway was filling with rush hour traffic that grudgingly parted at the sound of the siren. Dima closed his eyes. All the better to concentrate. Less than an hour. Solomon had planted the device — or his people had. It could be anywhere in the building. It would have been smuggled in disguised as — what? Some kind of delivery — a container, a box. Something that no one would be surprised by.
Was there more that Rossin knew? If there was, Kroll would find it. The Cargotrak van — had it been used to deliver the bomb to the Bourse? Bernard, Syco, Ramon. How much did they know?
They were headed into the centre. The Eiffel Tower came into view, they tore round the Arc de Triomphe, weaving through the traffic. The driver was enjoying himself. One of the toughs next to Dima told him to ease up, but he didn’t. Dima kept very still, didn’t complain or protest. Always a challenge to keep your guard up when your quarry goes passive. He was saving himself for the right moment. None of them had seatbelts on. That was useful. He had spotted the driver’s firearm in a holster under his right armpit. He watched the road for a moment, when they were closing in on another vehicle. There needed to be some impact. A truck, laden with building materials. Dima took a deep breath to oxygenate himself before putting all the force he could muster into his legs. Lunging forward, he threw his cuffed wrists over the driver’s head and with his knee against the seat he yanked the cuff chain tight, moving his hands back and forth to grind the chain into the man’s neck as he tensed his neck muscles to resist. The driver’s head snapped back and his hands left the wheel. The two guards each side of Dima clawed at him, but a microsecond later the Peugeot ploughed into the truck.
The noise of the collision was drowned by the explosion of the inflating airbags, which pushed the driver and his front-seat passenger firmly back in their seats. At the same time, the driver’s seat buffered Dima. When the airbags deflated, a second or so later, the driver fell forward, his body limp. The front airbags couldn’t do much for the burly, unbelted passengers. The guard on Dima’s right went over the front passenger’s head and was half out of the windscreen, crushing the man in front as the seat folded beneath him as he went. Dima released the driver from his stranglehold and dived for his pistol, flicking off the safety catch and firing it into his side before it was out of the holster. The guard on his left was still conscious. He already had his gun half out.
Nothing else for it. Dima blasted him in the temple, blood splattering the cloth interior, then patted his pockets and found the keys to the cuffs, plus — also handy — his airport security ID. He reached past him to open the door, booted him out of the car, then climbed over him and out. A pedestrian was staring open-mouthed at the scene. Dima waved the gun at him with one hand, and the keys with the other.
‘Open these or you’re dead. Now!’
Bending his head slightly as if to avoid being shot, the young man took the keys with trembling hands and undid the cuffs.
‘And give me your phone.’
A new iPhone.
‘Sorry. Hope it’s insured.’
Dima was off, running now in the direction of the Bourse — but it was more than a mile away. He dialled Kroll as he ran. The street was choked with traffic. He leapt into the road in front of a girl on a scooter.
Kroll picked up.
‘Hang on.’
He showed her the gun.
‘Mademoiselle, je suis désolé.’
She dismounted, her hands upturned and her eyes wide.
‘You’ll find it near the Bourse.’
He jumped on and sped off down the pavement, which was less congested than the street, steering one-handed, phone in the other.
‘I just heard from Bulganov,’ said Kroll.
‘Call the Bourse security. There is definitely, repeat definitely, a bomb in there. Persuade them to get everyone out. Something must have been planted in there. Unobtrusive. Grill Rossin. Maybe he knows something.’
Pedestrians flattened themselves against shopfronts as Dima tore down the pavement. Ahead, the Bourse loomed over the surrounding streets, a neoclassical monument to the creation of wealth. Its pale, timeless columns looked invulnerable.
Dima ditched the scooter, almost pulling it with him as he ran. His cell rang again. Kroll.
‘Dima! It’s in a photocopier.’
‘How many offices have they got in there? It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a fucking haystack.’
‘The police alert says “Shoot on sight”. You’ll never get in the building.’
‘I’m going to try.’
Kroll’s next words were just audible before his voice was blotted out by sirens.
‘The copier, could be an Imajquik. Logo’s blue and red.’
93
New York City
Blackburn turned the pages slowly, struggling to take in each face. Something about the nature of those mug shots gave them all the same sort of blank, impassive look. But then they were meant to be unmemorable. They’d been trained to give as little of themselves away as they could, to blend in and disappear.
‘Gentlemen, please.’
Gordon gestured at Whistler and Dumphrey, who had edged forward. ‘Let’s give the guy some space. We’ve come this far, we don’t want any mistakes.’
Blackburn kept looking. The room was so quiet that all he could hear was the hum of the traffic somewhere far below. New York at work, but for how much longer? He tried once more to conjure up the face in the Harker footage, the face on the security screen. The image in his memory was bleaching out, as if Solomon was willing it to fade.
He got to the last page. He recognised none of them as Solomon. He looked up, felt the atmosphere in the room change.
Then he turned the book over and started again from the back. On the fifth from the last page there were only three mugshots and one blank space. He paused at the page and looked up again.
‘Ah, for fuck’s sake,’ groaned Dumphrey.
Blackburn just kept looking at them, his finger on the page. Under the blank space was the serial number: 240156 L.
‘Now you want us to think Langley doctored the book.’
Whistler found the idea amusing. Gordon didn’t. He clenched his chubby fists, little white dots showing on the tips of his knuckles.
‘That’s an outrageous suggestion.’
Blackburn tried to keep his voice steady, but anger and frustration gave it an alien vibrato. He dropped it to a whisper.
‘Solomon isn’t here. He’s your agent. But he’s not here. Why?’
Dumphrey sighed and looked at the others.
‘I think I’ve had enough of this freak.’
94
Paris
Dima mounted the steps, tucking the gun out of sight and holding the airport security pass in his hand. Two armed guards blocked his way. He held up the pass as he walked quickly towards them, not stopping.
‘Security chief’s office, quick! You’ve got a suspect package in there.’
They seemed about to stop and question him, then thought better of it.
‘First floor: top of the stairs.’
Beyond the massive ancient doors the trading floor was swarming with men in those loose-fitting red jackets. The walls were ablaze with lines of orange and yellow prices.
Nine forty-four. Dima hit the grand marble stairs running, barely taking in the rich gold panelling. He slammed his hand against the first fire alarm he saw. Nothing: disabled. Solomon wanted everyone at their posts for maximum carnage. He turned round and headed for the basement, where he almost collided with a man in overalls.
‘Where do your deliveries come in?’
‘The cargo dock. But you can’t just—.’
He ran through some double doors, his eyes scanning everything. In the cargo dock, a fork-lift truck, several trolleys and boxes stacked on pallets. And in a glass booth, three men hunched over mugs of coffee.
‘Sorry to disturb you. I’m looking for an Imajquik photocopier, delivered by Cargotrak.’
None of them looked up.
‘We’re on our break,’ said one.
Dima was tempted to shoot all three, but he needed their help.
‘Cock-up our end. Sent you the wrong model. Need it back or my life’s not worth living.’
One of them stopped chewing and looked at the others.
‘Like he said. We’re on our break.’
Faces glazed as they chewed and gulped.
‘Just tell me where it is and I’ll find it.’
They looked at each other. One sniggered.
‘It?’
‘Yeah, what d’you mean, it?’
‘Guys — I’m in a hurry here.’
‘You got authorisation? This is a global financial trading institution, friend. Only authorised contractors.’
They exchanged the complacent looks of men with safe jobs and generous pensions. It would serve the French right if they were all blown up, thought Dima: their love of bureaucracy was downright pathological.
Dima grabbed the nearest one by his shirt collar. Hot coffee spewed out of his mug across the other two. He put the airport goon’s gun against his temple, grinding it left and right, twisting his overfed skin over the muzzle.
‘This is my authorisation.’
The other two leapt out of their chairs cowering.
‘There’s — they’ve been coming in all week.’
‘Four over the weekend.’
‘That’s better.’
Nothing like a gun to the head to inspire sudden helpfulness.
‘They went up to the second floor.’
‘And the third.’
95
Dima considered his options as he ran up the flight of stairs. No alarm. No way of evacuating — even if he got anyone to believe him. Start screaming ‘Terrorist bomb! Get out!’ and he risked arousing the attention of security, who would most likely shoot him on sight.
He had to just keep looking, knowing that every second brought detonation closer. He got Kroll on his mobile.
‘Second floor. Get here, now!’
He reached the second floor and ran straight into the first room he saw. Five women looked up at him from their screens.
‘Any photocopiers — newly delivered?’
They all looked blank. He ran to the next room: more people at screens.
‘Sure,’ said one, pointing. Dima w
heeled round. In the corner, to the left of the door, a woman was lifting the lid on a grey machine and placing a piece of paper on the glass.
‘Don’t!’ screamed Dima. He leapt forward and pulled her arm away.
‘Excuse me,’ said the woman, wrenching herself free. ‘I was here first.’
She jabbed a button on the console. The machine whirred, produced its copy, and she pushed past him to the door.
‘Some people have no manners.’
The next two rooms each had a copier. Both had been used. Could it be in a functioning machine? No way.
In the fifth room he found a lone woman. He came in so fast she shrieked and leapt out of her seat.
‘New photocopiers — from Imajquik?’
A look of recognition.
‘Are you from maintenance?’
She smiled. ‘You want Adam’s office — upstairs.’
‘Where upstairs?’
‘You look — is everything all right?’
‘Just — tell me where.’
‘Adam Levalle, Deputy Director of Communications.’
Dima took the stairs three at a time, and burst through the door marked Director of Communications. Another woman, on the phone: young, dark, pretty and indignant. She frowned, putting her hand over the phone.
‘Have you an appointment?’
‘Photocopier!’ said Dima, struggling for breath.‘Where is it?’
Dima scanned the room. None in sight.
She sighed, pointed at a pair of closed double doors, and went back to her call.
‘You’ll have to come back though. Monsieur Levalle’s on a call.’
Dima marched towards the doors. She dropped the phone as if it were infected, got out of her chair and came forward to intercept him.
‘Did you hear what I said? And where’s your ID?’
He pushed her gently back into her seat with a look that suggested she should stay there, and pushed open the doors.
A smart office: wood panelling, a desk, a meeting table and chairs, nice leather ones. A young man was on the phone, his face half-hidden by the receiver. The woman was persistent. She grabbed Dima by the elbow.
‘Sir — you can’t.’
Adam Levalle, Deputy Director of Communications looked up: a clear, bright face, full of promise — instantly recognisable.
