by Andy McNab
Garvey clamped her lips together hard and told herself at all costs not to let so much as one millilitre of a tear appear in her eyes in front of Henry.
I know you will have many important things to concern yourself with today and I want to thank you again for all the interest you have taken in the plight of Jamal.
They hadn’t even met. All Garvey had done was reply to her by text – as Adila had requested, terrified that her parents might discover their communications about her brother.
I bring some good news of Jamal, in that he has sent an anonymous text saying that he is expecting to find a way to return home very soon. I do so hope, Ms Garvey, that you are able in some way to assist his passage should he encounter difficulties.
Henry had been quick to point out that Adila’s choice of language suggested the guiding hand of an adult, and had dismissed the letters early on as a con. Garvey wasn’t so sure. As a very bright teenager herself, she remembered suspicious teachers accusing her of getting too much help from her parents. And Adila’s father had already gone on record, denouncing his son to their local paper and vowing that if he ever came home he would turn him straight over to the authorities. The current strife had split families, workplaces, schools, even hospitals down the middle, opening up hideous divisions where there had been tolerance and unity. God, if only she knew – no, better she didn’t know – what forces were ranged against her brother getting any humane treatment if he ever made it out of Syria alive and back to Britain.
I am very sorry that I don’t have more details and apologize again for taking up your time, but remain truly thankful for all the consideration you have shown so far. In closing, may I also say that I have just heard that I have a place at medical school and look forward very much to one day serving the country that has done so much for my family. Yours respectfully.
She read it through a second time, then carefully returned it to its envelope. Henry was looking at her knowingly. He had made no secret of his views about those who had gone to fight in Syria.
‘Something else I should pass on …?’
The implication that a jihadi’s sister must be his accomplice hung in the air. Garvey knew it pained him that she had not passed on Adila’s details to the Security Service. She glared at him and held on to it.
‘The girl’s my constituent. I’ll have more time to look after her now.’ She gave him a chilly smile. She didn’t know what if anything she could do to help. For all she knew, Jamal might be just another deranged zealot bent on self-destruction. She had already locked horns with Halford, the Met commissioner, over the treatment of returnees. No doubt he, too, was toasting her departure this morning.
‘Would you draft a letter to the chief of Border Security asking him to notify me if the boy shows up?’
‘I really rather think—’
‘I don’t need you to “really rather think”, Henry.’ A week ago he wouldn’t have questioned it. Already she could feel the power slipping out of her grip. She leaned across the desk. ‘Listen very carefully. You will go out there now and draft a letter, bring it in for me to sign and have it dispatched by bike. That’s an order, even if it is the last one you’ll get from me. And if it’s not done in five minutes I shall have you up in front of HR for insubordination.’
She glared at him to press the point home. He stiffened, then got to his feet, but still looked perturbed. Another thing she wouldn’t miss about the job: dealing with a generation that wasn’t used to being told what to do. How would they ever manage to defend the country in future, these brats who thought the world owed them a living? Maybe bringing back national service wasn’t such an extreme solution after all. She checked herself. Jesus. I wasn’t entirely joking.
She gave him another ball-shrivelling look. He made for the door, and turned just as he reached it. ‘There’s, ah, a briefing over at Millbank I need to attend, if that’s okay?’
Rolt had already scheduled a press conference after his anointing at Number Ten. She knew that because he had asked for all key staff to be present. ‘After you’ve done the letter, you can skip right along and see your new idol in action.’
He blushed and looked down. He had been stupid enough to let slip his support for Rolt on Facebook and even more stupid to imagine that it wouldn’t get back to her.
There was a loud guffaw from the outer office. Henry held the door as Stephen Mandler, the director general of the Security Service and one of the very few who might regret her departure, swept in. He bowed with an ironic flourish. ‘Home Secretary.’
‘For about another forty minutes. To what do I owe this unalloyed pleasure?’
He closed the doors carefully behind him, came up to the desk and took the seat Henry had just vacated. ‘Something’s come up which I think you may want to deal with – personally.’ He sounded uncharacteristically weary, even troubled.
‘Can’t it wait for my esteemed successor? I’m sure he’s keen to get his feet under the desk.’
‘I don’t think so. It concerns our friend Buckingham. It seems he shot someone.’
10
09.30
Garvey poured a generous measure into two tumblers.
‘Really, Sarah, it is rather early.’
Mandler tried to keep his hands by his sides, to no avail. She thrust the tumbler at him so he had no choice but to take it. ‘Shut up and drink. You can have one of those after.’ She nodded at the tube of Trebor Extra Strong Mints she relied on for these occasions, then clinked her glass clumsily with his.
‘So what shall we drink to?’
Garvey snorted. ‘My imminent demise.’
Mandler sighed mournfully and took a surprisingly large gulp.
They had been a good team, if an unlikely one. His cerebral airs should have got right up her nose, but his appetite for mischief was a great redeeming feature. And he had been a quiet but staunch ally in the psychological warfare she had conducted with her adversaries in the Met, frequently slipping her titbits of intelligence to wrongfoot them. Best of all, they had conspired together to spy on Vernon Rolt, putting their man Buckingham in place right at his side – a surveillance triumph, though where it had ultimately got her, or the country, was hard to say. Rolt was in and she was out.
‘I bet they’re breaking open the champagne at Scotland Yard.’
‘They do rather think Christmas is coming.’
‘Water cannon, rubber bullets …’
‘An HK36 on board every blue light.’
It was a mirthless exchange that rapidly petered out.
‘So what about Buckingham?’
Mandler shifted in his seat. ‘It seems he dispatched an armed intruder who found his way into Rolt’s suite at the Ice Palace.’
She glared at him. ‘Dispatched him with what, exactly?’ Mandler’s people weren’t supposed to be armed.
‘I’ve not been informed yet as to the specifics. Presumably he was carrying with Rolt’s blessing as his de facto minder. Interestingly, Rolt himself wasn’t there. Two of his election team had managed to get into his suite, evidently for … romantic purposes. The shooter had them cornered in the bathroom when Buckingham dropped him. It was pretty chaotic. The intruder had killed three others on his way in and fired off CS. Buckingham probably prevented what could have turned into a bloodbath.’
They allowed a few seconds’ respectful silence for the innocent dead. Then Garvey shook her head. ‘Shame.’
She knew Mandler would read her thoughts. ‘Yes. If only Rolt had been tucked up in bed, as he should have been, it could all have been so different.’
There was another silence as Garvey reflected bitterly on how close she might have come to keeping her position.
‘So if any of it gets out, Buckingham was just doing his job as Rolt’s muscle. If anything, it reinforces his cover.’
Garvey took another sip of Scotch. ‘So why are we even talking about this?’
‘Well, here’s the thing.’
Garvey note
d the gleam in Mandler’s eye that often appeared when he was about to impart something secret.
‘You haven’t asked me who the assailant was.’
‘I assume one of our aggrieved Islamist zealots. No?’
Mandler’s eyes sparkled with an almost childlike glee. She liked that: even after all these years, the thrill of the great game hadn’t left him. ‘One of Rolt’s own people, and one of the very first to join Invicta.’
Garvey absorbed this information slowly. ‘How very intriguing. And was he acting alone?’
‘He certainly must have had help getting in. Buckingham found a hotel security key card on him that had been made out in his name. And he definitely wasn’t on the guest list for the party. Someone on the inside would seem to have arranged his entry.’
Garvey’s eyes narrowed. She let out a low guttural chuckle. ‘So Rolt will want that covered up. Home Secretary’s Loyal Lieutenant in Assassination Bid isn’t the sort of headline you want on day one, is it?’
Mandler smirked. ‘You wish.’
She sighed. ‘Well, I’m sure that particular nugget will come in handy – at some point.’
Then she frowned. ‘But why would one of his own turn on him?’
‘The way Buckingham sees it – and he should know – is that a good part of Invicta’s original USP was Rolt’s outlaw image, the man who stood apart, saying the unsayable. It’s not so much that he’s gone mainstream as that the mainstream’s come to him. But that doesn’t stop some of the old guard at Invicta feeling that in joining the government he’s sold out. So we may have to brace ourselves for more.’
Garvey snorted. ‘It doesn’t take a bloody genius to see that he’s responsible for whipping up a good part of all this aggro, talking about sending people “back where they came from”. His proposals should be warming the hearts of his followers – ethnic cleansing, de-Islamification.’ She spat the words with contempt.
Mandler wagged a finger. ‘Yes, but it’s more personal than that. Those chaps who came out of the services onto the streets, he gave them to believe they were all outsiders together. They may feel he’s rather abandoned them.’
Another silence fell. Garvey had to remind herself that the clock was ticking. In a matter of minutes she would officially be a mere MP once more. Her thoughts drifted back to Buckingham. ‘Do you suppose he would have pulled the trigger on the gunman if Rolt had been in the room?’
They gazed at each other for a moment. Mandler said, ‘Interesting to speculate. Buckingham has no love for Rolt. In fact, he’s probably chafing to get out.’
Garvey cleared her throat. ‘Seems such a shame. Rolt thinks the world of him. His cover is rock solid. Only four of us know what he’s really doing. I say leave him in place.’
Mandler raised his eyebrows. ‘Buckingham’s his own man. We can’t order him to stay.’
‘But surely his value to you as an asset has just shot up. Doesn’t every self-respecting MI5 DG crave a spy in his political master’s camp?’
‘Well, I can’t see a way of forcing him to stay in the saddle.’
‘Then if I were you I’d bloody well find one.’
Mandler nodded half-heartedly.
‘Do you really think there’ll be others?’
‘Other what?’
‘Attempts on Rolt’s life.’
Mandler delivered his default answer. ‘Who knows? Most of Invicta’s members have been trained to kill. If there are any more who’ve got disillusioned …’
‘One can only hope.’
They exchanged a brief smile. In less than an hour Mandler would be answering to a new man. Well, fuck it. She poured herself a refill. If this was what it meant to be a functioning alcoholic, it had its compensations.
She had one more question. ‘What do you really think about Rolt’s plans? Do you really think any of it could work?’
‘“Cutting out the tumour of terrorism, so British children can play safely on our gleaming white streets”?’
‘Well?’
‘Honestly?’ He took a deep breath, swirled what was left of the Scotch and swallowed. ‘I think it’s going to make everything a great deal worse.’
11
12.00 local time
Aleppo
Where was Emma? He had given her the camera twenty minutes ago; she’d told him to wait, promised to return with the driver in ten. Another ten and Abukhan would start to get suspicious about his absence, as would his comrades. Half an hour, and they would know he’d done a runner.
Overhead, a huge bank of cloud had blotted out the sun and turned the sky to the same dusty grey as the shattered buildings around him. The temperature had plummeted. He was still shaking. For more than an hour he and the others in his platoon had stood motionless as instructed, while one by one the girls were put to death. Every time he blinked, the terrible image of what he had just witnessed flashed up, seared into his brain for ever. He doubled over and threw up the meagre contents of his stomach.
The man who came out of the basement had on a bright yellow Puffa jacket and sunglasses. He didn’t look like a local; nor did he have any of the natural wariness with which everyone in Aleppo armed themselves.
‘Hey, Jamal. Let’s go!’ He spoke in English. He pressed a small translucent box into Jamal’s palm.
‘What’s this?’
‘The memory card. A copy of the film. She said for you to take it with you. You’ll have to stash it. Come, there’s no time.’
‘But I thought she was going to upload it herself.’
‘It’s your insurance. So you can show it if you get any problems on your return home. Come.’
He grabbed him and pulled him along, a key dangling from his other hand. The motorbike was down an alley. Two boys who were guarding it stepped into the shadows as they approached.
‘I’m Hakim, by the way. The border’s no more than two hours. You should be in Turkey by nightfall.’ He grinned and clamped his hand on Jamal’s shoulder, then swung his leg over the bike and started it up. ‘Jump on. No time to waste.’
Hakim tore out of the alleyway, across a courtyard, down a narrow path between a pile of rubble and a high wall, then out onto an empty street and headed east.
‘You’re going the wrong way!’ Jamal shouted in his ear, above the wind and the rasp of the engine. Hakim swerved between donkey carts, bicycles and a few battered cars that were slowly making their way down the cratered road.
Hakim took a sudden left and yelled over his shoulder, ‘It’s a detour. There are convoys on the main road west. We’ll go north first. Don’t worry, just hold on.’
Jamal decided that he must know what he was doing and let him be. He had burned his bridges with the fighters; he would show the world the truth about the atrocities being committed in the name of Allah. If it got out that he had shot the video, people at home might come after him. He would have to take precautions. His family would help – if he could make them understand. He had missed them more than he could have imagined. He decided to focus on them, to think of nothing but his beloved sister. He was going home to her.
12
10.30
10 Downing Street
‘“Selective patriation”? What in God’s name does that mean?’ The prime minister looked from one to the other until his gaze settled on Derek Farmer. ‘Is that even a word?’
‘If it wasn’t before, it is now, Geoff,’ said Farmer.
As the PM’s spin doctor, he had some clout where this sort of thing was concerned, even if the minutiae of policy bored the pants off him. He glanced round the room. No one was looking at the PM.
‘Well, thank you very much for that, Derek.’ The PM gave him a reproachful look and tossed the briefing papers in the direction of the coffee-table, but they missed and slid into a heap on the floor. Giles Barker, his strategy chief, scrambled to gather them up and returned to his perch on the corner of the sofa beside Farmer, who was occupying most of it, reclining on a mound of all the cushions, his s
hort fat legs splayed. If no one else in the room was feeling triumphant, he was. He had been an early champion of the ‘Get Rolt Aboard’ campaign. It wasn’t that he cared much about the man’s politics. Rather, he could see that without him they’d be toast. And, like the rest of them, he was now having to deal with the reality of what they had done.
The others in the room ranged from doubters to downright refuseniks. Farmer had sat through Giles’s vociferous denunciations of Rolt as a neo-Nazi until he realized the PM had come around to the idea and grudgingly fallen into line. So much for strategy. Farmer chuckled inwardly.
Adam Mowbray, from the Home Office Policy Unit, was putting a brave face on the fact that in a few hours he would be answering to a home secretary with no previous political experience whatsoever. He had confided to Farmer that Rolt was bound to soften his rhetoric once he was in office and would soon be looking to him, his director of policy, for guidance. Meanwhile he would do his best to make friends with his new boss.
As for the PM, away from the cameras now, Farmer had never known a politician look so defeated in his hour of victory. But what they all knew in their hearts was that this wasn’t their victory: it was Rolt’s.
Someone had to fill the silence. Farmer was fucked if it was his job to do so. Mowbray plunged first. ‘Rolt thinks it’s pitched just right – tough but intuitive. “Selective” suggests that it is a considered measure, rather than being a diktat. As for “patriation”, well, it has a certain gravitas. We should start with the known suspects, those who by and large everyone agrees are a menace to society, give them the choice of serving their term or “patriation” to whichever Muslim country signs up to our aid package.’
Farmer nodded approvingly. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Mowbray had nailed his colours to the mast. He had appointed himself head cheerleader. But the PM was bridling.
‘Yes, please take a generous helping of our Great British pounds with a side order of Islamofascist fanatics. We’re effectively paying them to take our suspected terrorists – when they haven’t even been convicted!’
