A Covert War

by Michael Parker

  ‘The Chapter will still have to authorise it,’ Hudson told him.

  ‘They are good businessmen,’ Janov replied. ‘They understand profit and loss, and who is making too much profit. They will authorise it.’

  ‘In that case,’ Hudson said, getting to his feet, ‘I will make a few phone calls and see you back here tomorrow. If you want anything, one of my men will be here until you leave. But remember; the operation has been closed down until further notice. Goodnight Janov.’

  After Hudson had left the house, Janov had a shower and got into a change of clothes. He then asked Hudson’s man to order a taxi. When it arrived he asked the driver to take him to a club in West London.

  The club was a popular meeting place for Slovaks and other Eastern Europeans. There were other clubs scattered around and the air was heavy with the tortured vowel sounds of a mixture of mid European languages. It was one of Janov’s favourite places whenever he visited London; it was here at this particular club where some of the girls that the organisation provided could be found. Janov’s particular passion was for the young, Pakistani girls provided unwittingly by the Mission in Jalalabad.

  But before entering the club, Janov found a phone box and made a call. Then he walked back to the club entrance and introduced himself to one of the security guards who took Janov inside and handed him over to another member of the staff.

  The call Janov had made was to a member of the organisation who he knew would call the club and ask them to let Janov in.

  Janov stepped inside and looked around at the décor that seemed to swamp the interior. It was a mix of red velvet, draped curtains, cord edged sofas and chairs. Heavy, dark tables each with a small lampshade in the centre. The dance floor was carpet free and covered in parquet wood. Screens hid the toilet doors and one other door that led to the rooms upstairs.

  He was taken to a small, unoccupied corner table, which he guessed had been cleared for him and asked what he would like to drink. He ordered a Pilsner Urquell; the most widely exported Czech beer and sat back to enjoy the music, the dancing and to think of what he might do later with one of the girls in the upper rooms.

  There was an unmistakeable hint of cannabis smoke in the air, which helped to relax Janov. He finished his pilsner and ordered another, checked his watch and wondered how long he would have to wait until the man who he had phoned showed up. Although the CIA chief told Janov he would need to get authorisation from The Chapter to send a small team into Afghanistan to take out Abdul, Janov knew that this man would almost certainly lead it.

  The double doors on the opposite side of the club opened and the man Janov had been phoned came in. He spoke to a security guard who pointed across the floor to Janov. The man nodded his head and walked over to Janov’s table. Janov stood up and shook his hand

  ‘Hallo Janov.’

  Janov smiled warmly. ‘Greetings Rafiq, my friend, it is so good to see you.’

  It was Maggot.

  ***

  Cavendish sat in the darkened room watching the screen in front of him. He was looking at a film recording of the CIA chief, Hudson meeting with the SOCA chief, Faulkner. They were sitting in the beer garden of the riverside pub where they had met the day before. The camera used to film them had been positioned on the other side of the river, using a high powered, telescopic lens.

  Despite the quality of the camera and the reasonable conditions in which the two men had been filmed, the pictures were slightly grainy, and for the man sitting with Cavendish, a little tricky to follow. He was a lip reader, and Cavendish had called him in to interpret what the two men had been talking about.

  They had watched the footage once already and were now about to go through it again. One of the problems the lip reader had besides the grainy images was the fact that Faulkner would keep lifting his hand across his mouth and so giving the lip reader nothing to read.

  ‘…..give you anything new,’ the lip reader began. His words were being recorded as he read what he could understand. ‘…..gunfight at the OK…..,your country….press…..any contingency plan…Milan Janov….tomorrow.’ There was a brief silence. ‘….we are going to replace Grebo…fill that gap.’ Silence again. ‘…I won’t be….immigration stops…..send him home…’ Another pause. ‘…..have to go….. Deveraux to close…..trip back to the states…’ He stopped and sat up.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s it, Sir Giles,’ the lip reader told Cavendish. ‘Very difficult to follow the patterns: too grainy and too much hand movement.’

  Cavendish got up and switched on the lights. ‘That’s fine. I’ll send a copy of what you’ve managed so far and then you can look at the tape a few more times; see if you can fill in any gaps.’

  The lip reader stopped the DVD player. ‘I’ll be off then, Sir Giles. Hope there’s enough for you to go on.’

  Cavendish nodded. ‘Couple of things,’ he answered non-comittally. ‘And thanks again.’

  Cavendish sat alone in his office after the lip reader had left wondering what his next move was going to be. He had little scope to fill the investigation with countless agents working to ferret out information that was more or less well known to him but of which he had no proof, because of limited funding; a burden all governments departments had to live with, and the fact that all avenues out of his office seemed to come up against people in authority who were in the pay of the organisation known as The Chapter.

  Cavendish had penetrated The Chapter with an agent working undercover, right in the heart of the organisation’s clearing centre in Jalalabad, in the Mission; but the agent’s identity had been discovered by the organisation.

  His second agent David Ellis, who had gathered valuable intelligence, was now in captivity, a hostage, and it was this fact that was beginning to puzzle Cavendish. Ellis had been shot and almost killed, but had been snatched from the hospital, only to resurface almost a year later. Contact had been made with Ellis’s sister from an unknown source. At first Cavendish could not set too much store in that first packet of grubby pages that had turned up. But the second, the letter which was now in Susan Ellis’s possession was the more puzzling; why had it been sent, and by whom?

  With today’s internet technology, he knew it wouldn’t be beyond the wit of the kidnappers to put a video on the web and read out their demands with David Ellis sitting forlornly in the foreground. But that wasn’t the case, which led Cavendish to believe that whoever was holding Ellis hostage either wouldn’t or couldn’t resort to that tactic. Why?

  Could it be, he wondered, that the kidnapper was afraid of revealing his or her identity? The kidnapper had nothing to fear from the British authorities; rather the opposite; the British would gladly take Ellis off the kidnapper’s hands for nothing. So the kidnapper must have something to fear from his own side.

  A picture was beginning to emerge in Cavendish’s mind. The Chapter had proved how ruthless they were when it came to dispatching men who posed a threat to them. People like James Purdy, the Cabinet Minister, or Danvor Grebo; one of their own.

  It meant that if the kidnapper was a member of The Chapter, part of the drug and arms smuggling cartel Cavendish was trying to penetrate and smash, he would have every reason to fear for his life.

  He wanted to talk! That was it; it had to be the reason Susan had received the second letter. But how on earth was Cavendish supposed to unearth the person who wanted to make contact without advertising the fact, and putting that man or woman’s life in danger, and that of David Ellis?

  It was something he had to think about, but an idea began to germinate in his mind and he wondered if he might be able to pull it off.

  ***

  Three days later, Cavendish rang James Faulkner and asked for a meeting. Faulkner sounded reluctant, but because of their overlapping responsibilities he knew he was obliged to. Cavendish gave him no idea of why he wanted the meeting, but pressed him on its urgency.

  Faulkner duly arrived at MI6 headquarters and was shown up to Cavendish’s off
ice. He was surprised to see Andrew Butler there, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

  Cavendish greeted him, a touch formally Faulkner thought and invited him to sit down. He then produced a manila envelope from which he withdrew two sheets of paper. He passed one to Faulkner and the other to the Commissioner.

  ‘I would like you to read that for me if you would,’ Cavendish asked the SOCA chief. ‘I’ll be interested in your reaction.’

  Faulkner frowned and pulled the sheet of paper towards him. He took a pair of half-moon glasses from his jacket pocket, perched them on the bridge of his nose while holding them with one hand, and scanned the document. He could feel the colour and heat flooding into his neck as he looked through the typescript.

  What Cavendish had given the two men was an almost complete script of the conversation that had taken place between Faulkner and Hudson at the riverside pub a few days ago. Cavendish’s man, the lip reader had poured over the film many times and used his own skills and inclination to fill in the majority of empty spaces that had prevailed after his first attempt. The result was an almost complete copy of what had been said between the two men.

  Faulkner kept his face fixed firmly on the paper, his mind working furiously. Eventually he put his glasses back in his pocket and looked across the table at Cavendish.

  ‘What is this, Sir Giles?’

  Butler peered over the top of his glasses. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  Looking at the Commissioner, Cavendish said, ‘Our SOCA chief had a meeting with Randolph Hudson, the CIA Station Chief a few days ago at a pub alongside the river. We filmed that meeting and used lip reading techniques to produce that transcript of what was said between the two men.’

  Butler dropped his eyes down to the script. ‘It’s nothing but a piece of paper with a jumbled narrative.’

  ‘I agree,’ Cavendish told him. ‘But with the film it makes an awful lot of difference.’ He turned his attention back to Faulkner. ‘Well, have you anything to say?’

  Faulkner dropped the paper on to the table top. ‘Well, what is it? All I can see is what appears to be a script of some kind.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So what are you saying?’

  Cavendish did not want to go along with what he knew was play-acting from Faulkner. He decided to nail this and force the man into a climb down and possibly a confession; although he considered the latter unlikely.

  ‘You and the CIA Chief are part of an organisation known as The Chapter of Mercy.’ Faulkner said nothing. ‘Along with other men of authority, holding very senior positions, you are actively engaged in smuggling heroin and people into this country. You are also engaged in supplying arms to our opponents in Afghanistan; namely the Taliban and Al Qaeda.’

  Faulkner jumped up. ‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish! I’m not sitting here listening to this scandalous trash,’ he said sternly, and turned away to walk to the door.

  ‘You won’t get out,’ Cavendish told him, ‘the door is locked.’

  Faulkner spun round, his face a picture of anger. ‘What on earth do you mean by holding me against my will, Cavendish?’ he shouted furiously. ‘I insist you open this door immediately.’ Cavendish shook his head and maintained a fixed stare at Faulkner.

  The SOCA chief glared at the Commissioner. ‘Andrew, are you going to sit there and be a party to this, this kidnap?’

  The Commissioner held the sheet of paper in his hand. ‘I think James, under the circumstances you should at least listen to what Sir Giles has to say.’ He looked at Cavendish. ‘I for one would certainly like to know what’s going on.’

  Faulkner came back to the table and sat down. ‘This is complete tosh,’ he told Cavendish. ‘And an absolute insult to my integrity.’ He picked up the sheet of paper and waved it at him. ‘For your information, Hudson and I were discussing a case that we are investigating; nothing more than that.’

  ‘At this moment,’ Cavendish said without waiting for Faulkner to add anything else to his tirade, ‘Randolph Hudson is being spoken to by my opposite number in MI5. He is being advised to seek retirement on medical grounds seeing as it’s unlikely we could hold him here in UK. After all, he would probably claim diplomatic immunity.’

  Faulkner looked nonplussed. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  Cavendish ploughed on. ‘Commodore Deveraux has been apprised of the situation by the American Ambassador. The fact that he is being told that his accomplices are under suspicion should be enough for him to seek early retirement as well, don’t you think?’

  Nothing was said for a while because Faulkner was considering his options and the vague signals being sent out by the MI6 chief.

  ‘Why do I think there is more to it than this?’ he asked Cavendish. ‘Or am I supposed to know that too?’

  Cavendish allowed himself a smile. ‘We shall see,’ he told Faulkner. ‘But at the moment we have succeeded in stopping the organisation in its tracks. We know the CIA have been sanctioning the operation for their own sordid reasons. We also know the part played in it by some members of the American Air Force. What we need now, Faulkner are names. We want names that will help us in breaking the so called Chapter of Mercy into a thousand pieces and protecting so many innocent people here in Britain and elsewhere.’

  Butler spoke then. ‘James, I think you should cooperate. I think there is some quid pro quo here. Am I right Sir Giles?’ he asked, turning to Cavendish, who nodded. He then looked back at Faulkner. ‘If this crosses my desk officially, then I will be compelled to act. It will cause an enormous stink all the way back to the Whitehouse; you know that, don’t you?’

  Faulkner could see he was trapped, even though it appeared that he was being offered a way out. He would have to resign on health grounds of course, or family reasons, but would his cooperation ensure his freedom? It was possible she would always live in fear that some rogue elements of The Chapter would come looking for him.

  Finally he looked over at Cavendish. ‘Give me a few hours. I’ll go back to my office, sort some things out. Quid pro quo, right?’

  Cavendish nodded. ‘Quid pro quo.’

  Faulkner left and Butler spent about twenty minutes with Cavendish. They discussed the case briefly and Butler managed to extract a promise from Cavendish that he would keep the Met informed of anything that be useful to the police once Faulkner had been debriefed.

  When the police commissioner left, Cavendish began planning the next stage of his campaign to kill the organisation stone dead. He now had some work to do with Susan and Marcus as part of the scheme he was considering. He managed a quick lunch at his favourite eatery and returned to his office a little after two o’clock in the afternoon.

  At ten minutes past two his phone rang. He picked it up. It was the commissioner.

  ‘Sir Giles? Andrew Butler here. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’

  ‘Oh, and what is that?’ Cavendish asked.

  ‘It’s about James Faulkner. He has committed suicide; he shot himself.’

  SIXTEEN

  Susan shivered as the wind blew suddenly with swirling gusts that made walking difficult. The hammering rain forced her to keep her head turned away and from time to time the strength of the wind almost blew her off her feet.

  Susan had caught the tube to Charing Cross and was now battling her way along the Strand to the Starbucks coffee bar where she had first met Cavendish. The rain and the wind were totally unexpected, as was the call from Cavendish. He said he had a proposition to put to her, and that he hoped she would not mind if he didn’t call on her at her home.

  It had been something like three weeks since Susan had seen Cavendish. It had been the evening that Marcus had turned up unexpectedly at her house. She hadn’t seen Marcus since that day either and had wondered if her association with those two was at an end. What Susan did not know at the time was that Cavendish was keeping Marcus off the streets for his own safety.

  Summer was turning into autumn and giving in too easily as it did in England. Susan had no
umbrella and could feel the cold wind pushing the rain at her as she dodged from one pedestrian to another and wondering what on earth it was that Cavendish wanted to see her about.

  She turned towards the large, double doors of the coffee house and pushed then open, welcoming the sudden shelter from the weather. She let the doors swing shut and stepped aside as someone made a move to go past her, his face a picture of gloom as he caught sight of the sudden squall that had sprung up outside.

  Before Susan had finished running her fingers through her hair to flush out the wetness, Cavendish was by her side.

  ‘Let me take your coat, Susan,’ he offered.

  Susan thanked him and allowed him to pull her coat from her shoulders.

  ‘We’re over there,’ he told her, pointing to the same corner in which they had sat on their first meeting.

  ‘We?’ Susan said, looking at Cavendish in surprise. Then she glanced across the room and saw Marcus sitting there. He smiled and waved at her.

  Cavendish was grinning. ‘What would you like, coffee?’

  Susan said she would and then tried not to make it look as though she was in a hurry to get across the room to Marcus, but she felt so good at seeing him there that she just wanted to rush over and say hello.

  But she walked.

  ‘Marcus, what a surprise,’ she admitted to him as he stood up like the perfect gentleman he was. There was plenty of noise in the coffee house and she had no qualms about saying it loudly.

  ‘I’m like a bad penny, Susan; I keep turning up.’

  Susan laughed and sat opposite him. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Marcus. Where have you been?’

  Marcus glanced across at Cavendish. ‘He’s been keeping me under lock and key.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘It’s for my own good, so I’m told.’

  ‘Or is it for Cavendish’s good?’ she asked him, her nose wrinkling in that same sense of impish fun that Marcus was displaying.

  ‘You know, Susan, it really is good to see you. How are you?’