The Locker

by Adrian Magson

  He gave a dry chuckle and turned to walk on, waiting for her to catch up before continuing. “Hardly. Bank transfers, as you know, leave electronic trails. The bigger the sum moved the more it stands out and risks coming under official scrutiny—especially with recent crack-downs on money-laundering … and the movement of terrorist-related funds around the globe.”

  Ruth felt her mouth go dry. The pause had been intentional, she was certain. But where was this leading?

  “I still don’t see how this involves me; I’m looking for a kidnapped child.”

  “I’m aware of that. Have you ever heard of Hawala?”

  “Yes, It’s a banking system in Islamic countries.”

  “More or less. It’s centuries old, a form of honour system using a chain of brokers, often outside traditional banking. It’s especially efficient for making payments across continents. Experts refer to it as money movement without moving money. I don’t see the distinction from normal banking and credit, myself, but that’s me.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’ve known for some time that a number of fringe extremist groups have been working together to amass and move funds, basically in the manner of co-operative banks. It’s nothing new, of course; it spreads the costs, gives access to a wider source of fund-holders, and as long as everyone plays their part and they stay lucky, it reduces the risks. This way they’ve been moving money without the risk of being recorded.”

  “And it works?”

  “Yes. We occasionally get lucky and hit on supply-line or a block of currency, but in spite of closing down more than a dozen such lines, there’s been a steady flow continuing across borders all through the middle east and Europe. Somali pirates, for example, are using it to finance their trade.”

  “Go on.”

  “We crash one route and a few days later it’s business as usual. Even with some of the known money men behind bars with their accounts blocked or closed down, still the organisations have all the cash they need. Or valuables.”

  “Is that significant?” She was fast getting used to this man’s obliquely direct way of dropping information. If he’d used the word “valuables,” it had been for a reason.

  “Very. We’ve noticed a growing pattern over the past eighteen months, especially with some of the smaller freelance groups. Whereas before they were struggling to find support or cash, mostly relying on local sources, they now shop on the world’s market like all the bigger names.”

  “How do you know that? You can’t be following them all.”

  “We don’t have to. We follow the money. We’ve noticed a sharp rise in the trade of jewellery and gold—even blood diamonds. Much of it turns up miles from where it would normally be found. But it doesn’t stop long before moving on, traded just like electronic money but with no trail unless somebody gets careless … or we get lucky.”

  “They use mules?”

  “That’s one way. But there’s another—and not some witless uni student on a gap year hoping to make a quick few bucks on the side by hiding diamonds in their knickers. There’s been a lot of chatter picked up on phones and emails about something called khazenat al wada’aa or khezanha. At least, that’s as near as we can make out.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “There are many variations used by different sources and dialects, but we’ve pinned it down under a generic word meaning “locker” or safe deposit box. Frankly, it makes little difference when you know what it refers to. All we knew was that it was constantly on the move.”

  Ruth said nothing, surprised by the irony of the word. A locker was where this had all begun.

  “We thought we were following an actual item to begin with,” the man said. “Something tangible like a strong box of some kind. It would certainly make sense bearing in mind the topic. But we soon realised that wasn’t it; the word had been coined, if you’ll excuse the pun, to divert attention if anybody picked up on it, which we eventually did. Talk of a box and that’s what everyone looks for. We spent too long checking left luggage areas, storage facilities, even trucks and cars, looking for travellers or small groups of men with heavy bags they didn’t like leaving alone. It was a simple distraction technique to put us off.” He sighed. “It worked, too, until we realised it was moving too easily to be anything so specific.”

  “So you’re saying this ‘locker’ is a person?”

  “Precisely. And whoever it is seems able to move through borders without hindrance, carrying money and valuables from place to place, from deal to deal. He’s effectively using what he carries to sign off against weapons, equipment—even manpower. He’s trusted implicitly and each group knows that anything he agrees to carries more weight than any bank, more reliability than any authority they can name save one.” He pointed a meaningful finger at the sky. “But down here, this mule is almost as powerful. The deal is the deal and the mule is the teller—the broker or Hawaladar to use the correct term.”

  “Clever.”

  “Very. But risky for him in the long term.”

  “What are we talking about—hundreds of thousands of pounds or what?”

  “More like millions. We know the current market price of weapons, so we can work out a reasonably accurate estimate of what’s he’s carrying by the stuff being financed.”

  “One man.” It didn’t seem possible, although nothing she’d heard so far seemed too far-fetched, given the twisted but inventive nature of extremist organisations.

  “Certainly—why not? He’s carrying high value items and he is adept at not standing out or drawing attention to himself. He seems to have the skill to blend in wherever he goes and the credentials for being in places Europeans don’t normally go. He undoubtedly has back-up funds with local brokers too, if the deal to finance requires more.” He shrugged. “We don’t know where he keeps it and probably never will, but that’s for somebody else to worry about.”

  He stopped and looked at her, head cocked to one side, and she realised he was waiting for her to make the necessary connection.

  And then it clicked. He’d mentioned a European.

  God, she’d been so bound up in thoughts of Beth that she’d ignored the blindingly obvious. “You’re talking about Michael Hardman.”

  “Yes.”

  fifty-one

  She struggled with the idea of Nancy’s husband being a bag man for anybody, let alone terrorists—even though she had never met the man. If what Nancy had said about their finances was true, clearly none of the money stuck to his fingers. Or given the people he worked for, maybe he was aware of the consequences if it did. Still, from charity worker to funding extremist groups was a hell of a jump. And yet, maybe not. Humanitarian convictions came in many guises. “It’s a hell of a job to have on your CV.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  He gave her a patient look. “Hardman doesn’t do this as a job; neither does he work for a criminal organisation—at least, not in the normal sense. He does it because he wants to. Think about it: he’s a natural fit.”

  He was right. In a weird way the job fitted Hardman like a second skin. The charity worker, the westerner, the man on a mission—well, several missions—with a background of working for various aid agencies, using one as cover to gain access or acquire the necessary passes, a seasoned traveller, good at hiding his tracks, even from his wife. And with no apparent connections to anyone else.

  “How did he get himself involved with terrorism?”

  “He didn’t get ‘involved’—at least, not by accident. There have been previous cases of aid workers doing a bit of smuggling on the side, some even forced into it by unscrupulous criminals. It’s hardly new. But this one’s taken the job to new heights. In fact, you might say he’s made it his life’s work.”

  “If you know who he is, how come you haven’t picked him up?”

  “We’ve tried. And that wa
s before we knew or suspected his name. The French got very close once in Lahore, but lost him. We had intel on his location three times, but it led nowhere. He’s unbelievably skilled at staying below the radar. In fact,” he almost smiled, “if he ever changes sides, there’ll be a six-way auction to sign him up—including us.”

  “But if it is Hardman, he lives right here.”

  “We know that now. We didn’t until very recently, so we couldn’t exactly knock on his door. And, as you know, he hasn’t been around for a while.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Let’s say an ally let it slip.”

  “Ally?”

  “A person of interest.”

  Ruth let that go; it wasn’t her business how the information had come to light, nor how it had been acquired, whether by luck or circumstance. “How did Hardman get the job in the first place. And why would they trust a European in such a role?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was wondering how he became a money man for al Qaeda.” She was trying to picture Michael Hardman, husband and father, with a wife and daughter in suburban London and photos in a neat electronic frame to prove it, having this double life of extremes. Until now it might have been laughable. But apparently not—if this man was telling the truth.

  The man shook his head and stopped walking. Turned to face her. There was nobody within a hundred yards, but he spoke softly. “It would be bad enough if he were simply a fellow traveller, a naïve sympathiser who’d fallen under the spell of human injustice and wanted to do his bit to help. We might have been able to cope with that; naivety is often coupled with impatience and a lack of awareness in the real world. That leads to risk-taking and simple mistakes. It would have saved us a lot of time and countless lives.”

  It was something she hadn’t yet had time to consider: that whoever the terrorist money man was, he was ultimately responsible for the provision of weapons, explosives and the paraphernalia of death. The fact that it was being done under the guise of a charity worker seemed to make it so much worse.

  “A convert, then?” The idea seemed wild, but Hardman wouldn’t be the first westerner to have changed faiths so dramatically. And converts were usually the most intense and fiery of all extremists.

  “Not even that. Michael Hardman never actually existed; he’s an invention. The man we know as Hardman has a variety of aliases but his real name is almost certainly Wesam Bahdari. He hails from Palestine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He’s been reliably identified by a childhood friend. They bumped into each other in Paris one day. The friend was working at a hotel desk where Hardman was booking in. Hardman has a small scar above the thumb of his right hand—his writing hand. His friend recognised it when he signed in.”

  “And he reported it?”

  “Yes. It took a while. The young man he’d known as Bahdari was supposed to have died carrying out a bus bombing in Haifa twenty years ago. Yet here he was walking the streets of Paris using a British name. Bahdari was always paler than many Palestinians, he said, which explains how he was able to pass as European. Bahdari’s reaction to the meeting was apparently quite unpleasant. At first he denied any knowledge of anyone named Bahdari. Then he began making threats. The friend was so terrified by the encounter he went into hiding before deciding to call French Intelligence, who passed on the information.”

  “That was good of them.”

  He gave a wintry smile. “We work much closer than many people think. But for once the information landed on the right desk at the right time.”

  Ruth recalled the images from the photo frame. She’d thought Hardman appeared vaguely Mediterranean, but could see how difficult it would be to pinpoint his true origins.

  “So all the trips abroad, the extended periods away?”

  “Nothing to do with charity. He’s a mobile banker, using the charity organisations as cover to move around. It made him virtually untouchable.”

  “No wonder he didn’t show up for long in the aid agencies’ records.” She was remembering what George Paperas had found.

  “He couldn’t afford to. There was always another group to talk to, another cover to assume.”

  They walked on a little further. The man was beginning to angle their path back towards the road. Ruth looked back and saw a dark saloon car drifting at walking pace towards them on an intercept course. She sensed the meeting was coming to a point.

  “So what’s the kidnap about? We haven’t heard a peep from them yet. What do they want? Is it money, a rival organisation trying to horn in?”

  “Nothing like that. Hardman’s a wanted man, pure and simple. He possesses the kind of information that some people would give their grandmothers to acquire. Details of accounts, contacts, acquisitions, deliveries, codes … and people who mean us great harm. I doubt there has been anyone recently on the planet with quite the value this man has.”

  “Like the spreadsheet.”

  “Yes, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He knows names we couldn’t even begin to find. Not even Bin Laden knew the kind of stuff Hardman has in his head. So much so that our sources tell us the kidnappers have orders to do whatever they have to in order to get him.”

  “So they’re official?”

  “As far as we know,” he said carefully, “they’re a freelance team.”

  “Same thing these days. That’s appalling … they’re using his daughter as bait!”

  “They’re doing what they have to. I’m not saying I endorse it, but it’s a reality.” He appeared unruffled by the idea, as if it were an academic exercise in logic.

  “Then what? What will they do to him if he does turn up?”

  “He’ll be moved on somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s not relevant to this discussion.”

  “You’re talking about extraordinary rendition.”

  “Of course not. That’s been abandoned.”

  “Can’t you do something to stop it—to get Beth back home?”

  “I wish we could. The operation has gone too far. The team looking for Hardman is believed to be a former CIA sub-group aided by a covert Israeli cell, all private contractors with no governmental ties—at least, none that are traceable. We don’t know who the individual members are or where they’re based, nor do we know who controls them … although we have our suspicions. The group itself is small, very mobile and completely off the grid. The members could be in the next street or fifty miles away.”

  Ruth remembered the paper napkin from the deli near Grosvenor Square and said, “Have you tried the US Embassy?”

  fifty-two

  “That’s not even funny,” the man countered mildly. “We asked them, but the Americans say they have no connection with the operation.”

  “And you believe them?”

  “Of course. There are some individuals in the various agencies that I will never get to, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Whoever they are, agency or private, American or Israeli, they won’t stop now they’ve started; they’re operating in isolation for security reasons and have a simple objective: to draw Hardman out of cover. They’re counting on him coming back to London once he hears about his daughter.”

  “He knows by now—his wife’s been texting him.”

  He looked sceptical. “Yes, we heard about that. For good measure we also spread the word among some back channels his wife wouldn’t have been able to reach. It was worth a try; anything to get him to come in.”

  “Do you believe he will?”

  “No, I don’t. If he’s as committed as he seems—as others are—his family is part of his cover. In fact, given what Nancy Hardman told you about their first encounter in Paris, it’s possible even then that he was looking for a European woman to get close to—to groom as cover and provide him with a legend.
Nancy happened along at the right moment.”

  Andy had suggested something similar—that Nancy and Michael being together had seemed almost deliberate. “So,” she said, “they’re a means to an end, nothing more.”

  “Correct. She’s collateral damage in the greater cause, I’m afraid. Threatening her and Beth will have no effect other than to harden him in his aims.”

  If this was true, Ruth had to face an awful thought: she’d been taken in by Nancy all along and that it had all been part of an act. “Is it possible she knows what Michael does?”

  “We simply don’t know. Nothing’s certain in this business, but I wouldn’t bet either way. We don’t have anything worth a mention to hold against her. Anyway, I thought you might have a better take on that than I.” He looked at her for a response, and she was surprised he actually seemed interested in her answer.

  “I don’t know, either. I don’t want to believe that she does, but it’s possible.” Ruth couldn’t imagine any mother being capable of living with the knowledge that she was part of a situation that had led to her daughter being kidnapped. It defied belief. And yet she knew there were women, mothers, sisters, who had done just that in various parts of the world, in the belief that almost any loss was worth the cause. “She loves Beth, I know that.”

  “I’m sure she does. I just don’t think Hardman feels the same; he’d be here otherwise.”

  “So you think Beth’s expendable in his eyes.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. All I can judge is the reality of the situation.” His tone was almost indifferent. “I wouldn’t concern yourself about the daughter. I understand she’s perfectly safe, being looked after by the nanny.”

  “What?” Ruth wanted to slug him, to jolt him into her vision of what was real. Then she realised the awful truth: he didn’t know. He obviously hadn’t yet heard about Tiggi Sgornik’s murder. She wondered what he did know and gritted her teeth to hide her anger. She decided to test him. “Is she American, too?”

  “I have no idea. I doubt it. Probably Israeli. Their female operatives are particularly adept at this kind of assignment.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to be going.”