His leg was stiff and sore, though the heavy-duty painkillers the German hospital had given him were taking the edge off it. At Heathrow he’d looked around hopefully, just in case Simpson might have sent a car to meet him, and then climbed into a taxi for the fairly short ride to Hammersmith.
‘I thought you’d been shot,’ Richard Simpson began as Richter limped into his office and sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk.
‘I was shot, thank you very much, but luckily the bullet went straight through my leg so it was only a flesh wound. You’ll no doubt be pleased to hear that it’s bloody painful, but I’m almost fully mobile.’
‘It certainly doesn’t seem to have slowed you down. We expected you to go home and lie in front of the TV for a couple of weeks.’ Simpson sounded slightly disappointed. ‘You could take your leave now, I suppose.’
‘No thanks. Sending me off to Switzerland cocked that up nicely. I’ll take a holiday when I feel a bit more like it.’
‘So what are you doing back here, anyway? You talked to the duty officer last night, so all we need is your written report, and you could have prepared that at home.’
‘I know, and you’ll get the report this afternoon. I came back here because there are some aspects of what’s happened this week that I want to run past both you and the Intelligence Director.’
‘Like what?’ Simpson asked.
‘To save me saying everything twice, how about dragging the ID out of whatever hole he’s crawled into and getting him up here?’
For a few seconds Simpson stared at him across the desk. ‘Are you reading more into all this than the situation merits?’ he asked finally. ‘I mean, neither operation was what you might call big-league, and they were both isolated incidents.’
‘Actually, I’m not sure they were isolated. But whether they were or not, there are at least two things I don’t understand about what happened in Germany and Switzerland, and I’d like to flag them up. If you decide not to do anything about them, fine, but I want it on record that I’ve told you, just in case the shit hits the fan later. OK?’
‘Very well.’ Simpson leant forward and depressed a key on the intercom system. ‘ID?’ he demanded, and listened to the answering squawk. ‘My office, immediate.’
‘Can you actually hear what anyone says on that thing?’ Richter asked.
‘Not usually’ Simpson admitted with a rare smile. ‘I just press the buttons and hope for the best. Normally I get the right person, and with the ID that’s a much better bet than using the phone.’
A couple of minutes later the Intelligence Director knocked on the door and entered.
‘You called, Director?’ he asked. ‘I must say this is not a particularly convenient time. I have several urgent reports to collate and—’
‘I’m not interested in your convenience or otherwise,’ Simpson snapped, cutting off the ID in mid-waffle. ‘Richter’s just got back from Stuttgart and he’s apparently got a few things to tell us, so come in, sit down and shut up.’
The Intelligence Director peered at Richter as if seeing him for the first time. ‘Oh,’ he muttered, and took a seat in the second chair.
‘Right,’ Simpson continued, ‘over to you, Richter.’
‘Well, the good news,’ Richter began, ‘is that both groups of terrorists – in Onex and in Stuttgart – were killed, but there’s actually quite a lot of bad news, too. We still don’t know exactly what either group had planned to do, or whether there was or still is any threat to London. A known terrorist named Hans Morschel was sighted briefly at the target premises in Stuttgart, but wasn’t in the building when the assault took place, so he’s clearly now at large somewhere in Germany.’
‘With respect,’ the ID interrupted, ‘I don’t see the significance of either point. If the terrorists have been eliminated’ – he was generally averse to using shorter and more accurate words like ‘killed’ – ‘then whatever they planned to do has presumably ceased to exist along with them. And we know that Hans Morschel has been around for years, so the fact that he was sighted at or near a terrorist safe house in Stuttgart doesn’t seem to me to be of any particular importance.’
‘I don’t dispute either argument,’ Richter conceded, ‘but that wasn’t what was bothering me. It’s more the overall picture that doesn’t make sense, not the individual events. Forget the details and look at what’s happened in broad terms. In less than a week we’ve identified and eliminated two terrorist groups. But we’ve still no idea what their targets were, unless the BGS turn up something from the laptops they recovered, and in both cases all the terrorists are dead.’
‘I thought the one you shot had survived the attack in Stuttgart,’ Simpson pointed out.
‘Yes,’ Richter agreed, ‘but I had a call from Karl Wolff this morning. His surgery was successful, but late last night the patient went into cardiac arrest and died a few minutes later. Interestingly, shortly before he died, a Bundesgrenzschutz superintendent named Schröder had visited the hospital and tentatively identified the terrorist as one Fritz Gras.’
Richter stopped and looked at Simpson.
‘So?’
‘So Fritz Gras is essentially a mid-level crook who’s never been known to associate with any terrorist organization, far less be a member of a cell.’
The Intelligence Director stirred slightly. ‘It’s not unknown for professional criminals to make what might be described as a career change. Perhaps Gras had decided to throw in his lot with these men for political or personal reasons.’
‘That’s not it,’ Simpson said, his eyes never leaving Richter’s face. ‘There’s more to it than that, I think. What else is there?’
‘Fritz Gras is currently in prison in Munich, and has been for the last four years. He’s about half-way through an eight-stretch for a bank robbery that went wrong.’
‘Obviously that’s just a simple case of mistaken identity,’ the ID suggested.
Simpson ignored the Intelligence Director and gazed steadily at Richter. ‘A BGS officer would know that fact, right?’
‘I’d have thought so,’ Richter replied.
‘And there really is a Bundesgrenzschutz superintendent named Schröder?’
‘Oddly enough, yes, but he’s stationed in Hamburg and hasn’t visited Stuttgart for the last year or so. Actually, the choice of name might just have been a lucky guess. “Schröder” isn’t that uncommon in Germany.’
And his ID was good, obviously?’
‘Good enough to get him past two police officers, yes. Karl Wolff said he distracted the policeman in the ward by asking him to look at a mugshot in a binder, and for a few seconds the officer wasn’t watching either “Schröder” – whoever he was – or the man in the hospital bed.’
‘That would have been long enough?’
‘If he knew what he was doing, yes. And he obviously did. Wolff has ordered extensive tests on the body to try to find out what agent the intruder used, but he’s not particularly hopeful. It was obviously some kind of delayed-action drug, because the patient didn’t die until about half an hour later.’
‘What about “Schröder” himself? Description? Fingerprints?’
‘Both police officers confirm he was a heavily built, middle-aged man with no obvious distinguishing marks. He spoke fluent German with a slight Rhine accent. He didn’t leave a single fingerprint, as far as Wolff can discover. The cop on duty opened the door of the ward to let him in and out, and once inside the room the only things he touched were those items he’d brought with him: his briefcase and the ring-binder inside it. We must also assume that he’s got a sense of humour.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He emphasized to the policeman standing outside the ward just how important the injured man’s knowledge might be and suggested they double the number of guards there to protect him. Then he went into the room and killed him.’
‘This does raise a number of issues,’ the ID suggested, in a remarkably short and a
pposite sentence, for him.
‘Exactly,’ Richter concurred. ‘My concern is that there’s somebody in the background orchestrating what’s been happening over in Europe, and we have no idea who or why.’
‘OK,’ Simpson said, ‘give us your reasons.’
‘First, in Switzerland the authorities were alerted to the presence of the terrorist cell by somebody looking very like the man who later impersonated “Schröder”. I don’t think that’s just a coincidence, either. Second, in both Onex and Stuttgart the terrorists received warnings from somebody outside at the very moment the police assaults were starting. That meant that, on both occasions, when the plods kicked down the doors, they were met with a bunch of Kalashnikovs on full auto, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. Third, the surveillance people watching the Stuttgart cell heard a definite reference to an attack being planned in Britain. According to the Onex tip-off, there was similar information on a laptop left lying in the apartment, but because of the damage to it, that couldn’t subsequently be confirmed. Now, if I’m right, and the Swiss pseudo-landlord and “Schröder” are one and the same person, that’s a very clear link between those two cells.’
Neither of the other men spoke, so Richter ploughed on.
‘I raised this possibility with Karl Wolff and the GSG 9 squad commander, a guy named Rolf Altmann. Altmann pointed out that there’s almost no chance that one man could manage to infiltrate two separate terrorist cells simultaneously, which was the line I was following. Realistically, it would be difficult enough for an outsider to penetrate even one group. But if the two cells were linked, then somehow that man must be involved with both of them.’
‘That makes sense,’ Simpson said. ‘But how? If he’s not a member of these cells, how come he seems to know so much about them – their location, phone numbers and stuff? Could we be looking at an undercover operation being run by some secret squirrel outfit?’
‘I don’t think so, for several reasons,’ Richter said, ‘not least the sheer number of police officers who’ve been killed this week during those raids. That, I hope, would be totally unacceptable to any law-enforcement or security service. I don’t think this guy – let’s call him “Schröder” for convenience – is anything to do with some government organization, and I also don’t think he’s actually joining these cells, or getting directly involved with them. No, I think it’s a lot simpler than that. I think he’s employing them.’
‘What?’
‘Look,’ Richter said, ‘apart from al Qaeda, most terrorist organizations are pretty short of cash. We know that a lot of them have carried out bank raids, kidnappings, that kind of thing, to raise funds to enable them to hit their real targets. Suppose somebody like Schröder comes along and offers to fund their causes by providing money so long as they act against a target of his choice.’
‘It would have to be a target they were happy enough to attack from their own ideological point of view,’ the Intelligence Director pointed out. ‘I mean, something that conformed to whatever twisted philosophy their group follows.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Richter argued, ‘and for one very simple reason.’
‘Because he was going to blow the whistle on them before the attack could even be carried out?’ Simpson suggested.
‘Exactly.’
‘OK,’ Simpson said, ‘what you say explains some of the more obvious anomalies, but what I still don’t see is any motive that makes sense. Who is this Schröder and why is he getting closely involved with terrorist groups and then blowing the whistle on them? And why would he risk going into the hospital in Stuttgart just to kill that last surviving bad guy?’
‘The answer to your second question’s easy. He killed that man to prevent him revealing anything about the arrangement he had made with the cell, or maybe disclosing who Schröder really is. But as for Schröder’s identity or his ultimate motive, I haven’t got the faintest idea.’
Stuttgart, Germany
‘So what happened?’
In view of the events of the previous evening, the voice in the earpiece of the mobile sounded cold and almost unnaturally calm, and it was accompanied by a faint echo.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Helmut Kleber replied, though in truth he knew precisely what had taken place over the last twelve hours and had watched the entire assault itself from the comfort of his rented apartment. ‘I didn’t even know the building was being watched. Did any of your men report that, or being followed, or anything?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe the police simply received a tip-off?’ Kleber still didn’t know who had alerted the German authorities to the cell in the first place, so that statement was basically true.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Do you want to postpone the operation?’ Kleber asked.
‘Do you think we should?’
Kleber paused for a second or two before replying. He was well used to dealing with people who operated on the fringes of society, and on both sides of the law, but Hans Morschel was something else. For the first time, Kleber realized he was slightly frightened of the man.
‘Not necessarily,’ he replied.
‘Good. Then I’ll see you on the other side of the Channel.’
Kleber pressed the red button to end the call, and put down the mobile with a slight feeling of foreboding. Then he turned off the phone completely and put it down on the café table at which he was having breakfast. He’d pull out the chip and drop it in a trash bin somewhere down the street, and from then on use one of the other pay-as-you-go chips he’d already bought.
The operation was going exactly as he’d planned but, not for the first time, he had to wonder if recruiting Morschel had been such a good idea. The problem he’d faced was that the man was the only person he’d been able to identify who had proven links to al Qaeda. And that, as Kellerman had emphasized at the briefing, was an essential component of the overall plan.
On the other side of Stuttgart, Hans Morschel stared thoughtfully at his mobile, then dropped it into his pocket and glanced up at the man sitting opposite him.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, switching to English, as his companion struggled with German.
For a few moments, the other man didn’t reply, just sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled. His appearance was a marked contrast to Morschel. The German was comparatively short and slight, with fair hair and a pale complexion, and he wore casual, even scruffy, clothes. The other man, however, was over six feet tall and strongly built, with black hair, dark eyes and deeply tanned skin, and dressed in an immaculate light-grey suit. He looked the epitome of a British-educated Arab, which was not surprising, since his wealthy sheikh father had sent him to Harrow, which had been followed by Cambridge and a stint at Sandhurst. Ahmed bin Salalah was clearly rich, urbane and sophisticated. In one of his pockets was a genuine British passport, and in his wallet a couple of platinum credit cards. Until the invasion of Iraq, he’d led the life of a typical Arab playboy – fast cars, fast boats, fast planes, wild parties and inexhaustible supplies of both alcohol and women. He’d deplored the 9/11 atrocity, like many other Saudis, but when the Americans decided the best response to al Qaeda was to invade Iraq and attempt to bring democracy to the country, he’d realized that not only was Osama bin Laden right in his actions, but the course the renegade Saudi was proposing was quite literally the only way forward.
By definition, you couldn’t argue or debate with a country that tried to foist democracy on what had become a defeated and subject nation, a country led by men who were apparently too stupid or too ignorant, or perhaps both, to realize that democracy and the Koran were mutually exclusive. It was impossible to achieve a democratic Islamic state: it was an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and in the long run the Koran would prevail. It always had and it always would, because faith was stronger than mere political manoeuvring. And he knew that the American claims and justifications for their illegal invasion of Iraq were built wholly on lies. There never we
re any weapons of mass destruction in the country. There never had been, and the Americans had known it right from the start. And Saddam Hussein, far from sheltering and supporting al Qaeda as part of the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’, was in reality the only leader of an Arab nation who wouldn’t tolerate the presence of Osama bin Laden’s fighters in his territory. And their real reason for toppling Saddam didn’t even occupy the moral high ground. It wasn’t a desire to rid the country of a hated and brutal dictator so as to liberate his people. No, it was much, much simpler than that, and was blindingly obvious to anyone who looked behind the rhetoric. The real reason Bush had invaded Iraq was simply to seize control of the country’s vast oilfields. That had been his objective from the start, and everything else was just a smokescreen.
But bin Salalah’s biggest regret was that Britain, the nation that he knew almost as well as his own Saudi Arabia, had been suckered into tagging along behind the Americans and supporting their illegal actions. The blame for that, he knew well, lay with Tony Blair, a weak and gullible prime minister so enthralled by the ‘Special Relationship’ and apparently overawed by the Americans that he almost immediately acquired the nickname ‘Bush’s Poodle’ and spent the rest of his political career trotting along obediently behind his master and barking when told to.
And by now, bin Salalah knew that the only message both the Americans and the British really understood was force and violence. And that was why he himself had joined al Qaeda. Not as a shahid, a martyr, though he would have been prepared to become one if called upon, but instead as a facilitator and planner. Al Qaeda had need of people like him, men who could travel openly to any country in the world and mix there in the most sophisticated company.
Timebomb (Paul Richter) Page 13
