by Alan Porter
She did a slow pass through the bedroom and bathroom and back into the sitting room, examining the edges of the carpet for signs that it had been disturbed. These modern blocks of flats would not afford the luxury of a recess beneath floorboards, but it would be possible to hide papers under the carpet. While the walkways of the carpet were threadbare and tatty, the edges were still firmly attached to the gripper rods and even a close examination beneath wall-hugging furniture did not yield anything.
So what was secure from burglars, was not going to be disturbed by her father and was permanent enough that it would always be here when she needed it?
A faint smile crept across her lips. The Dome of the Rock.
She took the picture off the wall and examined the back. It was too thin to contain even a passport, let alone enough papers to furnish an identity, but what struck her as odd was the amount of masking tape that had been used to attach the backing board to the frame. She ran her fingers very lightly along the edges. In the bottom left corner she felt a slight bump.
She peeled the tape away from the board, a millimetre at a time, careful not to tear or distort it.
And there was the one thing she should have thought of.
Under the tape, tucked hard against the frame was a key, about two inches long and perfectly flat. The multiple teeth on the blade suggested a complex lock, something high-end, ultra-secure.
She replaced the tape and hung the picture back on the wall. She then examined the key.
On the shaft was a tiny four digit number followed by three letters.
3289GBI.
Gould’s Bank Incorporated.
It was a safety deposit box.
22
Richard Morgan was driven back to Downing Street at 9.45. He fidgeted through the MI5 and CTC briefings in the ten o’clock COBR meeting. Lord Silverton was at pains to stress the nervousnesss of the Diplomatic Knights. These powerful behind-the-scenes figures were ready to call for the peace talks to be abandoned in the face of the current crisis.
Commander Thorne didn’t make things any more comfortable with his report of the rioting the previous night. Three Territorial Support Group vans had been destroyed, seven officers injured unable to work and thirty regular uniformed police out of action. Civilian casualties were unconfirmed, but the BBC were reporting around a hundred hospitalisations. The trouble had been widespread, organised and extremely violent, concentrated around mosques but with increasing levels of looting and arson that was controlled more by the weather than by the police. They were expecting more of the same tonight and were bussing in support from surrounding forces.
No one seemed to have any good news.
Richard made a few notes. Burning his chest was the kidnappers’ letter and his daughter’s painted fingernail, tucked into his jacket pocket with his wallet and the Montegrappa pen she had given him when he had been elected Prime Minster. What he would give for the resources that were being wasted on the riots to be directed at finding her. But at least he had another way: he could give in to the kidnappers’ demands. He could let it play out, buy some time. The damage could be contained, minimised. Wasn’t he sitting in a briefing about precisely how good the British security services were at limiting damage? After all, what had the kidnapper said? ‘You’ve stacked the deck, all the time hiding your own agenda?’ Too damn right, he thought. And if I’ve done it once, against two of the most paranoid governments in the world, I can do it again. Then I’ll grind you bastards into the dirt...
‘Prime Minister?’
Richard looked blankly at his Home Secretary.
‘Do you have anything else to add?’ Whitehouse said.
‘Yes. I do.’ He paused for a moment, cleared his throat. ‘I want to hear your thoughts on how this all affects the peace talks. Cancelling is not an option.’
‘We have increased security around the Israeli Embassy,’ Commander Thorne said. ‘Whitehall has additional guards stationed on the roof, both CTC and regular firearms officers. The Mission of Palestine is, I believe, receiving extra assistance from Five.’
‘It is,’ Sir Malcolm Stevens said. ‘Abu Queria is already in residence and has been very amenable to having our agents within the building. The Israelis, not so much. Prime Minister Aaron David is due in this evening. His people are nervous, but we’ve not had any indication yet that he won’t be attending tomorrow’s opening dinner.’
‘I’m less concerned about a specific terrorist threat than I am about appearances,’ Richard said. ‘The riots last night cast London and our government in a very bad light, especially as they were specifically targetted at Muslim areas.’
‘I agree,’ Emma Whitehouse said. ‘I spoke to the Palestinian Ambassador early this morning and he feels that the mood has taken an unfortunate swing against his cause. The Israelis are inevitably being seen as the victims of Islamist aggression. And the US media are not shy about putting such a spin on it.’
‘If we have the same tonight and tomorrow,’ Richard said, ‘we could end up driving the delegates right through what is going to look like a war zone on the way to the dinner. A war between the West, including Israel, and the Muslim world. It will make our government look both biassed – for allowing it to happen – and weak.’
‘There is another option,’ Whitehouse said. She opened a manilla file and glanced at the printed sheet inside. ‘We always had two other locations lined up as back-up positions should security dictate a change of venue.’
Richard nodded. ‘Mapleton House,’ he said.
‘That was our second choice.’
‘Which means,’ Richard went on, ‘that it would not be an obvious target should al Sahm wish to strike again.’
‘If we’re still working on the assumption that this wasn’t aimed at the talks, a move isn’t necessary, surely,’ Thorne said.
‘I’m inclined to agree with you, but as I said, this is also about appearances. A war on the streets of London is not an appearance I want to expose our guests to.’
‘Prime Minister,’ Stevens said, ‘Mapleton’s just not possible at such short notice. The conference starts in little over twenty four hours. It would be impossible do the necessary security vetting in time.’
‘I disagree. All the staff have already been passed, and nothing need change there. We use all the same people, just in a different place. The delegates can be flown straight to Mapleton by helicopter. The house is surrounded by parkland so we can get even more security in place outside the building than we could have done here in the city. No one could get within half a mile of the place without being seen.’
‘Except from the air. Mapleton’s nine miles from Gatwick and seven from Redhill. It’s on an exposed site. We can’t lock down air traffic and the risk’s just too great of trouble coming in from the skies.’
‘No,’ Richard said. ‘If Mapleton wasn’t secure, we would never have passed it as an option.’
‘It was an option if we’d had two weeks’ notice!’
‘Well times have changed! You have twenty four hours’ notice. That should be enough. Does anyone else think that Mapleton’s viable?’
‘I think it is a very good choice,’ Lord Silverton said. ‘It’s out of the way of any civil unrest, and whoever’s behind the bombing will have no chance of getting another attack in place.’
‘And of course,’ Richard said, ‘with your help Lady Thatcher almost bankrupted the special contingency fund turning the place into a fortress.’
‘And you yourself installed Goshawk MLs inside and a two million pound doppler fence outside.’
‘Quite. So we should announce the change,’ Richard said.
‘And you think the Israelis’ll accept a last minute change of venue?’ Whitehouse said.
‘I can deal with the Ambassador,’ Lord Silverton said. ‘MI5 will have to deal with Mossad.’
‘We can sell this as an advantageous move,’ Richard said. ‘Mapleton’s more secure than central London precisely because w
e’ve only chosen it as the location twenty four hours before the talks begin. If al Sahm, or whoever we’re dealing with here, have any plans in the pipeline, they’re unlikely to be able to change them as quickly as we can change ours. They caught us off guard yesterday. Now we need to catch them off guard. So, if there are no further thoughts?’
There was a general murmuring of approval around the table. No one raised any further objections.
‘Good. We may never get another chance to make these talks a success, and Mapleton gives us the best chance of a conducive atmosphere.’
‘We will look into the feasibility and report back to you by noon.’ Whitehouse said.
‘And I expect you to report that it is feasible. I’ll brief our people, get things moving. Now, if you will excuse me…’
23
Greg Stiles was one of six Trident Gang Crime officers who were working the Farm that morning. He was the one who got lucky.
Ten in the morning was a bad time to be digging for gang intel. It was downtime for the dealers, pimps and players of that world, but Scaz Bones was waiting for him in the car park beneath Martlesham when Stiles walked in.
The Waterboys were just low-level drug pushers, middle men for importers higher up the food chain. And Bones was just a middle-ranking foot soldier. He’d had the misfortune to be arrested for possession of crack with intent to supply three months earlier, on the back of intelligence gathered by Stiles himself. The two had something of a history, but it wasn’t all bad. Although Stiles was white, he had grown up dirt poor in a Croydon sink estate, and he had a certain sympathy, admiration even, for the likes of Bones. They were an irritating disease on the estates, but were rarely fatal. At worst they killed each other now and then. They only gave trouble when they got trouble.
Stiles unlocked the car door. There was a whistle behind him and he turned. Leaning against one of the concrete pillars was a familiar dreadlocked figure. Bones stood with his hands in his pockets and looked nonchalantly out across the road. Stiles approached him.
‘Let me see your hands,’ he said.
Bones looked at him briefly, then began to walk away. Stiles followed across the open grass area towards the tower block at the centre of the complex. He stopped to tie his boot laces as Bones entered the building, then followed.
Bones was waiting for him in the recess beneath the stairs.
‘Word is you’re looking for someone,’ Bones said.
Greg nodded and motioned for Bones to take his hands out of his pockets. He was almost certainly carrying a gun, and Stiles would have been happier if he had at least known which hand it was in. Bones let go of something in his left pocket and pulled his hands out.
‘Seems you’re not the only one,’ Bones said. ‘Some white dude was here ’bout an hour ago. Some of our guys let him know we were taking pictures then crowded him.’
‘He’s gone?’
‘Yeah, he’s gone. Any more come, we’ll get them gone too.’
‘You know anything about what happened last night?’ Stiles said.
‘Yeah. Some guy shot the place up,’ he nodded upwards, indicating Phillip’s flat. ‘Our man tried to go back, but we stopped him. We got him safe now.’
‘Where?’
Bones shook his head.
‘Did you see who the shooter was?’
‘Some white dude.’
‘Very helpful.’
‘Our man’s shitting himself, says he can’t trust none of you.’
‘He can trust me. I’ve always played it straight with you.’
‘With the Waterboys, maybe. We got no complaints. But our man ain’t one of us. And he’s got some big trouble.’
‘So how do we get him out of it?’
‘There was a woman came to his place last night.’
Stiles nodded. He’d seen the report.
‘He wants to talk to her. Only her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s the way this is going down. You get her here, we’ll make the introductions. She don’t show, you think you’ll ever find him?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘You send her to my place, alone. Someone’ll make contact, then if our man’s happy, they can meet.’
‘Keep him out of sight,’ Stiles said. ‘We need him.’
Bones nodded and walked away.
Stiles walked back out into the hot June morning. He hated the idea of handing this over to another department, but as he looked up at the towering building above him he knew that there was no choice. If Shaw had asked for DS Reid, they were going to have to give her to him. Even in the small area of the Farm, one terrified kid could vanish without a trace for years if he wanted to.
24
Leila parked her tatty blue Peugeot between a Bentley and a Panamera Turbo on St James’s Square off Pall Mall. There was very little to indicate the presence of Gould’s Bank across the road other than a discrete brass plaque that had been polished so diligently that the words were now just ghosts against the gleaming metal. It had been clever play by the bomber: private banks were discrete and choosing a Jewish bank to hide her operational identity would have made her extremely difficult to find using routine investigations. The security forces would have been tied up for weeks questioning Sharia and western banks before they ever thought of crossing this particular cultural divide.
She had taken the precaution of requesting a search warrant for Abulafia’s safety deposit box when she had sent through her report of what she had learned from her visit to the Ealing flat. DCI Lawrence had told her to stand down and wait until the warrant – and someone Commander Thorne trusted to do the search – arrived. Leila was not waiting. If the cell behind the bomb knew CTC were on to them that safety deposit box would not be safe for long. They could well have someone watching the bank right now.
She walked up the steps into the lobby. A guard dressed in an expensive suit and looking more like the maitre d’ of a gentlemans’ club than security nodded and bid her good morning.
At the desk – also polished to within an inch of its life – a woman greeted her. Leila showed her ID and laid the key on the desk.
‘Is this one of yours?’ she said.
The woman examined the key.
‘I am not at liberty to discuss any matters concerning our customers,’ she said.
‘Did you see the warrant card?’ Leila said. ‘Counter-Terrorism. The owner of this key is dead, and the clock’s ticking before whole lot more people join her. Now, is this one of yours?’
‘I will bring the manager.’
‘You do that.’
The woman disappeared into a side office. It was 10.37am by the clock on the wall. There was no way of knowing when the second attack would come, but it would be symbolically powerful if it was at noon today. Hitting exactly twenty-four hours after the first strike would underline the point that the security services were doing nothing to keep the city safe. That gave CTC less than ninety minutes to figure out where the attack might come… and stop it.
Leila was about to ring the desk bell when an elderly gentleman opened the door to the side office.
‘Please,’ he said, motioning her towards the door.
Leila stepped into the oak-panelled office. The manager sat down behind a leather-topped desk and studied Leila for a moment before speaking.
‘3289 is a deposit box in this bank,’ he said. ‘But unless you have a warrant, I can not tell you any more than that. There is a reason people choose to bank with us.’
‘There’s a warrant on the way, but we’re short of time. I need to see that box, now. The owner is a prime suspect in yesterday’s bombing in Hyde Park.’
‘I will be happy to assist you in any way I can. When your warrant arrives. Now, would you care for a tea or coffee?’
‘No. Look,’ she glanced down at the name plate on the desk, ‘Mr Menkes, you are going to take me to the vault right now, or the blood of dozens more people could be on your hands.
Time is running out.’
‘I’m sorry. There’s really nothing I can do.’ Joseph Menkes shrugged and continued to stare at Leila across the desk.
Leila reached into her shoulder holster and pulled out her Glock 17 service pistol.
‘Take me to the vault. Now,’ she said.
‘You threaten me in my own bank?’
‘To focus your attention. Now that I have it, please take me to the box. I won’t ask you again.’
‘Very well,’ Menkes said. ‘As you wish.’
He led Leila out of the side door of his office and down a flight of stairs to the basement. She slipped the Glock back into its holster. She could do without the security guard spotting it and sounding an alarm.
Menkes unlocked a barred door and led her into a small room, at the far end of which stood the huge circular door to the vault. He tapped in a six digit code and leaned towards the iris scanner. A small light above the door changed from red to green and there was a faint hiss as the room’s seal was broken. Menkes hauled the door open. The inside of the vault was already lit.
‘3289 is in the right corner,’ he said.
‘I need you to get whatever information you have on the owner. Everything: dates, times, accounts, images if you have them.’
‘It is not permitted to allow customers to remain unsupervised inside the vault. You will be able to examine the box in that booth…’ he indicated a screened desk on the far wall, ‘but I must remain within the vault while you do so.’
‘Then get someone else to dig up the file. I’ll want it as soon as I’ve finished in here.’
‘Or you will threaten my staff with your weapon?’ Menkes said.
‘I’m just trying to do my job. Unlike you, I don’t have all the time in the world for niceties.’
She walked to the far corner of the vault and scanned the box doors. There were two sizes: 3289 was one of the smaller ones – eight inches wide, four high. She opened the door and slid out the heavy inner box.
