by Matthew Hall
‘You should let them arrest her at Miami,’ Black said. ‘Use your information to negotiate access to her interrogation.’
‘And have the Americans take the whole thing over? Our science is our national property, Leo. Finn was murdered defending it.’
‘I can’t see you’ve any option. Her cover’s been blown. If you don’t have her picked up now, she’ll disappear.’
They remained staring at one another as they had over so many difficult and unpalatable decisions in the past. Neither said a word. They didn’t have to. Black knew precisely what Towers was asking him to do and Towers knew with equal certainty what the answer would be.
Black glanced at the clock on the prayer-room wall. It was past ten. It would be midnight before he got back to Oxford. ‘I should be going.’
Towers nodded. ‘I can give you a lift to the Tube.’
‘I think I’ll walk. Thanks all the same. Goodnight, Freddy.’
‘Goodnight, Leo.’
He let himself out and made his way briskly across the hospital’s lobby with Towers’ parting words ringing in his ears: ‘I’ll leave it with you, then. Safe home.’
34
I am not going to bloody Venezuela. The words with which Black had gone to sleep were those with which he woke.
He went resentfully about his morning routine of shave, shower and breakfast of toast and strong coffee. He was at his desk by seven thirty but spent a fruitless thirty minutes staring at a blank page. His mind had been invaded and occupied by thoughts of Irma Stein and her colleagues. It refused to focus on his paper and insisted instead on attempting to order a logical sequence of events that would explain how a young American deserter had ended up, fifteen years later, coordinating the abductions of leading British scientists under the diplomatic cover of French Guiana.
The college clock chimed eight and Black had achieved precisely nothing. In frustration he decided to head out in an attempt to clear his head. The clear, warm weather of the previous week had given way to low cloud and a fine penetrating drizzle. He pulled on boots and a windcheater, strode out of the college, turned left along Walton Street and after half a mile arrived at the open expanse of Port Meadow.
The three hundred acres of open pasture, grazed by the freemen of Oxford since the tenth century, was a precious stretch of wilderness sandwiched between the northern suburbs of the city and the River Thames. Early on a dismal Saturday morning on the first day of the summer vacation, he found himself completely alone. He left the path and set off in the direction of the riverbank. In the near distance a small herd of ponies moved lazily through the mist, grazing the rough grass. Black weaved between them and arrived at the water’s edge where he headed north.
He pushed his legs harder, feeling the muscles stretch and the blood course through his veins. As the effort of walking began to absorb his nervous energy, by slow degrees the confusion of competing thoughts began to resolve into separate strands. He was angry at Towers for intruding on his fragile but settled existence; he was beset with doubt over his paper and his professional future, and he was grieving for Finn. And beneath it all he was disturbed by his instincts for violent revenge and enraged that he had let Irma Stein slip through his fingers, not once but twice.
He pushed on another mile, upping his pace until he was almost at a run. He held himself at the same level of exertion all the way to the end of the meadow and back again. Finally, he felt a measure of balance return. Rational thoughts began to gain the upper hand. During the final mile through the Jericho streets he resolved to send Towers an encrypted message containing his theory of who he believed Finn’s murderers to be while making clear that his involvement in the operation was now over. They were, he believed, mercenaries who in all likelihood styled themselves as private security contractors. He suspected that this particular concern would have a powerful French element. The big security corporates often had former senior military men at the helm. A retired French general with political connections would be among the few able to secure diplomatic passports for his staff. Perhaps the quid pro quo was the provision of services in some of the many African trouble spots where the French maintained commercial interests in their former colonies.
That much was straightforward. The question of to whom Stein and her superiors were passing scientific intelligence was less obvious and not a problem he could solve. It was, in Black’s opinion, a matter that should be handled at the highest levels, with the involvement of government ministers and as many resources as the Special Forces and a specially vetted team recruited from the Security Services could muster. Much as Towers had always liked to be the rogue operator who succeeded where the big battalions failed, this was no time to go it alone. The enemy was too powerful and the implications of failure too vast.
Black arrived back at the college gates with his thoughts in logical order. He stopped off in the porters’ lodge to collect his mail and headed back to his rooms.
‘Leo?’
He turned midway across the cloister and saw Karen hurrying towards him. They hadn’t spoken since their awkward parting at the beginning of the week. He felt himself tense with embarrassment.
‘Karen. Hi.’
She responded with a look of puzzlement.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘You haven’t heard, have you?’
‘Heard what?’
She swallowed and pushed the hair back from her face. ‘The man who made the allegations against you … he’s sent a statement in an email. He’s copied it to all the fellows and the Provost. It’s not good, Leo.’
Karen made coffee in the kitchen while Black sat with his laptop on the sofa reading the email she had forwarded to him. Towers had promised him that the government lawyers had put Mahmoud back in his box. The article that had appeared in Cherwell had been removed and no other trace of it was to be found in the three other online newspapers that had picked it up.
The MOD had done its work. Arms had been twisted and editors threatened. He had been assured that was an end to it. But far from going quietly, Mahmoud had gone back on the offensive, doing damage that Black feared could not be undone.
At the time of his detention in 2007 Yusuf Ali Mahmoud, a senior civil servant in the Libyan Ministry of the Interior, had undoubtedly been part of an al-Qaeda affiliate in Tripoli. Black, Finn and two others had captured then interrogated him over a period of several days before organizing his transport to Iraq, where he was handed to the Americans. Four years later politics intervened and Mahmoud, along with several other prominent figures detained in Libya, were quietly released from Guantánamo in exchange for their cooperation amidst the chaos that had overwhelmed his country after Gaddafi’s bloody end. His subsequent career in politics did not go well. The faction of which he had been part was crushed in 2014 and he had sought sanctuary in Lebanon, from where, penniless, he tried to instigate legal actions against the British and US governments, claiming damages for kidnap and illegal detention. All his claims were tossed out.
Not content to have escaped with his life, Mahmoud had clearly set his mind on revenge as a substitute for compensation. He had chosen to aim his fire at Black, whom he saw as the chief agent of his betrayal:
At that time, I had contact with a number of anti-Gaddafi groups in Tripoli. Some were democrats, others were religiously motivated. I myself was chiefly concerned with the removal of the regime and the instatement of a parliament and government that would reflect the range of opinion in my country. In 2006 I had a number of meetings with members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an organization which in the late 1990s had mounted a failed assassination attempt on Gaddafi, partly funded by Britain’s MI6. My intention was to determine whether this group would commit to democracy, in which case they could be considered potential allies.
Upon my illegal arrest in 2007, I was interrogated for several days – I cannot recall exactly how many because I was held in a room without daylight or clocks – about my alleged member
ship of the LIFG, which my captors were convinced was part of al-Qaeda and participating in the insurgency in Iraq. The bulk of my interrogation was conducted by Major Leo Black of the British Special Air Service, a man whom I have subsequently identified with assistance from a sympathetic party within the British government. At first Major Black behaved in a civil fashion, but as time passed and as I continued to assert that I was not engaged in terrorism and never had been, his treatment of me became steadily more inhuman. I was hooded, deprived of sleep, placed in stress positions for hours at a time, and finally subjected to bouts of temporary suffocation, during which I repeatedly lost consciousness.
Following this near week-long period of torture, Major Black transported me to a location in the desert where he threatened that I would be shot and buried in an unmarked grave unless I provided him with details of LIFG operations and personnel. My continued protests that I did not have this knowledge and that it would not be an easy matter for me to invent false information fell on deaf ears. After several hours of this I was blindfolded and transferred to an aircraft which delivered me to Baghdad Airport, where I was handed to the American military and taken directly to Abu Ghraib prison, where I was held without charge. There I was subjected to further interrogation of the most humiliating and distressing kind for a period of two months before I was eventually flown to Guantánamo Bay …
The statement continued in a similar vein for several more pages, outlining his degrading treatment in the American military prison before his eventual release and return to Libya four years later at the behest of the British Secret Intelligence Service. His freedom was granted on condition that he acted as a British agent while he attempted to become part of the newly formed Libyan national government. In a closing salvo Mahmoud wrote:
It has recently come to my attention that Major Black, a man whom I consider to rank among the many hundreds of war criminals employed by the coalition forces, has secured a position in your esteemed university. I would urge you to consider most carefully the implications of employing an individual who has acted with flagrant disregard for basic human rights, the Geneva Conventions and the commonly accepted standards of international law.
Black looked up from the screen to see Karen standing watching him. He had been so absorbed he hadn’t noticed her, or the mug of coffee she had set on the low table to his right.
‘Well?’
‘Not what you’d call a glowing reference.’ His attempt at a joke turned the frigid air even cooler.
‘Is it true?’
‘You know I can’t discuss operational matters.’
‘Who am I going to tell, honestly …? Don’t you trust me?’
‘It’s not a question of trust, Karen.’ He closed the lid of the laptop and set it aside, trying to resist the temptation to connect the email with Irma Stein and whoever it was she worked for.
‘But you’re not denying it?’
‘I can’t even afford to play that game,’ Black said. ‘Denial and affirmation are two sides of the same coin. We don’t do it.’
‘We? Who the hell are we?’
‘Look, I’m sorry this was sent to you,’ Black said, avoiding the question. ‘It was good of you to let me know.’
Karen dropped into the swivel chair next to the desk and fixed him with a searching look. ‘Leo, do you want a fellowship? Because if you do, you are going to have to give an account of yourself. Do you think Alex or Silvio or Claire will be happy with anything less than a complete explanation of what this is all about? They need to know who you are.’
Black stared back at her, wishing he could tell her the truth – that Mahmoud was a terrorist drenched in the blood of innocent people, that the world would have been far better off without him – but it wasn’t an option. If word got out that he had betrayed confidences, he could lose his army pension and expect to be prosecuted. He was caught in the worst possible position: of being not guilty and unable to defend himself.
‘Karen, I was a soldier throughout one of the busiest periods in the British Army’s history. I served in every major theatre of conflict and more besides … All I can do is point to my current work. If you want to know who I am, what I believe, what I’m here for, read what I’ve written.’ He pointed to the small pile of handwritten sheets on his desk.
‘I know what you are, Leo. You’re not as good at hiding it as you think you are. You’re a man who’s done bad things and is trying to atone. You’ve seen the worst and you think there’s a better way. I can live with that. People change all the time. I can even live with your keeping secrets, but what I can’t cope with is you –’ She faltered and bit her lip as if holding back tears.
Black fought an urge to reach out and touch her hand.
‘The man who attacked me … Tell me he’s nothing to do with all this.’
‘I can’t see why he would be.’
She looked at him with wounded, accusing eyes that saw straight through his lie.
‘Because I’m the only friend you’ve got in this place, Leo. If someone is hell-bent on making sure you don’t survive here, I’d say alienating me would be a pretty good part of the plan.’
He tried to find words that would square with his conscience, but they eluded him.
‘Well, if you can’t reassure me on that, perhaps you could be decent enough to tell me honestly whether I’m in any further danger? And the reason I ask is because I had a call at four o’clock this morning, and another at the same time yesterday. Both silent. I know it could be nothing, but I can’t help it, Leo. It scared me.’
She waited while Black tried to weigh the implications of this latest piece of information. His mind kept returning to the Paris hotel room and his momentary loss of temper that sparked the chain of events that had already led to him killing two people. The depths of his hypocrisy disgusted him.
‘All right,’ Karen said, rising from the chair, ‘I’ll take this to the police instead. They told me to call them if anything happened.’ She marched towards the door.
‘Karen. Please.’ Black found himself going after her. He caught hold of her arm and spun her round. ‘I’m sorry … I’ll make some calls, make sure you’re looked after.’
‘Calls to whom?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘I liked you, Leo. I trusted you …’
Black’s fingers loosened from around her arm. His hand dropped to his side.
‘I’ll give you one last chance – who are you?’
‘Right at this moment, I’m not entirely sure.’
Her eyes filled with angry, disappointed tears. ‘I think it’s probably best if we don’t speak to each other for the time being.’
She left, slamming the door behind her.
Someone always seemed to be slamming his door.
Hearing her footsteps disappearing along the gravel path, Black realized just how deeply he felt for her. And as with the few times it had happened before he knew that it was already too late.
35
‘I’m afraid there’s no question of our considering your application while this matter remains unresolved.’ Alex Levine turned from the window of his study overlooking the garden surrounding the Provost’s lodgings and gave a brief, distant smile of apology. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate our position, Leo.’
He was dressed for the weekend: jeans and a black polo shirt that fitted tightly over his flat-fronted torso. Black imagined him rising before dawn to pound the treadmill. He had the body of a man who punished himself, who wouldn’t afford himself an inch of slack until he had achieved his ambition. And right now, Black was one of the obstacles in his way.
‘I’m not sure I do.’
Levine’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Quite apart from the issue of due process, the presumption of innocence, the possible political and even financial motives the sender of this email might possess, there is the other small matter of what exactly this college, this university is for. Is it for the pursuit of
knowledge or for the continued reinforcement of some unspoken agenda?’
God, he sounded pompous.
Levine shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another, looking as if he had found himself trapped in the company of a madman.
Black continued, aware that he was fighting for his professional life. ‘Let’s imagine, for the sake of argument, that everything alleged in that email is true and that the British officer is, in fact, me. Wouldn’t that make my knowledge some of the most valuable in the field? Knowledge is knowledge, truth is truth. There’s no morality attached to facts. If you are only prepared to consider knowledge that comes from someone sufficiently in tune with your politics or prejudice, you’ve negated the whole purpose of intellectual endeavour. You’ve stopped enquiring. And even if through some mangled logic you manage to convince yourself that I am a useful source of information but because of my past career not a fit and proper person to impart it, you’ve done it again. Because truth is nothing, Provost, is it, except the power to transform? To turn darkness to light. What better illustration of all that you and this university stand for is there than the difference between me, the man you know, and the man depicted in that email?’
Black’s words echoed in the silence. He had stunned himself by the force of his outburst as much as he had Levine.
The muscles of Levine’s jaw tightened. He was used to colleagues who played by the rules, who obeyed and enacted the implicit codes without question. Who understood without thinking exactly why a man accused of unethical behaviour could never be accepted into their ranks. Black understood his dilemma perfectly. In a world in which diversity was the ultimate good everybody was categorized and pegged according to their antecedents and associations. There were no means for a person to escape their designations, no mechanism that responded to the spirit of the individual outside the set criteria. There was no room in a modern university for a heretic, reformed or otherwise.
