Embankment - 1.41pm
His stomach stirred at the sight of armed police covering the tube exits, thinking they might follow him. Then he remembered he had cut his regular beard and wasn’t wearing his usual shalwar kameez. He was now wearing Rizzaq’s sleeveless photographer’s jacket.
One of the cops actually nodded hello to him as he passed. ‘Morning,’ the Martyr replied with a smile.
He wanted to take the time to say his final prayers walking down Victoria Embankment; time to think about how much it would please Allah; how glad he was to nearly be free of earthly corruption.
As he approached Cleopatra’s Needle and didn’t see a man in a white baseball cap and Pakistan cricket shirt – the sign to call off the operation – he resolved to keep on as planned. He fingered the piece of chalk in his trouser pocket, then, after a quick glance around – commuters all with their heads bowed into mobile phone screens, tourists looking at maps – swiped the chalk in a horizontal line on the riverside wall between Cleopatra’s Needle and the sphinx statue on the right-hand side.
Across the street, three Yemeni men huddled around a map, and saw the man make the sign. One of the three took out a mobile phone and texted ‘The sphinx look to the right.’ The three men walked off slowly in the opposite direction. The man with the mobile phone took out the SIM, dropped it on the ground and mashed it with his heel, then dropped the handset into a bin.
Now no one could call off the Martyr.
Ali residence, central London – Monday, 8.21am
Simon Hussein Ali had been sitting at his study room desk for over an hour, looking out through the bulletproof window at the armed guards patrolling the garden below. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, save for a change of tie undone around his neck. His eyes stung from being up all night, but under the circumstances sleep had been out of the question.
From the study door behind him twin seven-year-old girls in the uniform of the exclusive Westminster School burst in. Both shouted, ‘Daddy!’ then each hugged an arm of his.
‘Oh no!’ he exclaimed, picking them up. They hung from his arms like Christmas decorations as he tried to walk with them. ‘I’ll never get to work now. I have two little monsters stuck to me.’
‘We’re not monsters!’ they shouted back at the tops of their voices.
His wife Sonia followed breezily behind. ‘That is debatable.’ She kissed her husband on the cheek, looking at his sickly complexion. ‘I told them you were still working, so we thought we’d have breakfast downstairs without you.’ She mouthed to him, ‘You OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ he replied, trying to be chirpy. He looked over her shoulder, seeing news of Abbie Bishop on the TV. He reached for the remote and hit it to standby.
‘Is that going to cause you trouble today?’ Sonia asked.
‘I expect so,’ he answered.
Sonia could see something was deeply wrong with him. After fifteen years of marriage she knew Simon better than anyone.
‘Right, girls,’ she said. ‘Say goodbye to daddy or we’re going to be late for school.’
Simon crouched down to give out hugs and kisses, then stood up to kiss his wife.
Sonia said, ‘Remember, I’m out with Victoria until two. Good luck today with the conference, hun.’ She kissed his cheek before wiping off the lipstick trace. ‘Are you going to change?’ It wasn’t really a question. ‘You can’t wear yesterday’s shirt. One of the photo editors will pick up on it.’
‘I will.’ Seeing her about to leave, he said, ‘Sonia.’
She stopped at the door.
‘Could you come straight over after? We might have to talk about some things.’
She nodded, her high hopes for the day already turning to worry. ‘OK.’
As she left with the girls running ahead, Simon thought about how lucky he should have been feeling.
Early in his career he suspected it wasn’t those at the very top that held the power – that is, the real power of deciding matters of life and death; whether nations stand or fall; not a ceremonial kind of power like the Queen’s – but those just below the top. This was confirmed to him the further he rose at work. He had always pursued the top jobs, head boy, president of the student union, councillor, then MP, because it was what came next. What was expected. There was always something more, something bigger and better. Now he found himself questioning what his entire life had been for if this was where he was meant to end up.
He caught sight of his reflection in the glass door of the cabinet. An errand boy in a £3000 suit, he thought. Not for much longer, though.
On his desk were two copies of the speech he had been up writing all night, and a letter in an envelope. The letter was written as the sun rose that morning, addressed, ‘To my successor.’
He opened the desk drawer, then closed it. Dissatisfied with the hiding place, he kneeled down, looking at the underside of the desk. Then he heard footsteps bounding up the stairs, dulled by the thick carpet underfoot.
The man dashed up, past portraits of each British Prime Minister ascending the wall in chronological order, until he was outside the study, facing a recently finished portrait of Simon Ali hanging next to the door.
Ali taped the envelope under the desk, then hastily got to his feet, speech now in hand.
The man knocked gently but rapidly on the study door, calling out meekly, ‘Good morning, Prime Minister. Secretary Snow is about ten minutes away. Mr Bullock was wondering if you have your speech for the teleprompter?’
The PM opened the study door. ‘Churchill used to sleep in here,’ Ali announced, his thoughts clearly elsewhere as he looked around the room.
‘Yes, I know, Prime Minister,’ the young staffer said.
As Ali shuffled a copy of his speech into his inside jacket pocket, the staffer noticed the curious heading the PM had given his speech: ‘My Confession’.
‘Churchill never used a teleprompter,’ Ali said. ‘Please assure my chief of staff that I have not lost the ability to read words from paper.’
Words from paper, Ali thought. That was one way of putting it.
The idea of actually delivering such a speech in front of the world’s media later that afternoon left him in a cold sweat, but also oddly exhilarated. It would be so beautiful, because they would never see it coming: their man on the inside; the one they gifted one of the strongest Tory strongholds in the country to; the one whose ascendency they had so painstakingly orchestrated in the private clubs and smoking rooms of Westminster; whose reputation they had so carefully cultivated with the newspaper reporters they had in their pocket; all the Sunday supplement puff pieces with photos of him in dress-down jeans and sweater; whose every meeting had been choreographed like a Bolshoi ballet; whose every statement had been focus-grouped and polled to death.
They had played it so beautifully, they thought they owned him. Even Simon thought they owned him. Because he always did as he was told.
He even agreed to drop his middle name – Hussein – to appeal to older, white swing voters. And with just a few hundred words given to the world’s media on a Monday afternoon, the establishment’s world was going to come crashing down around them.
House Judiciary Subcommittee, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. – Monday, 9.03am
Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building was normally a sedate spot in the heart of American power, the half-dozen committee members going about their business in front of a sparse public gallery. But not today.
It was standing room only. Members of the press and public were pressed tight against the walls, a steady murmur of anticipation spread around the room, awaiting the arrival of Tom Novak, the hearing’s main witness.
Congressman Jim Brenner of Oklahoma’s first district, and Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on National Security, looked disdainfully at his watch. A flurry of camera flashes went off in the corridor outside, followed by a mix of cheering and jeering. A chant from the outside corridor
of ‘Lock him up! Lock him up!’ grew as Novak emerged from the crowd, fighting his way through to the witness desk with the help of a stern cop.
A twenty-seven-year-old man was already sat at the witness desk, reading briefing notes, unfazed by the hysteria in the air.
Novak unbuttoned his bespoke Tom Ford suit jacket without any hurry, taking a long admiring look around the room before sitting down. ‘Good turnout,’ he said to himself, taking his phone out. He tapped the man on the shoulder. ‘I didn’t know my lawyer would have a second chair for this. Do you think he’d mind if I took a quick selfie with the crowd? It would be awesome for my Instagram.’
‘I am your lawyer, Mr Novak, and yes I mind,’ the man replied with the tone of a disapproving father. ‘Put your phone away.’
Novak did a double-take. ‘You’re Kevin...what was it?’
‘Kevin Wellington,’ the lawyer said, shaking Novak’s hand somewhat reluctantly.
Novak took his seat. ‘Sorry I’m late. Pennsylvania Avenue was a car park.’
Kevin steered the microphone on their desk away from them in case it’d gone hot already. ‘No you’re not, and no it wasn’t. I saw you outside giving interviews to CNN and Fox.
‘Just getting in some advance spin,’ Novak replied.
Brenner punctured the atmosphere with a sharp ‘Thank you’ into the mic. He said it with a tone that removed any sense of the actual words’ meaning. He added grimly, ‘Now Mr Novak has deigned to fit the United States Congress into his busy schedule, we’ll start in two minutes.’
The room ignited in chatter again.
Kevin asked, ‘Did you look at my briefing notes last night like you said you would?’
‘Kevin...Wellington,’ Novak said, lingering on the name like he was trying to remember something. ‘I never met a Kevin before.’
‘Big day for you...’
Novak said, ‘They never said they were sending a twelve-year-old to represent me.’
‘You fired the last three lawyers my firm assigned to you. The last of which was at ten p.m. last night, so now probably isn’t the time for you to get too picky.’
Playing it straight, Novak replied, ‘No, I think it’s great you’re supplementing your paper route by providing defence counsel at congressional hearings.’
With a faint smile, Kevin retorted, ‘Mr Novak, right now you are basically sitting in a court room. The answers you give are going to determine whether or not the committee recommends the U.S. government bring charges against you under the Espionage Act, which has every chance of landing you in jail for up to ten years. So please. For the love of all that is holy. Can I get you to hunker down? Or are you honestly the only person in this room that doesn’t grasp the seriousness of what’s about to happen?’
Novak replied, ‘No, could you please explain it to me further as condescendingly as you can?’
Kevin let the question hang in the air a moment. He spoke while straightening out his briefing notes, only looking over the rim of his glasses, which made him look many years older than he was. ‘Normally the phrase “I’m ten times smarter than you” would be an exaggeration, but in this case, it really isn’t. It’s pretty insane how smart I am. I was editor at Harvard Law Review, and graduated top of my class by three whole per cent. I passed the New York state bar exam at twenty-two, and I am the youngest junior partner in the history of Bruckner Jackson Prowse – which makes me one of the most expensive lawyers in the country. That said, my role is extremely limited in these cases. That panel up there can ask you anything they like and I can’t raise so much as an objection. They’ve all been coached for this session for the past four weeks.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’ve had about ninety seconds. And as much as you implored my predecessors to, Mr Novak, I’m not here to make speeches on your behalf. I can’t help you change the face of democracy. And I’m not in Washington to help you drain the swamp, or fight the war on fake news. I’m here to defend you against some very powerful people who want to send you to jail, and destroy the magazine you work for.’
‘What do you want me to do? Novak asked.
Kevin replied, ‘You can start by wiping that smug, America-hating smile from your face, or that’s what every picture editor will run with on their front page tomorrow. Don’t mistake this for a news event. It’s PR. Whatever they ask you, tell the truth. If you’re not sure how to answer, ask me. These people do this for a living and they’re damn good at it.’
‘Debating?’ Novak asked.
Brenner called for order.
Kevin gave him a cold stare. ‘Ending careers.’
In a rare show of commitment – knowing how much TV coverage the hearing would get – all twenty-two members of the committee were present. It was a rare chance to score some political points on primetime news.
The panel ceased chatting, and Brenner again called the hearing to order.
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘This hearing of the House judiciary subcommittee on national security will come to order. We have one item of business today, involving the leaking of classified intelligence from the National Security Agency’s databases, and identifying the parties responsible in contravention of the Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen. Mr Novak, would you please stand and raise your right hand.’
As he’d been taught by his father, Novak buttoned his jacket as he stood. His slim, muscular physique was the perfect hanger for his tailored suit, looking more like a male model than a journalist. When people saw Novak for the first time and heard his name, it would be easy to assume he’d got his job thanks to his father’s contacts, and he was nothing more than a cute but facile careerist. Then they heard him talk, and they realised Novak’s tongue was as sharp as his wardrobe.
He raised his right hand.
After swearing Novak in, Brenner asked, ‘Could you confirm your name and occupation, please.’
‘My name is Tom Novak. I’m security correspondent at The Republic magazine.’
‘And you’ve worked there for eight years?’
Novak said, ‘Yes.’ Brenner’s mouth opened, about to continue, but before he could get any words out Novak added, ‘I’ve also been shot at on four different continents. I’ve been on The New York Times bestseller list for the last six months, during which time I’ve been the cover of Time magazine. Twice. I also won a Peabody and the Pulitzer Prize for breaking the story that’s got me here today. And apparently, according to People magazine, I am the thirteenth most-eligible bachelor in America.’
There was laughter, some scattered applause, and a single wolf whistle, from the crowd.
Brenner didn’t rise to them, saying, ‘Unfortunately for you, Mr Novak, the Pulitzer committee is not considered a legal authority in the United States of America with regards to deciding who has or has not violated the Espionage Act. Nor will your looks be taken into consideration.’
Kevin hastily scribbled a note and slid it into Novak’s eye line: ‘DON’T MESS WITH BRENNER.’
‘Let’s get right to it,’ Brenner said. ‘On February second this year, The Republic magazine published a cover story by you titled “The Hidden State: How the NSA Steals Elections”. It made a number of far-reaching allegations about National Security Agency surveillance programs. Could you tell the panel how you came into possession of unauthorized, classified material?’
Novak’s demeanour changed as Brenner spoke, his smile now gone, wearing the face of a man in the dock.
He recounted the story of how he acquired the information that led to his story – which proved to be the biggest intelligence leak in American history – keeping the entire room in the palm of his hand. How it had started with an anonymous email sent to him on January 1st. Normally Novak paid little attention to unsolicited tips on stories as they often turned into nothing – even the email’s claim to have ‘a huge story’ did little to stir Novak’s inertia. They continued talking through January via encrypted online chat, where the source told Novak he had ‘a treasur
e trove’ of classified material from the NSA.
That had got Novak’s attention.
The source sent him a sample of the documents, and they were more than Novak could ever have hoped for. He knew he was into something as soon as he saw the first page stamped in red lettering:
‘TOP SECRET//COMINT/NOFORN/’ (communications intelligence, not for distribution to foreign nationals).
Then he started reading.
Congresswoman Donna Kershaw of the California twelfth – one of the Democrats on the panel – teed Novak up with a soft question. ‘And for the few people in this room and watching at home who don’t know, what was in the documents?’
Novak answered, ‘They were how-to manuals for NSA operatives in posting fake news or “disinformation” to social media sites during election cycles. As well as harvesting user profile data. The social media sites gave them everything about these people: where they lived, their age, what movies they watched, what music they listened to, what books they read. Even the contents of private messages. Imagine the NSA having the ability to photocopy the contents of ten million people’s diaries without their knowing. That’s the scale of it.’
‘And what was the response to these stories?’ Kershaw asked.
Novak explained, ‘In the past, leaks were a storm right from the start, because the sources outed themselves along with the story itself. My story didn’t have that. What other news outlets hooked onto was there had been a massive intelligence leak, and no leaker. Which left me as the face of the story.’ The grin that followed suggested he was desperate to add ‘lucky them’ at the end.
A close ally of Brenner’s, Lanny Watkins of Texas, asked, ‘So you admit it’s possible your source may still be working for the federal government?’
Novak, nonchalant, said, ‘They could be sat here in this room right now.’
Wanting to appear as robust as Brenner, Watkins fired back, ‘Do you really expect us to believe you don’t know who your source is?’
Novak fought hard to keep a smirk from his face. ‘Well, congressman, you said in an interview with Newsweek last year that you believe the story of Noah’s Ark really happened. So, frankly, your disbelief seems a little flexible.’
Official Secrets Page 6
