Official Secrets

by Andrew Raymond

  The BIGOT list contained all the various clearance levels of classified personnel. There were a number of theories as to where the term BIGOT came from. The most popular theory proposed that it was the codeword for Operation Overlord, the British Invasion of German Occupied Territory. The list of personnel cleared to know the details of Overlord were known to be on ‘the BIGOT list’. Over the years, the name had stuck.

  Curtis said, ‘No one else knows about this except you, me and Roger Milton. Use it wisely, Miss Fox.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Prime Minister.’

  ‘There are no moves I can make on this. I’m just the caretaker around here. I can’t summarily fire the directors of MI6, GCHQ and the Foreign Secretary without triggering a monumental PR disaster, and an almost immediate motion of no-confidence from the House – which I would certainly lose. I could be put in jail for telling you what I know. I need you to find out why Simon Ali would have been so scared of Goldcastle.’

  Rebecca was taken aback, not so much at Curtis’s vulnerability, but how nakedly she expressed it.

  For a moment, Rebecca didn’t think of herself as talking to the Prime Minister. She simply said what she thought her own father would have said to her at such a time. ‘I don’t claim to know much about politics, but I remember when everyone thought you were destined for Downing Street. Before the tabloids turned on you.’ Rebecca couldn’t help but become impassioned, even if it meant Curtis hanging up on her. ‘I know you’re scared, but we’re all scared! Look at what happened when we left the country to be run by the people we thought knew best. We’ve never been more isolated, or mattered less to the rest of the world. When this is all over, we’re going to need someone to lead us out of this darkness. Who’s going to build us back up again, not tear everything down. Because if the people responsible get away with this, then there’s a good chance our democracy will just be something that Churchill used to talk about. Something they have to remind kids about in history class.’ Rebecca added, ‘We need a Prime Minister. The country needs you.’

  There was a long silence at the other end.

  Rebecca thought at first she’d gone too far. She’d allowed emotion and the rare intimacy Curtis had granted her to get the better of her judgement, mistaking their closeness for intimacy.

  Curtis finally spoke. ‘Goran Lipski,’ she said quietly, giving little away of how Rebecca’s speech had affected her. ‘He’s the key to all this now.’

  Then she hung up.

  Rebecca set off for Moreton House with a renewed sense of purpose. Finally, after the thousands of overtime hours, she had been given the STRAP Three clearance she had craved since she joined GCHQ. And though it opened up all sorts of possibilities for getting to the truth surrounding Abbie’s death, Rebecca couldn’t help but think how it might illuminate the past.

  Hyde Park, London – Wednesday, 12.56pm

  It was a quiet time of day for the park. Its use as a shortcut to Paddington from Central London wouldn’t busy until five.

  Stella often wondered why more journalists didn’t hang out in the park in early evening: away from the bustle of Westminster, it was often your best bet for cornering a junior political operative and getting a useable quote. Stella had exploited this little-known secret many times over the years.

  Stella and Dan stayed off the paths, cutting across the long, wide fields, where it was easier to scope out any possible tails in the open space.

  Dan had been crowing all the way since Piccadilly.

  ‘Did I not tell you, Stella Mitchell,’ he said, so caught up he completely forgot they were supposed to be walking London quietly. ‘And everyone said my article was bollocks.’

  Stella shushed him and gave his jacket a tug. ‘It was stolen bollocks we couldn’t use until Novak set us up with her. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve got the U.S. diplomat to find now.’

  Dan pulled out his phone, and for once Stella wondered what he was doing.

  ‘Who are you texting?’ she asked, trying her best to sound casual.

  Dan replied, ‘Just work.’

  ‘What do you mean work? Patterson fired you.’

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket, his speech jittery and nervous. ‘I think the paranoia might be getting to you, do you know that, Stella Mitchell. I’m just texting and you’re all like what’s going on, who you talking to? You need to chill...’

  For someone so experienced at lying, Dan was surprisingly bad at it. Now Stella was replaying all the moments she’d seen him texting since they paired up, and wondered what he’d been up to the whole time.

  She at least knew Rebecca was onto something.

  Once they were out the park, Stella ended up buying the new laptop when Dan realised he didn’t have enough money in his account, and he no longer had any credit cards. She got a cheap one in a Tesco in Bayswater. She convinced Dan they were better sticking to somewhere with smaller streets where a persistent tail would stand out more. There was also a Premier Inn there that Stella had used once before to interview a confidential contact. It would give them somewhere safe to base themselves for a day or two with an internet connection: all Dan had at home was a landline.

  Stella also needed somewhere to send Diane the first draft of her Downing Street piece from – which was going to be difficult as she’d done no work for it, and was about to present her new editor with an entirely different story than the one she’d been told to get. That this story was Stella’s first for the magazine was beginning to hit home, and if she and Novak didn’t land the Abbie story in a big way, her career in New York would be over before it had started.

  Stella had known plenty of keen young Brits who went over to New York, thinking everyone would be swept up by the quaintness of their accent. After a few editorial meetings and the novelty had worn off for everyone, they realised they were in the same shitfight for stories with every other reporter in town. And, outside of Washington, were in possibly the most powerful city in the world and they had a total of zero contacts to fall back on.

  When they got back to London with their tails between their legs, they received endless ribbing. The London media pack are a tight bunch, always ending up at the same press conferences and events and launches, and anyone who stepped out with the perception of being better than the rest of them – that they were worthy of making it in New York – and then failed? They would never hear the end of it.

  For Stella, failure wasn’t an option.

  She and Dan spent the next few hours sitting at a cheap bureau, poring over the contents from Rebecca’s memory stick. After half an hour with the files from Mackintosh’s computer, Stella reckoned there was enough material for at least four career-ending front-page stories – if The Republic were inclined to print salacious gossip from MP’s private emails and Whitehall memos.

  The trouble began in the early evening after Stella had sent her first draft of the story Diane had asked for to Mark Chang’s IronCloud.

  Dan could hardly contain himself, reading the contents of Mackintosh’s hard drive. He kept on and on about how he’d found his ticket back to the big time.

  Stella – already tense waiting for Mark’s imminent and probably irate reply to her bland, amateurish draft – took it as long as she could. She finally had to tell him, ‘Dan, the material isn’t yours. It’s Republic’s. And they won’t print a word of this stuff.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why would they not want this?’

  ‘Because the gossip in there is nothing compared to the access we’d lose on actual major stories in the future. We’d never get another story – not so much as a quote – from anyone in Westminster or Washington as long as I lived. There’s an unwritten etiquette to this sort of thing that’s more important than the Chancellor thinking the First Lady drank too much when he visited Camp David last year.’

  Leckie lit a cigarette, then ripped it angrily away from his lips. ‘That’s all very nice, Stella. But I’ve got an overdraft
that’s growing by the day, and a career that’s got the long-term prospects of a hedgehog crossing the M4. Not to mention...’ He trailed off.

  ‘What?’ asked Stella.

  His face was etched with pain. And fear. ‘Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.’

  After taking a can of lager from the minibar he retreated with it to one of the twin beds, lying on top of the duvet with his shoes on.

  While Dan sulked, Stella’s phone buzzed silently with an encrypted text from Rebecca back in GCHQ:

  ‘Confirmed by my Downing Street source: Abbie was stealing data from GCHQ. Possibly for Goldcastle? Also: Dan sent the following messages just after our meeting: “Got the pen drive. Minted stuff. My price just doubled, mate.”’

  Stella replied: ‘Who’s he texting?’

  Rebecca: ‘A mobile currently in Streatham House.’

  The headquarters of The Post.

  Stella’s heart sank. She had wanted so badly to believe in him.

  Stella: ‘Were any texts sent to Bill Patterson?’

  Rebecca: ‘Yes. A few messages to the same number in recent days were directed to someone called Bill. He’s selling you out to the Post. You have to stop him, Stella. He’ll poison this entire thing and the truth will never come out.’

  Stella felt so stupid. Falling for his Cockney-geezer schtick, and, worse still, feeling sorry for him. All because they once shared a desk for a few months. Now she’d endangered the whole story.

  What got to her most was the feeling of having let Novak and her editors down. There was only one thing she could do.

  She packed up the laptop and drive and put it in her shoulder bag: if she left either of them in the hotel room Dan would be making copies of everything before she’d left the car park.

  Without looking up from his phone, Dan asked, ‘Where you off to?’

  Stella tried to wipe the disgust from her tone. ‘I need to talk to a contact.’

  He kept texting. ‘Want some company?’

  ‘No. I need some time to myself.’

  ‘Can you bring back pizza?’

  Stella opened the door. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  While she waited for the lift, Rebecca texted again:

  ‘This just sent. Dan: “Stellas gone out on her own. We should ditch her now. We’ve got enough for our own story. Republics still a few days away from publishing.” REPLY: “Keep her on the hook until she finds out who done in this Abbie bird.” DAN: “Then I get my tapes back?” REPLY: “Then you get your tapes back + £££. Bill.”’

  Stella got into the lift and, once the doors closed, rammed the heel of her palm into the wall. ‘Bastard!’

  14.

  The Republic offices, New York – Wednesday, 9.16am

  MARK CHANG’S MORNING had been so busy it felt like lunchtime already. Fitz’s Downing Street piece – ‘It Doesn’t Feel Like We’re Winning’ – had gone viral following news of his shooting. Syndicated news channels wanted Chang as a talking head for their evening news later. A few nationals had even requested access to Fitz at the hospital.

  That was all about to seem like small fry in comparison to what was coming.

  Less than a minute earlier he’d forwarded Stella’s first draft to Diane. The next thing he heard was Diane in the next office shouting, ‘Flipping heck!’

  Moments later his door flew open.

  Diane remonstrated as she walked across the room. ‘Is she serious? I came back from the hospital to see Fitz for this? Someone with her connections, and on a major terror attack she can barely cobble together fifteen hundred? She should be sending me four thousand so we can start arguments over what to cut! This is a cookie cutter process story.’

  ‘To be fair,’ said Chang, ‘that’s sort of what we gave her.’

  ‘I could read this anywhere, Mark. I already have in yesterday’s New York Times.’

  Chastened, Chang nodded. ‘I know.’ He took a breath and turned his laptop around. ‘She also sent this.’

  Diane lowered her reading glasses from her forehead. As she read, by the end of paragraph four her mouth started to hang open a little. ‘When did this all happen?’

  ‘Sunday night.’

  ‘And Stella has tapes?’ asked Diane, always craving sources.

  ‘She’s heard ‘em. She’s got ‘em.’

  Mark waited until Diane was finished reading.

  She took off her glasses. ‘This could be really good.’

  Mark still seemed edgy. ‘If we get this one wrong, though...’

  Diane nodded. ‘It could put our lights out. The litigation alone...to state that MI6 might in any way be responsible for the Downing Street attack. You and I could be sitting in depositions for the next eighteen months. Meanwhile the bank forecloses on the rest of Henry’s property – because we both know that’s what he’d do to keep us running – then we no longer have a publisher. And then we’re up for sale, and we’re all out of a job.’

  ‘Sounds about right,’ he deadpanned.

  ‘And where the expletive is Tom Novak?’ She went to the open door and called out to the office, ‘If anyone speaks to Tom Novak I want you in my office, and golly help you if you’re not out of breath from sprinting.’

  There was total silence except for phones going unanswered in the background.

  ‘Good,’ she said then turned back to Mark.

  ‘He’s off the grid,’ Mark answered. ‘I had Kurt try to track his phone, any kind of web presence. He hasn’t posted on Twitter, Instagram, anything.’

  ‘Maybe he stroked out from a lack of retweets or something. If this is a Bastion News thing, I swear to...’

  ‘Didn’t you hear? Rosenblatt hired some new kid instead.’ He tapped into his phone to find the story on a media-insider blog.

  ‘That’s a start, but now I’ve got a reporter working for me because someone beat him to another job.’

  ‘No, no, look...’ Mark showed her the story. ‘Novak turned them down.’

  Kurt knocked gently on the open door, scared of interrupting. ‘Excuse me. I thought you’d want to see this. It was in our IronCloud.’ He brought over his iPad.

  Diane read the message aloud for Mark’s benefit. ‘“Sorry for the lack of communication lately. Whatever Stella sends you is for real. I’m working on the back-end of it and will have a draft ready in the next few hours. But I need a day or two to find a source and get them on record. Without them, nothing else I have will stand up. Tell Diane she was right, and tell Henry the bank can go...”’ she paused, ‘I’m not saying that. Eff “themselves. If we’re going down we’re not going down without a fight. Tom.”’

  Mark smiled. ‘He’s back.’

  Diane handed Kurt his iPad. ‘Thanks, Jimmy.’

  He stopped, thinking about correcting her, but Mark waved to him to let it go.

  Diane swept her hair back, taking a second to think. She was in the zone now. ‘OK. Tell Stella I want a draft,’ she wagged her finger, ‘and it’s just a draft, OK? We don’t know what this is yet until we have something more definitive that links Tom and Stella’s parts.’

  Chang said, ‘She’s close, I can tell.’

  ‘Get her closer. Then we start stress-testing sources.’

  Chang was already dialling Stella’s phone. He waved his pen at Diane. ‘Thanks, boss.’

  On the way back to her office Diane subtly fist pumped to herself.

  The outskirts of Boston, USA – Wednesday, 5.17pm

  Traffic had been slow through the tolls on the Massachusetts turnpike, as commuter traffic filled the roads.

  ‘You’re telling me this now?’ Novak exclaimed, rubbing a hand over his newly cropped hair.

  Sharp, at the wheel of his Landcruiser, couldn’t help but laugh. ‘How did you think I was going to get you through customs and passport control? Facial recognition software will log you the second you walk into the terminal and NSA will own your ass.’

  ‘What the hell are we...’ Novak threw his hands up.
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br />   ‘Going to do?’ Sharp explained, ‘The usual methods require two things we don’t have: time and cash.’ He paused. ‘Having given it a lot of thought in the last twelve hours, I’ve decided you should join CIA.’

  Novak waited to see if Sharp was joking.

  He wasn’t. ‘You’re going to be an expert witness in a military tribunal at our base in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. At least that’s what I’m going to make it look like. We need to get you to Berlin, but flying direct is a bad idea. You can’t risk that. So we fly you to Schiphol in Amsterdam, then instead of Djibouti you drive to Berlin, find Korecki, get him on record, meet up with Miss Mitchell in London, secure all your sources and contacts somewhere, write your story, blow this thing sky high, all without the knowledge of the most powerful intelligence agencies the world has ever known. Then we all go home. Easy.’

  ‘Yep,’ Novak replied, a feeling of dread washing over him. ‘Easy.’

  Sharp hooked his hands-free onto his ear, then hit a speed dial on his phone. ‘This is Walter Sharp, ID seven one three Yankee nine nine Alpha Zulu. Requesting secure line, please...’ After a brief wait, Sharp was connected. ‘Hey, Sharon, it’s Walt. Look, I need a plane pass for Boston Logan and I need it within the hour. I just got a major break in a case...Sure, the name is Jeremy Webb...’

  After he got confirmation Sharp hung up then started dialling another number – not speed dial this time.

  Novak asked, ‘So all I need is this passport, and I’ll be up in the air?’

  ‘Me too,’ said Sharp. ‘It’s CIA’s plane. I can’t send you up there alone. Getting you out the country’s the easy part. The tricky part is what we do when we get to Amsterdam.’ He put his hand up as he got an answer. ‘This is Walter Sharp requesting an open rendition transfer at Schiphol.’ Without missing a beat he added, ‘The prisoner’s name is Jeremy Webb.’

  Ordinarily, Sharp’s plan would have been simple enough if Novak was only flying domestically. The Transportation Security Authority (TSA) – the agency of Homeland Security that secures airports – was only interested in the protection of commercial airliners. Despite the damage an errant private plane could potentially do to a metropolitan area. But as soon as international borders were concerned, on either private or commercial aircraft, the TSA wanted to see your ID, and it wanted to search your luggage. Except in Novak and Sharp’s case, all that mattered was that the TSA believed Novak’s passport looked legit. No flight operator would be matching up names to a passenger list. Technically, the flight operator was Walter Sharp and CIA.