Hawkes patted down his pockets, checking for his wallet and keys. ‘I have to go out,’ he said, making for the hall.
Curtis stopped him before the door, placing her hand on his chest. ‘It was terrorism, Nigel. Terrorism that was allowed to happen.’
He didn’t say a word.
She took her hand away and allowed him to leave.
Curtis looked up and saw Sheila sitting on the stairs.
‘Could you step outside, please?’ Sheila asked the RaSP officers. Once they were gone her gaze shifted to Curtis, who came to the bottom of the stairs. ‘I was listening in, of course. I don’t know what you think Nigel has done.’
‘Where was he on Sunday night?’ asked Curtis.
Sheila replied, ‘He was here. With me.’
‘Because his ministerial diary has him taking calls only until eight o’clock.’
‘Nigel’s a busy man, Angela. I respect his privacy.’
‘Of course.’ Curtis turned to leave.
‘I know you know about her,’ Sheila said suddenly. ‘That Abbie woman. It wasn’t his fault. She tricked him. If anyone’s to blame for all of this it’s her.’
Curtis said, ‘Oh, I think there’s a bit more blame to go around than that.’
The Mall, London – Thursday 1.32am
Stella sent a text to Diane: ‘On way to meet Hawkes.’
Diane replied, ‘Don’t show him the pitch if you’re not sure he’ll swing at it. It could be dangerous.’
Stella muttered, ‘Bloody baseball analogies...’ before pocketing her phone.
She got out the taxi at the top of the Mall at Admiralty Arch. When she saw no one else there she checked the time on her phone. He had five minutes.
The Mall was deserted all the way down to Buckingham Palace half a mile away. The only movement was the swaying of the Union Jacks jutting out from the trees over the road.
Then Stella saw a man with mid-length swept-back grey hair come out of Horse Guard’s Row, where his driver had dropped him off. He had his overcoat collar turned up against the breeze.
Although the street was deserted, it was the most public place he’d been without security for a long time. He couldn’t risk bringing them along. Every journey, no matter how seemingly insignificant, was logged by the Protection and Security Operations – the Command assigned to high-profile politicians like Hawkes. He couldn’t have such a meeting recorded anywhere. If it went as he intended, the whole mess would soon be over and he’d be in the clear.
Stella could tell just from his gait that it was Hawkes. The air of superiority, his face pointing slightly upwards.
When Stella saw him she thought she’d found the only person having a worse night than her. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
‘We’re off the record.’ He looked around shiftily. ‘Can we take this somewhere a little less visible, Miss Mitchell?’
‘Follow me,’ Stella replied, taking him towards the bottom of the staircase at The Duke of York column away from the main road.
‘Did you know,’ Hawkes said, trailing behind a little, ‘when the Duke died, the entire army gave up a day’s wages to pay for this column.’ He gazed up admiringly at it. ‘Try suggesting such a thing now.’
‘Maybe if we had leaders that were deserving of it,’ Stella countered.
Hawkes pinched up his trousers as he took a seat on the bottom stair. ‘So you’re here to blackmail me, Miss Mitchell. It’s late, and last I checked you’re not in the business of politicians’ affairs, so why don’t we skip to what you really want.’
Stella stood in front of him. ‘I’m interested in why Abbie Bishop was murdered.’
‘So am I.’
‘Did you know what she was doing for MI6?’
‘We never talked about that. We always left work at the front door whenever we saw each other.’
‘How did it start?’
Hawkes couldn’t maintain eye contact. He looked off towards St James’s Park in the background. ‘We met at the U.S. embassy about nine months ago. My wife Sheila and I had been growing apart for a while. Suddenly here was this beautiful young woman who looked at me like I was...I hadn’t felt like that in decades. She made me feel...’ He trailed off with a wistful smile. ‘I know I sound like some besotted, stupid old man.’
‘You could say that,’ Stella said.
‘Yes, well... I knew it was only a matter of time before someone found out. We were very careful. Plus, I have a few extra resources I can pull on: cars, drivers, non-network phones. With my diary as full as it is, it wasn’t difficult to explain away some lost hours to my wife. Six months later I realised I was in love with Abbie.’
Stella asked, ‘Did Abbie ever mention concerns about her safety?’
‘No, never.’
She flicked through her notes. ‘Your public diary shows you were taking various diplomatic phone calls at your office until eight p.m. on Sunday night. Where were you the rest of the night?’
Hawkes snorted at the implication. ‘You really do have a low opinion of me, don’t you. I was at home. With my wife.’
Stella took a beat. ‘When did you find out Abbie had died?’
‘Monday morning was chaos. It was about midday that I saw her name in a security briefing.’
‘How upset do you think Goldcastle will be about it?’
‘Goldcastle? What have they got to do with it?’
‘Abbie was on their payroll. Which I think you know.’ Stella decided it was the time to ramp things up a bit. ‘My documents show she was stealing from GCHQ. Was she doing it for you?’
‘Good heavens, whatever for?’
‘GCHQ have been illegally collecting data on millions of U.K. citizens from social media sites and internet searches. Millions of people, I might add, who have never been charged with any crime. Terabytes of data about hot topic issues and how much the public care about them. That data could give Goldcastle insights into the electorate that could swing an election.’
Hawkes snorted. ‘That’s paranoid conspiracy stuff.’
‘No it’s not. It’s exactly what happened in the Brexit referendum,’ Stella said, ‘and the last two U.S. Presidential elections. And every comprehensive poll afterwards said social media ads, fake news and targeting of undecided voters made the critical difference. That data could be very useful if you were looking to challenge Simon Ali in the General Election.’
‘A Foreign Secretary challenge his own Prime Minister? The Party would never stand for it. Simon Ali had never been more popular in the polls. Everyone knew he was going to walk the General.’
Stella didn’t want to let him go yet. ‘There’s been collusion on higher levels than that, though. I have evidence that there’s been collusion with at least one particular GCHQ operative and the Downing Street cell, giving Mufaza access to Downing Street.’
‘Yes, I’ve been informed about that.’
‘Someone made him a genuine press pass. But it’s my understanding Simon Ali’s press conference was due to be given in the F&C Office. My source tells me it was moved at the last minute to outside Number Ten instead. A decision that cost Simon Ali and dozens more their lives, as coincidentally the F&C had just put in scanners that would have stopped Mufaza. The Home Office confirmed it earlier. What sort of person would be authorised to move that without the PM’s permission?’
Hawkes blinked quickly, trying to think. ‘From a security perspective? I suppose it’s possible someone from Specialist Protection. Or the PM’s chief of staff.’
‘What about Sir Lloyd Willow?’ asked Stella.
He mulled it over. ‘It would be somewhat irregular, but not impossible.’
Stella knew the question would turn their conversation nuclear, but she had to go for it. The clock was ticking. ‘What about someone in the Foreign Office?’
Hawkes laughed in disgust.
Stella waited for a proper answer.
Hawkes said, ‘I didn’t move the press conference, Miss Mit
chell.’
‘What was Simon Ali going to say in his speech? What was he going to confess to?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ Hawkes said, getting to his feet. He fired off a text to his driver who had been circling the Mall. ‘You can print whatever you like about me, Miss Mitchell. I don’t care what recordings you’ve got. You think you have me over a barrel because I don’t want an affair story coming out before I run for PM? You got your recordings from Dan Leckie – yes, I know all about that. Do you really think an editor of the calibre of Diane Schlesinger is going to let you use those? It’s my understanding those recordings have now gone astray, which leaves me rather in a state of deniability.’ Hawkes started to walk away.
Stella called after him, ‘Bill Patterson will hold those recordings over you for the rest of your career.’
Hawkes turned back. ‘I took this meeting as a courtesy, because Charlie Fletcher told me you were someone who should be taken seriously. This is the first time Charlie’s been wrong about anything. This meeting never happened.’ He wandered back towards the Mall, where his car promptly arrived for him.
Stella shook her head as he drove off. She’d taken a chance to force him into some kind of admission. She’d tried to bluff him, and Hawkes had called it.
There was now only one person left who might still be able to save the story.
Now that the pubs were shut Stella reckoned there was a good chance Dan would be home. Whether he would open the door to her or not was another matter. She figured she could at least plead her case through the letterbox if it came to it.
Dan’s block was on one of the shadier parts of Lambeth Road, forever feeling like someone could jump you at any moment – especially after midnight, under cover of low-hanging trees and a lack of street lights.
Stella knew it was a long shot, but it was the last chance she had before returning to her hotel and calling Diane before she left the office for the day – to tell her the story was definitely over.
At first she knocked gently on the front door. When no answer or sound came from the other side, she knocked harder, thinking she might have to wake him from whatever regretful stupor he’d found himself in. At least if that were the case, it was likely he would have passed out in the living room a few steps from the front door rather than upstairs.
After calling his name a few times she looked at the door handle then gave it a try.
It didn’t turn. It didn’t have to. The door was off the latch and tipped open with the slightest of touches.
Her first thought was someone had broken in and they might still be there. She entered the living room stealthily, then flicked the light on. Disturbing an intruder in the dark was a risk she wasn’t up to.
Everything was as she remembered it. There was certainly no sign of forced entry or burglary. Dan had simply left the latch off the door.
The only thing different in the living room was a piece of paper lying out on the coffee table, still bedecked with empty cans of lager that had been used as ashtrays. On the front it said ‘STEL’ in Dan’s chicken scratch handwriting.
Stella could see her breath as she opened the letter.
‘Dear Stel. I’m sorry again about running off. I always liked you and we had a good run back in the day. I needn’t have bothered screwing you over with the recordings. Patterson’s refused to pay me and now he won’t put a word in at any other papers like he promised. Basically it’s over for me. This was my last shot and I fucked it up.
‘I’ve left the URL and password to my dropbox account on the other side of this. It’s got all the MP3s of the Hawkes voicemails in it. Including the ones Patterson was keeping from you last time. Light the bastards up, Stel.’
She dialled Dan’s mobile immediately. It went to voicemail. Ironic, she thought, this might be the last way she got to talk to him.
‘Dan, it’s Stella. I’m at your place and got your note. I’m worried about you. Will you call me back as soon as you get this? I’ll find you another job, I swear I will. I’ll come find you wherever you are.’ She hung up.
She sent a text to Rebecca: ‘I need a trace on a mobile. EMERGENCY’
Wilhelmstrasse, Berlin, Germany – Thursday, 7.50am
Artur hadn’t really slept since he got to Berlin. It was nothing more than his eyes closing over, followed almost immediately by a sense of panic at his precarious position. Then he was wide awake again.
He had bedded down under a bridge in the Government Quarter of Wilhelmstrasse where a small community of Middle Eastern refugees had gathered. Sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes, his jacket for a blanket, Artur found himself beside a Syrian father and son, the boy all of five years old.
From their camp, it looked like they’d been there a while. The boy was certainly unperturbed by the notion of sleeping in the street. Playing happily a few feet away from his father, who sat cross-legged on the pavement, staring into space, wondering how he was supposed to build a life for his son from a filthy blanket on the street in a strange country. He only knew the German for ‘hungry’, ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’.
He had never felt cold like December in Berlin.
The father had handed over his life savings to people traffickers back in Hungary, and he and his son had nearly asphyxiated whilst stowed away in a truck bound for Calais. They ended up in the Jungle which was as dangerous as the war zone they had just left, where the man’s wife and two daughters had perished in a Russian air strike.
When Artur looked at them, he felt like a fool for acting so hard done by the past week.
Before he left the camp that morning, he gave the boy a can of Coke he’d been saving for his breakfast, then said ‘Auf wiedersehen’ and ruffled the boy’s hair. The boy hurried over to his dad with the Coke, amazed by his present.
The whole street was filled with Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Kurds. Homelessness had become their way of life. As Artur made his way back to Pariser Platz for the second day, he wondered how long he might be staying with them. Days? Weeks? What if Novak never came? Where to then?
He straightened his clothes as best he could, but he, too, looked homeless.
Pariser Platz was quieter than usual because of a stiff, freezing wind blowing across the square. The decorations on the enormous Christmas tree in the centre of the square jingled and chinked in the wind. At the main entrance a group of Spanish and Italian tourists were braving the cold to photograph the Brandenburg Gate.
Artur pulled up his denim jacket collar and took his usual place on a bench on the west side of the square – where he planned to be until the sun went down, like the day before. For the next hour he would look hopefully and expectantly at each male, who, from a distance, looked even vaguely like Tom Novak.
Sharp parked up on Lennéstrasse on the edge of the Tiergarten park for an hour. When it was time, he and Novak set off on foot towards Pariser Platz, taking a slight detour down Behrenstrasse – passing the haunting Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which looked like a parking lot full of tombs. Which meant they approached the square from the opposite end of the Brandenburg Gate side.
Before they reached the square, Sharp stopped walking. He told Novak, ‘You’re going to have to do this alone.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Novak.
‘If Artur has a tail the cleanest way to get to you or him is a long-range shot. The square’s too open and public for a shooter to risk a hit close up. I’ll stay on the edges where I can spot any sniper positions.’
‘What are you going to do,’ asked Novak, ‘stare at them intently? You’re unarmed.’
Sharp reached down to his ankle and revealed a Glock 26 9mm attached to a holster. It was designed for concealed carry. ‘The advantage of not getting searched at airport security. It’s no Beretta as far as reliability goes, but at longer range I could certainly deter a sniper.’
Novak opened up Sharp’s jacket and said – only half-jokingly – ‘I guess it’s too optimistic that you might
have a bullet-proof vest in there for me?’
Artur sat with his hands in his jacket pockets, legs stretched out, his body stiff with cold. Nearby, a tourist walked past eating a hot dog, the smell wafting towards Artur. It took him a moment to remember when he had last eaten. He had been so hungry the night before that he resorted to looking through a bin, but after finding some scraps couldn’t bring himself to eat any of it.
Then, in the distance, a figure emerged from the far end of the square. His walk hesitant, cagey. His neck craning around, searching the border of the square where all the benches were.
Artur couldn’t believe he’d actually come. At a time when he’d have been happy even to see his Uncle Petr, who used to beat the hell out of Artur as a boy, seeing Tom Novak walking towards him was like a miracle.
Novak recognised Artur from his videos, except he was more drawn, pale and with dark rings around his eyes.
Artur made to get up, but Novak pushed his hand down to signal stay sitting.
Sharp had kept in front of the DZ Bank building which was set a little back from the main square, giving the clearest view of the surrounding area. Conditions were far from perfect with the wind up and gusty, but visibility was extremely clear for a long range shot. The wind wouldn’t affect a shot much even from the roof of a nearby building, and with steady cloud coverage there would be no sudden shifts in light.
Whoever was after Novak and Artur, Sharp knew they were far beyond the mere extraction phase – as evidenced in the raid on Fitz’s. At this point, their sole purpose was simple termination of all targets.
That Artur had chosen a meeting place that was the definition of shooting fish in a barrel didn’t help Sharp’s unease. Call it old-fashioned intuition – though Sharp had always thought of intuition as experience mixed with skill – the situation didn’t feel right. He couldn’t help but wonder whether their reasonably simple path to Berlin had been somehow allowed: a means of leading them to Artur.
He walked around the perimeter of the square, head down in a free map he’d picked up from the Hotel Adlon, which overlooked the entirety of Pariser.
Official Secrets Page 35
