Official Secrets

by Andrew Raymond

  *

  Novak sat down beside Artur and said, ‘Don’t make any big gestures. Relax. Talk quietly. Are you OK?’

  All Artur wanted to do was throw his arms around Novak, and embrace him like a brother. He spoke in English as best he could, ‘They tried to kill me.’

  ‘We’re not out the woods, yet,’ said Novak. ‘I have someone helping me here. Don’t look, but see that guy walking in front of the Allianz building in the black jacket and cap. Don’t be alarmed if he comes over. He’s CIA but he’s with me. You can trust him as you trust me.’

  ‘OK.’ Artur started to smile. ‘I can’t believe you actually came.’

  ‘So much for trust no one, huh.’ Remembering Sharp’s instructions, Novak said, ‘In a few seconds I’m going to get up, slowly. You get up as well and walk beside me. Two friends, just walking. We’re going to walk towards the east side of the square, OK?’

  ‘OK.’ Artur’s voice cracked a little, overcome with relief.

  Novak stood first, then Artur followed. Dizzy from exhaustion and hunger he stepped to one side to regain his balance, leaning into Novak. At the same moment a cry of ‘Shooter!’ from Sharp’s direction was followed almost immediately by a rifle shot. The shot hit the iron bench and would have been a direct hit on Artur had he not moved.

  The group of tourists near the Christmas tree scattered in all directions, a mass exodus only increasing the sense of panic. A woman nearby screamed, ‘Terroristisch!’ as she ran towards the fountain to escape.

  Novak covered Artur’s head and pulled him behind the bench for what little cover it provided. More shots rang out, ricocheting off the bench once more.

  Novak and Artur were helpless. There was too much open ground to get to the Christmas tree. And in the chaos Novak still hadn’t got a handle on where the shots were coming from.

  Sharp, hunkered down in front of the Allianz building, could tell from the angle of the shots that the shooter was somewhere in the Hotel Adlon, around the second or third floor. It didn’t take him long to spy the rifle sticking out of an open window on the third floor.

  Sharp aimed his Glock at the window, then shouted at Novak, ‘Go!’, giving them cover as he fired.

  Other than Novak and Artur the square had emptied.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ Novak yelled, still covering Artur as best he could.

  ‘I can’t,’ Artur replied back, hunched over.

  Novak hauled him to his feet as Sharp delivered more covering fire, blasting out the shooter’s hotel room window. The rifle shots stopped just long enough for them to get out from behind the bench. Keeping as low as possible, Novak led Artur across the full width of the square. Novak’s heart was beating so hard and so fast it felt like one constant, intense throb.

  Novak made a beeline for the U.S. Embassy, as two armed Bundespolizei officers on patrol took up firing positions. All they could see was Sharp with a weapon pulled.

  The moment Sharp saw them he took cover behind the Christmas tree and attempted to flash his CIA badge. He shouted ‘Ich bin CIA!’ But before he could extend his badge, one of the panicked Bundespolizei – thinking they had a terrorist incident on their hands – was about to shoot. Luckily for Sharp the man’s partner stopped him in time.

  Sharp held up three fingers then pointed to the third floor window of the Adlon. With the police focussed on the shooter now, Sharp set off after Novak and Artur.

  In the respite from Sharp’s shots, more bullets rained down. Novak and Artur were still in the shooter’s range, and as the police turned their guns on the blasted-out window, a shot caught the back of Artur’s leg. He collapsed in a heap. Not expecting the sudden tug to one side, it felled Novak too who had been holding him up.

  If the police hadn’t started firing at that point Novak and Artur would have been finished for sure.

  ‘Schnell bewegen!’ the police shouted at the pair – move quickly. Their tone alone got the point across.

  Novak struggled to drag Artur – who was like a dead weight around Novak’s waist – any distance at all, and there was still a good hundred yards to the embassy entrance.

  Then, with his eyes closed from effort, Artur’s body suddenly lightened and he was back on his feet.

  ‘I got you,’ said Sharp, taking up Artur under his other arm.

  As they neared the embassy gate, Sharp called out, ‘I’m Officer Walter Sharp, CIA!’ He somehow managed to hold out his badge with his free hand. ‘These men are CIA-protected witnesses.’

  The embassy patrolman opened the wrought iron gate and hustled them across the forecourt. ‘Stay down!’ he shouted, as more shots rained down around Novak and Artur’s feet.

  When they reached the marble lobby, Artur sat on the ground, starting to get his breath back. His eyes were wide with shock. He couldn’t hear anything.

  Then Sharp, still on his feet, turned around.

  Novak saw the blood dripping from Sharp’s mouth, then Sharp started to fall. Novak caught him, which slid Sharp’s jacket to one side. Revealing a gushing gunshot wound below his right shoulder.

  Sharp’s eyes closed.

  ‘Oh, Jesus...’ said Novak, his hands filling with blood. ‘We need an ambulance! We need a doctor!’

  PART FIVE

  All the Devils Are Here

  16.

  The Fourth Floor, GCHQ - Thursday, 9.10am

  MACKINTOSH HAD BUILT up a head of steam dashing up two flights from GTE to the Director’s Suite. Mackintosh bounded past Trevor’s secretary and shoved the door open with both hands.

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Mackintosh shouted.

  Trevor gestured to his secretary standing helplessly at the open door that it was alright. Once the door was closed Trevor quietly seethed. ‘The only thing lost around here, Alex, is your self-control.’

  Mackintosh caught his breath. ‘They’ve let her go.’

  ‘I know, and there was nothing I could do about it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call Nigel?’

  ‘Normally, I would. But it seems Rebecca Fox has friends in high places. Higher than the Home Office.’ Trevor handed Mackintosh a piece of paper across his desk. ‘Phone records from the holding cells. Fox didn’t call a lawyer. She didn’t call a union rep. She called a secure Hannibal phone located somewhere within Downing Street.’

  Mackintosh exhaled in frustration. ‘Curtis.’

  ‘Contact must have been made at some point. Likely with Roger Milton during Rebecca’s recent excursion to London. Curtis hasn’t strayed beyond Whitehall in the last forty-eight hours.’

  ‘We can’t let her back in here.’

  ‘It’s the PM’s call, Alex. Fox has been signed off for the next week as a courtesy.’

  ‘A courtesy? Are you outside of your mind?’

  ‘It was your mistake, Alex. She had full authorisation to be in List X: STRAP Three clearance, approved by Angela Curtis personally. She has the right under the OSA to grant emergency clearance to GCHQ officers. I’m sticking to the letter of the law on this one.’

  ‘OK, then. The law says it needs to be in writing. The officer can’t just make a phone call.’

  Trevor held up another piece of paper, this with Curtis’s signature at the bottom. ‘Filed with the Foreign Office an hour ago.’

  ‘Whose side are you on?’ Mackintosh said.

  ‘Maybe if I had some guarantees about the Honours list in May.’

  ‘Are you serious? This is about your knighthood?’

  ‘I believe a little reward for my efforts is not unreasonable.’

  ‘Unreasonable? Trevor, how the hell would it look if the Director of GCHQ was given a knighthood after the press pass debacle, and all the other GCHQ failures that have caused the attack?’

  Trevor stared back in incomprehension. ‘I did everything that was asked of me.’

  ‘You did,’ Mackintosh acknowledged, ‘But you’re going to have to wait.’

  Trevor’s hands were trembling with rage as he collected his
briefing papers for his meeting. On his way past he told Mackintosh, ‘It’s unwise to make an enemy of me, Alex. The things I know? Could bring down the entire house of cards.’

  The News Office, London Bridge – Thursday, 11.12am

  Within forty-five minutes of Stella calling Diane the night before, telling her she was now in possession of all of Hawkes’ and Bishop’s voicemails, Diane had set her up in a windowless office in the shared News Office building overlooking London Bridge. Diane had worked with several other reporters there – now senior editors themselves (one of the benefits of accruing decades of unpaid favours). No less than five different publications operated in the building, all with state of the art technology in a comfortable setting.

  Stella was just glad to have proper office equipment, rather than sitting hunched at a hotel room desk shared with a small television and hotel stationery, and a public Wi-Fi service that wasn’t even secure enough for an eBay transaction let alone exchanging documents on national security.

  Not one for taking chances, Stella had put black tape over the thin sliver of glass on the office door that would have looked out onto the newsroom floor of a national broadsheet. Some of the reporters set up near her were taking bets on what Stella was up to.

  She’d slept four hours in the last two days, and it was starting to show. She felt like her body was travelling half a yard behind her, and her brain felt warm like something left on defrost in a microwave for too long.

  An intern back in New York was typing up transcripts of all the voicemail recordings, then pinging them back to Stella’s IronCloud. Now she had the voicemails on record, she started the frame of a story connecting Abbie Bishop and Nigel Hawkes, and subsequently Abbie and Goran Lipski – all serving as an opening into the Downing Street attack. She had Jonathan Gale and the anonymous attackers in the black Audi. And somewhere around the edges, looming over everything, was Goldcastle.

  She was fifteen hundred words in, when her laptop screen flicked to a full-screen notification:

  “Darkroom – INCOMING CALL: Diane Schlesinger”

  Stella hit Accept.

  Diane was sitting at the desk in her bedroom with her reading glasses on. It was barely seven in the morning, New York time, but she’d been up since five.

  ‘How’s it going, Stella?’ Diane asked.

  Years of working in busy news rooms had helped Stella cultivate an ability to write anywhere, to put up with an endless parade of visitors to your desk, a phone ringing incessantly, and colleagues always digging for a favour. Reporters wrote on buses, standing in packed corridors, in noisy bars.

  Yet even now, Stella couldn’t get peace for someone knocking on the door.

  ‘Not now,’ she called out. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Diane. ‘I was saying, I need another two thousand words. To really nail it.’

  Diane thought about it. ‘Fine. Do it.’

  Stella asked, ‘Have you even been to bed?’

  ‘I was asleep for a little while, then I had to take a phone call.’

  There was more knocking on Stella’s door, louder this time.

  Stella shouted, ‘Piss off!’

  Then a notification appeared at the top of the screen: “INCOMING CALL: Tom Novak.”

  In a panic, Stella announced, ‘It’s Novak! Sorry, Diane, can you hang on?’

  Amused at Stella’s excitement, she urged her, ‘Take it, take it...’

  Stella clicked “Accept call”. ‘Novak! Where are...’ She squinted at the screen. He was on his phone. Standing in front of an office door with black tape over the window. ‘Are you...?’

  ‘Outside?’ said Novak, knocking again. ‘Yeah. You wanna let me in, I’ve got an entire newsroom staring at me right now.’

  Stella scrambled to the door. When she opened it she covered her mouth in relief.

  He was wearing an oversize navy tee that had “Virginia” written across it in collegiate writing. He put his arms out a little as if she was to inspect him. ‘Not much to choose from on CIA charter flights.’

  Stella threw her arms around him so hard it knocked him back a step. When she made contact, both of them realised how badly they each needed to be held. They would get to the horror and terror of what they had seen, but in that moment, being held was a good start.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  Novak replied, ‘Am I OK? What about you? Diane told me what happened.’

  Stella let go of him. ‘I’m fine,’ she nodded. ‘A little banged up, but alright. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘CIA rendition.’

  Stella closed the door. ‘Very funny.’

  Novak took out a wad of paper from his backpack. ‘Luckily, I’ve got notes.’ On his way to Stella’s desk, he waved hello to Diane. ‘Hey, boss.’

  Diane said, ‘Now that I have the two of you in the same room for once I better make this quick. Stella, I brought Tom up to speed with where you are. Tom, what have you got?’

  Novak laid out his notes, standing at Stella’s desk. ‘So I got Artur Korecki on the record on the plane from Berlin. He was practically foaming at the mouth to tell me his side. Berlin police took down the shooter, who’s been identified as Leonard Schulle. A gun for hire. And a pretty successful one until this morning.’

  ‘How’s the CIA guy, Sharp?’

  ‘He took a bullet, but we had a CIA doctor on the flight over. He’s going to be fine. He’s only on background – no name or rank to be used.’

  Diane said wistfully, ‘I’d love to have those tapes of Malik from Camp Zero.’

  ‘They’re gone, I’m afraid,’ replied Novak. ‘But we at least have CIA on record renditioning an MI6 agent, who dies in suspicious circumstances. Malik made a phone call to Abbie Bishop in Camp Zero, trying to warn her about a threat against her. And Malik has a proven link to Abbie Bishop thanks to Stella’s end. Stella?’

  Stella took up her notes. ‘Yeah. So Abbie Bishop was Malik’s handler. We’re a little closer to proving links between Goldcastle and the data Bishop stole. I have a source in British intelligence who can link some of their payments to Bishop with them with IP addresses associated – via about seventeen degrees of separation – with the company.’

  Diane was scribbling notes in shorthand as they spoke.

  Novak said, ‘It’s worth noting as well that Robert Snow was going to oppose the new Freedom and Privacy Act. That could have made him some powerful enemies in the U.S. government.’

  ‘And on Downing Street,’ Stella said, ‘the press pass that Mufaza used to access it was made by someone at GCHQ.’

  Novak turned to her. ‘Are you serious?’

  Stella showed him the printout from Rebecca.

  Diane continued scribbling for a few more seconds. ‘OK...a few things. If we’re going to come out and call someone in GCHQ a terrorist conspirator, we’d better shore up our story here. One: if Goldcastle were paying Abbie Bishop why would they want her dead? Two: what were Goldcastle doing with the data and who knew about its theft? Three: who moved that press conference? Whoever moved it must have known about the threat and wanted it to get through. And four: we need something – anything – to link that black Audi to British intelligence. That’s the ball game. Stella has one source on an eyewitness at Moreton Place who’s been identified as MI6. Let’s get something on paper.’ Diane stood up, pacing in front of the laptop. ‘I’m going to ask you a question Henry’s going to ask me in a couple of hours: How confident are you in this story?’

  Novak and Stella shared a look with each other, knowing full well the gravity of what they were saying.

  Novak was leaning forward on his knees, his face etched with tension. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Stella?’ Diane said.

  Stella answered, ‘It’s good.’

  Diane said, ‘Remember a few years ago, Dan Rather’s Sixty Minutes story questioning George W Bush’s military record? It ended with his producer being fired, and Rather took early retirement. And you know what? It wasn’t that
they were wrong. They just couldn’t prove enough of it was right.’

  Stella and Novak nodded.

  Diane said, ‘There’s ten hours before we go to print here. Now’s not the time to run scared. This is a big story. You’ve been waiting your whole lives for this. You ready to get to work?’

  They both replied, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And remember: keep all source names off any drives. Use initials only. If this Freedom and Privacy Act goes through, we might end up having to turn over all our servers.’ Diane said, ‘That’s it. Let’s finish this thing.’ She logged out.

  As soon as she was gone Novak exhaled, tilting his head to the ceiling. ‘What now?’

  Stella turned back a dozen pages in her notes, the ones she wrote up after her meeting with Hawkes. Being off the record didn’t have to mean a meeting never happened. She just couldn’t directly use anything he said in her final copy.

  ‘I met Hawkes last night,’ Stella said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s too experienced to give anything away. And he has an alibi.’

  Novak rubbed his newly shorn hair, the relentless pace of the week starting to take its toll. ‘OK...what have we got that’s a constant through George Abassi, Abbie Bishop, the Downing Street attack, the black ops team who went after you, Rebecca and Jonathan Gale?’

  Stella added, ‘When you consider the eyewitnesses at Pimlico that turned into ghosts. MI6 is the constant.’

  ‘Could Lloyd Willow have moved that press conference?’

  ‘It’s possible. But then Hawkes is the Foreign Secretary, the minister responsible for MI6. And what building was the press conference moved from?’

  They said together, ‘The Foreign and Commonwealth building.’

  Stella rummaged through her notes. ‘I was working on something before you got here. Voicemail messages between Abbie and Hawkes.’

  Novak grew concerned as he saw the transcripts Stella was leafing through, but he decided to hold his tongue until Stella had made her point. ‘Did you get these from Dan?’

  ‘Yeah, he left them for me.’