A Shadow Intelligence

by Oliver Harris

  I thought back to Marsh’s account, the isolation of this unit: separate entrance, separate canteen.

  ‘Who ran it?’

  ‘It bypassed all the usual committees. There was Defence Intelligence involvement, so clearly the MOD was on board, but no one there has heard of it. Like Tom said, six months ago it disappeared as fast as it had arrived, a few days before Joanna ran away. What have you found?’

  I said I had some leads, which felt optimistic. I told him I’d run into some trouble and had had contact from Russian intelligence.

  ‘Surely that’s a sign we need to pack it in,’ he said. ‘Come back. Get yourself killed on home soil, at least.’

  The levity didn’t conceal his fear. I said I’d take one final look around while I was here. When he’d rung off I found ‘helping man’ on my phone, memorised the number before deleting it, then went to a phone box and dialled.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Lieutenant Shomko answered brusquely. When he learned who it was he told me to wait, and moved somewhere quieter.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  ‘We met last night.’

  ‘I know we met. I asked: who are you?’

  ‘I’ve got an offer for you. Meet me and I’ll explain.’

  ‘I cannot meet you.’

  ‘Two hundred dollars, just to hear me out.’

  There was exhalation, some cursing in Russian.

  ‘Five hundred,’ he said.

  Good man, I thought. ‘Four.’

  ‘Okay. You bring the money. You mess me around, I arrest you on the spot.’

  ‘Deal.’

  He named a bar a long way away from the centre, said he couldn’t get away from work for a couple of hours. That gave me time to prepare.

  I took cash, an amount that would be a couple of months’ salary for Shomko, split it between two envelopes taken from reception. I went back to the Mega Astana and bought a hunting knife, strapping it to my calf with a tubular bandage. Then I made a call to a friend who worked for GL5.

  There was every chance Shomko would take the money and arrest me, and I’d had enough of that for one day. According to Elena Yussopova’s research, GL5 private security were plentiful and up for all sorts. The morning’s events had been a wake-up call in more ways than one. I needed backup and I needed options for getting out of Kazakhstan fast and inconspicuously.

  I knew GL5 all too well, had people I’d consider friends working for the company, had had my life both saved and endangered by them. At this stage in earth’s history, it was hard not to encounter GL5. The GL stood for Global Logistics; the 5 was supposedly the five continents on which they operated, which counted Eurasia as one and suggested they weren’t on Antarctica, about which I was sceptical. Most recently I’d helped negotiate two months’ work for them in the Saudi desert training Syrian rebels. We’d crossed paths regularly since Libya, when they were the first security company to establish a presence post-revolution. They protected the British Embassy and so, to an extent, myself. Among intelligence officers, their base in Tripoli, behind Martyrs’ Square, was known as a place to get a beer and a game of pool. Open the windows and you could smell the Mediterranean through the security mesh.

  I called Jim Baillie, a former captain in the Parachute Regiment, now running GL5’s cash transportation wing.

  ‘Got anyone I can speak to about your Kazakh team? I need a hand.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Trouble?’ Baillie said.

  ‘Not yet. Could do with a couple of bodies this afternoon though.’

  I heard him exhale.

  ‘Geoff Purvis is in Astana. He’s a good lad, former Welsh Guards. I can make a call.’

  Purvis himself called me twenty minutes later. He listened to my request.

  ‘Reckon I might be able to help. Obviously there’ll be a price attached.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  He asked if I could come to their base, which was in the grounds of the Saracen HQ. I said I’d be happy to pay a visit.

  Saracen had taken over a sprawling former Gazprom compound on the eastern edge of Astana, with a helipad used for flying execs into town and geologists out to the drill sites. Purvis met me at the gates. He was tall, fair hair receded to a reserve line halfway back across his scalp, face flushed with what, up close, you saw were spider veins. His trousers were bloused into desert boots, paratrooper style. He gripped my hand and shook.

  ‘So you’re a mate of Jim’s?’

  ‘That’s right. Not seen him in ages though. Thanks for meeting at such short notice.’

  ‘You caught me on a good day.’

  Purvis signed me in, gave me a pass. We entered the land of Saracen, past a relief map of the world with coloured lights for oilfields, under ornate ceilings where the raised hammers and sickles showed through new paint, to the GL5 compound at the back.

  ‘Know Jim from Libya?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Ever take you to Mama Tawas?’

  ‘Once. The only brothel I’ve ever walked straight out of.’

  Purvis laughed. ‘Jim’s one of the finest soldiers I know, but he’s a dog.’

  We crossed a broad expanse of concrete, past a helipad with a Sikorsky S-70, past a small heating and power plant. There were two hangars and a fuel storage area, then long prefabricated accommodation blocks.

  The private security contractors that I could see were heavily kitted out, if not visibly armed, most heading to and from the canteen.

  ‘They fly in here, get trained, go out to the rigs, drill sites, fields,’ Purvis explained. ‘Every few weeks they’ll come back for some R&R. The kind of places we operate aren’t exactly rich with leisure activities.’

  The canteen was large, with breeze-block walls beneath arched corrugated metal. Electric bar heaters glowed. Men in various combinations of uniform and civvies sat at long trestle tables. Liverpool played Chelsea on multiple TV screens. A sign at the bar said dollars accepted, and there were plenty around. Pre-9/11, private security contractors all seemed to be South Africans with rotten teeth. The men here were smart, steroid-pumped, with 200-dollar Oakleys protecting their eyes from the neon light. It was a multi-billion-pound industry now. Of the 21 billion dollars assigned for Iraqi reconstruction, over 30 per cent went on commercial security. Contractors came in to defend oilfields, and within a few months they were running aerial surveillance, searching for roadside bombs and staffing quick reaction forces. Politicians found they preferred their coffins without flags on them. The original teams had been built from the best: men from the SAS and US Marines. But you’re not going to get 20,000 of those. GL5 swallowed smaller companies, picked up thousands of new personnel each time, then they turned to Peru, Columbia, South Africa, Eastern Europe – anywhere with a recent history of well-trained violence.

  It looked like a lot of them had come off night shifts. Most were watching the game, yawning, smoking, drinking towards daytime sleep. I had never liked these places: the willed ignorance about the surrounding country, the bubble of boredom curdling. But they could be useful. Where there were guns there was a sense of invulnerability, which bred an openness to all sorts of schemes.

  The canteen offered a full English breakfast, which Purvis promised me was passable – ‘No sheep’s eyes. No horse sausage.’ We talked football while we ate, then home generally; he wanted to know what was going on in England and I pretended that I knew. He gave me tips about Kazakhstan which amounted to not trusting lap dancers. I dropped a few names and places from Helmand, said I’d been in Sangin in 2006. We both knew Brigadier Rob Clarke and had survived raucous nights at Kabul’s Serena Hotel. He got us mugs of lukewarm tea – NATOs, as they called them in the army: white tea, two sugars – and we talked some more about former jobs and then GL5. I studied the old regimental tattoos on his arms, and a fresher inscription: Si vis pacem, para bellum. I’d seen this tattoo a few times on my travels: If you want peace, prepare for war. Curiously, it seemed
most popular with the mercenaries. I was never sure in what spirit it was intended. Over time it had gone from seeming like self-justification to an ironic echoing of the flawed logic that had shaped their lives.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Just be parked where I tell you to park,’ I said. ‘And if you see me running, open the door.’

  ‘Straightforward enough.’

  ‘And lend me a gun.’

  Purvis sucked in a breath.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Jealous husband.’

  ‘And you’ve only been in the country two days.’

  ‘You know what it’s like.’

  ‘Is this jealous husband armed?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘Does he have his own backup?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘I’d need to speak to Jim.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Purvis wandered outside, phone to his ear, came back ten minutes later with a thumbs-up and an Adidas holdall. Inside it was a well-used Makarov handgun and a box of 9mm ammo.

  ‘Seen one of these before?’

  ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘For every second this gun’s in your possession it’s nothing to do with us. Never was.’

  I released the magazine, counted seven rounds; checked the chamber and reloaded it.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Where are you going to meet this jealous guy?’

  I took out the address Shomko had given me.

  ‘Casino Zodiak.’

  Purvis found two men willing to accompany us. They shook my hand but didn’t remove their shades. One drove; both were heavily armed.

  The casino was in the middle of nowhere, which must have been what made Shomko feel safe here. It had a post-apocalyptic look, plastic-clad with dribbles of rust over the cladding from the bolts that held it in place. It was deserted. Cacti pierced the snow around the front. Industrial scrubland lay flat for miles around.

  We were early enough to recce the place: emergency exit points, potential choke points, sightlines so you could see any vehicles approaching before they saw you. There was a car park at the back which allowed them to wait out of sight.

  Inside, deep red carpets absorbed sound and, by the looks of it, a multitude of burning cigarettes. The gambling must have gone on behind the padded doors. No sound of machines or roulette wheels. The only staff member I saw was pushing a trolley of clingfilmed crab.

  I found the bar upstairs, one man in a red waistcoat mopping the floor. When he saw me he put the mop down and went behind the bar. I got a bottle of expensive vodka and two glasses, found a back exit, then a window that let me watch Shomko arrive and confirm he was alone.

  He slammed the door of his car and walked towards the entrance. I was back behind the vodka in time to watch him arrive.

  He looked uncertain, eyes bloodshot. He hadn’t shaved since the night before. He felt for his seat before lowering himself down, as if it might make a sudden move. There was ice in his moustache. He removed his gloves, kept his black woollen coat on. I poured the vodka, nudged a shot towards him.

  ‘To the President,’ I said, in good Russian. The language caught him by surprise. He studied me, then knocked the drink back, wiped his mouth, fumbled in his shirt pocket for a crumpled packet of Marlboro. He removed a flattened cigarette and lit it. I slid the envelope towards him. He looked inside, left it on the table.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘That’s just for being here, a thank you. You can take it and walk away now.’ I put the second envelope down. ‘This is if you want to help.’

  He took a deep drag and rested his cigarette in a heavy glass ashtray. I refilled our glasses.

  ‘CIA?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take my number off your phone.’

  ‘It’s off.’

  ‘Show me.’

  I showed him. He sat back.

  ‘They have a picture of you,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They want to know who you are.’

  ‘In connection with what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I am someone who does a lot of business here and who cares very deeply about Kazakhstan. A man was killed in an apartment on Malakhov Street five nights ago. I’d like to know who he was and why he was shot.’

  Shomko drew the envelope towards him and counted the money inside, then he split it, cramming half into his wallet, putting the other half inside his jacket. Emboldened by the currency against his heart, he relaxed.

  ‘I know about it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘There are a lot of resources on this.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t have a name. I can try to get one.’

  ‘Who do people think did it?’

  ‘They are looking for an English woman.’

  ‘Where is the English woman now?’

  He spread his hands. ‘Gone. She bought plane tickets using a stolen credit card. Lufthansa to Frankfurt then on to Caracas, Venezuela.’

  ‘Caracas?’

  ‘That’s right. They were never used.’

  ‘How many tickets?’

  ‘Two; for a man and a woman. Both in fake German names.’

  This explained the lack of ID on the dead body. He’d stripped himself of identity before coming to meet Joanna. They were about to run.

  ‘What name do they use for this woman?’ I asked.

  ‘Vanessa McDonald. It’s believed she stole a car just before disappearing.’

  ‘What make?’

  ‘Chevy Equinox. Grey. There’s no sign of it.’

  That changed everything. Gave me simultaneous hope she’d got away and a vertiginous awareness that she could be anywhere.

  ‘Checked car parks?’

  ‘I assume so.’ Astana’s underground car parks added up to a city’s worth of concealment in themselves. No easy way to search those.

  ‘Do cars often just disappear?’

  ‘It’s a big country. Could be she headed east.’

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘I saw them studying a map, talking about the possibility she went east, that she had connections there.’

  ‘East like eastern outskirts? East like the border with China?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Did she have connections outside of Astana?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Well, possibly that’s something you want to look into.’

  ‘Who is in charge of the investigation?’ I asked.

  ‘Anti-Terrorism.’

  ‘Rakim Zhaparov.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Maybe she’s a terrorist.’

  ‘It’s been kept off the news. I would have thought this was a big story.’

  ‘The news is controlled. This is clearly too sensitive.’

  I showed him a screengrab of the man in the CGI clip.

  ‘I think he is codenamed Catalyst. Zhaparov also has a picture of him. Who is he?’

  Shomko took a while studying it before shaking his head. I saw him check the newspaper in the background, frown.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to find out.’

  He ashed his cigarette nervously, flicking until I thought it was going to break.

  ‘So what do you want?’ he said.

  ‘I need you to get closer to the investigation into Vanessa. Recruit someone inside anti-terrorism. They would be rewarded as well. Anti-terrorism comes under the National Security Committee, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Technically. But they have their own facilities and security clearances, and a separate network for communication.’

  ‘You must know people inside it.’

  ‘I know people everywhere. Most of them like being alive.’

  ‘What’s Zhaparov’s vice? Does he like guys? Little girls?’

  ‘He likes power. And he’s getting more
of it.’

  ‘He’s on the rise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I opened the laptop on a map of Astana.

  ‘Which buildings belong to Anti-Terrorism?’

  Shomko dropped his cigarette to the floor and pointed out five locations, three in official state buildings, two black sites.

  ‘Which have cells?’

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘Any chance that Vanessa McDonald is in one of them?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Where’s the main investigation being run from?’

  He showed me the main anti-terrorism headquarters on the map. It was housed within the National Security Committee building.

  ‘And the investigative databases – who gets access to those?’

  ‘Senior personnel only.’

  ‘You’re senior.’

  ‘Not senior enough.’

  ‘Password-protected?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How often do they change the password?’

  ‘Daily.’

  He talked me through the building, the security on the doors, the offices and the integrated IT system.

  ‘Are you searched when you go in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Searched leaving?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have access to the report that’s been circulated.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For now, send me everything that’s on the open system.’

  ‘That is simple.’

  ‘Let’s start with that then. And find out where she’s gone if she’s not in Astana, whereabouts in the east people are looking.’ I promised him the equivalent of two hundred pounds for every new lead, five thousand if he established where Vanessa McDonald was. The curiosity was too much for him.

  ‘Who is Vanessa McDonald?’

  ‘Someone very valuable.’ I gave him the number for a clean phone. ‘When you need to contact me, text the number of whatever phone box you’re at. I need to know what’s going on inside anti-terrorism. In Zhaparov’s inner circle.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘How much do you want?’ I asked.

  He retrieved another cigarette but didn’t light it. His face bore an expression I had seen more times than I wanted: the discomfort of a man calculating what his life was worth.