November Rain

by Donald Harstad

  “They discovered them, John.”

  “So the world will soon know about the station and the stabbing and the explosives . . . and the connection between the injured girl . . . she did survive, I assume?”

  “Indeed,” said Blyth, “and it’s good of you to inquire, John.” He was relieved that Bassingham had not asked how the little party had obtained access to the station.

  Bassingham made a growling sound over the phone. “It’s not been the best of days, John. As I was saying . . . the connection with the hostage business will be made, of course.”

  “Yes. But just as a coincidence, thus far.”

  “Why on earth were they looking in that abandoned tube station? Are you holding back on me, John?”

  “Not at all. They’re aware of the connection between that professor . . . ,” and Blyth referred quickly to one of the files on his desk. “. . . Northwood, and his anti-Belmarsh movement . . . ah, yes, this London Reform Movement for the Freedom of Khaled al Fawwaz and Ibrahim Eidarous and Lions of the Front for Jihad in Britain. . . .” He shook his head to himself. “Longish name. Very amateurish, to be connected with all that explosive.”

  “So unwieldy and juvenile as to sound spurious,” said Bassingham, “isn’t it, Adrian?”

  “Indeed. But for the Semtex.” Blyth made a note as he talked. “But back to the point, this Northwood has, I’m told, a passion for old tube stations. He’d had all three girls there as a group some time back, on a tour. They simply thought that they might be holding Emma Schiller there.”

  There was a long pause on Bassingham’s end. “Who revealed the connection with the professor?”

  “The media, of course. You should talk to more of them than just the Times staff, John.”

  “Who in the media?”

  “You’ve heard of Sarah Mitchell? Of the National Sun Express?”

  “The quintessential sensationalist.”

  “The very one, John. You do read more than the Times.”

  “What have you started for damage control?”

  “We never let you down, John. Our Alice has managed to pass herself off as the solicitor for the Americans. They’ve talked to this Sarah Mitchell this evening, at the hospital, and she thinks she knows where this Professor Northwood can be located.”

  “Truly?”

  “And Alice has managed to get herself invited to go with them to talk with him.”

  “How did this reporter find out about Northwood?”

  Blyth felt some satisfaction that he had gotten this far ahead of his friend, although he would have rather killed himself than to let on. “She revealed the Northwood connection to the Americans at breakfast today. Not more than an hour before we received the information from you over at Special Branch.”

  “Remarkable,” said Bassingham, dryly.

  “Indeed, John. Indeed. This very same Sarah Mitchell came up with Northwood all on her own, it seems. And accurately, as well. Cited his political involvements.”

  “Regardless,” said Bassingham, “with Mr. Bush coming over on the 18th, the explosives are very worrisome. I suppose we need to tell the Americans?”

  “Yes. We do. I know one with the advance party, we’ve done things together before.” Blyth looked at his watch. “He should have arrived this afternoon. We’re on for a bit of supper. We should meet him together. Could you make ten at eight?”

  “Likely,” said Bassingham. “Oh that I had your budget. Regarding this injured girl . . . what hospital is she at? We’d best lay on a detail.”

  “Over at Tommy’s. A nice touch, John. Her father will appreciate that.”

  “Oh. Well, the terror connection does free up a resource, now. Yes, I suppose he will. He’s that Sheriff?”

  “Just a Deputy, as he’ll tell you. Yes. He knows about Emma Schiller being dead, you know?”

  “Yes. We had a chat about that cock up at the morning briefing. He’s kept it to himself, has he?”

  “Alice assures me that he has done so.”

  “You’re aware, Adrian, that we have a budget hearing shortly. I do seriously intend to grab some additional funds, and spirit Alice away from you.”

  “I don’t feel threatened, John,” said Blyth. “Best to Molly.”

  After the call was terminated, Blyth looked at his note. It consisted of just four words.

  “Nab the Professor first.”

  MI5’s job was security, and its current prime focus was gathering intelligence regarding counter-terrorism. Blyth’s particular section cooperated with the counter-terrorism police units; in this particular case, the subdivision of the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police known as SO13. SO13’s job was to bring terrorists to justice. Blyth’s section of MI5 was to provide Special Branch with the intelligence that was needed to do so, for while SO13’s mandate was to arrest with a view to prosecute, MI5’s mandate was to “frustrate” terrorist operations within the UK. Frustration, in all its forms, had many fewer legal complexities than the traditional police functions. From Blyth’s standpoint, his job was accomplished if the identified and targeted terrorist operations were prevented from acting. After that, prosecution was all well and good, but it was a secondary effort. Because of that, he had found over the years that he had to be very careful to time the release of information to the police, lest they rush off and arrest someone before it was absolutely necessary. Premature arrests had a nasty way of drying up sources.

  With that firmly in mind, he dialed Alice’s cell phone. She answered on the second ring, with her usual “Hullo?”

  “How are things with our American cousins?”

  “Going quite well, I think,” said Alice.

  “Excellent. The cheese was two types of bad stuff, I’m afraid. Quite a bit in the other location, and I was told less than an hour ago that there is a chance there was a bit more before we got there. Can you be in the office . . . oh, let’s say half an hour?”

  “Done.”

  “Very good. There’s a young lady I’d like you to meet.”

  He terminated the call. Alice was one of his most successful interrogators, at least in the softer forms. People had a way of confiding in her, especially female suspects and informants.

  Saturday, November 15, 2003

  19:50

  St. Thomas’s Hospital

  I sat in Jane’s room, watching her sleep. She still looked pretty pale, but healthier than she had before.

  They’d given her some meds right after supper, and she’d started to fade into a deep sleep. Before she did, she informed me that she was really sorry we hadn’t been able to find Emma, and wanted to be sure there had been no news about her that we hadn’t shared.

  “You don’t have to protect me, Dad. If bad news comes in, you can tell me.”

  “I know I can. Now go to sleep . . .”

  There’s something about your kid being hurt, you know? I mean, no matter how old they are, they really are still your child, and you just feel awful. I started going over the blame trail in my mind. Would any of this have happened if I hadn’t come over here? Well, I mean, I knew Emma would have been taken. And killed. That was a certainty, whether I was in London or not. But the rest of it? If I hadn’t come over, Jane never would have been connected to Blyth, and never to Alice. The whole trip to the tube station couldn’t have been arranged if it weren’t for Blyth. That, therefore, was attributable to my being there.

  I sighed, and took a sip of cold coffee. The Northwood connection would have existed whether or not I showed up. I was comfortable with that. But the whole damned thing with the press had been exacerbated by my presence. Strike two.

  With me there, Jane could have been in a position to know immediately that Emma was dead. There would have been nobody but her and Vicky to identify the remains. But I was here, and I’d been tapped to ID the remains. MI5 asked me to keep it secret, and I did. So, now, there was a positive negative in the equation, so to speak. By being there, I’d come into information that could have
kept her out of the old tube station because it was no longer necessary to look for Emma at all. But I hadn’t told her. That just kept coming back. I hadn’t told her because she didn’t have a right to know. She had a need, all right. Even more, now. But all my training, and all my experience, told me that she had to have both before I could tell her. Not being in the right job, she never would have that right.

  Shit.

  I guess being so tired all the time didn’t help, but my beating myself up was getting to be sort of an avocation. I knew that if I didn’t stop it, I’d find myself telling her. That would be a disaster, on several fronts, not the least of which was the British security breach. I had heard of the National Secrets Act, but knew nothing useful about it. I just sort of assumed that, if I weren’t covered by that, there was some other law that would get me tossed into the slammer, at least for a while. No thanks. Then I’d be even less use to Jane, the case, and all that.

  Except I really hadn’t been much use to date, except to get Jane stabbed. Well, that and maybe having something to do with an officer being posted just outside her door. Hopefully, I’d had something to do with that.

  Saturday, November 15, 2003

  Hampstead Heath

  21:16

  Alice and Blyth arrived at the unexceptional looking building in the park, exchanged greetings with the young man at the tourist information desk, and went directly to the third floor. In room 302, they met with a technician who was to record the interview, and who provided them with the current view of room 306, where the young woman was seated talking with Geoffrey, the “Dave” of Blyth’s trio of young assistants.

  The young woman, wearing blue jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and trainers, looked to be about twenty, and was the girlfriend of Jamal Essabar, aka Hamza. Her name was Pamela Arpino, she was nineteen, and she was very frightened. She had been informed that she was talking to a representative of Her Majesty’s Government, but had not been told the name of the agency.

  “But, why can’t you tell me why I’ve been brought here?” The state of the art digital sound system easily reproduced the slight quaver to her voice.

  Geoffrey replied in a cool, distant tone, exactly as he’d been instructed. “As I told you, someone shall arrive soon, who will be able to explain that more fully than I.”

  Her eyes darted about the room. “I don’t even know if I should talk with you. . . .”

  “You are free to go, you know,” he said. “But I can’t emphasize strongly enough that it is in your very best interests to stay until you’ve gotten to the bottom of this.”

  Alice smiled to herself. Geoffrey was quite good at transferring the semblance of initiative. “She’s been here . . . ?”

  “Fifty one minutes,” said the technician, glancing at the elapsed time readout on the screen.

  Alice glanced at her notes. “We don’t have lots and lots of good information, do we?”

  “I have great faith in you,” aid Blyth, and meant it. This was to be one of those difficult interrogations where the subject had committed no known offense, and in this particular instance, very likely no offense whatsoever. That significantly reduced the leverage for the interrogator.

  Alice pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as she looked at the three sheets of paper in the file. One of them consisted of three photos of the captive taken that afternoon. The only thing of any real significance on the other two sheets was that the knife she had taken from Jamal Essabar in the old tube station had absolutely no traces of blood on it. That told her that he had not been the one who had stabbed Jane Houseman. The blade did, however, bear trace elements of Semtex. Most of the rest of the data consisted of things she should try to discover. “We must start somewhere . . . I think I’ll go across the hall now.”

  “I’ll be here in the gallery,” said Blyth. “If there’s anything you need, just pick up the phone.”

  The room was rigged with a regular telephone, which Alice would use to communicate with the control room if she wanted anything. By doing so, she would give the impression that it was the only link to the outside, and very likely would erase any thought of the room being bugged that might have occurred to Pamela.

  Alice knocked softly on the door of 306, and she heard Geoffrey say, “Just a moment.” The door opened, and he ushered her in with, “Just the person we’ve been waiting for. This is Pamela . . . Pamela, this is . . .”

  “Alice,” said Alice, thrusting out her hand and appearing to cut Geoffrey off. In fact, he’d given her their cue to use whatever identity she felt necessary. In this instance, she felt that her true first name would serve her best. “Very good to meet you.”

  Geoffrey glanced at his watch. “If you’ll not be needing me?”

  “Fine,” said Alice. “We’ll do very well on our own.”

  As Geoffrey made his way back across the hall to 302, Alice said, “Have you been told just why you’re here, Pamela?”

  “No.” Her voice was clear, but with a slight quaver.

  Alice produced her credentials. “I’m with MI5, the Security Service.” As Pamela’s eyes widened, Alice continued with, “We’d very much like you to tell us about a young man you know named Jamal Essabar.”

  Pamela had been very concerned about Jamal’s behavior of late, and his sudden inaccessibility since late October, not seeing her at all and only talking to her occasionally on the phone, had convinced her that something bad had happened to him.

  “Is he all right?” was all she could think to say.

  “Do you think something’s happened to him?” Alice’s voice was full of genuine sounding concern.

  As a matter of fact, Pamela did, and was not so sure that what had “happened” might not have been MI5 itself. Like many British subjects, she believed that MI5 an omnipotent, darkly secretive agency, which could do anything from dodgy tricks to murder in the name of the Crown. She was wrong for the most part, of course, but the effect of the misconception was plain to see. As a consequence, she was as wary and cautious as she could be. “It’s what we always think when the police knock at the door, isn’t it?”

  Alice nodded. “I do that,” she said. She pushed the photo sheet toward Pamela. “These were taken this afternoon. That’s when I met him, and he’s quite healthy.”

  Pamela seized the photos. He looked, to her, to be very tired, and his always neat hair was disheveled. “What have you done to him?”

  “I found myself in a situation where I had to knock him about,” said Alice, with more truth than she would have wished. “He had a knife, and he was threatening. I didn’t injure him permanently.”

  Pamela nodded. Alice appeared to her to be quite able to knock Jamal down. “I can’t imagine him with a knife,” she said, slowly. She was choosing her words very carefully. “Are you sure it was him?”

  “I took it from him,” said Alice. “But that’s a matter for the Mets to deal with. It does place you in a position to help him.”

  “It does?”

  “I’m trying to understand what has happened with him. An explanation might help him. But I need to know as much as you’ll tell me. How did you two meet?”

  “At school. Kings College. Here, in London. We’re both in computer science.”

  “What year?”

  “Second.”

  “You’re doing databases, then?” Alice smiled.

  “And systems. Yes.”

  “In Java?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, be patient,” said Alice. “You’ll be getting to an individual project soon. Much more fun.” She looked down at her meager papers. “When did you meet?”

  “Last year. We started in two of the same class sections. We sat together.”

  Alice continued in that vein for several more questions, establishing general background information. She decided to end that section with a generic question. “So, then, when did you see him last?”

  Pamela’s face took on a worried cast. “Well, really, on October 28th. I think
it was. It was a Tuesday.”

  “In class?” Alice was nearly holding her breath. October 28th was the day that Emma Schiller had been taken captive.

  “No. He hadn’t been in class for two or three days. He said he had something important to do. I gathered it was his politics. No, we met about four or so.”

  “Where?”

  Pamela looked Alice straight in the eye, with defiance. “My apartment.”

  “Nothing untoward about that,” said Alice.

  Pamela relaxed a bit. “Sorry. He’s quite religious. He tries to avoid things like that. Being alone with me in an inappropriate place. His parents wouldn’t approve.”

  “Of course.” She made a small note. “And their names are?”

  Pamela shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not sure he has any, really. No, that’s not true. But I’m sure he’s never mentioned me. I’ve never met them, and he only refers to them as father and mother. He’s not sure of their reaction to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not Muslim. I can tell he doesn’t want that to make a difference, but he’s afraid. You know?”

  “I think so,” said Alice. “So, you haven’t seen him for a while. You did say “really.” Sort of for all intents and purposes . . . ?” Pamela nodded. “So, you did see him after that?”

  “He said that he’d be gone for a few days. He thought he might be able to see me, but he wasn’t sure. But a week went by.”

  “And did he see you?”

  “Just for a few minutes. We met in that park in Chiswick. The one close to the roadway. Near that old loo that they mostly use for storage I think. I just saw him for a few minutes. Really. And he called me, after that, too.” It had become important to Pamela to convince Alice that Jamal was serious about her and their relationship.

  “I believe that. I’m sure he missed you. From where?” Alice looked up to see a blank look on Pamela’s face. She smiled at her, reassuringly. “Sorry, I tend to get a bit confusing. Did he call you from his home? School?”

  “From a flat.”

  “A flat?”

  “That’s what he said. A flat.”