“Better leave it a couple of days,” Harvey suggested. “I still have to square this with Sarah. In the meantime, you’ll be safe here.”
“No worries.” Gray grinned. “As long as I’m not picking up the tab for this place—and that includes the room service—you can take as long as you like.”
CHAPTER 10
Andrew Harvey stifled a yawn as he swiped his badge against the security panel to gain access to the office. He’d left the hotel just six hours earlier, and had arrived home just in time to hear Alana screaming for attention. He’d taken care of diaper duty while Sarah warmed a bottle, then fed her so that his wife could catch up on her sleep.
He had a feeling she’d be catching up for a few decades to come.
With only three hours of sleep under his belt, he turned on his computer, went to the staff kitchen, and made himself a coffee strong enough to blow away the cobwebs. Back at his desk, he yawned again, then entered his password and checked the internal messaging system for the latest updates.
Veronica Ellis entered the office an hour later, resplendent as ever in a pencil skirt and white silk blouse under a navy jacket. A year earlier, the fifty-five-year-old director general of MI5 would have stopped at his station for a quick chat before heading to her glass-walled office, but this morning she barely managed to grumble a ‘good morning’ as she passed.
Harvey decided to let her get settled in before speaking to her. He replied to a few emails and assigned new tasks to his team before heading to the kitchen for a refill. He made one for Ellis, just the way she liked it, then took it to her office and knocked on the door.
Ellis beckoned him in.
“Morning,” he said, placing the cup on her coaster. “There’s something I need to speak to you about. Have you got a few minutes?”
Ellis continued to type on her computer. “You’ll have to make it quick. I have a meeting with the IPCO in less than an hour.”
The Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office was responsible for the coordination and oversight of all of the country’s security services. Ellis had been spending a lot of time there recently.
“I’ll be as brief as possible. Tom Gray needs our help.”
Ellis’s head snapped up. “What the hell has he done this time?”
“Nothing. Well, someone attacked him, in Italy.”
“And he can’t just go to the police because . . . ?”
“He thinks the ESO was behind the assault,” Harvey said.
Ellis collapsed in her chair and rubbed her face with her hands. “What makes him think that?”
“The fact that they said ‘courtesy of the ESO’ before they beat him up,” Harvey replied.
“And why would they do that? The most secretive organization on the planet, and they announce themselves before giving someone a bloody nose? Are you serious?”
“I know it sounds off, but there’s more. Len Smart and Sonny Baines think the ESO attacked Gray to get him to contact them. It looks like there’s some unfinished business.”
Ellis knew that Len and Sonny had been pardoned by the US president, as did a handful of others in government. She also knew all about their participation in the events leading up to their initial arrest and prosecution.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Every government in the world—including our own—is investigating the ESO. It’s a witch hunt on a global scale. If any of their members were still at large, they’d be keeping their heads down, not attacking civilians and telling them who they were. Are you sure it wasn’t someone with a grudge against Tom who was using the ESO as an excuse?”
“He doesn’t think so. They were American, for a start. He hasn’t spent enough time over there to piss anyone off.”
Ellis sighed. “What does he want us to do?”
“Give him the names of anyone who could be linked to the ESO.”
Ellis chuckled, then turned it into a full-blown guffaw. “Oh, Andrew. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?”
“I don’t see why,” Harvey said.
“Well, let me enlighten you. For the past three months, I’ve been under the microscope. Ever since the election that was triggered by President Russell’s investigation, the new home secretary has been sweeping clean with his new broom. Over in the States they replaced the heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and every other intelligence service en masse. Sebastian Faulkner has been looking for a reason to do the same over here, but our labor laws are a lot more stringent. He has to prove guilt, or at the very least culpability. That’s why I’ve been hauled before the IPCO every day for the last few weeks. They suspect I was taking orders from the ESO and won’t rest until either they prove it—which they won’t, because it never happened—or I get so frustrated with the entire charade that I step down. And I don’t mind telling you, that isn’t going to happen.”
Harvey was shocked. How anyone could suspect Ellis of collusion with the ESO was beyond him. But then, he’d worked with her for years. The new home secretary was only doing his job. Still, if anyone had asked Harvey to pick a million people suspected of being ESO members, Ellis wouldn’t have even come close to making the list.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. However, when it comes to the ESO, you’ll forgive me if I don’t jump up and down with joy. I’ve been forensically audited, every bank account scoured for unusual payments or receipts. They’ve been going through our databases looking for any sign that we were doing searches not strictly in line with legitimate operations, and that’s going to take a long time. Expect yourself to be called in for questioning at some point.”
“Really? They’d suspect me?”
Ellis nodded. “You, Sarah, Hamad, everyone in the building. If there’s the slightest discrepancy with your bank accounts, mortgage payments, anything like that, they’ll have probes up your arse before you can so much as blink.”
Harvey was stunned. His mind raced to think of any instance where he’d received money that was not work-related, but thankfully he couldn’t recall any.
It did, however, remind him of Gray’s offer.
“Tom has asked me—or rather, Sarah—to look after Melissa until this is all sorted out. He offered to pay for a nanny as I said I didn’t believe Sarah could cope with two kids right now.”
“That wouldn’t be the smartest move.” Ellis frowned. “If word gets out that an operative on your salary was able to afford a nanny, it would be a red flag to a bull.”
“Just what I was thinking. I mean, taking the cash to pay for it . . . We could always dip into our savings, short-term.”
“Do you think it’s wise to get involved with Gray right now?”
“Well, if I’m to be suspected of involvement with the ESO, what better way to prove my innocence than to be seen to be combating them?”
“Except you couldn’t say that in an interview. ‘Oh, yes, I hired a nanny so that an old friend could take the law into his own hands and kill people he suspects of being in the ESO.’ That would go down a treat!”
“Not when you say it that way,” Harvey admitted, “but I owe Gray. We both do. And Len and Sonny, too. I couldn’t sit back while Melissa might be in danger, and she will be while the ESO’s after Tom.”
Ellis shook her head slowly.
“It could also prove that you’re not under the ESO’s influence,” Harvey added.
He was unnerved when Ellis stared at him for what seemed like minutes. He knew her analytic mind was working overtime, and he prayed that it was coming to a logical conclusion.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ellis eventually said. “I’ll get back to you later today.”
Harvey took the hint and returned to his own station. He hoped Ellis would come through, but until then, there was an equally difficult challenge to prepare for.
He still had to tell Sarah about the new houseguest.
CHAPTER 11
“Are you sure that moron inst
alled it correctly?” Langton growled.
“Yes, sir. We have control of three cell phones and the laptop was sending data. It just . . . stopped.”
“Then why haven’t we got anything? Are you telling me these people never go online? It’s been twenty-four hours.”
“It’s hard to tell, sir. I looked through their phone history and there’s not a lot of activity to report.”
“I’m not interested in history, I want to know why Gray didn’t reach out to his friends after the attack.”
No answers were forthcoming, so Langton kicked his people into action. “Where’s the team now?”
“In a hotel at Lamezia Terme Airport, awaiting further instructions.”
“Send them back in. I want them to hit him hard this time. Tell them to hurt the girl or the old couple.”
“Roger that,” Eckman said. He got on comms to speak to the team in Italy. “Viper One, this is Nest.”
“Go, Nest.”
“I want you back at Gray’s house immediately. The gloves are off. Do what you need to, but keep Gray alive. The kid and the old couple are viable targets.”
“Understood. Out.”
Langton checked his watch. It would be a couple of hours before they were ready and on the scene. Time for something to eat.
“You heard the man,” Durston said. “Grab your gear. Let’s go!”
He checked that his SIG had a round in the chamber and stowed it in his shoulder holster, then picked up his bag and carried it to the door. Chuck Dubowitz and John Feinberg followed, while Hank Pendleton remained on the bed. The hit he’d taken from Gray had broken a couple of bones, and he would be out of action for a few weeks at least.
“Kick his ass for me,” Pendleton said as they left the room.
“We’re gonna do more than that,” Dubowitz promised. He’d taken a few punches from Gray himself, and it was time for payback.
Feinberg drove, and they reached the outskirts of the town in an hour and twenty minutes. Durston gave him directions to the now-familiar house.
“Park out front,” he said. “No need for stealth on this one.”
Feinberg drove a few yards past the house, then reversed into the empty driveway, ready for a quick exit.
“Their car’s gone.”
“We’re going in anyway.”
The three men piled out and ran for the door. Durston tried the handle, but it was locked. He took a couple of steps back and launched his foot at the lock. The wood splintered, and the door flew inward, quickly followed by the three armed men.
Durston tapped Feinberg on the shoulder and pointed to the stairs. Dubowitz and Durston separated, checking each of the ground-floor rooms as Feinberg handled upstairs.
“Clear!”
“Clear!” Durston echoed.
A minute later, Feinberg came down and announced the upper floor empty.
“Should we wait for them to come back?” Feinberg asked.
“They’re not coming back. Their phones are in the living room and the laptop’s still on. They’ve split, and somehow they knew not to talk to anyone.”
Durston got on comms and apprised Nest of the situation. He was told to pull back and await further orders.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We’re wasting our time here.”
“So where the hell is he?”
“We’re looking,” Eckman said, getting a little pissed off at Danby for constantly trying to run the show. The old man might pay the best salary on the planet, but having him jump in and direct the mission was getting to be a major headache.
“Then look harder. And find out who Gray managed to talk to. Someone gave him instructions not to use his phone or laptop.”
Danby turned and stormed out of the room, and the tension dropped considerably.
“Okay,” Eckman said to the four men sitting at their stations, “I want you to check all airports and seaports. Check passenger manifests, but also CCTV and compare it with facial recognition. They may have used different papers. Then issue an Interpol BOLO for their car. Send it through the NSA database.”
For the moment, those were all the bases he could cover. If these measures didn’t produce results, he’d have a lot of explaining to do.
“We’ve got him!”
Eckman ran over to the operative’s station and looked at the black-and-white image on his screen. It showed Gray with a young girl standing next to him. “Where?”
“Heathrow Airport. They landed just after 2300 Zulu time last night. This is him at passport control.”
“Where did they go from there?”
“That’s the bad news,” the operative sighed. “He didn’t leave the airport.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“Well, we’ve been through the CCTV for every exit, and he didn’t show.”
“What about internal cameras? If he didn’t leave by the normal exits, he must have found another way out. Bring up a schematic of that terminal and show me where he was last seen.”
The operative searched for the blueprints and displayed them on a separate screen. “The last image of him is here, joining the line for passport control.”
“Then check these cameras,” Eckman said, pointing at three locations.
Barnaby found the feeds for the ones Eckman had selected and put them up on the big screen. He wound the recordings back to the same time as the one on the still photo, then pressed the Play button. Everyone in the room watched the scenes unfold. After eleven minutes, Eckman yelled for Barnaby to stop. The recordings froze, and Eckman moved closer to the screen.
“There they are. It looks like they’re being taken to the interview rooms. Roll that one on.”
Barnaby played the recording again, then cranked it up to four times the normal speed. Within a minute, three figures emerged from the room and headed away from the camera. Two of them were Gray and his daughter, but the other wasn’t wearing the uniform of a border patrol officer.
“Follow them,” Eckman said. “See where they go. And see if you can get a frontal shot. I want to know who the other guy is.”
The footage changed as Barnaby switched to different feeds and synchronized the times. He found the trio again and zoomed in on the face of the third person. He ran it through the facial recognition software.
“Shit! It looks like we’re not the only ones interested in Tom Gray. The man’s name is Andrew Harvey. According to the CIA, Harvey is MI5.”
The name was familiar. Eckman told another operative to bring up Gray’s file, and it wasn’t long before Harvey’s name was mentioned as the MI5 officer tasked with negotiating with Gray during his siege. Subsequently, they’d teamed up a couple of times for unofficial business, all of it off the record. Hearsay at best.
“Send me Harvey’s file,” Eckman said. “I want to have something to go on before I give the old man the bad news.”
He sat down at his own terminal and waited for the file to appear. It came through as a link and he clicked it, then told one of the others to get him a coffee. “Black, one sugar.”
Eckman read Harvey’s file, courtesy of the CIA station in London. He skipped the early years—education, family members, etc.—and went straight to his time at MI5. The file mentioned a few cases in which Harvey had gone above and beyond. He was highly regarded by the members of the US embassy in London.
What Eckman was really looking for was his personal details. He found the section on Harvey’s home life. He had a house in Notting Hill, which he shared with his fiancée Sarah Thompson and their daughter Alana. The child was six months old, and Thompson was still on maternity leave. They were due to marry in May, only a few months from now.
“Masters!” Eckman shouted.
Edwin Masters put down the squeezy ball he’d been playing with. “Sir?”
“Find out how soon we can get a dozen men to London.”
Masters checked the locations of all the assets and ran a check on available flights into London airports. “We
could have the first eight there in six hours, and another four two hours later.”
“Get them moving. I’m going to speak to Mr. Danby.”
Eckman left and walked up the stairs to the old man’s office. He knocked on the door and waited until he heard a bark from inside. He opened the door and walked in, standing in front of the ornate desk.
“Sir, we’ve discovered that Gray and his daughter arrived in London late last night.”
“Late last night? And you’re only telling me now?”
“He didn’t fly with his own passport. We’re checking the passenger manifests now, but it seems he has an alternate identity that we were unaware of.”
Danby waved the excuses away. “Where is he now?”
“We’re still working on that. I’ve—”
Danby slammed his bony hand on the desk. “Are you telling me you lost him?”
“He had help when he arrived at the airport. We’ve only just discovered that he was met at Heathrow by an officer from MI5. His name’s Andrew Harvey. They left by a side entrance.”
“Do we have access to MI5’s systems?”
“No,” Eckman said, “and it probably wouldn’t do us much good. It seems Gray and Harvey go way back. I think this was done unofficially.”
Danby stubbed out his cigarette and lit a new one. “This was supposed to be a simple task. Hit Gray, make him contact Smart and Baines, then follow the trail to Driscoll. Now you’ve managed to get MI5 involved. Tell me how you plan to unfuck this situation.”
“Well . . . I have an idea. Gray obviously knew not to contact Baines and Smart through normal means. My thinking is, if we hit Gray again, there’s no reason to suggest he’ll break protocol. I think we should try a different tack.”
“Such as?”
“His daughter. I’ve been through Harvey’s file, and Gray’s, too. These guys are close. I’m confident they’ll be in touch again soon, Gray probably using an unregistered cell. I suggest we put a team on Harvey’s house and wait for Gray to call, or vice versa. Once we locate Gray, we snatch his daughter.”
“That could work,” Danby said, “but it needs a little tweaking. Gray’s too close to Smart and Baines to give them up. However, I like the idea of using the girl. Pick her up, then convince Gray to speak to his friends, and they can give up Driscoll. Baines and Smart have only known her for a few months. Given the choice of Gray’s daughter or Driscoll, I’m betting they save the kid.”
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