Dark Winter

16

He straightened himself on the settee as Yvette went to let Suzy back in. His eyes stayed on his files as the two women passed him, and Yvette handed Suzy and me a Jiffy-bag each from her briefcase. I checked my passport. It was in the name of Nick Snell again. Everything was in order: the date of birth was correct, but some of the stamps had been changed. For starters, the Malaysian holiday visa had disappeared. I checked the worn-looking Bank of Scotland credit cards, making sure they were still valid.

Yvette was helping herself to a sip of brew.

‘Is it the same CA?’

She nodded.

I looked at Suzy, who was doing the same as me, but much more enthusiastically. Her eyes shone, but she was trying to control her excitement in front of the boss.

The Yes Man had put his file to one side when the phone rang again. The Golf Club picked it up and left for the kitchen, although she didn’t need to: it was impossible to hear what she was saying from more than six inches away.

The Yes Man leant forward to pick up his brew, and fixed his gaze on Suzy. That was fine by me. I wanted to be anywhere but here, and it helped if I didn’t have to look at him. ‘The wine bottles that were collected in Penang contained pneumonic plague . . .’ He let the words hang, as if waiting for a reaction. He wasn’t going to get one from me: I wouldn’t have been here if it had been Fat Bastard Chardonnay.

‘That was the last batch produced for JI. We have no idea how much they’ve stockpiled in the last eleven months, but we know they’ve been planning bio attacks for some time now, mainly Far Eastern targets. Meanwhile, ASU [Active Service Unit] members have been disappearing from Malaysia. It seems they have ambitions to move further afield, which can only mean one thing. They consider themselves third wave.’

By the look on his face, he probably hoped we’d have to ask him what it meant, but it wasn’t rocket science. Third-wave terrorism just meant these people were switched on and highly technical. They weren’t knuckle-draggers: their greatest weapon was their brains. They knew it wasn’t that hard to access information and, scarier still, they knew where to look. They had already learnt how to develop biological agents – and it was probably only a matter of time before they figured out how to split the atom in the kitchen.

Suzy twisted on her chair. ‘Is that why the barriers are up around the Houses of Parliament?’

He shook his head. ‘The sort of attack they have in mind can defeat any barrier.’ He put down his mug and stared at it for several seconds before jerking his head up and re-establishing eye-contact, this time with us both. ‘The problem we face, as of six hours ago, is that there are already up to six bottles in this country, possibly more. It appears they were brought in as duty-free wine by one of the four-member ASUs. Every available bit of CCTV footage from all ports of entry is being looked at to try and identify who they are – and then, of course, find them.’

The Yes Man’s cell rang yet again in the kitchen, and Yvette answered as she came back into the room, then cut the call. His eyes followed her as she headed for him. ‘We have a source on the ground but so far very little information. The fact is—’ The Golf Club whispered into his ear.

‘You sure?’ He was a worried man.

The Golf Club gave a yes as she went to her chair.

‘Right, source int says that there are twelve bottles, but we still do not know where they are or when they will be used.’ He paused, checking us both to make sure we’d taken in the full weight of his words. Yvette, calm as ever, picked up her coffee and sat back in the chair with the barest rustle of Gore-Tex.

‘How would you do it, Susan?’

She took a breath. ‘Is it contagious?’

The Yes Man stared gloomily into her eyes. ‘Extremely.’

‘Then I’d concentrate on densely populated areas with transient people traffic, so that those infected move on swiftly and infect others, like their families. Their kids pass it round at school, their wives or husbands pass it on to friends and colleagues. The chain is endless.’

Suzy was more or less on the edge of her seat as the Yes Man took a sip and placed his mug carefully on the table, keeping his focus on her. I might as well not have been there. ‘Remember the anthrax attacks in the US?’

She hung on his every word.

‘People afraid to go to work, afraid to open mail? The US suffered huge economic damage from a microscopic amount of agent. And how many deaths? Five?’

Suzy kept nodding. If she wasn’t careful, her head was going to fall off.

‘It was the psychological effect that was most damaging. But this would be far worse.’

I thought I’d chip in with my twopence-worth now, before their love fest developed into a full-scale shag. ‘So, those experts who argued that JI’s goals didn’t fully engage with the global aspirations of al-Qaeda weren’t absolutely on the money?’

The Yes Man turned and fixed his eyes on mine, probably surprised I was using words with four syllables. ‘Exactly. And because everybody is focusing on the Arabs, South East Asians are slipping through the net. See an Arab today and the public think they see a terrorist. See a South East Asian or Indian and they just think he runs a takeaway.’

‘So what does this stuff look like?’ Suzy asked. ‘How is it disseminated in an attack, and what protection do we need? More important, where do we start looking?’

He kept his look of derision on me a second longer, then turned back to her. ‘Not even the government has been completely informed about this situation. The cabinet would overreact, and Number Ten leaks like a sieve – we’d have anarchy on the streets within hours. Which is why you are here. It simply mustn’t come to that.’

The cell started to warble again, and the Golf Club disappeared back into the kitchen. The Yes Man carried on. ‘The words “plague” and “pneumonic” will not appear on any report or briefing paper. You will refer to the agent as Dark Winter. I say again, at no time will the words “pneumonic” or “plague” be mentioned. It is Dark Winter. Have you both got that?’ He pointed at Suzy and she nodded, then at me, and I nodded too. I wasn’t intending to hang around any longer than I had to, but in the meantime I needed to go through the motions. The Yes Man sat back and put his hands on his knees. ‘Your task is very simple: to take control of Dark Winter.’ As it was the mission statement, he repeated it to make sure everything was clear.

‘However –’ I might have guessed this was coming: there was always a ‘however’. He jabbed the air with his index finger. ‘– if you are confronted by a person or persons preventing you taking control of Dark Winter, you will react as the situation dictates to ensure the safety of the public and yourselves.’

It was the standard gobbledygook. Expedited killings couldn’t happen legally unless either the home or foreign secretary, I could never remember which, gave the OK, and if this went wrong, the Yes Man would need to cover his arse by saying that he’d never ordered the killing of the ASU on the UK mainland.

‘The first thing you’ll do is contact our source. Yvette will give you the meet details later.’ He exchanged glances with the Golf Club. ‘Once our friend sorts himself out.’

Suzy sat back and crossed her legs. ‘So no one else is involved?’

‘No one.’

‘Bit like using a nut to crack a sledgehammer, isn’t it?’

The Golf Club got up as the Yes Man gathered together his papers. Her jacket rustled as she leant forward and pushed her arms into the sleeves. ‘This operation is somewhat more complicated than most. The service has a difficult balance to achieve,’ she said.

It was the first time I’d heard her raise her voice.

‘We have got to get out there and find Dark Winter, but also keep the details of its existence and planned use from the public – which unfortunately includes the government and other agencies, plus some in the service itself. It’s the only way we can protect the public and at the same time achieve our goal. However, we have only a small window of opportunity to eradicate this problem before circumstances may make it prudent to inform the relevant agencies in the very near future.’

It sounded like something out of Yes, Minister and I really didn’t understand a word she was saying. But I got the message: if errors were made, others would be blamed. Dark Winter had been the name given to an American exercise conducted in June 2001 with the aim of educating US policy-makers about the possibility of a bioterrorist attack. In the simulation, terrorist networks attacked American cities, including Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Philadelphia, with smallpox. Within a fourteen-day period the virus had spread to all fifty states and several other countries, making the simulation a terrorist success. Thousands of Americans ‘died’, and countless others were ‘infected’. A friend of mine had been involved, and that was the only reason I’d heard about it. The whole world should have sat up and taken notice, but it was three months before 9/11, so nobody batted an eyelid.

I could see what was happening here. The Firm was covering its arse in case information about the attack leaked out, or we were compromised. If the service was accused of acting unilaterally or suppressing information from the Prime Minister, the Yes Man could turn round and say: ‘Of course we informed government – doesn’t everyone read the intelligence reports, doesn’t everyone know what Dark Winter is?’ The relationship between government and the Firm hadn’t been brilliant after the latest Gulf War. I bet the Yes Man was loving keeping this from them. Suzy was even more excited. I realized now for sure that she just lived for this shit.

The Yes Man shoved the last of his files into his briefcase. Yvette followed suit and continued her bit as she ratcheted the cuff round her wrist up tight. ‘At fifteen hundred there will be a brief to address your concerns about the contents of the bottles. His name is Simon and he will come here. He is not aware of any aspect of the operation and will think he is giving a general tutorial to the FCO.’ She looked up with a smile, making eye-contact with us both as the Yes Man cuffed himself to his briefcase. ‘I’ll be back at eighteen hundred, hopefully with details of the source meet and communications, and two Packet Oscars.’

The Yes Man got to his feet. It had never been his custom to ask if anyone had any questions: as far as he was concerned, once he’d finished speaking his audience knew everything they needed to know.

They both made for the door. Suzy was just ahead of them with the mugs before she veered off towards the kitchen.

The Yes Man leant down for a moment as he came level with me, so close I could feel his breath condense in my ear. ‘Make whatever arrangements you need to for that child before the three o’clock briefing. After that, you’re mine.’

As the front door closed, Suzy reappeared, all smiles. ‘Well, this is freaky here-we-go-again shit, isn’t it? Though I’m not sure the boss is as pleased to see you as I am . . .’ She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a blister pack of gum, then jumped backwards into the Yes Man’s sofa, her feet up on the arm. ‘OK, what do you make of all this, then?’

‘I’m keeping an open mind.’

‘Thanks. No need to go overboard.’

She studied me while shoving two chunks of gum into her mouth. ‘Well, at least you won’t die of passive smoking. I’ve given up.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’ I headed for the front door. As I turned the handle, I called back to her: ‘Listen, we’ve got an hour before the Simon thing. I’m going to get some washing and shaving kit. See you in a bit.’

‘OK . . .’ She didn’t sound convinced.