Red Notice

6

The screens covering the end wall of the conference chamber carried the same CCTV and satellite feeds as the command centre in Hampstead. The room was windowless; the ‘skylight’ in its ceiling merely concealed a bank of SAD illumination units.

A huge rectangular table filled most of the available floor space, the leather seats surrounding it occupied by ministers and civil servants from the Home and Foreign Offices and the MoD, together with the DSF (director of UKSF, United Kingdom Special Forces), and an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who was in constant telephone contact with Woolf.

Many of them had just walked to the fortified cellar beneath Whitehall. Sited between the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square, COBRA was linked by corridor to Downing Street, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office.

The murmur of conversation was barely audible above the hum of the air-conditioning as they waited for the home secretary, chairing the meeting as usual, to finish consulting with the senior civil servant at her elbow and call them back to order. Her grey hair testified to her long experience, but her porcelain features and impeccable diction still led some people to make the mistake of underrating her. They were the same people who also mistook her kindness for weakness. It was a serious error. She was as tough as an old squaddie’s boot, with the language to match, and could be as ruthless with her subordinates as she was with her political adversaries. She was used to junior ministers jockeying for position and squabbling over their places at the table.

‘Shall we stop pissing about, then?’ she said at last, and though her voice was low, it cut through every other conver sation and focused attention on her. ‘Control will be handed over to the SAS for a hard arrest of Laszlo Antonov.’

There was a series of nods and murmurs of assent. But Edward Clements, a career FCO man in his mid-fifties, wearing the civil servant’s uniform of pinstriped suit, crisp white shirt and tie — no hot colours or strong patterns, of course — raised his hand. ‘Let’s just take a deep breath here, shall we, Minister?’ His voice was as smooth and mellow as the malt whisky he liked to drink in his London club. ‘That suicide vest won’t be the only weapon Antonov has procured.’

The home secretary gave him one of her steeliest glares. ‘Do I take it, then, that the Foreign Office has specific intelligence on that front?’

Clements gave a brisk nod. ‘Yes, Home Secretary.’

‘So we should proceed with extreme caution.’

He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t disagree more. There’s all the more reason to authorize immediate military action rather than a non-lethal arrest.’

‘If you want to achieve a bloodbath, perhaps,’ she said acidly. ‘The military and the police always tell us, “We can do it” — but why wouldn’t they? It’s money on their budgets, and a poke in the eye for their rivals in the Security Service and the SIS. But we can — and should — be rather more objective and measured in our response.

‘It’s very easy to be an armchair warrior, but which of you…’ she glanced around the room, making sure she still had everyone’s full attention ‘… is prepared to take responsibility for that decision? Which of you would be willing to shoulder the blame if it all goes pear-shaped?’ She gave the DSF a look that left him in no doubt that she spoke his language. There would be no bullshit getting past her.

She glanced around the table once more. Most of the assembled officials and all of the politicians avoided her eye. ‘Precisely,’ she said. ‘Nobody. I’ll be the one in the firing line.’

Clements leaned forward. ‘Be that as it may, Home Secretary…’ He cleared his throat and waited until everyone was listening. ‘Make no mistake. If he’s cornered, Antonov has the commitment — and the full intention — to use his weapons.’

‘Which is precisely why there’s a Red Notice on this animal.’ The home secretary gave him another glare. She had no time for civil-service theatrics.

Laszlo Antonov had been officially charged with war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and a Red Notice had been issued by Interpol. Interpol did not have the authority to issue arrest warrants in the formal sense — that was the domain of the sovereign member states — but a Red Notice was the closest thing there was to an international arrest warrant.

Antonov was a South Ossetian, and had known war all his life. North Ossetia was part of Russia, but South Ossetia had always been the subject of dispute between Georgia and Russia. Most South Ossetians carried Russian passports and wanted to break away from Tbilisi. They had declared it a republic in 1990 and the Georgian government had sent in tanks. A series of conflicts followed.

Laszlo, by then a well-seasoned fighter and nationalist, had turned to the Russians for support. The Georgians were preparing to slaughter his people again, and he needed to defend himself. Happy to have a vicious and well-trained proxy, the Russians gave him the funding and the weaponry to raise a clandestine paramilitary unit from men he had fought with for years. Officially it was called the 22nd Black Bear Brigade, but the locals referred to them simply as the Black Bears. Laszlo was the unquestioned leader and his brother, Sambor, was second-in-command.

The Black Bears fought like a Special Forces unit: they lived covertly in the field for weeks, attacking Georgians in small numbers before fading into the night; destroying their line of supply and communication and killing as many high-ranking officers as they could until their army was incapable of making tactical decisions on the ground. Laszlo conducted his war with speed, aggression and surprise, in a way that even the SAS would have admired.

When Georgia launched an offensive in 2008 to retake the breakaway republic, about fourteen hundred locals had been slaughtered. In retaliation, Laszlo had led a massacre of more than six hundred innocent ethnic Georgian men, women and children in one night of carnage. He had then provided the Russians with vital information that helped Moscow make the decision to send troops and tanks over the border to ‘protect Russia’s citizens’.

The home secretary had been informed the moment the Security Service had discovered Laszlo was in the UK, and James Woolf, section chief, Branch G, had become the senior case officer.

‘And this government will honour all its commitments and agreements with the ICC.’

Clements rolled his eyes. He never quite understood how the government decided on their cabinet appointments. This latest home secretary had come from the Department for Work and Pensions, where she’d been responsible for work rights and benefits for the disabled, not protecting a country. ‘Spare us the synthetic moral outrage, Sarah.’

He ignored the horrified looks from those around the table. Even in these informal times, few civil servants, no matter how senior, would have been quite so forthright when speaking to one of their political masters. ‘If we went round arresting every tyrant and warlord with blood on his hands, we’d have to build another fifty jails to house them all, and we’d lose so much export business that our economy would collapse even more quickly than it already is. The death of a few hundred civilians in South Ossetia now and then didn’t even rouse the indignation of the Guardian’s bleeding-hearts brigade, let alone the rest of the press. I’ll tell you how interested any of us was: the only imagery we have of him dates back to 2001.’

He paused long enough for that fact to sink in.

‘Can you imagine the media storm that would break if even one British citizen out for a gentle stroll on Hampstead Heath is shot by a foreign gunman because the government insisted on a kid-gloves arrest rather than sending in the SAS to do what they do best? Do I really have to remind you about the Libyan Embassy and the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher?’

‘That’s scarcely relevant in this case,’ she said. ‘Legally we have no choice but to arrest him or risk worldwide embarrassment. This isn’t the backwoods of Afghanistan, Clements. This is the UK, and our security forces have to operate here in the full glare of media attention, and within the law.’

‘You’re right, of course, Home Secretary.’ Clements’s voice now dripped sarcasm. ‘A firefight on Hampstead Heath would be so much easier to defend to the media if it resulted in the death of a ruthless and notorious terrorist during an operation to arrest him.’ He glanced at the DSF. ‘If that regrettable event were to occur, I am correct in assuming, am I not, that it would be revealed that Antonov was known to be armed and extremely dangerous?’

The UKSF commander’s face immediately betrayed his dislike of Clements. ‘You would be correct in assuming that my men would meet force with force, Mr Clements. But if you’re implying—’

Clements held up his hand. ‘I’m implying nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m merely trying to ensure that your men are free to take all necessary measures to halt this appalling terrorist and not be placed in jeopardy by needless restrictions on their freedom of action.’

COBRA meetings weren’t minuted. The politicians could say what they liked: their words would never be available as evidence. The Thatcher government had offered the Regiment immunity from prosecution during its dark and dirty war against the IRA, but they had quite correctly turned the offer down. They had known that once the agreement was exposed it would be members of the SAS in the dock for breaking the law, not the politicos. They would simply say they had no recollection of any conversation or agreement that let the UKSF do such things in the UK.

‘The welfare of my men is my principal concern, Mr Clements.’ The DSF knew he had to be careful. ‘But whatever the terms of their deployment, and whatever resistance Antonov puts up, I can assure you that there will be no fire-fight on Hampstead Heath. If there is collateral damage, it will be contained within the house itself.’

‘Just the domestic staff, then, and they’re probably all Russian,’ Clements said. ‘Brilliant. So in order to ensure that Antonov is arrested rather than eliminated, we’re going to send in the SAS with one hand tied behind their backs, increasing the risk to their own lives, not to mention those of the cooks, maids and gardeners. A hundred and fifteen thousand pounds per head in compensation will be a small price to pay for such good press.’

‘Thank you for being so constructive, as always, Edward.’ The home secretary’s sarcasm matched his own. She hit the table with both hands, hard. The walls were too thick for the sound to echo, but it got everyone’s attention all the same. ‘Right. If we’ve all finished?’ Her expression defied anyone to disagree. ‘Then let’s get on with it, shall we? But I hope I’ve made it sufficiently clear that I expect this to be a non-lethal operation.’

Her gaze travelled from the DSF to the Met’s assistant commissioner.

As Clements collected his papers and strode from the room, the commissioner picked up the mobile phone lying on the table in front of him and spoke into it.