A Covert War

FIFTEEN

David Ellis looked out through the windows of the Toyota as Abdul drove through a flat plain of rock and sand. They were in a natural basin that nestled in the foothills of Kondoz in northern Afghanistan. Outside the temperature was in the high forties, while inside the Toyota they rode in air conditioned comfort.

They had been driving for about five hours, with Abdul and his minders taking turns at the wheel. Abdul had said very little to David, but with each day David was becoming more and more familiar with the Persian language that Abdul and his men used. It was basically Farsi, the lingua franca of Afghanistan, although in some of the more remote regions of the country, the farmers used local dialects. So with David’s increasing knowledge of the tongue, he was able to understand a great deal of what was being said. But whenever he spoke to Abdul, he always made sure he spoke in English.

Abdul had been following a river for several miles that flowed through the basin from the upper reaches of the hills, and it was soon evident to David where they were going when he saw the drying pans laid out in rows in the sun. These were pans of raw opium. Each pan held about twenty five to thirty kilos. David knew they wouldn’t be far from a poppy farm now and the preliminary processing plant.

A few houses came into view as the ground gave way to a scattering of trees that screened the poppy fields. Abdul pulled up beside one of the houses and killed the engine. He sounded the horn and got out of the car followed by David and the two minders. Abdul said nothing to either of them but waited until someone came out of the house. It was the poppy farmer.

Immediately the two men began the ritual greeting each other before venturing into the house where David knew they would be obliged to eat according to the traditional hospitality of the Afghan people.

After the meal Abdul got up from the table and beckoned David to follow.

‘We are going out to the sheds,’ he told David. ‘It will be good for you to see the work these men do to make your people rich.’

David got up and followed Abdul out with the farmer. The two minders stayed behind.

They walked some considerable distance from the house before coming to the first of several sheds. David could smell something in the air. It reminded him of the acidic smells of his schooldays in chemistry lessons.

Inside the first shed David saw several containers marked ‘ammonium chloride’ and ‘sodium carbonate’. He knew from titbits of information he had picked up that these were essential chemicals used in the initial process of converting opium sap into pure heroin.

There were several pots of boiling liquid adding to the overpowering, acidic aroma in the shed. On top of the boiling liquid he could see all manner of debris and scum collecting there.

Elsewhere men were straining the cooled liquid from other pots through cheesecloth filters, leaving a sticky residue behind. Abdul explained to David that the residue would be heated and condensed down to leave a paste, and it was this that David saw drying in pans out in the sun.

Abdul explained much of the process to David as they walked through the sheds.

‘The paste will be shipped out across the border from Kondoz into Turkmenistan for processing into pure heroin. We have other processing sites spread all along the border.’

‘Why Turkmenistan?’ David asked him.

Abdul almost snarled when he answered. ‘That is Janov’s part of the operation. It is less trouble shipping it over the border into Turkmenistan than trying to get it through into Pakistan. There are too many British soldiers in Helmand Province.’

‘What about the Americans?’ David asked him.

Abdul allowed himself a wry smile. ‘We have no problems in Nuristan where the Americans are.’ He slapped his thigh a couple of times. ‘They are in our pockets as you say in England.’

‘What about NATO troops?’ David put to him.

Abdul laughed out loud. ‘They are babies; they will not fight, so we have no problem with them.’

They walked out of the shed and into the hot sun. In between talking to David, Abdul had been having a business-like discussion with the farmer. David knew it wasn’t going too well, but he couldn’t figure out why. The farmer stopped on the track and faced Abdul. He bowed his head slightly and said farewell. They shook hands and the farmer went back into the sheds.

‘Abdul,’ David said, putting his hand on Abdul’s arm; something that would have encouraged a severe beating some months ago. ‘Why are you dragging me round like this?’

Abdul considered his reply for a while. Then he put his hands together in an attitude of prayer and began to walk along the track. David fell into step beside him.

‘I want you to learn to trust me, that is why I am keeping you with me,’ Abdul began. ‘I am having many problems now with my suppliers, my farmers. They are holding out on fixing a price.’

‘What has that got to do with me?’ David asked.

‘You will see. You remember the attack on the compound?’ He waited for David to say he did. ‘It was Janov’s doing. One of my farmers who is loyal to me has told me that Janov wants to cut me out.’

‘But you are doing business with Janov,’ David reminded him. ‘You met with him a few days ago.’

Abdul looked hard at David. ‘Janov is an ambitious man, an evil man.’ Abdul seemed to conveniently forget the kind of business he himself was in, the same as Janov. ‘But he is working for his cousin, Danvor. And his cousin works for the American CIA, and one day they will run this country. Soon, if I am not careful, the Americans will come and I will be taken out. That is why I keep moving and why I keep you with me, because I want to exchange you for something.’

David stopped. ‘Exchange me for what, Abdul?’

‘Your freedom and my freedom.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘I don’t understand,’ David admitted.

Abdul put his hand on David’s shoulder. ‘Your freedom means you can go home and live your life without hindrance, am I right?’ David nodded. Abdul continued. ‘But for me I want something else. I want your country to give me political asylum so I can live my life free from the threat I face from the Americans.’

David was stunned to hear Abdul say that he wanted to get out of the lucrative and criminal business he was in, and that he expected the British to help him achieve that. He feared Abdul was in for a big disappointment.

‘Well you won’t get that in exchange for me, Abdul, I can assure you.’

Abdul smiled. ‘No, but I will if I offer to give them the names of those who are involved here in Afghanistan and in Britain.’

They found Grebo’s body. It had been dumped in a fairly quiet area beside the river. A man walking his dog came across it. The police could not identify the corpse so easily because the face wasn’t there. The bullet into the back of the head had taken Grebo’s face clean off. All the police could do was to cordon the area off and wait for the forensic boys to get to work.

There were no identifying documents on him so they had to rely on dental records, but there was no way of locating a dentist with those records. It was a chicken and egg argument: they had the teeth but no records, and whoever had the records would not know about the teeth. But eventually it was suggested that they check on all Americans living in the area because the dead man was wearing clothing that had probably been purchased in America. Then someone thought of the American Forces stationed in Britain, which widened the search.

This link brought them to the United States Air Force base at Lakenheath and it was there they found the dental records they were looking for and subsequently identified one Danvor Grebo, Chief Master Sergeant in the USAF as the dead man.

It was fairly obvious to the investigating officer that Grebo’s murder had the hallmarks of a gang style killing, and there were only two possibilities that rang alarm bells: one was drugs, the other was terrorism; the possible slaying of a member of the American Forces as a terrorist style revenge attack.

The connections were then being made and passed to various departments within the Metropolitan Police divisions which included the narcotics and terrorist departments of SOCA, Special Branch and eventually the desk of James Faulkner.

It also crossed the desk of Andrew Butler, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who phoned Sir Giles Cavendish as a courtesy. And so the loop was completed, and all the interested parties made their own choices on how they were going to deal with this particular crime.

James Faulkner made his choice; he phoned Randy Hudson, the CIA Station chief and asked for an urgent meeting. The meeting took place at the same riverside pub as before, but this time they were being observed and filmed by a member of Sir Giles Cavendish’s department. Cavendish was taking no chances with Faulkner since their meeting with the Prime Minister. It was because of something the SOCA chief had said after Cavendish had told them about the drug smugglers, bringing in drugs and young girls, then smuggling arms out. Faulkner had declared that he believed all the poppy fields in Afghanistan had been destroyed.

It was a simple enough assumption to make, that the drugs were coming in from Afghanistan, but Cavendish hadn’t mentioned that country; the drugs could have been coming in from the Far East. It was a small error, but one that immediately raised the bar, and Cavendish decided to keep a discreet surveillance on the SOCA chief; hence the camera filming his meeting with Hudson from across the river.

‘I’ve got very little time,’ Hudson warned Faulkner. He looked at his watch and sat down opposite the SOCA chief. ‘I don’t know if I can give you anything new; the boys at Lakenheath are in a flat spin over this. Your English newspaper guys are already calling it ‘gunfight at the OK corral.’

Faulkner raised his eyebrows a notch. ‘Our headline writers have vivid imaginations.’

‘But they do at least stir things up and get the public interested. This has taken them away from their soap operas.’

‘Well hopefully, your country folk will give our Press something to feed on. But I want to know if you have any contingency plan?’

‘Milan Janov is flying in tomorrow,’ Hudson told Faulkner. ‘I contacted him through the usual channels to tell him of his cousin’s disappearance. He doesn’t know yet what’s happened.’

‘I’m more concerned about how we are going to replace Grebo,’ Faulkner said levelly. ‘At the moment we don’t have anybody in place.’

Hudson shook his head. ‘Don’t worry; I’ll fill that gap. And I’ll talk to Janov.’

‘What can he do?’

Hudson shrugged. ‘Nothing really, but I think he wants to ride in and flex his muscles.’

‘I won’t be able to do anything if Immigration stops him at Heathrow,’ Faulkner told him. ‘Probably better if they do stop him and send him home.’

Hudson laughed lightly. ‘Well, we’ll let him have his moment if he does get in. But I suspect there’s another reason for his visit.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Look, James, I really have to go. I’ll catch up with you later.’

Faulkner drained his glass and stood up. ‘OK Randy let me know if anything develops.’

Hudson stood up and shook Faulkner’s hand. ‘Deveraux has already had to close the operation down,’ he said, ‘For now anyway. It might mean I’ll have to make a trip back to the States for a while, but I’ll let you know.’

‘Thanks Randy, keep in touch.’

And with that the two men went their separate ways.

Cavendish had kept Marcus under virtual house arrest for a couple of days. He had taken him from Susan’s house and made sure there was no way he could disappear again. During that time he did his best to debrief Marcus and find out as much as he could about the events that had happened while Marcus had been operating unofficially.

Marcus had told Cavendish as much as he could, even to the extent that he believed the police would find the gun that killed Covington in the Mercedes he had dumped at the truck stop.

He also told Cavendish about the killer’s house and, most painfully of all, the fact that he now believed Maggot was a hit man for the organisation that were smuggling drugs into Britain.

What Cavendish told Marcus was that there was a growing conviction that the CIA were running the organisation and smuggling arms out to Afghanistan to keep the insurgent war lords happy and to maintain a constant supply of heroin into the West. He told Marcus that the heroin trade world-wide was worth in the region of 120 billion dollars a year, and that a great deal of money was going into the pockets of people in very senior positions of authority.

‘And remember this, Marcus,’ Cavendish added at the end of one of his short lectures. ‘They have killed a Cabinet minister, a high flying lawyer and one of their own, key men in order to maintain a very lucrative business. And they would have killed me if you hadn’t intervened.’

‘And they have tried to kill me,’ Marcus mentioned.

Covington almost smiled. ‘Yes, you annoy them, and they spoil your day anyway, so both of you had better watch out.’

For the moment, Marcus failed to see the rejoinder. He was thinking instead of why he was this far in.

‘Is there going to be any end to this, Sir Giles?’ he asked.

Cavendish nodded firmly. ‘Mark my words, Marcus; it will end. One way or the other,’ he added ominously.

Milan Janov flew into London and waltzed through Immigration at Heathrow with his false passport. He was met by an inconsequential looking youth and immediately taken by car to an address in north London. He was dropped off at the house with his overnight bag and left standing at the front door of the house as the car disappeared into the late evening.

Janov waited no more than a few moments before the door was opened and he was taken into a room at the rear of the house. Waiting there for him was Randy Hudson, CIA Station Chief in Britain.

Janov was not used to travelling without minders but his instructions had been explicit, and only by travelling under an assumed name and with a false passport could he be sure of getting into Britain without the security people showing an interest in him and sending him packing.

A meal had been prepared for him, which he ate while discussing events with Hudson.

‘Have you found the people who murdered my cousin?’ Janov asked through a mouthful of food.

‘We’ve no idea who killed your cousin,’ Hudson lied, shaking his head. ‘But we will eventually, I’m sure.’

‘What happened to the arms shipment?’ Janov asked, shovelling another mouthful in. ‘My man has told me that it did not arrive at Felixstowe docks as expected. If I do not get the goods, I cannot do business.’

Hudson explained the predicament that faced the organisation. ‘It was not of our choosing. And I have to say that your cousin acted like a damn fool.’

Janov stopped eating immediately and looked across the table with venom in his eyes. Then he shrugged and carried on eating.

‘He was a damn fool to get himself killed,’ he spluttered through a mouthful of food. ‘But it could happen to any one of us; it is a dangerous business. Now, what about the arms shipment?’

‘There will be no shipment,’ Hudson told him. ‘The United States Air Force has placed the warehouse off limits until their investigation is complete.’

‘Are the goods still in the warehouse?’ Janov asked him.

‘Yes, but they had been sealed by the Customs and Excise at the docks, and for that reason the Air Force investigators have no reason to want to see into them. Yet, he added.’

‘That is good.’ He shoved his plate aside. ‘So what is the reason given for the shooting at the warehouse?’

‘No reason is being given,’ Hudson told him. ‘But the real reason is that a security agent had been following your cousin, and this caused him a problem.’

‘Danny?’

Hudson nodded. ‘Yes.’

Janov gave this some thought for a while. Then he got up from the table and walked over to a worktop and picked up a bottle of Slivovic, a plum brandy that Hudson knew Janov was partial to. He poured a generous measure into a glass and drank it down. Then he poured another and came back to the table.

‘I want another team put in to take care of Abdul,’ he told Hudson.

The CIA man was surprised by Janov’s sudden request. ‘Why couldn’t you take care of him yourself?’ he asked reasonably.

Janov swirled a mouthful of Slivovic around his gums before swallowing the brandy. ‘It has to look like an American or British action,’ he told Hudson. ‘It is the only way I can persuade the farmers that I am not a threat to them. If I kill Abdul, they will know and this will scare them off; it will drive them into the arms of the Taliban.’ He finished his brandy. ‘And I’m sure the organisation would not want that.’

‘I will need to talk to someone,’ Hudson warned him. ‘It isn’t something I can do at the drop of a hat. And it costs.’

Janov dipped his head sharply. ‘I will pay.’

Hudson looked impressed; it meant that Janov saw the financing of a hit team to take out Abdul Khaliq was a good investment.

‘The Chapter will still have to authorise it,’ Hudson told him.

‘They are good businessmen,’ Janov replied. ‘They understand profit and loss, and who is making too much profit. They will authorise it.’

‘In that case,’ Hudson said, getting to his feet, ‘I will make a few phone calls and see you back here tomorrow. If you want anything, one of my men will be here until you leave. But remember; the operation has been closed down until further notice. Goodnight Janov.’

After Hudson had left the house, Janov had a shower and got into a change of clothes. He then asked Hudson’s man to order a taxi. When it arrived he asked the driver to take him to a club in West London.

The club was a popular meeting place for Slovaks and other Eastern Europeans. There were other clubs scattered around and the air was heavy with the tortured vowel sounds of a mixture of mid European languages. It was one of Janov’s favourite places whenever he visited London; it was here at this particular club where some of the girls that the organisation provided could be found. Janov’s particular passion was for the young, Pakistani girls provided unwittingly by the Mission in Jalalabad.

But before entering the club, Janov found a phone box and made a call. Then he walked back to the club entrance and introduced himself to one of the security guards who took Janov inside and handed him over to another member of the staff.

The call Janov had made was to a member of the organisation who he knew would call the club and ask them to let Janov in.

Janov stepped inside and looked around at the decor that seemed to swamp the interior. It was a mix of red velvet, draped curtains, cord edged sofas and chairs. Heavy, dark tables each with a small lampshade in the centre. The dance floor was carpet free and covered in parquet wood. Screens hid the toilet doors and one other door that led to the rooms upstairs.

He was taken to a small, unoccupied corner table, which he guessed had been cleared for him and asked what he would like to drink. He ordered a Pilsner Urquell; the most widely exported Czech beer and sat back to enjoy the music, the dancing and to think of what he might do later with one of the girls in the upper rooms.

There was an unmistakeable hint of cannabis smoke in the air, which helped to relax Janov. He finished his pilsner and ordered another, checked his watch and wondered how long he would have to wait until the man who he had phoned showed up. Although the CIA chief told Janov he would need to get authorisation from The Chapter to send a small team into Afghanistan to take out Abdul, Janov knew that this man would almost certainly lead it.

The double doors on the opposite side of the club opened and the man Janov had been phoned came in. He spoke to a security guard who pointed across the floor to Janov. The man nodded his head and walked over to Janov’s table. Janov stood up and shook his hand

‘Hallo Janov.’

Janov smiled warmly. ‘Greetings Rafiq, my friend, it is so good to see you.’

It was Maggot.

Cavendish sat in the darkened room watching the screen in front of him. He was looking at a film recording of the CIA chief, Hudson meeting with the SOCA chief, Faulkner. They were sitting in the beer garden of the riverside pub where they had met the day before. The camera used to film them had been positioned on the other side of the river, using a high powered, telescopic lens.

Despite the quality of the camera and the reasonable conditions in which the two men had been filmed, the pictures were slightly grainy, and for the man sitting with Cavendish, a little tricky to follow. He was a lip reader, and Cavendish had called him in to interpret what the two men had been talking about.

They had watched the footage once already and were now about to go through it again. One of the problems the lip reader had besides the grainy images was the fact that Faulkner would keep lifting his hand across his mouth and so giving the lip reader nothing to read.

‘….give you anything new,’ the lip reader began. His words were being recorded as he read what he could understand. ‘….gunfight at the OK…., your country… press….any contingency plan…Milan Janov… tomorrow.’ There was a brief silence. ‘… we are going to replace Grebo…fill that gap.’ Silence again. ‘…I won’t be… immigration stops….send him home…’ Another pause. ‘….have to go…. Deveraux to close….trip back to the states…’ He stopped and sat up.

‘I’m afraid that’s it, Sir Giles,’ the lip reader told Cavendish. ‘Very difficult to follow the patterns: too grainy and too much hand movement.’

Cavendish got up and switched on the lights. ‘That’s fine. I’ll send a copy of what you’ve managed so far and then you can look at the tape a few more times; see if you can fill in any gaps.’

The lip reader stopped the DVD player. ‘I’ll be off then, Sir Giles. Hope there’s enough for you to go on.’

Cavendish nodded. ‘Couple of things,’ he answered non-comittally. ‘And thanks again.’

Cavendish sat alone in his office after the lip reader had left wondering what his next move was going to be. He had little scope to fill the investigation with countless agents working to ferret out information that was more or less well known to him but of which he had no proof, because of limited funding; a burden all governments departments had to live with, and the fact that all avenues out of his office seemed to come up against people in authority who were in the pay of the organisation known as The Chapter.

Cavendish had penetrated The Chapter with an agent working undercover, right in the heart of the organisation’s clearing centre in Jalalabad, in the Mission; but the agent’s identity had been discovered by the organisation.

His second agent David Ellis, who had gathered valuable intelligence, was now in captivity, a hostage, and it was this fact that was beginning to puzzle Cavendish. Ellis had been shot and almost killed, but had been snatched from the hospital, only to resurface almost a year later. Contact had been made with Ellis’s sister from an unknown source. At first Cavendish could not set too much store in that first packet of grubby pages that had turned up. But the second, the letter which was now in Susan Ellis’s possession was the more puzzling; why had it been sent, and by whom?

With today’s internet technology, he knew it wouldn’t be beyond the wit of the kidnappers to put a video on the web and read out their demands with David Ellis sitting forlornly in the foreground. But that wasn’t the case, which led Cavendish to believe that whoever was holding Ellis hostage either wouldn’t or couldn’t resort to that tactic. Why?

Could it be, he wondered, that the kidnapper was afraid of revealing his or her identity? The kidnapper had nothing to fear from the British authorities; rather the opposite; the British would gladly take Ellis off the kidnapper’s hands for nothing. So the kidnapper must have something to fear from his own side.

A picture was beginning to emerge in Cavendish’s mind. The Chapter had proved how ruthless they were when it came to dispatching men who posed a threat to them. People like James Purdy, the Cabinet Minister, or Danvor Grebo; one of their own.

It meant that if the kidnapper was a member of The Chapter, part of the drug and arms smuggling cartel Cavendish was trying to penetrate and smash, he would have every reason to fear for his life.

He wanted to talk! That was it; it had to be the reason Susan had received the second letter. But how on earth was Cavendish supposed to unearth the person who wanted to make contact without advertising the fact, and putting that man or woman’s life in danger, and that of David Ellis?

It was something he had to think about, but an idea began to germinate in his mind and he wondered if he might be able to pull it off.

Three days later, Cavendish rang James Faulkner and asked for a meeting. Faulkner sounded reluctant, but because of their overlapping responsibilities he knew he was obliged to. Cavendish gave him no idea of why he wanted the meeting, but pressed him on its urgency.

Faulkner duly arrived at MI6 headquarters and was shown up to Cavendish’s office. He was surprised to see Andrew Butler there, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Cavendish greeted him, a touch formally Faulkner thought and invited him to sit down. He then produced a manila envelope from which he withdrew two sheets of paper. He passed one to Faulkner and the other to the Commissioner.

‘I would like you to read that for me if you would,’ Cavendish asked the SOCA chief. ‘I’ll be interested in your reaction.’

Faulkner frowned and pulled the sheet of paper towards him. He took a pair of half-moon glasses from his jacket pocket, perched them on the bridge of his nose while holding them with one hand, and scanned the document. He could feel the colour and heat flooding into his neck as he looked through the typescript.

What Cavendish had given the two men was an almost complete script of the conversation that had taken place between Faulkner and Hudson at the riverside pub a few days ago. Cavendish’s man, the lip reader had poured over the film many times and used his own skills and inclination to fill in the majority of empty spaces that had prevailed after his first attempt. The result was an almost complete copy of what had been said between the two men.

Faulkner kept his face fixed firmly on the paper, his mind working furiously. Eventually he put his glasses back in his pocket and looked across the table at Cavendish.

‘What is this, Sir Giles?’

Butler peered over the top of his glasses. ‘Yes, what is it?’

Looking at the Commissioner, Cavendish said, ‘Our SOCA chief had a meeting with Randolph Hudson, the CIA Station Chief a few days ago at a pub alongside the river. We filmed that meeting and used lip reading techniques to produce that transcript of what was said between the two men.’

Butler dropped his eyes down to the script. ‘It’s nothing but a piece of paper with a jumbled narrative.’

‘I agree,’ Cavendish told him. ‘But with the film it makes an awful lot of difference.’ He turned his attention back to Faulkner. ‘Well, have you anything to say?’

Faulkner dropped the paper on to the table top. ‘Well, what is it? All I can see is what appears to be a script of some kind.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So what are you saying?’

Cavendish did not want to go along with what he knew was play-acting from Faulkner. He decided to nail this and force the man into a climb down and possibly a confession; although he considered the latter unlikely.

‘You and the CIA Chief are part of an organisation known as The Chapter of Mercy.’ Faulkner said nothing. ‘Along with other men of authority, holding very senior positions, you are actively engaged in smuggling heroin and people into this country. You are also engaged in supplying arms to our opponents in Afghanistan; namely the Taliban and Al Qaeda.’

Faulkner jumped up. ‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish! I’m not sitting here listening to this scandalous trash,’ he said sternly, and turned away to walk to the door.

‘You won’t get out,’ Cavendish told him, ‘the door is locked.’

Faulkner spun round, his face a picture of anger. ‘What on earth do you mean by holding me against my will, Cavendish?’ he shouted furiously. ‘I insist you open this door immediately.’ Cavendish shook his head and maintained a fixed stare at Faulkner.

The SOCA chief glared at the Commissioner. ‘Andrew, are you going to sit there and be a party to this, this kidnap?’

The Commissioner held the sheet of paper in his hand. ‘I think James, under the circumstances you should at least listen to what Sir Giles has to say.’ He looked at Cavendish. ‘I for one would certainly like to know what’s going on.’

Faulkner came back to the table and sat down. ‘This is complete tosh,’ he told Cavendish. ‘And an absolute insult to my integrity.’ He picked up the sheet of paper and waved it at him. ‘For your information, Hudson and I were discussing a case that we are investigating; nothing more than that.’

‘At this moment,’ Cavendish said without waiting for Faulkner to add anything else to his tirade, ‘Randolph Hudson is being spoken to by my opposite number in MI5. He is being advised to seek retirement on medical grounds seeing as it’s unlikely we could hold him here in UK. After all, he would probably claim diplomatic immunity.’

Faulkner looked nonplussed. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

Cavendish ploughed on. ‘Commodore Deveraux has been apprised of the situation by the American Ambassador. The fact that he is being told that his accomplices are under suspicion should be enough for him to seek early retirement as well, don’t you think?’

Nothing was said for a while because Faulkner was considering his options and the vague signals being sent out by the MI6 chief.

‘Why do I think there is more to it than this?’ he asked Cavendish. ‘Or am I supposed to know that too?’

Cavendish allowed himself a smile. ‘We shall see,’ he told Faulkner. ‘But at the moment we have succeeded in stopping the organisation in its tracks. We know the CIA have been sanctioning the operation for their own sordid reasons. We also know the part played in it by some members of the American Air Force. What we need now, Faulkner are names. We want names that will help us in breaking the so called Chapter of Mercy into a thousand pieces and protecting so many innocent people here in Britain and elsewhere.’

Butler spoke then. ‘James, I think you should cooperate. I think there is some quid pro quo here. Am I right Sir Giles?’ he asked, turning to Cavendish, who nodded. He then looked back at Faulkner. ‘If this crosses my desk officially, then I will be compelled to act. It will cause an enormous stink all the way back to the Whitehouse; you know that, don’t you?’

Faulkner could see he was trapped, even though it appeared that he was being offered a way out. He would have to resign on health grounds of course, or family reasons, but would his cooperation ensure his freedom? It was possible she would always live in fear that some rogue elements of The Chapter would come looking for him.

Finally he looked over at Cavendish. ‘Give me a few hours. I’ll go back to my office, sort some things out. Quid pro quo, right?’

Cavendish nodded. ‘Quid pro quo.’

Faulkner left and Butler spent about twenty minutes with Cavendish. They discussed the case briefly and Butler managed to extract a promise from Cavendish that he would keep the Met informed of anything that be useful to the police once Faulkner had been debriefed.

When the police commissioner left, Cavendish began planning the next stage of his campaign to kill the organisation stone dead. He now had some work to do with Susan and Marcus as part of the scheme he was considering. He managed a quick lunch at his favourite eatery and returned to his office a little after two o’clock in the afternoon.

At ten minutes past two his phone rang. He picked it up. It was the commissioner.

‘Sir Giles? Andrew Butler here. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’

‘Oh, and what is that?’ Cavendish asked.

‘It’s about James Faulkner. He has committed suicide; he shot himself.’