A Gentleman's Game

3

London-Vauxhall Cross, Office of the Chief of Service 07 August 1720 GMT The SIS headquarters at 85 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall Cross, had many names, and few of them were complimentary. Five stories deep, towering over the Thames behind triple-paned glass and electronic countermeasures, crammed with fiber optics and copper wire, protected by gates and guards and more surveillance than even the most paranoid pedestrian could imagine, it was considered by many to be an eyesore, and far too ostentatious to house M16. Disparagingly referred to as Babylon-on-Thames, or the Ceausescu Towers, or-Paul Crocker's personal favorite-Legoland, it had an interior that was a maze of white corridors and nondescript doors with only the barest departmental labeling, part of the ever-present attempt to maintain secrecy in a Service that still winced whenever it hired anyone named Guy, Donald, or, worst of all, Kim.

It worked, and more than one fresh-faced officer, new to the Firm, had found himself lost in the halls and in dire need of direction.

The nicest office, situated just below the top floor, belonged to the Chief of Service, currently Sir Francis Barclay or, in keeping with the tradition established by Mansfield Cumming in 1922, C. From the hall, it looked as nondescript as any other in the building. Inside the outer office, it had desks for not one but three personal assistants. But once one went through and into the inner office, everything changed, as if all pretension to modernity had been rejected in favor of those good old days when spying was deemed a Gentlemen's Game. Thick Oriental carpet and a mahogany desk that could keep eight afloat should the Thames burst its banks, three modestly comfortable leather-backed chairs arrayed to face it, and its larger brother positioned behind, to make certain everyone seated knew their place in the room. A separate sitting area off to the side with two couches, two armchairs, and a coffee table. A sidebar heavy with crystal glasses and decanters, and the mandatory door leading to the private washroom, which, rumor held, contained not only the toilet but also a shower and a whirlpool bath.

Paul Crocker hated the office.

Sitting on the far right as he faced the desk, with Deputy Chief of Service Donald Weldon to his immediate left, and Weldon himself flanked by Crocker's opposite number, Simon Rayburn, the Director of Intelligence, Crocker thought the only thing he hated more than the office was the man seated opposite him.

"The bloody Harakat ul-Mujihadin?" Barclay asked, incredulous. "Are you certain?"

"The Abdul Aziz faction, we think," Rayburn replied calmly. He was a small man, slight and drawn, and his voice was the same, and Crocker often had to strain to hear him when Rayburn spoke. "But it's only a working theory. The tape offers nothing to disprove it."

"But it doesn't prove it, either?"

"Not conclusively, no, sir."

"Where did it come from?"

Weldon slid forward in his seat, saying, "The BBC, sir. Delivered to them via messenger shortly before the first train was hit."

"The BBC had advance warning, and they neglected to pass it on?"

"The timing is in question," Rayburn said. "They didn't know what they had, and before anyone could review the tape, the events of the day overtook them. As soon as they realized what they were looking at, they handed it over to the Home Office."

"It's a wonder it made it to us at all," Barclay mused, and despite himself, Crocker found himself in agreement. The Home Office/Foreign Office rivalry was well known and ongoing and extended to an intense rivalry between the Security Services and SIS.

A rivalry that justly took a backseat in light of the day's events.

"Well, let's see it," Barclay said impatiently.

All four men turned in their seats to face the screen hanging on the far wall, above the sidebar. Rayburn targeted the screen with the remote in his hand, and a still frame of a young Pakistani male-Crocker didn't put him a day over twenty-flickered to life, standing in front of a bare white plaster wall. The man wore khakis and a blue short-sleeved button-up shirt, and dirty white sneakers. Behind him, resting against the wall, was a well-used backpack, navy blue with black straps, and beside it what appeared to be a shallow stack of cardboard sheets, propped upright.

"I'm not hearing anything," Barclay said. "Why am I not hearing anything?"

"No audio, sir," Rayburn answered. "Only the video. If you'll note, they've done an exceptionally good job staging this. The background tells us almost nothing about where this was shot, or even when."

"They? How many?"

"At least two, sir-the man we're watching, and someone behind the camera. Here, you'll see."

Rayburn moved his thumb, and the image went into motion, the young man kneeling to open the backpack, turning it toward the camera, demonstrating that it was empty. Then he rose and reached with both hands for something off screen. He returned to the backpack and set two clear glass liter bottles on the floor, then reached toward the camera a second time. A hand, presumably the cameraman's, entered the frame and handed the young man a metal funnel. The hand had a similar skin tone, and Crocker supposed it was another Pakistani, perhaps, but that was only a guess. If it was the Harakat ul-Mujihadin, their ranks were filled with Kashmiri refugees as well as Arab elements. Composition of the Abdul Aziz faction was less known, but Crocker suspected that it drew recruits from many of the same locations.

On the screen, the young man was now filling the bottles, using a red jerry can and the funnel.

"Petrol?" Barclay asked.

"Presumably," Rayburn said. "There aren't many liquids more flammable, and it's easy enough to acquire. Which may be the point in showing us this."

The young man set the jerry can aside, then screwed a cap onto each bottle. Finished, he placed the bottles upright into the backpack, then rose again and reached in the direction of the camera. The same hand presented him with a pistol, then with a clip, and then with a box of ammunition.

"The gun is an FN P-35, for the record," Rayburn said softly.

"Thank you, Simon," Barclay said drily.

Crocker frowned, looked toward Rayburn, and saw that the Director of Intelligence was glancing to him in turn. It made Crocker's frown deepen. The FN P-35 was known more commonly as the Browning Hi-Power, a popular enough firearm to those who used it, and in and of itself, nothing more needed to be noted. Except the fact that the Browning was the sidearm of choice for the Special Air Service, and while the gun itself was produced by Fabrique Nationale, a Belgian concern, and named after an American gunmaker-John M. Browning-there were many who thought of the weapon as Very British Indeed.

The young man was very deliberately loading the clip, one round at a time, to capacity. When he finished, he closed the box of ammunition, slid it away, and seated the clip into the pistol. Then he racked the slide, chambering the first round, and set the safety.

"Interesting," Crocker said.

"Yes," Rayburn murmured.

Weldon turned in his chair, looking first to Crocker, then to Rayburn, confused. Opposite him, Rayburn tapped on the desk.

"Explain."

"Very practiced, sir," Crocker said. "He knows just what he's doing with that weapon."

"One would expect as much."

"No one wouldn't, not necessarily." Crocker tried to keep his tone civil. "A suicide bomber doesn't need training, sir, he needs indoctrination. You put him in a madrassa and fill his head as full of Wahhabism as it can hold. You tell him he's got Allah and infinite virgins waiting for him on the other side. But you don't worry about training him as a fighter, because it's a waste of both your time and his. His job is to wear a bomb and die in the name of God, and your job is to make sure he does just that and doesn't have second thoughts along the way. You don't worry about training him in the proper usage of a firearm."

"You're reaching, Paul," Barclay objected. "That boy isn't older than twenty, and God knows there are plenty of ten-year-olds on the Subcontinent who know their way around guns. Pakistani, from the looks of him, too. Probably fought in Kashmir."

"I agree, sir," Crocker said.

"Then you see my point."

"And you've made mine. If he's a Kashmiri veteran, why waste him on a suicide run?"

"You'll want to pay attention to this next bit," Rayburn said, gently enough that Crocker wasn't certain who was being admonished.

The young man had finished loading the backpack, leaving it open, and now was taking up the cardboard that had remained propped against the wall. He got to his feet once more and, holding the cardboard sheets against his chest, began showing them, one at a time, to the camera. The writing on each sheet was clear, all caps, written in black marker.

The first read: