Close Call

Chapter 45

‘You look tired.’ Liz was watching Martin Seurat closely as they sat in the restaurant.

He started to deny it but then smiled, ‘I am a bit,’ he acknowledged.

‘Small wonder,’ she said, and signalled to the waiter to come and take their order.

It had been a long day, especially for Martin – he would have got up in the dark to catch the first Eurostar from Paris, arriving at St Pancras as most people were on their way to work. He’d taken the tube to Westminster and joined the hordes of civil servants heading for their desks in the government offices around Whitehall. Liz had given him coffee in the Thames House canteen, then they’d gone upstairs for the first of the day’s meetings, a catch-up with Peggy. The three of them had sat in Liz’s office while Peggy pulled together the different strands of the investigation so far. She described what had been found at Jackson’s four lockup warehouses the previous night.

‘It looks as though he’s been using one of them to store his most confidential papers,’ she said. ‘That was the one with the tamper alarm on the lock and all the locked filing cabinets. The police are going to want to have a look at them when this bit of the operation is over. The only other interesting one is the one near Eccles. That looked as though it had been used for sleeping in, presumably for some of the girls he brings in. But there is space in any of them for a lorry to be parked, so if the guns are coming in concealed in one of his deliveries, they could arrive at any of the four warehouses. We’ve fitted them all with mikes and cameras so we should be able to see and hear what’s going on. We just have to hope that we get enough warning to be able to do something about it.’

‘What about the lorry that’s supposed to be coming soon from Dagestan?’ asked Seurat. ‘Any more news on that?’

‘Well, we’ve got the description from McManus of the type of lorry we’re looking for, its colour and the name on the side. So if it’s the same as usual, we should get warning from the port when it arrives. I’m hoping we might hear from across the Channel – I’ve alerted all the likely ports in Holland, Belgium and France.’

‘It’s possible we may hear something on Jackson’s phone, but it’s been very quiet,’ Liz added. ‘They’re too cunning to risk phone chatter.’

‘You seem to have that side of things pretty well covered,’ said Martin. ‘Well done.’

Peggy smiled, looking pleased.

Then they’d moved on to what Thibault and GCHQ had discovered about the jihadis. Martin said, ‘It seems fairly clear that a group of Yemeni-based, English-born terrorists are heading towards England, stopping in Paris to rendezvous.’ He explained that the flat of the Parisian radical Ramdani, which was going to be the meeting place, was already under surveillance by Isabelle Florian’s people.

Martin went on to say that they hadn’t been able to get eavesdropping inside the flat because it was in a tenement building occupied by a mixture of immigrant families and old people who had been there for years. No one was going to be able to enter or leave the flat without being observed.

At this point he paused and looked at Liz. ‘We need to settle the key issue.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Liz.

‘Are we going to arrest these people when they arrive at this flat in Paris, or are we going to keep them under surveillance and let them come on to you?’

‘I’ve discussed this with DG and he’s talked it through with the Home Secretary and the Chief Constable in Manchester. The Home Secretary wanted us to ask your colleagues to make arrests. She said that we couldn’t take the risk of allowing a gang of jihadis into the country when we might not be able to keep them under our control. But DG pointed out that there may be nothing for your colleagues to hold them on, particularly if they carry no weapons. They may well have perfectly valid documents. So she’s agreed that you should just follow and watch and hand them on to us. We need to know what they’re planning to do before we act.’

Martin nodded. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. That is the view of Isabelle and the Interior Ministry, and my own Service agrees. But we do have to remember that there’s always the chance, however good the surveillance, that they could give us the slip between Paris and Britain.’

‘We just have to take that chance. If we detain them now, we have nothing to charge them with – even in France, they’ll be out within days. Besides, there’s every chance that others are joining them in the UK – not just Zara. If we grab this bunch the others may find out, and then we’ll never locate them.’

Martin was smiling now. ‘Clear, as ever. Let’s hope the others think so too.’

‘Frankly,’ said Liz, ‘it doesn’t much matter if they don’t, now we have the Home Secretary’s agreement.’

‘The others’ had been Geoffrey Fane and the CIA Head of Station Andy Bokus. Bokus was already in Fane’s office when Liz and Seurat arrived, and judging from the chilly silence they were not enjoying each other’s company.

When Liz introduced Seurat, Bokus merely grunted and looked grumpily out of the window, as if he wished he were somewhere else.

‘Cheer up, Andy,’ said Fane. ‘You’ll find life south of the river isn’t all that bad’ – a reference to the impending move of the US Embassy from Grosvenor Square to a new, more isolated but thought to be safer, location in Wandsworth.

Liz noticed that the CIA man was losing weight, though not much – his suit was a little looser at the shoulders than it once would have been, but his buttoned-up jacket did his bulging midriff no favours.

They’d all sat down and waited awkwardly while Daisy brought in a tray of coffee.

‘Don’t bother, Daisy,’ said Liz. ‘I’ll pour it out.’ As she reached forward to pour out the coffee, she’d noticed that Bokus was already drumming his thumbs on the arms of his chair impatiently.

When the coffee was poured, Fane said, ‘Elizabeth, why don’t you bring us all up to date?’

Liz had been startled by how rude the two men were being to Martin. Bokus hadn’t even acknowledged his presence when she’d introduced him and now Fane was behaving as if he wasn’t there. But she made no comment and proceeded to summarise the situation. When she finished there was a heavy silence.

Bokus said gruffly, ‘You mean to tell me, you got five bad guys – I mean really bad guys – right within your sights, and you want to let them come on here to do God knows what?’ He was staring at Liz and sounded incredulous.

‘We don’t have any intention of letting them do anything. Nor do the French.’

‘No. We certainly do not,’ said Martin Seurat.

Bokus ignored him – it was Liz he was going for. He said in the folksy voice Liz had always been wary of, ‘Listen, I’m just a country boy from Ohio. Sometimes I get a little lost if anything gets too complicated. But we used to say back home that a bird in the hand beats two birds in the bush any old day.’

‘Did you really say that?’ Seurat asked with feigned innocence, and Liz just managed not to laugh. She noted that Fane was staying quiet.

For a brief moment Bokus’s eyes flashed, but he stuck to his Huck Finn persona. ‘We sure did,’ he said, still looking only at Liz. ‘And I’m thinking it applies here pretty well. Why risk losing these guys if we can pick ’em up easier than a bird dog grabs a grouse?’

‘Why indeed?’ muttered Fane.

Liz was about to reply when Seurat broke in. He said simply, ‘Here is why.’ He looked at Bokus with a steeliness Liz had never seen before. ‘The initial information in this case came from you, the Americans. Believe me, we are all grateful for that. And then, the focus shifted to here in the United Kingdom – this man Jackson appeared, and we learned that these British Yemenis are on their way to this country, almost certainly to commit an atrocity.

‘But the fact remains, they are meeting first in Paris. And we believe they were originally considering Paris as the target of their operation – whatever this operation is.’

‘Not any more—’ Bokus started to say. Seurat held up a hand and the American stopped.

‘Hear me out, Monsieur. My point is that Paris has already featured in this case – this is where Zara and the arms dealer Milraud met, and where I fear the other side first suspected they had been observed.’

‘Whose fault was that?’ Bokus demanded.

‘Ours. Not all of us share the American infallibility. In any case, Paris is now again the focal point of this operation and of our cooperation.’ He looked around at them all. ‘Naturally, we need to respect each other’s point of view and to take dissenting opinions into account. But you will appreciate that since this part of the operation is taking place on French soil, then we – the French – must make the final decisions about it. So, since you are asking’ – which, thought Liz, no one was – ‘I must tell you that I agree with our colleagues here. We will not arrest the jihadis who are meeting in this apartment, and instead we will follow them to their exit point which we all believe will be the UK border.’

Seurat took a deep breath. ‘I am sorry if you are not in accord with this, Mr Bokus. And I know that you think this will be the weak decision of another one of those cheese-eating surrender monkeys. But it is the monkeys’ decision nonetheless.’

This speech had produced a startled silence in the room. Even Bokus had looked embarrassed in the face of Martin’s eloquence. When Liz seized the opportunity to say that the Home Secretary, the DG and the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester police had all agreed to let the operation run to the UK, no one had anything more to say and the meeting had broken up in a chilly atmosphere of recrimination.

Now the waiter arrived and Liz said, ‘So what do you want to eat, my cheese-eating friend?’

Seurat laughed. ‘I’ll just have a starter, I think. They will feed me on the train.’

‘Somehow after an hour with Andy Bokus, I don’t feel very hungry either – just a starter will do me too. But I need a glass of wine.’

When the waiter had left, Seurat sat back and sighed. ‘You OK?’ asked Liz.

He smiled. ‘Yes. That was just a sigh of relief. A day I am glad is over. Though I will be happier when tomorrow is over as well.’

‘Are you worried about it?’

Seurat shrugged. ‘No more than I would be normally. Isabelle and her people are in charge, and I have every confidence in them. Thibault seems quite sure that what GCHQ have told him is right. He says it all makes perfect sense. It should be fine, and with any luck they will all be in the UK the day after tomorrow. Then it’s your problem,’ he said, with a smile.

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Liz with an affectionate grin. Martin seemed more like his old self now, and she was relieved to see it. His put-down of Bokus hadn’t bothered her one bit – in fact, she’d loved it. It was such a change from the catlike way Geoffrey Fane danced around their American colleague. Though it had been direct, it had also been controlled, with no sign of the irritability Martin had been showing recently about Milraud.

Their food arrived, and they ate quickly, talking now of anything but work. Liz told him how her mother, whom he had met several times, had thought about giving up work at the nursery garden she ran, and how her partner Edward had dissuaded her since he rightly sensed she’d go mad if she didn’t have enough to do. And Martin talked about his daughter; he was worried about what she’d do after she graduated from the Sorbonne.

It was funny, thought Liz, that when things had been tense between them they had not talked about personal affairs at all; now she felt they were back on their old intimate footing again and it made her happy.

She said, a little reluctantly, ‘Tomorrow, will you be there?’

Seurat raised his eyebrows. ‘At Ramdani’s flat? No. Only the surveillance will be there. I will be with Isabelle and we’ll be sitting safe and sound in the DCRI HQ. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Good,’ she said, forcing a smile. She wished she felt less worried about this operation. She was used to the mix of apprehension and excitement that came just before the action, but somehow this time it felt different. She reached across the table and held Martin’s hand. ‘There’s a train at the crack of dawn, you know.’

He tilted his head back and smiled. ‘And how tempting it is. But I should go back tonight.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d never forgive myself if something went wrong tomorrow and I wasn’t there.’

‘But you said there was nothing to worry about.’ Liz kicked herself for letting her concern show.

Martin put one of his hands on top of hers and looked into her eyes. ‘There isn’t. But I just feel I need to be there. You’d feel the same, wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course I would. You’re quite right.’

Martin looked at her. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

‘I hope so.’

‘And when it is, I was thinking…’

‘Yes?’ asked Liz.

Martin was smiling. ‘You remember the hotel in the hills near Toulon?’

‘How could I forget?’ They had begun their affair there. She remembered the flowers in the garden of the small auberge where they had stayed as spring arrived.

‘I thought a few days there would not go amiss.’

‘D’accord,’ said Liz. ‘I’d like that very much.’

‘Good,’ said Martin. ‘I’d like it too. Because I love you very much, Miss Liz Carlyle.’ And then, as if embarrassed by his display of emotion, he signalled furiously to the waiter for the bill.