King Solomon's Curse

33

Nina awoke with a start. She and Eddie were in the Alderleys’ spare bedroom, a street lamp outside casting a square of light on one wall. The curtains were open; closing them when their hosts were supposedly the only people in the house might have raised suspicion.

That the house hadn’t been raided suggested their presence was still a secret, however. She shifted to find Eddie already awake beside her. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked.

‘Half five.’

‘Really? God.’ She sighed. ‘That’s bad enough in itself, but I hardly slept. I was too worried about Macy. What if Brice already sent his people to take her?’

‘Yeah, me too,’ he said gloomily. ‘Just got to hope he’s decided that if he can’t contact us, he can’t use her to threaten us into surrendering.’

‘That’s a very big hope.’

‘All we’ve got.’ He suddenly sat upright at a noise elsewhere in the house, then relaxed — though still remained alert. ‘Ay up. Sounds like Alderley’s moving.’

A few minutes later, a quiet tap came at the door. ‘Nina? Chase?’ Alderley whispered.

‘Yeah, we’re awake,’ Eddie replied.

‘Ah, good.’

‘No, not particularly,’ said Nina grumpily.

A small chuckle. ‘This is normally when I start the day anyway, so nobody’ll be suspicious. I had a quick peek outside, by the way. There’s a car I don’t recognise down the street, and from the way it’s sitting on its suspension, I’d say there are two quite large men in it.’

‘We’ll keep our heads down, then,’ Eddie said as he rolled off the bed. Both he and Nina had slept fully clothed, knowing they might need to make a rapid departure.

‘Come down to my office,’ said Alderley, leading them through the house. They entered the room to find the blinds drawn and his computer on, a screensaver cycling through pictures of his Capri. ‘I logged into SIS to check the morning’s reports and advisories. Last night, around the time you were telling me what had been going on in the Congo, a security alert was issued — for you.’ He sat and typed in a password, the car disappearing to be replaced by passport photos of the couple. ‘This went to SIS, the Security Service, Special Branch, and the Met and surrounding police forces.’

‘Oh, great,’ Nina said in dismay. ‘We’re at the top of the most-wanted list.’

‘Hopefully you won’t feel too offended that you’re actually relatively low priority. The instruction is for you to be detained and brought to SIS regarding, and I quote, “a matter of national security”. It saying “detained” and not “arrested” means they don’t want anyone questioning you on the record before you get to Vauxhall Cross.’

‘Dump us straight into MI6’s torture dungeons, eh?’ said Eddie.

‘We don’t have torture dungeons,’ Alderley huffed. ‘But reading between the lines, this actually gives your story more credence. To me, anyway.’

‘Not to anyone else at MI6?’ Nina asked.

He shook his head. ‘I know you both. Everyone else, though? They’d take what they were told at face value, treat you as a security threat and bring you in — or take you down.’

The couple exchanged glances. ‘So much for British hospitality,’ said the redhead.

‘Oh, it gets worse. There’s a small addendum. It says “AFA”, which means “all force authorised”. That’s a polite way of saying that if you happen to get shot dead, there won’t be too many questions asked.’

‘Huh. Great!’

Eddie brought his right hand towards the flap of his jacket, making sure Alderley saw the movement. ‘But you’re not going to turn us in, right?’

‘Put the gun away, Chase,’ the MI6 man sighed. ‘If I was going to, I would have done it already. I spent half the night mulling over what you told me. And the answer I came up with is one I really don’t like. For John Brice to have gone on a deep-cover mission to overthrow a non-hostile foreign regime, he must have had orders from the very top. That means C. The head of MI6,’ he added for Nina’s benefit.

‘I thought that was M?’ she said. Eddie grinned.

Another sigh. ‘Only in fiction. But this puts me in quite an uncomfortable position. On the one hand, people whose judgement I trust have brought me intelligence about an operation in Africa that’s been kept secret from the head of the Africa desk, and which stands to seriously destabilise a large region—’

‘You trust my judgement?’ said Eddie, his grin widening into a smug beam. ‘Never thought I’d hear that!’

‘Maybe I should have said “a person” rather than “people”,’ Alderley replied, glancing at Nina.

‘Tchah!’

‘But an operation like that could have major international repercussions. On the other hand, my superior, the person to whom I would normally report such intelligence… is the only person who could have authorised such a mission in the first place. And his superior is also complicit! I’m sure you can see the problem.’

‘Yeah,’ said Nina. ‘The head of MI6 and the Prime Minister are both bad guys — so who are you supposed to tell?’

‘Well, let’s not go so far as to say they’re bad guys. We need proof first.’ He nodded at the broken laptop she was holding. ‘But there’s a larger issue.’ He became positively grim. ‘If what you’ve told me is true, then the head of the British government is directly involved in an illegal attempt to overthrow a sovereign state, the jailbreak of a mass murderer, and the deaths of everyone aboard a civilian airliner. That is…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Quite big.’

‘That famous English understatement,’ she said.

‘We need it to stop us from panicking when we realise the true extent of a crisis,’ Alderley replied wryly. ‘But something I can’t overstate is how far the apparatus of the British state will go to protect itself, and its own. And Quentin Hove and Sir Kirkland — C — control that apparatus.’

‘So what do we do?’ said Eddie.

‘First thing, we’ve got to get the video of Brice from the laptop,’ said Nina. ‘Peter, do you know anyone who could do that — someone you could trust?’

He nodded. ‘There are people in my department who could handle it, yes. And one of the advantages of being a section head is that generally your staff don’t question your orders.’

‘So if we get the video, then what?’ the Yorkshireman asked. ‘Take it to MI5?’

Alderley nodded — though not with much enthusiasm. ‘The thing is, for something this big the Director-General of MI5 would report directly to the Prime Minister, just like C. The evidence would have to be absolutely incontrovertible and damning.’

‘There’s somewhere else we could take the video,’ said Nina. ‘The US embassy.’

Alderley — and to her surprise, her husband — regarded her unhappily. ‘I… I’d really prefer not to do that,’ said the MI6 man.

‘Why? Brice destroyed an American airliner! We’re not just involved, we have a right to know about it.’

Alderley’s discomfort was so intense that he was practically fidgeting. ‘You’d be telling the US government that a British officer murdered hundreds of American civilians as part of an operation approved at the highest level. The fallout would be utterly catastrophic.’

‘Yeah, but it’s what happened! Eddie, you can’t possibly think this should be covered up.’

‘I don’t, but…’ Like Alderley, his internal conflict was so strong that it was becoming tangible. ‘When I joined the army, I took an oath — to serve and protect my country. If this came out, I wouldn’t be protecting Britain. I’d be fucking wrecking it. It’d make America hate us, take us from number one ally to all the way down at the bottom of the shit-list with Iran and North Korea, and I doubt the rest of the world’d treat us any better.’

‘Oh, so now it’s “my country, right or wrong”, is it?’ Nina said scathingly. ‘Even when “wrong” means covering up the murders of hundreds of innocent people?’

‘I’m not saying it’s good! It’s shit, it’s horrible. And I’m not saying that Brice and anyone else involved shouldn’t be dealt with for what they’ve done. But…’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t chuck my own country down the toilet because of them. I might not live here any more, but it’s still my duty to protect it.’

‘And what about my duty to my country?’ she countered. ‘Someone committed a crime, a terrorist act, against it. Am I supposed to keep quiet because it’s diplomatically inconvenient for the people responsible?’

‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ Eddie insisted.

‘Then what are you saying?’

‘I don’t know!’ he cried, frustrated. ‘There are two countries involved, and I just don’t want to make everything worse.’

‘Okay,’ Nina said, more quietly, ‘what would you want Macy to do?’

He was surprised. ‘Macy? What’s she got to do with this?’

‘She’s got dual nationality, American and British. So she’s involved with both countries. What choice would you want her to make — not as a former British serviceman, but as a parent?’

‘I…’ Eddie frowned. ‘I’d want her to do what’s right,’ he finally admitted. ‘Whatever that is.’ There was a lengthy silence.

It was eventually broken by Alderley. ‘If you really are thinking about going to the US embassy,’ he said, not remotely enthused at the prospect, ‘there are two things to consider. The first is that Brice will almost certainly have placed watchers there. It’s an obvious place of safety — well, for you, Nina. You’re an American citizen, so once you’re inside, you’re on US soil and we can’t touch you without going through channels. Afraid you’re out in the cold, though, Chase.’

‘Maybe you should have applied for US citizenship,’ Nina told her husband.

‘What, and have to start saying “Mommy” instead of “Mummy”?’ he retorted. ‘What’s the other thing?’

‘The other thing,’ Alderley went on, ‘is that you don’t have any proof you can take to the embassy! Unless you recover the video from that laptop, the only evidence against Brice is hearsay. Since he officially resigned from MI6 two years ago, the government would simply deny any knowledge of his subsequent activities.’

‘You said you could find someone to help us get it, though,’ Nina reminded him. His sheepish lack of an immediate response spoke volumes. ‘Oh, seriously? Now you’re going to back out of that?’

‘You’ve put me in an extraordinarily difficult position, Nina!’ he said. ‘I’m a senior officer of the Secret Intelligence Service; like Chase, I swore an oath to protect my country — and helping you hand over diplomatic dynamite to the Americans would achieve the exact opposite. However,’ he went on, raising both hands to silence her before she could protest, ‘I also have an obligation to uphold the rule of law and ensure that everyone in my organisation behaves with the highest probity. That includes my superiors as well as the people under my command. The intelligence services have a lot of leeway under the law, but it only goes so far. Section 7 immunity for intelligence operatives only applies to acts committed outside the United Kingdom. Not on home soil. And it definitely doesn’t apply to politicians. So if Brice was given an illegal order, the people who issued it are accountable.’

‘How would you prove it, though?’ said Eddie. ‘They’ll be covering their arses so hard you’ll be able to see their fingerprints pressing through on the other side.’

‘I doubt it’d be easy. But the first step, for me at least, would be actually hearing Brice admit to all of this, so… I guess I do need to help you recover that recording.’

‘Peter, that’s great,’ Nina said, with relief. ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s if there’s anything to recover,’ he said, eyeing the bullet hole in the laptop. ‘But I can also make some discreet enquiries at SIS and see if Brice has popped up on anyone’s radar. He certainly wouldn’t be able to arrange an extraction from DR Congo and then come back home to put teams of watchers on people — including me! — without leaving a few blips.’

‘See if you can find out about the people he’s got watching Macy and my dad,’ Eddie reminded him.

‘I won’t be able to poke my nose too far into someone else’s active operation without raising questions, but I’ll do what I can.’

‘What about the Shamir?’ asked Nina. ‘It’s a dangerous artefact, so what would he have done with it?’ But as soon as she had posed the question, another came to her…

Alderley started to explain that SIS had secure research facilities dotted around the country, but she was no longer listening. ‘Wait, wait,’ she cut in. ‘Forget what he’s done with the Shamir. What’s he going to do with it?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked the older man.

‘He didn’t get it out of the Congo just so MI6 could put it in a warehouse like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He had something in mind for it — he wants to use it.’

‘On what?’

‘I don’t know, but she’s right,’ Eddie said. ‘When he was talking to us in the palace, part of it was so he could buy time for the militia to get inside, but he also wanted to know more about the Shamir — how it worked, what it can do. And he was really excited about using it as a decapitation weapon.’

Alderley was alarmed. ‘You think he’s planning to attack a government?’

‘I think he certainly had it in mind,’ Nina told him. ‘And that would be another reason for him to want us silenced, permanently. We know the Shamir exists, and what it can do. But nobody else does. So—’

‘It would be a weapon nobody could defend against,’ he concluded. ‘All you’d need to do would be get it into the country undetected. But which country?’

‘I’d ask which country Brice has got it in for, but from the way he was ranting on, it sounded like all of ’em,’ said Eddie. ‘He didn’t even sound that keen on Britain. Not from the way things look likely to go after the election, anyway.’

The SIS officer grimaced. ‘Yeah, the intelligence services aren’t looking forward to what’ll happen if the other lot win — which seems likely. Civil liberties are all well and good, but taking away powers that we already have and which every other country uses too, just to win votes from the Edward Snowden crowd, isn’t exactly a bright move.’

Eddie shook his head mockingly. ‘Glad you think that civil liberties are at least sort of worth having, maybe. Puts you above Brice, at least. But that’s pretty much what he said, that MI6 is fucked after the election…’ His voice trailed off as a thought came to him.

Nina could tell from his expression that it was not a good one. ‘What is it?’

‘Hove and his lot are probably going to be kicked out at the election,’ he said. ‘But what if there isn’t an election?’

‘There has to be one,’ Alderley insisted. ‘The date’s been set, and Parliament’s about to be dissolved. They can’t back out of it now.’

‘But they could in extreme circumstances, couldn’t they?’ said Nina, realising what Eddie meant. ‘Like if there was a major terrorist attack?’

‘It would have to be more than “major”. More like absolutely catastrophic — on the level of 9/11, or beyond. The last time a general election was cancelled was in 1940, in the middle of the Blitz.’

‘The Shamir would let him pull off an attack like that, though. Nobody could defend against it, because nobody knows it exists!’

‘He could bring down any bloody building in London,’ Eddie added. ‘All he needs is line of sight, then take the lid off the box. Anything stone or metal goes boom.’

‘I can’t believe Brice would commit a terrorist act just to secure funding for MI6,’ insisted Alderley.

‘It wouldn’t only be about that, though,’ said Nina. ‘That’s just a bonus. He gives the government carte blanche to bring in whatever laws they like in the name of “security”, and nobody would dare challenge them for fear of being accused of going soft on terrorism. You’d have a perpetual state of emergency, and those civil liberties you seem so lackadaisical about? They wouldn’t be a problem any more, because they’d be gone.’

The MI6 officer huffed. ‘I am not lackadaisical about civil liberties! I actually donate to—’

Eddie interrupted him. ‘Wait, that’s something Brice actually said to me, in the hotel bar in Butembo. About a state of emergency — he said it was a good way for a government to suspend democracy, something like that.’

‘And in the palace,’ Nina remembered, ‘he described the Shamir as “the perfect tool for regime change”. Get all a country’s leaders in one place, then drop the roof in on their heads…’

Alderley suddenly looked appalled. ‘He couldn’t possibly…’

‘Couldn’t possibly what?’ she asked.

‘Parliament is dissolved in the run-up to a general election,’ the older man explained, awful realisation behind his words. ‘Today’s the final session of Prime Minister’s Questions before that happens. PMQs are normally packed, and today’s will be standing room only. ’

‘That’s the part they show on C-SPAN which makes your politicians look like a bunch of braying schoolchildren, right?’

‘It’s not a high point of dignity and decorum, no. But just about every MP, from all parties, will be there. If someone really was planning to do a Guy Fawkes and bring the Houses of Parliament down on top of them, that would be the time to do it. It’s maximum security, obviously, but…’

‘But Brice doesn’t have to be in the building,’ Eddie finished for him. ‘He could be sailing past on a fucking duck boat and still do it.’

‘And if he’s got support from high up, he can get whatever security clearance he needs,’ said Nina. ‘My God, if he actually does have that kind of support, they could still keep the Shamir a secret! They could make up any story they liked about the attack — blame it on Islamic terrorists or whoever. The government gets to stay in power because there won’t be an election, and the intelligence agencies get a huge spending boost to fight the new threat, whoever they decide it to be.’

‘But there wouldn’t be a government to stay in power,’ Alderley countered. ‘You couldn’t selectively blow up the House of Commons to take out your opponents while leaving your own side unscathed. It’d be far too dangerous. And I’ve dealt with politicians — there isn’t a single one of them who’d risk sitting in that chamber knowing that the roof was about to come down on them, no matter what their side stood to gain.’

Eddie regarded Alderley’s computer. ‘Easy way to find out, though. Check if Hove’s skiving out of PMQs today.’

‘The Prime Minister wouldn’t miss Prime Minister’s Questions — the clue’s in the name,’ said Alderley snippily, but he still started pecking at the keyboard. ‘By the way, would you mind not looking over my shoulder, please? I’m logging into SIS, so everything here is classified.’

‘Ooh, don’t mind us,’ said Eddie sarcastically as he and Nina begrudgingly turned away.

‘I’ll remind you that you signed the Official Secrets Act.’ Alderley called up an information feed and scrolled through it. ‘But anyway, while the PM actually doesn’t always attend, it’s extremely unlikely they’d miss the final PMQs of a Parliament. There are too many sound bite opportunities to…’

‘To?’ Nina prompted after a few seconds of silence.

‘I’m going to risk being arrested and turn around,’ Eddie said to her in a fake whisper.

They both faced Alderley again. ‘You, ah… you were right, Chase,’ he said in disbelief. ‘There’s a first time for everything, but — you were right. Quentin Hove isn’t attending PMQs today; he’s being represented by the Home Secretary instead. Hove’s going to…’ He clicked a link for more details. ‘Okay, this is very odd. He has what’s described as a “critical security briefing” with C at 11.30, so won’t be available for PMQs at noon. But if something was that critical, he’d have other cabinet ministers with him from the COBRA emergency committee — and the Home Secretary would absolutely be one of them.’

‘Also, if it’s that critical, why isn’t he having the meeting right now?’ Nina asked. ‘Why wait an extra five hours?’

Alderley dismissed the feed, then faced his guests. ‘I’m still finding it very difficult to imagine that Brice is planning to destroy the Houses of Parliament with some lost biblical super-weapon, but… the two superiors who would have approved this deep-cover job in the Congo are the same two men who’ve scheduled a closed-doors meeting in Downing Street at the exact time you’d expect one of them to be grandstanding for the TV cameras in the Commons.’

‘So, not a normal situation?’

‘Definitely not, no.’

She held up the laptop. ‘If Brice really is going to attack Parliament, then we’ve got to recover the video and expose him before it happens.’

‘How will that stop him?’ Alderley demanded.

‘Because on the recording, he talks about using the Shamir to carry out a decapitation strike. So it won’t be a secret weapon any more, and it both establishes that he has the means to do it and makes it much harder to pin the blame on someone else. Especially when nobody finds any trace of explosives in the rubble.’

‘If the official story is that explosives were found, then believe me, explosives will be found,’ the SIS officer told her.

‘Which is why we have to take the recording to the American embassy. If the US government has proof, they’ll have enough leverage to go straight to Hove with it. He and the head of MI6 are the only people who can call Brice back in before it’s too late.’

‘They’ll also have proof of MI6 involvement in the crash of that airliner!’ Alderley protested. ‘I told you, that would be a diplomatic disaster.’

‘Which gives them every incentive to pull Brice in before he can do anything else. Remember, the video shows him claiming still to be working for MI6 — but if Hove and C get their stories straight, they can say he’s really an embittered ex-agent who went rogue, and that everything he told us was a lie. They can’t allow him to destroy Parliament if the Americans know about the plan in advance, because it would prove he had MI6 support to get back to England so fast with the Shamir — which in turn proves the British government’s complicity in the crash of Flight 180.’

‘So they’d sell out Brice to the Americans to save their own arses?’ said Eddie. ‘Sounds like what politicians would do, all right.’

Alderley’s expression became thoughtful. ‘If it came to that, I think it’s far more likely that Brice would suffer an “unfortunate accident”. He’d be a huge liability — they couldn’t take the risk that he might implicate his superiors.’ He gave Nina a look of faintly amused approval. ‘You know, for an archaeologist you actually have quite a devious mind. Have you ever considered a change of career?’

She shook her head firmly. ‘No thanks.’

‘What are we going to do, then?’ Eddie asked Alderley. ‘You going to help us?’

He blew out his cheeks, conflicted. ‘I’m really, really not happy about turning the evidence straight over to the Americans. But…’ He stood. ‘If there’s an imminent threat of attack, there isn’t time to take this through channels. Hove and C’s first instinct, if they are involved, will be to obfuscate and delay so they can protect themselves — by which time it might be too late.’

Nina glanced at a wall clock. It was now after six. ‘We’ve got less than six hours before Prime Minister’s Questions start. That’s not much time.’

‘I know. Which means our first priority is to recover the evidence.’ He regarded the broken laptop, then frowned.

‘Something wrong?’ said Eddie.

‘Brice — well, someone, certainly — put watchers on me. If I’m under observation physically, then I guarantee I am electronically as well. If the file’s retrievable at all, I know someone in my section who’ll be able to do it. But if I ring him up, Brice will know about it very quickly.’

‘We’ve got some spare phones you could use to call him.’

‘I need more than that, I need cover…’ He thought for a moment — then smiled. ‘Got it. I’ll make some calls. Quite a few calls.’ He logged back on to the computer.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Nina.

‘I’m the head of the section — which means I can hold surprise drills at any time. I think today would be a good choice.’ He selected a name from a contacts list and dialled their number on his mobile phone. ‘Wendy, good morning. It’s Peter Alderley. Yes, I’m fine, thanks — but I need everything you have on, ah… the secessionist threat in eastern DR Congo ready for a situation briefing at ten thirty this morning. Yes, I know, but it’s urgent. Half past ten. Thanks.’ He hung up.

‘Hiding the needle in the haystack, I see,’ said the redhead as he found the next number.

‘Information overload’s always a good way to beat the system,’ he replied. ‘Chase, if I can have one of those spare phones, that’d be very useful.’

He made around twenty similar calls, the last to someone called Roy. ‘Roy Boxley,’ he explained after hanging up. ‘He’s the chap I mentioned. Young, smart, eager to please, quite the tech-head — I just hope he’ll be excited rather than suspicious about being given a secret assignment by his boss.’ He entered the number into the prepaid phone. ‘Right, since — hopefully! — Roy isn’t being actively monitored by anyone, and this phone isn’t on any watch lists, the call won’t be flagged for attention…’

He waited for it to be answered. ‘Roy, it’s Peter Alderley again. Okay, listen. Don’t worry about the DR Congo briefing, I’ve got something more important for you to do. I’m going to send some people around to your flat with a laptop. It’s damaged, but there’s a file on it they need to recover urgently. Just wait there until they arrive, then do what they ask.’ A pause as the other man asked a question. ‘I told you, don’t worry about the briefing. The laptop is your top priority. I don’t know exactly what time they’ll arrive, but be ready.’

He returned the phone to Eddie, who removed the battery and SIM card, then dropped its body on the floor and stamped on it. Alderley gave him an annoyed look. ‘You know, just taking out the battery would have been enough.’

‘Yeah, but that was more fun,’ Eddie replied with a grin.

‘How are we going to get to this Roy’s place?’ asked Nina. ‘If you’re being followed, you can’t drive us there.’

‘I’ve thought about that,’ Alderley replied. ‘I’ve got a tow rope in the garage—’

‘You’d need it a lot with a Capri, I suppose,’ cut in the Yorkshireman.

‘Har har. Har. But there’s a railway cutting behind the house. If you tie the rope around a tree, you should be able to climb down. Go left for about four hundred yards, and there’s a way up to a bridge.’

‘Sounds like you’ve already checked it out,’ said Nina.

Alderley chuckled. ‘Hey, I’m a spy. I always know all the possible escape routes!’ He stood, becoming more serious. ‘When I set off for work, that should keep the watchers occupied enough for you to go out the back way without being seen. I’ll give you Roy’s address. If you go across the bridge, you should be able to get a taxi. Actually, I’ll lend you my and Poppy’s Oyster cards as well, in case you need to use a bus or the Tube.’

‘Can’t we just use cash?’ Eddie asked.

‘Cash?’ Alderley said, smiling. ‘That’s so last decade.’

‘Like my hair. Thanks, then. I’ll give you the number of our other phone in case you need to call us. By the way, don’t suppose you’ve got any spare nine-mil rounds, do you?’

‘Let me check my kitchen drawers to see if they’re in there with the batteries and assorted screws,’ the MI6 officer said sarcastically. ‘No, I don’t. And I’d prefer you not to start any gun battles on the streets of London!’

‘So would we,’ Nina said firmly. She waited for everything to be exchanged. ‘Okay. Thank you, Peter. Let’s go.’