Secret Asset

4

Charles Wetherby, Director of Counter-Terrorism, had been in the office since seven-thirty. Liz had briefed him by phone about her meetings with Marzipan the previous evening, as soon as he had got home from his dinner with Geoffrey Fane of MI6. Wetherby had called a 9:00 a.m. emergency meeting of the Counter-Terrorist Committee, the joint committee of MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office. It had been set up immediately after the Twin Towers atrocity of 11 September 2001 at the Prime Minister’s insistence, to ensure that all government agencies and departments involved in countering the terrorist threat to the UK should cooperate without any inter-service rivalries impeding the national effort. The CTC had accepted that on the information available, there was a possible threat of an extreme kind, which needed urgent follow-up. It had agreed that MI5 should move forward to investigate Marzipan’s information, using joint resources as necessary and keeping everyone informed.

Now at eleven o’clock Wetherby was chairing an operations meeting of the MI5 sections involved. The operations briefing room was in the centre of Thames House. It overlooked the internal atrium but had no windows to the outside world. It was spacious with several rows of chairs around a long table and at one end a screen and other technical equipment. Despite its size the room was crowded and Liz found herself squashed between Judith Spratt and Reggie Purvis, the dour Yorkshire-man who headed A4, the surveillance section whose teams had been out providing counter-surveillance for Liz and Marzipan the night before.

Also present was a small army of tough-looking characters in shirt sleeves, mostly ex-military. These were members of A2, the section responsible for “bugging and burgling”—installing covert listening devices and cameras—nowadays done strictly under warrant. Liz knew them to be experts in the skills required for their risky, nerve stretching business. Filling the remaining seats were colleagues of Judith Spratt from Counter-Terrorist Investigations, “Technical Ted” Poyser, the chief consultant on all computer matters, Patrick Dobson from the Director General’s office, responsible for liaison with the Home Office, and Dave Armstrong, just back from Leeds. Even at a distance Liz could see that he needed a shave, a clean shirt and a good night’s sleep.

Liz knew and liked most of her colleagues, even Reggie Purvis who, taciturn and stubborn as he might be, was expert at his job. The sole exception arrived late for the meeting and sat down with a thud in the one remaining seat. Michael Binding had returned the year before from a longer than usual posting in Northern Ireland and was now head of A2, the bugger and burglar in chief. Binding treated all his female colleagues with an infuriating mix of gallantry and condescension that Liz could deal with only by the most iron self-control.

For this morning at least, Liz and Marzipan’s video were the star turn. Much of the content of the video had been seen at one time or another by most members of her audience, in excerpts on television or on extremist Web sites on the Internet. What shocked, as the video played, was the sheer malevolent concentration on brutal image, the persistence of the message, penetrating all barriers of language and culture, that it is the duty of some to hate and destroy others, for reasons beyond the control of either side.

In all the clutter of blood and violence, the knives drawn across throats, the cries, the fear, the explosions and the dust, nothing in the video was more sinister, more coldly cruel than the image of a man in a white robe with a black beard, seated on a mat, his voice rising and falling like a siren, as he spoke in a language few in the room could understand. His message of hatred, didactic, unwavering, was only too clear. From the fact that his image recurred between the different scenes of violence, it was evident that his message was intended to illustrate different points of doctrine or method—all to the same end, death. Finally, with a prolonged flickering the video stopped.

Wetherby ended the stunned silence. “The man in the white robe is the Imam whom our agent Marzipan saw yesterday in a bookshop in Haringey. We’ll have a full transcription in an hour or so, but the gist of what he was saying seemed clear enough. Judith?”

Judith had been briefed by one of the transcribers who listened in on intercepted conversations in Urdu. She glanced at her notes.

“He was issuing a call to arms—all true followers to take up the sword and so forth—the Satan America—her evil allies—death should be embraced by those who fight and they will be blessed in another world. That was the concluding sentence. But the interesting thing is that it wasn’t just the usual diatribe. The way it was arranged was as a kind of lesson, I thought, with the points being illustrated by the different scenes of violence. A sort of argument, almost.”

“A kind of training video, you mean?” asked Dave Armstrong.

“Yes. Something like that. Not just a sermon anyway.”

“That would chime with Marzipan’s account,” Liz commented.

“As would the fact that there was an audience of three,” said Judith. “That’s an ideal team number. It’s the number for maximum security and where each team member can watch the others simultaneously.”

“What were the video clips?” someone asked.

Wetherby answered: “The throat-cutting scene was certainly the murder of Daniel Pearl, the American reporter. The others could have been anywhere, most likely in Iraq. The text will probably help, if we need to know.”

He turned to someone at the end of the table whom Liz did not recognise. He was a broad-shouldered man, smartly dressed in a well-cut suit and scarlet tie with a face that was friendly and a little craggy. Just short of outright handsome, she observed to herself.

“Tom,” said Wetherby. “What about the Imam? Do we know who he is?”

The man called Tom replied in a soft voice—speaking, Liz wryly thought, in what used to be known as received pronunciation, “proper English” as her mother would have called it. “His name is Mahmood Abu Sayed. He’s the head of a madrasa in Lahore. And yes he is a teacher, as Judith suggested. But his madrasa is known as one of the radical hotbeds. Abu Sayed himself comes from near the Afghan border. His family has strong Taliban connections. Even as radicals go, he’s a hardliner.” He paused for a moment. “We’ll check with Immigration but he probably came in under another name. I’m willing to bet he’s never been in Britain before. English students have always travelled out to him in Lahore. If he’s come here then I’d guess there’s something pretty important in the wind.”

There was silence for a moment, then Michael Binding, red-faced in his heavy tweed jacket, leaned forward in his chair and waved his pencil to catch Wetherby’s eye. “Look, Charles, I sense we are running ahead rather fast. Resources are pretty tight in A2 just now. This Imam may be a firebrand but in his world he’s presumably a distinguished kind of fellow. Is it really so remarkable that Muslim youngsters want to hear him speak or that he should get a few budding disciples together? They may just want to sit at his feet. In Northern Ireland—”

Liz interrupted, trying not to sound too impatient. “That was not Marzipan’s impression and to date his instincts have proved at least ninety per cent right. That video wasn’t exactly theological. Marzipan thought that these people were preparing for a mission, and I’d back his opinion.”

Binding leaned back in his chair, looking cross, scratching his nose with his pencil. Wetherby smiled grimly. “CTC have accepted that in the light of these events there may well be a specific threat,” he said. “And I think so too. Our working assumption has to be that these three young men are preparing an atrocity of some sort under guidance and what we have seen is the conditioning, the stiffening up if you like, designed to make sure they stay the course to the end. With no information to the contrary we must assume that what is in preparation is an attack in this country.” He paused. “Of an extreme kind,” he added.

A small chill seemed to enter the room. A suicide bomber, unless detected before his mission can begin, is virtually impossible to stop. Three suicide bombers could make it three times more difficult. One would be bound to get through. Exactly what was intended was still unclear but, Liz reflected, Marzipan had at least given them a chance.

Wetherby was speaking again. “The operation will be run by Investigations and led by Tom Dartmouth. The code word is FOXHUNT. Dave, you will continue running Marzipan—you should be the one who sees him this evening.”

Liz’s stomach turned suddenly to lead. She felt her face redden with disappointment. Dave Armstrong was looking sympathetically at her but all she could conjure up was a wan smile. Her time off work hadn’t been his fault. He had inherited Marzipan on fair terms, before the agent had become a “star.” It was logical that he should continue with him. Beyond the feeling of disappointment, she found it difficult to analyse her own feelings. It was something about Marzipan—his vulnerability, his helplessness, almost his principles. He was in so many respects alien, a member of a different culture to hers, from a totally different background and yet his principles were identical to hers. Did he fully understand the risks he was running? She couldn’t say. There was something almost naïve about the way—yes, the way he yielded to them. She bit her lip, said nothing. Wetherby was speaking again. She almost hated the matter-of-fact manner, the steady confident tone of his voice.

“The aim for the moment is to find out more,” he was saying. “There is no obvious advantage to us in moving in just yet. The video proves nothing. We have nothing to hold anyone on. Our first step must be surveillance on the shop. I’d like eavesdropping and covert cameras too as soon as we can get them in. Patrick, can you see to the warrant?”

Patrick Dobson nodded. “I’ll get on to the Home Secretary’s office. He’s in London, I know, so it should be quick. Hopefully by six. I’ll need a written application within the hour.”

Tom nodded. “Judith, will you take that on please?”

Wetherby turned to Binding. “Sorry, Michael. That’s it. If we get the warrant I want your chaps to go in tomorrow night. Can you do that?”

Binding nodded slowly. “We can probably do it if Marzipan can sketch a plan of the inside of the building. We’ll need prior A4 surveillance of course, who the key people are, what time they leave, where they live, who has keys. We don’t want to risk being disturbed. I’ll talk to Special Branch as well. Tom, I’ll need to know from you how much we can tell them.”

Tom nodded. “We’ll talk about it straight after this.”

Reggie Purvis looked at Liz. “We’ll be briefing the A4 teams at four. I hope both you and Dave can come to the meeting. We’ll need to know whatever background on the area and the people you’ve got from Marzipan.”

Liz looked at Dave and nodded. Wetherby gathered up his papers. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow in my room. I’ll want situation reports from one representative of each section. And, Judith, an action note, please, through Tom and circulated.”

As the meeting began to break up, Wetherby called Liz over. “Can I see you in my office, say at noon? I need to make a quick call first.”

As Liz left the room Dave Armstrong came up and walked with her to the stairs. “Thanks for standing in for me last night,” he said.

“Any time,” she said. “How did it go up north?”

Dave shook his head. “A lot of fuss about nothing,” he said, rubbing his bristly chin. “I’ve come straight down. Haven’t even been home yet. But at least this one sounds real.”

They came out of the stairwell onto the fourth floor. “Tell me,” said Liz, “who is that man Tom? I’ve never seen him before. Is he new?”

“Tom Dartmouth,” said Dave. “And no, he’s not new. He’s been in Pakistan—got seconded to MI6 there after 9/11, poor bugger. He’s an Arabic speaker. I should have introduced you but I didn’t realise you didn’t know him. I suppose he came back while you were off sick. You’ll like him; he’s a nice bloke. Knows his onions.”

He looked at Liz for a moment, then slowly a smile came over his face. He poked her playfully with an elbow. “Don’t get excited now. I’m told there’s a Mrs. Dartmouth.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Liz. “You’ve got a one-track mind.”