The Excalibur Codex

XXXVI

‘Can you accompany me, please, sir?’

Jamie had seen them watching him as he approached passport control at Heathrow after his more or less straightforward return to London by way of a meat truck into Canada and a scheduled flight from Montreal. The passport he’d used was identical to his own apart from a slightly modified number and with the name he’d been born with — SINCLAIR — instead of the supposedly aristocratic version his mother had believed would help him ascend the social heights at Cambridge. A cursory glance from the passport officer seemed slight recompense for an hour in the snaking line through the security gates, but it turned out to be for confirmation rather than identification.

He followed two suited young men with identical close-cropped sandy hair through an unmarked door, conscious of the matched pair of armed cops watching in the background, their trigger fingers twitching. Out of the public eye any pretence of politeness disappeared and the men removed the shoulder bag he was carrying, took an arm each and propelled him along a corridor until they reached another anonymous door.

‘May I ask what this is all about?’ he said as politely as the circumstances merited. ‘I do have certain rights, you know.’

‘No.’ The man on his right in the grey suit twisted his arm painfully and pushed him so his head hit the door, fortunately as his partner was opening it. Once inside they sat him at a table facing a blank wall of opaque grey glass that no doubt allowed people to see in, but not the prisoner to see out.

‘Can you place the contents of your pockets on the table, please?’ Grey suit gave the order in a monotone that gave nothing away as he rummaged through Jamie’s flight bag.

Jamie fumbled for a few moments, eventually producing his passport, mobile phone and wallet, his house keys, loose change in a mixture of four currencies, and a pile of boiled sweets. He laid them on the surface in front of him.

‘They’re for my ears,’ he explained as he spread the sweets in a mosaic pattern, green to the right and orange to the left. ‘They don’t like the pressure changes.’

Grey suit immediately homed in on the mobile phone, which he placed in an evidence bag and took to the door, where it was whisked away by an unseen hand. The second man — Jamie was fairly certain they were from the Met’s anti-terror branch — separated out the pile on the table, pushing the sweets haphazardly into another evidence bag. He picked up one of the coins and examined it with a look of suspicion. ‘A Polish piatka, can I assume you’ve been in Poland recently?’

‘Relatively recently.’

‘Only I don’t see a stamp in your passport.’

‘That would be because, as you see, it’s quite a new passport — I had to have mine replaced because it was stolen recently in New York — and they don’t tend to stamp your passport at Polish airports the way they used to do. I rather miss it. Now can you please tell me what’s going on?’

Blue suit glanced at grey suit, who in turn glanced at the opaque wall.

‘You are being held under Schedule Seven of the Terrorism Act 2000. You should be aware that this entitles us to take DNA samples and carry out a strip search.’ He paused to allow the words to sink in. ‘Also that it is a criminal offence not to answer our questions.’

‘Fire away, old chum.’ Jamie produced an unlikely smile that reflected a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘I’m perfectly happy to answer your questions. Nothing to hide at all. I’m sure it’ll all iron itself out when you find out you have the wrong chap, but don’t worry, I won’t sue.’

As it turned out, they didn’t ask him anything. With a final perplexed look from blue suit they left him alone with a uniformed constable who seemed to be a deaf mute and whose eyes never left the far wall. Jamie knew this was where he was supposed to be unnerved into confessing all his sins, but as he went over his strategy for the fifteenth time, he still couldn’t improve on playing every bouncer with a straight bat until the opening he hoped he’d carved for himself arrived. If it didn’t, he was probably going to jail for a very long time, but there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do about it. He was also glad he’d had a pee when he left the plane.

Ninety minutes after he’d disappeared, blue suit returned with an older man who took his seat on the opposite side of the table and slapped down a thick orange file as the uniformed officer left the room. The older man, bulky in a dark suit and with the pinched angry features that so often herald a heart attack, hunched over the maroon oblong of Jamie’s passport, studying it with the intimate care of a coin dealer. Eventually, he threw it dismissively on the table between them.

‘What do you know about a man called Mohammed al-Awali?’ They must have handed out flat, emotionless voices at Scotland Yard special casting.

‘I’ve never heard the name. As I told your colleague, I have no idea why I’m being held here and I’d very much like to call my lawyer.’

The man — in Jamie’s mind he’d become The Chief Inspector — ignored the suggestion, pulled out a photograph and placed it beside the passport. ‘Do you recognize him?’

Jamie picked up the picture, a grainy head-and-shoulders photo, and squinted. ‘It does look a bit like me,’ he admitted, ‘though a few years older. That explains what I was saying to your colleague about mistaken identity.’

The Chief Inspector’s head lifted and Jamie found himself the focus of two drill-bit eyes. ‘Please don’t underestimate the seriousness of your position, sir. The man in the picture, who looks a bit like you, has been linked to terrorist offences all over the world. Until twenty-four hours ago the FBI believed Mr al-Awali, a Muslim convert of British origin, had died in an explosion in New York along with other named Al-Qaida operatives, but he is obviously a gentleman of some resource because he escaped with moments to spare. He is currently whereabouts unknown,’ the cold eyes bored into Jamie, ‘or at least he was. United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Greece and the United States. Does that list of countries ring any bells with you, Mr Sinclair? Or the deaths of over a hundred innocent people, including the US ambassador to NATO and his wife?’ Jamie didn’t say anything, because he sensed there was nothing he could say. Without warning the other man changed tack. ‘Is this your mobile telephone?’ From the folder, he slid the slim pre-paid mobile phone Helena Webster had handed over another lifetime ago in Central Park.

‘Yes, it looks like it.’

‘The one you normally use?’

‘I’ve had it since New York.’

‘And before that?’

‘The old one was stolen.’

‘In New York?’

‘Yes.’

‘How very convenient.’

Jamie let his shoulders sag. ‘Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you … Inspector? I really don’t know what this is all about. My girlfriend died in—’

The Chief Inspector leaned across the table. ‘I’ve just told you what this is all about, Mr Sinclair, or Mr al-Awali. If you have anything to give us, now is the time before it’s too late.’

‘What do you mean too late? I hope that’s not a threat?’

‘Oh, you can be as defensive as you like, son, but don’t try to be too clever. Right at this very moment a team of lawyers is putting together a case against Mohammed al-Awali in New York on charges of inciting terrorism, causing an explosion and multiple counts of murder. Once they’re in place they will be asking for the extradition of the suspect to the United States of America, which the British government will undoubtedly fast-track. There al-Awali will go on trial in a state that currently favours the death penalty. What do you fancy, son, lethal injection or the chair?’ He pushed his face into Jamie’s, close enough that the younger man could smell the mint on his breath. ‘This is your one chance. If you give us enough evidence to build a case in this country and on the European mainland against the men who ordered the attack, the bombers and their quartermasters, then the likelihood is you’ll be tried in this country. You didn’t act alone. Maybe you don’t know it all, but you know something and that something could save your life. But you have to give me it now, or it’s out of my hands.’

Jamie swallowed to ease the noose tightening around his neck. Suddenly the room seemed infinitely smaller and it was as if he was in the bottom portion of an egg timer with the sand pouring over his head. Right now, it had reached his chin, but in a few more minutes it would be a lot less comfortable.

‘Inspector, I—’

The door swung open and the Chief Inspector turned with a shout of fury. ‘Get the—’ The words died in his throat as he recognized the grey-haired man in the camel coat who filled the doorway.

‘I think we’ll be taking it from here, Inspector,’ the Director General of the Security Services announced.

‘Sir, I have to protest … protocol … this isn’t right.’

But the DGSS was above protocol and he didn’t give a damn whether it was right or not. ‘Close the door on your way out.’ His bodyguards were already ushering the Chief Inspector and blue suit from the room. ‘And make sure the office next door is cleared.’

The door closed behind them and the two men were left in silence. The DGSS’s eyes ranged over Jamie with a hint of mild distaste, as if he’d just found greenfly on one of his roses. ‘Now, Mr Saintclair, perhaps you can explain what this is all about.’

For a moment, Jamie felt like collapsing. The first stage of his unlikely plan had worked. Now came the difficult bit. ‘I thought you were never going to bloody get here.’