The Excalibur Codex

IV

Bang. Bang. Bang. His mind threatened to explode as he smashed his fists against the coffin lid. Bang. Bang. Bang. It wouldn’t budge, not even the tiniest fraction, and he knew that even if it did he would still be buried beneath six feet of damp, black earth that would pour into his mouth and suffocate him. His throat constricted at the thought and the level of panic rose, so he would have screamed if he had been able. Bang. Bang. Bang. Jamie Saintclair came bolt upright in the bed, the breath wheezing in his throat and cold sweat running down his back. The coffin had been a nightmare, but the banging was real. He rolled over and stood up on shaking legs, dragging on the black silk robe Abbie had given to him on his last birthday. The sound came from the front door of the Kensington High Street flat and he staggered through, wishing to Christ he hadn’t had the last of the Macallan and with half a dozen horrible scenarios fighting a nuclear war in his aching head.

Bang. He ripped back the bolt and opened the door.

‘Mr Saintclair.’

‘Ugh?’

‘Perhaps there might be a better time, sir?’

Through a half-opened eye the blur became a uniformed sergeant of Her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police. He shook his head. ‘Wha’ can I do f’r you?’ God, something had made a nest in his mouth and he sounded as if it was still in residence on his tongue. He licked his cracked lips. ‘No, um, time like the present, Officer.’

‘I just wondered if I might ask you a few questions, sir, and return this.’ The policeman held out a clear plastic evidence bag containing a mobile phone that Jamie vaguely recognized as his own. ‘And perhaps I might make you a cup of coffee to apologize again for the bad timing of my visit. Though I’m sure you, more than anyone, understand the urgency of the situation?’

Five minutes later they were seated at the kitchen table. Jamie had thrown on a few clothes and he sucked at the life-giving nectar that was milky Nescafé with three sugars, though he usually took neither sugar nor milk. ‘Good.’ He raised the cup in salute.

The grey-haired sergeant gave the tight smile of a man who’d administered many such life-giving revivers and took out his notebook to signal that the interview had entered its more formal phase. He placed the evidence bag on the table in front of Jamie.

‘You volunteered your mobile phone as evidence on,’ he checked his notebook, ‘the twelfth of February, three days after the unfortunate events out by Gerard’s Cross. Can you just confirm that this is the evidence in question?’ Jamie nodded, but made no attempt to pick up the phone. ‘Good. Then I formally return this evidence to your possession. If you could just sign here, sir.’ He produced a form and Jamie accepted a cheap plastic ballpoint and signed with a shaking hand. The sergeant smiled, relieved to have the difficult part of the proceedings out of the way. He picked up the bag and carefully dropped the phone into his palm. ‘Now, sir,’ he handed Jamie the slim oblong of black plastic, ‘if I could ask you to switch it on — I think the battery should still be charged — and, er,’ his face twisted in a way that said he wasn’t entirely comfortable, ‘bring up the final message you received from the, ah, late Miss Trelawney. I hope this isn’t too painful for you, sir. As I say, I can come back another time.’

‘No, that’s all right. If it’s important?’

‘The latest count is four hundred and forty-five dead, sir. Everything is important.’

Jamie grimaced. ‘Yes, sorry. It says. “Caught in traffic, going to be late. I’m OK.” Then a space, then: “febluis”.’ He shook his head. ‘She … Abbie … was obviously trying to reassure me that everything was all right. It must have been sent before the attack.’

‘Well, that’s the thing that’s slightly bothering our people, sir. According to the timings on the phone, and the data from the service providers, this message was transmitted in the latter stages of the assault on the motorway traffic. In fact, it was sent only two minutes before our surveillance helicopter was shot down, at a time the cameras we recovered from the chopper show the first terrorists already making their escape.’

Jamie tried to force his drink-fuzzed mind to analyse the significance of the information. ‘I …’

‘That’s right, sir. It appears that Miss Abeba Trelawney survived the first phase of the attack and was killed while the terrorists were making their withdrawal.’

‘Shit.’ The breath turned to mud in Jamie’s lungs and he struggled to breathe. ‘She …’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Saintclair, but there’s no easy way to say it. Your young lady was among the last, if not the last, to die on that day. Which makes this text enormously significant. The main part of the message seems perfectly normal. What I need to know is if “febluis” means anything special to you. Is it some kind of special shorthand between you? A coded message only Miss Trelawney and you would understand?’

‘It doesn’t mean anything. I mean … febluis … what could it mean?’

‘That’s what we’re … I’m, asking you, sir. Our best people have turned it upside down and inside out. She’d have been frightened and confused.’ Jamie flinched at the image of Abbie terrified amongst the burning cars and trucks, trying to send her last message, the petrol smoke thick in her nostrils and her murderers prowling all around, and that final moment … ‘They’ve checked out all the ways she might have missed the keys she was aiming for, but they haven’t been able to come up with anything. We’re looking at whether it could be a name, or a word in a foreign language. I’m told Miss Trelawney is part-Eritrean? To be honest, you’re our last resort.’

‘I’m sorry, Sergeant.’ Jamie shook his head. ‘I can’t help you. How … how are the investigations going? Are you any closer to catching these animals?’

‘I couldn’t say, sir. You’ll understand that this is far and away this country’s biggest murder inquiry. I’m just a superannuated delivery boy, really, and with bad knees at that. I read in the papers that several suspects are being held and we are “following a number of lines of inquiry”. You know what, sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ll have seen Casablanca, with Bogey and Claude Raines?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, strictly between you and me, from what I hear, this is a case of: Round up the usual suspects.’

‘What do we have?’

The Director General of the Security Service chewed his lip. ‘Well, Minister, we are using all our resources and we’re following a number of lines of inquiry—’

‘Don’t give me that bullshit,’ the Home Secretary exploded. ‘Keep it for the bloody newspapers. I want facts. The Prime Minister is breathing down my neck and the papers are talking as if I’m already fucking history.’ The refined Home Counties accent made the profanity all the more shocking. An aide whispered something to her and she took a deep breath and visibly calmed. ‘I apologize. Please, strike that from the record.’ She took a sip of water from the glass in front of her. ‘Mosques are burning in Leeds and Bradford and there have been race riots on the streets of the capital. Parliament is demanding to know why we had no forewarning of an attack that has cost the lives of at least four hundred and fifty men, women and children and thus far I have not been able to give them any answers. Hundreds more are injured or still missing. This is why you exist, gentlemen. A failure on this scale means that unless we apprehend these murderers very quickly there will be a root-and-branch reform of the security services of this country. That decision will come later, but for the moment I prefer to concentrate on what we are achieving.’

The MI5 chief had been thinking about his rose garden, and that dealing with politicians who had no sense of scale or perspective, and no idea how the real world worked, was one of the great burdens of his job. He could have trotted out the old chestnut about the terrorists only having to get it right once, which was entirely true, but he doubted the minister would appreciate that. The words root-and-branch reform sent a worrying chill through him.

‘Nick.’ He nodded to one of his assistants.

The young man in the dark suit and heavy-rimmed spectacles looked up from his notes. ‘We are going through the process of putting every intelligence asset, agent in place and informant on our books through the proverbial wringer for any information about the attack, unusual movement of people or provisions, odd changes in behaviour or large financial transactions. We’re also talking to the Islamic community’s religious leaders. Many of the radicals have been shocked by the scale of this atrocity and we’re assured they’ll do anything they can to avoid the inevitable backlash against their people. Acting on our instructions, Special Branch have pulled in every name on the Black List known or suspected to have visited militant training camps in Pakistan or the Horn of Africa over the past decade.’ He removed his glasses for a moment, focusing his thoughts as his eyes drifted towards the window and the restricted view through the security grilles to the red-brick buildings on the other side of Marsham Street. ‘This was a highly skilled, well-disciplined operation; whoever carried it out had undergone intensive training and had knowledge of weapons, logistics and tactics. Given our past experience, it’s likely the attack was planned and coordinated from Pakistan. We have our own sources there, but obviously the Pakistanis have more and better. We’ve asked for priority access to their intelligence, but the ISI is being its usual cooperative self: all smiles and assurances and weasel words. We might have to ask the Cousins to pull some strings, but that will take time.’

‘And the results of all this activity are?’ the Home Secretary demanded.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ The word emerged almost as a groan.

‘All indications are that there was no apparent abnormal behaviour from any of our known or suspected threats. To all intents and purposes, the people who carried out this attack are ghosts.’

‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ the minister snapped.

The DG frowned. ‘Could they have been brought in for a one-off job?’

‘It’s possible,’ Nick acknowledged carefully, knowing his boss was as aware of the answer as he was. ‘But it would be risky to bring the personnel and the weaponry through customs. We have a good record of hampering or stopping the movement of terrorist suspects, whether by air or by sea. They’d have to be very good, but then I suppose they’ve proved they are.’

The Home Secretary drew in a long breath through her nose and Nick was reminded of a bull about to charge. ‘So what do we have?’

The MI5 man snapped open a green folder on the desk in front of him. ‘From forensic analysis of the ammunition fired during the attack we know that the weapons they used were Heckler and Koch 416C assault rifles, a very effective automatic weapon popular with special forces troops both here and in the United States. Further analysis and liaison with our friends in the CIA have confirmed that these particular guns came from a batch that went missing en route from the States to Afghanistan, while they were going through a supply depot in Peshawar, Pakistan. The word on the ground at the time was that they’d probably bring someone a nice profit in the weapons bazaars up north. It turns out the word was wrong. The terrorists also had the use of Soviet-era RPG-7 missiles of unknown origin, and at least one Stinger missile, ditto.’ His voice turned apologetic at the disturbing list of intelligence failures, but this wasn’t his first high-level meeting and his eyes met the minister’s accusing gaze without flinching. ‘As you’ll know, Stingers are not commonly available on the arms market, and that may give us our best route into the terrorist supply chain. From the surveillance film recovered from the downed helicopter we know that there were twelve attackers, physically fit, weapons trained, with faces masked to conceal their identity, as you would expect. The ammunition was generally delivered in clinical three-round bursts, which is very professional and, in its own way, quite surprising. Our Islamic brethren have a tendency to get excited and blow the hell out of everything in sight.’ He saw his boss’s icy glance at this detour into subjectivity and returned swiftly to his brief. ‘The perpetrators escaped on twelve off-road trail bikes and we can track their movement across the fields, but once they reached the road they appear to have split up and rendezvoused with other getaway vehicles — again, type and origin unknown, but they must have been large enough to accommodate bikes and riders.’ He paused and took a sip from the bone-china cup in front of him, his face wrinkling with distaste when he realized the tea was stone cold. ‘We believe we have discovered the remains of five of the bikes at sites across the Midlands and southern England, all burned out and with any serial numbers filed or etched off with acid. It’s possible we can restore the numbers, but the likelihood is that the bikes were stolen to order. Still, if we can track down the previous owners it might provide us with a concrete avenue of inquiry. Finally, we come to the lorry that caused the traffic jam. It was definitely stolen, two weeks prior to the attack, from an overnight truck stop outside Leicester. The owner/driver was sleeping in the motel and didn’t know anything about the theft until he woke in the morning. By the time it was driven on the day of the attack, the number plates had been changed and it had been given an expert paint job. That means it must have been kept in a garage or a warehouse for up to fourteen days. The police have several teams across the Midlands and the south attempting to locate that warehouse, but I’m sure you can imagine the scale of the task. We’re also pretty certain the terrorists must have made at least one dry run, so we’re studying film from traffic cameras along the route. Again, that will take time. More than a million people use the M25 every day, so it’s like looking for a needle in a field of haystacks.’

‘Gerald.’ The Director General nodded to a second aide. ‘You’re our special ops expert.’

‘My instinct is that these people are home grown.’ Gerald’s pale eyes roamed the table, daring anyone to challenge his opinion. His long fingers worked at a pencil with an intensity that made his junior colleague wonder that it didn’t break. Nick had joined Five straight from university and, if he was being honest, the former SAS officer sometimes intimidated him. ‘An operation of this complexity and scale and carried out with such precision would require months of preparation and training. They knew the terrain, how the traffic would be affected by an accident of a certain type, and the reaction time to the second of the police helicopter. They would have reconnoitred the target and the escape routes in minute detail. Their leader would have run them through the mission a hundred times, practising for every eventuality, timing their getaway and familiarizing them with their weapons.’ He rapped the table top with the pencil. ‘That means somewhere remote and outdoors. I have our people checking every out-of-bounds school, adventure-training facility and large-scale paintball course in the country. Their choice of weaponry was designed to fit the scenario exactly as it happened. It would have been simple enough to smuggle in the assault weapons, grenades and RPGs in a batch of engineering equipment — we know they have the covert backing of some very powerful business people.’ He shrugged. ‘The Stinger would have taken a little more doing, but these people are professionals. Personally, I have my doubts whether the supply chain will give us anything.’

‘You’re telling me we have got precisely nowhere.’ The minister had her head in her hands.

Gerald and his chief exchanged glances, while Nick studied his notes before answering.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, ma’am. There are several avenues of inquiry open to us, and we’re still hoping to get a lead from GCHQ about the type and method of communications they used. The NSA is helping with that. There’s also satellite surveillance. The Americans say their birds don’t cover the United Kingdom, but we know that to be a little white lie and we’re pushing for a look at anything they’ve got. And we have identified the driver of the lorry.’

The blond head rose and the minister fixed him with a predator’s eyes.

‘His name is — rather, was — Rasul Mohammed. British-born of Pakistani origin. Age thirty-four. He was a karting champion — that would be racing go-karts, ma’am — at age fourteen, wanted to get into Formula One, but his career stalled in one of the lower Formulas. He looked for other ways to carve out a career as a driver, and stumbled on truck racing, where the big money is in America. By all accounts he made a decent living and was known for the tricks he could do with a forty-tonner. That led him to part-time work as a stunt driver for film companies.’

‘Al-Qaida?’

‘No radical links, as far as we can tell, at least not until recently. A month ago his bank account received a major payment well above anything he’d ever been given for appearing on a film set. The payment has been traced back to a dormant account in the Cayman Islands, known to have been used by Al-Qaida in the past.’

‘So Al-Qaida.’ The Home Secretary’s voice took on a note of command. ‘We bring in his wife, his family and his friends and we squeeze them until the pips squeak.’

The chief of SIS ran a lazy eye over his political master. ‘If he was mainstream Al-Qaida, Minister, I suspect he would be out there with them and not left dangling like a bullet-riddled piece of bait to tempt us in the opposite direction from that which we—’

‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ the Home Secretary huffed.

‘The reason he was killed is precisely because he was not Al-Qaida and therefore could not be trusted to keep his mouth shut,’ the Director General continued remorselessly. ‘He was probably paid half in advance with half due on completion. Instead, his accomplices delivered the second part of the payment at a muzzle speed of about four thousand feet per second which, I presume, was much less welcome.’

‘So what do we do? I must have something to take back to the Prime Minister.’

‘Do? We follow the leads we have, which are mainly connected with the transport. Twelve men on motorcycles transferring to some other form of vehicle. Someone must have seen something. We have the cooperation of many in the Islamic community. These men all have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and lovers. All it takes is one whisper and we’ll have them all. Oh, and we pray.’

‘Pray?’

It was Gerald who answered. ‘Yes, Minister. We pray that they’ve gone into deep cover and they’re not already planning their next spectacular.’

The images flickered across the screen of the television in the sparsely furnished room at the secure compound in the far north of Pakistan. The watcher frowned, taking in for the fourth time the smoke billowing from the burning petrol tanker and the lines of trapped cars filled with the dead and the dying. He signalled to the young man standing politely by the doorway to approach.

‘We must discover who is spilling the blood of the infidels in my name.’

‘Of course, al-Amir,’ the younger man agreed.

He studied the screen again, this time the picture was a close-up of the wreckage of a downed helicopter. The scale of the atrocity was impressive. Much more impressive than the organization’s Jihadis had achieved in their attack on the London transport system in July 2005. It spoke of excellent planning and coordination and was a great blow against the hated British, yet it perplexed him. ‘He who rides the tiger must always be in control of it, lest it devour him.’

‘Our friend in Washington has sent word that some of the equipment used in the attack has been traced back to one of our cells.’

The watcher nodded. The friend in Washington had made himself useful — keeping him one step ahead of the unmanned drones that had proved so deadly against his less well-informed rivals. Of course, he was much more secure now; as secure as any man who lived his lifestyle could be. He no longer used the satellite phones that the CIA had somehow used to track him in the past, and hard experience and heavy losses had taught him the folly of passing information on the Internet. No matter how sophisticated the technology, the Americans were always one step ahead, as the shameful execution of The Leader had proved. The infidel Americans and British believed the death of The Leader was the end. He intended to prove to them that it was only the beginning, may God strike them down.

Now he maintained contact with his organization through a single courier, a man who had been with himself and The Leader in the caves in Tora Bora and had served him well ever since. If the watcher trusted anyone, it was Jamal al Hamza. From this remote compound he controlled the mainstream Al-Qaida network through that single strand, and by proxy spread his will across a web of fellow travellers throughout the world. It was sometimes a frustratingly slow method of communication, as now, when he would have liked to unleash his wolves against the imitators who shamed him by acting without his consent. But his safety and security were paramount, and it must suffice. Still, he would do what he could.

‘Activate the security team.’

The young man, who was his son, and would be his successor, bowed and went to encode the message the courier would carry to Islamabad, where it would find its way to England.

Abu Ayoub al-Iraqi returned to his task of planning his great coup against the enemy. He dreamed of a dark mushroom cloud against a clear blue sky and a white house in ruins.