The Gilgamesh Conspiracy

CHAPTER ONE

Gerry Tate awoke from the depths of unconsciousness and tried to resolve the confusion in her mind. She was slumped on a hard floor with salt sea water sloshing around her and slapping at her face. With a groan she clutched her throbbing head with one hand and then drew up her knees to try and relieve the nauseous spasm clenching her stomach. She heard a man screaming out in Arabic, a desperate cry of faith in Allah. She rolled over; looked around her and recalled that she was trapped inside an aircraft. The cabin was dimly lit by the white glow of emergency floor lighting and red Exit lights in the roof. She was lying in the space between the forward doors just behind the flight deck. With each beat of her heart pain pulsed through her head and she closed her eyes tightly and took several deep breaths. The aircraft was… what the hell had happened? She looked around and saw Ryan Carson, his face masked in blood. Now she remembered the crash.

She had been standing in the flight deck doorway between the two pilots with her gun held ready to shoot them. Carson had struck her arm with a crowbar; she had pulled the trigger and the bullet had hit Carl Reece sitting at the controls in the co-pilot’s seat. She had lost her grip on the gun and scrambled out of the flight deck before Carson could hit her again and she had a vague memory of struggling with him in the narrow confines of the cabin. Then the dying co-pilot had slumped forward, pushing the control column and forcing the aircraft down to crash into the sea. Carson had been beating her until she had somehow retrieved the gun and shot him. She had slumped exhausted onto the floor spitting out blood and feeling a broken front tooth with her tongue until her addled mind recognised that the continuous electronic warble was the autopilot warning horn.

Then she had crawled back into the cockpit and tried to pull Reece’s body clear of the controls. The altimeter showed that the aircraft was just three thousand feet above the sea and descending rapidly. Standing awkwardly at the back of the flight deck she had reached across to the other control column and tried to pull it backward but the weight of the body stopped her. Snarling with frustration she had wrenched at the dead man’s neck and managed to pull him clear. The nose of the aircraft rose up and the rate of descent eased off it so it flew low across the waves, but it was too late for her to stop it hitting the water. She took one more look at the sea, rushed back into the cabin and flung herself onto the floor. She wrapped herself into as tight a ball as possible with her arms over her head and her knees pressed against her chest and waited for the impact.

When it came she felt herself bounced from one side of the cabin to the other, and then a blow to her head that must have knocked her out, but now, although she was bruised and battered and in pain she welcomed the knowledge that she had survived. Had Carson lived? She looked at him again and saw the deep wound on his skull, broken bone visible through his blood-matted hair. Her stomach gagged from a mixture of sea sickness, pain and revulsion; it was many years since she had inflicted violent death.

Now she felt the aircraft rear up on the ocean swell and then sink down and she saw the sea surge in through a ragged split in the tail end of the fuselage.

‘Help me Gerry!’

She looked round and saw Ali Hamsin’s frantic eyes staring at her and then she heard his scream cut short as a surge of water swamped him. She whimpered in fear and then staggered down the aisle steadying herself by seizing the seat backs. ‘My foot’s trapped!’

He was sitting on the floor with his legs stuck under a row of seats. The water washed around her knees and she saw him take a desperate breath as the sea surged over him again. She took a deep breath and plunged her head under. The salt water stung her eyes but she found his foot trapped under the seat. She tried to push it clear and was dimly aware of him gasping with pain until the water swirled over his head again. The aircraft plunged nose down and suddenly they were both clear of the water as it poured away from them towards the nose. Gerry clung on to the seat to stop herself falling away. She took some quick panting breaths and brushed her hair clear of her face. ‘It’s your shoe that’s trapped,’ she said quickly, ‘I’ll try and pull it free.’

He nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, yes!’ he said as she bent down just as the water closed over them again. She nearly had his foot free but the sinking aircraft suddenly heaved and she lost her grip. The water surged forward carrying her along the aisle, beating her arms and legs against the seats until she reached the front of the cabin and collided with Carson’s body and then she fell against the bulkhead by the forward doors. She felt a shock as someone grabbed her arm but realised it was Ali who had struggled clear of the seat and tumbled after her. The nose of the plane reared up as it hit a wave and he let go of her and was swept back towards the rear of the cabin. For a moment she could see the door operating lever. She grabbed hold of it as the water tried to pull her back down the fuselage.

She tried to force herself to think clearly and then she noticed the curved arrow painted red on the side of the door and with the remains of her energy and resolution she hauled it open. The lever was snatched from her hands as the door powered away from her. There was a high pitched whine and a huge rushing of air as the slide raft inflated clear of its container in the door. Gerry was thrown back on to the floor but as she began to struggle to her feet the aircraft nose sank down and with a roar the sea surged in through the open doorway flinging her backwards. She had time for one desperate breath before she was submerged again.

After a few seconds the water stopped swirling around and she could move her arms. Pressure was building up painfully in her ears as the aircraft began to sink. She grabbed her nose and swallowed hard. She opened her eyes, wincing from the saltwater sting and looked around. She could see the open doorway and tried to push away with her feet towards it but her right foot was snagged on something. The urge to take a breath was stealing up on her. The emergency lights failed but she could still make out the rectangle of the open doorway. In a panic she managed to wrench her foot free and swim towards the door and with outstretched hands she grabbed the side of the doorway and pulled herself out of the fuselage. She banged her face on the open door and a fresh spasm of pain shot through her jaw. Desperately resisting the urgent impulse to inhale she managed to wait until she had swam up through the surface before taking a huge gasping breath. She bobbed back down again and caught a mouthful of seawater but she managed to swallow it rather than taking it into her lungs. She looked around and saw the curved roof of the aircraft below her as it slipped slowly beneath the surface and she was frightened that the vortex would drag her down. She kicked madly with her legs and then remembered she might attract sharks. The sea suddenly heaved past her and she screamed in terror as a large shape surged towards her but she realised it was the slide raft that had broken free from the doorway.

She splashed towards it, and with her last reserves of energy she managed to catch hold of some straps that dangled over the side and haul her weary body on board. She slumped over the side of the raft and stared at the aircraft tail still pointing towards the moonlit sky. She saw it tilt slowly away from her and suddenly a wing tip broke clear of the waves a few feet from the raft before that too slid out of sight. She rolled on to her back and lay in the water that sloshed to and fro across the bottom of the raft. She stared up at the stars and wept tears of relief, trying not to think about how desperate her situation might be. Another spasm of pain in her upper jaw and she pushed around with her tongue, tasted blood from her swollen split lip and felt the peg of her right front tooth from which the crown had broken off.

After a minute in the relative safety of the raft her panic ebbed and her heart rate slowed. She took stock of her position. First of all her injuries: besides the damage to her teeth she had a dull ache on the side of her head. She was fully conscious and unless she developed a blinding headache in the next day, she may as well assume her skull had not been damaged too seriously. Her right arm throbbed where Carson had hit it but despite the pain she could move her hand and fingers freely; nothing was broken. She looked down and wiggled her right foot, winced from the pain in her thigh, but decided that at least her ankle was only lightly sprained. She pulled off her shoe rubbed the joint and then lay back and stared up at the sky while her breathing steadied, occasionally spitting out the salty taste of blood and seawater from her mouth and snorting through her nose.

‘Help me, in God’s mercy, help me,’ came a faint cry.

Ali Hamsin? Alive! How could that be? She had been trying to free his foot when the water had snatched her away. Now she remembered him clutching at her before the water had washed him down the fuselage. Surely he had drowned. She rolled on to her front, pulled herself up against the side of the raft and peered across the sea.

‘I’m over here!’

Under the dull moonlight she saw him clinging on to a seat cushion. He lifted an arm and gave a brief frantic wave and then clutched desperately at the cushion which barely supported his weight. How was she going to reach him? She did not want to leave the safety of the raft.

‘Gerry, help me!’

‘Oh shit,’ she muttered. She grabbed hold of one of the straps and then slithered over the side back into the sea.

‘Swim towards me,’ she called. ‘I don’t want to let go of the raft.’

‘I can’t swim! The water’s dragging me down.’

‘Come on, you have to swim!’ she called back. She looked up at the raft and then back at him. Then she saw a line trailing in the water alongside her. She grabbed hold of it and found that it was attached to the raft. ‘Hold on, Ali. I think I can get to you.’ She wrapped the trailing line around her wrist and then paddled towards him trying to ignore the pain in her leg. She was still two metres away when the line brought her to a halt with a sharp tug at her wrist. She swam awkwardly round until her legs trailed towards him. ‘You’ll have to swim and grab my legs.’

‘I can’t!’

‘You must! Go on, trust in God.’

He let go of the seat cushion and took some frantic strokes towards her as the sea closed over him. She suddenly felt him grab her foot and she heaved her legs up and stuck her hand down, felt him grasp hold of it and then she pulled him up to the surface. He clutched on to her until their faces were nearly touching.

‘I’m sorry to be holding you this way,’ he spluttered.

‘Never mind that now, Ali!’

She took hold of the line and began to haul the pair of them back towards the raft, their combined weight straining her arms but at last they were both able to reach the straps that ran dangled down the side of the raft.

‘I don’t have the strength…’ he gasped, ‘to climb in.’

‘Listen; you’re only a light weight. I’ll hold on to these straps and lower myself down. Then you kneel on my shoulders and you’ll be able to climb in.’

He stared at her for a moment wondering what she meant, and then nodded. ‘As God wills it,’ he said in Arabic.

‘Let’s hope so.’

She wrapped the straps round her wrists, took a deep breath and sank below the surface. She felt him struggling into a kneeling position on her shoulders. She gritted her teeth as his knees ground against her shoulders while he pulled himself up into the raft and then one of his flailing feet kicked her in the side of the head. She took a minute to gather her strength and then pulled herself on board next to him. ‘How did you get out?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. I was struggling under the water when my foot came free and then I bumped into you. I remember being whirled around and around until I found myself floating on the surface and I grabbed the cushion. It was the will of God.’

‘The aircraft must have split apart as it sank.’

‘Perhaps. Anyway somehow we are both alive.’

They were alone on a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean. Only yesterday morning she had woken up in a comfortable hotel room, gazed out of the window and enjoyed the sight of the waves lapping gently onto the shore and thought about going home. Now she was surrounded by the sea and unless a miracle occurred she would die out here. She stared up at the cloudy sky and occasionally glimpsed stars through breaks in the overcast. She thought about her daughter growing up under the care of another woman but after a few seconds she ordered herself to get a grip, to stop wallowing in self-pity. She thought about Ryan Carson with whom a few days ago she had been chatting happily at dinner.

‘Bloody bastard!’ she called out, her voice sounding weak against the surge of the waves along the side of the raft.

‘What did you say?’ Ali called out.

‘You’re awake?’

‘Of course.’

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

‘I feel like shit!’

She felt a flash of amusement despite their situation; it was the first time she had heard him come close to an oath of any sort.

‘Yuh, me too.’

To confirm her words she felt a sudden acidic surge and vomited up some sea water and the remains of her last meal.

‘Gerry, are you alright?’

She snorted through her nose and coughed and spat. ‘Just throwing up,’ she mumbled.

‘We’re in a bad way here.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘That pilot, did you kill him?’

‘Yes. He got hold of some kind of crowbar. It must have been in the flight deck somewhere, maybe part of the aircraft equipment. Anyway I managed to get it off him.’

‘He was the man who took me to Guantanamo Bay years ago,’ said Ali.

‘What… Ryan Carson? The pilot?’

‘Yes. He was the one who turned up at the prison in Abuja with some other American soldiers and escorted me to the airport. I was put on a plane and flown to the prison camp. I didn’t see him again until I was taken away from the camp yesterday and put on that aircraft.’

‘So it was Carson! Was there an English guy with him at all?’

‘There was, but I haven’t seen him since.’

‘Describe him, then’

‘Come on Gerry, it’s been years. I only just remember Ryan Carson because he is such a handsome type.’

‘Can’t you try?’

‘Well he was very smart, short hair. I suppose he looked like another military type actually.’

‘Old or young?’

‘Oh probably the same age as Carson, I would have said.’

‘Vince Parker,’ Gerry muttered to herself. ‘I bet it was bloody Vince Parker, always turning up. Those bastards are the ones who killed Philip, it was those two pieces of shit.’

There was no more to be said for the moment. The two of them lay slumped in the water that swirled around in the bottom of the raft. Fortunately the night was mild and apart from the occasional shiver she mostly felt clammy and sweaty. And thirsty. She sunk into a torpor while the long Atlantic rollers slowly heaved the raft up and down and despite her anxiety, her exhaustion lead to periods of fitful sleep until the dawn began to lighten the sky to the east.

She gazed over at Ali Hamsin slumped against the side a couple of feet away from her. ‘Are you awake, Ali?’

There was no reply. She crawled over and felt his neck. There was a strong pulse. She sighed in relief and patted him on the cheek. His head sagged away from her and she realised the side of his head was smeared with blood. It was old blood but her fingers felt swollen flesh around the cut and he moaned slightly as she pressed the wound.

‘Oh crap,’ she muttered. ‘Come on Ali, we’ve got stuff to talk about. Don’t die now.’

His eyes opened briefly and then closed. ‘I’m tired Gerry; my head aches badly.’ He inhaled a gasping stuttering breath and then gave a long drawn out sigh.

‘Ali! Wake up!’ she commanded. She felt his neck and was relieved to feel his pulse again and suddenly he resumed breathing but remained in his semi-comatose condition.

She stood up precariously, wondering if she might see any wreckage but the aircraft appeared to have sunk without trace apart from a few small pieces of debris and another seat cushion or perhaps it was the same one that saved Ali’s life, but nothing else. She thought that there was a slight oily sheen to the surface and she dipped her hand in and smelt fuel on it. She scanned the horizon, yearning to see a ship but it was a forlorn hope, and the nearest land was Bermuda probably hundreds of miles distant.

She was about to sink wearily to the bottom of the raft when something caught her eye. The rising sun was reflecting off a plastic water bottle floating about twenty metres away. She realised that she was desperately thirsty and she was about to dive in after it but then stopped and gave the matter some thought whilst keeping her gaze fixed on the bottle. Fortuitously the breeze was blowing towards the water bottle so if she swam towards it, at least the wind would not carry the raft away from her. She was a pretty good swimmer and she should be able to get there and back quite quickly. What about sharks? There were no tell-tale fins and she would have to take that chance.

‘Here goes, then,’ she announced to the barren sea scape and prepared to slide over the side. She stopped. Her clothes had at least drained off some of the sea water and it would be silly to soak them again and besides she could swim better without them. She quickly undressed whilst keeping her eye on the bottle, but then she took a modest look around at Ali to check he wasn’t watching her before removing her underwear. She draped her clothes over the broad cylindrical side of the raft and then slid over it into the sea.

She reached the bottle but to her intense disappointment there was only about a litre remaining in it. Then with some excitement she saw another one floating nearby. She gazed back at the raft and experienced a moment of panic when she could not see it. She realised it was over the other side of a wave crest and moments later it rose back into her view. She felt herself being lifted up by the same wave a little later and she struck out strongly for the second bottle, grabbed it and found that this one was two thirds full. She swam back for the first one. Swimming whilst holding on to a couple of two litre bottles was harder than she imagined, and it took her much longer to regain the raft.

‘Ali, watch out, here come some water bottles!’ she called. She flung them on board and prepared to climb up but then she realised she needed to pee, and while she was floating beside the raft she saw two packages just below the surface that were tethered to the end of the raft. She pulled up the nearest one. It proved to be a waterproof bag fastened with a black plastic zip. She tried to fling it into the raft but it fell back into the water. She cursed and reached for it again, but then realised she was being foolish. It would be much easier to pull the things up whilst on the raft. She heaved herself on board and tugged at the line and pulled the bag up over the side. She tore open the zip hoping to find more water and some emergency food rations but instead found some curious unidentifiable items and a waterproofed booklet. Finally she pulled out a folded up sheet of plasticised cloth. She began to unfold it and then saw that the water bottles had rolled to the edge of the raft. She retrieved them and hurriedly uncapped one and put it against her lips, then gave a short shriek as she jabbed the plastic neck painfully into the cut on her lip. She waited for her jangled nerve endings to calm down and then more cautiously allowed herself one good drink and then crawled over to Ali.

‘Wake up! Here’s some water.’

He moaned and muttered something but made no other response. She patted his cheek and then pulled his ear.

‘Open your mouth you idiot. I’ve got you some water!’

She pushed his lips apart with the bottle and shouted ‘Come on drink it!’

His mind seemed to snap out of its stupor because he opened his mouth and sucked greedily at his half a litre of water. When it was finished he opened his eyes and gazed at Gerry and then grew round eyed in shock.

‘You… you’re naked!’ he held up a hand and shielded her from his sight.

‘And you’re alive. Listen Ali you’ve got to tell me everything you know about the Gilgamesh thing, so make sure you stay alive, ok?’

‘Please get dressed first,’ he said closing his eyes. She crawled over to the other side of the raft clothes and with some effort tugged her clammy clothes back on. She glanced back at Hamsin. ‘Ok I’m dressed you can open your eyes again. He glanced warily towards her and then gave a little nod. ‘I think it all started at the end of December back in 1983, when my country was embroiled in its war with Iran. I was a junior translator but fortunately or unfortunately I had attracted the attention of Hakim Mansour…’

Saddam Hussein, clad in the drab green paramilitary uniform of the Baath party, strode into the room followed by his entourage. He held out his hand to Donald Rumsfeld who wore the civilian uniform of grey business suit, white shirt and tie. He clasped the dictator’s hand and smiled with the self-assurance of a special envoy of the President of the United States. Other grey suited Americans were introduced and shook hands with green uniformed Iraqis whilst the Iraqi television cameras recorded a scene of cheerful bonhomie. As befitted his role as a mere interpreter, Ali Hamsin remained unobtrusive in the background while waiting for his services to be called upon.

Prior to this stage-managed event, he had attended the private meeting at which Rumsfeld had delivered an encouraging message from the leader of the most powerful nation in the world to a country in the middle of a desperate war. He had assured Saddam Hussein that in the near future the Iraqi leader could expect a restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the delivery of helicopters and weapons systems to the Iraqi army, either directly from the USA or from its regional allies.

The American who was responsible for the detailed presentation had smiled as he outlined the measures that would aid the Iraqi people in their struggle against the Iranian regime that had caused so many problems to both countries. Saddam Hussein smiled too, but his expression was meaningless. He would smile or frown irrespective of whether he was ordering a man to be taken to Al Graib prison or congratulating him on the birth of a son.

The interpreter glanced at the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz who gave a brief nod. He looked toward Saddam Hussein’s chest as he spoke to him. ‘Shall I make the speech of thanks, Sir?’ Hamsin asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ replied the Iraqi President. ‘Express our gratitude to Mr Rumsfeld and his delegation for their visit and make all the proper remarks.’ Saddam Hussein’s smile broadened under the heavy moustache. Ali Hamsin nodded and turned slightly towards the American.

‘His Excellency the President of The Republic of Iraq would like to thank the President of the United States for his support in the struggle against their common enemy, and would like to invite him for an official visit in happier and more peaceful times. And now we would like to express personal thanks to you, his personal envoy for this most useful exchange of views and ideas, and all best wishes for a safe journey home.’

The interpreter glanced at Tariq Aziz once more and was relieved to see his small smile of approval. Saddam Hussein took a small pace forward and held out his hand and the special delegate shook it once more, and this time an official photographer stepped forward to record the moment and the interpreter shuffled back so that he did not intrude into the picture. As he did so he felt a hand grip his elbow, and the soft murmur of Hakim Mansour, personal assistant to the Deputy Prime Minister, in his ear. ‘Ali Hamsin, be a good fellow and tell the American colonel that I would like to call on him in his hotel room in one hour.’

‘Yes sir,’ he replied.

‘Perhaps it would be best if you accompanied me,’ Mansour continued.

‘Very good, sir.’

Ali Hamsin walked quietly over to the blonde American whose short haircut and military bearing were obvious despite a well cut civilian suit.

‘Colonel Bruckner, sir. Hakim Mansour, personal aide to His Excellency the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister would regard it as a favour if he could call on you in your hotel room in one hour.’ Bruckner looked down at the interpreter, and then across at Hakim Mansour.

‘But I am not staying at a hotel. I’m staying at the embassy.’

‘Yes I understand that sir,’ said Ali Hamsin. ‘My job is to translate accurately at all times, not to offer interpretation or advice.’

‘Ok, well tell Mr Mansour that I will be taking a walk outside the embassy for a couple of minutes in one hour from now, and if he would like to talk to me then I will join him in his car. How does that sound?’

Forty minutes later outside the building, Ali Hamsin was waiting beside Hakim Mansour’s Mercedes limousine talking to the chauffeur. They discussed the weather and the likely traffic conditions and enquired after each other’s families. They did not discuss where they were going, and why, or who their passengers would be and what business they might have together.

They stopped talking when they saw Mansour emerge from a small side door and walk across the driveway. To their surprise they saw he was not accompanied by his personal bodyguard. The chauffeur nearly made a comment but instead he cleared his throat, opened the car door and stood to attention. ‘Thank you, Jameel,’ said Mansour, ‘you can go home. Ali will drive me.’ The chauffeur gave Ali a quizzical glance but of course he expressed no surprise.

‘Yes sir, thank you sir.’

At first Ali Hamsin was nervous about driving Mansour’s official car in the maelstrom of the Baghdad traffic, but he quickly realised that the other drivers recognised the vehicle with its government registration plate and moved smartly aside to allow him past and they always gave way to him at the intersections. As they approached the United States Embassy Hakim Mansour told him to slow down. ‘We’re two minutes early. Drive around the compound and then he should be there.’

As they drove past the entrance, Ali saw the Marine Guard stare at the car and then start talking rapidly, presumably into a microphone attached to his helmet. He drove the car slowly around the block and as they approached the rear of the building a man suddenly stepped out of the shadow of the eight foot high wall. Ali Hamsin brought the car to a stop and Colonel Bruckner walked up to the rear door, looked up and down the street and then climbed in.

‘Good evening, Colonel Bruckner. I am happy to see you,’ Hakim Mansour said in his broken English. ‘I have some matters of importance and greatly sensitive to discuss with you, and because I wish to make sure there should be no mis-statements, I have brought our interpreter.’

‘Yes I’m acquainted with Ali Hamsin. My Arabic’s not up to much, so it was a good idea.’

‘Of course; he’s very good at his job. And he also has wife and small son, and relatives, who all have the high regard for him.’ Hakim Mansour smiled up at the rear view mirror and this time spoke in Arabic. ‘We know that we can count on you, Ali Hamsin.’ He saw the fear in the young interpreter’s eyes. ‘Good. Now you begin to translate for us.’ He smiled and turned towards the American.

‘Although with God’s help we are confident that we will win the war against the Iranian hordes, we wish to make certain contingency plans should some catastrophe occur.’

Ali Hamsin translated, wondering what twists and turns this conversation would take.

‘Are you threatening to use your stockpiles of chemical weapons?’ asked the American Colonel. ‘We know you are manufacturing mustard gas and nerve agents, and we have to warn you that their use would jeopardise our support for you.'

Ali Hamsin was taken aback by this startling revelation, but he managed to deliver the Arabic version smoothly enough.

‘Oh I’m sure we will never have to use those; I expect the mere threat of their use will have a salutary effect, a powerful bargaining tool.’ He paused briefly, but before Ali Hamsin could begin to translate Mansour spoke again.

‘What we have in mind are other contingencies, matters that might arise if the war does not progress so well. It will be necessary to protect long term positions.’

‘Go on,’ said the Colonel.

Hakim Mansour described the proposals and Ali Hamsin translated. As the conversation between the American Colonel and the Party Central Committee member progressed he found it more and more difficult to keep the emotion out of his voice. He gripped the steering wheel to stop his hands trembling and felt the sweat beading on his forehead while the more he learned the more fearful he became.

The two men finally shook hands and Mansour ordered Ali Hamsin to drive back to the US Embassy. ‘Have a good Christmas, Colonel,’ Mansour called as the American climbed out of the car. After they had watched him display his ID card and disappear through the security gates Mansour climbed into the front seat next to Ali and offered him a cigarette. The two of them sat in silence for a minute smoking, and then Mansour spoke. ‘If news of my meeting with the Colonel ever leaks out, you will wish you had never been born.’

Ali swallowed nervously. ‘I understand sir,’ he managed to say.

‘Good! But of course these obligations pass both ways and you can expect further rewards in some form or another while you work in the Ministry. Now you can drive me home, and then you’ll have to walk, or find a taxi back to your house.’

‘Thank you sir!’ Ali replied, trying to force some enthusiasm into his reply. He climbed out and watched Mansour shuffle across to the driver’s seat and then set off into the traffic. Ali stared after him for a while before walking slowly home.

‘I worked in the ministry for the next twenty years,’ said Ali, ‘and I must admit I was well off compared with most people. I was paid on time and allowed extra privileges, but I can also state with confidence that I was good at my job. The ultimate reward was that my son Rashid was able to study English at the University of Southampton. Of course there was a downside; we spent our working lives under scrutiny and fearful of making some blunder either real or imagined that would have us thrown into prison. You cannot imagine what stress that puts you under, spending your working life under those conditions.’

‘Oh I don’t have to imagine it,’ Gerry replied. She leant back against the side of the raft and stared up at the sky, thinking back to her first meeting with Ali Hamsin and Hakim Mansour and her descent into a personal disaster that had begun years ago on New Year’s Day in 2003.

CHAPTER TWO

Gerry Tate was thoroughly bored. The evening in the bar in the United Kingdom’s embassy in Kuwait had started off with a heated debate about the developing Iraq situation which appeared to be escalating towards a crisis point, but as the hour had approached midnight, the alcohol consumed by her fellow drinkers had slowly dragged the conversation down to a convivial but frivolous level in keeping with a New Year celebration. She gazed at the clock mounted on the wall above the rows of bottles behind the bar and when it reached 3.00am she and her few remaining fellow drinkers, mostly young and exclusively male, raised their glasses and called out ‘Happy New Year!’

Along with a much larger group she had made the same greeting three hours previously, but that had been at midnight local time. A few staff with no family or little regard for their exhausted spouses had decided that it could not properly be New Year until the time reached midnight in London, three hours later than Kuwait. Not, they assured one another, because they yearned for their home country but merely because that was the location of the prime meridian through Greenwich, and any right thinking person would know that this must be the correct time to celebrate the New Year even if they lived in New Zealand or Los Angeles or any place in between.

Gerry’s opinion was that this was a load of bollocks, but she was in the executive operations department of the British intelligence service and accustomed to guarding her thoughts. She had stayed on in the embassy bar because it was her task to determine the loyalty of a middle-aged diplomat named Laurence Baxter who now stood four feet to her left and who was draining his seventh beer of the evening. A neutral observer might think that Gerry was as inebriated as Baxter, having been plied with free drinks by the men who had been eager to make at least the acquaintance of the tall, attractive young woman who had appeared amongst them a few days ago. In fact a quiet word with the barman had ensured that whenever someone bought her another gin and lemonade he had only poured lemonade into her glass. He had been very surprised when she had made the request, but when she suggested that he should pocket the difference in price he had been happy enough to agree.

Gerry watched Baxter stagger off towards the gentlemen’s toilets and concluded that if he was going to pass any information to his Russian girlfriend tonight then it was unlikely to be coherent. She actually felt sorry for the woman who had to endure his attentions, and imagined that she would be relieved when she found out that he had been recalled to London. Gerry’s remaining task was to establish whether Baxter genuinely believed his girlfriend to be a Canadian citizen or if he knew that she was Russian.

‘Excuse me gentlemen,’ she said and walked off towards the doorway.

‘Oh you’re not leaving us are you Emily?’ said a drunken commercial secretary, a handsome twenty-five year old Oxford graduate who had decided that now was the moment to make a serious pass and he grabbed her by the arm.

A moment later, without understanding how, he had lost his footing and now he was sprawled on the floor with the remains of his beer spilt over him and acclaimed with raucous laughter by his fellow drinkers. Gerry walked casually on and disappeared inside the ladies’ cloakroom. Peeping out through the cracked open doorway she watched Baxter stagger out the gents’ and towards the security post at the main entrance. She followed a few paces behind as they approached the one remaining guard manning the entrance. Rather than waving them through the security gate he carefully checked their IDs and insisted that they walk through the archway scanner that until recently had only been used to search people entering the embassy. With the continuing build-up of American and Allied troops along the Iraqi border as the crisis escalated towards a probable invasion, the guards were taking no chances, although Gerry could not imagine what she might take out of the embassy that would cause any security problem. She watched Baxter collide with the side of the archway as he staggered through and saw the security man shake his head in disgust. She walked through herself, said a quick ‘good night’ and then followed him outside.

In the car park she watched Baxter walk unsteadily to his car and fumble in his pocket, and then she heard a metallic clink as his keys fell to the ground and heard him grunt as he bent down to find them. ‘Hi Laurence, are you ok?’ she called out.

He looked around and gave her a bleary grin. ‘Oh, hi Emily. Just dropped m’keys; they’re round here somewhere.’ He stared vaguely about, then leant against the car and groaned.

‘You’re in no state to drive,’ Gerry declared. ‘Look I’ll take you home.’ She bent down and found his keys under the adjacent car.

‘Thass great; give’m me; m’ok really.’

‘I’ll give them back to you when we get to your place. Now get in my car.’ After a couple of minute’s effort she had the drunken man slumped in the passenger seat of her borrowed car. ‘So where do you live?’ Gerry asked.

‘Take the First Ring Road’, he mumbled.

‘Ok,’ Gerry replied and set off towards his apartment. She was fully aware of its location having already spent several hours searching through it when Baxter was at work. Years ago her service would be worried about an individual such as Baxter revealing military secrets to the communist bloc, but now Gerry was merely ensuring that her country’s exports of military equipment to the Gulf States were not being jeopardised.

‘Maybe you’d better call Sandy, tell her you’ll be home soon,’ she suggested.

‘Still be at Canadian… Canadian embassy party I’spect.’

Through her contact in the Canadian embassy, Gerry knew that Lyudmila Yakutina also known as Sandy Dempster had left two hours ago.

‘She’s a lovely girl, Sandy. Have you known her long?’ she asked.

‘Bout six months.’ That was accurate. From the selection of women’s clothing in Baxter’s apartment Gerry also knew that Yakutina often spent the night there.

‘I wonder how many generations of her family have been in Canada. She looks sort of Ukrainian I reckon. Long blonde hair. She looks like one of those tennis players. You know the Russian ones. Maybe her family’s from Russia… originally.’

‘Er… I d’know. She’s from Toronto,’ Baxter mumbled. He looked around and recognised where they were. ‘S’next right.’

Gerry pulled up beside the small apartment block. Baxter climbed out and fumbled for his keys.

‘I’ve got them, remember?’ said Gerry rattling them in front of his face. He grinned at her and then took them.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said, ‘I’ll be alright now.’

‘I need to use your bathroom, if you don’t mind,’ said Gerry.

‘Oh! Well come on in then.’

She followed him up the stairs to the large, three bedroomed first floor apartment provided at the UK taxpayers’ expense.

‘You’re late!’ snapped a woman’s voice in a Canadian accent, and as she followed him through the door Gerry recognised the blonde haired attractive woman, aged about thirty who had jumped up from her seat. ‘Oh!’ she added when she saw Gerry just behind Baxter.

‘Hello, Happy New Year! Delighted to meet you,’ Gerry called out and noted the woman’s mouth about to form some words but then her expression changed from a curious frown, to a forced smile and she said ‘Happy New Year!’ in return.

‘I’m Emily Stevens, a colleague of Laurence’s,’ Gerry continued. ‘He’s a bit pissed so I brought him home. You must be Sandy.’

‘Yuh I’m Sandy,’ she replied. ‘Thanks for bringing him back.’ She had recovered her poise but still Gerry saw the suspicion on her face. Laurence staggered towards her and Gerry noted her recoiling from his clumsy embrace.

‘I need to use your bathroom please,’ said Gerry.

‘Through there,’ Yakutina said waving towards an archway.

‘Thanks,’ said Gerry.

She went through, took a much needed pee, washed her hands and then from her handbag she took out her Glock automatic, gave it a quick once over and then did the same with her Taser. Then she walked quietly back in with her hand inside her bag clutching the Glock. She relaxed when she saw Laurence slumped in an armchair and Yakutina bringing in a tray with three cups, a jug and a sugar bowl on it.

‘I’m making us all some coffee,’ she said with a big smile for Gerry. ‘Laurence could certainly use one anyway.’

‘Me too,’ Gerry agreed enthusiastically. ‘So Sandy, what brings you out to Kuwait?’

‘I work for Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace company. We’re hoping to supply new training aircraft to the Air Force here. How about you?’

‘I’m in foreign aid,’ Gerry replied.

‘Huh? You’re not telling me the Brits are giving the Kuwaitis financial aid are you?’

‘No, I’m trying to persuade them to give it to African countries,’ Gerry replied, ‘then we won’t have to.’

‘Ah, I get it,’ she nodded.

‘So you’re in the same line as Laurence. He’s the commercial guy helping British Aerospace out here.’

‘Yes that’s right,’ Yakutina replied. ‘I expect the coffee’s ready.’ She returned to the kitchen.

Gerry turned to Laurence. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

He stared past her with a look of amazement. ‘Fucking hell!’ he said.

This non sequitur aroused sudden suspicion. Gerry whirled round and was shocked to see Yakutina walk back in with a Russian P96 pistol aimed at her. The Russian was obviously expecting Gerry to cower at the sight of it, but instead she threw herself behind the sofa. She heard the sharp crack as Yakutina fired the pistol. Shit, was the woman really trying to kill her? She was just an industrial espionage agent wasn’t she? Gerry took her Glock out her handbag and rolled sideways and fired two quick shots at the Russian’s feet. One at least hit her because there was a spray of blood and she screamed, then she dropped her gun and collapsed to the floor clutching at her foot.

Gerry stood up and pulled the cloth off a small table. ‘Apply pressure with that.’ She ordered. The woman sat up, grabbed the cloth and pressed it to her ankle moaning in pain. She looked up with hatred at Gerry and muttered something in Russian.

‘You should be grateful,’ Gerry stated. ‘Seems you’ve had a flesh wound rather than a broken ankle joint.’

‘What the hell is happening here?’ demanded Baxter who had jumped to his feet and was sobering up with the assistance of a rush of adrenaline.

‘Your girlfriend is Lyudmila Yakutina of the Russian Federal Security Service. You’ve been passing her secrets for the last six months.’

‘What? She works for Bombardier, the Canadian company,’ Baxter insisted, astounded.’

‘So why did she try to shoot me just now, you bone-headed moron,’ said Gerry. ‘Yakutina is an industrial spy. At first we thought that perhaps the two of you were up to something more serious, but my investigation just showed that you were some poor fool who wanted to get his leg over and this woman was prepared to put up with you to further her own career.’

Baxter stared at Yakutina, then back at Gerry and swallowed. ‘So what happens now?’

‘I’m going to call the Embassy, get you out under diplomatic immunity. Then I expect you’ll be flown home and unceremoniously booted out from the FCO without references. I doubt you’ll be prosecuted.’

‘What about her?’ He turned a hate filled gaze on the Russian woman.

‘I’ll call the Kuwaiti police.’ She spoke to Yakutina in Russian. ‘You don’t have diplomatic immunity, do you Lyudmila?’

‘You bloody bitch,’ Baxter shouted at Yakutina. ‘You’ve ruined my career!’ His voice shook with drunken anger.

‘Shut up you idiot!’ said Gerry. ‘I saw a first aid kit in the bathroom. Go and get it.’ Gerry knelt down beside the Russian women. ‘Take the cloth away; let me see how bad it is.’

The Russian suddenly looked past her and screamed just as a shot hit her in the chest and knocked her backwards. Gerry whirled round awkwardly and saw Baxter’s unsteady hand now trying to aim Yakutina’s P96 towards her. She tried to shoot him in the shoulder but in her hurry she missed her aim. He fell back with his arms flung wide, the front of his chest turning red and she guessed she had hit his heart. She slowly lowered her Glock and stared at the carnage around her.

‘Oh shit have I fucked up,’ she muttered to herself. She felt unsuccessfully for a neck pulse in the Russian women, and caught a strong smell of spirits; perhaps the woman had been drunk, which might explain her aggression. Gerry sat down on a chair and stared at the two corpses and mulled over the possibilities. She wiped her fingerprints from the Glock and placed it in the dead Russian’s hand. Then she gazed round the apartment thinking where she might have left any other signs of her presence. Three cups on the tray; she put one back in the kitchen. She returned to the bathroom and carefully wiped anything she might have touched with a small hand towel which she then stuffed in her bag. She found another towel in the cupboard and placed it on the rail, gazed around once more then shook her head and left.

Eight hours later back at the Embassy she filed an inaccurate report that described how Laurence Baxter and Lyudmila Yakutina had shot each other in a drunken encounter after Gerry had revealed to Baxter that his girlfriend was a Russian agent and that he would be sent back home in disgrace. She had left out the fact that she was present at the incident, but said that she had attended the scene at the request of the Kuwaiti police as Baxter was an accredited diplomat. She emphasised how her knowledge of Arabic had helped to keep the situation under wraps and that the Russian official who was also invited to the scene seemed happy with the explanation of events and she was hopeful that it would be kept quiet.

Half an hour later she received an order to return to London to file a further report in person. She booked a seat on the following evening’s British Airways flight and decided to drive back to her hotel. As she entered the lobby she saw a man get up from an armchair and walk quickly towards her. She decided he was unlikely to be a threat because nobody menacing her would step forward in plain view and she doubted that she would encounter a Russian heavy bent on revenge in a Kuwait city hotel with video surveillance of the public areas.

As he drew close she realised he was an Arab. He was wearing grey trousers, a white shirt and a black leather jacket. He was middle aged, at least fifty years old and comfortably overweight without being excessively fat; clearly not physically trained. He had short wavy hair and a big untrimmed moustache. ‘Good evening Miss Geraldine Tate,’ the man spoke quietly in Arabic. ‘I wonder if I might speak with you. My name is Hakim Mansour.’ Gerry was amazed that the man knew her name and she stopped and stared at him; she was formulating a response in Arabic when the man made a further request.

‘I wonder if you could arrange to take me for me a most urgent meeting with Sir Hugh Fielding.’

Gerry’s stare turned to an expression of bewilderment. Fielding was the director of executive operations in the UK intelligence service and her ultimate boss, and now this unknown Iraqi was requesting an appointment as if he was an old acquaintance.

Forty eight hours later Gerry Tate and Hakim Mansour were sitting in a BAe 125 executive jet operated by the Royal Air Force for the UK government as it approached the runway at Frankfurt airport. A third person had joined them whom Mansour had introduced as Ali Hamsin. ‘He is my translator and an old friend,’ Mansour explained. ‘My English is not so good so I bring him along just to be sure we all understand each other.’

The aircraft turned off the runway to the south and taxied into the United States Air Force base where it parked alongside a grander Gulfstream executive jet. One of the pilots came out of the 125 flight deck and beckoned Gerry forward. ‘See that building next to the hangar, Emily? You’re to go over there.’

‘Ok thanks for the ride Jack. I don’t know how long this’ll take; probably a couple of hours.’

‘We’ll be waiting.’

Despite being virtually on American territory, Gerry felt a curious sense of exposure as she walked ahead of Mansour and Hamsin across the deserted apron under the bright floodlights and she shivered in the freezing wind. Just before they reached the door, it was opened by a bearded man wearing a thick hooded parka. The dim interior light illuminated a corridor. ‘Second door on the right, sir, ma’am,’ was all he said.

Gerry looked back at Mansour who appeared to be perfectly at ease. She walked between the bare walls and opened the door which led to a room furnished with four armchairs, a conference table on which lay a computer and two telephones. One of the seats was occupied by Sir Hugh Fielding, Deputy Director of MI6. In another seat lounged a tall man with greying blonde hair who was plainly an American. Both of them climbed to their feet as the door opened. ‘Hakim Mansour, good morning, how are you?’ asked the American.

‘Pleased to see you again gentlemen,’ Mansour said in his heavily accented English, smiling under his thick moustache. ‘You remember Ali Hamsin, General?’

‘Yes indeed.’ They shook hands all round.

‘That will be all for the moment, thank you Geraldine,’ Fielding said, giving her a glance.

She left the room wondering what to make of Sir Hugh Fielding using her first name, albeit without being aware that nobody in her life called her anything but Gerry, except of course her parents. She wandered back outside.

‘Can I give you a cigarette?’ asked the American who had opened the door for them. He had thrown back his hood revealing a mop of dark hair that merged with his beard. The only features Gerry could make out were a straight nose and eyes which appeared black under the harsh flood lighting. Gerry did not smoke but was happy to accept a cigarette for social purposes. The hand that offered her the open packet and then took a lighter from a pocket had thick fingers that somehow suggested that a powerful frame lay beneath the jacket.

‘Thanks.’ Gerry drew on the cigarette but avoided inhaling it into her lungs. ‘Who’s the guy in with my boss? I presume he’s your boss?’

‘That’s the General.’

‘Ah… the General,’ Gerry replied, nodding sagely. ‘Well I’m pretty good with faces so later on I should be able to pick him out of the possible two hundred and thirty active army generals, or sixty marine generals; he doesn’t look Air Force. I think I’d probably start with the Marines, but maybe I’d have to go to the retired list.’

The American grinned through his heavy beard. ‘I guess I could save you the trouble. General Robert Bruckner, US Marines retired. And I’m Dean Furness.’ He held out his hand and Gerry shook it. ‘Emily Stevens.’

‘Your boss called you Geraldine.’

‘So he did; he’s always mixing up names.’

‘Ok. Pleased to meet you, Emily. Who are these guys you brought with you?’

‘The older one is Hakim Mansour; he’s somewhere in the Iraqi hierarchy, but I don’t know how high up he is. The other guy Ali Hamsin was introduced as a translator, but he could really be their chief of military intelligence for all I know. I received strict instructions not to question them during the journey.’

In fact Gerry had learnt that Hakim Mansour was a senior member of the Iraqi ruling elite, and Ali Hamsin was a graduate of Exeter University. He was fluent in English and French as well as his native language; he was married to Tabitha and had a daughter called Farrah and a son named Rashid who was at university in England but she saw no reason to divulge any such information to this guy Dean Furness, no matter how many cigarettes they smoked together. They exchanged small talk for a couple of minutes, and then began to discuss the prospects of an invasion, both concluding that their countries’ leaders were determined to turn Saddam Hussein out of power notwithstanding any compromises that he might make at this late stage. Having achieved a meeting of minds they lapsed into silence.

‘Another cigarette?’ Furness suggested.

‘No thanks. I could do with a coffee, though. I’ve hardly slept in the last thirty six hours, and I’m getting a bit cold.’

‘I wish we could’ve stayed on board the airplane.’ He nodded towards the Gulfstream jet which emitted a high pitch drone from its auxiliary power unit that kept it supplied with electricity and air conditioned comfort whilst it sat on the apron. ‘They’ve probably got a full galley in there.’

‘I’ll bet there’s something in this building, though,’ said Gerry.

They went inside and found a room with a set of chairs arranged for a briefing around a desk equipped with an overhead projector. ‘Nothing here; let’s try the next door.’

The next door was locked but without any comment Gerry pulled out a key ring and selected a notched metal probe. She inserted it into the lock and a few seconds later the door clicked open. ‘Let’s hope there’s some milk in that fridge,’ she said marching across the room.

Forty minutes later both of them were fighting off fatigue by sipping their second cups of coffee and reading some confidential US Air Force memos and Playboy magazines that Dean had removed from a cupboard. On finding them Gerry had seen his hand hover over them for a moment and then he ignored them. She supposed that this was out of some vague notion of politeness so without saying anything she picked one up herself and handed another one to him. He had cast a couple of sidelong glances at her as she flicked through the pages and she wondered idly if he thought she might be gay.

‘Dean Furness, front and centre!’ came a muffled shout. They stuffed the memos and magazines back in the desk and hurried to the makeshift conference room.

‘Ah, Geraldine; Mr Mansour and Mr Hamsin are returning to Kuwait, and then you’ll see them safely over the border back to Iraq. You won’t ask them any questions. Is that understood?’

‘Of course Sir Hugh,’ she dutifully replied.

Mansour yawned as he settled back in the luxurious armchair in the BAe 125’s cabin as they flew back towards the Gulf. Gerry wondered what the meeting had been about and notwithstanding her promise to Fielding, she was determined to extract as much information as she could from Ali Hamsin. In her fluent Arabic she began to discuss literary works ranging from the Holy Quran to the plays of Shakespeare. Having won his confidence she began to discuss the political situation. President George Bush had clearly signalled his intention to depose Saddam Hussein, but so far the American president had only found flimsy pretexts to justify his action. However the zealous British Prime Minister Tony Blair had eagerly agreed and despite the lack of real conviction from any other world leader, planning for the invasion was at an advanced stage. ‘I can’t see any way out of the situation,’ she said to Ali. ‘Saddam’s never going to agree to any of their demands.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ Hamsin replied and gave a small smile.

‘I’ve seen the plans for troop build-up along the border,’ Gerry continued. ‘By the middle of March there’s going to be an invasion force in place and the momentum will be well-nigh unstoppable. Bush and Blair are determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and with Rumsfeld, Cheney, George senior and all the other White House blowhards egging him on, I can’t see Bush turning back.’

‘No, but…’ Hamsin paused. ‘No I’m sure you’re right. Now I need to get some sleep, if you’ll excuse me Gerry.’

‘Oh, ok.’

She sighed in frustration. She had been about to turn the conversation toward the meeting in Frankfurt airport when he had effectively curtailed her probing questions. She looked down at the briefcase that lay on Hakim Mansour’s lap protected by his pudgy hands. She was sorely tempted to try and take it and inspect the contents, but it would be a risk. Instead she went to the flight deck.

‘Can I get you guys anything?’ she asked the pilots.

‘Thanks Emily, could you make us a couple of coffees, please?’

Gerry had learned how to use the galley facilities on the flight out to Frankfurt and in a few minutes she had made three coffees. She turned back to the cabin and saw the document case had fallen off Mansour’s lap. She crept stealthily towards him but just before she could pick it up off the floor his eyes opened and he stared sleepily at her.

‘I’ve just made some coffee; would you like one?’ she asked him with her best smile.

‘Oh yes thank you but first I need to visit the gents,’ he said and stood up. She waited until the door was closed and then snatched up his document case. She unzipped it and pulled out a sheaf of papers stapled together. “Preliminary agreement: main points”, she read.

‘Gerry, what are you doing?’ she whirled round and saw Ali Hamsin staring at her.

‘I’m just going to have a quick look…’ she began, but suddenly the lock on the toilet door snapped open. Gerry hastily shoved the papers back in and zipped up the case and dropped it on to Mansour’s seat. Mansour came hurrying out, his zipper still open and picked up the case. Gerry stared at Hamsin, daring him to say anything but he just watched Mansour retreat back into the toilet clutching the case under one arm and then he closed his eyes and sighed.

CHAPTER THREE

Rashid Hamsin lay in bed in the two bedroom apartment that he shared with his fellow language student Omar Haddad, a small, neat Egyptian from Luxor. Omar was the only one of his fellow students who knew that his flat mate came from Iraq. Rashid’s application for a place at the university had been completed through his uncle, his mother’s brother who lived in Amman and he had declared himself to be a citizen of Jordan. While there was no overt prejudice against Iraq amongst his mostly apolitical fellow students, if he was ever asked about his family he said that his mother was from Amman and that his uncle ran a car dealership in the city, which was all perfectly true. He did not mention the fact that his father was a translator who worked for the Foreign Affairs department of the Iraqi government. Rashid never talked about his father to his fellow students, and he knew that they assumed he must be deceased or that Rashid had been born out of wedlock, which caused him some distress.

Eighteen months ago when the twin towers had collapsed, he and Omar had withdrawn to their apartment, fearful of any backlash against their race or religion. But it was soon established that the perpetrators of the atrocity were Saudi Arabian citizens, and after a couple of days they had resumed their student life. Apart from some muttered comments, they had been relieved to find that there was no animosity directed at them personally and they had tried to avoid being drawn into discussions about the appalling act of terrorism and the scenes of tacit or open approval broadcast from some Middle East countries.

Now that Iraq was under threat of invasion from the American and British troops massing on its borders, he and Omar found that the pendulum of public opinion had swung back in favour of his country, or at least against the Prime Minister Tony Blair who had eagerly assisted the Americans with their plans for the imminent invasion. Today a protest march and rally was due to take place in London and it was expected to be one of the biggest that the capital had witnessed. Over the last few days he and Omar had been enjoying much support as they had encouraged their fellow students to take the coach ride to London with them. Rashid had even begun to regret that he had concealed his Iraqi citizenship, but it was too late to remedy that now. He heard Omar walk out of his room and turn on the television and he jumped out of bed too and joined him.

‘Hi, Omar. What’s the weather forecast, then?’

‘Wait; it’s just coming up now.’

They watched the forecaster describe a grey but dry day in prospect; no rain or gales or biting cold to prevent a good turnout. Then the two presenters led with the story of the planned protest and then interviewed an uncomfortable looking apologist for the Blair government. The two young men grinned and thumped each other on the shoulder in enthusiasm. ‘It’s going to be a good day,’ Rashid declared. ‘Come on; the coach is due to leave in fifty minutes.’

Forty five minutes later they were standing in an untidy queue of jostling undergraduates who chattered excitedly about the day in prospect. A group of older people came walking up to join them. Rashid recognised them as University teaching staff and post grads including his English literature tutor. ‘Hey, Doctor Shaw! Are you coming with us?’ Rashid asked.

‘Hello Rashid. Yes we are; the senior common room coach is full so we thought we might cadge a lift with you lot, if you’ll have us.’

‘You are most welcome,’ said Rashid in Arabic. He had taught his tutor several phrases in the course of his association with him.

‘Thank you very much,’ Dr Shaw returned in the same language.

‘That woman in the red coat is even more welcome,’ said Omar in Arabic, giving Rashid a nudge. He looked at the front of the group where a tall, striking woman with long dark hair, large dark brown eyes and strong but attractive features was talking to another man who he recognised as one of the language lecturers.

‘Absolutely lovely,’ said Rashid. The woman broke off her conversation, caught his eye and stared at him for a moment.

‘So is it me or my red coat that you find lovely?’ she asked him in fluent Arabic. Rashid stared at her in amazement, feeling a glow spread over his face which he hoped would not show on his dark skin. The chances of a random encounter with an English woman who spoke his language was so remote that he was at a loss.

‘So you speak Arabic!’ he said, somewhat idiotically.

‘Yes I do,’ she raised her eyebrows and gave him a challenging smile. ‘And I will take it as a compliment either way.’

Rashid was wondering what he could say by way of an apology, but just then a voice called out encouraging everyone to climb on to the bus. He looked back at the woman in the red coat and he saw her chatting away to the man stood beside her. He sat down next to Omar and a moment later she walked past him down the aisle. They discussed the woman and her unexpected ability to speak Arabic.

‘Maybe she’s a post-graduate languages student who’s already taken a degree course in Arabic,’ said Omar. ‘Why don’t you go and ask her?’ he suggested with a grin.

‘No way,’ Rashid answered. ‘I’ve already embarrassed myself enough for one day.’ He glanced round quickly down the aisle and saw a red clothed shoulder a few rows behind. ‘She did seem to be very fluent, though. More than you would expect from academic study. Anyway, she’s several years older than me. I think she must have been at least twenty-five, maybe more.’

‘And how old was Lorraine?’ Omar asked.

‘Ok, she told me she was twenty. She thought I was some rich guy from the Gulf. It’s hard to tell with English women; you know… how old they are.’

They both thought back over the last year they had lived in England, and their struggle to bridge the cultural chasm. It had been less difficult for Omar accustomed to the more cosmopolitan society of Cairo, whereas for many years Baghdad had been more or less cut off from the rest of the world.

At the Thames Embankment they joined the throng that jostled towards Piccadilly Circus and thence to Hyde Park. The turnout was vast, and progress was slow. They joined a group of fellow Arabs who were chanting in Arabic and it felt good to let rip with the colourful language of the street and the souk against Blair and Bush. As they pranced about Rashid caught sight of the woman in the red coat and felt strangely embarrassed at his outburst of youthful exuberance. She caught his eye and gave a little wave, as if to say that she supported the message in their chanting. After a while he and Omar decided that this group was going too slowly; they hurried towards Hyde Park to hear the speeches.

The mood in the park was intense, but good natured. Rashid recognised the speaker as an MP, George Galloway, who had visited Iraq. Perhaps his father had been his interpreter for the visit and Rashid imagined he would have enjoyed the challenge of the MP’s strongly accented English. Omar gave him a nudge.

‘I’m going to meet my cousin now. Are you sure you’re not going to stay the night in London as well?’

‘No thanks,’ Rashid replied, ‘I’m going to get home to finish that essay.’ He did not really like Omar’s cousin, a lively young woman who could have graced an ancient Egyptian wall painting. She was a year older than he was and slightly condescending about his lack of European social finesse. ‘I’ll see you when you get back tomorrow evening. Give her my regards, though.’

They shook hands and Rashid watched Omar push his way back through the crowd. Off to one side he glimpsed the woman in the red coat again; she seemed to be listening intently to the speech, but then he realised that she was talking into her mobile phone. He turned back towards the stage. Half a minute later he was surprised to find her standing next to him.

‘Hello, me again,’ she said with a smile. He was somewhat tongue tied and before he could think of an appropriate greeting she continued. ‘Can you remember what time our coach is due to leave? I’m a bit worried I’m going to miss it.’

Rashid glanced down at his watch the way people do whenever a question of time arises. ‘I think it’s at four thirty,’ he said.

‘Oh I thought maybe it was four o’clock. I couldn’t remember what Simon said.’

‘Is that the guy you were talking to?’ Rashid asked, looking around for the missing lecturer.

‘Yes. He’s gone off to visit his mum in Sutton. He’s not coming back until tomorrow. Where’s your friend?’

‘Oh, Omar’s gone to stay with his cousin tonight. He’s not coming back on the coach either.’

The woman nodded and then looked at her watch. ‘I’m going to head off now, I think; it could take a while to get back to where it’s parked. There must be a million people here at least. Bye now.’ She gave him a warm smile and turned away. Rashid hesitated for two seconds, and then took a couple of quick paces to catch up with her.

‘Look; do you mind if I go with you? I think you’re right about the time and I’m not sure of the way.’

‘Yes, glad to have you along. Oh, my names Sandra, by the way. I’m doing a post-grad in Middle Eastern studies.’

‘My name’s Rashid; I’m a second year English student.’

‘I am pleased to meet you, Rashid,’ she said to him in Arabic, and he grinned happily at her, but he wished that she was not five or six centimetres taller than him as he felt somewhat at a disadvantage.

During the walk back to the coach they exchanged comments about how well the day had turned out, and how marvellous it was to see such a huge crowd. ‘Biggest ever, I bet,’ Sandra remarked, and Rashid said she must be right, but having to push and shove their way back through the good-natured crowd prevented him from having any opportunities to continue a real conversation.

They were nearly the last to board the coach and Rashid was disappointed to see that there was no pair of seats unoccupied. He was about to resign himself to sitting next to another student he vaguely recollected seeing around the campus but Sandra leant past him and spoke authoritatively to the young man.

‘Excuse me would you mind sitting next to the girl in front as I would like to talk to my friend on the way home?’ The student looked up at the smiling woman and with a self-conscious grin he got out of his seat.

‘Thank you so much,’ Sandra said and sat down in the window seat. She pulled one arm out of a coat sleeve and then turned to Rashid ‘Could you give me a hand to take this off? I’m a bit warm. She leant forward and he enjoyed the slight intimacy as he ran his hand under her long hair to pull the coat down from her shoulders and then he tugged it out from underneath her and finally off her outstretched arm.

‘Could you just fling it up on the rack please,’ she said.

When the coach was underway they fell in to discussing the possibilities of averting the war through the wave of public opinion that was sweeping through Europe, and Sandra gave her view that although the regime in Iraq was a disgrace in so many ways, notable for its financial mismanagement, corruption, general denial of human rights, with judicial murder and arbitrary arrest commonplace, an invasion would lead to far greater problems.

Rashid was thankful that he had told her he was from Amman so he was not drawn into defending the regime that his father worked for and (he admitted to himself) was paying for his university education. He wanted to ask Sandra how she had learned to speak Arabic so well, and generally move the conversation away from the political to the personal, but she suddenly yawned and announced ‘Excuse me!’ then ‘How long do you think before we’re back?’

Rashid glanced at his watch. ‘Oh about forty five minutes from here, I think,’ he said.

‘Ok, I’m going to have a little sleep; wake me up when we arrive,’ she declared.

‘Sleep well. May God watch over you,’ he murmured in Arabic.

‘And over you too, Rashid,’ she replied. Then she folded her arms, closed her eyes and settled back in the corner; her breathing soon settled into an even rhythm.

Rashid spent the journey thinking about the situation in Baghdad and wondering if his parents would be safe. He had offered to go home to his family back in January, but his father had insisted that he remained in England. If only the strength of feeling demonstrated by ordinary people in Europe would influence their political leaders, there would be no invasion and his parents would be safe.

After a while he drifted off to sleep himself. The coach stopped and he was woken by the sudden activity of the passengers climbing out of their seats, dragging their belongings out of the overhead racks and calling out to their friends. He turned round and watched Sandra yawning and stretching within the confines of her seat. He stood up and retrieved her red coat from the rack and passed it over to her and they waited their turn to shuffle off the coach.

‘It was nice to meet you Rashid,’ said Sandra. ‘I expect I’ll see you around sometime. Where do you live? I’m in a flat in Sheridan Street.’

‘You’re just round the corner from me. I share a flat with Omar in Dinsmore Road.’

‘Well there’s our bus over there.’

They rode the bus to the small parade of shops opposite Rashid’s flat. During the journey he had felt hungry and wondered if he could suggest that they get something to eat together. He was considering how to phrase his question when she said ‘I’m really hungry. Do you fancy getting something to eat at that curry house over there?’

During the meal Rashid decided he would try and make the conversation more personal. ‘How come you speak such good Arabic?’ he asked.

‘Oh I’ve studied it at A level and at University, but also my Dad used to be in the Embassy in Damascus and in Abu Dhabi, and I picked up a lot while I was there. Where did you learn such good English?’

‘Actually my father is a translator; he’s completely fluent and he always encouraged us to speak it; me and my younger sister.’

‘Oh yes? Where does he work now?’

‘Well we’re originally from Jordan, but my father now works for the civil service in Baghdad,’ he admitted.

‘In Iraq! No wonder you wanted to be at the protest today. Is your family safe, do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rashid shrugged. ‘He works for the government, but he’s not part of it,’ he added hastily. ‘I don’t know if he would be allowed to leave Baghdad. I was going to go back a few weeks ago, but he told me to stay here.’ He fell silent, and Sandra changed the subject.

‘So have you managed to travel around much in the time you‘ve been over in the UK?’ she asked. Rashid smiled and they talked about places they had been and people they had met for the rest of the meal.

They left the restaurant and walked across the road. Coming to the other side Sandra stumbled over the kerb and fell on to the pavement. She began to get up and as Rashid bent down to help her she gave a yelp of pain and clutched her ankle. ‘Oh shit! I’ve sprained it or something.’ With Rashid’s assistance she struggled to her feet, but stood heavily on one leg and said ‘Ow, ow, ow!’ as she tried to put some weight on her right foot. Rashid looked around. His own flat was just twenty metres away.

‘Look, come back to my place. You can rest it for a while. Maybe we can bandage it up. Perhaps we should call a taxi and get you to the casualty department at the hospital.’

She thought for a moment. ‘Is your place on the ground floor?’

‘No, first floor,’ he said.

‘Oh well. If you can help me up the stairs I’ll see if the pain gets worse or passes off after a while.’ She raised an arm. ‘Would you give me a hand?’ He stood next to her and put an arm around her waist, trying not to appear too eager to make the intimate contact. She put her arm across his shoulders and he led her through the door and up the stairs to the flat he shared with Omar, feeling relieved that they had cleaned and tidied the place up the previous afternoon.

He took her over to the sofa and she slumped into it gratefully. Then she bent down, unzipped her boot and took it off along with her sock and she began to massage her ankle.

‘How does it feel now?’ he asked.

‘Damn painful, but it hasn’t swollen up yet. I don’t suppose you’ve got any bandages, have you?’

‘Well, yes. Omar’s got a first aid kit somewhere. Hold on.’ He walked off to the bathroom and found a rolled up bandage still in its wrapper and brought it to her. He watched her unwrap it and then roll it around her foot and ankle with a facility that suggested that she had some first aid training.

‘Can I get you anything else? A drink perhaps?’

She paused and looked up at him. ‘What have you got?’

‘There’s some beer in the fridge, or we’ve got some single malt scotch if you like that,’ he suggested.

‘What are you having?’ she asked.

‘I’ll have a scotch.’

‘Me too then, please. Straight; no ice.’

He returned to the kitchen and poured out a couple of generous measures and carried them back to the sitting room. He passed her a glass and she smiled and took a sip.

‘That’s good stuff. Have you got some scissors, please? This bandage is rather too long. I’ll never get my boot on if I use all of it.’

He returned to the kitchen and found some scissors. He sat down in the easy chair opposite her and watched her tape the bandage in place and then cut off the surplus. ‘That feels much better, thanks,’ she said, wiggling her foot about. I think I’ll be able to head home once I’ve drunk this.’ She settled back into the sofa, smiled at him and lifted her glass. ‘Cheers,’ she said and drank some more.

‘Cheers,’ he replied settled back comfortably and drank as well. He must have drank rather too deeply because his head swam a little. He was really not much of a drinker. It was Omar’s duty free scotch; he usually only drank beer, not spirits. He gazed over at her. She was looking at him with a slight frown on her face. He wondered what to say to restore the smile and while he was wondering, he passed out.

Sandra got to her feet and leant over him. ‘Rashid… Rashid.’ She grasped his shoulder and shook it. Then she put her finger on his eyelid and pulled it up a little. She gave a small sigh, pulled her telephone from her pocket and used her speed dial. ‘It’s Gerry Tate. He’s ready. Yeah, send in the clowns.’

She sat back down and looked around while she unwound the bandage from her ankle which she then crammed into a pocket. There was a computer in a corner of the room with a dual Arabic and English keyboard. She sat down in front of it and switched it on. She nodded in approval when she found that she could sign on as Guest. She opened Word in Arabic and typed a note.

“Good morning, Omar. I have just heard my family are in Amman and I am flying over there to see them. I will return in two weeks, God willing.”

She printed it out, then wiped down the keyboard and placed the message on top of it. The only other things she had touched were the glass and the scissors. She picked up the two glasses and threw the remainder of the whisky down the sink; cleaned and wiped the glasses and put them on the drainer. She heard a vehicle pull up outside and she went downstairs. There was a knock at the door and she opened it. Three men stood there. The man in front was evidently in charge. He was lean, slightly taller than Gerry, with long red hair tied into a pony tail.

‘Operation Clocktower?’ he declared with an interrogative lift and an American accent. A quick grin revealed prominent front teeth and a gold incisor. ‘Geraldine Tate?’

‘That’s me. You must be Neil Samms. He’s upstairs.’

She led the way up to where Rashid lay slumped in his seat. Samms looked at the young Iraqi. ‘Is that him then?’ he asked.

‘No, that’s just some random passer-by,’ Gerry replied.

‘Ok, so you’re a real comedian,’ said Samms.

‘Well of course it’s him; Rashid Hamsin. Father is Ali Hamsin, half Jordanian, half Iraqi. He works as a translator in the foreign affairs department of the Iraqi government in Baghdad. Mother is Tabitha Hamsin; she’s from Amman in Jordan and her brother arranged Rashid’s Jordanian passport and visa to the UK. He’s here as an English student. Age twenty-one on May 2nd this year. Speaks English really well; nice guy.’

Thank you Miss Tate. We’ll take it from here. If you’ve wiped down, you can go.’ It was meant to sound like an order rather than a suggestion and she nearly made some acerbic reply, but instead she just said ‘Ok.’ She was in enough trouble already with Richard Cornwall, her boss, over the shambles with Laurence Baxter and Lyudmila Yakutina. She recalled her meeting with him on her return from Kuwait.

‘Strange how the Russian woman could shoot Baxter after being mortally wounded by a bullet in the chest.’ Richard Cornwall had commented on receiving her report, ‘and then there’s the embassy’s complaint that you never handed back their Glock.’ He had stared at Gerry for a few seconds more and then added ‘but at least the Russians have a dead Brit to set off against their own victim, so maybe it’s not such a bad outcome. We’ll say no more about it, because here’s another task for you to carry out. It relates to the meeting in Frankfurt, but quite how it does, Sir Hugh has not bothered to tell me yet.’

‘Very well sir,’ Gerry had agreed, much relieved. She took the file and read through it aware of Cornwall appraising her. She suppressed a groan of irritation after completing it. ‘But shouldn’t MI5 be doing this?’ she had suggested, ‘after all it’s on their turf.’

‘But you’ve been involved in the operation already, and we need someone who speaks fluent Arabic,’ Cornwall had replied, ‘and also you can pass yourself off as an attractive woman if you make the effort.’

‘That’s a piece of patronising crap, if you don’t mind me saying so… sir.’

‘It might be patronising, even sexist if you like, but Sir Hugh thought that you should carry out this job rather than involve anyone new from MI5. After that fiasco in Kuwait we’ll see if you can carry out this task without upsetting anyone,’ he had said as she opened his office door, and then as his parting shot added ‘Or killing anyone!’ as she closed the door behind her.

Now she took one last look around the flat and then ran down the stairs and began the long walk back to where her car was parked. When she passed a litter bin, she chucked away the small glass vial that had contained the drug that had sent Rashid Hamsin to sleep. She walked a little further and then heard the sound of a van door slamming shut. She stopped and gazed back down the road and for a few guilty moments she wondered what would become of the young Iraqi before she dismissed the matter from her mind.

CHAPTER FOUR

During the flight from England Rashid Hamsin had spent most of the time staring out of the Gulfstream cabin window, but now it was dark and as they flew across the Nefud, the desert that covered the northwest of Saudi Arabia. There was not much to look at besides the stars and the isolated lights that might be small towns, or oil industry bases or military installations. Instead the young man spent his time staring at the seat back in front of him and occasionally glancing at the map and reading through the list of instructions that he had been given.

One of the pilots came out of the flight deck and walked along the aisle. ‘Colonel White, Sir! We’re starting our descent. We’ll be landing in about twenty five minutes.’ The tall American nodded, stood up, stretched and walked to the rear of the cabin and sat next to Rashid. Colonel Jasper White was the first person Rashid had seen when he woke up from the drug and he had been with him ever since. Rashid had learned that he was formerly of the US Marines, but he retained his rank and his military bearing. Although he was now over fifty years old he looked ten years younger, fit and tough; a seasoned veteran with white hair and moustache that contrasted his tan and suited his name.

‘Well, young man, we’ll be on the ground soon,’ said White. We’ll have a break of about an hour before we set off on the next phase. Dean will be going with you.’

Rashid glanced towards the taciturn American with the beard and long hair. Apart from introducing himself as Dean Furness and explaining that he would be his minder until the mission was complete he had barely exchanged a word with him. He had guided him from place to place and asked with perfect politeness if there was anything he needed; anything he could get him? Rashid had asked him once if he could release him, but Furness had merely raised his eyebrows and given his head a little shake. Rashid did not bother to ask him again.

With his finger Rashid traced the line on the map from King Khaled Military City, or KKMC as it was commonly called, along the road through the town of Hafar Al Batin towards the Kuwaiti border. Before the border, the line diverged from the road along a track that ran through a wadi and then across the boundary into Iraq. A few miles on the other side was geographical reference point where Rashid Hamsin would be met by a senior official of the Iraqi government.

Jasper White wondered why Bruckner had insisted that this young man be entrusted with the mission. Presumably he was related to the Hussein clique that effectively controlled the country with the help of a brutal secret police force. Probably this Hamsin guy had relatives; parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters who would be hostage to his continuing good behaviour. He wondered if the young man would be allowed to join his family as soon as he had delivered the package, or if he would be incarcerated until the whole affair was over. He also harboured a dreadful suspicion that he might be killed, but he hoped that so long as he did not know the contents of the package he would probably be safe.

Twenty minutes later the Gulfstream landed at the remote desert military base that had been pivotal in operation Desert Storm on the occasion that the Iraqi army had been driven out of Kuwait in 1991. White waited impatiently as the pilot opened the door and extended the folding stairs. He hurried down and was greeted by the Saudi duty officer who was assigned to supervise the airbase during the night and the US Marine Major named Hansen who had come to meet him. They chatted idly for a while about the preparations on the base for the invasion of Iraq while the freight was unloaded. When the Saudi officer had driven away, White climbed back up to the aircraft cabin and brought Rashid Hamsin and Dean Furness down the stairs. ‘This is Lieutenant Harris,’ he announced. ‘He’s the young British officer who is going to cross the border into Iraq with you this evening. Lieutenant Harris — Major Hansen.’ Hansen held out his hand to Rashid.

‘Glad to have you aboard Lieutenant.’ He made no comment regarding the absence of badges of rank, sidearm or the young man’s lack of military bearing.

‘And this is Dean Furness, Major. He’ll be going out and back with you and he’ll be on hand if there are any er… unexpected outcomes. He’s one of my top guys; you can trust him with your life.’

Major Hansen stared with some disapproval at the scruffy-looking man before shaking his hand.

‘Now remember. You go to the rendezvous point and wait no longer than one hour. If there is nobody there to meet you, you come home again. Are your ready to get going, Major?’

‘Yes Colonel. We should depart in thirty minutes. We have thirty minutes in hand and if necessary we will lose that in the wadi before we cross the border.’

‘Very good. Well, where can we wait until then?’

‘Perhaps you should just wait on board the airplane, sir. I’ll drive back up in thirty minutes from now.’

At 23:00 local time, two armoured Humvees drove up beside the Gulfstream, and under Furness’s instruction Rashid settled himself into the cabin at the back of the first vehicle, its roof festooned with antennae. The second one carried a heavy calibre gun mounted on the back. Jasper White handed a heavy leather document case to Rashid. ‘Now, you’re sure you’ll recognise Hakim Mansour?’

Rashid remembered a friendly man, rather overweight with a twinkling eye and a ready laugh that his father treated with reserved courtesy on the occasions that he visited their house. ‘Of course; my father has worked for him ever since I can remember.’

‘Good. These seals must be intact when you hand this briefcase over; otherwise Mansour might have you shot.’ He paused. ‘You know I’m serious about that?’

Rashid swallowed, remembering the flashes of anger that he had witnessed Mansour direct at his personal secretary and chauffeur and their fearful expressions. ‘I understand.’

‘Now Major Hansen and his men won’t be having any conversation with you about where you’re going and what you’re doing apart from the absolute minimum. It’s not that they’re unfriendly, or anything; it’s just their orders.’

Rashid nodded glumly. The American smiled at him from under his white moustache. ‘Cheer up. If all goes to plan, you will be doing your country a great service. I can’t explain to you exactly how, but you can count on that. And Furness is a good man; he’ll see you get there safely.’

They drove for about two hours on a tarmac road before the Humvees drew to a stop. He heard Major Hansen mutter something to the driver about checking the GPS before the vehicle lurched off the road and rumbled across a desert track. Hansen turned round to look at him and Rashid recoiled in some alarm, taken aback by the night vision equipment that he was now wearing. He realised then that the vehicle had no lights switched on.

Rashid bounced around uncomfortably on the rear seat. Dean Furness sitting next to him appeared to have fallen asleep despite the harsh ride. He thought about his parents and family, wondering if they were safe. He wished that he was back in his flat in Southampton, or in the relative safety of his parents’ home in Baghdad rather than lurching around in an American military vehicle on some clandestine mission about which he had been told very little by the white-haired American colonel.

He checked the seals on the briefcase. They looked strong. Short lengths of multi-stranded twisted wire with the loose ends encased in a hard resinous material with a palm tree embossed. Much to his relief, he doubted that they would break accidentally. He thought about Omar and his other friends back at the university. He thought about Sandra who just two days ago had drugged his whisky when he was fetching the first aid kit for her. No doubt she was some British agent. He had honestly thought that she had liked him, but that was probably her acting skills and his male ego. ‘Bitch,’ he muttered to himself.

The Humvee drew to a stop. Major Hansen took off his night vision goggles, jumped out of the passenger door and Rashid heard his boots crunching on the stony desert surface as he walked round the vehicle. With a metallic clunk, the handle swung and the passenger door opened. ‘You can jump out and stretch if you like,’ said the Major. ‘Walk about for a bit. There’re some sandwiches and drinks in the other Hummer, some coffee too. We’ll be here for twenty minutes before we go off across the border.’

Rashid climbed out of the vehicle and stared up at the night sky, crowded with stars despite the bright full moon. They were in a typical wadi with low rising hills to either side of a central sandy strip where desert shrubs eked out a parched existence while waiting for the next storm that might rain on the hills and stream water into the valley, maybe this winter, maybe not for ten years. He caught sight of one of the drivers relieving himself a little way from the vehicles. He realised he needed to do the same and he began to walk off in the opposite direction. A light flashed briefly on to him and then off again.

‘Don’t go too far now,’ he heard someone call out in Arabic. He realised it was Furness.

After he had finished, he returned to the Humvees. Taking his orders seriously, the driver merely pointed at the food and drink that was now laid out on the passenger seat. Rashid picked up a diet coke and inspected a roll stuffed with cold meat and salad to check that it did not contain ham and then bit into it hungrily. The other four men, the two drivers and the major sat down on some rocks and chatted to one another, glancing at him from time to time. Rashid sat back in the Humvee so that he did not inhibit their conversation with his presence, but he did strain to hear what they were discussing. It turned out to be the American football season and their families back in the States. They did not discuss the current troop deployments or the possibilities of war.

A shooting star flashing across the sky caught the attention of all five men, and as if it were some kind of signal, Major Hansen checked his watch and ordered the small patrol to swing into action again.

They bumped slowly along the dried up watercourse and then emerged into an area of open desert. Rashid heard the Americans discussing GPS position and Hansen directed the driver where to go. After another hour they stopped. ‘Well we’re here. Seven minutes ahead of schedule,’ announced the major. He said nothing else. There was a whining and metallic clattering from the other Humvee that was parked about twenty metres away and Rashid looked across at it. He saw the heavy machine gun mounted on its roof traverse back and forth, tilt up to the night sky and then back down as the weapons operator tested his night vision control system. The atmosphere in the vehicle was tense.

After ten minutes, they saw a small ridge backlit by some flickering lights, and then they saw the headlights of two trucks appear over the top. A few minutes later they heard the vehicles grinding and clattering across the desert towards them. ‘Ok, lights,’ murmured the Major. The driver flashed the Humvee headlights three times in quick succession, and the two vehicles approaching them stopped and switched off their headlights for ten seconds. Then they switched them back on and resumed their slow progress.

‘Sidelights, then,’ said Major Hansen. They waited patiently while two General Motors SUVs drove to a halt, remaining about fifty yards away.

‘Ok Rashid time to get going,’ said Furness. He picked up the briefcase and climbed out of the car. Overcoming his last minute reluctance Rashid opened his door and stepped out and met Furness at the front of the Humvee. The American held out his hand.

‘May God go with you young man,’ he said in Arabic.

‘Thank you,’ Rashid answered shaking his hand. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you spoke Arabic?’ he asked as Furness handed him the briefcase.

‘Your English is much better than my Arabic, so I guess it never came up,’ the American replied with a smile. Rashid took the case from him but then seemed rooted to the stony desert floor. Furness clapped him on the shoulder and pointed towards the SUVs and Rashid began to walk slowly carrying the briefcase carefully; still worried that he might drop it and break the seal.

‘Welcome home, Rashid Hamsin,’ called out a familiar voice. ‘Come and join us.’ There was Hakim Mansour standing by the truck and the familiar smell of his aftershave wafted across on the night air.

‘It’s good to see you my boy,’ he said, his heavy Saddam-style moustache twitched as he smiled with a gleam of teeth in the moonlight. ‘You have something for me?’

‘Yes sir,’ Rashid replied, handing over the briefcase.

Mansour glanced down at it, checked the seals and patted it and then tossed it through the open door on to the passenger seat. Then he gave Rashid a hug. ‘Your parents are looking forward to seeing you,’ he said. ‘It’s a long drive to Baghdad, but we should be back in time for lunch, eh? You can tell me all about your life in England. I was there myself for a while, back… oh, before you were born.’

‘It’s good to be home again,’ said Rashid trying to sound enthusiastic. He stared across at the two Humvees in their desert camouflage, the moon reflecting in their windscreens. He climbed into the back seat of the SUV behind Hakim Mansour. As it turned away and drove back towards the ridge, Rashid needed a lot of self-control to avoid turning round to stare at the American vehicles which had seemed a haven of safety in the dangerous world of his home country.

As the car lurched over the desert track Hakim Mansour questioned him briefly about his journey over to Iraq, but as Rashid’s answers became slower and confused he allowed the young man to lapse into a restless sleep.

Rashid woke up as the dawn sunlight shone into his eyes. They were on the Basra to Baghdad highway with a military escort up front and behind; two open jeeps with watchful soldiers carrying automatic weapons. The jeep out in front displayed the flag of a senior Baath party official and any slow-moving traffic shifted out of the way when the small convoy approached.

Heading in the opposite direction towards the border, Rashid saw military trucks with soldiers riding in the back chattering cheerfully and smoking cigarettes, their weapons propped on the floor between their feet. As part of his education Rashid had been taught about the Iraqi army’s heroic defence of their country against the Iranian invader in 1982 and its various exploits in the following years until the war finally ended. It was not until he went to Europe that he found out that the war had started when Saddam Hussein had ordered the invasion of Iran, but he was pleased that there was nothing false about the Iraqi army’s courageous defence of its homeland. However he had also learned that the Iraqi military had used chemical weapons not only against their Iranian foe but also against dissident sections of their own population. He blamed Saddam Hussein and his henchmen for that, and he reluctantly admitted that the jovial Hakim Mansour was one of those henchmen.

Now he wondered how the soldiers in the trucks would be able to defend their land against an army that could see in the dark and navigate effortlessly across the open desert. While in England he had learned that in addition to poison gas the regime had threatened to acquire biological and nuclear weapons and he was terrified at the prospect of his countrymen being involved in such a war.

‘Hey!’ Rashid turned round and saw Hakim Mansour watching him. ‘We’re going to stop at the next town for a minute. Stretch our legs, ok.’ Mansour smiled at him and Rashid nodded and forced a smile in return.

After they had bought some drinks at a café, Mansour lit a cigarette and beckoned Rashid away from the others. ‘Your parents are looking forward to seeing you. Ali told me it’s been eight months since you were home. It’s not good to stay away for so long.’

Rashid nearly said that his father had told him to stay in England until the crisis had passed but instead he declared ‘You’re right. It’ll be good to be home again.’

Mansour nodded. ‘I bet you were surprised when the Yankee colonel told you what was in that package, though, weren’t you?’ Mansour asked.

‘He didn’t tell me anything about it. He just told me I had been chosen as the messenger boy, someone whom you would recognise,’ said Rashid.

‘Oh yes, of course, but when you opened it and found out what was in it, you were probably shocked,’ said Mansour with a grin.

‘No, no,’ cried Rashid, feeling rather scared. ‘Colonel White told me that I was to hand it over to you with the seals intact. Which I’ve done! I’ve really no idea what it’s all about.’ He paused. ‘White said I would be shot if I opened it,’ he added.

Hakim Mansour stared at him for a moment, then smiled, then burst out laughing. ‘Shot! Ha, ha, ha. How ridiculous! Oh dear! These Americans!’ He clapped Rashid on the shoulder and led him back towards the trucks.

Rashid’s parents and his father’s parents were waiting for him at the family home. After they had embraced and exchanged traditional greetings, Ali Hamsin sat his son down. ‘I’m so pleased to see you, but it’s not safe in Baghdad. I really hope you’ll be able to get back to England before the invasion starts. I hope this interruption to your studies will not prove a problem.’

Rashid stared at his father. He had expected him to ask what he was doing here, why he had left England without a word of warning and how he had suddenly arrived in Baghdad as part of a military convoy. Then he noticed the worried frown on his father’s face; how both his parents seemed to have aged since he was last home. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. I expect I’ll be going back in a couple of weeks or so.’

‘Good, good. Now I’m sorry to be leaving so soon, but I do have some work to attend to.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘It’s at the Ministry, so a car will be coming to pick me up in ten minutes.’ He smiled and held Rashid by the shoulders. ‘It is good to see you again. You can tell me about your course, your life in England, when I return. How is Omar?’

‘He’s fine. He’ll be surprised when I tell him I’ve been at home.’

His father frowned. ‘Mansour told me to expect you, but I’ve no idea why you’ve made this strange journey. Maybe you can tell me everything this evening.’

The next day the family had breakfast together. Rashid had stayed up late last night with his parents explaining the extraordinary series of events that had brought him home. Ali’s advice was to never breathe a word about his journey to anyone else, which Rashid readily agreed to. Then they had chatted about life in England, the friends he had made and his university studies. His mother Tabitha had told him about his sister Farrah, now living with their relatives in Amman, and her prospects of marriage with the son of a family friend.

This morning his father was unwilling to tell Rashid about his own work, but he was pleased to discuss his university life in England, Shakespeare and the contrasts between Arabic and English poetry. ‘I have invited Professor Khordi to visit us this evening,’ Ali announced. ‘He wants to hear about his old friend Professor Gilbert, and to learn your latest idioms. He has always been proud of his grasp of vernacular English. I’m sure you’ll confuse him with your student slang and modern idioms,’ he said with a smile. He rose from the table and hunted about for the case of papers he had to take in to the ministry and hurried out of the door.

After breakfast Rashid spent some time looking through the books on his father’s shelves. Besides the collection of dictionaries, thesauri and encyclopaedias, his father had acquired a fair collection of English novels, both classical and modern and as he had hoped he found the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. He was required to hand in an essay to his tutor next month with his critique of the book. He took it off the shelf and began to flick through it to find the place he had reached when there was a bell from the outside gate and a loud knocking. Rashid replaced the book and hurried out the front door and across the front garden and looked through the spy hole. A police car had pulled up outside and two armed officers were standing outside. Rashid unbolted the gate and opened it. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you Rashid Hamsin?’ asked the policeman, looking down at some papers and then at the bewildered young man.

‘Yes I am. Of course.’ He heard some rapid footsteps and Tabitha came up beside him.

‘What’s happening Rashid? Why have they come here?’ she asked in a trembling voice. ‘Has something happened to your father?’

‘We’ve just been told to bring Rashid Hamsin to the Foreign Ministry. There’s someone there who thinks he can help out with some kind of report,’ said the police officer. ‘I can’t tell you anything else.’

‘I’d better go then,’ said Rashid, trying for his mother’s sake to hide his anxiety. ‘I don’t expect I’ll be very long. Tell father where I am if he’s back home before me.’

His mother nodded and watched her son being guided into the back seat of the police car. She gave him a little smile and a wave as the car drove off and then closed and bolted the door. Then she shuffled back towards the house weeping anxiously, hoping that her son would not join the list of mysteriously vanished young men that was murmured about in the bazaars of Baghdad.

Rashid presumed he would be driven to Hakim Mansour’s office at the Foreign Ministry where he would be asked to describe his journey from England to Iraq in greater detail. He was alarmed when the car stopped outside an anonymous five storey office block. If he had known that the building housed a division of the secret police he would have been terrified; as it was he was merely apprehensive as the senior of the two policemen escorted him up the chipped marble stairs and into the building.

An elderly man stopped mopping the floor and stared at the new arrivals. He gave a slightly mad-looking grin and then continued cleaning the stained stonework while muttering quietly to himself. Rashid looked around; in one corner a policeman with a heavy moustache and broad cheeks sat at a table furnished with a telephone and a ledger. Rashid wondered if every minor official in Baghdad strived within the limitations of their physiognomy to look as much as possible like Saddam Hussein. The policeman pulled a ballpoint pen out of a breast pocket and opened the ledger. ‘So who’s this? Which exit will he be leaving from?’

‘That depends,’ replied one of his escorts. ‘If he behaves himself we’ll bring him out the front and take him back home. If he doesn’t…’ The policeman paused and slapped Rashid firmly on the back. ‘Well, maybe it’ll be the rear exit for him.’

‘Who’s he going to see?’

‘Rukan Khalifa.’

The policeman seated at the desk gave a broad grin. ‘Ah… so, could be out of the window then. I’ll mark him down with a large question mark. What’s his name?’

‘Rashid Hamsin.’

‘Take him through.’

Rashid presumed that the policemen were indulging in some ponderous humour with their talk of back exits and windows but he found it difficult to hide his reluctance as he was ushered through a pair of swing doors and into an elevator. The car carried them up to the top floor and he was led to a door upon which one of his escorts knocked.

‘Come in.’

The policeman opened the door and shoved him inside and then closed the door behind him. Inside the room was a table at which two men in military style fatigues were seated. One of them was small and dapper and he was smiling at Rashid. The other was large and grim faced. He merely pointed to the seat on the other side of the table. Rashid reluctantly sat down. ‘You are Rashid Hamsin?’ asked the small man.

‘Uh… yes.’

‘My name is Rukan Khalifa.’ He indicated his big colleague. ‘This is Tariq Kayal.’ The big man nodded briefly. ‘I will call you Rashid, if that’s alright?

‘Er… of course.’

‘Good!’ he said. ‘We once started questioning a man and he kept denying that he knew anything. We were all beginning to get rather angry, but then we realised we were questioning the wrong man. There were apologies all round.’ Rukan grinned at him. Rashid looked around the room. The walls were bare apart from a picture of Saddam Hussein. On the table was a clipboard with a ball point pen and a telephone. On the floor between the two men was a large briefcase. Rukan reached inside and pulled out a small tape recorder and placed it on the desk.

‘So, a few questions.’ Rukan smiled again.

‘I’m happy to answer any questions,’ Rashid offered.

‘Excellent. So tell us everything that happened from the day of the protest in London. Start with when you woke up.’

Rashid began to relate his story, haltingly at first as he saw the two other men staring at him. He glanced out of the window where a few wispy clouds were passing through the blue rectangle of the sky. He recalled more clearly the day he had spent with the English woman, and he described how he had been happy to invite her back to his flat.

‘So you hoped to screw the infidel bitch?’

Rashid was shocked by the sudden gross interruption and he looked in alarm at Rukan. He was smiling at him but the smile had an unpleasant sneering quality.

‘No. I just wanted to be friendly.’

‘Crap! You’ve been in England long enough to become a traitor to the Republic.’

‘No, that’s not true!’ said Rashid and he realised at last that he was being interrogated by the secret police. Rukan reached into the briefcase and slowly pulled out a length of electrical cable and placed it on the table. On each end were some big crocodile clips. Rashid realised they were a set of vehicle jump start leads. Rashid squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He felt a sudden urge to empty his bladder.

‘You know that if you lie to us we will fry your balls so that you will never have the urge to fuck another woman.’ He paused. ‘Now tell us the truth. You wanted to screw the English woman.’ He picked up the forked end of the cable and waved it about.

‘Yes. Yes. I did!’ Rashid shouted. Rukan smiled at him.

‘Of course. Why not? She was an attractive woman, eh? Of course you did. Now tell us what happened next.’ Rashid felt his heart pounding in his chest and he tried to control his breathing and speak in a normal voice. He described how he had woken up as a prisoner and was taken to an unknown airport and on to a military transport and flown to Kuwait. He told them of his briefing by Colonel White and his journey across the desert under the watchful eye of Major Hansen and Dean Furness. Then he described how he had met Hakim Mansour and handed over the package that the Colonel had entrusted to him, and then their subsequent journey to Baghdad. Lastly he told them of the night he had spent at his parents’ house right up to the moment that he had arrived at the building in which he was now being questioned.

Rukan Khalifa listened in silence. Occasionally he made notes on the pad, sometimes he frowned or nodded briefly, but he never interrupted. When Rashid had finished he smiled at him once again.

‘Thank you very much Rashid. A very good, succinct account, and very well delivered. I have a few questions for you. What was in the package? What did you read?’ He looked up at Rashid and stared.

‘I didn’t open the package. I didn’t read anything.’ Rashid found he was rubbing his fingers together nervously, and made himself stop. ‘I’ve no idea what was in it.’

‘Yes but the American Colonel described what was in it, didn’t he?’

‘No, no, no! He told me to hand it over with the seal intact. That’s what I did. Ask Hakim Mansour!’

For a nightmarish period Khalifa kept asking questions about his story, sometimes asking the same question twice, sometimes asking another before he had finished his previous answer, sometimes accusing him of changing his story. Finally he finished with the question with which he had begun. ‘You found a way to open the package, then you read the contents and managed to re-seal it, didn’t you!’

‘No!’ Rashid shouted. The big man Tariq suddenly got out of his seat. He walked slowly around behind Rashid, who looked up at him and then back at Khalifa.

‘It’s true, I tell you, in God’s name!’ Rashid was frantic.

Rashid watched Rukan Khalifa pick up the jump leads. There was a sliding noise behind him. He turned round and saw Tariq pulling a big vehicle battery across the floor until it was beside his seat. Rashid tried to jump up but Tariq took him in a headlock so that he could scarcely breathe.

‘So now you will tell us what was in the package,’ said Khalifa. Rashid saw him connect the two leads to the terminal and then he touched the live clips together briefly. There was a bright flash and a snapping sound.

‘In the name of God, no!’ Rashid managed to blurt out. ‘I don’t know what was in the package.’ He tried to pull the arm from around his neck. Suddenly the door opened. Hakim Mansour stood in the doorway. ‘What the hell’s going on!’ he roared. ‘Let him go. Now!’

The arm released its grip and Rashid slumped in his seat moaning. Tariq and Rukan backed away and Hakim Mansour helped Rashid to his feet.

‘Come on, boy. Let’s take you back home. There’s been a huge misunderstanding. A very bad mistake. These two will suffer for it.’

‘They were asking me what was in the package I gave you. I told them I had no idea. I didn’t open it.’ Rashid explained.

‘I know, I know. It’s been a mistake. I’ll take you home.’

Rashid allowed himself to be lead out of the room, down in the elevator and out of the building into the fresh air. Outside in the road Hakim Mansour’s driver held open the door of his car and the two of them climbed into the back seats. Mansour looked at him and patted his forearm.

‘You look a little distraught Rashid. I can’t take you back home until you’ve had a chance to recover; it would give your mother a fright. Let’s go and get a drink.’ He called out an address to his driver and the car set off. Rashid stared out of the window as the street scene passed by, trying to come to terms with his reprieve. Already the experience seemed to be some kind of unreal dream. The car stopped outside a well-known expensive coffee shop much frequented by the well-connected of Baghdad. Mansour lead him inside and waved casually to the proprietor who saluted him respectfully, and then showed them through to a small private room at the back.

The room had four armchairs and little tables with ashtrays. Mansour brought out a pack of Marlboro Lights and offered one to Rashid, who shook his head. The door opened and the proprietor came in with four cans of Heineken beer and two glasses. ‘I thought you could do with a real drink after that experience,’ said Mansour pouring out beer for the two of them. ‘How are you feeling now?’

Rashid drank deeply, savouring the familiar drink. ‘Better now, thank you.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know why they thought I knew anything.’

‘Well you had already told me you didn’t.’ Hakim Mansour paused. ‘You’re absolutely sure about that, are you? Nothing has jogged your memory at all? Anything that the American Colonel White might have said?’

‘No. Nothing at all,’ Rashid insisted.

‘Ok.’ Mansour slapped his pockets and pulled out a phone. ‘Excuse me a minute. A quick call.’

He left the room and dialled a number. ‘Hello Rukan. I was listening in the whole time, but tell me what you thought of his replies?’

‘He told his story without any hesitations, he answered repeated questions the same but with slight differences so there was no hint of any coaching. I think you can trust in what he says.’

‘Very good, he clearly doesn’t know anything, but thanks for trying.’

‘Perhaps you can explain what it’s all about to me one day,’ Khalifa suggested.

‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ Mansour replied. ‘Until then don’t ask any more questions, eh. Thank you. Goodbye.’

Mansour broke the connection and frowned. Rukan Khalifa was too damned inquisitive. Perhaps it had been a mistake to involve him. Maybe he could be silenced somehow. He went back into the room and smiled at Rashid. ‘Ok. Let’s finish these beers and then I’ll take you home.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Ali Hamsin, would you do me the pleasure of visiting me at my house after you have finished your work this evening?’

Ali looked up and saw Hakim Mansour in his office doorway. He nodded. ‘Of course sir.’

‘Good! I’ll see you later, six o’clock.’ Mansour smiled and closed the door.

Hamsin wondered why Hakim Mansour wanted to see him, but perhaps a visit to his home at least suggested that he was in favour. He was sorry that none of his colleagues were there to witness the invitation, especially one bestowed in person, for in the uncertain world of office politics it was just as well for everyone to know that you were well regarded. Damn! He had invited Professor Khordi for the evening; he would have to postpone his visit until tomorrow. After an apologetic telephone call to his friend he walked quickly through the dark streets and at precisely 6pm he rang the bell on Mansour’s outside gate. He was amazed when his host answered the door himself.

‘It’s the servants’ day off,’ Mansour explained. ‘They all have the same day this week; someone’s engagement party or something. Come in and have a beer.’

He ushered Ali through to his office and sat him down in one of his armchairs. They talked about the weather for a while, and Mansour asked Ali about his family and all his relatives in Baghdad.

‘Now this document your son brought across the border. As you may have guessed it’s the culmination of my discussions with Bruckner and Fielding in Frankfurt.’

‘Yes of course, but I wish Rashid had not been involved,’ Ali replied.

‘I’m sure, but I needed someone I could trust, someone unconnected with the government and he seemed an obvious choice. Do you remember when all this began? When that odious man Rumsfeld came over in 1983, which was when we first met Bruckner. I was a young man of about thirty-five, just promoted to a deputy in the Interior Ministry. You must have been about twenty-five years old then, and Rashid had just been born?’

‘That’s right sir.’ Ali felt a small prickle of anxiety creeping up his spine as he remembered driving Mansour’s limousine to a quiet street and then translating their conversation.

‘Over the years you’ve proved to me that you’re someone who I can trust not to betray a secret; I appreciate that quality in a man.’

‘Thank you,’ Ali replied, trying not to think about the reprisals that would follow a betrayal.

Mansour opened his safe and drew out a document case made of thick leather-like material. There was a zip fastener covered by a flap with a series of holes. Through the holes ran two lengths of multi-stranded wire joined at each end and each join was crimped together and covered by a lump of red wax with a palm tree symbol stamped in it.

‘Although I was responsible for drawing up the agreement, I want to check the contents of the package and have a read through it before handing it over to the boss tomorrow, just to make sure there are no mistakes or surprises. Also it might prove useful in the future if I have my own personal copy.’ He gazed at Ali. ‘Unfortunately I’m under strict instructions not too read it before handing it over.’

Ali stared at the case, fearful of what Mansour was about to do. ‘Surely it is much safer if you follow orders. You’re not going to open it are you? I don’t want to be involved!’

‘Ali you’ve been involved ever since that meeting back in 1983. Now come with me.’

He carried the case through to his garage and checked the front door was locked. Ali watched him pick up some cutters and as close to the seals as possible he severed the wires and unthreaded them. He unzipped the leather case and pulled out the documents from inside. The top page consisted of a large printed symbol which meant nothing to Ali, and underneath the word GILGAMESH. He put it to one side and looked at the other pages.

‘As I expected, they’re all written in English. As you know I can speak it fairly well, but I can barely read it. I should have taken more trouble I know, but when there are excellent people like you about… well I never saw the need. Come down into the basement.’

Mansour lead him down stairs and unlocked a big wooden trunk and threw back the lid. He grinned at Ali. ‘Another secret I’m happy to say.’

He took out armfuls of cloth, old sheets and towels, until he exposed the lid of an old photocopier. He plugged it in and tried out one of the sheets. The machine groaned and wheezed but after a few seconds it churned out a decent reproduction. Ali passed the pages to him one at a time and collated the copies.

‘There, now back to the kitchen.’

He put the documents back inside the leather case and closed up the zip. He heated the wire up until the wax began to melt and he could pull the seals off. Then he re-joined the wire with the same crimps and replaced the seals, smoothing the wax with a hot knife but leaving the palm tree symbols untouched. Ali looked on in amazement.

‘How do you know how to do that?’ he asked.

‘Skills I learned thirty years ago, in the… the interior ministry, shall we say. There; it might not look precisely the same as before, but only you and I know that.’

Mansour picked up the sheaf of photocopied papers and gazed down at them. ‘So these are the papers that were brought across the border by your son. I would like you to translate them into Arabic for me. Read it to me now and then take it home and write it down. Then bring both versions back to me this evening.’ He handed them over. Ali took his glasses out of his jacket pocket and began to read out in Arabic. His hands began to tremble and he had to put the pages down on a small table. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief as he came to the end and gazed at Mansour.

‘Excellent! Thank you Ali. Now go home and write out that translation. How long do you need? I have to deliver the original to the boss in twenty minutes time, I’ll probably be a couple of hours so can you be back here at eleven?’

Ali nodded nervously. He wasn’t going to say anything at first but then blurted out ‘If this gets into the wrong hands, it will be… death for many people! For me, my family… even you, perhaps even…’

‘I know I know… quiet now Ali; that’s enough.’

Hakim Mansour watched Hamsin walk down the street, around the corner and out of sight. He had ordered him not to hail a taxi until he was at least a kilometre away from his house, and to observe similar precautions on his return. Then he swallowed a tranquiliser with the last of his beer, picked up the document case and drove his Mercedes to his appointment with Qusay Hussein.

The President’s son was in a good mood. He ushered Mansour into his private sitting room and to show how much he trusted him, he ordered all but two of his bodyguards to leave. Mansour knew that these two were deaf, having been too close to explosions in combat zones and he could speak freely in their presence. Qusay poured out two glasses of Scotch and handed one to Mansour. They exchanged small talk for a while until Qusay drained his glass and put it down on the table and Mansour knew it was time to get down to important matters.

‘Yesterday morning as you instructed, I met the Americans down by the border,’ Mansour announced. ‘The courier handed over the document in this leather folder, which I now present to you. I trust it will meet your requirements.’

He handed over the document case and Qusay Hussein inspected the seals. ‘Who brought the folder over from Saudia?’ he asked.

‘I sent Rukan Khalifa to fetch it over; I was told he is to be trusted, but having met him I cannot vouch for his discretion,’ he replied. ‘His driver was Tariq Kayal.’

Qusay nodded thoughtfully. He pulled a small leather note book out of his pocket, picked up a gold Cross ballpoint pen off the table and wrote the names down. ‘So nobody besides you and he can have held the case then.’

‘No sir,’ Mansour replied.

‘Very good. I am sorry that I had to delay our meeting until this evening. The President insisted on remaining in Tikrit to see some old friends.’ They discussed mutual friends and acquaintances for a while but Mansour could see Qusay Hussein’s glance kept returning to the document case and sure enough after a few minutes his boss said ‘Now I will detain you no further, Hakim. Thank you once again for your good offices. We will meet again tomorrow when I have looked over this.’

After his trusted lieutenant had departed, Qusay Hussein picked up Hakim Mansour’s empty glass and took it and the leather document case into his private study. He inspected the seals and then cut through the wire. Then he called for his personal security chief, Kamal Ahwadi, to see him. He handed him the whisky glass and the top sheet of the document.

‘Kamal, take this piece of paper and see if there are any fingerprints that match those on this glass.’

‘Yes sir.’

When he was alone he read carefully through the documents, nodding in approval from time to time. The document was satisfactory in most respects. Mansour and the Americans had done a good job. After twenty minutes there was a knock on the door and he admitted his security chief. ‘Yes Kamal.’

‘There are matching fingerprints, sir. The man who held the glass also held the paper.’

Qusay Hussein gave an irritated sigh. He had intended that Mansour should see the document tomorrow, but he had disobeyed instructions. Despite his unquestioned loyalty he deserved a good dressing down. ‘Hakim Mansour is driving back to his house. I want him brought back here immediately,’ he ordered.

‘Yes sir.’

‘Oh, Kamal, another matter. There are two people called Rukan Khalifa and Tariq Kayal who work in your department. Do you know who they are?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘They are traitors.’

‘Very good sir, then I’ll take care of them.’

Hakim Mansour was watching a film entitled The Road to Perdition which had been released last year. It was an illegal copy but the quality was fairly good and the Arabic subtitles were well written. He heard the outer door alarm go off and he touched the pause button. That must be Ali Hamsin with the completed translation.

He recoiled in consternation when he saw the familiar face of Qusay Hussein’s henchman through the spy hole in the door. It was too late to pretend he was not at home because the security lights had flashed on as he walked into the garden and his car was parked outside. He opened the door. ‘Good evening, Ahwadi. Can I help you?’

‘You’re wanted back by the boss.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Immediately!’

‘Very good. I wonder what he wants. I’ve already seen him this evening. Have you any idea what it’s about?’ He tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice but he was not surprised when Kamal Ahwadi did not reply. ‘I’ll just get my jacket then.’

Hakim Mansour had worked for Qusay Hussein for long enough to have taken certain precautions. He hurried back inside and took off his expensive Swiss watch, and strapped on one with a poison capsule concealed in it. Then he put on his coat and went outside where Kamal politely held open his car door. ‘Are you coming along?’ Mansour asked.

‘No I have another errand sir,’ the security man replied. He watched a worried Hakim Mansour drive away and then he went inside to search his house. The only suspicious object he found was an old photocopier concealed in an ancient wooden trunk. Hakim Mansour should not have a photocopier at home, but Kamal knew that if he reported the find to Qusay Hussein he would have to explain why he had not discovered it the previous occasion when he had snooped around Mansour’s house. A few minutes effort with a hack saw he found in a tool box and he had reduced the photocopier to smaller chunks. He opened the cover of the cess pit in the alley behind the house and dropped the pieces inside, then walked back round the front of the house and locked the front door. He gazed up and down the street before he climbed back into his Mercedes and drove away. If he had looked more carefully he would have seen the frightened figure of Ali Hamsin peering out from between two houses further down the road.

CHAPTER SIX

Ali Hamsin sat back in his chair and took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. He had been sleeping badly in the four weeks since Hakim Mansour had given him the photocopy to translate. The following day the announcement had been made that Mansour had died from a heart attack. Ali had not felt safe since that evening. Every day of the following week he had sat fearfully at his desk expecting to be summoned before some faceless committee of inquiry, and every evening at home he had gone to bed in a state of nervous exhaustion. Tabitha had tearfully asked him what was wrong. He had told her that he had learned something that he should not have, and not to ask any further questions.

Someone shouting in the corridor outside his office shook him out of his reverie. He wound the recorder back to the beginning and then set the tape running again. He opened the laptop computer and switched it on. He was pleased, even proud, to have been given access to the sophisticated device but of course he was not permitted to take the computer home with him. He had to perform all his work in the Ministry under the watchful gaze of the security cameras. The keyboard symbols were written in English and Arabic but the layout was not quite what he was used to and his typing was slow so he had to keep stopping and starting the recording. He read through his translation whilst listening to the BBC journalist questioning the UK Foreign Secretary about the continuing build-up of troops along the Iraqi border. There was a knock on the door.

‘Yes, come in!’ he called out, at the same time switching off the video recorder and closing the lid of the computer.

A powerfully built man came into the room.

‘Mr Yusuf Ali Hamsin?’ he enquired politely.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ Ali replied, wondering why the man looked vaguely familiar.

‘My name is Kamal Ahwadi. I have come from the office of Mr Qusay Hussein,’

At the mention of the President’s son Ali grabbed the arms of his chair tightly to stop himself trembling. ‘Yes?’ he managed to say.

‘Mr Hussein’s office has need of another translator. You’ve been chosen.’ Ahwadi smiled. ‘It is an honour.’

Ali thought frantically. Ahwadi’s manner seemed affable, but how did the secret police operate? Was there always a friendly summons followed by a trip to an interrogation room? He looked around his office. ‘Perhaps I should bring this computer with me… it might be useful.’

Kamal stared at the computer, his face expressionless. Then he smiled. ‘Yes by all means bring it, and if there’s anything else you think you might need, I’ll have someone take it out to the car. You may be away for a few days,’ Kamal continued. ‘We’ll go past your house so you can pick up some spare clothes, personal items and of course explain matters to your family.’ This did not sound like the threat of harsh interrogation; Ali managed to avoid heaving a sigh of relief and simply nodded his agreement.

At home he hurriedly stuffed a suitcase with clothes. He did not tell Tabitha and Rashid that he was going to work for Qusay Hussein; instead he told them that he was being transferred to an office in Ramadi for a few days, but he would be home for Friday. Nevertheless he could see the disquiet in their eyes, and they both hugged him and told him to take care. Ali told them not to worry, but as he closed the outer gate behind him he saw Kamal standing beside his car. His memory was triggered and he realised that Kamal Ahwadi was the man he had seen outside Hakim Mansour’s house. It was only with an enormous effort of will that he managed to walk normally towards him.

They drove an hour and twenty minutes out of Baghdad, turned off down a small un-signposted road and came to a high barbed wire fence with an elevated look-out post surmounted by a closed circuit television camera. Under the roof of the post he could see a guard armed with a large calibre automatic weapon inspecting their approaching vehicle through binoculars. Two more guards emerged from a small hut and walked up to the car and peered in the windows. One of them recognised Kamal, gave a respectful salute and hastened to open the security gate. They continued towards an enormous house surrounded by a lush garden with tall semi-tropical trees that could only have been created by years of expensive irrigation. Outside the front door another pair of armed guards was ready to open the car doors and admit Kamal and Ali into the building.

Ali’s impression of the house was of opulent marble and tropical hardwood floors with expensive carpets hanging on the walls, but his inspection was interrupted by Kamal. ‘Come with me please, I’ll show you where you’ll be working.’

‘Is this where Mr Hussein lives?’ Ali asked. Rumours had existed for years about an array of desert palaces built at vast expense for the Husseins’ personal use.

‘It’s somewhere he keeps mainly for guests and weekend entertaining,’ Kamal replied. ‘For now he’s using it as a private office. It’s just a small place.’ He waved his hand about as if to apologise for the limitations of the building.

Along a corridor he opened a teak door and lead Ali into a sitting room converted into a makeshift office. There were three large radio receivers and a microphone attached to an old fashioned but high quality reel to reel tape recorder. On one table stood a television with a VHS recorder on a shelf underneath. On another table was a stack of English language newspapers. ‘This is where you will be working. Now come next door.’ Kamal showed him a luxurious bedroom. ‘This is where you’ll be sleeping. Meals will be brought to you here or in the office.’

Ali looked around and saw a door in the side wall; he opened it and looked around at a bathroom furnished with expensive European plumbing. ‘How long will I be here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Until the current situation has been resolved, I expect.’

‘And can you tell me what my duties will be?’ he asked.

‘Mr Hussein will tell you himself, no doubt. Come with me.’

They returned to the entrance hall where a man was standing staring out of a window with his hands clasped behind his back.

‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Kamal said. ‘I have Yusuf Ali Hamsin with me.’

The man turned round, a smile on his round moustachioed face. This face wore wrinkles and blemishes and a sagging chin that were not apparent on the official photographs but Ali immediately recognised the President’s son Qusay Hussein. He nervously cleared his throat.

‘Good day to you, Yusuf Hamsin,’ said Qusay Hussein, holding out his hand. ‘I am pleased to have you on my staff. Saman Abdul Majid has spoken highly of you.’

Ali shook the proffered hand and gave a little bow. ‘The approval of the President’s official translator is a blessing sir. I hope to serve you as well as he has served the President.’

‘I’m sure you will. Now what I want you to do here is listen to the news services of the Americans and the British and translate them for me. Also I’ll have newspapers brought in and you can translate the news items in those, but the radio is more important. You can record your translations. I won’t require written transcripts.’ Ali wondered why he should be doing the work that was usually carried out by the foreign ministry in Baghdad; but he decided not to question this man with his reputation for angry outbursts.

‘Very good sir. Shall I begin at once?’

‘Yes. Why not? Kamal will show you how to work the equipment. Have you any questions?’

Ali had many; how long will I be here? Who will be monitoring when I’m asleep? Where am I allowed to go inside the house? But he decided that Qusay Hussein was not a man accustomed to being questioned by a subordinate. ‘No Sir.’ Qusay Hussein nodded. Ali realised something more was expected of him. ‘It is an honour Sir, a privilege,’ he added. Qusay Hussein smiled.

‘I am sure you won’t let me down, Yusuf,’ he said, and walked towards the door.

‘Pardon me sir,’ said Ali greatly daring.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s just that I am known everywhere as Ali, rather than as Yusuf, sir. I thought I should say something… to avoid any confusion.’ He swallowed nervously. Qusay Hussein stared at him for a moment, but then smiled.

‘Very well then. I too shall call you Ali.’

After Kamal had described the equipment to him, Ali finally felt able to ask some questions. ‘How come I’m needed here? There’s a team of people in the ministry already doing this work.’

‘The boss has several places like this set up. If the invasion happens then he doesn’t want the Americans to know where he is, and this is one of several secret locations he might use. They know the location of the ministry in Baghdad; they don’t know about this building.’

‘Perhaps there won’t be an invasion. Blix reported to the United Nations that we don’t have any weapons of mass destruction and the Americans and British seem to have given up the hope that they’ll get a second United Nations resolution.’

‘You had better have a look at this recording from a few days ago.’ Kamal smiled at him, picking a VHS tape off a shelf. ‘It’s just been delivered. It might change your mind.’

Ali Hamsin sat down in front of the television screen and switched the VHS recorder on. The machine was old and the picture juddered a little but the soundtrack was clear enough.

‘We are really close to the end of the diplomatic steps we’re able to take,’ said the American Vice President Cheney to his television interviewer. ‘The President is meeting with European leaders once again. We’ve been trying to organize a second resolution in the U.N. Security Council, but plainly the President is going to have to make a difficult and important decision in the next few days.’

‘Mr Cheney, is there anything that Saddam Hussein could do to stop the war?’ asked the interviewer.

‘Well for twelve years, we’ve been trying to get him to give up his weapons and he’s rejected all our efforts, every time. There have been seventeen UN resolutions now. He’s always had the option of accepting inspections, of giving up all of his weapons of mass destruction, destroying the anthrax, the VX nerve agent and the sarin, and all the other capabilities he has developed, and he has refused every time.’

‘Now sir, the British have suggested that even now, if he gave us all the information, turned over all the VX, the mustard gas, the anthrax. If he were to appear on television and denounce the weapons of mass destruction, he could stay in power. Should he have that chance?’

‘Well, I think it’s difficult to believe in that happening. If he were to stay in power, we have to assume that as soon as we’re all looking the other way and dealing with other preoccupations, he’ll be back to stealthily building up his biological and chemical weapons arsenal, and he’ll try and set up his nuclear program again. He’s been trying to acquire nuclear weapons for more than twenty years. As soon as he’s revealed his current capability, even if it was complete, we can safely assume that as soon as our backs are turned he’ll start up in a fresh location and we’ll soon be back where we started.’

‘So his only option is to leave the country and his regime will have to accept complete disarmament?’ the interviewer asked.

‘I think that would be the only solution we could accept, the only outcome possible,’ said the Vice President. ‘But we will continue to try and work through the United Nations and try to arrive at a diplomatic solution. However up until now, we’ve been unsuccessful.’

‘So what do you think is the most important justification for an invasion of Iraq?’ the interviewer asked.

‘It’s the threat to the region and even to the world beyond of his continued development and use of chemical weapons and of biological weapons, and his attempts to acquire nuclear weapons,’ said Mr Cheney.

‘Although the International Atomic Energy Agency declares that he does not have a viable nuclear program,’ the interviewer suggested.

‘Well we disagree with that conclusion. The CIA and other departments of the intelligence community disagree with that conclusion. Let’s consider his nuclear program. In the ’70s, Saddam Hussein acquired nuclear reactors from the French. In 1981, the Israelis destroyed the Osirak reactor and brought a halt to his nuclear weapons development. For the next ten years, he implemented a new program, and after the Gulf War it became apparent that he was within one or two years of having a nuclear weapon. Now he’s threatening…’

Ali’s concentration was broken by a commotion of two people shouting angrily at one another. He opened the door and peered out. The corridor was dark in the settling dusk, but in the brightly lit main hall he could see Qusay Hussein and another man who was gesticulating wildly and walking with a pronounced limp towards the front door, then wheeling round. With a little inward groan of dismay he recognised Uday Hussein, the President’s eldest son whose reputation for unpredictable violence had escaped the tightly controlled inner circle of Baghdad’s ruling class.

‘So where the hell have all these so-called weapons of mass destruction gone?’ Uday shouted, staring at his brother. ‘The bloody Americans are going to invade now!’

‘Well we don’t have any, but unless you can think of a way to turn them back at the border, they will soon launch an invasion.’ Qusay replied.

‘But that bastard Cheney’s going on TV describing a whole arsenal of weapons. Haven’t we got anything left? At least some of the stuff we used to gas the Kurds? We can use it on the damned Yanks as well when they invade. A few thousand of their soldiers coughing up their blood and guts on the border will soon have CNN and NBC calling a halt!’

Qusay’s reply was too quiet for Ali to hear as he ushered his brother out of sight. Ali closed the door, praying that Uday Hussein was not planning to take up residence in this bolt hole.

Ali Hamsin dreamed he was lying in bed at home with his wife. It was clearly late in the morning and they had nothing to do that day besides enjoy spending time in each other’s company. Suddenly he was instantly awake with Kamal Awadhi shaking his shoulder.

‘Wake up Hamsin, come on wake up!’ he demanded.

‘What’s happening?’ Ali glanced at the clock. It showed it was 7.10am and he had been asleep for only about five hours, yet here was this ruffian rousing him.

‘Come on, it’s started!’

He could mean only one thing. Yesterday there had been a missile or bombing raid on the presidential palace in Baghdad. Ahwadi had scoffed at the possibility that Saddam Hussein or any of his staff might have been in residence. They rushed to the office and switched on the radios and television.

Foreign news reports stated that the Americans and their allies were streaming across the border and were already past Basra. The city was surrounded and there appeared to be little resistance to the invading army. An armoured column was moving north towards Baghdad and everywhere there were reports of air strikes and missile attacks.

In contrast, on Baghdad radio, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the Information Minister broadcast in triumphant tone that the invasion force was being repelled at the border by the Iraqi army under the personal command of the President. The American soldiers were burning inside their tanks and twenty three attacking aircraft had been shot down around Baghdad alone. Ali looked at Kamal. ‘What do you think?’ he asked the security man.

‘You know they call him Comical Ali. He’s probably holed up somewhere and they are releasing pre-recorded announcements.’

‘Are we safe here?’

‘In this building? If the Americans knew about this place they would already have flattened it.’ He smiled and Ali thought that this was the first time he had seen him smile. ‘Why do you think I’m here eh? Anyway, I’m off now. Good luck Ali Hamsin. If I were you I would try to get to Baghdad and protect your family.’

‘What do you mean, you’re off? Where are you going then?’

‘I’m going to Damascus, God willing. I have relatives there.’

‘What about your family? Aren’t they in Baghdad?’

Kamal Ahwadi shook his head and smiled again. ‘Goodness no! I moved all my family out of Iraq two weeks ago. I regret to say I have less faith in our armed forces than Comical Ali Sahhaf.’ He paused, and stared at Ali. ‘What happened to the Gilgamesh plan? Why hasn’t it worked?’ Ali grabbed the armrests of his chair and swallowed hard.

‘The Gilgamesh plan? Whatever are you talking about?’

Kamal smiled at him. ‘I had a talk with Hakim Mansour… before he died. He told me about this plan called Gilgamesh… he had negotiated a deal with the Americans. Kamal shook his head. ‘It was strange, I don’t think Qusay meant any harm to come to Mansour, he just wanted him confined until the invasion was completed. But Mansour was terrified that he meant to have him killed. He even had a poison pill hidden in his wristwatch.’

Ali swallowed again, convinced that if Qusay Hussein had wanted someone killed then Kamal Ahwadi would be his chosen man. He managed to croak out. ‘And Mansour swallowed it when he was being questioned?’

‘No not at all,’ said Kamal, ‘he actually died of a heart attack, but before he died he also told me all the details of this Gilgamesh plan… and how you came to know about it too. That’s why I brought you here, in case your knowledge was useful…or dangerous.’

Ali shook his head, somehow no longer terrified by yet another threat to his life. ‘I have no idea what‘s gone wrong with Gilgamesh. Every day I expect an announcement and a ceasefire, but nothing seems to have happened. The Americans now seem determined to carry on until they’ve completely taken over the country.’

‘And then what will they do?’ Kamal asked

‘I have absolutely no idea. I presume they have a plan.’

Ali Hamsin groaned and rubbed his aching back as he stood up from his chair and gazed out the window at the narrow strip of blue sky that was visible. He hitched up his trousers with what was becoming a habitual tug on the waistband. He had lost weight during the four weeks that had elapsed since the invasion of his country. There had been no shortage of food in the palatial house, but he had little interest in eating. He had made repeated requests to the officer in charge of the military contingent that policed the compound for permission to return to his home in Baghdad. Despite repeated promises that he would soon be allowed to leave, he remained a virtual prisoner.

On the morning that he had woken up to find that Kamal Ahwadi had disappeared from the compound, Ali had hoped to be able to get away as well. He suggested to the officer in charge that he too had orders to return to Baghdad, but as he had nothing in writing, permission to leave was refused.

He had been allowed to telephone his wife the day after the invasion. They had tried to reassure each other of their personal safety and well-being, but each had felt the tension in the other’s voice, and the almost certain knowledge that their conversation was being monitored inhibited him. He had sought permission to telephone the next day, but had been informed that the lines must remain clear in case Uday Hussein had orders to pass on. The next day the senior officer had informed him that the telephone system was no longer working.

Ali continued to monitor the transmissions of the foreign news media, and he learnt how the Iraqi armed forces were being swept aside, how flags and statues of the President were being torn down in the towns closer and closer to Baghdad until finally five days ago the capital city was occupied by the American army. The Iraqi army had not launched any weapons of mass destruction against the invading force, and neither had the Americans found any. This seemed to be genuinely puzzling to the news reporters from the countries whose people had been deluded by stories of the threat that Saddam Hussein and his regime represented to them.

Now it was reported that the Americans were advancing towards Tikrit and they were expecting to take the city the following day. Ali reluctantly decided to tell the senior officer that his home town was under threat. He took off his headphones and walked along to the man’s office, but there was nobody in. Then he heard a shouting and a commotion outside. He hurried back to the main entrance hall and found that the front door was unguarded for the first time since his arrival. He hesitated for a moment and then turned the heavy latch and pulled it open.

Outside was a scene of muddle and disorder. The troops were clambering into the backs of three army trucks while the officers squeezed into the cabs. Automatic weapons lay discarded on the ground along with jackets displaying badges of rank. Ali caught sight of the senior officer who was walking over to his car dressed in a civilian jacket. ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted where’s everyone going?’

‘There you are Ali!’ the officer called back. ‘Look over there!’ He threw an arm out to the southern sky. Ali saw the six black shapes flying low over the desert and seconds later he heard the rhythm of the helicopter blades beating the air mixed with the roar of their engines.

‘Come with us if you like!’ the officer called out. Ali looked across the compound and saw a group of a dozen domestic staff huddled together. They ran up to the nearest truck and were told that there was no space; get in one of the others. They looked around uncertainly and the three trucks started moving towards the main gate.

‘I’m staying here,’ one of them shouted and ran past Ali back into the house. The senior officer shrugged his shoulders and then called out ‘Quick Ali, get in my car!’ Ali looked at the rapidly approaching helicopters and decided to follow the other staff inside. Somebody slammed the heavy door shut and bolted it.

‘Let’s watch from upstairs!’ someone shouted. They all hurried up the marble staircase and into the bedrooms. Three Apache attack helicopters flew up to the army trucks, dipping their noses down threateningly as they came to a hover. Even above the roar of the engines they could hear a loud hailer ordering all personnel to come out and lie down on the ground with their hands above their heads. The trucks braked to a halt throwing up clouds of dust. The troops began to spill out of the back, but then from the back of one of the trucks someone started to fire a heavy calibre machine gun at the helicopters. The response came a second later; a puff of smoke from the weapons hard point; a streak of fire and a moment later the truck disappeared in a ball of flame and smoke that glowed with red flashes that flickered and died. As the smoke cleared Ali could see the troops from the other two trucks flinging themselves out and on to the ground.

Then three larger helicopters landed and American troops disembarked with disciplined precision and surrounded the Iraqi survivors. Next, two of the heavily armed Apaches slowly approached the building. Once again the loudhailer ordered everyone to come out.

‘What shall we do? They don’t know we’re in here,’ someone called out.

‘If we don’t come out then maybe the Americans will come in and they might think we’re trying to ambush them,’ said Ali. They all looked at him.

‘So we should probably go outside,’ someone cried. They all looked out of the windows. Some of the Americans were advancing slowly towards the house, weapons at the ready.

‘Let’s get out now while we have the chance!’ another one insisted.

‘They’ll probably shoot you as you come out,’ replied another. ‘You saw the way they blew up that truck. Look at the bodies scattered around it. I’m staying inside!’

‘So am I.’

‘If we don’t surrender before they get much closer, we might not get the chance! I’m going.’

‘Me too!

Five of them rushed to the door and ran madly down the stairs and Ali decided to follow them.

‘Quick! Open the door.’

‘Remember to keep your hands up!’

‘Go on, one at a time.’

They filed out of the door and lay face down on the ground, stretching their arms out above their heads as they had seen the soldiers do. Ali felt a small stone dig painfully into his knee, but he did not dare shift his position.

‘Is that everyone?’ an unseen voice asked in American accented English. ‘Any of you people speak English?’ Ali kept quiet.

‘I don’t know, Major’, said another American voice. ‘No one’s come out for a minute. I can’t see our main target anywhere. Maybe we should blow it now; not take the chance.’

‘Damn. I have orders to search, but it could be booby trapped. Oh hell, I think I’ll call for the choppers to take it down.’

Ali realised that the American commander was going to call for the building to be destroyed with some of his countrymen still inside. He struggled with the dilemma of possibly helping the enemy as against protecting his countrymen, but then he was not a soldier and neither were they.

‘There are only civilians inside; five or six men,’ he called out in English.

‘Which one of you said that?’ the American officer demanded.

Ali waved his hand slowly from side to side.

‘Ok, stand up!’

He heard the metallic rattle of an automatic rifle being cocked, but Ali slowly got to his feet. Through the open gate he could see the Iraqi soldiers now seated on the ground with their hands on their heads; American soldiers stood with their weapons pointing towards them. The helicopters had landed further back with their rotors slowly turning. A soldier approached from the rear and patted him down. ‘He’s clean major,’ he reported.

‘What’s your name?’ The officer asked.

‘Ali Hamsin.’

‘I’m Major Brogan. Now Ali Hamsin, you’re telling me there’s only a few people left inside. Can you tell them to come out?’

‘They’re frightened; what assurance can you give of their safety?’ Ali asked. Major Brogan stared at him for a moment.

‘Put it this way. If they come out now, then they’ll be kept safe. In one minute we’ll be going in and anyone still inside will be killed.’ Ali hastily shouted through the open door, and after a few seconds the remaining staff came rushing out. Ali watched the Americans surround the house and then at a signal they broke windows and flung stun grenades into the rooms and charged inside. He heard shouting; the banging of doors and a crash as furniture was overturned, but no gun fire. Major Brogan beckoned him over.

‘We had information that this was one of Qusay Hussein’s hideouts, but I guess we’ve missed him again. When was he last here?’

‘He hasn’t been… I’ve never seen him here at all,’ Ali declared.

‘Yeah, right!’ said Major Brogan. ‘That’s what they all say. Seems to me he and his brother Uday were total psychos, but still you people try to protect them.’ He gazed at Ali, head on one side. ‘You’re not one of the guys who worked for him are you?’ Ali wondered how to answer this but Major Brogan saved him the trouble. ‘Anyway, we’re gonna look you up in the database and see what it says.’

The Americans rounded them up and marched them a few hundred metres away from the house. They watched one of the Apache helicopters lift off and fly towards the building. It fired a salvo of missiles; smoke and flames billowed out of the windows and then the house collapsed into a heap of rubble under a pall of smoke. The Americans ordered them to sit down, but they no longer had to hold their hands on top of their heads. After a while they began to mutter to each other about what might become of them. Ali expected the Americans to bark out orders to shut them up, but they did not seem to mind them talking to each other.

After an hour two large trucks drew up, and more soldiers climbed out. To Ali’s astonishment, the first thing they did was to issue a bottle of water and a vacuum pack of pitta bread to each man. Then they ordered them to climb into the backs of the trucks and the small convoy set off along the road to Baghdad and eventually pulled to a halt beside the old prison.

Ali stared at the irregular patchwork of paint on the walls of his cell. He assumed that it covered up graffiti that previous occupants had scratched to record their days of imprisonment or invective written against the brutal regime that had locked them up. He wondered if these prisoners had been executed, or died in prison or even eventually released. He thought perhaps he should begin a record of his own confinement. So far he had suffered periodic bouts of fear that his work in the Government and his recent association with Qusay Hussein would be uncovered, and this was overlain by a continuing worry about his family and their possible fate. Before the fall of Baghdad he had been comforted by the foreign news reports that described how Government buildings and other strategic targets had come under pinpoint attack by the Americans satellite-guided missiles, but residential districts had been spared, but it had been weeks since he had seen his wife and son. He had been given regular food, drink and exercise since his arrival; he had got use to the smell of stale urine and disinfectant. Beside anxiety, his other big problem was boredom.

The man with whom Ali had shared his cell for the last week, Jamal Gharib, was asleep and snoring heavily; Ali felt sorry for his wife. Gharib claimed to have been a senior member of the Baath party in Tikrit and he had bored him with stories of how he had met Saddam Hussein on any number of occasions, and what a magnificent leader he had been. Ali had been forced to listen to his endless speculations as to where the President had disappeared and how soon he was likely to emerge from hiding to lead the resistance against the invading army.

His train of thought was interrupted by footsteps marching along the corridor; at least three people, he decided. He could tell that one of them was the gaoler, having grown familiar with the rhythmical clinking of the keys attached to his belt as he stalked the corridor outside the cells.

It was with a mixture of apprehension and interest that he realised that they had stopped outside his cell. The clinking of keys was replaced by the rattling clunk as the door locks were released and the big sergeant who held the keys walked in followed by two infantrymen and a scruffy civilian with a beard.

‘You’re Ali Hamsin,’ the man declared.

‘Yes I am,’ Ali replied. ‘You’re Dean Furness.’

‘So you remember me from Frankfurt,’ he said in Arabic. ‘We have some questions for you. Ok, bring him along,’ he ordered the two infantrymen. Ali was seized firmly but not harshly. Jamal Gharib woke up with a start, cried in alarm and held his hands over his face.

‘Shall we cuff him Mr Furness?’ one of them asked. Without waiting for the reply Ali quickly held his wrists together in front of his waist ready for handcuffs. Through observation rather than personal experience he had already learnt that if you tripped and fell, or if you were pushed over with your hands manacled behind your back then you would hit the ground face first.

‘No need,’ said Furness, ‘me and Mr Hamsin are old acquaintances.’ Ali followed Furness out of the cell, casting a quick farewell glance at his cellmate.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Captain Dan Hall of the US Marine Corps was eight months into a year’s posting in Muscat. The main purpose of his assignment had been to refine his knowledge of desert warfare techniques with the subsequent aim of passing on what he had learned upon his return to Quantico as an instructor. When the invasion of Iraq had been planned he had requested permission to re-join his unit in Kuwait and take part, but to his intense frustration the approval he had been seeking had not been forthcoming and with the news that Tikrit had fallen yesterday it appeared that the campaign would soon be over. Now he faced the prospect of instructing in the subject of desert warfare in which he had possessed a theoretical knowledge to marines who had acquired practical experience. He thought that this would lack credibility and he was no longer looking forward to it. He also knew that as an aspiring officer if he missed a chance of active service it would look poor on his record, despite the fact that it was totally unfair, and his appreciation of his time in Oman was much diminished.

This Monday he was enjoying a game of squash against Richard Davies, Head of Chancery at the UK embassy. Davies was a small, spare man fifteen years older than Dan, who was demonstrating a high level of fitness and speed around the court. The Englishman had been playing squash since he was thirteen years old but Dan had only started the game six months ago, so he did not mind losing. At the end of their forty-five minute session Dan had lost three games, albeit by increasingly smaller margins. They had been forced to abandon the fourth game at seven-all by the arrival of the next players who had booked the court.

While chatting at the bar over their pre-lunch drinks, Davies lost Hall’s attention when the younger man noticed a tall woman wearing black pants and a green sleeveless top. She wore her long dark hair in a ponytail and a determined expression on her attractive face. He also noticed that she was not suntanned which suggested that she had recently arrived from the UK and he also saw that her arms and shoulders were tautly muscled. Her age was hard to guess, but he decided she was about thirty, the same age as he was. She walked up to the bar behind Davies and asked for a glass of white wine and soda in the clear, decisive tone of someone used to giving instructions. At the sound of her voice Davies glanced round and then turned back to Hall to whom he gave a conspiratorial smile.

‘I was just asking if you thought the Hussein brethren had fled the country or if they were holed up somewhere,’ said Davies.

‘Er… sorry Richard. Yeah, I think they’re probably still there. I don’t think they trusted anyone outside Iraq enough to provide them with a bolthole. I would guess that they’ve gone to ground somewhere in Tikrit, Saddam’s home town. I still hope I’ll be able to get up there soon.’

‘Excuse me are you a journalist too?’ The woman had turned round and was peering over Davies’s shoulder at him. ‘I’m hoping to get permission to go to Baghdad, but I haven’t got any closer than Muscat so far. It’s bloody difficult to get a flight or a hotel room any closer to Iraq at the moment.’

Despite her undoubted physical attractiveness, her forthright attitude and the manner in which she butted into their conversation irritated Hall. ‘No I’m not a journalist,’ he retorted and was preparing to ignore the woman but Davies stood up off his bar stool and turned to include her.

‘Hello I’m Richard Davies; I’m in the embassy, and this is Dan Hall, US Marines,’ he said holding out his hand. She shook it and then held hers out to Dan. She stood the same height as him in her high heeled shoes.

‘Emily Stevens, freelance journalist,’ she said with a smile that lit up her face. ‘Pleased to meet you. So Dan, you think Saddam’s still in Iraq. D’you think they’ll be able to find him soon?’ she asked.

They talked for half an hour and Dan was reluctantly impressed by her depth of knowledge of the war and the political situation in the Middle East and her general politeness. He admitted to himself that he was prejudiced against journalists, and his disdain had been aroused by her comment about the lack of comfortable hotel rooms. Richard suggested that they all have lunch together but as they were reviewing the menus, he found a message on his cell phone. ‘Damn! Something’s come up. I’ll have to go in to the office,’ he declared.

‘Oh, can’t it wait until you’ve had lunch!’ Emily asked.

‘Sorry, duty calls. Nice to have met you Emily. Dan, see you next week, unless you get your marching orders.’

Dan watched him walk off and then smiled at Emily. ‘Have you decided what you’re gonna get?’

‘Sorry, I haven’t really looked at the menu yet. Are you expecting to go to Iraq then?’

‘Well I hope so, but for now Uncle Sam thinks I’m needed here.’ He noticed for the first time that a scar ran down the side of her neck and disappeared under her collar. He stared at it wondering what could have caused such a wound. He unconsciously fingered a scar of his own that ran up the side of his jaw to his right ear from which the lobe was missing. When she looked up from her menu he looked into her eyes instead which were dark brown and rather lovely he decided.

‘I’ll have a Caprese salad with prawns. What are you going to have?’ she asked. He had no idea, having spent his time admiring her instead of reading the menu.

‘I think I’ll have the same,’ he declared.

During lunch Emily proved to be very knowledgeable about the Gulf States and their political history and she seemed to know more about Muscat than he did, despite having lived there for eight months.

After finishing their lunch he offered to drive her back to her hotel. When they had driven for a mile she asked him to pull off the road for a moment. In his life hitherto, similar requests had led to a variety of social encounters but he suspected that this stop on the Muscat corniche would not lead to anything intimate. He put the transmission into park and turned to face her.

‘Dan, I am a UK Government agent and in need of some assistance. Richard Davies recommended you.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he asked after a moment’s delay to re-organise his thought processes.

‘Ok, I’m not a journalist; I’m in the British equivalent to your CIA, and I’m hoping you’ll give me a hand with something.’

He stared at her for a moment. ‘Hell, you’re serious!’ After a pause for thought he asked ‘Have you got some kind of ID, then?’

‘Of course I have,’ she replied. ‘It shows that I’m a British citizen named Emily Stevens and I have accreditation as a journalist plus letters of recommendation from ‘Time’,’ Newsweek’ and ‘The Economist’. And ‘Hello’ magazine.’

‘But really you’re a member of SIS or something.’

‘Yes. Later, if you want to, you can call on Richard Davies and he’ll give you some form of proof or assurance.’

‘So Richard’s not Head of Chancery?’

‘Of course he is, but he does other stuff too.’

Dan Hall digested this information and then frowned. ‘So what do you know about me, then?’ he asked.

‘I know that you are a US Marine Corps Captain, you have the usual skills that go with that distinguished role and you have an exemplary record.’ She paused. ‘I now would like you to pretend that you have gambling debts and that you have decided to trade arms with a dealer who operates out of Fujairah in order to clear those debts.’

He was somewhat irritated by this, but he was also very curious.

‘What’s the mission?’ he asked

‘Tracking down an arms dealer who is supplying the wrong people.’

‘Can’t you tell me a little more?’

‘I’d rather wait until we set off tomorrow morning,’ Emily replied, ‘assuming you’re prepared to come on board. I’ll brief you on the way to the border, and if you decide you don’t want to do it, we’ll turn round and I’ll bring you back.’ He had been thinking about inviting her out to dinner, but now that hardly seemed appropriate. Perhaps after the operation was complete, he thought to himself.

One thing of which he was sure was that if he started off tomorrow, they would not be turning round so he could scuttle back home. ‘Ok I accept.’

Still somewhat wary that he might be the subject of some journalistic ploy Dan called on Richard Davies after he had dropped her off at her hotel. He described his conversation and said that he had decided to accept whatever role was planned for him by Emily Stevens.

‘Sorry I connived in that set-up yesterday,’ Davies apologised as they sat down with a beer each. ‘Has she explained the operation to you?’

‘No, she said that she’d brief me on the way.’

‘Yes perhaps that’s best,’ he agreed. He took a drink and then asked ‘So what did you think of Emily, then?’

‘I thought she must be a bit off the wall. I would never have taken her for a Jasmine Bond character when we first met her in the bar.’

The embassy man was quiet for a moment and Dan thought that his quip might have come over as a slur on British Intelligence and he was rather surprised by Richard’s reply.

‘Yes, well I’ve checked up on her and notwithstanding any impression she might have made upon you, you have to understand that she’s a ruthless executive operations agent. Anyway I expect, I hope, she’ll make you fully aware of the risks. You’ll have to watch out for yourself, because I’m not sure that she will.’

‘Thanks. I’ll be careful,’ Dan replied, somewhat put out by the implication that a serving officer of the US Marines should take care not to get in above his head with a woman, whatever her qualifications.

They set off the following day just before dawn. Emily was driving a four wheel drive Toyota with their personal luggage; a tool box that she described as containing ‘useful stuff’; a set of heavy duty wire cutters; personal weapons and a five foot long metal case containing a British Starstreak surface to air missile. These last items were the reason they were driving away from the city of Muscat towards the mountains inland instead of using the border crossing point on the coast road.

‘There’s a dhow named Tarrada which flies the Pakistani flag coming into Fujairah,’ said Emily, which you may or may not know is one of the United Arab Emirates but it’s located just to the north of Oman on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula.’

‘Yeah I know about it in general terms, but I’ve not been there,’ Dan replied. ‘No oil, so it’s not awash with money.’

‘That’s right, but really nice people. Anyway ships putting in there come under less scrutiny than those that sail into the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. Tarrada has come from the port of Gwadar, in Pakistan close to the border with Iran and it’s picked up a cargo of twenty-five Stinger hand-held surface-to-air missiles.’

‘Where the hell have they come from?’ he asked.

‘One of your country’s less fortunate foreign policy decisions. They were supplied to the Afghan Mujahidin in about 1986. They’ve remained in the mountainside arms cache of a former Mujahidin leader for the last seventeen years so I imagine they fell into a sad state of repair. A Pakistani arms merchant traded them for some serviceable AK47s and shipped them across the border and on to Gwadar. That’s where an ex-army weapons expert has established a clandestine arms repair facility, using parts stolen from your storage facilities on Mazirah Island.’

‘Godammit, those Stingers are still a lethal piece of hardware! Who’s stealing those parts?’

‘That’s what I hope we’ll find out. We want to close down that source and also get hold of the arms trader who set up the deal and find out where he intends to send on the missiles, so we want him alive.’

‘Do we know who he is then?’

‘He’s Barry Mulholland, formerly of the IRA but now in private business. He’s travelling under the name of Francois Duroc, Belgian passport of course.’

‘Why of course?’

‘Oh, several thousand blank Belgian passports were stolen a few years back, and they’re a pain in our collective arse. Mulholland’s been using one to travel on business, but a few weeks back he was spotted by an observant off-duty Special Branch officer leaving Heathrow for Dubai. His name wasn’t on the passenger manifest and to cut a long story short it turns out he’s made many clandestine journeys to the Gulf. Also he seems to have a surprisingly high standard of living for a second hand car dealer.

‘So I want to find out who his contacts are and bring him out. He operates from a hotel in Fujairah. A team from the Sultan’s er… police force has been monitoring his activities but they’ll not become involved in his abduction as they’re under strict orders not to operate outside their own territory. This is what I plan to do…’

Emily explained the operation while Dan inspected various photographs and documents that were assembled into a file folder. When he had absorbed all the details Emily asked him to drive while she frowned over a road map which she compared with a satellite photograph of the area. ‘This is it; turn right here,’ she instructed him.

The tarmac road came to an end after another mile and the Toyota lurched over a rough desert track. Hills rose either side until they were in a wadi where the flaking dried mud surface indicated that rain had fallen sometime last winter. After three kilometres they arrived at a heavy metal link border fence woven with barbed wire, in which was set a gate secured by a chain with a heavy padlock. Dan drove up to it and turned off the engine. Emily clambered out the car and inspected the lock. ‘I’ll see if I can pick it. It‘ll be much easier than cutting a car-sized hole in the fence.’

She went to the back of the car and opened the tailgate and pulled out a small toolbox. She selected a slender metal device and inserted it into the keyhole and began to feel about.

The sound of a powerful diesel echoed through the wadi. Dan swung round and about half a kilometre back he saw a plume of mud and dust churned up by a military half-track. ‘Now would be a good time…’ he began, but just then he heard a metallic clattering and thud as the chain fell clear of the gate. He ran up and helped Emily push the gate open and then jumped back into their vehicle and they drove through into Fujairah. Dan glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the border guard truck pull up beside the open gate. ‘They’re not going to follow us are they?’ he asked, ‘under hot pursuit rules, or something.’

Emily looked back through the rear window. She saw one of the soldiers gazing at them through a set of binoculars. A heavy calibre machine gun was mounted on the back of the truck but nobody swivelled it round to aim in their direction. A few seconds later the wadi curved to the right and the border post was lost from view. ‘No, I expect they’re just going to re-secure the gate. They’ll probably report this vehicle plate number to the people this side.’

‘We should probably change vehicles then,’ Dan suggested.

‘No, we’ll just change the plates,’ Emily replied. ‘There’re two sets of Fujairah plates and another set of Omani in the big tool box. Just drive a bit further and then we’ll switch to Fujairah plates. Another two kilometres and we should hit the road.’

They drove towards the city in a silence that Dan found oppressive. ‘So how long have you been doing this job then?’ he asked.

She looked at him for a moment, inscrutable behind mirrored sunglasses. ‘I’ve been on it for three weeks or so,’ she replied.

‘No, I meant how long have you been working for SIS, or MI6, or whoever you call yourselves these days?’

‘I call myself a freelance journalist, or I say I work for the Ministry of Overseas Development, ili ya perevodchik arabskogo yazyka, menya zovut Yekaterina…’

‘Ok! So enough of the personal questions… I get it!’

They drove on for a few more minutes. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow,’ Dan announced.

‘I know.’

‘Oh… so you know all about me then?’

‘Your full name is Daniel Edward Hall, date of birth 11th May 1973, in Lowell near Boston. Your father is an estate agent or realtor I should say, and your mother is a dentist. You went to school in Lowell and then to Carnegie Mellon university where you studied electrical engineering and graduated magna cum laude. After university you lived with your fellow graduate Hayley Denison who left you when you abandoned working for Cavendish Engineering and went to Quantico for officer training in…’

‘Ok! Bloody hell! So you’ve done all this research on me, then, but I don’t know anything about you!’

‘Why would you want to? After this is over, you won’t see me again.’ She resumed her study of the map. Dan stared forward over the steering wheel, wondering why he felt slightly distressed by the conviction in her statement.

‘Sorry, I had no business mentioning Hayley,’ she said after a while, ‘it was totally unnecessary.’

‘No, perhaps you shouldn’t,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

‘You could ask me what music I like, who my favourite author is,’ she suggested.

‘What’s this? Opening gambits at the freshmen’s ball?’ he asked. She shrugged in reply and pouted slightly giving him an incongruous, fleeting impression of a sulky teenager.

‘Ok, I like Sibelius and Mozart, and Pink Floyd and REM,’ he said.

‘I love Sibelius,’ she agreed with enthusiasm, ‘but not Mozart much. I prefer Beethoven. Some opera…’

‘I hate opera! All that over the top singing,’

‘I suppose you prefer Country and Western, Dolly Parton or Shania Twain, then.’

‘Well as you mention them…’

After driving for another half an hour they pulled into the car park of the Hilton hotel. ‘Good morning. I’m Emily Stevens and this is Daniel Hall,’ Emily announced to the receptionist. ‘We have rooms booked for three nights.’

The receptionist greeted them in return and then he consulted his computer. ‘Yes I can confirm the reservation, but we have a checkin time of 3pm. Wait a minute please.’ He tapped at the keypad. ‘I can let you have your rooms at about twelve thirty. Until then you are welcome to use our swimming pool and beach club. And by the time you have eaten lunch your rooms will be available.’

‘That’s fine,’ Emily replied after a moment’s consideration, ‘which way is it to the beach club?’

Dan watched Emily swimming up and down the pool. It appeared to be a favourite form of exercise because she swam length after length of fast freestyle without any apparent effort. After about an hour she emerged dripping water and wrung out her hair, the muscles over her diaphragm pumping in and out, but by the time she had walked over to him her breathing seemed pretty much restored to normal. Through his mirrored sunglasses he stared surreptitiously at her body clad in a bright blue bikini.

‘I need some shade,’ she announced pulling over an umbrella, ‘I’m not oak-tanned like you. Shall we order lunch now?’

They spent a few minutes perusing the menu and then ordered.

‘I’m just going to have a quick shower and get dressed,’ Emily announced. She returned fifteen minutes later just as the waiter appeared with their meals, and instead of her paramilitary garb she was wearing a light summer dress.

‘Wow, you look like a real girl!’ Dan declared, taking what he thought was a bit of a risk. To his relief she grinned at him and handed him a plastic key card. ‘I’ve checked us in; you’re in 723 and I’m in 708,’ she said, ‘here’s your key.’

During lunch they carried on their conversation and Emily revealed a few details of her life before university. Despite her reticence he enjoyed talking to her and found she had an enchanting laugh that contrasted with her more usual solemn expression. When they had finished eating she looked at her watch. ‘I have to call home now. I’ll see you back here in a few minutes; don’t go away.’

She returned to her room and pulled out an encrypted satellite phone and called her case officer in London. ‘It’s Tate. Do you have the location for me?’ she asked.

‘You’re twenty minutes late!’ he snapped. ‘Your GPS signal shows you’re at the hotel, so I suppose you’ve been lounging by the pool. The goldfish should be in the bowl at about 19:00 local time.’

‘Ok that makes sense as sunset is at 18:30. I expect the red setter plans to go on board this evening. Have you found his room number?

‘He’s booked a suite on the eleventh floor in your hotel under his Belgian name. Nothing further to add. Take care.’

‘Ok thanks, sorry about the lateness.’

Gerry signed off and resumed her seat beside the swimming pool. ‘Mulholland has a suite on the eleventh floor,’ she announced, picking up her beer. ‘The dhow is due in port at 19:00. I expect he will wait for it to send a message and then he’ll go on board.’

‘How do you know that?’ Dan asked.

‘Your Navy has two aircraft carriers in the area, and they’re keeping an eye on it for us. We’ll stick to plan A, and visit him this evening before he gets his phone call. What will you do until then?’

Dan could think of something they might do together but knew that he would never dare suggest it. Instead he said ‘Do you like sailing? We could take out one of those Hobie Cats over there.’

‘I’m not staying out in this sun, I’d get burnt.’ She looked down at her arms. ‘I’ve got a bit red just swimming. I’m going to take my stuff to my room and then I think I’ll check my e-mails, keep an eye on things. Can you be in your room from say, six o’clock? I’ll be in touch by six-thirty at the latest.’

‘Ok, I’ll be there,’ said Dan. ‘There’s a good breeze, so I think maybe I’ll go windsurfing for a while.’

At 6.15pm Dan heard a knock on his door. He peered through the spy hole and saw a woman dressed head to toe in black abaya and niqab. She was looking back along the corridor so he could not see her face. He opened the door and she turned to face him but the only part of her face visible was dark skin and brown eyes from the bridge of her nose to just above her eyebrows.

‘Er… good evening,’ he said in his best Arabic.

The woman replied in a stream of Arabic that he could not follow but he thought she sounded angry. He used two more of his collection of Arabic phrases. ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand,’ he apologised, ‘can you speak any English?’ The woman had apparently been crouching slightly under the cover of her abaya and now she suddenly straightened up to her full height.

‘I said are you going to let me in or will I have to stand in the corridor all evening, you brainless son of an ass shagged by a camel.’

‘Oh hell it’s you! Very funny!’ he said and stood aside to allow Emily into his room. She sat down and took the abaya off her head and then unfastened the niqab. Her face was its usual colour apart from a broad strip surrounding her eyes which she had darkened with make-up.

‘I’ve been in the lobby coffee shop for the last few hours, from where you I could watch the main entrance. I saw Mulholland come into the hotel about twenty-five minutes ago with two people who are obviously minders, and one other who I’m not sure about. Are you ready to make a move on them?’

‘I’m ready. I’ve been pacing my room for the last hour.’

‘Good. Can I just borrow your loo? I’ve been sitting in that cafe drinking coffee and diet coke and I’m bursting for a pee.’

‘Be my guest,’ Dan replied, feeling slightly guilty that Emily had been maintaining a vigil whilst he had been relaxing on the beach.

‘Right,’ she said emerging a minute later pulling her abaya back into place over her jeans, ‘I expect one or two of the large gentlemen will be stationed outside the room. My plan is that I will walk past them first and then as you walk towards them their attention will be on you. Then we’ll deal with them as planned.’ She repositioned her veil and head covering. ‘Are you ready?’

As the elevator stopped on the eleventh floor Dan held it with a fire-fighter’s override key that Emily had procured. There was one guard outside the room and he watched her walk towards him with her head bowed down modestly and staring towards the floor. He then marched purposefully towards the doorman whom he saw eyeing him suspiciously. The man reached inside his jacket. He did not notice Emily stop and pull her abaya aside and take a Taser out of her belt. There was a snapping sound and a rapid clicking from the weapon and then Dan watched the man tremble violently for a moment and then fall to the ground. He reached inside the guard’s jacket and fumbled around until he found his gun; he stashed it inside his bag and pulled out his own silenced automatic which he shoved against the man’s stomach. Emily pulled the Taser darts out of his neck and gave him some rapid orders.

‘Now you stand very close to the door so you block the view through the spy hole and then when my friend knocks on the door you say you need to come in to use the bathroom. You will keep your hands behind your back. Don’t make any mistake or my friend will blow your balls off.’ She prodded him in the groin with her own automatic to emphasise the threat. Under stress he had changed from a dangerous looking heavy into a somewhat bemused, overweight, middle-aged man. He did as instructed.

Emily pulled off her Arab garb and stood one side of the door with a Taser at the ready and Dan stood on the other side. He knocked on the door. They waited for about ten seconds and then the door opened.

‘What is it?’ a voice asked from inside. Dan thrust the door wide open and Emily Tasered the man inside and he collapsed.

‘Ok, go in,’ she ordered the first guard and gave him a push. Emily sheltered behind him as he shuffled forward reluctantly and on the far side of the room she saw a third man aiming a gun towards them.

‘Drop it! Emily ordered.

The man fired a shot that whistled past the ear of the guard and narrowly missed her. She reached around her hostage and shot the man in the thigh sending a spurt of blood onto the carpet. Her victim dropped his weapon and fell to the ground screaming.

‘Shut up!’ she called, pointing her gun towards him. He stopped screaming and shuddered and moaned quietly. Dan ran forward, picked up the gun and checked the bedroom and bathroom.

‘There’s nobody else here; where’s Mulholland?

The guard who had opened the door began to push himself to his feet and Emily placed the Taser against his neck. He began to curse her in a stream of Arabic invective.

‘Be quiet or I’ll blow your head off,’ she ordered, pointing her gun at his face. The man lay still taking short panting breaths. ‘Ok Smith lets bind them up. You’d better wrap a towel around his leg.’

Dan pulled out his bundle of cable ties and secured their prisoners at the wrists and the knees and ankles. The man with the bullet wound shuddered in pain as he pushed his knees together. Emily glared at them with her gun at the ready.

‘Well it seems Mulholland’s not here, so where is he?’ At first none of them seemed willing to answer, but she pressed the muzzle of her silencer against the temple of the most nervous looking one and repeated the question in Arabic.

‘Mr Mulholland is gone. His meeting is cancelled! We three just work for the hotel.’

‘Bullshit! What did he tell you to do?’

‘He told us enemy agents were coming after him. We were to wait in his room and…and hold them.’

‘Yeah right! Well we’ve got the bastard!’ she said. Dan was somewhat nonplussed by Emily’s statement.

‘Got him how?’ asked Dan. ‘Where is he?’

‘Sorry, not Mulholland,’ she replied, ‘the bastard in Muscat who’s been helping him out!’

‘What do you mean?’ Dan demanded.

‘We knew it was one of two possible people who could have been working with Mulholland. Thirty minutes ago Richard Davies informed someone named Dewhurst that agents were in Fujairah and Dewhurst’s the only one who might have warned Mulholland that we were coming after him today.’ She pulled out her phone and pressed a speed dial number. ‘Hi Richard… it’s Emily. Put Dewhurst under wraps… Yeah.’ She glanced at Dan. ‘Yes he’s here with me.’

‘Do you mean Stephen Dewhurst the British army guy?’ Dan asked.

‘Yes. He’s been ripping off the Sultan and selling military spare parts on to Mulholland, and now he’s going to be arrested. A local trial I expect. It might be a little uncomfortable for him in an Omani prison but maybe he’ll get lucky and serve his sentence back in the UK.’

Dan stared at her, trying to sort out all this information. ‘What about Mulholland?’ he asked.

‘We’ve got all the ports and airports in the UAE and Oman covered, and I doubt he’ll get away. Besides which Dewhurst should give us enough evidence to seize all his assets and wipe out his operation.’

‘A result then,’ said Dan.

‘Yup. This lot will give us some leads to the Pakistani side as well, if they want to trade time in jail for information.’

‘So what do we do with these three now?’

‘I’ll call the local police; they can arrest them for drug dealing, or something.’ She pulled a packet of white powder wrapped in plastic out of her handbag and dropped it on the floor.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, although he had already guessed.

‘Cocaine. Just enough to make a case.’

He remembered how Richard Davies had described her as completely ruthless. ‘Rough justice,’ he ventured.

‘Huh! I only used a Taser until that bastard tried to shoot me. He’s lucky to be alive.’ She called out sharply in Arabic and Dan saw them stiffen. ‘As you can tell they’re not looking forward to being taken in for questioning.’

‘Are we done here then?’ Dan asked.

‘Actually I’ve been invited on a Fujairah customs raid,’ she replied. ‘You could come along too if you like. We’re going to visit the Tarrada and see if we can find ourselves some missiles.’

Four hours later Dan and Emily were sitting in the bar. ‘Well we recovered two dozen Stingers from the boat,’ he said, ‘so that seems to have been a successful operation.

‘Yes… yes it does, though we still haven’t picked up Mulholland yet.’ She picked up her drink and took another swig at it and then stared moodily at the empty glass as if it held some secret in the dregs. Dan had been looking for an opportunity to invite her out to dinner, but this evening didn’t seem to be a good time; he decided he would wait until they got back to Muscat. Instead he said ‘Oh I‘ve been meaning to ask… who was the other guy under suspicion for helping Mulholland? Anyone I might know?’ Emily peered at him over her glass and then put it down slowly and looked him in the eye.

‘Actually it was you, Dan.’

‘What?’ he growled.

‘Well it’s as I said when we first met. You have financial problems, only of course they’re not gambling debts. Your sister was cheated by her worthless ex-husband so you helped out her and her kids; your parents’ money is all going in medical expenses and then you were screwed by that investment company and you’ve been left with debts of twenty seven thousand dollars not including the mortgage on your apartment.’

Dan stared at her for a few seconds. ‘You bitch!’ he murmured, ‘so you’ve spent the last two days waiting to arrest me, or worse!’

‘Before I met you I spoke to Dewhurst and he struck me as being very guarded and evasive. You, on the other hand, seemed perfectly natural and open. I was immediately convinced it wasn’t you, and when I outlined the operation to you as we drove to the border my impression was confirmed.’

‘Is that meant to make me feel better?’ he demanded

‘Well I hoped it would,’ Emily replied with a half-smile. Dan stared at her for a moment trying to control his temper.

‘I think I’ll make my own way back to Muscat, thank you.’

‘I’m sorry Dan, I didn’t mean…’

‘Why don’t you just fuck off and file your report,’ he muttered, staring down at the table. Emily hesitated for only a moment before silently climbing to her feet. Dan watched the sway of her hips as she walked out of sight and berated himself for still feeling attracted to her. He ordered another beer and reluctantly thought over his financial situation which she had summed up fairly accurately. He had been brooding over it for several minutes when a hotel receptionist hurried into the bar and up to his table.

‘Mr Dan Hall? Your friend Emily called down for us to find you. She’s asking for you to come to her room. She said…it sounded like man down, and the she said I need help; emergency!’

Dan stared at him for a couple of seconds and then leapt to his feet. ‘Have you got a pass key?’ he demanded.

‘Yes sir, I can get one.’

‘Bloody well hurry up then.’

He made the man run to reception, snatched the key off him and then ran to the elevators. ‘Come on, come on!’ Dan fumed while the doors opened, closed and the lift rose slowly up. He ran down the corridor to her room, swiped the key card and pushed open the door. The man slumped on the floor he recognised from the briefing photos as Barry Mulholland. His head was skewed round at an angle that could only mean his neck was broken and close to his feet a bloody knife lay on the carpet. He heard Emily’s laboured breathing and walked into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling holding a bloodstained towel to her abdomen. She turned towards him and closed her eyes with relief and then opened them again.

‘Please… I need… help,’ she gasped. These few words seem to cause her a fresh paroxysm because she groaned and Dan saw the sweat break out on her pale face.

Dan paced up and down the hospital waiting room for an hour and a half until a short, competent figure in green theatre overalls came in and offered his hand.

‘I am Suleiman Fawzan, trauma surgeon,’ he declared with a smile that Dan hoped was encouraging. ‘Miss Stevens is no longer in danger, although she has lost some blood. We have had to stitch up her intestine and her abdominal muscles. In view of her pregnancy, and the risk of peritonitis or other infection resulting from the wound, we wish to keep her in hospital for a few days. The knife blade was not close to her uterus and despite the drop in blood pressure it is most unlikely that her baby suffered any ill effects at all, not at her early stage of pregnancy.’ Dan stared open mouthed at the surgeon, relief at knowing she would be alright tinged with a sudden unreasonable regret that she was clearly attached to some man although she had given no hint of there being anyone in her life.

‘Thank you ever so much,’ he managed to say. He held out his hand and the surgeon shook it with a smile.

‘It is clearly a surprise to you,’ he said. ‘Very early stages of course but we picked it up on the scan; as a matter of routine we check for pregnancy in cases of abdominal trauma. She’s being taken to intensive care ward two. Just give them ten minutes and then you can go in and see her,’ he said. ‘Oh I must warn you that the police are here as well, but I have told them that she is in no fit state to be interviewed at the moment, but of course they’ll want to speak to you.’

Dan followed the signs to IC Ward 2 where a nurse led him to Emily who was propped up in bed. She looked pale and had a drip inserted but she managed a smile as he walked in.

‘You’re looking good Emily,’ he said. ‘You gave me a hell of a fright.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have taken more care going into my room.’

‘That could have been my fault,’ he conceded, ‘I’d just told you to… well you were only doing your job I guess.’

‘I know, but it wasn’t very nice for you finding out that I’d been delving into your private affairs,’ she admitted.

‘Well ok… never mind. Anyway the surgeon tells me you’ll be fine and there’s no danger to your baby.’ Her smile evaporated and she frowned.

‘My what?’

‘Your baby… the surgeon explained you were pregnant but the knife missed…’ He stopped when he realised that she was staring at him aghast.

‘I’m what? How the hell? I can’t be!’ she gazed up at the ceiling in slack-jawed confusion.

‘Sorry I thought you’d know; I didn’t think it would come as such a shock,’ he said. She looked at him for a moment and then stared up at the ceiling breathing hard.

The next day Richard Davies called on him in his hotel and said that he had cleared it with the local authorities for Dan to return to Oman. He went to the hospital to say goodbye. She was quiet and unsmiling but thanked him again for his assistance and they wished each other well. ‘How long will you have to stay here?’ he asked.

‘Probably three days in the ICW, then perhaps another two weeks in hospital before the stitches come out. I won’t be fit to travel for a while after that.’

‘I’ll come and visit you in about a week if that’s alright,’ he suggested.

She managed a small smile. ‘Ok that would be nice. I expect I’ll have Richard Davies coming over here demanding a report.’

‘He’s over here already. I’ve just come from him.’

‘Oh… ok.’ She hesitated, looking uncomfortable. ‘Look I don’t know how to bring this up nicely, but I put a call tracker on your hotel room phone when I checked us in. Could you remove it from underneath; you’ll need a small crosshead screwdriver, and also that mobile phone I gave you; it’s best you hand that to Richard as well’ She looked apologetic but Dan glared at her.

‘I suppose those devices reported any calls I made.’

She gave a small nod.

Six days later Dan drove from Muscat back to Fujairah and walked into the hospital reception. On enquiring into the whereabouts of Emily Stevens he was told that she had been transferred to a private nursing home and that the hospital was not authorised to reveal its location. He drove back to Muscat in sombre mood and called on Richard Davies.

‘Sorry Dan. I can tell you she’s safe and well, but I can’t give you any contact information.’ Davies watched him walk dejectedly back to his car. He shook his head and made a telephone call to a friend in the United States Embassy. Two days later Dan Hall received an airline ticket to Kuwait along with orders to proceed onward to Baghdad where elements of the US Marine Corps were stationed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Gerry yawned and gazed dully at the message from Richard Cornwall that had appeared in a red rectangle on the computer screen in front of her asking if she could come and see him immediately. Rather than jumping to her feet she took off her headphones, slumped back in her chair and placed her hand where her body was just beginning to swell. She took out her picture of Philip, stared at it for a moment and then tucked it back into her desk drawer while she recalled the occasion two weeks ago when she had last received such a message from her boss…

It was a week after her return to work after her convalescence. She had been wondering if she should send Phil an e-mail to reveal that she was pregnant or wait until he got home. In general potentially distracting news should definitely not be sent to agents in the field, but then Phil was not really exposed in the front line. Her reverie had ended abruptly when her computer bleeped and she saw that she had a summons from Cornwall. She checked the time: 11:37am. She was sure she was not due to meet him until the afternoon. Damn! She quickly checked her appointments and then picked up the phone and called him. ‘Hello sir,’ she said cheerfully, ‘I’m coming in to see you this afternoon, 2pm.’

‘Good, I was just checking you’re ok Gerry. You’re due to report on the Fujairah business. Perhaps if you’re not doing anything you can’t leave, maybe you could come and see me now if that’s alright?’

‘Yes of course. On my way.’

‘Ok thank you Gerry, I’ll see you in a minute. Thank you very much.’

She had gazed down at the handset for a moment before replacing it. What an extraordinary call. Although the principle aims of the operation in Fujairah had been met, Barry Mulholland had been expected to reveal a great deal of useful information and his death had been most unfortunate. Now that she had finally returned to the London office she was fully expecting a rebuke for the shambles. She didn’t expect solicitous phone calls enquiring after her health and if it was convenient if she could receive it.

She pressed the entry button to Richard Cornwall’s office and to her surprise he came to the door and opened it for her and then ushered her towards a chair. ‘Please sit down, Gerry,’ he had said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. All the stitches have been taken out; I had an MRI scan three days ago and internally everything has healed up.’

He gazed at her in a considerate way. ‘And your pregnancy? That’s progressing ok?’

‘Yes thank you. I had an ultrasound this morning.’ She could see two reports on his desk. Presumably one was her medical report and the other was her report on the operation. Maybe he was going to be less critical because the medical report had revealed that she was pregnant; she couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or irritated.

‘I’ve read your Fujairah report. It seems you had no choice but to kill Mulholland. However you should never have got into that situation. It was a basic error assuming your hotel room was safe.’

She remembered opening the door to her room and finding Mulholland confronting her armed with a gun. She had kicked the gun out of his hand and jabbed him under the ribs and then swung him round and tightened her arm round his neck, not realising he had managed to draw a knife. Because he was facing away from her he had not been able to use his full strength to stab her. She had felt sharp pain and seen the knife in his hand as he raised it to stab her again. Before he could do that she had tripped him over, the sudden movement making her cry out in pain and then she had knelt on his back grasped him around the jaw and the crown of his head…

‘You’ll be pleased to know that ex-Major Dewhurst has been singing like the proverbial canary though,’ Cornwall declared, breaking into her train of thought.

‘Well that’s good news, then sir,’ she replied. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that Mulholland’s singing days were over.

Cornwall said nothing for a moment. He shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable. Gerry frowned. On previous occasions he had reprimanded her he had not behaved like this.

‘I have something else to talk to you about.’ He slid a red bordered urgent operational message form out from under her report but then he hid it away again without looking at it. ‘I’m afraid we have had a report from our North African centre. I regret to say that Philip, Philip Barrett has been killed on duty out there. It was road traffic accident. I’m most terribly sorry to have to tell you this Gerry…’

Following the devastating news of Philip’s death, she had considered having an abortion, but for reasons she could not resolve, possibly some kind of loyalty to Philip, she had rejected the idea. She had thought about talking it over with a friend, but then realised that there was nobody to whom she felt sufficiently close. And with Philip gone, she suspected that the real reason she had decided to keep her baby was that she felt utterly alone. Yesterday she had undergone another scan and the doctor had inspected the scar and the organs beneath and told her that all was well. This had comforted her to some extent, but there was no other joy in her life.

Now, two weeks later, she spent a few more moments with her preoccupations before heaving herself out of her chair and walking slowly towards the elevator. Outside Cornwall’s office she pressed his call button and was rather surprised that once again he walked across his office and opened the door for her rather than just sending an enter signal.

‘Gerry. Do come in. You’re looking well. Please sit down.’ He ushered her over to the mini conference area rather than the more formal chair opposite his desk. ‘Coffee? Or a soft drink?’ he offered.

She gazed at him for a moment. ‘I’m off caffeine. Do you have any mango juice, or ice cream?’

Richard Cornwall stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was joking, but there was something in her expression that dissuaded him from taking her request lightly. ‘I don’t think so… er… I think there’s some orange juice.’

‘Just some water then please,’ she said.

‘Right!’ He buzzed his personal assistant. ‘Helen, could you bring in some water please?’

‘Sparkling if you have it,’ Gerry interposed.

‘Sparkling water, Helen; Perrier or something. Thanks.’ He handed Gerry a version of the e-mail he had received, now edited down to essentials. ‘Here, read this,’ he said. ‘Fielding has just sent it over.’

The memo outlined how an Iraqi national, Rashid Hamsin had moved back to Southampton following a period in Iraq during the invasion. It reminded Cornwall that this was the same man with whose apprehension his department had assisted the CIA back in February of this year. Hamsin had been of some assistance to the CIA in a minor project and now they had further need of his services. Anticipating Rashid Hamsin’s reluctance to render any further assistance, perhaps he could arrange for an interview to take place.

Cornwall studied Gerry carefully as she read through it. Despite his assurance that she was looking well, he thought that she looked even more drawn, weary and thinner about the face. Definitely not a good thing that a pregnant woman should be losing weight, he thought. It was hard to believe that this was the same person who had cleaned up the Cyprus arms dealers in 1999, bombed the Al Qaeda cell in Ras Al Khaimah in 2000, shot two kidnappers in Lebanon back in 2001 and cut the throat of that drug dealer in a seamy suburb of Berlin last year. Then there was the recent incident with Mulholland the arms dealer a few weeks ago. Self-defence that time, of course. Now she was pregnant and bereaved and he found himself considering her a vulnerable woman rather than bolshie, insubordinate and lethal. He must be an idiot, he decided.

Gerry finished reading and placed the memo on the table. ‘Yes I remember that. It was a routine operation. It all went according to plan. Who are you going to send this time?’ she asked.

After receiving the message from Fielding Cornwall had summoned up the report describing Rashid Hamsin’s apprehension back in February. It was with a certain misgiving that he remembered that the case officer was Geraldine Tate, and it was with some reluctance that he had decided to involve her once again. ‘I was hoping that you could do it for us.’

Cornwall saw the immediate quickening of interest; she was sitting up straighter and looking more animated even as she said ‘But I’m off operations. You told me I’m only meant to do office work until I return from maternity leave. Anyway it should be done by MI5 if it’s back here.’

‘Yes I understand that of course. But you know the fellow; you speak his language and I’m sure it won’t be hazardous. It would save me briefing anyone else… but if you’re not happy doing it, I will of course find someone.’

‘No… I’ll do it. It’ll do me good to have something more active,’ she declared. ‘I’m a bit bored with just doing translations and case reviews.’

‘Good. Well let’s take it straight through to the planning stage now. I’ll get our American friend Neil Samms to come over here; apparently there’s no time to be lost.’

Following her meeting she drove straight down to Rashid Hamsin’s flat in Southampton. He was scheduled to be in a tutorial so she had an hour to check inside his home for any hazards that might prevent the smooth running of the operation. Apart from a Chubb lock and a Yale lock on the front door and some bars on the rear windows next to a somewhat rickety looking fire escape there were no security features. She managed to open the locks with her special keys and walk inside.

The apartment had changed little since her visit three months previously. The sofa where she had sat before was covered by Arabic language newspapers with articles fiercely critical of the invasion of Iraq prominent on the front pages, but also there were a couple of classic novels with copious notes written on an A4 pad suggesting that Rashid was keeping up with his studies. Omar’s room was tidy and apparently unoccupied and the Home Office immigration computer had reported that ten days ago he had departed the United Kingdom, destination Cairo. Another change was a smell of cigarette smoke that pervaded the flat. An empty pack of cigarettes lay beside an ashtray which held a few butts in it and she automatically memorised the brand that Rashid had started smoking. Next she attempted to switch on his computer but had no luck guessing the password. Instead she unclipped the case, took out the hard drive, duplicated it and then returned the drive to its location. She installed a miniature CCTV camera in a convenient wall-mounted light fitting so that it commanded a view of the sitting room and then left the building and got back into her car. The plan she had agreed with Samms was that they would return in the evening and abduct him under the cover of darkness. She was about to start the engine when she saw him walking along the road towards her.

She watched Rashid fumble in his pocket for his keys, unlock the door and disappear inside. She started the engine and was about to drive off but then for some undefinable reason she changed her mind.

She climbed out of the car, opened the front door and walked up the stairs to the first floor landing and knocked on the door of Rashid’s flat. A few seconds later he opened the door. He did not recognise her at first but then she watched his expression change from curiosity through recognition and then to anger.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ he asked.

‘Can I come in and talk to you?’

‘Why the hell would I let you in? Are you going to try and kidnap me again?’

‘No I’m not. I just need to talk to you.’

‘What have you got this time, Sandra? A hypodermic? A knife? A gun?’

‘Of course not,’ Gerry replied, ‘I’m not some thug.’ Actually she had a gun and a Taser concealed in her bag, but she doubted that she would need them. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked again.

He did not reply but backed away and let her walk past before closing the front door. She sat down on one of the upright chairs beside the table and arched her back and massaged herself briefly.

‘Do you know what happened to me last time I met you?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve no idea. I’m not supposed to ask unnecessary questions. I know you were in Baghdad for a while.’

‘Yes there was this creepy old American guy who said that I’d better do what I was told or my family would suffer. Rather ironic as now my father’s missing and my mother’s alone in Baghdad and beside herself with worry. Do you know what’s happened to him?’

Gerry shook her head. ‘I’m sorry; I can’t help you. Perhaps the people who want to meet you will have some information.’

‘Do you know why they wanted me to go to Iraq back in February?’

‘No idea,’ Gerry replied. ‘It wasn’t part of my brief.’

‘Do you know why they invaded my country, then?’ he asked.

‘To get rid of Saddam Hussein,’ she replied, ‘to stop his threat to Middle East peace, or world peace even.’ The words rang hollow in her ears.

‘And of course because he had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. You’re obviously in the English secret police. Did you people ever believe that?’ Rashid asked.

‘Probably not. It was a flimsy pretext at best, cooked up by our politicians, or for our politicians.’

‘The real reason was that the Americans want our oil,’ Rashid declared.

‘Is that right? What’s your theory?’ Gerry asked.

‘Oh it’s obvious. Sources of supply are drying up. Demand is increasing from China, India and the other developing nations, and my country can make up the shortfall, if only the infrastructure can be installed.’

‘So you’re an expert on the geopolitics of oil are you? I thought you were a language student,’ Gerry replied.

‘Well when you’ve learned what I’ve learned, you discover new interests.’

‘Oh yes? So tell me what you’ve learned,’ said Gerry.

‘There’s no way I can trust you. My father, my whole family could be killed if anyone thought we knew.’

‘Knew what?’ Gerry asked her interest suddenly aroused.

‘Last time I went back to Iraq. This American guy Colonel Jasper White made me carry a document for Hakim Mansour of the old regime. Something called Gilgamesh. My father translated it into Arabic, and I read both the Arabic and English versions at our home in Baghdad.’ Rashid stared at her for a moment. ‘Are you pregnant?’ he asked. She saw him glance at her left hand, lacking a wedding ring.

‘Yes I am. Does it show?’

‘Not much, but I remember my cousin doing that back stretching and rubbing thing whenever she sat down.’ He gave a little demonstration.

‘Oh, right,’ said Gerry. ‘Look can I borrow your loo please… it’s being pregnant. You need to go all the time.’

He said nothing but waved in the general direction of the bathroom. She stood up with some effort and went in. After using the loo she stared at herself in the mirror and wondered if she was really going to carry out the idea that had been going through her mind ever since she had seen Rashid. It was ridiculous. She was a loyal agent. Just because Philip had been killed didn’t mean that she should abandon her core beliefs. But… She went back into the sitting room.

‘How did you get out of Iraq?’ she asked.

‘My father had somehow obtained Lebanese passports for us, and my parents had a little money put by for emergencies. I managed to get across the border, but my mother insisted on staying in Baghdad. She wouldn’t leave without knowing where my father was.’ He gave Gerry an accusing stare. ‘Do you know what’s happened to him?’

‘I’m very sorry, I’ve no idea, but listen Rashid, I was sent here to abduct you again.’

‘You fucking bitch!’

‘Oh shut up and listen to me. First of all have you got any money?’

‘I have a little with me, but mostly in the bank.’

‘Ok. You need to go to the cash machine and get out all you can. Then you need to take the train to Holyhead and then go by ferry to Dublin. Officially you don’t need a passport if you are a British citizen, but you might have to show some form of ID to get in.’

‘I’m not British and I don’t have a British passport.’

‘Yeah I know that, but have you got a driving license? A UK one I mean.’

‘Yes I have actually.’

‘That will get you into the Republic of Ireland. Then you must use your own passport to go home.’

He stared at her for a moment and then realised the implications. ‘How long have I got?’

‘If you’re lucky they won’t put out a ports and airports on you until tomorrow evening; however they might have done so already, but this is your best, your only chance.’

‘Why are you doing this for me?’

She gave him a sad smile. ‘I’m really not sure. I think I’m just rebelling because someone who I was close to has just died on duty, and I think the bastards are lying to me about it. Maybe because a creep called Neil Samms is involved. Now get the hell out of here.’

Later that same evening, a month before the summer solstice, it was barely dark as Gerry waited in the van outside Rashid Hamsin’s apartment. Neil Samms shifted in his seat and began to hum tunelessly. Since the previous occasion, he had added a drooping moustache to his pony tail which Gerry thought did little to improve his appearance. She had taken an instant dislike to him when they had last met and she liked him no better now.

‘So a pregnant broad, huh?’ he had said with his gold toothed grin when they had met to discuss the operation. ‘Mind if I get Mike to tag along too?’ Gerry knew that in her loose fitting coat her condition would be hidden from a casual observer and she wondered who the hell had told Samms and she had struggled to hide her irritation.

Mike turned out to be a twenty stone giant who now occupied the driver’s seat of the van reading the latest edition of Playboy magazine, every so often turning the pages sideways to gain a better appreciation of the delights on view. The three of them waited in silence for Rashid Hamsin to come home. Samms passed the time by listening to music on his I Pod while Gerry mourned Philip and considered her future whilst gazing at the monitoring screens fed by the discrete roof mounted cameras.

‘Where the hell is he?’ Samms complained.

‘Maybe he’s at a party,’ said Gerry, ‘he might not be home until late.’ She wondered how far Rashid would have travelled by now. ‘We’ll just have to wait. Try and be patient Neil.’

Shortly after midnight Samms groaned. ‘I don’t think he’s coming back here. Maybe he’s shacked up somewhere else. Maybe he’s too pissed to come home.’

‘He doesn’t drink,’ said Gerry, ‘let’s give him a bit longer.’

‘Well ok.’

An hour and a half later Gerry called Cornwall and admitted that they had not found Hamsin.

‘Where the hell is he, then?’ he demanded.

‘I’ve no idea; we’ve just had a look round his flat; there are clothes strewn about on his bed and the place looks empty. No suitcases anywhere. I think we should keep the place under observation in case he turns up, but I rather suspect he’s left the country.’

‘Without leaving any trace? I rather doubt that, but maybe he’s holed up somewhere, staying with friends perhaps. Anyway, why the hell should he suddenly disappear?’

‘Perhaps it’s something got to do with the fact that he’s already been abducted once and we’ve invaded his country,’ Gerry had been on the point of suggesting. Instead she said ‘Maybe he left some time ago. I’ve copied the hard drive from the desk top computer here. I could bring that in tomorrow morning and maybe we’ll learn something from it.’

Having slept for only five hours, Gerry was yawning as she checked through security and took the elevator up to her floor. As she approached her desk a colleague she knew vaguely named Vincent Parker came up to her.

‘Miss Tate? Jarvis would like to see you in his office, straightaway.’

Gerry gazed at him. ‘What… Jarvis? Not Richard Cornwall!’

She was somewhat nonplussed. She wondered why Don Jarvis, Director of Operations, Richard Cornwall’s immediate superior, wanted to see her and why had he not merely left a note in her electronic ‘in’ tray for her to pick up when she signed in. She was more surprised when Parker followed her along the corridor. ‘I do know the way, actually,’ she said with some asperity.

‘Yeah I get that, but Jarvis told me to come with you,’ he insisted. Rather than expressing further curiosity Gerry nodded briefly as if she found this a satisfactory explanation.

Another surprise awaited her when she entered the office and found that Sir Hugh Fielding himself was sitting in a chair to one side of the desk. He carried on reading through a brief and did not bother to acknowledge her entrance, but Jarvis stood up and greeted her.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Tate. Please sit down.’ This time the chair in front of the desk was indicated. Gerry sat on it, aware that Parker had sat down behind her at the conference table.

‘Please could you give a verbal report about what happened yesterday?’ Jarvis requested. Sir Hugh stared at her over his reading glasses then closed the report and slapped it down on the desk; Gerry realised it was her operational briefing. Gerry paused for a moment while she marshalled her thoughts.

‘The operation proceeded according to plan, except that Rashid Hamsin turned out not to be there.’ She recounted a heavily censored version of the day’s events up until the time that she had called Cornwall. ‘I left the Americans on watch and then I went home. I’ve slept for five hours or so and now here I am. Oh and here’s the copy of Hamsin’s hard drive.’ She reached forward and dropped it defiantly on the desk and sat back in her chair.

In the silence that followed she saw Donald Jarvis look at Sir Hugh Fielding who shifted slightly and seemed minded to say something. Before either man could speak she continued ‘Shall I get on with filing my report now?’

Jarvis and Sir Hugh exchanged glances.

‘Don and I have discussed the matter of your maternity leave and we have decided it is effective immediately.’

Gerry stared at them both for a moment. ‘But I’m not meant to be on maternity leave for weeks.’

‘Nevertheless, in view of your recent physical injury, we have decided that it is fair to grant you extra leave.’

Gerry looked from one to the other and she realised any further protests would be useless. ‘Very well sir. Shall I go and file the report?’

‘We have just recorded your verbal report; a written one is not required.’ He looked at his watch. ‘This meeting concludes at 1433 on May 21st 2003.’ Jarvis reached for a hidden switch to turn off the recorder and smiled at Gerry, an artificial smile which did nothing to convey any warmth. ‘It only remains for us all to wish you every comfort and happiness for your forthcoming arrival.’

‘Thank you sir,’ Gerry replied with as much sincerity as she could muster, but nevertheless she felt as if she was being dismissed rather than going on leave. There was a knock and Fielding’s personal assistant looked round the door.

‘Sir, there’s a call from General Bruckner in Washington; priority and personal.’

‘Thanks, I’ll take it in my den.’ Fielding left without giving Gerry a further glance and walked to his office.

CHAPTER NINE

Following her apparent suspension disguised as maternity leave at the instigation of Donald Jarvis and Sir Hugh Fielding, Gerry left the building and walked across to the wall overlooking the river. She gazed at a Thames barge as it negotiated a passage between the piers of Vauxhall Bridge, the fast running tide sending waves slapping against the prow. She derived some satisfaction from the inference that Rashid Hamsin had escaped his pursuers. She could safely assumed that if he had been taken then he would inevitably, if reluctantly, have revealed her role in his flight.

The morning cloud had mostly cleared and it was turning out to be a pleasant early summer afternoon but the weather did not match her troubled mood. She looked back at the building and tried to suppress a weird feeling that she would not be permitted to enter it again. Then her mobile phone bleeped and she read a text message reminding her that she had an appointment for a scan in two hours. ‘I thought that was on Wednesday,’ she muttered, then she realised that of course it was Wednesday. She shoved her phone back in her bag and began to walk to her car but then it rang again. ‘Bloody hell what now!’ she snapped, and decided to let the recording system take it, but then felt guilty when a few minutes later she sat in her car and played the message.

‘Gerry, it’s your mother here. You said you were coming to see me this weekend, and I haven’t heard a word from you for a week, so if you could kindly let me know… thank you.’

The obstetrician explained that she was the expectant mother of a perfectly healthy looking daughter and presented her with a grainy black and white photograph. She was somewhat disconcerted when Gerry inspected the picture for no more than a few seconds and said, ‘A girl is it? Well thank you very much doctor,’ before tucking the picture in her handbag.

As she walked back to her black Volkswagen Golf GTI, Gerry pulled out her mobile phone; scrolled to ‘Anne Tate’ and dialled her mother’s home.

‘Hi mum, it’s me.’

‘Gerry, dear. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. Look I’m sorry I haven’t called, but I did send you an e-mail.’

‘Oh! Did you? I’m having trouble with the computer again, so I didn’t get that. Never mind. How did the scan go?’

‘Everything’s fine. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you…ok?’

‘Did they let you have one of those pictures?’

‘Yes they gave me one. Now I really have to be getting on. I’ll show you the picture when I come to see you.’

‘Well don’t forget to bring it… your memory sometimes.’

‘I know mum… sorry. Look I’ll call you this evening… bye.’

Gerry’s memory was prodigious, but for years she had used the excuse of a poor memory to explain away the various inconsistencies that resulted from her job and concealed from her mother the fact that she was a member of the security services. She walked to her car, climbed in then she opened her bag and took out the grainy photograph, stared at it for a few seconds, put it away and started the engine, blinking away incipient tears. She pulled out her mobile and telephoned her mother.

‘Hello mum, it’s me again.’

‘Let me guess; something’s cropped up at work and you won’t be able to come.’

‘No mum, not at all,’ she replied trying not to be affected by her mother’s weary cynicism. ‘I’ve been given some days off and if it’s ok with you I’ll drive up this evening. I should be there by oh… eight o’clock.’

‘That’s lovely Gerry. Dinner will be waiting for when you arrive.’

‘Thanks mum, see you later.’

She managed to beat the afternoon rush hour traffic out of London and settled down to cruise at 80mph along the M40. She spent the journey in quiet contemplation of her immediate future. By the time she reached her mother’s house in the village near Stratford she had recovered much of her equanimity and as usual she begun to hum ‘The Archers’ theme tune as she drove through farmland, past the pub and then turned up the lane that lead to her cottage. In a more light-hearted frame of mind she pulled her case from the boot and a bunch of flowers from off the rear shelf and walked up to the front door with a fairly cheerful smile in place.

Gerry stared down at the trousers she had brought with her. She had forgotten that her expanding waist would not allow her to wear them. She pulled a safety pin from the sewing kit she had taken some months back from the Sheraton Hotel in Brussels and tried to fasten the waist with them, but it wasn’t long enough. She put her skirt back on and went downstairs to join her mother in the kitchen.

‘Hello, I thought you were changing?’ Anne remarked.

‘I was, but the clothes I brought don’t fit me anymore.’

‘Have you bought any maternity wear yet?’ Anne asked.

‘No, I haven’t; I haven’t had time,’ Gerry replied, trying not to sound like the sulky teenage daughter she used to be.

‘You can’t stay in denial about your changing shape, you know.’ Anne eyed her daughter’s tall frame, inherited from her late husband. ‘Though knowing you, you’ll exercise back to your original shape about a fortnight after having your baby. Do you know when you’re going to stop work yet?

‘Well actually I have stopped work… and,’ she hesitated. ‘If possible I would like to stay an extra night… then we can do some shopping, and I’ll have time to fix your computer as well.’ She saw Anne’s face light up.

‘Well that would be lovely Gerry; I’m not working at the shop this weekend. It will be nice to spend a bit more time together.’

Gerry immediately felt guilty that she had not spent more time with her mother in the two years since her father had died. Her brother and his family lived in Seattle so her mother did not see them very often. She suddenly felt even more guilty as it occurred to her that she might need her mother’s help with childcare and perhaps she should try and persuade her to move in with her for a while when the baby was born. Anne managed a charity shop and perhaps she would be unhappy to be away from it for too long. Gerry was hit by the realisation that she was likely to be dependent on other people for the first time in years, and with a strange sense of bewilderment she announced ‘I’m going to need you, Mum!’

Mother and daughter spent Friday shopping in Stratford, and despite having to compete with crowds of summer tourists Gerry felt a little better despite the dull ache in her mind. In the evening Anne began to cook, but when Gerry suggested that she should help, she was banished from the kitchen and told to relax. After watching the news and weather forecast Gerry wandered into the study and gazed at the family photos in their silver frames. She picked up the picture of her and Philip sitting in the garden. It showed the two of them seated side by side on the bench. They were both reading sections of the Sunday newspaper clad in shorts and tee shirts in the afternoon summer sunshine; she sat with her right leg crossed over his left knee and they had put the pages down and smiled at the camera. He was good at smiling for the camera, she decided for the hundredth time; she wore a bit of an idiotic grin.

She replaced the picture and sat down in front of the malfunctioning computer. It was an old one that she had passed on to her mother after she upgraded her own when Windows XP was released. Anne had learnt to use the internet and e-mail capably enough but on the occasions that something went wrong that she did not understand, she would shut down the computer and wait for her daughter to fix it for her.

Gerry switched it on and waited for the Windows 98 operating system to go through its start-up procedure. She entered her mother’s password and the computer desktop appeared. When she tried to open Outlook Express, a small window came up requesting a password. She frowned; that was unexpected. She entered her mother’s password again but the computer immediately shutdown. She mumbled a curse and walked into the kitchen and asked her mother if she had changed her password.

‘No, I’ve no idea how to do that.’

‘Well what were you doing when the system crashed? It seems to have picked up a virus.’

Her mother looked very uncomfortable; she put down the chopping knife and sat down on the stool. ‘I had just opened an e-mail.’ She paused, and then with a rush said ‘It was from Philip. It just said that he hoped I was alright and that he should be coming home in a couple of days and the two of you would be up to see me soon. Then he mentioned it was your birthday and he had a big birthday surprise that he was going to keep a secret from you and the details were in an attachment. I clicked on it but there was a password needed and then it shut down. I haven’t been able to start it since.’

‘Oh!’ said Gerry. She sat down as well and gazed at the pattern on the work surface. ‘When abouts did he send that?’ she asked eventually.

‘It was probably sent at the beginning of May. Anyway that’s about the time the computer broke down. Then you got the news about Philip, and I didn’t want to bother you about it of course, not when… well, you know.’ Gerry nodded. She felt slightly distressed that the last person Philip had e-mailed was her mother and not her, but there was another anomaly.

‘But Mum, why should he mention a birthday surprise? My birthday’s not until August.’

‘Well I know that dear, but mine is in May, and you know what men are like; always mixing up birthdays and anniversaries. At least your father did,’ she added.

Gerry sat brooding for a moment while Anne watched her. Then she looked up and said ‘I’ll take it with me. There’s probably someone from work who can get it sorted out. And I’ll bring you up another computer I’ve got at home as a replacement. That one was a bit old and slow anyway.’

‘Oh that would be nice, if you can spare it. I never thought for a moment I would miss having one. Now wash your hands; dinner’s ready.’

Gerry required all her professional resources to maintain an appearance of equanimity during dinner and afterwards when they watched an episode of Midsomer Murders together. When her mother had gone up to bed she tried to switch on the computer again but the operating program would not access the hard drive. She mumbled a stream of abuse at the Dell logo and then went upstairs to bed.

She lay awake thinking about the possible contents of the e-mail and imagined Philip sitting down in front of his computer in Nigeria and composing it, never imagining for one moment that it would be the last message he would ever send. She rolled over, thumped the pillows into shape, yawned wearily and at last she fell asleep.

The next morning Gerry said farewell to her mother and set off in her black Volkswagen towards the M40. She was negotiating a sharp bend slightly faster than the speed limit when she heard a bang and saw a puff of smoke emerge from the front of the engine compartment and swirl around the windscreen. She slammed on the brakes as the road straightened up and pulled into a convenient lay-by. Then she leapt out of her car and ran until she was about fifty metres away and crouched down on the verge. After half a minute she was satisfied that there was no further danger she began to walk back towards her car. Two other cars had passed by the scene of her mishap, but the occupants had given no more than a curious stare as they drove by, but a third car pulled out of a small side road and crept to a halt twenty metres behind her car.

She walked towards the car, wondering if the driver was a possible Good Samaritan but she was suddenly suspicious; she wished that her handbag containing her gun was slung across her shoulder rather than sitting on the passenger seat. She stopped and glared at him as he climbed out of his car. He was taller than her, distinguished looking, late middle aged with cropped white hair and a thick white moustache gleaming in his suntanned face. He took a couple of paces towards her and held out his hand. ‘Jasper White,’ he called out.

‘I’m Gerry Tate,’ she replied, giving his hand a brief shake. She ran the name White through her memory and suddenly felt tense when she remembered Rashid Hamsin telling her about a Colonel White. ‘I suspect that you knew my name already. Perhaps you should tell me what you’re doing here?’

Clearly she had already rumbled him, but he kept up his act. ‘I’m here to help a lady in distress,’ he replied. He stopped by her car, leant through the driver’s doorframe and pulled the bonnet release. He opened the hood and looked inside. Gerry retrieved her bag from inside the car and then watched while he quickly reached inside with a handkerchief wrapped round his hand. He pulled out a small pyrotechnic device.

‘It’s just a little firework with a remote detonator. Doesn’t do any harm to the car apart from a bit of a scorch mark under the hood.’ He wrapped it up and put it in a pocket. ‘Needless to say the driver always thinks his car has a real problem and stops to take a look at it.’

Gerry stared at him, and then demanded ‘So explain why you’re here.’

‘What you’re really wanting to know is why I stopped you on a quiet road in the English countryside on a Sunday afternoon,’ he declared.

‘Yeah, that would be a good start.’

‘Ok, well perhaps we could sit inside my car for a minute and I’ll explain,’ he offered.

‘Yeah right,’ she scoffed. ‘I think we’ll sit inside my car and I’ll scan you for electronic devices before we talk.’

‘Ok, as you wish. You have a scanner?’ White asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a suspicious character. A gun too, I imagine?’

‘Yes; a gun, a knife, a handbag and an attitude problem; armed to the fucking teeth I am.’

He looked down and saw that she had one hand inside the bag now slung over her shoulder.

‘Ok, I’ll come quietly.’ He sat himself in the front passenger seat and watched her walk round the other side. Instead of getting into the driver’s seat she opened the rear door and climbed in behind him. She thought he looked slightly nervous in the rear view mirror.

‘So explain why you stopped me then, Jasper White,’ Gerry demanded. She had rather assumed that White was an alias when Rashid named him because it seemed such a commonplace surname.

‘My company was rather disappointed at the disappearance of Rashid Hamsin from this country. We feel that he must have had some assistance.’

‘How do you know he’s not in this country still?’

‘Because he transited through the airport in Amman, Jordan.’

‘Well if you managed to find him, why don’t you ask him?’

‘We didn’t get hold of him at the time and he’s slipped out of sight.’

Gerry had not known for certain that Rashid had successfully eluded his pursuers, but she frowned to avoid a delighted grin. ‘Actually I don’t give a shit about the whereabouts of Rashid Hamsin. I’m on maternity leave. Ask your own people: they staked out his place.’

‘We’ve seen the reports and we’re not convinced that someone didn’t tip him off.’

‘So you followed me up here to tell me that. Your people send a surveillance team because you have some suspicions?’ She stared at him in the rear view mirror. ‘If that was the case I’d be having further interviews back in the office, not be put on immediate maternity leave and allowed to travel at will.’

‘There’s no surveillance team; just me.’

‘So you’ve been watching me. What did you learn?’

‘I know that you are expecting a girl, unless those pink baby clothes you were looking at were for someone else.’

She stared at him angrily in the rear view mirror. This bastard had been watching her for the last few days, and what made her even more irritated was that she had not picked up on it. ‘You’re a nasty toad, White,’ she eventually replied.

‘I’m just doing my job. C’mon! You’ve done surveillance, so it’s unreasonable to become all high-minded when it happens to you!’

‘So are you going to file a report describing my weekend away? You still haven’t said why you stopped me out here.’

‘Have you been in contact with Dean Furness?’

She frowned. Dean Furness was that guy who she had met on that freezing January night in Frankfurt, when she had brought Hakim Mansour and Ali Hamsin to meet with Hugh Fielding and General Brooking or someone. Not Brooking… Bruckner. ‘Dean Furness? Who’s he?’ she asked.

‘Give me a break. Have you heard from him recently?’

‘No I haven’t heard from any Dean Furness. Why are you asking?’

‘I want to know what happened to Rashid Hamsin, and also to Dean Furness… he’s a good friend.’ He placed a card on the dashboard above the vents. ‘I’ll get out now if that’s ok. You can look me up on the computer, but if you want to get in touch I’ll leave my phone number here.’

Gerry nodded and watched him walk back to his silver Ford Mondeo. He turned round to gaze at her for a moment and called out ‘I’ll be seeing you, Gerry,’ before climbing into his car.

As she drove home Gerry wondered what to make of the fact that Jasper White, a CIA agent had evidently been watching her every move during the last few days, but then had candidly admitted to her that he had done so. If she was under some unknown American suspicion then why had he waylaid her on a quiet country road and introduced himself. There was evidently a connection between herself, Dean Furness, Jasper White, Ali Hamsin the translator and his son Rashid Hamsin, but what did it amount to?

CHAPTER TEN

Reaching her Richmond apartment, Gerry opened her front door, put down her overnight case and picked up her mail. She found a letter from a solicitor that confirmed that she was sole beneficiary to the will of the late Mr Philip Barrett, and could she attend his office at a mutually convenient time? She guessed that she would be given title to his house in Twickenham, but she wondered what else the terms of his will would reveal. Perhaps, she thought with some anticipation, there would be something that would shed light on his death and the e-mail that he had sent, but then she knew that was ridiculous. Secrets would not be left around for his lawyer to see. Nevertheless she decided to drive over to his place immediately on the off chance that there was some letter for her.

She had not been to Philip’s home since she had checked up on it two weeks ago as the rooms held to many memories for her. She had spent some time looking at his clothes and books and personal effects, trying to come to terms with the fact that he would never return to wear them or read them or use them again.

As soon as she opened the door she realised that since her previous visit Philip’s house had been searched thoroughly. It had not been ransacked and there was no sign that anything had been stolen, but her inspection revealed that every drawer had been opened, the contents removed and put back in a slightly different way that was immediately apparent to someone who had spent so much time there. The pictures on the walls were no longer hanging quite straight while the toiletry items in the bathroom, some hers, some his, were arranged in neat groups on the shelves and on the corner of the bath.

She wondered if her own organisation had carried out the search or if it had been the work of the Americans. She wondered what they were looking for, and indeed if they had found it. Then she noticed that the tower case of his computer had been taken away.

Gerry returned to her own flat in a state of some anxiety. She and Philip had been too security conscious to leave much of their personal lives on a home computer and certainly nothing of their professional lives was stored there, but she nevertheless worried about what the thief might discover besides some slightly embarrassing photographs.

It wasn’t until she opened her wardrobe doors ready to unpack her bags that she became more suspicious. When she had clumsily pulled some clothes out to pack them, she remembered cursing as her blue silk evening dress had rustled off its hanger onto the bottom of the wardrobe. Now it was hanging back up. Also the hangers were in a fairly orderly row rather than pushed to one side. She looked around and realised some other items were not quite in their familiar places

Her own flat had been rummaged by someone who had clearly not been bothered about revealing the search. She shivered and sat down on the bed. Her landline telephone rang. ‘Hello.’

‘My name’s Dean Furness,’ an American voice told her.

‘Who are you and how did you get my number?’ Gerry said deciding to play ignorant in case her line was bugged.

‘Do you know the Hollytree café, Richmond? It’s in the Terrace Gardens on the river side.’

‘Yes. Yes I do. It’s about fifteen minutes’ walk from here.’

‘Ok, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Gerry locked up her front door and walked to the cafe. She ordered a latte, sat down outside and gazed out over the river watching some rowers sculling back towards the local club. Philip had been a member there; she wondered if Furness knew that. Gerry shivered and folded her arms. Then she checked the time. He was late. ‘Look Furness, I don’t really know who you are or why you’ve asked me to meet you, but I’m here,’ she said to herself. ‘What is it you want?’

As if on cue she saw a man aged about forty, deeply tanned with a wary expression on his face walking towards her. He looked all around before sitting down next to her.

‘Hello again Gerry, or should I still call you Emily?’

‘You’ve shaved off your beard and had a decent haircut, but I recognise you. Should I still call you Dean?’

‘Dean’s my real name,’ he answered. He gazed at her while reaching for a packet of cigarettes from his shirt front pocket.

‘Sorry this place is no smoking.’

‘Not out front here it isn’t,’ he countered. Gerry reached across and deftly removed the cigarette from his mouth before he could bring his lighter up to it. ‘I’m a no smoking area, then. Why did you call me?’

‘I worked with Philip Barrett in Abuja.’

‘Oh yes?’ Gerry picked up her coffee and took a drink. The saucer rattled when she replaced the cup. ‘Go on.’

‘Yeah, we got on pretty good, I don’t know if he ever mentioned me. Did Philip tell you what we’d been working on? Send you any messages about our stuff out there?’

She stared at him for a few seconds. ‘No, his work was classified. Although we’re partners… we were partners, he wouldn’t send me official material. So what were you doing out there?’

‘We were interrogating people brought out from Iraq. Well I was interrogating; Phil was mostly doing Arabic translation for us and drinking a little too much. Anyway we were ordered to fly back to London together. That’s the day he was killed. I was due to travel with him to the airport in the same car, but I had a motor bike to deliver.’ He looked all around, and then reached for a cigarette again. This time Gerry just watched him light up and inhale deeply.

‘I was interrogating this guy Kamal Ahwadi. I don’t know if you’ve done any waterboarding. Rumsfeld and Cheney might think harsh interrogation is ok, but they haven’t done it. The guy thrashes around and he starts bleeding from the places where he’s held. You can see the cloth over his face puffing in and out, in and out as he tries to breath. It might not be torture in the sense of inflicting physical pain, but it’s everything else.

‘Anyway this guy Ahwadi had readily told us that he was working on Qusay Hussein’s staff and then he admits that he was his personal bodyguard and hatchet man. He’s given us the names of the people who worked in his office, but I was convinced he was keeping something back. What we wanted to know was where his boss is hiding, possibly Saddam as well. He tells us he has no idea but when I give Sergeant Myers the order to pour water over him he hollers out ‘No wait, wait I tell you, I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh!’

‘Gilgamesh? What the hell are you talking about?’ I ask him. Anyway the guy begins to talk in Arabic about this document that was carried across the border from Saudi Arabia in the middle of February. I was involved in that project, and so were you in a small way, because it all came out of that meeting we were both at in Frankfurt. You remember?’

‘Yes of course I remember it,’ said Gerry. ‘Go on.’

‘Well I’d recorded what Ahwadi had said in Arabic, but I hadn’t followed it all ‘cause my Arabic’s not that good, so of course I call up Phil who knows the language from all sides around.’ He paused and lit another cigarette while Gerry watched him intently.

‘I’m sorry to say that he was overdoing the boozing. I nearly said something — we were pretty good buddies by then — but our time out there was nearly up and I figured that when he got home he’d sober up ok again. You know Phil hated his assignment out there and wished he’d not let himself in for it, but I’m afraid you’re a little to blame.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ she demanded.

‘He told me he had this girlfriend who worked in the field, and although she had never suggested for one moment that he should get himself involved, he always felt guilty that she was out there doing the dangerous stuff while he was in London. He felt that his assignment in Abuja made up for it a bit. At that time I had no idea that it was you he was talking about.

‘Anyway we met up at this restaurant we liked to go to. I remember there was a TV in the bar. It was showing CNN and they showed that newsreel of when President Bush arrives on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Bloody idiot, grandstanding like that! Anyone would think he’d just flown some combat mission out in Iraq, not sat in the back seat as someone flew him out to a ship thirty miles off the US coast. And then he makes his speech with that banner above him. Mission Accomplished! Actually it was just the ship’s banner to mark the end of a long commission, but that’s not what it looked like to everyone else, and as sure as hell it sounded like he was making a victory speech. I tell you Gerry we’re not gonna be out of that country for years! It’s a helluva fine mess.’

‘Of course you’re right Dean,’ Gerry agreed, ‘but stick to your story.’

‘Yeah ok, sorry… anyway I say to Phil that we should talk to Ali Hamsin…’

‘Ali Hamsin the translator?’ Gerry broke in.

‘Yuh, didn’t I say? We’d brought him out of Baghdad on the same flight as Ahwadi and we were holding him there as well, and Ahwadi mentioned him as knowing all about it too, the Gilgamesh thing. Anyway Phil is on my case because Hamsin had always cooperated with us and Phil didn’t want me giving him any of the rough treatment, which I have to say I found a bit rich because your people in London might not have been doing the asking, but they were sure involved in setting some of the questions.’

He frowned, took a drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out.

‘Sorry I’m digressing again. Anyway we’re keeping him and the other prisoners in the barrack block room in this dilapidated old military camp. As I said he’d cooperated fully and so he’d been given good treatment and reasonable food too. However he’s got no idea where his family are and although Phil had tried to find out for him, he was in a bad way with worry and all. He admits to knowing Kamal Ahwadi and listens to the tape and when he hears it he agrees to tell us what he knows.

‘Having got Hamsin’s story down on tape, I get in touch with Jasper White as he’s the senior man I most trust. I hoped he would come out, but instead it’s Bruckner himself who turns up, along with two bag carriers, one of our guys I don’t recognise and some English guy from your lot. Bruckner tells me and Phil that we’ve done really well but he warns us not to talk about it to anyone at all, this Gilgamesh business. Then he tells us he’s arranged that we take Hamsin and Ahwadi to Guantanamo for further debriefing and that we’ll drop Phil off in London on the way back.

‘Now I’d promised this local contact guy called Achebela who does security at the airport that I would give him my motorbike when I ship out, a sort of reward for services rendered, so next morning I give Sergeant Myers my bags to take in the car and I arrange to meet him and Phil at the airport terminal. I ride off there and wait for them but they don’t show. Then I notice that the engine covers are still on the airplane and those red streamers that show that the landing gear pins and stuff are in place. Time’s going by and there’s no sign of Bruckner or Hamsin or the pilots and Phil’s not shown up still. I go back to my friend Sam Achebela, the guy who’s going to have my BMW, and get him to call the control tower. He tells me there’s no flight plan filed for the Gulfstream. So I’m really getting jumpy. I get back on my bike and head off back towards the city.’

He pulled out another cigarette. ‘Sorry, did you want one?’ She slowly shook her head and watched him light up. Then he looked at her. ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘Yes. I don’t know how or why, but I know he’s dead. Go on.’

‘About five miles down the road I stop. Across the other side of the freeway I see the blue Toyota Camry lying on its side in the ditch at edge of the road with its roof blown off and all the windows shattered. It’s surrounded by police cars and an ambulance and a tow truck. The police were busy all around it keeping away the onlookers. I was just waiting for a gap in the traffic to drive across when I see this other car pull up. This western guy gets out along with a senior local policeman, more medal ribbons on his chest than a Russian general. These two go and take a good look inside the car. Now I run across the road still wearing my crash helmet. You can’t hear too well wearing one of them but I heard the western guy making some comment about there only being two people in the car. Then I realise that he’s the English type who was with Bruckner.

‘Now of course I know I’m the missing third man who should be in that car and I’m frankly scared that my own people have issued a kill notice on me and Phil. Then I’m wondering if Ali Hamsin’s ok so I make a phone call to Sergeant Simski at the guard house telling him I’m coming over and ride back to the prison.

‘Simski greets me as his old buddy just the same as usual so I decide it’s safe to walk in there and tell him I need to see Hamsin. Simski tells me that some guy turned up with orders from General Bruckner and marched Hamsin clear out of there.

‘Oh ok, I say, I’ll go and have a word with Kamal Ahwadi instead,’ said Dean Furness. ‘So I go to his cell and I find that Ahwadi’s lying on his bed. He looks to be asleep, but I can’t wake him. No pulse and his pupils fixed and dilated. I go back to the guard house and find Simski talking on the phone. Well to cut it down a little, Simski has orders to arrest me. By now as you can imagine I was ready for something like that and I jump Simski just as he’s trying to pull a gun on me.

‘He tells me that there’s a detail on its way to arrest me and I tell him that I’m gonna drive down to Lagos, get down to the docks and find a boat to take me down to South Africa, as I’ve got friends down there. Instead I ride the bike to one of the northerly border roads crossing into Niger, work my way east using the desert tracks and then approach Ndjamena in Chad from the north avoiding the busy road from Nigeria through Cameroon. Then I get on a cargo flight up to Algiers, cross the Mediterranean by sea and then I get to England. Then I come to see you.’ He fell silent and took another look around.

‘So how come you found out that I was his girlfriend?’ Gerry asked.

‘Well he’d talked about his girlfriend, said some real nice things about you too, and he had a photo of you on his desk. I didn’t recognise you from that though because you were wearing sunglasses with your hair loose and a floppy blue sunhat, and… well just a bikini bottom. Also you were sitting down so I didn’t see how tall you were. Your height’s a bit of a giveaway for someone in our line of work if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Yeah I’m aware of that thanks. Go on.’

‘Then when I was in Algiers I managed to check out who you are. There’s some pretty slack security in our local office there. I saw your picture on file and then I recognised Emily Stevens from Frankfurt airport.’ He paused, and then asked ‘Listen, did Philip mention it, or had you heard of Gilgamesh?’

Gerry stared at him for a moment thinking about the documents that Mansour was carrying on the flight back to Kuwait and her talk with Rashid Hamsin before she sent him on his way to Ireland. ‘Well of course I have,’ she replied. ‘I’ve studied a lot of Middle East history. Gilgamesh was a Mesopotamian king who ruled in the area that is now Iraq er… about four thousand years ago, I think. What the hell has he got to do with anything?’

‘Look I need to speak to you again,’ he said, ‘but now I need to make sure my tracks are covered and I’ll be grateful if you don’t mention my name.’

‘Why did you come to see me then?’ Gerry asked.

‘I figured you might want to find out who was responsible for Phil’s death.’ He shook his head ‘I guess I thought you might care a bit more than it seems you do.’

‘Listen, I care very much, but you’re some man who appears from nowhere, just like this Jasper White guy, and you start going on about some semi-mythological king named Gilgamesh. What do you expect me to say?’

‘Gilgamesh is the code name for that operation that seemed to begin with that meeting in Frankfurt. There were six people there that day: General Robert Bruckner, your guy Fielding, Hakim Mansour, Ali Hamsin, you and me.’

‘It’s a crappy sort of code name, I can’t believe it would ever get approved,’ Gerry said.

‘I know but Mansour insisted upon it. Maybe he was a romantic at heart.’

‘Was?’

‘Yeah he’s dead now.’ Furness stared at her for a moment. ‘Hey, didn’t you just say that Jasper White came to see you?’

‘White told me he wanted to find out what had happened to you.’

‘Okay, he’s one of the good guys; you can trust him.’

‘Oh really? I don’t trust anyone.’

‘Look Gerry, Phil was a friend. I feel real bad about what happened to him.’ He suddenly stood up and ground his cigarette out under his toe. ‘I’m gonna get in touch with Jasper, then I’ll come and see you again. I’ve also kept a copy of the tapes of Ahwadi and the translations Phil made and the info that Hamsin gave us. I’ll bring them along and you can listen for yourself. Tomorrow evening after sunset, ok? I’ll arrange where we can meet up, Jasper too probably.’

Gerry watched him walk off. For a moment she considered trailing him but she felt an overwhelming weariness so she walked slowly back towards her flat whilst mulling over their short meeting. She sat down in front of her computer and tried to log on to the Service intranet but found that her access had been suspended whilst she was on leave. She slumped down on to her bed and fell asleep.

Suddenly she was awake. A high pitched warble told her that someone was outside her apartment. She switched the television on and selected the remote camera input. A man was standing outside her front door and gazing around. Evidently he had no problem getting through the security of the main access door into the building. He looked up at the camera and Gerry recognised Neil Samms.

‘Well, this is a hell of a coincidence or you’ve been sent to ask me about Dean Furness or Jasper White,’ Gerry muttered to herself. She saw him reach up to the bell push and then heard the bell sound out in the entrance hall. Gerry glanced in the mirror as she walked out of her bedroom. As she expected she looked a mess.

She drew a breath and spoke into the intercom. ‘Hello, who are you and what do you want?’

‘It’s Neil Samms. I’d like to talk to you about your meeting with Dean Furness this afternoon.’

‘I’m sorry Samms,’ Gerry replied, ‘I’ve no idea who he is or what you’re talking about, and I don’t feel like chatting right now.’

Gerry saw Samms reach into a back pocket and pull out a piece of paper and unfold it. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ve recognised me. Is that your CCTV camera up there Miss Tate? Focus on this.’

He held up a photograph of her talking to Dean Furness at the cafe.

‘Oh, I’ve no idea who that was,’ said Gerry. ‘I thought he was just some tourist… did you take that photo? It’s not very good.’

‘No it isn’t, and no I didn’t take it. Are you gonna let me in?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Gerry. ‘I’m going to call the police and tell them that there’s an armed intruder in the building.’

‘Dean Furness worked with Philip Barrett in Nigeria, Miss Tate. And then he killed him. He had his car rammed off the road by a truck.’

Gerry flinched, then slumped back against the wall and slid down to a sitting position. She thought for a minute and then looked up at the man on the screen. With something of an effort she got to her feet and said ‘Hold on I’ll let you in.’

Samms heard a clunk as the door lock released and the door swung open. Before he could gather his wits the bitch grabbed his arm, twisted it and before he could think about reacting his feet were swept from under him and then he was face down on the floor with her heel grinding into his back with his arm wrenched painfully up into the air.

‘Jesus… shit,’ he gasped out. She relaxed her grip a little.

‘Put your hands behind your arse and then roll over on top of them,’ she ordered.

As he carried out this order, her face came into view and then a Beretta automatic in her hand. He contemplated trying to kick the gun from her grasp but another look at her ferocious glare convinced him not to try anything. He lay meekly while she patted him down the front and took his own gun from its holster. Then she stepped back.

‘Can I get you a coffee or a drink perhaps?’ she asked as he clambered to his feet.

‘A diet coke, please… and unopened if you don’t mind.’

‘Ok, sit there.’ She gestured towards an armchair with her Beretta and he sat down in it and remained very still.

She gave him a tight-lipped smile and disappeared into the kitchen. She came back with a bottle and watched him ostentatiously inspect the plastic seal before twisting off the cap.

‘Now you’d better tell me your version of what happened,’ Gerry said.

‘It was a car crash as you probably know; Philip Barrett and his driver Myers, who was an American Marine sergeant out there, were run off the road and rammed by a truck. Dean Furness set it up. It was no accident. It was a hit.’ Gerry kept quiet as he related the story, partly to contain her emotions and partly to make sure the voice recording she had set up when she was in the kitchen was clear.

‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Philip?’

‘Listen, Gerry. You help us find Furness and we’ll get some answers from him. That’s for certain!’

She stared at him for a moment. ‘Well I don’t know why he came to see me. He told me he knew Philip in Abuja, and told me he’d been lucky not to be taken out too. Then he rambled on about this ancient king in Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh.’

‘And have you any idea what he was talking about?’ Samms asked.

‘Not a bloody clue. Do you?’ Gerry replied.

‘Did he say he’d get in touch with you again?’

Gerry shook her head. ‘Actually he seemed a bit pissed off with me; said I was a complete waste of space and that he was going back to the States. Between you and me he seemed a bit of a nutter. I certainly wouldn’t trust him.’

‘Ok, well if he ever does get in touch, you be sure to call me, ok?’ Samms insisted.

Gerry shrugged her shoulders. ‘Ok, if you like.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Next morning Gerry woke up at early. She was still exhausted having lain awake until two o’clock in the morning and then slept only fitfully since then. Maybe she could get onto the computers at work and find something about Jasper White, Dean Furness and this whole Gilgamesh business. She showered and dressed, grabbed some breakfast and then rode the tube to the office. As she went through the security channel she was flagged up and one of the gate keepers beckoned her over.

‘Good morning Miss Tate. The system says you’re on leave so I’m required to ask you why you’ve come in and give you a secondary check.’

‘I’ve just come in to pick up some personal items,’ Gerry explained.

‘Ok. Now gaze into the scanner, please.’

Gerry waited impatiently while the computer confirmed her iris scans and then hurried to the elevator hall. She went to her personal locker in the basement physical training centre and took out her squash racket in case the same gate keeper saw her leaving. Next she found an empty conference room and switched on the computer. Rather than using her own password she logged on using the security code of a colleague named Sylvia Brookes whose password she had surreptitiously noted when they were on a case together some months back.

The CIA personnel records listed Dean Furness and recognition codes to be used in the event of a joint operation, but as he was not based in Europe there was no other information. Gerry filled in a request for further details citing the reason that an operation was being considered but she doubted that she would get any response, except perhaps a summons from Cornwall asking her to explain the request.

Jasper White turned out to be a senior figure in the CIA, an ex US Marine Colonel with an exemplary record and an expert on the Middle East, but Sylvia Brookes’ clearance level could reveal nothing further. Next she entered Gilgamesh into the computer but drew blank. She slumped back in her seat and gazed at the screen, then printed out the meagre information on White and Furness. She walked out the building past security with her squash racket prominently in view and set off for home.

Gerry emerged from the Richmond underground station in bright sunshine and wandered along The Quadrant and George Street wondering what to do about her recent contacts and occasionally gazing into the shop windows. Then she walked onto the green and sat down on a bench and thought about Phil and their life together. She watched young children playing together with their mothers looking on, or perhaps they were nannies, she decided when she realised that the women looked very young. She was aroused from her reverie by the sound of distant thunder and she saw the skies were turning black with rain. She began to walk home, wishing she was carrying an umbrella rather than a squash racket. As the rain came down she regretted her earlier dawdling and she was fairly soaked when she reached her road, then as she turned the final corner she came to an abrupt stop. Outside her building were three police cars and a crime scene van.

Gerry examined her options. She could go in and find out what had happened. She could return to the office and report that a crime had apparently taken place at her home and ask the duty officer to establish the facts, or she could get away as fast as possible and then find out what happened from a safe distance. She looked over at her car parked opposite and a hundred metres up the road; she would have to pass the two constables stationed at the entrance to her flat. She had nothing with her but the clothes she was wearing and the contents of her handbag and her squash racket, but option three seemed safest for the moment and she turned round and walked back down the road towards the town.

A silver Ford Mondeo drew up to the pavement beside her and the driver’s window slid down. ‘Get in, Gerry!’ the driver ordered. It was Jasper White. She opened the passenger door and climbed in.

‘What the hell’s going on? Why are they there?’ she demanded.

‘The body of a male aged about forty has been found shot in your apartment. You’re wanted by the police.’

‘Oh shit!’ said Gerry. ‘Who is it? It’s not Dean Furness is it?’

‘Let’s go somewhere we can talk,’ he suggested.

He drove to the river bank and parked the car and they walked to a large pub with a terrace overlooking the river. It was fairly quiet on a Tuesday afternoon before the working day had ended. Inside White found a corner seat suitably distant from any loudspeakers so that they could have a quiet conversation.

‘Have a drink?’ he asked.

Gerry considered her resolution not to drink alcohol while she was pregnant and decided to revoke it for the day. ‘Dry white wine, please.’

White returned after a few minutes with her wine and a clear bubbling drink for himself with ice and lemon which could have been anything from a sparkling water to a vodka and tonic. It irked her that she did not know what it was. He sat down, looked around, took a sip of his drink.

‘Do you have a cast-iron alibi for where you’ve been today?’

‘Not all of it,’ she replied. ‘You think I’ll need one?’

‘Do you mind telling me where you’ve been?’

‘Why should I tell you, Jasper?’

‘Listen to me hard arse! Dean Furness was a good friend of mine; we go back a long way. I think he came to London because he knew I would help him out. He asked me to find out about you; who you were, where you lived; what you were like. He was in some kind of deep shit but I don’t know the details. He spoke to me last night. He told me he’d seen you and we agreed that we would meet up with you this afternoon. I drove round to your place and found all this shit happening.’

‘Yes he came to see me briefly yesterday. He told me Philip was murdered in Abuja.’

‘Did he talk to you about Gilgamesh?’

‘Yeah he mentioned him. Is it some kind of code word? I didn’t have a clue what he was on about.’ Gerry put her wine glass down with a bang. ‘How do I know it wasn’t you who shot this guy Furness?’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ snapped White. ‘Don’t you care what happened to your guy Philip out there in Africa?’

‘Of course I do, you bastard, and Neil Samms told me that Dean Furness had him killed!’

White hesitated a moment. He noted her rapid breathing and clenched fist, the small white scars showing clearly across her knuckles. ‘You heard that Philip died in a road accident on his way to the airport… right?’ Gerry gave a small nod. ‘Dean was due to be riding in that car as well. He realised his head was on the block and he’s been running scared ever since. Samms is mistaken, and I wonder why he told you that.’

Gerry’s combative mood evaporated; she stared up at the ceiling fighting off the wave of nausea engendered by the repetition of the story of Philip’s death.

‘Look, unless you’re considering running off, you’re gonna have to talk to the police sooner or later,’ said White. ‘Maybe we should level with each other and take it from there.’

Gerry saw that his angry expression had been replaced by a look of concern. She sighed and nodded. ‘Ok, but first tell me why you’re helping me.’

White stared at her for a moment. ‘Because I want to know the truth, and if I thought for a moment you’d killed Dean, you’d be lying on the sidewalk back there.’

‘Well that’s pretty direct.’ She stared down at the table, twiddling her glass and then looked at him. ‘How did Dean contact you?’

‘He called me from Algiers. Dean was a smart guy. He told me that he’d worked his way into the CIA office there, impersonating one of the local staff. Then when he got to London we used an old drop box. As I said, we go back a long way, me and Dean. Now listen, you can be placed at your office for much of the morning, but that doesn’t get you off the hook entirely; it doesn’t cover the whole time you were away.’

‘Why should I need to cover the whole time? I didn’t shoot anyone!’ Gerry insisted, ‘and anyway what’s my motive for killing Furness?’

‘Maybe because Neil Samms told you that he killed Philip.’

‘He’s a bloody creep.’

‘Don’t you underestimate him; he might seem like an idiot with that stupid grin and that ponytail, but he’s dangerous. He’s trained, same as you are.’

Gerry drained her glass and stared into the bottom of it. ‘Furness was going to tell me what he knew about this Gilgamesh operation. You don’t suppose there might be something left in my flat about it?’

‘No, whoever shot him would have cleared it out. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that me and Dean took your friend Rashid Hamsin over the border from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait back in February. He was to meet up with a guy called Hakim Mansour who was a close associate of Qusay Hussein.’

‘Mansour’s the guy I escorted from Kuwait to Frankfurt and back. He met with Hugh Fielding and your guy Robert Bruckner,’ said Gerry. ‘That’s where I first met Dean.’

‘So let’s say that you have a problem with this… situation with Dean. I’ll give you an alibi. Say I called you on your cell phone and I arranged to meet you off the subway and we’ve been together the whole time. How does that sound?’

‘That sounds ok, I suppose,’ Gerry nodded.

‘Look we should go back to your place now, otherwise it’ll seem suspicious. No doubt they’ll have some questions for us.’

It was nearly eight o’clock by the time the police car took Gerry and Jasper White back to her flat. They had spent a long afternoon writing statements and being interviewed several times over. Neither Gerry nor White had accepted the offer of a lawyer which had made the inspector in charge even more suspicious. After a couple of hours a sergeant had entered the interview room and handed a sheet of paper to the inspector who was asking Gerry to relate her movements for the fourth time. He had read through the paper then stared at her, comparing her appearance to a picture on the sheet. ‘Ok. My jurisdiction has been superseded by Special Branch. Apparently they deal with you people, and I’m told to release you.’

He had stood up abruptly and left the room and shortly afterwards she and Jasper White had been driven back to her flat. She packed an overnight bag, collected her computer and accepted a leaflet from the police officer in charge. This explained the process by which her flat would be off limits until she was notified that its status as a crime scene for the purpose of preserving or gathering evidence was ended. Then it recommended a choice of cleaning companies who were experienced in the removal of the evidence of violent bloody death. She accepted it with a brief nod and followed Jasper to his car.

He drove her to a local hotel; small in size but still high in price in this expensive part of London. Jasper carried her suitcase to her room. ‘Now you get some sleep and I’ll call you about ten o’clock… ok?’

Ok, thanks Jasper.’ He smiled at her and left the room.

She spent the next hour on her computer filing an incident report with the night duty officer to be passed on to Richard Cornwall first thing in the morning and then finally fell asleep, exhausted at 10pm.

Gerry slept badly, waking up frequently and turning over the events of the previous days in her mind. She was woken again by the dawn chorus, fairly loud in this semi-rural suburb. She found some earplugs that she had taken off her last British Airways flight, stuffed them in her ears, and then the next thing she heard was her telephone rousing her from a deep sleep at 9.05am.

‘Hullo,’ she mumbled after pulling out her earplugs.

‘Tate, this is Cornwall. We want you in the office now. Where the hell are you?’

‘I’m in the Raleigh hotel in Richmond.’

‘Well get in as soon as you can then.’ He ended the call. A moment later the phone rang again.

‘Yes?’

‘Stay where you are. Vince Parker will come and pick you up, and don’t even think about doing a runner!’

‘Why should I think…?’ she began to reply but already he had broken off the call. Puzzled and anxious, Gerry resumed getting ready. She had of course anticipated being called in to describe what had happened in her flat but this abrupt summons was disconcerting. Why would they think she might run away? Where to?

Thirty minute later she was peering out through the hotel’s revolving glass door as Vincent Parker drove up in a Porsche. She trotted down the steps opened the passenger door and climbed in.

‘Nice car. Didn’t know we had Porsches in the car pool,’ she remarked.

‘Er, it’s my own actually,’ he replied.

‘Well would you believe it? Are the men in the service secretly on much higher pay scales than women?’ Gerry asked.

‘Sorry; parents died; left me a fair amount; are you sitting comfortably?’ Without waiting for a reply he pulled out and set off towards the office.

‘I’ve been directed not to talk to you about the incident,’ he said, ‘but I think you should get your thoughts in order.’

‘Well thanks for the gratuitous advice!’ she said. They drove in silence for a couple of minutes and then Gerry said ‘Sorry, that was out of order.’

‘That’s ok. Crap thing to happen to anyone.’

Gerry found that for the first time since she had joined the service she had forgotten to bring her ID card. Vince waited while she reported to the security desk and picked up a temporary ID and then he told her they had to report to the blue conference room.

‘We’ll take the lift; it’s on the fourth floor,’ he declared walking to the main elevator bank.

‘I know. I do work here actually,’ Gerry replied acerbically. She marched to the lift and then had to give way to him because her temporary ID would not let her operate the call button.

‘Are you ready to enter the lions’ den?’ he asked as he knocked on the blue door. There was a clunk as the lock released.

Inside she found Richard Cornwall and his boss, Operations Director Donald Jarvis sitting at a small conference. In the corner of the room she saw Sir Hugh Fielding staring up at her. ‘The court of inquiry has assembled,’ she thought to herself.

‘Sit down please, Tate.’ Jarvis ordered.

The door closed and she was alone amongst them.

‘Now just tell us what happened, starting from when you left the office last week.’

They listened to her without interruption as Gerry described her journey to her mother’s home. She described meeting Jasper White on the drive back to London. She reported her meeting with Dean Furness at the café. She told them that she had left the office yesterday and then been with White until arriving back at her flat to find the police had taken it over. She finished her story at the point she had received Cornwall’s telephone call at 9am that morning. The three men exchanged glances and then Richard Cornwall spoke.

‘We have subsequently heard from the Americans. They say that one of their people Neil Samms warned you that Mr Furness, a renegade American agent was responsible for Philip Barrett’s death. Samms suggests that you shot Furness but he calls into question any plea that it was in self-defence.’

‘What plea?’ Gerry broke in angrily. ‘Why should I have to plead anything? Especially in front of this bloody kangaroo court!’

‘Furness was unarmed and your apartment contained a surprising, alarming was the word the police used, variety of weapons besides the gun used to kill him. Ballistics has confirmed that your gun was used to fire the fatal shot and your fingerprints were the only ones found on your gun. DNA testing has so far revealed no other intruders, but we have a witness that places you at the scene at the time of death.’

He paused. Flabbergasted, Gerry stared at him.

‘This is ridiculous. I wouldn’t shoot Furness on the say-so of one man, especially a creep like Neil Samms. That witness must have been mistaken.’

‘At first the Americans believe that you killed Furness under our express authority. We assured them that this wasn’t the case.’

‘But I didn’t shoot Furness,’ Gerry protested. ‘I was with Jasper White after I returned from the office! This is preposterous!’

‘Yes, Miss Tate, it is!’ Don Jarvis declared. ‘Because we have CCTV that shows you walking out of Richmond tube station on your own and then other pictures of you in Richmond High Street at the time you say you were with Jasper White. And in any event he has dropped his story. It seems that when the evidence was presented to him, he seemed rather angry, in fact words like “bitch” and “see her in hell” escaped his lips. Neither we nor the Americans place any credence in your story. Although you have carried out terminations on behalf of the British Government, that was on operations. Throughout your time in the service it has been emphasised that, shall we say, extra-curricular terminations will not be tolerated.’ He looked down at the report in front of him.

‘Until we have received a satisfactory explanation from you, or otherwise established the truth about what really happened to Furness, you are indefinitely suspended from operational duty. For now you will remain at liberty, but you will surrender your passport and file reports of your whereabouts as directed. If you fail to comply with this or any other restriction we may place upon you, you will be arrested for the murder of Dean Furness.’ He paused. ‘Is that clearly understood, Miss Tate?’ Gerry tried to swallow her anger, but her meek reply deserted her when she saw the look of smug satisfaction on Jarvis’s face.

‘You fucking bastard,’ she said quietly to Sir Hugh Fielding. ‘You set me up in front of this drumhead court martial, dump all this crap on me and expect me to be intimidated. You’re a bunch of absolute shits!’

‘That’s as maybe,’ said Fielding with the equanimity of someone who had received many verbal assaults through a long career, ‘but I would nevertheless advise you not to pit yourself against the Service, which as you know full well, would win. Perhaps you are unaware that prison inmates are not allowed to keep their new born infants in prison with them for longer than eighteen months. After that they’re taken into care.’

Gerry stared at them aghast. She unwillingly conjured up a mental picture of someone carrying off her infant child while she held on to the bars of a prison cell shrieking in protest. Her furious resolve drained away and in a state of sudden emotional weakness she meekly replied ‘I see.’

Jarvis pressed a button on his intercom. ‘Vince, could you come in, please; you can escort Miss Tate from the building.’ He looked up at Gerry. ‘Give me your identity card.’

‘I… I left it behind. I came in on a temporary card.’

‘Hmm. Ok We’ll send someone round to collect it. Your firearms licence will be revoked. You will be given three months’ pay in lieu of notice.’

The three men stared at her. She heard the door open and then a hand on her shoulder. At the security desk she handed over her temporary pass and followed Vince outside into the bright sunshine.

‘Ok, I have to take you back to the hotel and you must hand over your ID card,’ he said.

‘After that could you give me a lift home, please,’ she said, rather proud that her voice sounded steady.

‘I’m sorry, I have to go straight back to the office; you’ll have to get a taxi,’ he replied.

Gerry slowly walked up to her flat where a policeman stood watch. She automatically reached for her identity card but then let her hand drop as she remembered. ‘Is it ok if I go back inside my flat now?’ she asked.

‘Are you the owner, Geraldine Tate?’ The policeman eyed her suspiciously. ‘Have you got any id? We’ve had a couple of scribblers trying to get in.’ Gerry searched for her driving licence. The policeman took it nodded and handed it back. ‘I can take you in to pick up personal items, but I understand you’ll have to wait at least until tomorrow before the scene of crime people release it.’

Gerry followed the policeman inside. She could see an outline drawn on the carpet and a forensics officer was inspecting blood spattered on the adjacent wall but when she tried to go in to take a better look he grasped her elbow. ‘Not in there please.’

He watched her walk around her bedroom picking clothes out of drawers and cupboards and stuffing her two biggest suitcases. She pulled them off the bed and picked them up. ‘Ok I’m ready,’ she said.

‘Look love, you shouldn’t be carrying them, not in your condition.’ Gerry allowed him to take one from her and they carried them outside.

‘Ok thanks; if you can just look after them while I get my keys… oh hell, where’s my car?’

‘I believe it was taken by forensics,’ he said.

‘Oh shit!’ Gerry sat down on the door step and pulled her phone out to call a cab.

Forty minutes later she had checked out the hotel and another taxi drove her back to Philip’s flat. She thanked the driver who had also decided that someone in her condition should not be lugging big suitcases, and closed the front door. She stared out the window for a minute or two and then with her remaining resources she pulled off her clothes and fell into the bed. She hugged the pillow to her, caught a vague scent of Philip and lay in quiet misery until she fell asleep.

She was woken up by a hammering on the door and the insistent ringing of the bell. What was the time? 9:53pm according to the bedside clock. She rolled wearily out of bed, unhooked her dressing gown from the door and trod slowly downstairs. She looked through the security lens and saw four police officers, three male and one female. Two of the officers were wearing flak jackets and held firearms. She considered rushing upstairs, quickly dressing, fetching her weapons and breaking out through the back door but a glance out through the kitchen window showed a flashlight being waved around outside. She still fancied her chances against the posse outside the front door but perhaps someone would wind up dead and it might be her. She opened the front door.

‘Geraldine Tate?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are under arrest for the murder of Dean Furness. You do not have to say anything. However, it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

She was convicted of murder and given a life sentence. She was told to expect to serve a term of fifteen years before she might be eligible for parole.

Two months after her conviction her mother had suddenly died. A few weeks later she gave birth to a healthy baby girl and then after several days of extreme anguish she had given her up for adoption.

Long, long years passed by before events took a sudden and surprising turn.