the Tube, and on the Eurostar. Both times you did what you had to do.’
Shepherd said nothing.
‘I know we’re not exactly best buddies, but I want to talk to you as a friend.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Shepherd.
Yokely took a gulp of his drink. ‘He’s almost certainly going to die. You know that?’
‘Not necessarily. There have been almost two hundred and fifty foreign hostages taken over the past three years. Eighty-six have been killed. That suggests odds of three to one, survival wise.’
‘Except that your friend is in the hands of militants. The survival rate at that level is virtually non-existent. And you know as well as I do that so far this year only two Westerners have been released. And how many have been butchered? Twenty-five? They’re getting more vicious, not less.’
‘Are you telling me we’re wasting our time?’
‘It’s a mess out there, Spider. I’ll do what I can to help, but Iraq’s not my battlefield, and there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t thank the Lord for it. My war is against the terrorist threat, and that’s hard enough. But in Iraq there’s no way of knowing who’s friend and who’s foe. The enemy doesn’t wear a uniform, doesn’t follow any of the rules of war. When we first moved into Iraq, the CIA reckoned we’d be facing five thousand insurgents. By the summer of 2004 they’d raised that estimate to twenty thousand. By the winter it had grown to a hundred thousand. Now you can pretty much take any number and double it. And we’re not facing a unified enemy. There are Sunni insurgents who want Iraq to go back to the way it was before Saddam was kicked out. There are Baathists from the Return Party, the Fedayeen militia units that kept Saddam in power, Shia guerrillas and, on top of that, all the foreign mercenaries who’ve flooded into the country. Any one of those groups could be behind the Holy Martyrs of Islam. Or it might not be insurgents. It might be a maverick fundamentalist group, Saudis or Algerians, out to cause as much trouble as they can. If they’re fundamentalists, then there’ll be no negotiating with them. They’ll want to kill your friend to cause a backlash that’ll unite Muslims against the West.’
‘We’re going to do what we can,’ said Shepherd. ‘Whatever it takes.’
‘I empathise, Spider, I really do. If it was one of my friends out there in an orange jumpsuit, I’d be doing the same. But you have to be realistic. I’ll get you whatever intel I can, but be aware that you’re probably flogging a dead horse.’
Shepherd drained his glass and stood up. ‘Give me a call as soon as you have anything,’ he said.
‘Now I’ve offended you,’ said Yokely.
‘No more than usual,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll get over it.’
The Major had booked a suite of offices in a building close to the BBC’s Broadcasting House in Portland Place. Shepherd took the Tube to Regent’s Park, left the station and walked through the park for fifteen minutes. Once he was satisfied that no one was following him, he walked south down Portland Place, heading for the office block. Several yards ahead of him, sitting cross-legged on the pavement, a middle-aged Chinese woman was holding her hands out, palms up, chanting. Across the road a bored armed policeman stood, feet planted shoulder-width apart, in front of the Chinese Embassy. There was always at least one protester demonstrating against the Chinese government’s torture of dissidents. Shepherd wondered if the woman thought she could change government policy or if she was there to prove that someone cared. The lone policeman was a token presence, rather than a serious security measure, and there was something very British about the stand-off. Shepherd doubted that the Chinese would have been so tolerant if the woman had been in her own country.
He reached the office block and did a final check that he hadn’t been followed. There was an intercom at the main door and Shepherd pressed the buzzer for the second floor. Armstrong answered and let him in.
When Shepherd arrived Major Gannon was sitting at the head of a large boardroom table drinking a mug of coffee. His satellite phone was on a smaller table by the window that looked out over the road. Whiteboards had been attached to three walls, displaying newspaper cuttings, photographs and satellite images of Baghdad. On the fourth wall there was a large-scale map of Iraq. Armstrong was pouring coffee and O’Brien was rummaging through a selection of Marks amp; Spencer sandwiches. As usual, Shortt was the last to arrive and hurried in, apologising profusely.
‘Let’s get started,’ said Gannon. ‘This will be our HQ.’ He pointed to a door on his left. ‘There’s a couple of camp beds in there, and a bathroom. I’ll be either here or at the Duke of York Barracks, but my mobile will always be switched on.’ He gestured at two laptop computers on a side-table in the far corner of the room. ‘They’ve got broadband and I’ve rigged up access to the Regiment’s databases.’ The Major bent down, swung a briefcase on to the table and clicked open the locks to reveal bundles of twenty-pound notes. ‘There’s cash here, more if we need it.’ He closed the briefcase. ‘Where do we stand with the video?’
‘You were right, boss,’ said Armstrong, lighting a cigarette. ‘Al-Jazeera got it first, but we’re not sure how and they’re not prepared to give us any help on that front.’
‘What can you tell us about al-Jazeera?’ asked the Major.
‘It’s the largest Arabic news channel in the Middle East,’ said Armstrong. ‘It means the Island, or the Peninsula. Based in Qatar, it’s been around for just over ten years. Tends to show sensational pictures of bodies and the like on its news channel, but also runs sport and children’s channels. They came on to the radar after nine/eleven when they broadcast video statements by Bin Laden and his chums. They run a website, too. Aljazeera. net. Not to be confused with Aljazeera. com, which runs really inflammatory stuff.’
‘Bush hates them,’ interjected Shortt. He rubbed his moustache. ‘In 2001 the US bombed al-Jazeera’s offices in Afghanistan and a couple of years later they shelled a hotel in Iraq where the only guests were al-Jazeera journalists. They’ve put several of their journalists in prison and the US-backed government in Iraq has banned the network from reporting there. In 2004, Bush is supposed to have talked about bombing their HQ in Qatar.’
‘Am I the only one who doesn’t know where Qatar is?’ asked O’Brien, running a hand over his shaved head.
‘It’s a tiny state in the Persian Gulf,’ said Shepherd. ‘Population just over half a million, it borders Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The capital is Doha. So, are al-Jazeera good guys or bad guys?’
‘They’re neutral,’ said Armstrong, flicking ash into a crystal ashtray. O’Brien coughed pointedly and waved smoke away from his face. ‘They’re an Arab news service, doing the same sort of job that CNN and the BBC do. It’s just that America doesn’t like the Arab point of view being broadcast. They’ve also upset pretty much every Arab government in the Middle East at some time or another. For instance, they were the first Arab station to broadcast interviews with Israeli officials.’
‘So why do they always get the hostage videos?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Because if they were sent to CNN there’s no guarantee they’d be shown, and if they were, a bloody good chance that they’d been sent to the CIA first,’ said Armstrong. ‘The BBC would probably refuse to broadcast them on grounds of taste. But al-Jazeera airs them and makes them available to other news agencies.’
‘How does the video get to the station?’ asked the Major.
‘That’s the problem,’ said Armstrong. ‘They won’t say. I phoned their news desk in Qatar and I’ve spoken to senior management, but they’re not prepared to give any details.’
‘We need to know how they got the video,’ said the Major. ‘It’s the only link we have to Geordie.’
Shortt slid a sheet of paper across the table to him. ‘They have a correspondent here in London whose brother works on the news desk in Qatar,’ he said. ‘His name is Basharat al-Sabah.’
‘Have you spoken to him yet?’
‘If we call him up, he’ll give us the standard line,’ said Shortt. ‘Unless we get… creative.’
‘Creative?’ said Shepherd.
Shortt placed his hands flat on the table. ‘We’re going to have to decide here and now how far we’re prepared to go to get what we need,’ he said. ‘If I phone this guy, I’ll get the bum’s rush. If I turn up on his doorstep, he’ll close the door in my face. If I pretend to be a cop or a spook he won’t be intimidated. He’s a journalist so he knows the ropes.’
‘Spider could go in. He’s a real cop,’ said Armstrong.
‘Absolutely not,’ said the Major. ‘If he makes a complaint, Spider’s job’ll be on the line. I don’t suppose we know what he looks like?’
Shortt grinned and slid another sheet of paper across the table. It was a copy of a Qatar passport. ‘A mate in Immigration got it for me,’ he said.
‘There’s no suggestion that this guy’s a terrorist?’ asked Shepherd.
‘He’s snow white,’ said Shortt. ‘He’s got a degree in political science, and I ran a CRO check on him through a
