Herrick thought for a moment. ‘Because the slow and deliberate infliction of pain on any human being is in most instances worse than death. And then there’s the question of whether it produces the information that you want, assuming you know the individual is in possession of that information in the first place.’
Lyne leaned back. ‘Mostly I agree with you, Isis. A few years ago I wouldn’t have condoned it in any circumstances. But say one of these guys we’re watching is about to let loose a virus on the continent, a virus that might kill millions. No one could stand in the way of extracting the information by all available means. That’s the nature of the inglorious, shitty war we’re fighting. It’s rough, but these guys chose it and now you and I are in the front line of the response. That’s our job right now.’ He put a pen to his lips and examined her, rocking silently in his seat. ‘How badly was Khan tortured?’
‘Not while I was there.’
‘What would you say if I told you I believed he was still alive?’ Lyne asked.
‘The official version, the version that your people have decided will be the record, is in my report. By your people I mean the high command of RAPTOR – Vigo, Jim Collins, Spelling, the head of bloody MI5, God bless her. Who am I to doubt their wisdom?’
Lyne threw himself forward. ‘You’re shitting me. What do you know?’
‘Nothing. I simply asked you about torture because all this took place with the CIA involved. I wanted to know what you thought about the issue.’
‘No, you were sounding me out for another reason.’
‘I thought you were sounding me out!’
‘Either way, tell me what’s up.’
‘Honestly, Nathan, I think it would serve both our interests if you were to accept everything in my report and then forget about it.’ She looked down.
‘I hear you.’ He raised his fingers in a boy scout salute. ‘Don’t tell. Don’t ask.’
She smiled again. ‘So what’s been happening here?’
‘It will be easier if we go out onto the floor,’ he said, brightening. ‘Andy Dolph is looking forward to seeing you. I think he carries quite a flame for you.’
They went together to Lyne’s desk. On the way Herrick noticed new spaces had been opened in the short time she had been away, and there was a lot of new equipment manned by people she didn’t recognise.
‘Forget those guys,’ said Lyne, gesturing in their direction. ‘They can only talk number theory and they’re losing their backsides in Dolph’s poker school. One of them has been running a program based on the cards he draws, trying to figure out if he’s cheating.’
‘He is,’ said Herrick.
Lyne also told her that ‘Collection’ had bugged all the apartments where the suspects were hiding. The live feeds from these could be seen on every computer hooked up to the RAPTOR circuit. The behaviour of the nine men – their toilet routines, exercise regimes, diet, reading patterns, religious observance and evidence of sexual frustration – was subject to minute scrutiny by behavioural psychologists.
‘Did they find anything interesting?’
‘Uh-uh.’
They arrived at Southern Group Three to find Dolph leaning back in his chair wearing a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses and a black trilby with a small rim.
‘Hey, Isis, what’s cooking?’ he said, getting up and giving her a brief hug.
‘Andy’s won the Blues Brother award for investigative excellence,’ explained Lyne, ‘which means he gets to wear John Belushi’s hat until someone betters his achievement. The shades and ghetto-talk are optional.’
‘How’d you win it, Dolph?’ she asked.
‘The Haj,’ said Dolph, sitting down again. ‘My man here will explain.’
Lyne grimaced. ‘Andy did some research which tied all the suspects together. They basically all went on the Haj pilgrimage. Every single one of them arrived in Mecca on the fourth of February. They each went as one person and came away with a new identity.’
‘A variation of the Heathrow switch,’ she said.
‘I told you she’d take credit for it,’ said Dolph, raising his sunglasses to the rim of the hat.
‘Okay then, tell me how it worked,’ she asked, bowing in mock respect.
‘How much do you know about the Haj?’
‘A bit.’
Dolph put his feet on the desk. ‘The Haj takes place every year for five or six days. Nearly one and a half million people from all over the world are issued with special visas by the Saudi Ministry for Religion. The pilgrim goes stripped of his worldly possessions, with nothing but a two-piece white cotton wrapping and a money-bag tied round his waist. The whole point is that you go as one person and return as another. “Re-chisel then your ancient frame and build up a new being,” says a Pakistani poet. That sentence rang a bell with me and I realised the Haj was the perfect occasion for these guys to swap identities.’ He stopped.
‘That’s the traditional break for applause,’ said Lyne drily.
‘I just knew that’s what they had done. And after just forty-eight hours we found three had travelled to Mecca on the same day in the first week of February. The whole thing is so damned easy because the Saudi authorities insist that each pilgrim hands in his passport when he enters the country. They only give it back when he leaves. How much organisation would it take to do that switch? Answer, nil. By the way, all of them travelled in that period and acquired the identities they’re currently using. They re-chiselled, Isis. And there are more. We think a total of seventeen men moved through Saudi Arabia during that week and came away as other people.’
She thought for a moment. ‘But would they do this – sully the holiest pilgrimage of the year with a terrorist plot?’
‘Of course they would. Anyway, I think it happened as they were leaving, after the visit to the holy sights was done and dusted.’
‘You deserve the hat,’ she said. ‘But what would be the point of the second ID switch at Heathrow? If they’d already established a very efficient way of doing it on Arab soil why the hell would they risk everything by repeating the operation at Heathrow?’
‘Aye, there’s the rub,’ said Dolph.
‘So what’s happening about this?’
Dolph looked pained. ‘They put it on the back burner. They were interested, but the focus is on these nine men. We’re going to hunt down the others at some later point.’
‘Still, it was very smart of you.’
‘That’s what I keep saying,’ Dolph exclaimed.
‘I can vouch for that,’ said Lyne.
Five minutes later, Herrick asked, ‘You remember when the Stuttgart suspect killed himself and Walter Vigo ordered an intensive surveillance of calls from the Stuttgart helpers? He thought they would make contact with the leadership. Was a call traced?’
Before she had finished Dolph’s eyes were revolving.
‘Yep,’ said Lyne absently, ‘there was a trace to a satellite phone in the Middle East, but that’s all I know. It’s Umbra.’
‘Umbra is NSA-speak for very restricted knowledge,’ said Dolph.
‘Right, so shut the fuck up,’ said Lyne without smiling.
‘Why’s that so sensitive?’ she asked. ‘Anyway, where in the Middle East?’
‘Search me,’ said Dolph.
Lyne got up and made for the water machine shaking his head.
Herrick spent the next few hours doing what the Chief had instructed, roaming the system and reading anything that caught her eye. ‘Go into the garden and pick what flowers you like,’ he had said. ‘Then come back to me.’ She concentrated on the connections between the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hizbollah and the suspects who had visited the tri-border region in South America. It was a random thread, but she followed it because of Sammi Loz’s background and her particular interest in Beirut.
When Lyne asked what she was doing, she told him she was familiarising herself with the new material and then added, ‘You know, the suspects still seem like they’re all half-asleep. Why haven’t they been arrested?’
