spoke.
‘What do you do for a living, Miss Herrick?’ asked the constable finally.
‘I’m civil service,’ she replied. ‘And I have a very important meeting in an hour.’
‘We could give you a lift into town and I can fill the gaps in your statement while my colleague drives.’
‘Fine, but I have to shower and eat and clear up a bit.’ She thought for second. ‘It would make my life a lot easier if you would get me two bacon and egg sandwiches and a cup of coffee from the cafe on Rosetti Road, just round the corner.’
‘Two!’
‘Yes, two, unless you both want something, in which case I’ll treat you.’ She proffered a twenty-pound note. ‘Really, it would be a big help.’
He examined her. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Not suffering from shock or anything?’
‘As a matter of fact, I’m feeling pretty damned good. It’s not every day you get the chance to knock out a man with baseball bat.’
He took the money and went to the door, just as the bell rang. Herrick looked round from the kitchen to see him open it to a man in a chauffeur’s uniform.
‘Yes?’ she called out.
‘Miss Herrick? A package from the Nabil Commercial Bank. You are expecting me. I have it for you, here.’
It was only when she took the fat brown envelope from him and recognised the handwriting on the address label that she realised this was the package Sally Cawdor had promised her.
It occurred to her that the contents of the package were the only thing that anyone could want from her. But why were two Albanian thugs looking for it? Some twenty minutes later as she sat at her kitchen table, working her way through the crusty bread bacon sandwiches, she began to put a theory together.
‘Cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity,’ said the Chief quietly. ‘Are you familiar with that aphorism, Isis? It comes from the Earl of Chesterfield, who knew that cunning is a substitute for talent and originality. In this particular situation someone is being very cunning indeed, so perhaps it is simply a matter of looking around us and settling on the least talented.’ She knew he was referring to Richard Spelling and Walter Vigo.
‘Despite everything, I wonder if the business at my house is really a side issue, Sir Robin,’ said Herrick, wanting to get off the subject of what the men were looking for and why they might have been sent by Vigo.
‘If you really think that is the case,’ he said, ‘I am happy to leave it, at least for the moment.’ He turned to the window with his glasses lodged in the corner of his mouth. ‘Do you know how many people are under surveillance by the Security Services, Special Branch and us, Isis?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No.’
‘About five hundred and fifty require close attention. And that’s in this country alone. Outside, the number reaches into the thousands.’ He paused and turned from the view. ‘Yet the preponderance of our effort is deployed watching nine people.’
‘I feel rather responsible for that. I’m-’
‘You did your job. It is the reaction to the discoveries you made at Heathrow that is flawed, and I am more than responsible for that.’
‘But the Prime Minister only has to say the word and we bring all the foreign intelligence services into the operation and immediately diminish the commitment as well as the exposure.’
He nodded slowly. He couldn’t say it, but she understood that Spelling and Vigo had monopolised the advice going to the Prime Minister. ‘Who knew that you would not be sleeping at the Bunker after your shift? You had your bag with you, so it was a fair assumption that you would be staying there.’
‘Only Andy Dolph, I think.’
‘So anyone else might imagine your house was free to be searched at leisure today?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And you say they were definitely Albanians?’
‘The second man wasn’t apprehended, but the one in hospital is certainly Albanian.’
‘Interesting,’ said the Chief. ‘But as you say, this is beside the point. I think we should move on to Karim Khan.’
He pressed a button on his desk and got up. ‘I have made a lot of calls on your energy and I’m going to ask that you give a little more over the coming week. I hope that will be in order.’
He showed her to the door at the side of his office and they made their way to a room sealed off from the outside world, reputedly armoured and protected from every known surveillance device. They sat down at the table and the Chief looked expectantly at the door. After a few seconds it opened and Colin Guthrie, the head of the joint MI5-MI6 anti-terrorist controllerate and his main aide, Gregor Laughland, came in. They were followed by Charles Harrison, head of Security and Public Affairs, his deputy Christine Selvey, Philip Sarre and three men she had not seen before. The group had a marked conspiratorial air about it and Herrick was intrigued that both Guthrie and Selvey were in attendance, since they had originally been supporters of RAPTOR. Perhaps they’d thrown their lot in with the Chief knowing they’d be thrown out under the new regime. More likely the Chief had encouraged them to attach themselves to RAPTOR to find out what was going on and report back to him.
The Chief began speaking in a quiet, uncertain tone that gave the impression he did not know quite what he was going to say. ‘Time is short and I believe we have only a matter of days to act.’ He gestured to the three strangers. ‘These gentlemen are from a security firm that specialises in hostage negotiation. In a moment I will ask the firm’s head of operations, whom I will call Colonel B, to speak about the plan he has been putting together for us in the twenty-four hours since we heard that Karim Khan had been flown for interrogation to Cairo. Colonel B’s team will remain anonymous to all but myself and Colin Guthrie. It is Colonel B’s condition that their involvement in this matter will not be referred to outside this room and so I stress to you all that the need for secrecy has never been more imperative.’
He stopped and looked round his staff, seeking a sign of consent in each person. Herrick understood that it was not simply for the consultant’s peace of mind. The Chief was going beyond his powers as specified by the Foreign Office and Parliament. Despite the studied calm and modulation of his voice, this was a desperate last move and might very well also be Herrick’s last work for the Service.
‘Over the next few days,’ he continued, ‘we plan to remove Karim Khan from the custody of the local intelligence service and question him in the proper manner. It is my belief that this man possesses crucial information about future terrorist attacks in the West. In particular he can identify two, maybe even three, terrorist leaders who have so far escaped our attention. The first problem is that Mr Khan is being questioned simply as an operative who may, or may not, be involved in a particular attack. Mr Khan’s knowledge is, I am certain, of a much more general and historic nature. He knows much, but is not in a position to appreciate what he knows, or how valuable it could be.
‘The second problem is that our American friends are convinced Mr Khan knows things that are of immediate worth. They are therefore content to allow the Egyptians to torture him until he talks. Previously the Egyptians have been constrained by the requirement to produce foreign suspects in court, which entails exposure of their methods. But there will be no court case for Mr Khan because he is being held as Jasur Faisal and a sentence has already been passed on him, in his absence. So the Egyptians will have a free hand. Hence our need to move quickly.
‘Now, we already have good information about where he is being held. Up until 6.00 a.m. today he was in a holding cell in police headquarters in central Cairo. At some stage he will be removed to a facility attached to a very secure prison on the southern outskirts of the city, at which point we may give up all hope of freeing him. According to our people, there are no signs of that yet. We have pulled out all the stops on this one and the sources of information are proving fast and responsive to our requests, so I am confident that at least in this regard we’re not working in the dark.
‘Before Colonel B outlines his thoughts, I want to say what happens after we have got Khan. The immediate aim will be to restore him to a condition where he is able to talk about what he knows. This will not be a simple matter. He is likely to be quite badly injured, to say nothing of the psychological trauma of torture. What I have in mind is this: we do not attempt to exfiltrate Khan immediately, but keep him in Egypt at the safe location being prepared at the moment by some unusual associates of ours. It is important that Khan sees some friendly faces – people he knows he can trust.
