the lip reader had besides the grainy images was the fact that Faulkner would keep lifting his hand across his mouth and so giving the lip reader nothing to read.
‘….give you anything new,’ the lip reader began. His words were being recorded as he read what he could understand. ‘….gunfight at the OK…., your country… press….any contingency plan…Milan Janov… tomorrow.’ There was a brief silence. ‘… we are going to replace Grebo…fill that gap.’ Silence again. ‘…I won’t be… immigration stops….send him home…’ Another pause. ‘….have to go…. Deveraux to close….trip back to the states…’ He stopped and sat up.
‘I’m afraid that’s it, Sir Giles,’ the lip reader told Cavendish. ‘Very difficult to follow the patterns: too grainy and too much hand movement.’
Cavendish got up and switched on the lights. ‘That’s fine. I’ll send a copy of what you’ve managed so far and then you can look at the tape a few more times; see if you can fill in any gaps.’
The lip reader stopped the DVD player. ‘I’ll be off then, Sir Giles. Hope there’s enough for you to go on.’
Cavendish nodded. ‘Couple of things,’ he answered non-comittally. ‘And thanks again.’
Cavendish sat alone in his office after the lip reader had left wondering what his next move was going to be. He had little scope to fill the investigation with countless agents working to ferret out information that was more or less well known to him but of which he had no proof, because of limited funding; a burden all governments departments had to live with, and the fact that all avenues out of his office seemed to come up against people in authority who were in the pay of the organisation known as The Chapter.
Cavendish had penetrated The Chapter with an agent working undercover, right in the heart of the organisation’s clearing centre in Jalalabad, in the Mission; but the agent’s identity had been discovered by the organisation.
His second agent David Ellis, who had gathered valuable intelligence, was now in captivity, a hostage, and it was this fact that was beginning to puzzle Cavendish. Ellis had been shot and almost killed, but had been snatched from the hospital, only to resurface almost a year later. Contact had been made with Ellis’s sister from an unknown source. At first Cavendish could not set too much store in that first packet of grubby pages that had turned up. But the second, the letter which was now in Susan Ellis’s possession was the more puzzling; why had it been sent, and by whom?
With today’s internet technology, he knew it wouldn’t be beyond the wit of the kidnappers to put a video on the web and read out their demands with David Ellis sitting forlornly in the foreground. But that wasn’t the case, which led Cavendish to believe that whoever was holding Ellis hostage either wouldn’t or couldn’t resort to that tactic. Why?
Could it be, he wondered, that the kidnapper was afraid of revealing his or her identity? The kidnapper had nothing to fear from the British authorities; rather the opposite; the British would gladly take Ellis off the kidnapper’s hands for nothing. So the kidnapper must have something to fear from his own side.
A picture was beginning to emerge in Cavendish’s mind. The Chapter had proved how ruthless they were when it came to dispatching men who posed a threat to them. People like James Purdy, the Cabinet Minister, or Danvor Grebo; one of their own.
It meant that if the kidnapper was a member of The Chapter, part of the drug and arms smuggling cartel Cavendish was trying to penetrate and smash, he would have every reason to fear for his life.
He wanted to talk! That was it; it had to be the reason Susan had received the second letter. But how on earth was Cavendish supposed to unearth the person who wanted to make contact without advertising the fact, and putting that man or woman’s life in danger, and that of David Ellis?
It was something he had to think about, but an idea began to germinate in his mind and he wondered if he might be able to pull it off.
Three days later, Cavendish rang James Faulkner and asked for a meeting. Faulkner sounded reluctant, but because of their overlapping responsibilities he knew he was obliged to. Cavendish gave him no idea of why he wanted the meeting, but pressed him on its urgency.
Faulkner duly arrived at MI6 headquarters and was shown up to Cavendish’s office. He was surprised to see Andrew Butler there, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
Cavendish greeted him, a touch formally Faulkner thought and invited him to sit down. He then produced a manila envelope from which he withdrew two sheets of paper. He passed one to Faulkner and the other to the Commissioner.
‘I would like you to read that for me if you would,’ Cavendish asked the SOCA chief. ‘I’ll be interested in your reaction.’
Faulkner frowned and pulled the sheet of paper towards him. He took a pair of half-moon glasses from his jacket pocket, perched them on the bridge of his nose while holding them with one hand, and scanned the document. He could feel the colour and heat flooding into his neck as he looked through the typescript.
What Cavendish had given the two men was an almost complete script of the conversation that had taken place between Faulkner and Hudson at the riverside pub a few days ago. Cavendish’s man, the lip reader had poured over the film many times and used his own skills and inclination to fill in the majority of empty spaces that had prevailed after his first attempt. The result was an almost complete copy of what had been said between the two men.
Faulkner kept his face fixed firmly on the paper, his mind working furiously. Eventually he put his glasses back in his pocket and looked across the table at Cavendish.
‘What is this, Sir Giles?’
Butler peered over the top of his glasses. ‘Yes, what is it?’
Looking at the Commissioner, Cavendish said, ‘Our SOCA chief had a meeting with Randolph Hudson, the CIA Station Chief a few days ago at a pub alongside the river. We filmed that meeting and used lip reading techniques to produce that transcript of what was said between the two men.’
Butler dropped his eyes down to the script. ‘It’s nothing but a piece of paper with a jumbled narrative.’
‘I agree,’ Cavendish told him. ‘But with the film it makes an awful lot of difference.’ He turned his attention back to Faulkner. ‘Well, have you anything to say?’
Faulkner dropped the paper on to the table top. ‘Well, what is it? All I can see is what appears to be a script of some kind.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So what are you saying?’
Cavendish did not want to go along with what he knew was play-acting from Faulkner. He decided to nail this and force the man into a climb down and possibly a confession; although he considered the latter unlikely.
‘You and the CIA Chief are part of an organisation known as The Chapter of Mercy.’ Faulkner said nothing. ‘Along with other men of authority, holding very senior positions, you are actively engaged in smuggling heroin and people into this country. You are also engaged in supplying arms to our opponents in Afghanistan; namely the Taliban and Al Qaeda.’
Faulkner jumped up. ‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish! I’m not sitting here listening to this scandalous trash,’ he said sternly, and turned away to walk to the door.
‘You won’t get out,’ Cavendish told him, ‘the door is locked.’
Faulkner spun round, his face a picture of anger. ‘What on earth do you mean by holding me against my will, Cavendish?’ he shouted furiously. ‘I insist you open this door immediately.’ Cavendish shook his head and maintained a fixed stare at Faulkner.
The SOCA chief glared at the Commissioner. ‘Andrew, are you going to sit there and be a party to this, this kidnap?’
The Commissioner held the sheet of paper in his hand. ‘I think James, under the circumstances you should at least listen to what Sir Giles has to say.’ He looked at Cavendish. ‘I for one would certainly like to know what’s going on.’
Faulkner came back to the table and sat down. ‘This is complete tosh,’ he told Cavendish. ‘And an absolute insult to my integrity.’ He picked up the sheet of paper and waved it at him. ‘For your information, Hudson and I were discussing a case that we are investigating; nothing more than that.’
‘At this moment,’ Cavendish said without waiting for Faulkner to add anything else to his tirade, ‘Randolph Hudson is being spoken to by my opposite number in MI5. He is being advised to seek retirement on medical grounds seeing as it’s unlikely we could hold him here in UK. After all, he would probably claim diplomatic immunity.’
