Khamil considered this for a few moments. ‘I will have to consult my colleague,’ he said finally. ‘He wanted action sooner than you have suggested is possible.’
Abbas nodded again. He knew, as everyone who worked for Khamil knew, exactly who his ‘colleague’ was, but nobody ever so much as breathed his name. This was in part respect, or more accurately fear, and in part simple security.
It is no secret that the West’s two most important Communications Intelligence monitoring stations – the American National Security Agency at Fort George Meade in Maryland and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire – monitor communications of all sorts, worldwide. The NSA has a weekly output of over two hundred tons of classified data based on communications intercepts alone.
This prodigious ‘take’ is principally derived from the highly classified Echelon monitoring system, and comprises mobile and satellite telephone calls – probably the easiest of all to detect – radio and signal traffic, internet data-transfer and electronic mail intercepts derived from the Carnivore programme, and even calls between landline telephones where any part of the transmission involves a satellite or microwave link or passes through a ‘friendly’ nation. The British Foreign Office, for example, as part of the joint GCHQ/NSA agreement, monitors every international telephone call which originates or terminates in Britain.
With this degree of intercept capability, human monitoring is clearly impossible, so computers do the job instead, listening out for any mention, in any language, of certain names and words. The words are fairly obvious, and are specified by the agency which will be the ultimate recipient of the product, but the names change as the political situation alters. Since the early 1990s, and following the suicide bombings in Jakarta and Lagos, one name in particular has been right at the head of every Western nation’s ‘most wanted’ list with respect to terrorism. For that reason, neither the name Osama bin Laden nor al-Qaeda were ever spoken aloud by any of his followers.
‘I have,’ Abbas began deferentially, ‘another suggestion.’
Ten minutes later Khamil sat back in his chair. The plan Abbas had proposed was outrageous, alarming, stunning in its concept and fraught with logistical and other problems, but it had an undeniable simplicity which he knew would appeal when he proposed it, as he had known immediately that he would, to bin Laden. ‘And how long before this could be implemented?’
‘Within two years, probably within eighteen months. Some of the assets are already in place. Ready for this, or a similar opportunity.’
Khamil nodded in satisfaction. That was more like it. ‘They are fully trained and committed?’ he asked.
‘Their commitment is not in doubt,
Khamil smiled – the irony was not lost on him. ‘What are the chances of failure?’
Abbas smiled again. ‘None,
Khamil nodded again, then looked sharply at Abbas. ‘How do you know? How do you know it will succeed?’
Abbas looked momentarily at a loss for words. ‘A figure of speech,
Khamil shook his head. ‘No. I have known you for many years, and you are always exact in what you say. You said you know this plan will succeed. So, I ask again, how?’
Abbas stood silently in front of the desk, his mind racing. He knew Khamil, knew that he wouldn’t be satisfied by a vague discussion of semantics. Khamil had an uncanny ability to sniff out truth and falsehood, and infinite patience and persistence in the search. He would, Abbas realized, have to tell him the truth, embarrassing though it would be. ‘There is a book,
Five minutes later Khamil leaned back in his chair and laughed. ‘So, Hassan, now we know where you receive your inspiration: from the ramblings of an infidel who scribbled down his visions five hundred years ago. What nonsense!’
Abbas shook his head slightly. ‘You mock me,
Khamil continued to smile, but shook his head. ‘It’s all nonsense, Hassan. The future is not pre-ordained, as well you know. If you wish to rely on the obscure words of a Frenchman dead half a millennium, that’s your choice. But it does save me the trouble of choosing a code-name for you in our communications. I shall simply call you “The Prophet”.’
Chapter One
Present day – Tuesday
In the Lubyanka Prison a man lay dying, and he had no idea why. No medical practitioner in the world could have diagnosed his ailment, for he had none, but he was nevertheless dying, and there was nothing any doctor could do to save him. At four fifteen, he had perhaps four hours to live. He knew it. His jailers knew it. And the white-coated technicians preparing the table and equipment in the soundproof interrogation room knew it.
He knew, without the slightest doubt, that he would never see the sun again, never see a blue sky or the waves breaking on the rocky shores of his native Northumberland. His future, short as it was, would be tightly constrained, limited to the four discoloured concrete walls that imprisoned him, and to whatever colours the KGB had elected to paint the basement interrogation room where they were going to kill him.
When they came for him, he was sobbing in despair, but when the guard put a hand on his shoulder to drag him off the stained mattress and on to his feet, he screamed and lashed out blindly, using fists, feet and teeth. The struggle was short and pointless. The captive lapsed into unconsciousness when the blackjack descended on the back of his head, and when he awoke the short journey to the interrogation room was over, and he was strapped naked on the table.
An elderly grey-haired man with twinkling, innocent blue eyes and a short white beard leaned over him, looked down and smiled. ‘Good. You are awake. No, don’t try and talk yet. You will have plenty of time for that later. First I want to explain things to you.’ The Russian’s English was fluent, the accent faintly American. He leaned closer. ‘I am what you British would call of the old school. I am an old-style interrogator. I do use drugs, the truth drugs, scopolamine and sodium pentothal, but they are unreliable and people can be taught, as no doubt you were taught, to resist their effects. And they can just as easily kill, if they are used in too large doses, or cause such great brain damage that we are left with a gibbering idiot. And we don’t want that, do we?’
He chuckled, looking a little like a benevolent Santa Claus, and sat down on a stained plastic chair next to the table. ‘So, I only use them if I can take my time, and increase the dosage slowly. But now we need answers quickly, and the best method of persuasion, I believe, is pain. Pain is my profession. I will start with a little pain, to show that I am serious, and then I will ask you some questions. If you answer those, I might not hurt you again, but you will probably lie, or I might think that you are lying, and then I will hurt you more, a lot more, and then I will ask you again. And I will go on like that until I decide that you have nothing more to tell me. If you have helped me, I will kill you quickly, and it won’t hurt. But if you have not told me what I wanted to know, then you can take a long, long time to die and you will suffer pain that you will not believe possible.’
He paused and looked down at the Englishman. ‘The point, you see, is that I will get the answers I need. I always get the answers. How much pain it costs you is up to you, but I will get the answers. Now, I am going to leave you for a few minutes while you think about what I have said. You must choose, not me.’
He stood up, walked over to the two white-coated figures waiting in the corner and spoke softly to them, then left the room. As soon as he had gone, the technicians moved two trolleys over to the table, and left them in the clear sight of the captive. Each displayed an array of medical equipment – saws, knives and scalpels – as well as more utilitarian tools – pliers, screwdrivers, soldering iron, bolt-cutters and a blowlamp. The Englishman had no doubts about why they had been left there, just as he had no doubt that the interrogator would use any or all of the equipment to obtain whatever information he wanted.
