‘An American scream,’ Spiro managed to repeat, more as a statement than a question. Fielding had to give him credit. He was trying to put on a brave face.
‘I’ve compared it with the audio IDs sent over by Fort Meade.’ Myers paused, fiddling with his ponytail. ‘It’s a perfect match with one of the Marines.’ He paused again. ‘Lieutenant Randall Oaks.’
21
It was as Marchant was taking his seat in the departure lounge that he first sensed security at the airport had been raised a level. Two men in charcoal suits had appeared at the gate and were standing by the entrance to the airbridge that led down to the plane, a twin-turboprop ATR 42. Marchant knew that the aircraft was used by courier firms, but it also flew short-haul passenger flights.
The two men, badges on their jackets, scrutinised the group of people waiting for the flight, then glanced down the list of passengers with a member of the ground crew. One of the officers caught Marchant’s eye, checked the list, and then looked at another passenger. They didn’t appear to be interested in him, but he was on edge now, searching for anything that might suggest he was a target.
Earlier, after he had taken a few photos of Hussein Farmi and joked with the other photographers, he had passed through passport control without a problem. Not even a second glance at his photo. He hadn’t been worried that the cobblers’ work wouldn’t be up to scratch; he was more concerned that Meena might have called in a favour, asked Moroccan intelligence to keep a lookout for him.
There were no more than twenty passengers in total, and they started to form an orderly line when their flight was finally called.
Marchant was about to get up from his seat when one of the suited men came over to him, smiling.
‘Mr McLennan?’
‘That’s me,’ Marchant said, keeping it upbeat. He followed up with what he hoped was a cheeky smile. ‘Is there a problem?’ He wouldn’t have asked if he had been Daniel Marchant, but he felt Dirk McLennan was the sort of man who liked to put his cards on the table.
‘Not at all. The flight is less than half full, and we are upgrading today. Please, follow me.’
‘Great, sounds a blast,’ Marchant said, assessing the risk. He was instinctively worried. The badge on the man’s suit indicated that he worked for the local airline, but Marchant didn’t believe it for a second. ‘Terrific, in fact. But what about these good people here?’ He glanced at the other passengers.
‘I should say it is because you are a guest of our country and we have a long and honourable tradition of hospitality, but I would be lying.’ He paused. Marchant thought for a moment about running, but he returned the man’s steady gaze as a bead of sweat rolled down his back. ‘We upgrade randomly from the passenger list, and providing the individual is what we call SFU — suitable for upgrade — we invite them to enjoy their flight in the comfort of business class. Come.’
Marchant shrugged at the other passengers and walked to the front of the queue, sprinkling apologies as he went. He showed his boarding card to a member of the airline crew and tried to flirt with her, but she was having none of it. He mustered a swagger as he walked down the airbridge towards the aircraft. It was tempting to look back, but he knew it would be inappropriate. Dirk McLennan was a chancer, and would be loving every minute of this. If only he felt the same. Something was very wrong, but how could he protest about an upgrade?
‘Please, enjoy your flight, Mr McLennan,’ the man said, ushering him on board the plane.
Marchant nodded at the two cabin crew who greeted him at the door. They steered him left into the small business-class area, where there were eight seats in total. He eased across to a window and sat down with his camera bag on his lap, his limbs heavy with adrenaline. Trying to control his breathing, he considered his options, but the sense of imminent danger was overwhelming. The plane would have been claustrophobic even if he hadn’t felt out of control of the situation. The only exit point was the door he had just entered, and his last opportunity to escape was now. But how far would he get? The boarding gate, if he was lucky.
Again he ran through the situation in which he found himself: Lakshmi Meena was on his tail, turning up at dawn on the streets of Marrakech. Booking a flight as Daniel Marchant from the city’s airport had given him a head start, but Meena had friends in the Moroccan intelligence service, and someone might have recognised him here at Agadir. No one had stopped him at passport control, but then he was given an upgrade. Perhaps he was over- reacting, and Meena was just making sure he left town. It was too easy to see threats where none existed. But he knew he was right, particularly when another passenger was shown into business class and sat down in the seat beside him.
‘Mind if I join you?’ the man asked. He was Moroccan, and looked faintly familiar.
‘Sure,’ Marchant said, glancing at the empty seats on the other side of the aisle.
‘You’re a photographer?’ he asked, nodding at Marchant’s camera bag.
‘For my sins,’ Marchant said, struggling to stay in character. ‘And you?’
‘Me?’ He paused. ‘I’m a dentist.’
22
‘There’s something else,’ Myers said, after Spiro had sat down. It was more of a slump, but Spiro somehow managed to make it look controlled. For a moment, Fielding wished he felt sorry for Spiro, a pang of pity. But there was nothing but cold contempt, the sort he normally reserved for Russians. ‘Work for the Foreign Office if you want to be liked,’ he had been told by the don who had tapped him up at Oxford. What Fielding didn’t know was that another blow to Spiro’s self-esteem, his career, his whole
This time, Myers didn’t look to Fielding for guidance. He was on his own now, score abandoned, improvising. ‘Actually, I agree with the American analysis that Dhar would not risk being with the captured US Marines.’
Spiro seemed to take heart from this, and sat up to listen.
‘I didn’t at first, but I do now. Using this assumption as my starting point, I went back to the audio this morning and asked myself, in the light of the American scream, how it was possible for Salim Dhar and Lieutenant Oaks to be in the same place.’
‘And?’ Chadwick said, glancing at Spiro. Like Fielding, he was intrigued to see what this awkward analyst from Cheltenham was going to say next. Spiro was staring out of the window, lost in his own thoughts. The head of GCHQ didn’t know where to look.
Myers picked nervously at the back of a front tooth and then stopped himself, as if being chided by a parent. ‘The only explanation is that Dhar’s voice was recorded.’
Spiro looked from the window to Myers, suddenly encouraged.
‘Don’t you think that scenario might just have been checked out by the NSA?’
‘Of course. And I’ve looked into it, too. But the quality of the intercept is too poor to be able to establish if Dhar’s voice is a recording. There’s also no audio trace of a recorder activating before or after Dhar speaks.’
‘So?’
‘For once, the answer doesn’t lie in technology.’
Fielding was enjoying this, watching Myers grow in confidence, trying to guess where it would lead. This was what intelligence work was all about: intuition.
‘You’re an analyst, right?’ Spiro heckled. ‘Stick to IT and leave the couch work to others.’
Myers ignored him, more out of dysfunctional shyness than defiance.
‘Why did Lieutenant Oaks scream?’ Myers asked, addressing the whole room now.
‘Why?’ Spiro echoed. ‘He was about to be incinerated by a Hellfire missile, that’s why.’
‘About to be. Exactly. It’s not my area, of course — ’
‘Too right.’
‘- but my understanding of munitions is that such things are pretty instant. Like, no time to scream. Oaks
