‘It’s Ms da Silva, isn’t it?’ He smiled. ‘You see, Stephen, there is actually no mystery at all, no global conspiracy to assassinate a president, rather a cheap and dirty personal vendetta.’
Silva wondered how he knew who she was, and in that split second the man swung the machine gun and fired a burst. Silva was already moving, diving behind the wooden box and letting off a single shot as she rolled out the other side. This close she went for the body. This close there was no chance of missing.
The man staggered back as the bullet hit him in the chest, stopping his heart instantly. For a moment some part of his sympathetic nervous system continued to work and he stood balanced like a statue. Then he toppled backwards and folded to the floor.
Silence.
Silva stood and walked over to the body, gazing down. She had no idea who the man was except he was something to do with the weapons smuggling, something to do with Taher, ultimately something to do with the death of her mother. Yet, staring at the husk at her feet, she felt nothing. Neither was there much relief that Karen Hope was dead. There was no feeling of triumph, no sense of celebration. A sudden wash of despair overcame her and she wished she was away from here, away from everyone, up on the moor, just running, running, running until she’d sweated all the anger from her body.
She was brought back to her senses as Itchy uttered a groan. He grimaced and held his leg and turned to Silva. The grimace became a smile and he gave her a nod of respect.
‘Shot,’ he said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Holm and Javed arrived back in the UK in the early hours of the next morning. An MI5 detail met them at Heathrow and they were ferried into central London in the back of a windowless van. As the van’s doors opened and they climbed out into the underground car park beneath Thames House, Javed looked across at Holm for reassurance.
‘It’ll be OK, lad,’ Holm said. ‘We’re on the right side.’
His words, he knew, were rubbish. There was no right side, only the winning one, and the victor had yet to be decided.
Huxtable met them as they emerged from the lift.
‘Stephen, Farakh,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re both in one piece, but what a mess, hey?’
Holm nodded. Wondered if she was glad they were in one piece because it would mean she had more to tear apart when she got to work on them.
They stopped off in the situation room where chaos was emblazoned across a dozen screens. Every TV channel was covering the Karen Hope story, whether live from Tunisia, live from the Capitol or live from the Hope family home in Louisiana. Details were sketchy but so far the story was that Hope had been kidnapped by terrorists while attending a fundraising party on her brother’s boat. A British agent had died trying to rescue her, but questions were already being asked: where was her own security detail? What was she doing in such a hotspot as Tunisia in the first place, and how on earth was the US going to recover from this tragedy?
Upstairs, alone with Huxtable in her office, Holm gave a summary of what had happened, starting with his decision to go after Taher and finishing with the death of Karen Hope and Martin Palmer. That done, he tried to absolve Javed from any responsibility.
‘The boy,’ Holm said. ‘He did what I said. Whatever punishment is coming should be for me only.’
‘He knows secrets,’ Huxtable said. ‘Big secrets.’
‘And he’ll keep them, ma’am. Just as I will.’
‘Whatever the truth, the story for now is that Karen Hope died a hero, understand? British intelligence, fortuitously, were there to try and save her, but we failed. Palmer will get some kind of posthumous award no doubt.’
‘He was a traitor.’
‘A traitor is someone who goes over to the other side. Palmer was on a team of one.’
‘He fooled me completely,’ Holm said. ‘No wonder we couldn’t catch Taher.’
‘Palmer was MI6’s liaison officer within JTAC and had access to material from across the intelligence spectrum. That made it easy for him to prewarn the terrorists.’
‘Did you know?’
‘Not the name, no, but there were too many occasions when operations failed to produce results. Did you really think I shut you in that cupboard out of some form of spite?’ Huxtable sat back in her chair, as if disappointed Holm hadn’t worked it out himself. ‘I instigated the whole thing.’
‘I…’ Holm hadn’t seen that coming. ‘You set me up? The tweet? The codes? Everything?’
‘I was a little surprised you fell for it, actually.’ Huxtable smiled. ‘But in the end you did well.’
‘The one-time pad? That was you?’
‘I wanted to make sure the pointer to Western was absolutely secure. I have to say I thought it was rather clever.’
‘Suppose Farakh had missed the tweet? Suppose he hadn’t understood its significance?’
‘No chance of that. Farakh Javed is a bright young man. Anyone else reading the first tweet wouldn’t have had a clue and, even if they had, the contents of the second tweet were in an uncrackable code.’
‘Wouldn’t it have just been easier to tell me?’
‘Not really. Say, for instance you had been the mole. Then you’d have known I knew. I also wanted you to work discreetly, and I was pretty sure you’d try to keep your hunt for Taher hidden from me as well as everyone else.’
‘Right.’ Holm conceded the point. ‘But who put you on to Ben Western and SeaPak in the first place?’
‘Jawad al Haddad’s young wife, Deema. We recruited her years ago when she was at boarding school here and she’s been feeding information to us ever since she was forced into the marriage with Haddad. The intelligence she provided has been limited to bits and pieces she managed to overhear, but one such snippet was the name Western in connection with Taher. However, there was no context until
