A Loyal Spy (40 page)

She swung her legs on to the floor, ran her hands through what remained of her hair. She looked up and stared out of the window at the imposing tower that was Paddington Green Police Station, and beyond it the directionless grey sky. She knew that there were underground cells at Paddington Green used for the questioning of terrorist suspects and it reminded her of the complications of her situation. The forces against her seemed too great for her to succeed. She decided to get up and go out, giving it as little thought as possible.

Walking into the lounge, she found that Saira had left her a spare set of keys and a note with her mobile phone number, telling her to make herself at home and help herself to anything.

There was a time, in Afghanistan, when she had found oblivion in the five daily prayers, in the succession of physical movements and recitation called the
rak’a
. But she’d never been able to stick at Islam. She’d never been much of a joiner. Now she found a kind of mindlessness in the sun salutation, its succession of coordinated postures and breaths.

She was in Hyde Park with her bare feet on the warm grass and her palms pressed together. She was wearing a T-shirt and jogging pants from Saira’s wardrobe, and her ankle wallet was balled up in a pair of Saira’s trainers. Ten times she raised her arms to the sun, ten times she held herself rigid in the plank position until her arms shook with the strain, before jumping forward. With the obligations of the salutation done, she ran through a succession of her more challenging postures. Sweat ran down her back and pooled at the base of her spine. For a time, she felt free of care.

Then she ran around the Serpentine, and north on the path parallel with Park Lane, gathering speed as she ran, breaking into a sprint for the final stretch to Speaker’s Corner. From Marble Arch she walked north up the Edgware Road, past the Lebanese cafés that were filled with crowds of Arabs sharing narghile pipes in the warm summer air. It was just after noon.

As she was walking, she noticed a bank of televisions in the window of an electronics store showing tanks and soldiers surrounding the Thames Barrier. Only when it cut away to armed police standing outside the Red Road Flats did she stop and stare.

No sound came from the televisions. There was footage from a bystander’s mobile phone of army bomb disposal experts in bulky green bomb suits emerging from a van and entering the building. Beneath it ran a breaking-news strap:

POLICE RAID GLASGOW BOMB FACTORY

Then the photograph of Nor from the Interpol Red Notice, his mocking smile filling the screen. Beneath it the strap:

TERROR MASTERMIND THREATENS LONDON

And then, to her dismay, there was grainy security-camera footage of a dark-haired woman with a backpack walking across a petrol station forecourt with a dog at her heels. It was her. The petrol station outside Spean Bridge on Tuesday morning – in contrast to the dark surroundings, a digital effect had been used to highlight Miranda’s face.

ARAB WOMAN SOUGHT BY POLICE

She called Saira from a payphone. Buses roared past and she was forced to raise her voice.

‘Are you watching it?’ Saira asked.

‘I’m standing in the street staring at it.’

‘You’re in a phone box?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I guess so. I’m a bit shocked.’

‘The police haven’t named you yet. And if that’s the only footage they’ve got you’re not likely to get recognised in the street. We’re OK for now.’

‘There were two policemen in my kitchen on Monday. They know who I am.’

‘And if you’re right this whole thing will be over in a couple of days. We can keep you hidden until next Tuesday,’ Saira told her, in a reassuring tone. ‘Don’t worry.’

Miranda forced a smile. ‘What’s there to worry about?’

‘That’s the spirit.’

‘So what have you found out?’

‘The police have slapped a cordon around the flats and they’re not letting anyone in or out. However, I have a friend who writes for the
Glasgow Herald
. His contact within the Strathclyde Police has confirmed that as well as scene-of-crime officers and the Bomb Squad, officers from Strathclyde CID’s Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Section and MI5 are in attendance. And they pulled a body out, a white male in his late fifties.’

‘Monteith.’

‘Looks that way. Your story holds up. I spoke with Brian Judd, our Security Correspondent. He already knew about Nor’s confession. He told me that he uses a freelancer who monitors extremist websites and tips him off if anything interesting comes to light. He forwarded the link to Brian soon after the video was uploaded. Brian made some enquiries at the MoD and at MI6 after it was posted. At first they told him that it was a prank and then, after he dug around a bit, they slapped a DA notice on him. A DA notice means that he is prevented from public disclosure of ­information that might compromise UK military and intelligence operations. That was a week ago. The notice is voluntary so he can break it, but he’s been holding back until now. He’s pretty sure that this Department of yours really exists. Or at least it did. He believes that it refers to an offshoot of the Defence Intelligence Staff called the Afghan Crisis Cell. Strictly speaking it’s part of the Ministry of Defence, although it doesn’t appear anywhere in the armed forces budget. It’s supposed to be a group of analysts, both military and civilians with a technical expertise, who provide assessments for the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Permanent Secretary of the MoD. Actually, he thinks that’s just cover. He believes that it is in fact an arm’s-length black-ops unit run by MI6. Or at least it was. It was closed down about a month ago, just like you said. I have some information on this guy Monteith from the Army List, but it’s not very revealing. It’s the same with your friend Jonah and his friend Andy Beech. According to the army they both retired years ago. I’m going to keep digging around.’

‘What about Alex Ross? He’s the one that murdered Monteith.’

‘According to Companies House, up until a month ago he was listed as the director of a security company called Threshold. Then they got bought out by a much larger American company called Greysteel. That’s the company that your Richard Winthrop is now vice-chairman of. They call it the fifth branch of the US military: army, navy, air force, Marines … Greysteel. Alex Ross is now listed as a non-executive director of Greysteel UK. They have offices in Kensington. I called them up. They told me that he wasn’t available. They seemed pretty interested in me, though.’

‘What did you tell them?’

She laughed. ‘I told them that I was from the
Today
programme.’

‘You should be careful,’ Miranda told her.

‘Hey, careful is my middle name.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I know you are. If you’re still interested, I know what Norma Said’s doing tonight.’

‘I’m interested.’

‘She’s going to the theatre. The Almeida in Islington. It’s the European premiere of a new David Mamet play. You could buy a ticket or just turn up for the interval. According to the blurb it’s a courtroom drama, and it has all the ingredients: the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, sexual fidelity, world peace, et cetera, et cetera … You know where it is?’

‘I know.’

Her parents had lived close by, in Highgate, and she had gone to school there in what seemed like a different life.

‘I’ll meet you at the flat later?’

‘Yes. Can I borrow something to wear?’

‘Sure, and get yourself a mobile phone. Call in regularly.’

Farther up the Edgware Road, Miranda stopped at an Arab-owned electronics store and bought five pay-as-you-go mobile phones. Back in the flat she switched the TV on. It was on Sky News. There was further footage of the Red Road Flats. She pressed the mute button. She set about unpacking the phones, plugging them in to charge at sockets in various rooms. She chose a dress, a simple black dress, from Saira’s wardrobe. It had been a long time since she’d worn a dress. She justified it on the grounds that she was going to the theatre. She hung it up on the back of the kitchen door, then took a shower. She realised that she would need shoes. She chose a pair of plain black pumps. And a handbag for her money and the phones – there was one on the back of Saira’s door.

She made herself toast and Marmite. She dozed off on the sofa.

Miranda woke to a split screen, a Sky News anchorman on one side of the tube and on the other Richard Winthrop IV with a caption identifying him as a former White House National ­Secur­ity Advisor. She grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The anchorman was speaking. ‘Do you honestly believe that we have come to a place where the most senior people in the highest office in the land won’t do the right thing in the end? They won’t see the error of their ways?’

‘No, sir, they will not,’ Winthrop replied, and suddenly he had the whole screen to himself. ‘The only chance that we have right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in Europe. It’s going to take grassroots bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office and prize the praise of the liberal media above the safety of their citizens. It’s an absurd situation. Only Osama Bin Laden can execute an attack which will force Europeans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much force as is necessary.’

Infuriated, she changed the channel.

On CNN, a car was burning on an overpass in New Orleans. Beneath it was the caption:

SHOOT-OUT IN THE NINTH WARD

A Greysteel security contractor was explaining that his convoy had come under fire from black gangbangers on an overpass in the Ninth Ward neighbourhood. ‘I was talking to my wife,’ he said. ‘Then suddenly we’re in an ambush. I dropped the phone and returned fire with my AR-15. After that there was just yelling and screaming. And bodies everywhere. I’m telling you, it’s like Baghdad on the bayou.’

‘This is a trend,’ said a spokesman for Greysteel. ‘You’re going to see a lot more of guys like us in these situations. Our rapid response unit has global reach and can make a positive difference in the lives of those who are affected by natural disasters and terrorist attacks.’

Miranda changed channels. BBC News 24. The next image was of the Home Secretary at a speech that afternoon to the Association of Chief Police Officers, being asked by a reporter whether there was any truth in the allegation that the intelligence services had been infiltrated by terrorists. ‘I have full confidence in the intelligence services,’ the Home Secretary said, looking rattled and unprepared.

She changed channels again. In Iraq, a suicide bomber had detonated his charge next to a petrol tanker south of Baghdad; sixty died in the ensuing fireball and hundreds were injured.

She changed again. A weatherman was tracking the progress of a depression from its origins on the Grand Banks off the coast of Canada, across the Atlantic towards the North Sea.

She changed once more. Sky News again. The anchor announced, ‘We’re going live to our correspondent Scarlett Taylor who is outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. What can you tell us about the American reaction, Scarlett?’

‘So far there has been no official comment from the American government on the allegation that British military intelligence ­officers colluded to cover up the assassination of a CIA agent in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. However, we do know that the US Attorney’s office in New York has today unsealed warrants for the arrest of a list of six individuals who are believed to have belonged to a secret British military unit. At least two of those individuals are believed to have died under mysterious circumstances in recent days. One of them on the remote Scottish island of Barra and the other in what the Strathclyde Police has just confirmed was a bomb-making factory in the Red Road Flats in Glasgow.’

She switched off the television and immediately dialled Saira’s mobile phone.

‘Who is this?’ Saira asked.

‘It’s me, Miranda.’

‘Thank God you called. Are you in the flat?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get out of there right now. Whoever is following me is probably also watching you. Go somewhere public, a train station, department store. See if you can lose them. Call me again in an hour. I’ll have fixed up somewhere safer for you to stay.’

Saira cut the connection. Miranda got dressed. She put the mobile phone she’d used in the rubbish bin and scooped up the other four. She put them together with the money and the papers from Jonah’s collage in the handbag.

For a short time she stood on the pavement, studying the Edgware Road with as much indifference as she could muster. It was busy and there were people everywhere – walking on the pavement, getting on and off buses, emerging from the underground. Even some of the parked cars along the kerb had people in them. It was impossible. She walked to the kerb and hailed a cab. She told the driver to take her to Selfridges.

As soon as they were under way Miranda noticed a car opposite the entrance to Saira’s block of flats pull out into the traffic. It was an ordinary-looking blue car and Miranda could not tell what make it was. It stayed several cars behind them as they headed down the Edgware Road and along Oxford Street.

At the front entrance to Selfridges, she thrust a ten-pound note into the driver’s hand and hurried in under the clock tower without looking behind her. She walked through the crowded perfume counters with such haste that shop assistants turned to look after her.

Ascending on the escalator, Miranda watched the door she had come in. To her horror the ginger-haired man, who she had last seen standing on the deck of the ferry from Barra, hurried in and looked angrily around the crowd. Miranda had almost reached the next floor when the man looked up towards her and their eyes met. He scowled. The first floor was as crowded as the ground floor. She rushed around the central well to climb to another floor. Stepping from the escalator, she ran past racks of women’s designer wear and shoes to the stairs at the back.

She sprinted down the stairs, following the signs for the car park, and ducked out on to Edwards Mews. She hurried across Portman Square towards the glass-canopied entrance of the Radisson Hotel. She crossed the lobby to the mezzanine, where there was a bar with a view of the doors. The bar was furnished with red leather chairs, and there was a woman playing a piano in the corner. Miranda ordered a vodka and tonic and sat and watched the doors. There was no ginger-haired man.