State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) (8 page)

Mandler’s eyes sparkled with an almost childlike glee. She liked that: even after all these years, the thrill of the great game hadn’t left him. ‘One of Rolt’s own people, and one of the very first to join Invicta.’

Garvey absorbed this information slowly. ‘How very intriguing. And was he acting alone?’

‘He certainly must have had help getting in. Buckingham found a hotel security key card on him that had been made out in his name. And he definitely wasn’t on the guest list for the party. Someone on the inside would seem to have arranged his entry.’

Garvey’s eyes narrowed. She let out a low guttural chuckle. ‘So Rolt will want
that
covered up.
Home Secretary’s Loyal Lieutenant in Assassination Bid
isn’t the sort of headline you want on day one, is it?’

Mandler smirked. ‘You wish.’

She sighed. ‘Well, I’m sure that particular nugget will come in handy – at some point.’

Then she frowned. ‘But
why
would one of his own turn on him?’

‘The way Buckingham sees it – and he should know – is that a good part of Invicta’s original USP was Rolt’s outlaw image, the man who stood apart, saying the unsayable. It’s not so much that he’s gone mainstream as that the mainstream’s come to him. But that doesn’t stop some of the old guard at Invicta feeling that in joining the government he’s sold out. So we may have to brace ourselves for more.’

Garvey snorted. ‘It doesn’t take a bloody genius to see that he’s responsible for whipping up a good part of all this aggro, talking about sending people “back where they came from”. His proposals should be warming the hearts of his followers – ethnic cleansing,
de-Islamification
.’ She spat the words with contempt.

Mandler wagged a finger. ‘Yes, but it’s more personal than that. Those chaps who came out of the services onto the streets, he gave them to believe they were all outsiders together. They may feel he’s rather abandoned them.’

Another silence fell. Garvey had to remind herself that the clock was ticking. In a matter of minutes she would officially be a mere MP once more. Her thoughts drifted back to Buckingham. ‘Do you suppose he would have pulled the trigger on the gunman if Rolt
had
been in the room?’

They gazed at each other for a moment. Mandler said, ‘Interesting to speculate. Buckingham has no love for Rolt. In fact, he’s probably chafing to get out.’

Garvey cleared her throat. ‘Seems such a shame. Rolt thinks the world of him. His cover is rock solid. Only four of us know what he’s really doing. I say leave him in place.’

Mandler raised his eyebrows. ‘Buckingham’s his own man. We can’t
order
him to stay.’

‘But surely his value to you as an asset has just shot up. Doesn’t every self-respecting MI5 DG crave a spy in his political master’s camp?’

‘Well, I can’t see a way of forcing him to stay in the saddle.’

‘Then if I were you I’d bloody well find one.’

Mandler nodded half-heartedly.

‘Do you really think there’ll be others?’

‘Other what?’

‘Attempts on Rolt’s life.’

Mandler delivered his default answer. ‘Who knows? Most of Invicta’s members have been trained to kill. If there are any more who’ve got disillusioned …’

‘One can only hope.’

They exchanged a brief smile. In less than an hour Mandler would be answering to a new man. Well, fuck it. She poured herself a refill. If this was what it meant to be a functioning alcoholic, it had its compensations.

She had one more question. ‘What do you really think about Rolt’s plans? Do you really think any of it could work?’

‘“Cutting out the tumour of terrorism, so British children can play safely on our gleaming white streets”?’

‘Well?’

‘Honestly?’ He took a deep breath, swirled what was left of the Scotch and swallowed. ‘I think it’s going to make everything a great deal worse.’

11

12.00 local time
Aleppo

Where was Emma? He had given her the camera twenty minutes ago; she’d told him to wait, promised to return with the driver in ten. Another ten and Abukhan would start to get suspicious about his absence, as would his comrades. Half an hour, and they would know he’d done a runner.

Overhead, a huge bank of cloud had blotted out the sun and turned the sky to the same dusty grey as the shattered buildings around him. The temperature had plummeted. He was still shaking. For more than an hour he and the others in his platoon had stood motionless as instructed, while one by one the girls were put to death. Every time he blinked, the terrible image of what he had just witnessed flashed up, seared into his brain for ever. He doubled over and threw up the meagre contents of his stomach.

The man who came out of the basement had on a bright yellow Puffa jacket and sunglasses. He didn’t look like a local; nor did he have any of the natural wariness with which everyone in Aleppo armed themselves.

‘Hey, Jamal. Let’s go!’ He spoke in English. He pressed a small translucent box into Jamal’s palm.

‘What’s this?’

‘The memory card. A copy of the film. She said for you to take it with you. You’ll have to stash it. Come, there’s no time.’

‘But I thought she was going to upload it herself.’

‘It’s your insurance. So you can show it if you get any problems on your return home. Come.’

He grabbed him and pulled him along, a key dangling from his other hand. The motorbike was down an alley. Two boys who were guarding it stepped into the shadows as they approached.

‘I’m Hakim, by the way. The border’s no more than two hours. You should be in Turkey by nightfall.’ He grinned and clamped his hand on Jamal’s shoulder, then swung his leg over the bike and started it up. ‘Jump on. No time to waste.’

Hakim tore out of the alleyway, across a courtyard, down a narrow path between a pile of rubble and a high wall, then out onto an empty street and headed east.

‘You’re going the wrong way!’ Jamal shouted in his ear, above the wind and the rasp of the engine. Hakim swerved between donkey carts, bicycles and a few battered cars that were slowly making their way down the cratered road.

Hakim took a sudden left and yelled over his shoulder, ‘It’s a detour. There are convoys on the main road west. We’ll go north first. Don’t worry, just hold on.’

Jamal decided that he must know what he was doing and let him be. He had burned his bridges with the fighters; he would show the world the truth about the atrocities being committed in the name of Allah. If it got out that he had shot the video, people at home might come after him. He would have to take precautions. His family would help – if he could make them understand. He had missed them more than he could have imagined. He decided to focus on them, to think of nothing but his beloved sister. He was going home to her.

12

10.30
10 Downing Street

‘“Selective
patriation
”? What in God’s name does that mean?’ The prime minister looked from one to the other until his gaze settled on Derek Farmer. ‘Is that even a
word
?’

‘If it wasn’t before, it is now, Geoff,’ said Farmer.

As the PM’s spin doctor, he had some clout where this sort of thing was concerned, even if the minutiae of policy bored the pants off him. He glanced round the room. No one was looking at the PM.

‘Well, thank you very much for that, Derek.’ The PM gave him a reproachful look and tossed the briefing papers in the direction of the coffee-table, but they missed and slid into a heap on the floor. Giles Barker, his strategy chief, scrambled to gather them up and returned to his perch on the corner of the sofa beside Farmer, who was occupying most of it, reclining on a mound of all the cushions, his short fat legs splayed. If no one else in the room was feeling triumphant, he was. He had been an early champion of the ‘Get Rolt Aboard’ campaign. It wasn’t that he cared much about the man’s politics. Rather, he could see that without him they’d be toast. And, like the rest of them, he was now having to deal with the reality of what they had done.

The others in the room ranged from doubters to downright refuseniks. Farmer had sat through Giles’s vociferous denunciations of Rolt as a neo-Nazi until he realized the PM had come around to the idea and grudgingly fallen into line. So much for strategy. Farmer chuckled inwardly.

Adam Mowbray, from the Home Office Policy Unit, was putting a brave face on the fact that in a few hours he would be answering to a home secretary with no previous political experience whatsoever. He had confided to Farmer that Rolt was bound to soften his rhetoric once he was in office and would soon be looking to him, his director of policy, for guidance. Meanwhile he would do his best to make friends with his new boss.

As for the PM, away from the cameras now, Farmer had never known a politician look so defeated in his hour of victory. But what they all knew in their hearts was that this wasn’t their victory: it was Rolt’s.

Someone had to fill the silence. Farmer was fucked if it was his job to do so. Mowbray plunged first. ‘Rolt thinks it’s pitched just right – tough but intuitive. “Selective” suggests that it is a
considered
measure, rather than being a
diktat
. As for “patriation”, well, it has a certain gravitas. We should start with the known suspects, those who by and large everyone agrees are a menace to society, give them the choice of serving their term or “patriation” to whichever Muslim country signs up to our aid package.’

Farmer nodded approvingly.
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Mowbray had nailed his colours to the mast. He had appointed himself head cheerleader. But the PM was bridling.

‘Yes, please take a generous helping of our Great British pounds with a side order of Islamofascist fanatics. We’re effectively paying them to take our suspected terrorists – when they haven’t even been convicted!’

Farmer, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet so far, knew it was time to give the PM a gentle prod and remind him on which side his bread was buttered. He leaned forward and reached into the pile of newspapers stacked on the end of the coffee-table. ‘In his
Newsday
interview, Rolt points to those particular individuals who have made it clear enough that they’re at odds with British society and British values, that they’ve effectively exiled themselves already. “Patriation” is simply a logical next step for those individuals – even a lifestyle choice.’

There was a nervous silence. He knew, as they all knew, that the scope of what could be said out loud had just widened.

‘It’s what a lot of the public want. It’s why they voted for us.’ He tapped the
Newsday
front page. Two photographs dominated: one of Rolt on a podium punching the air, the other a screen grab of a masked jihadi. Above the picture of Rolt was one word, ‘
IN
’, and above the masked Islamist, ‘
OUT
’. Farmer grinned. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

He watched as the PM inevitably turned to Alec Clements, the cabinet secretary. It was to him that the premier always looked for the final word, as if he was the ultimate barometer of what could and couldn’t be done. As always, Clements had bagged himself the only upright chair and sat, as he preferred, slightly apart from the rest of the group, his eyeline a few inches above those on the sofas. He appeared to be both presiding and remaining aloof. He had unbuttoned his waistcoat to give his ample belly some ventilation and was closely examining something under the nail of his forefinger, giving the entirely false impression that he wasn’t paying full attention.

‘I rather think, Geoff, if I may come in here, that since there’s no going back, we might as well concentrate on finessing the small print so we can whisk this through Parliament. At least then we can say, “Job done,” and the Home Office can get on with executing the policy.’

They could always rely on Clements to home in on the main point. Farmer regarded him with a mixture of awe and fear, for his ability to glide along in a swan-like fashion, unflustered by the battles either out on the streets or inside the room. It had been Clements’s idea to get Rolt to stand in the first place, but he had deftly contrived to manoeuvre the PM into voicing it. But now, rather late in the day, the PM was struggling with what was left of his conscience, his face reddening as he started to splutter.

‘I don’t think I like the word “execute” in this context. And I still don’t see how the hell it’s going to work! Are we talking about squads of police picking these guys off the street and putting them on the next plane to Syria? Bursting into mosques to round them up? Oh, yes, that should calm things down.’

Clements glanced up from his manicure. There was a hint of weariness in his tone. ‘Yemen have already indicated they’re quite keen. Lebanon’s showing interest.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Anyway, the new man will be downstairs. Why don’t we have him up and we can find out?’

You couldn’t help but admire the way Clements manoeuvred himself away from direct conflict while at the same time goading them on. The PM stood up. ‘I’m going to see him on my own for a few minutes. You lot can come back in when we’re done.’

Clements stretched like a cat and got to his feet. ‘He’s booked himself a press conference at eleven so you’d better be quick.’

Farmer’s enjoyment of the meeting came to an abrupt halt.
What the fuck?
He struggled to contain his dismay lest anyone think he wasn’t on top of things. Still, there was nothing to be done but admit it. ‘He just went ahead, I’m afraid, Prime Minister.’

‘But he hasn’t even been assigned a media handler yet.’

‘I don’t think he’s the sort of chap who’s going to wait for one, do you?’

The PM shifted awkwardly. The frantic election schedule had taken its toll on his back. ‘Okay – everybody out. Send him in.’

There was a marathon gathering-up of papers and the room emptied until it was just the PM, with Clements and Farmer.

Farmer felt it was his turn to chip in with some supportive words. ‘Really, Geoff, you should be celebrating. You’re back. You’ve won.’