Dark Forces (36 page)

Rayner and McAllister went upstairs. There were two bedrooms and a small bathroom. Rayner took photographs of the back bedroom, then the front bedroom. McAllister found the metal briefcase next to the dressing-table in the back bedroom. He swung it onto the bed. It wasn’t locked but he could tell from the weight that the laptop wasn’t in it. He opened it anyway. There were two bundles of England Rules leaflets and some business cards with Simon Page’s contact details on them. He shut the briefcase and used one of Rayner’s photographs to make sure he put it back exactly where it had been.

‘The briefcase is here but no laptop,’ he said.

‘No problem. Everything’s on the desktop,’ said Westworth, in his earpiece. ‘PowerPoint presentations, video files, photographs. I’m making copies now.’

‘Well done,’ said Aspden. ‘Bravo One, how’s Tango One getting on?’

‘Still in the bank,’ said Bravo One.

Rayner went through the chest of drawers in the main bedroom and quickly checked the clothing hanging in a glass-fronted wardrobe. She found poppers, Viagra tablets and condoms in a drawer in the bedside table and took a photograph of them.

She and McAllister went downstairs and into the sitting room. ‘Almost done,’ said Westworth.

McAllister went to stand by the front door. Rayner waited until Westworth had switched off the computer and pulled out the thumb drive, then used the photograph she had taken of the desk to make sure nothing had been disturbed.

Westworth left the house first, carrying the parcel. Rayner followed soon after, the Fuji instant camera and all the prints in her toolbox. McAllister was the last to leave, locking the door behind him. Two minutes later all the vehicles had left and the surveillance team had abandoned Page, who was still in the bank.

Shepherd caught a black cab from Battersea to Charing Cross station where he took another cab to the British Museum. He went around the side, pressed the intercom by the door and looked up at the CCTV camera. The door buzzed and he walked through to the office Willoughby-Brown was using. ‘Sorry about the short notice,’ said Willoughby-Brown, ‘but I thought you needed to see this right away.’ He was wearing a rumpled charcoal grey suit. ‘The laptop wasn’t in his house but he had a desktop, which seems to have copies of all his files. We think Page’s assistant, Oliver Cooper, has the laptop. If the pictures you saw aren’t here, we’ll go after it.’

There was a MacBook on the desk in front of Willoughby-Brown and he turned it so that Shepherd could see the screen. ‘His PowerPoint presentations are in that folder,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘I’m assuming it’s one of those that they played at the pub. But there’s another folder called “Muslim London Pics” that has several hundred pictures taken at a dozen or so locations, mainly around London. Another just calls itself “Muslims In UK”. Then there are folders for immigration in Europe, refugee camps and news stories involving immigrants. They seem to be the raw material for the presentation you saw.’

Shepherd sat down and began scrolling through the pictures in the file. ‘This could take some time,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘There are literally thousands. How about I pop out for a smoke and you can text me when you have something?’

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd.

Willoughby-Brown grinned and stood up. ‘Oh, I’ve sorted the Karl and Gerry Palmer situation for you, you’ll be glad to know. No need for you to play the hitman again.’

‘How?’

‘A visit from the local drugs squad turned up a kilo of marijuana in their attic. They deny all knowledge of it, but they would, wouldn’t they? Anyway, they’re on remand and we’ve got Mark Ashton under surveillance so the pressure’s off, for a while, anyway. We’ll make sure he doesn’t carry out the hit on his own.’

‘Were the drugs theirs or were they set up?’

‘Does it matter? The important thing is that they’re behind bars, which means you can’t be expected to fulfil the contract.’ He took a packet of cigars from his jacket pocket. ‘Catch you later.’ He left the office and Shepherd clicked through the first PowerPoint presentation, but it wasn’t the one Page had used at the pub and he didn’t see any faces he recognised.

The second presentation was the one Shepherd had seen before and he clicked through to the photograph that had attracted his attention. He stared at it, then smiled. They were definitely faces he’d seen in Turkey. The man on the left was Amma al-Kawthari and the other was Elyas Assadi, according to the details on the passports Yusuf had shown him.

The photograph had been taken in front of a mosque, but there was nothing to say where or when. There was nothing even to confirm that it had been taken in England. There were no other familiar faces in any of the PowerPoint pictures so Shepherd closed the file and opened the one labelled ‘Muslim London Pics’. There were 154 and Shepherd clicked through them. He recognised some faces from MI5 watch lists and others who were known to the police, but none matched the photographs he’d seen in Turkey.

He found a copy of the PowerPoint photograph in the ‘Muslims In UK’ folder, along with more that had been taken at the same time. The men were in three of the photographs in the folder and there was no question that they had been among the passports Yusuf had shown him. There was a better view of the mosque in one of the photographs. It was built of brick and had two tall minarets with green tops. In one of the pictures the two men were deep in conversation with a young bearded Asian wearing a long jacket and baggy pants.

Shepherd searched the three photographs for clues as to where they had been taken but came up with nothing. There was a street light in the background of one picture, which suggested it was England, and a car with the steering wheel on the right.

He went through all the folders but spotted no other faces that matched Yusuf’s passports, but saw several more from MI5’s watch lists. He closed the final folder and sent a text message to Willoughby-Brown. His boss returned a few minutes later with two cups of Costa coffee. ‘So, what you have got?’ he said, pulling up a chair.

Shepherd showed him the three photographs and pointed out the two men. ‘That’s Amma al-Kawthari and this one is Elyas Assadi.’

‘What about the guy they’re talking to in this one?’ asked Willoughby-Brown.

‘Him I’ve not seen.’

‘Okay. I’ll get our experts on this – that mosque looks pretty distinctive.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Shepherd.

‘As soon as we find out where they are, I’ll get surveillance up and running,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘If they’re local to the mosque we should be able to find them fairly quickly.’

‘You ran their names through the various databases?’

Willoughby-Brown nodded. ‘Of course. They aren’t in the system – at least, not using the names that Yilmaz gave them. But unless they were planning to claim asylum as Syrians I think it’s fair to assume they ditched the passports and the names when they got to the UK.’

‘So you think the fact they haven’t asked for asylum means they’re up to no good?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I’m afraid so. Yes.’

‘I don’t want to bang on about it, but if there is a terrorist cell, it’s down to Yusuf Yilmaz getting them into the country.’

Shepherd’s eyes narrowed. ‘Best not go there.’

Willoughby-Brown held up his hands. ‘It’s water under the bridge,’ he said. ‘But I feel I should spell out that if Yilmaz had contacted us when he had first started helping Islamic State we wouldn’t be playing catch-up now.’ Shepherd opened his mouth to speak but Willoughby-Brown got in first. ‘We’ll draw a line under Mr Yilmaz, shall we? And to change the subject completely, maybe we should discuss your Mind-Set report.’

Shepherd forced a smile. ‘What’s the prognosis?’

‘Apparently you’re aggressive, with a tendency to belligerence. You make snap decisions and often act without thinking things through. Strong moral compass, which is good to know. Like to challenge authority, which I’m not so happy about, obviously.’

‘And what’s the verdict?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Have they said I can continue?’

Willoughby-Brown chuckled. ‘Those days are over, Daniel,’ he said. ‘That was one of the first changes I instituted when I took over here. Obviously I welcome the psychologists’ insight, and I’m always happy to listen to their opinions, but I’m not having one tell me who I can and can’t have working for me. It’s not a case of biannuals being pass or fail any more. I regard them as a snapshot of your state of mind at a particular time. That’s all. At the end of the day I’m the one who makes the decision.’

Willoughby-Brown picked up his cup and slowly sipped his coffee. Shepherd could see that he was taking pleasure in dragging it out so he forced himself to relax and smile. Eventually Willoughby-Brown put down his cup. ‘Here’s the way I see it, Daniel,’ he said. ‘When I first met you back in Sierra Leone in 1997, I thought you were aggressive and belligerent, and probably prone to acting without thinking. But I also thought you were one of the best soldiers I’d ever met.’ He grinned. ‘I’d never tell you that to your face, of course. But I knew back then that one day you’d find yourself in this line of work. Not undercover, necessarily, but doing the work that really matters.’

‘Soldiering doesn’t matter?’

‘And there you go, challenging my authority again. Of course soldiering matters. But it matters less than it used to. You’ve worked with the drones. That’s the future of warfare and you know it. But what you’re doing now matters far more. If we do our job properly we can win battles without firing a shot. That probably doesn’t appeal to the soldier in you, but it’s a fact nevertheless. And the thing about your line of work is that traits that might seem weaknesses in the office are lifesaving out in the field. Your ability to act without thinking has probably saved your life countless times. The circles you move in, you’d be trampled over if you weren’t aggressive. You have to react instinctively undercover and your instincts are good.’

‘Have you ever worked undercover, Jeremy?’

Willoughby-Brown smiled. ‘Actually I have. Several times. But I can’t tell you the details as they’re classified and will remain so for a long, long time.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘When Davies says you tend to challenge authority, I think he means you challenged him. You gave him a hard time, did you?’

‘With respect, he’s an idiot. And his programs are ridiculous. The way the biannuals worked before made much better sense. They’d sit down and talk to me, get inside my head.’

‘Except you’re a master at disguising who you really are,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Does anyone really know how you think and feel, Daniel? I mean, does anyone really know what makes you tick?’

Shepherd didn’t answer.

‘You present different faces to different people. You have to. Terry Taylor is Terry Taylor. Pretty much everything he does and everything he thinks is different from Daniel Shepherd. You spend most of your life hiding your real feelings. So I hardly think you’d drop your guard during a friendly chat over a couple of pints.’

‘You’d get closer to the truth doing that than having me spend hours on silly yes or no questions.’

Willoughby-Brown chuckled. ‘They’re a bit blatant, aren’t they? White guy chasing a black guy, which one’s the cop? If you say white you’re a racist, so you choose the black guy.’

Shepherd smiled and shook his head. ‘The white guy was the cop.’

Willoughby-Brown’s eyes widened. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘He had police-issue boots. The black guy was wearing trainers. And the black guy had an earring. Okay, he might have been undercover but that would be overcomplicating it. The white guy was the cop. The black guy was running away from him. The test was to see if political correctness would override the facts.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I’m guessing.’

‘Davies did say you had a good eye for detail.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘At least he got that right. So why didn’t you tell me the biannual wasn’t pass-fail?’

‘That would have spoilt the fun,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘You’re a good undercover man, Daniel. Better than good, you’re superb. And I don’t care what foibles a shrink might think you have. So long as you do the job as well as you do, you stay on the team.’

‘So I’m beholden to you. Is that what you’re saying?’

Willoughby-Brown laughed. ‘That’s one way of looking at it, yes. But there is another you might consider. I’ve got your back, Daniel. And I’ve had it for quite some time.’

Omar’s heart began to race when he saw there was a new message in the drafts folder. It was a list of four registration numbers. He licked his lips, went over to his sock and underwear drawer and pulled out his throwaway mobile. He called the number of the brother who would make the plates for him and gave him the four numbers, spelling them out carefully and telling him to repeat them back.

He was putting the phone back in the drawer when his bedroom door opened. It was Zack. ‘Don’t you ever fucking knock?’ asked Omar.

‘Why? You pulling yourself off again?’ asked Zack, closing the door behind him.

‘I’m busy,’ said Omar, sitting on the bed and closing his laptop.

‘Porn?’

‘No, not porn. What the fuck do you want?’

‘Chill, bruv. I just wanted to see how the girl thing played out.’

Omar shook his head, confused. ‘Girl thing? What girl thing?’

‘The girl you got pregnant. The one you went to see. What happened?’

‘Oh, that. Yeah, it’s okay. You were right. I got her to pee on the stick and there was just the one line.’

‘So the skank was lying?’

Omar pulled a face. ‘She was just trying to rip me off. Wanted me to pay for an abortion she didn’t need.’

‘Bitch,’ said Zack.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Omar. ‘Bitch.’

‘So everything’s good?’

‘Everything’s fine.’

Zack ruffled Omar’s hair. ‘You know I love you, bruv.’

‘I know.’

‘And I’m always here for you.’

‘Sure.’ Omar smiled up at his brother but really he just wanted him out of the room so that he could leave a new message in the drafts folder to say that the registration plates were being made and would be fitted the following day.