Dead in the Water (34 page)

He swallows self consciously. Shuts his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. “After meeting Stephen… When I got back in the car,” he says slowly, “I switched on my mobile and tried to check for messages. My daughter’s in South America. We haven’t heard from her for a while.”

“
Yes.”

“
I couldn’t get a signal. Seemed weird at the time. But probably nothing.”

“
Anything else?”

“
I couldn’t start the car at first. That was my fault. I’m sure. I probably…” He hesitates, embarrassed about admitting incompetence and inadequacy to a woman of such self assurance. “I think I was pretty shaken up and I just assumed that because I don’t drive much it must have been my fault.” She smiles as if this were intended as a joke; and he wonders if in other circumstances they might share a sense of humour.

“
We are providing you with covert security.” He looks quizzical. “Presumably you weren’t aware of it.” He shakes his head. “Good. That’s the point. We could make it more visible. And we are willing to do that. But that would alert them to what we know. You are the best lead we have.”

Mark shifts uneasily. Looks in her eyes in the hope of finding a trace of sarcasm. She allows the silence.

“
What … does that mean?”

“
We want you to continue to live your life exactly as you have been doing.”
Making a fucking mess of it.

“
You want to smoke them out...”

“
Yes. Don’t let them know that you’re suspicious.”
You’re lighting a fire in my fucking doorway and I’m to act normal.

“
Stephen tells you he’s part of a militant group. And although he’s not planting bombs, he wants out. But he doesn’t want you to go to the police. Most importantly, he lets you and Joanna know that he’s alive and well. Let’s assume they know what he’s doing even if they haven’t sanctioned it. That means they’re OK about you knowing all that. My guess is that he thinks they don’t know he contacted you; but the likelihood is that they tricked him into pulling you out of London. My reading of it is that there’s some kind of sophisticated surveillance device in the car. The text message from Stephen was to your own phone, was it?”

“
I threw the other one in the pond, like Stephen suggested.”

“
Then I suspect the text message itself has another payload as well.”

“
Meaning?”

“
Viral.” He still looks bemused. “Modern phones have more processing power than a turn of the century desktop PC. Can I?” She holds out her hand, asking for Mark’s mobile. She takes a mini-laptop from her bag, powers it up, switches off her wireless internet access, connects Mark’s phone to the computer and scans the phone with anti-viral software. He watches, not knowing what to say. He wants to make small talk, to ask her how long she’s been involved in this kind of work, to tell her how proud he and Joanna were of Stephen when he did so well in school. But nothing seems appropriate. She powers down the computer.

While the computer is rebooting, she says, without looking at Mark, “We’d like to take a good look at your car; but it will need to be somewhere secure. Can you drive to work tomorrow? Leave it in the underground car park at the Houses of Parliament.” The computer is ready for her password, which she types in again.

“
I thought I had to act normally.”

“
It’ll be a last minute decision. Someone will ring you in the morning just as you’re about to leave; and ask you to bring in some files from home. You’ll call a taxi – I’ll give you a number. It won’t turn up, so you’ll have to take your car.” This is already making him feel uneasy.

The computer has booted up successfully. Then she goes in to some systems files. “Your phone has a firewall and anti-viral software. Both have been switched off remotely. This is not my expertise, but I would think the payload comes in several small packages. The first deactivates the phone’s protection systems, opening the door for whatever follows.”

“
So the next attack could be electronic,” muses Mark, realising the extent to which he is already implicated in it.

“
Maybe not the next… What he told you about Heathrow and the Summit. It could be disinformation, of course – telling you what he’s been fed – but it confirms what we’ve been thinking. Security at all the major airports is already at the highest level. But an electronic attack could well be on the cards. We’re prepared, of course. But in that world things evolve very quickly. And Stephen’s text won’t be the only mule.” He’s not come across the concept of an electronic mule before, but her meaning is frighteningly clear.

She stays sitting, but an almost imperceptible shift of posture seems to indicate that the interview is over. As she zips the laptop back into its leather case, she could be a financial adviser who has completed a satisfactory consultancy about restructuring his under-achieving endowment policies.

“
You want me to leave the car in the underground car park tomorrow?”

“
That’s right.”

“
If they’ve put surveillance devices in it, won’t they know that you’re examining it?”

“
They have some very clever toys…. But ours are smarter. And that car park is electronically blocked. ”

“
And what about Stephen? And Joanna? And Rachel?”

“
Stephen is going to be a key witness. We can’t afford to lose him. I don’t think they have any interest in Joanna or Rachel.”

“
You don’t think.” He’s beginning to sound aggressive, and tries to check himself; but it’s too late: “What are you asking me to do? If these people are targeting me, then ––”

“
They are not targeting you, Mark. They are targeting a set of policies, and you are a good way of getting at those. Joanna and Rachel are not. If they start threatening your family, then they reveal themselves. And we are on to them immediately. We have Joanna under surveillance for exactly that reason.”

“
What about Rachel? She should be back in the country in a couple of days.”

“
We’ll know when she returns.”

“
And you’ll have her put under surveillance as well?”

“
For her own protection. Yes.”

“
Do I have a choice?” he asks. “About the car?”

“
Oh yes, of course you have a choice. You could go back to your office. Leave your car where it is. Take a holiday. You could let things take their course.”

“
And what course would that be?”

“
We’ll catch the people who have been working for them without knowing it ––”

“
Like Stephen.”

“
Yes…. Finding who is behind it all will be much more difficult.”

He nods. “And what you want me to do is just … act normal?”

“
Exactly.”

“
What about going to the police?”

“
Stephen asked you not to.” She picks up her bag, stands and offers to shake his hand, adding just before she goes, “When we find Stephen, Special Branch will have to arrest him. There’ll be some formalities. But Stephen will be OK. You have my word.” ‘When’, she says. When they find him. Not ‘if’ – as if they have Stephen, too, on the end of a long lead, ready to pull him in at a moment’s notice. That thought is simultaneously reassuring and deeply troubling.

She shakes his hand, thanks him and takes her leave; laptop in leather briefcase under her arm.

What have I agreed to? Smoking them out. Set light to Stephen and send him running back into their house.

59
Brasilia

“
Are you drowning in there?” There’s a loud knocking on the door. “Jem? Hello …?”

“
Sorry. I dozed off.”

“
Thought you might fancy breakfast,” says Rachel as he emerges from the bathroom. “Shall we go down or have it here?”

“
A bit conspicuous, aren’t we?” Him in his
Sullivan Air Taxis
overalls and Rachel in her battle fatigues.

Rachel is full of energy. Thank goodness. He had begun to worry that she might have been suffering delayed concussion, that getting to the Embassy and organising a passport might be the least of their worries.

“
Did you ring my dad?”

“
I thought it’d be better if you talked to him yourself.”

“
You mean you didn’t want to have to explain about sharing a hotel room with me.”

“
I thought it would set his mind at rest talking to you. I thought it would sound very strange me telling him you were OK, but not able to come to the phone.”

“
You could have woken me up.”

“
I thought you needed all the rest you could get.”

“
Are we arguing?” She wrinkles her nose and grins. He’s fun to tease. While waiting for breakfast to be brought to the room, they put a call through to Mark. They have to go through Mark’s secretary, who is very protective, but it still takes a great deal less time than it does when Jeremy needs to speak to Mark on his own behalf.

“
Hi Dad, it’s me. I’m fine. Did you get my message?”

“
My God, Rachel. What on earth has been happening? What have you been doing?”

“
I’m fine. Really. My passport got stolen. But I’m fine. Promise. We’re coming home.” She talks in rapid, clipped sentences; vivacious and positive – and no mention of the horrors of the rain forest massacre.

Jeremy answers a knock on the door. Room service, with the breakfast tray. Rachel is still in full flow as he hands her a glass of orange juice.

“
We? Who’s we?” asks Mark.

“
Talk to Jeremy.”

“
Where are you?”

“
Talk to Jeremy.” She hands the phone over.

“
We’re in Brasilia, Mark. She’s in good health and good spirits. We’re going to get to the Embassy as soon as we can. Is there anyone you can talk to? Pull strings. Rachel needs a temporary passport and money for a flight back to London.”

His credit card’s useless. He tried it in a hole in the wall machine in the foyer last night when they arrived in the hotel. No credit indeed. He’s not mentioned it to Rachel, but has assumed that if they, whoever they might be, can tap into her text messages they can hack into his fucking bank accounts.

Over breakfast they laugh at each other’s tales of the grimmest hotels they’ve ever stayed in, each of them surprised by how relaxed they feel in the other’s company. Rachel’s good humour lasts until they are about to leave the room, when she abandons the role of the chirpy, bright-eyed traveller.

“
Will they follow us, do you think?”

“
Who?”

“
The people who tried to kill me before.”

“
We’re ten minutes taxi ride from the British Embassy. We’ll be fine.”

6
0 Westminster

Go straight to the top. There’s no point in having connections if you can’t call on them. Mark asks Ba to get hold of Andrew Linden. “It’s personal and urgent.”

Linden’s private secretary is on the phone within minutes.

“
Mark Boyd here. I need to talk to Mr Linden in person.” To his amazement, Andrew himself gets back to him within minutes. Mark explains the situation as briefly as he can.

“
I think she should be able to get to the Embassy in the next hour or so.”

“
I’ll put in a call right now. I’m sure we can swing something. Call you back.”

“
Thank you. I very much appreciate ––” But he’s already gone.

No sooner has he put the phone down, than it rings again. It’s Jay Porter. Mrs Walker wants to see him alone in her private office.

There are no introductions and no pleasantries.

“
I think the government is running away from itself,” he says. “They want to paralyse us. I think the terrorism is designed to prevent us implementing our own policies. It’s intended to discredit the Green Movement.”

“
SIS have been following up that possibility. My sense is that’s a blind alley. They haven’t published demands because they don’t want to back us in to a corner.”

“
Or by leaving it open,
anything
we do will be seen as giving in to them.”

“
Hunches, Mark.” She is unused to people contradicting her. On those occasions when she invites disagreement, it is on her terms. But Mark persists, “One of the people the police have arrested. Some guy, Allan Hunter, I’d like to see him.”

“
Mark, you are not a detective.”

“
He’s being held under the Terrorism Act. My neighbour has been arrested. They took her in for questioning this morning. She’s in her eighties.”

“
That is not what you’re here to discuss.”

“
The police are pulling in anybody connected with the Green Movement. That is what the terrorists want. They want to push us into alienating people. My son, Stephen ….” He stops. And with the mention of Stephen, the quality of Angela Walker’s attention changes. “I think he’s being held hostage.”

“
Who by?”

“
I don’t know. He went missing on Saturday night. We had a message from him last night.” She listens patiently as he tells her about Stephen’s involvement with green politics.