Secret Asset (24 page)

50

P
eggy Kinsolving had enlarged a map of the Home Counties and it sat in front of them on the conference-room table. Wetherby had looked in twice already, and now he came in and sat down. He did not look as though he would be leaving. Liz could tell that he was trying to look upbeat, but she sensed his agitated concern, since she shared it.

She was glad he was there, though, because all afternoon an idea had been brewing in her mind—far-fetched perhaps, but it wouldn't go away. She was counting on Wetherby to decide if she were being foolish or inspired.

Outside a long spiral of black cloud was moving in from the west, and the wind had picked up, whipping at the leaves on the plane trees along the pavement across the street. Liz thought for a moment of the garden centre at Bowerbridge. This was just the sort of weather her mother hated because of the damage it caused the young plants. Then Liz felt guilty for not ringing her the night before. Her mother's surgery was in ten days, and Liz had tried to be in touch every day.

She looked across the table at Dave Armstrong, back from Wolverhampton and reporting on what he'd found there. “Bashir bought this van a few days after he bought the Golf. The only problem is that there are probably 200,000 of them on the road. It's like a vocational badge: you can't call yourself a builder if you don't own a white van.”

“What about plates?” asked Liz.

“I circulated the licence numbers right away. There are 8,000 number-plate recognition cameras in the UK, so if he's driving with those licence plates they'll get picked up by a camera at some point. But I'm sure he would have changed them—he did on the Golf. Quite cleverly, he kept the T-reg, because it fitted the year of the car, but he changed the number.”

Wetherby spoke up, sounding tired. His voice was low. “They'll probably keep the van locked up anyway until they need it. That suggests that unless they've got yet another car, they're staying in a town, some place with public transport in case they need to go anywhere.”

Liz looked at the Xs marked on the map in biro. “London,” she announced, then pointed slightly west, “then Wokingham.” She moved her hand up, west and north, and jabbed at another spot. “And most recently, up on the Downs near The Ridgeway.”

“What's near there?” asked Wetherby. “Wantage?”

Liz shook her head. “I don't think that could be the target. It's a market town. No military installation. And Peggy's checked for public events.”

“Every Saturday there's a market in the square,” said Peggy, “but not much else.”

“Doesn't seem likely,” said Wetherby. He pointed at the map. “What about Newbury?”

“There's a country fair this weekend,” said Peggy, and Wetherby smiled but shook his head.

“Swindon?” asked Dave. “HQ of W. H. Smith and the National Trust.” This time Wetherby didn't bother to smile.

“How about Didcot?” asked Peggy, who had discussed all these towns with Liz before the two men arrived. She pointed a few miles east from the dumped car's position on the map. “It's a bigger town than I realised. Its population is 25,000 and growing fast. There are enough Asians for our suspects to blend in. And most important, it's got the power station.”

“Nuclear?” asked Dave.

“No, coal fired, though people often think it is nuclear because it's near Harwell. Those cooling towers would be quite a target.” She looked at her notes. “Its main chimney is 650 feet high, and the six towers are each 325 feet high. You can see them from miles away. It was voted Britain's Third Worst Eyesore by the readers of
Country Life
.”

“Makes me think better of the place,” scoffed Dave, who was not a
Country Life
reader, being strictly Old Labour.

“Hold on,” said Charles. “If they're down there, shouldn't we be worrying about Aldermaston? That's where the nuclear bombs are made.”

“But you'd never get near a place like that,” said Dave. “It must be as well protected as anywhere in Britain. And how would they know what to attack without inside information? There's no reason to think Tom has any.”

“We'd better get on to Protective Security,” said Wetherby without enthusiasm. “What do you think, Liz?” He seemed to sense her scepticism.

“I can see them
staying
in Didcot—it's such an anonymous place, really just a train junction that's grown. Much better for them than the countryside. As Asians, they'd stick out too much.

“But I can't really see Didcot power station or Aldermaston as the target. Why would Tom think it important to blow up a power station or a nuclear-bomb factory? There's no symbolic value in it. And anyway, you'd need a much bigger operation than he seems to have.”

“That's all very well,” said Wetherby, “but would symbolism matter to the terrorists? They'd be after maximum impact, surely.”

“But symbolism would be important to Tom, I'm sure. If he's doing this lunatic thing, there's got to be some reason.”

“You're confident then that Tom is leading these men and not just helping them?”

“Yes,” said Liz firmly, thinking of what she'd learned about him in the last two days. “Tom likes to control things, even if it's behind the scenes. Everything Margarita Levy said confirms that. This is a mission of some sort, and he's leading it. In his mind there's a reason for it.”

“Do you think he's working with Al Qaeda?” Dave asked.

“No. I think he recruited Bashir on his own account in Pakistan. He had plenty of unsupervised access to him—he was meant to be recruiting him for Six.”

Wetherby tapped the end of his pencil on the table. “All right, if not Didcot or Aldermaston, then where?” There was a hint of impatience in his voice. “We've got to take some decisions. Which targets are we going to cover? I have a feeling that we haven't got much time,” he added. “They're panicking—look at the car. Burning it suggests to me that they are on the verge of doing whatever they're planning to do.”

He stared at Liz as if somehow she might hold the answer, and seemed grateful when she spoke up.

“I think it's Oxford,” she said.

“Oxford? Why Oxford? Do you have any particular reason?”

“No single overpowering one,” she admitted. “But it began with something Margarita said. He hated Oxford, she said, really loathed the place.”

“Well, if it's Oxford, what's the target?” asked Wetherby. “His college? Or a person or some event?”

“We just don't know. Peggy's been trying to find out if something special's going on there.”

“I'll try again,” Peggy said. “I haven't alerted the police yet since we're so unsure. I got on to the secretary in the Registrar's office, but she's been out all afternoon.” She got up and left the room in a hurry.

They sat silently for a minute, Wetherby drumming his fingers on the table, lost in thought, while Dave slumped in his chair and stared at the floor.

Suddenly Wetherby looked at Liz. “I've known people to be unhappy at Oxford,” he said. “But not hate it with passion.”

“I don't actually think it was the place, so much as what it represented to him. Somehow it's become the Establishment incarnate.”

“Was this the influence of O'Phelan?”

Liz leant back in her chair. “To an extent perhaps. When I saw him in Belfast O'Phelan certainly didn't sound very positive about his time there. But really I think it has to do with Tom's own feelings. He's carried a deep hatred for England ever since his father killed himself. I'm sure he believes his father was set up, by the intelligence services and the Government and the Establishment—whatever that's supposed to be these days.”

“Was he?” asked Dave.

“No. Some weird things happened in Northern Ireland back then, but I don't believe that story. I think his father was just the victim of a conman trying to make money out of a sensational story that wasn't true. The tragedy in a sense is that his father didn't think he was writing anti-British propaganda; he actually thought he was writing the truth.”

“But then why isn't Tom trying to blow up Thames House? Or Vauxhall Cross?” asked Dave.

“He'd know how difficult that would be. It just wouldn't be worth trying.”

“No, that's not it,” said Wetherby emphatically. He pulled tensely at his tie. “If he wants to strike
symbolically
at the Establishment—as well as do a lot of damage—we are the wrong target.”

“So he blows up a High Table instead,” said Dave, and Liz could understand his scepticism, but it didn't help. She was working on gut feeling now—getting more and more certain that Oxford would be Tom's target, but terribly anxious that she didn't really know and couldn't be more specific than that. All those colleges, she thought, with libraries, chapels, halls and museums. It could be any of them.

Peggy re-entered the room, looking ashen-faced. “What's wrong?” demanded Liz.

“I haven't been able to reach the Registrar's secretary because she's been terribly busy with preparations for Encaenia.”

“By God!” exclaimed Wetherby. “That must be it.”

“What's Encaenia?” asked Dave.

“It's a ceremony at Oxford during the summer term,” Wetherby calmly explained. “It's held in the Sheldonian. It's a special ceremony where they give out honorary degrees.”

“To students?” asked Dave.

Wetherby was shaking his head. “No, no. To luminaries. There's usually a foreign dignitary or two—I think last year it was President Chirac. Sometimes a Nobel Prize winner. Famous writers. That sort of thing.”

“It's not just Encaenia,” Peggy said. “They're installing the new Chancellor as well.”

“Lord Rackton?” asked Wetherby and Peggy nodded.

Dave's mouth made a small moue. Rackton had been a senior Tory minister for many years, often described as the best Prime Minister the country never had.

Peggy was looking at her notes. “The Chancellor's own ceremony is at eleven-thirty in the Sheldonian. That's followed by Encaenia at half-past twelve. In between, the recipients of honorary degrees and University officials meet in one of the nearby colleges for Lord Crewe's Benefaction.”

“Which is?” asked Liz.

Peggy quoted out loud: “‘Peaches, strawberries and champagne.' They're refreshments paid for by a legacy of Lord Crewe in the eighteenth century.”

Dave raised an eyebrow at Liz.

Peggy went on: “After he's installed, Lord Rackton comes and joins them, and they all march off in a procession to the Sheldonian. This year the Benefaction is in Lincoln College, so they only have to go round the corner.”

“It's quite an event,” said Wetherby. “A sort of showpiece of the University. Very colourful—eminent people, very public, very accessible.” He finished quietly. “I'm afraid it does make sense.” No one had to ask what “it” was. The anxiety of not knowing Tom's target was swiftly being replaced by the tension of not knowing if he could be stopped.

“When is this Encaenia?” Dave asked Peggy. Please, prayed Liz, let it be weeks away. She waited with ill-disguised impatience as Peggy consulted her notes. “The ceremony is always held on the Wednesday of Ninth Week,” she declared at last.

“But which Wednesday is that?” demanded Dave, gritting his teeth. He was sitting upright now.

Peggy looked at him wide-eyed. “It's tomorrow, of course. That's why the secretary was so busy this afternoon.”

A long low rumbling noise filled the room, as if an aeroplane were passing overhead, and the windows trembled slightly. Standing next to Liz, Peggy visibly started.

“It's all right,” said Dave. “It's only thunder.”

51

T
om had found a small, shabby genteel hotel near the old green in Witney, a market town west of Oxford. He paid in advance for a week's stay, booking in the name of Sherwood. He used the same name to hire the car and buy the plane ticket.

Living as Sherwood, he found it hard to fabricate a past for the man, so engaged was he with the present. In time, he would be able to fill in the blanks, enough to satisfy the most persistent of questioners, but just now he felt he lived in the perfect existential moment of his life.

He rang Bashir once, after driving carefully to the outskirts of Burford, taking back roads that had no cameras. Tom reckoned it was safe in any case—only Rashid's phone had proved at risk, and that was only through the boy's stupidity. What a mistake it had been to choose him—even though he had brought in Khaled Hassan, who was steady as a rock.

Now he and Bashir reviewed their plans for the hundredth time, and synchronised their watches before Tom rang off. Bashir sounded calm, but then he was of a different calibre—and commitment—from Rashid, who thankfully was destined only for a supporting role. So far, Rashid had been the only mistake. But it was too late in any case to do anything about him.

Part of Tom was relieved about that, for he had got no joy from killing his old tutor O'Phelan, or from ordering the killing of Marzipan. Not that he felt any guilt—they had been necessary murders, and if anything had caused them, it had been the overeagerness of his colleagues in MI5, particularly Liz Carlyle. Tom found it untroubling that Bashir and Khaled were eager to die. He had no interest in their motives or their cause. They would serve
his
purpose. That was the point of them.

And now it was Wednesday morning. D-Day, Tom told himself, as he packed, amused by how English that sounded. Later this day he would drive to Bristol where he had booked another hotel room for the night. An early morning flight to Shannon, and then on to New York courtesy of—fittingly—Aer Lingus. The search for him would by then be intense, so Tom was avoiding Heathrow where he was more likely to be recognised. As Sherwood he should be safe enough at Irish passport control, and certainly safe enough in New York. There he would decide what stage two of his long-term campaign should be. Long term—he had no intention of being anything but a permanent thorn in the side of his father's persecutors.

On his way out, he explained to the lady at the desk that he was off to the West Country and was taking his bag in case he had to stay overnight. He did not want her to think he was leaving abruptly for good. She can be surprised later on, he thought. Just like everybody else. Including Bashir.