Authors: Stella Rimington

Secret Asset (28 page)

T
he meeting was ending, but the long grim process had only just begun.

The press coverage of the aborted bomb attempt in Oxford had been sensational.
TEN SECONDS FROM DEATH
announced the
Daily Mail,
with a split front page showing the crashed van on one side and a picture of the new Chancellor on the other, looking shocked in his academic gown.
IT'S A DUD
! proclaimed the
Sun,
which managed to get a picture of Rashid Khan, his head shrouded in a blanket, being led out to a prison van at the St. Aldates police station. The
Express
featured a photograph of the Chancellor's procession, beadles, stewards, vespers and all, which Liz realised had to have been taken years beforeâit showed the trail of dignitaries on the Broad, which they had never reached, and had at its head the old Chancellor rather than his new successor. The broadsheets were more circumspect. The
Times
accountâ
BOMBERS' PLOT FOILED IN OXFORD
âwas followed by its other upmarket colleagues in emphasising the fact that the conspiracy had been detected rather than how close it had come to success. The
Guardian
had much the same coverage together with an article by an architect on the damage to the historic railings in the Broad.

All of course mentioned the deaths of the van driver and his passenger, and also the death of a Security Service officerâthough readers eager to learn more about that fatality would not find their curiosity assuaged. A D notice had landed within hours on the desk of every newspaper editor in the UK, so other than reporting the fact of Tom's death, described invariably as a “tragic accident,” nothing else appeared about him.

However events were described, the facts were undeniable: two terrorists had been within a whisker of blowing up a symbol of one of Britain's oldest institutions along with a host of dignitaries. If some of the newspapers credited the security services with foiling the plot, others directly criticised them for letting it get so close to fruition. None suggested it had been anything but a very narrow squeak.

Fortunately for Liz and her colleagues, the media's shrill attention proved short-livedâdisplaced by a particularly horrific attack in Baghdad and by another spat between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Coverage of the Oxford Plot (as it was already coming to be known) moved after two days to the inside pages and the occasional comment column, and though the debacle would be cited endlessly in future as an example of the formidable threats the country was now facing, its news value was reduced with each day's passing.

Within MI5 and MI6, however, the impact of the Oxford Plot was anything but temporary. Analysis of what happened and why was just beginning. This initial meeting was going to be the first of many. Already the various sections were starting their own damage assessments, and would be meeting regularly to share them.

As people gathered their papers and started to leave the room, Dave Armstrong caught Liz's eye. “Got time for a coffee?” he asked.

“Maybe later,” she said, for something was making her feel she wanted to stay behind.

As the room emptied she found herself alone at the table with Wetherby, who was looking tired and subdued even by his undemonstrative standards. He managed a rueful smile at Liz. “I've chaired happier meetings in my time.”

“At least everyone knows what they've got to do.”

“Yes. It's obviously important to track right back through all this. Everything. Right back to Tom's recruitment,” said Wetherby, lifting a hand in acknowledgement of the detail they had all just waded through. “We need to understand why we didn't pick up that there was something wrong about him. Why we didn't notice anything. There'll be an inquiry,” he said, with a tone of resignation. “Not a public inquiry, I don't think, though there'll be pressure for one, but a big internal one. The Home Secretary's talking about getting a judge to conduct it. He actually had the nerve to say â
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
?' You'd think he'd have thought of something more original.” Wetherby shook his head in disbelief. Liz had forgotten the little Latin she had learned at school but she knew that phrase very well: “Who is to watch over the guardians themselves?” “I have to say DG was very good in the meeting,” Wetherby added.

“What about Six?” asked Liz. “What's Geoffrey Fane saying?”

“I talked to him. He expressed suitable outrage about Tom's treachery. Though there was just a faint suggestion that we'd been a little careless, seconding a traitor to MI6. But on the other hand if Tom made contact with the bomber in Pakistan, that's when he was under their control. I intimated that perhaps they need to look at their own supervision.”

Liz nodded, remembering Fane's initial disbelief when she had named Tom as the mole.

“Is Peggy going straight back to Vauxhall Cross?” she asked.

“Not yet. I've asked Fane to let her stay on for a bit to help with the damage assessment.”

“I need to speak to you about her, actually. She's making noises about trying to stay here. It seems she likes MI5.”

Wetherby raised his eyebrows. “That will really help things with Fane.” He paused and glanced tensely at his watch, then relaxed. He had time to talk, and Liz sensed he wanted to. “About halfway through the meeting I began to have the oddest feeling. As if something were missing. You know that sensation when you've left your watch at home or forgotten your wallet? You don't know what you've lost; you just know something should be there that isn't.” Wetherby looked at Liz. Then, all vagueness gone, his expression hardened. “And then I realised it wasn't any
thing
that was missing. It was a person.”

“Tom.”

“Exactly,” he said, his eyes now focused on her.

It was true, Liz realised. Around the table minutes before had sat Michael Binding, looking dour, with a couple of his men from A2; Patrick Dobson, flushed and uncomfortable; Reggie Purvis and his deputy from A4; Judith Spratt, still looking shaky but at least present; Liz, Dave, Charlesâ¦all the usual attendees. Except one.

Wetherby said, “He hadn't been back very long, but he did feel very much like one of us.”

“That's why he was so hard to catch. He fitted in perfectly.”

“That was part of the plan,” said Wetherby, propping his hand on his chin and looking thoughtful. “And yet,” he said sadly, “part of me still thinks that some of his act was actually sincere. He was good at his job; I think he genuinely enjoyed it. But as it turns out, it was a different job he was doing. He was never with us right from the beginning. But his hatred, it seems to me, was for the Service, not for its officers. Somehow I find it hard to take that personally. Don't you?”

Liz thought of the weekend Tom had “dropped by” her mother's house. She hadn't told Wetherby about Tom's overtures, but then, had she been right about them? Could she have imagined more than there was to his invitation? It was only supper, after all. Was some personal vanity she wasn't aware of skewing her judgement? But then she remembered the hotel receipt, and Tom's lies about his friends on a farm. No, she wasn't imagining things. He had been trying to use her for his own twisted reasons.

“No, Charles,” she said, “I do take it personally. He was never loyal to the Service or to any of us. He was using us as a means to an end. He was loyal only to his own warped sense of mission to destroy everything we work for. In the wilderness of mirrors he was the wrong way round.”

“Of course you're right,” conceded Charles with an easy smile. “It's meaningless to make a distinction between the Service and its officers. What was it E. M. Forster said? âIf I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.' I've always felt our duty was precisely the opposite.”

“Me too,” said Liz simply.

They sat in silence for a moment. Wetherby asked quietly, “How's your mother?”

He is a nice man, thought Liz. Here he is, withâlet's face itâhis career in the balance after such a near disaster, and he manages to remember my mother. “Okay, I think,” she said gratefully. “She's had the operation and it seems to have gone well.”

“Good,” said Wetherby encouragingly.

“Yes, they think they've got it all,” said Liz. And for some reason she thought of Tom and the damage he had caused. “At least it seems that way,” she said, adding carefully, “though you can never be sure.”

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stella Rimington joined Britain's Security Service (MI5) in
1969
. During her nearly thirty-year career she worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilitiesâcounter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorismâand successively became Director of all three branches. Appointed Director General of MI5 in
1992
, she was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. Following her retirement from MI5 in
1996
, she became a nonexecutive director of Marks Spencer and published her autobiography,
Open Secret,
in the United Kingdom.

ALSO BY STELLA RIMINGTON

FICTION

At Risk

NONFICTION

Open Secret