Dreams to Die For (42 page)

“First thing tomorrow, I need to make a phone call from the public telephone box down at the harbour to confirm the final aspect of our mission and to ensure that everything will be ready for us when we need it. Then I want you to put me back on the bank where I was today” Fadyar told Khan. “No one goes there and I shall never be discovered. I need to observe more, at close quarters, and in any event I can get a complete view from there of the mountains to the north of the Kinloch Hourn road. If Assiter and Truscott are going to go walking, or some such, then that is probably where they'll go. They may simply drive somewhere on the estate, but I doubt that as it looks to be mainly forest. My guess is that they will be happy to remain around here. I can observe everything from the Mealag side of the loch far better than I can from the boat, and if I can arrive there early enough I may learn some information that may prove helpful.”

The others nodded.

“What shall we do then?” enquired Mattar.

“You and Sharid must take the Land Rover and drive along that very small track that is our first choice escape route. We have to be 100% certain that we can get through and we did not fully test that out last time. After that, make sure the camper van is still safely parked and drive it away for an hour or so. Be a tourist. Moving the van will be good as it will remove any suspicion of it. Nasra and I will not meet you at the hotel in the morning but we'll rendezvous with you in the evening, say 7pm hours at the cottage.”

Later, when Khan and Fadyar lay in bed, Khan turned to her and said, “Fadyar, how many days do you think it will be before we can execute our plan? We have been here several days, although Assiter has only been here a couple, but do you share my anxiety that as each day passes, it could be our last. We could be discovered any time.”

Fadyar knew exactly what he felt as she shared the same unease, but she could not allow frustration to compromise a good plan. She had to wait for the right moment. If circumstances were not favourable tomorrow, they would be the following day or the day after that. Neither was she comfortable about openly sharing her anxieties with Khan. Naked and sleeping with him was a special type of reassurance for her, but baring her soul was not going to happen. She put her arm around him and pulled him closer.

“Nasra, we have a good plan and I am totally confident it will work but we must remain patient. We have been so careful to cover our tracks and not provide any clues that I am sure the authorities do not yet suspect us. This mission is what we have trained for. We have been so honoured to be chosen to serve Allah. Is this not what we have dreamt of? Do not worry my dear brother, nothing will stop us. We will succeed and Fadyar will keep you safe.”

The weather forecast as provided by Gordon Truscott the previous evening was not, as yet, correct. It was cloudy and overcast on Thursday morning with intermittent squally showers mixed with an almost constant heavy drizzle that quickly soaked everything it touched. No one at Mealag Lodge was in any great hurry to venture forth and the conversation at breakfast was prolonged whilst everyone waited in hope for the weather to clear. There were no such qualms about the weather from either Donaldson or from Fadyar Masri and her associates. All had set out early.

Margaret MacLean, who disliked using the new machine Cindy had persuaded Gordon to purchase, made some fresh coffee, replacing the filled kettle on its usual spot on the hot-plate of the Aga stove. As she poured the boiling water into the cafetière Gordon called out to her. “Will this rain and mizzle hang around all day, Margaret? You know more about Highland weather than any of us, give us your view.”

“Ach well, there's no real telling but I think it might clear soon enough,” she less than confidently replied.

“That's it then. We'll go on the hill as planned. What are you girls doing, still going shopping?” Gordon turned to Paulette as he spoke.

“Might as well, Cindy, what do you think? We can still make a whole day of it and I should like to see Inverness and some of those Scottish woollens you told me about.” Paulette was keen to experience several hours looking around the foreign shops, something she had been unable to do in London where she and her husband were kept closeted and out of sight apart from the organised, dutiful and specially scrutinised photo opportunities for the world's media; appearances which bored them even more than their hosts.

The kitchen clock showed a few minutes past ten as Assiter and Gordon began loading the boat with the rifles, ammunition and the most vital supplies for the day which included a flask of hot, black coffee, some bacon rolls and a bottle of single malt whisky. Sandy MacLean joined them at the boat, also carrying his rifle. “I'll take the girls over and see you by the road,” he said “They're just coming.”

Cindy and Paulette appeared just as Chuck Drew and Josh Atkins came out of Ruraich and walked towards the group. The special agents were both wearing waterproof clothing and carrying their weapons which were further protected from the weather by bright yellow nylon covers.

“Juss a quick word if ya please, ‘fore ya go. Is the plan still the same given the weather and all that?” Drew asked.

“Yes,” said Gordon. “No change and we'll also be going to the hill tomorrow unless the weather gets much worse. If it does we will put on the board what we are all doing, but otherwise everything is still the same. Cindy and Paulette are off to Inverness now and tomorrow they hope to go over the dam and walk up the mountain over there to see the surge shaft and tunnel. If time permits they may just fish around the shore close to the house.”

“My, you British are real hardy folk. Me, I'm glad to stay indoors when it rains, but not you guys! OK, let's get in Josh.”

Sandy MacLean then spoke. “Chuck, just remembered. It's Margaret's day off tomorrow and she and I will be going over to her sister's at Glenelg for the day, so we won't be around. I'll try not to forget to put it on the board later, but you may want to put it on yourself.”

“Sure thing. Are we in for a good day's hunting?” asked Drew.

“Maybe. It all depends where the deer are. Weather has been a bit warm lately, so they may be too high up.”

“Don't be a pessimist, Sandy” exclaimed Assiter, “I'm sure we'll have some sport.”

At precisely 10:15am the small boats were started up and made their leisurely passage across the loch. Fadyar Masri, hidden in the same bushes where she had spent part of the previous day, watched them leave. She might have been expected to be rejoicing at the information she had just gleaned, a worthy reward for rising early, but instead she was extremely angry with herself. She withdrew to a safe distance where she could not be heard and called on the radio.

“Melon are you receiving? This is Apple. Over.” No answer.

“Apple calling. Fig are you receiving? Over.” The radio remained stubbornly silent.

“Apple calling. Come in Orange. Over.” She knew that Khan would answer as she could see him, still fishing from the boat, near the loch's edge.

“Orange here. Loud and clear. Over”

“Can you move out and try to get either Fig or Melon to answer. If you do, tell them to go home immediately. Then come back to pick me up. Over.”

“OK, Apple. Out” Khan signed off and almost immediately Fadyar heard his outboard start up.

She continued to look through her telescope until the Mealag boats arrived at the jetty below the road. Truscott, Assiter and MacLean unloaded their gear and began walking at a forty-five degree angle across the slope of Gleouraich mountain. Halfway to the summit the shooting party changed direction, going behind the hill but still climbing upwards. They waved to Cindy and Paulette as the two women passed below them on the road, warm and dry in the Volvo.

An hour later, Khan returned and Fadyar jumped into his boat. He had not been able to raise either Mattar or Bagheri on the radio, both of whom were obviously well out of range. Khan had even tried his mobile as he noticed he actually got a signal at one point, but as he dialled the signal disappeared again.

“Why did you want them back, Fadyar. Is anything wrong?” asked Khan.

“No, far from it. It was just that when I saw where our target was headed, I thought that if we could get everything in place, we might have been able to try to capture him today. As I expected he went up the hill.” Khan's eyes opened wide but before he could comment Fadyar continued, “Visibility is poor across the loch, so the guard at the dam would not have a good view of what was happening until too late. If only I had known they were definitely going to the hills today, we could have done it. I know we could have. It's probably too late now, our chance today has gone.”

“Well, Sharid and Mawdud will hopefully have been able to test the escape route so it's not a wasted day, Fadyar” Khan tried his best to placate her.

Fadyar was still cross with herself and frustrated by what she perceived as a wasted opportunity, but by the time they had reached the cottage the grandness of the scenery and the stillness of the loch had calmed her.

On the long trip back, Fadyar propped herself against the stern of the boat and rested her arms along its back and side. The rain slowly eased to a fine mist and then ceased altogether. The cloud lightened, teasingly suggesting that the sun might soon break through, and instead of focusing on her mission she found herself absorbed by the natural world around her. As she expectantly watched the surface of the loch for a telltale ring of a trout rising to take an unsuspecting fly, she observed a black-throated diver land on the water. It swiftly performed a half somersault then swam submerged, reappearing a short while later several metres away from where it first dived beneath the cold water, with a fish in its bill. She studied the mountains, now mostly concealed by billowing clouds of pure white gossamer. As the cloud raced sideways every so often a break appeared and she could see the illuminated summits rising imperiously through the mist. A pair of buzzards, probably startled by the noise of the outboard, took off from their high perch amongst the tall forest spruce trees and circled above the loch before flying into the distance and disappearing from view. She was so engrossed that Khan had to shout at her to get her attention.

“That police 4x4 is travelling along the road again. See him? He seems to turn up at any time, I can't detect a particular schedule” remarked Khan, an observation already made by Fadyar the previous day.

“Yes, he does, and that adds a slight level of uncertainty. He looks local police but must have been given a special patrol. I cannot believe the British have so many officers they can afford for one of them to travel up and down this road several times each day without good reason.”

At about the same time as Fadyar was enjoying the scenery, Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Ritson was handed a sealed white envelope by the Intelligence Services liaison officer. Ritson slit it open and read the deciphered message. It was the breakthrough he so desperately needed.

Ritson immediately went to the photocopier and obtained six copies of the message. One he would retain, one he would pass to each of his three most able subordinates, one for Deputy Commissioner Manders and one for the Commissioner himself. The adrenalin rushed through his body, a potent mix of alarm and excitement. Alarm because of the dates mentioned, but excitement at finally obtaining the deciphered message that surely was evidence of some sort of plot. He briefed his three officers.

“I want every aspect of this message investigated. Who are Mother and Father in Law? Who is on a visit to the UK? I want us to check again the names of all VIP's, dates, where they are staying, why they are over here, and so on – even second or third rate celebrities. Searching the CCTV footage of Birmingham for the day the Masri woman arrived in the UK could be a problem but see what you can do. Start by tracing that phone number. See also if we have anyone known by initials NH.”

Kingsley, the MI5 liaison officer who had first brought Ritson the deciphered message, spoke, “You could read the message that one group is meeting up with another and that this message is not in itself anything to do with a plot, or at least only indirectly.”

Kingsley was sharp, and it was a pertinent observation. Ritson thought on it for a few moments before saying, “I agree, it could be, but we can't afford to assume that until our enquiries prove negative. My bet is we are onto something big here, so let's get going!”

Once more, the ATU office became a site of almost constant activity. People hurried across the floor to confer with others, whilst colleagues were busy either dialling telephones or checking computer screens. What needed to be done now was routine, albeit highly labour intensive, but it did not require the specialist skills of Dongle who was still busily engaged on searching through obscure databases and old computer records. Ritson's briefing had therefore been relayed to those other officers trained at using the basic software that traced telephone numbers or suggested alternate numbers where the target number was unknown or falsified. It was the same for obtaining lists of VIP's in the country. All his officers had clearance to view those screens so Dongle's special skills were deployed on what was thought most appropriate to the furtherance of the investigation.

Ritson spent the afternoon going round all the persons in his team, one by one, encouraging them, urging them to find out more about the message. He had personally studied the computer printouts that listed all known VIP's, politicians, sports stars, Hollywood actors and actresses, and other notable visitors who were likely to be in the UK. None particularly caught his eye. There was a concert by Madonna in London in a couple of days, a new film starring George Clooney was opening in the West End for which the lead actor was over to help publicise it, and a couple of minor European Union delegations were discussing nothing of major importance all week at a Five Star luxury hotel in the centre of London. There was simply no one on the list that he considered merited a deeply disguised and organised terrorist attack.

“Try for events. See if there are any major events coming up” Ritson asked, desperate to find the reason for the plot. He was certain there was a threat, any doubts now dispelled by the decoded message. Innocent people do not write such messages in code.

A little while later, he read the new listing. His eyes went down each of the hundreds of so-called major events occurring during the next week but, again, none stood out. Dismayed, Ritson went over to the next officer to see what he was doing.

“The message is clearly about a meeting. Are there any known suspects recently arrived in the UK? Kingsley suggested that maybe the buggers are all meeting up somewhere to discuss their next atrocity.”

“I don't think so, Sir. There would have been increased communications traffic and Morwenstow and GCHQ would have picked that up. Also, there are no security reports of movements to the UK of known suspects.”

Ritson was becoming exasperated.

“There has to be something. What about the phone number?”

“The phone number doesn't make any kind of sense, Sir. The message was encoded. The phone number was also in code originally so now ought to be kosher, but it clearly isn't. We have the computers working on it, but every time the computer changes the numbers, or suggests alternatives, we come up negative or with a perfectly legitimate number. The computer is even adding and subtracting digits to try and make a proper phone number that we can then trace but that takes a hell of a long time and so far everything we've tried has gone belly-up.”

Ritson patted him on the shoulder, “Well, keep at it. Thanks.”

At 5pm, whilst his team were busy, Ritson went to see Manders and handed him the copied message and excitedly relayed the news.

“Go over this entire case again, Bill, slowly. Just the salient facts but try to get them all in some sort of chronological order.”

Ritson spent the next half hour briefing his superior. He mentioned Crossland, the bank account, Styles and his suspicious death. He spoke of Masri, Chalthoum and Hasan as being the same person – referring to her afterwards only as Masri – stressing the conclusiveness of Dongle's statements regarding her computer. He linked Styles and the bank to Masri, the visits of Masri to Britain and the money withdrawals. He briefed Manders on the French police investigations and findings; the mobile phone sudden disuse and the concealed trail of ownership of the French flat and its selective cleaning. At the conclusion of the resumé, Manders was more than satisfied.

“That's great Bill, really good job. I will ask for an emergency meeting of JTAC. We have such little time now if that decoded message is to be believed. We need to be putting more things in place. As head of the ATU, I am going to make a decision I may well regret, but something is going down and we must do what we can to be prepared. As it could be anywhere, notify all our regions of an imminent threat, level one, and to have as many ATU trained personnel on standby as they can muster.”

“Sir, you could lose your job if this is a false alarm, but you can count on my support if it comes to that.” Ritson knew that Manders was going out on a limb by issuing the order in advance of any instructions from the JTAC but was prepared to stand alongside him.

“Thanks, Bill. I appreciate that. If something happens tomorrow and we haven't issued an alert – what then? Do we tell the public we were having a JTAC meeting to debate it? I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, but I won't drag the commissioner into it.”

Ritson nodded and half smiled before rejoining his team. The officers worked on until 10pm in the desperate hope of tracing something that would crack the case wide open, but to no avail. The tired team headed home, their heads held low. They made no conversation as they left the office. They alone knew that time was running out and they had no idea what was going to be attacked or where, but they knew that they were the only persons likely to be able to stop it.

The members of the JTAC had received formal notification of the following day's emergency meeting at 6pm, the same time as Manders issued his Level 1 notice. As a precaution, the Home Secretary, Cabinet office and members of the Joint Intelligence Committee were placed on warning and notified of the following day's unscheduled meeting of the JTAC.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, or JTAC, was created as the UK's centre for the analysis and assessment of international terrorism in June 2003. It is situated in a Grade II listed building at the corner of Millbank and Horseferry Road in central London, known as Thames House. The Secret Intelligence Service's distinctive ziggurat building at Vauxhall Cross, which is often mistaken for the Security Service's headquarters, is located on the other side of the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge. JTAC analyses and assesses all intelligence relating to international terrorism, at home and overseas. It sets threat levels, and issues warnings of perceived threats and other terrorist-related matters, for a wide range of government departments and agencies, as well as producing in-depth reports on trends, terrorist networks and capabilities. JTAC brings together counter-terrorist expertise from the police, key government departments and the various intelligence agencies. Collaborating in this way ensures that information is analysed and processed on a shared basis, with the involvement and consensus of all relevant departments. Existing departmental roles and responsibilities are unaffected.

The head of JTAC is accountable to the Director General of the Security Service, who in turn reports to the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) on JTAC's activities. JTAC had already received a routine – and very cursory – report on the possible Masri plot, but as the evidence had been sketchy it was never discussed in detail. As JTAC worked especially closely with the International Counter Terrorism (ATU) branch, headed by Manders, in assessing the nature and extent of the threat to the UK, the JTAC had hitherto been content to leave him to continue with his enquiries.

Effective command and control is essential to successfully manage an actual counter-terrorist incident and the UK's approach to emergency response and recovery is founded on a bottom-up approach in which operations and decisions are made at the lowest appropriate level. In the event of a terrorist incident occurring, the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) is responsible for activating and coordinating the Home Office response. The OSCT provides a crisis response twenty-four hours a day, 365 days of the year and liaises with the Cabinet Office as to whether to activate central government's crisis management arrangements in the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR). The aim of COBR, or COBRA as it is more commonly referred to, as meetings are often held in Cabinet Room A, is to provide effective decision-making and rapid coordination of the central government response. The Home Secretary usually chairs COBR meetings, but confusingly COBR also has its own threat assessment levels that grade the severity of the actual attack as opposed to the perceived (JTAC) one. The lowest level of this assessment is one with three being an attack that might threaten national disaster such as that on a nuclear installation. The Prime Minister would almost certainly chair a Level Three incident. It is not until the attack has happened that COBR can accurately assess its likely impact, which is why the early warning (JTAC) system was introduced, and why devolved decision making and initial command and control procedures are in place to initiate a prompt and effective initial response.