Authors: Hector Macdonald
Wraye caught the flicker of a shadow behind him. ‘I think they can do rather better than that,’ she said quietly.
Simon Arkell’s response was immediate and electric. He spun round, saw the figure of a man appear in silhouette where the front door should have been, saw the outline of an assault rifle in his hands and hurled the backpack directly at the intruder’s face. A second man appeared as the first staggered backwards, and Arkell launched himself into the air.
His left boot smacked the man’s rifle aside while his right hand grabbed an oil lamp hanging on the wall and smashed it against his head. Glass fragments exploded around them, but the man stayed on his feet and swung the rifle like a club. Arkell blocked it, seized the butt and thrust it in the same instant hard up against the man’s jaw.
He crumpled to the ground.
Arkell turned to the first man, who was reaching for his fallen weapon. One punch to the throat floored him. There were more outside. He slammed and bolted the front door. Hauling the parachute rig from its hiding place, he burst out into the back garden. To left and right more men appeared, all armed, coming round both sides of the house. Arkell tugged the harness over his shoulders and swiftly buckled the straps as he ran to the cliff edge. Then, reaching back to free the pilot chute, he realized what was wrong.
He looked round and saw the trail of cord and parachute silk reaching all the way into the house. The canopy was already half-deployed.
Shrugging off the useless rig, he stared furiously at Wraye. One of the men thrust an HK45 in his face and yelled, ‘On the ground! Now!’
Arkell considered him: the nervous energy, the lust for action. His weapon was too close. Arkell could have taken it off him with a quick swipe. But the other men had gathered round, nondescript ex-soldiers’ clothes, assault rifles sensibly deployed. Silently, Arkell laid himself flat across the grass.
Wraye took the semi-automatic from her lieutenant’s rigid hand. ‘As you can see, I didn’t entirely trust you either.’ She crouched beside Arkell and put the muzzle to his forehead. Her voice dropped to a whisper that only he could hear. ‘If I wanted you dead, this is how easy it would be.’
He stared up the line of her arm, unblinking.
‘I never received that Porthos message. Do you understand? I did not blow up your house or kill your wife, nor did I commission anyone to do it for me. If we’re to work together again, I need you to be clear about that.’
His eyes never left hers.
‘And we’re going to have to find a way to rebuild the trust we once had.’
Slowly, he nodded.
‘How many names on that list?’
‘Five.’
‘All right, then.’ She stood up. ‘Report when you’ve spoken to Boim.’
‘It will almost certainly be designated Retracted,’ Wraye had said on the flight back from Milan. ‘You do know how to pull up Retracted terror alerts, don’t you?’
Not for the first time, Edward Joyce felt aggrieved at how little credit he was given by those whose good opinion he craved. He had been one of the highest rated students in his IONEC, earning praise from the DS for his diligence, attention to detail and analytical skills. That was why Wraye had picked him, after all. Her little talk about gathering together a group of capable and loyal people had touched his vanity, and he had been right to feel proud – he was the only recruit she had requested for the East European Controllerate that year. In return he’d given her everything, committed himself body and soul to the Madeleine Wraye flag.
He had enjoyed three heady years of rapid career development in her slipstream before looking up from his Balkan political corruption reports one day to discover she was gone. There had been no suggestion that Joyce was implicated in her proscribed activities. But the new controller did not want Wraye’s acolytes, and nor did any other controllerate or section head. He was offered a couple of invisible station postings that he strongly suspected to be General Service roles, unthinkable for a fast stream Intelligence Branch officer. By refusing them, he lost whatever remaining credit he might have had with Jane Saddle, HPD and the other clandestine apparatchiks who held the threads of his fate in their bloodless hands.
The transfer to Treasury had struck him as a surreal joke. He was an expert in Russian military force readiness, in the politics of eleven nations, in Moscow’s intelligence-gathering operations across Europe. He had been taught to resist interrogation, to lie, to cultivate agents, even to kill. And all they wanted him to do was shuffle money?
His first impulse was to resign, to throw in his lot with Wraye and her newly formed consultancy. She did indeed offer him an unofficial salary, on condition that he stuck with the Firm. ‘But
Treasury
!’ he lamented. It did not matter whether he was chief microdot-counter or official registrar of carbon credits, she said. The important thing was that he was inside the citadel. So long as he kept his nose clean and his EPV certificate current he would be useful to her.
Useful, for example, because he had access to SIS’s Terror Alert Database.
Only one alert had been logged from Riyadh on the date in question. It had been retracted within thirty-eight minutes. Joyce printed out the details, made himself a decaffeinated coffee, and started to read.
He was still trembling two hours later when he reached Wraye, discreetly ensconced in a booth at the back of a gay bar in the Vauxhall railway arches.
‘I found Ellington’s alert.’
‘Was it Retracted?’
‘Yes. Madeleine . . .’
‘Who by?’
‘Sorry?’
She was even more impatient with him than usual. ‘Who does the database say retracted Ellington’s alert?’
‘Er . . . Ellington.’
‘Fuck.’ She sighed. ‘All right. That would have been too easy. What were the times of registration and retraction?’
‘Respectively, 07:23 and 08:01 Zulu.’ He wondered where he’d been at that moment – in bed asleep probably, worn out by another long night of playing catch-up in quantum computation, nanomaterials or statistical thermodynamics. He knew exactly where he’d been two weeks later, when the horrific pictures started coming in from Chicago. ‘Madeleine, I really –’
‘How specific is it? Have you brought a copy?’
Holding out the folded sheet of paper, Joyce’s fragile composure gave way. ‘Christ, Madeleine, it’s GRIEVANCE! Everything we should have known.’ He felt close to vomiting. ‘Who was Ellington? Why didn’t the Firm act on this? Jesus, Madeleine, what
is
this?’
Busy scanning the printout, she didn’t answer at first. The bar owner brought Joyce a mineral water. A softly spoken transsexual, for years she had been tipping off Wraye to any Firm business discussed within her hearing.
‘Are you settled now?’ Wraye asked coolly.
‘Yes.’
‘Analysis is meant to be your strong suit, Edward. Analyse this alert in the appropriate context. GRIEVANCE hasn’t happened yet. These names mean nothing to you at this point. International airports turn up in every fifth terror alert. Chemical weapons have been repeatedly discussed by terror groups but almost never successfully deployed at scale. You’re reading a bunch of alerts over breakfast. Perhaps, if you’re unusually dedicated, you might decide to come back and have another look when you get into work. But by then the alert has been retracted. It’s disappeared from view. You forget about it.’
‘Until GRIEVANCE happens!’ he cried.
‘True, you might remember that one alert among the thousands of wild claims and fantastical stories that come in every week from around the world. But would you hold up your hand and say, “I saw a warning and I did nothing”? Do you think, given the mood at the time, that would have helped your career?’
Joyce reddened. ‘Ellington’s reason for retracting the alert was “Source admitted hoax”.’
‘You’re assuming it was Ellington who retracted it.’
‘Do you mean someone falsified the terror alert record?’
‘Within SIS?’ She smiled grimly. ‘It is hard to imagine such underhand antics, isn’t it?’
‘But they would have been . . .’ He stopped. He was suddenly and very obviously terrified. ‘Those five names you gave me. Those five directors. Are you suggesting one of them deliberately retracted a genuine alert?’
‘Let’s avoid speculation for the moment. I need data. All the data you can acquire on those five individuals. I want to know where they were and what they were doing on two particular days. The first you know – in fact we now have a very specific window of interest on that day, between 07:23 and 08:01 GMT. Call that Alpha Day. Bravo Day comes two years later.’ She wrote down the date for him. ‘Most importantly, I need to know which of the five was in a position to access Porthos on Bravo Day. Search central registry for travel arrangements, Whitehall meetings, dinner invitations. Anything at all. If they signed something, I want to see the ink. If they requisitioned a can opener, get me the paperwork.’
‘They’re going to wonder why I’m digging.’
‘They’re not going to know.’
‘But if what you’re implying about GRIEVANCE –’
‘I’m not implying anything.’
‘Madeleine, I’m not stupid. I can join the dots.’
‘Then you’ll understand how dangerous this is, and how careful you need to be. Stay below the radar, Edward. Do what you’ve been trained to do: dig, and dig deep, but don’t leave a trace.’
Avraham Boim lived in a simple white bungalow on the southern edge of Tel Aviv. Two blocks away, the orange groves began. A hint of Mediterranean salt carried across the coastal plain. The security provisions were discreet but robust: anti-climb mesh fencing, cameras, infrared motion sensors and a clear line of fire from every tinted window.
It was 4.45 a.m. local time when Arkell parked his rented Hyundai at the end of the clean-swept street. He was unsurprised to see a light come on half an hour before sunrise: Boim was a former paratrooper, old enough to have served in the Yom Kippur war, and veterans tend to get up early. He was more surprised to see the shrunken intelligence officer hobble out into his yard with the first glow of the new day, dressed in dungarees and carrying two sacks. A minute later, the suburban calm was broken by the low growl of a cement mixer.
Arkell approached the reinforced steel gate and rang the bell. The man in the yard looked up, eyes creased with suspicion. A lifetime on the frontline of Israeli domestic security had left him wary of any stranger.
‘Good morning, Mr Boim. My name is Samuel Chester. I’m sorry to disturb you at home. I’ve come with a request for help from Madeleine Wraye.’
‘If she sent you, we can be sure your first statement was a lie,’ muttered Boim, crossing to the gate. ‘But I give you credit for choosing a good Jewish name. What does that sly bitch want this time?’
‘A former Mossad agent. Gavriel Yadin. We need to get in touch with him. Madeleine thought you might be able to point us in his direction.’
‘Because the Mossad won’t,’ nodded Boim. ‘So why would I?’ He glanced back towards the growling drum mixer. ‘My concrete needs my attention. Take your time constructing your answer.’
As he shuffled away, the gate slid open on noiseless rails. Arkell followed him across the yard.
A pile of sand and another of crushed stone stood either side of the mixer. With an encrusted spade, Boim shovelled equal quantities into the machine.
‘I could begin by appealing to your long friendship with Madeleine . . .’ started Arkell cautiously.
‘Hah!’ Boim never took his eyes off the rotating paste in the mixer. ‘Twice. Not once,
twice
that woman has interfered directly in a Shabak investigation on Israeli soil. The first time, the suspect disappeared. The second time, an extremely helpful source lost his memory completely. Why do you think she isn’t here herself? She knows we’d arrest her the moment she stepped off the plane.’
‘So perhaps I might instead look for areas of common interest,’ suggested Arkell. ‘Understand better how we might help you.’
‘I need no help. I’m retired. Doesn’t she know that? All I need in life is right here.’
Retired, thought Arkell gloomily. So much for quick access to the Shabak file on Yadin. ‘Actually, I was thinking I could help you with your mosaic.’
Boim looked round curiously. Arkell nodded towards the pile of coloured glass pieces, and beyond it the pattern emerging on the ground as night receded.
‘You want priceless intelligence in return for manual labour? You have some chutzpah, I will say this for you.’
‘Do we have a deal?’
‘What do you know of mosaics?’
‘I know how to lay concrete.’
‘She sends me a builder?’
‘A soldier. I was once tasked to build the floor of a barracks.’
‘This does not sound like the British army,’ observed Boim.
Arkell didn’t reply.
‘A mercenary, then?’ The old spy smiled to himself. ‘The Légion étrangère, perhaps? And Wraye’s man. Yes . . . now I know who you are.’ He turned back to the cement mixer, tipping it so that fresh concrete sloshed into a dented wheelbarrow. ‘They said you were dead.’
Arkell was appalled at how swiftly this stranger had deduced his identity. Maintaining a neutral expression, he picked up a shovel and walked over to the patch of ground marked out by timber shuttering. Boim dumped fresh concrete into the formwork, and Arkell used the shovel to spread it out. Another load, and the formwork was full. Once the concrete was approximately level, Arkell cast around for, and quickly found, the screed rail, a length of timber dusty with old cement. The two men each took an end, and in silence worked it up and down the concrete, flattening the surface. To finish, Arkell used a bull float to smooth off the surface.
Boim watched his technique with grudging approval. ‘Good,’ he admitted. ‘But I could have paid an Arab boy eight shekels to do the same. Now get out of the way. Legionnaires know nothing of art.’
Selecting a handful of ruby red glass pieces, he knelt by the wet concrete and embedded the first fragment. Each piece of glass was meticulously inspected before it was committed to the artwork. A curling tongue of fire began to unfurl.
‘Have you heard of this Yadin?’
‘Of course,’ shrugged Boim. ‘I know everyone.’
‘Is he in Israel?’
‘That I can’t tell you.’
‘What do you know of him?’
The Israeli considered the piece of glass in his fingers. ‘Have you heard talk of Leviathan?’
‘I tried to read it once.’
Boim shook his head. ‘Bring me more red,’ he commanded.
Arkell picked out the glass pieces and said, ‘He’s killed someone. Someone important. We need to talk to him urgently.’
‘I understand what it means when someone like you wants to talk urgently to someone like him. If it was anyone but Yadin, I would be anxious for them.’
‘Meaning he’s good?’
‘Meaning, my friend, you would do better to go into the building trade.’
‘Let me tell you what I have,’ tried Arkell, recalling the dossier he had read and re-read on the night flight from Schiphol. ‘We know he served as a highly successful Kidon combatant for twelve years, eliminating forty-one targets in thirteen countries. He’s able to pass for an Arab, and has operated covertly in Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus. And we know he has achieved the highest ratings in all the main assassination categories, including blades, poisons, sniping, explosives, garrotting and unarmed techniques.’
‘So you know nothing,’ observed Boim dryly. ‘This could apply to sixty men.’
‘Then help me understand this one.’
‘Help a foreign spy kill an Israeli citizen?’ Boim bent low over the concrete.
‘Surely you have no reason to protect him. At best he’s a rogue agent; at worst, he’s a traitor to Israel.’
‘If that is the conclusion of those in authority, it is for Israel to act, not you.’
‘My job is to stop him assassinating someone else.’
‘Futility. This is what Kidon combatants do. I do not attempt to stop my grandson staring at the girls.’
The first direct rays hit the mosaic then, lighting up every piece of glass in a swirl of glittering colour. Arkell decided to trust Boim with the facts. ‘Yadin murdered Anneke van der Velde. It wasn’t a heart attack. We expect him to target Murilo Andrade and Terence Mayhew in Strasbourg one week from now.’
Boim raised an eyebrow. ‘The drug peddlers? Then perhaps Yadin is doing the world a favour. Bring me some black glass.’
‘Killing premiers is the best way to maintain the status quo? Is that how the Shabak excuse the Rabin assassination?’
A low growl met this impertinence. People were appearing on the street now. Early commuters, children. A police car gave a double tap on the horn as it passed. Absently, Boim raised a hand in salute. ‘Israel has close to half a million drug users,’ he said coldly. ‘Each one of them is a drag on a country that needs every drop of strength to survive. Forgive me if I do not wish to make it easier for our future sentinels to throw themselves into the sewer.’
Arkell set a pile of black glass pieces beside him. ‘But then how much police time –
Shabak time
– is consumed in the War on Drugs? How much better would you be able to protect Israeli streets from suicide bombers if you weren’t distracted by illicit heroin shipments?’
Boim considered him. He seemed almost amused. In a milder voice, he said, ‘Get me the emerald pieces, my friend.’
They sat in the shade of an old parasol, gazing at the extended mosaic gleaming in the hot sun. A tray of iced coffee and dates stood on the table between them. Boim was sweating in his dungarees. His hands, thick with short hairs whitened by cement dust, rested on his knees.
‘Yadin is a man like any other,’ he began, ‘but you will not be able to stop him. I say this now only to comfort myself that my contribution will make no difference. I will never accept the legalization of drugs. Never. This is scripture for me. You understand? I help you because killing politicians cannot be the answer. Yadin will succeed, I’m sure, but will this extinguish the decriminalization madness or make martyrs of its spokesmen and win Think Again new supporters? It’s difficult. I’m conflicted. Perhaps I should shoot you to help him.’
‘What do you know of his methods?’
‘I have seen two of his victims. It was my unpleasant duty to clean up after him in Beit Hanina. They were jihad recruiters, the devils who call on any family that has not yet given up a child to the struggle. Yadin cut open their abdomens, tied their intestines together like Satan’s umbilical cord, and wrapped them in suicide vests so that none of their friends dared help them while they were slowly dying. A powerful message, yes?’ He snorted. ‘We had no choice but to destroy them together with their devices in a controlled explosion.’
‘Is there any technique he favours?’
‘I’m afraid he’s extremely versatile.’
‘How good is his counter-surveillance?’
‘Will you be able to sneak up on him, you mean? With the right wind and God’s blessing, perhaps. Kidon combatants usually move too fast to need worry who’s following them . . .’ But he did not sound convinced.
‘Places he frequents? Bars, health clubs, temples?’
‘He reads, I hear, but there is little sentiment in the man. He knows better than to develop a habitual pattern. He is not the kind to become attached to bricks and mortar.’
‘What about his parents?’
‘Estranged. His father could not accept his choice of profession.’
‘Any weaknesses?’
‘There is so much hope in each of your questions, and I must keep disappointing you. Yadin is not an alcoholic, a paedophile, a religious extremist. He is well balanced, heterosexual. It is said he is rough with women, but it is also said they come back for more.’
Recalling the report from Tobago, Arkell asked, ‘And is there any particular woman?’
‘Ah,’ smiled Boim. ‘Yes, I believe there may be.’
‘In Israel?’
‘In Germany. Hamburg, if I have it right. Of course, he may have tired of her by now.’
‘Her name.’
‘I don’t recall. It’s a long time since I saw the file.’
‘But you could access it?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m retired.’
Although he had anticipated this particular brick wall, Arkell couldn’t help a stab of disappointment.
‘Of course,’ went on Boim, ‘any wise officer plans for his retirement. He assembles his dossiers. He caches a couple of extra passports. And, if he is able, he builds loyalties amongst the next generation.’
Arkell glanced up sharply. ‘Who?’ he said.