Empire State Part 15

'When?' she demanded. 'When are they going to take these people into custody?'

Lyne revolved his chair and used his feet to wheel it round to her. 'You've been back precisely ten hours, Isis, and you already want access to the policy decisions. You understand the deal here. We gather the intelligence, okay? And the guys living up in the beautiful English summer get to make the policy, right? I don't see why you need to raise this again. If you want to decide policy, go see your Prime Minister. He and the President will decide when to take the suspects off the street. Not you, Isis. Not me.'

'But what kind of advice are they getting?'

'Twice daily a.s.sessments. The President and the Prime Minister value the information we're getting here. That's what we're told, and I believe it.'

'Nathan, I accept it's good material - really impressive in a way - but doesn't it strike you as odd that there's no movement, no sign of what they're planning, no hint of a target or of a battle formation? They're inert. '

'But this is exactly what they do. The key men always lie doggo before an attack, right up until the moment they're needed. In the files you've just read there are cross-references to the capture of a Spanish cell and their plans to drive a truck full of explosives and cyanide into the US Emba.s.sy in Paris. None of the princ.i.p.als cased the joint, none went anywhere near the target. That's the way they operate.'

'So if we already know their MO, why the h.e.l.l are we studying it further?'

'You know, you're a very smart, very beautiful woman Isis. But you can't run the whole G.o.ddam programme.'

'You're beginning to sound like an old-fashioned male supremacist, Nathan.'

'That's not true. But you are becoming a royal pain in the a.s.s.'

'Aha, the same phrase used to me by a member of the CIA in Tirana after a briefing from your Jim Collins. Were you in on that conversation, Nathan?'

'No, but I did overhear a little of what they said. Collins and Vigo were talking on the phone to Milos Franc. I heard that - yes.'

'Right. During that conversation, information about me - my address and my father's address - was released so that the Albanian Intelligence Service could threaten me.'

'I wasn't party to that,' said Lyne, looking her straight in the eye.

So Vigo was responsible, she thought. That was hardly surprising, but she was puzzled by his motive. 'Why do you think he would do that? It's not as though Karim Khan was remotely important to RAPTOR. Why would he go to the trouble of threatening me?'

'Has it occurred to you that he might just have wanted to scare you a little? Clearly you were causing trouble in Tirana. Maybe it's Vigo's way of warning you to toe the line.'

'By releasing my father's address, which is still cla.s.sified information? That's a serious breach of security. Vigo is breaking the Official Secrets Act.'

'Look, Isis, my patience is kind of running out here. I saved your a.s.s when you were in trouble with Vigo and Spelling over the break-in. Will you just give me a break and shut the f.u.c.k up? Okay, so you were threatened a little. So what? You're back here and now you're expected to work for a living.'

'You know I'm right, Nathan.'

'Right about what?'

'About RAPTOR. It's not working.'

'I'm not going to discuss it any longer. We both have work to do.' He pushed himself back to his screen.

Dolph had been watching the exchange. He got up and came over. 'Permission to give Herrick a jolly good spanking, sah.'

Lyne didn't smile.

'Failing that, perhaps we could go for a smoke up top?'

'Fine, I'll see you back here in half an hour.'

Herrick checked her watch. It was 4.20 a.m. Beirut was two hours ahead and she could just about get away with calling Sally Cawdor. She picked up her bag and followed Dolph to the elevator bank.

A minute or two later they walked out of the modest brick building which capped the Bunker and strolled a little way to the airfield, surrounded by the scent of mown gra.s.s mingled with dew. Dolph took out a pack of Marlboro and offered her one. She looked up with the first drag. 'No stars,' she said.

'Did you make the call to Beirut?' he said, flicking the match away.

'No, I will in a few minutes.'

'What are you up to, Isis?'

'Following my nose.'

'And what a nose. Tell me.'

'Not for the moment.'

'It's got something to do with you breaking into the bookshop? '

She shook her head.

'Why don't you just tell Dolph about it?'

'Because I can't,' she said.

'You think I'll tell Vigo?'

'You did work for him once.'

'That doesn't mean I'd gra.s.s you up, Isis.' He looked at her. 'You know, there's a really fascinating intelligence problem here. These guys are a mystery. They are not following any of the usual patterns. They're not making the connections with al-Qaeda, the Armed Islamic Group or any of the other groups - Salafist group for Call and Combat, for example. They're like a parallel group. There is no communication between the individual members. They're-'

'What about the money transfers from the Gulf, the network of helpers, the training in Afghanistan and the tri-border region? It looks pretty standard to me.'

'Yeah, but it's not. There's something else, isn't there?'

'That's what I've been saying. You're trying to draw me out by repeating my arguments to me. It's the oldest trick in the book, Dolph.'

A look of theatrical hurt pa.s.sed across his face. 'Captious, that's the word for you. Even when someone agrees with you, you find a reason to doubt them.'

'I'm sorry,' she said distractedly. 'What about the foreign intelligence services? They must have got wind of RAPTOR by now.'

'Yeah, they have. In Hungary the local plods are showing interest in suspect Eight, the Yemeni, and the French are definitely on to the Saudi in Bosnia, though we don't believe they've sussed the operations in Toulouse and Paris. It's a matter of time though. In Germany the BND are showing interest in the late Mohammed bin Khidir, in particular his fake pa.s.sport.'

'Time,' said Isis, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the b.u.t.t of the cigarette into the ground with her toe. 'The whole thing is based on the a.s.sumption that we have time. Somewhere there's a clock ticking. We seem to have forgotten that.'

'Nathan hasn't. He wants to know when, where and how. He's just working within the system. He's a genuinely good guy.'

She nodded. 'Yeah, I know. Hang around, will you? I want to ask you about Lapping but I do need to make this call first.'

She walked off into the dark and dialled the Beirut number. A bleary male voice answered after half a dozen rings and she asked to speak to Sally Cawdor. Sally came on, also a little sleepy.

'It's me - Isis. I'm sorry to call so early but-'

'You picked your moment,' said Sally. 'We were up half the night trying to get me pregnant.' She paused and giggled. 'That's on a need to know basis.' In the background there was the sound of male complaint.

Isis smiled. Sally had been in the Service for four years before marrying a Lebanese businessman. Herrick had known her at Oxford but they were recruited independently. Sally was already in SIS when Isis joined.

'You know that problem I had...?' started Isis.

'Yes.'

'Did you manage to do anything about it?'

'I emailed you and sent a message through Dolph to call me.'

'Sorry, I was out of the country.'

'I gained access - for which you owe me lunch - and managed to get a sample which I've sent to your home address.'

'You didn't! That's terrific. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.'

'I know it's there because it was delivered by one of Rafi's couriers.'

'How the h.e.l.l did you pull that off?'

'Rafi disapproves so I'll explain when I see you. I pray I got enough of what you want.'

Herrick thanked her profusely and said she'd let her know how things turned out.

'What was that about?' asked Dolph.

'Did Lapping find out anything in Sarajevo yesterday?' she asked.

'Not much, but I know he will.' Dolph had taken off the hat and was brushing his hair back.

He caught her look of appraisal. 'What're you thinking?'

'I was blank - sorry.'

'Well,' he said, replacing the hat so it was tipped forward over his brow. 'I did find something for you. There was a woman I knew, Helene Guignal, a terrific looker. She spent most of the period from 1993 to 1995 in Sarajevo filing for Agence France Presse. For part of that period she had an affair with a man who was one of the defenders of Sarajevo. He was important, a kind of liaison between the Bosniaks and the foreign Muslims.'

'Has she got a photograph of him?'

'I didn't ask because she had no time to talk. I have tried to reach her but she's proving remarkably elusive.'

'Where does she live?'

'Brussels.'

She thanked him and gave him a peck on the cheek. Dawn was breaking and a thin layer of mist had settled over parts of the airfield.

'We need to get Joe Lapping onto this.'

'Yeah well, it's difficult because we've all got our hands full. I mean Lyne and the other guys never let up. We don't seem to be able to flit about the place like you, Isis.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Three hours later a cab dropped her at the end of the one-way system on Gabriel Road, which was now decked out in the full munic.i.p.al splendour of almond and cherry blossom. With her bag over her shoulder, she walked the remaining hundred yards to her house, telling herself that once she'd showered and had breakfast at the cafe round the corner she wouldn't feel so tired.

She reached her front door and lowered the bag to the ground to search for her house keys. As her hands moved from pocket to pocket, her eyes ran over the house and came to rest on an upstairs window where the curtains were drawn. She was sure they hadn't been left that way because when she was leaving for Tirana she had stood at the window watching for the cab. She put the key in one of the two locks and found it had already been turned; only the Yale lock was keeping the door shut. She placed her ear to the letter-box. The cool air from inside the house brushed her cheek like a breath. There was something wrong - a smell of someone, a sense of occupation.

She turned the Yale lock and slipped inside. There was a sound coming from upstairs: someone was moving about at leisure, unaware that she was in the house. She stepped back into the garden and dialled the emergency services on her mobile. The woman instructed her not to confront the intruder but to wait at a distance from the house, which was what she planned to do once she had retrieved a baseball bat she kept in her umbrella stand. She darted inside again, but as she seized the bat a dark shape appeared at the top of the stairs. She dived from the house, conscious only of the need for room to swing the bat. In almost no time at all, the man had rushed the stairs and taken hold of her, and was trying to drag her inside. She screamed and slipped from his grasp, then let the bat slide through her hands until she felt the k.n.o.b at the top of the handle. She drew it back over her shoulder and brought it down against the side of the man's head, causing him to yell out. A second, much cleaner shot concentrated all her energy into the fat end of the bat and felled him, unconscious, into the path of another man who had come down the stairs. The obstruction gave her a fraction of a second to run through the gateway and dive behind the hedge, but in that moment she registered that the man had pulled a gun from his waistband. A bullet whistled through the hedge and tore into a car parked in the road, setting off its alarm. She spun round and ran a few yards down the street to shelter behind a van, hearing the screech of a police patrol car in the road. Two officers tumbled out just before bullets exploded in the bodywork and windscreen of their vehicle. A stocky man in trainers and an oversized leather blouson stepped into the road. The policemen had dropped behind the patrol car, but instead of running off, the gunman kept moving forward, taking aim and firing with cool deliberation. Herrick popped up and saw his close-cropped head through the front windscreen of the van and decided that unless she did something, he would kill the officers.

Crouching low, she hurtled along the gutter and rounded the front of the van. The man was obscured from her, but from the sound of two further deafening shots she judged he was only a matter of feet away. She moved a few paces, saw his back then lunged at him, leading with her left foot and bringing all her weight down with the blow. She connected squarely with the back of his neck and knocked him forwards. But the gun was still in his hand. She jumped to the right, knowing that she had just one chance, and struck him with all her might across the shoulder, aware of the tennis-serve grunt that escaped her lungs. The man was still on his feet, but the gun had flown from his hands and landed under the van. For a split second they looked at each other, then he scrambled away, his feet slipping momentarily on the snowfall of almond blossom, to flee down the centre of the road with his arms working double time like a character from a silent movie. Herrick crouched to retrieve the gun and without straightening, swung round and fired at the retreating figure. She missed, aimed again but didn't pull the trigger because one of the policemen yelled at her. 'Hey, Stop that. Put the gun down!' She stood up and handed it to him, and both officers set off after the man, but by now he was fifty yards away and opening a car door. In one movement he slid behind the wheel and started the car engine. Seconds later his car had vanished.

With a burst radiator and a flat, the police car was hardly in a state to pursue him. The officers radioed details of the fugitive and returned to examine the injured man, who had come round but was still lying on the ground in a daze. His head was bleeding copiously and Herrick went to fetch a cloth from her kitchen to stem the flow. She told the policemen that the incident should be regarded as a security matter and that she would need to make a call. They stood looking a little bemused as she phoned one of the Chief 's a.s.sistants at Vauxhall Cross and asked him to get in touch with the local station.

The injured man struggled to a sitting position and began to curse and wail in a foreign language.

One of the officers knelt down beside him. 'What the h.e.l.l's he speaking?'

'I think you'll find it's Albanian,' replied Herrick. She looked down at the stocky little man with russet-coloured skin and slightly protruding ears. He could be the Albanian interrogator's brother.

'With the way you must have hit him, miss, he's lucky to be alive.' He pressed the cloth to the gash on the side of the man's head. 'But by heck, I'm glad you dropped the other fellow. He meant business.'

The other officer looked at the gun and read the inscription on the side of the barrel. 'Desert Eagle fifty AE pistol - Israel Military Industries Limited.' He paused. 'You only have to see what it's done to the car to know you don't want to be in the way of that thing.'

People began to gather in the street and soon afterwards an ambulance and three other squad cars arrived. The man was taken away for treatment under guard while Herrick went inside with one of the two constables to find the house turned upside down. The policeman observed that burglars normally made a pile of the things they intended to steal, but in this case the obvious items of value - the TV set, jewellery, CD player, and odd bits of antique silver - had been left untouched.

'What would two Albanian villains be wanting to search your house for?'

'Your guess is as good as mine,' she said.

She made a statement, which he took down at laborious speed in his notebook, contriving to extend two or three minutes' action into a forty-minute feature. Herrick tidied and filled the drawers and cupboards while he spoke.

'What do you do for a living, Miss Herrick?' asked the constable finally.

'I'm civil service,' she replied. 'And I have a very important meeting in an hour.'

'We could give you a lift into town and I can fill the gaps in your statement while my colleague drives.'

'Fine, but I have to shower and eat and clear up a bit.' She thought for second. 'It would make my life a lot easier if you would get me two bacon and egg sandwiches and a cup of coffee from the cafe on Rosetti Road, just round the corner.'