Agent of the State

The former Commander of Special Branch at New Scotland Yard, Roger Pearce was responsible for surveillance and undercover operations against terrorists and extremists, the close protection of government ministers and visiting VIPs, and other highly sensitive assignments. He was also Director of Intelligence, charged with heading covert operations against serious and organised criminals. After leaving the Yard he was appointed Counter-Terrorism Adviser to the Foreign Office, where he worked with government and intelligence experts worldwide in the campaign against Al Qaeda. Roger Pearce has degrees in Theology from Durham University and Law from London University. He is also a barrister-at-law. Married with three adult children, he has homes in London and Miami and is European security director of a high profile global company. In
Agent of the State
and future titles the author draws upon his knowledge and first hand experience of a career in national security at every level.

Agent of the State

Roger Pearce

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Coronet

An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Roger Pearce 2012

The right of Roger Pearce to be identified as the Author of the Work

has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

in which it is published and without a similar condition being

imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 444 72187 4

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

www.hodder.co.uk

For Maggie

Acknowledgements

To my agent Sonia Land, publisher Mark Booth, Charlotte Hardman and all the team at Coronet

To tell the truth is a duty: but it is a duty only in respect to one who has a right to the truth.

Benjamin Constant

Contents

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Part Two

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

Thirty-nine

Forty

Forty-one

Forty-two

Forty-three

Forty-four

Forty-five

Forty-six

Forty-seven

Forty-eight

Forty-nine

Fifty

Fifty-one

Fifty-two

Fifty-three

Fifty-four

Fifty-five

Fifty-six

Fifty-seven

Fifty-eight

Fifty-nine

Sixty

Sixty-one

Sixty-two

Sixty-three

Epilogue

Prologue

It is Wednesday, the last day of June 2005. London’s workers read about the threat to aircraft as they trundle through the city’s depths. Terrorists attack trains in Russia and Spain, but seem to ignore London’s creaking Underground.

Detective Chief Inspector John Kerr is accompanying his daughter, Gabriella, to Heathrow for her flight home. Gabi is fifteen and lives with her mother. They take the Tube because Kerr’s Alfa Romeo is in dock and he wants to buy Gabi lunch before she goes airside. She travels light, cabin baggage only, violin case and a small bag on wheels.

Shortly before eleven o’clock they board the half-empty, end carriage at Highbury and Islington, a few minutes’ walk from Kerr’s apartment. They rattle towards central London, Gabi listening to her iPod, Kerr half-reading
Metro
. In jeans, green polo shirt and suede loafers, Kerr is enjoying an awayday from the office but feels vaguely unsettled at being out of mobile contact until they emerge at Earl’s Court.

The bomber boards their carriage at Euston, two stops down the line. Although there are plenty of seats, he loiters by the double doors. A little older than Gabi, he is strongly built, dark-skinned and clean-shaven, in jeans, trainers and a stained T-shirt with a long white scarf rolled around his neck. He is also wearing a rucksack, but this is not unusual or alarming.

No one is looking, including Gabi. Kerr notices him straight away, because nearly two decades of intelligence work in Special Branch have tuned his instincts. The young man’s body language betrays him as he fidgets by the doors, hands bulging his pockets. He is muttering to himself, eyes flitting everywhere.

As they slow for Green Park station there is a loud
pop
. People look up in curiosity, not fear: they are unfamiliar with the sound of a detonator going off. But John Kerr has visited Israel and Sri Lanka to study suicide bombers, and to him the detonation is as obvious as a dog whistle. Everything snaps into focus as he forces Gabi to the floor and throws himself on top of her, the father using his body to shield his child before the main charge lacerates them.

But nothing happens. Kerr looks up. The man knows Kerr knows. He is panicking, struggling to free himself from his bomb as the doors open. He races from the carriage still wearing the rucksack, cannoning towards the exit sign with Kerr in hot pursuit.

The platform is clogged with tourists waiting to board the train. The bomber is fast. Kerr is just the right side of forty, but fit and athletic. He is half a carriage behind but makes up ground as he charges through the human funnel the bomber has created, yelling at people to get clear. Near the exit, the platform supervisor half-heartedly blocks the man with the bat she uses to signal the driver, but he hurls her aside as if she were a child.

The station is deep and the escalator long. Kerr has done well along the platform but drops pace as they make for the surface, even though he attacks the steps two at a time. He has stopped shouting to conserve his energy but, at the halfway point, he is at least a dozen steps behind and losing the race. The bomber steals a glance back and looks surprised by Kerr’s determination. Then, at the top, faced with several exits, he makes his fatal mistake. Vaulting the ticket barrier, he takes the underpass that will lead him to Green Park. But instead of choosing the sprint for freedom in open ground, he swings into the men’s toilet, hoping his pursuer will take the wrong exit and leave him to escape in the confusion.

He is not fast enough for John Kerr. Leaping the barrier, as if on springs, Kerr has seen him. He reaches the entrance and assesses the scene in a split second: three men at the urinal; a couple of suits on the pick-up by the nearest cubicle doors, looking for a pre-lunch blowjob. At the dead end, his quarry.

Kerr’s ID is superfluous. The men scatter, leaving him with the bomber. The young man bolts the door of the farthest cubicle, but Kerr defeats it in a single kick and has him round the throat before he can react. He forces him back on the toilet seat, crushing the rucksack against the cistern pipe, and lands punch after punch on his face. The bomber struggles hard, landing a couple of jabs in return. He is fighting back, which is what Kerr wants: resistance means he does not have to stop. He can continue punishing the man who tried to murder his daughter.

Then, dragging the bomber out of the cubicle to the bank of washbasins, he smashes his face against the mirrored wall. A couple of punters enter, turn on their heels and hurry away. There will be no witnesses. The young man is groaning as the fight deserts him, but Kerr bangs his forehead again and again on a tap. He hears something give, bone, tissue, perhaps an eye, and the young man’s blood flows as quickly as the water, spraying them both in diluted red.

The scarf is already rolled around the bomber’s neck so Kerr pulls it tighter still, garrotting him, and hurls him back into the cubicle.

The cleaner has left his mop against the wall. Kerr snaps the handle in two and, with the free end and the scarf makes a tourniquet, twisting it until the man gives up the battle. Panting hard, Kerr leans down to look deep into his face. Yes, the left eye is seriously damaged, but he will not be needing it. Somewhere outside a young woman is screaming. The bomber’s face slumps against his chest. ‘You tried to murder my daughter, you piece of shit.’ It is hard to tell if he is still conscious, but Kerr needs to tell him, anyway: ‘Here’s where you belong.’

He holds the tourniquet tight until the bomber is dead, lowers him face down to the floor and gently removes the rucksack. There is a bomb inside, a charred, inert plastic package of white powder. It has nails and screws for maximum damage, but is as dead as its maker. Kerr pads to the entrance, pulls the iron gate shut and calls the office.

The bomb will excuse the murder. When they tell him, Kerr will shrug and walk away, uninterested in legal nicety. For him it is a case of vengeance.

Friday, 15 July 2005, is a time for blame-shifting, deck-clearing and defence-building. It is sixteen days after the murder and eight since the atrocity of 7/7. Counter-terrorism’s Big Issue is its failure to prevent 7/7. Kerr’s bomber was an associate of the main perpetrator, Mohammed Siddique Khan. It turns out he was from Batley in West Yorkshire and, like Khan, has security traces.