Dirty Little Secret (26 page)

Marchant tried to think through what Lakshmi might have discovered at the château. If she wasn’t sedated, she could have overheard everything. He had talked indiscreetly with Jean-Baptiste, as old friends, even field officers, sometimes did, but it had been on the assumption that Lakshmi was unconscious. Whatever it was she had heard, Spiro now knew. He drove alongside the Golf and waited for Lakshmi to look up, keeping an eye on the road ahead.

She glanced across, and was startled to see Marchant. He had expected better of her, thought she would have seen him coming. Capitalising on her surprise, he turned the steering wheel sharply to the right, knocking the Golf sideways with a sickening crunch of plastic. The Mehari wasn’t heavy enough to bump her off the road, so he veered away before knocking into the Golf again. Meena had got the message. She took the next slip road off the N13, but she didn’t slow down and pull over.

After joining a smaller road, she accelerated away, leaving Marchant no choice but to try again. He spotted a gap in the oncoming traffic and pulled out, bringing the Mehari level with her. The road had begun a sharp curve to the left. Marchant was now in the wrong lane on a blind corner. He turned into the Golf for a third time, just as he saw a lorry coming around the corner towards him, lights on, horn blaring.

Despite the incessant noise in his ears, more like a guttural roar now than ringing, Spiro had caught most of Lakshmi’s call from a car in France. Daniel Marchant had turned Salim Dhar. His initial reaction was to dismiss the idea out of hand. But as he left the detention centre at Bagram and headed towards the accommodation block, her faint words began to make more sense.

Marchant’s presence in the cockpit of a Russian jet had always troubled Spiro. According to Fielding, Dhar had scaled back his attacks on Fairford and GCHQ thanks to Marchant’s powers of persuasion. Spiro hadn’t believed him at the time, but maybe Marchant really had struck an eleventh-hour damage-limitation deal. They had also been together at the house in the Cotswolds shortly before Dhar was captured. Had they been finalising terms?

Spiro watched as a Chinook helicopter took off nearby. It was unnerving not to hear the distinctive thudding of its twin blades that he knew so well. The roar in his ears provided a more general soundtrack, the amplified din of war as blood coursed through his auditory arteries. The most compelling reason for believing Lakshmi hung over him like the black smoke still drifting across the air base. He tried to ignore it at first, not wanting to contemplate the implications, but by the time he reached his room, he knew it was true. If Marchant was running Dhar, he was no good to him in Bagram – just as Meena had heard the Frenchman say. Which meant that Marchant was in some way involved with the jailbreak.

‘Ian, it’s Jim Spiro,’ he said, talking too loudly into his mobile phone.

‘Are you OK?’ Denton asked. ‘I heard you got caught in the blast.’

‘Can we talk about Dhar?’

‘Our station head in Kabul just rang with the news.’

‘Lakshmi Meena’s called in from France. She overheard Marchant talking to some shady French guy, possibly DGSE. She thinks Marchant’s recruited Dhar as a British asset.’

‘Not with my authority.’

‘I kinda figured that. If it’s true, he was acting on his own, or more likely on Fielding’s orders. Either way, you need to look into the possibility that someone other than Fielding and Marchant might have helped Dhar escape. Fielding’s in Russia, Marchant’s in France. They couldn’t have done this on their own.’

‘Someone in MI6?’

‘Or Five. Or GCHQ. The goddamn SAS, for all I know. We’re looking for anyone who was sympathetic to Marchant and Fielding.’

‘That’s quite an allegation.’

‘Is it? How about a former Chief of MI6 once passed US intel to Moscow. I’d call that quite an allegation.’

‘Britain’s no friend of Dhar.’

‘Neither was Russia, but they helped him. If you don’t start asking around, we will.’

Marchant braked hard and dropped in behind Lakshmi again as the lorry thundered past. He didn’t want to think how close he had been to being shunted back down the road by a ten-tonne juggernaut. He didn’t want to think of the damage that had already been done to the Mehari either, or to Florianne’s Golf. This time Lakshmi slowed down and pulled into a lay-by. Marchant followed her, reaching for the gun in the bag on the passenger seat. Once both cars were stationary, he slipped the gun down the back of his jeans and walked over to the Golf.

Lakshmi sat impassively, waiting for him. It was as if they were strangers in an American movie, he the traffic cop, she waiting for her ticket. It was hard to think that only a few days earlier, they had shared a bed at the Fort. Life had seemed full of promise then.

‘You could have got us both killed,’ she said, staring ahead, hands still on the steering wheel.

‘You left in a hurry. I figured you might not want to stop.’

‘I didn’t see you in my mirror.’

‘Careless – for someone so good in the field.’

‘Don’t try to flatter me.’

‘Are you getting out?’

‘Is that a question?’

Marchant didn’t answer. Reluctantly, Lakshmi stepped out of the Golf. She must have calculated that he was armed. It was windy, and she ran a hand through her hair as she looked across the open French countryside. In another life, Marchant would have shared the view with her, but he wasn’t in the mood for sightseeing.

‘Did Dhar give you the gun?’ she asked.

So she had heard him talking to Jean-Baptiste about Dhar.

‘I need to know what you’ve told Spiro.’

‘Will you let me tell you why first?’

‘I’m guessing blackmail.’

‘You make it sound so matter-of-fact. It wasn’t something I agreed to lightly. Spiro threatened to destroy my father, his business, everything he’s worked for, unless I complied.’

‘When did he do that? At the Fort?’

‘After you decided not to tell me that Denton was a traitor.’

So she knew about Denton too.

‘I thought we really had something,’ she continued. ‘I was ready to leave the Agency to give us a chance. But Spiro gave me no option. I owe everything to my parents.’

‘Including your smack habit? Or were you faking that, too?’

‘That was the real deal, Dan,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘It will be for the rest of my life.’

Marchant paused, holding eye contact. For someone who had just come off hard drugs, she didn’t look so bad. Beautiful, in fact. The original heroin chic. ‘I really need to know what you’ve told Spiro,’ he repeated.

‘Spiro laughed when I told him you thought Denton was a Russian asset.’

Marchant looked down at the ground. It was a delicate situation. He had to establish what she had told Spiro without telling her anything she didn’t already know.

‘What else did you tell him?’

‘Is there anything else?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Dan, I don’t know what game you’re playing, but Salim Dhar just got out of Bagram.’

‘That was careless too. Did Spiro tell you that?’

‘Two minutes ago.’

‘How was he?’

‘Deaf. He very nearly lost his life in a mortar attack.’

‘Now that would have been a shame.’

Marchant had been trying to imagine what had happened in Bagram ever since Myers had told him the news. A mortar attack sounded like the Taleban, who had increasingly close links with Tehran.

‘For some reason, Dhar was being treated at the air base hospital. They should have let him die, don’t you think? Or did you have other plans for him?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Marchant lied. He had to hear her say it.

‘He might be your half-brother, Dan, but Dhar’s spent his entire adult life trying to destroy my country. He very nearly killed our President.’

Marchant hadn’t heard her talk about America in such proprietary terms before.

‘And now his followers are trying to destroy my country,’ he replied. ‘Have you listened to the news recently? Britain is on its knees.’

‘So why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why are you running him, Dan?’

She had finally said it, what he feared the most. ‘Is that what you think, what you told Spiro?’

She didn’t answer. An articulated lorry drove past, followed by a line of cars. When they had gone, she turned again to Marchant, speaking quietly this time.

‘Just what sort of a deal have you cut with him?’

Now it was Marchant’s turn to remain silent. He glanced down the road. A solitary vehicle was approaching.

‘I remember you once telling me there were other ways to win the war on terror,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t all about Guantánamo, enhanced interrogation techniques, drone attacks, Jim Spiro. He can’t kill them all, you used to say.’

‘I still believe that. But there are lines that can’t be crossed.’

‘And you think I’ve crossed one?’

‘I don’t know, Dan. It doesn’t seem to surprise you that Dhar’s at liberty again. Or even concern you. That really scares me. The thought that you might have helped in some way with his escape.’

Had she told Spiro that, too? The solitary car was getting closer now. For the first time, Marchant began to worry. It was a black people-carrier.

‘What exactly did you tell him?’ he asked, a hint of urgency in his voice. Time appeared to be running out.

‘I overheard Jean-Baptiste say that Dhar wouldn’t be much use to you in Bagram. I didn’t want to believe it. I tried to convince myself that I’d misheard, but when Spiro said Dhar had just escaped, it made sense. I hope to God you know what you’re doing.’

What happened next took place behind bulletproof Perspex, at least that was how Marchant saw it – as if he was watching events through a safety screen. The people-carrier was driving fast, but it slowed as it passed them, almost to walking pace. Marchant saw the gun at the rear passenger window before he had time to draw his own.

‘Get down!’ he shouted to Lakshmi, but his words came after the gun had fired. He knew it was aimed at him, but he felt nothing, protected by the Perspex. They both fell to the ground, Lakshmi more awkwardly, on a patch of muddy grass beside the Mehari. Even if they had managed to duck in time, the car’s fibreglass shell would have offered little protection against the bullets, one of which had hit Lakshmi in the stomach.

She made no sound as she lay on the grass, bewildered, a hand on her bleeding abdomen. Marchant shouted – a mix of anger and guilt – and stood up, firing off three rounds at the people-carrier, which was now driving away at speed. The rear window exploded into myriad shards, but the car sped on.

Denton put the phone down and walked over to the window of his office, trying not to break into a sweat. What was Marchant doing with someone from DGSE? It was too much of a coincidence. Two days earlier, he had been alerted to a tail. Someone from the French intelligence agency had been following him around. MI5 had dismissed it as routine, a welcoming party for a new Chief of MI6, but now it began to look like something more.

He told himself he was worrying unnecessarily and went back to his desk, thinking over what Spiro had said about Dhar’s escape. He had enough on his plate without the CIA making wild accusations about British complicity. The events in Bagram had already kicked off an ugly row in Whitehall.

He thought again about Marchant, what he might be doing in France. If anyone could turn Salim Dhar, it was his half-brother. A rapport of some sort clearly existed between them. And then there was Fielding, who had never quite been straight with him about Dhar and Marchant, always holding something back. But nullifying a terrorist was one thing, turning him into an asset quite another.

What advantage did he – or Fielding – think it could possibly bring MI6? Dhar had focused his
jihad
on America, but his followers weren’t averse to tearing Britain apart, as recent events had proved. And what about his escape? How could Marchant, on the run in France, possibly have helped?

Early reports suggested that the Taleban had played a central role in the jailbreak, possibly with assistance from Iran. Denton knew the handful of MI6 officers who worked the back channels with the Taleban, and none of them had ever been close to Marchant. The Increment was another possibility, but it was highly unlikely that a rogue element had been drawn into helping with a jailbreak in Afghanistan.

Then it came to him. At the COBRA meeting he had just left, the PM had rounded on the Director of GCHQ, asking why his analysts had not picked up any Taleban or Iranian chatter before the attack. Marchant had friends in Cheltenham, people like Paul Myers, the analyst who had revealed the truth about the drone attack on the six US Marines in North Waziristan. He worked the Farsi beat, and had been one of Leila’s many admirers. If anyone had heard the Iranians say something, it would have been him.

Denton picked up the phone and rang Spiro back.

‘Can I borrow your interrogation facility at Fairford?’

Lakshmi was drifting in and out of consciousness in the passenger seat as Marchant drove fast towards Caen. He had left Jean-Baptiste’s damaged Mehari in the lay-by and taken Florianne’s Golf. There was no doubt in his mind that he had been the intended target of the shooting, or that Valentin’s finger had been on the trigger. The Russians must have followed him from the boat, and would have been on the lookout for a Mehari.

‘Try to stay awake, Lakshmi, keep talking to me,’ he said. He hoped the hospital in Caen would be easy to find.

‘Please don’t let them give me painkillers.’ Lakshmi was holding a dirty towel to her bleeding stomach. Marchant had found it in the boot, and feared it was for the dog. ‘I can’t go there again.’

‘I won’t.’ A relapse, or a
rechute
, as Clémence had called it, was the least of Marchant’s worries. Lakshmi was losing blood, and needed urgent treatment. He banged his hands on the steering wheel in frustration as the car in front of him stopped at traffic lights. There was a chance to jump them, but they were now in a city and he didn’t want to draw attention.