Fortress (6 page)

He looked startled to have the spotlight suddenly trained on him. ‘Er – absolutely, ma – Home Secretary.’

‘Can you bring us up to speed on their thinking?’

He fiddled with his tie as if to check it was still there holding his head in place, discovered it was loose, made an attempt to tighten it, failed and gave up. ‘All our intelligence seems to confirm that Suleiman was clean, which
may
have put him at odds with the drug lords.’ He stole a glance at Halford, who was staring at his cap. ‘But if there turns out to be no drug-crime-related motive, then we could be looking at extremist elements wanting to open divisions between Muslims and the, er – well, the rest.’

Garvey was ready to pounce. ‘Which elements? You’re supposed to be the people with their fingers on the extremist pulse.’

She watched Woolf scan the room. All eyes were on him. Evidently he hadn’t anticipated being put on the spot like this. She knew just what was going through his head; Mandler would have told him to sit tight and take notes, but say as little as possible. But now she had put him on the spot. He would have to try to
sound
as though he was answering the question, while not actually doing so at all. ‘We’re preparing a dossier for you, which we’ll be sharing with all of the security services by the end of play today.’

‘Oh, marvellous.’

They give nothing away, that lot.
Garvey gave him an empty smile. She needed him to know that he wasn’t in the clear yet.

Clements was trying to get her attention. ‘Since we are without an FCO presence today …’ He cleared his throat.

Trust him to try to ride more than one horse, she thought.

He took off his annoying little half-glasses and twirled them. ‘There is the matter of Britons who’ve been fighting in Syria rotating back to the UK. We have to factor in that some of these folk have seen some pretty serious action and acquired, in some cases, some equally serious training. I just thought I should add that to the pot as our people are pretty stretched keeping tabs on them all, particularly in view of their increasing use of, and for once this phrase is appropriate,
noms de guerre
.’

Garvey looked at him. Pretentious twat.

He paused and glanced at Woolf. ‘I’m sure MI5’s doing a fine job of monitoring all the would-be jihadis in our midst, but if you’re looking for someone with the skills to carry out an assassination such as this, our eager returnees from Syria might be a good place to start.’

She turned to Woolf. ‘Well?’

Woolf bit his bottom lip while he crafted the appropriate answer. ‘The cabinet secretary is quite right that the returnees are a source of concern. And we will, of course, continue to rule nothing out.’

She pursed her lips. Typical bloody opaque MI5 answer. Something was going on in his head that he wasn’t broadcasting to the room. She could sense it. She spread her hands flat on the table. ‘Well, I suggest we get back to work. No use fiddling while Britain burns.’

As the meeting broke up she remained seated. She caught Woolf’s eye and, with a tiny movement of her forefinger, gestured for him to sit back down.

10

Woolf sat motionless, mentally checking his body language, trying to look composed, not defensive. Inside he was in turmoil.

‘Either you know something and aren’t saying or you genuinely haven’t a clue.’

Garvey’s eyes bored into his. She could practically see the cogs in his brain frantically spinning. Clearly, he hadn’t bargained for this. The DG had probably only sent him along because he happened to be standing outside his office trying to get his attention.
Just be there – say nothing to the room
. Those would have been Mandler’s instructions.

‘Come on, man. We’re both on the same side here. Spit it out.’

Halford had been easy: his hubris and defensiveness made him vulnerable. But Woolf looked like a more complex creature, harder to read: junior, dishevelled, very bright, yet seemingly unambitious. She suspected that was just a cover. She had noted the care he had taken not to rile Halford, while subtly distancing himself from the commissioner’s harebrained theories about gangsters. He was an operator, all right.

Woolf passed a hand over his chin; he had forgotten to shave. ‘It’s early days, and a lot of it is conjecture.’

‘Well, it can’t be any worse than Halford’s effort. Keep going.’

He checked his tie again. ‘I’m going out on a limb here.’

‘Do I hear the sound of distant chainsaws?’

‘Even the Service is divided.’

Ah, she thought. Does this mean he’s actually got something worth hearing?

He looked at her properly for the first time since they had been alone. ‘The Muslim extremist cells – those we know of – they’re still our main focus, but – well, they don’t want this.’

She reached over to a jug and poured herself some water. She didn’t offer him any. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Anything that brings the police out in big numbers, any step-up in surveillance, makes their lives harder.’

‘What about Clements’s point – the returnees from Syria? One of them could have the capability.’

‘But it still comes back to motive.
Why
would they?’ He clamped his hands together in front of him. ‘Since Seven/Seven, MI5 has been all about the Islamist threat. We’ve put so much effort into recruiting from the Muslim community, turning informers, the surveillance of would-be jihadis, there’s not been much left over for anything else. We’ve become obsessed with them. There’s a few of us who think we need to look elsewhere.’

Garvey guessed what was coming and launched a preemptive strike. ‘If this is about resources, forget it. We’re all running on empty, so don’t even think of asking.’

Woolf shook his head. ‘Elsewhere – by which I mean other disgruntled groups who are pissed off with the status quo and have a reason to make trouble and embarrass the government.’

‘Such as who? You’re not making sense.’

He reddened, but had no option other than to continue. ‘Your party’s in danger of losing the next election, but the opposition aren’t exactly electable, given their leadership. There’s a gap in the market, if you will.’

‘The far right’s become a disorganized joke.’

‘Exactly. But I’m not talking about a political party, more a groundswell of collective discontent. Which other groups out on the streets have reason to be disgruntled?’

She couldn’t see where this was going, but he didn’t seem to need prompting. She sat back and let him talk.

‘Former members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. In the last three years we’ve put another four thousand of them out of a job, one that most of them loved, that they thought was theirs for life. They view the withdrawal from Afghanistan very much as a retreat – they think we’ve thrown in the towel.’

‘Well, the government is committed to spending cuts. There’s no going back on that.’

‘They don’t see it that way. They feel their lives are being cut from under them. And they see we’re not winning the war on terror. And one thing they’ve all got in common – they’re trained to fight. Plus you’ve taken out a layer of police, who also didn’t expect to be looking for work. It’s a smaller number, but one that could be significant.’

She hadn’t heard this one before, though now he mentioned it, her inbox was full of complaints from ex-service constituents with one grievance or another.

Woolf took a breath. ‘The shooting: Halford’s in a hole because he
knows
it was a professional hit. And what he hasn’t told you is that they’ve confirmed the bullets
were
from a police firearm. But not one that was being carried by any of his team that night.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Someone with access to specialist police kit. Are you ready to point the finger at anyone?’

‘We think we may have found the shooter.’

‘Do the police know?’

‘Not yet, and we want to keep it that way for now. We don’t think he’s acting alone, so if we bring him in it’ll tip off the group who’s running him.’

‘So if it’s not resources you’re after, what is it?’

Woolf sat back, bit his bottom lip. ‘Time.’

‘It’s virtual civil war out there. And you want time?’

‘To bring in a recruit, someone credible we can put in with them. He’s got to be completely kosher, an ex-serviceman who’s been fucked over.’

‘Ask the MoD. They probably know hundreds.’

He leaned closer and knitted his fingers together. ‘We don’t want them in on this.’

She started to laugh. ‘You really are going out on a limb if you think the MoD are involved.’

He showed no sign of sharing her mirth, which alarmed her.

‘Is your DG across this?’

Once more, she imagined Mandler’s instructions to him.
Here’s some rope: try not to hang us with it, there’s a good chap.
She could see he was struggling to find the right words. ‘We’ve been looking for the right man.’

‘And have you found him yet?’

‘I think we have.’

11

The hold of the Starlifter was almost empty, a giant aluminium airborne metal cave. Before it had finished the climb out of Afghanistan, Tom, too wired to sit or sleep, unstrapped himself and paced the length of the plane’s vast hold while the events of the last twenty-four hours replayed themselves over and over again. Oblivious of the thunder from the engines and the temperature at this altitude, he was numb.

But one thing he couldn’t shut out, couldn’t stop replaying, was Dave’s death. Wherever he looked, his face gazed back at him, the inert glassy stare in the semi-darkness where he had found him, his features frozen for ever in the moment he must have known his charmed life was about to come to an end. Had those eyes seen his assailant? The devastating slash to his throat suggested he had been killed from behind. The fact that Qazi had appeared not to be blood-spattered supported that, with just the tell-tale stain on the thigh of his fatigues where he’d wiped his bloodied hand.

So here he was on his way home. What would that mean at the other end? An inquiry, a court-martial, a quiet word? Tom realized he didn’t care. Something had snapped. The unimaginable had happened. The Army, which he had loved, which had been his second family, had turned on him.

Even the prospect of being reunited with Delphine didn’t lift his mood. He was in limbo, his world pulled from under him. Yet he’d been in dark places before. Collecting body parts of men he’d been playing poker with the previous night. Coming upon an entire house of dead – a village wedding feast, the guests lying sprawled, mixed up with the dead livestock. He needed to reach into wherever he kept the resources to deal with bad stuff – if he still had any. In the meantime, however, he needed a distraction.

On a stretcher surrounded by aeromedics was Rifleman Cliff Blakey. Tom thought he might prefer to be left alone, but Blakey tipped his head, indicating for him to come nearer. The whites of his eyes were completely red from conjunctival haemorrhages, which gave him a vampiric appearance, but other than that he looked all right.

‘Never die a virgin.’

Tom surveyed the apparently intact frame beneath the sheet. ‘Why?’

‘Cos in Heaven they’ll make you fuck a suicide bomber.’

Blakey managed a wheezy giggle at his own joke. Tom laughed. Blakey had an audience.

‘What you call a gay suicide bomber? A poof.’ More laughing that descended into a cough.

One of the aeromedics gave him a weary look.

‘Hundreds more where that came from. Was gonna be a stand-up comic – but now … Geddit?’

Tom grinned. ‘Still got your right hand, then. That’ll be a relief.’

Blakey liked that. But as the medics finished changing his drip they rolled him onto his side, and Tom saw that his body – though visually unmarked – was, from the chest down, a lifeless sack. ‘Fuckers didn’t finish the job did they, eh? Just shattered me spine. Fuckin’ useless twats.’

The blast of the IED had pulverized several vertebrae and severed his spinal cord.

Blakey winced, a jolt of pain in the part where he could still feel.

‘Sorry, Cliff, be done in a jiffy.’

Blakey was doing his level best to put a positive steer on his situation but Tom wondered how long he would keep it up. He lifted his head to free his hand and pointed at a laptop balanced on top of his bergen. Tom picked it up, opened it and put it on Blakey’s chest as he indicated. Then he tilted the screen towards Tom and stroked the track pad. The image sprang to life: a flaming car being pushed down a half-destroyed street towards retreating mounted police.

Blakey’s expression changed and his eyes filled with tears. ‘That’s my fucking estate. How’m I gonna protect my mum from that? And they’re letting even more in! It’s totally fucked up.’

Tom tried to think of some consoling words, discarding them as they came to him. It was one thing to be facing a life in a wheelchair, another when the home you were coming back to had become a war zone. ‘It can’t go on like this. It’ll run out of steam.’

That was the line he had taken with Delphine, to no avail. With Blakey it also fell wide of the mark. He snorted, his face reddening with rage. ‘And where’s the cops? I’m like this from fighting these bastards – and now they’re fucking taking over at home. They don’t deal with them, someone else is gonna have to.’

12

Tom’s plan, as soon as he touched down at Brize, was to hire a car and get to Hereford to see Delphine. But she wasn’t picking up. Perhaps she didn’t want to talk on the phone. Soon she’d see him face to face; that would start to mend things. The Lines could wait. For the first time in his military life he had no desire to touch base. It shocked him. He also wanted to go and see Dave’s girlfriend. He would have to work out what to say to her but he owed her a visit at the very least.

But he was knackered after the flight and grimy with the Afghan dust. He’d go home first, clean up. As he walked away from the Starlifter into the gloom of the English evening he wasn’t expecting any kind of reception. Least of all to see his CO.

Ashton was leaning on the bonnet of a Range Rover, arms folded. Despite the too-young hoodie and trackies, he exuded authority, having risen quickly from squadron commander to the Regiment’s CO. They were a tribe and he was the leader, all knowing, all seeing, whose word was law. But for all Tom’s love of the Regiment, there had always been a flicker of tension between the two men. As if Ashton threatened him in a way none of the others did, or something about Tom’s background rubbed him up the wrong way. There had been an unspoken understanding between them that they would ignore it and get on with the job.