Herrick arrived back in London from Africa with Philip Sarre and Joe Lapping three days after the attack. On the night the missiles struck, Sarre and Lapping took her to a desert airstrip about seventy miles from the island. Five hours later they were picked up by a Cessna Titan and flown to Khartoum, where Herrick was treated for her cuts and bruises. They remained there for nearly three days while their passports were equipped with registration stamps and visas to make it seem that they had been in Sudan for over a week. Then they took a flight to Frankfurt and finally one to Heathrow, landing at midday on Sunday. Herrick was never so pleased to see the orderly patchwork of Surrey and Kent appear through the plane window.
At home she listened to her messages, then took a pile of newspapers into the tiny south-facing garden with a jug of lime juice and returned calls to her father, Harland and Dolph. Munroe was overjoyed to hear she was back. He knew better than to ask what had happened after he left Cairo, and instead pressed her to make plans for a trip to the west of Scotland in late July. Neither Dolph nor Harland answered their phones. There was one other call, from a Dr Leonard Jay. She didn’t recognise his name or the number he’d left, but called the cell phone anyway and left a message.
She browsed through the Sundays, trying to keep a sense of failure and deflation at bay. It was difficult. Karim Khan was dead. Sarre had seen a body in the burning ruins of the villa which was almost certainly Khan’s. The body was quite cold and rigor mortis had already set in, which made them suspect that he had not been killed by the missile but had been dead for some time before the strike. There was only one conclusion. Sammi Loz had ended the life of his friend, either by suffocation or with an injection of a lethal combination of drugs from the medical kit.
Khan’s death shocked Herrick, because she had calculated that one thing she could rely on was Loz’s love for Khan. However vain and ruthless he appeared to her, this had seemed to be a constant in his life. But plainly he had decided to leave the island, and knew that he could neither take Khan with him nor risk leaving him to be questioned further.
But had Loz died after killing Khan? Sarre and Lapping spent as long as they dared in the ruins of the bath-house trying to see if anyone was still trapped below the rubble. Sarre emerged and offered the theory that only the rock-solid bath had saved Isis, and unless Loz had been in it with her he would certainly have perished beneath the tons of rubble. Herrick could not remember the slightest sound or movement to indicate that he had survived.
And the attack, coming out of the night with such demonic force. Why? The motives still baffled her, although she knew after receiving an oblique call from the Chief on Sarre’s cell phone in Khartoum, that it had probably been her fault. The satellite phone she’d left plugged into the computer up in the turret had for some reason kept dialling out, dropping the connection and then dialling again. It seemed likely that the Americans, already monitoring the communications coming from the island, had picked up the endlessly repeated signal and used it as a homing device for the first missile. This meant the CIA was aware that Khan and Loz were on the island, which in turn meant that they had been decoding the traffic both ways. They must also have known that a British intelligence officer was responsible for sending those signals, but that consideration had been overridden by the need to eliminate Khan and maybe Loz too. At the back of her mind she wondered if the CIA station in Djibouti, which would have controlled the Predator, was in possession of entirely accurate information.
She lay dozing in the sun, running through it all and trying to focus on what was left in the ruins of the attack. Khan was gone. Loz was probably dead. However, she was still certain that a third person existed, a man whom both Khan and Loz had met in Bosnia and then subsequently in Afghanistan.
She picked up her cell phone and called Dolph again, who answered on the first ring.
‘Welcome back, Isis,’ he said, on hearing her voice. ‘By Christ, we were all relieved when we heard you were okay.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Look, I need to ask you something. A couple of weeks back you mentioned some photographs from Bosnia. You had an idea that there was a photographer on the front line where Loz and Khan were serving. Am I imagining it or did you actually say that? I was half-expecting you to send me some material by email.’
‘That’s right, but I never got hold of him.’
‘Can you trace him and see if he is willing to empty his archives for us? Photographers keep everything, and he might just have what I’m looking for.’
‘Sure.’
‘And there was a French journalist who covered the siege of Sarajevo – I think you said she now works for Nato. Can you get hold of her too? It’s important.’
‘I thought you were retired from this inquiry.’
‘Not that I’ve heard.’
‘Yeh, I can’t imagine that Vigo and Spelling missed out on the full story of what happened. I mean, it doesn’t look good for the people who went on the pyramids package tour.’
‘Thanks for the encouragement. I was acting on the Chief ’s orders throughout. You know that.’
‘The former Chief ’s orders. He’s been airbrushed from the official history. He left on Friday, although he’s not actually due to leave until Wednesday of this week.’
‘Christ!’
‘But I’ll stand by you all the way.’
‘Somehow that doesn’t reassure me in the way it’s meant to.’
‘Seriously, Isis, you have my support, if it counts for anything. Look, I’d better go before you give me something else to do. We’ll speak tomorrow when I know about the photographer and the French hackette.’
‘Thanks Dolph, you’re a good friend.’
The moment she hung up her phone rang again, and she answered to Harland, who asked, ‘Can you do dinner tomorrow? I’ll be at Brown’s Hotel, Albermarle Street. We’ll speak then.’
She managed to say yes before he hung up.
Monday morning came early with a summons from Vauxhall Cross. Spelling wanted to see her in the Chief ’s office no later than eight-thirty.
She took a cab into London. It was again a beautiful day, and as they drove through Kensington Gardens she suddenly felt a calm resignation about what was going to happen. If she was to be expelled from the Service under a cloud, so what? A summer in Scotland beckoned and then she’d find a job in the autumn and begin to lead a normal life, without having to allow for the possibility that every call she made was being listened to. There was nothing Vigo or Spelling or any of the other whey-faced bureaucrats could do to her, and she felt good about that.
As the taxi crept through the rush-hour traffic down Vauxhall Bridge Road towards SIS headquarters, her phone rang again.
‘Hello, it’s Leonard Jay.’
‘Hello,’ she said doubtfully.
‘Dr Jay from Oxford!’
‘Oh yes. Do you have any results for me?’
‘Yes, that’s what I’m ringing about,’ he said huffily. ‘I was concerned to get them to you as soon as possible since you did sign up for the priority service and we have already received payment. I would have sent them by post, but you specifically instructed us to convey the results of the analysis to you personally by phone.’
‘Absolutely right. What are the results?’
‘Well, it was difficult with the first sample because while there was a preponderance of material from one individual – ninety per cent of the scales of skin and the hairs came from that person – there were traces of other people too. So we made the assumption that it was this person who interested you and obtained a clear picture of his genetic profile.’ He drew breath. ‘Now the second sample, which reached us about ten days ago, was from one person. There was no contamination to contend with and we had-’
‘And?’ she said impatiently.
‘To answer the question in your letter, these two samples are from different people.’
‘Are you certain about that?’
‘As certain as I can be about anything. We do a lot of forensic work, Ms Herrick, and we applied the same rigorous standards to your samples as we do to evidence for a criminal case. These are two different people. I am absolutely sure of it. I had a slight worry that sample B, that is the second one you sent me, might be matched against some of the minority material in the first sample. But we found B did not match any of the traces in A. There is no doubt about this.’
Herrick pressed a finger in her ear as the cab roared forward to make the lights on Vauxhall Bridge, and asked if the results could be couriered to London.
Dr Jay said that would be no problem.
‘Is there anything else you can tell from either sample?’ she asked.
‘As a matter of fact there is. Both are male and both come from Mediterranean stock.’
‘You can say that for certain?’
‘Yes, recent advances mean we can show that on the Y chromosome of both men there is a common mutation present that originally appeared in the peoples of the Middle East. Indeed this marker has been very useful in the study of ancient migration patterns. There is still a distinction to be found in the character of the Y chromosome between the men of northern and southern Europe.’
‘So you can assert that neither sample comes from, say Anglo-Saxon or Indian men.’
‘Well, not categorically, but you might conclude that the two were from roughly similar genetic stock.’
‘You might be able to say they were Arabs, for instance?’
‘Yes, you could certainly argue that.’
The cab pulled up a little distance from the main entrance of SIS and Herrick asked the cab driver to wait while she finished her conversation.
‘But to be sure,’ she said, ‘you would have to do the test again with new samples, is that right?’
‘Oh, I don’t think there’s much point. As long as you are not proposing to take this to a court of law, I think we’re on pretty safe ground.’
She gave him an address in central London used by SIS as a letter-box and then hung up.
The Chief ’s office had clearly suffered an unceremonious exorcism. Propped against the wall outside were Sir Robin Teckman’s library of books about the Soviet Union and the Middle East, his family photographs and his collection of landscapes by Cavendish Morton. On the other side of the entrance was some rugby memorabilia that she recognised from Spelling’s office, and a new widescreen TV.
After a few minutes in the corridor, Spelling’s assistant told her to go in. Vigo and Spelling were sitting on one side of the maple veneer conference table that had also migrated from Spelling’s office over the weekend. Vigo indicated that she should take a chair opposite them. Spelling did not look her way, but it was already plain to her that the battlefield general was glorying in his new power and the bold decisiveness that was expected of him.
‘We haven’t long,’ he said, removing his glasses. ‘I must be at Downing Street for a meeting of COBRA within the hour. Walter, where are the others?’
Herrick reflected that Teckman would never have announced he was going to Downing Street. She found herself idly wondering why COBRA – the Prime Minister’s emergency committee, named after Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – had been convened.
‘I believe they are on their way,’ said Vigo. His eyes appeared more hooded than usual and the pallor and puffiness of his skin betrayed his long hours in the Bunker.
The others, it turned out, were the new head of Security and Public Affairs, Keith Manners, who had returned from the Joint Intelligence Committee, a man named Leppard, who was responsible for the ‘deep background’ briefings of the media, and a polished, dapper little fellow from the legal department, named Bishop. Finally came Harry Cecil, who had risen over the weekend on the thermals of sycophancy.
Isis was left with several seats empty either side of her, while the six men were ranged opposite, a seating plan eloquent of the trouble she was in. She noted too that she was unperturbed, crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair.
Spelling cleared his throat. ‘Following a break-in at 119 Forsythe Street on the night of May twenty-four you were formally warned by Walter Vigo that your behaviour was not only illegal but a serious security risk. At that time Mr Vigo took pains to explain to you that anything which allowed Mrs Rahe to believe her husband was dead might in turn alert the suspects that we were aware of the Heathrow switch. Is this so?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re saying,’ said Herrick coolly. ‘If you’re asking me whether I agree that it jeopardised security the answer is no. If you’re asking whether Walter spoke to me, yes.’
‘Don’t play the dumb bunny with me, Ms Herrick,’ said Spelling nastily.
‘Okay, I agree that Walter did talk to me in the company of Nathan Lyne. But since Mr Lyne is not a member of this Service and nor was Mr Vigo at the time, I do not think that it can be classed as an official warning, not in the terms of current employment legislation at any rate.’
‘It is not for you to question Mr Vigo’s position with this office,’ said Spelling.
‘But I am right,’ she said, ‘and any lawyer would certainly back me on that, unless you can prove that Walter was re-employed by that date.’
Bishop from the legal department looked unsettled.
‘Ten days ago,’ continued Spelling, ‘you were among a number of people from this office who became involved in an illegal operation in Cairo, during which you seized a known terrorist suspect by force from the custody of the Egyptian security services. By the extent of this operation and the measure of violence offered to the Egyptians, this action can only be classed as a very grave offence indeed. It was certainly an illegal one, both in terms of the remit granted to the Secret Intelligence Service by Parliament and in the context of Egyptian law.’
Herrick felt her temper rising and she cut in. ‘Is that the same legal context that allows the Americans to export suspects to countries where torture is routine? Are the “extraordinary renditions” that emerge from these sessions part of the legal framework you refer to?’
‘Torture is irrelevant to your behaviour,’ said Spelling.
‘As a matter of fact it is entirely relevant. Karim Khan produced a great deal more valuable intelligence when he was free of duress than he did when he was being threatened by the Albanian Intelligence Service and the CIA and then subsequently electrocuted, burned and hung from the ceiling by the Egyptians. That intelligence is still live and useful, particularly in regard to his association with Dr Sammi Loz.’
‘Sammi Loz was a minor player,’ said Vigo, shifting in his chair, ‘and certainly not worth the grave risk you exposed this Service to both in Cairo and on the island.’
‘So you were aware of the location,’ said Herrick sharply. Vigo did not have time to reply before she set off again. ‘Actually, Sammi Loz is, or was, a critical part of a network we are only just beginning to understand. The Americans have long appreciated this, even if their focus on Khan concealed that fact. I assume that my communications from the island were intercepted by them and that they are in possession of everything I got from my questioning of Loz and Khan. If Loz was worthless, why on earth would they aim two Hellfire missiles at the place they knew him to be staying? If they believed he was just a bit player, why would they have mounted a surveillance operation on his apartment and offices in New York?’
Spelling leaned forward over the desk. ‘It is not for us to answer to you, Miss Herrick. And it’s not for you to lecture us on spurious terrorist networks. It is simply our concern to process the disciplinary procedure against you as fast as possible. Believe me, you are in serious trouble.’
Harry Cecil, who had been making a note of the exchanges, licked his lips in anticipation of the kill.
‘Really? I don’t see that at all,’ said Herrick. ‘I was asked by the Chief to take part in an intelligence operation overseas. In case it escaped your notice, that is the job of this Service.’
‘I will not have you tell me what our job is,’ snapped Spelling.
‘Nevertheless, I am going to tell you about this operation, the sole purpose of which was to wrest a valuable suspect from certain death, to say nothing of torture. It must be clear to you by now that the Chief ’s plan entailed reuniting two suspects in circumstances likely to induce them to betray their past and the associations they had in Bosnia and Afghanistan. This was beginning to work. It was an ingenious and thoroughly legitimate plan, and I am certain that anyone in the media would agree with that.’
‘Let me just make this utterly clear,’ said Spelling. ‘You have signed the Official Secrets Act. Any notion you have of leaking the events of the last week will meet with the gravest possible response from this office.’
‘I am sure of that, but you cannot deny that for me to have refused the Chief would have placed me in breach of both my contract of employment and my moral obligation to this country.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Vigo. ‘You must have been aware that this was the desperate act of a man who wished to cling on to power in this office. In these circumstances, you would have been quite within your rights to refuse to join this adventure, at the very least to seek advice as to its wisdom.’
‘Presumably you would have made yourself available for such a consultation?’ she said, turning on Vigo. ‘But with your record you can hardly blame me for not speaking to you.’
‘That’s enough!’ said Spelling.
‘Your relations with the arms dealer Viktor Lipnik,’ she continued, ‘and the circumstances of the attack on a plane carrying Robert Harland into Sarajevo are all well known in this Service. That’s why you were forced out. And you’re suggesting that I ask you about the morality, the advisability of an operation!’
Spelling had risen to his feet and placed both hands on the table. Cecil stopped writing and gaped at Herrick. ‘The fact of the matter, Miss Herrick,’ said Spelling, ‘is that we no longer have need of your services. You will leave this building and hand in all your passes…’
‘But I haven’t finished,’ she said. ‘You see, I don’t think you have the slightest idea what this lowlife has been up to.’
‘Perhaps it would be better if I left,’ growled Vigo.
Spelling shook his head irritably.
‘You can stay or go,’ said Herrick, relishing the dissolution of the panel facing her. ‘But nothing will stop me saying what I know.’
Spelling cast around, then said, ‘To put it in plain language, you are fired and you will remove yourself from this office forthwith. Do you understand that?’
‘I will go once I have told you about Walter Vigo, the man in whom you place such misguided trust,’ she said without a trace of emotion. ‘In collaboration with the CIA station in Tirana and the head of the local intelligence service, Marenglen, Walter Vigo conspired to mislead me and this Service about the fate of Karim Khan when he was first held in Albania. His death was faked on a mountainside so I would not pursue what was a crucial inquiry about his connections in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Further to that, he arranged for my house to be broken into and searched while he believed me to be at RAPTOR’s command centre in Northolt. Happily, the two Albanian criminals who were supplied by Marenglen did not find what they were looking for, which means I am now in a position to reveal the critical – some would say criminal – misjudgements made by Vigo in the course of Operation RAPTOR, which I emphasise came from my work at Heathrow during May.’
All six men were now standing. Spelling’s face had drained. Harry Cecil and Leppard had moved round the table to take hold of her.
‘Since you are no longer a member of this Service,’ said Spelling, ‘what you have to say is of no interest to us. You will now be escorted from the premises. Formal notice of termination will follow this day. In the meantime, I would remind you again of the very tough sanctions of the Official Secrets Act. If you choose to ignore them in the smallest way, we will come down on you so that you will live to regret it. That means certain prosecution and a custodial sentence. I trust I make myself clear. Now I have to leave.’ With this, he stalked from the room. Vigo followed at a studiously sedate pace.
Cecil and Leppard waited for a few moments while the others filed out and then without speaking, steered her to the elevator bank. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I can find my own way out.’ Nonetheless they went with her to the front desk and waited until she had retrieved her cell phone. As the security guard handed it to her it began to ring. She answered to Robin Teckman.
‘They’ve just bloody well fired me,’ she said. ‘I’m being escorted from the building by that little twerp Cecil and Leppard.’
The Chief laughed. ‘Really? Well, it happens to us all at some time or other. Now, pop yourself in a cab and come round to the Cabinet Offices. You’ll find the entrance door a little way up from Downing Street. Present yourself there in forty-five minutes. There’s a meeting I want you to be in on. Your name’s on the door. Don’t be early and don’t be late.’
Herrick put the phone in her bag and with a broad grin said, ‘Cecil, I wonder if you would be so kind as to get me a cab… for Whitehall.’