Geoffrey Fane had been delighted by the outcome of the operation off the Somalian coast. ‘Despite your colleague’s misadventure,’ he had said smoothly, ‘I think you’d have to agree it’s a very satisfactory result. Between us, Elizabeth, we’ve captured some pirates – who I’m certain will turn out to be Al Qaeda or Al Shebab, not that I think there’s much difference – and we’ve killed the rest of their gang. We’ve prevented the Birmingham recruits from reaching Somalia, where they would have been trained and hardened and probably sent back to kill us, and we’ve got your friend Dave out safely. Good job done, I’d say. We must have a drink on it. Perhaps you’ll join me at the Athenaeum one evening.’
Liz wasn’t so sure. The Somalian end of the operation might have been shut down, and thanks to Peggy’s research into Xenides’ role, the Athens conduit for Al Qaeda recruits had been closed by the Greek authorities (though Mo Miandad was still at large). But Liz was worried about Birmingham. As she sat in her Thames House office, gazing out of the window at the Embankment, dry and dusty in the evening sun of a late August day, she reviewed the strands of the UK investigation.
Katherine Ball, the woman who had inspired young recruits and organised their journeys out to train for jihad, was safely held in Paddington Green police station. She would not be doing any more harm, but Liz still felt uneasy about her. She had ranted and poured out her hatred, yet at the end, even when she had learned that her mission had failed, had seemed calm, almost satisfied. Was it just a reaction to all that bile spilled or was there something else? And Abdi Bakri – he was still preaching at the New Springfield Mosque and no doubt still inflaming malleable young people with talk of their religious duty to wage war.
‘Liz?’ It was Peggy. Liz came out of her reverie and waved her into the chair opposite the desk. Peggy sat down, clutching a sheaf of paper. She looked flushed.
‘I’ve got more info – two things actually. The Techs say Abdi Bakri has been emailing this parallax repository again. They’ve made some more progress with the encryption, and they say Bakri’s talking about something on for this weekend. No real indication of where, though, or what.’
Liz thought for a moment. ‘It can’t be the hijack in Somalia. That’s already happened.’
‘No, they think it’s closer to home. Somewhere in the UK.’
‘I bet it’s Birmingham. His acolytes all come from the New Springfield Mosque. Like the four we captured on the Aristides.’
‘But we’ve had nothing before from Bakri to suggest any UK plans for action. He’s more of a preacher, surely. He preaches jihad but leaves it to others to organise it.’
‘I know,’ said Liz, thinking of Katherine Ball.
‘Where do we start?’ asked Peggy despondently. ‘This is when we could have used Boatman.’
Liz thought fleetingly of Salim and his wife, who were ensconced in a safe house well away from both Birmingham and London. Kanaan Shah was looking after them and doing a good job, she’d heard. She would visit them as she’d promised, but only when this new threat had been dealt with. She said to Peggy, ‘I know what you mean, but we’ve still got one agent in place.’
‘Who?’
‘Tahira.’
‘She’s not close to Abdi Bakri and the mosque.’
‘No, but she is close to Malik. And he’s close to Abdi Bakri. And Malik keeps popping up in all this – he helped attack me near the mosque; he knew Boatman, and seemed to become suspicious of him; he may have had a hand in the “accident” on the bus. Plus he knew Amir Khan, apparently quite well.’
‘And he’s still in Birmingham.’
‘Exactly. Remember, he boasted to Tahira that he was going on an important mission to Pakistan, but then he didn’t go. Why not? He gave her no explanation. He just said the plans had changed. What plans? And why was he kept behind when the others went? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Unless…’
Liz was nodding. ‘Unless he’s got a mission here, in the UK.’
‘Tahira is due to see him again tomorrow.’
‘I know, and that worries me. He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her if he knew she was working for us.’ Liz remembered the strength in his arm when he’d grabbed her.
‘But maybe she’ll be able to tell us something after their meeting.’
‘Perhaps. But I don’t think we can risk waiting till tomorrow.’ She paused, making up her mind. ‘I want Malik placed under surveillance as soon as possible – within the hour if they can do it. We need to know where he is every minute of this weekend – even if he isn’t involved. Will you set it up with Lamb Lincoln in Birmingham and get them to patch real-time reports through to A4 Control here? I’m going to alert Fontana and tell him what we’ve learned. I’ll see if he’s got any idea of what might be happening. I don’t want any crossed wires; I’ll warn him we may need armed support if anything unravels. Then I’m going to ring DG. I’ll meet you in A4 control in an hour or so, when we’ve done all that.’
Two hours later lights were burning on several floors of Thames House. Peggy was at her desk, receiving reports from the monitoring of various telephones that Malik was known to use; the Techs were on alert for any email traffic. In the A4 control room Liz was sitting on the battered leather sofa reserved for case officers, listening as Wally Woods, the Thames House controller for the evening, liased with Lamb Lincoln in Birmingham. Reports were coming in from A4 teams as they searched for Malik in all his known haunts, but so far there had been no sign of him. He had not been spotted in the crowd coming out of the mosque, a disguised call to his parents’ house had elicited the information that he was out, he was not at the café, and A4 was running out of ideas of where to look as the evening drew on. Lamb was asking how long they should go on looking as he was beginning to fear they might be getting exposed.
Liz took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in going on with this tonight. Stand them down. We know he’s meeting Tahira in the morning, so let’s put the teams on to her first thing. She’ll be at her parents’ house. They can follow her to the meeting and then take on Malik as he leaves. We’ll need real-time reports. I’m going up to Birmingham. Tell Lamb that I’ll see him early on.’
Leaving further instructions that if the Techs or the monitors got anything of interest she was to be told right away, Liz went back to her flat for what by now would be a short night’s sleep.