23
* * *
Whitehall, London SW1
SIR FREDERICK GREENHILL, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, looked around the table. ‘So, any other business?’
The question was a formality. The agenda for the meeting had been completed. A couple of the senior intelligence officers and civil servants who comprised the committee membership began gathering up their papers. But then Cameron Young, the Prime Minister’s political advisor, and his personal representative on the JIC, spoke up: ‘Yes, there is one thing, actually.’
Young did not look much like the slick corporate types, with their sharp suits and self-satisfied expressions, who constituted the majority of the Prime Minister’s closest associates. He had pale-ginger hair, a fleshy face, and a bushy drooping moustache – which gave him the slightly morose, doggy air that had long ago inspired his nickname: Fred Basset. This particular hound, however, had claws and teeth worthy of a Dobermann. Young had qualified as a barrister before becoming a political operator. He possessed intelligence and ambition in abundance, not to mention an independently wealthy American wife who had become one of London’s leading political hostesses. He was not a man to be crossed.
‘As I’m sure you’ll be aware, the American financier Malachi Zorn is formally launching a new investment fund in London at the end of this week,’ Young continued. ‘Many of the world’s richest and most influential individuals have placed very large sums of money in this fund, and will be attending the launch party, as will the PM himself. He sees this event as a tremendous vote of confidence in the government and in UK plc, and he wants the world to know about it.’
‘Is that wise?’ asked Sir Charles Herbert, the Foreign Office’s man on the committee. ‘Some of the individuals in question are not necessarily people with whom the PM would want to be associated. The provenance of their fortunes is not always as respectable as one might wish.’
‘I’m sorry?’ asked Young with a frown.
‘He means the money’s dirty,’ snapped Jack Grantham, whose duties as Head of MI6 included attendance at JIC meetings.
‘Then we will make sure that the PM is not photographed standing next to any of them,’ said Young, with an almost imperceptible air of impatience. ‘But he has to make an appearance. There’s just going to be too much money and too much power in the room to ignore. And of course, Mr Orwell will be there.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t want him hogging the front pages while the PM sits at home at Number 10 …’ Grantham mused.
‘No, we certainly would not,’ Young agreed. ‘The question that concerns me, however, is this: what are the security implications of this event in particular, and Mr Zorn’s presence here in general? I’m sure many of you will be aware of the interview Mr Zorn gave to the BBC World programme HARDTalk yesterday. He gave a public warning to the UK government that we were at risk from attacks by eco-terrorists. Firstly, let us just establish the facts of the matter. Do you have any reason to believe he’s right, Dame Judith?’
The successor to Agatha Bewley as Head of MI5, Dame Judith Spofforth, was not given to dithering. Her reply was immediate, all the facts at her fingertips: ‘Not at the moment. We keep a weather eye on the most extreme ecological and animal rights groups, of course. They tend to go in for nasty, frequently illegal, but essentially small-scale activity: harassing executives that work for companies of which they disapprove, digging tunnels on the sites of planned motorways, and so on. But there’s no sign any of them have any major stunts in mind.’
Cameron Young turned to Euan Jeffries, the Director of GCHQ. ‘Euan?’
‘I must say, I agree with Dame Judith. We’re not seeing any significant traffic that indicates planning for an attack of that kind.’
‘Jack?’
Grantham thought for a second. To anyone else in the room, it looked as though he was sifting through intelligence data and analysis in his mind, weighing up the threat to the UK. In fact, he was thinking about Ahmad Razzaq and his contract on Malachi Zorn. Strictly speaking, he ought to mention it – the PM would go ballistic if Zorn came to any harm on British soil. But the fact was, Grantham had not been asked about threats to Zorn. He’d been asked about eco-terrorists.
‘No,’ Grantham said. ‘Not a dicky bird.’
Young nodded encouragingly. ‘Well, that’s reassuring. Nevertheless, the PM believes that we have to be seen to respond. He does not relish the prospect of doing nothing and then standing up in front of Parliament – or, even worse, Newsnight – when a bomb goes off somewhere. He is also keen to have an initiative to take to this launch. Congress ignored Mr Zorn. We will not make that mistake.’
Dame Judith cast her sharp eyes in Young’s direction. ‘May one ask what you have in mind?’
‘We need a high-profile event of our own, a proper eco-terrorism summit: senior figures from the intelligence, defence and energy communities; a couple of top energy executives; scientists who can discuss the possible implications of a blown-up oil rig, that sort of thing.’
‘Clearly you will want to make an announcement within the next week or so,’ said Sir Charles Herbert, with diplomatic smoothness. ‘But surely there’s no rush over the summit itself. As I’m sure you’ll know, these things take many months to organize. In fact, I dare say everyone will have forgotten about the idea long before anything can be done.’
Cameron shook his jowly head. ‘No, the PM is adamant. An announcement is not enough. He wants to be seen taking swift, decisive action. It’s got to be put together immediately: tomorrow, in fact, nice and early so it dominates the whole day’s news cycle. So I’d be very grateful if all the relevant bodies would rustle up a few of their brightest stars. To save any interdepartmental wrangling, we’ll coordinate it all from the Cabinet Office. And let me emphasize in the strongest possible terms, the PM wants a real spectacular.’
The men and women of the Joint Intelligence Committee were, by definition, highly experienced, unflappable individuals who weren’t given to panic. But even they had a hard time concealing their shock at what Young had just proposed.
‘Where were you thinking of holding this meeting?’ Sir Charles Herbert asked, hoping that a moment’s consideration of the practicalities would swiftly scupper the PM’s hare-brained scheme. ‘It’s going to be hard getting one of the major London conference venues at such short notice.’
Cameron Young was not deterred. ‘No, we don’t want anything like that. We have to have maximum media coverage, so we need a photogenic backdrop.’
‘Well, maybe you should try an oil rig, then,’ suggested Jack Grantham, wondering to himself just how mad this was going to get.
He, too, had underestimated Cameron Young. ‘No, we considered that option. But it’s always a nightmare getting people to and from rigs, and they can’t cater for the number of visitors we had in mind.’
‘And just think what would happen if the weather got up, and you suddenly found several chopper-loads of dignitaries stuck on a rig overnight with all the media jackals,’ said a man from the Ministry of Defence. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Precisely,’ said Young. ‘We need a controllable environment. And we think we’ve found just the one …’
24
* * *
Wentworth
CARVER WATCHED AS Zorn’s Bentley disappeared behind the gates of his mansion. He rode back up the road a few hundred yards, then pulled into a lay-by, took off his helmet and checked his phone. There was one missed call: Grantham.
‘Learn anything?’ the MI6 man asked when Carver got through to him.
‘Yes.’
‘Anything you want to share with me?’
‘Well, I have one question. Zorn’s never been married, right?’
‘No.’
‘Thought so. Just checking.’
‘You want to tell me why?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Have you worked out what you’re going to do: method, time, location and so forth?’
‘Yes, pretty much.’
‘And …?’
‘And as soon as I’ve finalized everything, and worked out exactly what I need, I’ll tell you.’
‘Big of you,’ Grantham said. ‘Meanwhile, Zorn’s not going to Wimbledon tomorrow, correct?’
‘That’s right. What of it?’
‘I’ve got another little job for you.’
‘Just because I’m not tracking Zorn tomorrow doesn’t mean I won’t be busy,’ Carver objected. ‘I’ve got a lot to prepare, and bugger all time to do it in.’
‘You help me, and I’ll lend a hand with that. I have ways of saving you a lot of time. Access to resources, you might say.’
‘We’ll see about that … what do you want?’
‘Zorn’s given some interview to the BBC. He says the next big thing is energy terrorism – eco-loonies blowing up oil rigs and so forth.’
‘That old chestnut. I spent half my time in the SBS freezing my tits off in the North Sea, climbing on to oil rigs and pretending to kill terrorists who’d occupied them. I’ll bet they still train for that. But we’ve never had a single terrorist on a single rig.’
‘Be that as it may, the PM’s got his knickers in a twist. He’s decided to hold some bloody stupid summit meeting tomorrow morning …’
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘I need you to go. Strictly speaking this is a domestic issue, so our Security Service friends are being annoyingly territorial and saying it’s their responsibility, not ours. That means I can’t send anyone on an official basis. But I need someone there, someone I can trust.’
‘And you think you can trust me?’ Carver asked, with just a hint of amusement in his voice.
‘Not much.’
‘But what’s the point? What can I achieve there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Grantham said, with an exasperation that was principally directed against himself. ‘But this meeting wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for Malachi Zorn. I’m not sure he planned for it to happen: I don’t care how brilliant he is, he couldn’t have predicted that the PM would respond to his interview this way. But he wouldn’t be going on about energy terrorism – and this isn’t the first time, apparently – if he didn’t have a bloody good reason for it.’
‘So this is basically an unknown element in a plan that’s still a total mystery. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, if you want to put it that way.’
‘And you have no idea what good it will do me, or you, if I’m there?’
‘Correct.’
‘Well, if I go, you’d better give me precisely what I need for the Zorn job. And some of it you won’t like.’
‘Well, naturally, the Service can never condone violence, torture or the harming of soft, furry animals …’
‘Naturally …’
‘And there’s one other thing,’ Grantham added.
‘You don’t know when to stop, do you?’
‘That’s why I’m where I am, and you’re not. It’s to do with this Magda Sternberg woman …’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve been doing some digging. She’s an elusive girl, our Magda. But my people think she’s Polish. If she’s who they say she is, she was born Celina Novak. And here’s the interesting bit that you might be able to help me with. She was sent to Russia to be trained by the KGB.’
‘So what?’ asked Carver. ‘Lots of kids from Warsaw Pact nations spent time in the USSR. It was the communist answer to finishing school.’
‘Yes, I do know that,’ snapped Grantham impatiently. ‘What interested me were the dates. It seems that Celina Novak was quite the young beauty. So her training appears to have involved teaching her to take advantage of her natural assets …’
Carver had an unnerving premonition of where this was going. ‘Don’t tell me …’
Grantham laughed. ‘Oh yes, the dates match perfectly. Celina Novak was an exact contemporary of the young Alexandra Petrova.’
‘And you want me to ask Alix about her?’
‘Well, you know her better than anyone else.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Nonsense. She’ll greet you like a long-lost friend.’
‘Doesn’t she have a man in her life? That Ukrainian who’s investing in Malachi Zorn – isn’t he the reason you spotted her at that party?’
‘Dmytryk Azarov? I don’t think that true love is running too smoothly at the moment. According to the gossip columns he’s holed up at the Ritz with a series of, ah, “mystery companions”.’
Carver sighed. ‘I’ll put in a call.’
‘Thought you might,’ said Grantham. ‘Meantime, I’ll email you instructions for tomorrow. And when you’re ready, send me your shopping-list, I’ll see what I can do.’
25
* * *
‘SO THE PRIME Minister blinked,’ said Ahmad Razzaq, as he stood admiring the view from the window of Zorn’s study, entirely unaware of Carver’s presence less than five hundred metres from where he stood.
‘Sounds like it,’ his boss agreed, barely looking up from his bank of trading screens. ‘He’s ordered some kind of instant anti-terrorism conference. Orwell heard about it this afternoon. They’ve asked him to go along. Downing Street wants the US Ambassador to attend, too. And the EU Energy Minister is in town to give some speech tonight. I heard the Prime Minister called her personally to get her to come along.’
Razzaq turned his head towards Zorn. ‘Maybe Orwell should go. He can tell us what they talk about … and also where this event is taking place. I cannot get a location out of anyone.’
‘Me neither.’ Zorn nodded. ‘But Nicholas Orwell …’ Zorn pursed his lips as he thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, you could be right. He was going to do breakfast with Karakul Sholak, the Kazakh—’
‘Who is himself a terrorist.’
‘Yeah, he’s a rich one, and that’s all that concerns me. Ah, what the hell, his money’s in the bag. I’ll tell him Orwell’s been called away on top-secret government business, and promise he’ll hear all about it at the launch party. That should keep him happy, right?’
‘Absolutely … now he will be able to stay in bed all the longer with his whores.’
Zorn gave an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. ‘Again, that doesn’t concern me. OK … so I’ll call Orwell, tell him to say yes to the invitation. He’s not going to object, not with the number of TV cameras they’re going to have pointing in his direction.’
Razzaq frowned. ‘I cannot understand it. Orwell was Labour. The Prime Minister is Conservative. Why give publicity to an enemy?’
‘Because he wants to show the world that this is not a party-political issue. So he invites an opponent. But he picks Orwell, who can no longer hurt him politically. Plus, the more Orwell is seen as a world statesman, the smaller he makes the current Labour leader seem. No, it’s a smart move.’
‘And while they have their meeting, we will be showing the world what eco-terrorism really looks like.’
Zorn got up and walked towards the window. ‘They all set down there?’
‘Yes … but there is still time to call this off. Many people are going to die. Are you sure you wish to go ahead?’
The two men were standing side by side now, looking out at the vivid green lawn, across which the shadow cast by an ancient cedar of Lebanon was spreading.
‘What, you think I don’t have the stones for this?’ Zorn asked, with a genuine note of surprise in his voice.
‘It is not easy to have that many deaths on one’s conscience,’ Razzaq answered.
A lazy smile spread across Malachi Zorn’s face. ‘What makes you think I have a conscience?’ he said.
26
* * *
CARVER LOOKED AT the phone in his hand, wondering what he was going to say. It had been a couple of years since he’d last spoken to Alix, just a handful of words snatched at the funeral of a mutual friend. There hadn’t been a chance for a proper conversation: he’d been there with another woman.
He wasn’t even sure if the number he had for her would still work. He dialled it. Well, at least there was a ringtone. But no one was answering. He heard the phone ring three, four, five times, and was just formulating a voicemail message in his mind when she took the call, sounding brisk and a little hurried: ‘Hello, Alexandra Vermulen.’
The sound of her voice still thrilled him. They’d been apart for more than a decade, yet even now there was no other woman in the world that could get to him the way she did. But there was a stab of jealousy in him, too, that she should be using another man’s name as her own. That was another thing Carver had never quite got used to. ‘It’s me,’ he said.
There was no need for any further identification. He knew that his voice would be as instantly recognizable to Alix as hers was to him. Now he waited to hear her reaction. There was a hesitancy, almost a brittleness, as she said, ‘Hello …’
‘Look, I’m sorry to call you out of the blue. But you might be able to help me …’
Did he imagine it, or was there a sigh before she asked, ‘Is this a business call?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I suppose it was too much to hope that you might just want to speak to me.’
Carver rolled his eyes to the ceiling and took a deep breath. Bad start. Try again.
‘Come on, Alix, you know it’s not like that.’
‘So what is it like?’
Silence fell on the line, neither knowing what to say next, but not ready yet to hang up. It was Carver’s move. He made it.
‘Can we start again, here? I would really like to see you. Full stop. Also, you might be able to help me with something important. Is there any chance we could meet up this evening? It doesn’t have to be for very long if you’re busy. Maybe we could have a quick drink?’
There was another pause. Carver could sense the debate in Alix’s mind as she weighed up the pros and cons of taking this further. Finally she said, ‘OK, Sam, we can meet. There’s a party at the Muscovy Gallery in Cork Street this evening. They’re opening an exhibition of Soviet propaganda posters. I’ll get your name put on the guest list. Be there in an hour.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you should.’
27
* * *
Kensington Park Gardens
ALIX HAD TAKEN the call in her bedroom, where she’d been getting dressed. She’d decided hours before what to wear to the opening: a white silk blouse and slimline midnight-blue cigarette pants with strappy high-heeled sandals. The look was simple, elegant, respectably attractive. She had put the clothes on, chosen a necklace and some bangles, and satisfied herself that the whole outfit worked. Now she looked at herself in the mirror once more, almost in disbelief that Carver had called and that somehow she had agreed to see him again. Why had she done that? Why couldn’t she just let go of the past and say no?
If she’d not had that argument with Azarov they’d have gone to the party together, and she would have had the perfect reason to turn Carver down. As it was, her so-called lover was still sulking in the Ritz, doubtless surrounded by hungry young women who’d be only too willing to take his mind off his troubles at home. So was that all she was doing now: getting her own back?
She found herself wanting to change her clothes completely. Alix told herself that she would not be dressing for Carver. She was not trying, still less hoping, to seduce him. She wanted it to be perfectly clear that she was a successful, independent woman who could do – in fact had done – very well without him. But she also wanted to look marvellous.
She went through several options before settling on a simple tobacco-coloured silk dress. The apparent modesty of its length was offset by a perfect cut that subtly showed off every inch of her body, caressing the curves of her breasts and hips. She tied the halter neck that held the dress in place, and let the loose ends of the bow fall, brushing against her naked back.
Now she examined herself in the mirror. Objectively, she knew she was in amazing shape: her scales and her dress size did not lie. But that did not make her any less critical of the flaws she could see in every part of her body. As she straightened her back to pull in her already flat stomach she wondered what Carver would see when he looked at her. Would she still be, to him, the beautiful young woman he’d once loved, or would the evidence of all those passing years, so obvious to her own eyes, destroy any illusions he might still have?
She imagined Carver standing next to her. Even in her heels she would still be an inch or two shorter than him. She lifted her chin as if looking up at him and was relieved to see how her jawline was tightened. For a second she stared herself in the eye, and as she did a memory came to her of her first day in Carver’s apartment. It had been a refuge for them, a haven after a night of violence and danger. He had looked at her with a frown of concentration on his face and said, ‘Your eyes. There’s something just a tiny bit uneven about them.’ The words had stung her like a whip. In an instant she had become that ugly duckling again, the butt of so many cruel taunts about her crazy cross-eyes. Even now she could feel the shock of having her deepest, most private insecurity so forensically stripped bare.
Carver had seen her pain at once, sensed her vulnerability, and apologized profusely. ‘You have amazing eyes. They’re beautiful, kind of hypnotic. I can’t stop looking at them, and now I know why.’ She had forgiven him. After all, his mistake had been the result of looking past the glossy surface of her and seeing the real woman within – and how often had she wished men would do that?
She’d been wearing Carver’s old grey T-shirt, sitting curled up like a cat in one of his huge armchairs, its leather scuffed and softened by age, basking in the warmth of the sun that streamed through the window. She had felt so comfortable there; so right, and yet so surprised that she had somehow allowed herself to lower all her professional defences.
And then she recalled the feel of him as they had made love, and the memory was so intense that she cursed herself for letting it into her mind. As she picked up her handbag and made her way towards the front door she told herself once again that she was not doing any of this for Samuel Carver. She was doing it for herself. Yes, that was it.