Accidental Agent, page 8
‘Economic well-being, protection and furtherance of. It’s in the Intelligence Services Act. Timber Wolf has access to information of great economic importance to this country. Therefore he’s a legitimate intelligence target.’
‘But who authorised it? You can’t just do it off your own bat.’
‘My director. Ian’s authorising it retrospectively.’
‘You mean he doesn’t yet know about it.’
‘I mean I have very long-standing contacts in GCHQ who trust me when I say authorisation is on its way. As it will be this afternoon, when I tell Ian you’d like it done.’
Charles could hear the smile in Sonia’s voice. ‘We haven’t had this conversation. And of course we’ll have to not have another one as soon as you hear that Gareth has fixed a date.’
‘Which he may already have done. Gareth got back to him just before your meeting, this time by WhatsApp, which is encrypted, as perhaps even you know, Charles? And to get into that – if they can – is a whole new cryptographic ball game that I don’t like to even ask them about. You know how Cheltenham keep that sort of thing very close to their chests. Don’t want to use up my credit if it’s not going to work. So, the chances are that Gareth’s made a date but we don’t know when.’
Charles replaced the receiver and stood for a while staring at the face of the Cumming clock. A plain face, clear Roman numerals, no twirls or embellishments, an open honest face, as honest as its maker.
The news surprised and disappointed him. For Gareth to cut operational corners was one thing, being lured into exaggeration by his own enthusiasm and ambition was another and calling agent payments expenses was a third: culpable faults all, but faults committed – as Churchill had put it – facing the enemy, trying to do the job, not running away from it. Faults worthy of censure, though ultimately forgivable. But to have arranged a meeting with Timber Wolf after Charles forbade it was deliberate deceit. It was personal, too. Charles felt let down. Gareth could have told him about the call; they would have considered what to do, Charles might have said go ahead but go carefully, then tried to cover his back by seeking Robin Woodstock’s retrospective agreement. This was a betrayal, an unnecessary betrayal, as unnecessary as it was puzzling. Puzzling because Gareth wouldn’t be able to report anything of the meeting without confessing he’d had it. So what could he hope to gain?
Chapter Seven
‘The Tresco sub has been bounced back,’ said Jenny. ‘Our lawyers are happy with it but the Foreign Office lawyers want some changes. Our lawyers want to know if they have your support in resisting.’
‘What kind of changes?’
‘Something to do with ID verification. They’re putting it in an email, which you haven’t got yet because they’re waiting to see whether MOD lawyers agree with them.’
‘How many lawyers does it take to kill a terrorist?’
‘About a dozen and rising.’
‘Just as well I’m married to only one.’ He asked her to check dates for directors’ availability for a board awayday at the Castle, the south-coast training establishment.
‘That’s quite soon, isn’t it? Not long since the last one.’
‘This is an emergency one to take stock of resources in case the Treasury cut up rough. We didn’t go as far as worst-case scenarios this morning. With luck we won’t need to, so don’t put it in their diaries as a firm booking, just check for dates when they’re available and when they’re not. If it’s difficult we can have a partial board, doesn’t have to be a full one. In the next week, if possible.’
‘If it’s that soon you’ll probably end up with a meeting of two.’
‘The fewer the better so far as decisions are concerned.’
Michael Dunton rang from Thames House on the secure line. ‘Your note on Sarah’s godson has caused a flutter in the hen coops here. I’ve got the desk officer with me. No one’s questioning your overall assessment of him as probably harmless but there’s concern about the knives you say he’s bought. It coincides with an odd conversation he’s had with someone from this dodgy mosque group he’s in with. Bit of an imposition, I know, but any chance you’d be able to pop over and listen to it? I would suggest Sarah too but our lawyers say we’re not allowed to share such product outside the intelligence community, even for a Mrs C. Also, the team concerned want to take a closer look at her godson, technically closer, if you see what I mean, and it would help them a lot if you and Sarah could advise on arrangements.’ Michael chuckled. ‘Not sure whether I should apologise for distracting you with casework details or offer it as a chance to escape back to your operational past. Though you never had much luck with tech ops, if I remember rightly.’
‘Always willing to revert to type and try again, so look at it as the latter. Anyway, it’s not the only bit of casework around at the moment.’
‘We owe you one, Charles. The desk will be in touch.’
Later, when he had the results of Jenny’s diary research, Charles rang Sonia. ‘Looks like Gareth’s intending to go next Wednesday. It’s the only day next week when he is completely unavailable. His diary is blanked out from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning with no explanation, which is unusual. Usually, whenever he has a Timber Wolf meeting he describes it as “Brussels Brexit briefing”.’
‘So if you’re going to spring a surprise on Timber Wolf you’ll have to see him before that, in time to stop Gareth going.’
‘Or let him go, depending on what Timber Wolf reveals. Is Cheltenham ready with their box of tricks to turn me into Gareth, electronically speaking?’
‘So long as it’s by text or email, yes. Let me know what you want to say and they’ll text it to Timber Wolf as if it’s from Gareth and make sure the answer comes to us, not him. They have a name for it, this technique, but I can’t remember it.’
‘But what about any real texts Gareth is sending or receiving?’
‘They’ll go through. The clever stuff is done on Timber Wolf’s phone. There may be some delay with his real messages while this exchange is on, but there often is anyway. He won’t notice anything unusual.’
‘He won’t think it’s odd that Gareth’s texting after they’ve been using WhatsApp?’
‘They use both. Their recent communications began with texts.’
‘I’ll need a briefing from you on the Brexit negotiations, everything you can find out about where they’ve got to and all that Timber Wolf has reported about them.’
‘When will you go?’
‘The sooner the better. It had better be a last-minute thing so far as Timber Wolf is concerned – Gareth must notionally be in Brussels unexpectedly and want to meet that day. If it’s not last-minute Timber Wolf has more time to go back with alternative arrangements, perhaps by WhatsApp, and then we’re scuppered.’
‘What if he can’t make it?’
‘He has to, even if it’s just a drink on his way home. Can you brief me tonight?’
That afternoon Shelley, Michael Dunton’s desk officer, asked Jenny for an appointment to brief Charles. ‘Tell her she can either hop across the river now or it will have to be some time next week.’
She arrived thirty minutes later, a fair, nervous-looking girl with a timid smile. Charles smilingly cut short her apologies for bothering him. ‘Don’t worry. The more favours I can do for Michael, the more I can ask in return. What exactly do you need from me?’
‘We want to do a clandestine search of his house, a breaking and entry operation. We’re doing the operational plan and Home Office warrant application at the moment. We’d do it of course when they’re out but it would help enormously if you and Mrs Thoroughgood were able to guarantee when that would be and for how long. You don’t know anything about their plans over the next two weeks, I suppose?’
‘Not at all. Of course, you know she works full time for the Department for Education so she’s fairly predictable, but he’s self-employed and is probably here, there and everywhere, depending on where the work is. But why d’you need to break in? It’s not just because of these knives?’
‘It’s partly that, yes, along with the fact that the other people in this mosque he’s started going to get very excited every time there’s a terrorist knife attack anywhere. They get all the details about it and analyse them and talk about how to do it better. Plus the fact that his wife is worried, as you reported.’
‘So it’s not just partly the knives, it is mainly the knives?’
‘They’re a large part of it, yes. But there’s also this.’
She produced a small laptop from the briefcase she carried and inserted a memory stick. ‘This is what the DG asked if you could come over and listen to. It’s a phone conversation between Daniel and one of his mosque friends. We’d like to know whether you have any idea what it refers to. It could be knives but we’re not sure.’
They listened three times to the short dialogue. A man who sounded of Indian-subcontinent origin rang Daniel and asked, without any preliminaries, if he had got ‘it’. Daniel said yes, it looked good. The man asked if it was somewhere safe and Daniel said it was. The man said, ‘See you on Friday,’ and rang off.
‘We’re not sure what they’re talking about,’ said Shelley. ‘Do you think it could be a knife?’
‘Doesn’t sound like it. It’s a bit odd to say it looks good. A knife is a knife, pretty simple thing. And he’s got more than one, of course.’
‘Maybe he means it’s fit for purpose, whatever that is.’
‘Maybe. There’s also the implication that he’s hidden it. But we know his wife knows about the knives and anyway why would you hide a knife when you can just keep it in the kitchen drawer with others? Unless it’s a special knife for hunting or skinning or something.’
‘That’s really why we want to get in there, to have a look and see whether there’s anything else suspicious like guns or explosives or chemicals. Any signs of preparations for violence.’
Charles was still reluctant to imagine Daniel as a terrorist and unconvinced that he merited this level of investigation. But such assessments were MI5’s business, not his. ‘It’s a pity we didn’t know about this when we had them round for dinner. You could have done it then.’
Her nervous smile reappeared. ‘Perhaps – we did wonder whether it would be possible for you to ask Daniel to come and look at doing some carpentering work on your house for you? Then we’d know where he’d be and for how long.’
‘I suppose we could, yes.’ He was wondering what Sarah would think of that. She had said something about rain coming under the back door when the wind was in that direction, which he had failed to notice.
‘He’s not got much work on at the moment, we know that. So he might be quite grateful. But perhaps you’re not convinced he’s that much of a threat?’
She had done her homework. Charles smiled. ‘I guess I’m not, not as much as you. I was more reassured than alarmed when I chatted to him. He seemed more the evangelising convert than a would-be terrorist trying to conceal what he’s up to. As for the knives – well, every kitchen has an array of lethal weaponry and as a carpenter he must already have sharp tools, Stanley knives and that sort of thing. Maybe he bought more knives because they needed them.’
‘But it worried his wife.’
‘Yes, that I can’t explain away.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you’re the experts, you’re seeing these things all the time. I’ll have a word with Sarah and see if we can sort out some convincing household improvements. There’s no great time pressure, is there?’
She looked relieved. ‘Thank you, sir, that’s very helpful. As for time pressure, although we’ve no indication of attack planning there are some indicators reflecting a pattern that in other cases have led to attack planning. We don’t want to risk something happening and then have to admit that we had our suspicions all along but didn’t do anything because it wasn’t high-priority, as has happened before.’
Sarah was not happy about it when he rang her later. ‘I understand their arguments but I find it very hard to believe that Daniel is planning to cut our throats, don’t you? Or anybody’s. He just doesn’t seem that aggressive about it. And I feel really awkward about luring him out in order for his house to be burgled. I feel guilty enough about reporting on him anyway, as you know. God forbid that Deborah ever finds out.’
‘Searched, not burgled. But there is some joinery work we genuinely need doing, isn’t there? That back door?’
‘And those bookshelves you’ve been threatening to put up ever since we moved in.’
‘Of course, yes.’ He remembered them about once a month. ‘I could get him round to have a look at both jobs.’
‘Obviously, it would be nice to have them done. But I’d rather you did it. I suppose this sort of little deceit is all part of a day’s work for you. Not that I’m criticising.’
He supposed it was. It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone might see the setting-up of Daniel in this way as an ethical issue, albeit minor. Where deceit was a vocational requirement rather than a deformation as in business or finance or religions or other professions – even lawyers could be deceitful, he had found – it was easy to take it for granted as the common currency of daily life. If Daniel was not involved in terrorism, as Charles believed, he would never know his house had been searched, no harm would come of it and it would go a long way towards clearing the cloud of suspicion that hung over him. On the other hand, if he was found to be planning an atrocity it was better for him and for the world if he were prevented. Also, if he agreed to do the joinery work, he would earn some presumably much-needed money.
Daniel answered Charles’s call immediately and they had a stilted but satisfactory conversation. Daniel was surprised and Charles awkward, conscious of injecting a note of false bonhomie. They agreed to meet at the house for half an hour the day after next.
Shelley was pleased and flustered when he told her. ‘Thank you so much, CSS, that’s most helpful. But it’s very soon and I’m not sure we’ll have time to get the warrant through.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to. I can’t do it next week because I may be travelling and if we leave it until the week after there’s more chance that what you fear might happen.’
‘It’s fixed,’ said Sonia when she came up to Charles’s office that evening. ‘Timber Wolf’s agreed to meet at the Rosticceria Fiorentino in the EU quarter, whatever that’s called, at twelve-thirty on Monday. They’ve used it before. I’ve booked at table in Gareth’s name.’
‘But they’ll realise it’s not him when I turn up.’
‘Get there early and they won’t realise he’s not joining you. You must have done this sort of thing before, surely?’
He had, with an East German in Athens during the Cold War. It hadn’t worked; the East German walked out. ‘Better shut the door in case Gareth’s still in the building. Don’t want him to walk in and see you here. He’ll put two and two together and make – in this case – what they usually make.’
‘He’s gone home, as has his secretary. I checked.’
‘Wine, whisky, G&T?’
‘G&T, please, lemon, no ice.’
Charles pulled open the large lower desk drawer. ‘No lemon, no ice.’ While he poured the drinks she talked him through the latest round of negotiations with the EU. ‘They seem to be making as much a meal of it as they can. The EU, I mean.’
‘They always do. Then there’s a compromise deal at the last minute. Usually. There may not be this time.’
‘And Timber Wolf’s reporting? Has it been consistently borne out?’
‘Quite a lot of it has. If you list the main points in the negotiations alongside the main subjects of his reports there’s a lot of carry-over. And he quotes plausible and revealing behind-the-scenes comments, which Whitehall readers love. They’re usually the bits they remember best. But if you put all the Timber Wolf stuff alongside what’s reported in the informed parts of the press and media, most of the time he’s not really telling us anything new. He’s elaborating on what we know or anticipate, all interesting so far as it goes but not exactly game-changing. There’s nothing he predicts that goes contrary to the assumptions and expectations of the Brexit team. With one exception.’ She sipped her drink. ‘He quotes the EU negotiating team as being more complimentary in private about our lot, especially the prime minister, than we’d thought they were. Phrases like “unyielding but personally charming” and backhanded compliments such as “stubborn as a mule but rather cleverer” go down well with politicians because they like to read nice things about themselves, grudging respect from the enemy and all that. All of which adds to my suspicions that Gareth, knowing our susceptibilities, is reporting what he thinks we like to hear.’
‘Gareth rather than Timber Wolf?’
‘The phrasing is suspiciously familiar and colloquial. Stubborn as a mule, for example. I’m not sure in how many languages that phrase exists.’
‘Me neither but Timber Wolf is Dutch and many Dutch speak excellent English. Better than we do, often as not.’
‘True but there are plenty of other examples: phrases common in Whitehall – close of play, a.s.a.p., need to know, at the end of the day, including what you just said – often as not. There’s even a reference to PQs, parliamentary questions. At the very least, I think Gareth is putting words into Timber Wolf’s mouth. But I also suspect him of making some of it up. It’s all too convenient.’
Charles booked to travel out on Eurostar on the Sunday, calling in a favour with the ambassador to attend a briefing in the embassy as his ostensible reason for being in Brussels. The ambassador was one of few cleared to read Timber Wolf product and knew it as a case run from London by Gareth, though he did not know Timber Wolf’s identity.
‘Own name or alias?’ asked Jenny when making the booking.
‘Own name. No point in anything else.’ He had frequently operated under alias in the past but the Internet, social media and more sophisticated border checks had made it increasingly difficult to do so plausibly. There was still a security argument for chiefs of MI6 to use a travel alias and passport, in that a terrorist group that penetrated flight manifests might try to bring down a plane if they knew such a person was on it. But well-known ministers and officials daily used the Brussels Eurostar and Charles wanted his visit to appear as routine as possible.
