Agent of the State (8 page)

Today, as head of this surveillance operation, Kerr was convinced he had been right all along to argue that they should let Jibril run. Whatever the failures of command and control from the Yard, Langton’s surveillance on the ground had been textbook, and he intended to prove it.

As soon as Kerr received Alan Fargo’s message he called Weatherall’s private office to say he would be unavailable until ten o’clock. Stalling her gave him just under an hour to brief Langton and Melanie before racing back to the Yard. They gathered in Pepe’s Place, a greasy spoon in a side-street off Kennington Lane, one of their regular haunts.

Kerr had also called Justin Hine, his young technical guru, who drove up from Camberwell. Kerr needed Justin to analyse the data from Langton’s explosives sniffer and interpret the surveillance photographs to confirm there had never been any indication that Jibril was wearing a bomb belt or vest.

Fargo managed to escape from the ops room and arrived last, just as Kerr was telling them to turn off their radios and mobiles.

Kerr’s team was close, strong on friendship and easy on rank. They were part of a shrinking Special Branch core, experienced and tested, yet viewed with suspicion by the new SO15 imports from the boroughs, including Weatherall. Adrenaline was still flowing and, as Pepe brought over the bacon sandwiches and coffee, Melanie teased Langton, a human cannonball in his motorcycle leathers as he’d piled on top of Jibril. Langton, a divorced former sports teacher and motorcycle nut, reacted like she was paying him a compliment. ‘Yeah, and you couldn’t wait to jump me, could you?’

Fargo was always tucking his shirt back in his trousers, and did so now as he squeezed behind the table. He winked at Mel. ‘Welcome back,’ he mouthed, to let her know he had heard about her ordeal in Hackney. The team was close enough for no one to ask her about her kidnap and violent escape, knowing she would talk about it in her own good time. Fargo was forty-three but single, living with his ageing mother in a maisonette in Edgware. There was a rumour of a sister with Down’s syndrome, but Fargo never talked about her. He seesawed between starvation fish diets in 1830 and late-night fast-food binges, and this week he was overweight.

‘Time to go back on the sardines, Al,’ said Justin, half his age and skinny, patting Fargo’s stomach. But Fargo just signalled Pepe for another round.

When they were settled, Kerr told them to write down every single memory. The earlier the original notes from the field, the greater the credibility, so it was vital to make a record while memories were fresh. Trusting no one, Kerr concentrated solely on building a cast-iron cover over his team. In less than forty minutes they had emerged with a single coherent account, with times, places, people and events in the right order. When the mud-slinging started, he intended to ensure that his team was shielded by the facts, so he told Fargo to copy the ops-room log and his own notes made in the heat of battle and lock everything away in 1830. That was Kerr’s first duty, well above taking a bollocking from the commander.

As Kerr was leaving, Langton told him he’d better stick Weatherall’s diary down his trousers. That got everyone laughing, but they all wished him well, for John Kerr was their number-one guy, the leader who stayed on the plot, bought the grub and always took the hit for them.

Kerr arrived in Weatherall’s outer office at 10.06. The PA and front of house was Donna, an immaculately groomed Jamaican in her fifties. Known as ‘the weathervane’, because she signalled Weatherall’s mood, she gave Kerr a thumbs-down from twenty paces, as soon as he rounded the lift lobby, distracting him with her glittering fingernails.

Donna had been around the Met for a long time, watching bosses come and go through a decade of casual racism into the crazily PC nineties. ‘You look like you’ve already been in a fight,’ she murmured, taking in Kerr’s dishevelled appearance as he sailed through the office.

‘Thanks a lot.’ He entered without knocking or breaking step, then winked as he closed the door on her.

‘Morning, ma’am.’ Kerr knew Weatherall liked ‘ma’am’ to rhyme with ‘palm,’ but only ever managed a short
a
.

‘You’re late,’ she snapped, glancing with disapproval at Kerr’s stained jacket and tieless collar. He wondered if she knew about the siege in Hackney only a couple of hours earlier. The commander of SO15’s intelligence unit had the best office in the Yard, a corner plot on the eighteenth floor with panoramic views of St James’s Park and beyond. There were easy chairs and a long meeting table, but Weatherall saved these for her equals. To engage with the lower orders she remained behind her desk. Generations of Special Branch commanders had enjoyed the green-leather-inlaid oak desk once occupied by Viscount Trenchard, former Marshal of the RAF and Metropolitan Police Commissioner. But Trenchard’s pride and joy had been dismantled alongside the Branch, replaced with a utilitarian rectangle of ash laminate.

Kerr took the chair beside Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Ritchie, head of operations and his immediate boss. Ritchie was forty-eight, with a full head of dark hair and a paunch just about held in check. Few people knew about his brush with prostate cancer eighteen months before. He was still married to his first wife, a primary-school teacher, with two grown-up children. A career Special Branch officer, he had joined the Met straight from school and would reach thirty years’ pensionable service in a year. Ritchie had worked against every extremist group in the UK since the mid-eighties, eventually heading up the squads countering the IRA, domestic extremism and international terrorism. Everyone respected his impeccable operational record, and MI5 were always seeking his advice and judgement.

These days, as deputy to Weatherall, he looked distinguished in a dark, single-breasted suit, blue striped shirt and silk tie, but to Kerr he often appeared to be straining to get back on the plot. Since Weatherall’s arrival he frequently had to act as a buffer between her and the guys on the ground, and his discomfort showed.

‘How’s it going, Bill?’ said Kerr.

Ritchie’s sideways look suggested there had already been complaints. ‘You tell me,’ he murmured.

Weatherall always tasked Donna to provide a litre bottle of water as soon as she arrived in the morning, and another after lunch. She was pouring from it now, and Kerr noticed it was already a third empty. Weatherall’s TV, balanced awkwardly on the air-conditioning vent beside her desk, was switched to BBC24, with breaking news of Jibril’s arrest.

‘Give me one reason why I shouldn’t suspend you right now,’ said Weatherall, without preamble. ‘Your officers were totally unprofessional. Again.’

Kerr shot a glance at Ritchie, who appeared to be weighing his options. ‘But the Trojans were going to shoot him.’

‘To incapacitate him.’

‘They had a gun to his head, for Christ’s sake.’

Weatherall took a sip of water. ‘To arrest a terrorist suspect they believed could be armed and dangerous. My order was perfectly clear.’

‘Your order was clearly ambiguous. You ordered them not to let him get to the Tube.’ He felt Ritchie’s shoe nudge his leg under the table, but he was on a roll. ‘We have your actual words,’ said Kerr, reading Alan Fargo’s scribbled note. ‘You said, “Don’t let him get to the Underground.” What does that mean?’

‘I’m not going to argue with you.’ Weatherall was speaking to Kerr, but aimed the glare at Ritchie. She held up a printed email, as if the irrefutable proof lay in her hand. ‘I’ve had the initial readout from the firearms team leader and it’s quite clear your pair of mavericks compromised an armed operation.’

‘Well, he’s talking bollocks. Jack Langton and Melanie Fleming saved that man’s life.’ Kerr held out his hand. ‘Can I see it? Please?’

Weatherall returned the email to its folder.

‘Bill, for Christ’s sake,’ said Kerr, turning to Ritchie, ‘I was there. We told her Jibril was unarmed. He wasn’t carrying any device, posed no threat to life.’

‘He wasn’t on any agreed target list, either,’ said Ritchie quietly, ‘so I’ll be asking why you deployed surveillance without authority.’

Kerr exhaled. ‘Look, Joe Allenby gave him to us a few hours before Jibril boarded the plane for London. We’re talking the head of station in Yemen here, Bill. A respected player. In one of the world’s most volatile countries.’

‘So why did he send only you the tip-off? We select targets through the joint tasking group. With MI5, right here in the UK, not on the say-so of your mate on the other side of the world. That’s what we’re all signed up to. So why did Allenby throw away the rule book?’

Kerr had been asking himself the same thing, but kept his misgivings to himself. ‘It was a Sunday afternoon,’ he shrugged, ‘no one about in London, and no time to push this up through the Vauxhall Cross duty officer.’

‘So no agreement from MI5 either,’ interjected Weatherall, ‘who have the lead, in case you’ve forgotten.’

This was indisputable. As the Security Service, MI5 was responsible for protecting the UK against threats to national security, with the Yard its major partner. Every second Tuesday in the month, they would meet Kerr, Langton and Dodge to prioritise security targets. If the two sides disagreed over what they called their ‘subjects of highest value’, the MI5 lead trumped police partnership every time. Dodge’s agent runners and Langton’s watchers, the people who actually worked the streets, might rail against civil servants who rarely left the office, but MI5’s primacy was the working reality.

Kerr held up his hands. ‘All right. I apologise for breaching the memorandum of bloody understanding, or whatever we call it these days, but we have to trust the man on the ground. Joe Allenby did the right thing to tip us off about Jibril and we proved he was clean. No doubt about it. It was a regular surveillance and people overreacted, simple as that. You gave the Trojans a green light to kill Jibril because you half thought he was a suicide bomber. Jack and I wanted to let him run because we knew he wasn’t. Now we’ll never find what he might have taken us to.’

‘And right now you need to back off again,’ interrupted Ritchie, as Weatherall shifted in her seat.

‘Like I should have done when I took out the guy on the Tube who might have led us to the 7/7 bombers? Go on, say it.’

‘We don’t need to go there.’

‘Yes, we do. Fair play, Bill. Tragic things can happen when you intervene too aggressively. No one knows that better than I do.’ He looked directly at Weatherall. ‘That was my fault, but at least I’ve learnt from it.’

Kerr heard Ritchie clear his throat, as if he was gearing up to take charge. It gave him a pang of hope. With Ritchie at the helm things tended to work out all right.

‘Ma’am, let me propose a way forward,’ said Ritchie. ‘These are experienced officers of integrity and talent. The last security assessment estimated five Al Qaeda cells in and around London. The number of active targets has rarely been higher and we suspect at least one bomb factory ready to blow.’ He held up his hands, as if conceding a point. ‘And, yes, I accept John may have made an error of judgement.’

Kerr stayed silent. He knew Ritchie was playing politics. But if a slice of criticism was enough to keep Weatherall off their backs, then Kerr was big enough to take the hit.

‘In total breach of our partnership with MI5.’ Weatherall glared.

‘But in good faith,’ said Ritchie. ‘I’m simply advising that suspension now will destroy the morale of the surveillance officers we ask to do this dangerous work for us.’

Kerr smiled to himself. Ritchie had worked counter-terrorism operations for ever. It was the best guidance Weatherall would get.

‘I don’t remember asking for your advice.’

‘It’s my duty as head of operations to give it. I’m simply advising that you act with care. I need to study the Trojans’ report and establish a clear timeline from our own officers.’

‘You can have it right now,’ said Kerr.

‘We can rely on the Independent Police Complaints Commission to do that,’ Weatherall said.

‘And that’s my point,’ said Ritchie. ‘The IPCC are going to be all over us like a rash. We need a clear audit trail,’ he said, nodding at the folder, ‘and that email is exhibit one. I need to understand exactly what happened. This was a disrupted armed operation. Officers from different units fighting each other in the middle of the rush hour. Christ, it’s probably already on YouTube. The IPCC will look at the whole decision-making process, top down, so we need to get this right.’

‘And you need to realise we’re not dealing with the IRA here,’ Weatherall snapped, as the phone buzzed. ‘Everyone knows we face an unprecedented threat.’ She answered the phone and covered the mouthpiece. ‘Times have changed, and you people don’t seem to have noticed.’

They had heard it all before. Weatherall belonged to the new breed of police bosses for whom page one in the Textbook on Terror was Al Qaeda, and 9/11 happened in Year Zero. To the generation with clear eyes and clean hands, Ritchie was a remnant of the old school.

‘Thanks, Bill,’ murmured Kerr, while Weatherall was distracted.

‘Do yourself a favour and button it.’

The two men went back a long way. Two decades ago Ritchie had been Kerr’s boss when he was deployed on a secret, long-term infiltration assignment. Ritchie’s official title was ‘cover officer’, and it meant he protected every aspect of Kerr’s parallel lives as Special Branch officer and political extremist. In a way Ritchie, too, had led a double life. At debriefing sessions in safe-houses around London he was the friend who reassured and the chief who gave out the orders. Kerr would sometimes badmouth him as one part counsellor, three parts dictator, which suited Ritchie fine. From those hard-edged years had emerged a habit of plain speaking between them that transcended rank. These days it often troubled Kerr to see Ritchie morph from an effective operator into a politician; sometimes he had accused him of selling out, of receding into the pensioner’s twilight zone. The two men would inevitably clash again, but this morning Kerr felt grateful to his mentor.