Authors: Stella Rimington
Liz smiled. ‘Did the three of you stay together all the time you were at Gleneagles?’ she asked Naomi.
Naomi thought for a moment. ‘Not the whole time,’ she said finally. ‘Danny went off on his own to do things a couple of times.’
‘Do you know what things?’
‘No. And I didn’t think it was my business to ask. Once he said he was going for a walk. The other time he just wasn’t there.’ She was thinking hard and Liz waited. Suddenly Naomi raised a hand, as if to ward off anything that might upset her train of thought. ‘There was something odd about the second time. It was before we had dinner -we ate in the hotel on the second night. The first night I cooked in the house that we stayed in. Anyway, Danny was late coming back that second night, and I was worried about our table booking in the restaurant - I didn’t want to lose it. Oskar and I set off for the hotel and I guessed we’d run into Danny on our way there. And sure enough we did. He was walking towards us along the road - it was quite dark - but as he got near I saw him combing his hair, which was odd because he’s not the kind of man you see doing that in public. When we all got into the hotel, where it was bright, I could see that his hair was wet. Almost as if he’d had a shower - only he couldn’t have, because he hadn’t come back to the house.’
‘Had it been raining?’
‘No. The weather had been quite bright.’
‘Is there a swimming pool there? He might have gone for a dip.’
‘That’s what I thought at first, but he didn’t have swimming trunks or a towel or a bag or anything like that. He was just in his ordinary clothes.’
There was silence in the room. All three of them seemed to be thinking of the implications of what Naomi had seen.
Eventually Liz said, ‘Thank you very much,’ though she couldn’t have said exactly what she was thanking her for. At least now she knew what she was going to do next.
FORTY-NINE
Liz was dead tired by the time she and Peggy got into the car that was to take them across the Thames to the Battersea Heliport. It was after nine o’clock in the evening and she had spent the time since she got back to her office from the Israeli Embassy in a stream of telephone calls and meetings. But as she slumped into her seat in the car for the short journey, she had the comfort of knowing that an international operation was in place to thwart whatever plans Kollek had made to damage the conference.
She had started with DG, who had agreed without hesitation that as Liz had seen Kollek, and was best placed to describe him and identify him should he be sighted, she should go up to Gleneagles, taking Peggy with her as backup. In the absence of Charles, an emergency team had been put together to man the Thames House end of things, under the command of Michael Binding, the director of counter terrorism. Not a good choice from Liz’s point of view; she regarded Binding as a pompous chauvinist, though she could hardly tell DG that.
During the afternoon, Binding had assembled his small team and they’d all been briefed by Liz. DG had himself spoken to the Head of Mossad in Tel Aviv to get his support. Geoffrey Fane had called Tyrus Oakes, now back at Langley, and had got his agreement to have the Americans represented in the team by a senior FBI officer from the embassy. ‘You can keep Andy out of it, with my blessing,’ he’d said. The security teams up at Gleneagles were contacted and alerted to the risk of a threat from a rogue Mossad officer. A4’s photographs of Kollek in the stands at the Oval were sent up, together with some posed official pictures from his file at the Israeli Embassy, which Ari Block produced. By the time Liz and Peggy had rushed home to collect enough clothes for a few days away, the ground was laid to defeat Kollek’s plans.
But what those plans were, no one knew. As she climbed into the military helicopter, its rotors already roaring and vibrating, Liz had the uncomfortable feeling that, with all the backup in the world, it was still going to be up to her to out-think Kollek. She was glad she had Peggy to help her.
As the helicopter circled over the dark grounds of Gleneagles, lit only by the lines of lamps along the drives and paths, a dazzling square of light suddenly appeared below. The helicopter gently dropped and placed itself neatly in the centre of the landing ground, which was almost half a mile from the hotel on the edge of what looked to be a golf course.
Liz climbed stiffly out into the wind of the rotor blades, reflecting that whatever this hotel was normally like, it was now effectively an armed camp. A policeman cradling a Heckler & Koch rifle stepped forward out of the darkness and shepherded Liz and Peggy out of the helicopter’s downdraught as it rose up in the air again and turned to fly off to the south.
In a small wooden hut, set up on what looked like a croquet lawn, Liz and Peggy’s documents were examined by a female police officer who offered a car to take them to the timeshare houses where they were staying. ‘I think we’ll walk,’ said Liz, glad to be breathing fresh air again.
‘As you like,’ said the police officer. ‘I’ll let the armed teams know you’re coming, but keep to the paths where the lights are on. Everyone’s on alert here; we don’t want you getting shot by accident.’
As opposed to on purpose, thought Liz wryly as she and Peggy set off. They had left a London that was warm, a late Indian summer. But now, in this Scottish evening, there was a crispness in the air that made them both shiver a bit as they walked. The faint smoky aroma of burning leaves in the air added to the autumnal feel.
They passed the hotel, and then went out of its back gate, across a small road and into a development of modern stone houses surrounded by tall firs - timeshares during normal periods. They’d managed to acquire the last two remaining bedrooms in one of the houses commandeered by the MI5 protective security contingent.
The houses all looked the same, which was confusing at first, but thankfully Peggy with her usual thoroughness had printed a map off the hotel website. Liz waited on a small stone bridge across a little stream, breathing in the pine-scented air, while her younger colleague went off to check the door numbers and find their house. Peggy waved and Liz went to join her. They rang the bell. Nothing happened. They rang again and eventually the front door was opened by a man wearing a towel around his waist (and nothing else), his hair a soaking black mop.
Liz burst out laughing. ‘Hello, Dave.’
Dave Armstrong had worked closely with Liz in the past when both were based in counter terrorism. They had become good friends; for a brief time, they might have become more. But since Liz’s move to counter espionage, they had rather lost touch.
Now Dave did a double take. ‘Liz! What on earth are you doing here? They said to expect two more, but they didn’t say who. And you’ve brought your secret weapon as well, I see,’ he added with a friendly nod at Peggy.
‘We weren’t expecting you, either.’
‘Binding,’ he said crossly, referring to Liz’s bête noire, and seemingly now Dave’s too. ‘He’s seconded me to protective security during the conference. Come on in, and I’ll show you your quarters.’
There was a bedroom each for Peggy and Liz on the ground floor. Liz deposited her bag and freshened up, then went upstairs, where Dave, now dressed, was making coffee.
‘How very comfortable,’ said Liz, joining Dave in the kitchen. ‘Pity we’re not here for a holiday.’
‘I’m sure it fetches a pound or two,’ said Dave, ‘when it’s not being requisitioned by HMG. You get great views of the mountains through these windows in daylight. The Israelis are in the ones down this row.’ He pointed towards their neighbours. ‘The rest have been allocated to assorted anti terrorist officers, and the bigwigs from the military.’
Peggy came up the stairs, and they all sat down at the dining table with their mugs of coffee. Dave said, ‘You two have certainly put the cat among the pigeons up here. We got the briefing paper and the photographs this afternoon. The old chief constable, who’s supposed to be in charge up here, was already in a muck sweat, but now he’s absolutely shitting himself.’
‘Oh God. Is he going to be a nuisance?’ asked Liz.
Dave shrugged. ‘I’ll be interested in what you think. He’s scared of the Americans, doesn’t like the English, and acts as if women should never have been allowed the vote. Other than that, he’s fine.’
‘You mean he’s perfectly awful,’ said Peggy.
Dave grinned - he’d known Peggy since she had first been seconded from MI6, fresh-faced, innocent and very literal-minded. He seemed pleased she hadn’t entirely lost these qualities. ‘Don’t worry. Nothing your boss here can’t handle. I can guarantee that her well known charm will wear him down,’
‘Do shut up, Dave,’ said Liz.
‘I take it the Israelis know their colleague’s gone bad?’ asked Dave. ‘So if this guy Kollek does show up, presumably they’ll pinch the bugger.’
‘Yes. They know now.’ Between Liz’s visit to Ari Block, DG’s conversation with Tel Aviv and the telexes Teitelbaum had promised Miles he’d send, there couldn’t be any doubt among the Israeli delegation that Kollek had gone AWOL.
‘What about the military and the foreign office and all the other security folk here?’
‘Our beloved Binding is masterminding all the coordination from London, but in the morning Peggy and I will go round and make sure everyone’s got the right information and knows what they’re looking for. In so far as any of us does,’ she added ruefully. ‘I’m going to bed now. It’s been a long day - and it’ll probably be a longer one tomorrow.’
The chief constable in overall charge of security for the conference was a tall, gaunt man in his fifties wearing a uniform decorated with copious quantities of silver piping and braid. He sat at a large table in a makeshift command post that had been set up in the ballroom of the hotel, reading a document from a pile of papers. Behind him sat rows of police officers, some in uniform, some in mufti.
Liz recognised the man as Jamieson, from the Cabinet Office meeting, an occasion that now seemed months rather than weeks ago. She knew DG had rung to alert him to her arrival, and to tell him that she would brief him in detail on the threat from Kollek, so she was surprised at his manner when she introduced herself, even though Dave had warned her.
Jamieson hardly looked up from his papers, saying, ‘Just give me a moment, please.’
Irritated, Liz surveyed her surroundings, while Jamieson continued reading. The ballroom floor had been covered by temporary planking and on it, dotted around the room, were a number of circular tables, which looked as though they normally saw service in a dining room. Each table bore the initials of a different part of the security operation protecting the conference - local police, the Metropolitan police anti terrorist command, MI5, military intelligence. Each group had its own table, computers, telephones, communications equipment, and at each table casually dressed men and women sat tapping at keyboards, talking on phones and drinking coffee. And these were just the UK elements. The FBI and the Secret Service were in the room as well, but separated from the UK contingent by a low screen. Liz noted that the Secret Service had managed to commandeer twice as much space as anyone else. She looked round for the Arab and Israeli teams, but they must have been put in some other command post of their own. This looked like a coordination nightmare; she hoped Chief Constable Jamieson was up to the task.
As he showed no sign of finishing reading, Liz drifted over to the MI5 table where Dave Armstrong was in charge of a small team. ‘First round to the chief constable,’ Dave remarked as he offered her his chair. She ignored him and walked round the table to see what was up on the screens. She talked to a junior colleague for a few minutes, then an emissary from Jamieson came to say that the chief constable would see her now. ‘Kill him, Liz,’ said Dave in a breathy whisper, as she walked back with the policeman, her footsteps echoing loudly on the planking.
Brushing an impatient hand across his greying moustache, Jamieson said, ‘Yes, Miss Carling, what can I do for you?’
‘It’s Carlyle actually, and we’ve met before, chief constable, at the planning meeting at the Cabinet Office.’
He sniffed, but said nothing in reply. Liz wondered how much more of this she was going to take. Not a lot, she decided. She said, ‘I believe my director general has been in touch about a new threat that is particularly concerning us.’
‘Yes, he rang me last night,’ Jamieson said grudgingly. ‘You’ll appreciate we have a lot of potential threats right now, Miss Carlyle. What I suggest is that you talk to my deputy, Hamish Alexander, who will produce a risk assessment for me.’ He gestured to the tables behind his back. ‘We’ll consider it with all the others at our planning meeting this evening.’
‘We may not have until the end of the day. This requires your urgent attention.’
Jamieson shook his head wearily, as if he had heard this all too often in the last few days. ‘Young lady, I have to prioritise.’
The ‘young lady’ did it for Liz. ‘Has Sir Nicholas Pomfret arrived yet?’
‘Yes,’ he said, looking directly at Liz for the first time.
‘Why?’
Liz sighed. She’d had this kind of conversation before. On the last occasion it had been with Michael Binding of Thames House. Life might have changed unrecognisably for a professional woman in the past thirty years, but you still met the occasional dinosaur. She said mildly, ‘I ask because either you and I can discuss this now and agree what to do, or I’ll telephone the director general at Thames House, who will then call Sir Nicholas, who will then have a word with you. I’m happy to take that route if you prefer, though I’m sure everyone else involved will think it’s a waste of their time.’
‘Are you trying to push me around, young lady?’ he demanded.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it; I’m merely asking for cooperation. And I’d appreciate it if you could not call me “young lady”. I’m old enough
not
to be your daughter.’
For a moment, Liz thought Jamieson was about to explode, but then some seed of sense must have planted itself. He seemed to think again, and quickly altered his demeanour. ‘Sorry if I was short. It’s just I seem to have the secret services of God knows how many countries trying to tell me what to do. And half of them barely speak English.’