The Angel (12 page)

‘That’s—’

‘I know,’ Bloom interrupted. ‘It’s naïve and dangerous, but she can’t very well reverse course now.’

Pope squeezed his hands together in a gesture of discomfort. ‘I’ll be honest, sir. That makes me rather nervous.’

‘It should. What I am proposing is completely illegal, off the books and has severe consequences if it goes wrong.’

‘I’m going to speak frankly, sir.’

‘Please do,’ Bloom said with a chuckle. ‘It was quite something the last time.’

‘The meeting was clear. No one was in our corner. I’m a little confused.’

‘You don’t need to be. I’m on your side. I always have been.
I don’
t trust the police. I know it was their mistake that got Rubió killed. I agreed with everything you said at the meeting. It’s
outrageous
that you’ve been blamed.’

‘It might have been nice to hear that on the day, sir.’

‘Don’t be naïve,’ Bloom said with irritation. ‘This is a long game. Things have to be done delicately. Changing opinions can be difficult.’

‘I can see how someone trying to shoot up
PMQs
might have that effect.’

He smiled at that. ‘Between you and me, Control, the irony isn’t lost on us that the reason the home secretary wasn’t in the chamber for
PMQs
was because she was having her fun bollocking you.’

‘It wasn’t all bad, then.’

Bloom collected the iPad again and opened another file.

Pope recognised the man in the picture that he called up.

Alam Hussain.

Most people would have known who he was. He was burly, with a bald head and a long beard that reached down to his
sternum
. He wore a traditional dishdasha and an eyepatch over his right
eye. The man
had been a hate figure for the right-wing press for months. He was known as the Preacher of Hate and was said to rain down fire and brimstone on the West from the minbar of the Stockdale mosque that he controlled. Much of the media’s indignation stemmed from the fact that Hussain had been given asylum when he had fled
from Qatar,
yet now he railed against the very state that had taken him in. They fulminated that he was happy to take social security handouts and live in a house provided by the local council, yet still he called for the imposition of sharia law. Pope had always made a point of maintaining a strictly apolitical stance when it came to matters such as this. He and the Group had been sent against targets of all political persuasions, and keeping a neutral opinion made things easier.

Saying all that, Alam Hussain was a difficult man to like.

‘Seriously, sir? He’d do this?’

‘We have very strong intelligence that Hussain was responsible for radicalising the three bombers. We know, for example, that they all attended his mosque. We’ve had people inside it for weeks. He’s been calling for jihad, issuing fatwas against members of the government and military, and distributing propaganda for Da’eash. We need you to go and get him.’

‘Dead or alive?’

‘Alive. Most definitely alive. I realise that’s more difficult.’

‘A little. But not a problem.’

‘We don’t want a big team on this. We were thinking of three or four agents, but I do want you to be one of them. I know I needn’t tell you how delicate this is. I need your experience on the ground, not behind a desk. Everything else is completely up to you.’

‘Where do you want him delivered?’

‘Bit of a drive, I’m afraid. Need you to take him up to Wick. Our American friends have agreed to help us with the interrogation, and they’ve taken a bit of a liking to Scottish air. Nice and out of the way, minimal chance of anyone seeing them come in and out. They’re going to fly him out of the country. Somewhere with more relaxed rules on what can and can’t be done during interrogation – you know what I mean, Pope.’

‘I do,’ he said, not saying what he was thinking.

‘I knew you would.’

‘Equipment?’

‘It’ll be minimal, but enough.’

‘What else do we know about him?’

‘Everything you need. You’ll be provided with his address, antecedents and suchlike. Use the usual dead drop. He does have some rudimentary security that you’ll have to consider. There
have bee
n incidents with the right-wing headbangers up there. Threats and abuse. But it’s nothing too sophisticated, just the local police
keeping
an eye on him. Certainly nothing that will hold you up.’

Pope found he was tapping his fingers against the leather
upholstery
.

‘Well? What do you say?’ Bloom said.

‘Is this an order, sir? Are you ordering me to arrange this?’

‘No. Technically, you and the Group are still suspended.’

‘Will there be any backup?’

‘None, I’m afraid.’

‘And if it goes wrong?’

‘I’m sure it won’t.’

‘But if it did?’

‘Then you know how it has to be, Pope. I won’t be able to protect you. The story we’ll leak to the press writes itself. Your recent experience with the shooters will explain why you have reacted this way. You saw the explosion at first hand. It’s PTSD. A dreadful shame, but completely understandable in the circumstances. You’ll be
looking
at a good stretch of jail time, a little less if you can get a good brief who can make an argument about diminished
responsibility
.’

‘You make a very appealing offer, sir.’

‘Yes, well, there you are. Sorry about that. What do you say, Control? I need an answer this afternoon.’

Pope remembered the aftermath of the bombs with absolute clarity. He could still smell the burning flesh in his nostrils.

‘Of course, sir. I’ll start at once.’

Pope ran the rest of the way home, showered, shaved and dressed in a loose-fitting pair of trousers and a sweatshirt.

His wife, Rachel, had come home while he was showering. She was sitting on the sofa in the lounge with her legs curled up beneath her as she read a book.

‘How did it go?’

‘Good.’

‘How long?’

‘Four hours.’

‘Not bad.’

‘Not bad, but I can do better.’

‘First time, Michael. Baby steps. You’re old and fat now,
remember
.’

He was unable to keep the anxious smile from his face. She had known him long enough to know what it meant.

‘Work?’

‘Yes. I’m going to be away for a while.’

‘London?’

He nodded.

Rachel knew better than to press him any further than that. He wouldn’t have told her, and their married life had always been bracketed by the reality that there would be things that he couldn’t share. It had been the same when he had been in the Regiment, and she had learned to accept that he would frequently be out of the country. When he returned, he would often be unable to tell her where he had been. His transfer to Group Fifteen had simply exacerbated that. She didn’t ask any more.

‘When are you leaving?’

‘In an hour.’

‘What do you want me to tell the kids?’

Pope’s daughter had a football tournament at the weekend. He had promised that he would take her. That wouldn’t be possible any more. The children were out with their friends this afternoon.
He rea
lised that he wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye.

He sighed unhappily. He was committed to his work, but it put a heavy burden on his family life. He was lucky that Rachel was so understanding. ‘Can you apologise for me?’

‘Of course. How long will you be?’

‘I don’t know. A few days. I’ll call when I can.’

She came over and kissed him. ‘Be careful,’ she said. She said it every time he went away.

‘This isn’t anything special. I’ll be back soon. Nothing to w
orry abo
ut.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

I
sabella arrived at the little workshop at just after seven
in the morni
ng. The temperature was cool, and she had enjoyed
the sensati
on of the wind whipping around her body and through the visor of her open helmet as she made the ride south.

She put down the kickstand and got off the bike. She took the key, pulled up the door and looked inside. It was small – smaller than she remembered – and she had a moment of doubt that it might be a little too small for what she had in mind. But as she gauged the space again, she thought that it would just about suffice.

Isabella had visited the
samsar
two days previously and completed the formalities. She had taken the lease home with her the day before that, signing it in the name of Melody Atika and providing a photocopy of her fake passport. The lease had been notarised, and then had come the matter of the rent. Isabella had counted out the money into two piles and put enough for the year’s rent inside a manila envelope. She had put the remainder into a second envelope and taken it to the café where the
samsar
was waiting for her. She had given both envelopes to him. He had licked his thumb and made a show of counting it all out. She knew that the fee had been much more than he would normally have expected. She didn’t know whether he had bought the story about her mother or not. She was buying his discretion, and the fact that he had accepted it without comment suggested that he had received the message loud and clear.

The sun climbed into the sky and started to warm the chill from the air.

Isabella moved her bike out of the way and got ready. It was going to be a busy day.

The delivery lorry arrived at eight. The driver and his mate opened up the back and muscled the goods down to the ground.
Isabella
had purchased a series of lockers and safes on the Inter
net. Sh
e had paid extra for installation, and the two workmen hauled the heavy units into place. The units were prepared
for w
all
fixing
with pre-drilled holes in the base and fixing bolts that the men implanted into the concrete.

One of the benefits of the workshop was that it was angled so that it was not possible to see into it from the neighbouring units, even when the door was raised. Isabella had noticed this quality at once and, knowing that she was going to be undertaking a considerable amount of fitting out, was pleased that the work would not be immediately visible to prying eyes.

In order to be doubly cautious, she took up a position fifty yards along the road in order to head off anyone who might
otherwise
wander down to the unit. She had arranged for a locksmith to
visit, an
d she had intercepted him, confirming the work that he would do and directing him to the unit. The man removed the up-and-over door and replaced it with a sturdy new one that was fitted with a chunky lock.

It was midday by the time the work was complete. Isabella thanked the three men, tipped them well enough so that they would not gripe, but not so well that they would remember her, and then waited until they had driven away before she inspected her new premises.

She was pleased.

The lockers were constructed from 5 mm–thick fully welded steel and were secured by two high-security seven-lever key locks with full-length anti-jemmy returns. They would be very difficult to open without the key. There was plenty of space inside them for the equipment she needed to store. The new door was robust and didn’t rattle as its predecessor had done. She shut the door,
locked it
and then tried to force it. It was impossible. If someone wanted to get inside, they would need to fix a tow rope to the handle and use a vehicle to yank it off. The most likely threat to the unit was an opportunistic thief, and the door should be more than enough of a problem to act as a deterrent.

But still she was not done. The last visit of the day was an
engineer
from an alarm company. Isabella had purchased a system to protect the building. She told him what she had in mind, and he took a ladder from his van so that he could climb up and fix the cameras and the alarm. The equipment was top of the line. Apart from internal and external motion detectors, the alarm came with high-resolution day/night cameras that recorded the feed onto a 250 GB hard drive and broadcast it, in real time, to Isabella’s cell phone and tablet.

The man demonstrated what the system could do, showed her how to set a new code and left her alone.

By this time it was six in the evening, and the temperature was dropping again.

She set the alarm, locked the door and climbed back onto her bike. Then, pulling the helmet onto her head, she gunned the engine and headed for the road back into the city.

Chapter Twenty-Six

G
roup Fifteen was housed in an anonymous office on the banks of the Thames. The building was the putative headquarters of Global Logistics, an import/export company that did enough business to give the Group’s agents the scope to travel the world under the cover of their ‘employment’ with the Firm. Pope knew he couldn’t go there. He was, after all, supposed to be suspended. He couldn’t very well just waltz inside and plan
everything
from his desk. Bloom knew that, too, and he had planned alternative accommodation for him. Bloom had told him that all the information he would need would be left in the Epping Forest dead drop that Group Fifteen had often use
d before.

Pope drove north, left his own car in the long-term parking at Heathrow and picked up a hire car from Avis. He followed the clockwise M25, came off at exit 26 and took the A121 the rest of the way. The increased security was evident as he approached the capital. The news reported that nearly twenty thousand troops had been deployed around the country to ward against the follow-up attacks that the intelligence was suggesting were likely. Pope saw a troop transport rumble by, the olive-green lorry melting into the gloomy undergrowth that fringed the road. Five minutes later he heard and then saw a pair of Tornado GR5s curving through the air, much lower than would normally be allowed in civilian airspace, the unmistakeable sight of missiles loaded onto the underwing
hard poin
ts.

It felt as if the country was under siege.

The sky was darkening as he parked at the visitor centre near Chingford. He locked the car and followed the path into the trees. It was unusual to fall back on old-fashioned tradecraft. These days, information tended to be buried on little-known forums or as draft emails on shared Gmail or Hotmail accounts. The recipient
gathered
the information and then deleted the relevant message. Pope felt like an anachronism as he stalked through the thickening wood, remembering the wooden seat with the chalk mark on the slats that had indicated that there was something for him to
collect
.
The de
ad drop itself was an oak tree, particularly old, with a useful natural niche six feet above the mulch of the forest floor. He checked to ensure that he was not being watched and, satisfied that he was alone, reached up to the niche and jammed his fingers inside. It contained an envelope.

He took it back to the car and, under the illumination of the courtesy light, slit it open. A key for a Yale lock dropped into his hand, together with an address in Hackney, an eight-digit code and a USB stick.

Pope pressed the ignition, reversed out of the car park and followed the A104 south towards East London.

The safe house was on Valentine Road, between Homerton and Hackney. It was a terraced street with a pub to the west and a row of shops to the east. Pope drove past the address and then parked five minutes up the road. He walked back, taking a different route, and allowed himself to adjust to the location. He tuned in to the cadences and rhythms of the place. Valentine Road was busy with traffic, the houses a little more flyblown than those on the quieter streets that fed into it. It was close to a social housing block, and the shiftless youths who gathered around the off-licences and convenience stores regarded him with sour hostility as he made his way along the road past them.

He approached the house, climbed the steps from the street and put the key into the lock. He turned it, the door opened and he went inside. He closed the door and slid the anchor of the security chain into the receiver. He drew his pistol and stood in the dark for a minute, concentrating on acclimatising himself to his new surroundings. He heard the ticking of a pipe somewhere towards the rear of the property, a distant car alarm and a police siren.
Nothing
else. The place had the dusty smell of somewhere that had lain empty for a while. It felt like he was alone, but he wasn’t in the business of making assumptions. Assumptions got you killed. He had to be sure.

The house was set on three storeys. He moved to the stairs and descended, careful to put his weight on the outside of the treads so as to reduce the risk of noise from a squeaking board. The basement accommodated the kitchen, bathroom and one bedroom. He checked each room, opening the door and then going inside with his gun up and ready. The kitchen looked as if it had been recently installed, with stickers and labels fastened to the units and appliances. The fridge was stocked with milk and a supply of ready meals for the microwave. The bathroom was long and narrow, with a bath that had a shower attachment over the taps and a toilet that still had the label from the builders’ merchant affixed to the inside of the lid. The sash windows were all secured by sturdy locks, and the rear door that opened onto the back garden was locked and bolted.

Clear.

The ground floor had two reception rooms. He walked from one to the other through a set of open double doors, his weapon primed. The rooms were furnished with IKEA sofas, a low table and nothing else.

Clear.

The first floor had a further two bedrooms, one with an en suite, and another tiny bathroom had been crammed at the top of a steep staircase that led up into the roof space. The bedrooms had flat-pack beds and wardrobes.

Clear.

He opened the hatch to the loft and hauled himself up. There was a badly fitted hatch to the roof, and a breeze pushed through the gaps. He activated the torch on his phone, found a light switch and switched it on. He saw the large metal crate laid out across the unboarded joists. There was a digital lock on the crate, and when he tapped in the code that had been written on the envelope, he was rewarded with a glowing green light and the sound of a metallic click as the lock stems were withdrawn. He opened the crate. Inside was a small cache of arms: three Sig Sauer P226 pistols, together with silencers for each of them, and a dozen boxes of 9mm ammunition. A combat shotgun that had been fitted with an EOTech sight for day or night use, a fixed iron sight and a telescopic buttstock. Cartridges of solid shot and buckshot for the shotgun. Four H4855 Personal Role Radios and the UHF transmitter-receiver issued to the British Armed Forces, together with small notebooks that contained call signs and frequencies. There was also a pick gun. It was a breaching tool that could be used to force mechanical pin tumbler locks.

Not bad,
Pope thought.

He closed the crate, the lock automatically clicking back into place, and descended to the ground floor. The rear reception room was spacious enough for four or five people, and when the double doors that separated the large room into two halves were closed, it would be impossible to see in from the street. He opened his
bag and
took out the printouts he had made before he left the
Cotswolds
and th
e large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of
Manchester
that he had purchased. He had also bought a pack of Blu Tack and a
container
of drawing pins, and working quickly and efficiently, he stuck all of the material onto the walls, adjusting the order until it made sense to him. He spent an hour looking at it and making notes in a spiral-bound notebook that he would burn when he was finished. When he finally checked his watch, it was nine, and he
was hap
py that he had the basis of a workable plan.

He slipped on his coat, locked the front door behind him, jogged down the steps and set off for the car. The others were due to arrive at Kings Cross, Euston and Liverpool Street, over the course of the next two hours. He needed to pick them up.

There was a lot to do.