Ultimatum, page 13
Tannaz laughed and ran the fingers of both hands through her silky black hair.
‘Depends which ones you go to,’ she replied. ‘They can be a lot of fun, yes, sure. Maybe I’ll invite you next time you’re over.’
Luke sat back, feigning surprise. ‘Next time? I haven’t been to Iran once yet!’ That, at least, was true.
‘Oh, my God, you’re shitting me!’ It was the first time he had heard her swear. He noticed her second glass of wine was nearly empty. ‘Well, you should come,’ she gushed. ‘You’d be amazed. People think Iran’s all black cloaks and ayatollahs but that’s just the way the media here portrays us. You know we have a history going back three thousand years?’
‘But not a lot of freedom, these days,’ he ventured.
There. Strike one. If recruiting Tannaz as an agent for MI6 was like climbing the north face of the Eiger, then Luke had just swung his pick into the ice wall on the lowest slopes. She laughed again and drained her glass. Damn, this girl could drink.
‘No, you’re right there,’ she said, ‘but it helps to have connections.’
‘In what way?’ He knew exactly what she meant. That was why he was there.
‘My father …’ Tannaz hesitated. ‘I shouldn’t really be telling you this but, have you heard of something called the IRGC? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps?’
‘Um, no,’ he lied. ‘What’s that?’
‘Never mind. He works for them. Believe me, you really don’t want to cross them.’
‘Wow. I’ll remember that,’ said Luke. He reached out his arm and gently stroked the back of her hand. ‘It must be hard being you, Tannaz. I mean, d’you ever feel conflicted? Like, your dad works for this hardcore IRGC thing and you seem to enjoy the freedom you get here in the West. How do you reconcile the two?’ Too much? Too fast? He would know soon enough.
But Tannaz wasn’t really listening. She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and shifted closer to him, resting her perfect face on her palm. The drinks were kicking in now and he could tell she was done with this conversation. Her lips were pouting at him, her right hand was resting on his inner thigh, and her left was reaching round the back of his neck, pulling him towards her. She brushed her lips against his, then moved them across his cheek to whisper into his ear, ‘I’m staying close by, in Cadogan Gardens. Mama’s out until late with friends. Why don’t you come and join me for a nightcap?’
Shit. This was one situation they definitely hadn’t trained him for. Her hand was still resting on his thigh and her invitation hung in the air. Hesitate any longer and he’d lose the chance to make a pitch. And then he felt it, the familiar silent buzz of his mobile going off in his jacket pocket. That must be the Service, listening from two tables away to what was about to go down and springing to his rescue. Thanks, guys, appreciate it. Gently, he extricated himself from Tannaz’s embrace and twisted round as he looked to see who was calling.
Oh, Jesus, it was Elise and she was Facetiming him in-vision. He pressed cancel, stood up and, mouthing an apology to Tannaz, moved out of earshot before ringing Elise back.
‘’Lise! Everything okay?’
‘No, it bloody isn’t. Mum’s had the test back … It’s confirmed. She … she’s got liver cancer. Luke, I need you back here right now.’
Chapter 32
Shahid Beheshti airbase, Iran
IN A SECURE and secluded corner of the airbase, set far apart from the aircraft hangars, the runways and the administration blocks, a rather specialized training area was surrounded by signs that read ‘Vared Nostavid. Keep Out.’
There were three. Each was dressed in a Western suit and each was bound upright to a wooden post with cords of thick twine, tied over and over. Escape was never going to be an option for the men, arrested for subversion weeks ago on this very base, then tried, found guilty and handed the ultimate sentence. Over their heads were draped black hoods, of the sort worn by an executioner. Except these men were not the executioners: they were the condemned. Behind them stood a crude, life-size dummy, a shop-window mannequin of a man in a coat with glasses and a hat, a caricature of an old-fashioned European spy.
Karim Zamani stood some distance off, gathered with a small group of officers on a raised observation platform. He raised his right hand and paused, holding it still, then suddenly dropped it in an emphatic, chopping motion. From behind an anonymous-looking concrete building came the sound of a whistle. Seconds later there was the roar of an engine, the screech of brakes, and half a dozen black-clad figures emerged. Each wore a headband and carried a pistol. Chanting in unison, they moved quickly past the observation stand and stopped just short of the bound prisoners.
On a given command they took aim and fired, just once. So tightly were the condemned men bound to the stakes that when the bullets slammed into them, their bodies jolted briefly but stayed upright. Only their heads had moved, lolling lifelessly forward onto their chests. Two of the gunmen were already moving forward, checking pulses – they wanted no survivors – while another pair made a dash for the mannequin in the coat and glasses. In a single movement one looped a gag over its mouth and covered its head with a hood as the other grasped the figure under the armpits and dragged it backwards towards a waiting 4x4. Twenty-two seconds later, the mannequin had been loaded aboard and the vehicle departed at speed with another screech of tyres.
There was a quiet ripple of applause from the officers observing. Karim Zamani nodded in approval. ‘An excellent rehearsal,’ he remarked, to no one in particular.
Chapter 33
Battersea, London
IF THERE WAS one thing Luke hated more than anything else, it was being faced with a problem he couldn’t solve. For years he had been trained to confront near-impossible situations and seek out unusual solutions. But this thing was bigger than Elise and him, and he hated that.
‘Did they say …?’ He looked at her, sitting on the sofa in their Battersea flat, her eyes filled with tears. He hoped she didn’t need him to finish that awful sentence.
‘How long she’s got?’ She finished the question off for him. ‘Yes, they did. Three or four months at most. It’s a tumour, Luke. A fucking tumour!’ Elise never swore but now her shoulders were quivering uncontrollably as he held her tight in his arms. He loved her, and he couldn’t bear to see her like this. ‘They say it must have been growing for the last six months,’ she sobbed into his shoulder.
‘Well, can’t they cut it out?’ The direct, military approach.
‘Apparently it’s got too big …’ She shook her head.
‘Cancer’s a bastard,’ he said. Hardly a consoling phrase but he couldn’t think of what else to say. Losing his own parents, both of them, in a car crash in Colombia when he was just a boy had, he knew, hardened him, sometimes in ways he didn’t like. Now everything in Luke’s psyche made him want to find a practical solution: a treatment, a cure, a course of action, something, anything. But with all that clearly beyond his reach he was struggling to find the right words to comfort Elise. And what could you say to someone who’s just been told they’re going to lose their mother in the next few months? It certainly pushed the Iran operation to the back of his mind, made it seem almost irrelevant. Almost.
‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do right now,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I’m going to make you a cup of camomile tea, then we’re going to snuggle up under that rug over there and we’re going to watch something on Netflix that might help take our minds off things. Fancy an episode of Peepshow? A bit of Mitchell and Webb?’
‘Thanks, babes.’ She spoke in little more than a whisper but when she took his hand she held it with a strength that surprised him. ‘No more travelling now, Luke, please. Not until this is over.’
Chapter 34
Vauxhall Cross
‘DON’T. JUST DON’T, all right?’ Luke walked into the windowless room on the ground floor of MI6 headquarters with a coffee cup in one hand, the other shielding his face in mock embarrassment. After all the sadness and emotion of the previous evening he felt strangely relieved to be back at work.
‘Nice going,’ said Trish Fryer, Middle East Controller, patting him lightly on the shoulder.
‘Good job,’ said someone from Targeting.
‘You are da man!’ said Graham Leach.
Luke stopped dead in his tracks and looked at him. Had Leach really just said that? Please, for the love of God, never, ever, use that expression again. Angela caught the look on Luke’s face and shook her head in sympathy.
Over by the far wall someone from Tech was sorting out the audio-visuals, making sure the recording from last night’s concealed chest-mic was fully synced up with the footage from the handbag camera the watchers had placed on their table. Leach was in an ebullient mood.
‘We could always,’ he said, with a smirk, ‘just fast-forward straight to the bit at the end. That chest-mic is ace, you know, it picks up every little whisper.’
‘Yeah, all right, all right,’ said Luke. This was more like the sort of locker-room banter he’d been subjected to back at SBS headquarters in Poole. He didn’t expect it up here in the rarefied atmosphere of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. He also didn’t feel like sharing the news of Elise’s mother’s diagnosis with anyone here. ‘I take it you’ve already listened to the tape?’ he asked them.
‘Only the highlights, so to speak,’ said Leach, still smirking.
‘Look,’ interrupted Angela, ‘I hate to break up this boys’ chit-chat but we’re about to initiate a highly sensitive operation here. It’s quite possible that in a matter of days Luke will be inserting himself into an extremely dangerous environment. Can we have a little focus, please?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Leach, serious now. ‘It looks like Tech have got the audio synced. Let’s take a seat and have a listen.’ The screen on the wall showed a paused image of Tannaz taking a sip of her wine and giving Luke a coy look over the rim of her glass, her dark eyes sparkling. ‘Trish? Your thoughts?’
‘She’s legit. I’d stake my pension on it.’
‘Luke? You still have misgivings?’
Well, yes. I’m getting serious come-on vibes from this girl but, guys, if you don’t mind, I’m in love with Elise. It was probably time to say something. ‘You do know I’m pretty serious about Elise?’ They all looked at him, waiting for the rest of the sentence. ‘I mean, you’ve met her, right? Well, you have, Angela. So … I just need to get this out there, that I’m not some kind of James Bond gigolo who goes crash-banging and shagging his way around the world. I’m in it for the long haul with Elise. So I’m, er, sorry if that upsets your plans.’ There. Cards on the table. And not before time – he wanted to make it clear to these people that he wasn’t some kind of cock-for-hire.
Leach was already on his feet. Still grinning from ear to ear, he strolled round to refill Luke’s coffee cup. ‘Luke, Luke, Luke,’ he soothed. ‘There is a difference between charm and sleaze.’ He was pacing the room now, one of the smallest in the building, and he could take only three steps before he had to walk back to where he’d started. ‘But the point is this. Tannaz Zamani is the daughter of Karim Zamani, codename Echo Sierra. He’s one of the most elusive, fanatical and therefore most dangerous of all the senior players in the IRGC. We need to get inside his head and we haven’t a lot of time. The way things are going in the Gulf right now we could be looking at war within weeks. Personally, I don’t believe this visit by the Foreign Secretary is going to make a damned bit of difference. So, the bottom line, Luke, is we need Tannaz Zamani brought over to our side fast and passing on to us whatever her father is up to. Do you think you can do it?’
Luke took a deep breath. All eyes were on him now. As a captain in the Royal Marines, and later in the SBS, he had been used to saying, ‘Yes, can do, we’ll make it work.’ But this felt different. There was a heap of extra baggage attached to it. ‘I’ll give it a go, yes,’ he replied at last.
‘No, Luke, I’m afraid we need more than that.’ The banter was gone now. An invisible tension had seeped into that cramped ground-floor meeting room. ‘I’m going to ask you again,’ said Leach. ‘Can you do it? Can you recruit this target for us? If we give you all the back-up you need?’
This time Luke didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes,’ he said flatly.
‘Good,’ replied Leach, and there was almost palpable relief in the room, ‘because if you’d said no, I’m hard pushed to think of anyone else who could stir up that kind of chemistry. You’re a natural at this.’
Christ, don’t make me change my mind, thought Luke.
‘So,’ concluded Leach, rubbing his hands together, ‘this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to get you into Iran – as Brendan Hall, obviously. Agent Cover will be going over your legend to make absolutely dead sure every single aspect holds water. And I mean everything: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the lot. There’ll be someone ready to answer the phone every hour of every working day at your art dealership. You’ve even written a couple of articles for trade journals. With me so far?’
Luke nodded, saying nothing.
‘Oh, and talking of phones,’ Leach continued, ‘Angela, can we make sure he gets one of those new waterproof ones? We can’t have a repeat of what happened in Armenia.’ Angela jotted a note as Leach resumed: ‘Then you’re going to make contact with Tannaz,’ he said, ‘work on her, and when you judge the moment is right, you make your pitch, establish a secure means of comms and get yourself out. Are we clear?’
‘We’re clear,’ Luke said.
‘Good. And from now on we don’t refer to her as Tannaz. We use her designated codename, Elixir.’
‘Got it.’
Chapter 35
Cambridgeshire, England
THERE WERE RELATIVELY few passengers on the 08.11 the following morning, as it headed north out of London’s King’s Cross station. And fewer still took any notice when exactly forty-three minutes later the train pulled into Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire and a middle-aged man in a beige cashmere coat stepped off. He was flanked by a thin woman with short, spiky hair and an eager-looking young man in a pinstripe suit. From the platform they passed quickly through the station and out into the car park where a dark blue BMW G30 5-series was waiting for them, engine running, beside a Military Police Land Rover. The trio from London climbed into the saloon car and the two-vehicle convoy moved off immediately, driving through the quiet country lanes of the Fens.
A short while later it arrived at the wire-mesh perimeter of a large military base, where the entrance was guarded by a red-brick sentry house and a steel barrier. A 1950s-era Canberra bomber, still in its camouflage livery, was mounted in permanent display on a grassy bank nearby. A large sign in front of it read simply: ‘RAF Wyton’.
As the convoy slowed to a halt, a guard emerged. Despite the cold, she wore her shirtsleeves rolled up, exposing vast tattooed forearms. She peered in through the passenger window of the BMW. On seeing who was inside she checked a list on a clipboard she held, then straightened up, stood to attention, and signalled for the barrier to be raised, the convoy waved through.
Inside the base the convoy continued straight ahead, then turned left, parking outside a vast, futuristic structure that resembled an international space station. The elegant curves of its white roof sloped to manicured lawns where a row of flags led up to the entrance hall. US, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand: the flags of the Five Eyes nations, with perhaps the closest intelligence-sharing partnership in the world.
This was the Pathfinder Building. Named after the RAF’s Pathfinder unit in the Second World War, it had in recent years become the very nerve centre of UK Defence Intelligence. The visitors from London stepped out of their vehicle and were escorted into the cavernous lobby. A reception committee was lined up to greet them: a senior officer from each of the three services, Army, Navy and Air Force, all in uniform, with a cluster of suited civil servants from GCHQ, MI6 and the Defence Intelligence Service. They were all wearing their personal ID cards suspended from a coloured lanyard that hung around their necks, denoting authorized access to the secure area. A Royal Navy commodore stepped forward to welcome them.
‘Foreign Secretary … welcome to Joint Forces Intelligence Group. On behalf of everyone here, welcome to the Fusion Centre. We’ll just get your passes organized and we can go through when you’re ready.’
The briefing lasted three and a half hours, with a short ‘comfort break’ in the middle. There was satellite imagery from the Image Intelligence – the IMINT – team, photographic reconnaissance, and strategic threat assessments. There were close-ups and biographies of all the most senior officers in Iran’s air, sea and land forces, its specialized ballistic-missile force, its submarine force and the key players in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ ever-growing flotilla of small, below-the-radar missile attack boats and miniature submarines. A grizzled Royal Marines sergeant gave an account of the humiliating capture of Royal Navy sailors and marines in 2007 by the Iranian Navy. He was followed by a US Navy Commander, on secondment to RAF Wyton, who delivered an assessment of Iran’s mine-laying capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz.
By the time the Foreign Secretary boarded the 14.33 back to London, having enjoyed a brief curry lunch with senior officers in the mess, he had become one of the best-briefed politicians in the world on the military, security and intelligence capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Chapter 36
Buckinghamshire
LUKE RECKONED HE must have had a worse Christmas Day at some time in his life but he was hard pushed to remember one as miserable as this. They were staying with Elise’s parents. Just the four of them, ensconced in the cosy, half-timbered family cottage, with its gently sloping garden and its adjacent paddock where the six-year-old Elise had learned to ride. There were festive sprigs of holly above the paintings, slender, tapering red candles on the dining table, and Classic FM was playing carols from King’s College. A string of Christmas cards hung above the fireplace where chopped logs crackled and spat. Yet the shadow of Helen Mayhew’s illness hung like a spectre over the scene.
