Quintin Jardine: Gallery Whispers

Initially it was given a leg-up with a few Government contracts, but it built up pretty quickly a list of significant private sector clients, in South Africa and abroad. Today it has a staff of twenty… although there's a vacancy since the CIA pulled their woman out.'

The DCC paused as Mcllhenney turned off the projector, switched on the lights and resumed his seat. 'He did other things for the former South African regime too,' he went on. 'Ten years ago he paid a business visit to the US, to advise the government on an office purchase in Chicago. While he was there, Samuel Tshabala, the leader in exile of a radical black faction, was killed; shot by a sniper as he got into his car in San Francisco.

'This was very embarrassing for the Americans; the guy had been under their protection, and more than a few people in Africa accused them of setting him up. So the FBI and the CIA, in a rare show of cooperation, threw everything at it. Eventually, the Bureau discovered that Mr Michael Hawkins had entered the country ten days before the hit, but had never left. They also discovered that one Peter Veivers, South African national, had left the country through Los Angeles Airport on the day after, although when they checked, they found no record of his ever having entered.

'They placed Veivers in a hotel in San Francisco, where he had stayed for seven days, checking out on the morning of the shooting.

By sheer chance, the Drug Enforcement Agency had been staking out the same hotel during Veivers' time there, waiting for a crowd of Colombians, and were able to give the Bureau a piece of good quality video footage of their man, far better than they had taken from the house security cameras.

'They handed over to the CIA at that point. Now as it happened, the Agency had been very interested in the late Hencke van Roost. He had killed a couple of their people in Namibia… the very two you saw a few minutes ago, in fact… so they were very pleased when they heard he was dead. They had his picture on file from his MIT days, and from South African press coverage of his alleged death, so they made the connection quickly. Then they had a look at Mr Michael Hawkins, back at work in Cape Town, and put the whole story together.

'There was some talk of terminating him, there and then, but in the end they did something much more sensible. They recruited him.

Michael Hawkins was blackmailed into handling sticky jobs for the Agency, and that really was the start of it.'

Skinner leaned back. 'Okay,' he said, 'I've been talking for long enough. Any questions so far?'

DI Morrison raised a hand. 'If he worked for the CIA, why did they have to plant someone in his office?'

'Because he doesn't work for them alone; he works for virtually anyone, and he doesn't ask Agency approval before he takes on a job.'

The DCC grinned. 'They might think they do, but the CIA don't actually run the'world. The Tshabala affair left them with egg on their faces, and so did the Asian assassination I mentioned earlier; that man was a client too. So they put their spy in Hawkins' camp as a sort of early warning system.'

Mario McGuire raised a hand. 'How many aliases does the guy use, sir?'

'Every time he goes under,' Skinner replied, 'he does it under a new name, and he switches to another after the job's done.'

Mcllhenney shifted his massive frame in his seat. 'Can I ask a question, boss?'

'Of course. You're not just here to work the projector.'

'Why does the present South African government tolerate someone like this? 'Because chances are he's worked for them too, in the past. No one knows for sure who set up Tshabala, but the CIA were fairly certain that the ANC were involved. That suspicion, was more or less confirmed when the murder was taken off the agenda of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

'The awful truth is that people like Hawkins are useful, very useful, for a time at least. They're very good at what they do, and they don't have links to anyone.'

'So what are we to do with this guy if we catch him? Stick him on a plane to South Africa and let him carry on in business?'

Skinner glanced at Andy Martin, looked around the room, then back at Mcllhenney. 'Not this time, Neil. No one ties my hands, not in my own country or anywhere else. If Mr Hawkins is coming here on a project, then if we can, we will stop him… with whatever force is appropriate. If, by ill luck, he succeeds in his objective, we'll do our damnedest to make sure he doesn't leave Scotland. But if he does, he'll be hunted down.

'I have a free hand in this. As I said, people like Hawkins are useful, for a time. This man's time is up. Wherever else he goes after this, it won't be back to Cape Town.'

'The big question, though, Mr Skinner,' said Superintendent Harry McGuigan. 'Why would he come to Scotland?'

'If we knew that for sure, we could plan very specifically. But we can make some pretty decent guesses, and one that's really informed.'

'Political?' asked McGuigan.

'Almost certainly. This guy only works for governments and their opponents.' The DCC leaned back in his chair, stretching his long lean body. 'What political target in Scotland would be important enough to justify the hiring of a very expensive international assassin to take him out? 'Let's begin with the obvious: there are currently five members of the British Cabinet from Scottish constituencies. As of now they're all on round-the-clock protection, but realistically, only two stand out as potential targets… the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary.

'Ministry of Defence security have been given overall responsibility for protecting those two. That makes me happy, since my friend Adam Arrow will be in command of that end, and he's a bit special. I'm pretty confident that if either of those two men is Hawkins' target, his chances of success are poor.

'Other possibilities? A member of the Royal Family?' He shook his head. 'I don't believe that one for a minute. Okay, maybe a splinter Irish nationalist group might like to kill a British Royal; but those boys would want to do the job themselves. I can't see them hiring in outside talent. Nevertheless, that angle isn't being ruled out. All Roya visits in Scotland have been quietly cancelled, until the threat is eliminated.

'No, the intelligent guess has to be that if Hawkins is coming to Scotland on a contract, in line with his cryptic remark to his CIA girlfriend, then his target is a VIP visitor, rather than a Scot. And that's where this gets really worrying; because here's where I get round to the informed supposition I mentioned earlier.

'It hasn't been announced yet, but in a couple of months' time, in December, there will be a special meeting of world Heads of Government and Finance Ministers, to consider the effect of the international response to the continuing global economic crisis. It's an initiative by our own Prime Minister, who as you'll have noticed, likes to cultivate his image on the international stage.

'Where?' He looked around the table at eight frowning faces.

'You've guessed it, people. Right here in Bonnie Scotland, in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, to be precise. The USA, Germany, France, Russia, the People's Republic of China, Japan, Canada, Italy, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and many others, have been invited to attend.

'Until now, the only people who have known about this meeting have been the people involved, and their immediate advisers. The main players agreed the timing and venue at the last G8 meeting.

EICC don't even know yet that they're hosting it. So if Michael Hawkins' trip to Scotland is related to that, it points to someone on the invitation list having ordered a hit on someone else.

'Now that might be a bad omen for international relations, but it's a secondary issue for me. I don't need to remind you that a few years back a visiting Head of State was assassinated right here in Edinburgh.