Adrian Magson - Deception

‘If the target played along with them.’

‘True. Not all of them did. Pike and Barrow were certainly two recent unlucky ones.’

‘What did Cullum get out of it?’

‘So far? About thirty thousand quid, give or take. Hardly worth losing his job and pension over, but he must have thought he’d be in it for the long haul. Fortunately for us, he was no better at hiding his illicit money than he was at managing his debts. Our internal bloodhounds put two and two together and suddenly he was centre stage.’

‘How did they do that?’

‘He got careless and left an audit trail. They latched on to it.’

‘Cullum knew what I was working on.’ He wondered whether — or when — the information had filtered out to the Protectory.

‘Yes. But he didn’t connect the dots. He’d have known Six wouldn’t have been involved in this unless it was something too sensitive for Five to be running. And bringing in an outsider like you only strengthened that possibility. What he didn’t know about was Paulton’s connection with the group. Nicholls must have deliberately kept him out of the loop on that one. All he had was a changeable phone number and various Hotmail addresses for making contact with Nicholls or Deakin.’

Harry wondered if Cullum had really been that naive. Given his knowledge of Harry’s history with Paulton and Red Station, an episode that would have been office gossip among long-time Fivers, and the fact that Harry had been brought in to look into some military absconders, it would not have taken long for a man of Cullum’s experience to deduce what was going on. Or maybe his financial straits had blinded him to making those kind of connections.

‘So what happens now?’

‘We’re playing Cullum. He stays in touch with the Protectory or he goes to jail for a long time. The longer we can keep them unaware of what we know, the better our chances of reeling them in. But we don’t have long; this has got to end sooner or later, but we don’t want any more information finding its way into the hands of the Chinese, Russians or anyone else with an axe to grind. And we still want Paulton.’

‘And in the meantime they think Tan is still out there?’

‘Yes. The big prize.’

‘And your own insider?’

Ballatyne looked momentarily blank. ‘Sorry?’

‘There’s been a trickle of information coming the other way — from inside the Protectory. You said so yourself. Was that a bluff as well?’

‘Not entirely.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘There’ve been bits of information, but never enough to help us pin anyone down. The language used sounds like it could be Nicholls, but it’s been coming in through an unusual medium.’

‘Unusual?’ Harry prompted him. It was an MI6 trait, he knew, to keep everyone, even their friends and assets, in the dark wherever possible. It was standard tradecraft, the need-to-know principle. The downside was that it kept people isolated who very often should have known what was going on further down the line.

‘The United Nations Internal Oversight Services office. We have no idea why; it could be that the source once had a contact there or feels it’s the safest way of passing information out. The IOS investigates breaches of conduct and security. Although this business doesn’t involve UN personnel, they’ve been taking this information seriously and passing it on as a matter of concern.’ He pulled a face. ‘Sadly, it didn’t stop with us; the Americans have the information, too, although they’ve shown no great interest so far in doing anything with it. Probably because it involves British forces.’

‘And he’s still feeding information out?’

‘He’s been a bit quiet of late. We’re wondering how long he’s got.’ If Ballatyne was concerned about the fate of the inside man, he was hiding it remarkably well.

He stood up and took a slip of paper out of his pocket, then placed it on the table in front of Harry. It held an address in West Sussex. ‘We’ve had one bit of luck: Soran’s got several lock-ups for keeping stock, most of it genuine. He acts as a wholesaler for household goods in and around London. But there’s one place he was rather coy about. In fact, he denied having anything to do with it until we showed him a rental agreement. Then he caved. It’s one of several units on an abandoned World War Two airfield; Nissen huts the old War Office forgot about.’

‘What does he use it for?’

‘Nothing he was ready to admit to. He said it was just another storage facility for supplies in the southern counties, to save trucking stuff all the way to and from London. I don’t buy it. If the buildings are that old, they’d be no good for storing anything valuable, and too out of the way for regular deliveries. The site is by a section of disused railway line in West Sussex. Remote enough to be ignored, close enough not to disturb the neighbours.’ He gave Harry the directions. ‘I haven’t told the local cops because they’d take several hours to make their risk assessments, then stamp all over the scene. If you’re still on board, you might want to take a quiet look instead.’

Harry picked up the paper. He was still on board and Ballatyne knew it. He hadn’t come all this way simply to give up out of an attack of the snits for not being consulted fully. But after this, that was it. No more.

‘Watch your back, Harry,’ Ballatyne added. ‘Even if Deakin and his friends have forgotten you, the Bosnians won’t have. They’ve got memories like elephants and they hold a grudge like nobody else on the planet.’

Back outside, Harry called Rik. He still wasn’t fit enough yet, but they were a team. He had every right to be in on this next phase. There was no answer. Must have gone stir crazy and slipped out for some air. He rang Clare. She picked up immediately.

‘You ready for some action?’

‘Ooh, Mr Tate,’ she trilled in a tarty voice. ‘You say the sweetest things. Where are we going, then?’

‘West Sussex.’

‘Nice. Are you bringing your big gun?’

Harry ignored her. She was trying to wind him up. ‘Where do I pick you up?’

‘I’ll be at your place,’ her voice returned to normal, ‘when you get back.’

Get back? He glanced around, an uneasy feeling crawling up his neck. It would never have surprised him if she was watching him from across the street. He hung up.

His phone rang immediately. Number withheld.

‘Yes?’

‘ . . Tate? Got. . ’ The signal dropped out. The voice had been male, gruff, and too brief to recognize. It rang again before he could move. ‘ Tate. . again. . your. . friend. ’ A jumble of half words, then a burst of static and it was gone again.

He rang Rik. Landline and mobile. No reply.

Something was wrong.

He grabbed a cab and was halfway to Paddington when a text message came through. This time there was no mistake, no garbled words. He told the cab driver to head for his place. He had something to pick up. He looked at the screen again and felt his stomach clench tight.

‘ We have your friend. You help us or he dies. ’ An address followed.

It was Soran’s storage facility in West Sussex.

A narrow farm track led off a secondary road below the A264 in West Sussex towards a cluster of fields dotted with small clumps of woodland. Harry drove down the track, suddenly reminded by the swish of grass on either side of the track near Schwedt, where Sgt Barrow had died. The atmosphere here was very different, though; green and scenic, a pleasant rural setting with none of the history of the former Iron Curtain, a British haven where nothing bad could happen. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.