Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

The black phone was the line that had been diverted from the Hayes home in Dublin. The white phone was a direct line to Patsy Ellis's mobile. At least half a dozen times Martin had asked if they were sure the phones were working. Fanning had assured him that they were.

'I can't sit,' said Martin.

'There's nothing you can do,' said Fanning, loosening his tie a little. 'The ball's in your wife's court. We just have to wait.'

'But what if she doesn't ring? What if they don't let her use the phone?'

Fanning winced. He was an only child, he'd never been married and his parents were fit and healthy – he'd never had to deal with the death of a relative or a friend, never mind a wife or child. He could only imagine the torment that Martin was going through, and while he wanted to put the man's mind at rest, he didn't want to lie to him.

'Tim, what if she's dead already? What if they're both dead? Oh, God.' Martin dropped down on to one of the sofas and sat with his head in his hands.

Fanning stood up and went over to him. He put a tentative hand on his shoulder. 'Everyone here's doing everything they can, Mr Hayes. I can promise you that.'

Martin closed his eyes and shook his head. 'I don't think it's going to be enough.' He bunched his hands into fists and banged them down on his knees. Fanning took his hand off Martin's shoulder and sat down next to him.

'Patsy's right,' said Fanning. 'The closer your wife is to completing the device, the more leverage she has. She'll know that. There'll come a point where she'll be able to put pressure on them. She'll call.'

'But the guy that shot at me? He must have been one of them, right? He'll know that I'm not at home. Why would he let Andy call me if he knows I'm not at home?'

'We don't know,' admitted Fanning. 'Patsy said that maybe your wife would be able to get to a phone herself, without them knowing.'

Martin grimaced. 'That's hardly likely, is it?'

'It's a possibility. And just because you were attacked doesn't mean they know you've left the country, does it? They've no way of knowing where you are. For all they know, you could have returned home.'

'So she calls, then what? I know phone traces aren't infallible. Things go wrong.'

'You're going by what you see in the movies, Mr Hayes. It's not like that. With a digital exchange, we can get the number almost immediately. And a trace within seconds. Even with a mobile. If she's in the City, we'll know to within a hundred feet where she is.'

Martin leaned back so that his head rested on the back of the sofa. 'And Katie? What about my daughter?'

'If we get the terrorists making the bomb, we'll find her.'

Martin wiped his hands over his face as if he were wiping away tears, though his cheeks were dry. 'There's too many "ifs", Tim. Too many fucking "ifs". Are the Gardai looking for her?'

'Patsy thinks it best not to call in the local police,' said Fanning, choosing his words with care. 'We're looking, but we're using our own people. And we're monitoring all calls to Ireland. If they make a call to the kidnappers, we'll know. And we'll have their location. We'll know where your daughter is being held.'

'Oh, come on, Tim. That's not feasible. You can't possibly monitor every single call between England and Ireland.'

Fanning sat back, wondering how much he should tell Martin. The man was at the end of his tether and needed some reassurance, but much of what MI5 did was classified. 'We can, Martin. And we do. All the time.'

'Every call?'

Fanning nodded. 'It goes on every hour of every day. All around the world.'

Martin looked at Fanning, intrigued. 'How?'

Fanning sighed. 'Can't you just accept that we can, Martin?'

The door opened and Carter came in with a mug of coffee which she handed to Martin. He thanked her, then turned back to Fanning. 'Well?'

Fanning looked up at Carter. 'I was telling Martin not to worry. That we've got all bases covered.'

'He was telling me about tapping phones between England and Ireland so you can find out where they're keeping Katie.'

Carter pulled a face. 'Tim…' she said.

Fanning shrugged. 'He's not exactly an enemy of the state, Barbara.'

'I have a right to know what's going on,' said Martin quietly.

Carter held Fanning's look for a second or two, then she nodded. 'I guess it can't do any harm,' she said.

Martin nodded eagerly. 'So, what's going on?' he asked Fanning.

Fanning took a deep breath. 'I'll give you the idiot's guide,' he said. 'No offence.'

Martin smiled tightly. 'None taken.'

'The system is called Echelon. Don't ask me why. It's been around in some form or another since the seventies, but it's really come into its own in the last few years. It's the brainchild of the Americans, naturally, through their National Security Agency, but it also involves us, through GCHQ, the Government Communication Headquarters in Cheltenham, the Australians, the Canadians and New Zealand. Not through any altruistic information-sharing aspirations, but because the Americans can't physically cover the world on their own. Between the five countries, every single satellite, land line and undersea cable transmission is monitored. Every single one, Martin. Every phone call, fax, telex and e-mail in the world. Nothing escapes.'

Martin shook his head in disbelief. 'There must be millions every day. Tens of millions.'

'Billions, Martin. But Echelon can handle it. And more. It has the capacity to monitor individual transmissions, or it can search through all transmissions looking for a particular word, or combination of words. It can go back through several weeks, worth of transmissions, too. And there's more. It can even search out voiceprints, so we can be on the lookout for a particular individual making a call anywhere in the world. It gets flagged in one of the five Echelon HQs and Robert's your father's brother.'

'It sounds impossible,' said Martin, it's too big.'

'It's big, but computing power is now enormous compared with what it was just twenty years ago. And it's increasing by an order of magnitude every three years or so. You use the Internet, right?'

'Sure. Who doesn't?'

'And you've used a search engine? Yahoo or Altavista or one of the others, where you scan the Net looking for specific subjects. Words or combination of words?' Martin nodded. 'So you know how it works. If you get the search engine to look for a word like "heroin", in a couple of seconds it might tell you that there are some fifty thousand hits, places on the Net where the word occurs. Now, have you ever thought what that means? In the space of seconds, that search engine has looked at every site it has access to and found which ones refer to heroin. And if you want to call up a particular reference, it's on your screen in seconds.'

'I guess so,' said Martin.

'Then consider this, Martin. The Internet is old technology. Echelon is several generations ahead. It works at a speed you could never hope to comprehend. We ask it to keep a lookout for the word "Katie" or 'Mummy' and it'll flag any phone conversation that takes place in which both words are used. Immediately. Real-time. Within seconds we'll know which number is being called, and from where.'

'But I thought you could block your number from showing?' said Martin. He sipped his coffee.

Fanning smiled and shook his head. 'There's no way of hiding from Echelon,' he said.

Martin leaned forward, cupping the mug of coffee between his hands. The signs of stress were starting to diminish. He seemed much more relaxed now that he understood what was involved. 'The thing I don't get is if this system is so efficient, why doesn't it catch more terrorists?'

Fanning grinned. 'What makes you think it doesn't? The NSA keeps a very low profile. So does GCHQ. Neither shouts about its results. Other agencies, ourselves included, usually end up taking the credit.'