Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

'But you'd be able to locate anyone. Anyone in the world. Terrorists, drug dealers, criminals. People who've gone missing. Lord Lucan. Anyone.'

Carter leaned against the table, her hands behind her for support. 'Tim's telling you what's possible technically, but generally there isn't enough manpower to go after just one person, unless they're someone like Saddam Hussein or terrorists like Osama Bin Laden. There's a constant watching brief for top-ranking bad guys like that, but for run-of-the-mill criminals, it's just not worth the effort.'

Martin opened his mouth to speak but Carter silenced him with a wave of a neatly manicured hand, the nails the colour of dried blood. 'I'll give you an example. Say a plane was bombed, flying over the Atlantic. We could search for every conversation in which the words plane and bomb were used. But think how often the incident would be referred to in general conversation by members of the public. Say it was just a hundred thousand, and believe me, that'd be a massive underestimate, Echelon will pick out the words, then include five seconds either side, so that analysts can listen to the snippet of conversation to decide if it's worth following up. That's a million seconds of conversation, Martin. More than two hundred and fifty hours. Every second has to be listened to and analysed. And I can guarantee that it'll all be time wasted, because terrorists would never use words like bomb or explosive over the phone. They'd use codes, because they know how the system works. It's the same with drug dealers. They're not going to say "heroin" or "cocaine" – they wouldn't even say "gear" or other commonly used slang. They'll say "the consignment arrives next week" or something equally vague. So Echelon isn't used for general trawling of domestic phone conversations – there just aren't enough people, even within the NSA, to listen to all the stuff that's recorded. Most of it stays on disk and is stored, never listened to.'

'So now you're saying it's a waste of time?' said Martin bitterly.

Carter held up her hand again. 'Absolutely not,' she said. 'Where Echelon is invaluable is in targeting specific conversations, in specific areas of the world. It's used to listen in on diplomatic transmissions, military transmissions, specific people and organisations. Or the way that we're using it. For a specific word that isn't going to be in general use. How often do you think the word Katie is going to be used in calls from England to Ireland? A dozen? A hundred? Those sorts of numbers we can deal with, Martin. We'll pick up the call within seconds, and almost immediately we'll have a location. The NSA and GCHQ have more computing power between them than any other organisation on the planet.'

'I hope you're right, Barbara,' Martin said.

'She is. We are,' said Fanning. He looked up at Carter and they shared a smile. Patsy Ellis might not approve of how much of GCHQ's work they'd revealed to Martin, but he was definitely a lot more relaxed having heard it.

All three jumped as the black telephone rang. The mug fell from Martin's hands and coffee splashed across the beige wool carpet.

– «»-«»-«»The two men in Barbour jackets drove Denham back to Belfast in silence. Denham sat in the back of the Rover, chain-smoking and staring out of the window. They took him to a nondescript office building on the outskirts of the city, and the one who'd been in the passenger seat escorted him inside. A uniformed security guard asked him for identification, but all he had on him was his driving licence. The guard noted down the details and Denham and the man with him went up in an elevator to the third floor. The man had a swipe card which he ran through a reader at the side of a glass door, and it clicked open. They walked down a white-painted corridor past a series of identical grey doors. The man opened one of the doors and nodded at Denham. 'I'll wait for you here, sir.'

Inside the windowless room was a soundproofed booth, and inside the booth was a metal desk, a plastic chair and a telephone without a dial or keypad. The walls of the room were lined with pale green foam rubber that had been moulded into an egg-box design. Denham went into the booth and closed the door behind him. He picked up the phone and almost immediately a man's voice asked him who he wished to speak to. He asked for Patsy Ellis. She was on the line within seconds.

'Liam, how did it go?'

'Better than I expected, to be honest. Things have changed since the Good Friday agreement, more than I'd ever have guessed.'

'Men like McCormack have, sure. But there are other leopards whose spots'll never change. So what did he have to say?'

'He gave me the five who were in Trevor's ASU, but he obviously knew that we had them anyway. And he was open about Denis Fisher, but Fisher's dead. The active service unit was under the control of Hugh McGrath, and that we didn't know because he dealt only with Nolan.'

'McGrath?'

'He's dead, too. At least McCormack reckons he's dead. He disappeared back in '92. McGrath was on the Army Council but his main function was to liaise with the Libyans during the eighties. McCormack was a bit sketchy on the details, but it seems that McGrath set up his own splinter group responsible for a bombing campaign in '92. Fisher was running the group.' Denham took out a packet of cigarettes and fumbled one out. 'They were all killed when the SAS stormed their flat in Wapping. McGrath disappeared just before the SAS went in.' He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply.

'He could just have got wind of what was happening and gone underground.'

'There's more to it than that, but McCormack's not letting on. I got the impression that it was the IRA that did for him, you know? That they found out what he was up to and took matters into their own hands.'

'But this McGrath knew about Trevor?'

'Oh, yes. Quite definitely. And another volunteer. Micky Geraghty. Have you heard of him?'

'Doesn't ring a bell.'

'Aye, probably before your time. Bit of a legend was Micky Geraghty. He was a sniper, and a bloody good one, but he lost heart when his wife died of cancer. Long and painful, and by all accounts he was a broken man afterwards. Walked away.'

'Still alive?'

'McCormack said he wasn't sure. He hasn't heard from him for a while. Geraghty went to live near Thurso, up in Scotland.'

'I'll get him checked out. What was his involvement with Trevor?'

'He never met her, but knew of her. The ASU was setting bombs in Belfast, small ones, booby-trapped so they'd be hard to deal with, and Geraghty would be somewhere up high with his rifle. The plan was to shoot the bomb-disposal guys. Trevor let us know what was happening so we had saturation coverage plus helicopters all over the place. Geraghty didn't get a chance to stick his head up. They moved him to the border and that was that. But according to McCormack, on at least one occasion he heard McGrath telling Geraghty about Fisher and Trevor. Geraghty had a daughter about the same age, name of Kerry.'

'But no one else on the Army Council knew about Trevor?'

'Not according to McCormack.'

'And the other thing? Is he willing to help?'

'He said he'd make enquiries. But that it wouldn't be easy.' Denham looked around for an ashtray but couldn't see one. He pulled a face and flicked ash on to the floor.

'Do you think he'll do it, though?'

'I think so. But without putting himself at risk. It's a hell of a thing to be asking him to do, Patsy. If word got out that he was helping us… even under the circumstances, the hardliners wouldn't think twice about making an example of him.'

'How long before he gets back to us?'

'He didn't say. Couldn't say. He'll put out feelers, ask around, but softly-softly. If he does come across anyone who's gone missing, he'll get back to me.'