Thames House - 0800 Sunday 15th January
The morning was clear and crisp. All across the capital the windscreens of cars were frozen over with ice; the owners happily tucked up in bed, secure in the knowledge that this was one day of the week where they could afford to take things easy.
The city was always peaceful on a Sunday, the usually bustling streets empty and the only traffic across London Bridge a late-running night bus, taking home stragglers from a night out.
Within the walls of Thames House Zaf stifled a yawn, and watched as the others took their places at the table in the meeting room, wishing that he had more positive news for them.
"We've finally had some luck in tracing footage of the car carrying al-Hassan."
Picking up the remote he brought up the first CCTV image onto the screen.
"The Lexus was first picked up on the M25 heading towards junction 16." He clicked and changed the image. "Not far behind it was a white Ford transit. Not an unusual vehicle to see on the motorway, but this one is carrying plates that belonged to a BMW 3 Series that was stolen 6 months ago." Zaf clicked through a series images on the screen. "The transit follows the car until it reaches junction 16 and turns onto the M40 before dropping out of sight. Judging by the state of it, it looks as though it was unable to keep pace with the Lexus and just fell back. At no point does it trigger one of the many speed cameras in the area."
"Did the police have anything on possible suspects for the BMW theft?" Jo asked, shifting forward in her seat.
Zaf pulled a face. "The file was so big that it would take two people the rest of their lives to work through it."
"I take it you've assigned someone to the task?" Harry asked pointedly.
"I've got two junior officers who'll never speak to me again," Zaf confirmed. "If they come up with anything that looks even remotely useful, they'll make contact."
"What else have you got?"
Zaf changed the image on the screen again. "The only other vehicle of note is…here…at Junction 3 of the M40. This time it's a silver Mercedes C Class. Assuming it's still wearing its original plates then this car was listed as stolen 2 months ago. It looks as though the vehicle has been given a respray since its acquisition by its current owners. The Mercedes stays behind the Lexus as it leaves the M40 at junction 6 and heads onto the A40." Zaf pressed the remote again, bringing up another shot of the Lexus. "And that's where we lose it as both cars take the turn off. There are other cameras on the A40 but so far none of them have shown us any images of the Lexus."
Jo looked at the fuzzy image on the screen.
"Were you able to get an ID on any of the other cars in shot?"
Zaf nodded and the image on the screen was replaced with an even more indistinct enlargement of the top left hand corner of the original image.
"With this resolution it's impossible to get the registration plate, but from the colour and shape of the vehicle behind the Lexus when it's last seen, it's possible to identify it as a silver Mercedes C Class."
Harry frowned. "There may be a lot of them on the road but I want this looked at further."
Zaf nodded in agreement. "I'm already on it."
"Jo, what have you got?"
"Peter Henderson," Jo took possession of the remote and navigated to the image that she wanted. "He's the asset that Ros believes 6 used to make contact with whoever ran the Lexus off the road."
Harry glanced round the room. "And where is Ros this morning?"
"She's following Henderson," Adam supplied the detail. "She figures that either he'll lead her to someone, or 6 will get so frustrated that they'll overplay their hand."
Harry pulled a face. "We're not here officially," he reminded Adam. "Ros overplays her hand and that officer from 6 is well within their rights to go bleating up the chain of command."
"Ros knows what she's doing."
Harry regarded Adam for a second but didn't say a word. He was more than a little surprised to see just how quickly Adam was sticking up for Ros. He wasn't aware that she'd made that much of an effort to fit in as one of the team, but maybe he was just missing something.
Harry pushed the thought away and turned his attention back to Jo.
"Peter Henderson joined the Army upon leaving school at sixteen, Jo explained. "Upon passing selection he trained and served with 2nd Battalion of the Parachute regiment. He applied for selection to the SAS, but his commanding officer never put the application forward."
"And did they say why?"
"Henderson was a little too quick with his fists and loose with his tongue," Jo summarised. "It looks as though he began to get disillusioned with Army life in the mid 90's, and was eventually given a dishonourable discharge following a charge of theft of equipment from the barracks in Colchester."
"Let me guess," Adam interrupted. "Nothing could be proved but Henderson started making money pretty quickly?"
"Exactly. He worked abroad for a few years, hiring out his skills to those who were willing to pay for them, but it looks as though he finally worked out that there was a safer and more profitable way to make money."
"He sits in a nice warm house and sends others out to do the dirty work?" Adam guessed.
"You've got it in one." Jo turned her attention to the files in front of her. "6 have done a pretty good job of hiding the details, but he registered on their radar and they seemed happy to let him carry on his business as long as they profited from certain news coming their way."
"And I assume certain favours being returned," Adam tapped his pen on the table. "When you want a deniable clean skin who better to go to than a man whose living is made by providing trained killers and not asking too many questions!"
"Careful with your accusations Adam," Harry warned. "Tell Ros to take it easy with Henderson. Make sure she knows what you've found out about him. If he's in contact with the group who took al-Hassan then upsetting him could prove fatal."
"I'll talk to her," Adam promised, knowing that Harry's real concern lay with what would happen to Ruth...assuming that she was still alive.
"Do we have anything more on who al-Hassan really is?"
Zaf shook his head. "The phone and the wallet that we recovered from the scene were sent to forensics and they've not come up with anything useful. I've been working through the numbers on the phone and so far there's nothing to help us identify who al-Hassan is."
"There was a surprising lack of outrage from the embassy when I reported to them that he was missing," Harry remarked. "I got the distinct feeling that they would have been more annoyed if I'd told them that we'd lost their luggage or had been unable to get them the seats they wanted for The Sound of Music!"
"Someone out there must know who he is," Adam protested. "I asked around last night, called in a few favours, but no-one seemed to know anything."
"You think that they were looking to lose him?" Jo immediately felt a little self-conscious as all attention turned towards her. "I mean, what if Zebari didn't want him around either..." She tailed off, convinced that she had just said something incredibly foolish.
Adam exchanged a look with Harry.
"It is possible," he thought through the idea. "If Zebari was sent over here with a minder supplied by an intelligence agency then he might be wanting to be shot of him."
"And what better way to cement relationships between ourselves and Zebari than by ridding him of an irritation?"
"It would go some way towards explaining why 6 are so interested in all this, and why they've used someone like Henderson to handle the situation," Adam pointed out.
"But this hasn't been a clean kill," Zaf argued. "Why take al-Hassan from the scene of the accident? Why not kill him there like they did the driver? Rather than it being an accident, they've turned it into a kidnapping. They...whoever they are, wanted al-Hassan alive. He must have something that they want."
Before Harry could comment, the door to the meeting room opened and Malcolm entered; an envelope clutched in his right hand.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Malcolm took in the expressions on the faces of the room's occupants. "But I thought you'd want to see this straight away." He opened the envelope and withdrew a sheet of paper. "I've just had confirmation from the lab that was analysing the blood samples found in the car." Malcolm's eyes fell automatically upon Harry. "They've found a match for the DNA...it is Ruth's."
Littleton Farm 1000 Sunday 15th January
"Are you there? ...Can you hear me?"
Ruth wished that she could tune out Azhar's voice. He had been calling through the ventilation brick on and off for the past hour.
"I'm here," she finally told him, giving in to the pleading tone in his voice.
"What have you told them?" he demanded to know. "What have you been telling them?"
"Only what you've told me," she tried to reassure him.
"Then why are they carrying on? Why are they not listening to you?"
Ruth remained silent. Those were questions that she wanted answers to as well. She leant back against the damp stone of the wall and wished that the incessant pounding in her head would cease. It had lessoned to a dull ache earlier, but now it was pounding anew.
The morning had not passed without incident. She had not long dropped off into a restless sleep when the door had opened and the room illuminated with the invasive white beam of a torch. Commands were barked, and hands had none-too-gently hauled her to her feet and taken her once again to the small room where the questioning had begun in the same relentless manner as before.
Azhar had begun to ramble. Words and phrases had become jumbled as he struggled to answer the questions and she had done her best to hide his true state from their captors. She had had enough trouble forcing her own brain to remember the correct translations. Sentences that would previously have come to her mind as second nature were now requiring thought and each stumble and hesitation she made only served to anger the man barking the questions at her. The session had ended amid raised voices and threats whispered in her ear as to what would happen to Azhar and then to herself if he failed to come through with the information that they were after.
She was beginning to suspect that the gulf between what he knew and what they thought he knew was a vast one; however telling them that they were making a mistake just wasn't an option. There was only one outcome she could think of if she was to do that...and it wasn't one that she wanted to dwell on.
"Tell them who you are," Azhar suggested, his voice distracting her from her thoughts. "Tell them who you work for...let them know the sort of reprisals they can expect."
"I don't think that would be such a wise idea," she told him honestly.
"Tell them who I am then...tell them the truth. Tell them I have things to sell."
Ruth sighed. "I have been telling them the truth."
"But not about what I have to offer. I know nothing about this number they speak of...but I can make a deal...a very profitable deal."
Ruth remained silent.
"Your friends...they will come...won't they?"
Ruth tipped her head back and stared up towards the ceiling. She was beginning to get an idea of the sort of things that Azhar had to sell. They were the sort of things that got a person killed...they were the sort of things that interested the security services and caused people to disappear. There had been an unpleasant thought forming at the back of her mind since their capture and she'd been doing her best not to dwell on it. She'd seen it done so many times before. Sometimes it was simply easier to make two people disappear than to worry about the sensibilities of one MI5 operative. It was one thing to sit in the office and read through the reports, it was another to be sat alone, cold, scared, with the only hope for rescue pinned on a department that was just as likely to abandon you as come to your rescue.
She heard Azhar begin to question her again and closed her eyes, wishing that she could tune out his voice. If she told their interrogators the things that Azhar was saying, then she could be responsible for putting a deadly amount of hardware on the streets of the capital. She couldn't let that happen...whatever the cost.
Parkstone Estate - 1100 Sunday 15th January
Ros stifled a yawn and leant forward, resting her arms on the steering wheel, looking out through the windscreen and watching with a growing impatience the scene that was playing out in front of her. She was parked on the very edges of the sprawling Parkstone Estate, watching Henderson and wishing that she'd chosen a different pool car. If she had to follow Henderson on foot, then she wasn't convinced that the car would still be there on her return.
It had been embarrassingly easy to find and follow Henderson. He was, it appeared, a man of very definite habits.
After breakfast at a local cafe he had followed a very ordered routine of making contact with those that he relied upon for information.
Ros idly wondered just how pleased his clients would be if they were to know just how careless he was with regard to his own security.
She'd kept her eyes peeled for the officer from 6, but so far he'd not put in an appearance or made any effort to keep her away from Henderson. She had been half expecting some sort of diversionary manoeuvre from him, and the lack of one was beginning to get on her nerves. Either they cared about Henderson and wanted him protected as an asset or they didn't.
Adam had phoned through with the information that they'd gathered and Ros had to admit that she wasn't surprised to hear of the details of the man's military background. It went some way to explaining his love of routine. She had been a little irked at Harry's warning to play it safe. Did he not trust her to do her job? She knew that she had overstepped the mark with him on their return from Havensworth. But he had lied to her; he'd led her to believe that everything would be sorted out with her father, and all the while he knew the sort of sentence that was going to be handed down.
She pushed the thoughts out of her head and swore softly beneath her breath as she watched Henderson finish the conversation he was having and head away from her and into the shadows of the tower blocks of the estate.
She waited until he had disappeared into the darkness of the underpass before leaving the car and heading off after him.
She made her way through the underpass and into the first courtyard. The tower blocks surrounded her on all sides and she glanced upwards, towards the walkways trying to work out which route Henderson had taken. She spotted him one floor above her and turned quickly, darting through the open doorway and heading up the dank staircase.
The broken glass crunched beneath her feet as she made her way down the unlit walkway. Even in daylight, the pathway was cast in heavy shadow by the buildings that surrounded it, the smashed casings and broken flex that hung from the light sockets showed the sort of respect that the inhabitants paid to their living space. She jumped at a sound behind her and turned to see a fast food carton skittering across the walkway, blown by the wind. She rolled her eyes and forced her heartbeat to slow. She'd be jumping at shadows next if she didn't relax.
The path led her through just one of the warren of routes that snaked across the estate and made the aging tower blocks a no go area for the unwary. At his last press conference in the borough, the Police Commissioner had been eager to point out that there were no longer troubled estates, where his officers refused to patrol. Ros somehow doubted that anyone behind the security padlocked front doors that surrounded her had seen a uniformed officer in months.
She tried to shake the feeling that she was being watched. In an area like this it was highly probable that she was being monitored from any number of windows - blinds and curtains had started twitching as soon as she entered the estate.
She felt a hand close over her arm and she was pushed roughly towards the walkway's balcony. She tried to twist out of the vice-like grip, but there was no time. Her back jarred as it slammed against the metal railings and she fought to keep her feet upon the ground.
"What the hell are you doing, following me around everywhere like some damned dog?" Henderson hissed.
"Maybe I'm a little interested in the people that you are doing business with," Ros quickly regained her composure, angry with herself at the way that she had been surprised.
She tried to move away from the metal railings, but Henderson gave her no room to manoeuvre. He drew a slim-bladed knife from the inside of his jacket and brought it to bear in Ros's direction.
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" she enquired in a bored tone, determined not to let him know the pain her wrist was now giving her.
"Sure," Henderson told her, bringing the blade closer to her face. "I think you'll find that this now gives me the upper hand in the conversation. This time we'll do things my way"
"Really! I didn't think you did the dirty work anymore. Thought you were the pimp; supplying killers to meet the demands of your paymasters."
"I'm not kidding," Henderson told her, slashing the blade through the air, only inches from Ros's face.
She looked levelly at him.
"Just tell me who you sold the information to about Azhar al Hassan...then I'll be out of your life and you can get back to being MI6's lap dog."
"Are you really that stupid?" Henderson growled at her. "What does it take to make you realise that you're in no position to be making demands?"
"Perhaps when I'm faced with someone who actually poses a threat...I've met scouts on bob a job week who are more imposing."
Henderson tightened his grip on Ros's wrist and he brought the knife forward in a fast, fluid motion.