Chapter One
Christine
It had been a long night—a long two days, if I was being honest. I couldn’t remember when I had last eaten, and I had only managed an hour or so of fitful sleep on the sofa in my office at about 2am, before some urgent development had roused me from my slumber and sent me back into the operations room.
Of course, I had no cause for complaint. Not compared to many Londoners that morning, some of whom were still waiting anxiously for news of loved ones—loved ones who would never make it home following the latest terrorist attack to hit the capital.
I’d lived in London all my life and had never once felt afraid to live in this marvelous, vibrant city—complete with all its cultures, religions, and races. After the 7/7 bombings, I was determined to get back to using the Tube as soon as possible—it was part of my normal routine, after all—and most of my friends felt the same way.
But the latest attacks on cities across the US had made everyone wary. And my new posting in MI5 meant that I knew more than most just how right my friends and family were to feel afraid. There was clearly someone very clever and very determined behind the recent series of bombings, which had culminated in the deadly attack on London’s famed diamond district the previous day.
Even those of us working at the very heart of the government response to this heinous act were left guessing at the number of casualties; you knew things were chaotic if MI5 agents were passing on rumors from social media, rather than relying on official briefings. Some of my colleagues had visited the scene of the bombing in the immediate aftermath, and their ashen-faced silence told the rest of us everything we needed to know about the sheer scale of the attack—and the likelihood that we would be pulling bodies from the rubble by the end of the day.
By the time I was required at the scene, the first of the casualties had been moved away, either to the morgue or to one of the many city hospitals. Nevertheless, there were signs everywhere of the human cost of this tragedy; a broken pair of spectacles, a handprint in blood on the wall of one of the damaged buildings, and a tiny child’s shoe left abandoned in the rubble. It was heartbreaking to see, but I had a job to do, and I had to try and override my emotions and get on with my work.
As one of MI5’s intelligence analysts, my job was to liaise with the forensic team; to try and spot patterns and similarities with previous attacks, both in the UK and abroad. And, of course, to identify any evidence that could help us identify who was responsible, how they might have carried out this attack, and, most importantly, where they might be now. We all had our theories, but it was my job to analyze the facts, not the speculation.
I had carried out my duties at the scene silently. We all did. What was there to say in the face of such destruction? I had been talking with one of the explosives experts from the Metropolitan Police, who himself had brought in a more experienced colleague from the Army. According to them, we were dealing with a bomb that had caused a huge amount of damage across a wide area. Both the experts were of the opinion that this could only be caused by a car bomb or a bomb planted inside the building itself, not the suicide vests we had come to expect from Islamic extremists and their like.
Back at the office, I tried my hardest to shake thoughts of the grim scene from my mind. I made myself a fresh cup of coffee, and exchanged a grim smile with a colleague who had only started the week before—a real baptism by fire—before returning to my desk. A new email had arrived in the few minutes I had been in the kitchen, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that it had come direct from the boss herself. Alana Billman wanted to see me in her office. Now.
I had met the indomitable Alana Billman many times since joining MI5, but she had never asked to speak to me directly during an active investigation, always communicating orders and tasks through underlings, rather than getting her hands dirty. She had been part of the interview panel that had selected me to go forward for training as an MI5 agent, and for that I would always be grateful.
Working for the intelligence services had been my dream job ever since I’d been old enough to understand what it really involved, rather than the cartoonish, over-sexed version you got when you watched James Bond movies. My friends were always disappointed to learn how dull and office-based my job really was, having assumed that I spent my working day jetting off to far flung, exotic locations to seduce or kill enemies of the state. I had to tell them that I was far handier with an Excel spreadsheet than with a gun.
Billman, as she liked to be called, had been amazingly supportive since I started working in her department. Apparently, she took a special interest in young women who showed an aptitude for the work, a comment that had made me almost burst with pride when someone mentioned it in passing. Billman herself had started working for MI5 back in the eighties, and had never enjoyed the same kind of mentoring she now offered to female agents in her department. Instead, as she often mentioned at work events, she had been consigned to make teas and coffees and do the typing, until the men had finally realized that she was smarter and more observant than the rest of them put together.
I took a couple of gulps of too hot coffee, tried in vain to tidy my hair, which was now forty-eight hours without sight of a shower or even a brush, and headed along the corridor to where Billman and the other department supervisors had their plush offices.
Her secretary was obviously expecting me, as she simply nodded me toward the open door. I knocked anyway, unsure what I was walking into; Billman may have always been supportive, but if I had messed up at the scene somehow, then she wouldn’t hesitate to let me know. Billman was alone in her office, peering short-sightedly at a document which appeared, from my side of the desk, to be written in Arabic. She motioned for me to take a seat, and with a sigh, put on the glasses which always hung around her neck on a chain. Glasses were one of the few concessions Alana Billman had made to her advancing years, but she only did so with great reluctance.
“How are you, Christine?” Billman asked, watching me with concern from over the tops of her spectacles. Was that why she had asked to see me? To check if I was coping? I bristled a little at the idea that she thought I was too soft to tackle such incidents, and replied brusquely: “Fine, ma’am. Absolutely fine.”
Billman shook her head. “No need to be so defensive, my dear. This isn’t a therapy session.”
I blushed and looked down at my lap, too embarrassed to meet Billman’s gaze. I always became grumpy and short-tempered when I was tired; perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to take that out on my boss.
“Sorry, ma’am,” I managed to mumble eventually. I sensed rather than saw that Billman had risen from her seat and watched as she walked to the window.
“Early thoughts?” Billman’s questions were always like this, whether she was debriefing agents or interviewing suspects; brief and to the point. She had no time for extraneous words and hated reports that she considered “verbose” or “poetic”.
I cleared my throat. “The forensic report hasn’t come through yet, but I noticed enough at the scene to make me think we’re looking at the same guy who bombed the jewelry districts in Chicago and New York.” I paused, wondering whether I should make a connection that none of my colleagues had yet put together. I didn’t want to appear too forward, or too keen to draw lines where there were none, but, at the same time, if my hunch was correct, then this could be useful information for the whole investigation. “Perhaps even that incident in Tunis a couple of years ago?”
Billman was quiet, but she nodded her agreement. “My thoughts exactly, although upstairs wasn’t too keen to hear it,” she replied eventually. Even though she was one of the highest-ranking MI5 officers, she still spoke disparagingly about the other men, and even the other women, at the top of the organization. Billman clearly still liked to think of herself as one of the foot soldiers and liked to be involved in the operations within her counter-terrorism department. I knew from gossip on nights out with my colleagues that some people resented what they saw as her interference. I also knew enough, from my few months on the job, that these were the same people who resented having a female boss.
“Naturally, the police and upstairs don’t want these sorts of conclusions being aired in the press. I understand the PM is being briefed now, but I’ve been given the go-ahead to begin a preliminary investigation based on the assumption that it is the same man, or group, as Chicago and New York.” She smiled at me, “That’s where you come in, Christine.”
I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Surely, I wasn’t going to be given command of an operation after just six months as a fully fledged operative? Of course, it would be an immense honor, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for such responsibility. And I also knew how some of my more experienced colleagues would react to what they would surely see as a professional snub.
In the end, pride and ambition outweighed all my other concerns. “I’m ready to do anything you need me to do, ma’am.”
Billman returned to her seat. “I knew I could count on you, Christine.” She paused and picked up the phone on her desk, speaking a few quiet words to her secretary that I didn’t quite catch. Perhaps she was arranging a private office for me? I could hardly be expected to take charge of such a high-profile investigation from the open plan office where I was currently based. Billman hung up the phone and returned her attention to me.
“I need someone I can count on and, more importantly, someone I trust for a very special job,” she told me. I nodded with pride. “The Americans have already come to the same conclusion as us about the connection to their bombings, and, indeed, the one in Tunis. The main difference is that they already have a suspect.”
I raised an eyebrow. This was news to me, and clearly had been news to Billman. She was trying not to show it, but it was clear that there was some frustration that the Americans—Billman’s catch-all phrase for anyone from the CIA, FBI or any other American government agency—hadn’t been sharing all their information before our attack. Of course, even with the attacker’s identity, we might not have been able to stop the bomb, but, without it, we’d had no chance at all.
Billman was reading from the files in front of her, including the paper in Arabic that she had been scouring when I first entered the office.
“The suspect’s name is Ahmed Al-Farook, and it turns out he has been on the Americans’ radar for a long time—well before the bombings in the States. They believe him responsible for a number of minor attacks in Northern Africa, culminating in the attack on the jewelry district in Tunis, and are unsure when, or even how, he gained entry to the US, or when he left. Neither do they seem to know how or why he started expanding his operations from these minor political targets in his own backyard to large scale attacks on what should be secure targets in western countries thousands of miles from his home.”
Billman passed a photograph over the desk toward me. It was a grainy black and white still from a video in which a young man, almost skeletally thin, was looking directly at the camera. His dark eyes were sunk so far into his face you could barely make them out, and his long hair was tucked almost self-consciously behind his ears. The only thing that made him look like your typical Muslim extremist was his large curly beard and the combat fatigues he was wearing.
“Why didn’t the Americans tell us about him?” I asked Billman, keeping my eyes on that photo, and those dark, sunken eyes. Billman sighed in response.
“I’ve asked myself that same question, Christine. My contact says Al-Farook was on a watch list for a long time. They believed he was responsible for the minor attacks in North Africa, but, because he was a lone wolf operative, they didn’t believe he had the capability to mount more sophisticated attacks. He sent videos claiming responsibility for the attack in Tunis and the two in America, but I believe many people thought him a fanatic; someone trying to inflate his importance in the extremist community. Since New York, the Americans have lost all trace of him. No CCTV, no travel manifests, and no new attacks. They had begun to think that he must have died in the New York bombing—until this week.”
I shook my head. “And they didn’t share this information? Are they mad?”
Billman leaned back in her seat. “Some of the Americans didn’t quite buy into this Al-Farook theory. As well as believing that he didn’t have the wherewithal to carry out bombings on foreign soil, there was no physical evidence that he had ever been on any of the crime scenes. Plus, the Americans are absolutely adamant that he didn’t enter the US through the normal channels.” Billman paused. “And you know what their bloody immigration department is like.”
“But now they want to share information, I assume, because they need our help to find Al-Farook in London? Before he disappears again or carries out another attack?”
“In a manner,” Billman replied. “They have asked for permission to investigate the London scene and to make follow up inquiries, but I have insisted that their agent acts as a second to a UK agent at all times.” She lowered her voice to an indignant whisper: “I’m not having some Yank come over here and try and steal my case!”
Realization dawned. Of course I wasn’t going to be given control of my own investigation; how could I have been so stupid? I was here to be given the task of babysitting some bigoted CIA agent who had a bee in his bonnet about Muslim extremists. Hell, he had probably voted for Trump. I tried to keep the smile fixed on my face, but I knew I was losing the battle.
Luckily, Billman was too distracted by the file on her desk and her anger at the Americans for their lack of cooperation. “The American in charge of the Al-Farook case is on his way from Heathrow. I’ve asked that he be brought up to my office as soon as he arrives so that I can lay down a few ground rules for him.”
I gritted my teeth. “With all due respect, ma’am,” I began, “I feel I have a lot more to offer this investigation than simply trailing around after some CIA agent while he chases after a man who has eluded him for months already and who might already be back in North Africa, for all we know. I’m sure I could be a lot more productive continuing my work with the rest of the team.”
Billman leaned over the desk and patted me on the hand. “I know this is a disappointment, but don’t think of it as trailing around after him. You’re essentially his superior in this relationship.”
“Yes,” I responded, hearing the impatience in my voice, “but a superior who cannot make any decisions about the course the investigation is taking. I assume I have to accompany him anywhere he wants to go, supervise whenever he conducts interviews.”
“Christine,” Billman began, “I chose you because I trust you, yes? I need you to be my eyes and ears on this. I know you’re disappointed, but you should try and see the positives.”
I knew I was behaving like a spoiled child. Billman was right; I should be honored that she had chosen me to take on such a pivotal role in the most important investigation the counter-terrorism department had conducted for years, but it still felt like I was being sidelined.
“Fine,” I told her grudgingly, just as there was a knock on the door.
Billman called out for whoever was outside to come in, and I turned to see a very suave and attractive man, who looked like he was in his early thirties, enter the room. I was confused for a moment. This couldn’t be the redneck, Trump-supporting CIA agent. Could it?
“Mrs. Billman?” the young man asked. I placed his accent as Boston, or somewhere in New England. Not at all what I had expected.
“It’s Ms,” Billman replied curtly. “Take a seat, Mr Kern.”
The young agent—Kern—took a seat and smiled at me. I felt myself blushing like a schoolgirl, and hurriedly looked away, just in time to see Billman raise an eyebrow in mock amusement at my discomfort.
“Mr. Kern, I’d like you to meet Miss Christine Simmons.” I groaned inwardly at the emphasis Billman had put on the ‘Miss’ and turned in my seat to shake Kern’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Simmons. I’m Jason Kern.”
“Call me Christine,” I mumbled awkwardly, and Kern smiled, making me blush all over again.
“I understand we’re going to be working together?” Kern addressed the question to both Billman and me, but I answered.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m very happy to be working with you on such an important investigation. It sounds like you have a head start on us when it comes to this Al-Farook.” I knew I was making a fool of myself, but there was something about this man. All the work I had done to make Billman think I was a serious, hard-headed young woman, and here I was losing my cool at the first sight of a pretty face.
“Yes, we have a lot to catch up on.” He checked his watch, and I had the sense that he was frustrated to be stuck in an office when there was work to do. I knew the feeing, and felt something like affinity for this stranger. We were in the same boat, after all.
Perhaps babysitting this particular American wasn’t going to be such a hardship, after all.
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