Dirty Little Secret. Jon Stock

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СКАЧАТЬ breathed in and slowed to 90mph. He was already looking forward to a time when he would be driven by someone else. He needed time to think.

      ‘We’re on it,’ he said. It was important to keep Spiro sweet, but he didn’t want his heavy-handed men messing things up.

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘We’ve worked out where Dhar was calling from. We’ll have him for you by daybreak.’

      ‘Good of you to share that, Ian. In case you hadn’t noticed, the whole of the goddamn Western world’s looking for Dhar. I thought you and I had an understanding.’

      ‘He’s yours, just let us bring him in. He’s half-British, remember, caused us a lot of problems. We’ve got a reputation to restore.’

      ‘Too damn right you have. Just make sure it’s you and not Fielding who gets the knighthood. And don’t go claiming that reward either. We haven’t got $25 million to spare. I guess you know Marchant’s with Dhar, too?’

      Denton didn’t know, and slowed up some more, his hands tensing on the steering wheel as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. He had assured the PM that Marchant was under lock and key at the Fort. It wouldn’t look good if he had escaped. He couldn’t afford to put a foot wrong if he was to become Chief.

      ‘I thought he was at Fort Monckton.’

      ‘So did we. My men just took a look. Seems he left a while ago.’

      ‘We’ll hand him over with Dhar.’

      ‘I’d appreciate it. And where might this handover be?’

      ‘How does RAF Fairford sound?’

      ‘I like the symmetry.’

      Denton knew it would appeal. Fairford was not only where Dhar had wounded American pride by shooting down one of the USAF’s most prized jets; it was from there that Marchant had been renditioned after the London Marathon fifteen months earlier.

      ‘Put a plane on standby,’ he said. ‘I’ll call within the hour. And when you’ve got Dhar –’

      ‘We’ll pull out of Vauxhall. We’re two peas in a pod, Ian.’

      Denton could think of nothing worse, but he knew many such compromises lay ahead. Finding a way to get on with Spiro would be the least of them. His relationship with the military had never been straightforward. ‘There’s a need in this family to make amends,’ Denton’s father, a sergeant major with the Green Howards, used to bark at him when he was growing up in Hull. No one ever talked openly about it, but his grandfather had been a conscientious objector. Denton chose grammar school and Oxford instead of the military, before signing up to MI6. His father had not hidden his disappointment, but it was the closest Denton could get to making amends. He had liked his grandfather, whose objections had been more to the officer class than to war itself.

      He glanced at his watch and accelerated again, choosing Miles Davis on the CD player. It suited night-time driving. Before leaving London he had called the SAS headquarters at Hereford and spoken to the MI6 liaison officer. Denton had worked with him once in Basra, and had been present when he had taken the previous year’s IONEC recruits through their special forces training at the Fort. His mantra had been borrowed from the US Seals, whom he revered: ‘The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you’ll bleed in war.’ They hadn’t got on. The officer, public-school educated, now had overall responsibility for the Increment, a covert unit of special forces that MI6 could call upon at any time.

      The unit was already heavily deployed in Afghanistan and Yemen, providing MI6 field officers with protection. Its members were drawn mainly from the SAS, but it also recruited from other special forces, including the SBS and the SRR, who provided reconnaissance, and 8 Flight Army Air Corps. After Denton’s phone call, two of its Eurocopter Dauphin helicopters had scrambled and were now making their way to Kemble, each one ferrying ten men.

      The plan was for one team to proceed on foot from Kemble to Tarlton, where they would isolate the hamlet, surround Stephen Marchant’s house and carry out as much surveillance as they could. Once they had confirmed Dhar’s presence, they would call in the second team, who would come in low by helicopter. As they fast-roped onto the roof of the house, the first team would enter by the ground floor. Denton would be waiting a mile down the road, ready to accompany Dhar to Fairford once the operation was complete.

      He dialled through to the liaison officer at Hereford again.

      ‘It’s Ian,’ he said. ‘Daniel Marchant might be with the target.’

      ‘One of yours, isn’t he?’

      Denton heard the contempt in his voice, and told himself it was mutual. Neither side appreciated the other’s skills. Just as MI5 didn’t enjoy working with the police, so MI6 resented being increasingly asked to share operations with the military.

      ‘He was.’

      ‘Expendable?’

      Denton paused. It would be easier if Marchant was out of the way, but Spiro was expecting him. ‘No.’

      He hung up, and thought about what lay ahead. After a discussion with the Chief of Defence Staff, the Director of Special Forces and other military top brass who had been summoned from their beds to attend COBRA, the PM had authorised the mission to capture Dhar. It was short notice, but it wasn’t as if the target was hiding in hostile territory. He was in the Cotswolds. If anything went wrong, the operation could be dismissed as an exercise.

      The PM’s main concern was to pre-empt the Americans. A raid by the US on British soil would be politically humiliating, possibly fatal, for the coalition, which still had to deal with the problem of Vauxhall Cross. However, the PM had agreed for Dhar to be handed over to the Americans at the earliest opportunity. The government would win global credit for capturing the world’s most wanted terrorist, the special relationship would be back on track, and Denton’s right to take over as Chief of MI6 would become unarguable.

      31

      ‘Turn it off,’ Dhar said, waving the gun at the wood-encased record player in the corner. ‘Then sit down.’

      Marchant went over to the old HMV, given to him by his father, and lifted the needle off Sinbad the Sailor. After clicking a switch, which released a dusty hiss, he sat down on the carpet, cross-legged like Dhar, and tried to gauge the extent of his drinking, the state of his mind. His words were clear, but his eyes, usually as bright as onyx, were unfocused. It was the one scenario he hadn’t expected. Injury had always been a possibility, the reason Dhar had sought sanctuary here. There was a patch of blood on the carpet, and his trousers were ripped. But alcohol? That was meant to be Marchant’s curse, not Dhar’s.

      ‘I wasn’t expecting us to meet again so soon.’ Marchant nodded at Dhar’s leg. ‘What happened?’

      ‘It’s nothing.’ Dhar winced, taking another sip of vodka from the bottle.

      ‘Looks painful.’

      ‘I said it’s nothing,’ Dhar repeated, raising his voice. He was still holding the gun loosely in one hand. Marchant felt like someone who had released an animal back into the wild, only to find it on his doorstep the next morning, tired and hungry. СКАЧАТЬ