The Old Enemy by Henry Porter (read with me .TXT) 📕

The Edgar was raided. Harry Diamond was invited to explain himself, as was Mr Fawcett, who was picked up at home, and after several hours it became clear that both organisations’ websites and broadband had been hacked to provide someone else cover. In the case of Secorum there was an actual Ethernet cable plugged into the office router, and that cable was found to run into the roof of an adjacent building, 209 Herbert Street. The other end had yet to be traced, though Samson was certain that he himself had seen it, together with many other cables, running through a hole punched in the wall of the Pit, about a hundred and fifty metres away from the front of the Edgar Building. He wondered if this was Naji’s idea, too, for he was damned sure that Naji was the author of the new encryption. Aged twelve, Naji had buried information about Islamic State in a game where kids built fantasy structures in the virtual world. He had made one that was also a kind of archive that only he could open.

‘That’s all I have,’ Jo said eventually. ‘They never found the source of the signals and won’t now, because they’ve stopped.’

‘I owe you, Jo. Thanks.’

‘You don’t – we’re quits. Our paths go different directions from now on, Samson.’

‘I won’t trouble you again, Jo.’

‘Don’t,’ she said, and hung up. He’d never heard that tone in her voice before.

He phoned Macy and left another message. ‘I’m at Cedar and I’m coming round now.’ He got up and stood, grimacing for a second or two as the pain ran up and down his leg and into his buttocks. Then he moved towards the stairs and hobbled down, using his stick to break the force on his leg. At the bottom of the stairs was a short passage that led to a door with a transom light above it. If there was sunlight in the street the shadows were sometimes projected upwards and played on the surface of the glass. He could make out two distinct shapes, which he estimated were standing about six feet away from the door. He heard the rumble of Ivan’s voice making excuses. They must be police. He cursed to himself. By now he knew the routine. An unmarked Range Rover or some other SUV would take him to a police station, most likely West End Central in Savile Row. An MI5 officer would be waiting in the vehicle and he or she would say nothing. It wasn’t an arrest, of course, but an invitation to speak about matters of common interest, an update, or ‘sharing of perspectives’, as Peter Nyman liked to put it, though the needs of the state and attendant menace loomed in the background. Nyman usually had something to do with setting up these sessions, which he amused himself by calling ‘tea and chat’.

Samson opened the door and was confronted by two men looking straight at him. The cut of their suits, the polished shoes and general care taken with their grooming told him that they were American intelligence officers, who, on the whole, are more crisply turned out than their British counterparts.

‘We’re from the US Embassy,’ said a man in his late forties with a dark moustache. ‘And we’d very much like to speak with you. We have a car outside.’

Samson frowned and shook his head. Ivan looked as though he might retrieve, for the first time, a baseball bat that he insisted on keeping hidden under the maître d’s desk. ‘I’m sure you’re kosher,’ said Samson. ‘It’s just that I’ve had a difficult few days. People keep trying to kill me.’

‘Let me introduce us. I’m Frank Toombs from the Central Intelligence Agency and this is Special Agent Edward Reiner from the FBI.’ Reiner showed him ID. ‘We’re kind of here unofficially.’

‘You don’t want the security services and SIS knowing what you’re doing.’

‘Oh, they know we’re here, for sure. But we just want to hold some conversations without them in the room. Does that seem strange to you?’

Samson looked at Toombs. ‘There’s a famous expert on tradecraft in the Agency who retired a few years ago,’ he said. ‘Can you give me their name and tell me which office they worked in?’

Toombs grinned. ‘You’re testing me! Sure! Okay! That was Mavis Hoyle, and her last post was in the Office of Mission Resources, though that’s classified information, Mr Samson.’

‘What’s her passion?’

‘Some kind of dog – she shows them all over the country now.’

‘Weimaraners,’ said Samson.

‘So you knew Mavis? The best-looking fifty-five-year-old on the planet, and certainly the smartest.’

‘Yes, I spent three months on attachment in Virginia and I attended classes with Mavis. When do you want to do this?’

‘We would appreciate just an hour or so of your time now,’ said Reiner. ‘It really is important.’

Toombs put on sunglasses and, gesturing to the door, said, ‘Shall we, Mr Samson? It’s a short ride.’

They drove to an office building near the new US embassy, south of the Thames, and entered a loading bay very much like the one where Samson had glimpsed Naji. A young woman met them and showed them to a room, with which Toombs and Reiner were evidently unfamiliar. Reiner explained, by the by, that they had only just flown into Northolt. Two younger men joined them. Samson assumed they were CIA because they deferred to Toombs. They all sat down.

‘So,’ said Reiner, pinching his lower lip. ‘We have two missions. The first is to establish who is behind the attack in Congress and understand their motive. The second, which is more Mr Toombs’s area of interest, is to eliminate the threat that brought nerve agent into the heart of our democracy and to make sure that it never occurs again. That means identifying the person or persons who ordered this attack, the chain of command and supply line for the material. We make the assumption that you cannot help us with the second but