Read Online Dead Spy Running by Jon Stock - Free Book Online

muntjac deer barked in the distance.
    â€˜Are you still drinking?’ Fielding asked.
    â€˜When I can,’ Marchant said.
    â€˜I’m not sure we can bail you out a second time.’
    â€˜How long will I be kept at the safe house?’
    â€˜It’s for your own security. Someone out there’s not happy you thwarted their attack.’
    They walked on together, both at ease with the forest’s noisy dampness. ‘There are no surprises in what I’ve read of Bancroft’s report, no moles uncovered,’ Fielding said, as they began on a loop back towards the car. ‘It’s not Tony’s style, not why he was appointed. Just a summing up of what happened on your father’s watch and a measured assessment of whether anything more could have been done. There were too many attacks, we all know that.’
    â€˜And someone had to take the bullet.’
    â€˜The PM’s a former Home Secretary. He was always going to favour MI5 over us.’
    Marchant had heard all this before, but he knew from Fielding’s manner that he was holding something back.
    â€˜Unfortunately, the Americans have been pushing for more, day and night, trying to establish that it was conspiracy rather than complacency on your father’s part. We’ve resisted, of course, but the PM is indulging them. And now it seems they’ve persuaded him to hold back on the report’s publication, saying the CIA have something specific.’
    â€˜On my father? What?’
    â€˜How much do you know about Salim Dhar?’
    â€˜Dhar?’ Marchant hesitated, trying to think clearly. ‘On the shortlist for masterminding last year’s UK bombings, but no evidence to link him directly. Always been more anti-American than British. It’s a while since I read his file.’
    â€˜Educated in Delhi, the American school, then disappeared,’ Fielding said. ‘The Indians arrested him two years later in Kashmir, and banged him up in a detention site in Kerala, where he should be now. Only he isn’t.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜He was one of the prisoners released in the Bhuj hijack exchange at the end of last year.’
    It wasn’t his region, but Marchant knew the incident had been an almost exact copy of the Indian Airlines hijacking at Kandahar in 1999. Then, Omar Sheikh had been released, amid much international condemnation. It was never made public who was freed at Bhuj.
    â€˜AQ must have rated him,’ Marchant said, wondering where his father fitted in.
    â€˜We had Dhar down as a small-time terrorist until Bhuj. They wanted something spectacular in return for his freedom. Within a month, Dhar was launching RPGs into the US compound in Delhi.’
    Marchant had read about the attack, in the blur of grief. It had taken place just after his father had died, before the funeral. Nine US Marines had been killed.
    â€˜What’s this got to do with my father?’
    Fielding paused before answering, as if in two minds whether to proceed. ‘The Americans would very much like to find Salim Dhar. After Delhi, he went on to attack their compound in Islamabad, killing six more US Marines And now the CIA has established that a senior-ranking officer from MI6 visited Dhar in Kerala shortly before he was released in the hostage exchange.’
    Marchant looked up. ‘And they think it was my father?’
    â€˜They’re working on a theory that it was, yes. I’m sorry. There’s no official record of any visits. I’ve checked all the logbooks, many times.’
    Marchant didn’t know what to think. It wouldn’t be unusual for the local station head from Chennai, say, to bluff his way into seeing someone like Dhar, but it would be extremely unorthodox for the Chief of MI6 to make an undeclared visit from London.
    â€˜In the context of MI5’s own inquiries, I’m afraid it doesn’t look good,’ Fielding added. ‘There are those