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Authors: Hector Macdonald
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chemical traces, right fragments. And of course you’d just rushed back from Yemen without authorization. The obvious conclusion was quickly drawn. Except that some of us never felt entirely comfortable with it, for the simple reason that Al-Qaeda doesn’t blow up private homes in the UK. So what should we conclude? That you were targeted by a highly skilled assassin who tailored his method to produce a specific but misleading impression.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s the same man in both clips, Simon: the Dault Street corner shop CCTV and the Think Again conference footage. They’re on my server if you don’t believe me.’
He didn’t hesitate for a second. Seizing the laptop from the desk, he tapped in a password and thrust it at her.
‘You have wireless here?’
‘Show me!’
‘All right,’ she murmured, taking the machine.
The tracking programme that was initiated in a remote data centre when Wraye logged into her server was not especially complex, but it co-opted a far more sophisticated battery of code originally written by software engineers at the USA’s National Security Agency. This code swiftly chewed through a chain of anonymizing proxies to establish the Italian internet service provider from which the URL request had come, and then even more swiftly traced the relevant landline on the Ligurian coast. No record of the trace was left on the ISP’s own systems. The only evidence was an automated email arriving in the inbox of Edward Joyce.
Simon Arkell had turned the colour of death. ‘Yes,’ he muttered.
Wraye frowned as, for perhaps the thousandth time, she watched Yadin take those few critical steps in front of a Tobago camera. ‘You haven’t seen the Dault Street clip yet.’
‘I don’t need to. That’s him.’ His voice was empty, robotic. ‘I saw him.’
Now it was Wraye’s turn for surprise. ‘You saw Yadin? When?’
Arkell closed his eyes. ‘Outside my house. That’s why I’m alive.’
‘You recognized him? You knew him?’
‘I’d never seen him before.’
‘Then why . . . ?’
Arkell held up a hand, brow creased in memory. ‘We were about to have dinner in the kitchen – Emily, Saeed and I. But the phone rang, the Firm for the hundredth time, and Emily was sick of telling them I wasn’t there. So I went upstairs to our bedroom to take the call. It was George Vine. I told him I was coming in first thing in the morning. Full report, everything explained. I was still hoping I’d be able to reach you before then.’
‘Reach me ?’
‘You were in Kyrgyzstan. I had to know your answer before I took Saeed to Head Office.’
‘My answer? To what?’
‘The Porthos message I sent from Yemen. About Ellington. About the GRIEVANCE warning.’
‘ GRIEVANCE? This was two years later, Simon. What warning ? I never got any message about GRIEVANCE from you.’
Arkell was silent for a while, trying to read her. ‘I sent you . . .’ He stopped himself, as if suddenly wearied beyond measure.
‘I went up to our bedroom,’ he resumed quietly. ‘Emily’s jeans were on the floor. I remember that. While George was delicately meandering around the subject, all I could think was how strange it was to have Emily’s jeans lying crumpled in front of me after three months in Yemen. Then something made me look out the window. George was going on in that gentle, disappointed way of his about chain of command and respect for the rules, and I noticed an NTL van parked across the street. And there was a man in the driving seat, like he was on a job.’
‘So? He was on a job, so what?’
‘At 8 p.m.? In a street with no cable?’ Arkell closed his eyes. ‘There was an extra aerial. And the bodywork wasn’t quite right. Looked like SNUFFBOX,’ he added, using the Firm’s old codename for the Security Service. ‘I guessed they’d found out about Saeed, and it seemed best just to have a quiet word with them. I didn’t want to scare them off by marching out the
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s the same man in both clips, Simon: the Dault Street corner shop CCTV and the Think Again conference footage. They’re on my server if you don’t believe me.’
He didn’t hesitate for a second. Seizing the laptop from the desk, he tapped in a password and thrust it at her.
‘You have wireless here?’
‘Show me!’
‘All right,’ she murmured, taking the machine.
The tracking programme that was initiated in a remote data centre when Wraye logged into her server was not especially complex, but it co-opted a far more sophisticated battery of code originally written by software engineers at the USA’s National Security Agency. This code swiftly chewed through a chain of anonymizing proxies to establish the Italian internet service provider from which the URL request had come, and then even more swiftly traced the relevant landline on the Ligurian coast. No record of the trace was left on the ISP’s own systems. The only evidence was an automated email arriving in the inbox of Edward Joyce.
Simon Arkell had turned the colour of death. ‘Yes,’ he muttered.
Wraye frowned as, for perhaps the thousandth time, she watched Yadin take those few critical steps in front of a Tobago camera. ‘You haven’t seen the Dault Street clip yet.’
‘I don’t need to. That’s him.’ His voice was empty, robotic. ‘I saw him.’
Now it was Wraye’s turn for surprise. ‘You saw Yadin? When?’
Arkell closed his eyes. ‘Outside my house. That’s why I’m alive.’
‘You recognized him? You knew him?’
‘I’d never seen him before.’
‘Then why . . . ?’
Arkell held up a hand, brow creased in memory. ‘We were about to have dinner in the kitchen – Emily, Saeed and I. But the phone rang, the Firm for the hundredth time, and Emily was sick of telling them I wasn’t there. So I went upstairs to our bedroom to take the call. It was George Vine. I told him I was coming in first thing in the morning. Full report, everything explained. I was still hoping I’d be able to reach you before then.’
‘Reach me ?’
‘You were in Kyrgyzstan. I had to know your answer before I took Saeed to Head Office.’
‘My answer? To what?’
‘The Porthos message I sent from Yemen. About Ellington. About the GRIEVANCE warning.’
‘ GRIEVANCE? This was two years later, Simon. What warning ? I never got any message about GRIEVANCE from you.’
Arkell was silent for a while, trying to read her. ‘I sent you . . .’ He stopped himself, as if suddenly wearied beyond measure.
‘I went up to our bedroom,’ he resumed quietly. ‘Emily’s jeans were on the floor. I remember that. While George was delicately meandering around the subject, all I could think was how strange it was to have Emily’s jeans lying crumpled in front of me after three months in Yemen. Then something made me look out the window. George was going on in that gentle, disappointed way of his about chain of command and respect for the rules, and I noticed an NTL van parked across the street. And there was a man in the driving seat, like he was on a job.’
‘So? He was on a job, so what?’
‘At 8 p.m.? In a street with no cable?’ Arkell closed his eyes. ‘There was an extra aerial. And the bodywork wasn’t quite right. Looked like SNUFFBOX,’ he added, using the Firm’s old codename for the Security Service. ‘I guessed they’d found out about Saeed, and it seemed best just to have a quiet word with them. I didn’t want to scare them off by marching out the
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