Chapter Two

 

 

MI6 Headquarters, Vauxhall Cross

London, England

 

Doug Elliott stood up from the uncomfortable swivel chair and stepped slowly toward the bulletproof glass of the conference room. He locked his hands behind his slightly hunched back and shook his graying head. “I’m not certain that the new information is actionable or allows us to proceed, Mr. Hall.”

Justin shrugged. He had asked Elliott more than once to call him Justin, but the middle-aged man stuck to his impeccable manners. “Isn’t it clear, crystal clear, that something very devious is being plotted right ... right in the heart of London?” He wanted to say right under your nose, but that would not have been helpful in securing Elliott’s support.

Elliott nodded and removed his horn-rimmed glasses. “Yes, but what exactly? And when? I’ve had people check the schedule of foreign heads of state, executives, prime ministers, and other senior government officials. There are over a hundred of them coming in the next three weeks alone. Where do we start?” He shrugged, then returned his glasses to his frowning face.

“He’s right,” said the woman sitting across from Justin and Carrie. Elliott had introduced her as Agent Mandy Coole. She was correct, of course, but the truth was so obvious that it went without saying. But Coole had to say it, as she had continuously supported almost every sentence coming out of Elliott’s mouth. Perhaps her work performance depends on making an excellent impression on Elliott.

“Can we eliminate the unlikely suspects?” Justin asked. “The insignificant ones, and focus on the rest.”

“We can do that, but we run the risk of missing someone.”

“The inaccuracy margin will be way too high,” Coole said, “and unacceptable.”

“But doing nothing is acceptable?” Carrie asked.

Elliott gave her a piercing glance. “We’re far from doing nothing, Ms. O’Connor. I reiterate, we can’t spread our resources too thin and check out everyone. We have the biggest players covered, who have their own nearly impenetrable security measures. We have issued warnings to a few, let’s say ... second-tier leaders, in terms of being under a potential threat. But of course, we cannot go public with this information.”

Justin nodded. “Of course not.” Neither Elliott nor his bosses would admit they did not have a grasp on the security of London or of the United Kingdom. They were unlikely to raise the terror threat level until there was a clear, imminent danger. Justin did not want the situation to escalate to that point, but Elliott’s staunch opposition was leaving him without much choice.

Justin shifted in his seat, rubbed his chin covered by a two-day stubble, then said, “How are you exploring the Chinese connection?”

“What exactly is there to explore, Mr. Hall?” Elliott looked at Justin as if he had committed a big blunder. “We can’t knock on the door of the Chinese Embassy and ask them to hand over their spies now, can we?”

“That’s right,” Coole said with a nod.

Justin thought about replying with a smart-aleck remark, but then decided against it. He leaned forward and said, “No, but perhaps MI6 can run through its database, see if you can identify anyone, potential—”

Elliott waved a dismissive hand. “No, I’m not going to waste precious resources on a witch-hunt, Mr. Hall. Unless you bring me concrete names, my hands are tied.”

Coole nodded.

Justin sighed. He wished he could tell Elliott about his former IRA asset and his MI5 connection. But that admission would cause many questions Justin was not ready to answer. So he shifted in his seat and said nothing.

“On a related matter, what did you find in Dublin?”

Justin stifled a frown creasing his forehead. While his and Carrie’s trip to Dublin was not exactly a secret, he still was surprised that Elliott would bring it up, especially in an official meeting. If Justin had not mentioned anything specifically, the implication was that there was nothing worth mentioning. But Justin suspected Elliott had heard about the firefight. “The piece of intel about the Chinese angle came from our Dublin contacts.”

“Did they know anything else?”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Can they find out?”

Justin thought of the asset lying in a pool of blood outside the St. Andrews Church. “We’re trying a different approach, which hopefully will give us more details.”

Elliott walked back to the rectangular table of dark wood, but did not take his seat. He folded his arms across his chest, then said, “Mr. Hall, are you aware of a shootout that took place last night in Dublin?”

Justin had anticipated the question. “Yes, I heard about it on the news. A skirmish between rival IRA groups.”

Elliott held Justin’s gaze and did not blink. “It appears so. Three men are dead.”

Justin shrugged.

Carrie said, “It’s too bad violence is returning after a few peaceful months.”

“Yes, unfortunate, but I want to show you something.”

He reached for the keyboard and the mouse controlling a computer set at one end of the room. On the wall, a large monitor displayed the MI6 logo: a crowned shield with a lion and a unicorn inside. Elliott tapped a few keys and a folder with a set of images appeared on the monitor. He clicked on the first one, and Justin recognized the man as the asset killed last night. “Do you know him?” Elliott asked.

“I saw his picture on the news.”

“Well, he’s Seoirse Dunbar, a former mid-level IRA officer, who was reformed. Or so we thought. But I’ll let Ms. Coole brief you about the rest, since this is her file.”

“Thanks.” Coole pointed at the screen. “Dunbar was working for Five. They turned him a couple of years ago, when new troubles started to brew in Ireland and Northern Ireland. A number of attacks in Dublin and Belfast, with the potential to spread. Dunbar was Five’s eyes and ears on the ground.”

“So, how is this your file, then?” Carrie brushed back a few unruly strands of her long auburn hair.

“About six months ago, Five noted a change in Dunbar’s behavior. He became reluctant to cooperate, fearful, and his intelligence was nearly useless.”

“Someone found out about him and Five,” Carrie said.

“Yes, Five thought so, and they kept a close eye on Dunbar. They discovered no one among the old or the new IRA even suspected the asset.”

Justin nodded. The implication was clear. “It was a foreign agent.”

Coole nodded. “Yes, and that’s when MI5 reached out to us. We surveilled Dunbar for three weeks, took a deeper look at his past and current connections, and found out something interesting. He was, indeed, talking to a foreign operative.”

“Who?”

Coole shrugged. “We tracked down some of their communications, but weren’t able to identify the operative. Both he and Dunbar were good at covering their tracks.”

“But not all of them,” Carrie said.

Coole nodded. “Right, but we didn’t have enough to move forward.”

“So you backed off?” Carrie said.

“Well, not exactly. We kept tabs on him, albeit at a distance. Then, last night, we found something very interesting. A couple of security cameras captured what happened near the corner of Trinity and St. Andrews, the place where Dunbar was shot. I’ll let you see for yourself.”

Justin tried his best to keep his poker face, as the video began to play.