I telephoned Monaghan later the same day.
As he had suggested, I used a phone box, a different one from that which I had used before. My plan to tell him about the affidavits blew out. As soon as he had given me the information I needed, he hung up. It was going to have to wait.
The Iranian was due to be staying in the St Pancras hotel at Kings Cross. He was using the Selahattin Yildrim identity and a Turkish passport. Of key importance was the fact that there was no surveillance on him yet as the Anti-Terrorist Squad had not yet learned his location. Our instructions were crystal clear. Yildrim was to be captured, taken to the farmhouse and then Monaghan would be out to see us within a day. It all sounded straightforward. Too simple, in fact. The simplicity of it worried me. Operations like this required planning. Contingencies needed to be covered, mishaps allowed for, problems anticipated. We had less than twenty-four hours to kidnap a terrorist, drive him to the remote Essex countryside and then start to interrogate him. And there were only two of us. If the Iranian was armed, and it was likely he would be, he might put up a fight. We couldn’t kill him, as that would defeat the object. We needed a plan.
That evening, over a take-away coffee, Kevin came up with one. A black cab. The front door of the hotel opened up onto a taxi rank. Kevin would act as driver. I would intercept the Arab as he came out the front door, bundle him into the cab and then drive away with him.
‘Just like in the movies,’ I said, and it would have been. In real life it would never have worked.
So we modified the idea. Figuring that Kevin’s plan could only work if the Arab appeared when we were ready, I suggested we went in and persuaded him to come outside. I would pretend to be from MI5. If I bluffed Yildrim into thinking he was surrounded, he should come quietly. Then we’d get him into the taxi. No rough stuff, just a threat in case he should decide that he didn’t want to come. Before we reached the outside, I’d have to find somewhere to search him. The lift would do. Then I’d walk him out to the taxi rank. Inside the cab we’d plasti-cuff his wrists and blindfold him. The more we talked it through, the better I felt. It could just work.