Thursday 28th January 2016
London
The meeting is held in the Number 10 library. It is the second appearance in the same room that afternoon for Sir Desmond Wheatley, Dame Philippa Mayhew and Dominic Hall: for everyone else, most notably the home secretary, the foreign secretary, Sir Giles Armstrong and Sir Philip Angel, and both Malcolm Scott and Caroline Wicks, it is their first. By design, the most prominent absentee is the PM himself. It is for this reason that the meeting is chaired by Dame Philippa, although the presence of Dominic Hall, Ingleby’s enforcer, leaves no one in any doubt about the subtext. The mood is frosty, the tone of the preliminary discussions muted and clipped.
Dame Philippa begins by stating that she feels that it might be helpful to conduct what she refers to as a ‘drains-up review’ of what has happened, a blow by painful blow accounting of the left and right hand’s actions that have led to the current state of each party not knowing what the other has been doing.
First to speak is Sir Desmond. He carefully skirts around some of the operational details of Operation Contango but not before making it clear that MI6 has had a deep-cover asset in place for some time. In answer to a direct challenge from Caroline Wicks as to why Ricky’s file had not been flagged in the system, Sir Desmond explains that on occasions when MI6 and MI5 work closely together on a case, as had happened with Operation Contango, and when the subject is an individual of such public prominence as Ricky Al-Shawabi, it is common practice to leave that individual unflagged in the system, especially when he or she is operating substantially outside the UK’s domestic jurisdiction.
Malcolm Scott then presents the NCA’s side of the story. He tries to put the case against Ricky into context: the NCA’s operation had been deliberately low-key, there had been a Cabinet three-line whip to make the fight against tax evasion and corruption a priority, and in the absence of any flagging of Ricky’s file – and believing this operation against Ricky was not in any way about matters that were against the national interest – it had been Malcolm’s view, with full support of his minister, that no consultation with other agencies was required.
There is a sharp exchange of looks between Jeremy Seymour and Scott at this stage, something that is not lost on either Dame Philippa or Geraldine Macauley.
“We now come to some of the operational considerations,” Dame Philippa intervenes. “As I understand it, Malcolm, you have one member of staff badly injured and two field operatives missing. Is that right?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Sir Desmond, do you have any further information that might shed light on their plight?”
Sir Desmond purses his lips, looks briefly at the foreign secretary, then chooses his words carefully.
“We have good reason to believe that both field operatives are at this moment on an aircraft bound for the Middle East. We believe the plane’s destination is Iraq, but we cannot be certain. I cannot vouch for their safety, I’m afraid. The matter is now broadly out of our hands.”
“Why only broadly?” Wicks asks, suddenly on the offensive.
“Because Caroline,” Sir Desmond says smoothly and calmly, “Operation Contango involves our allies in the Middle East and not just ourselves.”
“What will likely happen to them?” It is Malcolm Scott’s turn to ask about the two missing members of his team.
In silence, Sir Desmond opens his hands wide, palms upwards.
Dame Philippa has not yet finished asking questions.
“Sir Philip and Sir Giles, did either of you know anything about any of this?”
Both shake their heads in unison.
“Nothing at all,” says Sir Giles.
“Nor me,” says Sir Philip. “Meetings between the foreign secretary and Sir Desmond are usually private matters for the minister alone.”
“But you knew didn’t you, Home Secretary?” Dominic Hall interjects.
Jeremy Seymour pretends to shuffle papers but eventually mutters quietly that he did. He takes a linen handkerchief from his pocket and mops sweat from his forehead.
“How did you hear, Jeremy?” Hall continues.
“From Malcolm Scott directly,” Seymour says eventually.
“But doesn’t Sir Giles attend your regular meetings with the NCA?” Dame Philippa takes up the thread once more.
“Not when I bump into Malcolm on the street.” He looks apologetically at Sir Giles and then looks down at his papers, assiduously avoiding the foreign secretary’s eyes.
“All right, everybody, thank you for your time. I think we have all the facts that are available at the moment. Malcolm, Caroline, I suggest for now that your investigation into Ricky Al-Shawabi is put on hold pending the safe reappearance of your team members and until Operation Contango has come to its natural conclusion. Sir Desmond, I trust that you will do everything in your power to try to safeguard the lives of the two missing people?”
“As long as it doesn’t compromise our national interests, Dame Philippa, yes of course.”
“Very good. Meeting adjourned. Dominic, is there anything you wanted to add?
“Only that I’d like the home secretary and the foreign secretary to stay behind for a few minutes.”
“In the prime minister’s absence, I am going to tell you both what I think.”
Dominic Hall has taken off his glasses and is fiddling with them, opening and closing the side arms randomly. The foreign secretary is on his immediate right, the home secretary on his left.
“I think one or more of you have been playing games, trying to score points. As a direct consequence, one British subject lies badly injured in a hospital bed in Monaco and two others are missing, assumed captured, by hostile parties. All of us have to live with that. Geraldine, I think that at times MI6’s ways are archaic and deliberately designed to be non-collaborative. Sir Desmond’s people should have flagged Ricky’s file, don’t you agree?”
“Yes. Now that I know the facts – which let me assure you, Dominic, until this afternoon I did not – I agree. MI6 would have been better advised to flag Ricky’s file.”
Hall now turns to Seymour.
“As for you, Jeremy, I think keeping this matter wholly within the Home Office suited your own particular purposes and ambitions. Keeping it from your officials just compounded the problem. This does not feel at all collaborative from where I am sitting. If the PM were here, he’d be extremely disappointed with your behaviour. Damn it, you are two of the most senior Cabinet members in government. You have to do better than this, the pair of you. End of sermon, but recognise that this is a mark against you both – Jeremy, you in particular.”
“How did it go?”
Justin Ingleby is dressed in white tie and tails, hastily reviewing a speech he is shortly to make at the Mansion House that evening. Dominic Hall and Dame Philippa have a brief opportunity to update Ingleby on the conversation that has just finished in the library.
“It’s been a rough day,” Hall begins. “First, the Stephen Russell bombshell. Now we have Jeremy Seymour playing silly buggers trying to point-score against Geraldine in connection with an operation that he knew he should have consulted with her about in advance. I have just given them a bollocking on your behalf, especially Seymour. That man is an arse. Heaven help us if he ends up being your successor.”
“It would be impossible do this job without someone like you, thank you, Dominic.”
“Unfortunately there’s something else,” Dame Philippa says. “It never rains but it pours. I’m sorry, Dominic, I haven’t even had the chance to brief you yet either.”
“Go on. What is it?”
She explains about the phone call that Geraldine Macauley had received from Michael Myers, the Daily Post reporter, earlier in the afternoon.
“Oh God, no!” Ingleby says when he hears the news. “That’s all I need. I am about to fire the chancellor of the exchequer for both a breach of trust and a looming personal financial scandal. Now you’re telling me that the foreign secretary is likely to resign over some issue that hitherto she helpfully has forgotten to tell anyone anything about. It’s an absolute disaster! Not least since it leaves Jeremy Seymour with an open door to succeed me. What a bloody nightmare! This is terrible, terrible news. We are going to have to spend some time on this tomorrow – and urgently. When does the Myers story break?”
“In the morning, we think.”
“The sky is falling in. All I need now is for Ricky Al-Shawabi to be arrested for money laundering and then my nightmare will be complete.”