An hour after my brief conversation with Kevin, I was in the waiting room at Canning Town tube station, watching for the arrival of a west-bound train. It was a perfect spot to meet.
In the sealed environment of a railway waiting room, there was virtually no possibility of us being overheard. Even outside the closed doors, the background noise generated by central London at its busiest served to drown out all but the loudest of voices. Inside, we could easily speak freely. Which was just as well, considering the subject I was about to raise.
Kevin kept me waiting for a few minutes and appeared just as a train from the Docklands Light Railway was pulling into one of the platforms.
‘It looks like there’s no shadow on you,’ he said, as he sat on the plastic seat immediately next to me. He leaned forwards, talking quietly so we wouldn’t be overheard, even though there were no other passengers in the waiting room.
‘You thought there might be?’ I replied.
‘After finding that bug in the house I reckon anything’s possible.’
Through the grey-stained windows, I spotted a suited commuter walking along the platform. He glanced at me, as if checking whether the waiting room was free of undesirable types. He was genuine – no surveillance operative would risk making eye contact – and, presumably, having decided Kevin and I weren’t the kind of people he wanted to share a waiting room with, he moved on.
‘You’ve no doubt guessed what Rupert told me?’ I began. ‘You’ve been calling people trying to find a translator for a copy of that Arabic document. Do you want to tell me where you got it from?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘You don’t have to, Kev,’ I said, angrily. ‘Brian McNeil is the answer.’
‘How the fuck?’
‘I know he’s surfaced and he’s the last known member of that patrol. I put two and two together. You’ve been helping him.’
Kevin was silent for a moment before replying. ‘I’m sorry … I should have said something at the pub, but we’d already put the wheels in motion. Truth is, McNeil already has things sorted.’
‘Using the same translator, Dr Armstrong?’
‘Yes.’
I didn’t reply, as I weighed up my options and the warnings Toni and Armstrong had given me. ‘So, what happened when you contacted the Doctor?’ I asked.
‘McNeil said he would do the job, but he said it was a waste of time if it was the same thing he’d looked at before.’
‘He’s scared.’
‘Why’s that, then?’
‘Something I should have shared with you at the time … but we never figured another copy of the document would ever surface.’
‘Something? Like what?’
‘I told you at the time that it was valueless. Well, that wasn’t exactly what he said to me. He said that possession of it was a poison chalice, a curse – whoever had it would have to explain how he came by it.’
‘I’m not following. “Cursed” – was does that mean?’
I half smiled. ‘No, not in that way. It’s a highly secret document that our Security Services either have already or are likely to be looking for. Anyone even knowing about it is at risk; and actual possession of a copy would be a curse. Al Anfal, or whoever they are, plus Al Q’aeda, MI5, Six, the CIA – they’ll all be looking for it, and Armstrong was quite certain they would be prepared to eliminate whoever got in their way.’
Kevin was stunned into silence. ‘So, I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets, boss … that’s why all our lads were killed, isn’t it? Someone making sure it stays secret.’
‘That was Armstrong’s conclusion, yes.’
‘And it’s potentially valuable?’
I sighed. ‘Sometimes I wonder about you, Kev. Are you not listening? Yes, it has some value, but that’s not the point. You can’t sell it. Nobody with any sense would touch it and, as soon as you try to find a buyer, you’d make yourself a target.’
‘We could be careful, use an intermediary? Highest bidder gets it?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, more thoughtfully now. ‘Something McNeil said to me. Like he already had some idea what it is. He said it was called Al Anfal.’
‘That is its name, yes, and, likely as not, he does know what it is and he only wanted your help because he thought you could help sell it. Why do you think the others on the Increment patrol were keeping copies? They already had an idea what it was.’
‘So what happened to the copy you took to the translator?’
‘He burned it … and with my approval. It’s from a world way beyond our understanding, Kev.’
‘Probably explains why, when McNeil first called him, he said he had no idea what he was talking about. He might think his phone is bugged as well.’
‘He told me that if you Googled the name “Al Anfal”, GCHQ would pick that up and the Security Services would soon be knocking on your door.’
‘Really?’
‘Where is McNeil?’
‘He’s laying low.’
I shook my head. The day was going from bad to worse. ‘So, where is his copy of the document at the moment?’
‘Armstrong still has it. But I guess that’s the least of my worries.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Google. I already searched the name.’