Pall Mall, London
ALEX MATHESON, CHIEF OF SIS, was unaware that morning of what was happening to one of her intelligence officers at Macau airport. Instead, as she was driven up the A3 into London from her residence in Surrey, her mind was focused on the day ahead: a difficult meeting coming up with the Chair of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, a call on the new Ukrainian Ambassador in Holland Park, a memorial service for a long-retired Director who had done great things during the Cold War but who now almost nobody remembered. But, first, she had an urgent breakfast meeting with the Foreign Secretary. Such was the pressure to produce actionable intelligence on China right now that Alex Matheson was taking time out of her schedule to focus personally on Luke and Jenny’s mission to track down Hannah Slade. This was to be her second intervention in twenty-four hours and she needed a favour. A big one. Hugh Rawlinson, the Foreign Secretary, had suggested a working breakfast at his club, the Travellers, on Pall Mall, and she had agreed. What she needed to ask him was so delicate it needed more than a phone call. It had to be face-to-face and without delay.
As one of London’s oldest and grandest ‘gentlemen’s clubs’, the Travellers allowed women in as guests, but not as members. As the first woman to head Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service in its hundred-year-plus history that did not sit well with her. But ‘the Club’, as it was referred to by certain people back in Vauxhall Cross, had a long-standing pedigree as the place where senior spooks liked to meet up after-hours, reclining in stiff-backed leather chairs to talk through ticklish problems. In Britain, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service reports directly to the elected Foreign Secretary of the day, as does the Director of the other overseas spy agency, GCHQ. There have been times when this arrangement has functioned less than perfectly. Times in recent years when concerns were voiced, in strict privacy, of course, deep within the confines of Vauxhall Cross, about whether this or that Foreign Secretary could really be trusted with the secret and sensitive intelligence the Service had been obliged to share with them.
But that morning Alex Matheson had no such worries. Hugh Rawlinson MP was a team player. A little on the unadventurous side, it was true, but still a solid, steady-as-she-goes helmsman of Britain’s foreign policy. An alumnus of a south-coast grammar school then a first in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Wadham College, Oxford, before a brief and unremarkable career in law, then his eventual entry into politics. He was apologetically late, leaving her waiting nearly fifteen minutes in the Outer Morning Room, with its imposingly tall ceiling and faded scarlet curtains, close to the unlit fireplace, beneath the Canalettos and next to the ornate wooden table bearing neatly folded copies of the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Spectator, Country Life and a well-thumbed copy of Debrett’s Peerage. The only other living thing in the room was a sprightly orchid in a pot, which looked somewhat out of place in this library of stillness.
‘I’ve left my SPAD waiting in the car so I can’t spend too long,’ explained Rawlinson, when he finally appeared. He seemed rather flustered. For someone well used by now to treading the corridors of power, the Foreign Secretary looked curiously ill at ease as he and the SIS chief rode up together in the Club’s rickety lift to the dining room.
‘Thank you for meeting at short notice, Hugh,’ she began, once they were seated by the window. Alex Matheson had much she needed to say to him but she knew it had to be couched in just the right way or she would walk away from this meeting empty-handed.
‘Not at all, my pleasure,’ he replied amiably. ‘To be honest, it’s a relief to get out of King Charles Street for a bit. This Taiwan crisis is eclipsing nearly all other business right now.’
‘Ah.’ Alex leant in a little closer. ‘You see, that is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.’
And then, as so often happens at the wrong moment, a waiter appeared to take their order. A cup of Earl Grey for the Foreign Secretary, avocado on toast and a fresh orange juice for the MI6 Chief. They waited patiently until he was out of earshot.
‘So,’ she resumed, ‘as you well know, Hugh, we have a Level One operation running out of Hong Kong right now.’
‘I certainly do know, Alex. I remember signing off on it. In fact, I was just about to ask if there’s any news yet. I mean, I hate to rush your Service, you know that, but I’m getting asked for updates every day in Cabinet. So, yes, I’m all ears.’ He sat back in his chair with an expectant look on his face.
‘Of course.’ She picked up the linen napkin in front of her, unfolded it and laid it neatly across her lap. This was the part she wasn’t looking forward to but she had to get it over with. ‘So, the fact is, Hugh, we have a missing collector. She vanished in Hong Kong.’
The Foreign Secretary sat bolt upright and stared at her; she could almost see his lawyer’s brain working through what she had just said. ‘I – I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘A collector? You’re going to have to remind me of what that is.’
‘She. The collector is a person, Hugh,’ she corrected him. ‘She’s an academic, what we call a clean skin. Someone we sent into Hong Kong to pick up the data from the agent we’ve been running inside the CCP.’
‘Vanished, you say? That doesn’t sound good. How did this happen?’
‘Well …’ Alex Matheson looked down at her lap and rearranged her napkin. ‘… it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. She’s been taken. Abducted.’
‘What? By whom?’ A few heads turned on neighbouring tables. It wasn’t done to raise your voice in the Travellers’ dining room even if the voice was that of the Foreign Secretary.
‘We think by triads. Organized crime, but we believe there could still be a connection to Beijing.’
‘Well, they’ve stepped over the line this time. This is unacceptable! We’ll summon their ambassador as soon as I get back to King Charles Street.’
‘Hold that thought for a moment,’ the SIS Chief replied, as a waiter brought their breakfast, delivering their orders with a flourish and a very slight bow before returning to the kitchen.
‘We have to get her back,’ continued Rawlinson, his voice lower this time. ‘The PM is on my case for anything that could give us an advantage in this Taiwan crisis. Can’t your people track her down?’
She gave him a withering look.
‘Sorry, I suppose that’s obvious,’ he added.
‘Believe me, we’re trying. I’ve sent two of my best IOs on her trail. They’re in Macau, and in the last few hours we might just have had a breakthrough.’
‘Oh?’
‘Look, Hugh …’ She allowed herself a small sigh: the Service had some uncomfortable baggage in this area. ‘What I’m going to tell you is single-sourced so I’m not going to bet the shop on it but right now it’s the only source we have. The intel suggests our collector is being held on a merchant vessel, a container ship, heading to Taipei. We have the name of the ship. It’s Ulysses Maiden. It’s already en route – it left Macau last night.’
The Foreign Secretary breathed out slowly and raised his eyebrows as high as they would go. He seemed to have forgotten all about his special adviser waiting in the car on Pall Mall. ‘Well, we need to act fast,’ he said, stating the obvious once again. ‘What d’you need from me?’
Good. This was exactly how Alex Matheson had hoped this would go. Easy on the histrionics, moving straight to practicalities. ‘I need two things, if you don’t mind, Foreign Secretary. We need the Taiwan authorities to impound her – that’s Ulysses Maiden – the moment she comes into port and not let anyone disembark until we’ve found our collector onboard. We’ve already got our Taipei station chief working the ports register to see when she’s due in.’
‘OK, I think that’s doable. What was the second thing?’
The Chief put down her avocado toast and took a sip of her orange juice. ‘Look, I realize this is a big ask, but is there any chance we can get an interdiction at sea? Get an SF team onboard while she’s still in international waters and take them by surprise? It’s a Defence thing, obviously, but it has to start with you.’
‘Hmm.’ The Foreign Secretary was frowning as he played this one out in his head. ‘It would be a lot simpler if we could just impound her in port.’
Alex Matheson held up her hand in what she hoped was a placatory gesture. ‘Yes, I get that, but I’m going to level with you. If we wait that long, when we’re dealing with the sort of people who’ve abducted her … well, there’s no guarantee she’ll still be alive by the time that ship reaches port.’