You-know-who was the cause of all of Holm’s sleepless nights and most of his problems. He blamed you-know-who for his increased drinking, the loss of half of his hair, for his marriage break-up, for the fact he lived in a one-bedroom flat with a fridge stuffed with ready meals, for his lack of supportive colleagues at work, for his failure to progress up the ladder in the last few years. And now for this farce which could well lead to his dismissal. Of course he’d be offered the chance to take early retirement, the easy way to sanitise the whole unpleasant business. After many years distinguished service… blah, blah, blah. There’d be a short announcement in the internal daily briefing, a glass of sherry in Huxtable’s office, the meeting possibly graced with the presence of the head of MI5, Thomas Gillan. Back in the situation room a couple of bowls of hastily purchased snacks would be placed on a desk, and an envelope would be handed over. Inside a card signed by everyone and an Amazon gift voucher because nobody could be bothered with leaving presents these days. A few words would be said. There’d be some reminiscing about the good old days but nobody would mention the reason he was leaving the service. Nobody would mention you-know-who.
You-know-who. MI5 code name RAVEN. Street name – almost certainly an alias – Taher.
Taher…
The name hissed through Holm’s thoughts, the two syllables drawn out as if part of a Siren’s song calling him to his doom. Time and again he’d been beguiled by the name, led astray, his attention diverted from other mundane but important tasks. He could almost hear the whispers at his leaving do. A nod and a wink as he turned his back to reach for a bread stick.
‘The poor boy lost it, don’t you know? Became obsessed.’
‘Obsessed?’
‘Yes. Focused on chasing one individual instead of disrupting the network. Old style. Couldn’t update himself to deal with the reality of the post-9/11 world. Analogue not digital. Social circles rather than social media. So sad.’
A pause. Then a joke at Holm’s expense.
‘Not that the old boy had much of a social circle. Somewhat of a loner, wasn’t he?’
Muttering in agreement. A laugh. Some management speak and then a segue into a safer topic, perhaps football or cricket or the extramarital dalliances of a celebrity couple that someone in Five had inadvertently picked up on a phone intercept.
Somewhat of a loner.
With a tinge of bitterness Holm had to admit it was true. He hadn’t played the game in either the police force or the security services. No union, no Masonic handshake, he hadn’t gone to the right school or university, and he definitely wasn’t what they called clubbable.
He batted away the daydream and focused on his document, but nothing came to mind except a bunch of lame excuses, none of which would wash with Huxtable.
Sod it.
He looked up from his terminal and across at the screens. One news channel showed the centre of Tunis teeming with military personnel, another a beach full of parasols and sun loungers but devoid of tourists. A third focused on the glossy black door at Downing Street. A caption said the prime minister would shortly be making a statement.
‘It was you, Taher,’ Holm whispered to himself. ‘I know it was.’
As soon as he’d spoken he looked up to check nobody had overheard. The mere mention of Taher’s name would have Huxtable frothing at the mouth. For her, Taher was a sign of Holm’s failings. The single-mindedness that had served him well when he’d been in Special Branch was frowned upon here. Phrases like the bigger picture, a connected world, and – Holm’s favourite meaningless platitude – one bullet doesn’t end a war, went down well. Holm’s old-fashioned ideas did not. You didn’t wear out shoe leather these days and you didn’t cultivate informants in smoky back-room bars. You didn’t chase after a man the security services were beginning to think was a myth deliberately propagated by the terrorists to confound their enemies.
Holm had to admit there wasn’t much to go on. The first time the intelligence services had come across Taher had been in text messages found on a number of mobile phones that had been discovered in the UK, France and Belgium. Local ISIS operatives mentioned a free agent who was revered as some kind of emerging jihadi superhero. For a number of years he’d been rumoured to have been involved in almost every atrocity that had taken place in Europe. If he wasn’t actually there, then he was the one doing the planning and supplying the means and the money. However, recently the leads had dried up, leaving behind nothing but speculation. Even Holm’s most trusted informant had changed his tune.
‘You want to believe, then you believe,’ he’d said. ‘But I’ve come to the conclusion Taher is no more than a straw man you’ve created to justify your failures.’
It was true that almost everything about Taher was unsubstantiated: his age, background, country of origin. Was he a refugee or home grown? British, French, German, Belgian? Did he wear his beliefs on his sleeve or was he in some form of deep cover? Was he in a relationship? Did he have a job? Where did he get his money from? Was he, in fact, a composite of more than one individual?
For a couple of years Huxtable had tolerated Holm’s obsession because he was her spin of the roulette wheel, the couple of quid bunged on the lottery, a tenner on a long-odds outsider at the Grand National. Besides, what else could Holm usefully do? He was regularly sidelined on operations because he was too long in the tooth. He was passed over for younger men and women, graduates who had multiple languages and high-level computer skills. Holm spoke decent French and, in his pursuit of Taher, had picked up a smattering of Arabic. His German was limited to ordering beer and his Russian and Chinese non-existent. He could just about use a computer but when his colleagues began to talk of IP addresses and proxy servers and the dark web his eyes began to glaze over. Was tradecraft dead, he wondered. Didn’t anybody follow a hunch any more?
Holm shook himself and concentrated on his screen. The hour had slipped by and there were no more bullet points. He logged off from the terminal and rose from the chair.
The man the security services knew as Taher sat in the back seat of a minibus bouncing along a rough track some fifty miles to the south-west of Tunis. After two hours of driving the stifling air was getting to him. The vehicle’s air con was broken and the windows were jammed shut against the dust. In the next row of seats were two of his foot soldiers, Mohid Latif and Anwan Saabiq. Saabiq reached up and slid a finger under his shemagh to scratch his neck. The skin was slick with sweat. A laugh came from the driver’s seat up front, hardened eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror.
‘Bloody Europeans,’ the man said, his English heavily accented. ‘If you can’t stand the heat, that’s what you say, no?’
Taher met the man’s eyes but remained silent. The driver – Kadri – was Tunisian, nothing more than a hired thug, and he wasn’t there to ask questions. Taher had seen the way the man had caressed the assault rifle he’d used in the attack. It was as if the gun was a pet or a woman. Kadri was ex-military, knew how to handle himself, but the way he’d held the weapon suggested he derived pleasure from killing. For Taher the use of guns and explosives was only a means to an end; for Kadri it was something approaching a fetish. Still, Kadri had been employed because they needed a local guide for the mission. Taher and the others didn’t speak the language and, once you were away from the tourist areas, foreigners stuck out a mile. Kadri could mutter a few words, thrust out a handful of dinar or raise a fist, and trouble faded away. They’d never have been able to navigate the heaving streets of Tunis without him, never have found the route which had taken them south from the city into desolate, rolling hills populated with scrawny pine trees and little else. In short, the mission could not have succeeded had Taher been naive enough to believe he had all the answers.
Rely on others. Depend on no one.
His uncle had taught him the wisdom of the little phrase that made no sense, and Taher had always thought the sentiment it encapsulated was appropriate to his situation. Surrounded by those who venerated him and would die for him, he was nevertheless alone in the world. Aside from his uncle nobody knew the real Taher. He was a mystery, his name an alias. Perhaps, more correctly, a cipher. A jumble of letters that represented a man but had come to stand for something much more. His followers whispered his name with reverence and awe. Taher… the man behind Paris and London. Had he been in Berlin too? Barcelona? Sydney? Bangkok? Rumour had it he’d been a fleeting shadow in all those places and more. In truth the legend had grown larger than the man, and many attacks were linked to him even if he’d had no part in their planning, financing or execution. At first Taher had shied away from the notoriety, but he soon realised the legend was someone the security services chased in vain. When they shone a light into the dark, the shadow faded away, and the brighter the light, the quicker the shadow dissipated.
Who was this man, people wondered. It was something Taher himself often worried about too. Who exactly was he? A freedom fighter? A religious zealot? A soldier of fortune? A thrill seeker? A psychopath? When he looked into his soul he knew there was a little of each in there, his identity a jumble of motivations. He was human like everyone else, and surprisingly, considering the number of people he’d killed, he had human feelings. Guilt, self-doubt, anger. Even, sometimes, love.
They’d followed a cattle truck for the past few miles, unable to overtake, but finally Kadri pulled off to the right and took a tiny track down to a motley collection of buildings.
‘My brother’s farm,’ Kadri said. He laughed. ‘Goods for, how you say, export, yes?’
There didn’t seem to be any animals or crops, just a main dwelling with sheet tin on the roof. An array of solar panels in a dusty field to one side. Some hefty steel doors on a brick outbuilding. Whatever Kadri’s brother farmed, it wasn’t going to end up on any supermarket shelf. Taher knew better than to ask. They were overnighting here and then Latif and Saabiq were journeying to a training camp close to the border with Algeria. Taher was heading for the tourist resort of Al Hammamet, from where a boat would take him across to Italy. He’d travel through mainland Europe and enter the UK secretly. In a few weeks, when they’d completed their training, Latif and Saabiq would do the same.
In front of him, Saabiq turned round, unease written across his face.
‘Are we good?’ Saabiq said. He nodded at the ramshackle homestead. ‘Safe?’
Taher nodded. Much as he despised Kadri, at least he knew how to stay calm. Saabiq was a worrier and worriers made Taher nervous. Latif, the other man he’d brought with him from the UK, was far more reliable.
The vehicle lurched to a stop and Kadri wrenched open the door and climbed out. He pulled the side door across.
‘I told you, nothing to it.’ He spread his arms and then pointed to the dwelling where an older version of Kadri was pushing aside a tattered curtain and waving. ‘Now we can have a beer and some food and afterwards you can sample some of my brother’s stock.’ His eyes flicked to the building with the stout doors. ‘Fresh, young, and – how do you say – tight?’
The older version of Kadri – his brother, Taher assumed – came across to help with the bags. He spat on the ground and grinned.
‘You boys up for that?’ Kadri said, laughing. ‘Some booze and some pussy? Or would you prefer a fucking prayer mat and your right hand, hey?’
With that, Kadri bellowed another laugh and turned to embrace his brother.
Taher leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
‘Taher?’ Saabiq. Right in his face like an annoying little insect that needed to be swatted.
‘What?’ Taher blinked, pushed Saabiq away and climbed out of the minibus. He wanted to find somewhere to pray, have something to eat and get his head down.
‘I was wondering…’ Saabiq gestured across to the low brick building. He looked more nervous now than he had before the job. ‘Do you think Kadri would be offended if we skip the pussy?’
Taher didn’t care one way or another. Offending Kadri was the least of his worries, but now the man was turning from his brother.
‘My brother’s farm,’ he said, boasting. He indicated the building with the heavy doors. ‘You like it? You want? Don’t worry, English boys, these girls are clean. And you no pay. Gratuit. Free.’
‘No.’ Taher waved Kadri off. ‘We’ll pray and eat and sleep.’
Taher shepherded Latif and Saabiq away to their quarters, thankful they were in a small byre separate from the main dwelling.
Hours later Taher woke in the darkness. A desert chill had descended and he was about to pull another blanket over himself when he heard the cries of a child. Saabiq and Latif lay alongside him, both fast asleep. Taher pushed himself up from the hard floor and made his way outside. A clear sky blazed with a million stars, and a dim light filtered through the ragged curtain that served as a door to the main building. He walked across and pulled aside the curtain. An oil lamp hanging from a roof truss illuminated the living space. Kadri sat slumped on a chair, his trousers by his ankles, a young girl with her face in his lap, Kadri’s paw of a hand on the back of her head.
‘So you do want, yes?’ Kadri said, looking up as Taher entered. The Tunisian laughed. ‘You can have this one when she’s finished or my brother will sort you out. Mansour?’
Kadri shouted into the night as Taher strode across the room. He looked down at the girl. She was twelve or thirteen. No more. In one swift movement he reached for the Glock he’d stuffed in the back of his belt. He brought the gun round and jammed it in Kadri’s mouth. Kadri grabbed for the gun with both hands, the skin on his knuckles whitening as he gripped the barrel. Taher shook his head.
‘Don’t move,’ he said. The girl looked up and Taher said to her gently: ‘No one is going to hurt you.’
The girl wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and rose to her feet. She looked up at Kadri for a moment and then ran from the room.
‘Mmmm,’ Kadri mumbled as Taher forced the barrel deeper. ‘You… can’t…’
‘I can.’ Taher pulled the trigger and something on the far side of the room shattered as the bullet hit it. Kadri shuddered and slumped over. Taher wrenched the gun free and crossed to the back of the living area where a corridor led to several small rooms. He ran to the first one to find Kadri’s brother staggering out in a daze, a pistol in his hand. Taher fired once and the man crumpled to the floor.
As Taher left the dwelling, Latif and Saabiq came out of the guest accommodation, woken by the gunshots.
‘Get your stuff,’ Taher said. He walked over to the brick building. There was a sliding metal door secured with two bolts. He slid the bolts and opened the door. In the darkness he could see nothing, but he could smell the urine and the shit and hear the low ululating.
‘You’re free to leave,’ he said. ‘Allez, allez.’
Taher strode away. Latif had found the keys to the minibus and was in the driver’s seat. Saabiq piled their kit into the rear. Taher climbed up and then turned back. The young girl stood a few steps away, a pale ghost under the starlight. For a moment, as she met his gaze, he wondered about her fate and what would become of her. A child could be changed by events, choose to take a certain path depending on circumstance. Left, right, straight ahead. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life, little one, he whispered to himself. Choose wisely.
He faced forward and tapped Latif on the shoulder.
‘Go,’ he said.