‘Yep. Except Northern Rose; she is still in Peterhead harbour. That gives us three exit points,’ said Emma, who marked up the location of the two new properties and the two trawlers on the screen.
Kate stood up and clapped her hands. ‘Let us recap on the information we have.’ She pointed to the screen. ‘We have trawlers poised to leave from three ports. Rafi has located suspicious properties at these five locations, and the terrorists have five missile launchers and sixteen unused missiles.’ She scratched her head, as she looked at the screen. ‘If we were to assume two targets per missile launcher then how might the properties and targets be paired? Any suggestions?’
‘What about putting the properties in Peterhead with, the St Fergus gas terminal and the Cruden Bay oil pumping station – as the targets for missile launcher number one?’ asked Emma
‘And then there is the Hartlepool property which overlooks the local nuclear power station,’ said John, ‘but at the moment the second target in this pair is missing.’
Kate nodded.
‘Number three could be Heysham nuclear power station – plus perhaps Hunterston nuclear power station up the coast? And launcher number four could then go with the Bacton gas facility and possibly Sizewell nuclear power station,’ said Emma.
There was silence.
‘Which leaves us with bugger-all for the fifth launcher – could it perhaps be the nuclear train at Willesden Sidings?’ enquired John.
‘It’s all a bit iffy,’ said Kate with a note of despondency in her voice.
‘But a pattern is emerging,’ encouraged John. ‘The proximity of the various dots to PREH’s properties is too bloody close for comfort for this to be random. If you think back, twenty-four hours ago we had next to nothing!’
The conversation was stopped by Aidan cutting in. ‘Can you stop what you’re doing for a moment? I need to hear your views on a couple of thoughts.’ Aidan looked at them from behind his growing piles of paper.
‘I still have more to do, but I’ve reached the point where I’m convinced that a small group of investors have built up sizeable positions in both the long gilt and the interest rate futures and traded options contracts. If the positions I’ve found at my bank are replicated elsewhere and these investors turn out to be right and the markets do crash – the terrorists will make huge profits and there will be lots of bloody noses.’
Aidan turned to Rafi. ‘What if we were able to stop the markets from crashing – or more specifically prevent interest rates rising and gilts prices falling – and limit the impact of the terrorist attacks.’ He grinned. ‘If we could do this, we could turn the tables on them and wipe out their investments in the derivative markets.’
Aidan paused. ‘I would be willing to bet that there are also a significant number of murky players with their snouts in the trough, who we could also take to the cleaners.’
‘Wooah!’ said Kate. ‘That wouldn’t be feasible, would it?’
‘Aidan, that’s brilliant!’ exclaimed Rafi. ‘All we need to do is pre-empt most of the attacks and make certain that interest rates and gilts remain stable for – how long – a month?’
‘No; far less than that. If interest rates remained stable, in a week to ten days the terrorists’ positions in the futures markets would become exposed and they would either have to close them and crystallise large losses, or pay large margin calls. However, if interest rates were to fall, 24 – 48 hours would be enough to crucify them financially. In both cases their investments in the traded options markets would be wiped out.’
‘That’s all very well and good,’ observed Kate, but the if is a massively big if.’
‘Yes, I grant you that,’ said Rafi, ‘but isn’t it great to know that the terrorists might not have everything going their way?’
Kate looked at him with that same look she’d given him when she had asked him to work with her. ‘You know what I like about you?’ her eyes sparkled as she held his gaze. ‘It’s your unbridled optimism.’
‘Hold on a moment!’ said Aidan. ‘If we go back to when would be the best time to carry out the attacks? In terms of maximum impact – first thing in the morning as the markets are opening, but not late morning or in the afternoon… The London Stock Exchange opens at 8 a.m. and dawn tomorrow is?
‘7.25 a.m., give or take a bit,’ answered Emma.
‘What are you getting at?’ asked Kate.
‘We are led to believe the departure time of the trawler in Peterhead is tomorrow early afternoon, aren’t we?’ said Aidan.
‘Yes.’
‘If we are right and the trawlers are to be used as part of the terrorists’ exit plan, I reckon that all three will leave tomorrow.’
‘OK,’ said Kate sensing what he was getting at.
‘So, thinking about it, I’d be willing to bet that the attacks are planned for tomorrow as that’s when the trawlers are leaving, and that they will come between dawn and the markets opening at 8 a.m.!’ said Aidan.
‘Bloody hell! That gives us less than twenty hours!’ said John, quite taken aback.
‘We’ve got too many holes in our hypothesis,’ said Kate. ‘We’ve got to fill in more of these gaps! To put it bluntly, we have to find the missing targets, the missile launchers and the foot soldiers. In the meantime I’ll warn the commissioner of our line of thinking. And remember, not a word of this to anyone, please.’
Greg popped his head around the door at that moment. ‘Did I miss something interesting?’
‘Yes,’ replied Kate, ‘Have you been there long?’
‘No chance! You are running me ragged. I dropped by to tell Aidan that I’ve arranged every computer access he should need… Strange or what?’ said Greg. ‘There I was working in my office, drawing up a list of all the databases we would need to get into, when the commissioner walked in and asked me – yes me – what he could do to help. I explained what I needed. He left as quickly as he’d arrived and not twenty minutes later he came back saying that he’d pulled a few strings. I’ve had the head of IT from Euronext. liffe, the CME in Chicago and Eurex in Frankfurt on the phone volunteering their services and wanting to know which secure IP addresses we would be using. They’ve sent me encrypted user names and passwords and authorised me to access all their databases. Their cooperation is one hundred per cent. Simply marvellous if you ask me! Aidan, if I could use your PC for a moment I’ll get it set up to access databases you’ve only dreamed of getting into.’
Aidan smiled, like a young boy being told he was getting the keys to the local sweet shop and got up to let Greg take his seat.
In less than five minutes Greg had Aidan’s computer set up.
‘Thanks,’ said Aidan cheerfully. ‘By the way would there be any chance of a better printer? There’s going to be a lot of paper.’ Looking in the direction of Emma and the elderly printer, he said, ‘The old lady over there is getting too slow for me.’
Emma screwed up her face and then smiled at him.
Greg looked at Aidan. ‘How big a machine did you have in mind?’
‘Anything that prints quickly and has a big memory buffer would be great.’
‘I’ll see what I can find,’ said Greg. Less than fifteen minutes later he was back pushing a printer-photocopier half the size of a desk. ‘This little beauty is from accounts downstairs; please look after it.’
John, who had been sitting, contemplating, stirred. ‘Why can’t we just close down the markets involved and stop the terrorists that way?’
Aidan looked at him. ‘In theory yes one could, but the turnover in these markets every hour of the trading day is squillions of pounds. To close the markets for anything other than a short period would be catastrophic for London’s reputation. We could close them for a day. The problem is that there are many ways of covering one’s tracks and the positions would still be there when the markets reopen. I’ve identified a number of suspicious contract notes, but it would take ages to look for them all. And this is offshore money, which can be moved electronically via intermediary banks quickly and secretively. It would be nigh on impossible to trace. What makes it really difficult is that we’re only focusing on two parts of the market. The terrorists’ positions are likely to be spread across a range of products. The two we have highlighted are the most obvious, but Sterling, the FTSE and gold would be good bets as well.’