And that was how Cole had operated from that moment on — always doing everything that was asked of him if it was for the ‘greater good’, even if that meant killing a man in cold blood.
As Cole thought about Crozier, he muttered a quick prayer. A remnant of his Catholic upbringing, a prayer for the dead was always offered by Cole when someone died at his hand. When he was given to contemplate theological matters, he failed to see the irony; for he was sure that on his day of judgement, the Good Lord would see all of the lives that had been saved by his actions, and therefore forgive him for those that he had taken.
Satisfied that his duty was done, Cole decided to give no more thought to William James Crozier.
But there was one more thing to do before he could start his journey home; he had to report on the success of his mission. Trudging through the cold brown filth that had been trodden into the foyer from the snow-slicked streets outside and now slid its way across the drab tiled floor, Cole headed towards the bank of payphones clustered over by the entrance.
Keeping his gloves on in order to ensure no prints were left on the phone, Cole inserted some coins into the machine and then dialled the number. Although the mission was classified beyond any normal security level, he felt comfortable calling the telephone number Hansard had given him; only Hansard would understand the message that Cole was going to leave.
The phone was picked up after just two rings. What sounded like an elderly woman answered from the other end, a frail voice that could have been anyone’s grandmother. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi Edna, it’s Tom, how are you?’
‘Oh, Tom!’ The voice seemed to gather strength upon hearing his name. ‘I’m very well, thank you, dear, how are you? How was your holiday?’
Cole knew the woman would understand that ‘holiday’ was code for ‘mission’, but also knew that she would have no idea what it had entailed; she would just report back through the proper channels that ‘Agent X’ had made positive contact.
‘It was good, thanks, saw everything I wanted to see. Hopefully be back home soon.’
‘That’s great, Tom, glad to hear it.’ There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Cole’s senses instantly came alert; there was going to be something else, wasn’t there? ‘You know, it would be really nice to see you here in London before you went back, do you think you could pop by to say hello before you go? You could tell us all about your trip.’
Hansard wanted to debrief him in London? Why? It was completely against procedure. But what could he say? ‘Of course, I’d love to. I should be there by evening.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely Tom, we’ll look forward to seeing you. Bye now.’
‘Yeah. Bye.’ Cole replaced the receiver, but stood motionless for a full minute. What did it mean? Did Hansard have another job for him? Cole hadn’t been debriefed in person in almost nine years, before Pakistan. Why did Hansard want him there now? And why London? It didn’t make sense, and Cole distrusted anything that didn’t make sense; especially when it concerned his job.
But if Hansard had asked for him, there would be a good reason. And so, misgivings or not, Cole walked up to one of the Plexiglas safety cells and asked the bored attendant for a one-way ticket to Dulles International. The British Airways flight, Cole knew, left for London Heathrow at midday.
27
The flight left right on schedule, the huge Airbus surging into the sky with an accelerative force that bordered on the miraculous. Cole tried to remember what the massive aircraft tipped the scales at — six hundred tonnes? Seven hundred? When he had trained to recapture ocean supertankers from terrorists back in his Navy days, he had been in awe of the fact that such vast behemoths did not simply sink beneath the waves; the scale of the things was extraordinary. But this! How on earth did it even get airborne, never mind stay there? He knew all the technical explanations, of course; but to see it, to feel it, was something else again.
He was glad of the distraction; his mind had been hitherto completely occupied with trying to figure out the purpose of his visit to London. There had to be something of vital importance to warrant this breach of protocol.
The message seemed to indicate that the purpose of his visit was to give Hansard a debrief on the assassination of William Crozier. But surely that wouldn’t warrant a visit to London? Cole felt sure that there must be another mission awaiting him.
Or maybe the whole situation was panicking Hansard, making him paranoid? The entire operation had been mounted under a cloak of absolute secrecy, right from the start; why should the debrief be any different?
The more Cole thought about it, the less able he was to come up with a viable answer.
28
Cole left the arrivals lounge of London Heathrow Airport at just past midnight. He passed through the automatic glass doors into the chill London air and breathed deeply. The city was familiar to him; he had been to Britain many times in the past, on exchanges with military and intelligence groups, and had even performed a job here in London just two years earlier.
A taxi pulled up next to him, the classic black cab, one of the mainstays of the London tourist experience. Cole got into the vehicle, asking the driver to take him to the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. He wasn’t going to stay there, however; he just didn’t want the taxi driver to know where he was staying. Besides, the Dorchester was a large luxury hotel, and as such kept too many detailed records of their patrons’ visits. He settled into the back of the black cab, getting comfortable for the thirty minute journey into the city.
Before his flight, he had called a London contact number. The person on the other side of the line had given him details for the morning’s meeting; a message that would have been meaningless not only to the messenger who delivered it, but also to anybody else who happened to be listening in. But Cole understood perfectly. He was to meet Hansard at the CIA safe house near Regent’s Park at 0900 hours later that morning. Cole knew of the existence of the place, although he had never been there. It was certainly a secure environment, Cole thought with a small degree of comfort.
Cole had then called to book himself into the Devonshire; not one of the major hotels, but nice enough, and it was conveniently located on Devonshire Street, just across the park from St John’s Wood. He had used one of his many untraceable, but quite legitimate, credit cards, this one in the name of James Driscoll. It was one of the secure identities that Cole had secretively set up for himself; even Hansard was unaware of its existence.
Using cash, although untraceable in theory, was in reality no longer worth the risk. Anyone paying cash these days was immediately regarded with suspicion. Indeed, hotel management within the capital, even in a family-run concession like the Devonshire, had been provided with a special telephone number to call when clients paid in cash. The call would be routed through to Special Branch, the intelligence wing of the Metropolitan Police, who shared the information directly with the Security Service, better known as MI5, who would then cross-reference the details with other information kept on their files. An enquiry would soon be launched if the service’s instincts were aroused, and a surveillance team from A Branch would be assigned if it was thought that the situation warranted it.
After the anthrax attack on Wembley Stadium three years ago, which had killed over two thousand people and left thousands more in hospital, no chances were being taken. Emergency powers were granted to both the police and intelligence services, and the budgets of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, which had become available for public scrutiny in recent years, had once again been made a matter of secrecy. It was thought that the budgets for all three services had been increased by a factor of four since the tragedy of ‘Black Saturday’, and whilst GCHQ predictably used the money to increase its electronic and signals intelligence capability, the other two services had invested heavily in human intelligence. The number of agents employed by MI5 alone was now thought to stand at somewhere near four thousand, and it was now possible to actively investigate anything that needed investigating. And so Cole used a credit card whenever he travelled.