‘Good, I was just checking you’re ok Gerry. You’re due to report on the Fujairah business. Perhaps if you’re not doing anything you can’t leave, maybe you could come and see me now if that’s alright?’
‘Yes of course. On my way.’
‘Ok thank you Gerry, I’ll see you in a minute. Thank you very much.’
She had gazed down at the handset for a moment before replacing it. What an extraordinary call. Although the principle aims of the operation in Fujairah had been met, Barry Mulholland had been expected to reveal a great deal of useful information and his death had been most unfortunate. Now that she had finally returned to the London office she was fully expecting a rebuke for the shambles. She didn’t expect solicitous phone calls enquiring after her health and if it was convenient if she could receive it.
She pressed the entry button to Richard Cornwall’s office and to her surprise he came to the door and opened it for her and then ushered her towards a chair. ‘Please sit down, Gerry,’ he had said. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you. All the stitches have been taken out; I had an MRI scan three days ago and internally everything has healed up.’
He gazed at her in a considerate way. ‘And your pregnancy? That’s progressing ok?’
‘Yes thank you. I had an ultrasound this morning.’ She could see two reports on his desk. Presumably one was her medical report and the other was her report on the operation. Maybe he was going to be less critical because the medical report had revealed that she was pregnant; she couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or irritated.
‘I’ve read your Fujairah report. It seems you had no choice but to kill Mulholland. However you should never have got into that situation. It was a basic error assuming your hotel room was safe.’
She remembered opening the door to her room and finding Mulholland confronting her armed with a gun. She had kicked the gun out of his hand and jabbed him under the ribs and then swung him round and tightened her arm round his neck, not realising he had managed to draw a knife. Because he was facing away from her he had not been able to use his full strength to stab her. She had felt sharp pain and seen the knife in his hand as he raised it to stab her again. Before he could do that she had tripped him over, the sudden movement making her cry out in pain and then she had knelt on his back grasped him around the jaw and the crown of his head…
‘You’ll be pleased to know that ex-Major Dewhurst has been singing like the proverbial canary though,’ Cornwall declared, breaking into her train of thought.
‘Well that’s good news, then sir,’ she replied. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that Mulholland’s singing days were over.
Cornwall said nothing for a moment. He shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable. Gerry frowned. On previous occasions he had reprimanded her he had not behaved like this.
‘I have something else to talk to you about.’ He slid a red bordered urgent operational message form out from under her report but then he hid it away again without looking at it. ‘I’m afraid we have had a report from our North African centre. I regret to say that Philip, Philip Barrett has been killed on duty out there. It was road traffic accident. I’m most terribly sorry to have to tell you this Gerry…’
Following the devastating news of Philip’s death, she had considered having an abortion, but for reasons she could not resolve, possibly some kind of loyalty to Philip, she had rejected the idea. She had thought about talking it over with a friend, but then realised that there was nobody to whom she felt sufficiently close. And with Philip gone, she suspected that the real reason she had decided to keep her baby was that she felt utterly alone. Yesterday she had undergone another scan and the doctor had inspected the scar and the organs beneath and told her that all was well. This had comforted her to some extent, but there was no other joy in her life.
Now, two weeks later, she spent a few more moments with her preoccupations before heaving herself out of her chair and walking slowly towards the elevator. Outside Cornwall’s office she pressed his call button and was rather surprised that once again he walked across his office and opened the door for her rather than just sending an enter signal.
‘Gerry. Do come in. You’re looking well. Please sit down.’ He ushered her over to the mini conference area rather than the more formal chair opposite his desk. ‘Coffee? Or a soft drink?’ he offered.
She gazed at him for a moment. ‘I’m off caffeine. Do you have any mango juice, or ice cream?’
Richard Cornwall stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was joking, but there was something in her expression that dissuaded him from taking her request lightly. ‘I don’t think so… er… I think there’s some orange juice.’
‘Just some water then please,’ she said.
‘Right!’ He buzzed his personal assistant. ‘Helen, could you bring in some water please?’
‘Sparkling if you have it,’ Gerry interposed.
‘Sparkling water, Helen; Perrier or something. Thanks.’ He handed Gerry a version of the e-mail he had received, now edited down to essentials. ‘Here, read this,’ he said. ‘Fielding has just sent it over.’
The memo outlined how an Iraqi national, Rashid Hamsin had moved back to Southampton following a period in Iraq during the invasion. It reminded Cornwall that this was the same man with whose apprehension his department had assisted the CIA back in February of this year. Hamsin had been of some assistance to the CIA in a minor project and now they had further need of his services. Anticipating Rashid Hamsin’s reluctance to render any further assistance, perhaps he could arrange for an interview to take place.
Cornwall studied Gerry carefully as she read through it. Despite his assurance that she was looking well, he thought that she looked even more drawn, weary and thinner about the face. Definitely not a good thing that a pregnant woman should be losing weight, he thought. It was hard to believe that this was the same person who had cleaned up the Cyprus arms dealers in 1999, bombed the Al Qaeda cell in Ras Al Khaimah in 2000, shot two kidnappers in Lebanon back in 2001 and cut the throat of that drug dealer in a seamy suburb of Berlin last year. Then there was the recent incident with Mulholland the arms dealer a few weeks ago. Self-defence that time, of course. Now she was pregnant and bereaved and he found himself considering her a vulnerable woman rather than bolshie, insubordinate and lethal. He must be an idiot, he decided.
Gerry finished reading and placed the memo on the table. ‘Yes I remember that. It was a routine operation. It all went according to plan. Who are you going to send this time?’ she asked.
After receiving the message from Fielding Cornwall had summoned up the report describing Rashid Hamsin’s apprehension back in February. It was with a certain misgiving that he remembered that the case officer was Geraldine Tate, and it was with some reluctance that he had decided to involve her once again. ‘I was hoping that you could do it for us.’
Cornwall saw the immediate quickening of interest; she was sitting up straighter and looking more animated even as she said ‘But I’m off operations. You told me I’m only meant to do office work until I return from maternity leave. Anyway it should be done by MI5 if it’s back here.’