Zero Point

25

I watched Rizwan waiting in the van from the smeared window of the phone booth, as I waited for Andrew to answer on his new secure line. Ben stood beside me, holding the door of the booth open with his leg. He'd insisted on listening in to the conversation. There wasn't much I could do about that without alerting him to my quite possibly paranoid suspicions―which I couldn't prove one way or another. So I let him.

Andy picked up after five rings.

"Dave?"

"Andy. Line."

"Clear."

"Andy, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. How about you? Did anyone come for you? Did you get out of there?" His voice was low and heavy with fatigue, yet tinged with a streak of panic, which was unlike him. I'd never known him to sound so fazed.

"Yeah, they did, and we got out. Actually, I'm not alone. I'm with a surveillance officer from SO15, Ben Wilder. We got out together."

"Okay, thank God. How much have you told this Wilder guy?"

"He knows everything pretty much. And now he's got nowhere to go."

"Right. Can you vouch for him?"

My face was a mask.

"To be honest, not entirely sure. Not much choice. But hunch is, I think so."

"Okay. Well, just be careful. Keep an eye on him―make sure he doesn't sneak off for no good reason and make any calls you can't account for. I think we can safely conclude that whoever was behind Carson's assassination, they pull a lot of strings. And they move bloody fast. I can't pinpoint exactly how, but they were onto me. I was followed home last night from the office. I had to lose them and get away."

My mind was reeling. "Where are you now?"

"Don't worry, I'm fine. I'm in an MI5 safehouse. But I can't stay here for long. I'll need to keep moving. These are pros, David. And it looks like they've got people inside, all over the place. We're talking Army, coppers, security services, government. What have you got me into, my old friend?"

"I don't know, but I'm bloody well going to find out. We've made a bit of a breakthrough. We managed to get away with one of their guys. He's not a player, just an underling, a driver. But he's completely embedded. I mean, they trust him, and I'm working on him. I think we can use him to get access to this Abu Mustafa character. Right now that's all I've got, but it's something."

"So Mustafa is alive? I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"Problem is, I'm not sure what's going to happen with this. What do I do once I've got Mustafa? Interrogate him? For what? What if he doesn't know anything?"