Lord Hickstead made a call to his Swiss Bank and checked the balance for the numbered account in the name of Euro Union Financial Enterprises. The balance had been reduced as a result of paying Van Aart a hundred thousand Euros in compensation when the diamonds went missing. Still, the figure quoted to him was the euro equivalent of almost half a million pounds.
Several years of milking the EU coffers had served him well. When he had worked for the Trades Union they had wanted to see receipts for all his expenses. They didn’t particularly care how much was spent, but they wanted receipts. He could hardly believe his luck when he took up his new post and found he was allowed the cost of flying home on a Friday, first class, and back again after the weekend, whether he travelled or not. He could also travel widely in his role as European Commissioner for Labour Relations and rack up all kinds of alleged expenses along the way. But not until the last year or so of his posting did anyone ask for receipts. There was simply a presumption that he had travelled home each weekend at a cost of over five hundred pounds a week, and that he had indeed expended what he had claimed. He wasn’t alone in recognising that loophole.
The only other source of cash he could access was waiting for him across London, and to collect that he would need to find a way to bypass his MI5 minder at the front desk. Lord Hickstead’s problem was that, whilst there were many exits leading to external fire escapes, they were all alarmed. He couldn’t use any of those exits as he hadn’t the first idea how to disable an alarm. That left him only the front door.
***
Quite why this building was so secure Hickstead didn’t know, but then he had never researched its history. Since 1895, number 2 Parliament Street had been used solely as civil service office accommodation until apartments had been created from the offices on the top two floors during the 1970s. At that time the doorman would traditionally have been an ex-serviceman. However, following the assassination of Airey Neave on 30th March 1979, within the confines of the Houses of Parliament, there had been a sea change in security arrangements. The recently converted apartments were seen as potential targets for the IRA, as they housed senior government officials. To offer better protection, Special Branch’s SO12, ‘S’ squad, took an office suite at the back of the building and equipped it with firearms, and staffed the lobby with armed officers.
After the 11th September 2001 attacks on New York, SO12 had their hands full with other commitments and so they had been more than happy to let MI5 use the offices and also handle the doorman duties. It was also a coup for MI5. Because all of the bills for this satellite office were covered by the building owners, Crown Estates, very few people at MI5’s HQ at Thames House knew it existed. This made ‘the cubby hole’, as it was known to operatives, an ideal place to carry out operations without the continuous oversight of the bean counters at HQ.
***
Arthur Hickstead had left the apartment carrying nothing but his cash card. He knew that he could not risk taking anything with him. He had no way of knowing what bugs or transmitters they might have hidden in his personal belongings. Having come to the ground floor via the service stairs, he was now in the photocopier room close to reception. With one quick look through the small window in the door leading to the lobby, he satisfied himself that Malcolm was at his desk.
The peer lifted the internal telephone and dialled zero.
Malcolm picked up the old fashioned looking telephone that was in keeping with the decor. “Front Desk,” he said, sounding bored.
Feigning breathlessness and inflecting his voice with pain, the peer stuttered.
“This is Lord Hickstead……..chest pain……..can’t breathe……..help me!”
With that, he hung up the phone.
As anticipated, Malcolm raced up the stairs to the apartments with his mobile to his ear, yelling “Paramedics to Number two Parliament Street immediately! We have a suspected heart attack.”
Lord Hickstead smiled to himself as he let himself out of the glazed internal security doors and out of the original wooden doors onto Parliament Street. No doubt they would review the CCTV footage and realise they had been tricked, but by then he would be long gone.
Chapter 8 6
Thames House, Millbank, London. Monday, 6:30pm.
Until the 1980s Thames House had been occupied by ICI, for whom it had been constructed in the 1930s. MI5 had moved into the building in the early 1990s, and it was then officially opened by the Prime Minister John Major in 1994. Used as a backdrop before being blown up in Skyfall, the most recent James Bond film, the impressive building overlooks the Thames and Lambeth Bridge. Tourists often visit the office block looking for the entrance familiar to them from the BBC TV series ‘Spooks’. Sadly they are disappointed, because the BBC uses Freemasons’ Hall for their external shots of MI5’s offices.
Timothy Madeley stood in his second floor office looking out over the Thames. His office was neither as ornate as M’s office in the Bond films, nor as high tech as the offices depicted in Spooks. The carpet was beyond office quality, and the furnishings were custom built, not assembled. On the wall was a fabric wall hanging from Afghanistan and an impressive oil painting, on loan from the National Gallery.
The phone rang and he walked over to his desk to pick it up. He stated his surname.
“Sir, this is Malcolm, at the cubby hole. Lord Hickstead has gone.”
There was no hint of fear in his voice, nor was there any expression of surprise from his superior.
“Excellent. Did he escape on his own, or did you have to intervene?”
Malcolm then explained how the peer had hoped to draw Malcolm away from his post, and how Malcolm had played along, pretending to call an ambulance.
“Excellent. So if another agency manages to pick him up he will be convinced he escaped. He is entirely unaware that we allowed him to go?”
“Yes sir, that is correct. Sir, are we running a sweep on this one?”
“We are, Malcolm. We’re guessing which country he runs to. Do you want in? It’s a tenner entry fee and we draw lots on Friday. If he doesn’t make it out of the country, all stakes are refunded. If he settles in a country we hadn’t considered, it goes to the nearest geographically. Agreed?”
“That’s fine, sir. I think he’ll make it across the Channel, that’s child’s play, and after that Europe and Scandinavia are open to him without him even needing a passport.”
“Malcolm, did I ever tell you that I spent a couple of years in the “cubby hole” when I was Liaison with SO12?”
“You did, sir,” Malcolm confirmed, but it made no difference. Tmothy Madeley told his funny story anyway, pausing at the appropriate points for Malcolm’s forced laughter.
Chapter 8 7
City Club Lounge, City Wall Hotel, London: Monday 7pm
The journey across London had been uneventful and now Lord Hickstead was sitting in the club lounge at the City Wall Hotel, giving instructions to the concierge. The concierge disappeared briefly, to return a few minutes later with a briefcase and a holdall.
While he was waiting for his guests he slipped into the leisure club changing room and switched from his suit and tie into a more casual travelling outfit. He placed the discarded clothes carefully in the holdall.
Back at his seat and sipping complimentary champagne which had never seen France judging by the taste of it, the concierge appeared.
“Your guests, Your Lordship,” he announced, distaste written on his features as he ushered the Iraqis into the hallowed surroundings.