‘And with a woman it’s less competitive?’
‘You’re not happy doing this, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Button, briskly.
‘I’m not saying that’s a negative. It’s in our favour. He’ll pick up on it. The fact that you find it so distasteful will make him realise how terrible his predicament is.’
‘I get it,’ said Button. ‘Sort of the ultimate good-cop-bad-cop?’
‘As a woman you can say you sympathise and he’ll believe it. If a man tries it, he’ll assume he’s faking it.’
‘You’re telling me that women fake it better than men, Richard?’ said Button, with a smile.
The American chuckled. ‘It’s a science – it always has been, ever since the days of the Inquisition,’ he said.
‘I hate to think where you learned all this.’
‘I’ve been around,’ said Yokely. ‘Do you know what the US Army’s field manual defines as the object of interrogation?’
Button smiled. ‘To obtain the maximum amount of usable information possible in the least amount of time.’
Yokely raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m impressed,’ he said.
‘I’ve been on courses,’ she said. ‘The manual lists sixteen approaches, but I seem to recall that it explicitly prohibits torture, mental or physical.’
‘The manual was written a long time ago,’ said Yokely. ‘Long before 9/11.’
‘But the Geneva Convention still applies, last I heard.’
‘Really?’
‘And I seem to recall article three forbidding violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.’
‘You know, Charlie, it’s always struck me as a pity that the Geneva Convention never said anything about flying airliners full of civilians into office buildings. But that’s just me.’ Yokely nodded at the Saudi, who was now being kicked by both men. ‘Trust me, if there was a better technique I’d be using it. What we’re doing in there has been shown to work. Often the threat of pain is more effective than the pain itself. But first we have to show that we’re serious. Once he knows we’re willing and able to inflict pain, he’ll believe us when we tell him we’re going to hurt him even more.’
‘And the offer of money gives him a way out?’
‘Threatening death on its own is worse than useless,’ said Yokely, warming to his subject. ‘One of two things happen. It could be that the guy assumes he’s going to be killed whether or not he’s compliant. He figures he’s going to die anyway so might as well get it over with. He just clams up and waits to die. Or he realises that it’s an empty threat because death defeats the whole point of the torture, assuming that the point is to extract information. So he calls the torturer’s bluff and says, “Okay, kill me.” If the torturer doesn’t carry out the threat, he loses the initiative. So either we kill him, or we torture him. There’s no reason to move from one to the other.’
‘So we tell Ahmed that the offer of money is there for him whenever he wants it?’
Yokely flashed her a grin. ‘That’s what we tell him.’
‘And after he’s talked, what then? Does he walk away with the money?’
‘Do you really want to know, Charlie?’
Button held his gaze for several seconds. The American had the glistening-hard eyes of a freshly killed fish. ‘I suppose not.’ She took out her mobile. ‘Do you mind if I check my messages before I go back in? I’m in the middle of a few things.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Yokely.
Button switched on the phone and checked her voicemail. She had nine messages.
The first was from her husband, letting her know that he was in meetings all afternoon and had a pre-arranged dinner with a client so wouldn’t be able to get back for Poppy, but that he’d call June, their three-times-a-week cleaning lady.
The second was from David Bingham, confirming that he had started sending photographs of the al-Qaeda suspects to Shepherd’s phone and that he was arranging to send surveillance teams to back him up.
The third was from Shepherd, letting her know that the suspect was on the move and that he was following.
The fourth was from Jimmy Sharpe. Shepherd had followed the man into the Underground and was out of contact.
The fifth was from Bingham, confirming that surveillance back-up was on the way and that, so far, Shepherd had not been able to identify the suspect.
The sixth was from her husband saying that June was at a local hospital visiting an aunt with a broken hip and wouldn’t be able to let Poppy out. She could tell that he was annoyed.
The seventh was from Sharpe. He explained that Shepherd had followed the man to an address in Kilburn and wanted Button to call him back.
The eighth was from her husband. He apologised for being short with her earlier and said that one of his afternoon meetings had been cancelled so he’d be able to pop back to the house to take care of the dog.
The ninth and final message was from David Bingham saying that Shepherd had identified the man. Joe Hagerman. An American. Button smiled to herself. Yokely was going to love that, an American-born terrorist on UK soil and it had been the British who spotted him. Hagerman had left the house in Kilburn and Shepherd was following on foot.
Button exhaled deeply.
‘Problems?’ asked Yokely.
‘There’s a lot going on.’
‘I need you in there, Charlie,’ said the American, nodding at the two-way mirror.
‘I have to make a few calls,’ said Button.
‘Do you need privacy?’
‘I wouldn’t mind, Richard, thank you.’
‘I have to stay in here,’ said Yokely. ‘The toilets are along the corridor, why not use them?’
Button headed down the corridor and pushed open the door to the toilets. She scrolled through her contacts book and called David Bingham. He briefed her on the current position. Shepherd had just gone back underground. Sharpe had gone to Maida Vale Tube station and was attempting to board the same train. Two back-up surveillance teams were on the way but stuck in traffic.
‘What’s your reading of the situation, David?’ asked Button.
‘I think Hagerman’s leaving the country. Probably through Heathrow.’
‘I’ll speak to Patsy. It’ll probably be best if we let the Americans handle this. Strictly speaking, we’ve nothing to pick him up on. I’ll call Patsy and get Five to make the approach.’
‘How are things going on American soil?’
‘They’ve a strange way of doing things,’ said Button.
‘Can I help?’
‘Sadly, no. Just keep on top of the Hagerman thing for me. Okay, let me call Patsy.’
Button ended the call and phoned Patsy Ellis. Button quickly outlined the situation to her former boss.
‘There’s no doubt that it’s Hagerman?’ asked Ellis.
Button explained about Shepherd’s near-photographic memory.
‘And he’s on the move?’
‘With a suitcase. He took the Bakerloo Line so we’re thinking Paddington, then the Heathrow Express to the airport.’
‘Okay. But where’s he off to? He can’t fly to the US on anything other than a US passport without being fingerprinted. And he’s on their watch list so he’d be lifted as soon as he landed.’
‘I agree,’ said Button. ‘The Uddin brothers supply British passports. They’ve no American connections, as far as we know. So if he’s got a UK passport, he could be going anywhere except the US.’
‘I suppose it’s possible that he could have been picking up passports for someone else,’ said Ellis. ‘I think we just watch and wait. I’ll notify my opposite number in Homeland Security, but we’ll run with the ball until we know for sure where he’s going. How about getting a name on the passport? It’d make tracing an itinerary easier.’
‘The only way to do that is to bring in the Uddin brothers and their Passport Agency contact straight away,’ said Button.
‘How’s your investigation going?’
‘All done and dusted. Shepherd collected his passport today. We followed the passport on to the system and we’ve identified the man. A Bangladeshi, he’s been with the Passport Agency for ten years. David Bingham has the details. We were going to let him run for a while longer.’