Button sat down, frowning. ‘What?’
‘Look at it from his point of view. He’s running an undercover operation for the Birmingham cops and I’m brought in to help. A few days later he gets called into Thames House and told that Five is now pulling the strings. He puts two and two together and thinks that I told you that he’s not up to it.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Button. ‘First of all, you and he have worked together and he knows you wouldn’t pull a trick like that. But, more importantly, we haven’t taken the operation from him.’
‘You just told him that all intel on the case now goes through me to you.’
‘With his full knowledge. It’s not as if we’re doing it behind his back.’
‘It still makes it a case of us and them. And telling him about the grenades.’ Shepherd gritted his teeth in frustration.
‘What?’
Shepherd sighed. ‘That could only have come from me,’ he said. ‘So in that case I definitely was going behind his back.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. No use crying over spilled milk.’
‘It had to be done, you know that. This is turning into too big a case.’
‘It sounds like it,’ agreed Shepherd.
‘How did the training go with Chaudhry and Malik? I gather you tied up half our watchers for a day.’
‘They needed bringing up to speed on the basics of counter-surveillance,’ said Shepherd. ‘Plus, the watchers wanted to do some training themselves so we ended up killing two birds with the proverbial stone.’
‘And you think they’re capable of spotting a tail now?’
‘Put it this way, they’re a hell of a lot more prepared than they were. Any chatter on that front?’
‘Nothing significant,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘If there is you’ll be the first to hear about it.’ She sat back in her chair and tapped the file on the table. ‘This Birmingham case has given me an idea,’ she said. ‘I know I mentioned it before but I’m even more convinced now that we should be a bit more proactive with Chaudhry and Malik.’
Shepherd frowned. ‘I said it wasn’t a good idea then and I still think that.’
‘Hear me out,’ said Button. ‘You’re up and running as an arms dealer. Khalid and his people are planning a terrorist attack for which they’ll need equipment. If there was any way that we could put you in the mix, it’d make for a much better case and give us the inside track from the get-go.’
‘But Raj and Harvey are students. What reason could they have for knowing me?’
Button wrinkled her nose. ‘That we’d have to work on, but I’m sure there’s a way. And if we have Khalid coming to you for weapons then we can wrap this up with no risk to the public.’
‘But one hell of a risk for Raj and Harvey,’ said Shepherd. ‘This is Khalid’s show. He gives the orders and they do as they’re told. Alarm bells are going to start ringing if they go from being foot soldiers to players.’
‘I’m not saying it’ll be easy, the circumstances would have to be right and it’ll take a lot of planning, but in a perfect world it’d make everything a lot easier.’
‘Yeah, well, the world’s not perfect, not by a long chalk. And I don’t want to put them in harm’s way any more than we have to.’ He folded his arms. ‘These guys are just amateurs. It has to be kid gloves.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Button. ‘I’m not suggesting we do anything to put them at risk.’
‘With the greatest of respect, any form of proactive behaviour is going to do just that. These guys have already done far more than any member of the public can be expected to do. They gave us a top al-Qaeda team, the location of a training camp in Pakistan and they found Bin Laden. And they’ve risked their lives to do it. The least we can do is to watch their backs.’
‘Exactly,’ said Button. ‘It’s precisely because they have taken risks that they’ve achieved so much. They could have just informed us about Khalid and his people and left it at that, but they were prepared to go to Pakistan and undergo al-Qaeda training, and that led directly to MI5’s best-ever intelligence coup. Do you think we would have found Bin Laden if they hadn’t taken risks? All I’m saying is that we need to keep this investigation moving forward and one way of doing that is to put you in play.’
Shepherd could see that there was no point in arguing with her so he shrugged and said nothing.
‘Look, Spider, no one is saying that we’re going to rush into anything. Just give it some thought.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But can we look at a way of getting me into the mix without involving Raj and Harvey? Five must have other al-Qaeda assets we can use as a pipeline.’
Button nodded. ‘I’ll ask around, see what’s available.’ She stood up, bringing the meeting to an end. As he left the building Shepherd couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d lied to him.
He waited until he was outside Thames House before calling Hargrove on his mobile. ‘I just wanted to say that I had no idea that was going to happen,’ said Shepherd.
‘Not a problem,’ said Hargrove. ‘Though I do feel as I’ve just been mugged at knifepoint.’
‘If I’d known I would have at least warned you.’
‘Spider, you work for MI5 now and Charlie’s your boss. And I’m a big boy. I know the way things work.’
‘She’s put us in a bastard position, though. If Superintendent Warner up in Birmingham finds out that we’re going behind his back he’s going to hit the roof.’
‘Hopefully that won’t happen,’ said Hargrove. ‘And frankly she does have a point. If Kettering is planning a terrorist incident then with the best will in the world the West Midlands cops aren’t geared up for dealing with it. If it was the Met then it would be a different story, but the chances are that if Warner does realise that Kettering is a terrorist rather than a vanilla criminal he’s going to be picking up the phone to Five anyway. This way Charlie can hit the ground running if the call comes.’
‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was worried you might be annoyed.’
‘I’m not happy, but I’ll get over it,’ said Hargrove. ‘My main worry is that Five will take all the credit for our hard work, but that wouldn’t be the first time.’
Hargrove ended the call and Shepherd rang Jimmy Sharpe. ‘Can you talk?’ he asked.
‘Till the cows come home,’ said Sharpe.
‘Why can’t anybody just answer that question with a straight yes or no?’ said Shepherd. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘You read my mind,’ said Sharpe. ‘When and where?’
‘I’ll come to you,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just name a pub.’
Chaudhry’s mobile rang. He didn’t recognise the number but he took the call. It was Khalid. Khalid routinely changed SIM cards and once a month he replaced his phone. The intelligence services now had the capability to track a phone and monitor its calls no matter what SIM card was being used and wherever possible Khalid would use a public phone instead.
‘Have you been to evening prayers, brother?’ asked Khalid.
‘I have, brother,’ said Chaudhry. He and Malik had gone to the Dynevor Road mosque for the Maghrib prayers, which had to be performed just after sunset. It tended to be the busiest of the prayer sessions as those Muslims that had day jobs could conveniently drop by on their way home. The fourth of the five daily prayer sessions consisted of two rak’at prayed aloud, and the third in silence.
A teenager who had been praying in front of Chaudhry had neglected to turn off his mobile phone and during Chaudhry’s silent rak’at the boy had received a text message. He had then taken out his phone and begun texting, much to Chaudhry’s consternation. Chaudhry had been just about to say something when the imam had clipped the teenager’s ear and told him to be more respectful. Chaudhry was becoming increasingly frustrated at the mosque; many of the men going there to pray seemed only to be going through the motions and he had smelled alcohol on the breath of several of the worshippers.
‘Permit me to buy you and Harveer dinner,’ said Khalid. He never referred to Malik by his westernised name. Equally Raj was always addressed as brother or as Manraj. ‘There are two brothers who I would like you to meet.’