Pankhurst nodded at the secretary who walked briskly away to fetch the drink. When she returned, Pankhurst addressed her. 'Let Mr Priestley know we're ready for him, would you?' he asked, before ushering Will into the office.
It was comfortable inside — all oak panels and deep carpet. A window looked out over the Thames. Pankhurst took his place behind a large desk on which sat a black PC and indicated that Will should take a seat in a comfortable armchair opposite.
'So are you going to tell me what this is all about?' Will asked.
'Presently,' Pankhurst said, calmly. 'We have to wait for one more.'
Will found that he was digging his nails into the palm of his hand. A couple of hours ago, he thought to himself, I was puking my guts out. He still hadn't quite shaken off his queasiness and suddenly he wanted more than anything to be back home. As soon as he'd listened to what these people had to say, he'd tell them to piss off, then get the hell back to Hereford.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
'Come!' Pankhurst called.
The door opened and the secretary appeared. 'Mr Priestley,' she announced before stepping aside to let another man in.
Pankhurst stood up; Will stayed where he was. 'Donald Priestley, Will Jackson,' the director introduced them. Will looked up to see a silver-haired man who must have been comfortably in his sixties. He had smiling, appealing eyes and tanned skin and did not seem at all put out that Will had declined to stand up to greet him.
'Call me Don,' he said warmly in an American accent, stretching his hand out so that he could shake it. 'I've heard a lot about you, Will.'
Will's eyes flickered over to Pankhurst, who looked on with an unreadable expression in his face. 'I wish I could say the same about you,' he replied, reluctantly shaking the older man's hand.
'Mr Priestley is with the CIA,' Pankhurst informed him. 'He's their highest-ranking representative in London.'
'I'm very pleased for him,' Will replied. 'Now, do either of you want to tell me what this is all about?' He slurped dramatically from his coffee, eyeing them both over the rim of his cup.
Pankhurst cleared his throat, then walked back behind his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out a file from which he took a colour A4 photographic print. He handed it to Priestley, who in turn gave it to Will. It was a picture of a prefabricated warehouse — or at least the remains of a warehouse. Half of one side seemed to have been destroyed, either by a collision or some sort of explosion. The scene looked vaguely familiar.
'Isn't this — ?'
'Royal Mail warehouse,' Pankhurst supplied. 'You probably saw it on the news. There was an explosion there about six months ago. Caused by a substance called TATP, though you probably know more about that than I do.'
Will nodded. 'Triacetone triperoxide,' he said, automatically. 'Cheap, easy to get hold of. Dangerous, though. It's highly unstable — put a foot wrong and you'll blow your way back to Allah.' His brow furrowed as the image of the churchyard appeared in his mind's eye. 'Or whoever.'
'Terrorist cells are using it more and more,' Pankhurst agreed. 'It's easy to keep tabs on people buying huge quantities of fertiliser for bomb-making, but this stuff you don't need so much of, so they can stay under the radar. Crude, but effective. You can see for yourself.'
Will looked back at the photo. 'How many dead?' he asked curtly.
Pankhurst and Priestley glanced at each other. 'None,' the MI5 man said. 'The explosion was carried out at midnight when the place was deserted.'
He handed Will another picture. This one was of a burnedout estate car smashed into the side of a building. 'Glasgow airport,' he said. 'Couple of years ago. No doubt you heard about it. I could show you more if you like.' He waved the sheaf of pictures at him. 'But it's all much of a muchness.'
Will handed the two photos back to the director. 'You didn't just invite me here to look through your photo album,' he noted. Priestley smiled at this waspish comment. From elsewhere in the file, Pankhurst pulled out a third photograph and gave it to Will.
It was a black-and-white image of a Middle Eastern man. He wore a close-cropped beard and his hair was shoulderlength. He gazed unsmilingly out of the photograph, his brown eyes giving nothing away. It was a calm picture of a calm man. This was no grainy surveillance photo; it was a close-up, taken against a white wall. He knew that his picture was being taken.
Will looked up enquiringly. 'Who's this?' he asked Pankhurst.
Again the two older men glanced at each other. 'I'm sure I don't need to remind you, Will,' Pankhurst said after a briefly awkward moment,'that you have signed the Official Secrets Act.'
Will laughed scornfully. 'And who do you think I'm likely to leak official secrets to?' he asked. 'The shit-kickers in my local?'
His sarcasm did not seem to penetrate Pankhurst. 'Just so as we're clear,' he said. 'This man's name is Faisal Ahmed. He was born in Afghanistan in 1969.'
Will nodded. 'And you think he's behind these bombings?'
Pankhurst smiled, but without humour. 'Oh,' he said. 'We know he's behind the bombings. That's not our biggest problem.'
There was a silence as Will waited for Pankhurst to elaborate, but it was Priestley who spoke next.
'Our problem, Will,' he drawled, 'is that he used to work for us.'
THREE
Pankhurst sat back in his chair, scanning Will's face for signs of interest. Will was careful to give him none.
'Perhaps I should take over, Lowther,' Priestley said, and Pankhurst nodded his agreement.
The CIA man walked to the window and looked out over London for a moment as though collecting his thoughts.
Then he turned round and addressed the room. 'Some of what I have to say will be familiar to you already, Will, but please bear with me.'
Will shrugged.
'Faisal Ahmed, as Lowther has already said, was born in 1969 in a village just south of Kandahar in Afghanistan. His parents grew tobacco. They weren't wealthy, but they weren't especially poor either. They got by — quiet people, not political. Just typical, hardworking Afghans. Their village, though, was home to a number of Afghan mujahideen, fighters opposed to the Afghan government. When the government invited Soviet forces into their country to deal with the mujahideen in 1979, Ahmed was ten years old. He watched as the Soviets entered his village in order to hunt out mujahideen supporters. They were — how can I put it — indiscriminate in their investigation techniques. Ahmed and his older sister watched soldiers raping his mother. They then shot her in front of his father, telling him that unless he confessed to being a member of the mujahideen, they would kill him too. He refused and the soldiers carried out their threat, leaving Ahmed and his sister to fend for themselves.'
Silence fell on the room as Priestley's words sank in.
'The Soviet-Afghan war lasted, as you know, for nine years. The policy of the American government at that time — under President Carter and President Reagan — was to support the mujahideen. Reagan even went so far as to publicly refer to them as freedom fighters. We funded them, both with money and armaments, and we encouraged them to bring about regime change in that country.
'Ahmed's experiences of the Russians engendered a fairly predictable response. Days after his parents' death, he hunted out the leaders of the local mujahideen faction and told them he wanted to become one of their number. His youth was not an obstacle; in fact, it was a positive advantage.' Priestley gave a small smile. 'Groups like this like to get them young, I've noticed. So, aged ten, Ahmed was given a Kalashnikov; by the time he was twelve, he was picking off Soviet soldiers with a rare skill. He learned how to use hand grenades and other explosives. He learned how to arm and defuse land mines. He became part of the sorry military apparatus of that unfortunate country.