Ian Cairncross nodded, his eyes a fraction too wide.
Kate went on. “Whoever did kill Mr. Russell was a professional. And I don’t mean a thug from Brixton who’d done this a time or two before, but someone who’d been trained by the very best in the game. And I am not referring to an overt intelligence agency. I’d also posit that if for any reason that person believes that someone else-someone like you, for example-knew anything about what Russell was looking into, he wouldn’t give a fiddler’s fart before killing him, too.”
Kate let her words sink in, noting the sudden funereal pallor of Cairncross’s complexion.
“One more thing,” she added. “In case you do decide to break any of your rules, I am authorized to offer you round-the-clock protection to make sure that you don’t take a wee header off the balcony of your home-provided, that is, that you have one. A balcony, that is. I’m sure the address of your home is well known to everyone concerned.” She cocked her head and smiled. “So if you don’t mind, sir, I will ask one last and final time, what was Robert Russell working on?”
The answer was a whisper. “GSPM.”
Kate sat back in her chair and took out her notebook. “Go ahead.”
“Global Stress Points Matrix,” said Cairncross, with a bit more force. “It’s part of the early warning system we offer to our clients. GSPM is designed to forecast future risks. We’ve assembled a list of twenty core indicators that allow us to predict with a high degree of accuracy the course of events in the focus area.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Who’s going to be the next Japanese prime minister. The long-term rate of inflation in the U.S.A. The number of oil rigs coming online in Saudi Arabia and their effect on the price of oil.”
“I don’t think Lord Russell was killed over incorrectly guessing the price of a barrel of oil,” said Kate.
“No,” said Cairncross. “I dare say he wasn’t. Robert took our GSPM program a step further. Are you familiar with open-source intelligence-gathering?”
Kate vaguely recalled seeing something with a similar title on Russell’s desk, but she had no idea what it was all about. She said as much.
“It’s where everyone’s heading these days,” said Cairncross.
“Who’s everyone?”
Cairncross shot her a look from beneath his brow. “Suffice it to say that corporations aren’t our only clients. There are some in this government, and others, who have shown an interest in our work. It used to be that for information to be deemed valuable, it had to be graded ‘classified’ or higher. If something was commonly known, then it was thought to be worth…” Cairncross paused to search for the right word. “As you so eloquently put it before, ‘a fiddler’s fart.’ But that was all wrong. It turns out that all the information you need to ascertain what your friends and enemies are up to is already out there. The world is drowning in information. It’s a question not of too little, but of too much. The problem is finding it. The Internet has brought us down from six degrees of separation to three at most. Look at the celebrity world. You may not know David Beckham personally, but you know who his best friends are, where he ate dinner last night, how much of a tip he left, and where he’s going to travel the day after tomorrow. In another domain, that would be called actionable intelligence. Can you imagine if we’d known as much about Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, or even Saddam Hussein? Who needs a Minox spy camera when your cell phone will do just fine? Everyone’s a spy these days. People just don’t know it. And the information is real time. It’s happening now. That’s what Robert was doing. He was setting up a trusted information network, a TIN, of individuals to gather that information.”
“Are you saying that Lord Russell was a spy?”
“I’m saying no such thing. Oxford Analytica is not an intelligence shop per se. Robert was simply creating a methodology to collect accurate, timely information about a variety of subjects of interest to our clients. His forte was establishing these networks of highly placed sources who would speak to him off the record, as it were.”
“TINs?”
“Exactly.”
“And who were these sources?”
“Could be anyone. The deputy defense minister of Brazil. The chief financial officer of a gold-mining conglomerate in South Africa. A Russian general in charge of motor transport in Chechnya. Anyone who might possess real-time information of strategic importance. The point is that with technology the way it is, anyone with access to private information can report it anonymously and immediately.”
“Sensitive subjects especially.”
“Normally.”
“Sold to the highest bidder.”
“If you’re insinuating any type of treasonous activities, you’re off the mark,” Cairncross shot back. “The world has changed. Borders are a thing of the past. Information doesn’t carry a passport. It belongs to everyone.”
“And yet Lord Russell kept a pistol in case there was someone with a less democratic view.”
For once Cairncross had no response.
Kate went on. “I take it, then, that in the course of all this open-source intelligence-gathering he wasn’t doing on behalf of the British, he found something he shouldn’t have.”
Cairncross plucked the bifocals off his nose and polished them with his handkerchief. “The events of this morning would seem to bear out your thesis,” he said with equanimity, though he refused to meet her eyes.
“Didn’t Russell give you any indication about what he was currently studying?”
“Only tangentially.”
“Tangentially?”
“Yes… peripherally, so to speak.”
Kate exhaled loudly. “Mr. Cairncross, I’m not interested in tangentially or peripherally or global space matrixes. I am interested in facts. Did Lord Russell share his discovery with you? Yes or no?”
Cairncross continued to polish his spectacles. “Robert did mention that he’d come across something that was keeping him up at night. He said that the problem was time-sensitive and that he was digging into matters where his interest wouldn’t be appreciated. But that’s all. I’m afraid it’s not much to go on.”
“Did he mention any kind of threat? An attack on British soil? Anything to do with the possibility of loss of life?”