“Hi Anupa, sorry I’m late. My contact at the US Embassy was tied up. I’ve got it for you. It came through in a diplomatic bag. They do us favours, from time to time. We do favours for them.” Her contact asked for a coffee. It was delivered. He took a paper napkin and used it to slide something across the table. She took it and placed it in her handbag; he’d handed her a RAM stick.
“It’s all on there.” Her contact was in deep cover she knew. It was likely that even the Mabahith or the Maslahat didn’t know what he did. He was Mossad no doubt.
“It needs your close attention. We’d like to do it ourselves but.” He shrugged and held his palms upwards.
“How did you come to learn this?”
“Come on Anupa we both have assets where they shouldn’t be.” Josh drummed his fingers. “All I can say is that she has a scientific skill and lives in Tehran. You need know nothing more than that.”
He leaned closer. “If you wish to ask her any questions I may pass these on. It’ll be sometime before you get an answer.” Anupa smirked, “I’ll read what you’ve passed to us and I’ll let you know what, if anything we’ll do about it.”
“You won’t like it.” Josh got up to leave, then turned to her.
“Anupa. I expect your cousins will be knocking on your door soon. We know they read anything we pass through them, but that’s encrypted with the codes that you have, they can’t read it.” He held his hand up.
“I know what you’re thinking. No, the NSA can’t read it, we know that.” He smiled at her. “Anupa, they do more than Gaming or Pinterest out in the Negev. IDF Unit 8200; I assume you’ll have heard of this?”
He left walking off down the shady street. She had heard of Unit 8200, the Israeli equivalent of GCHQ or the NSA.
She frowned. “Why us and not the Americans?”
They know we’ll pass the information on to them? If they really wanted to, they could have sneaked it to us via a cargo shipment, hidden on a ship. Or on a plant attending the Haj. There was always a remote crossing of the dunes out on the border with UAE or Iraq. It had been done before. In recent years, documents, photos and recordings had been carried into the Kingdom from offshore by drones. Anupa paid and made her way back to the MI6 safe house. It was time to see what goodies the Israeli Intelligence Service had passed on.
Chapter 2
IMMEDIATELY THE TURKISH Airlines flight from Riyadh via Istanbul landed at Heathrow, Anupa made her way across London to Vauxhall. She entered the SIS building. She took the elevator to the second floor and made her way to the Middle East section. A man dressed in a scruffy tee shirt and oil stained jeans stood by the coffee station.
“Hi Crutch, how are you doing? Riyadh all hot and bothered as normal? Excuse the scruffs but I’m helping 5 with a job. They wanted an Arabic speaker who could keep his mouth shut.”
“And they picked you Astrix? Must have been desperate.” She made herself a tea.
“You still a tea snob? Or have you been converted out there?”
“There’s nowt like a good brew, baht sugar. Mind you, Astrix.” She waved her finger.
“Assam, if it’s around.” He snorted.
“You Northern git.”
She walked off down to Silk Purse’s office.
“Hi.” Her boss looked pleased to see her.
“Hi, I looked at the info you passed on from the Israelis. Interesting.” Anupa nodded.
“As you can imagine, that’s what I’m here about.”
“I had a word with Rudolph about it. Come on sit, and shut the door.”
She sat and looked around the office, it was clear much of her weekends were spent on her canal longboat.
Silk Purse looked at her quizzically. “Any verbal clues from him?”
“Not really, it was just, here you are, have a look. They know a lot more than they’re saying of course.”
“I know, they can be infuriating. But they do pass on some good take.” Silk Purse stared at her and raised her left eyebrow.
“You have any idea who’s involved?” Silk Purse held up her hand.
“Before you say anything Rudolph thinks it may be the Turks or Egypt.”
Anupa smiled. “That’s his Pact side talking. Always a deeper conspiracy. He looks too far into things at times.
The crescent moon and star mob like to think they’re always three steps ahead, but they usually aren’t. I think you’d have to be short upstairs not to think Iran.” Silk Purse nodded.
“Yeah, we are talking Israel. Nothing gets their undies in a twist like the Iranians do.” Anupa sipped her tea.
“Any info from our lot?”
“No. Two are placed in the right sector, but nothing fits the bill. Rudolph is right though, it’s obvious we need more info” Anupa nodded.
“Look Anupa could you get anything more from this Josh? I know he’s Mossad, but you might want to try to get closer to him?”
“What are you suggesting Silk Purse? That I suck his Jimmy Jock?” She pretended to be insulted. Silk Purse shrugged.
“No, if I tried that, it wouldn’t work. He’s an uphill gardener. Try a few of the chaps around here. I’m sure they’ll be interested.” Anupa smiled she knew, they’d do almost anything but that.
“You know what’s next, don’t you? A visit. Rudolph has given it the OK.”
“Yeah. I thought so.”
“You need to take a new guy with you Anupa. Start them off. Any ideas?”
Anupa had thought this would come up.
“Yes, I’ll take Tosser, she’s not a bad sort.”
Silk Purse grinned. “At least she’ll be used to the cold. From Aberdeen, I believe.
Get your things ready, you’ll be cooped up with one hundred and eighty five men. Mostly men anyway. Lucky bitch. You’ll join HMS Montrose, she’ll meet you in Durban. See the downstairs guys for your gear.”
SHE WALKED UP THE GANGWAY and on the deck. Tosser was just behind her.
“My first time on one of these things. I expect it’s going to be cramped. What do we do?”
“It’s my first time too. Here, he looks like he’s heading this way,” said Anupa. An Officer walked over to them. He wore his Naval whites with shorts.
“Lieutenant Commander Leon. Welcome aboard Montrose. I’ll be your contact on ship.”
“I’m Crutch and this is Tosser.” He looked at them, half smirking.
“We use aliases, not our real names.”
“I’m told that you work for the civil service.”
“I think we all know that’s not really true,” smiled Anupa.
“That’s what I was told. I must admit it seemed odd that you’d be spending time on the ship.”
“We’re both with the Secret Int… With MI6.” He looked surprised.
“Let me show you your racks.” They were led down below decks to a cabin.
“Help yourself to a rack. You’ll have the cabin to yourselves. Come on now. I’ll show you the heads and galley.” They spent twenty minutes getting to know the essentials of the ship. At least the parts they’d need to know.
“Lieutenant Commander Leon,” said Tosser, “what kind of ship is this, I’ve not been on one before.”
“It’s a type 23 Frigate. A general warship. Would you like to see the important bits. What we do, and what we’re here for?”
“Ah ah. Love to,” she smiled. They were both taken on a quick tour of the control room. Saw the Harpoon and Sea Wolf missile systems and the main 4.5 inch gun.
“I’m curious,” said the Naval Officer, turning to Tosser.
“How did you get your alias name?”
“Well, you can tell by my accent I’m Scottish.” He nodded.
“It comes from the highland games, tossing the caber. So they called me Tosser.”