Whelan said, “There have been several . . . events, over recent years.”
“‘Events.’ There’s an administrator’s word.”
“Frank’s team ran terror operations in cities throughout Europe. Dusseldorf, Copenhagen, Barcelona, others. Some quite small towns too. Pisa. That struck me as odd, I don’t know why. But lots of tourists, I suppose.”
“I assume these were fairly
“They were dry runs. Unarmed, though fully functional, bombs left in strategic places. Water sources ‘poisoned’ with harmless but visible pollutants. Food distribution outlets, travel networks, energy suppliers, hotels—all compromised in specific, targeted operations.”
“He was playing games.”
“He claims that after each operation, security was tightened not only at the target site but throughout the city, and even nationally. Loopholes were plugged. Weak links dispensed with.”
“Did it not occur to him to write the odd letter?”
Whelan said, “We both know that wouldn’t have had the slightest effect.”
“You sound like you approve of what he’s been up to.”
“Each operation he undertook, he attempted to duplicate within the year. In all but one case, he was unable to do so.”
“Well, rah-de-fucking rah for him.”
“His point, he says, is we’re sleepwalking into catastrophe. If IS, or whoever comes next, gets serious—his words—they could level whole towns with little more effort and coordination than it’s taken them so far to become the global bogeyman. Paris is attacked and the whole world trembles, but how many people died? One hundred and thirty? Harkness estimates the theoretical bodycount his team have racked up to be into the thousands, and he counts those as lives saved. Because they couldn’t happen again.”
“Until Westacres put a dent in his average.”
Whelan looked up at the ceiling again. “As you say.”
Lamb put his glass down for the first time since Whelan had entered his office. From his pocket he produced a grey rag which turned out to be a handkerchief. He blew his nose, examined the results, raised his eyebrows, and tucked the handkerchief back out of sight. Then reached for his glass again. “Let me guess. One of his mentally recalibrated robots blew its wiring.”
“That’s the risk he was always running,” said Whelan. “But it didn’t seem to have occurred to him. He thought he’d raised a troupe of perfect soldiers. They had firearm skills, explosives skills, they knew how to live under the radar. But the whole point of the Cuckoo program was, the subjects have to believe they’re who they’ve been trained to be. He wanted terrorists, and that’s what he got. At least in one instance. He was called Yves, by the way. If it matters.”
“And not Robert Winters,” said Lamb.
“No. Well. False IDs were part of the process.”
“Pretty professional ones too, I imagine.” Lamb produced a cigarette from somewhere and plugged it into the side of his mouth. “That would have been part of the set-up package, wouldn’t it? Along with the explosives he used for his suicide overcoat. I mean, I can’t imagine him waltzing through the tunnel with that little lot in his hand luggage. That would really be putting the lax into relaxed.”
“No,” said Whelan after a pause. “They were already here. Frank had a cache from a raid on an armoury back in the early nineties. It was thought at the time to be an IRA operation, but . . . ”
“But it was Frank acting on information received. And we all know where the information came from.” Lamb lit his cigarette, and was momentarily wreathed in blue fumes. When it cleared, his eyes seemed yellow. “The same place as the funds used to set up Les Arbres in the first place.”
“You’ll understand we’re not particularly anxious to have that feature in the report,” Whelan said.
“Oh, I can see it might not play well down the corridor,” Lamb said. “I mean, we’re supposed to be protecting the citizenry. Not providing the wherewithal for lunatics to massacre it.” He breathed smoke. “So one of his mini-mes blows a gasket and performs a wet run instead of a dry one. Which is why Frank has to scorch the earth. David Cartwright being top of his list.”
“We’re still not clear on Sam Chapman’s role,” Whelan said.
“He carried Cartwright’s bags back in the day. Including to Les Arbres.”
“Ah.” He waved a hand to dispel Lamb’s smoke. “That’s one of the areas Harkness wasn’t so forthcoming about.”
“Alongside how he got Cartwright on board by putting his daughter up the duff? There’s an angle they don’t teach you at spook school. But shall I tell you what’s more interesting right now?” Lamb inhaled deeply, and when he spoke his voice was pinched. “Your use of the past tense.
“Not . . . exactly.”
Lamb stared, and it seemed to Whelan his yellow eyes became tinged with red. “You’re not fucking telling me you’ve let him go.”
