Rogue Elements Read online

  Published by Advance Editions 2014

  Advance Editions is an imprint of Core Q Ltd

  Global House, 1 Ashley Avenue, Epsom, Surrey KT18 5AD

  All correspondence: [email protected]

  Copyright © Hector Macdonald 2014

  The right of Hector Macdonald to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Sections 77 and 78

  Cover by Emily Gray

  Formatted into an eBook by www.BluewavePublishing.co.uk

  advance edition 1.1

  ISBN 978-1-910408-00-1

  All rights reserved

  www.AdvanceEditions.com

  Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT ADVANCE EDITIONS

  INTELLIGENCE GLOSSARY

  PROLOGUE

  PART I: THE SPY

  PART II: THE HUNT

  PART III: THE KILL

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Hector Macdonald began writing thrillers after completing a zoology degree at Oxford University. The Mind Game was a bestseller published in 18 languages. The Hummingbird Saint and The Storm Prophet followed, and then Hector turned to spy fiction with Rogue Elements. He is co-founder and editorial director of www.BookDrum.com, a website that takes readers beyond the page with interactive content related to their favourite books.

  Alongside his writing career, Hector works as a strategy and communications consultant in industries as diverse as telecoms, banking, pharmaceuticals and healthcare. He has, on occasion, provided consulting services to various agencies of the British government.

  Hector grew up on the coast of Kenya and now lives in London.

  www.HectorMacdonald.com

  ABOUT ADVANCE EDITIONS

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  INTELLIGENCE GLOSSARY

  ABIN

  Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Brazil)

  ACTOR

  Codename for SIS

  AQ

  Al-Qaeda

  CIA

  Central Intelligence Agency (USA)

  CNI

  Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (Spain)

  CSIS

  Canadian Security Intelligence Service

  CX

  Intelligence ‘product’ (SIS)

  DCRI

  Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (France)

  DEA

  Drug Enforcement Administration (USA)

  DGSE

  Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (France)

  DHS

  Department of Homeland Security (USA)

  DIA

  Defense Intelligence Agency (USA)

  Dry cleaning

  Checking for and evading surveillance

  DS

  Directing Staff (training officers)

  EPV

  Enhanced Positive Vetting

  FCO

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK)

  Firm

  Informal term for SIS

  Five

  The Security Service, also known as MI5 (UK)

  Fort

  Fort Monckton: SIS training centre near Portsmouth

  Friend

  Informal term for SIS officer

  GCHQ

  Government Communications Headquarters: UK signals intelligence agency

  General Service

  Technical and administrative SIS officers

  H/NARC

  Head of Counter-Narcotics (SIS)

  H/SECT

  Private secretary to the Chief of SIS

  H/TERR

  Head of Counter-Terrorism (SIS)

  H/TOS

  Head of Technical and Operations Support (SIS)

  HPD

  Head of Personnel Department (SIS)

  I/OPS

  Information Operations: propaganda and psychological operations

  Intelligence Branch

  Fast stream SIS officers

  IDF

  Israel Defense Forces

  Increment

  Special forces detachments supporting SIS

  IONEC

  Intelligence Officer’s New Entry Course (SIS)

  ISC

  Intelligence and Security Committee: oversight body of UK parliamentarians

  JIC

  Joint Intelligence Committee (UK)

  Kidon

  Mossad unit responsible for assassination

  Mabahith

  Saudi Arabia’s domestic security service

  Magav

  Israel’s border police

  Mossad

  Israel’s external intelligence agency

  NCA

  National Crime Agency (UK)

  NIS

  National Intelligence Service (South Africa)

  NSA

  National Security Agency (USA)

  OSA

  Official Secrets Act (UK)

  PD

  Personnel Department (SIS)

  PMPD

  Prime Minister Protection Detail (RCMP)

  Porthos

  Secure internal electronic messaging system (SIS)

  RCMP

  Royal Canadian Mounted Police

  Shabak

  Israel’s domestic security service (also known as Shin Bet)

  SIS

  Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6 (UK)

  SO15

  Counter-Terrorism Command of London’s Metropolitan Police, formerly Special Branch (SO12) and Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13)

  SOCA

  Serious Organized Crime Agency, now part of the National Crime Agency (UK)

  TD7, TD8

  Training officers (SIS)

  TOS

  Technical and Operations Support (SIS)

  UBL

  Usama Bin Laden

  WMD

  Weapons of Mass Destruction

  YZ

  Highly classified

  PROLOGUE

  01

  ENGLISHMAN’S BAY, TOBAGO – 23 May

  The staff at Emerald Sea Resort had grown familiar with the routine of the tourist staying in the garden villa suite. He ran on the beach every morning before breakfast, and at night he drank well and tipped generously. In between, he disappeared with his companion in a rental car for much of the day. On their return they shed muddy boots, bird books and cameras, and spent the remaining daylight hours sunbathing. The supine companion drew admiring glances from male guests and staff alike; Emerald Sea’s activities coordinator offered the couple a free kite-surfing lesson off Pigeon Point in the hope that he might get to lay a guiding hand on various parts of her anatomy. But it seemed she didn’t speak much English, and the tourist brusquely declared that his girlfriend was afraid of the sea.

  No wonder, then, that they spent their days trudging through damp rainforest instead of enjoying the easier pleasures of Tobago’s fine beaches.

  Despite his tips, the tourist was not much liked by the staff at Emerald Sea. They sensed something unfamiliar about him, a rigidity o
f purpose even in his sunbathing, an intensity that was out of place in a Caribbean resort. His lithe, sweat-free body should have impressed; instead, it unnerved. When discreet but searching questions were later asked by foreigners with clipped accents, a number of the staff cited his disquieting manner, although none would go so far as to say he was anything other than he purported to be. There was no memory of unusual equipment, or overheard telephone calls, or an alien language that might have suggested the Middle East.

  The only recollection of substance came from a teenage waiter who had served the companion a rum punch by the pool. Attempting to clear a space for the drink on their table, he had picked up a tablet computer with a view to stacking it on top of a German-language novel. He never got that far. Instead he found his wrist rigidly, agonizingly seized. What did he remember most of the man staying in the garden villa suite? The bleak iciness of his gaze as their eyes met over that simple misunderstanding. The threat implied.

  On the last day of his vacation, the tourist requested a late check-out, which was granted on payment of an unofficial consideration to the reception manager. Then, as usual, he and his companion put on hiking boots – scraped clean of yesterday’s mud – and carried binoculars, mineral water, a packed lunch and two bird books out to the rental car. Neither of the resort staff loitering in the car park noticed the small black suitcase already stowed in the boot of the Ford saloon.

  The night had brought heavy rain, and along the Claude Noel Highway pools of water steamed lightly under the flamboyant trees. The tourist did not observe the 50kph limit more conscientiously than any other driver, although he matched his speed to the slowest of the vehicles around him. From Scarborough he cut north across the island on Providence Road, deftly navigating the confusion of unsigned junctions in the capital’s northern suburbs to reach the lush rainforest of the interior. At Les Coteaux, he stopped by the roadside stall with the colourful Rasta paintwork, as he had done every other morning of his holiday. The companion remained in the car while he greeted the radiant proprietress in figure-hugging pink and paid for the four mangoes and bunch of bananas she had set aside for him.

  At the viewpoint above Castara Bay, the tourist noted the same three police cars that had kept watch over the scant Northside Road traffic for the last three days. He allowed himself a casual glance in their direction, and was rewarded with a wave from one of the officers. His daily routine had been noticed even by the police. He waved back and continued on, keeping his speed just below the limit.

  Two more police cars were parked on the verge beyond Castara, their officers standing in what little shade was available and scanning eastbound vehicles with rather more vigilance than might have been expected on a regular balmy day in paradise. Nevertheless, the tourist doubted they knew why they were there. They had almost certainly been told to watch for anyone ‘unusual’ approaching Englishman’s Bay.

  There was nothing unusual about two holidaymakers in a rented Ford saloon.

  Belvedere House stood in eighty-three acres of private hillside estate, midway between the fishing villages of Castara and Parlatuvier. Once a splendid colonial mansion, it had been rebuilt after Hurricane Flora demolished its hipped roof, Victorian fretwork and carved teak columns in 1963, and then lavishly refurbished by its new American owner in 2008. From its abundant verandas and balconies, the views across the Caribbean were a match for even the most dazzling cocktail-hour conversation. Some hundred metres below its steeply sloping lawns, Englishman’s Bay lay untouched by developers, a sliver of golden sand just visible through the sea almond trees and palms. The rainforest took hold in the valley behind the beach and rose uninterrupted through the Belvedere estate. From there it continued up the hillside into the Main Ridge Reserve, the backbone of Tobago.

  Said to be the oldest rainforest reserve in the western hemisphere, the Main Ridge was the vantage point from which the tourist had for six days observed the layout and activity of the Belvedere grounds. The island’s most popular forest hiking trails lay to the south and east, but the tourist had identified a small river that flowed north to the Caribbean coast, meeting Northside Road just past the turning to Englishman’s Bay. Each day, he had pulled over by the river and made his way on foot upstream. The companion would slip into the vacated driving seat and continue on to one of the trails on the Roxborough–Parlatuvier Road. There she passed the time photographing manicou crabs and leafcutter ants, before returning to pick him up at the same spot four hours later.

  The plan on this final day was only a little different.

  An unmarked truck was parked a short way up the track leading to the Belvedere estate. The tourist gave no sign of having seen it, but drove on into the valley behind Englishman’s Bay and parked under a large immortelle tree. A minibus blaring rapso came roaring down the hill towards them. The tourist raised a map, simplistic and colourful, half-covering his face. When the road was clear he stepped out of the saloon, collected the suitcase from the boot and disappeared into a stand of giant bamboo. The companion switched seats and drove off.

  The next car didn’t pass the spot for ninety seconds, and by then the tourist was deep inside the rainforest.

  02

  He lay on a broad, damp branch overhanging the perimeter fence. Epiphytes clung to the branch – fleshy orchids, bromeliads the size of garden ferns – while below delicate aerial roots trailed towards the forest floor. There was little to see: the rainforest, dense and heavy with moisture, blocked all view of Belvedere House and the small army of technicians, political aides and security officers currently in occupation. The fence itself was barely three metres high, easy to scale, but the tourist had no intention of touching it. In a previous life, he had spent months studying perimeter protection, and were he responsible for security here he would have fitted motion sensors along the length of the fence. For that matter, he would have instituted regular patrols with dogs. But in the twenty-three minutes he’d been watching, no one had appeared.

  He let two more minutes tick by, then dropped the suitcase to the ground and followed it down, landing with a neat five-point roll.

  In his pocket was his own map of the Belvedere estate, compiled from sketches made over the previous days, high in the hills above. He didn’t need it. Every detail was already committed to memory. He knew the exact extent of the rainforest in this sector of the estate, and the distance to the open gardens around the house where elite officers from three nations patrolled. He knew the bearing to the derelict outhouse below the garages. And he knew precisely how many steps lay between the outhouse and the array of generators in the driveway.

  He walked with great care, stepping only on exposed roots and fallen bamboo to avoid leaving footprints in the mud.

  The outhouse had been searched by a team of three security officers two days earlier. He had watched them enter from his vantage point on the Main Ridge, and seven minutes later he had watched them leave. A strip of yellow tape across the doorless entrance read SECURITY: NO ENTRY. The building smelt of damp and rot, and the excrement of forest creatures. It had once housed a smoker, and what was left of the roof was black from years of wood fires. Rusty hooks that had long ago held curing fish and pork still hung from a rail over the stove. The tourist set his suitcase on the rubble-strewn floor and checked his watch.

  10:26. Two minutes ahead of schedule.

  He opened the case. Inside was a battered toolbox, a carpenter’s belt and a set of very ordinary clothes. The tourist changed into the jeans, white cotton shirt and plain brown boots, and bundled his muddied hiking clothes into the case. From a concealed compartment he withdrew a photo identity card and a badge, yellow with a distinctive blue triangle in the centre. He clipped the ID to his shirt pocket and hung the badge on a lanyard around his neck.

  In covert work, there is a time for stealth and a time for boldness. On leaving the outhouse, the tourist walked directly out of the trees and up the lawn to the drive. Sixteen paces and he was alongside the generators
. Another eighteen took him past a throng of electrical engineers, junior producers and make-up artists. Six more placed him at the foot of the steps leading to the front door of Belvedere House.

  A walk-through metal detector stood next to an X-ray scanner. The tourist placed his toolbox on the conveyor belt.

  ‘That also,’ said a security officer in dark suit and shades, pointing to his carpenter’s belt. The identity card clipped to his lapel bore a small Dutch flag.

  ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said another officer, this one with a Brazilian flag on his lapel. He made a close examination of both badge and identity card.

  ‘I haven’t seen you before either,’ shrugged the tourist, passing through the metal detector.

  Two more security officers met him on the other side. These were Canadians, and while one opened the toolbox and inspected each item, the other patted him down. ‘Isn’t the set done already?’

  ‘It’s done,’ nodded the tourist, buckling the carpenter’s belt around his waist. ‘I’m here to dismantle. Mr Davis wants everything cleared away right after transmission.’

  The officer’s search of the toolbox was thorough: spirit level, framing square, power drill, tenon saw, screwdrivers, tape measure – no knives, chisels or hammers. He closed it up. ‘Nice handle. Ergonomic.’

  The air-conditioned interior of Belvedere House was elegantly modelled in teak and polished granite, with cream walls and cool blue furnishings. Kartouche had been able to obtain the architect’s plans drawn up for the recent refurbishment, and the tourist now stepped assuredly from the hall into a capacious walk-in closet where he deposited the toolbox and carpenter’s belt among a clutter of fishing rods, scuba equipment, lifejackets and boat fenders. The jeans and boots had fitted the carpenter story, but they were clean and unmarked and now served just as well to suggest a hands-on technical manager.

  At the end of the hall a trestle table covered in papers was surrounded by a cluster of production executives. Caught up in an argument about title sequencing, they barely noticed the tourist pass by. He took one fleeting look at the papers and as he walked on he processed what he’d seen – in particular a studio plan showing three armchairs. Each was marked with initials: TM, AvdV, MA. Picking up an abandoned clipboard, the tourist pushed through double doors into the imposing space known to him from the architect’s plans as Main Reception.