‘Bin Laden’s about a lot more than thrill kills and power trips,’ Williams chided, measuring his condescension precisely. ‘And there’s three thousand dead people in New York of the
opinion that you should be taking him more seriously.’

‘I’m taking him entirely seriously, sir. I just don’t think it will help us if we buy into the hype and start thinking of him as some kind of formidable genius. Look at the Black Spirit, if you need a primer. Remember what a bogeyman he was? Turned out to be a fucking oil-biz wage slave from Aberdeen.’

‘Quite. Something, I should remind you, that we only learned after the fact. Didn’t make him any easier to catch, did it? And besides, I don’t think there’s much ground for comparison. For all his theatrics, the Black Spirit was essentially just a mercenary, prepared to do horrific things on other people’s behalf if they paid him enough. Bin Laden represents the possibility of ten thousand Black Spirits, all of them prepared to do horrific things merely because it’s Allah’s bidding. We’ve never had to face this kind of fanaticism before: there’s no fifth column to cultivate, no disaffected factions to encourage, no waverers, not even anyone we can bribe and corrupt. Just total, unquestioning, homicidal, suicidal commitment to the cause.’

‘With respect, sir, that’s what I mean by believing the hype. For one thing, there is no cause. Bin Laden’s too smart to marry himself to anything as cumbersome as a coherent or even consistent political ideology, because such a thing could be debated, held up to scrutiny, and, worst of all, alienate potential followers. “The cause of Islam” is expediently nebulous. You scream loud enough about Allah and nobody’s going to ask you to clarify any awkward specifics before signing up. Through religion, Bin Laden can posture as all things to all Muslims. But there’s one specific he does deliver, and that’s the thing he needs more than Allah, the thing that’s really motivating your “unquestioning” footsoldiers.’

‘What? The promise of all those virgins in paradise?’

‘An enemy. Somebody to hate, somebody to blame. The US, the Jews, the West. The Muslim fundamentalists aren’t looking to Bin Laden because he’s a genius. They’re looking to him because he’s the one who’s currently got a team together to give the infidel a kicking. That’s his main leadership credential: that right now, he’s the one doing some leading.’

Williams grimaced a little, his features hardening less against the growing drizzle than in strain at tolerating his subordinate’s less-than-focused reflections. David Fotheringham was tagged in Williams’s mental files under ‘Useful But Flaky’, sub-section ‘Intelligent But Scheming’. He’d been indispensable as an infiltrator ten or fifteen years back, boyish looks allowing him to pass for someone much younger, combined with a sly talent for winning people’s
trust. He wasn’t out in the field these days, partly because his knowledge and experience were more valuably applied in managing the operatives who were, but also because there were question marks over his ability to remain emotionally detached. It was a charted symptom of chronic exposure to his particular field of analysis: spend all your time identifying
potential threat and subversion and your instincts could get a little defensive, to say the least. Revulsion was a natural response, but hatred clouded your judgement. Now that Selby was gone and Williams was in charge, it would be up to him to harness Fotheringham’s abilities: the trick was finding a way of loosening his leash but keeping him on-side.

‘Forgive me, Fotheringham, maybe it’s the circumstances this morning, maybe it’s last night’s whisky and maybe it’s just the damp, but I’m having trouble understanding why one of my most respected intelligence officers is standing before me doing a very good impression of trivialising the biggest threat to security that this nation currently faces.’

‘I’m not trivialising, sir. I’m saying these guys – Bin Laden, Al Qaeda – are only as dangerous as they’ve been allowed to be.’

Williams looked around the cemetery, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his coat.

‘Where are you going with this, David? It’s fucking freezing out here and I’ve a pressing appointment with a sausage roll and a pint of bitter.’

‘Are sausage rolls still mandatory at official funerals?’

Williams gave a small, stiff grin.

‘Sausage rolls are mandatory at all funerals, even vegetarian ones, and I couldn’t half do with one right now. So enough procrastination: what are you saying?’

Fotheringham took his own turn at casting a slow eye across the headstones.

‘Do you know the joke about the two hunters, out of ammo, who come across a lion in the grassland?’

‘Can’t say that I recognise it so far, no.’

‘Well, the lion clocks them, so one of them drops his gun and just starts running. His mate tells him he’s mad, there’s no way he can outrun a lion. The first guy says: “I don’t
need to outrun the lion: I only need to outrun you.”

‘Al Q hit the Twin Towers because the Yanks made it easy for them. I’m saying we should make it no fucking picnic to be an Al Q operative in the UK: present ourselves as the hardest option and let the rest watch their own backs.’

‘Far be it from me to pour cold water on your enthusiasm, but I’m obliged to remind you that counter-terrorism isn’t really your area of expertise.’

‘No, sir. My area of expertise is idealistic half-wits looking for some cause to make their lives seem meaningful and their selves feel important. I’ve seen them of every stripe, every colour, every political hue, and the one thing they all have in common is, to use an appropriately jingoistic phrase, they don’t like it up ’em. For every truly committed suicide
bomber, there’s two dozen easily-led romantics who’ll go looking for a new hobby if things start to get hot.’

‘Meanwhile my sausage roll is starting to get cold.’

Williams began walking as directly towards the carpark as the headstones allowed. ‘I came here to bury a colleague, not to listen to your head unravelling, Fotheringham. Sounds like you should stay out of what you clearly don’t know.’

‘With every respect to his memory, I know our departed boss has exited the stage not a moment too soon.’

Williams checked his stride, casting an eye towards the dispersing mourners and the growing cavalcade of slowdeparting cars.

‘Gracefully,’ Fotheringham continued, ‘with his legacy and dignity intact, before the likes of Al Qaeda exposed him as an anachronism. They’ve changed the game beyond anything Selby could recognise, ripped up our definitions of the unthinkable and made it easier for the next nutter
along to contemplate atrocity. This isn’t a war, not even a cold one. You said it yourself, there’s no generals to assess or outsmart, no rifts or factions to exploit, and you don’t
get to see troops massing before the strike comes.’

‘Justin Selby was a man of honour and principle.’

‘Unquestionably, sir. He believed in democracy and good old-fashioned fair play. These fuckers don’t.’

Fotheringham stopped and stood still. Williams ignored his punt at dramatic effect and ambled onwards, charting a straighter course towards the exit.

‘It’s time we started playing dirty too, sir. I’d like to see how many of their “disaffected loner” recruits and so-called fanatics remain quite so committed once they start picking
up their teeth.’

Williams shook his head. ‘So a few public floggings, maybe a beheading in Trafalgar Square, that what you have in mind?’ He walked backwards as he called out his disappointed scorn, then turned again and proceeded in the direction of that much-vaunted sausage roll. Fotheringham stood his ground, undaunted by Williams’s departure.

‘I’m talking about OFP 857.’

Williams stopped and turned around. OFP 857 was one of MI5’s more badly kept secrets, and it was no surprise that Fotheringham should know about it. The question was, given his ratified flaky status, how much he really knew, or how much he’d merely bought into the myth.

‘Did I hear you right?’

‘Yes, sir. Since September 11th we’ve found ourselves facing a real monster: multi-headed, poison-tongued, murderous and entirely ruthless. I think the time is right for us to unleash a demon of our own.’

Williams had to stifle a laugh. Ever since Selby’s colossal fuck-up in not burying it properly when he should have, this was a story that had rattled around the organisation down the years, in rumours, half-truths, speculation and out-and-out bollocks.

‘What do you know about OFP 857? Seriously. Do you know what it stands for, for a start?’

‘Omega File Prisoner 857. Imprisoned without trial, detained indefinitely, in order to cover up his activities. Also known as army sergeant Maurice Shiach, assigned to train Territorials and student OTCs around the country. Originally recruited as an informant by Special Branch in the Seventies, investigating suspected extreme right-wing factions in the TA. In the Eighties he was unofficially given free rein to recruit and assemble—’

‘Bollocks he was.’

‘Just the way I heard it, sir.’

‘That’s the problem. There’s so much hair grown on that sorry tale, a lot of Boys’ Own shit that people want to believe in. What else do you know, from “the way you heard it”?’

‘That he ran a prototype covert assassination unit, to take out subversive elements without raising suspicion over the motives of their deaths. Accidents, suicides. That’s why I brought it up. The people we’re facing these days love to have martyrs. It fuels their cause. This way, we could deny them that while taking crucial heads.’

‘You believe we can enhance the security of our country by killing certain of the people who live here?’

‘People who are planning to undermine that security, yes. If we’d popped Bin Laden coming out of Highbury one afternoon, several of our citizens might not have died on September 11.’

This was Fotheringham in full flake mode. He wasn’t the first to be seduced by the Shiach myth: who wouldn’t like to believe we had a secret unit who could almost invisibly wipe out the people who threatened us? The reality was less romantic, a repeat of it unthinkable. It was high time Fotheringham was disabused of his misconceptions, though if he seriously had the stomach for what he was deludedly contemplating, Williams might yet be able to use that. If
nothing else, he had brought to the top of the agenda one of the unsolved problems Williams had just inherited from Selby.

‘You start with Bin Laden, but where do you stop, David? Who’s going to make that call? Me? You? Shiach?’

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’

‘We’re not that desperate yet. Believe me, he wasn’t some 007, licensed to kill. Shiach was a nightmare looking for someone to dream him: someone feeling like you do now, angry and frustrated and wishing you could just blow the bad guys away. He was a psychopath in need of a cause to justify his bloodlust, and Shiach was more interested in the blood than the cause. He was little more than hired muscle, impatient to provide the way if someone else had the will.’

‘You mean the Architect?’

‘Ah, you’ve heard that nonsense too. Shiach’s own mythmaking, that one. That was how he seduced his recruits: told them about his silent partner who was in MI5, giving the impression that what he was up to was sanctioned. Trust me, what he was up to was entirely off his own back. He was a self-deluding nutter, and the myths came about because Justin Selby inadvertently fed his delusion by covering the whole mess up.’

‘What exactly did this mess consist of?’

‘Shiach’s “unit” murdered some lefty activist lawyer and made it look like suicide. To this day, the widow doesn’t know any different. Nobody does. Selby found out, though. He’d been worried about Shiach for a while and engaged the time-honoured paranoid ploy of sending an informant to inform on his informant. He got nothing from the main man, but one of Shiach’s TA recruits spilled his guilt-ridden guts, and not a moment too soon, because it wasn’t all clever little suicides they were planning. That’s the myth: that they dreamt up subtle, invisible ways to make inconvenient people disappear. Not Shiach. He wanted mayhem. Hide in
plain sight. The more messy and insane, the harder it is to see the motive.’

‘What happened to the recruit?’

‘Topped himself, ironically.’

‘You sure he topped himself?’

‘Oh, yeah. Shiach was locked up by then. I say ironically because there were no repercussions for him, apart from his own guilt, it would seem. Selby had to make the whole thing go away, and he impressed upon the guy that there’d be no murder case to answer as long as no-one knew there’d been a murder. But Shiach didn’t just need to be silenced, he needed to be stopped. That’s where Selby screwed up. He should have thrown the whole thing open to the cops, but
he was terrified of the political damage. You can say the phrase “rogue element” as many times as you want, but when you’ve got someone connected to both the security and intelligence services wiping out dissidents and making it look like suicide . . .’

‘I can see the headlines, yes.’

‘And you have to understand, the way Selby’s mind worked, he wasn’t protecting a government or a political party. He was protecting the very office of government, because what credibility would that office have, home or abroad, if we were perceived to be assassinating dissenters?
He had to cover up the whole thing, and he had to get rid of Shiach. Me? I’d have given him a taste of his own medicine, suicided the bastard. Unfortunately, Selby’s stubborn
principles ruled that out. He considered what Shiach had done an affront to everything he believed this country stood for, which included not killing people just because you find
them inconvenient.’

‘So it’s true he had him imprisoned without trial?’

‘That part is true, yes. His identity has been effectively wiped, his files sealed and the only thing anyone on the inside knows is that he doesn’t have a parole date. Selby made him disappear in his own bloodless way, no doubt feeding Shiach’s delusion that he’s some kind of martyr, wronged patriot or detained secret agent. “Omega File Prisoner 857”. He must have loved that. Good job he doesn’t know what happened to Omega File Prisoners one through 856.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. There weren’t any. It was Selby taking the piss because he knew Shiach drove a white VW Beetle.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Herbie’s registration was OFP 857.’

Fotheringham laughed. Williams knew he could now consider the myth officially debunked. The sausage rolls would all have been scoffed by now, but it had been worth it, as it looked like he now had the answers to two of his inherited problems: namely yoking Fotheringham’s loyalty
and erasing Selby’s big mistake.

‘The bastard’s been rattling around various prisons since 1991, out of sight while his legend gets bigger and wilder. And now that Selby’s gone, he’s my responsibility. Out of sight but not out of mind, it would be fair to say. There’s safeguards in place to stop him talking to anyone on the outside, but nothing’s perfect, and you can imagine the fallout if his story ever did reach the public domain. It was a risk Selby was prepared to live with for the sake of his principles, but let’s just say he was a better man than I.’

‘I think I hear you, sir.’

‘You still think certain individuals’ deaths would benefit our national security?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, I might just have a job for you.’