Page 11 - double revenge 3.

OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS RESPONSE DIRECTOR
MI6 BUILDING THE EMBANKMENT. LONDON

ND
MONDAY MARCH 2 1998

Anne had shared an office with Fred Callaway for nearly four years, from the first day the new MI6
building opened, and in all that time, she had never kept anything from him. They shared secrets,
state secrets sometimes. Their work as intelligence analysis experts had forged them into a strong
team but something had stopped her sharing this signal from GCHQ. Now she was about to show it

to her Director. What was it that had stopped her showing it to Fred? He was her senior and by
rights, the signal should have gone to him. Was she trying to keep a big one for herself, for make no
mistake, this was going to be a big one, or was she trying to keep her good friend out of something
that could have repercussions throughout the building. The truth, and she did realise it, was that
decisions on how to progress this signal had to be made and she felt more comfortable with a pain
in the backside like her boss Barker making them than dear old Fred. The wrong decision here and
heads would roll and she much preferred it to be Barkers.

The old adage in Century House was you could tell a person’s seniority if they had glass ashtrays
instead of metal but with the move to Vauxhall Cross, seniority was generally judged if you had a
view over the Thames. This office contained no ashtrays, glass or otherwise and it was not very
spacious, but the view across the Thames gave the impression of a million pound penthouse. The
large Indian Rosewood office desk and matching antique chair sat as the centrepiece of the room
and were the first clue that this was actually a place of work. It was the only extravagance for the
metal filing cabinet and the two office chairs must have come from a standard office equipment
supplier. Only two chairs suggested Barker was not a man for holding meetings.

Barker reread the signal for the fourth or fifth time. ‘What do you make of it Anne?’

She took a large breath.

‘Well sir. It is a signal from GCHQ reporting on a telephone intercept. The call originated in America
but the interceptor obviously did not have enough time to trace. The recipient is on a landline in
the UK but since the interceptor was unable to monitor this, then I suspect the landline was one of
our safe direct lines, too wide a frequency to monitor both simultaneously, hence the only speech is
from the incoming and it sounds very much to me like a shakedown, blackmail.’

‘Right. So what do you think we should do about it?’

Anne thought very carefully.

‘Immediately. Nothing. If we start charging about now like headless chickens, we have nothing to
go on and the sound of our hobnail boots will echo all around. We can’t chase our own landline,
they are not assigned so the recipient is anonymous, there is never any record of use. They are