Page 35 - double revenge 3.

ANNE’S OFFICE
MI6 BUILDING

THE EMBANKMENT LONDON
TH
THURSDAY MARCH 12 1998

Bob Cransom had been Anne’s supervisor when she had started out in the Analysis Section some
years earlier and was now a senior director at Oakley, the headquarters of GCHQ. He had been very
kind and helpful but his pronouncement still rang in her ears.

‘I am sorry Anne, but wherever these came from and however you received them, these intercepts
did not originate here. They are forgeries and I need to investigate how they were slipped into the
distribution system.’

She felt very foolish. Someone had had her running around chasing false information but who and

why she had no idea. Based on theses false intercepts she had commissioned Mick Hagley to prove
there was a blackmailer and he had successfully shown it to be a CIA paymaster called Arnold
Warner. Had she been sent false intercepts that actually contained the truth? She decided to keep
this to herself for the time being.

Now another coded signal from Mick Hagley to say Arnold Warner would be meeting a contact in
the Bricklayers Public House behind the Cumberland Hotel at lunchtime tomorrow.

Mick had said the bird had flown so why was he still on the case? Why was he still in Boston? How
did he know Warner’s whereabouts?

When the opportunity had arisen to add response to her research and analysis, she had felt it was a
logical progress and had jumped at the chance to join this new section. But now she suddenly felt
very small and very alone and just a little bit frightened. She was, by nature, a logical person, an
asset in her profession, but nothing seemed logical at the moment. Someone had managed to get
fake intercepts into the system directed at her, the Assist had been wrong about Warner

disappearing but had not informed her that he had stayed on in Boston and either found Warner or
discovered his intentions. She recalled Barkers words at their meeting, “Be careful.”

She suddenly had new admiration for her husband who had operated in this double cross cloak and
dagger world for so long, if only she could call Bryant and tell him MI6 was being blackmailed and
the blackmailer was in London to meet with his victim, he would know what to do. The sudden
dreadful thought arose, what if it was her husband being blackmailed?

Fred was in his office writing up an analysis and she desperately wanted to share what she was
doing and ask for advice but Barker had been vehement that Operation Black was top secret. The
only person she could turn to was Barker but with the knowledge that the intercepts were not
genuine and now this signal about the cottage, she wondered if someone was setting her up, but
for what end?