Cyberstrike by James Barrington (best english books to read .txt) 📗

than standing up in Great Western Railway’s usual cattle class accommodation.’

The train departed Cheltenham Spa just over nine minutes late, which probably counted as being bang on time to a twenty-first-century railway company, and Morgan spent nearly twenty minutes talking to Angela Evans on his mobile once they’d found their seats. He ended the call and glanced at Natasha, sitting opposite him.

‘Well?’ she demanded.

‘If I said I knew what was going on I’d be lying,’ Morgan replied. ‘Angela was able to provide some information, but the situation is still unfolding.’

‘Don’t fanny about,’ Natasha ordered. ‘Give me the alligator sandwich version – make it short and snappy.’

Morgan grinned at her, then glanced round to ensure that nobody else was within earshot. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how they managed it, but a team from Millbank was able to retrace the route the cabin cruiser took when it travelled to Westminster and discovered a derelict boathouse where they think it was prepared for the operation. They obviously found some usable clues either there or on what was left of the boat, most probably fingerprints, and that led them to a terrorist cell in north-east London. Apparently one of the men involved was already on the MI5 radar and they analysed the street camera images to pin down his address.

‘They went knocking with a team of armed officers from the Met carrying a big red key. They smashed open the door and grabbed the two occupants who were getting ready to clear out. Under interrogation, they were persuaded to reveal what they knew, which wasn’t much. The short version is that they were proud of the London attack and clearly very upset that it hadn’t been successful. They both used the same expression – “The West will pay” – which is exactly what the terrorist who briefly survived the Thames attack had told the two men from Five, and both said that the main attack was going to be in America. According to Angela, the Millbank interrogators said they were arrogant and totally convinced that the American attack would not and could not fail, which is obviously a bit alarming. But they had no idea of the details of it. Or so they claimed.’

Natasha nodded in a somewhat distracted fashion, then leaned forward.

‘Some obvious questions,’ she said. ‘First, those two numpties were obviously foot-soldiers, just there to fulfil their warped destiny by strapping a few kilos of Semtex around them and then lighting the blue touchpaper in some suitably crowded place. When the men from Five with the rack and thumbscrews persuaded them to open up, did they find out anything about the puppet-master, the man pulling these idiots’ strings? Like a name or a description, I mean? Something we can scan for at GCHQ?’

‘I think interrogation techniques these days are a little more subtle than that,’ Morgan pointed out. ‘Perhaps some sleep deprivation and maybe a touch of chemical coercion if the subject is particularly reluctant to talk. But I gather from Angela that these two were reasonably willing to open up, almost as if they knew that they held the moral high ground. That’s something we’ve seen before with shahids. And as I said, they were both convinced that the American attack would be successful. To answer your question, neither man supplied any description of the person who organised the attack, and so far there’s no CCTV footage of anybody entering the house they rented in Waltham Forest apart from the two men now in custody and the two who were on the cabin cruiser. But they did both come up with a name for their leader – Abū Tadmir – so Millbank will be running that through their databases to see if it raises any red flags.’

Natasha laughed shortly. ‘I suppose they can waste their time doing that if they want to, but I can guarantee that they won’t learn anything that would help identify him.’

Morgan asked the obvious question. ‘How do you know that?’

‘You know me, Ben. I’m like a sponge. I just soak up useless information, but maybe some of the time it’s not entirely useless. I’m sure Millbank will get hits, but they won’t learn his identity, because Abū Tadmir isn’t an Arabic proper name. It’s a kunya. In fact it’s a corrupted kunya, and it’s quite obvious to me that it’s an assumed name, a nom de guerre.’

Not for the first time, Ben Morgan was somewhat awestruck by the depth, and especially by the breadth, of Natasha Black’s knowledge. ‘A kunya?’ he asked weakly. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a teknonym, a name assumed by a man or woman that incorporates the name of their eldest child. So a male might adopt the kunya Abū Hussein, meaning “the father of Hussein”, while his wife could call herself Umm Hussein, meaning she was Hussein’s mother. It’s quite a common practice.’

‘So this man is calling himself “the father of Tadmir”?’

She shook her head. ‘Not quite. Tadmir isn’t an Arab name. It’s an Arabic noun, and it translates as “destruction” or “devastation”, so our shadowy master terrorist has adopted a name, an invented nom de guerre, that means “father of destruction”. I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the sound of that.’

‘Well,’ Morgan suggested, ‘I suppose the good news is that if this terror campaign is concentrating on America, at least the citizens of Britain should be reasonably safe. We of course won’t be, because we’ll be flying into what might turn out to be the epicentre of the attacks across the Pond.’

‘That’s why they pay you so much.’

Morgan gave a hollow laugh. ‘If only,’ he said. ‘Any other thoughts about this?’

‘Obviously the one that I’m sure has occurred to you as well.’

Morgan had no idea what she was talking about, and the expression on his face confirmed his obvious bewilderment.

‘The expression they used,’ Natasha said, sounding slightly exasperated. ‘Come on, Ben, do try and keep up. This is more your world than mine. All