“Who does this sunken sub belong to?”
“It belonged to Kaiser Wilhelm, went down in 1917.”
“I know there’s more, but we’re here.” Nicholas stopped at the Northolt guard gate. Penderley pulled out his ID and handed it to the guard. His mobile rang. “I hope they’ve found Sophie Pearce.” A few moments later, he shut off the phone and looked at Nicholas strangely, then said, “Your plane, it’s right over there. You can drive to it.”
“Did they find her, sir?”
He shook his head. “They’ve found where the call originated from. Let’s get you on the plane and I’ll tell you the rest.”
70
London
5:00 p.m.
Once inside the plane, Penderley waved away the pilot. He stared at them, through them really, and he looked stunned.
“Sir? What’s wrong? Was Sophie at the location? Is she dead?”
“Our people found the location, just outside Oxford, like we thought. They’re on their way there now. Hold on to your pants, Drummond. The call originated from an estate called West Park, a country estate owned by Edward Weston.”
Nicholas stopped cold. He began shaking his head, back and forth. “No, sir, that can’t be right, not Weston.”
“I’m sorry, Nicholas. The call absolutely came from inside Weston’s house.” He reached out, laid his hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. They stood together silent for a moment.
What was going on here?
Finally, Mike said, “All right, who is Edward Weston and why are you surprised, and why does Nicholas look like he’s been smacked in the head?”
Nicholas didn’t want to tell her, and she knew it, but it didn’t matter. She laid her hand on his arm. “Tell me.”
Nicholas nodded. “Remember hearing about a small issue I had in Afghanistan?”
“You’ve never told me what that issue was, but yes, I remember some sort of problem.”
“A problem?” Penderley shook his head. “A problem doesn’t come close. Tell her, Nicholas. but be quick about it. You’ve got to go.”
Nicholas said matter-of-factly, “First you need to know that Edward Weston is currently the second-in-command of MI Five.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mike couldn’t believe this. MI5? “Tell me what happened.”
“Weston was a special attaché to the embassy in Kabul. He saw himself as the king on the chessboard, and we young ones as pawns to move around at his whim. He sat back in the embassy, happily getting relays on what was happening outside the walls, while I was crawling around in the muck, drinking barrels of chai and passing out cigarettes to the Afghan soldiers, pulling in as much intelligence as I could.”
He shook his head, remembering the anger and frustration. “The very people our military were training would turn on us. They were actually working for the Taliban. They used the training and information we provided to attack convoys, set off suicide bombs and car bombs. Anything to hurt us.”
Mike said, “It happened to the Americans, too.”
“Yes. I was tasked with finding where the Taliban were getting their information. I heard a solid rumor one of these insurgents was a high-ranking official, one that Weston himself had recruited and ran as an asset. His name was Bahrambin Dastgir.
“On the surface, Dastgir looked clean. He was bringing us scads of information, helping us run operations on the ground. No one believed he could possibly be a threat, not with all the solid intel he’d given us. Dastgir would sit down to tea with Weston and spout the party line about wanting the Taliban and their informants out of Kabul, out of Afghanistan.
&
nbsp; “But he didn’t feel right to me. I came to believe he was a plant. I found his mistress, and in exchange for a wad of cash, she gave him up. I went to Weston, told him what I knew, told him I wanted to bring Dastgir in and interrogate him, but Weston wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted the man was a friend.”
Mike said, “But you were right?”
“Yes. Two days after I warned Weston about Dastgir, an IED exploded very near our command post. Everyone rushed to the scene, including Dastgir, in the makeshift mobile command unit. He was well-known, they let him in.”