The Fox

That the name Chandler’s Court had been passed to the Russians there was no doubt. But which underling had broken ranks? As to the ‘why?’, he still clung to bribery, and nothing like $5 million’s worth. But where in the haystack of Whitehall was this invisible needle to be traced? He recalled from his days at MI6 the exposure of a leak and the ruse he had employed to bring the mover in darkness to the light. He would have to use it again.

On the flight back to Heathrow his mind returned to the single conference when the name Chandler’s Court had been fleetingly mentioned. Someone present had heard that, possibly noted the words, the name of the place where the youth nicknamed the Fox had been lodged for his safety.

Who had been present? Well, the heads of four Intelligence services: MI6, MI5, GCHQ and Joint Intel. All security-cleared to the eyeballs. But who had sat behind them, quietly note-taking?

And there were two Cabinet ministers, the Secretaries from the Home Office and Foreign Office, each with a small team of subordinates.

Four days had passed since the Russians’ raid on Chandler’s Court. Sir Adrian was certain that Krilov had by now concluded that the armed attack had been a total disaster. There at least it was they who had underestimated him. Perhaps they could be tricked into doing it again. It would be logical for him to move his hacking phenomenon somewhere else. So he would do the opposite.

He had in any case conferred with Dr Hendricks on this after the shoot-out. The computer wizard from Cheltenham had begged him not to relocate the family, if it was at all feasible. The academic had over a few weeks become like a surrogate father to the youth. Every time Luke Jennings was moved or his world disrupted, he descended into a mental crisis. And he had just been tasked with his second database-hacking exploration and was working on it.

Sir Adrian, on one of his visits, had noted with approval the developing relationship. After a lifetime in computers Dr Hendricks was, in technical terms, far ahead of the teenage boy. But neither he nor anyone else from GCHQ could match the seeming sixth sense of the youth when it came to penetrating the blinding complexity of the firewalls that the major powers used to protect their innermost secrets. Dr Hendricks might have resented this. Others probably would. But Jeremy Hendricks had a generosity of spirit that endowed him with a protective paternalism towards the young genius in his charge. Luke Jennings seemed to respond to this. He was receiving daily encouragement, something he had never had from his late father. Rejected, he had lived in his own private world. His mother could protect, shield his fragility as a mother hen with her chick, but she could not encourage, because his world was utterly incomprehensible to her, as it was to Sir Adrian and would have been to all Luke’s former schoolteachers. Only with Dr Hendricks did he at last have a common language. So, for Sir Adrian, Hendricks’s advice was important. If moving the entire hub from Chandler’s Court somewhere else would send the boy into a frantic depression, it would be resisted. Luke Jennings would have to stay where he was.

So, with Hendricks’s advice in mind, Sir Adrian began to work on his attempt to wrongfoot Krilov. He would pretend to move the lad and let it be known that he had. He would choose four targets. But first there was some research to do. He began with his copious contact list. Four country houses, all set in their own grounds.

In the days when he kept a pair of shotguns and accepted invitations to spend a day shooting pheasant and partridge he had made acquaintance with over a dozen of these home-owners. He rang four of them and asked for the favour he wished. All agreed. One even suggested ‘it might be fun’, which was certainly one way of putting it. He doubted the Night Wolves on their slabs in Herefordshire would agree.

His second concern was to revisit the Director of the Special Forces.

The brigadier was courteous but reproving.

‘The CO of the Regiment is not best pleased,’ he remarked. ‘He thought his men were on a training mission close-protecting a family of three and three boffins. They end up in a re-enactment of Stalingrad.’

‘That was evenly balanced,’ replied Sir Adrian. ‘What happened at Chandler’s Court was very one-sided. But please convey my apologies to the Regiment. I had no idea the killers had located the target. Had I known, the target would not even have been there. The house would have been empty. What is likely to follow will be wholly different.’

He explained his proposition. The DSF thought it over.

‘I recommend the SRR. They’re based in Herefordshire too. At Credenhill. I would suggest two men per house. Then they could spell each other.’

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment is, with the SAS and the Special Boat Service, one of Britain’s three SF fighting units. High among its skill sets are covert entry and invisibility. Add to that close observation (unseen). Its members will usually seek to avoid close encounters but can be just as lethal as members of the other two units if needs demand.

There was another encrypted conversation between the commanding officer of SRR at his Credenhill base and the DSF. Once again the evocation of the wishes of the Prime Minister in assisting her security adviser clinched the matter.

The four pairs of unexpected house guests arrived at the residences of their hosts within twenty-four hours and were made welcome. The four residences were a manor, a grange and two farms.

All the houses were large and sprawling, set deep in the countryside, where a wandering stranger, let alone a foreigner on a scouting mission, would be noticeable. The soldiers installed themselves in their quarters, patrolled the surrounding territory and selected their watching points. In each case they chose an elevated eyrie to give a good overview of the grounds of the residence. Then, turn and turnabout, they mounted guard.

Sir Adrian had picked four of those who had attended the crucial National Security Council meeting. These were the quite innocent Julian Marshall, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He knew them all, though the two politicians less well.

He wrote to each a very personal private letter with the envelope so marked that it would not be opened except by the hands of the man named on the front. After perusal it would be seen by not more than one other, a confidential private or filing secretary trusted with classified correspondence.

He explained that there had been an incident at Chandler’s Court and he felt it wise to move the young cyber-hacker at the heart of Operation Troy to a new location. He then revealed the new location, but each one was different. For clarity, Weston identified them to himself as A, B, C and D.

He knew about waiting. Much of espionage involves waiting, and he had spent his life in it. An angler knows the feel

ing: the hours trying not to nod off into a doze, to keep eyes on the floater, an ear cocked for the tinkle of the little bell at the rod-tip. When a trap has been laid it is similar, except that there are constant false alarms. Each call has to be attended to, but it is not the one the setter of the trap is really waiting for.

He did not have to wait long. The call came, as agreed, from the CO of the Regiment at Credenhill.

‘My lads tell me they are under observation. Someone patrolling the woods, field glasses, staring at the house. My men have, of course, not been seen. Do you want the intruder taken? Just say the word.’

‘Thank you, Colonel. I have what I need. I think you will find he will soon be gone.’

The colonel had named Residence C. That was Persimmon Grange, in Wiltshire. Years ago on a one-day shoot Sir Adrian had knocked down fifty pheasant as one of eight guns. A former ambassador from an embassy behind the Iron Curtain had retired there with his arthritic wife and plain daughter.

Persimmon Grange was the location mentioned in the letter to the Home Secretary. Weston needed to talk to him.

He got his chat after the minister finished a private lunch at Brooks’s. They repaired to the library, where the portraits of the Dilettantes stared down at them.