20th May
Joan sat across the table from Walt Cooper.
‘If you can provide us with information,’ said Joan, ‘then we may be able to make a deal.’
‘Like no prosecution,’ suggested Cooper with a wry smile.
‘You know there won’t be any prosecutions,’ Joan replied. ‘We know that you killed Hartnell and tried to kill Morrison. If either of those offences became public, however, there’d just be too many questions. No, I was more thinking of just keeping you locked up for a while, rather than having you shot.’
Cooper looked at Joan’s face for some indication that this was an ironic statement. There was none. ‘You’re bluffing,’ he said.
Joan removed a pistol from her pocket, pointed it at Cooper’s head and pulled the trigger.
It probably took two seconds before Cooper realised that Joan had fired a blank and that he was unharmed.
Cooper took stock of the situation. He usually prided himself on his cool nerves, and he was angry about his pumping heart and his shaking hands.
‘I haven’t got time to fuck about,’ said Joan. ‘You know that, for all practical purposes, you don’t exist. The Americans have washed their hands of you. I can do exactly what I like. We don’t torture people here, we just make threats. What you need to understand is that we never make threats that we don’t carry through – too damaging to our credibility.’
Joan removed the ammunition clip from her gun. ‘This one’s full of blanks,’ she said. She withdrew a second clip from her pocket. ‘This one is full of live rounds,’ she continued as she loaded it into the gun. ‘Now, I’m going to ask some questions and you’re going to answer them. Who do you work for?’
Cooper thought about the situation he was in. He thought about Joan’s words. He believed her. ‘I work for A51H,’ he said.
‘I suspected as much,’ Joan replied. ‘Who else works for A51H? We know you were communicating with someone in the White House.’
‘A51H only reveals the identities of other members of the organisation on a need-to-know basis,’ Walt Cooper replied. ‘I obviously knew Maria Galveston who was the other A51H operative working with me on the surveillance operation in England. I only knew the contact in the White House by the code name, Saiph. My code name was Rigel.’
‘Why did you shoot Hartnell?’ asked Joan.
Cooper paused. Joan released the safety catch of her gun.
‘I was told to,’ Cooper quickly replied. ‘He knew something important. I don’t know what.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Joan. ‘I know about the asteroid,’ she continued. ‘I know about the missile plan, and I know that you know about those things too.’
In reality, she knew about the asteroid, but she was aware that there could be at least three plans in relation to the missiles: the American asteroid interception plan; a covert plan to disrupt the launch of those missiles, and a covert plan to complete the American asteroid interception from a clean, non-US control room.
She had no idea which plan or plans, if any, Cooper might know about.
‘Why shoot Hartnell?’ Joan repeated.
‘He apparently knew where the UK control room was. He might have told the CIA. A51H suspected that WAR, Worldwide Action for Righteousness, had the capacity to intercept that sort of intelligence. WAR could then have attacked that base.’
‘Do you know where the UK control room is?’ asked Joan.
‘Not for certain,’ Walt Cooper replied. ‘Remember what I said about information being shared within A51H on a need-to-know basis. I had a strong suspicion, however, that it might be beneath Northchester Cathedral. … Look,’ he continued, ‘we’re on the same side. I know you can’t be working for WAR – you don’t want to see the world end. Like you, A51H is trying to stop those lunatics from preventing the deflection of that asteroid.’
‘What about Morrison?’ asked Joan.
‘That was a request from ARK,’ Cooper replied. ‘I don’t believe all this religious crap, but A51H and ARK need each other to complete the plan, so A51H went along with it.’
‘How is it that you work for A51H if you’re not a Christian?’ Joan asked. ‘I thought that A51H, like ARK, was held together by a common faith.’
‘Sometimes they need other expertise,’ Cooper replied. ‘I’m an ex-navy seal. They pay me well.’
‘Why did ARK want Morrison killed?’
‘As I say, I don’t believe any of this nonsense, but they think he’s the Anti-Christ and that he wants the asteroid to bring the world to an end.
‘Their people have got too scared to challenge him. The word is that anyone who has threatened him or his followers has met a very nasty death.
‘I don’t believe all that superstition. He’s just a target like any other, so A51H wanted me to take him out.’
Cooper paused, thinking through the complexity of the allegiances. ‘It’s obvious that Morrison can’t want the asteroid to hit or he wouldn’t be working with you.’
‘If that’s obvious to you, Walt,’ said Joan, moving into more relaxed conversational style, ‘why isn’t it obvious to them?’
‘They see a world of devils and demons and dark forces.’ Cooper offered his explanation. ‘Once they’d convinced themselves that Morrison was the Anti-Christ, then everything else got reinterpreted to fit that – including seeing MI5 as being in direct league with the Devil.’
‘Do you know who killed Holland?’
‘No.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Joan, reasoning it to be unlikely that Holland would be a target for A51H or ARK. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Walt,’ she said. ‘I’ve just got one final question for now: why were you following Vladimir Paulov?’
Joan passed to Cooper one of the photographs that he had taken at Lee-on-Solent.
‘Just keeping an eye,’ Cooper replied. ‘Paulov doesn’t work for A51H. He’s one of those holier-than-thou, would-be saints that work for Python. Python has the expertise to set up a clean, non-US launch base.
‘A51H is just providing details of the PAL and the presidential password for the day on which the missiles are to be deployed. Like WAR, A51H has people in the right places to get that information. A51H gives that information to ARK who passes it on to Python.’
‘Why were you following Paulov?’ Joan repeated.
‘A51H doesn’t like working with two other covert outfits – it’s not sure who it can trust,’ Cooper explained. ‘I was just keeping tabs – as far as I could.’
‘This is all very complicated,’ said Joan, almost to herself. ‘Why doesn’t A51H work directly with Python?’
‘I think it’s all about trust again,’ Cooper replied. ‘In this twilight world of secret organisations, no one knows who they can trust. A51H works with ARK because of their common religious beliefs.
‘I understand that Sam Collins had personal connections with both Python and ARK, which created the environment in which ARK felt able to work with Python – I gather Sam Collins used to be a colleague of a couple of members of Python. I don’t know about his connection with ARK.’
Joan thought back to Leadbetter’s revelation that Sam had known Arkangel. ‘Do you know the identity of Arkangel?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘I was following Paulov that day at Lee-on Solent.’ He glanced down at the picture in front of him. ‘That was the one and only time I had any direct knowledge of Arkangel.’
Joan believed him.
~*~*~*~*~
Joan was deep in thought as she walked across the grass, back to her quarters. She hadn’t realised that WAR was such a significant force within the US.
She took her mobile from her pocket. ‘Hello, this is Juno 4132. Can you send everything you have on an organisation called WAR to me at Bovington base, please? It stands for “Worldwide Action for Righteousness”.’
Joan continued to walk towards her quarters. Suddenly she stopped, turned around and ran back to the interview room.
Cooper was in the corridor, in the process of being escorted back to his cell.
‘Which member of ARK were you following, Walt, when you took those pictures of Meadowcote?’ Joan asked breathlessly.
‘I wasn’t,’ Cooper replied. ‘I was following Paulov. I ended the surveillance when he drove into the Meadowcote Estate. ARK use the church there as a base, so he was obviously just meeting with one of them.’
‘Thank you,’ said Joan as she turned and walked away.
Once outside, she again dialled the same number. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘it’s Juno 4132, again. Can you also send me all plans that you can find of Meadowcote Estate in Dorset?’