Damascus shone in the golden glow of a late November sun. The crowd, made up of men and a few women filling the City Square, were raucous, shrill, and committed to the overthrow of President Assad and his government.
“Assad out, Assad out, Assad out” was chanted in Arabic and written in English on placards against the dangerous backdrop of three thousand dead and tortured men and women, demonstrators and soldiers. Rami, twenty-two years old, adrenalin flowing through his veins was caught up in the excitement and danger of the demonstration. His commitment to change was strongly felt and energetically acted out on the city streets. He laughed and shouted with his companion and new best friend Rahul before falling to the ground, his throat crimson, ravaged by a sniper’s bullet.
Subtle lighting and good air conditioning compensated for the lack of windows in the modern basement office. Two middle aged men in expensive suits and conservative silk ties faced Carole, a casually dressed younger woman, across a large untidy desk.
The smaller of the two men, Peter, said, ‘Look, I’m not happy about this either. Syria and its operatives are just not tenable allies at the moment, and never were. It was too risky forming this alliance even though it gave us the penetration we needed to slow Iran’s nuclear programme. We should have supported the Israeli’s plan to deliver their Stuxnet virus rather than rely on inexperienced Syrian operatives. James should not have died like that’
Carole remembered the elation and celebrations among their American and Israeli allies when the virus, smuggled in on a flash-drive, had done its work damaging the Iranian nuclear centrifuges. And then the rising consternation as the Arab Spring brought home the true murderous nature of their Syrian confederates and ruling families. This had culminated with their Iran operative’s cover being blown.
The third member of the group, John, removed his hands from the desk leaving sweaty palm-prints. ‘I knew James and his family for years. It’s as well his wife’s not aware of the way he died in a Tabriz
torture cell. And I’m convinced that bastard Martin was behind it.’
Carole, who had known James more than she could admit to her companions, concealed a tear and said, ‘We’ll soon know.’
Martin Thayler carefully turned the key and opened the door to his comfortable well lit flat. His Xbox was set up as he had left it that morning. Normally he would have spent an hour or two playing the latest version of Call of Duty. Instead, he rummaged in a rarely used cupboard, pulled out an old Dell laptop, plugged it in and made a cup of coffee as it slowly loaded an out of date version of Windows XP. He spent about fifteen minutes updating the laptop’s virus scanner before switching off its wireless network connection. A flash-drive from his jacket pocket was inserted with a shaking hand. The virus scanner reported no threats and the computer invited him to open the contents. He hesitated and double-clicked a file called ‘Iran-Stuxnet’ and sweating profusely, waited as the old operating system struggled to load it.
Carole and her companions had fallen into silence remembering James.
She said, ‘If Martin is our man, those documents we allowed him to find will soon be in the hands of his Iranian masters. They’ll never publish because that would be an admission they have a nuclear weapons programme underway. They will, however, become aware of Syrian complicity in the sabotage which we can turn to our advantage.’
‘And then we can deal with Martin,’ Peter said coldly. ‘He’s taken the documents home and should be reading them by now.’
Carole looked at him for a few seconds, sizing up his feelings, and said, ‘Peter, I want you to deal with Martin personally at your own discretion.’
The smaller man suppressed a smile of satisfaction as he got up to leave. The office door closed with a quiet whoosh. Carole turned to face John.
‘Keep a discrete eye on this, John. I don’t want any mistakes.’
‘This is fucking dynamite.’
In the past hour Martin had read the four documents on the flash-drive he had found on the floor near his office desk. They contained a succinct account of the nuclear sabotage and collaboration with Syria. Names had been blanked out but there was enough information left to establish authenticity.
‘If this fell into Iranian hands, it wouldn’t take too much detective work for them to identify some of the Syrian operatives,’ Martin said to himself.
‘But,’ he thought, ‘if this went public, everyone would see the role of Israel and its Western collaborators.’
‘Oh God. Why me, why me?’ he cried.
The cashier raised her eyebrows slightly as Martin handed him twenty-five ten-pound notes to pay for the reconditioned laptop.
‘I’ve got my own bag,’ he said. ‘Is it charged up and ready to go?’
The cashier assured Martin it had at least two hours charge left. Taking his change and receipt, he left the shop in Tottenham Court Road and calculated that the walk to Cartwright Gardens, where he knew there was a small park with an open Wi-Fi network, would take about fifteen minutes. He screwed up his receipt and dropped it in the gutter. His sweat made him feel uncomfortable in the blustery cold wind. He checked his left jacket pocket for the hundredth time, pressing his thumb hard against the memory stick resting in its lower recesses. Martin did not notice the man who had seen him buying the laptop and who now followed him past Goodge Street station and into Torrington Place.
He stopped and gasped for breath as the full import of what he planned hit home. He reassured himself that his laptop was untraceable and that there was no CCTV activity in Cartwright Gardens. It was all set up. He just needed to run the batch file he had written and the documents would be
delivered to a host of world-wide bloggers and major newspapers. His Iranian mother had hated the Israelis and this was his chance to strike a blow in her memory. He felt about to throw up and entered Waterstone’s in Gower Street to calm down and have a cup of coffee.
‘What’s going on Peter?’
Peter started and turned around to see John next to him, both now sheltered from the wind crowded into a small alcove.
‘So, Carole thought I needed minding did she?’
‘Never mind about that. What’s Martin doing?’
They saw Martin leave Waterstone’s and hurry off.
‘It looks like he’s going to publish, ‘ said Peter turning to face the taller man.
‘Then let’s stop him before he does any damage. Come on man!’
There was very little blood as John slumped to the ground. The expert thrust of the knife had stopped his heart beating almost immediately. Peter pulled Johns body into a seated position hoping he would look to passers-by like someone sleeping off a drinking binge. He hurried after his quarry.
Martin slumped exhausted on the park bench as the nervous energy drained from his body. His task was done. Soon everyone would know of the international conspiracy against Iran and the involvement of Syria.
‘Just stay where you are Martin. Hand me the laptop and the flash-drive. Don’t even think about running away. You’re wearing gloves. Good, no fingerprints. Come with me.’
Peter led Martin to John’s body which lay undiscovered and placed the laptop and flash drive by its side. He then telephoned the emergency services on a mobile, removed the SIM card and dropped it down a nearby drain.
They hurried to Euston tube station and back to Martin’s flat.
‘OK Martin, this is the story. You took the flash-drive home thinking it was blank. John visited your flat and took it from you and that’s the last you saw of it. They’ll find John with the flash-drive and
the incriminating laptop. His death will remain unexplained, but I’ll handle that. It’s been good working with you and I’m sure we will be working together again before too long.’
Peter turned to Martin as he left the flat.
‘Don’t let me down Martin. You’ve seen what I can do.’
Rahul knelt beside Rami’s body and checked for a pulse. A rare cloud obscured the Damascene sun. He nodded almost imperceptibly to a uniformed policeman nearby and moved quickly from the scene of carnage.
He thought with satisfaction, ‘Another Western traitor dead. Long live Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Republic.
©Steve Luckham
November 2011
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