The Secret

‘Someone’s been watching too many episodes of Spooks,’ suggested Steven.

Jean appeared to smile and frown at the same time, an ability that always amused Steven. Jean was very much of the old school when it came to respect for people and protocol. He had never known her make a derogatory comment about anyone working in Whitehall in all the years he’d known her. Quite a feat, he thought, when she was so spoilt for choice. Macmillan arrived and they had coffee in his office before going over to the Foreign Office.

Steven felt more bemused than ever when they entered the meeting room and saw who was there. He could sense that Macmillan shared his surprise as he acknowledged the presence of the Foreign Secretary, the head of MI6, the CIA chief of the London station and Guy Monfils from MSF. There were a few other people there whom he didn’t recognise.

Macmillan and he were shown to their places at the table and it immediately became apparent that the meeting had been called for their ‘benefit’. Steven felt as if he were about to be interviewed for a job.

‘Thank you for joining us, gentlemen,’ said the Foreign Secretary with a smile that was intended to lighten the atmosphere. It was not returned by Macmillan or Steven who both remained impassive, thinking they hadn’t had much choice in the matter.

‘I’m led to believe that in recent weeks Sci-Med have been taking an interest in the tragic death of a Médecins Sans Frontières aid worker, Dr Simone Ricard. Is that right?’

‘Simone was a friend,’ said Steven. ‘I’m not entirely convinced her death was accidental.’

The Foreign Secretary took a deep breath as if this were something he had no wish to hear. He continued, ‘You attended her funeral in France where you asked questions of several people and gave the impression that you might be continuing your inquiries... your admittedly unofficial inquiries.’

‘I wanted to know the truth. I still do.’

‘And to that end, Sir John has approached MSF here in the UK?’

‘I wanted to know what they thought before committing to anything officially,’ said Macmillan. ‘Is there a problem?’

The Foreign Secretary gave Macmillan a long hard look before replying, ‘Sort of.’

Eleven

Steven and Macmillan exchanged glances while waiting for the Foreign Secretary to continue.

‘You have probably established that Dr Ricard was unhappy about the behaviour of certain of her colleagues in the field. She wanted to speak publicly about this at a meeting in Prague but was denied the opportunity. Your suspicion is that she was murdered in order to keep her quiet about her misgivings. Am I right?’

‘There have been two deaths,’ Steven reminded him.

‘Yes, thank you. Dr Lagarde. I will come to her later. This meeting has been convened to put you both in the picture. Dr Ricard was right to be concerned about the actions of the Children First team she came across and their apparent lack of expertise. I’m afraid — no, embarrassed — to tell you that they were not an aid team at all apart from one Pakistani doctor. They were a CIA intelligence-gathering unit.’

‘Masquerading as a medical aid team?’ exclaimed Macmillan. ‘That’s outrageous. It’s like using ambulances to cover troop movements. It’s just not on.’

‘I think the CIA has been made aware of the strength of feeling their actions have generated,’ said the Foreign Secretary, turning his head slightly towards the CIA chief.

‘Why do it in the first place?’

‘Abbottabad,’ said the CIA chief, speaking for the first time. ‘We were going after Bin Laden: we knew we were getting close but we had to be sure.’

‘So you put the health of God knows how many children at risk to get to one man,’ said Steven.

‘He wasn’t just one man, dammit,’ snapped the CIA man. ‘He was an icon, a figurehead. While he lived, 9/11 would never be avenged in the eyes of the American people. We had to take him out while we had the chance.’

‘Had the chance?’

‘Intelligence gained by the teams pointed us at the compound at Abbottabad but we still had to be sure Bin Laden was there. One of the vaccination teams gained access to the compound and brought away samples for DNA analysis. They were positive. We sent in the SEALS and the rest... you know.’

‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Steven sourly. ‘Polio will remain endemic in the region and the vaccination teams will not be able to stop it because no one will trust them any more but hey, you got your man. John Wayne would have been very pleased.’

Macmillan put a hand on Steven’s arm to rein him in.

‘I know what we did... was perhaps wrong in a moral sense,’ began the CIA man, ‘but we’ve apologised to all the aid agencies involved and there is to be a major new initiative in the region funded by American sources...’

‘To keep everyone quiet,’ said Steven.

‘Look, we’ve put our hands up and apologised. I don’t see what more we can do.’