The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comThe meticulously orchestrated plan started to go wrong as soon asKiddie arrived at the hotel. She failed to notice the two businessmenfinish their meeting and leave, vacating the wired table. Instead,Kiddie took one look at the busy coffee-room, decided that she didn'tlike what she saw and, calm as you like, walked over to the roped offarea, unclipped the rope and sat down in the area which had been`closed for cleaning'. There must have been a lot of Dutch expletivesdiscreetly spat into a large number of coffee cups that morning. It wasan embarassing cock-up for them in front of their MI6 guests. The BVDdid their best to remedy the situation. An officer with a briefcasefitted with a directional microphone made his way to a table not toofar from Kiddie in the roped-off area. When Fahd arrived and joined herten minutes later, he managed to get some take, but despite computerenhancement the tape proved inaudible. All we got from the meeting wasa couple of surveillance photographs, taken by the briefcase camera ofone of the businessmen, of Fahd handing over a thick sheaf of papers.Fortunately, Badger's frantic couple of days of planning were notentirely unrewarded as the other part of the plan worked far moresmoothly. As planned, all the disembarking passengers at Stansted wereheld up and searched. Kiddie was near the back of the queue, so all thepreceding passengers were inconvenienced. Eventually, it was her turn.While one officer diligently searched her carry-on luggage, distractingher by paying particular attention to personal and intimate items,another went through her briefcase. As soon as the officer found Fahd'sdocuments, he slipped them through a photocopier discreetly mountedunder the search bench, then quickly replaced the originals in herbriefcase. As we'd hoped, they were excellent intelligence and an aidto my efforts to bait Constantine into introducing me directly toKiddie.I was at my desk at Vauxhall Cross a couple of days later, studying thedocuments and trying to understand the technical specifications of theequipment, when my personal line rang. It was Sarah. `Hello darling,how's Moneypenny?' she laughed. But I knew straightaway that somethingwas wrong. Her voice was weak and strained and she was putting up abrave front.`Something's the matter, isn't it?' I asked quietly.`Yes . . .' she replied. `It's back.'Sarah had been in for a further check-up that morning. The doctors hadfound that the cancer had spread into her lymph system and she had beenreadmitted to hospital immediately for an urgent course ofchemotherapy. She didn't say so, but I knew from her voice that theprognosis was very poor. She died two months later.I put the phone down and held my head in my hands. I felt a numbingsickness and wanted to cry. My work seemed irrelevant and I discardedthe papers on my desk with contempt. I needed to get out into somefresh air. It was nearly 12.30 and the office bar would be open anymoment. I never normally drank at lunchtime but today would be anexception.I took a pint of Fosters on to the terrace outside the bar and sat downin the corner on one of the wooden benches overlooking the Thames andpage- 132 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com