Free Uncommon Enemy by Alan Judd Page B

swallowed slowly and conspicuously, then carefully lowered his cup and sat back with his hands fingertip to fingertip. ‘Except that something has been heard, the
full significance of which is apparent only to me. A while after he went back we intercepted a call between one of the people he saw on his last trip and a colleague in Yemen. They were speaking
Arabic, but the caller repeated and translated two sentences into English because, he said, it was important to get it right. Those sentences were: ‘The CIA say they have no agents in Core
AQ. Their cupboard is bare.’
    Charles put down his own cup. ‘How do they know that?’
    ‘That, of course, is the question. But there’s a hidden significance in those two sentences, beyond the obvious one. The real significance is that they were mine. They were my
sentences. I wrote them in a record I made following my last trip to Washington. I was ill shortly afterwards; I never circulated a formal record of the trip. I still haven’t. But I did show
my notes to Nigel Measures, who had by then arrived to take over from me.
    ‘So how did my words reach AQ? The intercepted speaker was very careful to repeat them exactly, which suggests someone must have given them word for word, not just the gist. It
wasn’t anyone from Washington or Langley, or anyone else the Americans might have told, because they were not CIA’s words, they were mine. CIA’s words to me were: “We have
no assets in AQ Central. The shelf is empty, our cupboard is bare. But if the drone strategy continues to work, we won’t need them.” If AQ’s source had given them all that, they
would have quoted it all. Note, too, that the CIA typically referred to “assets” where I say “agents”; and their use of AQ Central compared with our Core AQ or AQ Core. It
could have come only from my notes, which means Measures, the only person to have seen them. And the only way I can think those sentences might have reached AQ from Measures is via someone who
might have had contact with both, which is Gladiator. I have no evidence that he did, but I’m suspicious. The question is, did Measures meet Gladiator before he went back, and did he offer
him those sentences as a titbit?’
    Charles was sceptical. It was intrinsically unlikely. ‘They wouldn’t have met, would they? An agent wouldn’t meet anyone in Nigel’s position. The only people who’d
have contact with Gladiator would be his case officers. And that’s much more than a titbit, anyway. It would be hugely important to AQ. No-one would give intelligence like that away, surely?
Not if it were true. And Nigel hardly knows Gladiator. They met only once – you know, years ago, in the early days, not long before the Paris trip. At dinner at Nigel’s house, I
think.’
    ‘Of course Measures wouldn’t have, shouldn’t have seen him, or have had any other contact with him. Normally. But Measures’s situation is not normal. If what we know
about him came out he would be sunk, holed beneath the water-line, even though it happened long ago. Remember who’s still around and knows about it. There’s Sarah, his wife – have
you had contact with her?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘She is still—’ Matthew broke off and smiled thinly, nodding. ‘And there’s me, but I’m on my way out and dying, so that’s all right. There’s
Sonia, buried deep in some bit of the SIA that Measures has never heard of and longing for early retirement. He never knew her, never knew she knew, so probably she’s safe. Then there’s
Gladiator, or was until he disappeared. Measures knows that he witnessed the incident, with you. Some idiot in Foreign Office security let it slip a few years later, when Measures was clamouring
for another Europe job and wanted to know why he wasn’t getting one. So it must have been very disagreeable for him to find when he came here that we were still running Gladiator. And
finally, there’s you, of course. You know the whole