Liz Carlyle - 06 - Rip Tide
Read Liz Carlyle - 06 - Rip Tide Online
Authors: Stella Rimington
Tags: #Fiction, #Intelligence Service, #Piracy, #Carlyle; Liz (Fictitious Character), #Women Intelligence Officers
| Rip Tide | |
| Liz Carlyle [6] | |
| Stella Rimington | |
| Bloomsbury Publishing (2010) | |
| Rating: | *** |
| Tags: | Intelligence Service, Piracy, Women Intelligence Officers, Carlyle; Liz (Fictitious Character), Fiction |
### Product Description
Spycraft, intrigue, and danger abound in Stella Rimington's newest Liz Carlyle novel. When a British-born Pakistani is discovered among a gang of pirates attacking a cargo ship off the Somalian coast, alarm bells start ringing at London's Thames House. MI5 intelligence officer Carlyle is brought in to establish how and why a British Muslim could go missing from his well-to-do family and wind up on a pirate skiff in the Indian Ocean, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle. And why do these pirates seem to be targeting ships carrying supplies for a charitable NGO?
An undercover operative connected to the case soon turns up dead in Athens, and it looks like piracy is the least of the Service's problems. As Liz and her team work to unravel the connections between Pakistan, Greece, and Somalia, there is bigger, more explosive trouble brewing-and far closer to home. A riveting story full of treachery, _Rip Tide_ is also a reminder that terror lurks in the unlikeliest places. This is a relevant, insightful novel with a unique perspective on a crucially important issue, here and abroad.
### About the Author
**Dame Stella Rimington **joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1968. During her career she worked in all the main fields of the Service: counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. She was appointed Director General in 1992, the first woman to hold the post. She has written her autobiography and five Liz Carlyle novels. She lives in London and Norfolk.
Rip Tide
Stella Rimington
To my grandson George
Contents
Liz Carlyle looked at her watch. The French Minister of the Interior was in full flow, expatiating on the new security threats facing Europe. From where Liz sat, in the back row of the seats set out in the library of the Institute for Strategic Studies in Whitehall, she could survey the whole room. At the front French and English officials, senior policemen and military officers sat alongside journalists, who were eagerly scribbling on their pads. At the back, assorted French and British spooks were grouped, well out of sight of the TV cameras. For this Friday morning was the press conference concluding the previous day’s Anglo-French Ministerial Security Summit.
Liz’s last posting in Northern Ireland had led to a close involvement with the French security services, and now, back in counter-terrorism, she had special responsibility for joint operations with the French. Next to her Isabelle Florian, her colleague from the DCRI – MI5’s French counterpart – was shifting in her seat, looking worried that she’d miss her Eurostar back to Paris. Liz liked Isabelle, a businesslike woman in her forties with a careworn face and a good sense of humour – not at all the chic Parisienne that Liz had expected and rather dreaded.
When they’d first met they’d been able to speak to one another only through an interpreter, but since then, in preparation for this job, Liz had taken an intensive course in French and was now fairly fluent.
Out of the corner of her eye, Liz could see the tall, elegant figure of Geoffrey Fane of MI6, standing at the side of the room, leaning nonchalantly against a pillar, surveying the scene through half-closed eyes. Typical of him, she thought, to station himself where he had a bird’s-eye view of the room. He prided himself on his private intelligence network, which meant knowing everyone’s personal business – particularly, it seemed to Liz, her own. He would have noted that she was not sitting next to Charles Wetherby, who was now the MI5 Director of Protective Security. A few years before, she had thought herself in love with Charles and she knew her feelings were reciprocated. But at the time he had been married; his wife was a chronic invalid and a clandestine relationship had been out of the question. Geoffrey Fane had sussed this and had delighted in subtly taunting Liz about it. Now Charles was a widower, Fane would be watching to see what developed between them.
The French Minister sat down at last and the Home Secretary started her remarks. Thank goodness she will be a bit less long-winded, thought Liz, who had helped draft her speech. She listened with half an ear to the familiar phrases about the continuing serious threats Europe faced from terrorism. Traditional espionage still endangered security, she was saying, while new threats were appearing from cyber attacks on the infrastructure of countries.
The historic circular room, lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, was becoming warm and stuffy, overheated by the lights of the TV cameras. The journalists’ questions became desultory and at last the conference concluded. There was a scraping of chairs as the audience stood up and the Ministers and their entourages left the room. Next to Liz, Isabelle grabbed her briefcase. She gestured impatiently at someone in the row ahead of them; a man, medium height, dark-haired, and dressed in the smart casual uniform of the French – a grey turtleneck and a checked jacket.
‘Martin, hurry up,’ said Isabelle. ‘The train’s in forty minutes.’
‘I wanted to say hello to Liz,’ he said amiably.
‘Well, be quick about it,’ Isabelle ordered.
The man grinned. ‘There is always another train.’
Isabelle looked at Liz and raised an eyebrow.
Liz smiled. ‘Isabelle, I’ll see you in Paris on Monday. Is ten o’clock okay?’
Isabelle nodded then turned to Martin, explaining, ‘Liz is coming across for a follow-up meeting. This kind of conference is all very well, but it doesn’t give us any time for detailed discussions.’ She looked at her watch. ‘We really must be going.’
‘Goodbye, Martin,’ said Liz. Isabelle was already heading for the exit.
‘I hope you mean
au revoir
,’ he said with a small smile as they shook hands.
Later in the day, as the train emerged from the tunnel on the French side of the Channel, Liz looked out of the window as the countryside flashed past. This journey had become very familiar to her; she’d noticed that it was the appearance of the villages, particularly the shape of the church towers, that showed you were in another country, even before you noticed the road signs in French.
And then almost before she could blink they reached Paris. In the fresh sunlight of the spring evening it seemed to her the most beautiful city in the world. Not even the noisy jostling crowd on the platform of the Gare du Nord could sour things. And when the Metro slowed for Saint-Fargeau, her stop on the north-east outskirts of Paris, her pulse quickened at the prospect of the weekend ahead.
She crossed a busy road, then went down a side street. As she approached a now-familiar house, she saw the other tenant, Madame Beylion, come out of the front door. She was a stout, elderly lady with a face set in deceptively dour lines, for she was in fact the kindest of souls.
‘
Bonjour
, Madame Beylion,’ Liz called out, much more confident speaking in French than she had formerly been.