Three weeks had gone by since they had first found out about the cell in Lutton. The Brit had been grinding his teeth for three weeks as well. He was beginning to wonder if the Pakistani government hadn’t allowed them in just to rub their noses in it. As long as Pakistan was “cooperating” with this operation, the world powers wouldn’t invade, at least on the grounds they were aiding and abetting terrorists. The nuclear program they had going on was going to be a different story altogether. The Brit had been quietly gathering what information he could on that and feeding it back to his contacts in the UK.

What had him in an irate mood today was the sheer fruitlessness of it all. More and more information had come in. The man in the suit kept saying that the people on the ground could only identify the message senders. Three weeks of tailing them had turned up no meetings or other members. There was now beginning to be open speculation that this entire message series was a ruse to see if anyone had caught on to how al-Qaeda was communicating now.

The Brit had spent far too much time in covert operations to believe al-Qaeda that smart. They had intercepted messages about the quantity and type of explosives being assembled. There had even been a long list of prospective targets. It seemed that they were planning to blow up multiple trains in the tunnels under London in such a way that when the last bomb went off, one of the trains would be directly under the river. The plan appeared to be to blow up the trains where the tunnels connected so there would be little to no chance of damming the ensuing flood.

A good many messages had gone back and forth about the size and type of explosive needed under the river. Some files had been transferred with specifications for the tunnel itself, but there had not been one single meeting of a cell. In fact, the two people being followed didn’t seem to go anywhere but to the Internet locations and to the store. Some were willing to drop the tail, but the Brit kept bringing up the one piece of information which made it all credible. They had been seen buying multiple disposable cell phones. Given the quantity of explosives they needed, it could only be a matter of time before the explosives purchase and/or storage would surface.

The Brit was taking this one personally. Everybody knew it. He never spoke of home, family or lovers, but even if you had none of those back home, seeing an attack coming on your own soil was bound to bring forward some feelings of patriotism. The man in the suit kept an eye on him and monitored his communications while this was going on. Even MI6 didn’t know about this operation and it was his job to keep it that way.

All it would take would be for the Brit to leak the information they currently had. Even if he told them nothing of the operation, everyone would know there was some clandestine OP going on. Then they would want to take credit for it, which meant they would have to get more information on it to claim being part of it. Not a good situation, but the risk was to be expected. He had to control it. Politicians would eventually say the operation was occurring with the full support of the Pakistani government and that would lead to large terrorist attacks here, in the man in the suit’s own country. Not to be allowed. Only a handful in Pakistani intelligence knew anything about this operation. Too many in the government were backing al-Qaeda to let any officials know about it. They would all be executed the same afternoon officials found out.

 
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