Uncommon Enemy Read Online Free PDF Page A

yours?’ asked Corduroy eventually.
    ‘As I said, they’re familiar, but I don’t remember whether or not I said them. Either way, they don’t amount to much.’ Certainly not enough to have someone
arrested, he thought. There was a pause.
    ‘You appreciate we have to follow things up in the current climate, with all these Whitehall leaks,’ said Freckles. ‘Especially as they quote the SIA assessments, Cabinet
Office papers, that sort of thing. Lot of pressure on us at the moment.’
    Charles nodded. Whatever his feelings, it was important to appear sympathetic. ‘You have to do what you’re asked.’
    Freckles produced more photocopies. ‘This sort of thing, you see. Have a look through.’
    They were more cuttings from David’s paper under the James Wytham byline, going back nine or ten months. The earlier ones quoted mainly from Cabinet Office papers, the later from SIA
threat assessments. Some passages were marked in red. There were no quotes from raw intelligence reports, but there were extracts from what were described as intelligence assessments prepared for
ministers. Although he hadn’t seen the original assessments – they dated mostly from before his return – Charles could see they were genuine. The phrasing was typical, the
judgements plausible. The source must be a serial leaker, and a clever one, because what was leaked was not seriously damaging. The extracts were chosen with care. Whoever had done it had made sure
it was the fact of the leaks rather than their content that was dangerous. They discredited the SIA without revealing its secrets.
    ‘You’ve got your hands full,’ Charles said.
    ‘Do you recognise any of the documents on which these articles are based?’
    ‘Not as far as I know.’ He flicked through the cuttings again. ‘No, I don’t recognise them.’
    ‘Could you have seen them if you wanted? Do you have access to them?’
    ‘Probably. I guess they’re on screen. But the only documents I’ve read since starting with the SIA are old MI6 ones, paper files related to Gladiator. Plus some more recent
emails.’
    There was another pause. He resumed reading, again taking his time. Trying not to make it obvious, he lingered over a short unmarked paragraph near the end of one article. It quoted the CIA as
saying they had no assets in core AQ. He read and re-read it. He knew where it must have come from, where it could only have come from, and it made up his mind for him. No longer would he wait for
his innocence to be accepted in the absence of evidence to the contrary. He would engage; he would take the battle to the enemy, certain now that there was one.
    He handed back the papers. ‘I think I would like legal representation after all.’

3
    T hey switched off the recorder and Freckles left to fetch the list of legal aid lawyers. He also returned with the name of a partner in a City firm
recommended by the SIA.
    ‘He’s the one they use in cases like yours, the one I mentioned earlier,’ he said. ‘He’s specially cleared and briefed to represent you, not them; but they pay for
him.’
    ‘Are there many cases like mine?’
    Freckles shook his head and smiled.
    Charles asked them instead to look up the number of another City firm. ‘I think I know someone there,’ he said. ‘I’ll try her first.’
    He had to make his call from the phone on the wall in reception. It was busier and noisier now, with more prisoners being processed. A policeman leading a young man by the arm brushed his
shoulder as he asked the firm’s switchboard for her, giving both her maiden and married names. ‘We don’t have a Sarah Measures,’ said the soft-spoken switchboard girl,
‘but we do have the other one, Sarah Bourne.’
    ‘That’s the one. They’re the same person.’
    A prisoner started shouting and a woman sitting alone on the bench began to weep. Doors banged, voices were raised, more people came and went but no-one paid the woman any attention. Charles put