this man, but there was no way to do that right now.
Sutherland could be the key. He had dealt with them directly, he might have seen one of them, might even be able to identify one of them. This might be a golden opportunity to glimpse through that almost impenetrable veil of secrecy around them.
They had scraped together some scant details about them over the years; just enough to realise how little they knew. There was a larger group who referred to themselves as the One Hundred and Sixty, and a much smaller group referred to as the Twelve. A classic power pyramid - the Twelve decided policy, the One Hundred and Sixty enacted it. The secrecy surrounding them was complete . . . truly impressive. In the many years his people had devoted entirely to unearthing the truth, there had only been one of them prepared to talk.
And he had, but only briefly. Two meetings, held in absolute darkness, in a basement of an abandoned building, in a nondescript industrial town in the middle of Germany. Two meetings that lasted only a few minutes, with the man’s voice trembling like that of a condemned man on the scaffold. He revealed about himself that he was a banking man . . . and that he was merely one of the One Hundred and Sixty.
A week after the second meeting, a man who was the largest private shareholder of one of the bigger merchant banks based in Frankfurt, a member of the ECB Advisory Committee, and a senior director of the Deutsche Bundesbank, apparently committed suicide by hurling himself from the rooftop of his penthouse apartment. The man was merely one of their foot soldiers.
By comparison, the Twelve, whose true identities were unknown even to the One Hundred and Sixty, were untouchable. And yet eight years ago, this man, Dr Sutherland - if the rumours they had unearthed were to be trusted - might have actually met one of them. That was why they had begun tapping his phone twelve months ago. He wondered, however, whether Dr Sutherland should just be directly approached now, and debriefed by his people.
Until then, the potential goldmine of what Sutherland might be able to remember of his dealings with them . . . was invaluable. He needed to stay alive.
CHAPTER 59
6 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station
Jenny was walking the perimeter at the back of the service station where it was slightly cooler, darker, away from the glare of the evening sun shining in through the front. It was like sitting in a greenhouse up at the front in the eating area.
She’d pulled out her phone, turned it on and tried once more to see if there was a signal. Of course there wasn’t, and there was precious little charge left on her phone. She turned it off quickly to conserve what juice was left.
She self-consciously looked around to check that she was alone and not being observed before clasping her hands together.
‘Oh God, please, please be looking after my kids,’ she whispered, ‘I know I’m not a believer or anything, but please . . . if you, you know, exist, please keep them safe.’
What the hell am I doing?
Jenny had never believed. Never. And that was something else she’d had in common with Andy: another proud atheist. They had even once gone into school together - Leona’s primary school - to complain about the excessive religious content being rammed down the pupils’ throats. An atheist household, they always had been, and now, here she was, praying, for Chrissakes.
I don’t care. I’ll bloody pray if I want to.
There was always an outside chance, a remote possibility, that there was a kernel of truth to all this God nonsense.
Anyway, when it comes to your kids, you’ll do anything, right? You’d sell your soul to the Devil . . . if, of course, such a thing existed.
‘You didn’t strike me as the God-squad type.’
Jenny jerked her hands down, embarrassed. She looked around and saw Paul standing in a dark alcove lined with arcade machines.
‘I’m not,’ she replied defensively. ‘I’m just . . . you know, just desperate I suppose.’
‘Yeah, of course, you’ve got kids, haven’t you?’ said Paul, running his hands along the back of a plastic rally-car driver’s seat. ‘I don’t, so it makes things a little easier for me.’
Jenny nodded. ‘Yeah, it does. So what are you doing back here?’
He turned towards the arcade machine, stroking the padded vinyl of the seat. ‘I noticed they had