AT RISK
By Stella Rimington
Knopf. 367 pp. $24
Stella Rimington served in Britain's MI5 intelligence agency for 30 years and from 1992 to 1996 was its first female director-general. She is now retired and, having "dreamed for years of writing a thriller," has done so. Not surprisingly, her heroine is an intelligence agent, stylish, 34-year-old Liz Carlyle, an MI5 operative who is soon matching wits with two Islamic terrorists who are on English soil and up to no good. The result is an entertaining, sometimes odd but above-average antiterrorism thriller. Rimington has sagely borrowed a classic plot, best remembered from Frederick Forsyth's "The Day of the Jackal" but often used in lesser works: A terrorist is out there, planning a horrific crime, moving closer by the hour, and the intrepid intelligence agents must sift through countless shreds of evidence and overcome duplicity in their own ranks if they are to stop him.
Rimington adds some feminist and post-Sept. 11 twists to this venerable plot. Not only is her hero a woman, but so is one of the terrorists. And while the Jackal in Forsyth's novel was a mercenary, Rimington's terrorists are moved by a blend of ideology and hatred. A Pakistani named Faraj Mansoor seeks revenge for a U.S. bombing in Afghanistan that killed members of his family. The woman, who is English and whose name we learn is Jean, has more murky motives: She attended a "progressive boarding school" at which "classroom attendance was optional and there was no organized sport," and at 15 she gobbled a handful of "magic mushrooms." Sounds fine to me, but it started poor Jean on the road to serious evildoing.
In the novel's opening chapter, we find Liz stuck in a stalled tube train on the way to work. She has three things on her mind: her attire ("She shouldn't have worn the pointed plum-colored shoes"), getting rid of her married boyfriend ("complete madness") and dear old Mum's homilies about Meeting Someone Nice. All this is intended to humanize Liz, whom we soon find to be relentlessly efficient on the job. Arriving at work, she attends a meeting of the Joint Counter-Terrorist group, which in theory coordinates several government agencies. It becomes clear that there are fierce bureaucratic battles being fought and also sexual undercurrents buzzing about ("Was she unknowingly transmitting some kind of bat-like sexual sonar?"). When all these bureaucratic prima donnas get down to work, we learn that a terrorist group called the Children of Heaven is trying to place an "invisible" in England, i.e., a native of the target country who can move about unchallenged. That of course is Jean, she who did mushrooms instead of homework.
"At Risk," like "The Day of the Jackal," is panoramic; we move among many characters who are somehow caught up in the plot. When we meet a snooty, aristocratic Brit with a secret, we correctly suspect he'll prove to be a rotter. We see the people-smuggling ring that brings Mansoor into the country but falters when the terrorist is obliged to shoot one of the smugglers. Mansoor meets up with Jean, and they begin to assemble the materials for a powerful bomb, which include 20 cans of Silly Putty. For much of the novel, we don't know what the terrorists' target is, whether this deadly duo will surrender to the lure of sex, whether the female terrorist will be tough enough for the ugly work ahead, whether Liz will rid herself of her married boyfriend or whether she will succumb to a smooth-talking rival from MI6. All this is briskly told and will likely keep you turning the pages.
Romance aside, Liz is formidable. Although the ugly face of sexism sometimes looms ("Why don't you get some sleep, young lady?"), she proves time and again that hers is the razor-sharp intellect that can unscramble clues that baffle her male companions. Even the terrorists sense her powers. When the male terrorist says defiantly, "Let them send their best man," Jean replies, "Their best man is a woman." She explains: "They've sent a woman. I can feel her shadow." In the end, however, the story turns less on Liz's deductive powers than on a series of accidents and coincidences. The terrorist shoots the smuggler. An unlikely auto accident leads to another murder. A male and female cop almost stumble on the terrorists but pull over and make love instead. The outcome of the novel depends on locating a man halfway around the world at the last moment, an improvised plan for exploding the bomb and one character's convenient change of heart. On the one hand, Rimington celebrates the analytical genius of her alter ego and, on the other, she seems to be saying it's mostly dumb luck when terrorists are caught. It's a mixed message but probably an accurate one. What is not mixed is her portrayal of intelligence agents whose personal egos and institutional rivalries are such that we are left wondering if they -- or their American counterparts, whose egos and rivalries are surely no less monumental -- could protect anyone from anything.
In her acknowledgments, Rimington gives thanks "to Luke Jennings whose help with the research and the writing made it all happen." In the business, this is a clear indication that Jennings did most, if not all, of the writing. I sometimes encounter people who are offended by such collaborations, particularly if the writer's name isn't on the cover. In my view, there are many people with interesting stories to tell who aren't able to write them or write them very well. In such cases, having a real writer on hand means that the story will be told in a polished, professional manner. Thus can readers keep reading, publishers keep publishing, reviewers keep reviewing, and writers keep paying their bills.
