Agent Running in the Field

by John le Carré

‘I told you to leave her alone or I would kill you.’

  ‘Indeed you did, and we were duly impressed. She was a fellow Georgian, old Chekist family as I remember. Ticked all the boxes and you were crazy about her. A perfectionist, you told me. Perfect in work, perfect in love.’

  How long do we sit staring into the night?

  ‘Too perfect, maybe,’ he mutters scathingly at last.

  ‘What went wrong? Was she married? Did she have another man? That wouldn’t have stopped you, surely?’

  Another prolonged silence, with Arkady a sure sign that he is mustering seditious thoughts.

  ‘Maybe she was too much married to little Vladi Putin,’ he says savagely. ‘Maybe not in her body but in her soul. Putin is Russia, she tells me. Putin is Peter the Great. Putin is purity, he is clever. He outsmarts the decadent West. He gives us back our Russian pride. Whoever steals from the state is a wicked thief because he steals from Putin personally.’

  ‘And you were one of those wicked thieves?’

  ‘Chekists do not steal, she tells me. Georgians do not steal. If she knew I had worked for you she would strangle me with piano wire. So maybe it would not have been such an entirely compatible marriage after all’ – followed by a bitter laugh.

  ‘How did it end, if it ever did?’

  ‘A little was too much, more was too little. I offered her all this’ – a jerk of the head at the forest, the villa, the floodlit lawns, the high wire and the solitary black-suited sentries on their rounds. ‘She tells me: Arkady, you are Satan, do not offer me your stolen kingdom. I say to her: Valentina, kindly tell me something, please. Who in this whole fucked-up universe is rich today and not a thief? I tell her that success is not a shame, it is an absolution, it is the proof of God’s love. But she has no God. Neither have I.’

  ‘Do you still see her?’

  He shrugs. ‘Am I addicted to heroin? I am addicted to Valentina.’

  ‘And she to you?’

  This is how we used to be, tiptoeing together along the brink of his divided loyalties, he as my unpredictable, high-value agent, I as the only person in the world he could safely confide in.

  ‘But you see her now and then?’

  Does he stiffen, or is it only my imagination?

  ‘Sometimes in Petersburg when she is willing,’ he replies tersely.

  ‘What’s her job these days?’

  ‘What was always her job. She was never consular, never diplomatic, never cultural, never press. She is Valentina, the great veteran cleanskin.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘The same as ever. Running illegals out of Moscow Centre. Western Europe only. My old department.’

  ‘Would her work include sleeper agents?’

  ‘Sleeper agents like dig yourself into the shit for ten years, then dig yourself out for twenty? Sure. Valentina runs sleeper agents. Sleep with her, you never wake up.’

  ‘Would she risk her sleeper agents to service a major source outside the network?’

  ‘If the stakes are high enough, sure. If Centre thinks the local rezidentura is a nest of arseholes, which it usually is, then the use of her illegals would be authorized.’

  ‘Even her sleeper agents?’

  ‘If they haven’t gone to sleep on her, why not?’

  ‘And even today, after all those years, she’s a cleanskin,’ I suggest.

  ‘Sure. The best.’

  ‘Clean enough to go into the field under natural cover?’

  ‘Whatever she wants. Anywhere. No problem. She’s a genius. Ask her.’

  ‘So might she, just for instance, go to a Western country in order to service or recruit an important source, say?’

  ‘If it’s a big enough fish, sure.’

  ‘What sort of fish?’

  ‘Big. I told you. Got to be big.’

  ‘As big as you?’

  ‘Maybe bigger. Who gives a shit?’

  Today, what follows looks like prescience. It was nothing of the kind. It was about being the man I used to be. It was about knowing my agent better than I knew myself; about sensing the weather signs as they gather in him before he recognized them himself. It was the fruit of stolen nights sitting in a rented car in a back street of some godforsaken Communist city listening to him pour out the story of a life too full of history for one man to bear alone. But the saddest story of them all is the one I’m telling myself now: the recurrent tragedy of his lonely love life, as this man of supposedly unassailable virility becomes at the decisive moment the lost child he once had been, impotent, rejected and humiliated, as desire turns to shame and the anger banks up in him. Of his many ill-chosen partners, Valentina was the archetype, carelessly affecting to return his passion, preening herself against him; and once she had dominated him, tossing him back into the street he came from.

  And she is with us now, I can feel it: in the over-careless voice he uses to dismiss her, in the exaggerated body language that is not natural to him.

  ‘Male fish or female fish?’ I enquire.

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  ‘You know because Valentina told you. How’s that?’ I suggest. ‘Not everything. Just little hints, whispered in your ear, the way she used to. To tantalize you. To impress you. To goad you. This great big fish that’s swum into her net. Did she say British fish, by any chance? Is that what you’re not telling me?’

  The sweat is running down his hollowed, tragic face in the moonlight. He is talking as he used to talk, rapidly from his inner self, betraying as he used to betray, hating himself, hating the object of his betrayal, relishing his love for her, despising himself, punishing her for his inadequacies. Yes, a big fish. Yes, British. Yes, a man. A walk-in. Ideological like Communist times. Middle class. Valentina will develop him personally. He will be her possession, her disciple. Maybe her lover, she will see.

  ‘Have you got enough?’ he shouts suddenly, spinning his little body round to challenge me. ‘Is this why you came here, you piece of imperialist English shit? So that I could betray my Valentina to you a second time?’

  He leaps to his feet.

  ‘You slept with her, you pussy hound!’ he shouts wildly. ‘You think I don’t know you fucked every woman in Trieste? Tell me you slept with her!’

  ‘I’m afraid I never had the pleasure, Arkady,’ I reply.

  He is marching ahead of me, elbows out, little legs at full stretch. I follow him across the bare attic floor, down the two flights of stairs. As we reach the badminton court he grabs my arm.

  ‘Remember what you said to me that first time?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Say it now.’

  ‘Excuse me, Consul Arkady. I hear you play good badminton. How about a friendly match between two great wartime allies?’

  ‘Embrace me.’

  I embrace him. He clutches me hungrily in return, then shoves me away.

  ‘Price one million US payable in gold bars to my numbered Swiss account,’ he announces. ‘Sterling is shit, hear me? If you don’t pay me, I tell Putin!’

  ‘Sorry, Arkady. I’m afraid we’re dead broke,’ I say, and somehow we are both smiling.

  ‘Don’t come back, Nick. Nobody dreams any more, hear me? I love you. Next time you come I kill you. That’s a promise.’

  Again he shoves me away. The door closes behind me. I am back in the moonlit farmyard. There is a breeze. I feel his tears on my cheeks. Dimitri in the Mercedes four-track is flashing his lights.

  ‘Did you beat my dad?’ he asks nervously as we drive away.

  ‘We were about equal,’ I tell him.

  He hands me back my wristwatch, wallet, passport and ballpoint pen.

  *

  The two special forces men who searched me are sitting in the lobby with their legs stretched out. Their eyes don’t lift as I walk by, but when I reach the top stair and glance back, they are gazing up at me. On the bedhead of my four-poster, a benign Virgin Mary presides over copulating angels. Is Arkady regretting that he allo
wed me back into his tormented life for thirty minutes? Is he deciding I am better dead after all? He has lived more lives than I ever shall. He has finished up with none. Soft footsteps up and down the corridor. I have an additional room for my bodyguard but no bodyguard to put in it. I have no weapon except my room key, some loose English change and a middle-aged body that is no match for one of theirs.

  As big as you? Maybe bigger. Who gives a shit? … Sleep with her, you never wake up … Nobody dreams any more, hear me?

  12

  Moscow has spoken. Arkady has spoken. I have spoken and been heard. Dom Trench has torn up his letter to the disciplinary committee. London General has reimbursed my travel expenses, but questioned my use of a taxi to the lakeside hotel in Karlovy Vary. It seems there was a bus I could have taken. Russia department under the temporary leadership of Guy Brammel has declared the Pitchfork case active and immediate. His master, Bryn Jordan, has signalled his assent from Washington and kept to himself whatever thoughts he may have about a certain officer’s unscripted visit to a toxic former agent. The notion of a traitor of Arkady’s stature in our midst has caused an appropriate fluttering of Whitehall’s dovecotes. Agent Pitchfork, installed in a two-room ground-floor apartment in the northern reaches of inner London, has received no fewer than three encoded under-texts from his notional Danish inamorata Anette, and their contents send a thrill through the Haven that instantly transmits itself to Dom Trench, Russia department and Operations Directorate in ascending order:

  ‘It is God’s vindication, Peter,’ Sergei whispers to me in an awestruck voice. ‘Maybe it is His wish that I shall be only a very small player in a great operation of which I must be otherwise ignorant. It is immaterial to me. I wish only to prove my good heart.’

  Reluctant to shake off old suspicions, nonetheless, Percy Price’s watchers maintain counter-surveillance-lite on him on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, 2.00–6.00 p.m, which is the most Percy can currently afford. Sergei has also asked his minder Denise whether, if he is granted British citizenship, she will accept his hand in marriage. Denise suspects that Barry has found another and that Sergei, rather than admit this to himself, has decided he is straight. The prospects of a union are however slim. Denise is a lesbian and has a wife.

  Moscow Centre’s carbon under-texts endorse Sergei’s choice of lodgings and demand further detailed information on the two remaining selected North London districts, thereby confirming the perfectionist Anette’s taste for over-organization. Particular reference is made to public parks, pedestrian and vehicular access, opening and closing times, the presence or otherwise of wardens, rangers and ‘vigilant elements’. The location of park benches, gazebos, bandstands and parking availability are also points of great interest. Signals intelligence has confirmed an unusual swell of traffic in and out of Moscow Centre’s Northern department.

  Since my return from Karlovy Vary my relations with Dom Trench are enjoying a predictable honeymoon, even if Russia department has discreetly relieved him of his authority in all matters relating to Stardust, the random codename thrown up by Head Office’s computer to cover the exploitation of data passing between Moscow Centre and Source Pitchfork. But Dom, convinced as ever that rejection is just around the next corner, remains determinedly exalted by the notion that my reports bear our joint symbols. He is aware of his dependence on me and unnerved by it, which I find quietly pleasing.

  *

  I had promised to get back to Florence but in the euphoria of the moment I had put it off. The enforced lull while we wait for decisive instructions from Moscow Centre offers as good a moment as any to repair my discourtesy. Prue is visiting an ailing sister in the country. She expects to be away for the weekend. I call her to check. Her plans haven’t changed. I don’t call Florence from the Haven, or on my Office mobile. I go home, eat a cold steak-and-kidney pie, down a couple of Scotches, then, arming myself with small change, stroll up the road to one of Battersea’s last-remaining phone boxes and dial the last number she gave me. I am expecting another machine but instead get Florence out of breath.

  ‘Hang on,’ she says, clapping her hand over the mouthpiece, and yells at somebody in what sounds like an empty house. I can’t hear words but I can hear the echo of them like fogged voices at sea, first Florence’s, then a man’s. Then back to me, en clair and businesslike:

  ‘Yes, Nat?’

  ‘Well, hullo again,’ I say.

  ‘Hullo.’

  If I am expecting a note of contrition, there is none in the voice and none in the echo.

  ‘I called because I said I would and we seem to have unfinished business,’ I say, surprised that I am having to explain myself when the explaining should be all on her side.

  ‘Professional business or personal business?’ she demands, and I feel my hackles rise.

  ‘You said in your text that we could talk if I wanted,’ I remind her. ‘Given the manner of your departure, I thought that pretty rich.’

  ‘What was the manner of my departure?’

  ‘Sudden to say the least. And remarkably inconsiderate towards certain people in your care, if you want to know,’ I snap, and in the long silence that follows regret my harshness.

  ‘How are they?’ she asks in a subdued voice.

  ‘The people in your care?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘They miss you rotten,’ I reply more gently.

  ‘Brenda too?’ – after yet another long silence.

  Brenda, stable name for Astra, Orson’s disenchanted mistress, primary source for Operation Rosebud. I am about to tell her with some asperity that Brenda, on learning of her departure, has refused further service, but the choke in Florence’s voice is all too noticeable so I water my answer down.

  ‘Managing pretty well, all things considered. Asks after you but fully understands that life must go on. You still there?’

  ‘Nat?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you’d better take me out to dinner.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And fish presumably?’ I say, remembering our fish pie at the pub after her presentation of Rosebud.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck what we eat,’ she replies and rings off.

  The only fish restaurants I knew were on Finance section’s affordable list which meant we were liable to bump into Service colleagues dining their contacts, the last thing either of us needed. I plump for a fancy restaurant in the West End and draw a wad of cash from a machine because I don’t want the bill featuring on our joint Barclaycard account. Sometimes in life you get caught for sins you haven’t committed. I ask for a corner table but needn’t have bothered. London is sweltering in the endless heatwave. I arrive, as is my habit, ahead of time and order myself a Scotch. The restaurant is almost deserted and the waiters are sleepy wasps. After ten minutes Florence appears wearing a summer adaptation of her Office fatigues: stern military blouse with long sleeves and high neck, no makeup. At the Haven we had begun with nods and progressed to air kisses. Now we were back to ‘hullo’ and she’s treating me as the ex-lover that I am not.

  Under cover of an enormous menu I offer her a glass of house champagne. She reminds me curtly that she drinks red burgundy only. A Dover sole would be fine, she concedes, just a small one. And a crab and avocado to begin with if I’m really having one. I am. I’m interested in her hands. The man’s heavy gold signet ring that she wore on her wedding finger has given way to a scruffy silver ring peppered with small red stones. It’s loose on her and not a natural fit over the pale imprint of its predecessor.

  We get through the business of ordering and return our enormous menus to the waiter. Hitherto she has effectively avoided eye contact. Now she is looking straight at me and there is not a hint of contrition in her stare.

  ‘What did Trench tell you?’ she demands.

  ‘About you?’

  ‘Yes. Me.’

&nb
sp; I had assumed I would be asking the hard questions, but she has other ideas.

  ‘That you were over-emotional and a mistake, basically,’ I reply. ‘I said that wasn’t the you I recognized. By then you’d flounced out of the Office, so it was all pretty academic. You could have told me during our four at badminton. You could have called me. You didn’t.’

  ‘Did you think I was over-emotional and a mistake?’

  ‘I just told you. As I said to Trench, this wasn’t the Florence I recognized.’

  ‘I asked what you thought. Not what you said.’

  ‘What was I supposed to think? Rosebud was a disappointment to all of us. But there’s nothing exceptional about a special operation being called off at the last minute. So naturally I did think that you had been hot-headed. Also that you must have had personal issues with Dom. Perhaps they’re not my business,’ I add with meaning.

  ‘What else did Dom tell you about our conversation?’

  ‘Nothing of substance.’

  ‘He didn’t perhaps refer to his very lovely lady wife the Baroness Rachel, Tory peeress and wealth manager?’

  ‘No. Why should he?’

  ‘You’re not a pal of hers by any chance?’

  ‘Never met her.’

  She takes a pull of red burgundy, follows it with a pull of water, measures me with her eyes as if questioning whether I’m a fit recipient, takes a breath.

  ‘Baroness Rachel is CEO and co-founder, along with her brother, of an upmarket wealth-management company with prestige offices in the City. Private clients only need apply. If you’re not talking upwards of fifty million US, don’t bother to call. I assumed you knew that.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘The company’s expertise is offshore: Jersey, Gibraltar and the island of Nevis. Do you know about Nevis?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Nevis does peak anonymity. Nevis out-obscures the world. Nobody on Nevis knows who the owners of its numberless companies are. Fuck.’

  Her irritation is directed at her knife and fork, which are trembling out of her control. She lays them down with a crash, takes another pull of burgundy.