Agent Running in the Field

by John le Carré

  ‘Nat. Were you personally or were you at any point aware,’ he enquires with aggressive clarity, ‘during the course of your many conversations with Edward Stanley Shannon, that his mother Eliza is on record as a serial marcher, protester and rights activist on a wide range of peace and similar issues?’

  ‘No, I was not so aware,’ I retort, feeling the bile rise in me despite my best intentions.

  ‘And your lady wife, we are being told, is also a robust defender of our basic human rights, no disrespect. Am I correct?’

  ‘Yes. Very robust.’

  ‘Which I’m sure we would all agree is only to be applauded. May I then enquire, has there been to the best of your knowledge any interaction or communication between Eliza Mary Shannon and your lady wife?’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge, there has been no such interaction or communication.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  Exit messenger left.

  *

  A period of random questions and answers follows, a kind of free-for-all that remains foggy in my memory, while my chers collègues take it in turns to ‘tighten up the nuts and bolts’ of Nat’s story, as Brammel kindly puts it. A silence falls and Joe Lavender finally takes the floor. His voice leaves no prints. It has no social or regional origin. It is a homeless, plaintive, nasal drawl.

  ‘I want to stay with that first moment when Shannon picked you up at the Athleticus,’ he says.

  ‘Can we say challenged, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘And you, in order to save his face, which is what you said, thereupon accepted his challenge. Did you observe, as a trained member of this Service, or do you recall now, any casual strangers at the bar – new members, male or female, guests of Club members – taking a more than normally close interest in the proceedings?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am told the Club is open to the public. Members may bring guests. Guests may buy drinks at the bar, provided they’re accompanied by a member. Are you telling me as a matter of certainty that Shannon’s approach to you—’

  ‘Challenge.’

  ‘—that Shannon’s challenge was not covered or observed in some manner by interested parties? Obviously we’ll be getting on to the Club under a pretext and digging out whatever video footage they’ve got.’

  ‘I did not observe at the time, and nor do I recall now, anyone taking a more than normally close interest.’

  ‘They wouldn’t though, would they, not that you’d notice, not if they were professionals?’

  ‘There was a group at the bar having a bit of fun, but they were familiar faces. And don’t bother hunting for footage. We haven’t installed any video.’

  Joe’s eyes open wide in theatrical surprise.

  ‘Oh? No video? Dear me. That’s a bit strange, isn’t it, these days? Big place, lot of comings and goings, money changing hands, but no video.’

  ‘It was a committee decision.’

  ‘You yourself being on the committee, we’re told. Did you support the decision not to instal video?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Would that be because, in common with your wife, you do not approve of the surveillance state?’

  ‘Do you mind keeping my wife out of this?’

  Did he hear me? Apparently not. He’s busy.

  ‘So why didn’t you register him?’ he enquires, not bothering to lift his head from the open box file on his lap.

  ‘Register who?’

  ‘Edward Shannon. Your weekly and sometimes biweekly badminton date. Service regulations require you to inform Human Resources of all regular contacts of either sex regardless of the nature of the activity. The records of your Athleticus Club tell us that you have encountered Shannon on no fewer than fourteen separate occasions over a highly consecutive period of time. I’m wondering why you didn’t register him at all.’

  I manage an easy smile. Just. ‘Well, Joe, I should think over the years I have played a couple of hundred opponents. Some of them – what? – twenty, thirty times? I don’t imagine you’d want them all registered on my personal file.’

  ‘Did you take a decision not to register Shannon?’

  ‘It wasn’t a case of deciding. The thought didn’t enter my head.’

  ‘I’ll put it slightly differently if you permit. Then perhaps I’ll get a sensible answer out of you. Was it or was it not, yes or no, a conscious decision on your part not to register Edward Shannon as a regular acquaintance and playmate?’

  ‘Opponent, if you don’t mind. No, it was not a conscious decision not to register him.’

  ‘Turns out, you see, that you have been consorting over a period of months with an identified Russian spy whom you failed to register. Didn’t-enter-my-head doesn’t quite cover it.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was a bloody Russian spy, Joe. Right? And neither presumably did you. And neither did his employing Service. Or am I wrong about that, Marion? Maybe your Service knew all along he was a Russian spy and didn’t think to tell us,’ I suggest.

  My riposte goes unheard. Seated in their half-circle round me, my chers collègues are peering at their laptops or into space.

  ‘Ever take Shannon home at all, Nat?’ Joe enquires casually.

  ‘Why on earth should I?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you? Didn’t you want to introduce him to your wife? A nice radical lady like her, I’d have thought he was just up her street.’

  ‘My wife is a busy lawyer of some distinction and she hasn’t the time or interest to be introduced to everyone I play badminton with,’ I retort hotly. ‘She’s not radical in your terms, and she plays no part in this story, so once again: kindly leave her alone.’

  ‘Did Shannon ever take you home?’

  I’d had enough.

  ‘Between you and me, Joe, we contented ourselves with blow-jobs in the park. Is that what you want to hear?’ I turn to Brammel. ‘Guy, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Yes, old boy?’

  ‘If Shannon is a Russian spy – which, all right, on the face of it he appears to be – tell me what we’re all doing sitting on our backsides in this room talking about me? Let’s assume he fooled me. He did, right? To hell and back. Just as he fooled his Service and everybody else. Why aren’t we asking ourselves questions like who talent-spotted him, who recruited him, here or in Germany or wherever? And who’s Maria who kept popping up? Maria who only pretended to give him the bum’s rush?’

  With no more than a perfunctory nod, Guy Brammel resumes his own line of enquiry.

  ‘Surly sort of bugger, is he, your fellow?’ he remarks.

  ‘My fellow?’

  ‘Shannon.’

  ‘He can be surly now and then, like most of us. He soon perks up.’

  ‘But why so surly with the Gamma woman, of all people?’ he complains. ‘He’d gone to no end of trouble to make contact with the Russians. Moscow Centre’s first thought – only my guess – was that he was a dangle. Nobody can fault them for that. Then they had a second think about him and decided he was a gold mine. Tadzio flags him down in the street, gives him the good news and in no time enter Gamma, apologizing for Maria’s behaviour and busting to do business with him. So why the long face? He should be over the moon. Pretending he didn’t know what epiphany meant. What’s that about? Everybody has an epiphany these days. You can’t cross the bloody road without hearing about somebody’s epiphany.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t like what he’s doing,’ I suggest. ‘From everything he said to me, maybe he still has ethical expectations of the West.’

  ‘Hell’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘It merely crossed my mind that the puritanical side of him might think the West needs punishing. That’s all.’

  ‘Let me get this right. You’re telling me the West pisses him off for not coming up to his ethical expectations?’

  ‘I said maybe.’

  ‘So off he hops to Putin who wouldn’t know an ethic if it bit him in the arse. Am
I reading you correctly? Funny sort of puritanism, if you ask me. Not that I’m an expert.’

  ‘It was a passing thought. I don’t believe that’s what he’s doing.’

  ‘Then what the fuck do you believe?’

  ‘All I can tell you is, that’s not the man I know. Knew.’

  ‘He never is the man we know, for Christ’s sake!’ Brammel explodes in outrage. ‘If a traitor doesn’t surprise the shit out of us, he’s no bloody good at his job. Well, is he? You should know that if anyone does. You’ve run a few traitors in your day. They didn’t go round advertising their subversive opinions to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Or if they did, they didn’t bloody well last. Well, did they?’

  It was at this point – call it frustration or bewilderment or the involuntary awakening of a protective instinct – that I felt compelled to make an appeal on Ed’s behalf which, had my head been that much cooler, I might have thought twice about.

  I select Marion.

  ‘I was just wondering, Marion,’ I say, adopting the speculative tone of one of Prue’s more academic fellow lawyers, ‘whether Shannon in any legal sense has committed a crime. All this talk about top-secret codeword material that he claims to have glimpsed. Is that reality speaking out of him, or is it his own fantasy? The other stuff he’s offering seems to be all about establishing his credentials. It may not even be classified, or not in any sense that matters. So I mean, might it not be better for you people to pull him in, read him the riot act, turn him over to the psychiatrists and save yourselves a lot of bother?’

  Marion turns to the spear-carrier who had shaken my hand and nearly broken it. He peers at me in a kind of marvel.

  ‘Are you being serious at all?’ he enquires.

  I reply stoutly that I have never been more serious in my life.

  ‘Then allow me to quote to you, if I may, Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act of 1989, which provides as follows: A person who is or has been a Crown servant or government contractor is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he makes a damaging disclosure of any information, document or other article relating to international relations. We also have Shannon’s solemn oath in writing that he will not divulge state secrets, plus his awareness of what will happen to him if he does. Put together, I’d say we’re looking at a very short trial in a secret court, terminating in a prison sentence of ten to twelve years, six with remission if he owns up, plus free psychiatric attention if he requires it, which frankly I’d have thought was a no-brainer.’

  *

  I had vowed to myself sitting alone in the empty waiting room for an hour and more that I would remain composed and above the fray. Accept the premise, I kept telling myself. Live with it. It’s not going to go away when you wake up. Ed Shannon, the blushing new member of the Athleticus who’s so shy he needs Alice to introduce him, is an established member of our sister Service and a walk-in Russian spy. Along the road, for reasons yet to be explained, he picked you up. Fine. Classic. All honour. A really neat job. He cultivated you, schmoozed you, led you by the nose. And obviously he knew. Knew that I was a veteran officer with a potential chip on my shoulder, and therefore ripe for cultivation.

  Then blandish me, for God’s sake! Cultivate me as a future source! And when you’ve cultivated me, either take the plunge and make a pass at me, or hand me over to your Russian controllers for development! So why didn’t you? What about the basic mating signals of agent acquisition? Where were they ever? How is your rocky marriage getting along, Nat? You never asked me. Are you in debt, Nat? Do you feel under-appreciated, Nat? Passed over for promotion? Have they chiselled you out of your gratuity, your pension, at all? You know what the trainers preach. Everyone has something. The job of the recruiter is to find it! But you didn’t even bloody look for it! Never probed, never went anywhere near the brink. Never chanced your arm.

  And how could you chance your arm when all you did from the moment we sat down together was pontificate about your political beefs, and I barely got a word in even if I’d wanted to?

  *

  My plea of mitigation for Ed has not gone down well with my chers collègues. Never mind. I’ve recovered. I am composed. Guy Brammel gives a perfunctory nod to Marion who has signified that she has questions for the accused.

  ‘Nat.’

  ‘Marion.’

  ‘You implied earlier that neither you nor Shannon had the smallest idea how the other was employed. Am I correct?’

  ‘Not correct at all, Marion, I’m afraid,’ I reply jauntily. ‘We had very clear ideas. Ed was working for some media empire that he loathed, and I was scouting for business opportunities while I helped out an old business friend.’

  ‘Did Shannon specifically tell you it was a media empire he was working for?’

  ‘In as many words, no. He implied to me that he was filtering news stories and getting them out to customers. And his employers were – well – they were insensitive to his needs,’ I add with a smile, ever aware of the importance of smooth relations between our two Services.

  ‘So it’s fair to say, taking your story as it stands, that the bond between the two of you depended on mutually false assumptions about each other’s identity?’ she goes on.

  ‘If you want to put it that way, Marion. Basically, it was a non-issue.’

  ‘Because each of you blindly accepted the other one’s cover story, you mean?’

  ‘Blindly is putting it too strongly. Both of us had sound reasons not to be inquisitive.’

  ‘We are hearing from our in-house investigators that you and Edward Shannon rent separate lockers in the men’s changing area at the Athleticus. Is that correct?’ she demands, without pause or apology.

  ‘Well, you don’t expect us to share one, do you?’ – no answer, and certainly not the laugh I was hoping for. ‘Ed has a locker, I have a locker. Correct,’ I continue, as I picture poor Alice being shaken out of bed and made to open up her books at this ungodly hour.

  ‘With keys?’ Marion demands. ‘I asked you whether the lockers have keys as opposed to combinations?’

  ‘Keys, Marion. All keys,’ I agree – recovering from a brief lapse in concentration. ‘Small, flat – about the size of a postage stamp.’

  ‘Keys that you keep in your pockets while you play?’

  ‘They come with ribbons,’ I reply, as the image of Ed in the changing room arming himself for our first-ever encounter comes rushing back to me. ‘Either take off the ribbon and put the key in your pocket, or keep the ribbon and wear the key around your neck. It’s a fashion choice. Ed and I took our ribbons off.’

  ‘And kept the keys in your trouser pockets?’

  ‘In my case, in the side pocket. My rear pocket was reserved for my credit card when we got to the bar, and a twenty pound note in case I felt like paying cash and collecting some parking money. Does that answer your question?’

  Evidently it didn’t. ‘According to your operational record, you have in the past used your skills at badminton as a means of recruiting at least one Russian agent and covertly communicating with him by exchanging identical racquets. And you have received commendations for so doing. Am I correct?’

  ‘You are so correct, Marion.’

  ‘So it would not be an unreasonable hypothesis,’ she continues, ‘that, were you so minded, you would be ideally placed to provide Shannon with secret intelligence from your own Service by the same covert means.’

  I take a slow look round the half-circle. Percy Price’s normally kindly features still in lockdown. Ditto Brammel, Lavender and Marion’s two spear-carriers. Gloria’s head tipped sideways as if she’s given up listening. Her two Unter-shrinks sitting tensely forward, hands locked on their laps in some kind of biological interaction. Ghita poker-backed, like a good little girl at the dinner table. Moira peering out of the window, except there isn’t one.

  ‘Anyone second that happy motion?’ I enquire, as the sweat of anger runs down my ribs. ‘I’m Ed’s sub-agent, according to Marion. I slip
him secrets for onward transmission to Moscow. Have we all gone fucking mad, or is it just me?’

  No takers. None expected. We’re paid to think outside the box, so that’s what we’re doing. Maybe Marion’s theory isn’t so way out after all. God knows, the Service has had its share of bad apples in its time. Maybe Nat’s another.

  But Nat isn’t another. And Nat needs to tell them that in plain English.

  ‘All right, everyone. Tell me this if you can. Why does a dyed-in-the-wool pro-European civil servant make a free offer of British secrets to Russia of all places, a country that, in his judgement, is run by a fully developed anti-European despot named Vladimir Putin? And for as long as you can’t answer that question for yourselves, why the fuck do you pick on me as your punchball, merely because Shannon and I play decent badminton and talk political bullshit over a beer or two?’

  And as an afterthought, albeit misjudged:

  ‘Oh, and by the way, can anyone here tell me what Jericho’s about? I know it’s password-protected and never to be discussed, and I haven’t been cleared for it. But neither was Maria, neither was Gamma and neither presumably is Moscow Centre. And certainly Shannon isn’t. So maybe we can make an exception in this particular case, since from all we heard it was Jericho that tripped Ed’s switch, and Jericho that drove him into the arms of Maria, then Gamma. Yet we’re all still sitting here, even now, pretending nobody spoke the bloody word!’

  They know, I’m thinking. Everyone in the room is Jericho-indoctrinated except me. Forget it. They’re as ignorant as I am and they’re in shock because I’ve mentioned the unmentionable.

  Brammel is the first to recover the power of speech.

  ‘We need to hear it from you one more time, Nat,’ he announces.

  ‘Hear what?’ I demand.

  ‘Shannon’s world view. A précis of his motivation. All the shit he spouted at you about Trump, Europe and the universe, which you appear to have swallowed wholesale.’

  *

  I am hearing myself at a distance, the way I seem to be hearing everything. I am being careful to say Shannon, not Ed, although now and then I slip up. I am doing Ed on Brexit. I am doing Ed on Trump and not sure any more how I got from one to the other. Out of prudence, I heap everything on to Ed’s shoulders. It’s his world view they want after all, not mine.