‘A pimpernel,’ said the old man. ‘They seek her here, et cetera. Who knows what fissures she inhabits, Max?’
‘Just the same, you’d think that between the Brits and the FBI she would have been caught.’
‘You’d think so, certainly.’
‘I wonder …’
‘Yes?’
‘I wonder if the Feds are doing enough, that’s all.’
‘There is a spirit of co-operation between the FBI and Special Branch at Scotland Yard, Max. There is also a certain competitive edge to this co-operation, of course. I’m sure the Bureau is doing all it can. Keep this in mind. Her recent activities have been confined to the British Isles, which puts all the strain on the UK authorities, not ours. The Bureau supplies all the information it can, I’m sure.’
‘What happens if she decides to grace our shores?’ Skidelsky asked.
‘Grace our shores? God help us.’
‘Would the Bureau be any more capable than Special Branch?’
The old man shrugged. ‘The answer would depend on who you asked, I suppose.’
Skidelsky said, ‘I sometimes wonder about the Bureau’s intelligence-gathering capabilities.’
The old man said, ‘I make it a point not to criticize the Bureau.’ The waiter was bringing the roast beef, the green beans, Yorkshire puddings, and a dish of gravy, all of which he set on the table. Then he left the room.
Skidelsky surveyed the food. The gravy looked suspect, thickened with cornstarch. He didn’t eat cornstarch. He didn’t eat potatoes. He picked at the green beans – overcooked, practically mush, all goodness boiled out of them – and then he sliced his knife through the surface of the beef, which oozed blood and God knows what else, antibiotics, hormones, steroids, anything breeders pumped these days into cattle to prepare them for the profit of slaughter. He tapped his fork on the rim of his wineglass. Ping.
He said, ‘I don’t mean to be critical of the Bureau either, you understand. But the woman has been on their books for – what? More than ten years?’
‘Indeed she has.’
‘Without results.’
‘Without results. Correct. They had her once, and she escaped. From Danbury, I recall.’
‘It’s not a record to brag about, is it?’
The old man said, ‘It’s not, I agree.’
Skidelsky said, ‘I happen to believe we’d do a better job than the Bureau.’
‘Possibly. Except for one fact, Max. It doesn’t come within our province.’
‘Then perhaps it’s time for change.’
‘Oh, this is radical talk, Max.’
Skidelsky wondered if he were being gently patronized. He knew the nickname the old man and his addle-headed cronies had for him: Skid the Kid. And he hated it. How he hated it. He put his knife down. ‘If she comes here, do we stand to one side and let the Bureau handle it?’
‘If she comes here, it’s a domestic matter.’
‘It’s a national matter,’ Max Skidelsky said.
‘Let’s not argue this point, Max. She comes here, it falls to the Bureau to handle it. That’s the way it works. In any event, she probably has no intention of coming this way in the near future.’
‘How can you be so sure? You think she’s scared of the Bureau? You think the Bureau terrifies her? The Bureau couldn’t catch her if she was wearing a luminous bathing-suit in a god-damn coal-cellar.’ He’d overstepped a line here, and he knew it. He was becoming too intense. He had to rein his feelings in. The old man could only be pressed so far.
‘The Bureau is mandated to handle internal terrorism,’ the old man said, rather gently, as if he were dealing with an unruly boy and his enchanting impetuosity. ‘Presidential Executive Order 12333 of 1981, which permits the Agency to operate domestically, doesn’t have any teeth. It’s window-dressing, that’s all. It’s of very little practical purpose.’
‘I understand that. But what happens if, for the sake of argument, she has other targets in mind?’
‘Such as?’
‘The Agency, for example.’
The old man dabbed his weird lips with a napkin. He looked at Max with eyes that didn’t quite belong in his altered, altogether unnatural face. ‘Really, Max. I don’t think that’s likely. Langley is hardly a feasible terrorist target. The security there makes it impregnable. You know that. I know that.’
‘People leave Langley at night. They go home to an assortment of suburbs. They have wives and children. Is their safety the responsibility of the Bureau?’
‘I would have to say it is,’ said the old man. ‘But why cross bridges until we come to them, Max? One, the woman is unlikely to return to this country. Two, I can’t imagine her singling out Agency personnel as targets. If she has destructive grudges, they’re directed at the Bureau. After all, it’s the Bureau that is engaged in the search for her, not the Agency.’
Skidelsky said, ‘I’m thinking aloud, that’s all.’
‘A word of advice. Some thoughts are best kept to oneself. I’ve been at this since before you were born. Remember that. And experience is a crucible where ambitions are analysed and controlled. Remember that too.’
I’ll remember it, Skidelsky thought. And so will you, you fucker. So will you. Experience is a crucible, sure – where smug old men catch fire and die.
‘Dessert, Max?’
‘I never touch it,’ and Skidelsky patted his tight, lean stomach, as if to make a point.
The old man had another glass of wine. ‘I think I might indulge myself in strawberries and cream. I’m not keeping you from something, am I?’
Max Skidelsky shook his head. ‘I’ll have coffee.’
The waiter brought dessert and coffee. Skidelsky drank his coffee quickly. It was Kenyan, and it had been stewing too long. Nobody knew how to make coffee these days. He set his cup down and stared at the old man, whose rigid features were fascinating in a grotesque way.
‘What’s the latest on this cuts business?’ he asked in a casual manner. He knew the answer to his question in advance, but he asked it anyway, half in the hope that the situation might have changed, that the CIA lobbyists on the Hill had constructed a potent strategy.
‘There’s nothing new, Max. Our funding is still scheduled to be cut drastically, which will mean a general reduction of personnel all over the place. The President is keen to flash his knife and do some budgetary slashing. His argument is the same as always. The world has changed, the Cold War is over, the Agency must change with the world. We’re no longer as useful as we once were. We must find a new purpose. As you’re no doubt aware, we’re already being used in the somewhat limited field of internal economic espionage, which is an awfully long way from our original function …’ The old man shrugged. ‘We’re bringing pressure, of course. But our admirable Commander-in-Chief is not a man easily swayed. The cuts are one thing, but I find his other proposal somewhat less palatable. His idea of replacing the Director of Central Intelligence with somebody who has total control of all law-enforcement activities, internal and external, is misguided, at the very least.’
Misguided, Skidelsky thought. A king-sized understatement. A monstrous understatement. He said, ‘I don’t see the point of it. He shrivels the Agency, gives us demeaning little jobs like spying on Japanese or Korean corporations to keep us busy, and brings in some kind of super-cop to oversee the whole shooting-works—’
‘It’s called streamlining, I believe.’
‘It’s called cutting your own throat,’ Skidelsky said.
The old man leaned across the table. ‘I’ll tell you this in confidence, Max. The man whose name has been suggested in connection with this mega-job – if the position is eventually created, which is a strong likelihood – is none other than Barclay Reeves.’
‘Reeves?’
‘Reeves. The former Director of the FBI.’
Skidelsky felt a series of balloons pop in his head. He heard little explosions, quick expulsions of trapped air released as if from some m
ineshaft of his feelings. ‘Christ, if that happens, the Agency becomes just another branch of the Feds.’
‘I think that’s a little melodramatic, Max.’
‘I don’t. Reeves might be retired, but he’s still got strings inside the Bureau. And he’s FBI from the days of Hoover. He’s never been a fan of the Agency. The idea of taking over everything must be causing him wet dreams. We get pushed to one side and squashed like a bug, and Reeves controls everything we do. It’s totally unimaginable.’
‘Sometimes the unimaginable happens,’ said the old man.
‘The Bureau is incompetent. Reeves is incompetent. Do we just lie down and roll over?’ Reeves, Skidelsky thought: no, it couldn’t be allowed to happen.
‘We do whatever the President decides, that’s what we do, Max.’
Skidelsky had hoped for more fire and spirit from the old man: a forlorn hope. What could you expect from deadwood anyway? The old man was brittle and dry and tired. He had about as much energy and enthusiasm as a haddock on a fishmonger’s slab. We do whatever the President decides. There was enough deadwood inside the Agency to start a god-damn brushfire.
The old man poked a long spoon into the dish of strawberries. ‘I understand how all this affects morale inside the Agency, Max. Believe me. That’s why I planned the seminars. A mini think-tank, if you like. It’s time to look at ways of boosting our people. Especially the younger ones. Our backs are to the walls and we have to come out fighting. We have to show the President that the Agency still has a vital function.’
Seminars, Skidelsky thought. Think-tanks. What the fuck did the old man think he was running here – a state campus? A hick college? Seminars! Ponderous chat, droning voices, old men locked inside flashbacks of The Great Days. Pass the sherry, let’s talk about how it used to be when we had a role to play, when we showed the world what democracy was all about. Christ, yeah, seminars were the answer.
The old man changed the subject. ‘I don’t remember a summer this dry and hot in years. Do you know, I read in a newspaper only the other day that some tribe in Oklahoma – Navajos? – had actually performed a rain ceremony? That’s how bad it is.’
The weather. The drought. Indian rituals. Seminars. Skidelsky wasn’t interested in chitchat. His mind was already racing elsewhere. Out of this restaurant, an ocean away from here. The old man finished his strawberries and smacked his lips and tossed his napkin down.
When they left the restaurant, they stood beneath the canopy while the old man waited for his car to arrive. He asked, ‘Can I give you a ride to Langley, Max?’
‘I have an appointment in town this afternoon,’ Max said. He looked across the sun-white street, smelled gasoline and the dryness of the city in the air.
A well-dressed middle-aged man, walking a tiny dog on a leash, emerged from an apartment building. From nowhere, conjured out of sunlight it seemed, two kids in hooded jackets attacked the man, shoving him to the ground and booting the dog unconscious. The kids rifled the guy’s pockets and sprinted away with his wallet. It was a swift business, accomplished in a matter of a few seconds. A well-tuned little operation.
‘My God,’ said the old man, shaken. ‘Did you see that?’
‘Yes,’ Skidelsky said.
‘In a neighbourhood like this … you’d think …’ The old man faltered.
‘Happens all the time,’ Max Skidelsky said.
‘A mugging, broad daylight.’
‘Nobody’s safe, Christopher,’ Max said. ‘It’s a condition of the times.’
The restaurant doorman was crossing the street to check on the victim. Blood leaked from the dog’s open jaws.
The old man shook his head just as his chauffeur-driven black Continental appeared. ‘It’s a tragedy, Max. I can’t believe we just saw that …’
The old man’s chauffeur opened the back door of the car. ‘Ready, Mr Poole?’
‘I believe so,’ said Christopher Poole. ‘I enjoyed our lunch, Max. In spite of … well, that awfully unfortunate scene.’ And he stepped inside the car and the door was closed and he was whisked away back to his big air-conditioned office in Langley.
Max Skidelsky thought: That awfully unfortunate scene. Mild, everyday stuff, Christopher Poole, Mr Executive Director, sir. Just your common mugging. Nothing in the bigger scheme of things.
He touched the wire he wore under his shirt. It was uncomfortable and hot and it made him want to scratch himself.
He stared at the uniformed doorman stooped over the victim on the opposite sidewalk. But his head was once again elsewhere, his hyperactive mind was flying in the direction of another continent. She’s coming, Mr Poole. You may be sure of that. And if a simple mugging mortifies you, you don’t know what mortification is.
14
LONDON
Surrounded by cardboard cartons that contained his old case-files, Martin Burr spent most of each morning labouring over his memoirs in his flat in Knightsbridge. Sometimes he’d rise and pace his narrow study and, in search of the impish muse, gaze absent-mindedly out into the garden. He was new to this writing game, but he’d already come to terms with the idea that the muse was a fickle sort of slut, sometimes teasing you with a hint of wings stirring behind your back. He read what he’d written, deleted a few sentences, then closed the word processor down and wandered inside the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
His Times lay unread on the kitchen table. Earlier, he’d glanced at the headlines, noticed a photograph of George Nimmo. NOTORIOUS TERRORIST CARLOTTA ACTIVE AGAIN IN ENGLAND. Scotland Yard Chief Announces Most Intensive Manhunt in History. He adjusted his eyepatch. The whole front page was dominated by the fall-out from Nimmo’s press conference. Burr looked for a mention of Pagan, but couldn’t find one. Nimmo hogging the limelight. It was a sign of an undernourished ego, Burr thought.
He sank a tea bag in his cup, then plucked it out by the little string. He added a dash of milk, a packet of saccharine, and stirred. He blew across the surface of the tea. Nimmo, he thought, was going about this business in a wrong-headed way. Nothing was ever gained by instilling panic into the public. In his day, Burr would have done it quietly, no fuss, no press conferences, no TV chin-wagging.
He finished his tea and tried to stall the moment of going back inside his study. He thought of Pagan, wondered how Frank was coping. The deaths at the hotel, the supermarket bombing in Kilburn yesterday that had been reported in all its destructive glory by TV crews. The woman.
He went back inside his study and stared at the screen of his machine. He typed: After my career in the Navy, I was offered the chance to … Boring. Why not begin with high drama? Wasn’t that the way to hook the reader? Begin with a homicide. Or a major drug confiscation from the few years he’d spent with the Drug Squad. Begin with action and blood. Yes. People liked a little blood, and the young editor who’d commissioned the book had been at pains to point out the importance of ‘snagging’ the reader from the very start. He began to type again in his two-fingered way, suddenly absorbed in work and unconscious of passing time.
He was disturbed after half an hour by the sound of his doorbell ringing. He found Frank Pagan on his doorstep.
‘Am I interrupting anything?’ Pagan asked.
‘Good lord, no,’ Burr said. ‘In fact, I was thinking about you only an hour ago. Come in, come inside, Frank.’
Burr was glad to see Pagan. He missed his former associate more than he’d anticipated. Retirement deprived you not only of your lifetime’s work, your sense of purpose, it also took your friends and colleagues away from you. Retirement was a leper colony.
Burr ushered Pagan into the drawing-room. He sensed that Pagan’s mood was unsettled; Frank sometimes couldn’t conceal his feelings.
‘Tea? Sherry?’ Burr asked.
‘Not for me,’ Pagan said.
‘I’ll just help myself then,’ Burr said. Moving with the help of his walnut cane, he poured himself a small glass of sherry. ‘I’m here on my own, which explains the clutter. Marcia
’s down at the cottage in Sussex, Doing Things. I’m not sure what. It’s all very vague. Something to do with painters and local builders.’
Pagan sat on a sofa. Burr settled himself in an armchair and sipped his sherry.
‘Well. Pleasant surprise to see you, Frank. What brings you here?’
Pagan, whose genuine fondness for the old man had grown all the more strong since the ascendancy of George Nimmo, took from his jacket pocket the brown envelope that had been left for him yesterday in the call-box. ‘Have a look at this,’ he said.
He passed the envelope to Burr, who opened it and gazed at the photograph with an expression of distaste.
‘Your late wife,’ he said.
Pagan nodded.
‘Defaced,’ said Burr. He continued to examine the photograph. It had been black and white originally, but a malicious hand had changed it. It was no simple mischief; care had been taken over the colours, great care. ‘I don’t have to ask who did this, do I?’
‘No.’ Pagan mentioned the replacement that had been left on the bedside table and the manner in which the original had been returned.
Martin Burr got up and walked back to the decanter and replenished his glass. ‘So she steals a picture which is of considerable sentimental value to you and leaves one of her own in its place. And then she returns this …’ Burr picked up the photograph and scanned it, frowning. ‘It’s an ugly piece of work, Frank. Profane.’
Yes, Pagan thought. Profane was a good word.
‘She’s made Roxanne look like a tart,’ Burr said.
Tart, Pagan thought. It was a quaint term and belonged in another time. Burr had set the photograph down alongside him in such a position that Pagan couldn’t help but see it.
Roxanne’s mouth had been painted a deep provocative scarlet; a paler red had been used, like rouge, to adorn her cheeks; dark, finer strokes had been applied to her eyes to lengthen the lashes. The eyes were changed too, blue in a way they’d never been in her lifetime. As much as the defilement of her face appalled him, the extraordinary care that had gone into the recreation disturbed him on a deeper level. The whole thing was done with loving attention to detail. How many hours had been spent remaking Roxanne?
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