by Jon Stock
Leila tried to imagine the camera crew now, as she looked around her dimly lit flat. Hassan had hinted at less orthodox sex on their last meeting, in Doha, but she had kept their encounter firmly on the straight and narrow. Tonight would be different, something to trouble the censors.
‘Leila, this is wonderful,’ he said, lying face-up on the sheets. He was naked, his wrists and ankles tied securely with scarves to all four bedposts.
‘It’s what they call home advantage,’ she said, picking up two large lit candles she’d been given by Marchant. She walked over to the bed with them. They were both brimming with beeswax, which burned hotter than ordinary candle wax. Still in her underwear, she placed them carefully by the bedside, then went over to her CD player and turned up Natacha Atlas. Outside, the lights of Canary Wharf Tower burned brightly as bankers worked late into the night. For a moment, she longed for a normal job. She drew the souk-bought curtains, sent by her mother, took another scarf from a drawer, and tied it over Hassan’s eyes. He sighed with approval, mouthing a kiss at her. ‘Darling Leila,’ he whispered, but she put her finger to his lips.
‘Ssshh,’ she said, passing him the mouthpiece of the ghalyun, an Iranian hookah that she kept in the flat. Her father had brought it back from Tehran in 1979. As Hassan drew heavily on the mix of tobacco and hashish, she moved up onto the bed, straddling his chest, her back to him. Somehow it was more bearable if she couldn’t see his face. Taking him in one hand, she reached across with the other to the candles on the bedside table.
‘Are you ready?’ she said quietly, working him firmly. She turned and removed the hookah pipe from his mouth.
‘I’ve never been more ready in my life,’ he said.
Hassan, Leila suspected, was a coward at heart, despite the bravado. Too much pain and he would cry for his mother. ‘How brave are you feeling?’ she asked, holding a candle six inches above him, then lowering it to three so the beeswax had less time to cool.
He screamed, as she knew he would, writhing for a few seconds as the near-boiling wax dripped onto his sensitive skin. But his smile returned as the wax hardened. Hassan, she realised, was weirder than she had thought. She caught the smell of his sweet cologne as she dripped more boiling wax onto him. Suddenly his presence in her home was overwhelming. She resented him, her job, the compromising position she found herself in; but then she thought of what they were doing to Marchant, wherever he was, and moved the candle even lower.
Half an hour later, Leila was running out of tricks, and Hassan still hadn’t told her anything. Earlier, in the taxi from Park Lane to Docklands, he had insisted that his information was so potentially compromising, for him and for his country, that he would need something special to round off their home fixture. Only then would he talk.
She placed the hookah back in Hassan’s mouth and told him to inhale deeply. For a moment she feared she had misjudged him, that he might pass out before telling her anything. But Hassan did as he was told, as he had done all evening, and gave her a stoned smile as she went over to her fridge and opened the fast-freeze compartment.
An air steward on a late-night flight back from Abu Dhabi had once told her how to make a man sob with pleasure. He was gay, but he reckoned ‘the Narcissus’ worked for most men. It tapped into their fundamental egos, he said, particularly if they liked blowing hot and cold. Which was why, after Hassan’s initial cries of pain, Leila had moulded the solidifying wax around him. Once it had hardened, she had carefully slid it off and filled it with water. That water had now frozen, and was sitting upright next to a bag of peas. She peeled away the wax, looked at what she had in her hand with some satisfaction, and returned to Hassan in the bedroom.
‘Turn over,’ she said, unfastening his hand ties. It was time to find out what he knew about the marathon.
20
Spiro didn’t like the CIA sub-station in Warsaw. He didn’t like the coffee, he didn’t like the tired, 1970s hellhole of an embassy in which the Company was housed (an opinion confirmed when his driver took him past the glistening new premises of the British Embassy), but most of all he didn’t like the station chief. By rights, Alan Carter should have been fired years ago. He had messed up over the Agency’s post-9/11 rendition flights to Stare Kiejkuty, a programme based on tight cooperation between the CIA and the WSI. Its basis was total denial, but word had got out, and Spiro blamed Carter.
Now he had messed up again. Marchant’s release was in danger of sparking a three-way diplomatic row between Poland, America and Britain. Poland’s new prime minister had already been in touch, saying it had been a case of mistaken identity. His office had received reports of a Westerner at the remote airport, and a team of special forces had been sent over to take a look. When the Poles had come under fire, they had returned the compliment, and the detainee escaped. Spiro had never heard such bull-shit, but there was nothing he could do. His allies in WSI were becoming increasingly powerless, and the protocol simply didn’t exist for lodging a complaint about a deniable project such as Stare Kiejkuty, particularly as it was meant to have been shuttered.
Spiro looked around at the bank of screens in the dimly lit room at the back of the US Embassy, a team of five junior officers keeping their heads down as he made his displeasure clear.
‘Do we have eyes at the airport?’ he barked at Carter.
‘We’ve picked up a feed from CCTV in immigration,’ Carter said. ‘We’ll see him if he’s got a passport.’
‘And the Brit Embassy?’
‘Still trying. It’s pretty secure over there.’
Unlike here, Spiro thought.
‘We’re also live at the station, and most of the city’s malls,’ said another officer.
‘What have we got on him?’ Spiro asked.
A photo of Marchant and Pradeep, running side by side in the marathon, was projected onto the wall in front of the computers. In the foreground, Turner Munroe, the US Ambassador to London, was clearly identifiable.
‘Close to his target, wasn’t he?’ Spiro said. ‘Too fucking close.’
‘Sir,’ one of the youngest officers asked tentatively, looking up at Carter for support. ‘Shouldn’t London be helping us on this one?’
‘Don’t even go there,’ Spiro snapped. ‘We’re flying solo, that’s all you need to know.’ He turned to Carter. ‘Where else might Marchant be heading? Krakow? The border? Why are we so sure he’s coming to town?’
‘We have an asset in a village four miles south of Stare Kiejkuty. He says an unmarked military truck drove through the village on the main road to Warsaw at fifteen hundred hours. Our guys at the airbase raised the alarm at twenty hundred last night, approximately five hours after Marchant was freed.’
‘Five friggin’ hours? What were they doing? R and R in the waterboarding pool?’
‘Sir, they had been drugged, bound and gagged by the Poles – they were Grom, elite special forces. It’s a credit to their training that they managed to free themselves at all.’
‘Is that right? Well, it isn’t a credit to your training that we have no fucking idea where Marchant is now.’
‘We’re into the city police’s traffic cameras,’ another officer announced, hoping to bail his boss out of trouble. They worked hard for Carter, and didn’t like to see him humiliated.
‘Screen one,’ Carter said. A moment later, black-and-white images of slow-moving traffic were being projected onto the main wall.
‘Gridlock,’ Spiro said. ‘Just like Route 28 after a Red Sox game.’
‘If the truck was coming into Warsaw, it would have entered the city on the Moscow–Berlin road,’ Carter said, looking over his junior colleague’s shoulder at the computer screen again. He was avoiding eye contact with Spiro as much as he could. The screen was split into three sections: the main traffic image, a city map, and a database displaying a list of camera positions throughout the city. ‘Switch to camera 17,’ Carter said. The junior officer scrolled down the list.
A new image, less gr
ainy than the first, was projected onto the wall. The queue of traffic leaving the city was moving slower than the cars arriving.
‘How long does it take to get from Stare Kiejkuty to Warsaw by truck?’ Spiro asked.
Carter nudged the junior officer, who looked at his map again and zoomed out from the city to an image of the north of the country. A route highlighted in red wormed its way almost instantly from the airbase to Warsaw.
‘Two hours fifteen,’ Carter said, reading from the screen.
‘Can you get us into traffic archive?’ Spiro asked him.
‘It’ll take some time.’
‘I want everything from eighteen to twenty-one hundred hours. Let’s see if that truck showed up in the city last night. We also need passenger lists from Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk airports. And I want the names of any Brits who are even thinking about flying out of Poland; then crunch them through Langley. How many have we got up at the airport?’
‘Two units. We called in back-up from Berlin.’
‘Marchant cannot leave this lousy country, is that clear?’
21
Marchant lay on the bed, watching Monika as she undressed and slipped onto the sheets next to him, at ease with her nakedness. Earlier she had offered to take his ticket to her friend, who could postpone his flight by a day. He had been more than happy to let her, falling into a surprisingly deep sleep while she was away. The less time he spent on the streets of Warsaw, the better, and they would be watching all the airports. Changing his flight departure might buy him a little time. The alarm would have been raised by now, and Prentice had made it clear that the Service’s help was over.
Monika’s kindnesses continued, but Marchant was far from certain that they were unconditional, particularly when she announced that she would be coming with him to the airport.
‘India is calling you, I can tell,’ she said. ‘But first…’
She hooked a leg over his, but just as she started to kiss Marchant, he stopped her, noticing for the first time his rucksack in the corner of the room.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked.
‘Did you bring my rucksack over?’ he asked, propping himself up on one elbow.
‘Of course. You’re staying over, remember?’
‘Did anyone see you, carrying it?’
‘No, why? Is there a problem?’
He said nothing, and sank back on the bed. So far, he had avoided telling Monika anything that might arouse her suspicion, sticking as close as possible to his legend: he had been bumming around Europe, checked into the Oki Doki before flying out to India, but had been delayed by the bohemian charms of a beautiful receptionist. Par for the course for David Marlowe. But he knew he would soon have to say something more: their journey to the airport would need to be discreet. He decided to opt for the truth, give or take a few dollars.
‘The Americans are looking for me,’ he began, taking a pack of her cigarettes from the bedside table and lighting up. He had forgotten how it felt to embark on a lie, that exquisite moment when you step off from ordinary life into the shadows of deceit, where anything is suddenly possible. For a moment the thrill was intoxicating.
‘Why?’ She seemed genuinely surprised, resting her chin on both hands to listen.
‘I needed dollars for India, the new bank at the US Embassy was offering the best rate, so I went along. But they wouldn’t let me in without searching my rucksack.’ He paused, relishing the options, wondering which way to take his story. ‘I had a row.’
‘You should have left your rucksack somewhere, like at the station. It’s the same everywhere.’
‘I know. But I’d only just arrived in Warsaw. OK, I also had a bit of puff on board. I didn’t want a scene.’
‘Was it just a row?’ Monika asked, putting one hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. I just can’t imagine you angry. Did you get very cross? Like really crazy?’
Her manner was coquettish, playful, and he wondered again whether she was playing a game too. ‘There was a bit of mutual pushing. Your police were called, but they weren’t interested.’
‘But the Americans are?’
‘Maybe I’m being paranoid. I had that rucksack with me, that’s all. And they started to ask what was in it when I wouldn’t show them.’
‘No one saw me, Mr Angry-man. And you’re with me now. I checked you out.’ He stared at her through his smoke. ‘From the hostel,’ she added, kissing him.
22
Leila had met Jago, a tousle-haired six-year-old, once before, but this was her first time on the London Eye. Fielding had emailed her earlier in the day with the unusual time and place, explaining that he would have a godson in tow. Everyone in the Service knew the Vicar had an inordinate number of godchildren (fourteen at the last count). Less well known was how he found time to see them all. They were a lucky bunch, she thought, as Fielding led them through the shadows to an empty capsule, bypassing the long queue. He ushered Leila and Jago before him, nodding at an attendant as the doors closed. It evidently wasn’t Fielding’s first visit.
As Jago swung on the metal handrail, looking fearlessly at the Thames below him, Leila took in London from a new perspective. All around her, as they rose almost imperceptibly into the night sky, buildings coyly revealed parts that had seldom been seen by the public before: pointed skylights, roof gullies, curved domes.
‘We always try to get a sunset flight,’ Fielding said, looking west, where the high clouds were tinged with red. ‘Don’t we Jago?’
But Jago was too preoccupied by a passenger boat making its way up the river, its wake spreading like spilt salt behind it.
‘He’s grown up a lot since I last saw him,’ Leila offered, doubting whether Fielding’s effort to include his godson in their conversation was genuine.
‘They do, you know,’ he said, still looking out west. ‘Sorry to bring you up here.’
‘It’s great. I’ve never been.’
‘We just can’t be sure about Legoland at the moment.’
‘No?’
She presumed he meant MI5, but Fielding didn’t elaborate. ‘Stay away from the doors and these pods are almost impenetrable,’ he continued. ‘At least at the top. Curved glass, you see. Sometimes I reckon there are more of the world’s intelligence services flying the London Eye than tourists. Word’s got out.’
‘Uncle Marcus?’ Jago asked, not waiting for an answer. ‘Are we moving faster than a clock?’
‘A clock? Well, faster than the long hand, slower than the second hand.’
‘What’s the time now, then?’
‘The time?’ Marcus repeated, barely missing a beat. It was why he always accepted invitations to be a godfather: children’s random thought patterns kept his brain nimble. ‘Almost 12 o’clock,’ he said, winking at Leila. ‘When we reach the top it will be exactly midnight.’
‘And then we’ll all turn into pumpkins on the way down?’
‘Every one of us.’
‘Hassan was a disappointment, in many ways,’ Leila said, checking that Jago was distracted again. The boy seemed to be deep in thought, contemplating his imminent transformation.
‘Really?’
‘I think he was just lonely.’
‘Did you…?’
‘Squeeze the pips? Yes.’
‘And?’
‘When pushed…squeezed…he mentioned the Russians, said how they had liked the instability of last year, of seeing the Service wobble.’
‘I’m sure they did. It wasn’t the Russians.’
‘No.’ She paused, squatting down next to Jago. She had forgotten how brusque Fielding could be in his dismissals.
‘What’s that?’ the boy asked, pointing almost directly beneath them.
‘That’s called a carousel,’ she said, looking at a circular disc of colours far below them. They were almost at the top of the wheel now. Midnight was approaching. ‘Horses and music and…’
‘Oh yes, we saw it down there,’ he said, already looking elsewhere, across the river towards Big Ben.
‘There’s something else I need to talk to you about,’ Leila said. She stood up and walked over to Fielding, who was still looking upriver.
‘Of course.’
‘I need a break. From Britain, from everything that’s happened.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, you can have as long off as you want. Travel, see the world as a tourist for a bit. I thought HR had talked to you about this?’
‘I don’t want a holiday. I need to keep myself busy while he’s away. But not here.’
‘Your next foreign tour is, when, next year?’
‘July.’
‘I’m sure we could bring it forward.’
‘I had something else in mind. The CIA’s exchange programme. They’ve just advertised another position.’
He looked at her for a moment, studying her face. She was strikingly beautiful, he thought, particularly in the soft light of the setting sun. ‘Is that what you really want? I’m surprised. Genuinely. Langley’s no fun at all, you know that.’
‘It’s not in America. A three-month tour on the subcontinent. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. I’d start in the Delhi station.’
A thought crossed Fielding’s mind with the fleeting transience of one of Jago’s random musings; but it left a trace that was to linger much longer than he would have liked.
23
Spiro looked again at the grainy image of a two-tonne, dark-blue military truck, standing in heavy traffic on the northern edge of Warsaw.
