Then there was her enthusiasm for all things American. That was wildly overplayed. In the two years since 9/11 I have rarely met a Spaniard under the age of forty with a single complimentary thing to say about George W. Bush, yet Carmen was borderline neo-conservative. Her enthusiasm wasn’t born of loyalty to the PP; it was all an exaggerated bluff.
Then, of course, there was the most obvious clue of all. Why would the Spanish government bother to launch a secret campaign of violence against ETA when ETA is on its last legs? Kitson and I talked about this at length, but we never thought simply to turn everything round.
Outside, perhaps a block away, a police siren flashes by on the street. In my mind’s eye there is a clear and precise image of Carmen and the man slumped on the floor and for the first time I wonder if their injuries will be serious. The fight was a frenzy of rage; I seemed to lose all sense of myself in the quest for revenge. Christ, perhaps I even killed a man tonight, left him brain-damaged, paralysed. Yet there must still be some salvageable sense of decency inside me because I feel terrible about having done this.
It’s not possible to get a mobile reception at the bar so I make my way towards the entrance and dial Kitson’s number. His phone has been switched off and I leave as clear and concise a message as I can.
‘Richard, you have to call me.’ Behind me, a customer laughs at just the wrong moment. ‘Something very serious has happened. Did Anthony hear what went on in the flat? Did you get it on the bug?’
Macduff has a number, too, but that is also on voicemail. They’re both probably in the air on their way back to London. They both think that the job is done.
Back inside I order a second whisky, get a cigarette off a girl and begin to piece everything together. It all goes back to the farm. Why didn’t they kill me when they had the chance? Why did they set me free and plant the idea of de Francisco’s involvement in the dirty war in my head? There was no way that ETA could have known, at that stage, that a dirty war was being organized out of the Interior Ministry. In any event, if they had had information of that kind, they would have gone straight to the press.
It’s obvious, too, that Carmen always knew I spoke Spanish. I was meant to overhear her conversation with Joao last week. Right from the start she knew who I was, why I was coming to her, who was playing whom. I was being used by ETA to feed information back to SIS which they hoped would accelerate the destruction of the Aznar government. Only they didn’t count on the cover-up. They didn’t think it would be possible to obscure a conspiracy of that size. And Carmen shouldn’t have told me the story about the boy from Pamplona. That was her one mistake. Otherwise the simplicity of it was breathtaking. Look at the victims they chose: Mikel Arenaza was, by his own admission, on his way out of politics. He had grown weary of the armed struggle and was looking to start a new life with Rosalia, away from the duplicity and double-standards of terror. Txema Otamendi had also turned his back on the organization. He tried to question the moral and political good sense of military action and paid the price. The others, the two men who survived the so-called dirty war, were the only individuals still of use to ETA: Juan Egileor, a millionaire businessman who had made massive financial contributions to the revolutionary cause, disappeared of his own volition and took a two-month holiday in south-east Asia in the company of a Bangkok rent boy. Tomas Orbe, a functioning etarra, was most probably tipped off that Mohammed Chakor was coming to get him. Why else was he carrying a gun? Only he wasn’t meant to kill him. The wound to the neck was too severe. Had he survived, Chakor would doubtless have sung like a canary, telling the world’s press that he had been hired to shoot a leading etarra on the orders of Sergio Vazquez and his old friend, Felix Maldonado.
Eventually I pay my bill and head out onto the street, sticking to the shadows under the colonnade of the square until I’m out on Calle Mayor. A cab glides past and I hail it, giving directions to Calle de la Libertad. It has occurred to me that I am running late for the meeting at Bocaito, although in Kitson’s absence John Lithiby will be a more than capable replacement. Numbed by whisky, I sit in the back seat, scribbling down notes as my pen jumps with each spring of the suspension. To turn up at the meeting in such a condition is far from ideal, but I have no choice. SIS need to know about these new developments as soon as possible. Lithiby is my sole remaining contact.
There’s only one thing I’m not sure about: the precise nature of the relationship between Maldonado and Javier de Francisco. What seems most likely is that they were simply Basque sympathizers who gradually worked their way up the political ladder, concealing themselves for – what? – fifteen or twenty years while they fed information back to their ideological masters in ETA. It’s Burgess and Maclean, Philby and Blunt all over again, a nest of spies at the heart of the Spanish state. And now they must live out the rest of their lives in a pointless Colombian exile. Two high-level ETA operatives gone to ground after waiting years for their chance to strike from the immaculate camouflage of office. I feel almost sorry for them. Francisco probably recruited Carmen during their love affair, or she was turned during the four-year stint in Colombia. She seemed to confess to a relationship back at the flat. A man I loved, she said. And of course her mother, the ailing Mitxelena, is a Basque married to a man whose father fought against Franco in the Civil War. I was very dumb about that. I should have put two and two together.
As the cab accelerates through Puerta del Sol, I try Kitson again. There’s no answer, so I just hang up, wondering how long it will be before the neighbours break into Carmen’s flat and alert the police. If they track me down, I can always plead self-defence. Christ, if the worst comes to the worst I can probably claim diplomatic immunity. That’s the least SIS can do after what I’ve pulled off tonight. When Lithiby hears about this, about what I’ve done for the Service, everything in my past will be forgotten.
44. The Vanishing Englishman
Bocaito is packed. It’s ten minutes past nine when I push through the door towards the seating area at the rear of the restaurant. Waiters in aprons and white jackets are preparing canapes at the crowded bar. There’s a smattering of tourists eating an early dinner in the restaurant, but no sign of Lithiby. I’m given a pre-reserved table near the kitchen and listen to the constant clatter and sizzle of plates and pans as my mind races once again through the thesis. Is there a flaw? Is there still something I’m missing?
By half past nine Lithiby has still not shown. I order a second glass of wine and rub my right hand under the table, trying to soothe the intense pain in my fist. I go to the bathroom again and check my face for marks. A small scratch has appeared, unnoticed before, within the two-day stubble on my jaw. Kitson is still not answering his phone and it feels like Museo Chicote all over again, waiting for Arenaza to show even as Buscon was digging his grave. A British couple – The Rough Guide to Spain on their table next to a bottle of Vichy Catalan – have been arguing for twenty minutes about a flight back home in the morning. The man, bald and tired, keeps checking his watch, drinking the water constantly as his wife suggests over and over again that they ‘must order the cab for six o’clock’. Beside them, at a table tucked in the far corner, three quieter Americans are grazing on steaks and fish. Then the mobile phone pulses in my jacket pocket and I tear it out.
‘Richard?’
‘This is not Richard.’
It is as if the room tilts and makes strange, the cold air of shock enveloping me in a dizzy confusion. For an instant I can barely breathe as my body revolts at the sound of her voice. It can’t be. Not now. Not after everything that has happened tonight.
‘Katharine?’
‘Hello, Alec.’
I take the phone away from my ear and check the read-out. Numero Privado. Then she speaks again.
‘John Lithiby’s not coming tonight. No doubt he sends his warmest regards. Last I heard John was earning $450,000 a year working for Shell out in Nigeria. So how have you been?’
She doesn’t let me answer. Th
e voice doesn’t let me respond. It’s part of a script I haven’t read, words in a hideous scheme. I am on the point of challenging her, trying to find out how or why this could be happening, when Katharine Lanchester says, ‘The Central Intelligence Agency would just really like to take this opportunity to thank you for all of the hard work that you’ve done on our behalf over the course of the last few months. We really couldn’t have pulled this thing off without you. You’ve gotten so good, Alec. What happened?’
‘Kitson is CIA? Richard is an American?’
‘Well, Brown University out of Charterhouse, but we like to think of him as one of our own. His Mom’s American, after all. You were mirror-imaging, Alec. Seeing yourself in him, just as we knew you would.’
Katharine is laughing under this, contempt and delight in each revelation. I want to lash out at her. I feel more humiliation in this single instant than I have ever known in my life. I have been played for a fool by all of them, one after the other.
‘But how did you… What… I don’t…’
I cannot get the words out. The British couple are staring at me, as if sensing that something is not right. When I look at them their eyes flick away and there’s a split-instant realization that Michelle wasn’t Canadian SIS; she was American all along. Did Geoff and Ellie smother their accents? Did Macduff?
‘How did we know about you?’ Katharine asks, picking up on my question. ‘How did you fall for such a dumb trick?’ I look at my left hand and it is gripping the edge of the table so hard that I can see the white bones of my knuckles bulging like pearls. ‘Well, what can I tell you? It was all just such a coincidence. You dropped right out of the sky. There we were in Spain, just a small-time operation tracking Buscon, and who do we find on his tail? None other than Mr Alec Milius. As you can imagine, one or two people at Langley were kind of interested to see you, so we cooked up a little revenge.’
They weren’t tailing Buscon because of a consignment of Croat weapons. They were tailing him for something else. That explains why Kitson slipped up about Guantanamo. I try to maintain a physical dignity in this public place, but my body has cooked to a fever-sweat. It feels as if every part of me is shaking.
‘You see what happened, Alec? Is it starting to make sense? Luis was connected to A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist. A big player, in other words. Tried to sell uranium-enrichment equipment to the Libyans. Now we can’t have guys like that roaming the quiet European countryside, can we? He wasn’t looking out for a box of rifles for the Real IRA. Christ, you were so gullible.’
Her voice is exactly how I remember it, not a note change, not a day gone by. America’s seductive trap. Where is she speaking from?
‘You had no idea about the dirty war until I told you?’
‘Oh, that was such a bonus.’ Somebody laughs in the background. Fortner? ‘We must confess that without your help we would never have established a link between Luis and the Spanish government. The war would have gone right ahead and chances are that democratic Spain would now be on its knees.’ She pauses. ‘And we want to thank you for giving us that golden opportunity, Alec. Really we do. I needed a break. The Agency needed a break. You see how invaluable we are now to the Europeans? You guys can’t live without us.’
Questions start forming in my mind. Do they know about Carmen? I cannot work it out while Katharine is still talking; every one of her sentences seems to noose and tighten around my rage. Does the CIA know that Maldonado and de Francisco were Basque spies? Does that theory even hold any more? Again the British couple look up at me and I realize that I am breathing so loudly it must be audible to the nearby tables.
‘So here’s the deal.’ Katharine has cleared a slight catch in her throat. I can sense the coup de grace and she delivers it with bitter precision. ‘There’s no job for you with MI6, OK? No precious work and no future for Alec Milius. Nobody has forgiven you for what you did and John Lithiby does not offer redemption. It was all for nothing. You suffered for nothing.’
With this my mood subsides in a switch to pure hatred. ‘I don’t care about the job,’ I spit. It is like the torture again, the same defiance in the face of my tormentors, as if I have been freed by the shame of defeat. There is nothing left to lose.
Yes you do,’ she replies, startled. ‘You care about the job. It’s all you’ve ever cared about -’
‘You killed Kate,’ I tell her.
She stops talking. There’s silence on the line, as if we have been cut off by poor reception, a glitch of technology. Then, very quietly, ‘I don’t ever want to hear that accusation repeated. We are not murderers. You believe what you want.’
She’s still angry about what happened, even after all these years. That gives me strength now. Later, when I am alone and going back over Kitson memories, the jar of Marmite at the safe house, the Hob Nobs and the car magazines, then I will feel humiliated. But at the moment it is enough to deny Katharine the triumph of her plan, just as Carmen and her accomplices were ruined by the failure of theirs. ‘You killed Kate,’ I repeat. ‘You killed two innocent young people with their whole lives ahead of them.’
‘Let me tell you something about that, Alec’ There is a hiss of stubborn control, a tone I remember from our final conversation in London, all those years ago. ‘Let me tell you about your girlfriends. Right now Sofia Church is looking at photographs of you and Carmen Arroyo rowing your nice little boat in the Parque Retiro. Right now, Sofia Church is looking at shots of her boyfriend kissing another woman…’
This flattens me. Why would they hurt Sofia? The CIA have tapes of me in bed with Carmen. What will they do with them? I will never be free of this foul trade.
‘You fucking bitch. You didn’t need Carmen, did you?’ This, too, has occurred to me in the last few seconds, a subconscious realization beneath the raw shock of Sofia’s pain. It explains why Kitson was so laissez-faire about the cover-up. The intel I brought him was always second-hand; the CIA had eyes and ears in every orifice of the Interior Ministry. ‘Why did you make me do that?’
‘To humiliate you,’ she says. The frank admission, so coldly stated, is sickening. ‘To show you how low you could sink. Why else?’
‘Is it because I didn’t fuck you in London? Is that what this is about?’ I am losing control. I have to maintain my dignity. The bald Englishman again looks at me but his warning glance does nothing to settle my rage. ‘Did you never get over the fact that I wouldn’t fuck you, Katharine? Did you leave the note for Sofia at the hotel so that you could break her heart as well?’
Now both of them fire disapproving stares at me and I suddenly find that I am embarrassed to have spoken like this, to a woman, in public. The strange, civilizing reflex again kicks in. So that I can speak my mind, I put a ten-euro note on the table and walk out of the restaurant, past the distracted waiters and the legs of jamon, holding the phone by my side as if the Americans’ triumph might somehow drop onto the floor.
‘What about Anthony?’ I ask, out on Calle Libertad in a freezing wind. If I turned through 180 degrees it feels as though they would all be standing behind me.
‘What about him?’ she asks.
‘He was British. They were all British…’
‘It was a house of games.’
A car comes quickly up the narrow street, making me jump. For a moment it’s hard to hear what Katharine is saying. I hold the phone tight against my ear, cold and alone, bitterly angry. She says something about Macduff working in the private sector, being ‘a chameleon, a freelance’. It was a long con, a Spanish prisoner.
‘You spent all that money, all that time, just to get back at me?’
‘It wasn’t so difficult. It wasn’t so expensive.’ Her voice is calm, matter-of-fact. ‘You were a luxury, a convenience. It was just like swatting a fly. And the ends more than justified the means.’
She seems to laugh as I ask about ETA. ‘Did you do that? Did you make the farm happen?’
‘Oh no. We’re not inhumane, Alec�
� Again, a commotion in the background, the sound of a man savouring revenge. ‘Our intel at the time pointed to Zulaika, for what it’s worth. Matter of fact we used that to silence him.’ She lets this sink in, the easy cruelty of American power. ‘Like I said, you just dropped into our laps. You were a bonus. We didn’t have plans for you. Matter of fact, after Milan a lot of us felt you’d gotten away. And then it was just like a miracle. Let’s just say that you were a guilty pleasure which none of us in these difficult times could resist.’
I do not reply. I have heard enough. The events of the last two hours have turned me completely inside-out, a switchback of unimaginable complexity, and there is now nothing that I can say to Katharine, no further taunt I can deliver which would improve my situation one bit. Best just to be done with it. Best just to admit defeat and move on.
‘Well, it looks like you’ve got some thinking to do,’ she says, as if going back to the script. Are they watching me, even now? Were the couple in the restaurant part of her team? ‘You should observe the sight of all your hard work gone to waste. You should think about the two innocent women who are suffering tonight because you put your own personal satisfaction before theirs.’
‘Go fuck yourself, Katharine.’
And I hang up before she has a chance to reply. Two more cars come towards me on the street and I step aside, bewildered as a drunk, walking down the hill as they pass. I need a bar. I have to drink. It dawns on me as a desperate, irreversible fact that I must now leave Madrid. I have no choice. I will have to abandon my furniture and my belongings and start a new life away from Spain, still away from England, with just a bag of money hidden behind a fridge. It is what I have always dreaded. I did not know what it was to love a city until I lived in this place. What an idiot I have been. What an amateur. The first thing you should know about people is that you don’t know the first thing about them.
The Spanish Game am-3 Page 33
