by Brian Martin
Raoul was calm. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We do not ask questions. We know the answers. Mark will make you join us. That’s why he is here. You have to understand. We know what he does, and we know what you do. It is for that very reason you are important to us. You say you will not join us. Then Mark will make you.’
I can remember the details of those moments even now. They are etched on the hard plate of my mind. I can rerun an exact film of the next few minutes. The sequence of events comes back to haunt me in my nightmares. The ill-lit room filled with the low noise of the heater, sparsely furnished, was gloomy as we had entered it. It took on a more sombre atmosphere as Mark entered, hooded, with the two men, one in the balaclava. He reminded me of an IRA gunman, faceless, his eyes peering out through the slits. He stood behind Mark’s chair like an Elizabethan executioner ready to wield his axe. I wondered who he was. Had I seen him before? Had he been one of our bodyguard escorts as we walked round Paldiski?
Raoul stood by the long table, his hands deep in his pockets. By him there stood another physically fit cropped blonde-haired man in his late twenties, again dark-suited, built like a boxer. Next to the door was Arne. I felt instinctively that he was not enjoying that occasion. He did not look at me once while we were in that room.
Raoul said, ‘I must warn you that you are about to experience the same kind of thing that happened to one of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear scientists. The scientist did not want to work for him. In his case he had conscientious objections. I do not think that is your case. Hussein simply persuaded him by killing two of the scientist’s friends in front of his eyes and promising to kill more if he did not comply. It was simple and effective. We have learned from his management skills.’
From Mark came a diminished sigh, but nothing more. I was stunned. The nerves of my arms tingled. I could not move. When feeling came back to me, I turned and looked at Arne. He remained motionless and stared ahead. I had no idea what to do. There was my back-up, my minder in fact, my friend, handcuffed in the chair in front of me and apparently, if I were to believe my ears, about to be killed in order to make me do what the oligarchy that ran Myrex wanted me to do. It was terrible. I was unarmed: even if I had been carrying a gun, it would have been useless surrounded as I was. What about Mark, my dear Mark, my greatest friend? He was now under sentence of imminent death. What horror was going through his mind? Regardless of his body, his mind was in extremis, it must have been in its last agonies. That was if he believed it was really going to happen. At that stage I could not believe it. An automatic response was not to believe what Raoul was saying. It was too fantastic. In a situation such as that, you cannot believe what is being said. The mind searches for alternative explanations. The import of Raoul’s speech to me was too appalling to countenance. My deep interior being wanted it to be a charade, a game that Raoul was playing. In a minute or two, things would be all right. It quickly dawns on you that the situation is starkly real, and the process you find yourself in has its own horrific momentum, way beyond your power to affect events. I was horrified at what I thought might be going through Mark’s mind. Is there some natural anaesthetic effect that numbs the mind to anticipated suffering in such an instance? I hoped for his sake that there is. He did not look alert. His eyes were vacant.
Raoul lifted his right hand from his pocket and signalled to the man in the balaclava. The man produced from underneath his jacket, a glinting hunting knife with a blade of no more than six inches in length. In a flash of clear realisation, I saw Raoul for what he was. I remembered the notorious intelligence officer of the French army, Paul Aussaresses, instrumental in fighting the battle of the Algiers casbah in 1957: he justified the torture and sacrifice of individuals for the cause of France. The individual was worthless. He saw himself as entitled to do anything to his victim because the victim was condemned to death anyway. I suddenly saw Raoul in that light. He was infinitely dangerous, and, according to all normal standards, totally demented. At that point, I knew beyond doubt that Raoul would not stop. In shock, I realised that the man with the knife was going to kill Mark. My best and dearest friend was going to be killed because of me.
My throat was parched dry. I seemed to have no saliva. I could not speak although I wanted to. With huge difficulty, I managed to croak something that sounded to me like stop. It came out as a choked sob. Raoul must have interpreted it as just that.
There was no pause, no hesitation. The man in the balaclava leaned forwards as though he were going to embrace Mark and, perhaps, kiss his cheek. His left arm went round Mark’s shoulders, his right, holding the knife firmly, seemed to brush across Mark’s neck from left to right. It seemed the lightest of touches. The man stepped quickly back. There was a single ejaculation of blood from Mark’s neck, then ragged ribbons of blood ran down and soaked into his shirt and jacket. Mark emitted a terrible gurgling sound and choked blood. His eyes stared straight ahead. Then he suddenly slumped forwards and sideways at the same time, and fell bleeding and convulsing to the floor. The chair crashed over with him.
It is impossible to describe precisely what I felt. I was cold, extremely cold. I looked at Raoul, and I looked at Arne. I wanted it to be a play, unreal, something fabricated and artificial. I wanted Mark to rise up and say that he had performed well. My mind was in denial. It did not happen. It was real. Raoul said, ‘Your friend is dead. It is now time for you to reconsider, like the Iraqi scientist before you. If you still hesitate then we move on to other of your friends. I am told Monica Lightborn is next.’
I desperately wanted to say that Mo was not a close friend, but what was the point? Dear Mo was next in line on death row. She was a sweet person. I could not tolerate her death, another death, as a result of my refusal to do what Raoul and his confederates wanted. If that horror was real, and the awful reality was impressing itself on me as the minutes ticked by, I had to comply. The arguments came easily and speedily. My agreement to Raoul’s demand would at least buy time. It would preserve Mo. If there was time, anything might happen. Circumstances change: nothing is static: all is flux.
I stood there in a state of acute shock, very cold, with tears on my cheeks, feeling sick, looking at the corpse of Mark, suddenly realising that I was being philosophical about what had just happened. I wondered to myself how long I could continue being sane. I knew I had to do one thing immediately, and that was to submit. The situation was immediate: Willy back in St James’s, the director, my editor, they counted for nothing. My problem was how to deal with what was going on there at that exact time. I managed to say to Raoul, ‘I agree. Whatever you say.’ I shuffled to the wall behind me, slid down to the floor and sat with my head in my hands. I wept.
Raoul turned and walked over to me. He stood a couple of yards away and spoke.
‘You must recover; but you do not have long. You must understand that individuals do not matter to us. At the moment you are useful. We think we need you. You will have to do as we say. For the moment, you must take time to recompose yourself. You are bound to silence about what happened here. You should retire to the Gloria and say that you have flu. Tell your friends. Phone them, Monica Lightborn and the American, Uri Rovde. Myrex will change your flight back to London. You will need forty-eight hours to find yourself again.’
I did not answer him. I sobbed and looked down hard at the floor. He left. Arne followed him. After a minute or two, the second escort who had come in with Mark and the man in the balaclava came over to me and helped me to my feet. Without saying anything, he supported me to the Mercedes and put me in the back seat. We drove without stopping back to Tallinn where I was dropped off at the Gloria.
Raoul’s man saw me to my room. The only words he spoke since helping me to my feet in that execution chamber in Paldiski were, ‘Goodnight.’ He left me standing in the middle of my room wanting to scream. My mind was in turmoil. Mark was dead. I had to believe that. It was not a trick. I had seen it with my own eyes. I had murdered him. It was because of me he was dead. Had I d
one what Raoul wanted, Mark would have lived. I did not. I was the killer, not the man in the balaclava. He had been my instrument. He did not make the crucial decision of life and death. I had made it and determined the fate of Mark. I could so easily have saved him.
Many matters surfaced in my mind during the next forty-eight hours. One was that even if, at the last moment, I had acceded to their demand, Mark would nevertheless have been killed. They would never have allowed him to resume his life as before. It was inconceivable. He was like one of General Aussaresses’ victims; he had been condemned to death well before the torturer had started molesting him.
My mind raced for a couple of hours. I decided that I needed a strong drink. I needed something to act as a medicine for my troubled mind. I ordered a bottle of Scotch that was brought to me promptly by one of the waitresses from the cellar. I took two large measures, one after the other. They had no effect apart from making me feel warmer.
What kept on coming back to occupy my thoughts was that when I returned to London, to my house behind Olympia, there would no longer be Mark for me to phone or go with to the riverside pub. My subconscious kept on questioning the facts. Surely Mark was not dead. His death, the slitting of his throat, was all fantasy. It all belonged to the realms of my imagination. I began to wonder about my sanity. As the whisky took hold, I began to feel depressed. I felt worse and worse. I was trapped and impotent. Who could I talk to? There was no one. I needed a priest or a therapist. Should I speak to Rovde? They knew something about him, and about Mo. I was caught in the bind of events so that I could not even talk to my controller. What was I to do? I was completely, depressingly defeated, cornered, cowed. I knew the necessity of keeping calm. What we were told time and again during our training was that time passes and circumstances change. Hope lies in the future as everything alters. Since nothing is constant, the flux of events might bring about beneficial effects. Then again, it might produce exactly the opposite. I did not see how things could be worse.
Eventually I went to bed. I hardly slept that night. I dozed in and out of sleep and suffered terrible nightmares. Mark appeared before me, infinitely reproachful, and confronted me with staring eyes and bleeding profusely. Why did I not save him? Why had I not agreed with Raoul so that he could have walked free and been alive now? What was blind principle compared with his life, our friendship, our love? The blood gurgled through his severed windpipe. The blade must have been razor sharp. It had kissed him, so it seemed to me, with the lightness of a feather. My guilty conscience plagued me with regrets. I gave up any attempt to sleep soundly round about a quarter to five and roamed my room. I made some awful coffee and contemplated my bleak future, held hostage and blackmailed into inactivity and silence. I wondered if I could ever speak to Arne again. At 8.30 my mobile rang. It was Rovde. His voice brought me back to reality. I saw in the space of a second that I faced practical problems. It was acutely necessary to leave the haunted, fevered, world of my imagination.
‘Where have you been? I expected you around last night. What happened to you?’ Before I had time to answer his insistent questions, he had moved on. He was perturbed, excited. ‘Have you heard what’s happened? A murder. From what I’ve been able to discover, it’s your friend Mark. Have you been in touch with him? Were you with him last night? The corpse’s identity is being verified now. We’re sure it’s Mark. I was able to recognise the photo our people have. We were sent details immediately because the body was found dumped in the docks. The throat was cut, and the Estonians think the murder is to do with money extortion and the Russian mafia.’
I knew what I had to do and it was hard. I had to lie. I entered on stage. I began to play my part. It was a part written for me in outline by Myrex Corporation. I had the gist of the plot and the script: the rest was up to me, and it was to be improvisation and method-acting. Above all, it had to be convincing.
‘Mark!’ I exclaimed. ‘It can’t be. I wasn’t with him last night, but it can’t be true.’
‘You’d better steel yourself, buddy. We’re pretty sure. Documents on the corpse say it was him. You had better meet me. We’d better formally identify the body. It’ll be tough, but it has to be done.’
Some terrible force within me took over. ‘Of course, will you call for me here, or shall we meet in the English Café?’ I had assumed a calm mood. He replied that he would pick me up at the Gloria at half past nine.
I went down to the cellar eventually and tried to eat breakfast. I nibbled at some black bread and drank some coffee. Surely enough, there in the Tallinn newspaper was a front-page article on a dockland murder. I asked one of the waitresses to tell me what the paper said about it. The corpse of an Englishman had been found floating in the dock during the early hours of the morning. It was thought that he was a financier and businessman. The authorities conjectured that the murder had to do with drugs and smuggling between Tallinn and the Russian Republic.
The newspaper report worried me. It put me on the spot. If it were in the papers, then Willy and intelligence at home would know about it. Very soon, I knew that I should have to answer questions from him and the director. Tactically, I thought that the sooner I was back in London, the better it would be for me. Myrex’s arrangements could go by the board. I left the remains of my breakfast, returned to my room, telephoned the airline and then a travel agent. There were no seats available from Tallinn direct to London. It was necessary to fly by way of Stockholm in the late afternoon.
Rovde met me on time and commiserated. There was no doubt, he said, that the victim was Mark. He was very sorry. He knew what great and close friends we had been. I clamped down my emotions. As we were about to leave through the doors and Rovde was almost on the pavement outside, the woman at the desk called to me that I was wanted on the phone. I went back to the desk. Rovde came back inside and closed the doors, picked up a newspaper and glanced through it. Arne was on the line.
‘This is difficult,’ he said. ‘After yesterday, I am sorry for you. You must recover yourself.’ I noted that he was not sorry for Mark. Mark was never mentioned. He went on and spoke in a distinctly chilly manner, disengaged, like an efficient businessman, ‘I have to give you instructions and information. You must resume your usual life as normal. Go on with your work in every respect. You now have two employers.’ I noticed that he used no names and was general in reference to what I did. He was no doubt covering his tracks in case of eavesdropping, electronic or otherwise. ‘We shall pay you monthly, into your London bank account. You need do nothing: we know its location and number. You will have opened for you another, in Brussels, where a more substantial sum will be deposited every so often. You should have no complaints. I am to be your contact. I shall communicate with you. You can phone me here any time or use my mobile number. There will be certain information that we require of you from time to time. You should be upset about your friend, but the corporation requires you to continue your life normally.’
I did not enjoy his conversation at all. I have always disliked the word ‘normal’. It can never be defined. What, after all, is normal? I knew more or less what he meant, but I doubted that I could do it. I had suffered the horrific trauma of seeing my dearest friend murdered in cold blood at a time when I might have saved him. Although I understood that from the time he was captive, hooded and in that Mercedes, he was a condemned man and nothing could save him, I saw his death as my fault. The guilt for his murder was seared into my soul. It was as if I were the murderer.
I put down the telephone and digested what Arne had said. I signalled to Rovde and as I turned to join him, again the woman at the desk called out. There was now someone else for me on the phone. It was my editor from London. The Journal had heard about the dockland murder and he wanted me to write a story about it. I stalled. I said that the news was still breaking but that, of course, I would follow it up before I flew out. Arne’s words came back to me: I had to continue as usual. It was natural that the editor should contact me. It was also e
ntirely natural that I should find the task distasteful.
I did my duty. Rovde, full of sympathy, took me to the mortuary. Halfway there, I almost broke down. I reminisced about the good times that Mark and I had enjoyed together in London. Uri was kind, considerate of my fragile feelings, and said without any prompting from me that the Agency would be looking very closely at Arne and the whole Myrex operation.
‘I don’t know whether we’re right or not, but we see a connection between this murder and big money interests. Myrex is a major player out here. There is doubt about the legitimacy of some of their projects. We’re watching the Myrex house and doing some pretty interesting surveillance. Paul is going to be useful in that respect.’
That was of some comfort to me. It was minimal: Mark, my friend, was dead. My soul was empty. I had great difficulty holding on to reality. It struck home when I viewed with Uri Mark’s sad corpse. It was no longer my dear friend. As always with those you love, once dead, the life force gone, what is left is a vacant shell, a useless, discarded raiment, fit only for burial or burning. That is what I felt and it made me infinitely miserable. I stood looking at Mark’s face made presentable by some anonymous mortician and silently cried. Tears came slowly: then I gave way and sobbed involuntarily. I was overcome by a peculiar despair. What was I doing? What a way to spend my life. My best friend, my confidant, my intime was no more. Uri put an arm round my shoulders and said it was time to go.
‘Come on, old buddy. We can’t do any more here,’ he said. We concluded the identification formalities and walked for half an hour to the English Café.
27
Then there was trouble. When I arrived back in London, the first thing I had to do was to write the Journal article on Mark’s death for the editor. I rehashed what the Tallinn newspapers had said. I described how his body had been found floating in the dock. I repeated the theory of criminal, underground conspiracy. Mark’s connection with the world of high finance was obvious. There was a well-known Russian, Italian and American presence in Tallinn. The city was full of rumours. Hotels and restaurants, import and export businesses, were all alleged to be vehicles for the laundering of illicitly made money. Particularly Russian businessmen were making huge fortunes, from smuggling a variety of Western goods into the new Russian Federation. Drugs went the other way, crossing the Russian border into Estonia from the southern republics. Mark’s murder was inevitably and intricately bound up with that underworld activity in the popular Estonian mind. The discovery of his body was not even a headline. It was not exactly an everyday occurrence, but that sort of thing did happen from time to time. The Estonian government could not wait for membership of the European Union. They anticipated more help, financially and practically, in policing the expanding trade that was taking place with Russia.
