by Henry Porter
‘Was your wife English? You haven’t mentioned her. You were married, weren’t you?’ He noticed her face and hair were beaded with droplets of spray.
‘For nearly ten years. We divorced in 1991, although she had moved out before that. She was American – a banker. Louise Brinkley was her name. We met when I did a few months in one of the merchant banks after university and later hooked up and got married.’
She looked at him with curiosity. ‘And no children. Why?’
‘I was abroad a lot. Louise had a good job and she didn’t want to be left at home with no money and looking after children. We said we would leave it until later.’
‘Did you tell her what happened to you in Prague?’
He didn’t answer. He remembered now that Walter Vigo had given her a bare outline. Louise liked Vigo and thought of him as the respectable side of espionage. She wanted the Vigos’ kind of life and couldn’t understand why Harland hadn’t got it for her. By the time he returned to England, Louise had gone. She never came to see him in hospital in Vienna, but he suspected that this was because Vigo had been vague about the extent of his injuries.
‘So you kept it to yourself.’ She paused and shook her head. ‘What was she like?’
‘Restless, outspoken, mobile, ambitious, attractive.’ Harland thought of her constant anxiety. She always looked as if she thought she was missing something. ‘She lives on the West Coast somewhere now. We haven’t seen each other for ten years.’
‘And did she call you after the crash?’
‘She wouldn’t have known where to find me.’
‘Tomas did.’
‘Yes, he was very determined.’ He thought for a moment. Somehow they were on neutral territory – they could talk. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘You saw him.’
‘Only twice.’
She looked out to sea.
‘He’s a solitary person, like you. For a period his teachers at school were worried that he was withdrawn because he took no part in group activities. In a communist country this kind of individualism was considered a dangerous sign. But he did well at his lessons and he wasn’t badly behaved. Later I decided that it was better for him to go to a country school and let him find his level without being watched too much.’
‘What did he study? What were his strengths?’
‘Math and languages. But when he was a small boy he was fascinated with stories and history. He liked the Middle Ages – anything to do with knights and wars and the crusades.’
‘You mean they dared to teach the proto-imperialist campaigns of the crusaders in a communist school?’
‘He read about it,’ she said impatiently. ‘At thirteen he started showing incredible abilities, particularly in mathematics. He won all the school prizes and then a place at university. They said he possessed great intelligence – one of the best minds of his generation. The problem was that he could do everything so well. He left university early and went into music. He made friends for the first time and because he’d had so little practice he chose the wrong people. That is when the drug problem started. There was a girl – his first girlfriend. She introduced him to drugs. He was picked up by the police in a flat in Prague. Oleg got him released and paid for the rehabilitation.’
‘Why did you tell him about me?’
‘It was simple: he knew he wasn’t Oleg’s son. If what you say about Bosnia is true, then he had good reason to question that.’
‘But he was in Bosnia a long time before you told him – what was he doing in that time?’
‘He came back to Prague and became involved with computers. He understood what the Internet meant ahead of most people in Eastern Europe. He did programming and set up some sites concerned with music.’ She paused. ‘And he did some work for Oleg. I don’t know exactly what kind of work – it was technical.’
‘He was seeing Kochalyin regularly all that time?’
‘Yes, before he went away.’
‘And you don’t know what he was doing for him?’
‘No.’
‘What was he like during this period? Your mother said that he was changed when he came back in 1995. How?’
She looked up at the cliffs to their right. ‘He was hardened – more withdrawn than usual and he lost his temper. He never did that before. I found out he was seeing a therapist in Prague, but he didn’t tell me this. I discovered a medical bill in his pocket. It was this doctor who suggested that he should ask me about his father.’
The sea was a good deal rougher on the British side of the Channel. There was an announcement that the ferry would have to lie off Dover until conditions improved. They passed an unpleasant few hours riding the waves with the boat’s prow pointed into a north-westerly of renewed vigour. It wasn’t until late into the afternoon that they finally disembarked and were picked up by Macy’s driver.
Harland knew where he was immediately they passed the Imperial War Museum in south London. He looked out of the darkened windows of the Mercedes. The café was still there, the barber’s shop and newsagent were unchanged along Kennington Road. The driver, a rather sullen ex-military type, said nothing. They had turned right into Westminster Bridge Road and passed Lambeth North tube station before Harland managed to stammer a question about their eventual destination.
‘We’re stopping just now, sir,’ said the driver.
‘But this is Century House, the old headquarters of …’ His voice trailed off.
‘Mr Harp told me to bring you here, sir.’
Century House, even when it was built in the early sixties, was an unremarkable complex consisting of a block of twenty storeys, a wing which rose just four storeys and a block which joined the two together. That had gone, together with the petrol station, once manned by SIS employees, in the forecourt between the two buildings. But the main part of the building was still there, tarted up with chrome, wire and glass and a light-coloured brick cladding on the first few storeys. A sign invited interest in a unique conversion with apartments of one, two and three bedrooms with panoramic views.
They were dropped at a new entrance, away from the old security door which Harland had passed through for the first time in 1973. Eva hadn’t any idea where they were and didn’t ask. All she wanted was to get to the hospital.
‘Before you go,’ he said, ‘we need to fix somewhere for you to stay tonight.’
They took the lift to the twentieth-floor penthouse and were greeted by The Bird, who had changed from his country tweeds to the camouflage of an executive.
‘Always knew we’d rise to the top of this building somehow, but didn’t think I’d have to buy it.’
‘You bought the building?’
‘No, just a couple of floors. I saw them up for sale last year and couldn’t resist it. We do most of our business from here now. Frightfully central.’
He introduced himself to Eva who seemed unimpressed. Harland lifted his shoulders in apology to The Bird as they walked into what once had been the Director of SIS’s office. He couldn’t help but smile at the arrangement at the end of the room – a small partner desk with an old anglepoise lamp, flanked by a shabby sofa and an armchair. It was as if Ally Simmonds, the director of SIS when The Bird and Harland joined, had just got up and left the room.
‘That’s our Simmonds shrine. It’s Macy’s idea of a joke, though, of course, none of our foreign clients get it and it really has become too laborious to explain. I think he should have dressed it better with an old copy of Horse & Hound, a pair of ornithologist’s binoculars – brackets unused close brackets – a white shirt, ready for formal evenings, a raincoat and a copy of the Moscow telephone book.’
Harland ignored Eva’s rather contemptuous expression and peered through the door where there were five people working at computers.
‘That’s our staff,’ said The Bird proudly. ‘They’re the core of the trading operation. God knows where we’d be without them. Recognise any of them? They all did a spell in the old firm.’<
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Harland shook his head. For a few moments he saw something else. Century House twenty years before, a secretary walking down a corridor with a cup of coffee passing a board on which were pinned notices concerning fire drill, the procedures to be followed at the end of the day, particularly in regard to the return of files to the safe, flat-sharing opportunities and the odd newspaper cutting – selected for some elusive irony. And off this corridor, which was much the same on any floor in Century House, were offices that owed their allegiance to one of the five controllerates – Western Hemisphere, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, Far East and Africa.
It was all remarkably normal, like the premises of a shipping company, perhaps, or an insurance office. To the initiated there were subtle variations of dress, character type and idiosyncrasy between the controllerates, but an outsider – of which, of course, there were none – walking through Century House would not have detected these differences. All he would have noticed would have been a series of nondescript rooms in which people worked over one or two files with remarkably little else on their desks. True, there were pot plants, mascots, pictures of loved ones, telephones and typewriters, but accumulations of paper were a rare sight. And, of course, there were no computers, it having been established by a team from GCHQ that the early models leaked enough radiation for someone to read a file from across the street.
Harland saw everything in the old secret capsule – the dirty magnolia wall paint, the tiled carpeting, the metal windows that didn’t close properly and were plugged with tissue paper to stop the draughts, the secret servants – the inscrutable, the flirtatious, the drab, the reliable, the nervous and the new young Turks, straining for an effortlessness that fooled nobody.
The Bird touched him on the shoulder.
‘Perhaps you should explain to your friend where you are.’
‘Later. It’s not important. We need to get over to the hospital. Got any ideas about accommodation tonight?’
‘Well, there are bedrooms here. Should be as safe as anywhere else. I can give you keys. There’s a chap who looks after these two floors – he’s on site the whole time – and you have a driver who is handy in any situation. It’s up to you.’
Harland looked at Eva. She shrugged a yes.
The Bird showed them to some rooms at the far end of the apartment. Eva stayed behind to wash and change, saying she wanted to look her best. Harland knew she was composing herself. Earlier, as they pitched and rolled off Dover, he had gently described the room that Tomas was in and the overwhelming amount of medical equipment and care needed to keep him alive. He also told her about the spasms and the sudden fits of meaningless sobbing and laughing. He did this because, since seeing her for the first time in Karlsbad, he’d noticed she possessed a curious ability to cut out and not take on the implications of a problem. That was presumably how she dealt with Kochalyin. But he wanted her to understand how bad Tomas was so that she could conceal her shock when she saw him. He tried to explain this but she accused him of taking a sadistic pleasure in telling her. The truce of the Channel was very short-lived.
While waiting for her, he borrowed a phone from The Bird and set about making some calls.
He found Harriet in the hospital with Tomas, which was convenient because it meant she could tell him that Eva was about to arrive. He asked how Tomas was.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘You’ll be impressed, but somehow I don’t think he’s going to stick around for long. I just have a feeling.’
Then he dialled Special Agent Frank Ollins. He would have liked more time to talk with him but he was in a hurry.
Ollins took longer than usual to answer.
‘I wondered how things were going,’ said Harland, without saying who he was. ‘It’s a few days since we spoke.’
Ollins cleared his throat.
‘I’ve been hearing some bad things about you,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t know if they’re true or not, but either way these allegations make it very hard for me to cooperate with you.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘That you are under investigation for spying for the Iron Curtain countries during the eighties and that the case against you is watertight.’
‘Where did you get this from?’
‘It came down the line – the British have warned the US authorities about you. There’s a lot of disquiet over the way you hid that material from the plane. People aren’t happy about either your relationship with Griswald or the fact that these pictures were encrypted with the same code that has been causing our folks a big pain in the arse over in Europe.’
‘And what do you think, Frank? You met me. Do you think I was a communist spy?’
‘It’s not relevant what I think. All I have to go on is the fact that you lied about what you found on Mr Griswald’s body and that everyone tells me to stay clear of you.’
‘The UN too?’
‘I haven’t spoken to them.’
‘But you can at least tell me about the crash investigation.’
‘I can tell you nothing.’
‘Are you still investigating the possibility of electronic sabotage?’
‘That was always your assumption. I did not state that as a fact.’
‘You near as dammit did,’ protested Harland.
‘If you want to know anything about the crash, please address your questions to Mr Clark at the Safety Board or their spokesperson.’
‘Does that mean that you are no longer investigating for sabotage?’
‘It means this conversation is over. I’m going on vacation tomorrow and I need to get my stuff ready. It’s been nice speaking to you.’ He hung up without letting Harland say any more.
It was obvious that Vigo had been spreading his poison. But why? He himself had said that his interest had moved on from the pictures. Yes, that could be true in one sense. The pictures didn’t matter much because they had presumably been broadcast in the same way as the other secrets. Now the much greater danger to Vigo’s interest was the possibility that Kochalyin would be fingered as the leading suspect in the sabotage of the UN plane. That being so, he had pointed out the danger to the Americans and had besmirched Harland to make sure that no one would take him seriously. Harland wondered if he had pulled off the same deft footwork at the UN.
Before ringing Jaidi’s office he put in a call to Professor Norman Reeve, the head of the War and Peace Studies Forum in Washington.
Reeve answered with an impatient ‘Yes?’
‘Sir, this is Robert Harland from the UN. I want you to listen to two pieces of information. First, I have the date you requested. It is the fifteenth of July 1995. If you have any satellite or U2 material from that date I would be most grateful. The photograph I have was taken at quarter past two in the afternoon, but anything immediately before that could be useful.’
‘And the second thing?’ said Reeve rudely.
‘This is harder to explain because I’m not certain exactly what’s going on. But I believe that there is some kind of international effort to have the plane crash written down as an accident. I suspect an alliance of intelligence agencies is responsible for this – the same people who have used the services of a war criminal known as Viktor Lipnik. In fact he is a Russian named Oleg Kochalyin.’
‘I see,’ said Reeve. ‘Let me ask you how certain you are of what you’ve told me.’
‘I can only say that I will be making exactly these points in a report to the UN Secretary-General. This is a complex matter, Professor, and there’s a considerable effort to obstruct my inquiries, but at the core there is a war criminal and war crimes and I know that this will concern you.’
‘Mr Harland,’ he said wearily, ‘I have asked you not to lecture me before, so please do not try and influence my decision with these trite points.’
‘I’ll do anything I can to influence your decision, sir. I asked the Secretary-General’s office to contact you and persuade you to help me. Did they get in touch?’
‘Yes, but what they had to say was of no interest to me.’
‘Well, what can I do then?’
‘Nothing – tell me about the photograph you have in your possession.’
Harland explained that there were internal clues about the location in the photograph. Using aerial surveillance pictures as well, it might be possible to pinpoint the site and mount some kind of investigation. Despite the original indictment, there could be no prosecution of Kochalyin without evidence that the murders had taken place. Harland added that some of the witness statements Griswald had been working on at the time of his death concerned a village called Kukuva, where some sixty male Muslims had gone missing at the time. The picture might be of their grave.
‘It seems to me,’ said Reeve after a short period of rumination, ‘that you have an awful big tree to climb, Mr Harland.’
‘Yes, but I have a witness – someone who can testify that Lipnik and Kochalyin are the same person and saw the massacre.’
‘Then why can’t he tell you where the site is?’
‘We’re working on that.’
Reeve said he would see what he could do in the next twenty-four hours. He gave Harland his e-mail address and hung up.
Eva appeared as he was about to dial the UN. He decided to leave it until later. There was still plenty of time left in the American working day.
Tomas was getting better at separating his mental activity into two streams – the hot lava thought, which he needed to propel the light point on the screen, and the articulation of what he wanted to say. Today most of the time had been spent working the machine for the technician so that he could make the adjustments that would allow Tomas to hook up to the Internet, open, write and send an e-mail file, and shut down the computer by himself. The procedure was quite complicated but the programmer was quick to interpret Tomas’s thoughts and had some good ideas himself. The only problem was that he couldn’t live with the electrodes permanently attached to his head. He still had to rely on someone to put them in position and turn on the machine.
Harriet had been in the room for most of the time. She suggested that an eye-gaze machine – a video camera which tracked the movements of a pupil – could be used in conjunction with what was called the brain-computer interface. That way he could look at a particular spot and activate the computer.
