Codename Wolf

by Gil Hogg

  “Nothing, sir. His file will eventually wend its way through our office when they’ve had a post mortem and signed it off. Would you like to see it?”

  “I would, Yarham. Have you ever heard of the Disciples?”

  He didn’t hesitate for a second or misunderstand what I was talking about. He broke into one of his sunrise grins. “Certainly, sir.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s a conspiracy theory: that the Anglo-American secret services are masterminded by a group of top Oxbridge-Ivy League dons.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Like all conspiracy theories there’s no proof one way or the other – only jokes around the coffee machine at morning break when there’s a fuck-up.”

  As a result of the news about Nick, I declared a moratorium on work for that morning and slipped out for a drink at Giovanni’s, and a quiet hour at the Museum of Modern Art.

  Two weeks later, in a booth in O’Connell’s Pub on West 52nd Street, Yarham produced, with a flourish, a printout from Nick Stavros’s bulky personal file.

  “Where do you get this stuff from, Yarham?”

  “It’s magic,” he laughed.

  I raised my Guinness in a tribute to his ingenuity, and began to flick through the documents. I expected the department had the same sort of dossier on me, a detailed biography and numerous reports, larded with barbed and niggling comments. But Nick was obviously well regarded, and marked for a distinguished career. One of the last documents on the file was an internal medical report by a psychiatrist saying that Nick was disturbed and needed a rest before returning to active duty. The file closed with a death certificate. “Do you see this, Yarham? It says he died of a heroin overdose.”

  “In diplomatic speak that translates as a heart attack.”

  “I don’t believe he was a user. I didn’t know him that well, but I had the impression of a deep down careful and controlled agent.”

  I decided to reinstate the Washington visit and see Sally Greengloss, Nick’s girlfriend whom I’d met on a previous occasion in Washington. The suddenness of Nick’s departure and the strangeness of his end, bugged me, and I had the time to be curious. I called Sally, a publisher’s editor, whose number Yarham had located, offered condolences and suggested lunch when I was in town. We met on the terrace of the Colony Café overlooking the Potomac in Georgetown. It was a sunny day, and the soft-shell crab with spinach was delicious. I had a charming companion and I liked the role of solicitous friend.

  When we began to talk of Nick, Sally sounded resigned. “It’s hard to accept, but always on the cards for all of us I suppose.”

  She was far less perturbed than I expected. “He wasn’t in any trouble was he?”

  “What do you mean, Roger?”

  I decided to share my wild imagination. “He wasn’t murdered, was he?”

  “What a rash and… crazy… thing to ask. I don’t know anything about his work. He’s just died of a heart attack. At one moment Nick was enjoying life, happy and healthy as an athlete, and the next he was dead. Sometimes this happens, young people just keel over.”

  “But Nick’s death certificate recorded the cause of death as an overdose of heroin.”

  She gave a little cry which drew a few curious glances from nearby diners, and said that was impossible. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “A friend of his told me. Another drinking buddy.” I could hardly admit that I had ratted through Nick’s personal file.

  “I thought Nick didn’t have any friends over here. Who was it?”

  It was a hard, abrupt question and I instantly invented a name. “A guy called Freddie Coombs.”

  She stared at me; her engaging eyes had turned to beads. I couldn’t work out why she was interrogating me so coldly. Perhaps she thought I was putting Nick down. Then she relaxed and mellowed.

  “Nick was a fun guy who could push sensations to the limit.”

  “Have you seen him using?”

  “Maybe a line of coke occasionally. Nick didn’t come home from work one night. I was worried sick, but I knew he was in intelligence work which made unusual demands. The next day, about noon, I had a call from the Embassy saying Nick was in the mortuary, dead of a heart attack in the street.”

  “In the street?”

  “Perhaps they got it wrong, or were trying to be kind,” she reflected. “Did Nick ever say anything to you when he was in New York, about anything troubling him?”

  I answered as a trained seal leaps. “No nothing healthwise. And he was very close about his work. I don’t even know what his job was. We were drinking buddies in London during recruitment, but not much more.”

  She kept looking at me, and eventually seemed satisfied. I thought she seemed unsurprised about the drugs. I wasn’t going to tell her what Nick had said about the Disciples, because it was a work observation that would be meaningless to her.

  Later, I asked mutual acquaintances in Washington and New York a few guarded questions about Nick’s death when I returned. As far as I could ascertain they were stunned or saddened, depending on how close to Nick they were, but nobody was perturbed about the bona fides of the event. However, Nick’s idea about the Disciples, real or imagined, and his sense of concern about them, was the kind of thought that stays in the mind.

  6

  I had determined by now to seek a transfer to another department, or leave the service. And the prospect of Nick Stavros’s job appealed to me, although I knew little about it specifically, save that it had to be more responsible than mine. The implicit message that Nick was carrying an onerous burden had come across by osmosis at the Algonquin. And it was inconceivable to me that any work could be less interesting than mine. I gathered also, from morning coffee chatter at the office (pay and promotion were subjects which were not verboten) that one or two of my more senior fellows at USL were also interested, which suggested that it was prestigious; the post would clearly be an enhancement of my present paltry role.

  Although I found New York a delightful place to idle away my time, society within USL seemed to be non-existent. It was not that I hankered after the exciting company of my colleagues, but I reckoned that I could not advance myself with due speed unless I was able to meet and impress them outside the office. Nothing could be expected of Hornby, but otherwise my attempts to penetrate the work heirarchy socially ended with me paying for expensive lunches without any return invitations, let alone the opportunity to dine in the home of one of my seniors. Washington, on the contrary, where Nick had been based, a city of politicians, embassies and lobbyists, and presumably spies, was I fancied a place given to the art of entertaining.

  I calculated that Hornby would view my proposed move with a certain ambivalence. He would be delighted to dispose of someone he detested, but competent operatives like me were all too few.

  When I told Yarham that I might apply for Nick’s post, to my surprise, he frowned and shook his head in disagreement. Later, as we eased ourselves into the shadows of one of O’Connell’s booths, he dilated.

  “That’s a sure way not to get the appointment, Captain. Why don’t you have a chat with Hornby and tell him that you’ve heard the vacancy will be coming up but it would be inconvenient for you to move to Washington?”

  “That will get it?”

  “You’ll stand a better chance. Applications aren’t a lot of use. The bosses do what they want, which is most often what you don’t want.”

  “I should tell Hornby that I like New York so much, I wouldn’t like to be disturbed?”

  Yarham caressed his chin. “It would certainly increase his pleasure in releasing you, Captain. There’s a certain perversity about appointments in the service, in which Hornby, like other managers, will conspire. You’re likely to be posted to the place you don’t want to go. If this had to be justified, it’s a test of toughness and we’re always being tested.”

  I was dwelling on this peculiarity when Yarham brushed the subject aside, saying, “I have a mo
re interesting approach for you to consider, Captain. The result of my latest trawl through the OPB files.”

  I knew that Yarham did a regular and surreptitious survey of Other People’s Business, in which he, as it were, looked through everybody’s in and out trays. So much of the department’s work was done electronically, that he was able to accomplish this with relative ease from his computer station. Yarham was an expert hacker. As an intelligence officer, he considered every intranet a target, and like a dedicated crossword-puzzler, sudoku fiend and computer geek, could not rest easy until he had conquered it. The OPB trawl was a practice that we both found very useful. When I questioned Yarham about the propriety and the risk involved he was very relaxed.

  “Don’t worry, sir, everybody does it to the extent of their know-how. We’re all spies, and we spy on each other!”

  Now, in the malodorous confidentiality of O’Connell’s pub’s booth, Yarham revealed a matter which would have life-changing effects for both of us. His eyes shone happily. “There’s a top secret assignment coming up that looks important,” he said. “It’s a Washington posting. An email from Human Resources has gone round. Nominated candidates to go to London for selection. And there’s around half a dozen of them – an indicator of importance.”

  “Me, nominated, Yarham?” I said, suddenly excited.

  “No sir, not you. There’s only one from the New York office – Leyton. He’s more senior.”

  “So I’m out?”

  Yarham raised his eyebrows and dropped his jaw open. His eyes were wide. “Not if the memo had been addressed to you.”

  “You mean?… Oh, come on, man, if you put me in the circulation by some jiggery-pokery, the mistake’s going to be discovered in London and I’ll be kicked out!”

  “Perhaps not, sir. It’s no shame to receive a misdirected email. London will have a guest list of a half dozen or so on the day. Nobody is going to be checking the candidates against the computer. Corporate fog will be fairly thick. And one very important point: Human Resources is a department which doesn’t make mistakes, so your presence on the list, and at the selection, can’t be a mistake.”

  I admired the sheer balls of the idea, and had nothing to lose. “If I’m there, I’m virtually certain of consideration at least, aren’t I?”

  “Quite so,” Yarham said, nodding with wise amusement.

  We finished another pint of Guinness, each considering the prospect and I agreed that Yarham should proceed to cast his spell over the computer.

  I received no direct communication about the Washington post, but Hornby called me into his office several days later, and fixed me with a malevolent stare. “I see you’ve been summoned to London, Mr Conway.” He had decided to drop the courtesy title of Captain. He pulled various contortions of his pallid face which indicated that this was a situation he didn’t like, didn’t understand, and indicative of a blunder. “How do you account for it?”

  “I presume my merit has been recognised and my good record can’t be overlooked.”

  “If over-confidence is what they’re looking for, you could be appointed head of MI6, Mr Conway. Well, I daresay Mr Yarham can manage your desk until you get back.”

  “What if I don’t come back?”

  “It would be bad luck to conjure with that pleasant possibility, Mr Conway.”

  Hornby had a jaundiced view of me which I had to endure, having assisted in its creation. I certainly didn’t mention how joyful the prospect of not returning to USL would be to me. Instead, I prepared for London with gusto.

  When I arrived at Heathrow, I called the MI6 contact number to be told that there was a reception for the invitees that evening at the Mill in Wimpole Street. I paused at my department-selected hotel, the Holiday Inn in Welbeck Street, to shower and change into a suit and clean shirt. It was after eight o’clock when I pressed the bell on the front door at Wimpole Street. I was admitted by a secretary wearing an apron, and doubling as a waitress. Caterers with their own staff could never be let loose on an occasion like this.

  Instead of being held in the threadbare common room on the ground floor, the function was upstairs. Here it was almost as shabby, but of pretentious proportions, with high ceilings, dusty architraves and drab velvet curtains. The party was well advanced, and liquor-fuelled, judging by the volume of the conversation.

  When I entered, I noticed immediately that the occupants of the room were exclusively male apart from the waitress. They all looked older than me and were presumably senior to me – like Leyton, my New York colleague, who was in his mid-forties. Seniority was, I was beginning to learn, a product of the effluxion of time rather than merit. I was going to be in marked contrast to the other contenders, and I hoped that this would not raise questions about my presence.

  I accepted a glass of watery yellow fizz masquerading as Champagne and eyed the crowd, all strangers apart from Leyton, who was standing to one side, alone. I greeted him warmly, but his social skills allowed no change in his glassy expression other than a sclerotic jerk of the head. I gave him a smile, wished him luck, and stepped toward the centre of the room. The uncertainty of such social moments is stimulating. Who will you meet, or will the gathering all hunch their shoulders, turn away and ignore you?

  Out of the huddle of talkers in front of me came a small, thin, bent man, with oiled black hair which drooped down on one side of his forehead. His eyes were crossed and unnaturally bright. He flung himself on me grasping and pumping my hand.

  “Roger Conway. Roger Charles James Elliston Whatever, Whatever, Conway,” he said in a loud voice that attracted attention. “I might have known you’d be here.”

  “Delighted to see you, Marius,” I replied, clasping him around the shoulders like an old friend, surprised that my investment in cognacs at the Leander bar had paid off so well.

  I quietened Marius, who was high, and drew him to the side of the room. I didn’t want to attract too much attention, but clearly Marius regarded himself as my mentor and after we had exchanged a few trivial words on the high life in New York, insisted on making introductions. “Follow me, Roger!” he exclaimed, towing me across the room.

  The first introduction was to Childers Amory, a name I knew by repute, the supposedly brilliant number two in MI6. In the flesh, Amory was about fifty, rotund, bald, swaddled in a dull blue suit. He had a hairy nose with large open pores on it, and hairy ears. He was seated at the end of the room furthest from the door, on a ragged chaise longue which looked as though it had been cleared out of an abandoned country house. The chaise longue was facing the cold fireplace; Amory thus had his back to the gathering, and a more or less private space where he could talk to a chosen few and drink whisky.

  Marius left us, bowing like a courtier after the meeting, which included a quick mention of my background. Marius justified in a few seconds all the careful work I had done on Barmby. “Childers, this is Roger Conway, Rugby, Oriel and the SAS,” he said.

  A whole curriculum vitae and a sterling silver guarantee of quality, in three words! I imagined how Barmby would have fared in similar circumstances, in the unlikely event of getting such an introduction: “Childers, this is Roger Barmby, Grantley Comprehensive.” In short, Roger Nobody. As things were, I was a person of consequence who had the entire attention of the esteemed Childers Amory.

  He looked up at me, I thought with some pleasure, because I did look good; dressed in a tailored suit, handsome, youthfully promising and so immeasurably different from the other stale contenders. Childers Amory patted the couch warmly, inviting me to sit beside him. I engaged with him; I am very good at this. After all, I used to sell second-hand Porsches and I had swallowed How to win Friends and Influence People as though it was holy writ.

  Amory spoke of MI6 in vague terms – the actual phrases he used to glorify the service were immaterial, but he went on for what seemed a very long time, ignoring the rest of the gathering. After a while he placed his hand on my knee, a gesture which was hidden from others in the room
. In this conversation, I was like a master chef with a delicate sauce, stirring in the odd word very occasionally to make a piquant brew. As he talked, Amory moved his hand gently up my thigh as far as practicable and finally turned his pocked nose and watery eyes toward me. He pressed my hard thigh muscle.

  “You’re a very fit man… Why don’t you come round to my flat tonight for a nightcap with one or two of the others, at ten or so, when we’ve finished here, Roger?”

  “I’d like that very much, sir,” I said, and tucked away the card Amory pressed covertly into my palm.

  Marius Jacob approached us shepherding a tall, steel-haired man in a fine blue hounds-tooth suit whom he introduced as Sir Carl Bolding. “Roger was at Oriel, I think at about the time you were giving those rather controversial lectures about democracy, Carl,” he said.

  I panicked. This was the kind of confrontation I had feared.

  Bolding, whom I had only heard of in my researches into the Politics Faculty at Oxford, but knew almost nothing about, looked hard at me. I guessed he had consumed a lot less liquor than Marius or Amory. Then, to my relief, a slight smile broke out. “Yes, I do remember you, I think. A better athlete than a philosopher, weren’t you?”

  We all laughed and I agreed. It was remarkable that Bolding remembered somebody as undistinguished as James Conway and confirmation that I had the family likeness. I was on edge that Bolding would ask me a simple question the answer to which, given my background, I must know, like who was my Politics tutor. I sweated. It was a yawning gap in my otherwise meticulous preparations. But the killer question never came. I parried Bolding’s further enquiries about my undergraduate life, being slightly facetious and modest. I escaped from Bolding as soon as I could.

  Marius trundled me round the room and introduced me to several more academics and departmental ‘names’ whom I guessed were serving on the interview panels the next day. By and large their eyes widened at seeing somebody other than a bespectacled fortyish bank clerk, or a bulky and graying ex-military man and this was enough for me. I was modestly amusing. I had been noticed. In their deliberations it wouldn’t be, “Conway? Now which one was he?”