Fatal Ally

by Tim Sebastian

  But these days things were different. The old staff would simply have been re-assigned or died of natural causes. Russians had the lowest life expectancy of any major industrialized state. You went to hospital with one disease, you died a few days later of something else. Drugs, deemed essential by international health experts, simply didn’t exist in the ordinary hospitals – only for the elite.

  He breathed deeply and tried to stop his mind wandering through the catalogue of Russia’s ills.

  He was leaving and he wasn’t coming back – and it didn’t matter a fuck what happened to the country. All he needed was to be pleasant to the bureaucrat he would meet, convince him that the invitation to New York was genuine and get out as fast as possible.

  If he could hide the hatred in his heart and stop his face betraying him, all would be well.

  They showed him in after a forty-five-minute wait. Plenty of apologies – but they had made the point just as he knew they would. When you’re out, you’re nobody.

  New Moscow man received him. A forehead, flat and sharp, like an escarpment, cut off a few centimetres above the eyes.

  Arkady noted the poor grammar, the brisk, exaggerated movements. There were more cultured members of the Service – those who could, when they chose, exude charm and sophistication. Plenty who had studied in the West and knew how to hold a knife and fork. But not this one.

  ‘You have the official invitation?’

  Arkady removed it from his inside pocket. He had, of course, sent a copy the day before.

  ‘How long do you wish to stay in New York?’

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘Why three?’ The eyes focussed on him, but without interest. Arkady could hear a clock ticking in an anteroom.

  ‘A day to rest after the journey, then the day of the reception and then my respects to our ambassador, an old colleague of mine and of course the secretary general.’

  ‘You have checked with the Foreign Ministry on what you will be required to say?’ The eyes looked down at the paper Arkady had brought with him.

  ‘I assumed I would wait for official approval before …’

  ‘Quite …’ The paper was hurriedly put into a file. The man got up from the chair, smoothed his jacket, sniffed loudly. ‘That is all,’ he said. ‘You will be notified.’

  But it wasn’t all. As they reached the reception area, the man stopped and turned to face him.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  The words seemed like a sudden blow to the head. He stared hard at the figure, the bloodshot grey eyes, the smallish nose that stuck out at a strange angle, as if it had once belonged to someone else.

  ‘I don’t seem …’

  ‘We met some years ago under unpleasant circumstances.’

  ‘Excuse me but you need to refresh my memory …?’

  But the man had already turned and begun walking away, footsteps echoing along the stone hallway.

  ‘Wait a minute …’ Arkady started to follow, but out of nowhere, the receptionist barred his way.

  ‘Your business is done,’ he said.

  ‘But I have a question. The man said something …’

  ‘Come with me.’ The receptionist pointed to the main door. ‘There are no more questions.’

  A few moments later, Arkady found himself back on the Garden Ring. Snow had begun falling again – a thick grey curtain, suspended above the city, the temperature dropping fast.

  The security man had unnerved him – just as he had doubtless intended. But the knowledge didn’t make any difference. Arkady could feel his pulse had quickened, the sweat now cold against his forehead.

  What had the man meant? Unpleasant circumstances. Over the years there had been so many of them. Who in God’s name was he? They all looked the same with their short haircuts and blue suits. How could he be expected to remember?

  Arkady tripped and nearly lost his footing. But he carried on. The metro station was nearby. Inside it would be warm and he could calm down and collect his thoughts.

  He passed huge snow clearers, lined up at the roadside, ready to be ordered into action. In Communist times they had been known as ‘Kapitalisty’ – because of their large, grabbing arms.

  It struck him that these were probably some of his last glimpses of the Russian capital – and yet the security man’s words upset him.

  Such things never happened by chance. Perhaps the idea was to make him careless, so that if he had a guilty secret he’d give himself away.

  Arkady didn’t know – but he’d know soon enough.

  He reached the metro where the warmth and the crowds seemed to settle his fears. If things went well, he would be in New York in a week’s time. For the first time, yes, the very first time, he had a real chance.

  As for the security man, he was just playing with him. Couldn’t resist shaking his tree.

  He didn’t know a thing.

  WASHINGTON DC

  ‘I’ve given some thought to the “gift” that you mentioned at our last meeting.’ Harry Jones stared expressionless across the table. ‘I have such a gift.’

  Yanayev sat back in his chair and said nothing. It was clear to him that Harry was about to step way beyond his normal boundaries. And yet, maybe he no longer had any. If Harry Jones even possessed a conscience, chances were he hadn’t seen it in years and most likely had forgotten where he’d left it.

  You didn’t hold down the job of national security adviser by waving around ideals and fine words, or by doing the right thing. You did what you had to do – and left it at that.

  In any case, consciences were for later life, when the really bad memories refused to stay in their box and began drifting back home.

  ‘I have a name and an intention.’ Harry looked up and sniffed loudly. ‘The name I’ll keep for now.’

  Yanayev got up and walked to the window. The sky was bleak and cold. Powdery, new snow lay across sloping country. In the distance he could see the lights of a train heading south. He couldn’t resist a shiver of excitement.

  It seemed like a year since he had met Harry in the Georgetown restaurant. Today they were in a safehouse in the middle of Maryland with no waiters and no food.

  Nothing would be written down, no memos or recordings taken, because no one had ever been here.

  But this was The Game at its best. Information to be traded that would change lives and relations. States and individuals. Yanayev at the centre of it all.

  He turned back to Harry. ‘Just tell me what you have and I’ll get it through to Moscow. They want to help.’

  ‘Sure they do.’ Harry made a face and folded his arms. ‘This is how it goes, Vitaly. In a few days’ time a Russian will leave Moscow on a flight to the West. He doesn’t intend to return. He was once a highly placed State official and will be carrying in his head a large quantity of classified information – most of which is known to us, some of which may not be …’

  ‘I see. The man is a former officer in the KGB?’

  ‘He’s a former official. That’s all I can tell you for now. He’s also a former agent of a Western power.’

  Yanayev swallowed. ‘Which one?’

  Harry raised both arms. ‘Wait a minute, Vitaly. This is a deal that works both ways, OK? I start giving you names and details, without anything from your side, and you can just walk out of here – what do I have?’

  ‘My word.’

  The American smiled for the first time. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, my friend, but I think my government will require somewhat more than that.’

  They went into the kitchen and Harry made coffee. Biscuits emerged from a cupboard. Milk and sugar on a tray. Someone had thought ahead.

  So had Harry. He led Yanayev back to the living room, white, overheated, neutral like a hospital waiting room, and passed him a sheet of paper. It was unheaded and unsigned.

  ‘I take it this is the name of your “package”?’

  ‘Name and last known location.’

 
Yanayev scanned the note and blew out his cheeks. ‘God, Harry – she’s in IS territory. It doesn’t get much worse than that … Right now this town flies a black flag. It’s Sharia law, forced conversions, random executions. No one gets out of there …’

  ‘Why do you think I came to you?’

  Yanayev put down the coffee. He stared hard at the American. ‘What’s so important about this woman?’

  ‘She knows a lot about us. Just like your own guy.’

  ‘Is this personal?’

  ‘Aren’t they all?’

  ‘Worth betraying one of your own best assets to get her back?’ He saw Harry shiver but it was from anger not cold.

  ‘I don’t always have the luxury of principled decisions, Vitaly. Maybe you do …’

  Yanayev shook his head and felt his pulse quicken. So many angles to this one. So many levers that could be used. But the risks were huge.

  He looked down at the American, but was taken aback instantly by the sadness in his demeanour. Jones’s head lolled forward, lifeless, arms straight, almost touching the floor. In that moment Yanayev had the impression of a man, sitting alone at a roulette table, gambling everything he possessed on a single number.

  Harry turned and caught his glance. ‘Just do it, Vitaly. I don’t have a choice.’

  In the early hours of the morning, Lydia slipped out of bed, tiptoed down to the study and found the report that her husband had sent to Moscow.

  When it mattered, really mattered, he always kept copies for himself in his briefcase, to mull them over, check that he had said the right thing. And she would photograph them whenever she could.

  She respected him both as a diplomat and a human being. Instead of dropping everything in Moscow’s lap, he filtered his information with the emphasis on practical application. What did it all mean and what could they do with it?

  She hoped he would go far and was determined to help him do so.

  His report recommended helping the Americans. It was a good trade – Moscow would stop a traitor defecting and the US would get back its ‘coordinator’ from Syria.

  Vitaly had also suggested activating an operative, called simply ‘Ahmed’.

  Ahmed, he wrote, had trained for such operations and could navigate better than anyone between the groups of murderous extremists that now controlled Syria. He was the last, best chance of finding the American agent.

  Outside the study window the sky had begun to lighten. In the Middle East the day would already be half over. Lydia couldn’t help wondering what kind of woman Washington had sent in to Syria and whether she would stay alive until nightfall.

  LONDON

  She hadn’t heard Jimmy come in – but she found him in the morning with a cushion on the living room floor, still wearing his coat and scarf.

  She sat staring at him for some minutes before she spoke.

  ‘Have I become so repulsive that you can’t bear to sleep in the same bed?’

  His eyes opened slowly, but she knew he had heard her.

  ‘Repulsive? No.’ There was the beginning of a smile but it died almost instantly. ‘But I need to know who I’m sleeping with, who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with …’

  ‘Where did you go last night?’

  ‘That’s just great, isn’t it? You with all the secrets and you suddenly want to know where I went. Why don’t you have me followed, put a collar and lead on me … isn’t that what you people do?’

  In that moment, she could feel the snap, as if a muscle had torn or a cable had broken. One of those moments that you go on playing back inside your head, years after they’ve passed. Because it invariably means that a chapter has closed, even if you didn’t know it at the time and hadn’t intended it to happen.

  She stood up. ‘Enough, Jimmy. You want to go on day after day, making a fuss about this, then you do it by yourself. I’ve explained the situation. That’s it. Wherever you went last night, go back there. This nonsense is over.’

  She couldn’t read his expression, didn’t know if he’d expected it or wanted it. Didn’t know why the revelation that she worked for the Service had drained him of his reason. But whatever cloud hung over him, she knew it was not about to lift.

  Jimmy got up and went into the bedroom. She could hear him opening drawers and cupboards before slamming the bathroom door.

  She had met him soon after Mikhail had died. A time when she had consciously folded her emotions and put them away in a strong drawer. Investing mental energy in other people seemed altogether too uncertain. You did your work, you came home, slept and did it again. If you were good, you made it to the end of the month. Everyone else had to look after themselves.

  So she didn’t plan a future with Jimmy. Or any other kind. And yet, all of its own accord, the ‘thing’, whatever it was, had started with a conversation at a bus stop and graduated to coffee in the market on a Saturday afternoon.

  She had thought him funny and uninhibited. A teacher, badly in need of a haircut, but rampant with ideas and surprises, and hopes for what he wanted for the kids he taught.

  He had sneaked her one afternoon into the back of his history class, where he had brought the Roman Empire to life in conversations between generals and senators, emperors and beggars, traitors and executioners. He had acted parts, sung songs, even played at a sword fight. And she had watched the rapture on the faces of the children, as if they were hearing today’s news from a reporter on the scene.

  ‘You inspired them,’ Margo told him afterwards.

  ‘Wrong,’ he told her. ‘That dreamy expression you saw was because I promised them chocolate on Thursday. It’s my birthday. They know there’s something in it for them.’

  She had laughed and run a hand involuntarily through his scruffy hair.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘if you can put on a shirt that isn’t creased, you can take me to dinner on your birthday.’

  So gradually the laughter lines came back.

  Showing affection became OK too. Even, as it turned out, love. As long as it came in an email or a note and was written ‘luv’ or ‘lurve’. No need, she told herself, to go over the top with declarations.

  And when, six months later Jimmy’s ‘proposal’ had come from behind a glass of red wine in a pub near Hampstead Heath, Margo had been curiously unable to say ‘no’.

  Instead she had offered him a ‘maybe’, like a voucher waiting to be cashed-in at a later date. And he had assumed it meant yes and got on with planning their life.

  Why didn’t I just tell him?

  It was, she reflected, a history of things half-said, plans half-made, a barge that had drifted downstream, with each of its two passengers believing they were headed somewhere else.

  No wonder they had sunk.

  Margo went into the hall, put on her coat and stepped out into the city. She was certain Jimmy would be gone by the time she returned.

  MOSCOW

  As he pushed open the door, Arkady could see the envelope on the floor. No name or address. No markings of any kind.

  And he knew they had been there.

  He bent down and picked up the envelope. Vasya was barking in the kitchen – but Arkady paid no attention. Didn’t even notice the cockroaches, scattering as he turned on the lights; he tore open the envelope.

  ‘Mazurin, Arkady, Semyonovich’ – always the formality first – ‘we inform you’ etc etc – he could hardly bear to read to the end … but there it was, hand-typed, the way they always did, on an ancient office machine … ‘Permission has been granted …’

  He slumped down in a chair, still in his coat and shapka. The heat in the little flat was unbearable, but he didn’t notice. He put his head in his hands and the tears began cascading down his cheeks; he hadn’t cried for years; didn’t know whether he was happy or sad, nervous or relieved. Silent tears, always silent, because you never knew if they were listening and what they would conclude if they heard them.

  So there were two days left, he told himself. Ju
st two days before he could leave, with a small bag and a thousand ghastly memories packed tightly inside it: all the shabby little kitchens that he’d sat in, the vodka-soaked evenings, the random easy violence and the false cameraderie. Russia was and always had been about betrayal. The reasons didn’t matter. It was a sickness locked deep inside each of them – immune to treatment.

  He thought about the security man who had interviewed him. Polite and formal. The two of them had appeared to sit there in their fine, smart suits chatting normally – but in reality they had circled each other like snarling dogs.

  Maybe it was always that way. To encounter a stranger in Russia is a cold and unfriendly process. There is very little neutral ground to meet on and no desire or time for pleasantries. The stakes are too high and the potential danger too great.

  Kto kovo? – Who will screw whom? You have only seconds to answer that question.

  Arkady pulled himself to his feet and looked out at the winter city. Scores of tiny, dark figures were stumbling their way home through the snow – but there was little comfort waiting for them. Centuries of brutality and repression had built a country where you sold out your friends and family and acquaintances before they turned around – out of choice or necessity – and did it to you.

  Your fate was in constant flux.

  And then Vasya barked again from the kitchen and he realized what he was missing. Vasya was never shut in; he could always roam the flat as he wished; but not tonight.

  As Arkady entered the room, the animal was cowering in a corner. Normally he’d have shuffled towards him, with a slipper in his mouth. But he didn’t get up, wouldn’t look at Arkady; his tail wagged briefly; he licked his lips nervously and all the time his eyes were fixed on the ground. Someone had frightened him. That much was clear. Arkady could see it in his expression. He went over to the dog, knelt down and stroked his head.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he whispered. ‘It’s over.’

  But he knew it wasn’t.

  They could have left the letter in the mailbox downstairs – only that would have been too easy, too conventional.