The Accidental Spy

by Jacqueline George

  Amongst the crowd, seated on the sidelines, were aged parents travelling overseas for medical treatment not available in Tabriz. The Government was aware of the social importance of such trips and allowed substantial amounts of dinars to be converted into hard currency at the official rate to pay for travel, accommodation and treatment. Every black market dinar, worth about thirty cents on the street, yielded a handsome three American dollars and sixty cents - a twelve hundred per cent profit. True, many of the patients staged miraculous recoveries once they got to Germany, leaving enough unspent dollars to buy a used Mercedes to travel back in, but such was the glue that cemented the middle class into a buffer of support for the Great Man.

  The final component of the crowd was a small number of foreigners going home for their rotational breaks. Oil-field workers mostly. Rig hands from the Philippines and Thailand. Staff men from Canada, assorted professionals from Europe, a contingent of Croats from the refinery. All wore a slightly anxious look; too many people had been turned back from their field break flights at the last minute because one piece of paper or another was not in order.

  A movement at the head of the queue meant that the ticket clerk had appeared. Everyone who could take up any slack surged forward. Hands thrust wads of tickets through the grill, demanding attention. Comfortably out of reach, the Greek ticket clerk grimaced and took the first bunch. From then on, things went smoothly. All the tickets that were wait-listed or for other flights he firmly returned. The genuine ones he ticked off the manifest and accepted baggage. Olympic took a flexible attitude to the baggage weight limit; being too firm about charging for excess baggage would mean waiting while extra suitcases were distributed to other passengers, which would amount to the same thing in the end. They were firm about insecurely wrapped baggage or strange shapes, and the ticket clerk would just set the ticket aside until the problem had been solved. The Virgin spent an uncomfortable forty minutes being squeezed up towards the counter before he could check in his nearly empty hold-all.

  Boarding pass in hand, the next queue was for immigration. Tabriz was one of the paranoid countries that let no person leave without an exit visa. Immigration and Security appeared to have been trained by the Russians and were Stalinists to a man. Next to the queue for Immigration was another where the exit visa cancellation stamp which had just been put in his passport was checked, presumably for evaporation. Then through a turnstile to Customs where the first step was to queue for another passport check. Every bag was opened for inspection. The Virgin never had figured out exactly what Customs looked for in these inspections of out-going passengers. It was a very democratic operation; everyone was treated equally, locals and foreigners.

  The final check was by two men in uniform. They checked passports again and then asked if the passenger had any dollars. No foreigner would carry anything out of Tabriz. They all had credit cards, Eurocheques or travellers cheques. And no local was going to be foolish enough to admit to any unofficial, undocumented dollars. The two men must have found their job unsatisfying. The Virgin collected another stamp on the back of his boarding pass and passed on to the waiting lounge. It was already departure time and half of the passengers had not been processed. He settled down to read his novel.

  An hour later, the flight was called and they queued up for the final passport check at the lounge door. By now spirits had begun to bubble, and the expats smiled at each other as the Tabrizis jostled to the front. They were guided to a ramshackle bus without windows and driven a few metres onto the apron where the commuter jet in Olympic colours stood waiting. On the tarmac lay a long line of baggage ready for identification by the passengers and carrying to the loaders. This weak security measure set everyone’s minds at rest. Now they were sure their baggage had been put onto the plane.

  When the doors closed and the engines wound up, The Virgin relaxed in relief. They were on their way; they had escaped at last. The bureaucratic octopus had failed to strangle them this time. Civilisation was only a short flight away. He watched the brown landscape slip way beneath them and quickly give way to the clear blue of the Mediterranean. He had already made a cultural shift. There would be time for a beer and a sandwich before Crete.

  Heraklion had two real sources of income; tourism and Tabriz. If the Tabrizis ever collected their economic wits together, they would have no use for Crete’s large body of business people who had one foot in Europe and the other in the Middle East. As it was, the patience and negotiating skills needed to turn a Tabrizi need into good business were not found in Europe proper. A community of intermediaries had grown up, fattening like leeches on their Tabrizi host. In the airport signs in Arabic abounded. A special gift shop and book-store stocked the glitzy clothes and jewellery so dear to the Arab heart. There were Egyptian news magazines and a wide selection of pornographic magazines displaying Arabic ladies of dramatic proportions.

  The Virgin went to the transfer desk to confirm his onward booking. The professional smile of the girl at the desk warmed his heart as if it had been meant personally. “Mr Cartwright. Yes, you will be boarding at 10:30, gate number 2. Have you remembered to put your watch back? Do you want a smoking seat?”

  A smoking seat would guarantee a maximum of young Tabrizi men drinking as much whisky as they could hold, so he generally preferred to take his chances in the non-smoking area, even if that meant risking the children. But this morning he was feeling benevolent and all was well with the world. “I don’t mind. Just put me next to a pretty girl like you.”

  She dimpled gracefully and looked coyly down. “I will do everything I can. Oh, and the rendezvous point is over there, if you need it.”

  Strange, he thought, as he carried his boarding pass away. Why should she say that? His route to the coffee bar took him past the rendezvous point and he found himself looking without reason for a familiar face. He decided not to take a beer; it was usually a disappointment after such a long wait and anyway, alcohol and planes tended to give him a head-ache. Coffee and a pastry just to waste time, carefully keeping the receipt for expenses. The book shop was a desert as far as books went. Nothing but the nastiest of American horror and romance in poor quality paper-back bindings. He settled for an up-market girlie magazine and wandered towards his gate.

  He found himself in a window seat towards the back of the plane. It did not take him long to get settled; just slide his brief-case under the seat in front and latch his safety belt. The aisle was crowded with people trying to squeeze over-sized hand baggage into the overhead racks and he did not know for some time if the seat beside him would be occupied.

  A tall girl emerged from the crush in the aisle and gave him a polite smile. The Virgin sat up in surprise. The girl at the transfer counter seemed to have done her best for him. His flight companion was more than pretty. Glamorous would be a better description. She looked Mediterranean. Long wavy black hair and olive skin. Her eyes were deep and dark, her mouth wide and sensuous. She had a light blazer around her shoulders over a short and simple black dress. Dropping her jacket on the seat, she tried to get her over-night bag into the rack above. There was nothing The Virgin could do to help. He could only watch her lithe figure as she reached up. The dress, already short, rode up towards the limits of decency as she struggled. For a moment she stood still, her arms raised. The Virgin lifted his gaze and found her smiling in amusement at his obvious interest.

  “Er... Hi, my name’s Greg,” he said in his embarrassment, and offered his hand.

  “Hi - Elena.” She put a long cool hand with painted nails in his as if inviting him to kiss it and slipped into her seat.

  In The Virgin’s experience, pretty girls had an automatic defence mechanisms to protect themselves against unwanted men. They carried a barrier against the world, ready to be erected against any intruder. He expected Elena to retreat into a magazine and cut him out of her presence. Instead, she initiated a conversation and in a few moments they were chatting like old acquaintances. As the plane took off, she l
eant over him to the window and her long hair brushed his fore-arm. She smelt exotic.

  As soon as they were air-borne, the stewardess wheeled the drinks trolley up to them. Elena ordered a gin and tonic, and The Virgin took a beer to keep her company. She had an open, talkative nature that made her good company. She told him she worked as a ground service supervisor for Olympic in London, and had taken advantage of cheap ticketing to have a few days on the Cretan beaches.

  “It’s good this time of year. Not too hot and crowded, but you can still go to the beach and get brown.” She looked at her legs reflectively. “The other girls are going to be jealous. And you work in Tabriz, right?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Oh, you get used to people. I used to fly a lot and you soon learn to recognise types. You’re not exactly business, you’re not holiday and you’re flying out of Heraklion. It’s easy to guess. You’re in oil? A rich oil-man?”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice? No, just a regular oil-man. I think all the rich ones disappeared in the slump.”

  “It must be difficult in Tabriz. All the political problems... How do you survive?”

  “It’s never as bad as it’s painted. People get along, and there are no problems inside Tabriz. The Great Man’s in charge and that’s it. No-one argues. Or not for long, anyway. Still, it’s nice to get out once in a while and see the bright lights of London.”

  “You’re going to London too? Connecting flight?”

  A thought crossed The Virgin’s mind. Just maybe the girl at the transit desk... “Do you have your boarding pass for London?”

  “Why? It’s here.”

  “What’s your seat number? Mine’s 17A.”

  Elena checked. “17B! How did you guess?”

  The Virgin smiled right down to his toes. “It was the girl at the transit desk in Crete. I asked her to put me next to a pretty girl and she said she would do all she could. I shall have to bring her back a present.”

  Elena raised her glass. “Here’s to the little girl in Crete. What will you buy her? I suppose that depends, yes?”

  The same thought had popped into The Virgin’s mind, and he was sure he was blushing.

  She laughed at him. “Well, we had better enjoy ourselves then, don’t you think so?” The Virgin did think so, passionately, and raised his glass to hers.

  If he added up all the flights he had taken around the world, The Virgin would have to say that this one was the best. They had a party for lunch and emerged in Athens still merry. They enjoyed each other’s company in the transit lounge, and were old friends by the time they got on the London flight. Elena dozed on the first part of the flight and The Virgin found himself doing the same. Over France they woke and sat chatting with soft drinks in their hands. It was then that Elena dropped a surprise on him.

  “Where are you staying in London?”

  “We always use the Rutland in Portman Place. Why?”

  “Oh.” She seemed put out. “I stay there sometimes. Why don’t you change hotels and then I can come too?”

  The Virgin was stunned. He opened his mouth to ask why, and shut it again before he could say anything stupid. “Well - sure. Yes, I mean. Yes, please, you’d be welcome.”

  “Great. Let’s go to the Holiday Inn in Marble Arch. It’s about the same price. And we’ll go out for dinner. Fantastic.”

  Maybe it was due to Elena’s charm, but The Virgin felt quite relaxed and natural about the prospect of an evening in town with her, as if being courted by elegant ladies was quite normal. The satyr in him was definitely not relaxed however, and he found his eyes straying to the tanned thighs beside him.

  Heathrow was its normal dull and efficient self. The Virgin enjoyed Immigration. It was nice to hurry through with his European passport while everyone else - even the Americans - had to wait in line. It was doubly nice to be addressed politely as ‘Sir’ by some-one who was, after all, a civil servant. A far cry from Sabah. Picking up his baggage was more of a problem. Even though the baggage hall did not seem busy, the bags from their flight took a long time to come. And when they did, The Virgin’s was not among them.

  Elena had her modest suitcase on the trolley but the carousel was clear. The indicator board clattered and went blank. The Virgin and Elena trailed over to the Lost Baggage office. He was filling out the form when a Security man walked into the office carrying the missing hold-all. It looked normal; inside his shirts were undisturbed. He shrugged off the incident and they wheeled the bags out through Customs. Elena took a moment to give her mother a quick call and make a reservation at the hotel, and they took a cab. Normally The Virgin would have travelled by the tube and claimed the cab on expenses, but this time it did not seem appropriate.

  The hotel was hidden away off the beginning of the Edgeware Road in a modern but carefully camouflaged building. Inside it was a standard international business hotel, the hush and the service making it familiar to travellers of any origin. His room was reserved, a single of course, and he expected a little embarrassment from the reception clerk when she saw Elena standing behind him but she said nothing. Perhaps reception clerks got used to unacknowledged ladies accompanying their guests. He wished he had had the nerve to ask for a double bed, but with Elena close by he just could not summon up the cheek. The bell-boy ushered them to the lift and stood in front of them as they rode up. Elena reached for his hand and a tingle of anticipation ran up his spine.

  The room was predictable. Clean, functional, a little smaller than usual perhaps but that reflected London conditions. Elena walked straight to the window and drew the curtains. She threw her blazer on a chair and stood in front of the mirror for a moment. She flicked her hair back. “God, I look a mess. You get a shower first because I’m going to take a long time.” The Virgin would have liked to get close to her right now, but she seemed off-putting. He dug out his sponge bag and made for the bathroom.

  If ladies were the thing he liked most in all the world, the second best treat was hot water. The hotel had a good, strong, steaming shower that washed worries and will-power away. He spent longer than usual getting himself presentable. He used the hair-dryer carefully and even had a special evening shave. He dabbed himself with hotel after-shave before emerging dressed only in his towel.

  The room had changed in his absence. Elena was standing near the window, smoking a cigarette nervously. The connecting door to the next room was open and in the doorway stood a short, lightly built man with thinning hair. He wore a grey suit.

  “Good evening, Mr Cartwright. Please excuse the surprise entry.” He reached out for a handshake. “I’m Hobson. Both Miss Anthony and I work for the Foreign Office.”

  - 6 -

  The Virgin was stunned. Uncomprehending, he gave his hand to be shaken and looked to Elena for some kind of explanation.

  “I’m sorry, Greg. It’s true.” She did have the grace to look sorry, and she did not try to meet his eyes. Hobson gestured him through to the neighbouring room and sat him at the small writing table, still dressed only in his bath towel. The Virgin found he was following orders like a sheep. Elena sat on the edge of the nearest bed, clutching her handbag on her lap and looking uncomfortable. Hobson took the other chair and opened a large diary that lay ready in front of him. He reached into his jacket and took out his pen with a flourish.

  “Just for the record, Mr Cartwright, you are Gregory James Cartwright and you work for MacAllans International Incorporated in Tabriz? Yes?” He nodded encouragingly at The Virgin and went on. “Good. Now, Mr Cartwright, I’m afraid you have done something - and I’m sure you have a very good reason for it - you have done something that has upset Her Majesty’s Government. Upset it a good deal, I would say. To the extent that you could be in very serious trouble.” He stopped and waited expectantly. When The Virgin did not respond, he merely waited longer.

  The Virgin had to fill the silence. “I don’t think you have the right person,” was all he could manage.

  “Oh, I believe w
e do. Did you or did you not send this fax?” He took a single sheet from between the pages of his diary and passed it across the table. It was a photocopy of his fax to Karelia. It seemed to have had comments written on it that had subsequently been whited out. “Do you know what tetra-ethylene disulphide is?”

  The Virgin was in deep water. “They said it was a solvent. For cleaning something.”

  Hobson made an ostentatious note in the diary and then looked up. “Tetra-ethylene disulphide is also known as mustard gas.”

  Holy Shit! He thought of Major Jamal and Captain Zella sitting in his office. Could they really have done something like that? Those dumb Tabrizi bastards had made him order a shipment of poison gas. As if it was available on the open market like candy or cake flour. And for a place like Tabriz, with all its rhetoric about supporting freedom fighters and psychopathic odd-balls from around the world. The implications of what he had done were staggering. No wonder the alarm bells had rung and Her Majesty’s Government was upset. What stupidity! It was beyond belief.

  “But it was in the catalogue... These two Tabrizis came into my office. Captain Zella and Major Jamal. They wanted to buy some solvent and they showed me a photocopy of a catalogue.”

  “That is true. It is in Karelia’s catalogue; in very small bottles. For geological laboratories. I believe you will find that it does have a use in the determination of the refractive index of certain minerals. I am told that one places a small drop of the liquid onto a microscope slide touching the mineral you are examining, and a geologist can then compare the refractive index of the mineral to that of the liquid. Its index is uniquely high, apparently. However, it is supplied in tiny quantities. The amount you ordered is more than the free world’s consumption for a decade.” Hobson deliberately laboured the point, rubbing The Virgin’s nose in the mess. There could be no doubt left in his mind that he had some serious trouble.