by Alan Judd
Liz would not be put off. ‘But it was partly Mrs Thatcher’s initiative, wasn’t it? We – the British – helped start the process.’
‘Only because she was persuaded it would be easier for British bankers and insurers and builders and whatever to get into Europe. Not through any enthusiasm for the European project itself. There’s not a shred of idealism in her.’
‘I’m not sure I blame her. They’re all out for themselves as far as I can see, from where we sit.’
‘I blame her. I blame her absolutely. She’s a brake on the whole thing. Anything – anything – I can do to expedite the European project, I’ll do. She’s got no feeling for it, no feeling at all – probably no feeling for anything, if truth be known. But luckily, she’s also got no idea of the political difference the act is going to make. She’s such a bloody Philistine, she sees it only in economic terms. Doesn’t realise it’s a huge step towards integration. That’s why we want it, not just so that your filthy rich bankers can get even richer and filthier.’
Liz smiled. ‘Hence the photo?’ She nodded at the mantelpiece on which stood a photograph of Nigel and the newly-appointed EC Commission president, Jacques Delors. They were smiling at the camera and shaking hands.
Nigel shook his head. ‘You won’t find any of those in the witch’s den in Number Ten.’
It was Nigel’s tone, as much as what he said, that struck Charles at the time. He spoke with an almost personal bitterness rather than with his usual raillery and mocking detachment. It was unusual, too, for him to show such enthusiasm for ideas and ideals. He normally scoffed at enthusiasm.
When Charles was leaving, he and Sarah repeated the cheek-kissing ritual. ‘So lovely to see you,’ she said. Those, and his response, were the only words they exchanged all evening. He wished she had not said ‘so’ with such distancing emphasis.
5
The door-banger eventually gave up. Charles became aware of the silence without realising when it had started. He was again picturing Nigel in his SIA office, hand raised to show that he had seen Charles and Jeremy waiting. Nigel had not hurried his call, leaving them to stare at the Westminster clock through the wide window while his secretary sorted papers.
‘Not quite the paperless office, then?’ Charles said.
Jeremy ignored the remark. ‘Has the ear of ministers, Nigel,’ he murmured. ‘Not only Valerie’s. Well thought of in Brussels, too. People think being an MEP is a backwater, but Nigel proved them wrong. He wasn’t just influential in the parliament; he was a regular channel between parliament and the Commission and between ministers here and the Commission. Gave up a lot to come to us, but I doubt his political career is finished. Probably go on to bigger things, once he’s sorted this place out. You could do worse than hitch your star to him. Especially as you knew him when he was in the Foreign Office.’
‘How did he get this job?’
Jeremy was spared an answer by Nigel ringing off and striding out to greet them. He took Charles’s hand in both of his. ‘Charles, Charles, it’s so good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit. Must be God knows how many years. Not since before I went to Brussels, is it? That’s about a century ago. Very good of you to come back and help out. Thanks, Jeremy.’ He nodded at Jeremy, who was about to follow them, and shut the door.
He had put on weight, not unduly, and had lost hair, not dramatically, but was otherwise tanned and looked fit. His suit was well cut, though fashionably un-vented. He wore a wedding ring, a Breitling watch and gold cufflinks. He smiled all the time. The walls of his office, which in the old MI6 would have displayed portrait photos of previous chiefs, were adorned with photos of Nigel with various dignitaries and well-known politicians, though not the one with Jacques Delors from his mantelpiece at home.
They sat. ‘So, tell me about your life, Charles. What’s it been? When did you leave the old office? What are you doing? Why did you leave? Sarah’s very well and sends love, or would if she knew I was seeing you.’ He laughed. ‘She’s back at work full time now with Kent & Kent, where she was before we went to Washington. Extended career break, though she did some work for them in Brussels. Good of them to take her back. Senior partner’s an old friend. Great fun, she’s enjoying it hugely. Doing very well, too. You’ve never married.’
It was a statement rather than a question. From that and what followed, it was clear that Nigel must have read Charles’s file. He asked only questions to which he would have known the answers.
‘Now, Gladiator, the missing Gladiator.’ Nigel leaned forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped. His brown eyes bulged at Charles. ‘Must admit, I can’t always get my head round these nicknames or codenames you – we – use. But at least Gladiator’s memorable. Are they really necessary, d’you think?’
‘So long as you want to protect agent identities, they are. Nicknames or numbers.’ It was an unnecessary question, designed to ingratiate. He wondered inconsequentially whether Nigel wore reading glasses now, or whether he had contact lenses. The way his eyes bulged and glistened gave the impression of someone struggling against worsening sight.
‘Sounds a bit Cold War-ish nowadays. This one was later than that, wasn’t he? In his origins?’
‘Yes, he was. The IRA – the Provisionals – first, then Afghanistan.’
‘Versatile fellow. He’s the one Sarah introduced you to, isn’t he, years ago? The one she told me about first?’
It was lightly put, and impossible to tell how much Nigel knew of the context of that introduction. ‘That’s right.’
‘Quite a coincidence.’
‘Huge.’
‘Anyway, he’s gone missing.’ Nigel sat back, his hands palms down on the desk. ‘What seems to have happened is that he went on one of his occasional trips back to Pakistan – for which read Afghanistan, clandestinely – then came back and reported as usual. This was when UBL was still alive. Then, after UBL was killed, they suddenly summoned him back again. He wasn’t going to go. Then he disappeared. He changed his mind, he did go back – we know that because we checked the flight manifest. Hasn’t been heard from since.’
‘What would he report on now?’
‘Al-Qaeda remnants, Taliban general extremism, usual thing. You know he’s a convert?’
That was hard to imagine. ‘He was Catholic when I knew him, in so far as he was anything.’
‘Quite a high proportion of converts are – were – Catholics. It never stopped him reporting to us, surprisingly. You’d think it would’ve, given how keen converts of all kinds usually are. Hates extremism, apparently. He’s against violence.’
‘He’s seen enough.’
‘What worries me is that they might have turned him and be running him back at us in order to do something dastardly. They did it with that Jordanian, who blew up all those CIA handlers when they were debriefing him.’
‘What’s his product like?’
‘Excellent, I’m told.’
‘Have you read his file?’
Nigel nodded. ‘That’s why we’ve got you back, Charles. To go through everything and see if there’s any insecurity on our part or his that could have given him away. Or any indication that he might be a double – double agent, that’s the term, isn’t it? In other words, we want you to do a security review.’
It was a politician’s answer. A nod could mean either that he had read the file or that he was acknowledging that Charles had hit the nail on the head, that it was necessary for someone to read it. If Nigel had read it himself – in full – he clearly wasn’t giving anything away.
‘It was Matthew Abrahams’s idea to get you back, as you probably know from Jeremy. With my enthusiastic support. Brilliant idea, of course. Brilliant man, Matthew. You knew him well, didn’t you? Highly regarded in Whitehall, in his day. Very sad about his cancer. You know about that?’
‘I knew he was ill.’
‘Not much longer for this world, I fear. Still, there we are, comes to us all. Jeremy’s sorting out with the A
desk – action desk, I’ve got that right, haven’t I? – for you to get briefed and have access to the files. Must get a grip on this new terminology. Like a foreign language. Any problems, come to me. Don’t hesitate.’ He stood and held out his hand, smiling. ‘Welcome again, Charles. Great to have you on board.’
They shook hands again. By unspoken agreement it was as if their last conversation, years before over a hurried lunch in the National Theatre, had never happened.
Matthew Abrahams’s flat was in a 1930s art deco block in Westminster. He had been CSS – Chief of the Secret Service – when Charles had left, and it was hard to reconcile memories of the austere and authoritative figure of the later Cold War with the culture of the new SIA. Still less with the title, CEO.
The walls of the flat were lined with books, mostly in English but some Classics and some in Chinese and Russian. In gaps between shelves and windows, above doors and fireplaces, were pictures of birds. Matthew was an ornithologist and a chronicler of the Chinese gulag. He smiled as they shook hands.
‘Don’t be shocked. I am dying. But there is enough life left, I hope, to enjoy working with you again. And for us to conspire together one last time. Come in.’
Charles was shocked. The tall figure he had known was shrunken and skeletal, like a relic of one of the secret labour camps he meticulously catalogued. His skin was blotched parchment, his cheeks sunken, his hand a chicken’s claw. Charles knew Matthew would eschew consolation. ‘What is it?’
‘Prostate. The one that gets us all eventually, if nothing else does first. Spread to the liver. I accept some alleviation in the hope of delaying it until this business is sorted out. I am not in pain. Do you prefer any particular tea?’
The flat was suffocatingly warm and the winged armchair too soft. ‘How is Jenny?’
‘In Cambridge, coping. I’m there most of the time now. Our sons find it harder because there is nothing for them to do. She wants me to stop work, of course. Biscuits are in the tin.’
Refusing help, Matthew lowered the tea tray onto a lacquered Chinese table and then himself onto the sofa, where he leaned back, rubbing his thighs. His bespectacled grey-blue eyes rested on Charles like the gaze of a judge weighing sentence.
‘I did not, of course, ask you to tear yourself away from your researches, and to confront something you may not wish to be reminded of, simply to investigate the disappearance of Gladiator. Anyone could do that, or no-one. How is your book?’
‘Becalmed. Either it’s been said before, or it isn’t known and can’t be said. It’s a good time to have a break and take stock.’
‘Is Walsingham hero or villain, d’you think?’
‘Something of each.’
‘We at least have a simpler task. Our man is only one.’
Charles poured the tea.
‘The reason I asked you to return is that we have an insider problem. We get one about every ten years, as you know. But this particular problem has been around a long time, as you also know. In fact, you and I are two of only three still serving who are aware of it. The other is Sonia, you’ll be pleased to hear. It was very tightly held at the time, since when people have retired, moved on or died. There is only one record: the secret annex to the paper file which you were once familiar with. No-one conducting an electronic search would discover it, unless they already knew where else to look. We have become an intelligence service which no longer knows what it knows, and has no way of recovering what once it knew, which is a slow suicide. But the urgency now is that our insider has become nastier. We might even call him malignant, a word I’ve heard quite often recently.’ He smiled and sipped his tea. ‘You’re ignoring the biscuits.’
Charles had not lunched. He helped himself to two shortbreads.
‘Too many things have gone wrong,’ Matthew continued. ‘You may have seen leaks of SIA assessments in the press. They amount to a pattern, an agenda. But there’s more than that, though it wouldn’t be visible to any other security reviewer but you. There’s something internal, relating to Gladiator.’
‘Nigel Measures thinks he might have been turned.’
Matthew’s eyes rested on Charles’s. ‘Is that what he said?’ He looked down at his withered hands, nodding. ‘He was very anxious not to have you back, although he didn’t want to say so outright. Instead, he argued that you might be indiscreet, now that you are a writer. That is of a piece with his saying that Gladiator might have been turned. Neither is what he really thinks, or knows. You’ll have to be careful.’
‘Of what?’
‘Nothing in particular, therefore everything. Measures wants you to fail. He does not want Gladiator found.’
‘So Nigel is the problem – again?’
‘Not only because of what happened in the past. Or could be happening now – we don’t know. But he’s a problem because of what he’s prepared to do to cover that up. The cover up, you see, it’s always the cover up that gets people.’ He nodded to himself.
‘I was very surprised when I heard he was to get your job.’
‘A political fix, over my dead body. But not quite, not yet.’ He smiled again. ‘If they’d left it a little longer, it would have been. And he’d have got away with it. He could still, if you can’t help.’
‘I came back because it was you that asked. I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else. I’ll do everything I can.’ Charles was glad of the chance to say it, while there was still time. He and Matthew had rarely discussed personal subjects, still less feelings. The unsaid was understood, and Charles always felt that their communication was better – subtler and more honest – for it.
Matthew inclined his head. ‘So, Gladiator,’ he resumed after a pause. ‘He did a lot for us in Afghanistan before 9/11, and for a while afterwards. But, foolishly, the office let him drift away, until a couple of years ago when they re-contacted him and he agreed to become re-involved. He did a few trips to Pakistan, for which he has genuine business reasons, but during which he was able to re-establish contacts among the AQ external operations people. After UBL was killed he went on another and hasn’t been heard of since. His AQ and Taliban contacts are arranged via cutouts and couriers and he doesn’t always meet face-to-face. It takes weeks to set up each trip and he travels incognito into Waziristan and Afghanistan. If they do meet, it’s a big deal; usually he returns with intelligence on their tasking and plenty of leadership gossip. Very risky for him, of course, not only because of the threat of discovery but because he might be killed in a US drone strike.’
‘The Americans don’t know about him?’
‘Too dangerous. Either it would leak, or they’d be unable to resist killing any AQ figure he was with, and him too. During his last visit, he met no senior leaders, but a number of second-rankers. They speak freely before him – they’ve known him for years, regard him as tried and tested, the blue-eyed emir they’re always seeking who can come and go freely in the West. He gives them good stuff. At least, what they think is good stuff. They once suggested he might like to martyr himself over here as a suicide bomber, but he said his faith wasn’t strong enough and they’ve not mentioned it again. Anyway, this last meeting was reasonably productive, but nothing sensational. Then, about three weeks after he returned, he got a message to go back. This was unprecedented. The message came via a contact on the fringes of al-Jazeera, the television station, from a man who has family connections with AQ. Not the usual route, but the reason given was that this was urgent. They wanted his advice in connection with a forthcoming wedding – you know that they sometimes refer to attacks as weddings.’
‘Nigel Measures told me this morning he wasn’t going to go back, then abruptly did.’
Matthew nodded again. ‘True, so far as it goes. We advised – through his case officers – that he shouldn’t go. It sounded too fishy, too pat, and why should he have to go there to give his advice? He agreed, and sent a message back via the not-really al-Jazeera man saying a backlog of court cases wouldn’t permit another ab
sence so soon – he’s set up his own law firm, by the way, handles a lot of Pakistani marriage and inheritance cases – but he’d send any advice he could via the same route. Then – suddenly, unexpectedly, without a word to his case officers – he went. Since when nothing has been heard.’
‘That’s what Nigel said.’
Matthew sipped his tea, swallowed slowly and conspicuously, then carefully lowered his cup and sat back with his hands fingertip to fingertip. ‘Except that something has been heard, the full significance of which is apparent only to me. A while after he went back we intercepted a call between one of the people he saw on his last trip and a colleague in Yemen. They were speaking Arabic, but the caller repeated and translated two sentences into English because, he said, it was important to get it right. Those sentences were: ‘The CIA say they have no agents in Core AQ. Their cupboard is bare.’
Charles put down his own cup. ‘How do they know that?’
‘That, of course, is the question. But there’s a hidden significance in those two sentences, beyond the obvious one. The real significance is that they were mine. They were my sentences. I wrote them in a record I made following my last trip to Washington. I was ill shortly afterwards; I never circulated a formal record of the trip. I still haven’t. But I did show my notes to Nigel Measures, who had by then arrived to take over from me.
‘So how did my words reach AQ? The intercepted speaker was very careful to repeat them exactly, which suggests someone must have given them word for word, not just the gist. It wasn’t anyone from Washington or Langley, or anyone else the Americans might have told, because they were not CIA’s words, they were mine. CIA’s words to me were: “We have no assets in AQ Central. The shelf is empty, our cupboard is bare. But if the drone strategy continues to work, we won’t need them.” If AQ’s source had given them all that, they would have quoted it all. Note, too, that the CIA typically referred to “assets” where I say “agents”; and their use of AQ Central compared with our Core AQ or AQ Core. It could have come only from my notes, which means Measures, the only person to have seen them. And the only way I can think those sentences might have reached AQ from Measures is via someone who might have had contact with both, which is Gladiator. I have no evidence that he did, but I’m suspicious. The question is, did Measures meet Gladiator before he went back, and did he offer him those sentences as a titbit?’
