A voice from the A4 car in the street reported Malik leaving the café and turning left. Should they follow?
‘No,’ said Dave. ‘Let him go.’ He didn’t want anything else to happen that might spook Malik.
‘Stand down, all teams,’ came the instruction from Larry Lincoln in the control room.
Kanaan turned to Dave, beaming. ‘Our man did very well.’
‘Do you think so?’
Kanaan looked puzzled. ‘Don’t you? He’s confirmed what we suspected – that they’re being trained in Pakistan, but sent elsewhere. That’s important.’
‘Yes, but it could be Timbuktu for all we know.’ Dave saw the crestfallen look on Kanaan’s face and tried to reassure him. ‘You’re right, though – we know now he won’t be coming back. That’s a start anyway.’
‘If Boatman can meet up with Malik again before he goes, perhaps he can find out more.’
‘No,’ said Dave quickly. ‘Not a good idea. Please don’t encourage him.’ And though Kanaan looked puzzled, Dave didn’t explain. He was thinking solely of Boatman now, wondering if he’d blown his cover. Malik’s hasty departure had alarmed Dave. It was clear to him that Malik was a good deal cleverer than their agent.
Chapter 31
Geoffrey Fane stalked into his office on the fifth floor of Vauxhall Cross. The room was flooded with light, shining in through the two large windows overlooking the Thames. He walked across and stared out at the little tourist boat just turning to go back towards Westminster, having completed its tour up river. He knew the boat’s crew would be drawing the passengers’ attention to the building, reminding them how it had featured in a James Bond film and giving them some garbled account of what went on inside. He himself wasn’t at all convinced that they should ever have moved into such an exotic-looking place. Its outlandish appearance just invited people to gawp, and made it more of a target too. Admittedly the previous office block, Century House, where he’d worked when he first joined, was a dreadful hole, with masonry falling off the front and an interior like a squalid tenement. No one would ever have wanted to take tourists to see that or put it in a film. Good thing too.
Fane was feeling thoroughly out of sorts. He’d just been to a meeting in ‘C’’s office upstairs, to discuss the launch of the forthcoming History of MI6. Geoffrey didn’t agree with that scheme at all – what was the point of it? he’d asked. There were other ways they could have celebrated the centenary. A Secret Intelligence Service should be secret. But he’d been unable to prevent it, especially when Five had announced that they were doing one, and the defeat had annoyed him greatly. At least he’d managed to ensure the book stopped at 1949. Over at Five they’d gone almost up to the present day and then found themselves criticised because the last chapters were too thin. What else did people expect?
Perhaps it was time to retire, he thought, before he started to get the reputation of being old-fashioned and dyed in the wool. But retire to what? One of his troubles was that there was no woman in his life. Since Adele had gone off with her Frenchman, various short affairs had come to nothing. The women had all bored him; intellectually negligible, with nothing at all interesting to say. He still lived by himself in the flat in Fulham he’d bought after the divorce, since Adele had got away with – as he saw it – their house in Kensington. Not that she needed it (her new husband was as rich as Croesus), yet now she was pressing Geoffrey to sell the small country house that had been in his family for generations. It wasn’t that he went there very often now, and there was no prospect of grandchildren to enjoy it with. But it was his, damn it, not Adele’s.
His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of the phone on his desk. He picked it up. ‘Yes, Daisy?’ he said. A new girl, rather sweet if a little slow. Still, he’d get her up to speed soon enough. He prided himself on having a deft hand with his PAs, though it was annoying that they never seemed to stay with him very long.
‘Liz Carlyle rang, Geoffrey, while you were upstairs.’
‘Oh?’ Fane said, a little tetchily, cross that Daisy hadn’t told him straight away.
‘Yes. She wondered if she could come across. Preferably today, she said.’
‘Hmm,’ said Fane. He would have liked to tell Daisy to ask Elizabeth Carlyle to come over right away, but that wouldn’t do. Though he would like to see her, he couldn’t conquer a need to demonstrate what a very busy man he was; so busy that he might, just might, be able to squeeze her in between more pressing appointments. He said, ‘Tell her I can probably fit her in at the end of the day. Let’s say half-past five.’ Then another thought came into his head. Perhaps he could persuade her to stay for a drink after their meeting.
Because the truth was that Elizabeth Carlyle was the one woman he’d met since Adele went who really aroused his interest. He found her attractive, both physically and intellectually. Her slim figure, brown hair and calm but watchful grey-green eyes fascinated him. She was a woman of real intelligence and he wanted to know what she was thinking about – other than the problem of the moment, which was all they ever found themselves discussing.
But now she’d got herself involved with that DGSE chap, Seurat. What was it with the French? First Adele and now Elizabeth. Anyway, he thought spitefully, he’d embarrassed them both that afternoon in the Athenaeum, telling neither of them that he was inviting the other. He toyed with the top of his pen as he thought of that awkward meeting, and of how Elizabeth’s expression had stayed rigidly business-like while Martin Seurat blithely chatted on, all Gallic charm, assuming Fane did not know they were seeing each other. But Geoffrey Fane was always in the know. He prided himself on that.
By five-thirty the sun was in the west and glancing off the windows. Fane heard Reception ring Daisy to say that Miss Carlyle was in the waiting room. He got up from his desk and pulled a Venetian blind partway down.
‘Liz is here,’ said Daisy a few minutes later, poking her head round the door.
‘Come in, Elizabeth,’ he called out, frowning slightly to himself at Daisy’s informality. Liz walked in, looking cool in black trousers and a satin blouse. Was she getting slimmer? he wondered, admiring her figure.
‘Can we offer you some tea? Or something stronger perhaps, as the sun is almost over the yardarm?’
‘No, thanks,’ she said. Turning to Daisy, she added, ‘I’d just like a glass of water, please.’
With a flicker of a smile and a nod he dismissed Daisy, and watched her blonde curls bouncing as she retreated from the room.
‘Sit down, Eliz . . . Liz. What brings you over here on this lovely evening?’
‘Sorry it’s such short notice, Geoffrey, but it’s rather important.’
‘Ah, well, spill the beans,’ he said, showing by his smile that he was not taking her too seriously.
Liz remained standing and looked straight at him without a trace of a smile. She said, ‘We’ve come across something that makes us think Langley has an agent working in the UCSO Athens office.’
Fane was so surprised he said nothing. His thoughts were racing: if this were true why hadn’t Blakey told him? Or did Blakey himself not know? And how had Elizabeth found this out?
His voice remained unruffled. ‘Sit down, my dear Elizabeth, and tell me what makes you think that.’
‘It’s perfectly obvious,’ she said sharply, not sitting down. By now Fane was behind his desk.
‘What is? Do tell.’
Liz fished in her bag and plonked Mitchell Berger’s CV down on the desk. She stood back and waited while he scanned it.
‘I knew nothing of this,’ he said when he’d finished reading. ‘All I know about the man is that Blakey vouched for him. In unequivocal terms.’
‘Blakey must have known he was CIA.’
‘I’m not sure he did . . . What’s obvious to expert eyes is sometimes muzzy to the rest of us.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Geoffrey. Blakey’s eyes are expert.’
‘Were would be a better word. He’s been out of t
he Service for ages now.’
‘Five years,’ she said through tight lips.
Fane shrugged. ‘That’s two decades in intelligence terms, as we both know. And between you and me, though David was a perfectly competent officer, he was not perhaps the sharpest knife in the box.’
‘That’s not how you described him before.’
‘Loyalty is our business’s first line of defence. You don’t need me to tell you that.’ Fane’s lips curled in a slight smile.
‘I don’t buy it,’ she said with an angry shake of her head.
‘I’m not selling anything, Elizabeth,’ he said coldly. Who the hell did she think she was, acting as if he were on trial?
Nevertheless, he was put out when she shook her head again, unpacified. ‘Blakey must have known . . . and you must have known as well. What I can’t understand is why you didn’t tell me.’ She looked at him with open exasperation. ‘You keep doing this, Geoffrey – you keep holding back information. I don’t see how we can work together if you won’t be straight with me.’
He thought how magnificent she looked when she was angry. Normally he wouldn’t have been at all bothered to find that she suspected him of not telling her everything. Normally, he had to admit, she would have been right. But she was accusing him of holding back on her when for once he actually wasn’t. He hadn’t had the faintest inkling that Berger was a CIA man.
Why should he have thought it? Blakey had assured him that Berger was OK – and if Blakey turned out to have been economical with the truth, Fane would have his guts for garters. If it were true, it meant the Agency knew that the woman who’d been murdered had been put in by his Athens Station. That was embarrassing to say the least. Particularly as he suspected that Bruno Mackay had not conducted that operation very cleverly. Damn!
‘Elizabeth, please hear me out. I give you my word that I hadn’t the faintest idea until three minutes ago that this man Berger was anything but what I was told – a chap with a lot of international experience who was doing a fine job running a charity office in Greece, but whose ships had started disappearing.’
Liz did not reply, and Fane waited as the silence between them expressed her doubt as loudly as words would have done. He was frustrated by her refusal to believe him, but couldn’t bring himself to reiterate his assurance. It was too undignified. Instead he said, ‘Look, I see I can’t persuade you now. But let me talk to the Agency. I’ll get Bokus over from the embassy. You know him?’
She nodded, still looking sceptical.
‘He’s not going to deny it if this chap is one of theirs. Langley never actually lies to us overtly – just by omission. A point-blank question will get us the answer we need, one way or the other. Will that do?’
Liz pondered this as Fane watched her, wondering when she might decide to relax with him, when she might realise he wanted to help her if only she would let him. He found it galling to have his offers so consistently refused, especially by someone he would happily admit to admiring.
At last she said, ‘All right. See what your friend Bokus has to say. But do it soon, please.’
Fane sighed as Liz made to leave. ‘I haven’t seen Andy Bokus for a while. I was hoping to keep it that way.’
An enigmatic smile appeared on Liz’s face. ‘That’s funny. I was saying something just like that to Peggy Kinsolving earlier today.’
Chapter 32
As it turned out, Fane decided to call on Andy Bokus at his office in the American Embassy, rather than summoning him to Vauxhall Cross as protocol would dictate. He thought he might get more out of Bokus on his own ground.
It was something of a sacrifice, though, for Fane hated the sight of Grosvenor Square, littered as it now was with concrete blocks, huge flower pots and metal barriers. He was in a bad temper when he got out of his taxi on the opposite side of the square into a steady drizzle. ‘Can’t get no nearer, guv,’ the taxi driver had just announced.
Fane paid him off, unfurled his umbrella and strode round the barriers to the police post outside the embassy. He waved his Foreign Office pass and glowered as he waited for clearance to come through from inside. Thank goodness the Americans were moving south of the river, to a brand-new compound where they could be isolated and have no neighbours to annoy. The Mayfair residents would be delighted to see them go.
He thought about Bokus – a man with whom he had nothing at all in common. Bokus presented himself as the typical corn-fed Midwesterner; a man whose idea of a foreign country was New York City. Once when Fane had taken him for lunch at the Travellers, Bokus had asked for a can of Budweiser – Fane still smiled to himself at the memory of the waiter’s expression. But Fane had come to suspect that this unsophisticated, not to say boorish, exterior was carefully cultivated. Bokus disliked and distrusted the Brits, so he had adopted a persona designed to discomfit them. But Fane knew what he was up to; Bokus was no fool. In fact, Fane was certain that beneath that crude exterior lay a razor-sharp mind. Which made him simultaneously more interesting and more difficult to deal with.
‘What’s this all about, Geoffrey?’ Bokus asked bluntly.
‘We’ve got a rather interesting situation on our hands,’ Fane replied languidly, shooting his cuffs.
‘Well, take a seat and tell me about it.’
Fane sat down. Crossing one long leg casually over the other, he proceeded to outline the problems UCSO had been having with their shipments. As he talked, he decided that there would be no harm in mentioning the young British-Pakistani, Amir Khan, who had been picked up by the French.
Bokus nodded. ‘Yeah, we heard from the French about that kid,’ he said indifferently.
Fane raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He wondered for a moment why Bokus hadn’t been more interested in Amir Khan. Why hadn’t he enquired what the British knew about the lad, if he’d heard about him from the French? Were the Americans doing something with the French that Fane didn’t know about? Was Elizabeth Carlyle right in thinking that the CIA had something going on in UCSO? But then he decided that Bokus’ lack of interest was both genuine and utterly predictable – if something directly affected American interests you always had his full attention. If a US angle were less obvious, he’d play it cool.
Fane continued: ‘We thought it best to take a look at all the UCSO employees, since one of them would be the most likely source of any tip-off to the pirates about shipments coming past the Horn. It seemed a bit hard to believe at first,’ he added, ‘but on the other hand, it seemed too much of a coincidence that UCSO was so repeatedly the victim of these attacks.’ There were other reasons to think there was a traitor inside UCSO – including, of course, the wretched girl Maria’s murder – but Fane saw no need to lay these on the table. Instead he took out a typed piece of paper and, leaning over, put it on the desktop under Bokus’ eyes.
‘What’s this?’ the American demanded.
‘It’s the CV of the head of the UCSO office in Athens. Or do you chaps say “résumé”? He’s an American, as you see, and jolly interesting, I think you’ll agree.’
Bokus bent his head over the desk and his bald pate shone in the light. After thirty seconds’ silent inspection of the paper, his head lifted and Fane found Bokus’ brown eyes fixed on him. The American said neutrally, ‘What do you want me to say, Geoffrey?’
Fane decided to ignore this. ‘The thing is, Andy, this chap is no doubt perfectly sound. Blakey, his boss in London, swears by him.’
Bokus interjected, ‘Why does that name ring a bell?’
‘Possibly for the same reason Berger’s name rings bells for me.’ Fane shrugged, unwilling to be deflected, and stared back at Bokus.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Bokus said. ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours – is that it?’ He laughed unexpectedly, a full-throated guffaw that Fane found intensely annoying. He liked it when Bokus stayed close to stereotype – the serious heavy-set ex-football player who thought the Limeys were all too arch and highfalutin’ for words.
&n
bsp; ‘You go first,’ said Fane dryly.
Bokus thought about this for a moment then got up from his chair, which creaked when relieved of his weight. He went over to the wall and stood staring at a framed photograph of an American football team. Though Fane swung round in his chair, his only view was of Bokus’ back.
‘Mitchell Berger joined a couple of years before I did.’ Bokus’ voice sounded curiously disembodied, like the narrator’s in a film. ‘He was an operative in the field . . . kind of a famous one even when I started out. But he never had any interest in climbing the ladder.’ Bokus turned back towards the room and lifted his right hand, in a gesture designed to encompass his surroundings, his office, his status, his rise through the ranks . . . everything apparently that Mitchell Berger had not had time for.
Bokus looked straight at Fane. ‘I never met the guy. Heard he’d left the Agency a few years ago. Who knows?’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes a fella wants a quiet life, and the way I heard it, Berger finally realised that one day his luck could run out. That’s not surprising – most sane people wouldn’t have taken half the postings he’d asked for. So I wouldn’t think there was any other agenda going on – he just took the buy-out and opted for a safer berth. Certainly I don’t know of any secret Langley agenda; like I said, the guy retired.’
This was as far as Bokus would go, Fane sensed. But it was enough – Berger was ex-Agency, all right, but not working on Langley’s orders. Fane believed Bokus about that; he had responded too quickly to have made up the story.
‘Your turn,’ said Bokus, without amusement. He clearly didn’t like having to offer up information.
‘In a minute,’ said Fane. ‘First, I’d like to ask you to find out if Mr Berger is active again.’
‘I just told you, he retired.’
‘You know as well as I do, one’s always on call. We may not be priests, Andy, but we work under the same terms and conditions. I’d like to know if Berger’s been reactivated.’
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