The third man, seated at his desk in the center of the hut, looked over and grunted. It was not clear whether he was laughing at what had happened or expressing some measure of disapproval. Mahmud slowly turned around and leaned over in his chair, plucking the passport from the ground.
“That is not what I asked,” he said. “I asked what you were doing here in Rabat.”
As Carradine answered the question, Mahmud handed the passport to the younger official, who began to study it with forensic attention. A seagull clacked in the marina.
“I am a writer. I was invited to a literary festival in Marrakech. We went together—”
The younger official interrupted him.
“But you flew into Casablanca.”
Carradine felt that he was being cross-examined by lawyers with decades of experience. The remark had trapped him in a lie from which there was surely no realistic prospect of escape.
“Yes, well, I came to Casablanca because I’m writing a book that’s partly set in Morocco. Lilia came up to join me…”
Another lie. Mahmud was writing something down as he listened. Was he keeping a record of the conversation, to be used as evidence against them at a later point?
“Lilia?” he said.
“That’s me,” Bartok replied.
Carradine wondered if it was all a sick joke. The officials already knew that Lara Bartok was standing in front of them. They knew only too well that “Lilia Hudak” was an alias.
“And you are from Hungary?”
“Yes,” she said.
There was a sustained silence. The younger official slowly turned the pages of Carradine’s passport. Mahmud was writing something down on a pad. He looked up and addressed a question in Arabic to his colleague at the desk in the center of the hut. Carradine was amazed to see Bartok spin on her heels and look out of the window, seemingly without a care in the world.
“This is your first visit to Morocco?”
“It is,” Carradine replied.
He wondered what web Mahmud was trying to draw him into. He hated lying. He hated the traps they were setting for him.
“And yet you do not visit this beautiful woman in all that time?”
Of course. It was the simple, gaping hole in their hastily assembled cover story. Carradine did what he could to fill it, improvising as he answered.
“Um, we sort of broke up for a while.” He tried to appear as though the official was prying too deeply into his personal life and was pleased to look across and find Bartok lowering her chin toward her chest, as if trying to forget a painful episode in the history of their otherwise happy relationship. “That made it difficult to come here.”
“I see,” Mahmud replied.
There was another long silence. Carradine could not tell if his story had been believed.
“So now you go to Gibraltar, on—” Mahmud picked up a sheet of paper on his desk and mispronounced the name of the yacht “—Atlantis?”
“Atalanta. That’s right.”
“Your passport please, Miss Hudak.”
Bartok smiled and reached into her bag, handing the passport to Mahmud. He stared at the cover as if it were the first document of its type that he had ever seen. He turned it over and looked at the back, his head bobbing back and forth as his mouth dropped into a frown.
“Hungarian?”
“Yes.”
The Moroccan flicked through the pages, looking for the immigration stamp. Carradine felt that his whole future rested on the next ten seconds. He had no idea if Bartok’s stamp was real or forged, if there was a record of Lilia Hudak entering Morocco or if every customs and immigration official in the country had been instructed to search for a woman matching her description.
“You change your hair,” Mahmud observed, indicating that the Hudak photograph showed Bartok with a shoulder-length red bob.
“I did,” she replied. “Do you prefer that one?”
“I think it looks nice here,” Mahmud replied and pressed a stubby finger onto the photograph. Smiling to himself, he handed the passport to the same official who had earlier copied down Carradine’s details.
“And why don’t you have British passport?”
Carradine assumed that it was a trick question. A car pulled up outside the hut. He was certain that it was a team of Agency personnel coming to haul them in.
“I don’t understand,” Bartok replied.
Mahmud looked at Carradine. His face was blank as he said: “Why don’t you marry this woman?”
Carradine blurted out a laugh.
“I’m thinking about it.” For the first time he began to believe that they might be in the clear. “Lilia likes being Hungarian. It’s a beautiful country.”
“Then maybe you should have Hungarian passport.”
“Maybe I should.”
He felt a surge of relief. They were home and dry. All of his worry and agitation had been for nothing.
Then Mahmud opened a drawer in his desk.
He took out a small black machine and passed it to the younger official. Carradine instantly knew what it was. He had seen similar devices in passport booths the world. The younger official plugged the machine into a computer and switched it on. An eerie blue light glowed from within.
He picked up Carradine’s passport. Opening it to the identity page, he scanned it beneath the light, turned to the computer and studied the screen. Various lines of Arabic text appeared inside a small box. Mahmud appeared to be trying to read the text from his position several feet away. The process was taking so long that Carradine began to think that some kind of anomaly had cropped up deep within the Moroccan immigration system. Had a flag been placed on his passport? The younger official said something in Arabic, took Carradine’s passport from the machine, hammered an exit stamp onto a clean page, scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it to him.
“This is fine,” he said.
The younger official then opened the Hudak passport and went through the same routine. He placed the identity page under the blue light, turned to the computer, assessed the information in the small box, placed an exit stamp on the same page as the entry visa granted five months earlier, and handed it back to Bartok.
“Enjoy your trip to Gibraltar.” Mahmud was beaming, as though he knew that he had released Carradine from a personal torment. “Good weather next three days. Good sailing.”
“So I heard,” he replied.
Bartok put the passport in her handbag, reached for Carradine’s hand and squeezed it tightly to congratulate him on a job well done. Then they walked out of the hut into the bright midmorning sunshine and made their way back to the boat.
37
Patrick was preparing to set sail. When Carradine saw him busying himself in the cockpit, the last of his anxiety about Patrick and Eleanor’s true intentions dissipated. If Hulse or the Russians were going to come for them, they would surely have done so by now. The electricity cable had been detached from a panel on the pontoon and the bowline released into the depths of the marina. Carradine had given no thought to the seriousness of going to sea for two nights in the company of an elderly couple who might, at any moment, suffer medical setbacks or become involved in an accident that would require him to take control of a fifty-eight-foot, state-of-the-art yacht conservatively valued at a million pounds. He wanted only three things: to leave Morocco as quickly as possible; to reach Gibraltar so that he could contact his father; and to find some way of protecting Bartok from the threats against her.
He was unpacking in their cabin when he heard a noise of distant tapping, growing progressively louder. At first Carradine thought that it was the sound of rain falling on the roof of the saloon. He looked outside but could see only clear blue sky and the glare of the sun beyond the cockpit. Then he heard a dog bark, the rustle of paws on wooden pontoons, and knew what was coming.
Two uniformed police officers, guard dogs drooling and straining on leads, were making their way toward Atalanta. Carra
dine experienced the cold dread he had known only hours earlier when looking out across the Corniche at the police cars.
“Eleanor!”
Patrick was on deck. Carradine climbed up the steps to the cockpit and saw that the Alsatians were already at the stern. One of them began to bark at the sight of Carradine. The man holding the leash had to tug him back forcefully as he spoke to Patrick in English.
“We come aboard,” he said. “Inspection now.”
Carradine did not know if the search was related to Bartok or was simply a random customs check on a foreign-registered yacht. The larger of the two dogs continued to bark and was scolded by his master. Patrick indicated that the search party should come on board and explained to Carradine what was happening.
“They’re looking for drugs, people smuggling. Best thing is to stay up here. They’ll do what they have to.”
“I’ll tell Lilia.”
Carradine went down into the saloon and tapped on the door of their cabin. Bartok was folding clothes into a drawer.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Dogs. They’re going to be coming in here. You’re not carrying any weed or anything, are you?”
She looked at him in disbelief. “Are you kidding?”
Carradine forced a relieved smile but could not escape a nagging sensation that he had done something wrong or had made a slipup for which they would now pay the price. As he made his way out through the galley, he could hear the dogs scampering on the deck above his head, violent, excited blasts of breath. One of them came down into the saloon in the arms of a customs officer and was released into the boat. The Alsatian wheeled around Carradine’s feet, sniffing his shoes and ankles before hurrying toward the bow. Eleanor emerged into the corridor and jumped back as the dog barked at her.
“Get them under control!” she shouted, at first in English, then in bad, schoolgirl French. Carradine spoke to the officer, asking him to put a leash on the Alsatian. He refused, indicating that the animal could only conduct its search if it was allowed to roam free in every area of the boat.
“You are British?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You are with the girl?”
Carradine thought that he had misheard. Then his mind caught up with the question and he realized that the officer knew about Bartok. Was she under suspicion or had she merely been seen entering the passport hut an hour earlier?
“Which girl?” he said.
“Hungarian.”
“Yes. I’m with her.”
“Where is she, please?”
The Alsatian now tore past Carradine, through the galley and into the master bedroom. Both Carradine and the officer followed.
Bartok was leaning over in the corner of the room, encouraging the dog with a series of delighted cries and whispers.
“That’s it! What do you smell? Good boy, good boy!”
Carradine looked at the officer, who seemed more interested in Bartok than in the search.
“Hello!” she said, straightening up to greet him. “As-Salaam Alaikum.”
“Wa-Alaikum Salaam.”
The Alsatian had found something. It was pawing at a cupboard on the near side of the double bed. Carradine’s stomach turned over. The dog began to bark repeatedly.
“I can open, please?”
Carradine indicated that the officer was free to search wherever he liked. He looked quickly at Bartok, who indicated with her eyes that she did not know what had caught the dog’s attention. The officer opened the cupboard and peered inside. Then the barking stopped.
“What is this, please?”
He had pulled out Bartok’s black wig. It looked absurd, dangling from his hand like a prop in a school play. A lie sprang instantly into Carradine’s mind. He was on the point of saying: “We went to a fancy dress party in Marrakech” when Bartok beat him to the deceit.
“I had cancer,” she said in English. “J’avais un cancer.”
The officer was visibly embarrassed. He was about thirty-five, good-looking and physically fit; to see a man of such apparent authority looking so awkward was almost touching. Reverently he laid the wig on Carradine’s side of the bed, murmuring an apology.
“I am very sorry to hear this.” Bartok touched her cropped blond hair as though to indicate that it had grown back following radiotherapy. “I hope you will recover soon.”
“Oh, she’s much better,” Carradine interjected, ashamed to be using the illness that had killed his mother for the purposes of deceit.
“We will go now,” said the guard and he led the Alsatian out of the cabin.
Patrick was sitting in the cockpit with Eleanor. The second customs officer had made his way back to the pontoon. His colleague soon followed. He waved to Bartok as he left.
“Did they find anything?” Patrick asked.
“Only the dead body in my carry-on bag,” Carradine replied.
“And the heroin,” Bartok added. “I hope that was OK?”
Patrick smiled. Eleanor did not.
Twenty minutes later Atalanta had reached the open sea.
“Sounds like you kids got lucky,” said Hulse.
“Kids?” Bartok replied.
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Let’s not play games.”
“Lucky?” she said, sounding astonished. “You’d say that what happened to me was fortunate? Losing my freedom. My identity. You call that luck?”
Somerville was tired of the jousting between them. He went outside and finally smoked the one cigarette he allowed himself every day. Walking up Chapel Street, he pretended to make a call on his phone while checking for Russian surveillance. There was movement in one of the windows on the opposite side of the road—a curtain closing two floors up—but no pedestrians, no street cleaners, no vans on a stakeout. He thought about Carradine, grinding out the cigarette underneath his boot, and went back inside.
“Anything?” Hulse asked him.
“Nothing,” Somerville replied.
Bartok was coming back from the bathroom. There was a jar of moisturizer beside the basin and she brought a smell of citrus into the room, rubbing her hands together as she worked the cream into the skin.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, gentlemen?” she said, seemingly in a brighter mood.
Somerville smiled, watching her as she sat down.
“Almost,” Hulse replied.
“Only almost?”
“You were going to tell us about Atalanta,” he said.
“And you were going to tell me about Kit.”
This to Somerville, who shook his head and indicated that Bartok was being taped. He had triggered the voice recorder. The microphone was live.
“Afterward,” he said. “The Langs first. Tell us what happened on the boat.”
SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE EYES ONLY / STRAP 1
STATEMENT BY LARA BARTOK (“LASZLO”)
CASE OFFICERS: J.W.S./S.T.H.—CHAPEL STREET
REF: RESURRECTION/SIMAKOV/CARRADINE
FILE: RE2768X
PART 5 OF 5
The boat trip was the happiest time I had known since New York. I was with a man I trusted, a man I respected. We had great conversations, we became very close. Kit had been worried at times in Rabat, but he began to enjoy what was happening to him. We were both elated to have got away on Atalanta. We felt like we had won, you know? Kit had been a little bored with the sameness of his life in London, writing every day, no proper relationship, also caring for his father [JWS: William Carradine] who had not been well. What had happened to him in Morocco was something out of the ordinary. He loved being part of a story larger than his own life. His father had been forced out of his job because of the treachery of Philby. Did you know about that? Philby befriended him, took him under his wing, taught him what he knew, then betrayed Kit’s father to the KGB. There were lots of men and women like him, young spies at the start of their careers who were blown once their ident
ities became known in Moscow.
I think Kit saw what was happening as a chance to show what his family was capable of, what Bill Carradine might have been if only he had not been deceived by one of his own. In this sense Kit was making amends. And he loved the world of spying! My shampoo bottle and the passport in the salt and how careful I was about phones and SIM cards. Second nature to me, but not to him. He was like a kid in a spy shop. It was very endearing.
Of course, just as he talked about his own life and his family, I told him about Ivan, about my role in early Resurrection operations, about the way I had lived since leaving New York. He knew that Stephen Graham had been in love with me, that he had taken me away to a beach house he had rented for us in Mexico, that we had spent a weekend together by the ocean. He asked me about my childhood in Hungary and of course, out of habit, I told the stories I have always told, some of which were true, some of which were not true. A lot of the time I felt as though I should protect him from knowing too much about me, because I was aware that I could hurt him at any moment. I wanted to be with him but I knew, deep in my heart, that this could never be possible.
As you know, I had been suspicious of Patrick and Eleanor. I liked Eleanor particularly and believed that perhaps Patrick was not always true to her. He had a streak of vanity, of arrogance, as if life had always come a little too easily to him. She hinted that he was having an affair, which explained his strange behavior in the marina when we first arrived. He was always talking on the telephone, presumably to his mistress. I wanted to be able to tell Eleanor more about my life. We had many good conversations. She was a terrible cook! Of course, they had no idea who I was. Kit kept up the pretense very well and it was easy to act as though we were boyfriend and girlfriend because we had become lovers.
My worry was that Kit was too concerned for my safety. He had a streak in his personality, a need to be the knight in shining armor. I’ve noticed that a lot of English men have this. So I had to be ruthless with him. I had to be cruel to be kind. I was trying to find a way to let him know that, sooner or later, it was all going to have to end.
The Moroccan Girl Page 24
