Authors: Charles Cumming
I almost let out a laugh here, but luckily some latent good sense in me smothers it.
Katharine says, “The important thing is that we are all deniable to one another.” Her voice is a welcome balm. “Now, are we deniable, Alec? What is the nature of our relationship should you get caught?”
“I’m not going to get caught.”
“
If
you do,” she says, trying to be patient with me.
“Friendship. We had dinners and drinks. That’s it. No one has ever seen me hand anything to you. Not even in the theater. That’s how you wanted it.”
“Good.”
“And me?” I ask. “Am I deniable to you?”
“Of course,” they say in practiced unison. “Absolutely.”
Now we sit quietly for a moment, no one saying anything, just coming down off the tension. Katharine gets up and pours herself a glass of wine. I light a cigarette, searching around for an ashtray. The Chopin has slowed to an aching lament, single notes collapsing into each other.
“I don’t mean to get tough on you,” Fortner says finally, moving his hand closer to mine on the table.
“Look,” Katharine says, joining in. “We’re here for you. What you’re doing must be messing with your head.”
This is standard procedure. Officers must combine a firmness of intent with enough flattery and conciliation to keep an agent onside.
“Is there anything else you need to talk about?” she adds.
“No,” I reply. “I’d just like to talk business briefly, if that’s all right?”
Fortner jerks his head up.
“Sure,” he says, looking pleased.
“It’s just that I have some interesting news.”
“Go on,” he says, nodding slowly. He needs to shave.
“You know of course that Abnex has been exploring 5F371 in the North Basin?”
“Sure.”
I take a long draw on the cigarette. This is what the Americans have been waiting for.
“The exploration work finished as of last week. My team are expecting a geological report containing sufficient 3-D seismic data to depict the extent and location of the hydrocarbon deposits within the field. That could happen at any time in the next two months. If I can get hold of a copy, it should tell you how much Abnex is prepared to pay to get access rights to the oil.”
“Good,” Fortner murmurs.
“As far as I know, bids are being tabled in early summer of next year. That should allow Andromeda time to outflank us. I can also get you documentation outlining how we plan to export the oil once our bid has been accepted. There will also be maps and information regarding pipelines, terminals, and shipping routes, all of which should be useful to you in making your bid more attractive. And I can get you access telephone numbers and addresses for all the key personnel at each of the transport nodes. There’s also a lot of detail on loopholes and flaws in Kazakh law.”
“That would be dynamite,” Fortner says, leaning toward me. He glances over at Katharine and beams.
I go on: “Abnex has done all the hard work, spent all the money. All you’ve got to do is outbid us and the field is yours. But it’s going to cost you. I want two hundred thousand dollars for the information or I’m out.”
“Two hundred thousand?”
“That’s right.”
“Haven’t we been here before?” he says, but the glow in his face betrays an excitement. The geological data is too important to Andromeda for Fortner to risk alienating me.
“I’m aware of that. But this is the crown jewels, Fort, and it’s worth a lot more than ten grand. If Andromeda’s bid is successful, I’ll have made the shareholders millions of dollars. That’s got to be worth something. I think two hundred thousand is cheap.”
“All right,” he says, buying time. “I’m not authorized to green light that kind of money. Let me talk to our people and we’ll get you an answer within seventy-two hours. My instinct says it may be a problem, but I’ll try to bring them around.”
“You do what you have to,” I tell him.
It is nearly midnight by the time Fortner shows me to the door.
There are no services running on the Hammersmith and City line, so fifteen minutes later I board what must be the night’s last train at Notting Hill station. Empty hamburger cartons have been discarded on the floor, and men in suits are falling asleep against greasy glass partitions. I am tired and find it difficult to focus on a single object for any length of time: an advertisement above the windows, a passenger’s shoes, the color of someone’s scarf. I look through into the next car half expecting to see Cohen in there, staring right back. My eyes sting and the skin on my face feels tight and dry.
I find it impossible to shut down. I am always thinking, evaluating, calculating the next move. I actually dread the thought of going home for another night of sleeplessness, just lying there in the dark analyzing the day’s events, speculating on how much, or how little, Cohen knows. Then I picture Kate asleep in bed, her slim arm draped across the shoulders of another man. Night crap.
Last night, at three in the morning, I got up, put on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and wandered around the dead streets of Shepherd’s Bush for over an hour in an attempt to tire myself out with walking. There seemed to be no alternative beyond taking a handful of sleeping pills or sinking a half bottle of scotch, which I cannot do because of the need to stay sharp and clearheaded for Abnex. When I got back to the flat at around four, sleep came easily. But then there were the customary dreams, packed with sicknesses and capture, isolation and pursuit. It’s all so predictable, regular as clockwork, and tonight I will have to go through it all again.
I stare into the concave windows of the Central Line train and they warp my reflection like a hall of mirrors. I am split in half by the steep curvature of the glass, a pair of broad shoulders and a tiny, mutated head melting into an inverted reflection of itself.
Two of me.
And ye shall know the truth
And the truth shall make you free.
—JOHN 8: 32
INSCRIPTION IN THE MAIN LOBBY OF CIA HEADQUARTERS,
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
The New Year brings with it familiar clichés of renewal: private promises to take more exercise, to be a better friend to Saul, to get over Kate and find a new girlfriend. I want to exert greater control over my life, to try to get things into some kind of perspective. By the second week of January, however, all resolutions have been set aside, rendered meaningless by the simultaneous demands of Abnex and JUSTIFY. My life simply doesn’t allow any opportunity for change.
Everything now is about 5F371. Whenever I am not involved in normal day-to-day activities at work, all my efforts are concentrated on obtaining the doctored North Basin data from Caccia. Andromeda wants the information as soon as it becomes available. The Americans now make that clear in almost every conversation I have with them.
Even during the Christmas break, while Katharine and Fortner were staying at her family home in Connecticut, they phoned me to check up on developments.
Mum picked up the phone.
“Alec!” she shouted, with that strained, impatient bark that got me out of bed on so many mornings as a teenager.
I was upstairs, reading.
“Yes?” I said, coming to the landing.
“There’s an American on the phone for you.”
I picked up the receiver in Mum’s bedroom, having closed the door for privacy. She hung up in the kitchen as I did so.
“Alec?”
“Katharine, hello.”
“Hi! We just wanted to call and wish you a happy Christmas!”
Her voice was pitched high and enthusiastic, overcooking the friendship for the benefit of anyone who might be listening in.
“That’s very kind of you. Where are you?”
“Back home with my mother. Fort’s here. You want to talk to him?”
“Sure.”
“Well, just a minute. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
I told her.
“Great. And is your mom good?”
“Very well. She hates Christmas, but she’s well.”
“Super. Look, Fort really wants to talk to you so I’ll pass him over.”
“Fine. See you when you get back in January.”
I was wondering why she had bothered ringing. The conversation felt rushed. She had made the call out of a sense of professional duty but had neglected to think of anything to say.
“Hey, Milius. How ya doin’?”
Fortner sounded humdrum and tired. It was ten in the morning on the East Coast.
“Fine. Fine. You?”
“Same old same old. Been seein’ some friends. Eggnog and old movies. Fuckin’ smoke police at every party we go to. Tell you this, pal. Nowadays it’s easier takin’ a gun out of your pocket in America than it is smokin’ a cigarette.”
“It’s nice of you to ring.”
“Don’t mention it,” he replied. “Get any gifts?”
“Some. A shirt. A couple of videos.”
This was all starting to feel easier. The pressure, for once, was off.
“What d’you give your mom?”
“Stuff from Crabtree and Evelyn. Bath salts.”
“Oh,” he said, his voice lifted. “Crabtree and Evelyn.” He pronounced Evelyn like Devlin. “We have that over here. Makes Kathy smell like a rose bush.”
“Good.”
“What about that CD you wanted? You get that?”
And straightaway I was back in the fog of duplicity, no break from it. The CD was code we used for the geological data from 5F371.
“No,” I said, stumbling for words. Three days away from London and I had forgotten how to lie. “Mum couldn’t find it in the shops. But I’ve ordered one. It should be out in the New Year.”
“Great. So I guess we’ll see you when we get back.”
That was all they wanted to know. As soon as Fortner had established that the data was not yet available, the festive niceties could be dispensed with. It was not a social call.
“How ’bout you come over for supper sometime in January, once we get back?” he said. “Say Wednesday the twenty-ninth?”
Why was he so specific that it should be that date?
“Sounds great.”
“I’ll get Kathy to fix it up. She’s sayin’ good-bye. Give our best to your folks.”
Folks, he said, plural. A slipup.
“I will,” I said, and I was halfway through saying good-bye when the line went dead.
We speak transatlantic on two occasions in January. Both are calls made to the Abnex offices, which I think of as risky and unnecessary. The first is from Katharine in New York, “just calling to touch base.” In a ten-minute conversation that can be clearly overheard by Cohen, she makes no reference to 5F371. The second is from Fortner, now in Washington, just two days before they are due to fly back to London. He asks almost immediately about the CD, and I am able to tell him that I have ordered it, expecting delivery within eight to ten days. This is what Caccia has indicated, and he is usually reliable. Fortner sounds pleased, reiterates the invitation to dinner on the twenty-ninth, and quickly curtails the conversation. This angers me. My work phone is presumably tapped, and if an Abnex official happened to be listening in on the conversation, they would surely find the exchange between us odd.
The night that they get back, Katharine e-mails me to confirm the dinner date for the third time. Clearly they have something specific planned. I enter a lie about it in my desk diary: on Wednesday the twenty-ninth, instead of “Dinner F + K,” the entry reads, “Cinema. Saul. Maybe
Some Mother’s Son
?” a film about Northern Ireland that has just opened in London.
Then it’s just a question of waiting.
The night of the dinner, Wednesday, January 29, is glacial, as cold as it has been all winter, with a freeze chill in the air that might precede snow. Walking to Colville Gardens, I am characteristically apprehensive, and yet there is also an unfamiliar edge to my mood. Although no handover is taking place tonight, the meeting has been arranged a month in advance, which is more than enough time for the Americans to have planned something unexpected. It is too much to suggest that I am being lured into a trap, and yet something is not quite right. Is it only that I am coming empty-handed, without a disk, a file, even a photograph? To meet them purely on the basis of our friendship is both so unnecessary now and so utterly false that it feels almost sinister.
I take a pair of gloves out of my briefcase and put them on. The people around me are moving quickly, hurrying, just wanting to be indoors and out of the cold. I have started to notice a gradually increasing dampness in my left shoe, as if rainwater has seeped through the leather, wetting the sock, but when I stop to check it there is only pavement dreck and muck on the sole, with no sign of a hole or tear. I light a cigarette and continue walking.
Turning right into Colville Terrace from Kensington Park Road, a pair of car headlights flash twice in quick succession on the opposite corner of the street. Two people are sitting inside a gleaming green Ford Mondeo, one in the driver’s seat, one in the back. The headlights flash again, briefly flooding the street with light. I stop and peer at the car more closely.
Fortner and Katharine are sitting inside. I cross the street and move to the passenger door. Fortner reaches across to open it.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask, trying to sound nerveless and calm as I climb inside. “I thought we were going to meet in your apartment.”
After a last drag on the cigarette, I toss it into the gutter, twisting around in my seat to give Katharine a smile. She looks gaunt.
“Close the door, Alec,” Fortner says with heavy seriousness.
I clunk it shut. The interior smells like a rental car.
“When did you pick this up?” I ask, tapping the dashboard lightly. My heart is racing furiously.
“This morning,” Fortner says, activating the central lock before turning the key in the ignition. The engine roars briefly and then settles back to a low hum.
“What happened to the old one?”
“Garage,” says Katharine, deadpan.
Fortner pulls out into the street. We are heading back up Kensington Park Road.
“What’s going on? Where are we going?”
“We’re real concerned about something, Alec,” he says, turning to look directly at me. “We believe that our apartment may have been penetrated. It may be under audio surveillance. The vehicle also. That’s why we picked up a fresh one. The Mondeo is clean.”
Fortner grips his hands firmly around the steering wheel, turning back to look at the road. My reaction here will be crucial. I have to get it exactly right.
“Your apartment is
bugged
?” I say, with what may be too much emphasis. “Why would you think that?”
“We picked something up on a routine sweep,” Katharine says. She has positioned herself directly between the two front seats, leaning forward between us.
“A routine sweep? So it’s something you do all the time?”
“All the time,” she says.
Fortner makes a turn into Ladbroke Square. I cannot think what to say to them. If their apartment has been bugged, it may be because of mistakes I have made at Abnex, and that will not have escaped their notice.
“Don’t worry unnecessarily,” Katharine says, resting her hand gently on my shoulder. “This may have nothing to do with JUSTIFY. It may be completely unrelated. But we’re gonna have to make some changes. When are the geological plans due? Any day now, right?”
Suddenly everything is clear. This is all just a bluff. They are trying to move me along, trying to scare me into thinking that we are running out of time.
“Like I told Fortner, I’m expecting them within a week, but there have been rumors of a delay. I’m so low down the food chain I don’t get to find out….”
“Well, let’s hope it’s soon. Now listen.” Katharine coughs. “Due to what’s happened, and due to the sensitivity of the 5F371 documentation, we’re gonna have to ask you to change the strategy of your hand-overs.”
I say nothing, but this is highly unorthodox.
“It’s nothing too serious, nothing that you won’t be able to handle.” After a brief pause, no more than a deep inhalation, she adds, “We’re going to introduce a third party.”
I glance out into the road, trying to calculate the implications. A third party is outside our arrangement, an unnecessary complication that I have been advised against.
I turn to look back at Katharine.
“The understanding we have is that I am to deal with you and you only. Introducing a third party would be reckless.”
“I know that, Alec,” she says. “But we can’t risk any foul-ups.”
Fortner is staying well out of this, just driving the car, his lined face swept by the shifting lights outside. Katharine’s voice is close and loud in my right ear and I cannot twist around to look at her for any length of time without causing pain in the small of my back.
“Who is the third party?” I ask, turning back to face the dashboard. “Is he CIA?”
“His name is Don Atwater,” she says. “He’s an American corporate lawyer who works out of London.”
“That’s his cover?”
“He helps us out from time to time. That’s all you need to know.”
“On the contrary. I need to know everything.”
“No, you don’t,” says Fortner, interjecting. There is a light trace of malice in his mood tonight, as if he is disappointed in me. Perhaps they are telling the truth about the surveillance and blame me for what has happened. That thought is enough to make me back down.
“How would we work it, if I agree to go ahead?”
Katharine breathes in hard once again. She will have prepped herself for this part of the briefing.
“As soon as you have obtained a copy of the 5F371 data, you are to call this number.”
She reaches forward and hands me a piece of white paper, no bigger than a credit card. It has a seven-digit number written on it in neat black ink.
“When they answer, you are to give your name and ask if your dry-cleaning is ready.”
“My dry-cleaning?” I ask, stifling a surge of incredulous laughter.
“Yes,” she replies soberly. “They will say that it is ready and then hang up. That is your signal to us that we are ready to go.”
“I just ask if it’s ready? Nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
A car cuts us off at some lights and Katharine says “shit” through her teeth as she is rocked by the sudden braking. I have lost track of where we are: the West End? Kilburn? Farther north than that?
“That night,” she says, “make your way to Atwater’s London offices in your car.”
“Where does he work?”
“Cheyne Walk. Chelsea. SW3.”
“I know where it is. Which end?”
“Close to Battersea Bridge.”
“What if I’m working late?”
“You won’t be. He’s not expecting you before midnight.”
Again Fortner comes in: “And you should not arrive there before that time.”
“Midnight?”
“Midnight,” Katharine confirms. The switch between them is disorienting, like a tussle for power. “Now, the most important thing for you to be doing en route is to watch your tail.”
“Tell him about the bike.”
“I was going to,” Katharine says impatiently. “If you want, we can put a motorcycle outrider with you throughout the journey. He’ll keep an eye on things.”
At this, I lose some cool.
“Fuck, Kathy. How serious is this? If they’re onto me, it’s too risky. If there’s a chance of being followed, I shouldn’t do it. We should close it all down for a while.”
“Not necessary,” Fortner says, making a slow right-hand turn. “An outrider is routine with something this important.”
“Well, you can forget it. I’ll go alone.”
“Your choice,” he says calmly. “Your choice.”
We have stopped at another set of traffic lights. A small group of teenage girls wearing too much makeup passes in front of the Mondeo, laughing in a squawking pack. They are dressed in miniskirts in spite of the cold. When we have pulled away, Katharine continues talking.
“Once you have left your apartment, make sure that you drive directly toward the roundabout at Shepherd’s Bush. As if you were heading to our place.”
“Why?”
“I’m coming to that,” she says, not wanting to be rushed. “Go right around it and come back on yourself down toward Hammersmith.”
I know why she has recommended this, but still I have to say, “Go right around the roundabout? Why?”
“Best way of shaking a tail,” says Fortner, who can’t help himself butting in. His voice is low and dismissive. “Take the Shepherd’s Bush Road down to Hammersmith, then make your way to Chelsea Harbour.”
“Why there?” I ask. “Why not go directly to Atwater’s office?”
“There’s something you’ve gotta do before proceeding to Cheyne Walk.”
The information is starting to pile up now, and after a tough day at work I am finding it hard to work through all the ramifications of what they are telling me. If their surveillance concerns are a bluff, both Atwater and the briefing are needless, a waste of time. If there is a genuine threat of penetration by Abnex, I am at great risk.
“This is getting very complicated.”
“We’ll go over it all again before we get you home.” Fortner drops down into first gear in a crawl of traffic.
“What happens at Chelsea Harbour?”
Katharine gathers herself.
“There’s only one entrance there and one exit. If you still have a tail, this is where you will lose him. Wait inside the complex. It’s a left-hand turn if you’re coming off Lots Road. Anyone following you will be forced to pass your vehicle once they are inside. When you’re sure it’s safe to drive on, proceed to Cheyne Walk. Not before. Go back onto Lots Road and drive east toward the river. Don Atwater’s offices are at number 77. Park your car—it shouldn’t be difficult at that time of night. Once you’re inside, hand the documentation to him. Make sure that it is Atwater and no one else. Not his secretary, not the doorman, Atwater. Are we clear?”
“We would be if I knew what he looked like.”
Marble Arch looms up on the right.
“Overweight. Puffed-out cheeks. Glasses. He will make himself known to you.”
“And what about the money? What about the two hundred thousand dollars?”
“As soon as Atwater has the 5F371 data in his possession, he will notify us and that will trigger the financial transaction in escrow. It will be the sum that you requested. That’s been cleared.”
As I had expected it would be.
“Can I smoke?” I ask, taking out my pack of cigarettes.
“Be my guest,” Fortner says, with a little more relaxation in his manner. “The sooner this upholstery smells of stale tobacco, the better.”
I light the cigarette, offering one to Fortner, who declines. Then I request that we go over the instructions one more time for clarity. So he drives for another twenty minutes while Katharine runs them past me once more.
We are almost home when their car phone rings out loud and shrill. The interior of the Mondeo is miked up and Fortner is able to answer the call without lifting the receiver from its cradle.
“Yup,” he says.
“Fort?”
The caller, an American, is trying to shout above the roar of the road. His voice sounds distant and warped, as if lost under a great, vaulted ceiling.
“Hi, Mike.”
“Hey, buddy. Can you call Strickland ASAP?”
I instinctively flinch away from Fortner when I hear his name, an uncontrolled movement to disguise my surprise. Strickland. The agent Lithiby used to leak my SIS file to the CIA. Is this just coincidence, or is there another level to this, a conspiracy that I’m not seeing?
“Sure,” says Fortner quickly, too casually, as if he wants the conversation to end before Mike says anything else. “Usual number?”
Everything that has happened tonight has been curiously unnatural, almost like the rehearsal of real events. Katharine’s insistence that I follow an exact procedure, their lies about surveillance…
“Yeah, usual number. See you Saturday.”
Fortner presses the red button on the handset and Mike’s voice disappears.
What would they want with Strickland? What would
he
want with them?
Katharine asks the very same question, but it may be just a bluff.
“Why’s he calling?”
“Not sure,” Fortner replies, and is it my imagination or does his gaze slip toward me, a concealed warning to Katharine to stay away from the subject? Certainly he does not call Strickland while I am still in the car. Instead, I am driven back to Uxbridge Road and released a block short of my flat.