Rogue Elements (22 page)

Arriving at Heathrow was one of the few occasions Madeleine Wraye really missed being a member of the establishment. For years, she had been discreetly met at the gate by a member of the UK Immigration Service and escorted through some of the less well-known reaches of the airport to a small road tunnel where a Firm car would be waiting. Nowadays the car was a rather better model, but there was no escaping the Immigration queues. Just occasionally, squeezed between a brawling family and a school soccer team back from a European tour, she would spot one of the Immigration officers who had previously whisked her past all of this misery. If they recognized her they would nod sympathetically and raise a quizzical eyebrow as if to say, ‘What happened to you then?’

On this occasion, as it turned out, the car would not be needed. A text message from Joyce had brought the good news that George Vine had invited her to dinner. The bad news was she would have to turn right round and fly back to the Middle East. The only available slot in Vine’s calendar was tonight. There was just time for a shower at the Sofitel and a debrief with Joyce before she would need to return to Terminal 5 for the Beirut flight.

Joyce’s message was not the only one awaiting her on landing. Several urgent voicemails had stacked up from Shel Margrave, Operations Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The last had been left just twenty minutes earlier – the middle of the night for him. She dialled his office number.

‘Your phone was switched off,’ he began accusingly.

‘I’ve just stepped off a flight.’ Wraye counted the number of people ahead of her and estimated a twelve-minute wait. ‘I’m in a public place. Will you still be at your desk in quarter of an hour?’

‘We have a lead on Yadin. You need to get your guy to West Africa.’

‘Seriously? That doesn’t fit with our intelligence. Are you sure of your lead?’

‘One hundred per cent. Comes from the Spanish. CNI was on our distribution list for Yadin’s picture. They just came back demanding to know who he is. Seems he showed up in Bissau, of all places, and executed a Colombian drug lord they had under surveillance.’

Dazed, Wraye turned her back on the nearest passengers and covered her mouth as she whispered, ‘Are you saying he assassinated Rodrigo Salis?’

A surprised pause. ‘Jesus, you’re
good
. How do you know about Salis? Never mind. Can your guy get out there?’

‘No point. The target will be long gone. We have to focus on Strasbourg now.’

Margrave hesitated. ‘I don’t like to think of him in the same city as Mayhew.’

‘I understand.’

‘You’re on this one hundred per cent, right? No other little projects distracting you? Making you take long flights?’

‘One hundred per cent, Shel.’ An immigration officer was pointing her to a free e-passport gate.

‘Your guy had better be good.’

‘Oh, he is.’

‘You need to get the Salis file back to central registry fast,’ Wraye told Joyce. ‘He was killed yesterday. They’ll be wanting to update the notes.’

‘And how do I do that?’

‘You’ll think of something. What do you have for me on George?’

Madeleine Wraye was pacing the room in an effort to get her blood flowing ahead of the next flight. She’d ordered room service before deciding she wasn’t hungry. Joyce, primly seated at the desk, was working his way through her breakfast tray.

‘Endless small stuff. He’s implicated right across the Middle East, potentially in the pocket of just about every Arab ruler and business leader you can imagine. It’s all in the file.’

‘Old news. Why would he have met Yadin?’

‘I haven’t found anything yet.’

‘All right. What else?’

‘You asked me to look into corporations that might have benefited from SIS product in our key geographies . . .’

‘Any connections to George?’

‘All the usual official ones . . . BP, British Airways, Barclays, RBS and so on. Beyond that, there are around a dozen corporations that have been unusually successful in our hotspots. I’ve searched for links to the remaining names on your list. Watchman may be tangentially involved with a couple of mining companies, but the standout partnerships are George Vine with AMB and Martin de Vries with Plessis-Fischer.’

Wraye hid her surprise. ‘You have evidence?’

‘Nothing that would stand up in court.’

‘Edward, you’re making serious allegations. If an SIS director was found to be passing YZ intelligence to a foreign business of such military significance as either one of those he wouldn’t just be fired – he’d be immured in the Tower. De Vries and Vine know that very well. So tell me please, Edward, how you’ve managed to uncover something that two very experienced officers would make damn sure no one could find out?’

Joyce turned to face her: indignant, nervous, triumphant. ‘I did the Alpha Course.’

‘
What?
’

He reddened. ‘It was a temporary thing. After you left the Firm and I got transferred, I was a bit depressed . . .’

‘Edward, tell me you aren’t relying on divine inspiration.’

‘On my course was this guy from Oregon. Christopher. He was working for an investment bank, hated it, had served in the DIA, wanted to go back. So I got to know him, you know, just in case. Well, anyway, he did go back. And we’re still in touch.’

Wraye gazed at him in disbelief. ‘Edward Joyce has cultivated an agent in the Defense Intelligence Agency?’

He laughed awkwardly. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t claim that exactly. We’re just friends. He probably thinks he has an agent in SIS.’

Her stare turned brutal. ‘You
told
him?’

‘I . . .’ Too late, Joyce realized what he had confessed. ‘It was a very difficult time for both of us. I haven’t passed any secrets, I swear.’

She let him sweat a moment. ‘And he’s never asked for any?’

‘He asked about George Vine.’

Wraye sat down. ‘I see.’

‘It was maybe a year ago. I didn’t give him anything. But when Vine turned up on your list, I called him and asked what it was about. He wouldn’t say. Then one of the IONEC students mentioned AMB owing a lot to George in Iraq, so I went back to Christopher and tried flying that kite. Turns out DIA have an agent in AMB’s accounts department.’

‘Edward,’ she whispered, ‘what have you got?’

He opened his case and extracted a large grey file. ‘Everything I could find on AMB. Most of it is open source.’ He laid a single sheet of paper on top. ‘That’s from Christopher.’

It was a list of dates and figures – large figures, with dollar signs preceding them. Wraye swallowed up the message they conveyed in one glance. ‘Don’t ever reveal who you work for, Edward. And stay away from Alpha. I can’t imagine what you were thinking.’ She slipped the AMB file into her cabin case. ‘What about de Vries?’

‘I don’t have anything documented.’

‘Plessis-Fischer,’ she prompted.

He breathed in. ‘OK, so their Europe and Middle East sales division is run out of London. Headed by Johannes van Rensburg. He’s on the board; there’s a good chance he’ll be CEO within a few years. But while he’s in London, guess how he’s spending his Sunday evenings?’

She knew the answer because she knew where Martin de Vries went on Sundays and she could see from Joyce’s face it must be the same. ‘Zimbabwe Freedom.’

‘That’s right. He drives all the way from Hampstead to Southfields to sit in a church with Martin de Vries.’ Joyce was alive with the witch-hunter’s fervour now. ‘
Even though he’s not from Zimbabwe!
’

Wraye was unimpressed. ‘Plenty of South Africans feel strongly about the situation in Zimbabwe.’

‘You don’t think it’s suspicious that an SIS director and the next chief of a major arms manufacturer just happen to belong to the same small action group?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Madeleine, this is the one! So what if George is taking bribes from a military contractor? He takes bribes from everyone. But Martin de Vries? Whiter than white, yet he’s meeting covertly with the representative of a company whose share price rose eighteen per cent after GRIEVANCE.’

A company that supplies all kinds of lethal hardware to the world’s counter-narcotics agencies, Wraye silently added.

‘How do you know they’re meeting? It’s not good enough to place them in the same building along with a hundred other people. You need more.’

Joyce swallowed. ‘I have more.’

‘Go on . . .’ She frowned at his hesitation. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘They have dinner,’ he said, the words running together in his hurry to get them out. ‘Afterwards.’

‘Alone or with other Zim Freedom people?’

‘Alone.’

‘More than once?’

‘Regularly.’ No hesitation now.

‘Where?’

He looked down, then said, ‘A South African restaurant in Wimbledon. Potjiekos.’

‘What’s your source?’

‘A waitress. I asked around a bunch of restaurants near the venue. Showed pictures of both men. The Potjiekos waitress confirmed they often have dinner there. Even knew their favourite dishes. And she said a really interesting thing. She said a couple of times she tried to hand them their coats but both times she got them the wrong way round. Which she never normally did.’ Joyce’s eyes were shining. ‘What do you think, Madeleine? Intel in one coat, cash in the other? They’re similar height and build. Choose the same style of coat, and you’ve got the perfect exchange medium.’

‘Not in summer.’

It was clear Joyce hadn’t thought of that. He looked strangely embarrassed, then defiant. ‘They could use newspapers in summer.’

Wraye flicked the conjecture away. ‘It’s Sunday today. You want to prove your case, head over to Wimbledon tonight and video them together.’

He didn’t quite meet her eye. ‘Sure,’ he muttered.

‘I have to get to my flight. Something else I need you to do for me while I’m out of contact, Edward. I’ve commissioned some associates to trawl through bookings at hotels and rental accommodation in Strasbourg. It’s possible Yadin may fly in, do the deed and fly out without his head touching a pillow, but my suspicion is he’s already there. If my associates identify a likely booking, they will call you. I need you to pass on the details to TALON.’ She handed him a slip of paper. ‘TALON’s pension in Strasbourg. Leave a message for “Mr Locke”. Do it as soon as you hear from my associates. We’re very short of time now.’

He took the paper, irritated. ‘Of course.’

‘Another associate is arranging a weapon for TALON. That person will also call you. Pass on the arrangements in the same way.’

‘Anything else?’

She frowned at the tone. ‘No, Edward. That’s all.’

Martin de Vries had never thanked her. That still rankled. For eight full minutes in the Chief’s office he had listened to her unreserved defence of his performance and character, and he had never thanked her.

No one else had stood before the Chief and argued that, if in no other walk of modern life, in the security services technical brilliance must occasionally trump people skills. The man wasn’t running agents; his direct reports didn’t need to be mollycoddled! Perhaps he was immoderate in his criticism, but weren’t all geniuses? As for the suggestion that his Rhodesian roots might compromise his loyalty, who did they think he was working for? Mugabe?

He wasn’t a director then. HPD had taken against him, as had Jeremy Elphinstone and Jane Saddle. He was hanging by a thread after a whispering campaign instigated by two disgruntled TOS technicians. Her intervention, Elphinstone had later admitted, was the only thing that kept a good man in post. She had risked her own political capital to save his career, and he had never thanked her.

When, years later, the itch of his ingratitude still niggling, she had referred half-jokingly to the matter, the newly appointed Director of Technical and Operations Support had looked puzzled.

‘But you only told the truth,’ he observed.

‘There’s truth and there’s truth, Martin.’

‘I’m not following. Are you saying you have doubts about my loyalty?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘You think I am inappropriately harsh with my people?’

‘You’re harsh. Sometimes very harsh.’

‘Inappropriately harsh?’

She hesitated. The lightness with which she had unwisely tried to broach the subject was long gone. ‘I couldn’t say that.’

‘Then what is this other truth you’re talking about?’

‘That’s not what I meant . . . Look, did you see anyone else lining up to defend you?’

‘You were in a position to give an informed opinion. Most were not.’

‘God, Martin,’ she exclaimed, exasperated. ‘All I’m saying is it would have been nice if you’d acknowledged the effort I made on your behalf.’

‘I don’t quite see what else you could have said,’ he shrugged. ‘But, all right. Thank you.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ she’d scowled, wondering not for the first time how Martin de Vries managed to make her feel so very stupid.

Klara Richter couldn’t make him out, the English spy. It was bizarre, considering the circumstances: he seemed genuinely interested in the fabric of the city. They were supposed to be looking for Gavriel, yet his pivoting gaze sought out architectural curiosities as much as faces. A mansard roof. A sliver of a house squeezed between two more obviously historic half-timbered buildings. The iron bars on three round windows. A rusting hook jutting from the upper floor of a tavern.

Then, ludicrously, he had stopped altogether and was crouching in the middle of the street.

‘Lose something?’ she asked.

‘Found something.’ His left hand was spread across one of the flat cobblestones. His eyes were closed. Klara sensed a strange euphoria in him. She wished she had a camera to capture that expression.

‘A stone? Wow.’ There was still bitterness in her voice, although she had woken that morning with a resolve to be more civil to the broad-shouldered man stretched out on the pension carpet. So far it had been small talk only, but the mood was lighter between them.

He gazed up at her, as if wondering how much to reveal. ‘History,’ he said at last.

Klara burst out laughing. She stopped herself quickly, but he seemed unbothered by her reaction. ‘It’s good to see you cheerful.’

‘I’m not cheerful. I’m laughing at you.’

‘That was a cheerful laugh. I don’t care if it’s at me.’

She tilted her black felt fedora back a fraction. ‘Are you for real?’

But he was impatient, now, to tell her. ‘In 1518, a woman called Frau Troffea started dancing here, right here.’

‘So?’

‘She didn’t stop for six days.’

‘So?’

‘As she danced, others joined in. Thirty-four by the end of the week. Four
hundred
by the end of the month. It started right here.’

Caught between disbelief and irritation, Klara lapsed into German: ‘
Also
?’

‘You have to feel it,’ he said, reaching for her hand.

Klara backed away.

‘It was hot,’ he went on quietly. ‘Midsummer. The dancing was frenetic. Exhausting. But the dancers couldn’t seem to stop themselves. One had a heart attack. Another collapsed from dehydration. There were strokes, more heart attacks. People started dying. It was called the Dancing Plague. By the end of it, more than forty dancers were dead. That’s . . . history.’

Tentatively, Klara spread her hand beside his.

‘I don’t feel anything.’

He took gentle hold of her fingers. They were rigid, and he waited for them to soften in his. ‘Like this,’ he murmured, curling them around a single cobblestone. ‘Feel it?’

‘No.’ But the answer was more obstinacy than truth.

‘There’s a legend about St Vitus – a bad-tempered Sicilian martyr. It was said that anyone who angered him would be condemned to dance uncontrollably. He was a big deal around these parts back then.’

Klara straightened up, dusted off her hands. ‘What is the point of the ground-stroking?’

‘I don’t know.’ He seemed suddenly embarrassed. ‘It helps me get the feel for a place. If I know the history . . . if I feel the history come alive in me . . . it gives me a kind of strength.’

Klara reached into her bag and found her sunglasses. ‘These kinds of streets they repave all the time,’ she muttered, walking on alone.

The tree house should have been straightforward: a self-assembly pack from a reputable high-street chain; just a Wendy house on stilts, with a little plastic slide that clipped on the front. Edward Joyce had been methodical, unpacking all the pieces and setting them out in regimented lines on the terrace. The jumbled assortment of screws, bolts, wooden plugs and plastic washers had been painstakingly counted out into separate jars and placed out of reach of his younger daughter. Maya was usefully engaged in branding each plank of wood with a pink crayon smiley face, while Jasmine issued imperious directions. Sophie, with long experience of his DIY tribulations, was playing her part, bringing him beers as rewards for each completed stage, and marvelling at ‘the amount of work they expect you to do’. Even the sun was shining.

But it was starting to go wrong. The bolts weren’t protruding from the stilts at the correct angles. The braces weren’t fitting properly. He didn’t need a spirit level to recognize that the platform on which the Wendy house would rest was sloping. With Sophie watching from the kitchen, and the kids plaguing him with ‘Is it nearly ready?’ questions, he couldn’t face dismantling the whole thing and starting again.

So he kept going. The girls weigh nothing, he told himself. If it can support me, my children will be perfectly safe. His mind drifted as he wondered how he could disguise the platform’s crookedness from his wife and neighbours, and he found himself screwing the wrong sections of wood together for the Wendy house frame. As he pulled them apart in irritation, one essential baton split.

‘Fuck!’

Maya looked up, pink crayon resting against a stilt. ‘What, Daddy?’

Where was he going to get a replacement baton on a Sunday? ‘Nothing, sweetie,’ he smiled, slipping off the platform and crouching beside her to examine the half-finished face.

‘She’s doing it wrong,’ declared Jasmine with the absolute authority of a five-year-old. ‘She keeps putting the nose above the eyes.’

‘Well now, you’re right about that,’ murmured Joyce, putting an arm around his older daughter. ‘Very well spotted. But I think Maya is drawing the gholfin people who live under the bridge. They all have noses over their eyes. Isn’t that right, Maya?’

Joyce liked inventing for his children. If he were to draw up a list of his acknowledged skills in the domestic arena – to offset his inadequacies with screwdriver and spanner – making up stories would have been one of them. So far he’d only twice considered creating such a list.

‘I
love
goofing people,’ decided Maya, adding two arms to the chin of her pink crayon face.

It was a sweet moment, but the mood didn’t last. Climbing back onto the sloping platform, Joyce knocked over his beer. Eight minutes later, he realized he’d lost three crucial screws. Fourteen minutes after that, a splinter inserted itself deep under his thumbnail as another baton snapped. His phone rang while he was hunting in the grass for a green plastic washer.

‘What?’ he yelled.

His exasperation faded as he listened. With Maya’s pink crayon he scribbled an address on the back of the instructions booklet. He looked across the lawn at his wife, frumpy and sweating on her knees in the herb garden. He looked at the girls, locked in a tearful tussle over a stuffed toy, while a dozen other toys lay abandoned around them. He looked at the wreckage of ill-fitting joints, beer-soaked tools and splintered batons. And although he knew what he was supposed to do with this information – what Wraye had expressly told him to do with this information – he made a spontaneous decision to do otherwise.

Climbing off the sinking ship of his daughters’ joint birthday present, he walked over to the herb garden and said, ‘Darling, would you mind putting the tools away for me? It’s work. I have to pop over to France rather urgently.’