The Envoy (31 page)

The rest was a half-remembered dream.

The plasmodium falciparum is a cunning beast that sponges off both mosquitoes and humans to complete a life journey of wanton destruction. Falciparum is an unwanted guest, a parasite, that attacks red blood cells for their haemoglobin like an
alcoholic
drinking his way through your wine cellar. If you take your chloroquine primaquine, like you’re supposed to, you’ll probably get better. You’ll probably even think that your bloodsucking
visitor
has packed his bags and left – but you’re wrong. After
drinking
the best of your red stuff, he’s decided to doss down in your liver cells. You won’t know he’s there because this is one drunk plasmodium that can pass out for a long time – years. And then one day, when you least expect it, plasmodium falciparum wakes up and decides he needs another drink. And once he’s blotto on vintage haemoglobin, he decides to get laid – and, before you know it, your bloodstream has turned into a teeming nursery for falciparum’s bastard brats. And suddenly you don’t feel very well. You’re burning with fever and pouring with sweat – and then you get the chills. You’re freezing and can’t get warm again. You want to lie down and curl into a ball. And then, for some reason, you try to get up again – and all the lights go out. You’ve lost
consciousness
because of orthostatic hypotension, a sudden decrease in blood pressure owing to low blood glucose levels. The malaria parasites have sucked the life out of your blood. You’re pallid, faint and anaemic – you might even die.

When Kit woke up, he was lying on a narrow cot beneath a single white sheet – Egyptian cotton. The ceiling above him was grey and stained. He seemed to be in some sort of storeroom stacked high with shelves holding bolts of material. He was naked and his body felt dry and pleasantly cool. The fever and chills had gone, but there was a raw pain in his lower region. Kit closed his eyes again and tried to piece together what had happened. He
remembered
shirts, Syrians and mint tea – and worst of all, the card he’d found in the phone kiosk:
Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me
.

Kit could now think clearly again and knew that it was all over. He’d been doubled, crossed and compromised. In a way, he was relieved. He lay back and felt the tension drain out of his body. The elaborate high wire act was over.

Kit longed to hear Sophie’s soft voice and feel her body
curling
against his own. But the next words he heard were far from the sweet lilting French of Saigon. ‘The photographs would have been much better if we had managed to wake you up.’

Kit opened his eyes and saw Jeffers Cauldwell seated on a chair beside him. He knew who it was even though the cultural attaché had dyed his hair black and grown a moustache. But Cauldwell’s greatest disguise was a new face: one that was cold and devoid of expression. He had ceased to be a dandy affecting a camp Deep South accent. Cauldwell was what he had been for years: a serious player and Soviet spy.

‘You were in a very deep coma. At one point we thought we were going to lose you. I told Youssef that necrophilia photos would be pretty damned kinky, but not much good for blackmail – you can’t blackmail a corpse. When your pulse rate got down to thirty-eight, Youssef suggested we give you an intravenous
adrenalin
shot. I said, “No, let the bastard die.” Youssef looked very distressed, I think he likes you. But you stabilised – and started to twitch about as if you were having a bad dream.’ Cauldwell paused. ‘What are you thinking, Kit?’

‘Touché.’

‘Touché indeed. I’m glad, Kit, that you’re not taking it
personally
. Would you like to see the photos?’

‘No.’

‘No? What if you’re pregnant? Wouldn’t you like to know who the father is?’

‘Can I have my clothes please?’

Cauldwell picked up a brown-paper package and tossed it to Kit. ‘You ought to try one of your new shirts. I knew that you’d eventually come to Youssef’s. I’d been telling you about his shirts for ages. In the end, you were going to come here for a fitting whether you liked it or not.’

‘You were following me?’

‘Of course. And if it hadn’t been for your serendipitous attack of recurrent malaria, Youssef would have put a double dose of chloral hydrate in your mint tea. Go on, get dressed.’

Kit saw Cauldwell look away as he began to dress. Humiliation turned to anger. He wanted to attack Cauldwell while his back was turned and break his neck or choke him with his belt, but Kit wasn’t sure they were alone in the shop. Or that the umbrella that Cauldwell was leaning on didn’t have a ricin spike.

Cauldwell turned to face Kit. ‘You deserve this, you bastard.’

‘What happened to Henry Knowles?’

There was a hard glint in Cauldwell’s eyes. ‘You don’t seem to have gotten the message, Kit. You’re no longer the one who asks the questions. From now on, we tell you what you need to know and what you need to do.’

Kit knew it wasn’t in his interest to show defiance. He wanted to stay alive and this meant he had to pretend that he was going to give in to blackmail. Why pretend? Kit thought about his job. It didn’t matter: it was insignificant compared to whether he lived or died. But in his own mind, he had begun to draft a secret ‘eyes only’ cable to Allen Dulles confessing all his sins and explaining everything that had happened. Kit knew that his career was over. Not only was his cover blown, but his unauthorised and
unreported
meetings with Vasili lay somewhere on the misconduct scale between instant dismissal from the service and an
indictment
for treason. But the important thing now was to stay alive – and Jennifer too.

‘By the way,’ said Cauldwell, ‘Vasili wasn’t altogether pleased about the photos. He said he liked you and was sad about “the lack of dignity”. He also wasn’t sure that the photos, the ones of you I mean – even on top of all the unauthorised secrets you passed to the Sovs – are enough to compromise you. Vasili
reckons
that you’re in so thick with Allen that you can ’fess up to everything and still bound free and smelling of lavender-scented Vaseline.’

Once again, Kit had the uncanny feeling that he had a neon sign on his forehead that kept flashing his thoughts.

‘“Well, Vasili,” says I, “you don’t know the American system as well as you think. If a few backwoods American Congressmen become apprised of what Kitson Fournier has been up to, the shit is going to hit the fan. In those cases the boss always sacrifices the subordinate.” Sadly, Vasili still didn’t seem convinced that you could be turned. It was only then that I suggested the nuclear option – “Kit’s dirty little secret”. I suspected it for a long time – and it only took a burglary and simple search of your flat to find the evidence.’

Kit had begun to sweat again and this time it had nothing to do with recurrent malaria. For the first time, Kit saw the pistol handle sticking out of the waistband of Cauldwell’s corduroy trousers. But it wasn’t the gun that was making him sweat; it was the notebooks that Cauldwell was holding in his hands.

‘I was,’ said Cauldwell, ‘surprised that there were so many of them and that they went back so many years. Jennifer must have been jailbait when you started keeping them.’ Cauldwell smiled and began to flick through one of the notebooks. ‘I can hardly claim to be an aficionado of heterosexual pornography, but this stuff does seem pretty hot and imaginative and more than a little perverse – especially the sections that you’ve written in French and Spanish, you clever dog. And I really like your drawings too. Look at this one. You ought to add speech bubbles, something like, “Try, Jennifer, to breathe through your nose, it helps
suppress
the gag reflex.” At least, that’s what I tell my pals.’

‘Or they tell you.’

‘They don’t need to. I feel sorry for you, Kit, you don’t know anything.’

‘Then I can’t be much use.’

Cauldwell picked up another notebook. ‘It’s not all erotic
fantasy
. Jennifer’s more to you than an imaginary sex life – a
substitute
for the real one you never had. You really love her, don’t you? In fact, she means more to you than your career, your
country
– or your own life. Jennifer is your religion. You would die for her, you would go on crusades for her. You would kill for her. In some ways, it’s very moving – and almost cynical and immoral for us to use her to control you.’ Cauldwell laughed.

Kit looked at the cold concrete floor. ‘It is funny – in a way.’

‘It’s also tragic. Poor Kit, I wish that you could see your face. You look so drained and pale – like one of those sad saints lit by Lenten tapers in an Eyetie medieval church. You should have become a priest – or a pornographer.’

Kit looked at the notebooks: secret and black covered. He didn’t understand either so he couldn’t explain it to anyone else. When did the Virgin Mary become Mary Magdalene? Kit remembered the statue in the church in Managua. The Virgin, dressed in a gown of white and lapis lazuli blue, has rays of light emanating from her fingers. But when you kneel down in front of her, your face is inches away from her bare feet – and underneath her feet is a coiled serpent. The Managuan artist had painted her toenails scarlet red – and one beautiful foot seems to be trampling the serpent, but the other foot is stroking it. As a boy of thirteen Kit knelt before that statue and watched the serpent writhe beneath those beautiful feet in the flickering candlelight – hushed Spanish voices confessing their sins in the shadows – and as he raised his eyes the gown around her thighs seemed to part. And the Virgin was smiling, at him alone. You are my knight, my soldier. If you keep pure and slay my
enemies
, I will be here for you.

Cauldwell’s voice came like a brick through a stained-glass window. ‘Cousin Jennifer …’

‘Shut up.’

‘Wrong attitude, Kit, wrong attitude.’

‘Leave her alone, show her those books if you must, but leave her alone. I beg you.’

‘Kit, you’re crying.’

‘Listen, Jeffers, I plead with you – please, please don’t let
anyone
hurt Jennifer. I’ll do anything you want, but promise not to hurt her.’

‘You’re pathetic. You’ve lost your dignity too – and all because of your love for someone you don’t even understand.’

Kit wiped his eyes, but still felt dirty and debased. Once again he felt a raw burning pain in his lower half. He tried to regain some dignity. ‘I’m offering a deal – I provide information, you ensure that Jennifer doesn’t get hurt.’

Cauldwell laughed. ‘You really don’t understand a thing.’

Kit suddenly caught the meaning and felt his heart race. With his new moustache and black hair Cauldwell looked like a devil pimp rising rich and immaculate from a sewer. ‘How well do you know her?’

Cauldwell seemed to ignore the question. ‘By the way, Kit, one of the last things I did as cultural attaché was to cable my
counterpart
in the Paris Embassy. I asked him to send you a novel. It’s banned in Britain so he’ll be sending you a sealed copy in the diplomatic pouch.’

Kit was tired of playing Cauldwell’s game. ‘I want to go. Is that all right?’

‘That depends. But first, you listen and listen well. These are our conditions. You continue doing your job as if none of this has happened.’ Cauldwell paused and stared at Kit. ‘In fact, we’re both looking for the same thing – it’s just that you’re much closer to finding it than we are.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kit did know, but the caginess of the career diplomat spy was inbred.

‘Don’t play games. Time is running out and you know it.’

‘The bomb.’

‘That’s right, Kit, the bomb, the Russian hydrogen bomb – the one that’s missing. We want to know where it is and the names of the traitors who provided it.’

‘Why don’t you ask Henry? He knows where it is.’

‘Henry
did
know – and that’s why he’s dead. And if you don’t tell us everything you know, I’m going to make one simple phone call and the same person who killed Henry is going to kill Jennifer too.’ Cauldwell took out a writing pad and a pen. ‘And you can begin with all the codes and agent names that you do know.’