The Last Ringbearer (28 page)

PART III

The Umbarian Gambit

He was a self-made counter-terrorist, “part soldier, part copper, part villain,” as he liked to say, and he belonged to the fabled generation of his trade. He had hunted Communists in Malaya and Mau Mau in Kenya, Jews in Palestine, Arabs in Aden, and the Irish everywhere.
John LeCarré

CHAPTER 36

Umbar, the Fish Market

June 2, 3019

T 
he shrimp were excellent. They sat on the tin plate like battle-ready triremes on the dim morning surface of the Barangar Bay: spiky rostrums in the tangle of rigging (feelers) threatening the enemy, oars (legs) hugging the body, just like they should in preparation for boarding. Half a dozen per portion – can’t really handle any more of these genuinely ‘royal’ shrimp that barely fit in the palm; besides, the tangy juice that gave such a charm to the sweetish pink flesh was biting his out-of-practice lips and fingertips. Tangorn glanced at the awaiting tray of large ember-baked oysters: the conical mossy stones had split a bit along the seam from the heat, shyly exposing their swarthy contents; the effect was charmingly obscene. Say what you want, but nowhere in the world can they prepare seafood like they can in the small taverns around the Fish Market, not even at the fashionable restaurants on the Three Stars Embankment! Pity the sea slugs are not in season … He sighed and again tackled the dripping piquant juicy shrimp, listening absent-mindedly to his companion’s chatter.

“… surely you can agree, Baron: your countries are just a tiny peninsula on the far north-west of Arda that’s way overestimating its importance. Moreover, it’s inhabited by paranoiacs who have convinced themselves that the rest of the world can think of nothing else but how to conquer and enslave them. Please! Who the hell needs those sickly toadstool-studded copses, the snows that don’t melt for half a year, or that foamy brown sourwater you drink instead of wine?”

Not that this fop’s elocutions insulted Tangorn’s patriotic sentiments (especially since most of what he said was true), but such statements sounded very strange coming from a high-placed official of the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Umbar; particularly so considering that their meeting was the official’s idea. The baron was not very surprised when that morning the appropriately obsequious proprietor of the Lucky Anchor hotel where he was staying had handed him an envelope plastered all over with assorted state seals. Well, it has been three days since he had showed up in Umbar, where he had surely left – how shall we put it? – an ambiguous but indisputably colorful impression; it was quite natural for the Assistant State Secretary Gagano (at the urging of Alkabir, chief of the Foreign Ministry’s Northern section) to request a confidential meeting with the guest from Ithilien. As a result, Tangorn has been ‘considering’ this idiot’s rude diatribes for a good quarter of an hour … Stop! he told himself; is he really such an idiot as he pretends to be? Let’s feel him out … try something innocuous.

“Well, ‘a tiny peninsula that’s way overestimating its importance’ – that’s pretty well said,” the baron acknowledged good-naturedly, “but I have to contest the last point of your indictment, regarding ‘brown sourwater.’ Believe it or not, not half a minute ago I was thinking about how nice it’d be to pair a couple of pints of our good old bitter with these shrimp! One that’s black and sour like pitch, with foam thick enough to hold up a small coin …” He smiled dreamily and gestured at the other man with tired condescension. “Mister Assistant State Secretary, you simply can’t imagine a real Gondorian bitter. The first, longest swallow leaves a vanishing aftertaste of smoke on your tongue, like what you can smell in a park when they burn last year’s leaves in the spring; not for naught is it called smoked beer …”

Mister Assistant State Secretary responded to the effect that he knew his beers no worse than the natives, having worked in the Northern section for many years; he was likewise conversant with all kinds of seal blubber so prized by the Lossoth inhabiting the banks of the Bay of Forochel. Yeah … many years in the Northern section, right. It’s no crime to deeply despise foreigners, but why demonstrate those feelings to them so brazenly? And as for the fact that the archaically top-fermented bitters and stouts have not been brewed outside of Eriador for the last hundred years, and that the famous Shire smoked beer is not even a bitter, but a lager made with specially caramelized malt – no, a professional has no right not to know such things about a country he’s supposed to work with! Say what you want, but the exceedingly smart and meticulous Alkabir has strange employees these days.

So why did they want to meet him? First guess: to get him out of his hotel room in order to check his luggage for messages, letters of introduction, and such. Well, such cheap tricks would be in style for the dumb boy scouts from the Gondorian station, but the Umbarian Secret Service, as far as he could remember, worked in much subtler ways. Second guess: Alkabir is letting him know on behalf of the Foreign Ministry that the Republic has abandoned its centuries-old practice of temporary alliances balancing opposing forces, and has decided to surrender to the strongest – that’d be Gondor – therefore it is pointedly refusing meaningful contact with the Ithilien emissary (undoubtedly that’s who they think he is). Third guess, the most likely one: Alkabir is letting him know that while the Republic had indeed abandoned the said centuries-old practice, there are powerful forces that disagree with this decision, and the ‘Ithilien emissary’ should deal with them rather than with the Foreign Ministry and other official channels, which the pompous ass Gagano is supposed to personify. The point is that regardless of which of these guesses is correct, it’s not the right time to go to the Blue Palace waving his diplomatic papers (had he actually had any). Here Tangorn had to laugh: so I don’t believe that Alkabir sent Gagano without his choice being a hidden message, while Alkabir doesn’t believe that I really am retired and not Faramir’s fully empowered representative, however unofficial. Both of these pictures, though resting as they do on fairly tenuous assumptions, are internally consistent, so it’s not entirely clear which facts might convince either one of us otherwise …

“What’s so funny, Baron?” the Assistant State Secretary inquired haughtily.

“Nothing much, just an amusing thought … Anyway, we’ve gone on talking for a bit too long, you’re probably expected back at the office. A humble traveler such as myself shouldn’t distract such an important person for so long. Thank you so much for the edifying conversation. And, if it’s not too much trouble, please convey the following to dearest Alkabir – literally, please, with nothing added – I have fully appreciated his decision to appoint specifically Assistant State Secretary Gagano to conduct talks with me, but I’m afraid that the guys over at 12 Shore Street are too plain and simple to appreciate such subtleties …”

Tangorn cut himself short because at the mention of the Gondorian embassy his interlocutor glanced around furtively (as if expecting to find a couple of His Majesty’s Secret Guards in full parade black uniforms at the nearest table, their torture instruments arranged right there on the tablecloth) and dashed for the exit, mumbling excuses. A solitary gentleman of merchant appearance thoughtfully consuming sea urchin eggs at a nearby table looked up at the baron, his face an appropriate mixture of confusion, uncertainty, and alarm. Tangorn smiled back, nodded at the receding State Secretary and quite sincerely shrugged and sadly twirled a finger next to his temple. Then he pulled the cooling oyster plate close (why waste good food?), expertly extracted the mollusk from its apparently impregnable fortress, and lost himself in thought.

The grand mansion on Shore Street that now housed the Reunited Kingdom’s embassy (although it would have been more appropriate to label it the Umbar branch of the Secret Guard) deservedly had the most ominous reputation among the citizenry. Minas Tirith considered the imminent annexation of Umbar a done deal, calling it nothing but ‘a pirate haven on the ancestral lands of South Gondor.’ The ambassador was readying himself to become the governor without much ado, while the people of the spy station already behaved like they owned the place. They called themselves ‘spies’ although in reality they were nothing but a band of thugs; looking at them, Tangorn felt like a noble bandit of the classic school next to a gang of underage punks. People disappearing and torture-disfigured corpses surfacing in the canals were now commonplace; until recently the Umbarians could console themselves that the victims were mostly Mordorian immigrants, but a recent assassination attempt on the famous Admiral Carnero dispelled those illusions.

In other words, Aragorn’s embassy was a formidable institution, no doubt about that, but that its mere mention would so scare a high-ranking official during performance of his duties … no, something’s off here. Unless … unless this dope works for the Gondorians! Aha! So he thought that I’ve figured him out and would turn him in. Man, that was a propitious joke, pure fool’s luck! But Aragorn’s men’s nerves are in bad shape for some reason. I wonder where I could actually turn in a traitor in this city, where the police is either solidly bought or else scared spitless, while the Gondorian embassy could issue direct orders to administration officials if it so wished? Of course, there’s also the local secret service and the military, but amazingly those, too, are behaving as if nothing going on has anything to do with them … Whatever, to hell with this Gagano, I have quite a few of my own problems now! That my modest person is now of interest to the Gondorian spies is bad enough.

What the devil! he thought, sipping suddenly tasteless wine. Why do they all think that I’m here with the mandate of an ambassador plenipotentiary of the Princedom of Ithilien sewn into my pants, and a defense treaty to offer? All right, suppose that my
countrymen
are merely giving me a gentle warning not to contact the Republic’s authorities officially. I’m willing to abide by this warning religiously, seeing as how it doesn’t impede my actual plans. Damn, wouldn’t it be lovely to let them all know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: guys, I really am not interested in getting involved in the Gondor-Umbar mess! I have a totally different job: to establish real contact with the Elvish clandestine structures here in under three weeks, knowing nothing but a single name we got from Eloar’s letter – Elandar …

Tangorn finished his wine, tossed his last Umbarian silver coin bearing Castamir’s haughty profile on the table (Sharya-Rana gave them the locations of several secret money caches, but he avoided paying with gold dungans of Mordor) and headed for the exit, limping slightly. The sea urchin connoisseur at the nearby table has also finished his meal and unhurriedly wiped first his fingers and then his lips (thin and slightly puckered with a multitude of tiny scars around them) with a handkerchief –
attention
! Three sailors were concentrating on their clam chowder at the table right next to the door; one of them casually moved an open bottle of Barangar red to the edge of the table –
ready
! Tangorn would reach the tavern door in six or seven seconds, which was all the time that Lieutenant Mongoose of the Secret Guard had to decide whether to improvise and capture the baron right now or stick to the original carefully worked out plan. Who would have thought that his agent Gagano would blow it so stupidly?

All he had to do was transparently hint to Tangorn in the name of the Foreign Ministry that his official accreditation would be untimely (the lieutenant had absolutely no desire to abduct a diplomat of a foreign and nominally allied state); the assistant state secretary managed that quite well. Unfortunately, he was cowardly (even his recruitment was accomplished with blackmail over really trivial matters), so Mongoose’s demand that he keep this assignment secret from his case officer at the station plunged the Umbarian into utter dread. He knew very well that at 12 Shore Street they would judge such ‘forgetfulness’ as double-dealing, with appropriate consequences. Gagano shuddered with fear at the mere thought of either of his Gondorian masters, and so fell apart after Tangorn’s shot in the dark.

No, Mongoose said to himself, don’t jump at it. Nothing terrible has happened yet. Yes, the baron had surely figured out that his interlocutor is connected to Gondorian spies, but most likely he will interpret that as Minas Tirith’s desire to curtail Emyn Arnen’s diplomatic activity … All right, we’ll let him go and stick to the original plan. The lieutenant put the handkerchief back in his pocket – rather than drop it on the table – and Tangorn went past the sailors at the door without a hindrance. He mixed with the street crowds and unhurriedly headed to the waterfront; he checked for surveillance twice but saw none.

Indeed, there was none: Mongoose took the sane view that right then it was most important not to spook their quarry. In just a few hours their preparation for the operation will be complete with the final touch of getting two genuine Umbar police uniforms. This very evening a police detail will visit the Lucky Anchor hotel, present Tangorn with a properly executed warrant and ask him to come to the local station to testify … and they will not let the baron die before he tells them everything he knows about the Ithilienian intelligence service’s accomplishments in the hunt for Mordorian technology.

CHAPTER 37

P 
robably no one will ever know when people started settling on this long mountainous peninsula and the flat swampy islands of the lagoon it encloses. In any event, while the inhabitants of the Reunited Kingdom do not utter the word ‘Númenor’ without a reverential sigh, a gaze at the sky, and an upraised index finger, the Umbarians sincerely scratch their heads: “Númenorians? Man, who can remember all those barbarians! Have you any idea how many of them we’ve seen around here?” Two circumstances have determined Umbar’s fate as a great sea power: an excellent sheltered harbor and the fact that the highest point of the peninsula is 5,356 feet above sea level; these are the only real mountains on the entire coast south of Anduin. In these arid latitudes ‘mountains’ spell ‘forests,’ ‘forests’ spell ‘ships,’ and ‘ships’ spell ‘sea trade,’ which organically blends with privateering and – let’s be honest – plain piracy. Add to that a fantastically advantageous location in the middle of everything: it is a true World’s crossroads, an ideal transit point for trade, and the terminus of the caravan routes from the Eastern countries.