A Colder War (30 page)

Kell was again impressed by the speed with which Amelia had moved on the operation.

“The Rembrandt is on Knightsbridge, yes?”

“It is, yes.” Amelia was pouring water into the mug.

“Wonder if Ryan’s a fan of
The Secret Pilgrim
.”

She frowned and looked at him, confused. Kell came into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of water from a cooler by the window.

“Harrods,” he said. “Best countersurveillance site in western Europe. A guy with Kleckner’s training goes in there, he’ll lose our team in less than five minutes. So many switchbacks, so many rooms within rooms. It’s a labyrinth.”

“A wilderness of mirrors,” Amelia replied archly. He could sense that she was making a calculation about manpower. How could she organize a team big enough to saturate Harrods if and when Kleckner chose to go there? It would mean having at least twenty watchers on call for the entire five-day duration of Kleckner’s visit, far more than she could justify to the risk-averse jobsworths at MI5. Kell put her out of her misery.

“Let me worry about it,” he said. “He’s just as likely to go to Harvey Nichols or wander around the V&A.” She withdrew the tea bag from the water and threw it in a trash can. “Just tell me about women,” Kell said, sipping the water.

Amelia looked perplexed. “What about them, Thomas?”

“Did Elsa look at Kleckner’s Facebook? Isn’t there a girl on there he likes, one he slept with last time he was in London?” He was trying to remember the woman’s name. He could recall the profile photo, because the left side of her head had been almost completely shaved. Both parties had made a promise to each other that they would get together next time Kleckner was in town. “We should cover her flat, anyone else who Ryan’s been in touch with about his trip. He has a habit of setting himself up for dates, nights out, booty calls. Has there been any of that?”

“
Booty
calls?” Amelia had adopted the tone of a shocked maiden aunt. “I’ll have it looked at. As far as I know, Ryan has no plans other than to see some old friends from Georgetown.”

*   *   *

Kell left the office just after three. He shopped in Whiteleys, bought groceries at Waitrose on Porchester Road and sank a six o’clock pint at the Ladbroke Arms, where Kathy welcomed him back with the enthusiasm and excitement of a sailor’s wife greeting her husband off an aircraft carrier in Portsmouth. He was aware that this would be the first time that he and Rachel had been together on home soil. Kell expected her to be different in London, more reserved, putting on a layer of armor to protect herself from deeper commitment. Perhaps they would come to see that what had passed between them in the previous few weeks was no more than a giddy infatuation; a holiday romance.

As soon as he walked into her flat, however, they were kissing, taking off their clothes, tripping toward the bedroom. Everything about Rachel was as Kell had remembered it: the opiates of her perfume and her kiss; the weight and shape of her languorous body; the sense in which he was communicating the strength of his feelings for her without words. There was a kind of frenzy to his desire that he could not and did not want to conceal. And that desire was matched by a quality of gentleness and passion in Rachel that drugged him into a state he had rarely known. Thomas Kell had witnessed violence and appalling brutality, deceit, and artful cunning. He had seen men killed, families torn apart, careers destroyed by greed and lies. He was not a sentimental man, nor did he have any illusions about people’s motives or the human potential for cruelty. In his long marriage to Claire, a relationship repeatedly smashed open by her infidelites, Kell had nevertheless felt deep affection for his wife. But he had never known this narcotic agitation, the state of grace in which he found himself whenever he was in Rachel’s company. Not in forty-four years.

Just as they had done in Istanbul two weeks earlier, they dressed at dusk and walked outside in search of dinner. (“I was lying about cooking,” she said. “I just wanted to get into your trousers.”) They talked about Rachel’s new job, about a problem she was having with her neighbors, about a family holiday planned by Josephine for August. It was only toward the end of the meal that Kell decided to broach the subject of H/Ankara; in the rush of a second bottle of wine it seemed dishonest not to speak about it.

“I’ve been offered a permanent position in Turkey.”

“That’s amazing,” Rachel said. “You must be thrilled.”

A vain part of Kell’s character wished that he had detected at least some small evidence of disappointment.

“I haven’t accepted yet,” he said quickly. “A lot depends on the operation I’m working on now.”

Rachel’s eyes dropped to the table. They both knew that Kell would not be permitted to speak candidly about his work. Though he was aware of this and sensed Rachel’s reluctance to discuss the subject, he nevertheless forced the point.

“It’s your father’s job. Effectively.” Rachel was still looking down at the table. “How would you feel about that?”

Kell was conscious that he had gone too far. The entire restaurant was filled with couples and families and groups of friends, none of whom appeared to be talking to one another. They had come to one of Rachel’s favorite Thai restaurants, and the plink-plunk of piped music became as grating as nails being dragged down a chalkboard.

“Rachel?”

“What?”

There it was again; the sudden, flared anger of their first night in Istanbul, her face a sullen, disappointed mask. This time, however, Kell knew that she was not drunk; he had hit a nerve of impatience and grief and Rachel’s mood had collapsed as a consequence.

“Sorry,” he said. “That was stupid of me. Let’s talk about it another time.”

But she remained stubbornly silent. Kell tried to start a conversation about a book they had both read, but the ill feeling between them crackled like static and Rachel would not respond. He was irritated by how quickly the easy romantic rhythms of the evening had been dismantled. Perhaps, for all of the sex and conversations, the thousand e-mails back and forth, they would always be relative strangers to each other.

“Let’s not do this,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was being insensitive. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Forget it,” she said.

But the evening was over. They sat in prolonged silence to a background of harps and pipes, Rachel looking off to one side of the restaurant, her face sullen and bored. Kell, stirred by a mixture of frustration and fury at the sudden change in her behavior, proved incapable of reviving her mood. Eventually Rachel went to the bathroom and he asked for the bill. As they walked out of the restaurant five minutes later, accosted by the grayness and the litter of a damp, ill-lit east London street, Rachel turned to him and said: “It’s probably better if you don’t stay.”

Kell felt the fury inside him simmer, but did not reply. He could still hear the plink-plonk of the music receding behind them as he turned and walked away. The romantic in him was crushed with disappointment; the man of reason and experience merely raged at Rachel’s overreaction. Kell cursed himself for talking about Ankara, but cursed Rachel still more for lacking the patience and the goodwill to let his remarks pass.

He did not turn around. Nor did he respond when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Instead, he lit a cigarette, walked to the Underground station, waited on a crowded platform for the last Central Line service of the night, and returned in silence to west London. Emerging from the lift at Holland Park station half an hour later, he saw that Rachel had twice tried to call him; she had also sent a text message containing a single question mark. He did not respond. Instead, he stepped out onto Holland Park Avenue and took out a packet of Winstons. A man and a woman walked past him, arm in arm. The man asked for a cigarette and Kell gave him one, lighting it wordlessly and receiving effusive thanks in return. There was a smell of dogshit in the air: Kell couldn’t tell if it had been on one of the couple’s shoes or was just general to the area. He began to walk east, not yet heading home, and was gripped by a determination to work. Revived by the cigarette, he hailed a taxi and was at Redan Place in less than five minutes.

There was no security guard on duty downstairs. Kell let himself into the building using a fob key. He rode the lift to the fourth floor, only to find the door to the office propped open by boxes piled three high on the ground. The lights were on in one of the larger rooms halfway down the corridor, the flickering shadow of someone moving around. Kell called out: “Hello? Anybody home?”

The movement ceased. Kell heard a grunted “What’s that?” and saw Harold Mowbray’s face looking out into the corridor. Harold was squinting, trying to bring Kell into focus. He looked like a man peering into an oven to see if his dinner is cooked.

“That you, boss? What you doing here this time of night?”

Mowbray had been the Tech-Ops man on the operation to find Amelia’s son. Good with microphones and miniature cameras, good with one-liners to break the tension.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Kell replied. “It’s good to see you.” He was surprised by how much he meant it. The kinship of old colleagues came as a relief.

They approached each other in the gloom of the corridor and shook hands.

“So what’s going on this time?” Harold asked. “Amelia got a secret daughter she doesn’t know about? I felt like we were in
Mamma Mia!
on the last gig.”

Kell laughed, ignoring his regret at how stubborn and shortsighted he had been not to call Rachel back.

“Cousin we have concerns about. Ryan Kleckner. Based out of Istanbul. He’s in London for four days, has a crash meeting at some point that he won’t want anyone witnessing.”

Harold nodded. Kell went back to the main door and flicked a switch, strobing the lights in his office. Harold confirmed that he was happy with the coverage in the two rooms at the Rembrandt. Kell had obtained the names and addresses of the Facebook girls and told Harold to wire their apartments for sound, not sight. The Georgetown dinner was booked for Wednesday night at Galvin, a restaurant on Baker Street. They briefly discussed the possibility of wiring a table, but concluded that it would be pointless. Instead they would have taxis in front of the restaurant timed to coincide with Kleckner’s exit.

“That’s more Danny’s bag, yeah?” Mowbray was referring to Danny Aldrich, another veteran, who would head up the surveillance team in the absence of Javed Mohsin.

“True,” Kell concurred. “At some point Kleckner is going to try to disappear.” Harold was standing in Kell’s office. Both men were smoking cigarettes, having pushed the windows wide open. “We’ll only have seven people watching him, eight max. Ideally I’d like to get something onto him, either some dust or a microphone.”

“Yeah, Amelia mentioned that.”

Kell looked up. “She did?”

Harold looked as if he had spoken out of turn. Kell had the impression that he was concealing something. He remembered his conversations with Amelia in Istanbul: the sense of parallel operations taking place without his knowledge, of privileged information being withheld.

“What do you mean?” he asked, stubbing out the cigarette. Harold turned and walked back into the corridor. Kell followed him to the closed-off area in which he had been setting up the Rembrandt surveillance screens. He could not see Harold’s face as he said: “You know. Usual stuff. What’s the latest tech, what can we do to ensure eyes and ears on a target.”

“And what
can
we do?”

Harold recovered and shot him a trademark grin. “I’m working on it, guv,” he said. “I’m working on it.”

43

Ryan Kleckner boarded Turkish Airlines flight TK1986 at Istanbul Ataturk Airport at 1730 hours on Tuesday, April thirtieth. Fifteen rows behind him, Javed Mohsin settled into a window seat, placed his Pakistani passport in the inside pocket of his jacket, inflated a travel pillow, and went to sleep. Five hours later, following a delay in the air, Mohsin was watching ABACUS flash a diplomatic passport at Terminal Three immigration, thereby cutting out a snaking line that would have delayed the American by at least forty-five minutes. Mohsin telephoned ahead to a second surveillance officer in the baggage area, confirming Kleckner’s outfit—white Converse sneakers, blue denim jeans, white button-down shirt, black V-neck sweater—and giving a description of his carry-on bag (a molded black wheeled suitcase with a Rolling Stones lips sticker peeling on the left panel) as well as the leather satchel from which he was rarely parted. ABACUS had no checked baggage and would be mobile in the terminal building within less than three minutes.

The second officer—known to the team as “Carol”—picked up ABACUS as he walked into the baggage area and called ahead to Redan Place when she saw him buying a SIM card from an automated machine in the south corner.

“Which brand?” Kell asked. He was sitting in the smallest of the six rooms, the one he had chosen as his own office. Kleckner’s move was predictable, but it was nevertheless a potential headache to Elsa and GCHQ.

“Difficult to say. Looked like a Lebara pay-as-you-go.”

“Has he fitted it in the BlackBerry?”

“Not yet. Negative.”

Carol followed ABACUS through the automatic doors at customs and established line of sight with a third watcher—Jez—who had joined the massed ranks of minicab drivers clustered in arrivals. Jez was dressed in a cheap black suit and holding a sign with the name “Kerin O’Connor” scrawled on the front in green marker pen. Lowering the sign, he turned and tailed ABACUS at five meters while Carol moved ahead, taking up an advanced position on the platform of the Heathrow Express in anticipation of Kleckner choosing to travel into London by train.

As it turned out, he took a cab. Jez texted the license plate to an SIS vehicle idling near the Parkway intersection at junction 3 of the M4. With Jez on a follow, the driver of the vehicle picked up the ABACUS cab as it paused at a set of traffic lights three hundred meters short of the motorway. Both cars tailed the target into central London and housed ABACUS at the Rembrandt Hotel. Carol went back to Paddington on the Heathrow Express, then made her way to a restaurant in Knightsbridge awaiting further instructions from Kell. Jez parked in a mews behind the hotel and hoped that he would be able to get some sleep; the driver of the second SIS vehicle was called onto a separate job. Javed Mohsin went home to his wife, whom he had not seen for more than six weeks.