A Delicate Truth (5 page)

Authors: John le Carré

Tags: #Fiction, #General

BOOK: A Delicate Truth

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‘
Aladdin
’s a twitchy
bugger, Paul,’ Shorty was confiding. ‘First he has a run-in with the head
waiter in English because there isn’t any lobster. Now his lady friend’s
getting it in Arabic, and him a Pole. I’m surprised he doesn’t give her a
thick ear, the way she’s carrying on. It’s like at home, right,
Jeb?’

‘Come over here a minute, Paul,
please.’

With Jeb’s hand on his shoulder to
guide him, he made a wide step to the middle screen. Alternating aerial and ground
shots. Were they courtesy of the Predator drone that was by no means beyond Mr
Crispin’s operational budget? Or of the helicopter that he could hear idling
overhead? A terrace of white houses, faced with weatherboarding, perched on the
cliff’s edge. Stone staircases to the beach dividing them. The staircases leading
down to a skimpy crescent of sand. A rock beach enclosed by jagged cliff. Orange street
lamps. A metalled slip road leading from the terrace to the main coast road. No lights
in the windows of the houses. No curtains.

And through the arrow-slit, the same terrace
in plain sight.

‘It’s a tear-down, see,
Paul,’ Jeb was explaining in his ear. ‘A Kuwaiti company’s going to
put up a casino complex and a mosque. That’s why the houses are empty.
Aladdin
, he’s a director of the Kuwaiti company. Well now, according
to what he’s been telling his guests, he’s got a confidential meeting with
the developer tonight. Very lucrative, it will be. Shaving off the profits for
themselves, according to his lady friend. You wouldn’t think a man like
Aladdin
would be so leaky, like, but he is.’

‘Showing off,’ Shorty explained.
‘Typical fucking Pole.’

‘Is
Punter
already inside the
house then?’ he asked.

‘Let’s say, if he is, we
haven’t spotted him, Paul, put it that way,’ Jeb replied in the same steady,
deliberately conversational tone. ‘Not from the outside, and there’s no
coverage inside. There hasn’t been the opportunity, so we’re told. Well, you
can’t bug twenty houses all in one go, I don’t suppose, can you, not even
with today’s equipment? Maybe he’s lying up in one house and sneaking into
another for his meeting. We don’t know, do we, not yet? It’s wait and see
and don’t go down there till you know who you’re taking on, ’specially
if you’re looking for an al-Qaeda kingpin.’

Memories of Elliot’s clotted
description of the same elusive figure come sweeping back to him:

I would basically describe
Punter
as your jihadist Pimpernel par excellence, Paul, not to say your
will-o’-the-wisp. He eschews all means of electronic communication, including
cellphones and harmless-seeming emails. It’s word of mouth only for
Punter
,
and one courier at a time, never the same one twice
.

‘He could come at us from anywhere,
Paul,’ Shorty was explaining, perhaps to wind him up. ‘Over the mountains
there. Up the Spanish coast by small boat. Or he could walk on the water if he felt like
it. Right, Jeb?’

Cursory nod from Jeb. Jeb and Shorty, the
tallest and the shortest men in the team: an attraction of opposites.

‘
Or
smuggle himself across
from Morocco under the noses of the coastguards, right, Jeb?
Or
put on an
Armani suit, and fly in Club on a Swiss passport.
Or
charter a private Lear,
which is what I’d do, frankly. Having first ordered my special menu in advance
from the highly attractive hostess in a mini-skirt. Money to burn,
Punter
’s got, according to our amazing top-of-the-range source, right,
Jeb?’

From the seaward side, the pitch-dark
terrace was forbidding
against the night sky, the beach a blackened
no-man’s-land of craggy boulders and seething surf.

‘How many men in the boat team?’
he asked. ‘Elliot didn’t seem sure.’

‘We got him down to eight,’
Shorty replied, over Jeb’s shoulder. ‘Nine when they head back to the mother
ship with
Punter
. They hope,’ he added drily.

The conspirators will be unarmed,
Paul
, Elliot was saying.
Such is the degree of trust between a pair of
total bastards. No guns, no bodyguards. We tiptoe in, we grab our man, we tiptoe
out, we were never there. Jeb’s boys push from the land, Ethical pulls from
the sea
.

Side by side with Jeb once more, he peered
through the arrow-slit at the lighted freighters, then at the middle screen. One
freighter lay apart from her companions. A Panamanian flag flapped from her stern. On
her deck, shadows flitted among the derricks. An inflatable dinghy dangled over the
water, two men aboard. He was still watching them when his encrypted cellphone began
cooing its stupid melody. Jeb grabbed it from him, dowsed the sound, handed it back.

‘That you, Paul?’

‘Paul speaking.’

‘This is Nine. All right? Nine. Tell
me you hear me.’

And I shall be
Nine, the minister
is solemnly intoning, like a Biblical prophecy.
I shall not be
Alpha,
which
is reserved for our target building. I shall not be
Bravo,
which is
reserved for our location. I shall be
Nine,
which is the designated code
for your commander, and I shall be communicating with you by specially encrypted
cellphone ingeniously linked to your operational team by way of an augmented PRR
net, which for your further information stands for Personal Role Radio
.

‘I hear you loud and clear, Nine,
thank you.’

‘And you’re in position? Yes?
Keep your answers short from now on.’

‘I am indeed. Your eyes and
ears.’

‘All right. Tell me precisely what you
can see from where you are.’

‘We’re looking straight down the
slope to the houses. Couldn’t be better.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘Jeb, his three men and
myself.’

Pause. Muffled male voice off.

The minister again:

‘Has anyone any idea why
Aladdin
hasn’t left the Chinese yet?’

‘They started eating late. He’s
expected to leave any minute. That’s all we’ve heard.’

‘And no
Punter
in sight?
You’re absolutely sure of that? Yes?’

‘Not in sight as yet. I’m sure.
Yes.’

‘The slightest visual indication,
however remote – the smallest clue – possibility of a sighting –’

Pause. Is the augmented PRR breaking up, or
is Quinn?

‘– I expect you to advise me
immediately
. Understood? We see everything you see, but not so clearly. You
have
eyes-on
. Yes?’ – already sick of the delay – ‘Plain sight, for
fuck’s sake!’

‘Yes, indeed. Plain sight. Eyes-on. I
have eyes-on.’

Don has struck up his arm for attention.

In the centre of town a people carrier is
nosing its way through night traffic. It has a taxi sign on its roof and a single
passenger on the rear seat, and one glance is enough to tell him that the passenger is
the corpulent, very animated
Aladdin
, the Pole that Elliot won’t touch
with a barge. He’s holding a cellphone to his ear and, as in the Chinese
restaurant, he is gesticulating magisterially with his free hand.

The pursuing camera veers, goes wild. The
screen goes blank. The helicopter takes over, pinpoints the people carrier, puts a halo
over it. The pursuing ground camera returns. The winking
icon of a
telephone, top-left corner of the screen. Jeb hands Paul an earpiece. One Polish man
talking to another. They are taking it in turns to laugh.
Aladdin
’s left
hand performing a puppet show in the rear window of the people carrier. Male Polish
merrymaking replaced by disapproving voice of a woman translator:

‘
Aladdin
is speaking to
brother Josef in Warsaw,’ says the woman’s voice disdainfully. ‘It is
vulgar conversation. They are discussing girlfriend of
Aladdin
, this woman he
has on boat. Her name is Imelda.
Aladdin
is tired of Imelda. Imelda has too
much mouth. He will abandon her. Josef must visit Beirut.
Aladdin
will pay for
him to come from Warsaw. If Josef will come to Beirut,
Aladdin
will introduce
him to many women who will wish to sleep with him. Now
Aladdin
is on his way to
visit special friend. Special
secret
friend. He love this friend very much. She
will replace Imelda. She is not gloomy, not bitch, has very beautiful breasts. Maybe he
will buy apartment for her in Gibraltar. This is good news for taxes.
Aladdin
will go now. His secret special friend is waiting. She desires him very much. When she
opens the door she will be completely naked.
Aladdin
has ordered this.
Goodnight, Josef.’

A moment of collective bewilderment, broken
by Don:

‘He hasn’t got fucking
time
to get laid,’ he whispered indignantly. ‘Not even
him.’

Echoed by Andy, equally indignant:

‘His cab’s turned the wrong way.
What the fuck’s it gone and done that for?’

‘There is
always
time to get
laid,’ Shorty corrected them firmly. ‘If Boris Becker can knock up a bird in
a cupboard or whatever,
Aladdin
can get himself laid on his way to sell Manpads
to his mate
Punter
. It’s only logical.’

This much at least was true: the people
carrier, instead of turning right towards the tunnel, had turned left, back into the
centre of town.

‘He knows we’re on him,’
Andy muttered in despair. ‘
Shit
.’

‘
Or
changed his stupid
mind’ – Don.

‘Hasn’t got one, darling.
He’s a bungalow. It’s all downstairs’ – Shorty.

The screen turned grey, then white, then a
funereal black.

CONTACT TEMPORARILY LOST

All eyes on Jeb as he murmured gentle Welsh
cadences into his chest microphone:

‘What have you done with him, Elliot?
We thought
Aladdin
was too fat to lose.’

Delay and static over Don’s relay.
Elliot’s querulous South African voice, low and fast:

‘There’re a couple of apartment
blocks with covered car parks down there. Our reading is, he drove into one and came out
by a different one. We’re searching.’

‘So he knows you’re on him
then’ – Jeb – ‘That’s not helpful, is it, Elliot?’

‘Maybe he’s aware, maybe
it’s habit. Kindly get off my bloody back. Right?’

‘If we’re compromised,
we’re going home, Elliot. We’re not walking into a trap, not if people know
we’re coming. We’ve been there, thank you. We’re too old for that
one.’

Static, but no answer. Jeb again:

‘You didn’t think to put a
tracker on the cab by any chance, did you, Elliot? Maybe he switched vehicles.
I’ve heard of that being done before, once or twice.’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

Shorty in his role as Jeb’s outraged
comrade and defender, pulling off his mouthpiece:

‘I’m definitely going to sort
Elliot out when this is over,’ he announced to the world. ‘I’m going
to have a nice, reasonable, quiet word with him, and I’m going to shove his stupid
South African head up his arse, which is a fact. Aren’t I, Jeb?’

‘Maybe you are, Shorty,’ Jeb said
quietly. ‘And maybe you’re not, too. So shut up, d’you
mind?’

The screen has come back to life. The night
traffic is down to single cars but no halo is hanging over an errant people carrier. The
encrypted cellphone is trembling again.

‘Can you see something that we
can’t, Paul?’ – accusingly.

‘I don’t know what you can see,
Nine.
Aladdin
was talking to his brother, then he changed direction. Everyone
here is mystified.’

‘We are, too. You better bloody
believe it.’

We?
You and who else, exactly?
Eight? Ten? Who is it that whispers in your ear? Passes you little notes, for all I
know, while you talk to me? Causes you to change tack and start again? Mr Jay Crispin,
our corporate warlord and intelligence provider?

‘Paul?’

‘Yes, Nine.’

‘You have eyes-on. Give me a reading,
please.
Now
.’

‘The issue seems to be whether
Aladdin
’s woken up to the fact that he’s being followed.’
And after a moment’s thought: ‘Also whether he’s visiting a new
girlfriend he has apparently installed here instead of keeping his date with
Punter
’ – increasingly impressed by his own confidence.

Shuffle. Sounds off. The whisperer at work
again. Disconnect.

‘Paul?’

‘Yes, Nine.’

‘Hang on. Wait. Got some people here
need to talk to me.’

Paul hangs on. People or person?

‘Okay! Matter solved’ – Minister
Quinn in full voice now – ‘
Aladdin
’s not – repeat
not
–
about to screw anybody, man or
woman. That’s a fact. Is that
clear?’ – not waiting for an answer. ‘The phone call to his brother we just
heard was a blind to firm up his date with
Punter
over the open line. The man
at the other end was
not
his brother. He was
Punter
’s
intermediary.’ Hiatus for more off-stage advice. ‘Okay, his
cut-out
. He was
Aladdin
’s cut-out’ – settling to the
word.