Rogue Elements (11 page)

Danny gazed at him in bewilderment. ‘I’m Jewish, OK? Don’t ask me for a balanced political assessment.’

‘I was thinking more of geography,’ smiled the man. ‘Crowded markets, hidden backstreets, places the Shabak won’t find us . . .’ He took his eyes off the road to check the little screen, then swung into a parking lot, drove straight across it and bumped over a ditch and a kerb to reach the street beyond.

‘Oh . . . I have no idea. This is kind of my first visit.’

‘Me too. We’ll just have to explore,’ said the man. It was freakily like he was enjoying himself.

They had never met outside Zone 1 before. Churton Street in Pimlico had been their drinking refuge when they were a team, when they shared everything and had nothing to hide from each other. Wraye knew any attempt to resurrect that level of trust now would fail. She also knew Linus Marshall wouldn’t be seen dead with her so close to Vauxhall Cross. Brixton was a convenient compromise: just two stops on the Victoria line for him, and minimal danger of bumping into a civil servant, a politician or – Heaven forbid – another spy.

He was not much changed in appearance. The career frustrations of the last few years did not show on that mirror-smooth face. His eyes, always too amenable for a spycatcher, were just as alert. She was aware of some of the sadder aspects of his current life: no more hiking trips in exotic places; a lot more pills; an adulterous wife who was growing increasingly indiscreet. But he seemed to bring a sense of serenity with him into this empty basement bar. Perhaps, since their last, violent words, he had found a kind of peace.

‘Linus. This is kind of you.’

‘Madeleine.’

‘Single or double?’ Scotch had always been his drink, by preference Balvenie DoubleWood. ‘They only have Glenfiddich, I’m afraid.’

‘Water is fine.’

‘Aren’t we allowed one drink, for old times’ sake?’

‘The old times didn’t do me much good.’

His hair was thinning, and the skin of his throat had slackened. It had been his vigour that once defined him, an unstoppable intellectual force, a whirlwind blowing in from across the river and shaking up the more settled elements in the Firm. It was strange to see scalp showing through that still-dark hair.

‘What can we drink to, then?’ she said, handing him his Evian and raising her own white burgundy. ‘European integration? Fishing quotas? The cricket?’

‘Look, Madeleine,’ he said, setting the water down untouched. ‘I know you want to cultivate a network. I realize you need to drum up business. I’ll support you where I can. But let’s not pretend it’s the way it used to be.’

‘You still blame me, then?’

‘No. No. Not really. If I’m honest, I’m still angry, but not at you any more. Not even Elphinstone and Watchman.’ He paused. ‘I think, if I’m honest, what makes me angry is that I’ve been out of that job three years and it just doesn’t seem to matter – not to the Firm, not to anyone.’ He shook his head. ‘It seemed so important at the time.’

‘It was important.’

‘It was a game, and the only decent opponent had left the table.’

She hesitated. ‘I thought you might go back to Five.’

‘Would have looked like I was running away, don’t you think? Perhaps even an admission of guilt.’

‘There was never any suggestion you were involved.’

‘No? The close friend of the man responsible for guarding the Firm’s secrets manages to smuggle a stack of those secrets past the security measures he’s just instituted. How exactly do you imagine the Chief interpreted that?’

‘With respect to the Chief, any of our field officers ought to be able to sneak a memory stick out of Head Office. If not, we aren’t training them right.’

‘Our terminals don’t have USB ports for memory sticks.’

She smiled. ‘Well, that was the clever bit.’

‘I’m glad you find this funny,’ he snapped. ‘It will help the long days in Audit pass more quickly.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I know how much you loved Counter-Intelligence. You paid a high price for my mistake.’

‘We both did.’ He reached for the water and took a sip, a gesture she chose to interpret positively.

‘You could always join me if Audit gets too dull.’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Madeleine . . . I wish you well, and will do what I can for you. But our friendship – our partnership – was built on trust.’

‘You don’t honestly think I was passing names to the Russians?’

‘I don’t know what you were doing. What I do know is that I could never work with you again.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She was sincere, and it showed enough for him to soften slightly.

‘My skills wouldn’t have much of a market, in any case.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Wait for the next big scandal at CIA and they’ll be begging for an independent to go in and purge them.’

‘Those scandals don’t happen any more. It’s all petty corruption now. Counter-Intelligence has become a hygiene function. I’m not much worse off in Audit.’

‘There’s always the potential for a rogue element, though, isn’t there? I’m sure over the years you’ve had the occasional doubt about one or two of our brethren. Who does your gut say could be playing for a different team?’

‘I’m not going there.’

‘Elphinstone? Always used to be the public schoolboys, didn’t it? Or George Vine, perhaps? He went native long ago. Or is it the quiet one we least suspect? God help us,
Jane Saddle
?’

She was laughing, hamming it up. But Marshall didn’t take the bait. He was staring at her, smooth brow creased, alert eyes unblinking. ‘This is what you’re after,’ he said. ‘It’s why you called me.’

Pretending not to hear, she kept going: ‘Watchman? He’s done suspiciously well, don’t you think? Or de Vries, perhaps, with electronic access to all our secrets. What’s the new Chief like? Could
he
be a traitor?’

Linus Marshall sat back and said, ‘Do you realize how extraordinarily inappropriate this is? Please tell me you aren’t simply fishing for dirt on the people who fired you.’

She stopped laughing then. ‘Whatever you choose to think of me, Linus, surely you know me better than that.’

He considered her carefully. ‘If you’re working for a rival service . . .’

‘I’m not.’

‘But you’re after something you can use against an SIS director.’

‘I just want to know if there
is
anything.’

‘Because . . . ?’

‘I have reason to think you may have a bad apple.’

‘Not me. Not my bag any more.’

‘That doesn’t mean you’re not concerned.’

‘It means exactly that. I worry about the money and leave the human beings to Alec.’

‘Linus, I’m not asking for gossip. I want your gut instinct. If there is a traitor in SIS – at the very top – who is it?’

‘I won’t do it, Madeleine.’ He stood up to leave. ‘I won’t blacken a director’s name for your satisfaction.’

‘So it’s all dandy?’ she shouted after him. ‘Nothing to fear in Babylon-on-Thames? The great ziggurat is pure to its lead-lined heart?’

He stopped in the doorway, blinding sunshine from the street above giving him an aura that briefly restored the old sense of vitality. ‘Will you lower your voice?’ he hissed.

She walked swiftly to him. ‘Linus, a steer. That’s all I’m asking for. Do you smell anything out of place?’

He turned into the light. ‘It used to be so simple, didn’t it? Burgess, Philby, Blake: the crafty old Soviets planting doubles everywhere you looked. If only the Chinese
were
stepping up and recruiting in their place. But that’s not where the contest is any more. You want to waste a few months chasing new spectres under the bed? Have a look at the awkward places the Firm knows well. Iraq. Syria. Egypt. Serbia. Pakistan. Afghanistan. Then ask yourself which multinationals are doing unexpectedly well in those places. Maybe I’m imagining it – it’s not my concern anyway now – but once upon a time I would have been curious to see if there was any connection.’

‘Who’s in the frame, Linus?’

He shook his head. ‘Do I believe you passed names to the Russians? No. I never believed that. But you hurt the Firm just as badly when you let Elphinstone and Watchman take over the roost. It should have been us, Madeleine. The Chief as good as said so. He was counting on us, his dream team. You broke a great deal more than the law when you copied those files.’

‘I know,’ she said, clasping his arm. For a second she sensed their old warmth, their shared feeling, their lost bond. ‘Trust me, Linus. I’m trying to make amends.’

They abandoned the car among a dozen others and, under the guidance of Arkell’s smartphone map, walked swiftly towards the refugee camp. Danny had taken only nine steps when he buckled with a cry of pain. Arkell removed his desert boots and handed them to the boy.

‘Thanks,’ muttered Danny, rubbing the sole of his foot.

The first thing they saw was the security wall. A meandering line of eight-metre slabs in stained white concrete, it looped between two Jewish suburbs to encapsulate the camp, a teardrop stretching towards old Jerusalem. One road led through a break in the wall. It was blocked by an imposing new six-lane checkpoint.

A line of vehicles queued on the Palestinian side, waiting for the extensive security search that stood between them and Israel’s shopping malls, buses and nightclubs. There was no barrier for cars entering the camp, and a fenced pedestrian corridor led to an unmanned one-way full-height turnstile. In theory, there was nothing stopping them simply walking out of Israeli-controlled territory.

Arkell stared at the empty pedestrian corridor. If they took it, they would be hemmed into a narrow fenced space in plain view of the Magav, Israel’s border police. Cameras and barbed wire overhead. What if the call from the Shabak came then? Trapped. Every instinct told Arkell to avoid it, but there wasn’t any other option.

‘They won’t have had time to circulate your picture,’ said Arkell, pulling a spare blue shirt from his backpack. ‘But there’ll be an alert out. Our basic descriptions. Lose that shirt and put this on. Can you manage a French accent?’

‘I could do Italian?’ said Danny, stripping off his wet Homer Simpson T-shirt.

‘Perfect. You’re Giuseppe Rossi from Milan, a devout Catholic medical student, come to see Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but you’re also considering volunteering in a refugee clinic. If they give you trouble, let it slip that your father is a minister in the Italian government who sits on the European External Action Service’s Middle East subcommittee. Can you manage that?’

‘Hold it. You’re not coming?’

‘They’ll be looking for two Europeans together. We have to go separately. Head straight down that sidewalk and through the gate. Don’t stare at the police. Act like you do this every day. They probably won’t even cross the road. If they do challenge you, they’ll ask for ID. Apologize politely and say you left it in your hotel. You’re staying at the Grand Court.’

‘Jesus,’ whispered Danny, eyeing the narrow corridor between the fences. ‘I don’t know that I can do this.’

‘Act relaxed and you’ll be fine.’

‘I’m serious.’ He turned back to Arkell, jaw trembling. ‘They’ll arrest me and throw me back in that ice bath. I can’t do this. I can’t.’

Arkell looked around in frustration. There were no cars driving into the camp. Perhaps he could hotwire one, hide the boy in the boot, play the aid worker. A story that would stand up to about three seconds of questioning.

Then a small white bus decorated with diagonal green stripes appeared on the road leading to the camp.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, grabbing Danny’s arm. The bus bore a route number and a destination in Arabic. Arkell stepped into the road to flag it down.

The driver was sweaty and irritable, but he took Arkell’s shekels and handed him two tickets and a couple of coins in change. The bus was half-empty, its passengers all Arab and mostly female. Arkell pointed Danny towards a seat two rows from the front; he positioned himself near the back.

Within seconds they were at the checkpoint.

It was clear from the sudden braking that the driver had not expected to be stopped. This was a route he followed many times a day, each time driving straight into the camp without pause. The security checks were for the return journey. It was always so.

Except this time a magavnik had flagged him down.

Reluctantly, the driver swung open the door. Three magavnikim climbed in. None of them could have been older than twenty. One looked so young the assault rifle in his delicate hands seemed an alien, monstrous thing. The leader approached Danny, after the first two passengers had meekly displayed their identity cards. He spoke to him in Hebrew.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ said Danny, with only a slight tremor accompanying his passable Italian accent. ‘Do you speak English?’

‘You’re American?’ demanded the magavnik.

‘Italian.’

‘Your passport.’

‘Excuse me. I left it at the Grand Court.’

From his seat at the back, Arkell watched with the air of a curious onlooker.

‘You must show me identification.’

‘Sir, I’m sorry, I left it in my hotel room. My name is Giuseppe Rossi. I’m here to help the refugees.’

‘Stand up.’

‘I can call the Grand Court. My father –’

‘Stand up!’

‘Corporal, perhaps I can help.’ Arkell was suddenly there, standing close enough to ensure they didn’t see his socked feet, not so close that these edgy policemen would feel threatened.

‘Who are you?’

He already had a passport in his hand. Belgian, chosen from a set of five concealed in the padding of his backpack. ‘My name is Michel Jamoulle. I am the personal security detail assigned to Signore Rossi by Minister Rossi.’ In most covert situations, Arkell had learned to disguise his military background with a slouch or a laziness of speech. Now, he laid it out clearly enough for any private to spot. His back was straight, his bearing relaxed but alert, his gaze unwavering and the passport in his hand presented at a crisp right angle to his arm. To these teenage conscripts the message presented by the older man was clear: officer class.

The Israeli’s gaze flickered between the proffered passport and the face. Arkell’s expression was neutral: free of aggression, but there was no suggestion of friendliness either. Just a hint of warning. Above all, his eyes declared, he was master of the situation, whatever the current distribution of weaponry.

‘Why are you sitting apart?’ demanded the magavnik.

‘Signore Rossi prefers to see the Holy Land without security always on his shoulder. Regrettably his father’s senior position in government makes protection necessary, but he has requested I remain at a distance.’

‘He needs identification.’

‘Of course, Corporal. He will not make this mistake again. For today, I give you my assurance I will remain with him at all times in the camp and then escort him straight back to his hotel.’ He had learned from Wraye that it was better not to ask permission in these situations.

The corporal, confused by Arkell’s absolute confidence, waved him aside and snatched at the next identity card. A minute later, the policemen were gone and the bus was proceeding forward into Jerusalem’s Palestinian heart.

It was far removed from the popular conception of a refugee camp. Shu’fat looked like any other suburb in the developing world. Most of the land was occupied by squat concrete buildings, some of them several storeys high. Steel reinforcing bars protruded from buildings left unfinished for lack of funds or energy. The streets were filled with the same confusion of electricity cables, piles of rubbish and tattered advertising hoardings found in any number of chaotic cities. Or perhaps the problem was worse here. Freed from daily interference by Israeli security forces, the twenty thousand residents of Shu’fat were also denied the basic sanitation, health and education services the rest of Jerusalem enjoyed. The potholes were understandable, but the uncollected filth was shocking, given its proximity to some of Israel’s smartest districts.

They went first to a shoe shop, where Arkell bought Danny a pair of fake branded trainers. At the neighbouring store, they picked out stonewashed blue jeans from a limited selection to replace his still-wet cargo pants. Then Arkell sat him down in a garish red plastic chair outside a café still decorated with a faded representation of Yasser Arafat and ordered strong black coffee and a plate of baklava.

‘Well,’ he said.

‘Uh-huh,’ answered Danny.

‘You’ve made things rather complicated.’

‘Sorry.’

A boy had taken their order, but it was an older man who brought the coffees and baklava. He insisted on shaking hands with both of them and refused any suggestion of payment. He reminded Arkell of George Vine.

‘You are my guests,’ he beamed. ‘Welcome to Shu’fat.’

‘Very kind,’ said Arkell, easing his wallet back into his pocket. He knew better than to insist. ‘Tell me, are there any areas we should avoid? We don’t want to cause trouble . . .’

The man’s sunny disposition clouded only for a moment. He pointed down the street opposite. ‘It is better not to go to the left side. There is nothing interesting to see there.’

When they were alone again, Arkell asked, ‘What exactly did you do?’

‘Hacked into the portfolio account of Dmitri Laskov at the Evron Investment Company and drained the cash balance.’

‘How much?’

‘Four million, two hundred and seventy-eight thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine dollars and seven cents.’

‘Get to keep any of it?’

‘Nope. Like, the first thing those Shin Bet fascists did was beat my account details out of me.’

‘This Laskov . . . ?’

‘Total shithole. Poisoned half the workers in his mines with mercury. And it’s not like he would even notice losing four mil.’

‘Clearly he did.’

‘Yeah, well, he’s the first who has.’

Arkell looked at him in surprise. ‘You’ve done this before?’

‘Only to shitholes.’ Some of the swagger went out of him. ‘I guess I only took small amounts before, though,’ he admitted.

‘Why did you come to Israel? Couldn’t you hack the account from the US?’

‘Evron have some pretty sophisticated firewalls. A couple of open ports only accessible via the same ISP – so I had to be local. You want me to get specific?’

‘That’s all right.’

Danny sipped his coffee distractedly. ‘Man, it’s cool you came to rescue me, but . . . I mean, like, who are you? Hundred bucks says you’re not really called Michel Jamoulle.’

‘I didn’t come to rescue you.’

‘Oh . . .’

‘I happened to be passing.’

‘Passing a Shin Bet interrogation cell? Oh, I get it,’ he said with a curled lip. ‘You’re one of those spooks who get foreign agencies to do your torture for you, right?’

‘Sorry, no. I was just there to get some contact details.’

‘And you decided to bust up the joint?’

Arkell sighed. ‘Not my smartest move.’

They sat in silence for a while. Across the litter-strewn street, two young girls with matching pink backpacks played with toy pistols. Beyond them, a mother in white headscarf and embroidered thobe shepherded three even younger children through a pile of rubble, stooping to help one pull a bright yellow plastic tractor clear of a chunk of steel-studded concrete.

‘All the same,’ said Danny at last. ‘Thanks. I was freaking out back there.’

‘You want to call your parents? Let them know you’re OK?’

The American boy snorted derisively. Then, sounding less brave than he might have wished, ‘Am I OK? Like, how do we get out of here?’

‘We’ll think of something,’ promised Arkell.