Rogue Elements (20 page)

In the soul of the man who had on occasion travelled under the name of José Cumes, contradictory instincts were at war. There was the instinct for survival, bred deep into his bones by a long line of survivors, then reinforced by the acculturation of the Golani Brigade and a string of Mossad instructors. But there was also the instinct for honest self-reflection, passed on to him by an academic father who had always insisted that, above all else, he spurn the temptations of self-delusion and recognize and respect the truth of himself, whatever it happened to be.

The truth, as Gavriel Yadin had for a while now accepted, was troubling.

It wasn’t that he killed people for a living. No sudden outburst of scruples challenged his long-held view that killing was a natural part of animal life. He was very good at it; people found his talents useful: that was enough. But where did it lead? What happened next?

He’d watched a movie recently, aged assassins – good-humoured Americans, wrinkly and warm-hearted – called out of retirement to do one last job. Absurd. One of them could barely walk for his decrepit hip. One was plugged into a dialysis machine. The third was half-blind and needed help from a little boy locating his target. Even then his hands were shaking too much to hold the rifle steady. It was meant to be hilarious, but it wasn’t. It was humiliating.

Impossible.

How does an assassin age?

Not like that, certainly. So what, then? Stop? Retire at fifty? Transform like magic into some different creature? Other members of the Kidon had become trainers, civil servants, security guards, politicians . . . it was too depressing.

Kartouche had once sent him to kill a Chinese businessman. He didn’t know why. He rarely knew why. The Chinese was a big man in plastics manufacturing; he owned several factories in Guangdong making toys and casings for electronic equipment. Yadin intercepted him as he was leaving his golf club in a Daimler. It was an expansive, exclusive place, with a long drive through newly planted woodland. Easy to step in front of the car and, when it slowed, shoot the driver in the head. The target had said, in trembling English, before he too was killed, ‘But I haven’t finished building my company.’

That struck Yadin.
I haven’t finished
. When he found himself staring into death’s chasm, would he feel similarly unready? Was there anything not finished in his life? And if not – he suspected there was not – did that mean his life lacked purpose? It was not without effect: he had brought the lives of many significant people to a premature end, changed the course of certain strands of history. But that was different from purpose. Effect alone was not meaningful.

If he had nothing particular to achieve before he died, then . . .

Always recognize and respect the truth of yourself.

. . . then why continue to exist?

Yadin was not afraid of such questions, any more than he was afraid of the guns and knives and lethal injections that might, for him, at any point render them irrelevant. That did not mean it was an easy question.

At the beginning it had been about controlling, then mastering his fear, his revulsion, his lust for the kill. Those emotions had long since been cauterized. Then it was about technical mastery. Every skill that interested him had been perfected. So what next? Quantity? Was there any point to achieving a certain number of kills, like an athlete determined to win a set quotient of gold medals or an investment banker obsessed with pushing his bonus above a particular benchmark? If so, what was the number? It could only be an artificial construct, however he selected it. A meaningless figure with no basis in natural order or logic.

Some other elusive goal, then?

The truth of yourself
. The truth was this: Yadin’s lust for life was gone. He used to enjoy classical music, particularly Mendelssohn. Now, it irritated him. Making love to Klara . . . he was finding it necessary these days to work harder to achieve orgasm – and did he really enjoy it anyway? Did he actually
want
it still? Or was it just necessary to prove to himself that he was still human?

There was no pleasure any more.

He was still capable of feeling. He felt annoyance, frustration, embarrassment even – but rarely anything positive.

The truth . . .
The truth was this: he was feeling old.

New wrinkles had appeared below his eyes and the skin of his throat seemed a little slack. He wasn’t vain, but it was a sign. A lesion on his thigh wouldn’t heal. Previously, he barely noticed wounds before they were gone. His breath, he was convinced, had turned fetid, necrotic. He’d tried mouthwash, mints, garlic, but the sensation lingered and he now refused to kiss Klara. He was overcompensating physically, ridiculous in a man still at peak strength. He was pumping iron until his muscles trembled, sparring with a trainer at an intensity quite inappropriate to the requirements of his work. Yet even as he pushed himself, he struggled to explain to his own satisfaction
why
he was pushing himself.

He had become a perfectly tuned machine with no appetite to function.

There had always been philosophy in his parents’ household. His father had lectured in a range of humanities, had had a fondness for the writings of Hume and Locke. But an essay by the sixteenth-century mayor of Bordeaux, Michel de Montaigne, was the hook that caught the young Yadin’s attention. Entitled ‘To Philosophize is to Learn how to Die’, it made a deep impression on a boy just about to face national service and the possibility of a Hamas bullet.

So frequent and so ordinary
was how Montaigne, whose youthful brother had been killed by a tennis ball, described death. And yet he had written,
death can surprise us in so many ways
.

Most of his father’s philosophers Yadin had been content to leave behind when his skills in unarmed combat and marksmanship drew the attentions of a Mossad talent spotter. But Montaigne had stayed with him, and as the questions on the continuing purpose of his life multiplied, he had sought out a book of his essays and read them all.

The writing was astonishing – insightful, humorous, bewilderingly eclectic, laced with classical wisdom. It inspired him to visit Montaigne’s tower in Dordogne, his only adult excursion as a genuine tourist. A futile exercise. He had stood in the library at the top of the tower and felt nothing. He had studied the Latin and Greek maxims inscribed on the beams overhead, he had gazed out of the windows, he had sat where Montaigne would have sat, looking at bare walls that would once have been lined with precious volumes. None of it seemed pertinent to his own condition.

He had flown back to Germany and read the essays again in Klara’s bed, and felt that perhaps, even though he remained perplexed by his own existence, he was beginning to understand.

The Secret Intelligence Service maintains a modest rented office in Mayfair, two streets back from Green Park, where meetings with less trusted partners or potential assets can be held in an anonymous corporate setting. The limited company whose name appears on a small perspex badge beside the entrance is listed at Companies House, but its very ordinary revenues and costs are manufactured by Technical and Operations Support staff at Vauxhall Cross. It does not advertise.

Madeleine Wraye had used the office herself on many occasions: to flatter internationally mobile businessmen into playing unpaid snoop; to barter information with uncannily informed hedge fund managers; to go through the motions of negotiating, in the guise of an export sales director or a well-funded buyer, with some of the nastier commercial entities on the planet. It was unsettling, as well as mildly humiliating, to be sitting on the other side of the desk.

As if sensing her discomfort, Anthony Watchman lounged back in the Herman Miller chair and gave her his most charming smile. He’d always been good at the charm, when he could be bothered. It was a tap he could spin open when he wanted something. A hard-edged charm, to be sure – rough-diamond stuff – but effective nonetheless. However much you recognized that the diamond could cut you, it was difficult not to be seduced by it. It was the very hardness of the man that made his dazzle so appealing. It felt like a favour bestowed: instead of ripping you from limb to limb, he had chosen to stroke you behind the ears. For now.

‘Madeleine Wraye,’ he marvelled, the welcoming smile not quite making it to his eyes. ‘Madeleine Wraye.’ Flicking a lever on the chair, he leaned back a little further. ‘How the bloody hell are you? And what the hell are you doing with yourself these days?’

‘You don’t know?’ she smiled back. The visitors’ chairs were padded but rigid – deliberately less comfortable. Well aware of the psychological disadvantage that could accrue, she had spun hers around on arrival and now sat with her arms folded over the chair back.

‘I’m sure someone keeps track,’ he said. A perfect put-down, she had to admit. ‘Seriously, Madeleine, it’s good to see you. You look well.’

‘So do you, Tony.’ It was true: he must be fifty, more or less exactly, but you wouldn’t know it. The sandy hair – with touches of white around the ears only – was still thick, layered and styled to look artlessly ruffled. He had been a habitual marathon runner, she remembered, hitting a faster time each year until an Achilles tendon ruptured, and even then he managed annual half-marathons across Salisbury Plain. And he had kept in shape. If there was fat on that frame, his tailoring did not reveal it.

‘The independent life working out OK? Enough business? I’m sure we could find a few bits and pieces for you if it’s helpful?’

She did not rise to the bait. ‘No complaints so far.’

‘Shit, it’s good to see you,’ he reiterated, and the sincerity in his rounded eyes and gently shaking head might almost have been believable. ‘Really, Maddie, I miss having you around. We all do.’

‘That’s nice to hear.’ Her sincerity would have seemed to an outsider just as authentic. His pet name for her still rankled, but she had been disguising her irritation for so long she wasn’t sure he even remembered it was a goad. ‘Although apparently you don’t miss me enough to offer tea at Head Office.’

He spread his open palms, the honest, regretful friend. ‘That would be a tough sell to the boys on the door. A woman of your abilities that close to our servers? They wouldn’t like it.’

So he was going to play rough. His allusion was not subtle. Worse, she reflected, it was more than a little triumphant. And that was just not on. For Tony Watchman had been the agent of her fall from grace. Others were involved, of course – but it had been his hand on the dagger.

The charge, in the grand scheme of things, had been a minor one, but in the Firm it was treated as the gravest of crimes. Copying secret files for personal use. And she was guilty, it was true, although she was by no means alone. Officers routinely cached files of particular importance to their own circumstances. No treacherous intention; it was simply too easy, despite the safeguards, to do it. Impossible to search every officer exiting Head Office – especially those trained in confounding such security measures – so in the end the system had to fall back on the Official Secrets Act and positive vetting. SIS simply had to trust its staff not to do anything too stupid with its data.

But if someone were to be caught red-handed, well, then there could be no mercy.

Wraye had only done it for insurance, that was the irony. She knew the menfolk were feeling threatened, wanted her out. Well, just in case they found a way – and for the likes of Elphinstone and Watchman there always was a way – she needed to prepare herself for life on the outside. If she wanted to stay in the intelligence game, it was simple: she needed intelligence.

The take was enormous. Over a period of seven weeks, Wraye copied everything the Firm held on a plethora of governments, armies, weapon systems, central banks, proprietary technologies and corporations. She left not a trace of her activity. But Watchman knew she was doing it. And she knew he knew.

She even knew the day he was going to order the raid on her little house in Tryon Street.

On that day, a pleasant June morning with only a chance of rain later, she had postponed a meeting with the East European Controllerate team and strolled across the fourth floor to his office. Elphinstone was there, of course. Together, they were raptly watching one of Watchman’s three desktop screens. When she knocked, Watchman hit a button, changing the display.

‘Got a moment, Tony?’

Elphinstone excused himself with a murmur about a call to Langley.

Watchman said, ‘I’m busy.’ He was not always charming. It had taken a few years for Wraye to interpret correctly the coded laments of secretaries and junior case officers who reported to him. The rough edges of this self-polished man lay only a little way below the surface. He had been described in more than one confidential assessment as a bully.

‘I brought popcorn,’ she said brightly. ‘I thought we could watch it together.’

He understood in an instant. ‘You’ve moved it,’ he accused.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Where have you hidden it? I hope you realize any number of hostile agencies may have you under observation – may already have taken possession of the data.’

‘Don’t be self-righteous, Anthony. We both know you’ve done far worse. May I?’ She leaned across him to reopen the live feed from Oscar Lima unit. ‘I’d like to check they don’t break anything.’

Together they watched the search team rifle through her possessions. The process was methodical and meticulous. Every item examined was replaced exactly as found.

Wraye was enjoying herself considerably, despite the violation of her home, until Watchman sighed and shifted gear. He gave her that charming smile, and she knew immediately that she was in trouble.

‘It’s a pity you moved the cache,’ he said, as if making a purely objective observation. ‘It would have been less painful this way.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You don’t think this is the only dirt we have on you?’

‘Is that a technical term in C-T, Tony?’

‘This may surprise you, but I genuinely like you, Madeleine.’

‘Seeing as you’re trying to destroy my career and put me in prison, Tony, yes, it does surprise me.’

‘Prison? No one wants that. It won’t come to that. Not unless . . .’ He paused, as if to think it through for the first time. ‘Well, not unless we have to move to Plan B.’

‘Plan B,’ she smiled thinly.

‘Madeleine, we have video of your pay-off in Lviv.’

She remained entirely reactionless. That in itself, of course, was reaction enough to betray her. Not that Watchman needed it.

‘It’s very good quality. We have you counting the cash and then shaking Gregor Uhlig’s hand. Irrefutable.’

For the first time in years, she felt an urge to cry. ‘There was context!’ she said furiously. ‘That was Firm business, and I can prove it.’ But she already knew she couldn’t.

‘The Chief was very clear: no deals. Uhlig is to be captured and delivered gift-wrapped to Moscow, nothing more and nothing less. Instead, you’re on film accepting a bribe from the very same arms dealer your colleagues in Counter-Terrorism are busting a gut to close down! Is that the evidence you want me to put before the tribunal?’

Twenty-six years of service. She was so close to the top. The first female chief of SIS. So nearly her name in the history books.

‘Let us use the data indiscretion and you can walk away untouched. I guarantee it. Directorship in the City, spotless record in the wider intelligence community if that’s where you want to go. Not a murmur about Uhlig.’

‘Just so long as I get out of the boys’ way.’

‘It’s not personal, Madeleine.’

‘Oh, it is a little bit personal,’ she snapped.

Calmly, he waited, knowing he’d won.

She gestured to the screen. ‘Which rooms have they done so far?’

‘Office, both bedrooms and the bathroom.’

Her voice sounded very distant. ‘Tell them I’m popping home for five minutes. Tell them to clear out now and resume when I leave.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll put it behind the fridge.’

Watchman was stroking his tie. It was an unconscious action, at least as unconscious as any made by such an experienced intelligence officer. The tie was a deep and lustrous purple silk weave. Conservative but confident. It occurred to Wraye that his suit was rather finer than anything she’d seen him wear previously. More corporate, like the tie. In that chair, behind that desk, she decided, Tony Watchman was doing his best to look the model Chief Executive. He hadn’t quite pulled it off. There was still just the slightest imprint of a chip on his elegant shoulder. Still the insecurity of a man who hadn’t been to university, who didn’t quite belong. Yes, he’d won, by any measure he’d won – but he’d never entirely believed it.

‘So, aside from the sadly impossible prospect of tea at Head Office, what can I do for you, Maddie?’

‘I have a few questions on behalf of a client. A friendly, I promise. Would you mind?’

‘It would be my pleasure.’ The expansive CEO, ever generous with his time.

‘It goes back a while. Rupert Ellington. Remember him?’

‘Remind me.’ Not a flicker.

‘Our man in Riyadh, around eleven years ago.’

‘Died on the job.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Poor sod. Brain aneurysm, wasn’t it?’

‘Turns out it wasn’t.’

‘Oh. Guess I don’t remember him all that well then.’

‘That same day, an emergency courier was sent to Riyadh with a package of papers for the Ambassador. Your courier. Any idea what was in those papers that made them so urgent?’

He paused. ‘This was before GRIEVANCE?’

‘Just before.’

‘Then I’m afraid I’ve no idea. All kinds of issues seemed important before GRIEVANCE.’

His face was entirely composed, not a thing to be read there.

‘Why didn’t you use a Firm courier?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Martin said you asked him to clear the visit with the Saudis and organize a flight. He offered you a Firm courier but you turned him down in favour a guy from outside. Name of Sidney Dawson.’

Watchman considered the desk between them. ‘I remember now.’

‘What?’

‘What the papers were.’

‘What were they?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

She had expected that at least. ‘And the courier?’

‘The papers were time-critical. I had to get a man on a particular scheduled flight. It was a matter of rushing someone to the airport. Martin’s courier wouldn’t have made it. My guy was ready to go. He was a private security operative I used a number of times back then. I trusted him.’

‘Any chance he might have dropped by Ellington’s house? Maybe popped something in his bedtime cocoa?’

Watchman breathed forcefully. ‘That’s dangerous ground, Madeleine.’

‘Yes or no, Tony?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think possibly yes.’

‘Think differently, and quick, or this meeting’s over. There’s a nasty whiff of accusation developing.’

‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘But let’s stay on dangerous ground. Two years later my officer, Simon Arkell, was killed.’

‘I thought he was George’s officer by then.’

‘It was an act of terrorism on British soil. Your section handled the liaison with Five and SO13. What was the final conclusion?’

‘Insufficient data but probably AQ, threatened by something Arkell had unearthed in Yemen.’ Watchman looked very slightly smug. Was it his confident recall of an old case? Or something else?

‘You never worked out what he might have found?’

‘No means to do so. His house was obliterated, along with his laptop and phone. He’d gone AWOL for a few days, requested a passport for some Greek. That’s all we had.’

‘Did you identify the Greek?’

‘No.’

‘How about the bomber? We had CCTV.’

‘No match.’

‘None? Nothing since?’

‘No.’

She laid the Tobago shot of Yadin in front of him. ‘Know who that is?’

For the first time, something shifted in Watchman. The cockiness gave way momentarily to unease. ‘I can’t discuss this man.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He’s part of an ongoing investigation by another service.’

‘Then how about this one?’ She put down a second picture. She’d decided to go with one of the moustache-sporting variants.

‘No idea.’ Not a flicker of recognition. He was very good, reflected Wraye, given that his fingerprints were plastered over this very photograph.

‘Now, Anthony, I happen to know that’s not true.’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ he smiled.

‘I imagine you’ll take it as a compliment.’

‘Your evidence?’ Was there a hint of a break in his confidence?

‘You weren’t all that discreet in Bissau.’

‘I see.’

‘Want to tell me why you went to visit Salis?’

‘No.’

‘Business? Social? Shopping for personal use? Why so coy, Tony?’