Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (23 page)

“It suits me to a tee,” Isabella replied. “Let me just check with Philip. . . . Day after tomorrow to sail, early start? That's still on with you, isn't it?” she asked.

“It's in my diary in big red letters.”

“How can you be sure without looking?”

“I know because
you
wrote it in,” Philip said.

“Ty,” Isabella said. “You're footloose and fancy-free at the moment. Would you like to join us?”

“On
Surpass
?”

“You won't believe it. It's
so
cool it will take your breath away.”

“I've been aboard, remember?”

“For a party,” Isabella said, “which is an entirely different thing from a cruise.”

Ty studied Philip, who was doing his best to mask his disgust at Isabella's impulsive invitation. “I don't want to be in the way,” Ty said.

“There will be people coming and going—not just businesspeople, glamorous people, too, and some not so glamorous whom Ian finds interesting. The last thing you'll be is ‘in the way.'”

“That's true,” Philip said. “It's not hard to get lost in the crowd if one finds oneself bored to tears.”

“Then I'd love to come,” Ty said, “but please run it by your godfather before I accept.”

“I'll do that right now,” Isabella said, picking up the phone. “Ian, you're big on having movie stars aboard—”

“I've never seen myself in quite those terms,” Ian interrupted, “but yes, by all means, Ty would be most welcome if he can spare the time.”

Isabella nodded.

“How long a cruise?” Ty whispered.

“A week, plus or minus,” Philip whispered back.

Isabella covered the mouthpiece momentarily with her palm. “You can go ashore at almost any time, anywhere.”

Ty raised his thumb and forefinger in a circular shape.

“I have a feeling he can spare the week,” Isabella told Ian.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Oliver stood in the
windowless reception room of NATO HQ in Gibraltar. Recessed in the gunmetal wall behind protective glass were dioramas portraying important moments in the history of British Gibraltar. Each featured elaborate ships' models and multitudes of miniature sailors and soldiers. Oliver was studying one entitled
The Relief of Gibraltar by Admiral Lord Howe
,
11th–18th October 1782
when the receptionist, a sturdy female lieutenant in dress uniform, said, “Commander Molyneux.”

“Yes.”

The receptionist looked toward a door on her left, one that would have appeared more at home in a Georgian house than an aboveground seaside cave.

Seconds later the door opened outward and laughter could be heard as Admiral Giles Cotton escorted his guest, an adviser to the island's chief minister, to the exit. “Tell me that one again,” the Gibraltarian said. “I want to be sure I've got it right. ‘What's the difference between a vitamin and a hormone?' That's it, isn't it?”

Giles Cotton nodded. “You can't
hear
a vitamin,” he whispered, making a display of his discretion in front of the receptionist.

No sooner had the visitor withdrawn than the receptionist, interrupting her commanding officer's stride, said, “Admiral, Commander Molyneux is here to see you.”

“Oh, yes indeed. I nearly forgot,” replied Giles Cotton, who approached Oliver, offered his hand, and said, “Come this way, won't you, Commander?”

Oliver followed him as the heavy paneled door closed with quiet precision.

“It's counterbalanced,” Admiral Cotton explained, having noted Oliver's reaction. “It has to be, since beneath the shiny veneer it's armor plate.”

The left wall of the corridor was transparent yet soundproof, affording a comprehensive view of a high-tech office wherein dark composite desks and state-of-the-art terminals arranged in pods stretched as far as Oliver could see. The absence of the normal hum of a work environment made the large room seem farther away than it was and eerie, as though it were being spied upon, its occupants' privacy violated. The wall on their right was cave rock, formed of long, uneven ledges in which openings that had once been gun emplacements were now sealed with thick glass. Pausing before one of these, Oliver took in a sweeping panorama of the straits, with Arabia in the distance, then noticed that in a few of the lower emplacements video cameras had been set up, pointed at the sea.

On a wall of Admiral Cotton's office the input from these and other cameras was displayed in a chessboard of monitors. Opposite, behind his desk, hung an enormous oil painting in an elaborate gilt frame. Oliver recognized it as
The
Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, 1782
by John Copley. “That can't be the original,” he said, “can it?”

“I fear not, but it's a very fine copy,” Admiral Cotton replied. “The original hangs in the Guildhall in London. Have a seat, Commander.”

“Thank you.”

“You've come all this way from Legoland,” Admiral Cotton said, referring to the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, on the Albert Embankment of the Thames. “I am sure there must be a good reason.”

“Unfortunately, there is,” Oliver responded.

“I am more familiar with your organization than you may suppose,” Admiral Cotton said. “The grandfather of a great school friend of mine helped to found it.”

“Who was that?”

“As he never himself acknowledged his role, I shouldn't say. Like much of the modern world, it sprang to life in embryonic form after the Second World War when the Soviet Union and a newly communist China had suddenly become our enemies. In those days it was called Office for the Exacerbation of Sino-Soviet Relations! How's that for dry British humor?”

“Classic,” Oliver said, and laughed. “I hadn't heard that before. I wonder what the service would be called if it were being named today. Who would our masters designate as our primary enemies? Our world's too complicated to say with any certainty, isn't it?”

“It's very complicated.”

“Let me be direct,” Oliver said. “An extremely dangerous cargo may soon pass through or by Gibraltar. Or it may not.”

“If it did, where would it be bound?”

“That's impossible to say, but Gibraltar, because of its geography, could be the gateway to many destinations.”

“Do you suspect a direct connection to anyone here?”

“No,” Oliver dissembled, “unless you can give me a reason to think otherwise?”

“Who am I to think anything of the sort?” Giles Cotton said. “My job is to run a naval station and protect an important British and NATO asset. To that end I've worked very hard to maintain cordial relationships with prominent members of the small community here. As you might imagine, everyone knows everyone.”

“In its way it's also a rogues' gallery, isn't it?”

“You wouldn't be the first to draw that conclusion,” Giles Cotton replied, stroking his formidable chin. “Of course, there are many sun-seeking retirees with nothing more on their minds than today's golf game and tomorrow night's dinner, and many locals who, like people everywhere, simply do the best they can within the confines of their own world. But I take your point. We also have perhaps more than our share of shifty ones.”

“There are a lot of Russians about these days, aren't there?” Oliver inquired, wishing to sidestep the name of Ian Santal.

“Not so much on Gib as along the coast, and fewer than there were before a number of the more visible and overleveraged ones went bust. Among those who remain, of course, are the leggy, beautiful creatures who work in restaurants and bars and hotels.”

“Of course.” Oliver smiled.

“They are the most numerous by far, but I doubt they are trafficking in anything more dangerous than love and whatever baubles they wangle from their lovers. Some may use drugs. The other group is one I call the mini-oligarchs. They're not the ones whose names keep turning up in newspapers and magazines, but they made their way out of Russia with a certain amount of loot, and they've found their way here to enjoy it.”

“It's one flight pattern,” Oliver continued. “At this point it's not a person or any group of people we are looking for, but a cargo.”

“What sort of cargo? For you to be involved, I assume it must involve weaponry of some sort.”

“Or material for weapons, possibly,” Oliver said, again intentionally to distract. “Gibraltar is far from the only place of concern to us at the moment. My colleagues in those other places are doing exactly what I'm doing, although it's more complicated where there's no British sovereignty.”

“How can I be of service?”

“You do have radiation sensors in place?”

The admiral looked at Oliver with new intensity. “I'm certain you already know that we do.”

Oliver nodded.

“Who else knows?”

“No one here, and for the time being no one should.”

“That's to state the obvious.”

“Allow me to be a bit more specific. The substance of this conversation must not go down or even up the chain of command.”

“A bit irregular, is it not?”

“If it weren't, it would be done by someone else,” Oliver said. “The PM and the First Lord have been briefed. You will receive orders through the usual chain of command that will seem unrelated to the possibility I've mentioned but that will provide you the flexibility you'll need should your help be required.”

“Which no doubt would be on a split-second basis?”

“If that need arises, we could require rather a lot of help on very short order indeed,” Oliver said. “So let's hope it doesn't. In the meantime I'll keep in close touch. Please do the same.”

“Quite a place,” Oliver said. “Part fortress, part palace. You could shoot a film in there, except that permission would never be granted. You enter and exit by what looks like the opening to a cave, in darkness for twenty meters or so until you turn to your right and ahead there's a shadowy lobby, walled off by tinted glass. Once inside, it's brighter. There are military police, a discreet but deterring barrier, and beyond that a lift that ascends to where the action is. Oh, and did I mention there's a sentry box outside the original entrance? So there's no real attempt to hide what's there, simply to make it mysterious, I think.”

They were seated in the living room of a rambling hacienda situated in a hollow on the way from Pond House to Marbella. The old structure stood beside an abandoned mill, and the gurgle of a natural stream could be heard through its opened doors. The room's furniture was comfortable and worn and covered with the hair of a German shepherd and a Pekingese that belonged to a local potter, a widow whose husband had been killed in the al-Qaeda bombing at the Atocha Station in Madrid in March of 2004. In the years since, she had occasionally offered her home as a safe house to American and British intelligence services.

“Did he know anything?” Ty inquired.

“I don't think so,” Oliver said. “It's not the kind of secret one would be likely to share, especially with him.”

“But he's a friend of Santal's.”

“All part of his job, as he sees it. Sidney Thrall is a friend of Santal's, too, and you've made films at his studio. In fact, to an outside observer
you
are a friend of Santal's. You attended the same party the Cottons did. Not very long ago, you even graced his yacht. This is not our grandfathers' world, where the righteous and the evil retreated to their separate base camps. We live side by side in a world of very few uniforms now.”

“Hear that bell? Class is over,” Ty said.

“Hold on a minute. I wasn't winding you up for the hell of it. I was attempting to make a damned important point, which is that whether it's just Santal and Frost or whether there are others involved, they are not going to give themselves away. We have to find the weak link in their plan, stress it and crack the whole bloody thing open from there. Only then will Admiral Cotton and his forces be of any use.”

“It's nice to feel needed,” Ty said.

“I'm glad you're happy, because this is a puzzle SIGINT can't solve, only HUMINT,” Oliver continued, employing the professional slang for signals and human intelligence.

“Speaking of HUMINT, I had a valuable talk in Seville with Luke Claussen, who turned up out of the blue.”

“So your e-mail suggested.”

“The guy's very concerned that his company has kept up its involvement in a Russian deal that Santal put his father into a whole lot longer than it should have. You know the one, that resort that's going in near Kerch.”

Oliver nodded. “We both know it's a stretch, but the powers-that-be in Washington still stand by their team's decertification of that site.”

“Even though the decertification team was headed by Philip Frost?”

“
Because
it was headed by Philip, I think. You heard George Kenneth yourself. He has a sweet spot for the fellow. Who knows, maybe they were fuck buddies back when Philip swung both ways.”

“You're kidding?”

“I am, as far as I know. I have nothing to base that theory on, but how else to account for Kenneth's incautious loyalty?”

“They belong to the same old boys' club,” Ty said, “that's how, and maybe it's enough. It blinds them to each other's faults.”

“Whatever. It is what it is,” Oliver said. “As to Claussen's vessel, no cargo, nada, was unloaded from it in Istanbul.”

“That's a relief,” Ty said.

“Possibly so,” Oliver replied. “During its one-day layover in the Bosporus, the ship did take on some computer components, mostly small, lightweight stuff from India and China, also the usual teas and quite a lot of textiles. It's still the Silk Road, after all.”

“Let me guess,” Ty said. “The teas and textiles were unloaded in Naples.”

“Along with several crates of computer components, but none of the generators or turbines or other material from Kerch,” Oliver said.

“Why are we so certain of that?”

“The cargoes were sequestered.”

Ty rolled his eyes. “How thoroughly were the crates that
left
the ship searched?”

“My understanding is that that was done by the Italian authorities.”

“Answer my question.”

“I thought I just did. According to their head man, they do have neutron detectors set up, but no spectroscopic gamma-ray equipment. How thick their wall of radiation-portal monitors is isn't entirely clear either. Of course, presuming there were warheads aboard, we've no idea how or how well they might be shielded.”

“It's a good bet that if they got as far as Naples under the Claussen imprimatur, they'd make their switch there. No one in their business flies under the same flag for too long.”

“Yet they might well in this case,” Oliver said, “when the flags they're flying can be presumed to deflect suspicion as completely as Claussen's and the Stars and Stripes. That's why we had the Italians checking the Claussen ship's cargo crate by crate.”

“With what results, may I ask?”

“All the crates marked as containing turbines contain turbines.”

Ty studied Oliver. “And you're satisfied that the Italians were thorough?”

“As best one can be,” Oliver replied.

“Which could mean any one of the following: that this particular ship is uninvolved in any conspiracy, that there is no conspiracy, or that three surplus turbines came aboard in Istanbul to take the place of three of the original pieces of cargo from Kerch that were then unloaded in Naples. If the last were the case, those would have been the loose warheads.”

“It's a theory, but then why didn't the sensors pick them up?”