The Last Compromise (32 page)

Commissioner
Maria Schuster-Zoll was standing in front of microphones, in a dark blue
business suit against the light blue background wall of the European
Commission’s press centre. She looked physically fragile and very earnest.

‘The
suicide of Mister Boris Zayek, one of our staff members in Luxembourg, filled
us all with great sadness, as well as incomprehension. Mister Zayek took his
own life when he was exposed as an agent of a foreign intelligence agency. Our
thoughts are with his family and unsuspecting friends, in what must be a very
difficult time for them.’

The
next image was an enlarged personnel file picture of Boris Zayek. The picture
almost filled the screen. A blank stare into the camera. The subtitles kept
running below the picture:
Media reports cast doubt on Commission’s version,
suggest liquidation by Russian intelligence.

‘Your
phone, watch, keys, anything metallic in here, sir.’

Hans
turned around and followed the procedure without saying a word. Now he felt
really weak. On the plane he intended to sleep. No thoughts, no dreams. He
intended to sleep like a baby. And he did.

Hans landed at
Brussels airport, went through the fast-lane passports control, past the
luggage claims, past the symbolic customs check, and into the arrivals hall. He
took the escalator down to the level below arrivals, stepped outside into the
dark chilly evening and took a bus to the city centre. He had gained an hour on
Helsinki, but since Brussels was much farther south it was nevertheless much
darker when he’d arrived. He sat in the bus, his head leaning against the
glass, and watched the lights outside. He arrived at his stop, got out, and
walked the few hundred metres to the anti-fraud building. He showed the lonely guard
his Commission badge and went to the elevators. The guard hadn’t said anything
about the way Hans looked. The elevator doors opened, Hans stepped in and
pressed the button to reach the floor three levels above his own. The doors
closed.

He
got out as the doors opened again, turned left and started walking down the
corridor. All the offices which had their doors open were dark and empty, only
the corridor itself was illuminated in a bright white light. His own office
would also be deserted now, Tienhoven’s would be as well, the same as the small
conference room with the oval table and the nine chairs, three floors below
him. This wasn’t his floor. This was the floor where the director-general
resided. Maybe he would be there to hear Hans’s report. Hans was paid to find
out things and to report on them, after all, so that’s what he would do, no
matter what he looked or smelled like.

Hans
didn’t see much through the external windows he passed, he only saw his own
reflection on the black glass. He reached the door, walked through the
secretaries’ anteroom, which was as dark and empty as all the other offices he
had passed, knocked and opened the door to the inner office.

The
director-general’s office was dark and spacious, they must have left out
several interior separator walls to create it. It was the size of at least four
conference rooms. The only light sources were a lit desk lamp on the occupant’s
workplace and a thin floor lamp illuminating the sofa to Hans’s right. Hans had
been in here before, but it nevertheless had an effect on him even now. It
wasn’t even the size itself, nor was it the furniture which was actually rather
neutral. It was the fact that it was a corner office, with two rows of windows
converging on a narrow edge beyond which shone the lights of the colossal main
Commission building in the distance. Because of the gloom, the lights of the
cityscape outside appeared bright and clear.

Geoffrey
Clarke was reclined comfortably behind his desk, his face partly lit by his
desk light. He smiled at Hans, without giving him the impression of having been
interrupted. Hans stopped in the middle of the room and glanced to his right
again. On the sofa next to the floor lamp, wearing the same dark blue business
suit she had been wearing earlier at the press conference, sat Maria
Schuster-Zoll. She got up and approached Hans with a friendly smile and an
extended hand.

‘Good
evening Mister Tamberg, I don’t believe we’ve met. Maria Schuster.’ She looked
into his eyes. On television the Commissioner always appeared strong-willed but
delicate. In person she radiated determination. There was nothing fragile about
her.

He
shook her hand, still standing where he had stopped, in the middle of the room.
‘Geoffrey was just telling me about your impressive work here at the
Commission,’ she said. ‘My condolences about the passing away of Willem
Tienhoven, I understand you worked together very closely.’

‘Please,
have a seat, Hans,’ Clarke said. Schuster-Zoll had already returned to the
sofa. Neither she nor Clarke had said a word about the condition of Hans’s face
and clothes. Hans kept standing where he was.

Since
nobody was saying anything further Hans started talking, addressing his most
immediate superior which, in the absence of Tienhoven, was Clarke. ‘I have
reason to suspect that statistically significant quantities of low-enriched uranium
have been siphoned off on four occasions over the past two years,’ Hans said. ‘Each
diverted shipment affected users in several European countries at a time.
Someone inside the Commission falsified reports to hide the missing amounts.’

Clarke
heard him out and nodded.

‘That
is excellent,’ he said. ‘And we even know who it was.’

‘You
believe it was Boris Zayek in Luxembourg?’

‘Who
else?’

‘What
if it wasn’t Zayek?’

Hans
had expected a silence to fall now, or a snap at his impertinence, but Schuster-Zoll
replied immediately instead of Clarke.

‘He
was a Russian agent, Mister Tamberg,’ she said, her upper body held upright on
the sofa, her legs pressed closely together and held to the side at an angle. ‘And
this is deeply worrying. Just imagine if the political climate with Russia
became even worse. If there were more of them, in higher and more sensitive
positions. If we had such infiltrations, such discoveries more often. Such
disruption. And such terrible violence.’

He’s
not a computer specialist, not an engineering specialist, not a weapons
specialist. Not a former commando or even paratrooper.

What
if he’s not even meant to do anything, but just to sit there? To wait there to
be exposed as a spy at the right moment?

‘Just
think about the consequences, Mister Tamberg. For Europe the economic damage
from such an escalation could be immense, not to mention the psychological
effect on our work at the European Commission.’

Just
look at the next candidate in the queue. You think Europe will even open
negotiations with them, for membership in the future?

It
has to, at least it has to open talks. Europe made a promise. We cannot go back
on that just because Russia is bullying its neighbours.

Hans
looked over to her. ‘This is about the membership negotiations, isn’t it? You’re
afraid that if we take the next country in, if we even start talking to them, the
Russians will become even more hostile than they already are.’

‘Nobody’s
afraid of anything,’ Clarke intervened. ‘It’s just that public opinion does not
fully appreciate the interest that Russia and Europe share. The mutual interest
of staying out of one another’s way.’

Hans
didn’t reply.

‘Actually
in some countries all it takes is a little nudge,’ Clarke continued. ‘To show
what will happen if we expand too far to the east. And above all the Commission
itself needs a nudge. Or a firm push even. There are too many people in here
who live their pan-European dream, completely oblivious to the fact that
civilised international relations stop at the European Union’s external border.
That beyond it the world is rough. That it’s the nineteenth century out there.’

‘You
killed him,’ Hans said. ‘And Tienhoven, too.’

‘Nobody
killed anybody,’ Clarke insisted. ‘Boris Zayek was exposed with the help of our
German friends, he was a dangerous spy with his fingers deep in some nuclear
fraud, so he put a bomb into his mouth and committed a messy suicide. And as
for Willem Tienhoven, he died of a weak heart. Perhaps it had to do with his
divorce, or with his daughter, or with the stress in Luxembourg. Perhaps it had
to do with his bloody heart not bloody working.’

Hans
said nothing.

‘Look.’
Clarke took a remote control out of a drawer and pointed at a television screen
on the wall of his office. Hans turned around to see it. The recording showed a
news broadcast of a press conference at the Russian foreign ministry. The Russian
minister was looking into the camera and said, in his clear deep voice, that
Russia was deploying its intelligence services like any other country. And if
the European Union was behaving like a country, with expansionist ambitions
towards Russia’s borders, it should expect to be treated accordingly.

Clarke
commented, still looking at the screen, ‘Obviously we also leaked to the press
that it was the Russians liquidating one of their own agents, even though the
official version is a suicide. Rumours like that are even better for these
purposes. Much better than actually saying that it was a liquidation.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
if you make such allegations, then all you get is a drawn-out investigation
with no proof in the end. And people start to doubt if he even was a spy to
begin with.’

Clarke
wagged his finger at Hans and added, ‘But he was, Hans, he was. The Russians
gave us just the nudge we needed.’

Maybe
he’s not a real defector, and this is just their way of asking us to check on
Zayek.

Wait
there to be exposed.

The
Russians exposed him themselves. To show the Commission that it was a target,
to show that they were willing and able to put people on the inside. And then they
sent the man on the ferry, the man in the lobby. They killed Zayek before he
could even say anything.

Hans
asked, just to be sure, ‘You don’t want to know where exactly the uranium went?
Or to have definitive proof that it was Zayek who falsified the reports?’

‘Every
year there are loads of isotopes disappearing worldwide,’ Clarke replied,
turning off the screen with his remote control. ‘Nothing weapons-grade, it’s
just common theft. A big investigation into what Zayek was up to will only make
it look like the Commission was making life easy for uranium smugglers. Major
reputational damage to all of us, for very little gain. And as for proof, it’s
easy,’ he put the remote back into his drawer. ‘We don’t need to go after the proof.
The proof will come to us. We keep an eye on the statistics. If it doesn’t
happen again, it means it was Zayek. Easy and efficient.’ Clarke leaned forward
on his desk. ‘Meanwhile, Hans, we need to remember how superbly we exposed a
foreign agent. Think about that. And think what this could mean to you
personally.’

Hans
glanced to the right. Schuster-Zoll smiled at him. ‘Mister Tamberg, Hans. What
Geoffrey probably means is that we are thinking of building up some capacity,
here at the European Commission. To better deal with such situations in the
future. Anti-fraud in its current form is ill-suited to meet foreign intelligence
threats in any systematic way. There could be a new unit, perhaps a whole new
directorate.’

Clarke
nodded energetically. ‘With your experience, with your talents, I think you
should apply. When the time comes. For now you are doing great, too. I
understand that we’re going to bust some corrupt mayor who stole some
road-building money, and that’s brilliant, I love that. We’ll call the press to
take pictures of us rolling in and overseeing the arrest. Bang! But there will
be a time for more than that, Hans. The time will come. Soon.’

Hans
did not reply. He nodded to Clarke, then to the Commissioner, turned around and
left the office without saying another word.

***

Hans
took the stairs down to his own floor, walked through the long empty corridor, entered
his own office, switched on the light and turned on his computer. While it was
starting up he picked up the envelope he’d sent to himself from Rotterdam. It
had been lying in his in-tray on the desk. He opened the envelope, took out the
Russian’s empty black box and put it on his desk.

The
computer was ready and waiting for his login. He typed in his name and password
and hit the button. While the second part of the loading was in progress, he
took out two big empty envelopes from a drawer and put them on the desk, too.

He
looked at his own reflection in the dark window for a few moments.

The
computer was ready. Hans opened the digital version of the content of his files
regarding Saar and the Tallinn harbour extension. He made the necessary mouse
clicks to print them all out. The printer came to life. While it was working
away, Hans opened his work e-mail and went through the backlog, starting with
the oldest messages.

There
was one of the usual security warnings. Due to a European summit meeting, parts
of the Schuman roundabout area will be closed for traffic in the morning on
Wednesday next week.

Next
was a message from Viktor:
Hans, please call me, it’s urgent
. The
message had been sent during the night after Viktor had brought Hans to
Brussels. It included a Luxembourgish mobile phone number. Hans picked up the
receiver and dialled it. Checked the corner of the computer screen. It was
late.

‘Hello?’,
Viktor’s voice said.

‘This
is Hans. Hello Viktor. I talked to your girlfriend’s father in Helsinki today.’

Silence.
Then Hans heard Viktor move to another room and close the door behind him.

Viktor
whispered, ‘After you and I left for Brussels, a man came to our house here in
Luxembourg. He threatened my wife.’ His voice did not sound neutral. Its usual
calmness was missing. ‘We were lucky our children weren’t at home then.’

‘You
can relax,’ Hans said. ‘The man will get what he wanted from me and will be happy.’

A
sigh. ‘She had to tell him that I was bringing you to your anti-fraud office in
Brussels, and she confirmed the model and licence plate number of our car. I’m
very sorry. But she didn’t know your name, so she couldn’t tell him.’