An Agent of Deceit

by Chris Morgan Jones

‘It is.’ She glanced at Nancy. ‘I’ll tell you more later.’

  For a moment the three of them lay there, Nancy plucking at the hairs at the base of Webster’s neck, Elsa watching her.

  ‘Which regime?’ she said at last.

  Webster turned to her.

  ‘It’s not quite a regime. It’s a man. Russia’s most corrupt, I’d say, at a guess.’

  ‘And what would you be doing?’

  ‘Exposing him.’

  ‘You’d like that.’

  ‘Yes, I would. He deserves it.’

  Two days earlier Webster had woken before dawn in the spare bedroom, his alarm set to sound as quietly as possible, his bag packed, his clothes for the day hanging from the back of the door. Elsa and the children lay asleep in the still house. He had queued with the holidaymakers at Gatwick and waited half an hour for a taxi at Dalaman. The pilot had said thirty-three degrees; out of the shade, heat radiating off the concrete and the tarmac, it seemed hotter. The only suit he saw all day was his own. It was wool, grey, the lightest he had – a good, English suit, and the wrong thing to be wearing on the Turkish coast in August.

  It took three hours more to reach Datça. Sitting upright on the hard rear seat he watched dusty mountains grow green with thick pine as the road bent towards the sea. Turkish dance music played quietly on the radio. The sun bore down on the side of the car, and he could feel the heat in the metal and the glass.

  He had been away when the call came in but Webster thought he knew what Tourna wanted. His reputation needed help. His business was oil, gas, copper, iron, gold, bauxite, coal: anything valuable that could be ripped out of the ground in remote places. He would buy the rights to mine it, convince investors that he’d struck lucky and sell out just as it became clear that there was not so much there after all. What’s more, he was a tireless plaintiff who sued anyone who challenged him, usually suckered partners and principled journalists. Webster was sure Tourna would ask him to polish his name; to run the rule over him and find nothing wrong. The one part of the meeting he was looking forward to was explaining that wasn’t how he worked.

  After two hours the road dropped onto a wide, sloping plain that rose again in the distance into a range of olive-green mountains, guided either side by the solid blue sea. This was the Datça peninsula. They drove through clusters of square, whitewashed houses and past hot almond orchards, the leaves on the trees sandy and brittle. The driver shaded his eyes from the sun, and the road climbed and fell once more before they reached Datça itself.

  They stopped on the quayside; Webster paid and tipped the driver. It was cooler here – later in the day perhaps, and there was a breeze blowing north off the sea. Apartment buildings and stubby palm trees lined the front and in a haze across the water lay the mountains they had just crossed on the mainland. Tourna was on his boat, moored a mile or two out. Webster called the number he had been given and sat down on the edge of the quay to wait, his heavy brown shoes swinging above the water.

  The Belisarius was long and sleek, a flash of white low in the water. He was greeted by Leon, the ship’s steward, who explained with the greatest regret that Mr Tourna had been unexpectedly called away to Athens on business, but would return before nightfall.

  Before becoming an investigator, or a spy, or whatever he was, Webster had been a journalist. Fifteen years before, with Yeltsin newly in power and Russia painfully transforming itself, he had gone to Moscow with little more than a degree in Russian to sustain him. Stories were everywhere. He wrote about savings being lost as inflation surged and about coal miners in Siberia unpaid for months; about officials corrupted to demolish fine buildings, tribes threatened by logging in the far east, families from America adopting orphans from Rostov, Samara, Tomsk. At first he wrote the articles and sold them wherever he could, but after six months he was working as a stringer for The Times. He travelled across the country, from the forests of Sakhalin to the dockyards of Murmansk, from the Gulag factories in the Arctic north to the Black Sea health spas where the politburo had spent its summers. Sometimes he went beyond, to Kiev and Tbilisi, Ulan Bator and Tashkent. In eight years he saw more ugliness and hope, more dishonesty, dignity and unexpected happiness than he knew he would again. Life was rich in Russia, even while it was cheap.

  But slowly, almost without noticing, he came to tire of the endless round of expectation and disappointment. In 1992 he had believed that Russia would be great again; seven years later he worried that it was destined for ever to miss its chance. His editors began to tire, too. And then, three months short of the new century, Inessa had died.

  A man called Serik Almaz was charged with her murder, and four weeks after her death he was convicted. He had spent half his life in prison for theft and assault but at his trial, which lasted a morning, he pleaded innocent. Webster couldn’t attend because his visa had been revoked.

  Novaya Gazeta ran a piece on its front page about her work and her death in the line of duty; The Times simply reported that she had died. She was the fourth Russian journalist to be murdered that year. At her funeral in Samara, Webster apologized to her husband, he wasn’t sure why, and a month later left Russia for good, his faith undone.

  And now he was on a yacht, being kept waiting by the sort of man that Inessa used to write about. It was evening now, and Tourna had still not returned. He pinched a cigarette out of its new pack, and lit it with the cheap lighter he had bought at the airport. Just one was all right; it was hot, after all, and he was abroad. A piece of tobacco clung to his lip and he wiped it off with his thumb. There was no wind now and the smoke drifted off the boat in its own time.

  Webster read his book and watched the stars appear in the night. Reaching for his drink he caught sight of himself reflected in the black glass of the cabin. He had swum before dinner and his grey hair was stiff and unruly with salt. He had changed his grubby white shirt for his only clean one and was looking respectable, plausible even – anyone would think he belonged here. But he felt ridiculous, just as he felt trapped on this indecently beautiful boat. This wasn’t him. He should have left the moment he found out Tourna wasn’t here. He should probably never have come.

  The next morning before breakfast, with the sun just up over the peninsula, he swam again, diving off the side of the boat into the blue-green sea. It was almost too warm for his taste; this wasn’t Cornwall, where a week before he had swum with the children in water that even in August had shocked the breath from him. And while it was good, it didn’t merit the trip. He had decided that whatever Tourna wanted wasn’t worth this sustained challenge to his dignity: he would get dressed, eat something and leave for Dalaman before the heat came.

  As he climbed the ladder back up to the deck he heard the drone of an engine and looked back to see the launch approaching. Tourna was driving, stooping down to control the outboard motor. There was no doubt this was him. He was short and solid, his thick calves like a rugby player’s set firmly apart. He wore baggy navy shorts and a black sports shirt and had tied a white sweater around his neck. His skin was tanned deep and even like cherry wood, his silver hair bright against it.

  Webster stood where he was, dripping and holding the towel close across his chest. Tourna sprang up the ladder two rungs at a time and held out his hand. Black sunglasses wrapped around his face.

  ‘Ben. Aristotle Tourna. Delighted you could make it.’ His smile revealed two strips of bright white teeth, even and closely packed. His handshake was needlessly strong.

  ‘Likewise.’ Webster, taller by a head, gave a half smile. ‘I was about to give up on you.’

  ‘Sorry. Unavoidable. You had breakfast?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither. Get dressed and we’ll eat.’

  When Webster returned twenty minutes later Tourna was on the phone, talking loudly in Greek and walking back and forth along the side of the boat. Eventually he sat down and started buttering a croissant. His skin sang with health. He had the look of a man who ate well: his jowls
were full and his cheekbones fleshy. It was hard to imagine that he denied himself much.

  ‘Better than having breakfast in some hotel on the mainland, no?’ he said, beaming at Webster.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘I love it here. You see that island over there?’ Webster turned. ‘That’s Symi. Greece. And that, the peninsula, that’s Turkey. But really, it’s all Greece. Always was. One day we’ll take it back. Whenever I come here I feel like I’m on a raid.’ He laughed. Webster couldn’t tell if there was mirth in it.

  Tourna began to pile spoonfuls of fruit salad into a bowl. As he ate, his leg jigged up and down.

  ‘So, Ben. What’s your background?’

  Webster told him about his time in Russia, about finding journalism tame in London after Moscow, about falling into the industry by chance.

  ‘Why did you leave GIC?’

  ‘Too big. Too corporate. A new rule every day. It became hard to get results.’

  ‘And Ikertu’s different?’

  ‘I think it has the right balance.’

  Tourna nodded, as if to himself.

  ‘OK. OK. That’s good.’ He put his spoon down. ‘Tell me. What happens to what I tell you here?’

  ‘It stays with me. If you want to engage us and we’re happy to be engaged then I’ll share it with my colleagues.’

  ‘If you’re happy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why would you not be happy?’

  ‘We might not like the job. We might not like the client.’

  Tourna nodded again, and then laughed. ‘So I’m on parade here as well?’ He took a long drink of orange juice. ‘That’s OK.’ Webster sensed he was being stared at. ‘OK. Let’s start. You know Russia. Do you know a man called Konstantin Malin?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ He felt his senses jolt awake. Malin. That was unexpected. Malin and his quiet legend.

  Tourna nodded and chewed. ‘I bought a company from him.’

  Webster interrupted. ‘Mr Tourna, would you mind taking off your sunglasses? I’d be more comfortable if I could see your eyes.’

  Tourna looked up from his bowl and stopped eating. ‘You want to look inside, huh?’ His forehead creased as he raised his eyebrows. ‘You want this work or not?’

  Webster smiled. ‘We’re busy. It’s all the same to me.’

  ‘OK,’ Tourna said with a dry laugh, and took them off. His eyes were a flat brown, the skin around them slightly lighter than the rest of his face. ‘This is more fun than I expected.’

  Webster saw something heated, something childish in Tourna’s gaze: he gave the impression of being ill-equipped to deal with reverses. He kept his smile but didn’t say anything. For a moment the two men looked at each other.

  ‘Tell me about Malin,’ said Webster.

  Tourna nodded to himself again and took a deep breath.

  ‘He sold me a company. Well, one of his stooges did. It was meant to own a package of exploration licences. Some oil, some gas, all in Yamal-Nenets. We did the due diligence and everything was fine. Then when the deal’s done, the licences aren’t there. They’ve been transferred to another company. Incorporated in Cayman two months before. It had some made-up option on them.’

  ‘How much did you pay?’

  ‘Fifty million. Bucks. That was my money, too.’

  Webster nodded. ‘And you want the licences back.’

  ‘No. I’ve had it with Russia. Should have known better. I want my money back. But that’s not why you’re here. I have lawyers for that.’

  Webster waited. Tourna looked him in the eye.

  ‘What I want from you,’ he went on, ‘is the downfall of Konstantin Malin. The man is a crook. He’s meant to be the great strategist. The grand vizier, the man who made Russia powerful again. But all he cares about is his empire, and his money. He’s a fat crook, and he doesn’t deserve any of it. I want him gone.’

  Webster said nothing for a moment. He could feel excitement rising in him, in his shoulders and his chest. A chance to take on Malin. This was worth coming here for. This was even worth the waiting.

  ‘What do you mean by gone?’

  ‘Out of the ministry. Humiliated. Under investigation in a dozen countries. I want him strung up from a lamp post.’

  ‘I see. And how would we do that? He’s a powerful man.’

  ‘I was hoping to hear your ideas.’

  ‘You must have pictured it.’

  ‘Look, everything he does is bent. But he smells of roses. There must be so much dirt on this guy somewhere. We find it and we use it.’ When Tourna talked, his lips, an unexpected pink against the tan, pushed out slightly. They, thought Webster, rather than the eyes, are what tell you not to trust him.

  He nodded again. He took a notebook and a pencil from his jacket pocket.

  ‘You mind?’

  ‘No, get it all down. Just don’t lose it.’

  For an hour Webster questioned Tourna about the story and all the people in it. When had all this happened? How had the deal come about? Had he met Malin? Who else had he dealt with?

  By the time he had finished it was ten o’clock and he could feel the sun hot on his shoulders. There was a flight at three. He wanted to leave this place and think about what he had just heard.

  ‘I think that’s everything. Thank you.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I should go.’

  ‘You’re not staying? Stay as long as you want. I could drop you in Bodrum tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  Tourna stretched and put his hands behind his head.

  ‘So do I pass?’

  Webster smiled. ‘I don’t know. I’ll speak to my boss.’

  ‘You think you can help?’ said Tourna, looking up at Webster and shielding his eyes.

  Webster thought for a moment.

  ‘You’re asking a lot. If we take it on we’ll do the same.’ It occurred to him as he said it that he would take this on for no money at all. This was the sort of case he had signed up for: the sort that makes a difference.

  Tourna laughed. Webster went to collect his things and start the long journey back to London, thinking hard, imagining how this might work.

  Malin. Quite a prize.

  Tourna had given Webster a thick file before he left. He read it on the plane – a breach of protocol, but the child asleep next to him was hardly likely to be interested.

  In it were all manner of documents, carefully organized: news articles, company reports, transcripts of radio programmes, photocopied excerpts from books. Throughout, passages had been marked in fluorescent ink and annotated with exclamation marks and energetic underlinings. Tourna had explained that this was his personal file: he had compiled much of it himself. The most substantial item was a report for a bank that was thinking of lending money to a Viennese company called Langland Resources. It had been written three years earlier by a competitor of Ikertu, but how Tourna had got hold of it wasn’t clear.

  Webster began with the appendices; they were always more interesting. To his surprise he found two spravki there, one on Malin, one on a lawyer called Richard Lock who had sold Tourna the company. He wasn’t sure that he would ask for a spravka on Malin now, and even three years ago it would have carried some risk – perhaps no one had appreciated how much. No doubt all content had been officially approved.

  Spravka simply meant ‘certificate’. Every area of Russian life had its spravki: you needed one to sell your house, to register with a doctor, to have a telephone installed, to import goods, to export goods, to secure a passport, to takes one’s place at university. In Webster’s world it meant a summary of a person’s life taken from Russian intelligence agencies, so routinely that while the practice was illegal the information itself was now a mere commodity. They were seldom a colourful read. Date of birth, job, immediate family, house, car, education, career. Business interests inside Russia, business interests outside Russia. Observations concerning career and character. Evidence of or speculation concerning wrongdoing.
Speculation about sexuality (half the reports he had ever read concluded that, in a favourite, equivocal construction of Russian bureaucracy, ‘it was not excluded’ that the subject was homosexual). A life narrowed to its basic coordinates and its susceptibility to blackmail or corruption. He was always impressed by the discipline required to be so reductive.

  As a rule the more significant you were – the more wealthy, the more politically lively, the more troublesome – the longer and fuller your spravka. Every person living in Russia had a file, of course, but most contained little beyond mundane details gathered from other government departments. Anything richer or deeper suggested that at some point you had been the subject of attention from the intelligence authorities themselves, and through the blankness of the language it was sometimes possible to see the phone calls overheard, the neighbours quietly consulted, the bank accounts inspected, the lives slowly but inevitably opened up to view. Russia might feel itself diminished but in this easy power over its people it seemed hardly to have changed at all.

  The rule broke down, though, on the largest scales: no oligarch or government minister would be so careless as to leave his file intact. Through money or influence his spravka would be edited and cleaned until it said little at all, the information it had once contained now so far inside the deep dark vault of the Russian state that only those equivalently powerful could ever get it out.

  The first spravka he had ever seen, so many years before, was about Inessa; she had shown it to him herself. It began with bare paragraphs about her upbringing, her family, her education, but what she was proud of was the four or five pages describing her writing and the threat she posed to the Russian state. Someone, she had explained, was keeping an active watch on her: she was being taken seriously. All her articles were attached. Corruption in Togliatti, pollution in Norilsk, smuggling in Vladivostok, aluminium murders in Krasnoyarsk, workers striking in Rostov, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk: a sampler for Russia’s first free decade. Next to her Webster had felt like a dabbler.

  Inessa Kirova, the file had said, was a ‘politically committed journalist with a tendency to address sensitive subjects’, a freelancer who wrote about crime and corruption and sold most of her articles to the campaigning newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She had connections with ‘difficult . . . independent’ foreign journalists – ‘that’s you!’ she had told Webster, gleefully – and a special interest in the relationship between ‘big business’ and politics: in other words, who was bribing whom. He wondered whether her file was still there, on a numbered shelf in some dank basement, and whether anyone still had reason to refer to it.