My Name Is Nobody

by Matthew Richardson

  ‘I see.’

  ‘From what I have been able to find out, I think Gabriel Wilde has been working as a double agent for Islamist groups inside Syria. I believe Wilde is the mole Yousef talked about in his interrogation. The mole within British intelligence codenamed Nobody.’

  Cecil’s lips curled into a faint hint of a smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking back up at Vine. ‘Yes, in many ways I suppose you’re right.’

  36

  2015

  It is a warmer day, the throb of sun offset by the near-invisible splash of grey at the edge of the skyline; quiet, too, the silence only broken as the heavy iron gates open, a rusty whine in need of oil.

  Vine waits for a gap wide enough for the bulky nose of the vehicle, then manoeuvres the Toyota SUV up the thin paved driveway and parks it in front of the whitewashed house dominating the view. There is no bodyguard today or polite driver. Today is beyond top-secret, sharing intelligence straight from Number 10.

  He wanders up to the house and presses the doorbell. A locked briefcase rests in his right hand. He tries to staunch the jangle of nerves. The secure room at the embassy has been ruled out. Wilde’s house is the only place that meets requirements.

  Just as he feared, it is Rose that answers. There is something different about seeing her away from the familiar backdrop of London. She has let her hair grow longer, he realizes, accentuating the smooth marble of the forehead and those soulful sky-blue eyes. She is wearing a loose white dress, her arms and neck browned to a show-piece tan. The only hint of the elfish non-conformity he so treasured lies in the bright pink sandals, joyfully scuffed at the edges.

  ‘Solomon,’ she says. Her voice is edgy. She leans towards him, and they exchange an awkward embrace.

  He pulls back too soon, catching the familiar suggestion of her perfume. He is terrified of being unable to let go, unconsciously retracing the contours of her. Every time he imagines he has moved on, a comment or a reference takes him back, life since defined by her absence. ‘How are you?’ he says, pleased that his voice sounds reasonably authoritative. He is here on a work visit. This is not personal.

  ‘Good, fine,’ she says, ushering him in and closing the door behind them. She takes his jacket and hangs it on a nearby peg, and then leads the way. ‘Busy with work, as usual. Did Gabriel ever tell you I’m now lawyering at the embassy?’

  ‘No,’ says Vine, trying to ignore the deadly implication of the last sentence. All possible communication is now run through Wilde, a subtle detachment from any suggestion of friendship. ‘Enjoying it?’

  ‘Well enough. Not particularly stretching, but it keeps me sane at least. Some pro bono work on the side which is much more interesting … Gabriel’s just through here, I think.’

  Vine tries not to pause over the interior of the house. He has never been here before to witness the full conclusion of their marriage first-hand. Yet he can’t help bristling at the homely feel of it, the starchy embassy guidelines subverted by poorly drilled picture hooks defacing the walls. They move down the hall to the main room, the old-fashioned fittings odd against the modernity of the sofas and wide-screen TV, the clutter of phone chargers, iPads and laptops scattered throughout.

  Wilde is repositioning a mirror, a showy attempt to make it symmetrical. He holds it briefly, waits for it to steady, then smiles as he turns to Vine. He walks across, face wreathed with his flat-pack good humour.

  ‘Sol. Good man. Managed to dodge the nasties, did we? Didn’t make the journey too eventful.’

  ‘Just about,’ says Vine, marvelling once again at Wilde’s levity with it all, that odd mix of prep school and gallows humour.

  ‘Suppose we’d better get down to business, then.’ Wilde leads through to the regal polish of the dining room. There is a long oak table spanning the length of it, silvery cutlery – no doubt a wedding present – twinkling in the fluorescent heat. Wilde makes his way to the drinks cabinet and pours them both a Scotch.

  ‘Might be safer out on the patio,’ he says, ‘just in case the bastards on the other side have got their headphones on.’

  Vine nods and follows Wilde out on to a long rectangular patio with a flimsy table in the middle, two chairs plump with cushions. The garden is a parched collection of emaciated twigs and dehydrated flowers.

  ‘So,’ Wilde says, sitting down and taking a first sip. ‘Number 10 is on the warpath, so I hear.’

  Vine has spent the last few days in meetings with the National Security Adviser at Number 10. He unlocks his briefcase and takes out a plain manila folder, handing it across to Wilde. ‘The National Security Council met yesterday morning. They agreed unanimously to cooperate with the Americans in providing covert action support with Langley for Syrian opposition groups.’

  ‘How strong is the contingent?’ says Wilde, as he takes the manila file and opens it.

  ‘Five patrols from 22 SAS at first,’ Vine says, watching Wilde flick through the briefing. ‘Deliberately kept much smaller than usual for security reasons. If this ever got exposed, the diplomatic blowback would, obviously, be extreme.’

  Wilde laughed. ‘That’s the understatement of the year … And what’s our objective?’

  ‘Two-month horizon to begin with. Mainly basic weapons training. The NSC is clear that they don’t envisage the unit engaging in a direct combat mission.’

  ‘Fascinating.’ Wilde reaches the end of the file and closes it. ‘Presumably this isn’t all you have?’

  Vine takes the file back and locks it again in his briefcase. ‘No. The NSC asked me to negotiate some form of intelligence transfer, alerting you if the mission produces product directly relevant to customers in Istanbul. This is just a courtesy briefing to let you know the basics.’

  ‘Why not just normal channels?’

  ‘I don’t trust them. Not for product of this sensitivity. There are too many people in the embassy, too many contractors and others who could gain access, even within your station. We need the distribution list kept as tight as possible.’

  Wilde leans back in his chair, as if half-amused at Vine’s precautions. ‘So what?’ he asks. ‘Carrier pigeons?’

  Vine ignores the smile. ‘Either courier or we meet. Handover in person. Keep all trail to a minimum, do a lot of it verbally. Nothing on email, nothing digital. We think we’re immune from hackers, but we’re not. No one can hack into a burned paper file.’

  ‘Too true.’ Wilde downed the rest of his glass and stared at the bottom of it. ‘This must have taken some planning?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It originated from Langley. The Director of Special Forces wanted to loop in Vauxhall Cross to make sure any product was passed along the system.’

  Wilde nods. ‘So why, if it’s not too delicate a question, am I just being told about it now? This is my patch, after all.’

  Vine has prepared for this and knows the answer. He doesn’t look at Wilde, but just repeats it straight up. ‘Need to know,’ he says. ‘I had to be sure that the mission was green-lit by the NSC first. It was too sensitive to risk sharing within the Office before I knew it was going to last … Same rules we all play by.’

  ‘And others?’

  ‘The usual. MoD, Number 10.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Wilde. ‘Understood.’

  They talk on about the wider landscape, embassy gossip, seeing how far they can revive the easy patter of their past existence. But it is gone now, Vine realizes. They can survive on grains of the deep bond they once had, an almost fraternal impression of conversation. But the division runs too deep. Wilde is bored by it, any hint of ill-feeling an intrusion on his happiness; Vine is unable to let the events of the past slip, syllables freighted with the overwhelming fact of the betrayal. They tread water, waiting for the other to leave.

  It is only when Wilde makes the first move and excuses himself to the bathroom that Vine picks up the two empty glasses and makes his way back through the dining room. He stops midway. A small square hatch at the end of the room to the kitch
en area is now open. Through it he sees Rose in the middle of making lunch. She is cutting bread in smooth, thick slices, the old rebelliousness tamed into a foretaste of middle age. Youth is deserting them all now.

  Just before Rose looks up and spots him, Vine is surprised by Wilde returning. ‘Think Rose is preparing lunch of some sort,’ he says, voice loud with false brightness. His old careless physicality is restrained now, hands resting above his hips. ‘Told her you probably wouldn’t want to stay. Work never stops for Solomon Vine.’

  Vine nods and mutters something about needing to get back. He conjures up a final parting from Rose and notices the lack of a second invitation. He heads back down the hall, trying to dampen the surge of fresh anger he feels, the bitterness so raw he can almost taste it in his mouth.

  Wilde stops at the door and looks out over the pristine quiet of the scene ahead of them. It is sealed from danger behind their imposing gates and expensive security alarms, the make-believe of embassy living.

  It was a mistake to have come, Vine realizes. He wants more than anything to get away, back to the emotionally airbrushed life he has learned to be content with.

  ‘Do you mind if I say something,’ Wilde says, at last. He caresses his jaw, as if modelling for some cosmic photographer.

  Vine is stunned into politeness. ‘No … of course not.’

  Wilde nods. ‘Just be careful, Sol.’ He pauses, eyes dipping to the ground. ‘It’s not a competition, you know. We’re meant to work as a team.’

  Vine feels the heat oppress him. He can hear Cecil’s cadences in the speech, realizes that they must still be talking frequently, Wilde forever Cecil’s apprentice; wonders too if all this has just been for show, Wilde already briefed on the details behind his back. ‘What are you saying?’

  Wilde tries to sugar his next sentence with a further pretence of uneasiness, a shuffling of the feet and an unconvincing folding of the arms. ‘I just wouldn’t want to think that you were letting any of our past difficulties influence things …’

  ‘You’re an articulate man, Gabriel,’ snaps Vine, unable to bear Wilde’s courtly attempts at politeness. ‘Just say it.’

  Wilde smiles disarmingly. His jet-black forelock tumbles again over his brow, the casual disorder Vine has never been able to copy. ‘I’m just saying that we’re dealing with people here. It’s not a game of chess. I know you hate me for what happened, and I’m sorry about that. Truly, I am. But it would be a terrible conclusion to our own personal situation if it ended up costing other men their lives.’

  Later, Vine can never quite decipher exactly what prompts him to do what he does next.

  It happens in a second. He isn’t conscious of the movement of his arm or any rational decision to do it. Rather, it is suddenly done, unable to be undone. The right arm is bunched, windmilled and cracked into the lower jaw. There is the burning aftershock and the crumbling form of Wilde forced backwards and losing his footing, a whinny of pain.

  There is a dreadful anti-climax and a silence so complete that only Wilde’s faint groans confirm what has just occurred. A spatter of blood colours the stone steps, the ringing crack of bone on bone.

  Vine stands, feeling nothing.

  Then the eerie silence is broken by hurried feet down the hall. Rose fills out the view, running towards them. ‘What have you done?’ she shouts, breathing heavily. Her eyes are glassy with surprise. ‘What the hell have you done?’

  Vine can’t summon any words. He is too taken aback by the jagged volume of her voice, the nameless you.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he manages to mutter eventually, though he is not. He would do it again. He has filled too many hours with the ways in which he will inflict justice on Gabriel Wilde.

  ‘Go,’ she says. She refuses to pay him the courtesy of looking up. Her voice is quieter, the lack of noise like a wordless condemnation. ‘Please, Solomon … Just leave us.’

  37

  ‘Cast your mind back,’ said Cecil, settling into his armchair. The fire continued to crackle. Outside, there was nothing more than the light tread of the DPG officers.

  By 2013, said Cecil, the storyteller baritone in full swing, the Service had just about recovered from its lowest point. The previous decade’s fiasco over WMDs and the dodgy dossier was starting to drift into the recesses of Whitehall’s memory. MI6 had survived almost intact, even if it had ceded ground to MI5, with its shiny Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. But it was still in business. That, ultimately, was all that mattered.

  Then the unthinkable happened. Just as things seemed to be settling down, the summer of 2013 saw the worst intelligence leak since the Cambridge Five. Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor, stole a treasure trove of highly classified files implicating the UK and US intelligence establishments in a mass surveillance programme. The leak was lapped up by the media. Almost immediately, every terrorist group around the world had first-hand confirmation that the main threat to their lives came not from bombs but their own mobile phones.

  From that moment on, Western intelligence faced one of its greatest challenges yet. Every major terrorist leader on our radar vanished almost overnight. Mobile phones were ditched, and groups went back to using pen and paper. Embassies stocked up on typewriters. Even Number 10 began to forbid senior ministers from carrying their phones into Cabinet meetings. So reliant had we become on SIGINT, we faced complete obsolescence. Without a signal to trace, Vauxhall Cross was reduced to watching paint dry. Some in the Treasury would have pulled our funding without a second thought.

  Whitehall went into one of its habitual panics for nearly twelve months. Old Soviet hands were hauled back in to teach new recruits what old-fashioned HUMINT was all about. All the while the civil war in Syria continued to rage. Libya descended further into chaos. Iran continued with its nuclear shenanigans despite pious utterances otherwise. And a newly militant Russia seemed intent on rediscovering its former glory.

  ‘Then came the knockout blow,’ said Cecil. ‘In June 2014 there was a geopolitical first. It was what every intelligence chief had always feared, but as yet had never come to pass. A non-state actor took control of Mosul in Iraq. Not only that, the so-called Islamic State soon proclaimed the restoration of the caliphate. Every politician in Whitehall and on Capitol Hill was predicting the destruction of civilization. Not only had the intelligence community lost any hope of tracking terrorists, we were now facing the very real prospect of the end of the world order as we knew it.

  ‘Unless we came up with a solution, Vauxhall Cross would have been mothballed by Number 10. They needed product, and they needed it now. The answer required something far more daring. It had to be something that put everything on the line, human intelligence gathering and an act of personal valour that no fragment of computer code could ever contemplate.’

  Here Cecil paused. He seemed faintly nervous, as if about to cross a line with no chance of return.

  ‘In the summer of 2014,’ he continued, ‘a top-secret operation – so secret it was never even given a formal codename for fear it could be identified – was born on the fifth floor. Such was the secrecy involved that only eight people in the world were briefed on its activities. On the UK side: C, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary; on the US side, the Director of the CIA, the President, the White House National Security Adviser and the Vice-President. All MI6 protocol was overridden, with product from the operation carried straight to C and the Prime Minister. No one else in the Istanbul embassy would be briefed on it, not even the Ambassador himself. It was off the books, not ever to be considered part of open government.’

  Vine felt his throat tighten. His chest beat harder. ‘And what was this operation?’

  Cecil breathed louder, running a hand across the prickles of stubble dotting his chin. ‘Nothing less than an attempt to convince Islamist groups in Syria that a high-ranking MI6 officer was willing to turn double and pass classified intelligence and military secrets to them. That someone within British intellig
ence was willing to play traitor. We could pass disinformation on drone strikes and get gold in return. Repaying our debts by helping Langley with better coordinates for their MQ-9s, hence the American presence on the distribution list.’

  Vine felt all his assumptions shake and fall away. He could hear Olivia Cartier’s words on Wilde: If you want my theory, I got the impression he was working on something. Something big. He thought back to his interview with the Deputy Head of Station, Wilde’s loud disgust at the effects of Western foreign policy and the note from the Prime Minister’s PPS in Olivia’s bag.

  Suddenly, everything began to make sense. ‘All of which would require a top-level Arabist, sympathy with the region, perhaps even some Middle Eastern blood,’ he said, the logic of it all beginning to piece together in his mind. ‘A record of once having flirted with the movement at university, perhaps even suspicion of being a practising Muslim.’

  As far as the fifth floor seemed concerned, Gabriel Wilde was untouchable.

  There was a mat …

  To wash away the blood on his hands for good.

  Cecil’s voice betrayed his tiredness, the vowel sounds frayed. He nodded. ‘There was only ever one officer who could perform such a task,’ he said, rubbing at his eyes. ‘If caught, he faced almost certain death. For all we knew, the various Islamist cells across the border might never buy it. If it went wrong, the repercussions could be catastrophic. In order to protect ourselves, it was clear that MI6 and Downing Street would deny all knowledge if he was exposed, cast him off as an actual traitor, perhaps even threaten prosecution. There are few people on earth who have the courage to agree to something like that. This was a disinformation campaign on the level of a double cross. Even fewer people so sure of their abilities that they might pull it off.’

  ‘But Gabriel Wilde was one of them.’

  Cecil raised his cigar, as if toasting the memory. ‘Indeed he was.’