by Chris Petit
Nazir produced a packet of menthol Kools and asked Stack’s permission to smoke. He tapped his cigarette on the back of his hand and lit it with a gold Dunhill. Seeing Collard watching, he threw the lighter to him.
‘It’s a fake from Hong Kong.’
Collard was uncomfortable handling something so recently touched by him. He threw it back.
‘As for your son, we need to find out whether he changed his mind about getting on that flight because he knew what was going to happen or whether there is a perfectly innocent explanation.’
‘He was warned by an old man at Frankfurt airport.’
Nazir sat up. ‘Really? How do you know?’
‘We discussed it. I was with him on the day and saw the man. I should have been on that flight too but had to rearrange my schedule.’
‘You must feel very lucky.’
‘I would feel luckier if I knew where Nick was.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘I believe he took the old man’s warning to heart, not about the plane, but because he realized the danger of what he was involved in. Scared he might get arrested in New York, he ran away at the last minute. After the crash he was too scared to surface.’
‘Fascinating. I would like to help but I have already told you I don’t deal in drugs.’
‘I thought arms and drugs were the same in your world.’
‘No. Your Mrs Thatcher and her son provided arms to the Saudis but you would not to accuse them of dealing in drugs.’
Collard listened to Bauer and Bobby knocking hell out a tennis ball. Nazir puzzled him. He was in control yet seemed to want Collard to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Nazir flicked the ash off his cigarette. ‘Do you play tennis, Mr Collard?’
‘Badly and not often.’
‘I’m sure you do yourself a disservice. I had nothing to do with this,’ Nazir said like he was still talking about tennis, ‘but it suits people to blame me. For them to say I bombed the plane makes it easier to discredit what I might say.’
‘Which people are you talking about?’
Rather than answer, he turned to Stack. ‘I know your father, by the way.’ He sat back and enjoyed her surprise. ‘That’s why I let you stay.’
Stack blushed at being caught out a second time.
‘I don’t get on with my father,’ she mumbled, her day in ruins. Collard felt protective of her.
Nazir said, ‘She writes under her mother’s name.’
Stack’s father was an international multimillionaire tycoon with far-sighted visions for global media, including satellite technology.
‘I have investments in this technology. You don’t need to be clairvoyant to see it is the future.’
In less time than it took the plane to crash, Collard thought, Nazir had turned everything on its head, demonstrating how within seemingly random and far-flung events a tight set of connections operated, putting Stack, to all intents an outsider, one move away from the principal suspect. Collard felt as he had in Neuss. What had made perfect sense on one level, on another made none at all; he felt the same about Nazir.
‘Who was responsible for the plot if you weren’t?’
‘The same people trying to discredit me, perhaps even kill me.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Before we get on to that, let’s discuss the so-called Palestinian cell I’m supposed to have financed. It had a very good reason for not carrying out attacks in West Germany.’
‘We’ve heard they were left alone so long as they didn’t select German targets.’
‘Exactly. It wasn’t in Palestinian interests to conduct military operations in West Germany. Do you know the reason behind this rather unusual act of laissez-faire?’
Neither did. Nazir went on, like he was holding an Oxford tutorial.
‘Trade.’
‘Trade?’ Collard echoed.
‘Terrorism is governed by laws of business like anything else. When the Ayatollahs rid Iran of its American puppet, the Shah, the United States imposed embargos on the new regime. Since then West Germany has become a major exporter to Iran and terrorists have avoided West German targets in exchange for that commercial investment.’
‘Perhaps political or ideological reasons overrode those considerations in this case.’
Nazir looked around for an ashtray for his cigarette. Finding none he casually flicked his butt on the terrace where Collard watched it smoulder.
‘No,’ Nazir said. ‘That Palestinian cell was a fabrication from top to bottom.’
‘A fabrication?’
‘An exercise to discredit. A sting. Disinformation. Whatever you like to call it.’
‘Are you telling us it had nothing to do with Flight 103?’
Nazir sat up sharply. ‘No. That’s not what I am saying.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘I will put it in the form of a question you need to ask.’ Nazir smiled. ‘Who provided the initial intelligence on the Palestinian cell to the Germans? Who told them to watch these people?’
‘Who did?’
Nazir casually brushed away a fly. ‘The Israelis were the sole providers of intelligence to the Germans.’
‘The Israelis!’ Stack interrupted. ‘Aren’t you bound to say that, given your background?’
‘The question is not worthy of you. I am not dragging you into the murky waters of anti-Semitic propaganda. I am reporting a fact. It is a trick the Israelis have pulled before.’
‘What trick is that?’ Stack asked.
‘Israeli agents foil a big terrorist plot at the last minute, ensuring dramatic headlines: bomb found on plane. The Palestinians get blamed and the papers go to town on what monsters these terrible people are.’
Collard said, ‘That’s a very big fabrication.’
‘Not really.’
‘How does it work?’
‘Completely for real. It only takes one or two people on the inside. Real terrorists are recruited and real bombs get made and real anti-terrorist units set up real surveillance and real Israeli agents break it all up. Except it’s invented, a simulation.’
The theory mirrored Schäfer’s misgivings about the operation.
‘Was that why the bomb-maker was released?’ Collard asked. ‘Because he really worked for the Israelis?’
‘He was a Jordanian agent hired by the Israelis.’
‘The plot should have been exposed on the day rather than weeks before. The Israelis didn’t get their grandstand finale.’
‘Because someone deliberately spiked the operation by getting the Germans to move in too soon.’
Stack added, ‘That means someone else knew besides the Israelis.’
‘That’s right. Now imagine what was supposed to have happened.’
‘The plot would have progressed and been thwarted and the plane would not have blown up.’
‘Exactly, and I would probably have been shot resisting arrest then they could say what they liked in terms of my being a terrorist mastermind – drugs, guns, private depravities. They would be free to paint a picture of me as a Westernized decadent, thus damaging me in the eyes of the suffering Palestinians.’
Meeting Nazir felt like an extension of Collard’s dream of the previous night about lines crossed, boundaries blurring. Truth and plausibility became confused and willingness to believe depended on the persuasiveness of the teller. There was a narcotic element to Nazir’s information, with levels of initiation and the flattery of being invited to look into Pandora’s box. In his version Nick receded again, became an enigma, a loose end.
High above, against the blue sky, a bird drifted lazily.
Nazir said, ‘The Israelis work with dupes, innocent parties drawn into the plot. This means someone is arrested unwittingly trying to put a bomb on the plane, disguised as a wrapped present, which they have been asked to carry, a not unreasonable request at Christmastime. After the operation is done, a suspect can be pointed to, someone for
the newspapers to get their teeth into.’
The butler returned with fresh lemon juice. Collard remembered Valerie Traherne’s story about Angleton changing the layout of his room and thought Nazir had similarly managed to rearrange the furniture in his head.
‘Your son, perhaps,’ Nazir said quietly, snapping Nick back into focus. ‘Maybe he was the intended dupe. Imagine the headlines. A nice English boy caught up in a bomb plot. What copy that would make. It would shake Middle England to its foundations. I could be made out to be even more monstrous, preying on innocent young English boys.’
‘Are you suggesting that my son was meant to be arrested at Frankfurt with the bomb in his bag? What about Khaled?’
‘Perhaps they meant to implicate Nick and Khaled in a drug-smuggling operation. It’s not out of the question. It is how these people work. Don’t you see? If you set up and control the outcome you can walk it back however you want. The purpose is to discredit, in this case the Palestinians. The Israelis wanted them out of Germany.’
‘What went wrong on the day?’ Collard asked.
‘Like I said, these operations are real up to the last minute, with real bombs and real passengers. They probably come down to one person making a telephone call.’
‘Or not making a call?’
Nazir opened his hand in acknowledgement.
‘Why wasn’t Nick arrested on the day, or Khaled either, come to that?’
‘We can only suppose someone cancelled the operation believing its security was compromised.’
‘Not realizing someone else would carry out the plot for real.’
‘That sounds right.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘In the first instance, someone persisted with the Israeli plan the Germans had spoiled.’
‘Why did the Germans spoil the plan?’
Nazir shrugged. ‘I can only repeat, another party infiltrated what was left of the original operation and put the bomb on the plane. These things work under deep cover and those on the ground have limited contact and understanding of what they are doing. The difference between an operation being a controlled exercise and turning horribly real is about this much.’
Nazir held up his thumb and forefinger to reveal the tiniest gap. He turned to Stack. ‘Is this the kind of story you might write?’
‘If I can verify it,’ Stack said carefully.
‘Of course,’ Nazir said lightly. ‘Don’t just take my word.’
‘You still haven’t said who you think is responsible.’
Nazir snapped his lighter again. ‘Someone’s putting a frame around me, like they say in the movies. Identify those responsible then I can’t be blamed. That’s what I want you to find out.’
Stack produced the surveillance shot taken outside the Neuss apartment where the bomb was made and asked Nazir if he was the man in the picture.
He leaned forward and made a show of studying it.
‘It’s a likeness but not good enough to stand up. I am six foot one. Measure this man’s height against the door frame, you will find he is no more than five foot nine. What did the Germans tell you, that I hired a car in my own name in Paris and personally drove the bomb components to Neuss? Even if I had been involved would I really have done that? Why? For the thrill of it?’
Stack said, ‘You say you’re not involved in drugs yet it’s a matter of public record you were tried in England and deported for dealing in them.’
Collard looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t known. Neither of them had fully revealed their hand.
‘I was held in prison so long without trial the judge had no choice but to let me go. He deported me to save face because I refused to work for British intelligence. British intelligence had trumped up the charges in the first place.’
The man had an answer to everything.
‘Nigel Churton asked if I could take any message back,’ Collard said.
‘Good old Nigel? Of course.’ Nazir could have been discussing a friend in common. ‘Nigel and I have had our differences. But as I know the Middle East I sometimes advise him on local matters.’
For the first time, there seemed an element of the fantasist to Nazir, who appeared keen to prove he was in with everyone: the man supposed to have blown up a civil airliner was now telling them he had acted as a security consultant to the man in charge of the British government’s investigation into that bombing.
Nazir went on lightly. ‘Tell Nigel about the Israeli operation. Tell him I think he knew all about it right up to the end, except for when it went bang. Ask him if he is ruthless enough to permit his godson to be exposed to that cosy little false plot.’
‘That is out of the question,’ Collard said, losing his temper.
‘Be careful,’ Nazir shot back, his ruthlessness evident for the first time. ‘You are my guest.’
Collard stared out at the flat sea. Nazir’s ridiculous hypothesis upset him less than the realization that there were still deeper and unsuspected levels of Nick’s past to uncover.
Nazir leaned forward to drive home his advantage.
‘Listen to me very carefully. There’s always a personal angle to these things. Nigel’s knowledge of the fake bomb plot would be compromising in itself. Nigel stands to be embarrassed but he’s conveniently in charge and in a position to find out what went wrong. I don’t know the answers to his questions but I know enough to cause great damage if he doesn’t lie down quietly. With respect, tell him not to send an amateur next time.’
A train went past in the distance. Real life sounded a long way off. Stack looked subdued. Perhaps like him, she was dizzy from so much speculation.
Nazir switched back to being charming. ‘Let me see what I can find out about your boy. I know Khaled’s family. Leave your numbers. Yours too,’ he said to Stack. ‘I was fond of Khaled. For his memory as much as my own innocence I want to know who was responsible. I can pay for information.’
The offer hung awkwardly, unanswered. Nazir wrote their numbers in a leather notebook, and gave them one to memorize in return, saying a message could be left any time and he would answer within twenty-four hours.
He was gone in a hurry, saying Bauer would arrange their return journey.
Bauer was in no mood to do so. He and Bobby were not conditioned by the same diplomatic parameters, being possessive, unpleasant, unwilling to take no for an answer and keen to retain them as a captive audience, particularly Stack. Bauer refused to have his driver take them to the airport, saying they would all go back in the morning, and offered them separate guest suites. Collard resigned himself to a disagreeable evening. Stack said she was going to take a bath. Bauer pointed out Collard’s room from the terrace and made no offer to take him down or let his manservant.
Collard was contemplating being a semi-prisoner in luxurious surroundings when there was a tapping on a back window. It was Stack.
They left, avoiding the paths, climbing through the shrubbery. Collard wondered if anyone would try and stop them. He remembered the high security and hoped the system controlled entry only. He was right. The pedestrian gate next to the main entrance had no code and opened to the press of a button.
L’Age d’Or
Nazir’s act was pretty good, Angleton thought, for a worried man. He was correct to fear the Israelis, and by extension the Americans, but he underestimated the role of his Syrian protectors. And the English were naive in their persistence that Nazir had been exclusively theirs, flying him in and out of London – technically illegal as he was banned following his arrest for drugs – to attend and advise in anti-terrorist conferences. Angleton had to laugh: Nazir and anti-terrorist conferences! That was how crazy the world had become.
Angleton’s sightings of Nazir reminded him of old movies by Buñuel, particularly L’Age d’Or. Ancient radio dials he thought of too, showing all the old European stations: Hilversum, Luxembourg, AFN, the Light Programme and the BBC World Service.
According to Nazir, those crafty I
sraelis were still pulling a stunt taken from the Angleton book of methodology. He was the one who had shown them how.
He had worked so well with the Israelis to a point where some in the Agency had accused him of being their paid-up agent. The Israelis were professional, alert, super-paranoid hawks. Angleton took care: there was nothing sleepy about them; none of that mañana shit. They were real gunslingers. It was hard not to get pissed off sometimes; they were so in your face.
It figured they would set up a false Palestinian cell and feed intelligence to the Krauts to bring them into line and stop the Palestinians using the place as a haven because Bonn was trade-pally with Tehran. Good thinking.
The moves all went back to that pub in Mayfair, 1943, to the birth of Amazon and the blinding realization that fiction lay at the heart of counter-intelligence. Greene already made up stories for a living and so, Angleton realized, five pints down, could they. The stiletto of fiction.
The other object lesson: get someone else to do the dirty work wherever possible, learned later and in his case the hard way, at the hands of those slinky cardinals.
Angleton’s greatest unnoticed triumph was sealed as Philby departed Washington in 1951, if not in disgrace then under a large cloud. During their last drink together, a low-key affair, Philby said with his usual air of mischief, ‘People are saying you’re devastated by the likelihood of my betrayal.’
‘Too busy,’ replied Angleton cheerfully.
‘No time for regret?’
‘Quite right. Time for another?’
‘Always time for another. We had fun, didn’t we?’
‘I’ll have to file a report on you.’
‘Of course. What’ll you say?’
‘That Guy Burgess was your lodger and the Russians would never risk the security compromise of letting two spies share the same house.’
That night, after leaving Philby, Angleton delivered a top-secret arrangement for Mossad to extend full service to the CIA, including the subcontracting of awkward jobs that the Agency wanted to dissociate itself from.