The Spanish Game am-3

by Charles Cumming

  ‘Not yet, anyway,’ Kitson says, an interjection which would suggest that discussions are ongoing in London over the possibility of ramping up the size of his operation. That can only be good for my career.

  ‘Now, it may come as a shock to you to learn that, as a result of their work at G8 summits, EU delegations and so forth, SIS keep files on all senior government personnel with an impact on British affairs.’ Macduff lets this sink in, and seems confused when I do not appear more surprised. ‘I’ve developed what I think is a good idea of how we might gain access to some of the information flowing into and out of the Interior Ministry.’

  ‘You mean blackmail? You mean you have biographical leverage with de Francisco?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  There’s a short pause while both men look at one another. I can feel myself being dragged into something amoral.

  ‘How are you feeling, Alec?’ Kitson asks. ‘What do you think you’re capable of?’

  The question wrong-foots me. Why would Kitson ask something like that in front of a colleague? He must know that I’m still not properly recovered from the kidnapping.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I look at Macduff. He looks at me. Kitson lights a Lucky Strike.

  ‘Here’s the situation. There are any number of ways we can find out information about an individual or group of individuals from an intelligence perspective. I don’t need to list them for you. However, mounting an operation of any scale against a government minister is fraught with difficulty. As of this moment, not even our own station here in Madrid is aware of my team’s presence on Spanish soil. In order to get comprehensive technical coverage of de Francisco we would have to alert the embassy in order to get the right kit smuggled out to us in a diplomatic bag.’

  ‘And you don’t want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t want to do that.’

  It’s obvious where this is going. They want to get me on the inside. But how? ‘So what are the alternatives?’ I ask.

  Kitson takes a long drag on the cigarette. ‘Well, if we had Francisco’s phone numbers we could call Cheltenham and get them on a hot list, but that would alert GCHQ…’

  ‘… which you don’t want to do…’

  ‘Which we don’t want to do. Yet. So that’s where you come in. That’s why I need to know how you’re feeling.’

  ‘I feel fine, Richard.’

  Macduff looks at the floor.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘ Fine.’

  This is not strictly true – how could it be, after what happened? – but I give my reply an ironic emphasis which effectively shuts down the discussion.

  ‘O? then. The thing is, you speak Spanish. You know Madrid. And you’ve done this sort of work before.’

  ‘You mean JUSTIFY?’

  ‘I do mean JUSTIFY, yes.’

  And there’s the rub. Kitson has been very smart. He knows that after what happened with Katharine and Fortner I felt ashamed and ruined, as if nothing would ever wipe out the stain of treachery that led to Kate and Will’s deaths. He knows that all I have ever wanted was a second chance, to do it right, to prove to myself and to others that I was capable of success in the secret world. However, just in case I get cold feet, just in case he has read me wrong, he is going to pitch me in front of a colleague. That way it will be difficult to refuse. Kitson knows I won’t want to look like a coward in front of Macduff. He grinds out the half-smoked cigarette.

  ‘To get to the point, we wondered how you’d feel about becoming a raven.’ Macduff explains the term unnecessarily, perhaps because he has mistaken the look of surprise on my face for ignorance. ‘That is, somebody who sets out to seduce a target for the purposes of obtaining sensitive information.’

  ‘You want me to sleep with Javier de Francisco?’

  This makes both of them laugh. ‘Not quite.’ Kitson scratches an arm and presses out of his seat. ‘Anthony is going to conduct some research of his own over the next ten days into the possible structure of the dirty war. We’ve already traced what looks like a link between secret Interior Ministry accounts and Luis Buscon. But meanwhile we’d like you to forge a relationship with one of de Francisco’s personal assistants in an effort to discover how far up the food chain this operation against ETA really goes.’ He is standing by the window now, looking directly at me. ‘That will happen in tandem with our ongoing surveillance of Buscon, which we cannot ignore. Now if it’s decided that the conspiracy has infected the upper levels of the Aznar government, then that obviously has an impact on our alliance with Spain. Any information you gather will go back to London and will be acted upon. But without your help we don’t have the resources to attack this thing.’

  It appears that I have no choice. A shallow part of me just wants to find out what the PA looks like.

  ‘There’s just one problem,’ I tell him.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You guys share a lot of intelligence with the CIA. I don’t want them knowing where I am. If I come up with useful intel, I don’t want my name on any reports that might find their way to Langley.’

  Macduff looks momentarily confused but Kitson sees where I’m coming from.

  Alec, as you can imagine, bringing up your name with the Cousins isn’t something we are in the habit of doing. JUSTIFY is an episode in the relationship between our two great nations that both of us, I am sure, would rather forget.’ A little grin here, almost a wink. ‘The CIA’s contempt for you is certainly equal to, if not in excess of, your contempt for them. Neither Anthony nor myself nor anybody on my team has any intention of involving the Agency in what’s going on out here.’

  It’s strange to hear Kitson speak so plainly of my reputation within the CIA.

  ‘So this is why you wanted me to stop seeing Sofia? Because of this girl?’

  ‘Part of the reason,’ he admits. ‘It would only complicate things if you continued to see her behind Julian’s back.’

  The familiar use of Julian’s Christian name makes me edgy, as if Kitson and Church have become friends. In my darker moments I still fear the revelation of a conspiracy between them. Nevertheless I remain light and co-operative.

  ‘Well, I don’t know whether to be flattered that you think I’d be capable of pulling off something like this, or offended that you see me as an amateur gigolo.’ There’s an awkward pause while both of them work out whether or not they’re supposed to laugh. Kitson does so; Macduff hedges his bets and produces a weak grin. ‘If she’s de Francisco’s PA, how do you know she’s not involved in the dirty war herself?’

  ‘We don’t. They’ve certainly known each other long enough. And if she is, that’s something that you’ll need to find out.’

  I meet Kitson’s eye. He’s willing me to do this.

  ‘Well, it’s probably something I could look at.’

  I haven’t begun to think through the consequences. Sex for information. Seduction for revenge. I can make jokes about gigolos in front of them, but the truth is that this is grim and seedy.

  ‘Good,’ Kitson says. ‘Now for the bad news.’ From an envelope beside the bed he produces a series of photographs of the girl. My reservations intensify. ‘As you can see, we’re not talking about Penelope Cruz.’

  The woman in the photographs is very tall and thin, with a long nose, limp, straight hair and a pointed chin. Not ugly, exactly, but certainly not someone who would ordinarily draw my eye on Gran Via. What am I letting myself in for? Is it too late to turn back? I should just abandon this whole thing and go back to my life with Endiom. The girl is past what most Spaniards would regard as marriageable age and dresses in a manner that can only be described as conservative. On gut instinct, however, I know that I’ll be able to win her over. She looks unhappy. She looks insecure.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Carmen Arroyo.’

  ‘And how much do you know about her?’

  ‘We know a lot.’

  35. La Bufanda

 
Carmen Arroyo is thirty-five years old. She was born in Cantimpalos, a pueblo sixteen kilometres north of Segovia, on 11 April 1968, a daughter to Jose Maria Arroyo, a schoolteacher, and his Basque wife, Mitxelena, who is currently in hospital undergoing surgery for a small melanoma on her left shoulder. Carmen is an only child. She was educated at the Instituto Giner de los Rios in Segovia and moved to Madrid at the age of eighteen, a typical provinciana. Having graduated from the Universidad Complutense in Moncloa with a mediocre degree in economics, she spent three years in Colombia working with underprivileged children at a hostel in Medellin, returning to Madrid in the winter of 1995. She passed the open competition for the Spanish civil service at Level D and has worked in both the Foreign and Agriculture Ministries in a secretarial capacity, always for Javier de Francisco, who has become a close friend. She became his personal secretary in the spring of 2001 shortly after Aznar appointed him Secretario de Estado de Seguridad under Maldonado. Her appearance alongside both men at an EU conference on policing later that year was noted by SIS.

  Jose Maria Arroyo owns a two-bedroom apartment in the neighbourhood of La Latina on Calle de Toledo, right beside the metro station. Carmen has lived there for the past eight years. She shares the flat with an Argentinian actress, Laura de Rivera, who spends most of her time in Paris with a boyfriend, Tibaud, and is therefore rarely at home. Carmen has savings at the BBVA amounting to almost €17,000 and pays only a peppercorn rent to her father for use of the apartment. For the past five nights she has visited her mother’s hospital bed at 7 p.m. sharp, taking fruit, flowers or a woman’s magazine on each occasion. She listens to a lot of classical music, attended a Schubert concert at the Circulo de Bellas Artes on Wednesday evening, and shops mostly at Zara for clothes. The take quality from the bug fitted by Macduff in her kitchen is good enough to ascertain that she watched a dubbed American movie – Annie Hall – on Thursday night while eating supper off her knees. Carmen talked to herself throughout the film, laughing regularly and making two phone calls in quick succession at around 11 p.m. The first was to her mother, to wish her good night, the second to her best friend, Maria Velasco, to arrange to meet for a drink at a bar in Calle Martin de los Heros tomorrow night. That’s my opportunity. That’s how we’re going to start things off.

  I wash my hair, shave and put on a decent set of clothes, but orchestrating the meeting is even easier than anticipated. I wait in the foyer of the Alphaville cinema until Carmen shows up at around 11.30 p.m. wearing a dark jacket and narrow trousers in Thatcher blue. She’s taller than I expected, thinner and more ungainly. She looks like the sort of girl I used to avoid in London: plain, shy and unimaginative. Once inside she finds Maria and the two of them sit down at a table at the back of the bar, each nursing a bottle of Sol and a cigarette. I follow two minutes later, pick a table with an eye-line to Carmen’s chair and retrieve a crumpled copy of Homage to Catalonia from my back pocket. The flirting happens almost instantaneously; indeed, she initiates it, sliding the odd glance and smile in my direction, tentatively at first, as if she’s not quite sure that it’s really happening, and then gradually gaining in confidence as the minutes tick by. I steal looks only a couple of times early on, careful not to overplay my hand, but at one point she actually blushes when she looks up to find me staring directly at her. For half an hour we sit there, Carmen doing her best to concentrate on what Maria is telling her, but finding it increasingly difficult not to be drawn away into a secret glance, a shy, blinking eye contact with her mystery admirer. Maria eventually cottons on and even turns round in her seat – much to Carmen’s embarrassment – ostensibly to attract the waiter’s attention but clearly to get a better fix on the stranger who has had such a remarkable effect on her friend. Then, at midnight, Macduff makes the call to my mobile and I pick up my book and leave.

  She takes the bait. On the back of my chair I have left a scarf – a present from Sofia – and, sure enough, when I’m just a few metres down the street I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see Carmen looking anxious and out of breath.

  ‘ Perdone, ’ she says. ‘ Dejo la bufanda en el asiento. Aqui esta .’

  She holds out the scarf and I pretend that I don’t speak Spanish.

  ‘Oh Christ. That’s so kind of you. Gracias. I totally forgot. Thank you.’

  ‘You are American?’

  By phoning Carmen at work and pretending to be a journalist, Macduff was able to establish that she speaks English. Her accent is half-decent, but it’s too early to tell if she’s a linguist.

  ‘Not American. Scottish.’

  ‘Ah, escoces.’

  If we can communicate solely in English, that will play to my advantage. In the course of our relationship Carmen might say something to a friend or colleague in apparent confidence which I will be able to translate and understand.

  ‘Yes. I’m just here in Madrid for a few months. You?’

  ‘ Soy madrilena, ’ she says, with evident pride. ‘ Me llamo Carmen .’

  ‘Alex. Nice to meet you.’

  We kiss in the traditional fashion and her cheeks feel dry and warm. It’s already clear that the first part of the strategy is working well: Carmen has been bold enough to follow me outside and to strike up a conversation, and she clearly doesn’t want me to leave. In time we’ll exchange phone numbers, just as Kitson hoped, and the relationship will be up and running. Then all I need to do is work out a way of finding her attractive.

  ‘You are enjoying yourself here?’

  ‘Oh I love it. It’s such a great city. I’d never been here before and everybody has just been so friendly.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘Like you, Carmen.’

  A first tension-shifting laugh. It is a strange sensation, this falsified union, this charade, but as we exchange further pleasantries I find myself warming to her, if only out of a sense of guilt that my sole purpose here this evening is to take advantage of her decency and palpable loneliness. If I can bring a little happiness into her life, then where’s the harm?

  ‘So you’re here on holiday?’

  ‘No, not really. I’m supposed to be researching a PhD.’

  ‘You are student?’

  ‘Sort of. I used to work on a newspaper in Glasgow but I’m taking two years out, with a view to becoming an academic.’

  The structure of this sentence is too complicated for her and she frowns. I rephrase it and tell her the title of my thesis – ‘The British Battalion of the International Brigades 1936-1939’ – and she looks impressed.

  ‘This sounds interesting.’ Then there is an awkward delay.

  ‘It’s cold and you’re not wearing a coat,’ I tell her, just to fill the silence.

  ‘Yes. Maybe I should get back inside.’

  Don’t let her go just yet.

  ‘But when am I going to see you again?’

  Carmen’s face twists with pleasure. This sort of thing rarely happens to her. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, can I telephone you? Can I have your number? I’d love to see you again.’

  ‘ Claro.’

  And it’s that simple. I scribble the number down on a blank page in the Orwell book and wonder if I should warn her, right here and now, that her life is about to be turned inside-out by a bunch of scheming British spooks. Instead I say, ‘You should go inside. It’s cold.’

  ‘ Si, ’ she replies. ‘My friend is waiting. Who are you meeting?’

  Kitson anticipated that Carmen would want to know if I have a girlfriend or wife, so I have a preprepared response to the question.

  ‘Just somebody from my language class.’

  ‘ Vale.’ Something like disappointment, even a shiver of panic, runs through her eyes, although I may be reading too much into this. At the risk of exaggeration it seems that she has already fallen for me.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ I tell her.

  ‘ Que? ’

  I hold up the scarf.

  ‘Ah. La bufanda. This was nothing, Alex. It was
nothing.’

  And we say goodbye. Two minutes later, when I have walked away from the bar and phoned Macduff to give him an update on the evening, a bus passes through the north end of Plaza de Espana. A banner is posted along one side advertising a new British film starring Rowan Atkinson. It looks like a Bond spoof – Johnny English. When I see the tagline beneath the predictably idiotic image of Atkinson wearing black tie, I have to smile:

  ‘ Preparate para la inteligencia britanica.’

  Prepare yourself for British intelligence.

  36. Blind Date

  Carmen’s conversation with Maria the following evening makes flattering listening. Macduff has isolated the relevant sections of dialogue, revealing the target’s excitement at the prospect of meeting me again, married to an anxiety that I will fail to call. Maria counsels caution – it’s in her nature to do so – but she shares Carmen’s basic view that I am ‘ guapo ’. Their only reservation, predictably, concerns my marital status, or the possible existence of a girlfriend back in Glasgow.

  ‘You always have to be careful with men from the UK,’ Maria warns. ‘They’re emotionally repressed. My cousin had a boyfriend from London once. He was very odd. Didn’t wash properly, never spoke to his family, wore terrible clothes. They dress very scruffily, the English. And they drink. Joder. This boy was always in the pub, watching football, buying alcohol. Then he would eat kebabs on the way home. It was very strange.’

  I translate most of this for Kitson and Macduff, and it’s no use pretending that I don’t derive a significant amount of pleasure from Carmen’s crush. It lifts my spirits after the farm, and I think Kitson understands this. He seems satisfied that our plan is on course and we discuss the next step.