The Devil's Work

by Dominic Adler

  After two hours on trains and buses, I found myself in a shadow-washed street behind Moorfields Eye Hospital. The shop was a yellow-windowed relic, frozen in an eighties time-warp. It was shut by the look of it, headless mannequins modelling biscuit-coloured suits and the sort of sweaters golfers would reject as too garish. The grubby sign over the window read:

  ISAAC SAMUELS – MENSWEAR SPECIALIST

  I rang on a buzzer. The front door swung open, security chain rattling as a battery of locks disengaged.

  “Can I help?” asked a reedy voice.

  “The ‘Saint’ sent me.”

  An old man appeared. Beyond was a corridor with peeling wallpaper, ankle-deep in junk mail. There was a strong smell of chemicals and something that might have been paint. “I’m Isaac. Isaac Samuels.” His gravelly voice was fifty-fags-a-day rough, pure East End.

  I gave him the once-over. Samuels was a stooped old geezer with waxy skin and wet eyes, strands of oiled hair carefully arranged across his scalp. He wore flared slacks, grey slip-on shoes and a tangerine-coloured sweater. He should have moved the shop east, towards Hoxton, where his dress sense had probably come back into fashion.

  Samuels said nothing, offering only an obsequious smile as he ushered me along the corridor. Finally we squeezed into a tiny lift, treating me to the smell of body odour and cheap aftershave. The lift wheezed and shuddered as it climbed the building. “Here we go,” he said as the doors clanked open. “Please, come in and take a pew.”

  The room was an airy studio, looking out over flats and office buildings. City noise was muted by treble-glazed security windows. Air-conditioning hummed in the background, a sports channel on the radio.

  “How do you know The Saint?” asked Samuels. He shuffled over to a kettle and started brewing up tea, fussing over cups and saucers with long, delicate fingers stained blue and black. “Do you take sugar?”

  “No thanks. I used to work for The Saint,” I replied, settling into an office chair. “He said you’d have something for me if I called.”

  “Yes,” he smiled. “I do.” He whistled merrily. “I’ve met men like you before, squire, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. It’s in the eyes: proper naughty. They never lie, do they, your eyes?”

  “Maybe I should get some sunglasses.”

  I took in the room. Whatever he was, Samuels wasn’t a tailor. The studio was equipped with a phalanx of industrial-grade laser printers, some sort of optical equipment and a row of top-end Apple Mac computers, the type I associated with graphic designers. Rows of neatly arranged lockers and drawers lined the far wall, secured with padlocks. Wall racks held bottles, tubs and phials, next to neatly arranged ranks of stationery.

  Finally he brought lemon tea and a plate laden with cake. He sighed contentedly as he fell into a moth-eaten armchair. “My daughter makes a lovely cake,” he smiled. “Battenberg, you see? Very difficult to bake, you have to get all the pieces just so. It takes seven different processes to get the flavour and colours right. If all the elements ain’t done proper, the whole thing is a disaster.”

  I nodded indulgently and took a slice. “That’s good,” I said, telling the truth for a change.

  Samuels smiled, “I knew you’d like it. Where were we?”

  “The Saint,” I replied. The old man was clearly going to take his time. I decided there was no point rushing him. Besides, I like cake.

  “Of course,” the old man sighed. “He told me I’d get a visitor one day who’d mention him by his codename. He said I should tell them my story. I don’t know why, and I know better than to ask.” He winked and tapped the side of his rubbery nose.

  “The whole thing’s a riddle to me too.” I was expecting a parcel or a memory stick and a hurried on-your-way-please. Not cake and lemon tea.

  Samuels read my face. He cut another fat slice of Battenberg and slid it on my plate. “My story concerns a man I hate with a fucking passion.” I saw his tongue slide over wobbly, ivory-coloured teeth, “maybe you could cause him a few… problems.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed. “I’m in the problems business.”

  “The Saint told me that whoever came to see me wouldn’t judge me, or betray my confidence,” said Samuels nervously. “Am I correct?”

  I laughed, brushing crumbs from my lap. “I don’t like to brag, Mister Samuels, but whatever your sins, I’ve done worse and with a cherry on top.”

  “Fucking marvellous, call me Isaac,” grinned the old man.

  “You can call me Adrian,” I replied, using my usual legend.

  Isaac gave me an Adrian-my-arse look. “I’m what they call nowadays a Full Spectrum Asset Replicator,” said Isaac proudly. He produced a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and pushed them onto his face. “Fucking spies, they love flash names, don’t they?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m a scratch-man. Y’know, a forger,” he laughed. “I started making dodgy MOT and insurance certificates. Then I moved on to copying anything that could be copied.”

  “I can see why that might interest a spook,” I replied.

  “I got sent down for a nine-stretch in ’85, in Pentonville. Ever been there? They got cockroaches the size of cats.”

  “I’ve never done porridge in a UK lock-up, unless you count military prison.”

  “Keep it that way, my son. Anyhow, I’d done six months when a fella called Robert came to see me, along with a couple of Special Branch men. He said he could get my sentence reduced if I helped him with a project.”

  This was sounding familiar. “Robert was from the intelligence service, right?”

  “Yeah, MI6 I think. He wanted Russian and East German papers for people coming across the Iron Curtain. The work was easy: old communist-era documents were shit. They gave me pukka paper and inks and took me to an old warehouse out near Bath. Robert was as good as his word, if not better.”

  “Did you get early release?”

  “Yeah, they were as sweet as a nut. I only did twelve months in open prison. Then they sent me to learn about different forgery techniques. I even went to America, once. I was a fast worker. “That was what I was known as, The While You Wait forger.”

  “I’m glad it worked out for you, mate,” I said easily. “Except I’m guessing it didn’t in the end?”

  “No, it all went pear-shaped after 9/11,” Isaac replied, crumbs dotting his chin. “This new bloke took over from Robert, an arrogant prick called Owen. I just got on with it, but it wasn’t the same. One day, I remember it clearly ‘cos I’d won an accumulator on the two-twenty at Sandown, some nag called Likely Lad. Anyhow, what was I saying?”

  “You were talking about Owen after 9/11.”

  “That’s right. Anyway, one day Owen told me to create a full re-settlement package: Passports, driving licences, health cards, insurance policies… the lot. It was for a bloke from Belfast, they were moving him to Croatia. For Owen, nothing was ever good enough.”

  He went on to tell me the Irishman, a geezer called Declan Cross, disappeared in the field. Owen arrived one night with two other Irishmen.

  “They gave me a proper kicking,” he said. He pulled up his sweater, revealing a cross-shaped scar on his chest. “They did that too, with a Stanley knife.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Owen was bent, I’m telling you,” Isaac spat. “I might be a criminal, but I’m not a fucking traitor. I swear Owen was making a pound note on the side from these IRA men. The Irishman got involved in a gunfight with Old Bill, in the Balkans somewhere. Well, you don’t fuck about with the filth over there, do you?”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, shaking my head. “It went tits-up and Owen blamed you?”

  “You’ve worked for these cunts too, haven’t you?” Isaac beamed. “When they’d finished stabbing me up, Owen said the Irish wanted fifty grand to make things right. I paid up, of course. Then he disappeared and said my contract was finished. If I said anything, the Irishmen would come back and kill me and my family.” His eyes bu
rnt with hate. “Threatening my family like that. Taking a fucking liberty, they were.”

  “Did you ever suspect he was getting you to work off the books?” I said sympathetically.

  “No,” Isaac replied. “It was routine. I never asked questions and was always paid on time. Anyhow, about a year after ‘Owen’ left, I got a visit from a bloke calling himself The Saint.”

  I assumed this was Harry. Isaac told me The Saint offered him work, which I guessed was for The Firm.

  “After I knew The Saint for a while, we started to get on. Y’know, like friends,” said Isaac warmly. “He paid better than the spies, too. One day he told me he knew Owen professionally. The Saint didn’t like him either.”

  I sat forward, locking eyes with the old forger.

  Isaac smiled. “That’s when he told me that one day someone like you might come. He said it was an insurance policy. You know what it’s like in this game, don’t you Adrian? You need something in your back pocket for a rainy day.”

  I nodded sagely.

  “He told me that Owen’s full name was Owen Montague. He’d been with MI5 until he was sacked for dishonesty. And the reason that Irishman died in Croatia was Owen trying to save his skin. He’d been caught with his greasy fingers in the till, so he gave up Declan Cross as a terrorist, trying to buy guns and explosives in the Balkans. The Croatians had him bumped off, I imagine.”

  “I don’t know what this story has to do with me, to be honest.”

  “The Saint told me to mention that everyone knew Owen as Monty.” Isaac saw the flash of recognition in my eyes and smiled. “It’s important, The Saint insisted.”

  Harry’s present to me was a get out of jail free card with karma attached. It was generous, and I was pleased.

  “Oh yes,” the forger continued, excited at my response. “He works in an office down in Kent. I’ve got the address and everything. There’s also a safety deposit box number, for a bank in Switzerland.”

  “Is the bank called Tete Noir?” I asked. It was The Firm’s main hidey-hole, a very private establishment in a Zurich backstreet.

  “That’s the one,” he replied, pulling an old betting slip from his pocket. On it was a code written in immaculate copperplate handwriting. “There’s something in there for you, don’t ask me what it is.”

  I took it and nodded.

  “This is like Christmas, innit?” he grinned, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a blue cardboard folder. “Here’s two copies of passports Owen had me knock-up for him. There’s one Irish passport and one Canadian passport, both in the name of Owen Ross.

  I smiled and drained my tea. Monty had a moon-shaped face, close set eyes and a beard, dressed in a tweed jacket and tie.

  “Does that make any sense?” said Isaac, chewing his lip.

  “It does mate, yes,” I replied. I peeled five hundred in twenties from a roll of cash.

  “Why are you giving me a monkey? There’s no need for that,” said the old man.

  “Do me a favour,” I laughed, slipping the passports in my jacket pocket. “Have a drink on me and The Saint, or put it on the two-twenty at Sandown.” As a wise man once said, always make a new friend if you can... especially if he’s a hyper-skilled underworld forger.

  “I will son,” he winked, pocketing the cash. “Will it fuck Monty up, what I’ve told you?”

  I looked over my shoulder as I opened the door. I let him look into my eyes, the ones in which he’d seen the monster.

  “Yes, Isaac, it’ll fuck him up proper, and the bastards he works for.”

  The old man’s eyes shone with tears, “I wish I could see it.”

  “Trust me,” I replied, fists clenching in my pockets, “you don’t.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On my way back, I bought a padded envelope and some stamps. I posted the passports to my apartment. At the barracks I changed into jeans and a polo shirt, before striding across the weed-strangled parade square. Inside the NAAFI Hugo was cheerfully rustling up tea and bacon rolls. He told us he’d studied classics as well as computer science. Oz explained that a bacon roll with brown sauce was a classic, and Hugo was therefore amply qualified to make breakfast. Hugo’s laugh was a happy boom as he passed me a roll and a cuppa.

  “Thanks,” I said, “must make a change from silver service at Vauxhall Cross.” Dressed in skinny jeans, Converse sneakers and a vintage rock tee-shirt, he looked more like a student than a spook.

  “Oh, absolutely, you’re better off here when it comes to food,” the spy laughed. “Naturally, it’s all cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off at Babylon-on-Thames. Then, after the nursery school food, they push a button and you drop in the shark tank.”

  I laughed. “How many guys are there on your team?” I asked, casually as I could.

  Hugo thought about the question for a moment. “There are two more of us winding CORACLE down in Northern Kenya.”

  I ate my bacon roll and waited for him to fill the silence.

  After a second or two, he obliged. “They’ve stayed on to cover Mel’s extraction. Meanwhile Princess Juliet and I fly out with you tonight.”

  “Well, you know my role,” I said easily. “What’s your thing?”

  “Cyber-operations and technical surveillance,” he shrugged, running a hand through waxed shards of spiky black hair. “It’s geeky shit, very dull.” He tapped his nose conspiratorially.

  Good tactics, I thought: the use of good humour and a neutral answer to deflect further questions. “Yeah, straight over my head,” I agreed. “What type of support do the rest of the team provide?” I wanted to see if there was any inconsistency between my briefing and Hugo’s version.

  “There’s Alan, our GCHQ guru. Jesus, I thought I was an apex-geek. He’s a comms genius, designed all our counter-interception measures. Meanwhile, the lovely Amelia looks after HUMINT with Juliet. Juliet and Amelia are both ex-military, our girls with guns – they cover me and Alan while we deal with the technical side.”

  This was more or less what I’d read on Marcus’ background report. Except that Alan had a drink problem that made mine look trifling. Amelia on the other hand, was a model officer except for her tendency to occasionally clash with management.

  “Girls with guns,” I laughed.

  “They’re both hot, too,” Hugo smiled wistfully. “But sadly out of my league, you know, service hierarchy. The two of them can be competitive, alpha-female syndrome.”

  “Who’s the Alpha in your opinion, then?” I said good-naturedly.

  “I’ve probably said too much,” he said quickly. “But Princess Juliet is the mistress of all she surveys. In any case, they get on well enough.”

  “OK, tell me about Mel Murray.”

  “Mel?” he laughed. “The crazy bastard’s a one-off. He’d have been happier on the Northwest Frontier in the eighteen-hundreds. The modern world has too many rules for him.”

  “Juliet seems especially pissed off with him.”

  Hugo nodded. “Princess Juliet’s a… perfectionist. She’s invested a lot of effort, not to mention political capital inside the service, into CORACLE. And now it’s collapsed.” His tone was laconic, almost mocking.

  “You don’t sound troubled by it.”

  I thought I saw a shadow of a frown cross Hugo’s face. “I’m disappointed, naturally,” he replied. “I just can’t see the point of moping about it - what’s done is done. I just try to get on with everybody and focus on the next job.”

  I nodded and thanked Hugo for his time. If he was lying, he was a natural.

  We sat on the moth-eaten sofas and chatted until Dancer and Easter arrived. Light flooded the dingy canteen as the door opened. Easter wore a smart business suit and heels, hair tied back in a simple plait. The Grey twins grinned wolfishly when they saw the attractive SIS officer.

  “This is Juliet,” said Dancer to the new arrivals. “She’s the team leader.”

  “Sweet,” said Ruben.

  Juliet fixed him with a las
er-beam stare, which shut him up. “Thanks, Tom,” she continued. “Colonel Murray is still in the prison facility, one hundred and twenty miles north of the Kenyan border. However, he will be moved next Sunday.”

  “Are we all up to speed on the plan?” said Dancer.

  “Yes,” I said. “If the distraction assault on the air base works, we can do it.”

  “Note Cal’s use of the word if,” Bannerman added.

  Easter smiled. “I understand your concerns, but I wouldn’t agree for my team to go in if I weren’t satisfied.”

  “OK,” I agreed. The SIS team were following us in to do their secret squirrel stuff in the prison, putting boots on the ground. It deserved respect. There was no shortage of keyboard heroes in the intelligence community.

  “General Abasi of the FZA is a personal friend of Mel’s,” Easter continued. “He assures us the assault on the airfield is on.”

  “Kanoro Abasi?” I said. “We really have fallen in with thieves.” The leader of the FZA, the Free Zambutan Army, it was a commonly-held view that General Abasi was as bad as Aziz.

  “Abasi is the only rebel leader capable of delivering an assault of this scale,” Dancer shrugged, seeing the look on my face.

  “And does he realise that the wheel has come off Mel’s plan to overthrow Aziz for him?” I replied. Abasi might not commit to an attack if he knew CORACLE was folding.

  Easter nodded. “That’s a reasonable question, Cal. Abasi isn’t aware that CORACLE is dead in the water, nor will he be until Mel is out of the country.”

  I appreciated her candour. “Well, as long as we keep it that way,” I replied.

  “Any questions?” asked Easter.

  “Yeah,” said Oz. “Who else knows about this?”

  “Just my team, Dancer and my immediate boss,” she replied. “Why?”

  “Loose lips sink ships.”

  “I agree,” she nodded. “So, Mister Osborne, your team can help with operational security by handing over your telephones and internet capable devices.”