A Spy's Life

by Henry Porter

  Vigo tried to demur, but saw the look in Harland’s eye and backed off.

  ‘What a race that must have been,’ continued Harland. ‘Your lot against the official SIS team. And you won the prize. While they were watching the houses in Bayswater, you or one of your friends had the bright idea of searching the telephone junction boxes. That meant you got the computers with all their information and you could use it to nail the competition for the role of successor to Robin Teckman.’

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ said Vigo. ‘There are things that you don’t understand and never will.’

  ‘Oh, I’m nowhere near finished, Walter. You may think that you have arranged this meeting to silence me. But let me just tell you that I have all the cards. At the press of a key everything I know about this affair will go to the press and that means the government will be asking questions, which is hardly going to be conducive to your candidature. So if I were you, I’d sit tight and shut up.’

  ‘Bobby, there’s no point in this – really,’ said Vigo. ‘You don’t have the whole picture.’ He cocked his head to the sound of opening car doors outside. ‘Look, I think we’re about to be joined. I hope you will be able to listen to what is said to you.’

  ‘No, it’s you that has to do the listening …’ His voiced trailed off because Vigo had got up.

  ‘Would you just hold on a second,’ he said irritably as he left the room.

  Harland paced around the mahogany table for a few minutes. Then the door opened and Vigo came in followed by the gaunt, polished figure of Sir Robin Teckman. He sat down and smiled pleasantly at Harland.

  ‘Walter’s filled me in on your position …’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure he has,’ said Harland curtly. He liked and respected Teckman from his time with him in the East European Controllerate, but he wasn’t going to be sweet-talked into silence. ‘I was saying that there are outstanding matters to discuss. Kochalyin’s crimes can’t all be swept away. There’s a massacre to consider in Bosnia, the plane crash that I was involved in and the killings and shootings in London. Just because you’ve sorted out your internal difficulties, it doesn’t mean that we can forget what Kochalyin is responsible for.’

  ‘And what did you have in mind, Bobby? How do you believe we should pursue these matters?’ The eager, helpful smile had not faded.

  ‘Firstly Britain should instigate the reopening of proceedings in The Hague. It’s clear that we were involved in helping him fake the assassination in the first place.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Teckman evenly. ‘We believe another foreign power was responsible, probably the French, who kept their lines open to the Serbs all through the Bosnian civil war and the Kosovo conflict, as you probably know.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ asked Harland.

  ‘We believe it was some kind of deal involving an aero-industry contract. I cannot be more specific, I’m afraid, because we don’t know. However, I suspect he furnished the crucial contacts which resulted in an order. They obliged by fixing up the drama in the hotel and putting their own troops on the job to act as witnesses.’

  ‘If we weren’t involved in that business there’ll be no embarrassment at all to the British government.’

  ‘Bobby, in the hope that you understand the spirit in which I make these remarks, I’m going to be open with you. Kochalyin has caused us considerable problems, principally because different parts of the service were engaged with different manifestations of him. It wasn’t until Walter started pulling it all together two years ago that we understood that we were dealing with one man. I think the same can be said of a number of different agencies which have been equally compromised and embarrassed by these illegal transmissions. Tell me, have you learned anything about the motives of your boy and this fellow Mortz? Clearly the boy held a deep grievance against his step-father, and Mortz was a clever trouble maker from radical seventies stock. Put together they were a devastating combination. The motive puzzles me however. You see, the lad must have got very close to Kochalyin to have been able to gain the information he used. Was this premeditated – what was the trigger? What caused this resentment?’

  That was something they didn’t know and Harland wasn’t going to enlighten them. ‘He hated Oleg Kochalyin because of his treatment of his mother. That’s obvious. But I haven’t exactly had the chance to question him. He’s frail and cannot speak.’

  ‘But I understood he was capable of some rudimentary communication.’

  ‘Occasionally, but he’s not up to being questioned about this. His doctor says that he is prone to infections and needs to be kept quiet.’

  ‘I see,’ said Teckman.

  ‘The point,’ said Harland, ‘is that I have a duty to report on all these matters to the UN Secretary-General. It’s not just the massacre in Bosnia, but the air crash in New York. There’s every reason to believe it was the work of Kochalyin.’

  ‘What evidence do you have?’ asked Teckman, in the manner of a tutor drawing out a pupil.

  ‘I believe the plane was brought down by an electronic device – a virus maybe. I might have been able to pursue this further if Walter hadn’t warned the FBI against talking to me, but I know that the crash wasn’t caused by wake-vortex. The evidence of wind speed, wind direction and distance between the two landing aircraft at the time make a vortex virtually impossible.’

  ‘Maybe what you say about the vortex phenomenon is true, but I don’t think it quite justifies the claim that the plane was sabotaged. There could be said to be rather a gap between the two.’

  Again there was no hint of a challenge. Harland could see that he was being manipulated into a position where he would be forced to concede he had little definite proof and therefore had no reason to take further action.

  ‘Well, I’ve raised this in my preliminary report,’ he said, a little defiantly.

  A glint of concentration entered the Director’s eyes. ‘You have already sent this to the Secretary-General?’

  ‘Yes, although there’s much to add.’

  ‘And what do you envisage the Secretary-General doing with your report?’

  ‘I imagine he’ll use the evidence to reopen the case into Kochalyin’s activities in 1995 and maybe there are some lessons to be learned about the way powerful states employed this man.’

  ‘And there again, he may do nothing,’ said Teckman.

  ‘That’s up to him. It’s his report – he commissioned it. But I will urge an investigation into the war crimes. By the way, you know there’s evidence that Kochalyin was present at more than one massacre.’

  Teckman exhaled and looked at Vigo. ‘Naturally, Bobby, we’re concerned that this report of yours doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. It would be quite awkward for it to appear in the media in its unformed state.’

  ‘You want me to wait until I’ve got more?’

  ‘No, of course not. This is very dangerous material and it contributes to the sense that our institutions are degenerate. We want to build public confidence, not destroy it. I think that Walter and I have demonstrated to you that we rooted out the difficulty we were having and that these things can be addressed, without worrying everyone. That takes courage, you know. Look, I understand why you see this as something of a personal crusade – who could blame you after what happened in Prague and after what has been done to your boy? But I also want you to remember you are still a citizen of this country and that you signed the Official Secrets Act. If there is any publicity about this I think it would be damaging to the national interest in ways that you have perhaps not foreseen.’

  Harland rose from his chair and shook the tension from his shoulders. Also, he wanted to show that he did not feel constrained in their company.

  ‘In what ways will it be damaging?’ he asked.

  ‘With your background, you must understand that relations between countries are not a simple affair. Two states may be friends on one level, but competitors, even enemies, on another. For example, on drug-tra
fficking we are at one and there is a high degree of co-operation between states, but when it comes to crucial defence contracts or tenders to build a dam in Turkey each state pursues its own interests. The public finds this very hard to understand – but it’s a system that works, after a fashion. When something like this gets into the open it tends to colour the entire relationship for a very long period. Politicians get hold of it and inflate the issue for their own purposes, which needless to say is not the common interest.’

  ‘But there is a principle here,’ said Harland. ‘We know the identity of a war criminal who has also committed countless other crimes. What possible harm comes from putting him in the dock to answer for what he’s done?’

  ‘That assumes you can lay hands on the man. But let’s accept that you effect this miraculous arrest, what then? Kochalyin appears at The Hague and, seeing that he is bound to be sentenced to a long term in jail, decides he has nothing to lose by telling the story of the last dozen years. You don’t imagine the Americans are going to allow that to happen, do you? Or the French or the Germans? They have all used him in one way or another.’

  ‘To say nothing of the British.’

  ‘To say nothing of the British,’ repeated Teckman, with a brief patrician smile. ‘It just isn’t going to happen, Bobby. And that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Then what will happen?’

  ‘Well, nothing immediately, but let me assure you that Kochalyin will not be able to continue operating as he has been. There are too many people who know what he did in his various roles. That is in large part thanks to your son. So, sooner rather than later, he will arrive at a messy end, in which case you can hardly be less than satisfied.’

  ‘There’s some kind of contract on him?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. His time will come – that’s all I’m saying. He’s been exposed. People have made the connections; they know what he has done. For instance, Walter was telling me that he’s stolen an awful lot of money. That does enrage people, you know.’

  ‘But you don’t believe there is any case to answer in Bosnia?’

  Teckman looked pained. ‘Of course I do, Bobby. Of course I do. Please remember how much effort the British have put into capturing these people. No country has a better record of apprehending indicted war criminals than we do. None!’

  Harland sat down again and looked at each of them in turn.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t wear this. The world may work like this, but it used not to. There were once ideas of right and wrong, however crude. We presumed to claim that we were on the right side because all of us knew of the evil of the regimes in the East. That was our motivating faith, however ragged and abused in execution. But now …’

  ‘Now we have to make much harder choices,’ said Vigo quietly. ‘Robin is right. We can’t have your report floating about and giving people the wrong impression.’

  ‘The odd thing about it all,’ said Harland, still looking at Teckman, ‘is that there is almost nothing in my report about the transmissions. Do you know why that is? It’s because I don’t know much about them. I suspect that you caught a good deal before it was released from those two computers, in which I case I will never know. Tomas is hardly in a position to tell me.’ Neither Teckman nor Vigo showed any reaction. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘my report chiefly concerns the air crash and the war crime. As I told you, it has already been delivered to the Secretary-General. There’s nothing you can do.’

  Vigo cleared his throat. ‘I think what Sir Robin wants is an assurance that you will not add to this report and that you will not seek to have the current draft distributed.’

  Harland said nothing. He imagined a plan was already in place to persuade Jaidi to bury the report in exchange for some diplomatic favour. All they needed now was to ensure his silence.

  ‘We all want to leave this room with a clean sheet,’ said Teckman. ‘Without acrimony or misunderstanding.’ He paused. ‘You see, we’re working on the same side, Bobby, even if in the past there has been some doubt about that. You know what I’m referring to.’

  Harland understood very well that he was being threatened again. A release of his report might not be followed by a charge, but certainly a campaign in the press to destroy him. He’d seen what had happened to younger members of SIS who had broken ranks recently and he knew that his former employers would not hesitate to use the material they had on his ‘Prague connection’.

  ‘Are we working on the same side, Bobby?’ asked Teckman, with an interrogative lift of his eyebrows.

  Harland was about to shake his head.

  ‘I believe we are, perhaps more so than you appreciate.’ Teckman nodded to Vigo who rose and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  No more than thirty seconds later Vigo came in and waited by the door. Someone was hesitating outside. Harland leaned over and saw Eva standing anxiously in the light of the corridor.

  ‘You see, we really are on the same side,’ said Teckman.

  28

  THE FINAL WORK

  There was only one thought in Harland’s mind.

  ‘How long?’ he demanded icily. ‘How long have you worked for them?’

  Her eyes moved from Vigo to Teckman, whom she clearly hadn’t seen before. He put out his hand and motioned her to a chair.

  ‘Three years.’

  It all made sense to Harland. Now he understood why she had remained Kochalyin’s lover and how she’d been able to supply so much detail for his report to Jaidi.

  ‘And you knew this, Walter? You knew who she was?’

  Vigo nodded. ‘Needs must, I’m afraid,’ he said sombrely. ‘We had to get the information on Kochalyin. You know how it is, Bobby.’

  ‘You bastard, Walter.’

  ‘But,’ said Vigo, raising a hand to deflect the insult, ‘Irina here will confirm that we had no idea that she was Lapis until late last year. We simply knew her as Kochalyin’s former wife. We needed to build a picture of this man – his character, his habits, his business dealings. We needed to piece his different existences together. Irina helped us a great deal and we are very grateful to her. You may not believe this, but not once was your name mentioned. You see, you weren’t in the picture until you got on that plane in Washington.’

  ‘It’s true, Bobby,’ implored Eva. ‘They didn’t know about us until last month. They didn’t know about Tomas – why would I tell them? I was just helping them with Oleg – that was all. Why would I discuss who Tomas’s father really was? Tomas had his own life. And you? You were in the past.’

  Harland sat down. ‘Did you help them with information from the files?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t tell me anything about you. Why would he?’

  Vigo nodded in agreement.

  ‘But why didn’t you mention this arrangement before? We were travelling for nearly three days together. When we got to Century House, what happened then? You knew that Walter and I must have worked in that very building together. Surely that jogged your memory.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me where we were. You didn’t mention the history of the building until after I’d seen Tomas. I didn’t even know that you knew Walter. How could I? He didn’t say anything to me and nor did you.’

  ‘The penalties of discretion,’ chipped in Teckman, who had sat down in his original place at the table. ‘It’s all true, Bobby. I have to say I was nearly as dumbfounded as you are when Walter unravelled this whole conundrum for me the other day. It does, however, rather underline my point about us all being on the same side. Everyone has been working against Oleg Kochalyin.’

  Harland was watching Eva. For a fraction of a second she stared at him, her pupils dilating with significance.

  ‘There’s one thing that doesn’t ring true to me,’ said Harland. ‘When Tomas was shot, why didn’t you tell her, Walter? You could have called her.’

  ‘Because at that stage we hadn’t made the connection between Irina and Tomas and you. The police were late in telling u
s about the newspaper they’d found in his flat – the one with your picture removed. And by that time, you have to remember, we were desperate to find the source of the transmissions. So the real identity of Lars Edberg wasn’t a priority. We knew he must have had something to do with the transmissions, yet they were continuing after he had been shot. As you can imagine, Bobby, at that moment our sole aim was to stop the transmissions. Later, when we had located the source, I had the police take his fingerprints and we were able to make a match between those in the flat, the computers and Lars Edberg.’

  Teckman took over the narrative. ‘By that stage we had begun to sift through the information that Irina here had given us. We were comparing it with some of the things we’d seen in the transmissions. Suffice it to say there was an overlap. The information came from the same route. That was when Walter put all the pieces in place.’

  ‘At what stage exactly did you know that Tomas was our son?’

  ‘Some time in the middle of last week.’

  ‘By which time I’d left for Prague.’

  ‘Yes. We knew you would break the news to Irina and bring her back here.’

  ‘And you were following us?’

  ‘We have limited resources in the Czech Republic,’ said Teckman. ‘We caught up with you in Karlsbad and followed you to Dresden. Then we lost you. There was some confusion at the station. We were worried because our two men knew Kochalyin’s people were following you too.’