If it moved, they could see it. If it emitted a sound, they heard it. Task the big machine, throw money at it, and it would go out and bring back whatever you wanted.
Harry had not the slightest doubt that one day soon an official car would draw up outside his house – with a police SUV parked a little way down the lane – and that a combination of local and federal officials, with their handcuffs and pistols on their belt and their practised little scripts, and a dozen different epaulettes and brightly-coloured shirt badges, would come up the path for him.
So let them come.
He closed the file on his desk and pushed his chair away from it. He felt nothing for Mazurin. His moment of doubt the night before had gone. You can shut out those feelings, he thought. You have to. The Russian had been the means to an end. Nothing more.
Besides, there had been no other way. A life for a life. Mai’s for Mazurin’s. Same old game since time had begun.
WESTERN SYRIA
This time they had brought her food. Some bread and cheese, flyblown and stale. A piece of watermelon, wrapped in newspaper. Mai didn’t know if it was a prelude to execution and at that moment it didn’t matter.
Dying well was all that mattered – which meant that whatever they did, you built a wall inside your head and put them on the other side; you didn’t beg and you didn’t cry. You held fast to the memories of those you had loved and carried them safe and intact into the next world.
She ate everything they had brought, licking the paper, tasting the sweetness of the juice. The two men watched her expressionless. She understood what they did, had seen the way they were trained, even read the makeshift manuals. They alternated cruelty and kindness because that was the quickest road to her mental destruction. Maximum uncertainty, and the crushing of hope each time it surfaced.
After the mock execution, Mai had had plenty of time to rehearse the real one – to play out the steps in her mind, to feel the sack dragged across her head, to smell the filth of it, to feel the blade against her throat.
If they couldn’t induce terror in her, she knew they would settle for pain.
It was what the two men craved. Two men you would never look at on a street, or in a bus or train. Waiters or taxi drivers, perhaps. So ordinary that you might wonder if they had somehow stumbled into the wrong place. But not for long. Not when their hands began burning her skin or pounding the soles of her feet with a baseball bat, or forcing her head into a stinking bucket of water. Then you would wonder no more, at least until the work was done, when they combed their hair, washed their hands and headed home, God knew where.
She knew they wouldn’t be satisfied if she simply faded away or died from bleeding or a heart attack. They had planned her death as a grand, meticulous performance which she, as lead actor, should experience to the full.
She was their enemy and they would insist that she die, screaming in defeat.
Long after they had left, Mai could hear the sound of cars and motorbikes snorting their way through distant traffic. Noises from another world. Close, but way beyond her grasp.
For a moment she imagined breaking down the door, fleeing into the damaged, night-time streets. But she knew that the Syria where she had grown up had long since been destroyed. The warm, funny, talented people, her friends from childhood, were out on the streets dying and killing, like everyone else.
And what you didn’t see was worse. The rage inside a people, mad with grief, stripped piece by piece of their security, their certainty, their loved-ones – everything and everyone they had cherished, torn from their hands and blown apart. Each death to be mourned, each gravestone a call for vengeance, until no one would be left standing and no one could win.
Except Washington.
Harry’s world. A world away from the broken, bloodied streets of Syria.
She was shocked that she hadn’t thought of him till now. Dear Harry, who should have been a friend, not a lover. How had she let herself get close to him? Was it his power? His focus? She struggled to recall her feelings.
Back in America, it had seemed so clear. For the first time in so many years she had lain with a man who she knew with absolute certainty she could trust. Yes, a Washington animal. A spinner, a dealer, a power broker – a man who lied for his country and his president and pressed buttons that killed people around the world.
But the real Harry, the one inside the strange tweed suit, was someone who could manage all things and bear all burdens for the woman he said he loved.
And on the eve of a dangerous mission, back to her hate-infested country, she had needed some certainty.
He had told her he could make it all work. The mission. Their relationship. In her mind he became the sorcerer with unimaginable powers. And somehow, even with a wife so critically ill – he would arrange the pieces of their life – agonizing as they were, into an order they could accept. There would be process and result. They would eventually be together.
She shook her head in disbelief; all she could see was the madness they had created between them.
Even if she returned to America, there would be nothing left. She knew that now.
No way for them to sit at home in years to come, talking by the log fire about the people who had died, or the mistakes that were made or the downward spiral of her country into self-destruction.
Their relationship would always be the bastard child of a mission that had ended in catastrophic failure. It had no chance of surviving – didn’t deserve to – probably never had.
Mai had never seen Harry’s home – the clapboard house among the trimmed and pampered lawns of Maryland – how could she? But somehow she could picture a study full of books and a man with his fists clenched, sitting at his desk, out of his mind with worry about her. Harry, who would use every power and every lever he had to find her and get her out.
Harry who didn’t know that it was all too late.
My poor Harry, she thought.
None of it was ever going to work.
WASHINGTON DC
Rosalind could hear him moving about downstairs, the opening and closing of the fridge, the drawer of a desk, his voice on the phone.
It seemed strange that in the midst of such a terrible illness, she could experience moments of incredible clarity. Sunlight seemed brighter, sounds more intense, the mind uncluttered by material and trivial concerns, now focussed on the single journey that remained.
She sat up in bed and looked out over the neat squares of garden and the white clapboard houses.
She had loved Harry Jones from the day she met him. The man who resembled a rural schoolteacher, but who had the intellect and the drive to make it to the White House and sit beside the president.
Such a surprising man, her father had once said.
She recalled her pride when they had been invited to the big gala events, the intimate dinners and barbecues and the tennis games with some of the biggest names in the world. How proud it had made her feel!
But not anymore. Not for a long time.
It had changed Harry. But then how could it not have? Gone were the lightness of spirit and the quick, easy smile. The ability and inclination to talk to anyone, whatever their rank or importance. In their place had arrived a new Harry who took himself so very seriously and had lost the joy of life. And the joy of her.
He was still attentive, did his duty. But the two of them, she realized, had gone from summer to winter – and there’d been no autumn in between. No companionship or affection, the way others seemed to enjoy it.
They kissed each other goodnight and good morning, but it was simply a part of the daily ritual, like brushing teeth or shoes, checking your tie in the mirror. No more than a habit.
She thought to herself that he might have had another woman in his life, but she dismissed the notion. Harry – strong, careful, conservative Harry – would never risk his job for something as mundane, as common, as that.
Not that she would have minded so much. She often told
herself that she came from a time when women had so few expectations of their life, or even their husbands.
So what if he had a fling?
Besides, she wouldn’t be around much longer and didn’t want him to live on his own. Perhaps he would find a socialite with lots of big diamonds and a great white house on a hill. And Harry would be happy.
All the same she wanted to know, had even toyed with the idea of asking him outright. But then why spoil a pleasant atmosphere?
She didn’t wish for any bad blood when she departed.
The only essential to pack was a little love. Asking for the truth as well would be a little excessive.
And so unnecessary.
When she got to the other end, she was certain they’d have everything she needed.
She listened for his voice but could no longer hear it.
Where are you, Harry? she wondered. Where did you go?
WESTERN SYRIA
Pain is what pain does.
She remembered the instructors writing it on a blackboard.
It can destroy logic and memory, sap your will to live, or resist. Even as you attach the last piece of mental armour you possess, pain can render it useless.
Mai had no idea how she had fallen asleep, nor whether the screaming was real or dreamed.
She opened her eyes, startled for a moment to see another pair, inches from her, staring calmly back.
As she focussed, she saw they belonged to a boy, no more than seven or eight years old.
Her first thought was that he might have wandered in off the street, or maybe he belonged to one of the torturers.
The creature was filthy, his once-grey T-shirt torn and faded, patchwork striped trousers with the legs caked in mud. Hair thick and dusty. A random witness, silent, his mind somewhere else. He brought nothing into the room, would take nothing away.
She sat up and coughed into her hand, seeing the dark red blood, spattered on her palm. Dark was worrying. But so what?
Her eyes met those of the child. He too looked down at the blood, but showed no reaction.
In that moment she thought she knew how his life would go; thought that when he grew up a little, reached the age of twelve or thirteen, he’d do some killing himself, because it wouldn’t penetrate the brutal normality that had already shaped him.
Perhaps he had killed already.
In any case, Mai had a premonition that he would come back to this place to watch her die. Not out of interest or concern, but because on that day, whenever it came, there would be nothing better for him to do.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
But the question brought no response.
She was about to speak again but the gunfire outside the building was sudden, shocking and intense. And the words never came. Heavy automatic weapons had opened up across the street and fire was being returned – but in single shots. Someone was heavily outnumbered.
Mai had barely moved in days, but when the fighting broke out she had flung herself on the boy, pulling him onto the hard stone floor, face down, breaking his fall with her arm.
There were shouts now. More firing in the distance. She wanted to catch a glimpse through the window on the other side of the room but couldn’t leave the child. First instinct.
She looked around. One open door, leading somewhere, who knew where, in the broken building. Dust everywhere. More gunfire. A shout. ‘Dead, dead.’ And then there was silence.
She didn’t move, couldn’t know where the fighting was centred, who was shooting, who was dying.
Think. You need to think.
Beneath her, the boy was struggling. But she couldn’t release him, couldn’t let him run away. He was a threat to himself – and to her.
She kept her weight on top of him but lifted herself a few centimetres.
Outside was darkness. The street lamps had gone, shot out. Far away she could hear a siren, more shouting but the words were indistinct.
The single most difficult place to understand a battle is in the middle of it. They had always said that. No bullet carries a readable marking or label. Each is despatched with vicious, terminal intent towards a target that may or may not be you.
Even as a bystander to violence, you are overwhelmed by solid walls of heat and noise, way beyond any levels you have imagined or encountered.
You can do nothing except wait for a set of complex, random events – over which you cannot exercise the slightest control – to decide if you will live or die.
All this Mai knew.
A minute passed and the noise had gone somewhere else … a block away, maybe more, sporadic gunfire, car doors banging, a motor gunned and the sound of a car that sped away into the night.
She loosened her hold on the boy, didn’t expect him to push upwards so fast and with such force, his head hammering against her jaw, slamming her backwards to the floor.
As she looks up he’s already at the window, moving fast like a cat, climbing onto the sill, heading for the street outside if there is still a street. In that moment she wants to shout at him to stop, to come back into the shadows …
She sees him turn – it’s just a tiny fraction of a second – but as he does so she can feel the force of a single bullet that punches straight through him, the tiny creature in his torn T-shirt and filthy striped trousers, lifting him clean off the sill and felling him to the bare stone floor, snatching away his life, even as it slams into the wall behind her.
She thought later that she had screamed but no sound came from her.
A few feet away, the boy’s body lay face down, frozen against the floorboards. No need to check if he were dead. Mai could already feel the stillness, clinging to him like a shroud.
She shivered. A sharp, insistent wind had whipped into the damaged house, where once there might have been windows and life and light – and maybe even normal people.
Mai gathered what she could. A loose shirt, still in the rucksack she had carried when they took her. Socks, a pullover. The black leather jacket, though, had gone.
Glancing at the boy, she wondered in that moment if anyone would miss him and how they would get to know what had happened and who would bury him. Questions that had become mundane in a punished, violent land.
Into the corridor. The stone floor was strewn with rubble and broken glass. By the doorway, she found the upturned body of a young man. Even in the semi-darkness the bloodstained shirt was visible, evidence of a massive chest wound.
She knelt down and pulled off his jacket – heavy work, because the body didn’t want to give it up, didn’t want to be pushed around in death anymore than in life. In the struggle, she ripped one of the sleeves, but who would care? Even if the garment was stained in blood, it was dark and padded and would keep some of the wind at bay. As she got up, she caught a glint of light beside the body. It was the automatic pistol the man had used when they shot him. Maybe it was out of bullets. She ejected the magazine. Four left.
Rifling his pockets, she came across a spare magazine and felt a jolt of relief. For the first time in so many days, she had something. A single lucky chance in a lousy game.
Her eyes swept the street. On the other side was a burned-out shop, and a deserted villa, damaged, discoloured, deserted like all the buildings. Only the moon offered a meagre, unwelcoming light.
I need a plan.
In the distance there was more shooting. Heavy artillery. Perhaps it had gone on all the time and she had simply stopped listening.
I need shelter and I need food. And I don’t know where I am.
She slipped out of the house and ran shakily across the rough gravel. There was no one in sight. An ancient car without wheels had been left on scrubland behind the shop. She knelt down beside it to catch her breath. Days had passed since she had even moved her legs.
In a little while, she would look for lights and families and people who – like her – were trying to survive.
If she could make those contacts and find shelter, she mi
ght somehow get through the night.
And yet it wouldn’t be long before her torturers – if they were still alive – came looking for her, found her missing and shouted their heads off. And if they didn’t talk, someone else would – like the kids who had pulled a bag over her head and played at executing her, or their masters, further up the ramshackle line of command.
Either way, whatever passed for an authority in this flea-pit town, would know soon enough that a captured American spy had escaped and was now on the run.
And at that point, the usual grotesque Middle Eastern collection of killers, bounty hunters and extremists of every political stripe and creed would crawl out from under their stone, sensing blood, and attempt to hunt her down.
She reckoned on an hour or two at most before the dogs were turned loose.
WASHINGTON DC
They met in a café on K Street. No time for pleasantries. Yanayev noted that Harry had dispensed with the tweeds. This was dark suit day. It was business. Harry was tight-lipped, impatient.
‘I want to know where we are with our deal. I delivered on my side.’
‘Yes, but you delivered late.’
Harry moved his chair closer. ‘Listen carefully, Vitaly. I know what happened in Moscow. You identified your man and he died under a truck at the airport. If your guys were too late to hold one of your friendly question-and-answer sessions with him, that’s your affair. I delivered. Now get me my package out of Syria.’
‘We’re working on it.’
‘What does that mean?’
Yanayev looked at his watch. ‘Ten hours ago we knew roughly where she was. But the situation is very fluid. There’s been heavy fighting in the area. Information becomes out of date very quickly …’
‘Just give me the last coordinates you had and I’ll take it from there …’
‘I don’t have them, Harry. Moscow’s handling this. The situation is very fluid, changing hour to hour. There are different militia groups fighting each other. Your people would never get in or out.’
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