Dirty Little Secret

by Jon Stock

  ‘Why are you not answering our questions?’ Spiro asked, louder now.

  Another slap, followed by a muffled moan. Female, but it could have been anyone’s. Despite himself, Dhar began to imagine that it was his mother next door, and saw her small body strapped to a chair. He let the image slip away as quickly as it had appeared, but it reared up again, more vivid this time, his mother’s face distorted and bruised.

  ‘How well does Salim know bin Laden?’ Spiro asked. ‘He must have spoken of him, boasted about it.’

  It was a ludicrous question. Dhar had never met the Sheikh. Everyone knew they had their differences, even if they were more about means than ends. Spiro was just fishing. But the questions continued. Did she know he had been seen with Ayman al-Zawahiri? How long had they been colluding? When did your son first meet Anwar al-Awlaki? Each time, there was silence, as there would be if the same questions had been directed at Dhar.

  He shared Al Q’Aeda’s goal of removing America from the Arab Holy Lands and restoring the Caliphate, but he preferred military and political targets. Civilian casualties were problematic, particularly if they were Muslim, like the sixty guests killed at a wedding in Jordan in 2005. Such attacks alienated Muslim brothers.

  Spiro was no longer talking.

  ‘Has she been like this all day?’ he eventually asked someone. His tone was more abrupt than before. The room fell quiet. Had Spiro left? Somewhere in the distance a cell door closed, the metallic click echoing around the vast hangar. Despite himself, Dhar could feel his heart rate rising. He didn’t like the silence. It wasn’t Spiro’s style. Then he heard a scuffling sound, followed by the protests of a guard.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘I haven’t got time for this,’ Spiro said as the sharp crack of a gunshot reverberated around the prison. The voices of other detainees called out like frightened animals in a forest. Then Dhar’s cell door was open, and bright light streamed in. He turned his head away, but not before he saw a limp female figure being dragged away by her ankles.

  Spiro stepped into the doorway.

  ‘Your mother wouldn’t talk,’ he said as he closed the steel door behind him.

  60

  ‘I shouldn’t have brought Lakshmi,’ Marchant said, holding onto the side of the Mehari’s door as Jean-Baptiste drove around a tight corner. They were heading down a farm track into the woods to the north of the château, in search of sanglier, wild boar, while Clémence helped Florianne prepare dinner. Lakshmi was sleeping again.

  ‘Was it your Russian friend in the car?’ Jean-Baptiste asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I can’t think how they’d know I’m in France.’

  Marchant had begun to convince himself that it wasn’t Valentin in the black people-carrier. The Russian had been a thorn in his side ever since their paths had crossed in Sardinia. There had once been a chance to kill him – on a crowded Underground platform in London – but he had held back from pushing him onto the tracks.

  ‘You must have upset them, talking Dhar out of his attack.’

  ‘I’m not about to be awarded the Order of Lenin.’

  They drove on in silence for a while, Marchant more conscious than ever that he had brought danger into his good friends’ lives.

  ‘Lakshmi can stay here. Clémence will keep her sedated,’ Jean-Baptiste eventually said.

  ‘Is she OK about her phone?’

  ‘I am. It’s better nobody rings her. She’s meant to be on holiday, after all.’

  After he had removed the SIM card, Marchant had asked Jean-Baptiste to post the handset to a poste restante near their flat in Paris. Jean-Baptiste had driven to Caen, where he had reinserted the card, turned on the phone, switched it to silent and sent it in a small padded package. They were both confident the number would not be traced – it was an SFR pay-as-you-go SIM, and Lakshmi hadn’t spoken for long – but they didn’t want to take any risks.

  ‘You know, you’re lucky to have found Clémence.’

  ‘Come on, Dan, she’s the lucky one,’ Jean-Baptiste said, smiling. Sometimes Marchant wondered if Jean-Baptiste ever had days when he was depressed. He doubted it. The only time he had seen him sad was after they had been to a match at Twickenham, where England had beaten France. He had briefly played club rugby for Toulon, before signing up with the Commandos Marine.

  ‘I wish I’d been as fortunate.’

  Jean-Baptiste hadn’t seen Lakshmi at her best, and he had only met Leila once. He would never criticise someone else’s girlfriend, but Marchant could tell that he hadn’t warmed to either of them.

  ‘The trick is to choose someone from outside our work,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘Spies can never trust each other completely.’

  ‘I thought I’d learnt my lesson. But Lakshmi, she ignored orders and helped me. She saw the bigger picture. Spiro must have blackmailed her.’

  ‘So what now? If we take care of Lakshmi, what will you do?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to ask you about.’

  ‘Sounds ominous,’ Jean-Baptiste said, pulling up at the side of the track. ‘Sometimes we see wild boar over there, coming out of the wood. It’s where the farmer feeds them, but he’s not here today.’

  ‘I need to prove that Denton’s working for the Russians. It’s the only way I can go back to Britain. And I owe it to Marcus Fielding.’

  ‘Why did he go to Moscow?’

  They were out of the car now, looking across a field towards the woodland.

  ‘I don’t believe he did. If he wanted to visit Russia without being seen, he would have been more careful. He may be getting on, but he’s still good in the field.’

  ‘You think Denton made up the story?’

  ‘If everyone thinks Fielding’s the Russian mole, Denton won’t come under suspicion.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll take fewer precautions, drop his guard. Now would be a good time to watch him.’

  Jean-Baptiste was a surveillance specialist, whether it was in the Normandy countryside or on a Paris street. He had soft feet and sharp eyes.

  ‘I’ll be arrested if I return to London. The Americans want to hang me along with Dhar.’

  There was a pause while Jean-Baptiste scanned the forest edge with his binoculars. Marchant guessed he knew what was coming.

  ‘There, to the left of the gate. Can you see them? Young ones, three of them. And two adults.’

  Jean-Baptiste passed the binoculars to Marchant. He took them and looked at the family of wild boar, trying not to think of Obelix. Why had they bothered to bring a rifle with them? Jean-Baptiste could probably kill one of them with his bare hands.

  ‘Will you go to London for me?’ Marchant asked, still peering through the binoculars. He didn’t want to see Jean-Baptiste’s expression. ‘Take a look at Denton?’

  ‘I’m on holiday. Hunting wild boar, not Russian moles.’

  ‘I know. And I wouldn’t ask unless it was important. If the Russians have an asset at the top of MI6, there are implications for France, too.’

  ‘See, there’s another male, on his own, to the right,’ Jean-Baptiste said, reaching behind him for the rifle. ‘It’s better we take this one. He’s a loner.’

  Marchant tracked right and picked up the solitary boar, who was trundling down a track that ran parallel to theirs, about three hundred yards away, on the far side of a field. It hadn’t spotted them or the other boar.

  ‘Remind me again of the proof against Denton?’ Jean-Baptiste said, the gun now at his shoulder.

  ‘There isn’t any. Not yet. That’s what I need you to find.’

  ‘And if I agree to go?’

  ‘I’ll stay here and look after Clémence and Lakshmi. It’s not safe after the call Lakshmi made, but northern France is a big place. I’ll take my chances. If you find something, I’ll pass it on to MI5. Harriet Armstrong can’t be happy that Denton’s replaced Fielding.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Jean-Baptiste said, as the still country air echoed to the sound of his rifle. The boar fell on its si
de.

  61

  Dhar struggled to regain his composure as he hung from the ceiling like a carcass in a butcher’s cold room. Spiro was in front of him, smiling. The infidel was just as he had imagined: thick-set, shaved head, a face worn down by years of inflicting pain. Dhar looked him in the eye and then turned away, processing what he had seen. Spiro would have milked it more if he had really shot his mother. He was bluffing, just as they had said he would. Fake executions were a common ruse. The CIA had done something similar with Abd al-Nashiri, mastermind of the USS Cole attack in 2000. The ‘dead’ body had been a prison guard acting the part.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ Spiro said. Without warning he spun and punched Dhar in the face. The shock was worse than the pain. Dhar braced himself for a second hit as Spiro rubbed his fist, but it never came. ‘That was for Lieutenant Randall Oakes. Good friend of mine.’

  Dhar spat blood and licked his bruised lips. He knew who Oakes was. He had been one of the six infidel Marines kidnapped by brothers in Afghanistan. A recording of Dhar’s voice had been played into a mobile phone in the hut where the Marines were being held, attracting the attention of the NSA and then a drone armed with Hellfire missiles. Dhar had been far away at the time, hiding in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.

  For the next few minutes Spiro talked of Dhar’s father, Stephen Marchant, and his half-brother, Daniel, and how he had long suspected them both of treachery. He told him how the rot had started way back when with Philby, Burgess and Maclean, that America should never have trusted Britain again. Even Dhar was surprised by the tirade, his hostility towards the UK.

  ‘I’ve always had my suspicions about the British House of Marchant,’ Spiro continued, walking around the tiny room. ‘You know, it was no surprise when it turned out that Salim Dhar was the bastard son of the Chief of MI6. Not to me, it wasn’t. No goddamn surprise at all.’

  Without realising it, Spiro was filling Dhar with strength at the time he most needed it. He could listen all day to stories of his father’s so-called treachery. It gave him courage. He liked to hear how Daniel Marchant had got under Spiro’s skin, too. It made him feel better about the deal they had struck. He was working with America’s enemies.

  ‘We’re in no rush here, by the way,’ Spiro continued. ‘No rush at all.’ He was standing in front of Dhar now, too close. A tiny drop of spittle had formed on his thin lower lip. For the first time he seemed to be mildly frustrated by his prisoner’s continuing silence. Dhar smelt his sweat mixed with stale cologne, noted the glistening beads gathering at his pockmarked temples. If he struck quickly with his forehead, he might crack Spiro’s nose, but he knew it would be a futile gesture. He had something else in his armory, something that would stop the American in his tracks.

  ‘We can do it the hard way,’ Spiro said, walking away from Dhar. ‘Or you can talk and we can make this easier for everyone.’

  ‘I’ll talk,’ Dhar said. Spiro paused and turned around.

  ‘Good,’ he said, failing to conceal his surprise. ‘So the devil’s got a tongue after all. And what exactly would you like to talk about?’

  ‘Your wife.’

  62

  Clémence was not happy about Jean-Baptiste’s sudden departure for London. He hadn’t said he was going on Marchant’s behalf, just that the office had called and it was urgent.

  ‘Maybe it’s better you stay single,’ she said, standing at the foot of Lakshmi’s bed with Marchant. They had moved Lakshmi into the main house, to a room closer to Clémence’s. The wooden shutters were closed, but didn’t quite meet in the middle, allowing sunlight to pour into the room. A jug of water stood on the bedside table, casting eerie, translucent reflections on the old stone walls.

  ‘I’ll try,’ Marchant said. Lakshmi was asleep, her breathing steady.

  ‘It’s not the first time Jean-Baptiste has left me on holiday. And I know it won’t be the last. But that doesn’t make it any easier. We get very little time together.’

  Clémence was like a ball of frustration tonight, Marchant thought, her small frame wound tight with stress.

  ‘I guess it goes with the job,’ Marchant said, feeling guilty. It was typical of Jean-Baptiste not to have blamed him for his trip to London. ‘Thank you for looking after her.’

  ‘She’s tough,’ Clémence said, tidying the bedspread unnecessarily. ‘I like her. In another life, maybe we could have been friends. She was making good progress. Sweating it out. Sedation will only delay her recovery.’

  A moment later, Marchant’s phone was ringing. It was the handset he kept for incoming calls, which meant it could only be Paul Myers. No one else had the number. He made his apologies, grateful for the excuse to leave the room, and walked out into the courtyard.

  ‘You know you asked me to listen in to some Farsi, for old time’s sake,’ Myers began.

  ‘Yes?’ Marchant said.

  ‘You’re using it, aren’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The voice-modulating hands-free. Your voice sounds different, a bit more than it should. Like –’

  ‘Listen, what have you found?’ Marchant told himself not to be so impatient with Myers, who was doing him a favour.

  ‘Picked up some Revolutionary Guard chatter about Bagram and Dhar. They’re definitely planning something, just like you thought.’

  ‘What are they saying?’ Marchant asked, his pulse picking up. He knew all about Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Formed after the Revolution in 1979, the Corps was separate from the regular army, which had been tainted by loyalty to the deposed Shah. Among other things, it specialised in asymmetric warfare and thumbing its nose at the West. If anyone could free Dhar, it would be them.

  ‘I need time to analyse it properly. A lot of it’s indirect, coded phrases. But you were right about them wanting Dhar out of there.’

  ‘Has anyone else heard this? The NSA?’

  ‘You are joking? The NSA rely on us for this sort of thing. Wouldn’t know a decent Farsi analyst if they saw one. Everyone thinks Mossad has the best Farsi desk, but we’re –’

  ‘What do you normally do with intel like this?’ Marchant said, cutting him off, thinking fast.

  ‘Pool it with the relevant Controllerates, run it past my line manager. Then she liaises with the Americans.’

  ‘Don’t share it with anyone, do you understand? No one.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Dan. You know that.’

  Marchant was aware that there was only so much he could ask of Myers.

  ‘Can you at least sit on it? Twenty-four hours?’

  63

  Spiro felt the blood drain from his face as if someone had pulled a plug. He turned away, wondering whether to hit Dhar again, but his strength had left him. He didn’t like people talking about his wife, least of all Salim Dhar. Dammit, what did he know? What did anyone know?

  To his colleagues at Langley, his thirty-year marriage to Linda must have seemed unusually strong. Perhaps it was because they had married when he was still in the Marines. As a military wife, Linda was used to putting on a brave face in public, never complaining.

  Espionage was different. Most of the officers he knew at Langley were either divorced or separated. The long periods of travel, often at short notice, and an inability to offload at home after a hard day at the office put an intolerable strain on relationships.

  But in fact Spiro’s marriage was far from strong. Right now, he didn’t even know if Linda was alive, let alone where she was.

  The problems had started way back, when their disabled son had been born. Joseph had required a lot of looking after, which had taken its toll on their relationship. After years of dedicating herself to him while Spiro was away on tours, Linda had come to terms with her guilt and finally let others take over the burden of care. She was a changed woman, taking up photography, getting into shape at the gym. Spiro wished they had made the decision earlier. But then she fell in with a new crowd of people, younger than herself.
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br />   ‘This is my husband, Jim,’ Linda had said one Saturday morning, after she had dragged him out for a coffee in Washington, DC, to meet a group of her photography friends. Busboys and Poets was at 14th and V, and it wasn’t his kind of place, but she had insisted on it. Students and chinstrokers ate Oaxaca omelettes with pico de gallo as they read on their Nooks and Kindles. The walls were adorned with images of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. At the far end, the high-ceilinged restaurant merged into a non-profit bookstore. Not his kind of place at all.

  ‘So what exactly do you do for the government?’ the only other man in the group had asked after Spiro had initiated some awkward smalltalk about the previous night’s Redskins game.

  Spiro threw a glance at Linda. This hadn’t been part of the deal. She knew he never talked about his job in public. And she knew not to talk about it to others.

  ‘Come on, Jason, give the guy a break,’ she said. ‘It’s the weekend.’

  ‘It’s just that in my world that usually means the Feds.’

  Everyone seemed to stop talking at once, not just at their table but in the whole café. Spiro glanced across at Linda, who didn’t quite seem sorry enough, and then turned back to Jason as he took a sip of his decaf coffee. He was holding the cup’s handle delicately between thumb and index finger, his ringed pinkie sticking out. For a second he wondered if Linda was having an affair with him. He had long, fair hair and soft, almost cherubic features – more like a poet than a photographer.

  ‘It’s OK, no big deal,’ Spiro said quietly. ‘I work for the Agency.’

  Jason sat back and folded his arms, looking at the others with smug satisfaction.

  ‘What do you do? Run their black sites?’

  ‘Not quite. I try to keep our country safe.’

  ‘Right. By invading other countries. Remind me again about the intelligence that linked 9/11 with Saddam?’

  ‘Jason, Jim’s come along to see what we do,’ Linda said, a hand on Spiro’s arm. He withdrew it.