A Young Man's Game

by Paul Blake

‘It’s not something we really talk about, to be honest. I’m quite happy with that arrangement.’ Alec grimaced. ‘She isn’t married yet, she would have invited me to the wedding. I don’t know if she has a boyfriend, or a girlfriend for that matter.’

  ‘You’re not that great an intelligence officer, then are you?’ Claudia said with a sly smile on her lips.

  ‘Probably why they stuck me behind a desk. Just a washed-up old has-been put out to pasture, ready for the knacker’s yard.’ He brushed away an imaginary tear from his eye.

  ‘Oh, poor you! You better go and sit in the armchair,’ She pointed at the matching cream chair facing the sofa. She slipped into an accent more suitable for London’s East End. ‘It’s gone six o’clock, you must be ever so tired. Here, put your feet up, and I’ll make you some nice soup. Don’t want you catching your death. I can put another bar on the fire. Warm you up a treat, Love, it will. Warm them tired old bones right up.’

  Alec laughed with surprise. ‘God, I don’t think I’ve heard you speak like that in almost twenty years.’ He plonked himself down on the sofa beside her.

  Claudia gave Alec a smile, ‘It’s not an accent I use too often. Only for embassy parties to ward off lecherous ambassadors or—’ She looked at him with a wrinkled nose of pretend disgust. ‘over-familiar intelligence officers.’

  ‘Ahem, Head of Section, remember?’

  ‘Of course, you have the nameplate on your desk and the etched writing on your office door. “Alec Foster, Head of Something or Other.” Well done.’ She patted his head in praise.

  Why does it always feel like she’s a few steps ahead of me in these exchanges? Alec changed the subject. ‘It’s getting late, you’ve been up all day, and I woke you up early. You must be getting tired; shall we get started?’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ Claudia said, as she lifted the laptop from the arm onto her lap. She wiggled her finger on the trackpad, and the screen came to life. She entered her password to enter the system. ‘It just needs a moment to connect to the Wi-Fi and then we can get started.’

  ‘Have you got a notepad I can use, I work better with paper?’

  ‘Yes, in the drawer next to the fireplace, over there,’ she said pointing.

  Alec lifted himself off the sofa with an effort, his legs and back still hurting from the night before and the fight earlier in the bedroom. He went over to the mahogany wall unit next to the marble effect fireplace. Photos of Roger and Claudia, with and without the children, smiled at him as he opened the drawer nearest the fireplace. He smiled back. In the drawer was an A5 reporters’ spiral notebook with a pen inserted into the coils. He removed it and closed the drawer. He flipped through the pages of scrawled writing and doodles to a blank page.

  ‘Did you know that your doodles can reveal aspects of your personality and how you are currently feeling?’ Alec asked.

  ‘Really? What does mine say? “I’m bored of being on hold, and no I won’t press eins or zwei to go to this or that, please can I speak to someone human?”’

  ‘I’d imagine so, there’s a lot of heavy crossing outs and zigzags,’ Alec said as he sat back down.

  ‘I swear those systems were only put in place to make people hang up in frustration.’

  ‘They probably make money from the number of calls they receive, so by getting you to hang up and call again it increases their profit.’

  ‘Mr Foster, I think you may be right,’ Claudia said. ‘Right where shall we begin?’

  ‘I was thinking about this last night, and there are a few ways they could have known about my meeting with Jaromir.’ He ticked off from his fingers. ‘One. They had Jaromir’s phone tapped. Two. My office phone is tapped. Three. They followed Jaromir. Four. They followed me. Five. I logged my conversation with Jaromir on the Contact Log, and they can access that somehow.’

  ‘Ok, write them on your pad, we’ll tackle them to see if anything shakes out.’

  Alec followed her instruction. ‘The first one, we can’t tell if his phone was tapped, so I’ll put a line through that.’

  ‘How often is your office swept for bugs?’

  ‘As far as I know every day, first thing in the morning, way before I get there.’

  ‘When was the last time a bug was found in there?’

  Alec blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t know, maybe three… four years ago. A cleaner working for the French kindly left a pen on my desk. It was far nicer than the ones I use, so the security staff noticed it straight away. I think it was a Montblanc.’

  ‘They really didn’t know you at all. Tatty biro is more your kind of thing.’ She reached over and slapped the pen as it edged closer to his mouth. ‘You may eat your own pens, try to leave mine alone.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s habit when I’m thinking.’

  ‘You’ve got an oral fixation.’

  Alec waggled his eyebrows at her. ‘That has been said before.’

  ‘Oh my god you pig!’ Claudia’s cheeks reddened. ‘You know what I meant.’

  ‘Of course, I did. I couldn’t resist the open goal though.’

  She shook her head. ‘At least you’ve quit smoking though.’

  ‘Well, after Roger… well, you know. I wouldn’t want to put anyone through what he went through. I thought you were so brave the way you handled it. God, I miss him.’

  ‘He loved you, you know? He always said you were like the brother he never had. He was so proud you stood with him until the end.’ Her eyes filled with tears, ‘Others backed away in case it was catching. You were the only one who came to see him at the hospital. Do you know that?’ She wiped her eyes.

  ‘Really? Not even Arthur? I thought they were close, they’d known each other far longer than I had, and they went to school together for Christ sakes.’ He stroked his chin, the rough day-old stubble rasping against his fingers.

  ‘He… he kept putting it off. Kept making excuses, but Roger knew Arthur was lying. It really hurt him and was why he so looked forward to your visits. You kept his spirits up with your gossip and your jokes. I honestly think you being there for him gave Roger and the kids and I extra time together. Without you, I think he would have faded faster.’

  Alec’s cheeks reddened this time, ‘No I think that was all your doing. He adored you.’

  ‘We’ll believe what we want to believe.’ She gave her eyes a final wipe. ‘So… number two, your office being bugged. Put a line through it?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. It would have been picked up. Unless of course our man… or woman had access to the office during the day and could place and remove the bug at will. It

  seems a bit unrealistic.’

  ‘I agree.’

  Alec drew a line through it. ‘Okay, three: Jaromir was followed. I don’t think so. I waited after he arrived, and no one entered after him until I did. The waiter was already there.’

  ‘Ok, we can rule that one out.’ Alec marked the pad.

  ‘Four: you were followed. You’re not as young as you used to be and you were never that good to begin with.’ Alec looked up from the pad, his mouth open. ‘I’m just teasing. You’re so easy to get.’

  ‘Well, ignoring those hurtful remarks.’ He stuck out his tongue. Childish I know, but sometimes there’s nothing else you can do. ‘I don’t think I was followed. I walked for three hours in the cold in the most roundabout way to the bar, and as with Jaromir, the waiter was already there. They probably tracked me by my phone; I’ll hold my hands up to that. But physically followed? No, they knew where I was going and when I’d get there.’

  ‘I agree. Also, the waiter couldn’t just walk into the bar and say “Hi, I’m working tonight.” Shoot you guys and then wait for his wages. If it was me and I found out where you were going to be, I would enter the bar as a customer and then when you got there pretend to be your waiter. You weren’t in the main bar area, were you?’

  ‘No, the non-smoking area to the back, it was just Jaromir and me there. The toilets are back there so he could have been sitting at th
e bar, his partner telling him from outside I was there, he opens the door – the front of the bar was very busy and hazy with cigarette and cigar smoke so the bar staff may not have noticed, hell, he could also have paid them off – leads me to the back, takes my order and returns to the bar to collect my drink or his drink if he ordered as himself, brings it too me, shoots us both and then leaves, staff non-the-wiser. Becketts Kopf doesn’t have CCTV. I check for that each time I go.’

  ‘It’s plausible. Pretty convoluted, but plausible. So that’s another item off the list. What does that leave?’

  ‘Someone accessed the contact log after Jaromir called me.’

  ‘Ok, let’s check the contact log.’

  Claudia picked up the laptop, woke the screen with her finger on the touchpad. She signed into the system and went to the contact log. The speed she went through the system made Alec whistle. ‘I should hire you to do all my computer work.’

  ‘I think technically you do, you are my boss after all.’

  ‘A raise may be necessary.’

  ‘I’m not going to argue with that. What time did Jaromir call you?’

  ‘It was just after the department head meeting. I don’t think Harper likes me.’

  ‘What makes you say that? Richard has always been pretty friendly and civil to the Russian section when I’ve seen him.’

  ‘I think he thinks I don’t take his department seriously enough.’

  ‘You don’t though. You think terrorism is not a threat to national security and his department gets far too many resources.’

  ‘Well, that’s true. I don’t want him to know that though. The most deaths caused by a single terrorist incident were the World Trade Centre, and Pentagon plane hijackings in 2001 - just under three thousand. Now, I’m not making light of the tragedy. It’s a horrible loss of life. It’s just if Russia or China or any of the other seven nuclear-armed countries kicked off there would be three hundred thousand deaths or more in the first minute if they went straight to the nuclear option, and it wouldn’t stop until millions more died.’

  ‘You may have mentioned this before a few times.’

  ‘My opinion hasn’t changed. If anything it has become more entrenched since Putin became President. He was in Germany when the wall came down. Did you know that?’

  ‘I remember reading, that when the wall came down, and the people came to the KGB offices to demand their ejection, Putin was there burning files and trying to contact Moscow. I think it was in the Time magazine Person of the Year article. 2013 or 14, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘2014. Exactly, he’s a dyed-in-the-wool KGB officer, and to him, we are still the enemy.’

  ‘That’s why we are still where we are. To keep an eye on them, make sure things do not get that far. Terrorism to many, especially voters, is the more real threat. The Government is, of course, going to do what they can to reduce that threat.’

  ‘It just frustrates me that’s all.’

  ‘Try to keep a poker face in meetings; your life will go smoother.’

  ‘I suppose so. Where were we? Oh yeah, the meeting finished just before eleven, we’d been in there since eight. I went back to my office, and Jaromir called me almost immediately after. Spoke for a minute and I entered it on the log.’

  ‘Okay, let’s look at the log.’ Her hands hit a few keys and brought up the message. ‘You really should work on your spelling, this is almost illegible. What does this say?’

  ‘I was in a hurry. A telephone call from Jaromir Polyakov at 11:05, requested an urgent meeting for nine p.m. Becketts Kopf bar. AF. That’s my initials.’

  ‘Thanks, I gathered that. Okay, let’s see who has accessed that since.’ She dragged her finger on the touchpad to an icon and a list of names, times and dates appeared. ’11:15 same day, user AN1 – that’ll be Arthur, 12:24 same day, user RH7. I don’t know who that is. 22:45 same day, Arthur again. 08:09 this morning, Arthur. It looks like Arthur opened it four or five times this morning. Here’s another entry for RH7. 13:34 today. That was the last one until me.’

  ‘Who’s RH7?’

  ‘I’m looking. It should be quite easy to find out.’ She fiddled with the touchpad and touched a few keys. Alec leaned closer looking at the screen. I have literally no idea what I’m looking at.

  ‘Got it. RH7 is… what? Why the hell is he looking at this record?’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Your friend, Richard-bloody-Harper.’

  14

  ‘H arper, what’s he doing on there?’ Alec asked, his pad and pen dropped off his lap to the carpeted floor without him noticing. Richard Harper? Could it be him? Why would he want the PM and Polyakov dead? Me? Well, it’s a bit of a reach, but I suppose I could see the attraction of me being out of the way, maybe get one of his protégés high up in the department. What would he have to gain by killing the Prime Minister though?

  ‘That’s what I asked. I have no idea.’ Claudia replied. Alec saw in her face that she was thinking the same as him.

  ‘We’ll have to look into it deeper, it could be innocent,’ Alec said.

  ‘Yeah, let’s not jump the gun yet.’

  ‘Ouch, that’s poor phrasing.’ Alec said with a smile. ‘If we’re going to take this to Arthur we need to have more than this.’

  ‘Sorry I forgot what you had been through. I agree this will not be enough to convince anyone.’

  ‘Where to start though?’

  ‘I don’t know. Pick up your pad and let’s come up with some ideas.’

  Alec looked down at his lap with surprise. When did that happen? He leaned forward and saw the pad below him the pages askew. Alec groaned as he got off the sofa, his joints seized up from sitting. On his knees, he picked up the pad and pen. He looked up at Claudia. He could see a smirk on her face.

  ‘Don’t you dare push me over,’ he warned.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Really, Alec, you have such a poor opinion of me. I’m quite offended.’

  He backed away from her on his knees, pad and pen in hand; his eyes narrowed watching her carefully. He stood up with a lack of grace. ‘I’m sorry for doubting you,’ He said. ‘You had a look on your face that said you love to see me fall over and unable to get up.’

  ‘How little you know me,’ she looked away, her mouth twitching, shoulders shaking. Alec waited with an eyebrow raised.

  ‘Oh my god! You’d be like an overturned turtle!’ She shrieked.

  Alec thought for a second and being one never to miss an opportunity to laugh at himself, threw the pad and pen onto the sofa next to Claudia, got back down to his knees, rolled over onto his back and started wiggling his limbs around. ‘Help me! Help! I’m a turtle and can’t get back up. Save me fair maiden.’

  Tears were streaming down Claudia’s face, ‘You… really… are… insane.’ She struggled to say.

  Alec rolled over to his front and slowly stood up again, he made a little bow. ‘Glad my audience is pleased.’ He rubbed the small of his back, the pain was worth it, I’ve missed that laughter in my life.

  ‘Oh yes, most definitely pleased. Back to work?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’ He sat beside her again. ‘So, Harper accessed the contact log, can we can see what other entries he’s looked at? Also, have a look at his calendar for the past couple of months… see if we can make a timeline of his movements.’

  ‘I could also see if I can get a copy of his emails.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s company policy and new recruits sign up for it when they join. Most don’t read the contract, but it’s in there. Every company issued mobile has a backdoor program installed so they can be monitored. I think it was put in place after the Cambridge spy ring fiasco. Although mobile phones and the internet weren’t invented at the time, the language in the contract was broad enough to cover that.’

  The infamous story of the Cambridge Five was drummed into me during training, they were a group of MI6 officers, Kim Philby, Guy Burge
ss, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, they were passing information to the Soviets during World War Two and afterwards. Their methods and exploits and how to counter them were taught to us.

  ‘I didn’t know it was there. What happens? Does GCHQ collect the information and we have to request it or can we, well you, access it?’ Alec asked.

  ‘I can’t access it without authorisation; it needs a Head of Section to do that. Where can we find one of those?’ Claudia’s eyebrows lifted, ‘How can you not know about this?’

  Alec’s cheeks reddened, a slow flush turned into flame. ‘It just didn’t come up—’

  ‘—Or as soon as someone mentioned the word “technology” your brain turned off.’ Claudia finished for him.

  Alec coughed. ‘That… is a believable hypothesis.’

  ‘We should be alright. You do know your system password, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, I do, I’m not that bad.’

  Claudia gave Alec a long look, he held the gaze with a smile. ‘Go on then, what is it?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to share it with anyone. Security reasons, you know.’

  ‘Alec,’ she warned.

  ‘Okay, you’ve tortured me enough. I submit to your questioning. I’ll write it down for you.’ He turned the page in the pad and quickly wrote a string of characters. He handed the pad to her.

  ‘”Monday!23”?’ She asked. ‘That is stupid.’

  ‘It’s genius. No one will ever guess it. The exclamation mark instead of the one is inspired.’ Thankfully it was only changed on Monday, I forgot the previous password.

  ‘You are a walking, talking security risk. How the hell have you survived so long?’

  ‘Oh, through a combination of luck, deceit, and dashing good looks and charm. Aren’t all spies supposed to be like this? I’ve seen the movies.’

  Claudia just shook her head and handed him back the pad. ‘I don’t think I’ll need the pad to remember that one, genius.’

  ‘Ok, so we’ll go through his calendar and his email records. Anything else?’ Alec wrote on the pad. ‘Check his social media accounts? Sometimes pictures uploaded still have their location details on them.’