by Mark Dawson
He knew that the conversation was pulling him in the direction she wanted but he didn’t feel like resisting her any more. “Do you?”
“There was someone, but it was for work. I doubt I’ll see him again.”
He left a pause and then allowed her a smile. “A little better,” he said.
“How do you mean?”
“I like to know the person I’m having dinner with,” he said. “I think I’m getting there.”
He raised his glass.
She touched hers to his. “Nasdrovje,” she said.
“Cheers.”
The waiter arrived with the lasagne and the panache and they ate for a time in silence. The food was as delicious as Milton remembered.
“Do you mind if I ask you something?” she said.
“Depends what it is.”
“‘Some things will have to remain secret?’” Her eyes gleamed.
He smiled. “Something like that.”
“You had a bad dream on the flight…”
“I told you,” he said sharply. “It was just a bad pill.”
Her eyes clouded with concern.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to answer.”
“It’s alright,” he said. He gazed out into the darkness of the bay. “It’s something I saw a long time ago. It’s not a very good memory. Occasionally I dream about it.”
They were quiet again as they finished their starters. Milton watched her face: she looked deep in thought as if, he wondered, she was trying out conversational lines to be sure that she didn’t spoil the mood. She finished the lasagne, placed the cutlery on the plate and looked up, a bright smile on her face. “You know,” she said, “I was pleased that they asked me to go and get you in Texas. It was something of a coup. You are famous with Russian intelligence. Well, not you personally”––she corrected herself quickly, although he knew that she had meant him––“your Group. Group Fifteen. You are famous and feared.”
“I’m not a member of the Group any more.”
“Nevertheless…”
He frowned and, when he spoke, it was quietly. “It’s nothing to be proud of. What we did. What I did. I have a lot of blood on my hands, Anna. Some of them probably deserved what they got. The others, I don’t know. Maybe not.” He felt awkward talking about it; it made the prospect of a drink more difficult to ignore. He remembered the meeting and the sense of calmness he had felt. He needed to change the subject. “How did you like the lasagne?”
“It was delicious. I’ve had a good day and now I’m having a lovely evening. It’s just a pity…”
“What is?”
“You know. The circumstances. Now. The job.”
She stopped, warned by a blank look on Milton’s face.
“That’s just the way it is,” he said. “Orders. You’re doing what you’ve been told to do.”
He paused and turned his head to the window again. The conversation was becoming more intimate than was appropriate. There were some subjects that Milton would not discuss, with anyone, and she had an open and inviting manner that made it easy to forget his boundaries. He had already said too much. He chided himself: she was a Russian agent. He was only here––in Hong Kong, having dinner with her––because they had a gun to his head. A man he owed a blood debt to had been arrested, beaten and was being held God knows where, having God knows what done to him. That was the only reason he was here. Pope was the only reason that he hadn’t already abandoned her, blended in with the multitude and disappeared from view again.
He was having dinner with her under sufferance and not through choice. Unfortunately, however many times he told himself that, he knew it wasn’t really true.
The rest of the meal went well. The food was excellent and the conversation was good. Anna loosened up even more after her gin and then she ordered a couple of glasses of wine with her main course. She became a little more indiscrete about her work although Milton was sure that some of it was calculated; passing on a little harmless gossip here and there in an attempt to inveigle herself into his own confidences.
She excused herself between the main course and dessert and Milton took his chance. He had prepared earlier, before they left for dinner: he had popped three of the temazepam tablets from their blister pack, ground them together swept the fine powder into a folded triangle of paper. Now, he reached across the table for her unfinished glass of wine and, after checking that he wasn’t observed, tipped the powder into it. It dissolved quickly and without any sign of residue.
She returned to the table and asked him to talk about his background. Assuming that she knew it all anyway, he did. He told her about the peripatetic early years spent following his father’s career around the oil states in the Gulf, his parents’ death, the largely unsuccessful time at private school and then his years reading law at Cambridge. He explained how he had eschewed the career at the bar that had seemed mapped out for him and how he had joined the Green Jackets instead. There was his first posting in Gibraltar, the time spent in the Gulf for the first Iraq war and then the Provinces. Talking about that brought him right back to Pope again and, not wishing to dwell on that tonight, he had been glad that their desserts were finished and cleared away and Anna proposed that they return to the hotel.
Anna summoned the waiter, asked for the bill, paid it in cash and left a large tip on the table. She rose, suddenly a little unsteadily.
“I’m afraid I’m a little drunk,” she said.
“Here.” He offered her his arm and, with her clinging onto it, he led the way out of the restaurant and onto the street outside. It had started to rain again; gently at first, a fine gossamer mist that dampened the face, but then, as they stood waiting to flag a taxi, it fell harder and harder until it was drumming thunderously on the awning above them. Milton took out a packet of cigarettes and offered her one. She took it, ducking her head to accept his light and exposing the nape of her long, white neck.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“A little—fuzzy. I…I…” She stammered for the words and, slowly, a frown that might have been realisation broke across her face. “You…you…” she started again, but the words fluttered away, the thought incomplete and unexpressed.
A taxi pulled up. She was asleep on his shoulder before it had even pulled away.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MILTON AWOKE and reached out for his watch on the bedside table. He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and checked the time: it was nine. He let his head fall back on the pillow and closed his eyes again. He was tempted to go back to sleep but it was already later than he had intended and he had plenty to do. Anna was still in her bed, and he got out of bed slowly and deliberately, careful not to wake her. She was lying on her front, the sheets pulled halfway down her back. Milton had laid her there, still dressed. Her breathing was deep and very relaxed. He wasn’t sure how long the effect of the Temazepam would last but he figured that he had a little while yet. She would be able to guess where he had gone but he would have a head start, at least. He hoped that he could find Beatrix Rose before she could get there.
He went into the bathroom, dressed and then quietly left the room.
He took a taxi to Chungking Mansion and made his way to Syed Bukhara again. It was ten when he took a seat at the same table in the restaurant as before and started what he suspected would be the first in a series of cups of tea.
But he didn’t have long to wait.
“Hello, Milton.”
He turned: there was a woman behind him, and, for a moment, he didn’t recognise her. It was eight years, that was true, but even so. She was thin, the structure of her bones easily visible through a face that had far less shape than Milton remembered. Her skin looked brittle and dry, like parchment, and her eyes, which had once been bright and full of fire, were dull and lifeless, obscured by a film of rheum. She looked ill.
“Number One,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not any more. And not for a
long time.”
There was a wariness in her face as she regarded the few other diners in the restaurant. She moved gingerly, as if it gave her pain, and, as she came around the table and passed directly in front of him, Milton saw with dismay that the emaciation in her face was symptomatic of a more general malaise; she had been beautifully curvaceous before but that was all gone now. She was wearing a flimsy blouse with short sleeves and as she braced her arms on the table to lower herself down into the seat he could see the bony protuberances of her elbows and the shape of the bones in her wrists. She moved with deliberate care, as if it gave her pain. It was as if she had aged thirty years in the space of ten.
She had a bag with her and, as she sat down, she arranged it in her lap and slid a hand inside.
“I’ve got a gun,” she said. “It’s aimed right at your balls. Ten seconds, Milton. What the fuck are you doing here?”
Point blank. She wouldn’t miss.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Five seconds.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Did Control send you?”
“No,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“This has nothing to do with him. Or the Group. You have my word.”
“Better make me believe that, Milton. I’d rather not shoot you.”
Milton was calm. “Control doesn’t know where I am,” he said. “He doesn’t know where you are, either. If he did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? I would already have shot you.”
She chuckled mirthlessly. “No, Milton, you wouldn’t. I’ve been following you since you came here to look for me yesterday. I’m disappointed. I taught you to be observant and I’m very out of practice. Go on, why are you here?”
“I’m here of my own accord. I’m out of the Group. I quit. I told Control a while ago. Can’t say he took too kindly to the idea. He’s already tried to kill me twice.”
“Keep going.”
Milton didn’t demur. He told her everything that had happened. He started at the beginning, all the way back to what had happened in London after his last assignment in the Alps, because he knew she would need to have the context to understand what had happened next. He told her about his argument with Control.
“So you resigned,” she said.
“I tried. It wasn’t accepted.”
“You know you can’t…”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “So he kept telling me.”
He explained about the attempt to murder him in London that had very nearly been successful, how he had been shot by Callan and how he had fled to South America. He told her about Ciudad Juárez, and Control’s second attempt to bring him back in, and about how he had escaped and fled to San Francisco.
“So you’re a wanted man?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“Control isn’t the sort of person you’d want chasing you.”
“He certainly is relentless,” he said with a wry smile. “Is that enough for you?”
She withdrew her hand from the bag. “For the time being.”
“So what about you?”
Her posture stiffened. “What about me?”
“Why are you here?”
“It’s a long story.”
The waiter looked over at her with a friendly, knowing smile. “The usual, miss?”
“Please.”
She put her hand back into her bag and, for a moment, Milton thought she was going for the gun again. She rummaged for a moment, unable to find whatever it is she wanted.
“Cigarette?” Milton offered.
“You still smoke?”
“Tried to stop,” he said.
“It’ll kill you.”
“So will lots of things. I decided I might as well have one vice. They let you smoke in here?”
She looked at him with mild amusement. “Seriously, Milton? Look around. You can do whatever you want.”
He took the unfinished packet from his pocket and offered it to her.
She took it and held it up. “Winstons?”
“Afraid so. They’re not great.”
“You want to tell me why you’ve got a packet of Russian cigarettes?”
“I was in Moscow the day before yesterday. That’s why I’m here.”
She took two, leaving one on the table. Milton took out his oxidised Ronson lighter, thumbed the flame and held it out for her. She dipped her head to it, the blouse falling open at the neck and revealing the angular points of her clavicle. Milton took one for himself and left the packet on the table.
She leaned back and inhaled hungrily. “So who’s the pretty girl?”
“Her name is Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko.”
“Where is she?”
“At the hotel.”
“She looked unwell last night.”
“You were at the restaurant?”
“Outside. What’s wrong with her?”
“I drugged her.”
“How chivalrous.”
“I wanted to see you on my own.”
“What is she? Russian intelligence?”
“SVR,” Milton said.
She drew down on her cigarette. “So what does a pretty Russian intelligence agent have to do with you?”
He leant back in the chair and drew on his cigarette. “She was sent to recruit me.”
Isabella cocked an eyebrow at that. “For what?”
The waiter returned with two cups of Indian chai tea. She thanked him and waited until he had returned to the counter before she spoke again.
“To recruit you for what, Milton?”
“They wanted me to find you.”
She shook her head sharply. “Whatever it is, I’m not interested.”
“Just hear me out.”
“Do you think I’d be somewhere like this if I wanted to be found?”
“Just let me give you a little bit of background first. I’ve come halfway around the world to find you. Humour me.”
She settled back in the chair and fixed him with a steady glare. She moved her hand close to the mouth of the bag again. “Give me another fag.” He did as she asked. “You’ve got five minutes and then I’m gone.”
“Do you remember my first assignment?”
Her eyes narrowed just a little. “Of course I remember it. It was a disaster.”
“You remember the two targets?”
“Yes,” she said carefully.
“DOLLAR and SNOW. We never knew anything about them.”
“What’s your point, Milton? We never knew anything about any of them. They’re just names.”
“DOLLAR was Anastasia Ivanovna Semenko and SNOW was Pascha Shcherbatov. They were both Russian agents. Turns out Shcherbatov is a colonel in the SVR now.”
“Where are you going with this? It doesn’t matter that they were spooks. I killed my fair share. You would have, too.”
“I know. That’s not the point. Semenko and Shcherbatov weren’t targeted because they were spooks. They were sent to London because the Russians had a tip-off that Control could be bought. They had assets inside the Iraqi government who said he was introducing arms dealers to the right people. So Semenko set herself up as a dealer, said she wanted an in with the Syrians. Control said he could arrange that for her––for the right price. They had him. Photographs, financial records, everything they needed. They were going to flip him or they were going to burn him. He’d proposed a meeting to talk it over. They were going to see him when we hit them. He set the whole thing up. The whole operation was all about him trying to save his own neck.”
She listened intently, her brow occasionally furrowing, chain-smoking her way through another two cigarettes. “How do you know this?”
Milton told her about his trip to Russia to meet Shcherbatov and the story he had told him in the dacha. She didn’t look surprised by any of it.
“And what does this have to do with you?”
“Shcherbatov wanted
me to find you.”
“But why would you do anything for him?”
“There’s another agent. Michael Pope. You won’t know him, he joined after you disappeared.”
“No, I do remember him,” she said. “Tall, dark hair? We looked at him before we chose you,” she said, punctuating the words with an absent stab of the cigarette.
“He was made Number One after I got out.”
“How did he end up in Russia?”
“There was a job in the south of France. Control sent him after Shcherbatov again. He got caught. If I don’t help him, he doesn’t have much of a future.”
She waved that away. “Those are the breaks,” she said. “He would have known the risks.”
“True,” he said, “but he saved my life once. And I can’t leave him there.”
She knocked a long ash into the empty teacup. “You haven’t explained what any of this has to do with me.”
“Shcherbatov thinks you took evidence from the car.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“Did you?”
“No,” she said dismissively, although he saw the flinch before she spoke.
“Beatrix?” he pressed. “Did you?”
“I said no,” she said sharply, although he registered the movement in her eyes and he knew that she was lying. “I can’t help you, Milton.”
“And I can’t leave Pope to rot in a gulag.”
“That’s very valiant but there’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”
“I need your help. Please, Beatrix.” The respect between them was old, frozen by the passage of time, but he hoped there was enough of it left for her to consider helping him. “Pope needs you.”
“I can’t.”
“I think you need me, too.”
Now her eyes flashed with sudden anger. “Why would you say something stupid like that?”
“Beatrix,” he said carefully, remembering her temper. “Look at where you are. Look at yourself.”
“Fuck off, Milton.”
She waved an impatient arm at him and the motion caused her sleeve to ride a little up her arm, revealing the lower part of a cursive tattoo that he remembered. The fragment said ‘—ABELLA” and Milton remembered seeing it before, and asking what it meant. He took a breath and thought about what he was going to say. He knew it would be inflammatory but he didn’t have any other cards left to play.