I, Said the Spy

by Derek Lambert

  But, she thought as she let herself into her apartment later that night, Harsch could check on that too.

  XV

  A sunny spring Sunday in London and Pete Anello was bored. All morning he had walked the quiet streets, listening to the church bells, feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, riding a red double-decker bus, drinking his first pint of English beer and observing with awe other customers sinking pint after pint of the stuff, smiling at the nannies out with the children in the parks.

  Central London was fine as it awoke slowly on a Sunday morning. But fully awake in the afternoon, it lost its dignity, even Park Lane where Claire Jerome owned an apartment. Street vendors selling Union Jacks and soft: pom, garbage outside elegant portals, whores assembling for the evening trade.

  He walked to Hyde Park Comer to listen to the orators shouting, pleading, gesticulating, lecturing on anything: Rhodesia, Women’s Lib, the death penalty, the hazards of smoking.

  ‘ … without the Merchants of Death the world would be a safe and decent place for your children to grow up in ….’

  The speaker was small and shabby and fanatic, standing on a soapbox addressing an audience of five. Anello joined them.

  ‘ … but we can still win battles, ladies and gentlemen. We can fight their guns and bombs with our own weapon – the might and wrath of God.’

  A small girl asked her mother: ‘What’s he talking about?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘I don’t know, dear. Some film called the Merchants of Death.’

  ‘I think he’s barmy,’ said the girl.

  The speaker thrust out his arms, a line of froth on his lips. ‘What about the concussion bomb?’

  ‘What about it?’ asked a thin youth eating potato crisps.

  ‘You, sir,’ pointing at Anello, ‘you look an intelligent human being. Do you know about the concussion bomb?’

  Anello nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Ah!’ The speaker was ecstatic. ‘An American. Am I right, sir?’

  ‘Sure, I’m American.’

  ‘And proud of it. So you should be.’

  ‘Why?’ asked the youth.

  ‘Because they banned the concussion bomb, that’s why. Am I right, sir?’

  ‘We banned its sale to foreign countries.’

  The orator shook his head in wonderment, overcome by such shared knowledge. ‘I knew you were an intelligent man, sir. You’re absolutely right. And do you know what that bomb could do? It could crush bodies. Crush them!’ pounding one fist into the palm of his other hand.

  The youth tossed away his empty crisp packet and said: ‘They might have banned it. They also made the sodding thing.’

  ‘But had the strength to cast it aside. There has to be a beginning. Now we have to unite our forces. President Carter gave the lead; it’s up to us to follow.’

  Anello strolled away. He walked across Hyde Park and lay down beneath an oak tree, using his denim jacket as a pillow.

  The sun reached him through the budding leaves of the tree; children played on the new grass; lovers lay entwined in each other’s arms.

  Anello closed his eyes.

  And the Viet Cong were stumbling out of the jungle, clothes blazing after the Napalm attack, and you could smell burning flesh and the young soldier beside him was screaming and running towards the burning men and the sergeant was shouting: ‘Get your head down you, stupid fuck’ but the soldier kept on running, throwing aside his Armelite rifle, and Anello knew he was going to die.

  The previous night, lying in their sleeping bags in a tent ten miles behind the line, they had talked about what they would do when they got back to the States after the operation tomorrow, which would be the last for both of them. The young soldier, whose name was Dave Armstrong, had shown him pictures of his girl and told him he was going to study forestry at night school and get into Conservation, and Anello had said: ‘You know, I might go along with you because I sure as hell haven’t done anything with my life so far.’

  And Dave Armstrong was shouting: ‘For Christ’s sake forgive us’ as the machine-gun opened up from behind the flames and practically cut him in half, and Anello was cradling his head and the last thing the young soldier said was ‘All those green trees’ and died as the machine-gun spent itself, the last bullet hitting Anello in the belly.

  Another gun fired. Beside him in the park. A cap-pistol brandished by a small boy wearing a green school cap. Anello leapt up and knocked the pistol from his hand.

  The boy stared at him, then his lips began to tremble.

  ‘Hey.’ A middle-aged man wearing braces over a white shirt was running across the grass. ‘Hey you, leave my kid alone.’

  Anello put his hand to his forehead. ‘I’m sorry.’ He took a £5 note from his pocket and handed it to the boy; then he picked up the pistol and handed it back to him. ‘I’m sorry, I guess I was dreaming.’

  The man took the note from the boy and examined it as though he suspected a fake. He thrust it into his trouser pocket and said: ‘You’re drunk, mate, that’s what’s wrong with you,’ taking the boy’s hand and walking away.

  Awake he could forget. Drift with the tides. Coast along to your destiny. Nothing mattered, not when a dream of green trees could be extinguished in a moment. But asleep you were defenceless and the smell of burning flesh was strong in your nostrils.

  By the time he reached the apartment he was calming down. He stripped off his clothes and took a shower. Just a dream triggered by a crazy preacher on a soapbox.

  He wandered naked into the living-room, oriental in style with an unbleached Berber carpet, walls covered with raw silk from Bombay, gold statuettes from Thailand on the glass-topped table, Chinese porcelain on the wall shelves. He poured himself a large measure of Scotch.

  Without the Merchants of Death the world would be a safe and decent place for your children to grow up in.

  So he was an ageing gigolo and his mistress was a Merchant of Death. He gulped the whisky to drown the self-disgust and stood at the window overlooking the park, watching the children walking home in the gathering dusk.

  When he went out later he was a little drunk. He winked at a black whore tottering along on six-inch high heels and went into a pub in Shepherd Market. It was more elegant than the pub he had visited in the morning, furnished in pastel colours. A Mayfair pub.

  He ordered a pint of bitter to dilute the Scotch in his stomach, and surveyed the throng drinking hastily during the brief time it was permitted on a Sunday evening.

  A woman came up to the bar and ordered a gin-and-tonic. In her late twenties with long dark hair, attractive.

  A hooker? Anello, you’re getting old. Girls go into bars by themselves these days.

  She had a cigarette in one hand and was fumbling in her handbag. He lit a match and held it out for her. She looked surprised. But was she?

  ‘Thank you,’ she said with a trace of unidentifiable accent. There were more foreigners than British in London these days. She accepted the light and nodded; the incident seemed to be closed as far as she was concerned.

  Anello said: ‘On vacation?’

  ‘No, business. And you?’

  ‘Business. I’m here to sell concussion bombs.’

  ‘An enterprising assignment.’

  ‘You know what concussion bombs can do? Crush people like that.’ Fist into palm. ‘Like that. Pow!’

  ‘You surprise me,’ the woman said. ‘I was under the impression that President Carter banned sales of the concussion bomb in seventy-seven.’

  ‘So you know about the goddam bomb.’

  ‘I read the papers.’

  ‘Speaking of bombs,’ he said, ‘I guess I’m a little bombed. Can I buy you another drink? I’ll stay with my beer.’

  She looked at him speculatively for a moment. Then accepted.

  Later, when they were sitting at a table in a corner of the bar, he said: ‘I hope you don’t think it was a pick-up. It was, I guess, but that’s a hell of a way to describe a me
eting ….’ He wished he hadn’t drunk so much whisky in the apartment.

  ‘It was I who was fumbling for my matches.’

  ‘My name’s Anello,’ he told her. ‘Pete Anello.’

  ‘Gretchen,’ she said.

  ‘German?’

  ‘Austrian. From Innsbruck.’

  ‘Do you like London?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I guess you have to have someone to share it with,’ he said.

  She considered this. ‘Are you staying at the Hilton round the corner?’ as though that classified him.

  ‘No, a friend of mine has an apartment in Park Lane.’

  ‘A rich friend,’ she remarked. ‘Can’t you share London with him?’

  ‘Her. She’s in New York. She flies in on Tuesday.’ He wanted to add: ‘So we have two days,’ but he checked himself. Instead he said: ‘What’s your business in London?’

  ‘Clothes. I’m sales manager for a firm in Innsbruck. We’re trying to market Tyrolean styles over here. To be honest,’ she said smiling, ‘I don’t think we stand a chance. Can you imagine an Englishman in leather shorts?’

  ‘You’ve been to London before?’

  ‘Many times. I went to school here.’

  ‘I was wondering,’ said Anello, pulling at his thick moustache, ‘if you had any time to spare,’ wishing again that he hadn’t drunk so much Scotch, ‘whether you might be able to show me around.’

  ‘If you promise to wear leather shorts.’

  ‘Sure, and play the piano accordian.’

  She finished her drink. ‘I have some work to do in the morning. Could I meet you at midday?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Hilton – that’s where I’m staying.’

  The following afternoon he picked her up in the Jaguar he had rented and she directed him along the tourist routes – Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Law Courts, the Tower.

  On the second evening Anello took her to dinner at Simpsons where they ate roast beef washed down with claret, and Anello confessed that he was consorting with the daughter of Nathan Marks, mistress of death. At the same time he confided his views on armaments and their manufacturers.

  ‘I don’t know why the hell I’m telling you all this,’ he added, sipping his wine.

  ‘Because you’ve been waiting for a long time to tell someone.’

  Then he told her about Vietnam. He had never told anyone else about Vietnam.

  ‘One thing puzzles me,’ Gretchen said. ‘How can you stay with Claire Jerome if you feel as strongly as that about armaments?’

  ‘Most of the time I try not to feel too strongly about anything.’

  ‘But how long can you go on like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Anello said bitterly. ‘I don’t know ….’

  They parted at midnight. A small kiss and a smile in the foyer of the Hilton and that was all. They had shared.

  Back in the apartment, Anello slipped between silk sheets and fell asleep instantly, unaware that, Vietnam apart, the past two days had been the most momentous of his life.

  * * *

  She arrived at Heathrow at 2.50 pm. Tall, tanned, imperious, attracting immediate attention in a setting where tans, looks and assurance were commonplace.

  She kissed him and he took her bags and led her to the Jaguar. ‘Well,’ Claire said as he drove through the tunnel leading to the Bath Road, ‘how is London?’

  ‘I’ve done the rounds. How was New York?’

  ‘No change. I got through a lot of business.’

  ‘Dirty business?’

  She put her hand on his thigh. ‘Not today, Pete.’

  He put his foot down on the accelerator and the Jaguar surged past a British Airways bus.

  In the apartment they went straight to bed and made love with abandonment. Brutally and tenderly, endearments and obscenities mingling hoarsely. The love-making of a man and woman sharing physical attraction tuned by practice. When he withdrew from her she lay back, eyes closed and said: ‘Not bad for an old broad, huh?’

  Beside them the cream telephone shrilled.

  She picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, then said: ‘Okay, I’ll take the call in the other room,’ and said to Anello: ‘Sorry, business, not dirty business,’ trying to smile.

  She slipped into a robe and went into the lounge, closing the door behind her. She picked up the extension and said: ‘Good evening, Pierre, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Just a social call,’ Pierre Brossard told her.

  ‘That’ll be the day.’

  Pierre Brossard was Marks International’s middleman in deals with Israel. Since Marcel Dassault, son of a Jewish doctor, survivor of Buchenwald, had sold his first Ouragon and Mysore fighter planes to Israel, there had always been a French connection; overt in the early days, latterly more circumspect.

  ‘What’s the weather like in London?’ Brossard asked. ‘It’s great, Pierre, but you haven’t called me to discuss the weather. Where are you calling from?’

  ‘Paris.’ A pause. ‘And how was the weather in Corfu?’ Claire’s hand tightened on the receiver. ‘Why do you ask?’

  His voice hardened. ‘Was your deal with Tilmissan successful?’

  ‘I was a guest on his yacht, nothing more.’

  ‘Come now, Mrs Jerome, Tilmissan’s yacht is a floating office. Everyone knows that. Was his commission as low as mine?’

  So that was it. She said: ‘There was no deal, Pierre.’

  ‘That’s not my information.’ Brossard sounded as though he was enjoying himself. ‘It will seem very odd to my Israeli clients to hear that you, a Jew, are supplying the enemy.’ He paused. ‘In fact,’ Brossard said, spacing out the words, ‘it will seem very odd to every Jew and Zionist in the United States of America. And, of course, very odd to the Arabs to hear that you are supplying their enemies with exactly the same weapons.’

  ‘Blackmail, Pierre?’

  ‘Not at all. Business. The sort of business that is concluded every day by the great powers. If you don’t do this, if you don’t sign this, if you don’t withdraw your troops … we will cut off supplies of arms, oil, technology, If—the global unit of negotiation. Only the currency changes. Now America is playing the If Game – with grain.’

  ‘And your if?’

  ‘I have the draft of an article that you might like to see. I should like your comments. And possibly your suggestions for revisions.’ His voice was silky. ‘You might even decide to veto the article altogether.’

  ‘What’s the article?’ Bastard!

  ‘A treatise on the moral implications of a Jewish company – supplying machine-guns and wire-guided missiles to both Jew and Arab. Plus a little speculation about a future deal involving the sale of a sophisticated ground-to-air missile system to the Palestinians.’

  She stared at the telephone in her hand. Who had betrayed her? Tilmissan himself? A deal between the two middlemen? She waited until the first spurt of anger subsided.

  She said quietly: ‘I should like to see that article.’ ‘And so you shall. I believe we have both been invited to a château in France in a few days time. You can read it then.’

  ‘Very well.’ She waited for the inevitable.

  ‘There will of course be a charge for reading the article.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two million dollars,’ Brossard said.

  The line went dead.

  Slowly Claire cradled the receiver. Then she went back to the bedroom. Pete Anello was lying on his side, hands clasped as though he were praying. He was asleep.

  In the study of his house on the Avenue Foch, Pierre Brossard leaned back in his swivel chair smiling faintly. Then he wrote out a cheque for 2,000 dollars payable to the blonde hostess on Tilmissan’s yacht.

  He had one regret about the day’s business. He should have called Claire Jerome collect.

  XVI

  Midas, fabled king of Phrygia, whose touch turned everything to gold, sat at the kitch
en table wearing a frayed jacket and crumpled trousers.

  It was Saturday. Nine days until Bilderberg. Nine days in which to complete preparations for the greatest espionage coup of all time: the destruction of the United States dollar.

  Today, Brossard decided, he would compose the Midas column which would help to seal its doom.

  ‘More coffee, Pierre?’ his wife asked.

  Brossard shook his head.

  ‘Pierre?’

  Brossard grunted, barely aware that she had spoken. These days their conversation was minimal; they faced each other across the breakfast table in the mornings, went their respective ways during the day, slept in separate rooms at night. She had never been pretty, but she had been chic in the Parisien way; now she was dumpy and her hair was thin and her complexion sallow.

  ‘I need more housekeeping this week,’ Simone Brossard said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just this once couldn’t you give me a few extra francs without asking why?’

  ‘I’m a businessman. I have to know how my money is being spent. If I handed out money hand-over-fist without knowing why, we wouldn’t be living the way we do.’

  ‘Living? You call this living? A huge house – with only five rooms furnished. No staff—’

  ‘You have Marie.’ He looked at her curiously; it was unlike Simone to complain.

  ‘Ah yes, Marie, I am grateful for Marie. A fat idle slut who comes in twice a week and sweeps the dirt under the carpet. Thank you for Marie.’

  ‘Why do you want extra housekeeping?’

  ‘Because I have made some friends. Believe it or not, Pierre, I have some friends of my own. And I want to entertain them.’

  Brossard crumbled a croissant between his fingers. ‘Who are these friends?’

  ‘Not men friends, I assure you. No man would look at me now; unless, of course, he thought he could find the key to the Brossard treasure chests. What a hope!’

  ‘But who are they?’

  ‘Just ordinary women. Five or six of us who like to get together every week and talk and maybe drink a little wine and eat a few cakes.’

  Lesbians? Brossard wondered. No, not Simone. ‘How long has this been going on?’