by Henry Porter
The FBI was a constant presence in the hospital, as were the TV vans outside. When it was clear that Tulliver and she had not been contaminated and were showing no signs of sickness, they were interviewed about all aspects of Denis Hisami’s controversial – their word – career. A lot of ground was covered – his past as a commander in the PUK, the business in Macedonia when a squad of IS terrorists was wiped out, the affair that led to her kidnap and the death of two Russians on the border between Estonia and Russia at Narva, to say nothing of the enemies he’d made in business and politics. Special Agent Edward Reiner observed that he would be hard pressed to find another American citizen whose back story included so many people with the means, motive and malice to kill him. The FBI team were as considerate as they could be, but the interviews added to her sense of a siege. Reiner was smart and patient, and his sidekick, Agent Paula Berg, sat like a watchful member of the crow family.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, when she was alone in the room with them and assumed Tulliver was being given the third degree by another team down the hall, Reiner began to tell her the details of the attack. He again showed her the film from the Rayburn Building of a burly man with short black hair and dressed in a dark suit who thrust some papers into Denis’s hands then quickly backed away. An enlargement of a still revealed he had been wearing surgical gloves. ‘This individual’s name was Vladan Drasko,’ he said. ‘He was a thirty-eight-year-old Serbian national from the district of Novi Grad in Belgrade. You’ve already said that you didn’t recognise him from the film, but given you spent time in the Balkans, I wonder if that name has any meaning for you.’
She shrugged. ‘No. Did you say was a thirty-eight-year-old Serb? Was?’
‘He poisoned himself by accident at a motel near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Drasko called the desk clerk to summon help but died before it arrived. The motel is being decontaminated, and the rental car examined, and EMS personnel who attended are under observation.’ He paused for a couple of beats. ‘How much do you know about nerve agents like this one, Mrs Hisami?’
‘Nothing, I’m a psychologist. I don’t even know what substance was used to poison my husband, though the TV news says it may be Novichok.’
‘Not exactly, but it’s related to the group of nerve agents developed by the Soviets in a programme before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Novichok is what is known as a binary agent, which means that it activates after two harmless inert substances are combined. The material that poisoned your husband was an antecedent of Novichok. It’s a unitary agent, which means that it becomes lethal the moment it’s manufactured. No combination is required – there’s just one substance. For obvious reasons, this greatly concerns us. The idea that Mr Drasko brought the material into America in a sealed flask is highly disturbing. Though we’re satisfied that we now have that container and the remaining agent, we’re treating this very seriously.
‘This brings me to information that has come from British intelligence. A few hours before your husband was poisoned, there were two other attacks: Robert Harland, a former senior operative with MI6 – who you knew – was killed by a lone gunman in Estonia, and in London, Paul Samson, who was involved with you and your husband in the Macedonian incident – the CIA has given us a full briefing on that – was attacked by a man with a knife in the street. You know all these individuals: you’re close to two and a friend of the third.’
Her stomach turned over. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He wasn’t hurt. He fought off the attacker. Film of the incident has emerged on social media, but he’s not identified in it.’
‘I knew about Harland but had no idea about Samson.’
‘He seems to have made light of it. According to Mr Tulliver, he didn’t mention the attack when they spoke last night.’
‘That’s like him.’
Reiner was silent. He looked from Anastasia to Agent Berg and back again.
Berg glanced at her phone. ‘We’re about to be joined by our friends from the Agency,’ she said, looking up.
‘Three men in your life, and they were all targeted. Why? Apart from you, what’s the connection, Mrs Hisami?’
She opened her hands incredulously. ‘Are you saying I’m somehow responsible?’
‘No, no – of course not. Apart from anything else, you could easily have been contaminated, along with Mr Steen and your husband. But you’re the link and we need to understand what that means for this investigation.’
‘Honestly, I have no idea. I just can’t help you.’
There was a knock at the door and two men entered. They nodded to her, but didn’t give their names. A middle-aged man with a brush of stiff grey hair and a dark moustache took the only available chair, while the second, who was younger and wore square tinted lenses and a light grey suit, leaned against the wall and folded his arms. Reiner pointed to the two men with his index finger and a cocked thumb. ‘These gentlemen are from the CIA.’ He waited for the lead CIA agent to put a recorder on the low table in the middle of the room then continued. ‘The British have told us that they believe this is a revenge attack by certain parties, maybe Russian, following the death of the two men during your rescue by Paul Samson. What do you say to that?’
‘What can I say? Paul Samson and I were both shot. I have very little memory of what happened that night. I can tell you that I was kidnapped in the Italian countryside, saw two migrants murdered and woke up in a container on a ship alongside the bodies of the men who had killed the migrants and abducted me. I was held in an isolated compound in western Russia. I escaped, was recaptured and threatened with execution beside an open grave.’ She held Reiner’s gaze. ‘So, no, I don’t remember a lot from that evening except it was even more terrifying than anything I had experienced on the ship, or locked in a box in the freezing cold. Later I developed PTSD and I was in treatment for months. I had little understanding of exactly what my husband was involved in until some weeks after I was freed. Now I know he exposed the laundering of Russian money that was being used by fascist groups in Europe. Seems like he did a really good job, though, naturally, he was never thanked for it and, as requested by you people, he has never spoken of what happened. No one has. It remains a secret.’
‘I’m sorry ma’am, but we have to ask these questions. This is a matter of national security.’
‘Would you like water, a Diet Coke?’ offered Agent Berg.
‘No, thanks.’
‘May I?’ asked the older CIA man. ‘Mrs Hisami, it is hard for us to know where to start. Are we dealing with some crazy Russian slash Balkan blowback to the first drama you were all involved in, when it is known your husband wiped out an entire IS unit, or is this about our friends in fur hats reacting to the second drama – the one in Estonia which you’ve just referred to? The British, for reasons best known to themselves, want to relegate these attacks to the category of gangster revenge. They say it was all about the money that went missing after you were released. Really? Two years on? That sounds like a whole lot of flapdoodle to us.’ He looked impatiently around the room. ‘There were three attacks in the space of a few hours against people who were connected. All, save the lawyer, had some part in one of the other two incidents. That’s why we’re asking you.’
‘I understand – really, I do. But I’m baffled and I don’t know which way to turn. One moment Denis is being criticised and investigated for offering relief to people bombed out of their homes, starving and brutalised. The next he’s poisoned and we’re locked up in this hospital and he’s on the point of dying and you’re here asking me questions as if I had the whole damn picture in my head.’ She stopped and looked at them in turn. ‘Why is it in this country victims are treated as perpetrators? Why is that?’
‘Mr Hisami and Mr Harland, did they ever meet?’ asked the CIA man who was leaning against the wall.
‘My husband flew to Tallinn to thank Mr Harland for all that
he did to get me released. At the time, he didn’t tell me because, well, I wasn’t in great shape. I had a lot of problems, and I guess he didn’t want to remind me of that terrible period.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Agent Berg. ‘But we’re trying to understand both the criminal aspect to this event as well as the intelligence implications, and you’re all we got.’ She took a folder out of her bag and flipped it open. ‘This here is a photograph taken three years ago of the men who attempted to kill Mr Samson and your husband. They were best buddies and they tried to kill the two men in your life on the same day.’
‘That is a remarkable coincidence, is it not?’ Reiner said.
After the incident at Narva, and the long debriefing in Estonia, it wasn’t surprising they knew about Samson and her, but it made her angry. What possible relevance could it have now? ‘Again, it seems like you’re accusing me of something,’ she said angrily.
‘No, ma’am,’ said Reiner, smoothing the air with his hand. ‘We’re just trying to figure it all out and ensure that the American public and their legislators are never exposed to something like this again. It’s as simple as that.’
The room was silent. All four investigators looked at her expectantly.
The lead CIA man leaned forward in his chair with his hands on his thighs. ‘There’s an answer here, and it lies somewhere between three men – your husband, the late Robert Harland and your close friend Paul Samson, who was once also a member of the British intelligence services. Two of them can’t speak to us. That leaves Samson, but British intelligence say he knows nothing. Is that likely?’
‘We haven’t been in touch for nearly two years. I can’t tell you anything about him.’
‘He seems a difficult character to make out. They describe him as a loser and kind of dismiss him. They say he’s got gambling issues and has taken to low-grade security work to pay off his debts. That sound right to you?’
It didn’t, but she shrugged noncommittally.
‘He’s the only other person who can help us. We need to talk to him. Can you fix that for us?’
‘You can arrange that for yourselves, surely. He’s got a restaurant – Cedar. Just pay him a visit. Paul is not some kind of criminal. He’ll help if he can.’
‘You see, Mrs Hisami,’ continued the older man, ‘the Bureau here have already made clear to you the seriousness of the situation. We at the Agency have a responsibility to track down the source of this material that was used against your husband and make sure that the supply line and the people who commissioned this act of terror are neutralised. We’ve deployed a lot of resources in that endeavour. But you’ll appreciate that at the very beginning of that process must come an understanding of motive. Why did someone want to kill your husband in such a dramatic manner – in Congress, in front of the media and all these people? Why? This is, literally, unprecedented. Large numbers of people could have been hurt, including Members of Congress from all over the country. That is a big deal.’
‘I saw what it did to Mr Steen and my husband. I do not take this lightly, sir.’
‘Let’s be frank,’ he continued. ‘If someone wanted to kill your husband, why not shoot him? A hit on the way to his office?’
‘I suppose that’s a good question, yes . . .’
‘The people who ordered this thing wanted to create a spectacle of your husband collapsing in the middle of the congressional hearing. There’s a gigantic message in that, either to your husband and his associates, or to our country. Which do you think it is?’
‘How am I meant to answer that? I don’t know – I simply don’t know.’
He sat back. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what we think. We believe that this was a message to your husband and his associates, and that would include you.’
‘I really can’t say.’ She looked up. A nurse was signalling through the glass door. ‘Excuse me.’ Anastasia got up and went to the door.
The nurse looked inside. ‘Hope this is okay, but I wanted to tell you that he squeezed my hand a little. He knew I was there. He responded when I spoke to him. He’s still very sick, but the doctor told me that I should tell you.’
‘Thank you, I’ll come now.’ Anastasia turned to the room. ‘I understand why this is so important and that you have to go over everything, but I don’t know how to help. Right now I need to be with my husband. I’m sorry.’
The four agents rose. Reiner said he would be on hand if she thought of anything, or if, pray to God, her husband came round.
Since being detained in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center by ICE on false charges and, as a result, losing a great part of his fortune, her husband had become an obsessive gatherer of intelligence. He needed to know who his enemies were and what they were saying about him, and never more so than in this current campaign against him by conservative forces in Congress. He watched for their knives, but not the poison. She looked down at him through the observation window – he appeared shrunken and helpless amidst all the drips and wires, and she couldn’t believe he’d even summoned the energy to squeeze the gloved hand of the nurse. He seemed all but dead.
She went to talk to Jim Tulliver, who had also been given a hard time by the CIA and the FBI, and what he described as a meathead from Homeland Security. He jerked his thumb upwards and raised his eyebrows and she understood that they should go to the roof, where there was a glass lean-to, a kind of conservatory where mobile patients could read and catch the sun. They went through the conservatory into the warm late afternoon.
‘Pretty sure they’re listening to us,’ he said, handing her a phone. ‘I carry this one for Denis. You should use it if you’re going to make any sensitive calls. I put Samson’s number on it. Maybe you should tell him they want to talk.’ He studied her. ‘You okay?’
‘Of course.’ She’d played up her vulnerability with the agencies but, in truth, she was feeling a lot stronger than she had for a long time. She recognised the fight rising in her. It came from her father and she didn’t much like the attendant belligerence, but it was preferable to her adored mother’s resignation and fatalism and, as her therapist kept telling her, it was what had saved her during the kidnap.
‘So how are we on the business?’ she asked Tulliver, who looked rather strange in the sportswear the office had sent over to the hospital.
‘Everyone is concerned for Denis, of course, but he turned things round in the last couple of years in a quite remarkable way. We’re debt-free after the sale of our big stake in TV. To be frank, we’re killing it. We’re cash-rich and there are no crises.’
‘Have you talked to our partners and the banks about the power of attorney?’
‘Yeah, they’re good. They know you’re sound. You have a lot of respect out there. “Resilient” is the word they use for you, Anastasia. I think it’s a good one.’
‘No doubts whatsoever?’
Tulliver shook his head.
‘Obviously, it’s for a short time,’ she continued, ‘and the only thing I give a damn about is who did this. I agree with the CIA – I don’t believe this has anything to do with Narva. Do you know what Denis and Bobby Harland were talking about?’
He didn’t answer.
‘You going to say anything about that?’
‘No, because I don’t have any idea.’
She didn’t believe him. Even if Denis hadn’t told him, Tulliver would have made it his business to find out. She looked away to the sun descending over the capital into the blue vastness of America. ‘What do you think I should do?’
‘The agencies are going to sit on your tail here,’ he replied. ‘It’ll be hard to achieve anything. Samson’s your man.’ He stopped, realising what he’d just said. ‘Sorry, you know what I mean – talk to him, will you?’
Their attention was caught by a large raptor circling over the hospital building. They watched for a few seco
nds. ‘What an amazing bird,’ she said.
‘It’s a red-tailed hawk.’
‘Who knew you were a birder?’
‘I like to know what I’m looking at,’ he said.
‘I do, too.’ She checked his expression. ‘You never let on, do you? But I need you to open up on this. How many times did Denis meet Harland? Where did they meet? I want the flight logs, dates, venues – everything. And I want to hear what actions followed from these meetings, even if you doubt whether they were directly related. Why was Denis paying so much money to protect the woman you told me about? Who the hell is she? What’s she doing to warrant that much money? Is Denis paying for anyone else?’ She stopped and thought. ‘And why Samson? He’s not a bodyguard, for fuck’s sake. Is it true what they say about his debt? Jesus, what an idiot! I want to talk to Macy Harp, so I’ll need his cell number. We have funds, and I know Denis would be happy to spend it on this, so let’s make those available to whoever needs it. I want to know absolutely everything, Jim. Every goddamn thing!’
He held out his phone. ‘That’s Macy’s number.’
She copied it into the mobile he’d given her before. ‘I’ll need that information by tomorrow, Jim. Tonight if you can get it.’
Tulliver nodded and returned to watch the hawk dropping in a glide path towards a park behind the hospital. ‘They come into the city to hunt rats,’ he said. ‘A lot of rats in DC.’
An hour later Dr Michael Lazarus came to her room to tell her that a second round of tests were clear and that there was no chance of her developing any symptoms. She had been lucky, he said. Tulliver more so because there were traces on his suit and the sole of his left shoe, which must have come into contact with Denis’s clothing as he tried to help him. A responding member of the United States Capitol Police had some slight exposure and was being treated at a different location. He had asked for his condition not to be made public because of his wife’s fragile mental health.