by Andy Maslen
“Gabriel! You’re looking much better,” Furnish said. “Please, take a pew. This is Sarah Hunt.”
The woman sat down as Gabriel did, turning to shake hands.
“Hi,” she said. “I work with Julian. MOIS is my area of interest, so he asked me to attend this chat.”
“Hi. I only hope I can give you some useful information.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can,” she said. “The fact you survived is something of a miracle. In fact, if you don’t mind my diving straight in, how on earth did you escape?”
Before Gabriel could answer, Furnish interrupted.
“Let’s get some refreshments sorted out first, Sarah. Poor old Gabriel’s had nothing but sugar water and intravenous smack for the last three days.”
“That would be wonderful.” Gabriel said, suddenly realising how hungry he was.
Furnish picked up the receiver from a standard desk phone and waited a few seconds.
“Alice, could you bring in the sandwiches and drinks, please?”
A moment later the door opened and a plump woman in her midthirties appeared carrying a large tray.
“Where do you want it, Julian?” she asked.
“Over here, please, Alice. No need for Gabriel to be jumping up and down every time he wants another sarnie.”
She placed the tray in the centre of the desk, smiling at Gabriel.
“Will that be all, Julian?”
“Yup. Thanks. I’ll give you a buzz if we need anything else.”
Once she’d left, Julian gestured at the plates of sandwiches, bottles of beer and flask of coffee.
“Dig in,” he said, unnecessarily.
Gabriel took a ham sandwich and demolished it in three bites. He reached for a beer and washed down the sandwich with a long pull on the cold lager.
“Oh, my God, that’s good,” he said finally.
“Good stuff. So, back to Sarah.”
Sarah smiled and waited while Gabriel ate another sandwich.
“Sorry for jumping in before,” she said as he polished it off.
He shook his head, swallowing the last bite.
“It’s fine. Really. I’d do the same in your position. Have you heard of SERE training?”
She frowned for a second, grooving two parallel lines in the tanned skin above the bridge of her nose.
“Survival, Evasion …?”
“Resistance and Escape. I did a course with the US Marines in San Diego a while back. It helped.”
She made a note in an A4 pad she’d balanced on her knee.
“Can you take us through your experience. From capture right through to the point you reached the embassy?”
Gabriel recounted his journey from the road outside Vareshabad to the taxi journey from Delgosha Alley to the Jewellery Museum and then the final, agonising walk to the British Embassy.
Sarah noted down the torture techniques and asked him to go back over Razi’s speech until she had it down verbatim. She asked about the internal layout of the building, the dimensions and condition of the torture cell, and the number, physical condition and dress of all the staff he’d seen.
“Can I ask a question?” Gabriel said, when they reached what felt like a conclusive end to the debrief.
“Of course,” Furnish said. He had been silent throughout Sarah’s gentle but persistent questioning.
“Who else apart from you and Sarah knew what Eli and I were doing in Tehran?”
Furnish shook his head.
“Sarah was outside the loop. This was strictly need to know. It was just me out here.”
“How about the young guy who delivered our kit.”
“Davoud?” Another shake of the head. “No. He was just running an errand.”
“Fair enough.”
Then Furnish narrowed his eyes.
“Looking for the mole out here? It’s a reasonable place to start. But an incorrect one, I’m afraid. Tell Don I’m happy to co-operate in any and all ways with his investigation, up to and including a polygraph. Believe me, I want to catch whoever sabotaged the operation as much as you do.”
Gabriel shrugged his shoulders. Furnish was a long shot at best but he’d have felt he was neglecting his duty if he hadn’t probed just a little.
“No hard feelings, I hope.”
Furnish smiled.
“None at all. As I said, it was a reasonable idea. Now, if you’re done, Sarah,” he looked at Sarah, who nodded, closing her notepad, “then I think we should let you get some rest. I’ll sort out transport and flights for you and Eli and we’ll have you back in Britain as soon as we can. Probably in the morning if I can scare up a friendly BA pilot.”
Sarah accompanied Gabriel from Furnish’s office. In the lift, she pressed the button for the third floor then turned to him and spoke.
“I’m so sorry I made you relive your experience. But the intelligence you gave us was really useful. We can incorporate it into briefings we give our field agents here.”
“That’s OK. Hey, at least I’m out here looking in and not in there, well, not looking out but …”
She smiled.
“I know what you mean. We’ve sorted you and Eli out with a room here by the way. I’m sure you’ll be glad not to be going anywhere near the sickbay again. I’ll show you the way.”
At the door to the room, she knocked.
“Come in,” Eli called from inside.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Sarah said, offering her hand again. “Thanks again.”
Inside, Gabriel barely had time to close the door behind him before Eli enveloped him in a hug.
“Easy, Tiger,” he said, laughing, then wincing at the pain in his ribs her embrace caused.
She relaxed the pressure a little and drew him with her to the bed, manoeuvring him into a seated position beside her.
“We are so owed a holiday after this shitstorm is over,” she said.
“Agreed.”
“So what did the chief spook want?”
“Full debrief on what goes on inside MOIS.”
“What about him? Do you like him for the mole?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“It was always a long shot. He practically begged to submit to a lie-detector test.”
Eli snorted.
“Huh. Beating a polygraph’s child’s play. It’s the first thing they taught us at Mossad.”
“I know, but it just doesn’t stack up. If there’s a motive, then I can’t see it, and I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.”
“So what now?”
“We’re flying home tomorrow.”
Don's House
A VILLAGE IN ENGLAND, ONE WEEK LATER
The Department arranged for a reconstructive plastic surgeon to operate on Gabriel as soon as he arrived back in the UK. No tendons or bones were damaged, except superficially, and the results were, according to Mr Raphaelson, the hand surgeon, “more than satisfactory.” Had General Razi wanted to crucify Gabriel, and placed the nail behind his wrist as he had explained, the surgery would have been more complex. Apart from some localised swelling and an oddly precise circular bruise on the back of his hand, Gabriel was free to operate as normal. The tablets Raphaelson prescribed did a decent enough job of numbing the pain, and whatever discomfort was left over Gabriel coped with on his own or with the help of a bottle of Armagnac, a present from Don.
Nursing a glass of the warming spirit now, Gabriel sat beside Eli on a cherry-red, brass-buttoned Chesterfield sofa in Don’s sitting room. Don faced them, occupying a matching armchair. Christine Webster had greeted Gabriel and Eli at the door and taken them through to meet Don, then excused herself, saying she had a meeting of her book group.
The French doors were thrown open, admitting the early evening sunshine, which spilled across the carpet and illuminated motes of dust in the air. The glinting airborne particles reminded Gabriel uncomfortably of the reception area at MOIS. Outside, a blackbird was warbling and the breeze was ruffling the delicate lea
ves of a birch tree. The smell of new-mown grass drifted into the room.
“Better give me your report,” Don was saying. “You first, Eli, then you, Old Sport, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Obviously we were blown,” Eli began. “I’d ordered room service while I waited for Gabriel to bring the hire car, and two goons turned up at my door. One in uniform, Revolutionary Guard. One plain clothes, probably MOIS. Both now dead.”
“Anything before that? Any warning signs?”
She shook her head.
“No. None at all. We got ourselves set up at the British Council stand and everything was going to plan.”
“Were you followed after the room service business?”
“No. I think it was too soon for them to realise they were down two men.”
Don looked at Gabriel and nodded.
“I surveiled the facility at Vareshabad. I saw Darbandi leaving, apparently alone. Followed him. He stopped. When he got out, he sat back and smiled. He had a bodyguard. The guy’d been hiding. Crouched down in the back. A plainclothes agent like Eli’s. They took me to MOIS. Fairly forceful interrogation, as you know. I stuck to my cover story then escaped.”
“And nobody saw you while you were there?”
Gabriel cast his mind back. The hot climb to his position. The boredom of watching and waiting. The dry heat. The smell of the desert plants. The total absence of life.
“No. I was alone the whole time.”
Don brought his hands together beneath his nose, as if praying. He huffed a breath out and looked at Gabriel and Eli in turn.
“This is very bad,” he finally said, in a level voice. “They knew why you were there, and they knew where to find you.”
“Someone betrayed us,” Eli said, in not such a level voice. Her eyes flashed. “A traitor! And I’ve got a pretty good idea who.”
Gabriel turned to her.
“And that would be?”
“That twat I dumped on his arse on Salisbury Plain. What was his name?”
“Gaddesden. But I think you’re wrong.”
“Why? You heard what he said. He hates Israel. Hates Jews!”
“Even if that’s true,” he patted the air as she opened her mouth to speak again, “OK, given that it’s true, he didn’t have enough information. He didn’t know our covers, or that we’d be at the Tehran Grand.”
“He didn’t have to. He could have told them we’d gone there to kill Darbandi, and given them our real names. You said Razi knew yours. They would have put extra security on Darbandi and that’s how they picked you up. And me. We arrived in Tehran together, after all.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“It doesn’t work. Even if he’d told them we were coming and why, he could only have given them a description of our faces. There would have been dozens of people looking enough like you and me for it to be impossible to know who was who. Even if they did pick me up just because they were being extra careful with Darbandi, they wouldn’t have known you were my partner.”
Don took a sip of his own drink before speaking.
“I think it’s best if I arrange for Captain Gaddesden to be interviewed, informally, of course. But I have to tell you, whatever his political opinions, I don’t see him as our problem child. This has the tang of a security operation, not something cooked up by an army officer with a subscription to The Guardian .”
“Who then, Boss?” Gabriel asked.
“Ask the old Latin master’s favourite question: Cui bono ? Who benefits? We’re talking about treason. About blowing a top-secret security operation aimed at one of Britain’s enemies, organised at the request of the Israelis. That’s a big thing to get in the middle of. Whatever Gaddesden’s politics, I don’t see a motive powerful enough. Who would stand to gain if a mission to remove Darbandi from the game failed? And I don’t mean the Iranians. Who here ?” He stabbed his index finger into the arm of his chair. “Who on Gabriel’s list?”
Gabriel stayed silent. Eli, too. He thought about each person on his list of suspects. Don had set up a whiteboard in a corner of the room, between the fireplace, currently filled with a huge arrangement of dried flowers, and a bronze sculpture of a dancer. The whiteboard looked incongruous, as if a management consultant had wandered into a gathering of antiques dealers. Gabriel crossed to it and uncapped a black pen, releasing the aroma of pear drops. He wrote the list of suspects on the left.
Don Webster.
Privy Council.
Sam Flack.
Hugh Bennett.
James Gaddesden.
Tim Frye
Tim’s Colleagues
Julian Furnish
Eli Schochat.
Gabriel Wolfe.
Then he wiped four names off, leaving:
Privy Council
Sam Flack.
Hugh Bennett
Tim Frye
Tim’s Colleagues
Julian Furnish
Don stared at the list when Gabriel had finished with the deletions. He spoke.
“Nobody on the Privy Council has access to operational details. Yes, they have overwatch, but it’s at the strategic level. They don’t approve individual missions or personnel.”
Gabriel wiped off the first item.
Sam Flack
Hugh Bennett
Tim Frye
Tim’s Colleagues
Julian Furnish
“Did Julian know who was coming out?” Eli asked.
“He knew your cover names. But not the nature of your mission. We like to keep MI6 at arm’s length wherever we can once our operators are in the field.”
“I asked him more or less straight out in his office. He denied everything, which I know means nothing, but we can probably cross him off,” Gabriel said, wiping his name off the list.
Sam Flack
Hugh Bennett
Tim Frye
Tim’s Colleagues
He sighed and scrubbed at his scalp until his hair stood up in spikes. It didn’t make any sense.
“If this were an op against the Russians, and it was still the Cold War, I suppose I could just about understand it. But Iran? Who believes in them ? I can’t see it.”
“I still think it’s something to do with being anti-Israel, not pro-Iran,” Eli said. “OK, Boss, I go with your opinion on Gaddesden. He’s a jerk, but not a traitor. Soldiers are trained to follow orders. I think he was just blowing off steam. Look, why does someone betray their country? Because that’s what we’re talking about. One, it’s ideological. Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt – they were Communist fellow-travellers. They thought the Soviets had it right and we had it wrong. Two – blackmail. Sex or money. That’s not the Iranians’ style. In fact, none of this is their style. They just don’t engage in this kind of activity. We had a whole department at Mossad devoted to understanding their methods.”
Now it was Don’s turn to stand. He walked over to Gabriel and held out his hand for the whiteboard marker.
“May I?”
Gabriel handed it over and sat facing Don, like a student in a tutorial in his professor’s rooms.
“We don’t have time to investigate everyone. We need to nip this in the bud and get you back to Iran before Darbandi’s finished. In order, this is how I see it.”
He wiped the board clean and then rewrote the names.
Frye.
Other Iran Desk.
Bennett.
Flack.
“I’ve known Sam Flack a very long time. She’s happily married, two kids at an ordinary London comprehensive school. Manageable mortgage. No bad habits. And her husband’s Jewish. I know none of that means she couldn’t have done it, but I’m not looking at her.”
He wiped her name off the board.
Frye.
Other Iran Desk.
Bennett.
“I don’t know Hugh Bennett very well at all. He’s been at MI6 since graduating from Oxford. But like Julian, he didn’t have enough of the details to betray you. And to b
e honest, this goes for all the spooks: they love the Israelis. Without them we’d have no allies worth anything in the Middle East. Yes, we sell toys to the Saudis and anyone else not on the blacklist, but as for intelligence-sharing, it doesn’t happen. Without the Israelis, our counterterror operations in the Middle East would be severely limited – and remember, that’s the real threat.”
Another swipe with the felt eraser.
Frye.
Other Iran Desk.
“It wasn’t a big space,” Gabriel said. “But apart from Tim, I counted at least four people sitting at computers when we went in for our briefing.”
Don smiled.
“Happily for us, one of those people was detailed to report to me on your movements. I don’t like leaving anything to chance, Old Sport. Not after you went AWOL during that business with Lizzie Maitland.”
Gabriel thought back. Don had ordered him not to follow the woman who’d been persecuting him, and he’d disobeyed. Flown straight to the US and almost got himself and Britta Falskog killed.
“Is Tim your source?” Eli asked.
“No. He isn’t. So he could be our problem child. Or it could be one of his other colleagues. Of whom there are, in fact, eight, though two were on a training course the day you were there, one was off sick and one was in meetings at MI5 all day.”
“So of the five we saw, including Tim, one was your guy. That leaves us with four targets,” Eli said.
“Let’s stick to suspects at this point, shall we?” Don said.
“Fine. Suspects. What now?”
“Well, believe it or not, MI6 are very touchy about this sort of thing. They like to handle it themselves. I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting for them to get their shit together. So I have a different course of action in mind. But I’m going to have to eat a little slice of humble pie to make it happen.”