‘Yes, and he’s delighted to have you back again.’
It was said so frankly that Liz struggled not to blush.
Joanne went on, ‘It’s funny, sometimes I think life would be a lot easier if we moved into town - it’s quite a long commute for Charles. And as you probably know, I haven’t been very well the last few years. But Charles won’t hear of it. He says if he didn’t have the garden to come home to he’d go mad.’
She paused, and looked wistfully at the mug she held in her hands. ‘I know between his job and looking after me it must be an immense strain. I worry about him - and about how much he worries about me.’ She paused, then laughed and looked at Liz. ‘Have you ever been married?’
Liz shook her head, and felt suddenly awkward.
‘Well, I recommend it.’
They sat silently for a moment, then Joanne cocked an ear. ‘They’re back,’ she said. A moment later Charles came into the kitchen followed by a gangly boy, who must have been sixteen or so. He wore a school uniform of blazer and grey trousers, but his right foot was encased in a plaster cast. The boy had inherited his mother’s large blue eyes, but otherwise took after Charles.
‘Hello, Liz,’ said Charles. ‘This is Sam.’
She got up and shook hands with the boy. Joanne said, ‘Why don’t you go into the garden, darling? Take your coffee with you, Liz. I’m so glad we had time for a chat.’
Outside the brisk air of the morning was turning mild, and Charles took off his coat and left it on a bench by the kitchen door. A wide herbaceous border ran down one side of the garden and a small ring of tall roses stood in the centre of the lawn.
‘How beautiful,’ she said.
‘I’m not sure I’d go that far,’ said Charles mildly. ‘But I’m glad you like it. We do have some help,’ he admitted.
‘I should think so,’ said Liz, thinking her mother would appreciate this garden. She stood still and listened. ‘What’s that noise?’
He stopped too, and listened. ‘Just a boat. The river’s on the other side of the garden. We don’t quite make it to the water, I’m afraid. There’s a public footpath over there. Still, it means we have access.’
He led her to a stone bench under a towering tree and they sat down. ‘So,’ he said, putting an ankle across his knee. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘We’ve had this Israeli, Kollek, under surveillance, as you know. Nothing untoward has come up, though on a couple of occasions he has gone to great lengths to lose A4. Wally said it was clear he knew what he was doing. I’m certain now he’s Mossad.’
Charles’s jaw set in anger. ‘We’ll have to make a protest about this.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not all. Two days ago Wally and his team followed him to the Oval.’
Charles smiled. ‘New Zealand. We slaughtered them.’ Across the garden, a blackbird was singing, somewhere in the upper branches of a hornbeam tree.
Liz handed him the manila envelope she had brought with her from London. Charles took his time, looking at the stills. Then he put them down on the bench between them. ‘I take it you know who that is?’
‘He was at the Gleneagles meeting in Downing Street.’
‘So you said.’ Charles leaned back and breathed out noisily. Hector the cat had appeared, and was moving slowly towards the hornbeam, where the blackbird continued to trill. ‘This opens up such a can of worms.’
‘I can see that,’ said Liz.
‘We’ve been looking at Brookhaven while you were away. Our assumption was there’d been a leak about the Syrian threat - we couldn’t see any other reason for someone to try and run you down. Brookhaven looked up to his neck in potential conflicts: Arabic speaker, time in Syria, and one of only two at the Grosvenor station who knew about the threat.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘It just goes to show you mustn’t jump to conclusions.’
Liz looked thoughtful.
‘Is there something else?’ asked Charles.
‘The Syrians are supposed to be at the heart of all this but I’m beginning to think that it’s actually the Israelis. There’s what Sami Veshara told you and now we see an undeclared Mossad officer meeting a CIA officer.’ The thought that the problem might include the Americans lay unspoken between them.
Charles said nothing. Hector had arrived at the base of the tree, and was looking up. The blackbird was a good thirty feet above his head, and the cat seemed to recognise the futility of his hunt, for he lumbered off towards the ring of roses. Charles laughed. ‘Look at him. He’s too old to catch anything, but still likes to pretend he can.’
He turned towards Liz, serious again. ‘The first thing I’d better do is ring DG - this is too important to wait. I think it’s fairly safe to predict he’ll want me to talk to Langley. It will have to be in person, given the circumstances.’
He pointed at the photograph, and Liz looked at it once again. It showed Kollek with his head down in the stands at the Oval, listening to his neighbour. When Wally Woods had first shown her the photo, she knew she had seen the neighbour’s face before, but for a moment hadn’t been able to place it. Then she had remembered, and an image had entered her head - of a middle-aged man, balding, and heavy-set, leaning across a conference table in Downing Street and announcing in the nasal tones of America’s Midwest, ‘To date we have received no specific negative information relative to the conference.’
Liz turned now to Charles. ‘You’ll have to go to Washington?’ she asked, suddenly mindful of Joanne. It didn’t seem a good time for her to be alone.
‘I don’t see I have much choice.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘I can’t really talk to the CIA’s head of station here about whether he’s working for Israel.’
Charles got up from the bench. ‘Why don’t I show you the river? Then we can go inside. Joanne wants you to stay for lunch.’
THIRTY-THREE
Wetherby had decided to keep his visit to Washington very low-key so, unusually, no one met him at the airport. After the usual lengthy wait, Immigration accepted him for who he said he was: Edward Albright, a London businessman in town for a couple of meetings, staying just the one night.
He’d picked a hotel in Virginia, on the airport side of the city, not far from Langley, where he was due first thing in the morning. With any luck he’d catch the early-evening flight back to London the following day.
His hotel, one of a vast American chain, was comfortable, clean and entirely soulless. He phoned home and spoke to Joanne who, five hours later, was getting ready for bed. Then he ate an early dinner in the hotel restaurant - an overcooked steak and a glass of California cabernet. Back in his room, he lay down for a while on one of his room’s two large double beds and clicked idly through what seemed to be several thousand television channels.
He thought with amusement how he could have squeezed the entire Wetherby family into this ample room. When the boys were small, they’d often stayed in more cramped quarters on their trekking holidays in Europe. They’d made walkers of the boys early on, and he remembered fondly how the then-healthy Joanne had put them all to shame when it came to stamina in the Tuscan hills or Pyrenees, where they’d go for two weeks in August. Now, he thought sadly, she ran out of puff after twenty minutes in their garden.
In the morning he made the short drive to Langley, stopped at the security sentry post, then parked his hired car where he was directed near the headquarters building. The CIA’s director of counter intelligence was Tyrus Oakes, a long-time Agency veteran, lacking any public profile but famous within the halls of Langley. He had many quirks, most notably a habit of taking voluminous notes throughout even the most pedestrian meeting, all collected on the yellow legal pads that American attorneys in pre-computer days had used to compose their briefs.
Physically, too, he was unusual - a small, slight man with a razor-edged nose and big ears that protruded from each side of his head like satellite dishes. To his friends, mainly fellow senior officers, he was known as Ty; to those who knew him only by reput
e, he was The Bird.
Wetherby had come to realise over the years that the different reactions he sometimes received from Oakes had nothing to do with Wetherby’s position as an intelligence officer of a foreign country, but only with the extent to which he shared Oakes’s views about the matter under discussion. This gave Wetherby slight forebodings about his forthcoming conversation, since he couldn’t believe Oakes was going to be very happy with what he had to say.
‘Charles, it’s real good to see you.’ Oakes came out from behind the desk.
‘And you, Ty.’
‘Take a seat,’ said Oakes, pointing to a chair in front of his desk, while he retreated behind it. He said, ‘This must be kind of important for you to fly over.’
‘It is. I think we may have a serious problem.’
Wetherby outlined the sequence of events as succinctly as he could. As he spoke, Oakes rapidly discarded his yellow pad, fishing out of his pocket a small spiral-bound notebook, in which he wrote quickly in tiny writing, lifting his head occasionally to look at Wetherby.
At least he’s not moved to a laptop, thought Wetherby, as he continued his account of Fane’s relayed message from Jaghir, that two rogue elements were acting against Syrian interests in London, and were threatening to sabotage the impending peace conference.
Oakes’s eyes widened at this, then widened further still when Wetherby recounted the attempt to run down one of his female officers with a car. He stopped writing momentarily, then resumed, head down, scribbling furiously, though when Wetherby explained that Jaghir had been killed the week before in Cyprus, Oakes stopped writing altogether. This time he even put his pen down.
Wetherby said, ‘Here’s where the difficulty starts. All this information about a threat was held very tightly. In MI5, fewer than half a dozen officers were indoctrinated and Geoffrey Fane has said that in his service it was strictly “need to know”. But the attack on my officer, and now the murder of Jaghir, makes it look as if there’s been a leak. The only others told were two of your officers in Grosvenor Square.’
Oakes looked up again, but didn’t speak.
‘I’m not suggesting anything. Just stating facts. And I’m sure you’ll understand that we had to look into this. After all, one of my officers was almost killed.’
Oakes nodded. Wetherby continued: ‘Fane talked with two of your officers there. Andy Bokus and Miles Brookhaven.’
‘I know them,’ said Oakes noncommittally.
‘We’ve had dealings with both of them, of course, on many things, and Brookhaven has been liaising with one of my officers on this business.’ He added flatly, ‘The same officer, in fact, who was almost killed.’
Oakes frowned, but remained silent. Wetherby went on, ‘We noted, too, that Brookhaven had recently come from Syria. A coincidence we felt compelled to pursue.’
‘So you put him under surveillance,’ said Oakes bluntly. It was not a question.
‘I’m sure you would have done the same. We get particularly concerned if people are undeclared. For example, somebody we’ve been watching recently is a man named Kollek. He’s an attaché at the Israeli Embassy, and is supposed to be a trade officer. But we’re confident he’s actually with Mossad.’
Oakes looked puzzled. ‘I don’t follow you, Charles. What has this got to do with Miles Brookhaven?’
‘Nothing whatsoever, and that’s not why I’m here. Last Thursday one of our teams followed Kollek to a cricket match in south London. Funny place for an Israeli to go, we thought. But he wasn’t there for relaxation.’ An envelope materialised in Wetherby’s hand and he handed it across the desk. ‘Have a look, if you don’t mind, Ty.’
And he watched as Oakes extracted the photographs and looked at each in turn. You had to hand it to him, thought Wetherby, Oakes made a good show of looking unperturbed. But when he put the photographs down Wetherby noticed Oakes’s right hand was tensed into a fist.
Oakes said, too casually to convince, ‘There could be a perfectly innocent explanation for this.’ He stared directly at Wetherby, but his eyes were curiously unfocused.
‘Of course there could. It’s just that in that case, we would like to know what it is.’
Oakes pursed his thin lips, then put a hand to his forehead, the first indication of the tension Wetherby knew he must be feeling. Oakes said quietly, ‘I’ve known Andy Bokus a long time.’ He sighed, as if he knew this was irrelevant. ‘I don’t know what to say, Charles. Except that these—’ and he pointed at the photographs - ‘are as much a surprise to me as they must be to you.’
They sat in silence for a long time. At last Oakes said, ‘I haven’t got an answer for you. And I’m not going to have one today - or even tomorrow. But I will have by the end of the week. Will that do?’
‘Of course.’ He rose to his feet. ‘I’ll head back to London. It goes without saying you should deal only with me on this.’
‘Understood,’ said Oakes, and Wetherby sensed that as soon as he’d left the man would spring into action.
THIRTY-FOUR
The director’s office was on the top floor of the Old Headquarters Building, with a clear view of the Potomac and its tree-lined banks. Tyrus Oakes waited impatiently in a leather chair in the anteroom, ignoring the magazines neatly displayed in a fan on the credenza in front of him.
‘Come in,’ said a man’s voice from the doorway, and Oakes stood up and followed the slightly stooping white-haired man into a large corner room, which had a view on two sides. They walked to the far end, where the director pointed to the chair on the near side of his large, antique roll-top desk. Oakes sat down reluctantly, since the director, a towering figure, stayed standing, moving to the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, General,’ Oakes said.
The director nodded, but his gaze remained locked on the grass plaza below. It was as if he smelled trouble brewing, and wanted to take his time before following the scent.
General Gerry Harding was a West Point graduate who had risen to be one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, having served with distinction at the tail end of the Vietnam War, and been a senior commander in the first Iraq War. Showing an aptitude for Washington infighting, he had then served administrations of different political stripes, first as number two to the UN Ambassador, now as director of the CIA.
His appointment had been a sudden, unplanned affair, since the President’s first choice - an obvious political appointment, a man with neither military nor intelligence experience - had fallen at the first hurdle of Senate approval. Harding had sailed through, since his war record had made him an all-American hero, and the only partisan ideology he had ever evinced was ruthlessness.
Now he turned around and eased his long frame into his high-backed leather chair. He pushed it back easily from the desk, then stretched his legs out in front of him.
‘What’s on your mind, Ty?’ he asked, with an edge that poked out through the folksy veneer.
‘I’ve had a visit from our British friends. Their director of counter espionage - Charles Wetherby. He’s an old hand, and a good one. They think there’s a leak of information about the threat to the Gleneagles conference. You’ll have seen the report on that, General. One of their officers working on the lead has been attacked. It seems they’ve been following a Mossad agent operating in London.’ He said significantly, ‘Danny Kollek.’
‘Kollek?’ Harding’s equanimity was fast receding. ‘How the hell did they get onto him?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. Kollek’s undeclared, which has the Brits’ dander up. They don’t trust the Israelis. And unfortunately, their surveillance found Kollek meeting with one of our own.’
‘Andy Bokus runs him, doesn’t he? You mean they saw them together?’
‘That’s what makes it so difficult. The photographs the Brits took show Kollek meeting Andy. It was hard for me to explain that away to Wetherby. I didn’t know what to tell him.’
Har
ding thought hard for a moment. ‘How about the truth?’
‘I can do that. But I figured I needed your approval first.’
‘You’ve got it.’
Oakes hesitated before saying, ‘It will involve a fair amount of risk.’
‘How’s that? You don’t trust the Brits?’
Oakes shrugged. ‘It’s not that. They’re hyper-anxious about this conference. It’s top of their priorities. They’d tell the Israelis anything, even that we’re running one of their people, if they thought it would help them protect the conference. That could do us a lot of damage. Mossad gives us some very valuable intelligence. They’ll close up like clams if they find out we’ve been running Kollek.’
He could see the General calculating this. Harding was relentlessly, clinically logical, something not always true of the directors Oakes had known. Harding said, ‘What if we throw them a bone?’
‘Who, the British?’
‘No. Mossad. If there isn’t much more we can get out of Kollek, maybe we should just turn him over to his own service. We can say he approached us, and we turned him down. That might earn us some brownie points in Tel Aviv.’
Oakes was appalled. He struggled to hide his outrage at the suggestion they throw an agent to the wolves. The logistics of what Harding was proposing were impossible - Mossad would see through the subterfuge at once - but that was not what bothered Oakes the most. He prided himself on his realism, but he also held firm to certain principles. Foremost among them was a loyalty to his agents, especially penetration agents, who risked their lives to help.
He knew any argument with Harding would all too easily be lost. So he said slowly, ‘Not sure that would work, General. And anyway, I don’t think we’ve got the best out of Kollek yet. It would be a pity to let him go prematurely.’ He thought ruefully of what ‘let him go’ would mean for the Israeli, once put under Mossad’s notorious methods of questioning.
Harding seemed to think about this, then glanced at his diary, open on the desk top before him. He looked intently at his watch, and Oakes realised his time was up.
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