A Spy by Nature (2001)

by Charles Cumming

  ‘All that I can tell you is that you would need to maintain absolute secrecy, in exactly the same way as was described to you during your selection procedure for SIS.’

  ‘So this has something to do with them?’

  He does not respond.

  ‘Or MI5? Are they the “alternative” you were talking about on the phone yesterday?’

  Without answering, Hawkes breathes deeply and looks to the sky, but a satisfied expression on his face seems to confirm the truth of this. Then he simply puts his arm across my back, the right hand squeezing my shoulder, and says:

  ‘Later, Alec. Later.’

  PART TWO

  1996

  ‘Making millions on sheer gall. American Dream.’

  John Updike, Rabbit Redux

  11

  Caspian

  The offices of Abnex Oil occupy five central storeys in an eyesore Broadgate high-rise about six minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street station.

  The company was founded in 1989 by a City financier named Clive Hargreaves, who was just thirty-five years old at the time. Hargreaves had no A-levels and no formal higher education, just a keen business sense and an instinctive, immediate grasp of the market opportunities presented by the gradual collapse of communism in the Eastern Bloc and, later, the former Soviet Union. With private investment attached to a chunk of money he’d made in the City during the Thatcher-Lawson boom, Hargreaves expanded Abnex from a small outfit employing fewer than one hundred people into what is now the third largest oil exploration company in the UK. At the start of the decade Abnex had minor contracts in Brazil, the North Sea, Sakhalin and the Gulf, but Hargreaves’ masterstroke was to realize the potential of the Caspian Sea before many of his competitors had done so. Between 1992 and early 1994, he negotiated Well Workover Agreements with the nascent governments of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, and sent down teams of geologists, contractors and lawyers to Baku with a view to identifying the most promising well-sites in the region. The Caspian is now awash with international oil companies, many of them acting as joint ventures, and all competing for their chunk of what are proven oil reserves. But Abnex is better placed than many of them to reap the benefits when the region goes online.

  On New Year’s Day 1995, Hargreaves was killed riding pillion on a motorcycle in northern Thailand. The driver, his best friend, wasn’t drunk or high; he was just going too fast and missed a bend in the road. Hargreaves, who was single, left the bulk of his estate to his sister, who immediately sold her controlling stake in Abnex to a former Cabinet Minister in the Thatcher government. This is where Hawkes came in. A new chairman, David Caccia, had been appointed by the board of directors. Caccia was also ex-Foreign Office, though not SIS: the two men had been posted to the British Embassy in Moscow in the 1970s and become close friends. Caccia, knowing that Hawkes was approaching retirement, offered him a job.

  I work as a business development analyst in a seven-man team specializing in emerging markets, specifically the Caspian Sea. On my first day, just four or five hours in, the personnel manager asked me to sign this:

  Code of Conduct

  To be complied with at all times by employees and associates of Abnex Oil

  The Company expects all of its business to be conducted in a spirit of honesty, free from fraudulence and deception. Employees - and those acting on behalf of Abnex Oil - shall use their best endeavours to promote and develop the business of the Company and its standing both in the UK and abroad.

  All business relationships - with government representatives, clients and suppliers - must be conducted ethically and within the bounds of the law. On no account should inducements or other extra-contractual payments be made or accepted by employees or associates of Abnex Oil. Gifts of any nature must be registered with the Company at the first opportunity.

  Employees and associates are forbidden to publish or otherwise disclose to any unauthorized person trading details of Abnex Oil or its clients, including - but not limited to - confidential or secret information relating to the business, finances, computer programs, data, client listings, inventions, know-how or any other matter whatsoever connected with the business of Abnex Oil, whether such information may be in the form of records, files, correspondence, drawings, notes, computer media of any description or in any other form including copies of or excerpts from the same.

  Any breach of the above regulations will be construed by the Company as circumstances amounting to gross misconduct which may result in summary dismissal and legal prosecution.

  August 1995

  All of the guys on my team are university graduates in their mid-to-late twenties who came here within six months of leaving university. With one exception, they are earning upwards of thirty-five thousand pounds a year. The exception, owing to the circumstances in which I took the job, is myself. I am over halfway through the trial period imposed by the senior management. If, at the end of it, I am considered to have performed well, my salary will be bumped up from its present level - which is sub-twelve thousand after tax - to something nearer thirty, and I will be offered a long-term contract, health cover and a company car. But if Alan Murray, my immediate boss, feels that I have not contributed effectively to the team, I’m out the door.

  This probationary period, which ends on 1 December, was a condition of my accepting the job imposed by Murray. Hawkes and Caccia knew that they had brought me in over the heads of several other more highly qualified candidates - one of whom had been shadowing the team, unpaid, for over three months - and they were happy to oblige. From my point of view it’s a small price to pay. Like most employers nowadays, Abnex know that they can get away with asking young people to work excessively long hours, six or seven days a week, without any form of contractual security or equivalent remuneration. At any one time there might be fifteen or twenty graduates in the building doing unpaid work experience, all of them holding out for a position that in all likelihood does not exist.

  So, no complaints. Things have swung around for me since last year and I have Hawkes to thank for that. The downside is that I now work harder, and for longer hours, than I have ever worked in my life. I am up every morning at six, sometimes quarter past, and take a cramped tube to Liverpool Street just after seven. There’s no time for a slow, contemplative breakfast, those gradual awakenings of my early twenties: the team are expected to be at their desks by eight o’clock. There is a small, aggressively managed coffee bar near the Abnex building where I sometimes buy an espresso and a sandwich at around nine a.m. But often there is so much work to do that there isn’t even time to leave the office.

  The pressure comes mainly from the senior management, beginning with Murray and working its way steadily upwards towards Caccia. They make constant demands on the team for reliable and accurate information about geological surveys, environmental research, pipeline and refining deals, currency fluctuations and - perhaps most important of all - any anticipated political developments in the region which may have long- or short-term consequences for Abnex. A change of government personnel, for example, can dramatically affect existing and apparently legally binding exploration agreements signed with the previous incumbent. Corruption is at an epidemic level in the Caspian region and the danger of being outmanoeuvred, either by a competitor or by venal officials, is constant.

  A typical day will be taken up speaking on the telephone to clients, administrators and other officials in London, Moscow, Kiev and Baku, often in Russian or, worse, with someone who has too much belief in their ability to speak English. In that respect, little has changed since CEBDO. But in every other way my life has taken on a dimension of intellectual effort that was entirely absent when working for Nik. I look back on my first six months at Abnex as a blur of learning: files, textbooks, seminars and exams on every conceivable aspect of the oil business, coupled with extensive weekend and night classes about Andromeda, usually chaired by Hawkes.

  In late September, he and I flew out to the Caspian wi
th Murray and Raymond Mackenzie, a senior employee at the firm. In under eight days we took in Almaty, Tashkent, Ashgabat, Baku and Tbilisi. It was the first time that Hawkes or myself had visited the region. We were introduced to Abnex employees, to representatives from Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, and to high-ranking government officials in each of the major states. Most of these had had ties with the former Soviet administration; three, Hawkes knew for certain, were former KGB.

  It is not that I have minded the intensity of the work, nor the long hours: in fact, I draw a certain amount of satisfaction from possessing what is now a high level of expertise in a specialist field. But my social life has been obliterated. I have not visited Mum since Christmas, and I can’t remember the last time I had the chance to savour a decent meal, or to do something as mundane as going to the cinema. Furthermore, my friendship with Saul is now something that has to be timetabled and squeezed in, like sex in a bad marriage. Tonight - he is coming to an oil industry party at the In and Out Club on Piccadilly - will be only the third time that I have had the opportunity to see him since New Year. He resents this, I think. In days gone by it was Saul who called the shots. He had the glamorous job and the jet-set lifestyle: at the last minute he might be called off to a shoot in France or Spain, and any arrangements we might have made would have to be cancelled.

  Now the tables have turned. Freelancing has not been as easy as Saul anticipated: the work hasn’t been coming in and he is struggling to finish a screenplay which he hoped to have financed by the end of last year. It may even be that he is jealous of my new position: there has been something distrustful in his attitude towards me since I joined Abnex. Almost as if he blames me for getting my life in order.

  It’s a Thursday evening in mid-May, just gone five o’clock. People are starting to leave the office, drifting in slow pairs towards the lifts. Some are heading for the pub, where they will drink a pint or two before the party; others, like myself, are going straight home to change. If everything goes according to plan, tonight should mark a significant development in my relationship with Andromeda, and I want to feel absolutely prepared.

  Back at the flat I put on a fresh scrape of deodorant and a new shirt. Time is limited and at around seven o’clock I order a taxi to take me to Piccadilly. This early part of the evening is not as awkward as I had anticipated: I am clear-headed and looking forward finally to making progress with the Americans.

  There are flames leaping from tall Roman candles in a crescent forecourt visible from the cab as it shunts down a bottlenecked Hyde Park towards the In and Out Club. I pay the driver, check my reflection in the window of a parked car and then make my way inside.

  An immaculate silver-haired geriatric wearing a gold-buttoned red blazer and sharp white tie is greeting guests on the door. He checks my invitation.

  ‘Mr Milius. From Abnex. Yes sir. Just go straight through.’

  Other guests in front of me have been ushered into a high-ceilinged entrance hall where they are talking animatedly. Most of them are, at a guess, over thirty-five, though a hand-in-hand, good-looking couple of about my age are gliding around in a circular room immediately beyond this one. The boyfriend is guiding an elaborate blonde anti-clockwise around a large oak table, pretending to admire some cornice work on the oval ceiling. He points at it intelligently and the girlfriend nods openmouthed.

  I walk past them and turn right down a darkened corridor leading into a spacious, paved garden where the party is taking place. The noise of it grows sharper with every pace, the rising clamour of a gathered crowd. I walk out on to a terraced balcony overlooking the garden from the club side and take a glass of champagne from a teenage waiter who breezes past me, tray held at head height. The party is in full swing: polite laughter lifts up from the multitudes in their suits and cocktail dresses, oil people in dappled light amid the ooze of small talk.

  Piers, Ben and JT, three members of my team, are standing in the far right-hand corner of the garden, thirty or forty feet away, sucking back champagne. As usual, Ben is doing most of the talking, making the others laugh. Harry Cohen, at twenty-eight the oldest and most senior member of the team after Murray, is just behind them, schmoozing some mutton-dressed-as-lamb in a little black dress. No sign of Saul, though. He must have been held up.

  Just below me, to my left, I can see the Hobbit talking to his new girlfriend. It is still extraordinary to witness the change that has come over him. Gone are the spots and greasy skin, and his once-raggedy hair has now been cropped short and combed forward to shield a gathering baldness. There are things that he still gets wrong: on his lapel he is wearing a bright orange badge imprinted with the name MATTHEW FREARS above the logo of his company, Andromeda. And his glance up at me is nervous, almost intimidated. But he is reliable, and honest to the point of candour. We make eye contact, nothing more. He’ll be as fired up as me.

  I walk down a short flight of stone steps and make my way through the crowd to the Abnex team. JT is the first to spot me.

  ‘Alec. You’re late.’

  ‘Not networking?’ I say to them.

  ‘Pointless at parties,’ Piers replies.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Everyone’s up to the same game. You’re never going to make an impression. Might as well neck the free booze and fuck off home.’

  ‘It’s your optimism I admire,’ says Ben. ‘Life affirmin’.’

  ‘Murray arrived?’

  ‘Coming later,’ he says, as if it were inside knowledge.

  ‘Why’d you go home?’ Piers asks me.

  ‘Change of shirt.’

  ‘Sweaty boy,’ says Ben. ‘Sweaty boy.’

  ‘You haven’t met someone called Saul, have you?’

  He is a vital component in tonight’s plan, and I need him to get here.

  Ben says:

  ‘What kind of a name is that?’

  ‘He’s a friend of mine. I’m supposed to be meeting him here. He’s late.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him,’ he says quickly, taking a sip from his drink.

  Cohen separates himself off from the middle-aged woman with the facelift and turns towards us. His coming into our small group has the effect of tightening it up.

  ‘Hello, Alec.’

  ‘Harry.’

  The woman gives him a final smile before disappearing off into the crowd.

  ‘Mum come with you?’ Ben says to him, trying on a joke. Cohen does not react.

  ‘Who was she?’ JT asks.

  ‘A friend of mine who works for Petrobras.’

  ‘Sleeping with the enemy, eh?’ Ben mutters under his breath, but Cohen ignores him.

  ‘She’s involved with exploration on the Marlin field,’ he says, turning to me. ‘Where’s that, Alec?’

  ‘You giving me a test, Harry? At a fucking party?’

  ‘Don’t you know? Don’t you know where the Marlin field is?’

  ‘It’s in Brazil. Marlin is in Brazil. Offshore.’

  ‘Very good,’ he says with raw condescension. JT looks at me and rolls his eyes. An ally of mine.

  ‘Glad I could be of some assistance,’ I tell him.

  ‘Now, now boys. Let’s all try and enjoy ourselves,’ Ben says, grinning. He must have been drinking for some time: his round face has taken on a rosy, alcoholic flush. ‘Plenty of skirt here.’

  JT nods.

  ‘You still seeing that journalist, Harry?’ Ben asks.

  Cohen looks at him, irked by the intrusion into his private life.

  ‘We’re engaged. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘Matter of fact I think I did know that,’ he says. ‘Set a date?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  None of us will be invited.

  ‘Who’s that young bloke next to Henderson, the one with the dark hair?’

  Cohen is half-pointing at a lean, jaded-looking man in a crushed linen suit standing to the right of our group.

  ‘Hack from the FT,’ says Piers, taking a satay stick from one of the
waiters. ‘Joined from the Telegraph about three months ago. Going places.’

  ‘Thought I recognized him. What’s his name?’

  ‘Peppiatt,’ Piers tells him. ‘Mike Peppiatt.’

  This is registered by Cohen, the name stored away. Before the evening is out he will have spoken to the journalist, made contact, chatted him up. Here’s my card. Call me anytime you have a query. Cohen has the patience to forge contacts with the financial press, to feed them their little titbits and scoops. It gives him a sense of power. And Peppiatt, of course, will return the favour, putting another useful name in his little black book. This is how the world goes round.

  I spot Saul now, sloping into the party on the far side of the garden, and feel relieved. There is a look of wariness on his face, as if he were here to meet a stranger. He looks up, sees me immediately through the dense, shifting crowd, and half-smiles.

  ‘There he is.’

  ‘Your mate?’ says Ben.

  ‘That’s right. Saul.’

  ‘Saul,’ Ben repeats under his breath, getting used to the name.

  The five of us turn to greet him, standing in an uneven semi-circle. Saul, nodding shyly, shakes my hand.

  ‘All right, man?’ he says.

  ‘Yeah. How was your shoot?’

  ‘Shampoo ad. Canary Wharf. Usual thing.’

  Both of us, simultaneously, take out a cigarette.

  ‘These are the people I work with. Some of them, anyway’

  I introduce Saul to the team. This is JT, this is Piers, this is Ben. Harry, meet an old friend of mine. Saul Ricken. There are handshakes and eye contacts, Saul’s memory lodging names while his manner does an imitation of cool.

  ‘So how are things?’ I ask, pivoting away from them, taking us out of range.

  ‘Not bad. Sorry I was late getting here. Had to go home and change.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It was good of you to come.’

  ‘I don’t get much of a chance to see you these days.’

  ‘No. Need a drink?’