by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric
‘Toby Ashe! What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Mick! I was just asking myself that very question.’
30
Michael Curzon QC was an unusual choice for UK ambassador to Iraq. He was not a career diplomat but a barrister destined to sit in judgement at the High Court. Widely known for his intense intellectual skills – and extraordinary cynicism – he was also politically conservative. This made him an unlikely candidate for such a key position in the British government’s Iraqi operational equations. Nevertheless, he spoke fluent Arabic, got on well with senior civil service personnel, and had made a great impression on certain notable US industrialists in his capacity as a commercial barrister.
A commercial background was considered a significant component for one who, it was supposed, would have to wrestle with major issues of contract and tender. ‘A tall, cool customer with his finger on the pulse’ was how the US ambassador to the Court of St James described him.
Curzon had a great knowledge of US mores and sensitivities and had, much to his surprise, impressed the PM. Perhaps it had something to do with the case he had assisted Cherie Blair with during the previous year. Curzon was also popular with a number of senior British military personnel, having been called upon to assist in various procurement debacles that had reached the High Court over the past years.
All in all, his was the kind of appointment that could only have been made when the government felt itself under extreme pressure, even crisis, when pure competence and fresh thinking were deemed more important than political positioning. War would always erect an invisible barrier between the PM and his party; the man at the top had entered the real world – and there was no way back.
Ashe himself was not surprised. He’d known Curzon as a postgraduate at Brasenose College, Oxford. Each had eyed the other’s career and lifestyle choices with interest and, on occasion, a little envy. Their friendship was strong, though distant, and not a little mysterious to the friends of both.
‘Congratulations, Mick.’
‘Sshh! No one calls me Mick around here.’
Curzon took a seat and smiled at his old pal. ‘Toby, I’d love to socialise, but you couldn’t have come at a worse time. I’ll be back in London, hopefully, for a week’s leave some time in the summer. We can meet up then.’
‘Bloomsbury seems a long way from here.’
‘Don’t remind me. I’d far rather be downing a few pints with you in the Plough in Museum Street.’
‘I understand, Michael. I wasn’t expecting a reception party. But just tell me briefly, what’s it like?’
Curzon whispered, ‘Fucking awful. Let me give you an example of the insanity here. This morning, I had arrangements to meet the Australian ambassador. So, the tosspot decides, “Wouldn’t it be nice to go on a shopping expedition?” So I say, “Maybe when things are a bit quieter”. “No,” he says, he’d told colleagues that Baghdad was not as bad as the newspapers made out. Wanted a taste of life outside the Green Zone.’
‘Or death, presumably.’
‘You get the picture. Anyhow, imagine this. We’re walking round the suq wearing suits and body armour – looking like pricks – surrounded by bodyguards and Special Forces and he’s putting his fucking shopping into three LAVs.’
‘LAVs?’
‘Armoured cars. Meanwhile, he’s got a photographer – I don’t know if it was his idea or not – taking snapshots and video for the evening news in Sydney or something. Or maybe for when he decides he wants to be premier of Australia. So I’m looking round nervously trying to appear in control – he’s carrying on like he hasn’t a fucking care in the world – and there’s this bloody great explosion. Everyone stops dead still – and he’s still negotiating over a bunch of flowers.
‘The guy from US special forces tells me his presence is urgently required elsewhere, and could I inform the Aussie ambassador he’s got better things to do than fill the ambassador’s grandchildren’s Christmas stocking? So I have to bundle the tosspot into the armoured car and all the while he’s complaining he hasn’t finished his shopping, and what will his daughter say, and why is everyone panicking, and—’
‘The explosion?’
‘I’m getting to that. I’ve just had a report. Two insurgents were doing their duty for the sake of whatever the fuck they think they’re doing it for. They’d dropped off a suicide bomber near the UN Food Programme.’
‘My escort told me about that one.’
‘Yeah, well, what he didn’t tell you was that these two charlies in the Toyota pickup then made their way round to the al-Rashid.’
‘Al…?’
‘Used to be a big tourist hotel. It’s Coalition now. Anyway, they’ve got a rocket launcher welded to the back of the pickup truck. And what do they do? They stand right behind the bloody rockets to video themselves and the rockets doing this great service. I ask you Toby – stand directly behind the rocket launcher! Anyhow, we’ve got the video of their jolly japes. They’re not looking too pleased with themselves now. We’d show it on the evening news but a) it would probably only encourage others, and b) it’s probably against their fucking human rights!’
Curzon looked at his watch. ‘Right, you’ll be wanting to see the SIS desk head.’
‘Crayke.’
‘Yes, Crayke. Strange fellow, but impressive in his way. Oh, and by the way, welcome to Baghdad!’
Curzon led Ashe back into the compound’s main building and down a long, cool, busy corridor. At its end was a door marked ‘Authorised Personnel Only’, in English and Arabic. Curzon took out a bunch of passkeys, punched a number onto a keypad, pressed his thumb onto a small screen and played with the lock.
The door opened onto a rough set of concrete steps. As everywhere in the embassy, CCTV cameras tracked every move.
‘Watch your step, Toby. No compensation allowed. The insurance people regard everything that happens here as an act of God. Very convenient. It gets narrower at the top.’
Three flights up, the men came to another exterior door.
‘Ambassador’s Department. Please pronounce your name clearly.’
‘Curzon here. One guest.’
‘Please insert your five-digit code.’
Curzon typed in three digits.
‘What happened to the other two, Mick?’
‘There are no other two. It’s a security trip.’
The door opened onto a red-carpeted corridor.
‘You never know who’s going to turn up. Actually, it’s so the blood doesn’t show. Only kidding. My suite is next to Crayke’s current office. Follow me.’
At the end of the corridor was a thick metal door; to its right, an open-plan office. Sitting outside the suite were two plain-clothes security men of distinctly Anglo-Saxon appearance, carrying Uzi machine guns.
‘Papers please, sir.’
Ah, Essex, thought Ashe. The Thames estuary blends uneasily with the Tigris.
‘Recommendation of the ambassador insufficient, eh?’
The security men had heard it all before. ‘Papers, sir.’ One of them scanned Ashe’s papers with a small magnifying glass he placed over his eye, while the second man frisked him. ‘Leave your bag here, sir, unless you require a particular item.’
Curzon put his hand on Ashe’s shoulder. ‘Gotta go, Toby. Maybe see you later – if not, the Plough. Don’t let the goons get you down.’
‘How about the Hemlock?’
‘You must be joking. Bunch of nutters.’
31
The dour-faced security staff completed their check and radioed in. ‘A Dr Ashe for Desk. Right. Wait a second, Dr Ashe.’
The blast-proof door eased open. Behind it stood a sharp-eyed Iraqi woman.
‘I am Mrs Aziz, Mr Crayke’s assistant. Do come in.’
Crayke’s windowless office was divided into two. Electric fans operated from the ceiling and from every corner, but failed to dissipate the body odour.
Ashe heard a voice from behin
d the door into the inner sanctum of the SIS desk head, Baghdad.
‘Enter now, Dr Ashe.’ Mrs Aziz smiled and opened the connecting door.
Attired in a short-sleeved cotton shirt and khaki shorts, Crayke sat in a wicker armchair in a corner behind the door. His grey hair, what remained of it, was cut regimentally short about the exaggerated, bony dome of his head. His voice was deep, but slightly thin and gravelly – a result of throat-cancer surgery and a continued penchant for the occasional cheroot or pipe.
‘Good, Ashe. Come in. Welcome to the Armpit. Nice to meet you at last.’
‘At last?’
‘I’ve had my eye on you for quite some time.’ As if reading his mind, Crayke added. ‘And I am not referring to our friends Colquitt and Bagot.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘And that is the sole relief you are likely to get here. No matter. You write interesting books, Ashe. Not all of them, of course. But one in particular struck me some years ago. It was about magical signs, cryptography and the origins of modern science. Some of it very good indeed.’
‘The Golden Thread. It didn’t sell.’
‘Too deep for the herd, I dare say. Such books may not sell, but we should be poorer without them. Nevertheless, I was not altogether convinced by some of your arguments. You’ll find understanding the esoteric a great deal easier if you first banish from your mind the concepts of God and spirits.’
‘Rather defeats the object, doesn’t it?’
‘Better, I think, than being defeated by the object.’
Ashe was in the presence of a mind: one with voltage. Baghdad suddenly looked a brighter place. Crayke pulled himself out of the creaking wicker chair and offered his long, leathery hand. ‘Ranald Crayke. But do call me “sir”. I don’t want you to get into the habit of using my name.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll call you Ashe, because I can’t get used to all this first name nonsense. God knows, even my wife calls me Crayke. Right. Sit down.’
Crayke seated himself behind his packed desk and spread his bat-like hands across its red leather top. ‘Seeing as I’m known to the security staff here as “Desk”, I thought I’d better have a pretty good one. Comes from Saddam’s palace, not far from here. Used to belong to the Ottoman governor of Baghdad back in the old days. Good to be in touch with history. Gives a man perspective.’
‘I feel the same, sir.’
‘I know you do. I knew your friend, the late archdeacon, very well. I am so sorry we have lost him. Gives me a certain personal interest in your current activities.’
‘Revenge, sir?’
‘Justice. It’s a politer word. Richmond tells me you need a source handler.’ Crayke lit a fat Burmese cheroot. ‘Smoke?’
‘No thanks, sir. Gave up years ago.’
Crayke puffed a deep brown-and-grey cloud into the room.
‘Good man, Major Richmond. Still, the DIA have got him for the time being.’
He inhaled his cheroot. ‘You want to find out what’s happened to these Turkish chaps.’
‘Kurdish actually.’
‘Citizens of Turkey. Resit Yazar and Ali Yildiz.’
‘Yes, sir. Find them. Talk to them. If necessary, bring them in.’
‘You’re not a cowboy, Ashe! You sound like President Bush!’
‘Excuse me, sir.’
‘Look, I have studied your preliminary request for official assistance. As far as I can see, your sole basis for linking terrorism in Istanbul to the Tower atrocity is a contact you enjoy with Turkish security forces – which you won’t name, for “operational reasons”.’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘I can tell you, Ashe, that it was only my personal intervention that secured approval of your request for resources. Predictably, objections were raised that your plans were an indulgence, a private holiday.’
‘I can think of better destinations, sir.’
Crayke laughed amid a geyser of rising phlegm. ‘Care to let me in on your little secret? Who is your Turkish contact?’
‘Colonel Mahmut Aslan, sir.’
Crayke stubbed out his cheroot. A smile emerged on his face and his eyes widened, as if gaining inspiration from a higher sphere. ‘Right. Zappa’s your man. Of course, he’s also the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s man. You’ll have to tolerate some interference from them. I can’t spare you one of my own.’
‘I’m not sure I’d like to share this with the Americans at this stage, sir.’
‘This is Baghdad, Ashe. Here we share everything – even our underwear if needs be. Mutual trust is vital in conflict zones. Do you have any objective reason why DIA involvement might prejudice your investigation? Think carefully, Ashe.’
‘Not at the moment, sir.’
‘Do you expect to?’
‘Too early to say, sir.’
‘I’m afraid that’s insufficient. If you want a source handler, Zappa’s the only available man with the requisite knowledge. The DIA will be prepared to keep this from the Turks, if I request it.’
‘Can you trust them to keep it from the Turks, sir? It’s most important to this operation that they know nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘I shall make that clear. By the way, Ashe, forgive me for asking, but is there an esoteric angle to your enquiries?’
‘Not that I’m aware of, sir.’
‘Hmm…’ Crayke lit another cheroot, inhaled deeply and exhaled a pillar of foul-smelling smoke.
‘When we are deeply engaged in something, Ashe, the cloud we create about us bears all the signs of the inner man. There must be something in this investigation that has made you willing to risk your life here in Iraq.’
‘I was nearly killed in England, sir.’
‘I doubt if that’s your reason. Esoteric concepts are an eternal key to thought, a persistent dimension. But they bear the imprint of the knowledge of the times in which they are expressed.’
‘Could that be, sir, why genuine traditions were not meant to be written down?’
‘All writing is, in a sense, a betrayal, Ashe. Try and remember this as you proceed.’
The door opened abruptly. Mrs Aziz stood in the doorway with a cup of strong coffee for Crayke.
‘Thank you, Mrs Aziz. Do call Major Richmond. If you can reach him before five, Mr Ashe will have a bed for the night. I’m sure he needs one. Right, Mr Ashe?’
32
‘Seems you were right about the Israelis, Beck.’
Beck nodded slowly; he didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
Lee Kellner had met Beck off the plane at Chicago O’Hare Airport and driven him to an old FBI detention and interrogation centre on the city’s outskirts, now shared with the CIA.
Constructed to cool off some of Chicago’s most notorious gangsters in the twenties, the second-rate Art Deco block had seen through every colourful and colourless phase of America’s extraordinary history of crime. Now surrounded by derelict land, its old pink walls had recently been whitewashed in a sprucing-up initiative funded by the Department for Homeland Security.
Homeland Security was muscling in on many aspects of cherished Bureau and Agency autonomy, causing the security services some discomfort. The threat of terrorism diminished the good humour that might have greased the inevitable changes. The media had them all in the dock.
Was Mati Fless a Homeland Security case, an internal criminal matter for the Bureau, or an aspect of Agency overseas ops? The answer was to bang him up in the Wrigley-St Francis facility and see whether the suspect himself offered any clues.
Kellner pushed open the steel door of Interrogation Chamber No. 1. Two agents stood to attention.
Beck was surprised to see Fless dressed in an orange prison boiler suit, shackled at the feet. Having read a detailed report on Fless’s capture, such precautions seemed excessive.
‘You guys wanna get some air.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You deserve it.’ Kellner stared at Fless. ‘Don’t g
et up, Mr Fless.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘I’d like you to meet Agent Beck. I think you two have a lot in common. Had Beck been faster off the mark, it might have been him you killed, and not Agent Buckley.’
‘I did not kill your Agent Buckley.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No. He killed himself.’
Kellner looked at Beck and raised his eyebrows.
Beck looked back at Kellner. ‘Anything yet from the Israeli Embassy, sir, on Agent Matthias Fless?’
Fless perked up.
‘Embassy denies all knowledge of the operation, but admits Fless has on occasion been employed in a freelance capacity by the security services. The usual bullshit.’
‘What about our own internal Mossad contacts, sir?’
‘They say they’re investigating the matter and ask us to keep them informed.’
‘Fairly safe to conclude this was a Mossad operation, sir.’
Kellner looked to Fless, who was smiling. ‘Used to be in Shin Bet, didn’t you, Mati?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Interesting work?’
‘Mr Kellner, I did not kill your man. You know as well as I do that surveillance operations often go wrong. I had no idea al-Qasr was protected by an agent.’
‘What happened to Buckley?’
‘He was torturing me.’
‘Torturing?’
‘Tied me up to the mains.’
‘Unorthodox, wouldn’t you say, Agent Beck?’
‘Fless’s story’s been confirmed, sir. Exposed mains wires located at the scene.’
Kellner’s eyes did not shift from Fless’s. He continued speaking to Beck. ‘Could’ve been planted.’
‘It’s a bit baroque, sir.’
‘What?’
‘Baroque. A bit intricate.’
‘These Mossad boys can be very smart, Beck. So, Fless, who did kill Buckley?’
‘He shot himself.’
‘Oh please!’
‘Stupid, I know. My team—’
‘His team, as he puts it… I’d say four henchmen – where do you find these guys, Fless? His team, Agent Beck, is sitting next door.’