Maestro

by John Gardner

  She left him at the door. “Please tell Bitsy which are the best rooms for us to sleep in,” he asked her. “We’re not here to pry, Carole.”

  “I know.” A wan, sad smile and a “Thanks, Herb,” and she was off to pack a case and go underground, where the defectors used to live in the days that were now history.

  About an hour later, two heavies from the Office arrived—Kenny Boyden and Mickey Crichton—together with a nurse whose name he could not put to the face. Pru something, he thought. Carole was going to be well looked after.

  In New York the cell had made themselves very comfortable. They had two apartments next door to each other in a service building about two grades down from Trump Tower. This building was on Park Avenue, near the corner of Park and East Forty-eighth, and the apartments made them very happy for they were luxurious affairs full of comfortable furniture, kitchen appliances, Jacuzzis and the latest stereo equipment. No one would have blamed the New York cell for sitting back and doing very little.

  They split the team in two, two men and one girl in each apartment—Walid, Samih and Khami in one; Awdah, Kayid and Jamilla in the other. Walid did not like sharing Khami with Samih but had no other option, for Samih was the cell’s leader, a very mature thirty-eight, with long hair and a taste for beautiful clothes: Armani suits and silk shirts. A man of the world and a carrier of death. It was said that he had originally been trained in one of the famous Libyan camps. Certainly he could put together a bomb that would not fail. Awdah and Kayid were, Walid thought, mere boys, in their early twenties. But they were boys who knew the discipline of the field. They were also devoted to Samih and would die for him as quickly as they would face death from the Leader of their country.

  Both Khami and Jamilla were not simply women to be used like whores; they had already proved themselves to be tenacious fighters and they feared nothing, so they were treated with respect. Because the girls both knew exactly what was expected of them, neither ever turned down the sexual advances of the males.

  They were both attractive, particularly succulent in Western clothes: Khami had dark hair, which she had cut short into a bubble of curls; she was also not as tall as Jamilla, who was blessed with long raven hair which hung, shining, to her shoulders. Both were dark-eyed and—like the men—had paler skin than was normal for their countrymen. To be truthful, there was a spirit of competition between the two, and this was fanned by the fact that Jamilla had obtained most of the documents that allowed all of them to live in peace, without fear of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

  During her three years at Duke University, Jamilla had posed as the daughter of a wealthy Jewish doctor and had pulled the whole thing off magnificently. She had assistance, of course, from her country’s intelligence people. The doctor was completely fictitious, though his name and address showed up on the federal computers. He even paid his federal and states taxes, and on one occasion a member of her backup group had come to the university posing as her father.

  Jamilla had seduced a high-ranking official of the INS, and her backup team had sprung the honey trap so that it looked as though the man—who was married to money—were in as much danger as Jamilla. The team had extorted various visas and passport stamps, which were eventually used by Intiqam.

  When they had completed the entire job, the INS man had been involved in a road accident that left his wife a widow. They knew things were completely safe when the widow married again within a year.

  On the evening that Big Herbie Kruger had arrived at Warminster, Samih called a meeting of the cell in the apartment he occupied with Walid and Khami. They sat around on pillows and spoke English as usual. Part of their briefing had stressed that they should never lapse into their native tongue.

  Samih began by telling them how lucky they were to have been appointed to the United States. “I prefer doing the work here rather than in Europe,” he began, going on to explain that Europe was attuned to freedom fighters or revenge squads. “Their security agencies are more active, and their police are constantly aware. They can read the signs of our kind of activity as a blind man reads braille. We must pray for our brothers and sisters who work in that hostile environment.”

  He talked for some time about the way people in the United States were of the opinion that so-called terrorist activities could never happen on a large scale. He told them that during the war their beefed-up security measures lasted only a minimum amount of time. “For instance, they suspended curbside check-in of airline baggage during the time they called Desert Shield and Desert Storm, but lifted this ordinance almost before the war was over.” He spoke about the strict checks made on people who flew out of the United States—particularly on British Airways and El Al—yet the folly that surrounded other measures.

  “There was panic for a few days after that bungled bombing attempt at the World Trade Center in New York in February of ’93. But when no other attempts took place, the man in the street shrugged and took no real precautions. It would have been very different in Europe.” He nodded. “Also, the media here is less sophisticated than in countries which have been subject to righteous attacks by freedom fighters. After the World Trade Center bombing, the media announced, on live television, that certain suspects were about to be arrested, giving the suspects time to escape. Here the media has no conception of security.”

  He then said that, because of this, they would be apt to take chances, reminding them that in the Trade Center incident the various agencies had got their hands on the culprits relatively quickly. “In spite of being lax in some ways, the American police force, the FBI, CIA and others were dogged in the apprehension of suspects. We must not forget that.”

  Then he began to speak of the next targets they would attack. This time they would use the Semtex explosive that had been smuggled into the country almost two years before their mission. “Tomorrow.” He smiled with pleasure. “Tomorrow the Americans will hear explosions.”

  During the next twenty-four hours a car bomb exploded in the center of Manhattan, during the rush hour, while a briefcase bomb shut down a portion of the subway for three days. There were forty deaths and over one hundred and fifty injured, some maimed for life.

  Worst of all, a commercial airliner that had just taken off from La Guardia exploded in midair. Luckily, the debris fell into the East River, but all forty-two passengers and crew died at three thousand feet above the city.

  Nobody claimed responsibility, but individuals with both the FBI and CIA counterintelligence departments knew that, in the end, these gross actions were their responsibility. They were stunned, looking gray, sick, their eyes carrying a haunted expression.

  People on the streets had a similar demeanor: an anxiousness around the eyes, and a newfound hurrying step, as though they wanted to move quickly through the city and flee the impending doom of a terrorist action.

  The President went on television that night, admitting that this was the worst terrorist action the country had ever experienced and urging his fellow Americans not to be fearful of what might lie ahead.

  In many ways, it was as though millions of American citizens were joined together in a collective mourning. Some had not felt the like since the dark days of the Vietnam War, which meant that many thousands were again feeling the soft stench of Death’s breath on their cheeks.

  5

  HERBIE HAD BEEN RIGHT about Gus’s study: there was a strange feeling in the room, as though the old interrogator still inhabited the place. The aroma of his pipe had impregnated the curtains and his books, so that Herbie felt he was surrounded by the essence of Gus Keene, bringing him back to mind with frightening clarity.

  Herbie walked around the room trying to rediscover his old friend. This, he soon realized, was a disturbing experience. As he wrote in his diary, it was disconcerting, for he heard the sound of the interrogator’s footsteps, imagined the door opening—it still had a slight squeak of the hinge, which, he assumed, had not been oiled for a purpose. The way G
us had his worktable set up, he was forced to sit with his back to the door. Gus never liked sitting with his back to doors, so some kind of warning was necessary, hence the squealing door, which Kruger recalled in dreams of the time he had faced Gus Keene in this very place.

  On the first night, the three of them—Bitsy, Ginger and Herbie—drove into Salisbury for an Indian: Ginger driving and not drinking, which allowed Herb and Bitsy to knock off an entire bottle of unconscionably ragged red with no pedigree. They also shared a chicken vindaloo, and Bitsy became almost girlish about the heat generated by the curry. In fact, they got quite chummy and exchanged the names of mutual friends, both in and out of the Office.

  “Herb, you’ve lost a lot of weight, you know,” Bitsy told him. “You’re not ill, are you?”

  “Lost my appetite for a while, Bitsy. Getting it back now.” He placed a spoon heavily loaded with chicken and mango chutney into his mouth and chewed. To himself he admitted he was getting an appetite again. If truth be told, Bitsy could tell that Herb found her attractive, after a physical and lustful manner. As for Herbie, he allowed himself to flirt outrageously with Ms. Williams. Later, he chided himself. The thought of light, or even heavy, relief with Bitsy was not unpleasant, but he had vowed not to go through all that again.

  Life, he had long decided, had a tendency to screw you. Under his breath he had muttered, “The screwing you are getting ain’t worth the screwing you get.” This was an adage—slightly fractured by Herb’s English—passed on to him many years ago by Tony Worboys, when the world, and Worboys, really were young.

  Bitsy was attractive in a manner difficult to describe. The hair was not brilliant; dark, though not the jet of a nightshade witch. Her face was slightly irregular, the nose just a trifle too big, though the eyes, large and brown, would widen, becoming disconcertingly innocent; while her mouth was molded after the manner of Carly Simon—something that lit up Herb’s libido like a marker beacon.

  The interest did not go unnoticed, for she kissed him lightly on the cheek before retiring, and the faithful Ginger remarked that he should “take heed of the lady.” A strangely Shakespearean comment, which Kruger put down to the fact that Ginger had done a lot of work with members of an old Office family—just as Kruger had—and to be with any of them meant Shakespeare was an obligatory second language.

  Books surrounded him in Gus’s old study, and he browsed quietly, noting titles. There was, of course, some fiction. Crime and Punishment nestled close to Anna Karenina and a Folio Society Collected Plays of Chekhov. Modern authors were also there: the more humorless espionage authors. Only the very good ones. No dross. Not a hint of the Bond-wagon.

  Inevitably, there were the famed books on torture—Parry, The History of Torture in England; Andrews, Bygone Punishments; Haggard, The Lame, the Halt and the Blind; Jardine, The Use of Torture; Duff, A Handbook on Hanging, The Methods of the Inquisition, Edited by A. C. Keene. So, Gus had even added to the literature.

  The bulk of the volumes, though, were required trade reading. Histories of the Office—as they called the SIS—both whimsically bad and inaccurate, as well as scholarly and near-perfect. Nigel West rubbed shoulders with Christopher Andrew. There were works on psychiatry and tradecraft and international diplomacy, plus obligatory tomes on intelligence services—Mossad, the KGB, CIA, NSA and others in a similar line of business. Most of these were now period pieces, outdated in the rush to realignment since the main enemy had ceased to be, and the true menace lay under different patches of earth, in unfamiliar places.

  He heard the line of some once-popular song in his head, and he turned it around, as was his practice. Singing under his breath, “I’ll be seeing you, in all the unfamiliar places …”

  In the center of the room an old, polished table, almost too big for the space, sat covered with items of work. It was a fine and wonderful table, probably worth a small fortune. Herb suspected that it was the real thing: a refectory table from some convent. Get thee to a nunnery, Gus. There was a laser printer at the fireplace end, next to a Macintosh Centris. To the left of the high-tech hardware lay a small printout of manuscript, about an inch high, while the rest of the table was taken up by piles of bulging ring binders, riding into a skyline.

  On that first night, full of vindaloo and vegetable curry, Kruger looked only at one red folder carrying the word “Correspondence” on a laser-produced sticky label. The correspondence seemed haphazard, mainly between Gus and his publishers: for the most part a series of letters between the interrogator/author and a faceless editor with the unlikely name of Mark Collier. He flipped through the letters, noting that the earliest dates had very correct salutations and sign-offs:

  Dear Mr. Keene,

  I was delighted to learn that we have finally come to an agreement, via your agent, Mr. De Monds, whom I have known for a number of years … et cetera, et cetera …

  Sincerely,

  Mark Collier.

  As things progressed, after a first meeting was arranged and kept—at The Connaught, no less—the letters became more relaxed. “Dear Gus” and “As ever, Mark.” The formal wooing was over and the honeymoon began. There was an enthusiastic piece about the title, Ask a Stupid Question. (So what was the twaddle Carole was giving me? he wondered.)

  Mark had written: “It is absolutely right for a wide market, as it should appeal to the serious scholars of what you refer to as your trade, plus the huge readership of the more superior novels of espionage.”

  Herbie pondered, sitting there at three in the morning, asking himself if Gus was pulling a fast one, with the connivance of the Chief. Producing a book of only near-fact, for who but the archivists—and Angus Crook—would be able to gainsay him?

  The thought was banished when he came to a long letter bemoaning the news that it was unlikely Gus would be allowed to include the more juicy details of some highly sensitive interrogations, in both Belfast and London, concerning operations against the Irish Republican Army. “For instance, we could sell the book on Operation Cataract alone,” Mark had written more in sadness than in anger.

  Kruger nearly fell from Gus’s comfortable chair at the mention of Cataract. His heart thudded, he could hear it in his ears; and a lance of alarm passed through his nervous system, for this had been one of the closely guarded secrets of the late 1980s. The simple fact of its being there, in an open letter, caused him to peer earnestly around the room, as if to assure himself that nobody was peeping over his shoulder.

  Unless he was very much mistaken, Cataract documents were classified at the highest level, and everything remotely touching on it was probably locked away in a nuclear shelter in some remote part of Norfolk, never to be opened until the last trump.

  Herbie knew about Cataract because he had been involved, as had the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Special Air Service—the PIRA and the SAS—not to mention the Office—the SIS. Shame and scandal in the family that is the British Government would heap embarrassment on great names should any of Cataract become public property.

  For the first time, Big Herbie fully realized that his investigation of Gus Keene’s long professional life, and his fast, horrible death, would be like a trip down the Burma Road, or even the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Long and arduous.

  He scribbled in his diary, which was more a way to quiet his own soul than apprise anyone else of his most secret feelings, and took himself to bed, where he dreamed of rolling green hills and a faceless man who followed him with deadly intent. He woke, sweating and alarmed, just after five, before the advent of the dawn chorus, and went out onto the landing, trying to find his way, fuddled and drunk with sleep, to the bathroom.

  Returning to bed, he could not sleep. Gus penetrated his waking thoughts and he found himself worried about the mountain that had to be climbed. Finally, he dropped into sleep again, awakened by Ginger with coffee. “She wanted to bring it to you, sir. But I thought that might be a bit iffy.”

  “Very iffy, Ginger. Thanks.”

&nb
sp; “Breakfast in half an hour.”

  “Great,” which he did not mean. Herb wanted to close his eyes and retreat under the covers. With that realization he suddenly sat bolt upright, wide awake now. Why did he want to sleep and hide from the day? Gus, he thought. Gus, or Gus’s ghost, warning him off. List! List! Oh, list. He saw with a new clarity that this journey down memory lane with Gus Keene was going to be bloody dangerous. Particularly if Gus had originally planned to publish details of Cataract. He could not have done this, Herb thought. Never in a hundred years. But there it was, last night anyway, on a computer-generated page, a letter no less, coming from a London publisher, which meant Lord knew how many people had seen it—the very word Cataract.

  Before heading for the dining room, having showered, shaved and dressed in record time, Kruger returned to Gus’s study, where he opened the red file again, just to make sure he had not dreamed it. It was there, just as it had been there last night, in a letter dated May 28 of this very year. “For instance, we could sell the book on Operation Cataract alone,” the unknown, as yet unseen, Mark Collier had written.

  Big Herbie felt considerably edgy as he walked into the dining room.

  “Herbie, dear, what’ve you been doing? I thought I heard you come down ages ago.” Bitsy Williams was all done up in an elaborate black two-piece suit, saved from being severe by many gold buttons and piping around the collar and cuffs.

  “Had to look something up.” He knew that it sounded like a lie and he put on his big daft grin. “I’m in charge, so I can come down when I like anyhow.”

  “Of course you can, but I brought your breakfast through.”

  She had made him bacon, two eggs and a slice of fried bread, all beautifully arranged on a plate. A photograph for a Julia Child cookbook would not have been amiss.

  “What you all dressed up like a dog’s dinner for, Bits?”