The Righteous Spy

by Merle Nygate

  15

  West Kensington, London – The Next Day

  Being freelance had huge advantages; Petra was able to tell the private security company that she wasn’t available for assignments until further notice. This meant she could spend the three days after meeting Rafi thinking: about her father, about Alon, and about the past. She emptied the old shoebox that contained Papa’s memorabilia, passports, birth, death and marriage certificates on to the carpet and sat cross-legged, grasping for what was gone.

  The age-stained documents smelt of decay and tears. Among them, tucked between crinkled paper there was a single black and white photograph; two boys holding hands with a woman wearing a coat and hat. She walked towards the camera smiling with the stubborn determination of someone on a holiday they couldn’t afford. In the background there were beach huts and other passers-by. One of the boys carried a bucket, the other a spade. The grinning kid with the bucket had tousled dark hair; his shirt was half undone, and half tucked in. The other boy was distracted by something out of frame and despite the holiday setting his expression was troubled.

  Petra had taken the photograph out of the box and slipped it into her iPhone wallet. Now she carried it with her when she went to meet Rafi and his colleague.

  She spotted them as soon as she walked into the long, low hotel lounge in West Kensington. It was an anodyne space, more a gallery than a lounge, with chairs to one side leading to a dining room at the far end. There, by a colourful board advertising the business breakfast special, a hopeful maître d’ eyed the empty space.

  But he surveyed the lounge in vain; it was empty apart from an older woman resting on a sofa with a big bag by her swollen feet and – as far away from anybody else as possible – the Israelis. There were two of them, Rafi and a man with a shaved head, hunched around a low table, heads forward conspiratorially, coffee on the tray. Petra strode over to them and Rafi stood up.

  ‘Hi, good to see you. What would you like?’ he said.

  ‘Just another cup, please,’ Petra said without sitting.

  The other guy stood up. He was shorter than Rafi, only about five-foot-nine but he had fine grey eyes with heavy lids. He held out his hand to shake hers. ‘I’m Benny,’ he said.

  ‘Nice name,’ Petra said.

  He smiled. It was a warm smile. ‘One of my favourites. Thank you for coming. Thank you for agreeing to help us.’

  His English was almost perfect.

  ‘I haven’t agreed to help you, I’ve agreed to talk to you. By the way, are you British?’ Petra said. ‘Or have you studied here?’

  ‘Studied and worked.’

  ‘Benny is one of our best people,’ Rafi said. ‘How many languages have you got? Eight is it? Or more?

  ‘Don’t exaggerate,’ the Israeli calling himself Benny said.

  Another cup arrived and there was some small talk about traffic, weather and caffeine before Benny sat straighter, stroked his skull and said, ‘I understand that Rafi has given you the bare bones of the story.’

  Petra nodded.

  ‘To flesh it out – a young woman we’re interested in is attending a short course at an English language school near Oxford,’ Benny said. ‘As luck would have it there is a vacancy for a tutor. We want you to apply for the summer job. The target will be living at the school which is a boarding school during term time, the type of place the British aristocracy go to. So, you will live at the school.’

  ‘Hold on, all Rafi told me was that there’s someone you want me to babysit,’ Petra said. ‘He said nothing about teaching.’

  Benny said, ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Yes, I’m not a teacher and my experience, such as it is, was with children up to the age of 11. All I do now is some voluntary athletics with kids. It’s not teaching English as a foreign language which is a specific skill.’

  Benny appeared to be unfazed. ‘Not perfect, I agree,’ he said. ‘But more importantly you have what you call the DBS check, and it’s current.’

  ‘Disclosure and Barring Service? Yes... it’s current. But it’s in my name, my real name. I can’t transfer it to a cover name.’

  Rafi broke in, ‘You will be using your real name.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Petra said.

  ‘That’s why we need you,’ Rafi said. ‘And only you. You have a teaching qualification and the DBS. We will provide you with more recent references.’

  ‘And you have the operational experience,’ Benny said. His voice was warm and encouraging and she recognised it as the carrot moment; the pep talk to send you over the top; the soft sell to con you into buying what you don’t want; the professional manipulation.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Benny said. ‘The young woman we’re interested in has a brother. We want to be certain – or as certain as we can be – that he doesn’t come to visit her. If he does, we need to know instantly.’

  Benny broke off as a businessman in a blue suit ambled slowly past, his eyes fixed on the dining room. The maître d’ bobbed up and pushed a menu into his hand which the businessman studied.

  ‘Much as I’d like to help there are a couple of elements I don’t like about this. To start with, you’re talking about a six-week residential in a professional role where I have zero experience. It’s one thing to tell a target you’re a fund manager or a doctor or a travel agent. It’s another thing to actually do the job. Also, even if I could be convincing in that role, I’m not happy about using my own name.’

  Benny nodded then glanced at Rafi before he spoke. He sounded grave, ‘The fact is that the girl has some very dangerous connections; there is a threat to the United Kingdom. We are monitoring that threat and we want you to help us find the connections and that includes the brother.’

  ‘I see,’ Petra said.

  ‘That’s why we need someone with operational experience and your particular skill-set. You will need to be alert at all times. It’s extremely important that we have eyes on her that we can rely on.’

  There was silence around the table. Petra was aware of the two men watching her, waiting for her to agree.

  ‘Give me five minutes to think about it,’ she said.

  Jolting herself to her feet, Petra marched away from the two men who returned to their hunched position over the low round table. As she walked towards the stairs that led to the reception area and out into the street, she checked her phone. The photograph was tucked into the leather cover and it was still there. Safe.

  Glancing around the lobby through the doors into the street beyond the grey drop-off parking area and the humming traffic, she thought how easy it would be to just walk through the doors and go home. Why not? They couldn’t do anything about it. There was no reason in the world for her to stay and get involved with the lies, deceit and paranoia again. Yet she recognised with clarity that she was the best person for the job.

  Petra found a seat in a corner of the lobby and slumped into it. Then she looked at the photograph.

  The boy with his head turned away from the camera was her father; the teacher she’d tried to emulate and failed; the kind man who never spoke of the past. There was no doubt in her mind that he would have approved of her taking part in an operation to protect the UK. He loved England for the home it gave him and the foster parents who took him in when his own were murdered. And Alon, the tousled boy in the photograph who had shared her father’s journey; shared his food with him, his boots with him. And shared his loss. Not brothers bonded by blood, but by grief and survival.

  Unlike Papa who would shake his head, look away and then change the subject when she asked why she had no grandparents like the other children, Alon was different; he told her. Happy to talk about the past, he’d stab the air with his perennial cigarette, and tell her all the stories that her father denied her.

  And however grim the story of loneliness, danger and privation might be, Alon always spoke with a casual shrug as if dismissing the pain, ‘Everybody in Israel has got a story of survival,’ he’d
often say. ‘Everybody. Everybody has a story about decisions that were right or wrong. Of getting on the train to occupied Germany where work was promised, or waiting for the Russians to come. Of running away from Turkey after the Thrace pogroms and finding it more dangerous in the British Mandate of Palestine.’

  ‘Right decisions and wrong decisions,’ Alon had said the last time they’d met when she told him that after five years she was resigning. She remembered him stirring the tiny cup of coffee in the Hippopotamus Restaurant in Paris.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘We all need to stop running. It’s what I said to your father when I told him I was going to fight the British Mandate for independence. We argued. He didn’t agree with me. He said the UK was our refuge.’ Alon had picked up the spoon and stabbed the air. ‘I told your father I was fighting for the chance to stop running. You know what “sabra” means?’

  ‘It’s the prickly fruit, the national fruit, sweet on the inside and –’

  ‘It means – to rest. To stop running.’

  Petra tucked the photo back in the phone cover and put it away. Her wrong decision had been not to keep in touch with the man who’d looked after her father in the displaced persons camp after the war. Her right decision would be to keep faith with him and keep the UK safe.

  Turning away from the door to the street, Petra walked to the stairs that led to the hotel lounge.

  16

  West Kensington, London – Thirty Seconds Later

  Eli watched Petra and Rafi walk down the narrow lounge and disappear from sight. As soon as they’d disappeared, the man in the blue suit who’d been drinking coffee at the end of the lounge ambled over to Eli. He sat down on one of the empty chairs; Yuval, the man in the blue suit, poured coffee from the cold cafetière into Rafi’s empty cup and tossed the liquid to the back of his throat. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and grimaced at the taste. Then he took the directional mic out of his ear and dropped it into a small box that was in his pocket.

  ‘She looks okay,’ Yuval said. ‘At least from where I was sitting. The connection with Alon is useful. Did you really visit him on the moshav as you told her?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I did,’ Eli said.

  ‘Good,’ Yuval said. ‘What do you think? Can she do it?’

  ‘For sure. She’s smart, maybe she’s too smart but she’s convincing and she’s experienced.’

  Yuval nodded; he sounded thoughtful. ‘I noticed that you didn’t help them make a plan for the job interview. Why?’

  ‘Auftragstaktik,’ Eli said using the German word. ‘Mission command. It’s best for flexibility. Trainer and Rafi know they need to get her into the language school so they have the target and the time frame. It’s better if they develop their own plan.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be setting Rafi up to trip over? You wouldn’t do that would you?’ Yuval said.

  Eli considered the question, ‘I think we need to see how Rafi behaves in the field. As I’ve said, he may know his way around a detonator and can hotwire any car, but he’s not experienced at agent running. That’s not a criticism; it’s a fact. And if he’s not up to this particular job, it would be better for the operation to find out sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Agreed, he hasn’t got the experience and he certainly isn’t the agent runner you are, but we give him a chance.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing,’ Eli said. ‘If he gets Trainer into the school, fine. If he doesn’t then I should run her; I’ll get her into the school. In fact, there’s a good argument that if I ran Trainer it would make the operation more cohesive.’

  ‘You haven’t got the time,’ Yuval said with finality. ‘You can’t be in two places at once.’

  Yuval stood up and tugged the edges of the crumpled jacket towards the middle but made no attempt to do it up. ‘Ready?’

  Eli patted the pocket of his linen jacket, ‘I’ve got my tie.’

  ‘Good. Be alert. It will be a complicated meeting. I want you to take note of all their reactions while I make the pitch.’

  Yuval extracted a neat package out of the plastic bag by his side. He ripped open the tissue and revealed a black silk tie with a pink diagonal line. ‘Like it?’ Yuval said. ‘My wife bought it for me – she had to tell the shopkeeper I went to school here. You know why? It’s a Westminster school tie – that’s where all the famous British spies go.’

  Eli stood up and waved to the serving staff for the bill. ‘Ah, the old school tie,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should all get them. That and a Yale class ring and SVR-issue rubber sole shoes so we’ll all look the same because we are all the same. Come, Yuval, let’s bait the line.’

  On the Number 9 bus to The Travellers Club in Pall Mall, Eli and Yuval talked about British architecture, military history and soccer. It was procedure not to have operational conversations on public transport.

  At 12.30 the bus stopped almost outside the door of The Travellers Club and seconds later the two men climbed the steps to the massive front door. The door swung open and they gave their names to a man who looked like a retired adjutant.

  ‘We’re here to see Mr Milne,’ Yuval said stroking his Westminster school tie.

  ‘He’s expecting you, Sir. David will show you through to the library.’

  Yuval and Eli followed a slight man up a mahogany staircase and on the upper landing they were shown into the empty library. Alone in the room, Eli listened to the tired tick of a clock on the mantelpiece while Yuval drifted over to the windows and examined the glass. He tapped the surface with approval.

  ‘Good grade. The same as we use at HQ; it’ll stop a bullet among other things.’

  ‘Why would a library within a club need it?’ Eli was studying a black bust set in an intricately carved hollow in the wall. ‘Who are they expecting?’

  ‘Preparation,’ Yuval muttered. ‘Good practice. I love that about the Brits. They used this place when they brokered the deal with the Libyans in 2003. And there were plenty of people who would quite happily have shot that deal apart including Tsar Putin.’

  ‘These clubs are a really useful resource. We could do with something like this.’

  ‘We’ve got Cyprus – but then so has everyone else.’ Yuval said.

  ‘Good morning, Yuval,’ a soft voice interrupted the two men. ‘Lovely to see you again.’ Eli turned to see a medium-sized man in a fine worsted suit of charcoal. Very much the slick technocrat, Milne wore a crisp white shirt, tortoiseshell glasses and an open, easy smile. Only his shoes betrayed him; they gleamed and when Milne approached Yuval he used long, strong steps – army parade ground steps.

  The MI6 man shook Yuval’s hand and then noticed the tie. For a moment Milne looked perplexed. ‘Really?’ he said.

  Yuval grinned, ‘Just trying to fit in.’ He rolled the ‘r’.

  Milne threw back his head and barked a laugh. ‘Very funny,’ he said. But when he straightened his head Eli caught a glint in Milne’s eyes.

  ‘Permit me to introduce Eli Amiram,’ Yuval said. ‘My deputy and the acting liaison officer between our services.’

  ‘How do you do,’ Eli said.

  ‘How do you do,’ Milne replied. ‘I’m delighted to meet you and by the way, your accent is remarkable.’

  ‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’

  ‘May I offer you gentlemen an aperitif before lunch? The club serves a more than passable Pink Gin.’

  ‘You know I don’t drink,’ Yuval said.

  ‘I’m ever hopeful,’ Milne said. ‘Eli you must join me for something, I insist. Pen Hardy, our American friend is as dry as the Mojave Desert. He makes me feel like an alcoholic when I have even a single glass of wine. And the cellar here is justifiably famous. There’s everything from Chateau Petrus to Dom Perignon.’

  ‘In that case I would love a glass of sherry before lunch – your recommendation,’ Eli said.

  ‘Splendid,’ Milne rubbed his hands together. His fingers were long and manicured; the muscles we
re strong. It occurred to Eli that they were the type of hands that could strangle if the necessity arose.

  The drinks duly arrived and Eli was sipping a dry fino when Pen Hardy, the American representative of the CIA joined them. He was about 40, tall, black, athletic and business-like. He declined refreshment and was keen to sit down for lunch in the coffee room where he ordered one course, still water and repeatedly glanced at his watch. Very much the senior partner in the proceedings, Pen seemed keen to make that point.

  In huge bites, Pen wolfed down his meal and then spoke. ‘I know Milne has already tackled you about the passport fiasco. While that didn’t directly impact on my government’s activities, it was still a breach of the relationship between your government and UK/USA. This isn’t the first time that you’ve been caught using NATO citizens’ passports for your targeted assassinations with the end result that we get dragged into your dirty business. Let me stress, this doesn’t sit well with the current administration.’

  Yuval looked abashed, even stricken. Eli was impressed.

  Hardy went on, ‘The message I have from our government is that you cannot expect us to supply you with intelligence related to your specific interests when as far as we can see you are not adhering to previously acknowledged and mandated agreements.’

  ‘Pen, this is why I have come to London,’ Yuval said. ‘And this is why the previous liaison officer has been immediately replaced by my colleague Eli. This incident with the passports was a serious lapse of judgement; we have already initiated an investigation to try to find out how this could have happened and to make sure it never happens again.’

  ‘I repeat, this isn’t an isolated incident,’ Pen said.

  Yuval ignored the argument; he went on, ‘To show you... to demonstrate our regret... we will... I have been instructed to advise you of all of our most up-to-date product.’

  Milne swallowed the morsel of cheese on the biscuit and raised the small glass of port to his lips.

  ‘That would be most appreciated,’ Milne said, still holding the glass and not drinking.