The day after finishing his training Robert Lyle is sent to Glasgow by his recruiter, Gordon Arnold, to interview a retired agent for a routine security check. But the French physisist appears to be using his tradecraft and training though his everyday life and the following day Lyle is startled to discover that he is being followed by someone from outside, and is lucky to loose his persuer in a housing estate.
8
“Well?” Philip asked when Robert finally walked back into their hotel room four hours later. Robert took a bottle of water from the small fridge behind Angie and emptied it. He had taken a selection of buses, at random for a while before taking a taxi back to café he had passed for while. He liked to do that, there was symmetry to closing the loop, drawing a circle on the map in his head. There he had sat pretending to read how Africa was going to shit in the Independent but actually watching passers by out of the window. He enjoyed a black coffee and a pastry covered in almonds and sultanas and a fantastic pear filling so tangy he had bought another. This whole time Robert did not get one twinge, didn’t recognise a single face passing the window. Satisfied, he took a not quite direct route back to Phillip and Angie’s hotel.
Angie’s wide eyes were both anxious and jealous as she watched him.
“No question,” he told them “a definitive tail, something…” he stopped lost in thought. “I don't know what's going on.” He sighed taking another bottle and rolling up and down his neck. "What happened with the car?"
"Nothing, hasn't moved" Angie said. "but if they made you then it won't they'll leave it"
"I don't think made till i came out of the news agents, which means they must have recognised me...
"...from Rouxmont’s flat" Angie offered.
"Or they got it from his description" Phillip added sullenly.
“Well we don’t know, it doesn’t matter” Rob opened the second bottle of water and sipped. “I was made, one way or another”
“Well we made them too.” Phillip smiled and spun the laptop round. The poor resolution of a mobile phone snap shot showed a blurred face, pointed down but eyes up. “Best we could do, but its only 50 pixels by forty effective image.”
“Can you do anything with it?”
“Here? No, maybe field support, Thames House.”
“OK, send it.”
Phillip started tapping.
“No stop.” Robert span back
“What?”
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with. We can’t send it until we’ve thought this through.”
Angela leaned forward, what did he mean for gods sake? They were just tagged by another team. They were just out of the Heights, they were over their heads.
“Angela” Phillip spoke softly. “Arnold sent him, and sent us.”
“For a routine security check.” She countered.
“No, Arnold sent Rob, Angie. He sent him.” Phillip said.
Rob looked between the two of them, lost.
“No offence but you were always Arnold’s golden boy” Angie shrugged.
“He recruited me, that’s all.” Rob dismissed, cautious not to get into this again.
Phillip sighed “And we applied, Arnold’s old school, he knows we’re up here and he knows something’s up, otherwise it would just be Rob, but it isn’t Rob made a call and now we’re here too. If it wasn’t for Rob we’d be pushing paper.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’re still blown.” She sulked.
Rob waited, he knew he should stamp down, and reassure, but he also knew Angela was half right; they were out of their depth. But not alone, Arnold had sent Angela and Philip before his call yesterday, they had already been on their way. He chose his words carefully. “I was tagged, and it’s me that Rouxmont knows. Worst case scenario and he is selling out the great nuclear recipe book, well then we’re not actually any worse off. In fact we’re better because we know they’re there. If they’re watching him then odds then they saw me yesterday at his flat anyway, so we’re no worse off. They picked me up at the news agents and they walked right infront of Phil in the car which tells us they didn’t know about him. So we’re no worse of, we’re better of… Or it’s coincdence”
So which was it? Phillip asked.
“Which ever, lets assume you are both still safe.” Robert sank into a chair. “Let’s take it back, everything from fresh. Distance, no assumptions. What have we got?”
“Nuclear scientist.” Phillip started “given British citizenship, and shity deal for a life times worth of commitment. Approached while working on Polaris after rumours of being a traitor by KGB ring who believed it. Reported the approach to the service and was given the option to run with it by case office, one Gordon Arnold. He ran with it and closed a network, then again, four years ago most probably by a different group, and this time we told him no, though it seems he was willing. At all times his officer was Gordon Arnold, and it was Arnold to whom he turned when approached again, got the brush off from upstairs and ever since he was treated as a low priority, but with increased checks just incase. Not the most grateful way for his adopted nation to return his loyalty, he was relocated as a cursory action but we didn’t even change his identity. We picked up the touchers and we botched it, they are believed to have left the country after a judge ordered them released.”
Rob nodded. “When I saw him he was unhappy for his lot, and he felt cheated, but he wasn’t bitter... ”
“So we go and see him on a routine check.” Phillip continued.
“An over due one” Angela added
“So it was on the cards but unexpected, we may have appeared to have forgotten him.”
“Backs up the disenfranchised theory.” Phillip persisted.
“Hmm maybe, but if he wasn’t expecting us, then why is he using tradecraft?” Rob added
“You’re sure he was?”
“Yeah, there’s something I saw, I’m not sure what it was, he’s wily, I’m not ready to go with the traitor just yet. He nearly caught me, after I left a calling carding using standard code. So why worry, he wasn’t cagey when I saw him, he was confident in a way, but he nearly got me. He was on the look out, so why?”
“Because he thinks someone else is about?” Phillip offered
“And he be right” Angela smiled.
“Don’t get carried away, its still just a theory” Robert warned. “He wasn’t looking for someone else he rang my number, continuity bounced the call, the trade craft was for me. I’m sure he’s hiding something.”
“He could have the cold.” Phillip said quietly. The cold was what they called it when ex agents put out to farm started to go potty and think there were spies everywhere.
“No.” Said Rob. “He’s not dotty… he has two hide holes in his flat, one obvious, one very good… He used his age and his lack of speed as a tool. He says things very…”
Something he’d said… You look like one of Gordon’s.
“I think in someway he knows what he’s doing, whatever it is.”
Did Robert believe it? No, he just liked it, he liked it a lot, and it sat easier then the idea that Rouxmont had gone bad and was selling nuclear secrets to god know who after a life time of work in nuclear safety.
So what did they do next Angie asked.
“We watch, well you do. I’ve got to go, publicly. We want them to think I ticked all the boxes and went on my way. I think Rouxmont fell for the cocky young newbee thing, maybe. I got here by car so I’ll leave the same way and go drive south and see if I get any attention.” He stopped. “But I walked into the middle of a housing estate before I lost him… that must have looked like I was trying to loose him… I wonder if we might try something a little daring…”
“What?” Phillip looked up, the corner of his mouth tweaking slightly.
9
Gordon Arnold slammed his door, took a deep breath, realised he wasn’t going to calm down any time soon; he moved out a chair and climbed up onto it and then to the desk and disconnected the smoke alarm.
And he span the chair back round, opened the window, pulled a cloth from the bottom draw on his desk and tossed it against the gap under the door. The rest of the frame he had carefully draft proofed some months ago when this fanatical policy had been introduced. He slopped a generous whiskey and lit a Cuban cigar, and leaned out the window.
Bollocks to anything that the doctors said, they maintained it was drink and fatty foods giving him high bloody blood pressure, shite, it was Whitehall beurocrats…
His desk was a wash with reports and info, and was as archive material on Henry Rouxmont. And on top there was Lyle’s first and second reports. Looking at them and letting the thick smoke curl round his face Arnold wondered not for the first time if he was risking too much sending Lyle to Glasgow. But he felt sure Lyle would not get into trouble so long as he didn’t know what he was involved in, not yet. And Lyle was the right guy for it.
Arnold looked to the clock, no longer his favourite old teak Dutch mech. Since the move to Thames house everything had been clean, modern, stream lined… with the exception of a few listed features of the building it had no soul, except the sixth floor, the jungle which had not so much soul but a certain life that was missing from the rest of Thames House. Even since they had moved in, Arnolds office had been revamped with hi res flat screen monitors on two walls and yet another computer. As Director of Counter Espionage he had no choice, the service was changing fast and Count Esp was the last place for someone like him, a dinosaur from the cold war, the tools were changing; that he could use, the service now had the abilities he would fantasise about through the eighties when he was running agents in through London. Then it was becoming obvious that one day technology would revolutionise their industry. But, considered Arnold, it was the lack of technology that inspired some of their greatest and most cunning moments. Arnold had reached near genius when running his agents , when he was trying to protect them, or their children. For a few moments Arnold found himself thinking of Kate Foster, for the first time in weeks. This business ran in mysterious ways, loyalty was something Arnold took very seriously and at the same time treated with a great amount of scepticism. Gordon Arnold chose is loyalties with great care. Brian Foster had been one he had little control over. The loyalty with which Brian had given his life had infected Arnold, permanently, and it echoed in him still, crossed over to Kate, and now to Robert, though he would never admit it. The hint of a cold sweat tickled his hairline as he remembered the promise he’d made, and as he remembered the blast that had killed Kate. There was an ache in his jaw and for a moment his vision blurred, but he blinked the tears away. He transferred his thoughts to Robert Lyle, now in Glasgow poking around another of his old agents. The past and the present always reaching out to each other. What was old Henry up to?
Gordon had two and a half years left, and then he would be sixty, and the Governments solutions to the pension crisis would not be applying to him, he would be gone, retirement and boredom lay in front of him like a thick London fog, lonely and bored with nothing but the ghosts of old colleagues and their children for company. And maybe of his protégé too. Maybe.
He flicked the cigar out of the window and finished the drink. There was a knock at the door. He whipped up the cloth.
“It’s Me” Tom Jefferson poked his round the door and smelling the cigar smoke he slipped quickly in and closed the door. “You’ve got Lyle on three, and they’ve sent a picture to tech support.”
“What of?” Arnold’s finger hovered over the button marked three.
“some bloke…” Jefferson hesitated. “They’ve described as question mark 3rd party Operative.”
“They’ve written that on the request?”
“Yes.”
“Bugger, damn, right, never mind, thank you.” These five phrases signalled a thought process begun executed and concluded. Arnold picked up the receiver an stabbed at the button.
Outside at his desk Tom continued reviewing the weeks threat reports, ready to maximise the window if needs be. On the opposite side he as actually reading case files for Operation Bright Fly the code name for Rouxmont’s cover, abridged to his security clearance, which was frustratingly high enough for him to be permitted to see that there were tantalising and crucial details that he was being denied. Where as the lower levels would be offered only a sanitised version of events. T was accepted that Tom and others of his level could have need to know if there was information he was being denied.
Also on his screen he was viewing the slow progress of enhancing the mobile phone image that Lyle had sent in, and he was also surreptitiously reviewing the Active Ops list for the UK Mainland, something he was not entirely supposed to have and something that Gordon had turned a blind eye to because it saved him the tiresome trouble of having to do it himself. And he was doing it now precisely because of the title of Lyle e-mail. The first thing Gordon would ask when he was off the phone would be if there was any chance that there was a home side playing the turf, but so far there was nothing.
All this while a small but sufficient amount of his attention was on the bright red light, showing that Arnold was still on the phone.
The light flicked off and immediately Arnolds door swung open, he came through, but paused over the threshold, momentarily distracted.
“Do we have anyone up there?”
“No, not from 5, I don’t think 6 do either, but” he shrugged, Gordon nodded. “and nothing of the board from GCHQ.” Tom Continued.
“Well Lyle seems convinced, sounds like he has grounds.” Gordon’s brow twitched. “he needs a legend, for this post code… and he needs it by tomorrow.”
“OK, what sort?”
“to justify his leading someone into that postcode, and then loosing them in that postcode, the nearer the junction the better.”
Tom had a map up, “Right, give me fifteen minutes to come you with some possibilities.” Gordon nodded.
Still keeping an eye an on the image in the top right corner of his screen Tom brought up voters role, inland revenue records, utility records, credit searches, drivers licences. One face caught his eye, Emily Braughton… he flicked back to her credit records… her house was three down on the junction. Tom found her cable TV subscription and her DVD rental account, he also got her internet shopping account, from the single taste in films, food, TV channels Tom reckoned there was a very good chance, she was single. Looking at her DVLA records Tom reached out and picked up the phone.
“now then me old mate, how’s the big city.” A thick Glaswegian accent asked jovially.
“Full of life brother”
“as good a thing as any to be full of.”
“Oh aye, accept ale” Tom answered completing the much repeated exchange. Now with the formalities over. “Look Tavvy you still live on the Branworth?”
“Yes…”
“I need a favour Tavvy, its for the firm, so, on the hush yeah?”
“Sure thing, you want me to break into an embassy, seduce a beautiful Swedish woman, shag the arse and the secrets off her?”
“steal a car.”
“One day you have to find me a Swedish woman to seduce friend…”
“We’re not an escort service Tav…”
“Promise you’ll try?”
“If we ever have some hot Swedish ass needs a damn good seeing to you’ll be the first call I make ok?”
“good enough for me Jesse me ol’ fruit, what’s this car then?”
“Blue Escort, reg number C284TEK, it will be there at around 6 we think, but I can’t say how long for.” Tom gave him the address and at the same time booked himself into a travel hotel on the edge of town via their website.
“You want it torched? Found? not found?” Tav’s voice was muffled, the phone under his chin and the sound of flicking street map pages.
“Dress like a street kid, leave at speed, we don’t think you’ll have an audience but we’re not sure, and don’t rush it, I’ll send you an address when I have it, we’re putting his together in a hurry, take your time, if you spot anyone following you give me a bell, if at all possible we want the car in good nick, break the window obviously, hot wire it, but don’t torch it or anything, we’re giving it back.”
“Sounds like it.” Tav was serious now.
“You gonna have any problems getting out?”
“No, not really but the sooner you guys get on and finish vetting then the sooner she’ll stop being convinced I’m cheating on her, know what I mean friend.”
“I’ll see what I can do buddy”
Tom got up and walked through to Gordon’s room, the plan all but formed in his head. Gordon listened, nodding at the fundamentals, but stern in his expression. There was nothing as nerve-racking as explaining a legend to the man who had in his career twisted the most convoluted and intricate webs. When he was done, Gordon nodded and that was the only acknowledgement Tom got. Gordon returned his gaze to the file in front of him and Tom left the room.
10
Emily closed the door behind her, and the click echoed around her house. Dropped her coat and bag on the chair and removed one of the pre-packed meals from the fridge and filled the kettle. She took her single cup miniature cafetiere form the shelf and opened a single serving sachet of coffee. In the drying rack was one plate, one bowl, two knives, two forks… one saucepan and a wooden spoon, what the drying rack always contained. Emily switched the radio on and took her bag upstairs, when she came down, the kettle was, as always, just boiling. She put the meal in the oven and switched on her computer on, and just as always stopped to sigh and close her eyes. Another night alone in this city… trying to keep herself sane from the monotony of this wretched placement. It didn’t help that despite her best efforts to have an opened mind, to embrace a new city and new colleagues but she just hated Glasgow, and despite trying she wasn’t wild on the Scottish.
While her PC booted she picked up her post, flicked through bank statement, charity appeals and found an envelope marked from the Edinburgh office of Price Waterhouse and Coopers. It was thin, just one page of paper, another rejection. She tossed it aside, she’d open it later, her PC beeped with the arrival of email, and outside a car sped off at speed. She’d like drive off that fast, if she ever got out she probably would and never look back. She replied to her mother, lying through her teeth, and to her friends, glossing over the truth. Then when it finally passed seven thirty, her limit of decency she took a bottle of red from the rack and got her tea from the oven, and tried to enjoy it. When she had finished it she took the plates back to the sink and once washed replaced them in the slots in the drying rack. As if she had never been there.
The knock on the door was assertive and firm, and startling not because it pierced the silence her evening but because no one knocked on her door, ever.
Through the peephole she surveyed two police constables, tired and bored looking, but only when she opened the door did she notice, over the younger one’s shoulder, that her car was not where it was supposed to have been.
Her car had been found, involved in an road traffic accident, after that she had stopped listening, but examined their ID cards and then got the car. Well it beat staying at home and getting drunk, again. Oh god her car, there was no way she could afford to get any damaged fixed, and if her car was gone she would have to pay ever increasing train fair to get back to Bournemouth. Thoughts of financial doom swamped her mind and she stared out of the window as the city passed by.
Once she reached the police station the manor of officers she was with changed, they became friendly, almost enthusiastic but also elusive, they took her through a couple of security doors and asked her to wait in a room that was almost certainly an interview room. Emily sat unsure, and was getting herself worked up to lay into who ever came in next.
The man who came through the door disarmed her with his neutrality and the fact he carried nothing in his hands. He smiled and sat down, spreading his hands on the table. “OK miss Braughton, I can see you know this isn’t what it appears so I hope that you’ll let me talk briefly then I’ll answer any questions you have.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Nothing at all no, and you’re free to leave when ever you like.”
“Where’s my car?”
“Your car is being valeted, and we’re taking that ding in the door out for you as well…”
“wha?”
“Perhaps you’ll let me introduce myself.” The man smiled, patiently. He was smart but neutral his hair parted on the left side, his face vague and non descript. “Jesse Thomson, I work for the home office. Now then, we need your help for reasons which are rather complicated we need to explain why some who works for us was on your street a couple of days ago. We need to give the impression that he knows you, justify why he was there, sort of an alibi.”
“Why was he there?”
“Yes, we think he was noticed and, well, we need to provide an innocent explanation.” The man smiled, seemingly contented with the explanation he had given. “Now, and please don’t be too upset but you don’t like your life here do you? And you’re in trouble with you credit as well, racking up more than you can payoff after a Mr Brias joined and left the voter’s role in 06… In short it seems things haven’t worked out well since you took your new job, we can change that. If you help us out we are confident we can offer you civil service position somewhere more friendly, somewhere warmer, more hospitable…” He smiled and leaned back.
“He was followed?” Emily leaned back tried to judge his face again. There was no way in, his eyes were nearly squinting, and his almost smiling face was a barrier.
“Yes.” Still not quite giving any hint of self.
“So… you are, and he is, some kind of…”
“Before we go on you need to read and sign these two pages of paper.” From nowhere Jesse Thompson had produced two pieces of paper stapled at fortyfive degrees at the top left corner, and a very nice matt black rollerball which signed like the paper were valvet. While she read the Official Secrets Act Jesse Thompson leaned back and studied her reaction to the sheet.
“And this means?”
“If you tell any one anything that we say to you or that you for us we send you to a military prison.” He smirked as she dropped the pen. “No, it means you don’t go volunteering information, sell our story to the papers, tell the people following our friend that we asked…”
“I get it…” she nodded, finished the signature, and scooted the paper back across the table. “so what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to shout at him, throw stuff at him and verbally abuse him any way you see fit.”
“Well, I can do that.”
“I had a feeling that you could”
Thomson now had a picture in his hand, again Emily did not see where he was getting these things from. She also realised he was doing this as part of some show, and once that occurred to her she immediately believed that every action he had made was designed to effect her impression of him. And his name was unlikely to be Jesse.
He slid the picture over. A young man with brown eyes and mop fringe smiled out in a carefully considered way. “His name is Damien.”
“Is it… well i’ll call him that, but I don’t believe you.”
Jesse’s well considered face twitched slightly. “Ok, then, let’s add some touches, build a scenario…” his eyes lit up and he leaned in, Emily could tell he really enjoyed this.
It was gone twelve when Tom walked in to his hotel room, booked under the name Jesse Thompson. He tossed his coat over the statuary armchair by the window, only in the travel lodge it was prefab and pine, shadowed where staines from previous occupants had been half heatedly scrubbed by bored minimum wage staff. He opened his case but didn’t unpack, just took out what he needed, and while running a bath, he called in, advising Gordon Arnold that Emily Braughton had agreed to help them, and in Tom’s opinion, she would do fine though he wondered if she wasn’t just ever so slightly… keen?
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