Alec Milius Spy Series Books 1 and 2: A Spy By Nature, The Spanish Game. Charles Cumming
Читать онлайн книгу.Seventeen: The Special Relationship
Twenty-Two: Plausible Deniability
Epigraph
I remember, in fact, the Lebanese woman I knew at Berkshire College saying to me, after I told her how much I loved her: ‘I’ll always tell you the truth, unless of course I’m lying to you.’
Richard Ford, The Sportswriter
Author’s Note
Were the events of this story entirely true, they would inevitably breach clauses in The Official Secrets Act. Nevertheless, members of the intelligence community both in London and in the United States may find that they catch their reflection in the account which follows.
–C.C.
London, 2001
PART ONE
1995
If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.
—Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment
ONE
An Exploratory Conversation
The door leading into the building is plain and unadorned, save for one highly polished handle. No sign outside saying FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, no hint of top brass. There is a small ivory bell on the right-hand side, and I push it. The door, thicker and heavier than it appears, is opened by a fit-looking man of retirement age, a uniformed policeman on his last assignment.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
‘Good afternoon. I have an interview with Mr Lucas at two o’clock.’
‘The name, sir?’
‘Alec Milius.’
‘Yes, sir.’
This almost condescending. I have to sign my name in a book and then he hands me a security dog tag on a silver chain, which I slip into the hip pocket of my suit trousers.
‘Just take a seat beyond the stairs. Someone will be down to see you in a moment.’
The wide, high-ceilinged hall beyond the reception area exudes all the splendour of imperial England. A vast panelled mirror dominates the far side of the room, flanked by oil portraits of grey-eyed, long-dead diplomats. Its soot-flecked glass reflects the bottom of a broad staircase, which drops down in right angles from an unseen upper storey, splitting left and right at ground level. Arranged around a varnished table beneath the mirror are two burgundy leather sofas, one of which is more or less completely occupied by an overweight, lonely-looking man in his late twenties. Carefully, he reads and rereads the same page of the same section of The Times, crossing and uncrossing his legs as his bowels swim in caffeine and nerves. I sit down on the sofa opposite his.
Five minutes pass.
On the table the fat man has laid down a strip of passport photographs, little colour squares of himself in a suit, probably taken in a booth at Waterloo station sometime early this morning. A copy of The Daily Telegraph lies folded and unread beside the photographs. Bland non-stories govern its front page: IRA hints at new ceasefire; rail sell-off will go ahead; 56 per cent of British policemen want to keep their traditional bobbies’ helmets. I catch the fat man looking at me, a quick spot-check glance between rivals. Then he looks away, shamed. His skin is drained of ultraviolet, a grey flannel face raised on nerd books and Panorama. Black oily Oxbridge hair.
‘Mr Milius?’
A young woman has appeared