A Colder War

16

The Embassy of the United States of America was a low-roofed complex of buildings in the heart of the city, flat as the Pentagon and defended by black metal fencing three metres high. The contrast with the British Embassy, a lavish imperial throwback in an upmarket residential neighbourhood overlooking downtown Ankara, could not have been starker. While the Brits employed a single uniformed Turk to run routine security checks on vehicles approaching the building, the Americans deployed a small platoon of buzz-cut, flak-jacketed Marine Corps, most of them hidden behind tungsten-strengthened security gates designed to withstand the impact of a two-ton bomb. You couldn’t blame the Yanks for laying things on a bit thick; every wannabe jihadi from Grosvenor Square to Manila wanted to take a pop at Uncle Sam. Nevertheless, the atmosphere around the Embassy was so tense that, as he pulled up in a rattling Ankaran taxi, Kell felt as though he was back in the Green Zone in Baghdad.

After fifteen minutes of checks, questions and pat-downs, he was shown into an office on the first floor with a view on to a garden in which somebody had erected a wooden climbing frame. There were various certificates on the walls, two watercolours, a photograph of Barack Obama and a shelf of paperback books. This, Kell was told, was where Jim Chater would meet him. The choice of venue immediately raised Kell’s suspicions. Any discussion between a cadre CIA officer and a colleague from SIS should, as a matter of course, take place inside the CIA’s Station. Was Chater planning a blatant snub, or would they move to a Secure Speech room once he arrived?

The meeting was scheduled for ten o’clock. Twelve minutes had passed before there was a light knock on the door and a blonde woman in her late twenties entered wearing a trouser suit and a clip-on smile.

‘Mr Kell?’

Kell stood up and shook the woman’s hand. She introduced herself as Kathryn Moses and explained that she was an FP-04 State Department official, which Kell dimly recalled as an entry-level ranking. More likely she was CIA, an errand girl for Chater.

‘I’m afraid Jim’s running late,’ she said. ‘He’s asked me to step in. Can I get you a coffee, tea or something?’

Kell didn’t want to lose another five minutes of the hour-long meeting in beverage preparation. He said no.

‘Any idea what time he’ll be here?’

It was then that he realized Ms Moses had been sent deliberately to stall him. Settling into a revolving chair behind the desk, she gave Kell a brief, appraising glance, adjusted the sleeves of her jacket, then spoke to him as though he was a Liberal Democrat minister visiting Turkey on a two-day fact-finding tour.

‘Jim has asked me to give you an overview of how we see things right now developing locally and in the Syrian — Iranian theatre, particularly with reference to the regime in Damascus.’

‘OK.’ It turned out to be a mistake to imply consent, because Moses now cleared her throat and didn’t draw breath until the clock on the office wall had moved to within a few second-hand clicks of half-past ten. There was background on the State Department decisions to move the Istanbul Consulate out of town and to share an airbase with the Turks at Incirlik. Moses had views on the ‘contradictory’ relationship with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and was pleased that the ‘shaky period’ in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq — a veiled reference to Turkey’s refusal to cooperate with the Bush administration — was now a thing of the past. In the view of the Obama administration, she said, the Turkish leadership had come to the realization that membership of the EU was no longer a viable goal, nor was it particularly in the country’s interests. Indeed, despite accepting seven billion euros in aid from the EU over a period of ten years, Mr Erdoğan wanted ‘to turn Turkey’s face to the south and to the east’, establishing himself as ‘a benign Islamic Calvinist’ — not a phrase coined by Kathryn Moses — with Turkey as ‘a beacon for the rest of Muslim North Africa and the Middle East, a modern, functioning capitalist buffer state existing peaceably between East and West’.

‘If I could ask why you think I need to hear this?’

But Moses was deaf to Kell’s entreaties. Chater had put the screws on her and she would not risk incurring his wrath by allowing Thomas Kell to slip from her grasp. She had been told to keep him busy, and keep him busy was what she intended to do.

‘Just a moment,’ she said, and actually raised her hand, as though Kell had been rude to interrupt. ‘Jim was keen that you have some sense of where we are on all this, before you guys get together. As you probably know, the Prime Minister has been highly critical of US policy in the Middle East, hostile towards Israel, particularly in respect of the 2010 flotilla, but happy to allow NATO radar systems on the soil of the Republic and certainly supportive, in a tacit sense, of the overthrow of Assad as an Iranian/Russian client state. In other words, Mr Kell, we see the Turkish leadership at the present time as contradictory. Mr Erdoğan has reined in the military, stabilized the lira, overseen a boom in exports and foreign — particularly Gulf Arab — investment, but at the same time attempted to rewrite the Constitution to amass greater power. The man in the street sees him as a sultan, and has no problem with the increasingly moralistic and authoritarian tone of the leadership. Those with an instinctive fealty to Atatürk, of course, view him as a demagogue.’ Kell had to admire her chutzpah: Chater had probably given her ten minutes’ notice, but she was speaking with the fluency and confidence of a university lecturer. ‘So what do we have here?’ At last she glanced at some notes on her desk. ‘An Islamist in sheep’s clothing, rolling back the secular state and causing long-term damage to the region as a consequence, or the one guy in this part of the world that the West can actually do business with?’

Kell produced a smile to acknowledge that Moses had played a clever hand. ‘You tell me,’ he said. ‘You seem to have all the answers. I thought I was here to discuss the death of Paul Wallinger.’

But Moses did not get a chance to answer Kell’s question. As though he had been waiting in the wings of a theatre for a cue, Jim Chater walked into the office. Summoning Kell to his feet with outstretched arms, he took him into a tight bear-hug embrace with all the warmth and authenticity of a Judas kiss.

‘Tom. So great.’ The American broke off and stepped back to take a look at Kell, his mouth a wry grin, his gas-blue eyes fired up and doing their best impression of rapport. Chater looked just as Kell remembered him: short, physically fit, and egregiously self-satisfied. He was wearing two days of stubble, stonewashed denim jeans and a pair of Nike sneakers. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Couldn’t be helped. How’s Kathryn been treating you? She give you her grand theory on how we’re all at the centre of the universe? Turkey the most important country east of New York, west of Beijing?’

‘Something like that.’ Ordinarily, Kell might have conjured a chuckle here to make Chater feel top dog; in the old days, he had always worked on the assumption that it was best to flatter the Cousins. Now, though, as a free agent, he found that he wanted to retain some dignity; Kell no longer thought of himself as a company man. When he looked at Jim Chater, he didn’t see a chummy Yank, a trusted ally, a man with good points and bad. He saw a human being who had abandoned the better part of himself in a cell in Kabul. Kell remembered the stench and the violence and the vengeance of that place and felt the shame of his own complicity in it every day.

‘So how long you in town for?’ Chater said.

Kell had tickets to leave for Istanbul on the night train, but the CIA didn’t need to know that.

‘A few days,’ he replied.

Kathryn was watching them with quiet, underling deference. Kell hoped that she would soon leave.

‘Yeah? And you’re havin’ a good time?’

‘I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.’

Even a man as impregnable to self-doubt as Jim Chater recognized that he had been gauche. It was time to pay his respects to Kell’s friend and colleague.

‘Of course. Of course not. Look, Tom. We were all of us here shocked by the news about Paul. Such a tragedy. Such a senseless waste. I sent a note on behalf of my staff to London. I don’t know if you saw that?’

Kell said that he hadn’t, a response that opened a convenient door for Chater.

‘That’s right, so where are you now? I heard you were out. I heard you were in. What’s your status? How can we help you?’

Kathryn chose this moment to ease out of the room. (‘I’m going to leave you gentlemen to it.’) Kell shook her hand, said how nice it had been to meet her, and caught a beat of appreciation in the interaction between Moses and Chater. Just in the timing of his glance as she opened the door to leave; the body language of a job well done.

‘Clever,’ he said, nodding after her. ‘Interesting.’

‘You bet,’ Chater replied, but Kathryn’s absence had an immediate effect on Chater’s mood. He looked suddenly as Kell remembered him from Kabul: cynical, calculating, indifferent. ‘So,’ he said, rubbing the palm of his hand across the razored greys of his scalp, ‘you never answered my question.’

‘I’m back. Amelia wants answers. She sent me.’

‘Right.’ There was both a measure of doubt and a hefty dose of condescension in the tone of Chater’s response. ‘So what rank are we talking? You’re coming in as H/Ankara? Nothing like new blood to excite us, Tom.’

Kell knew the game that was being played. Did Thomas Kell have the clearance, the status, to deserve a full briefing on HITCHCOCK from James N. Chater III? Or was he just a glorified coroner, tying up the loose ends of Paul Wallinger’s life?

‘We’re talking STRAP 3 clearance,’ Kell replied pointedly. ‘Same as it always was. Same as it will always be. Doug Tremayne isn’t going to be running our Station, if that’s the question you’re trying to ask.’

‘I know what question I’m trying to ask.’ Chater’s blue eyes were fixed on Kell’s even as he twisted his revolving chair from side to side. ‘So you’re still her friendly face? You trust “C” after everything she’s put you through?’

Kell recognized the interrogator’s trick. ‘We both want answers,’ he replied, ducking under the provocation. ‘The past is a foreign country.’

A sound came out of Chater’s nose like a man having difficulty identifying the source of an unusual smell. He began to smile.

‘So you’re no longer Witness X? I heard Gharani was paid off by Her Majesty’s Government. Tom Kell isn’t going to have his day in court?’

‘Who are you asking for, Jim? Yourself or for the Agency?’

Chater’s arms went up suddenly, like an act of mock surrender, before clasping his hands behind his head. It looked as though he was about to tip back in the chair. He said nothing, but the smile held.

‘On Paul’s accident,’ Kell said. It was already ten forty-five. ‘On the crash. We think engine failure at this point. There was no black box, obviously. We’re just trying to piece together Paul’s final movements, tie up any loose ends.’

‘You got loose ends, Tom?’

It might have been the question of a concerned ally, but it was more likely an attempt to unsettle Kell by implying that SIS was disorganized. ‘We’re fine,’ he replied.

‘Paul was on vacation at the time?’

‘Yup.’

‘On Chios?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He had a place there?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

Chater glanced out of the window. His eyes seemed to focus momentarily on the climbing frame. ‘He have a girl out there?’

Kell sensed that Chater already knew the answer to his own question. ‘Again, not that I’m aware of.’

‘So what the fuck was he doing?’

‘That’s the loose end.’

Kell thought that he could hear children playing outside, but when he looked into the garden, there were none. Chater was asking too many questions.

‘I heard you got divorced.’

‘Where did you read that? Foreign Affairs?’ Kell was annoyed, but certainly not surprised, by the intrusion. It was trademark Chater to go creeping around in a colleague’s private life — asking questions, hearing things on grapevines — and then to bring up his findings in a meeting.

‘Don’t recall,’ Chater said, clearly lying. ‘Maybe the National Enquirer?’ Suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair and leaned forward at the desk, another shit-eating grin spreading out across his face. ‘So, we gotta get you a girl while you’re in town.’

‘You pimping on the side, Jim?’ Chater seemed stumped for a witty comeback. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine.’

It looked as though Chater had taken offence, or had at least lost interest in the subject. He looked down at the surface of the desk.

‘So, engine trouble, huh?’

Another question about Chios. Kell was certain now that the Cousins had information of their own about Wallinger’s accident. He took a risk, to gauge what reaction the name would generate. ‘I’ve got people talking to the engineer who worked on Paul’s plane before take-off,’ he said. ‘Iannis Christidis.’

It was as though Chater had been fed a piece of bad news through an earpiece. He twitched, touching the side of his neck. The recovery was just as rapid — all of this within much less than a second — but the relaxed, carefree way in which he said: ‘Oh yeah?’ betrayed a profound disquiet.

‘Yeah.’ Kell employed a straightforward bluff. ‘There was a small problem with the Cessna on the way in from Ankara. Paul had asked Christidis to check it out.’

‘Is that right?’ Chater glanced at his watch. ‘Hey, we need to get this thing done. I got an eleven o’clock.’

‘I’ve been saying that since ten.’

‘Touché,’ Chater replied.

‘Can we at least talk about Doğubayazit?’

Chater looked at Kell as though he had tried to offer him a bribe. ‘In here?’

‘Where then?’ Kell took Chater’s gaze back out of the window. ‘I’m not the one who decided to hold this meeting next to a playground.’

‘Kathryn’s fault,’ he replied, stacking the blame on a colleague as easily as he had secured the wrists of Yassin Gharani. ‘She didn’t know who you were. She didn’t know why you were here.’ Chater’s excuse bounced around the room in search of a good home. He held Kell’s gaze. ‘Well, look, we don’t have an option to move now,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to do this another time.’

‘When?’ Kell looked pointedly at his watch. ‘This afternoon? Tomorrow morning?’

He knew that within five minutes of the meeting ending, Chater would be upstairs in the CIA Station working a trace on Iannis Christidis.

‘Not going to work,’ the American replied. ‘I’m flying to DC at midday tomorrow, full up until then.’

‘When do you get back?’

Chater seemed to find the answer at the top of the security wall surrounding the playground. He was craning his neck as he said: ‘About a week.’

The Cousins knew something. Chater’s obstinacy spoke volumes about the CIA’s position on Wallinger.

‘I’m going to trust that these walls don’t have ears,’ he said. Outside the room, a man walked past in the corridor saying: ‘Sure, yeah, six.’ Chater was no longer looking out of the window. ‘We are expecting your report into HITCHCOCK. Any idea of a time frame on that?’

‘Imminent.’

‘What does that mean? Tomorrow? The next day? Or does it have to fly with you to DC and back?’

That at least earned Kell a smile. ‘About a week, Tom, yeah. We still have some’ — Chater enjoyed reviving the phrase — ‘loose ends.’

They had reached the end of the road. Three minutes were left on the clock, but Jim Chater seemed to be glancing at the second hand every twenty seconds.

‘Any chance I can speak to Tony Landau?’ Kell asked.

Landau was the CIA officer who had accompanied Wallinger to the Iranian — Armenian border.

‘Sure,’ Chater replied. ‘If you can get to Houston.’ Kell was about to respond when Chater sucked up the remaining time. ‘Look. You ask me, we don’t even know for sure if HITCHCOCK was in the vehicle. Whole thing could have been a bluff. Did your agent even exist?’

It was an astonishing accusation, not least because it implied that SIS had been fooled into running an Iranian agent pro-vocateur. Why was Chater going down this route?

‘Nobody can confirm the sighting, Tom. Nobody knows who was in the car.’

‘Come off it,’ Kell replied. ‘You guys shot a fucking video.’

‘Which showed nothing. Passenger had a beard like a mulberry bush. No way of telling it was Sadeq Mirzai.’

‘What are you trying to tell me? That your sources in Iran have seen Mirzai walking the streets? That Iranian intelligence set the whole thing up, sacrificing two employees in the process?’

‘Who’s to say they were employees?’ Chater shot Kell a look that he could only interpret as contempt for Wallinger’s botched role in the operation. ‘Could have been anybody. Could have been two patsies on a life sentence, making an extra buck for their families.’ Chater stood up from the desk, rubbing what looked like a bite on his left arm. ‘Look, it’ll all be in my report.’ It was clear that the discussion was over. ‘I’ll see you in a week, Tom. You take it easy.’

Kell had been obliged to hand in his mobile phone when he entered the Embassy. It was given back to him by a shaven-headed Marine, but was now operationally useless: Chater’s team, though unlikely to do so, had nevertheless been given more than an hour in which to strip the phone and fit it with state-of-the-art surveillance software. So Kell walked to a café three blocks from the Embassy, wrote down the numbers for Marianna and Adam, took the SIM out, then binned the phone and called Marianna from a public box across the street, using a card purchased at a nearby bakkal.

‘Marianna, it’s Chris Hardwick calling.’

‘Chris!’

Her voice was sprightly and excitable. Kell guessed that she was alone in the office; if Delfas had been looking over her shoulder, she would have sounded more circumspect. They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes — Kell catching up on all of Marianna’s family news — before eventually broaching the subject of the Sandor villa.

‘Do you remember mentioning that you saw Paul Wallinger talking to someone at one of the restaurants near your office?’

If Marianna was surprised by the line of questioning, the speed and enthusiasm of her answer did not suggest it.

‘Of course, yes. The man with a beard.’

‘That’s right. What restaurant were they in? The one below your office?’

Marianna had already told him that this was not the case, but Kell needed a starting point from which to discover the true location.

‘No, no,’ she said, predictably enough. ‘I think it was Marikas. In fact, I’m sure it was Marikas.’

‘How do you spell that?’ In the cramped, noisy phone booth, Kell scrawled down the name. After that it was just a question of winding things down. ‘I’ve got a feeling I went there for a coffee one morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Marianna. ‘You probably did.’

Kell cleared his throat. He asked three more questions about Marianna’s family, correctly remembering the names of her mother and father, then intimated that he was being called into a meeting. ‘Hopefully my report will be ready by the end of the week,’ he said.

‘You must have worked so hard, Chris.’ Marianna sounded slightly crestfallen that the conversation — indeed, the relationship — was drawing to an inevitable end. ‘I so wish we could meet again,’ she said.

Kell was aware of the cruel absurdity of his lies. In the old days, he had sometimes drawn satisfaction from simple manipulations of this kind; but no longer. An easy facility for deceit, an ability to make a lonely woman feel cherished, was hardly a talent of which a man of forty-four could be proud.

‘Me too,’ he said, and hated himself.

‘So when will you come back to see me?’ Marianna asked.

Kell could picture her in the solitude of the office, her face slightly flushed, seagulls clacking outside. Recruiting an agent is an act of seduction.

‘I don’t suppose for a long time,’ he replied, trying not to sound cold and distant. ‘Unless I get out to Greece for a holiday.’

‘Well, it would be wonderful to see you again,’ she said. ‘Please let’s stay in touch.’

‘Yes. Let’s.’

Kell hung up, extracted the card, and lit a much-needed cigarette. He began walking in the direction of his hotel. At the edge of a well-tended municipal park he spotted another public phone box, queued for two minutes behind a tracksuited Syrian, then dialled the number in Athens.

Adam Haydock was at his desk.

‘I’ve got some jobs for you.’

‘Go ahead, sir.’

Across the street, two bored cops were checking driving licences at random from passing cars and mopeds. Turkey: still a light touch police state.

‘It’ll mean going to Chios with a Tech-Ops team. It’ll mean getting clearance from London.’

‘From Amelia?’ Adam asked.

‘From “C”,’ Kell replied.