A Colder War

37

The break came within less than twenty-four hours.

Kell had installed himself in Wallinger’s office in the SIS Station in Istanbul, a screen to one side of the desk showing flagged-up fragments of Kleckner surveillance footage shot during the previous six weeks. His days were mostly taken up reading reports on Kleckner — anything that London had been able to ascertain about his life and career — as well as myriad classified files relating to EINSTEIN, HITCHCOCK, Sandor and Wallinger. Many of them Kell was reading for a second or third time, hoping to catch something that he had missed, a pattern, a flaw, an overlap that would unlock the mystery.

What made matters more complex still was not knowing whether the breaks and idiosyncrasies in ABACUS’s ‘patterns’ around the city were the results of Kleckner’s own, legitimate work as a CIA officer, attempting to recruit sources within Istanbul while working under diplomatic cover as a ‘Health Attaché’, or whether they constituted something more suspicious. On four occasions the SIS surveillance team tasked with following Kleckner had lost him. In the first instance, a trailing vehicle had broken down. In another, the same van had become lodged in heavy traffic and ABACUS had slipped from view. But on two other occasions, Kleckner had employed active counter-surveillance against a six-man team and shaken them off after just forty-five minutes. Was he meeting his handler, or an agent of his own? The leader of the surveillance team, a thirty-four-year-old British Asian named Javed Mohsin, had complained repeatedly that it was impossible to track ABACUS with anything less than ten officers. He needed eyes behind the target and ahead, anticipating where ABACUS may or may not go, based on previous behaviour. That meant numbers on the ground. Most of the team — as well as two Tech-Ops specialists with responsibility for the blizzard of cameras and microphones installed across Istanbul — had already been in Turkey for six weeks and were understandably keen to return home. Amelia was reluctant to request a replacement unit, not least because it would have to be seconded from MI5. That raised the risk of too many questions being asked in London about an operation against an American ally on foreign soil. At Kell’s suggestion, she agreed to look into hiring Harold Mowbray and Danny Aldrich, the freelancers who had helped in the hunt for her son, François, almost two years earlier. Elsa Cassani had also agreed to continue dedicating her time and resources to ABACUS.

Having looked at Kleckner from every angle, Kell had concluded that there was one area of his life that seemed particularly unusual: his regular visits to a small tea house on Istiklal, no more than fifty metres from the entrance to the Russian Consulate. Amelia had mentioned an attractive waitress at the café who seemed to have caught Kleckner’s eye, but the girl had since ceased to work there and there was no evidence that she had ever met Kleckner socially. Two weeks after her final shift, ABACUS was still going to the café two or three times a week, usually after shopping for books and magazines on Istiklal. Nothing unusual about that, but he showed no similar loyalty to any other establishment in the city, save for the café at his gym (where Kleckner would often eat breakfast after working out in the morning) and a Lebanese restaurant close to the American Consulate which was popular with many of his colleagues.

Furthermore, the tea house itself — which was called Arada — was fairly nondescript. Kell had dropped by and been struck both by the lack of clientele and by the quality of the tea which, even by Turkish standards, was so stewed as to be undrinkable. (It was notable on the tapes that Kleckner rarely finished, and sometimes never touched, his drinks.) Walk a few hundred metres north along Istiklal and the American would surely have discovered several places that were more atmospheric, where the girls were prettier, the drinks and snacks of a higher quality. Arada was situated down a dark passage, with no natural sunlight. It was not particularly comfortable, nor did Kleckner appear to enjoy a friendship with the manager. On one occasion, he had played backgammon, appearing to lose his temper with an elderly Turk who picked up his dice too quickly after rolling. Granted, Arada had a certain old world charm, and offered a quiet respite from the noise and bustle of Istanbul’s busiest thoroughfare, but Kleckner’s fondness for the place seemed eccentric.

There was also the question of the café’s proximity to the Russian Consulate. If Kleckner was signalling to a handler or cut-out, it was an almost outrageous gambit, but perhaps that was in the nature of whatever double-bluff had been orchestrated by the SVR. Who would ever assume that a CIA officer would contact his controller within spitting distance of Russian soil? Kell had ordered up the Arada surveillance reports. There was no discernible pattern to the visits. If ABACUS had a glass of tea or a Turkish coffee at the location during the day, he was either en route to or from a meeting, or shopping for clothes and books. His evening visits were usually followed by consular business (dinners, cocktails) or dates with the five local women who seemed only too happy to throw themselves into the arms of the charismatic American diplomat. On at least three occasions, Kleckner had gone to Arada with a girl.

The reports contained information about Kleckner culled by other SIS assets with whom he had come into contact in Istanbul. These included snippets of conversations at parties, minutes from meetings between the two allies, even a chat with a broken-hearted Irish au pair with whom Kleckner had enjoyed a one-night stand — anything and everything that might assist Kell in building up a picture of ABACUS’s personality and attitudes. It was noted that he was ‘a fan’ of Obama, surprisingly ‘ebullient’ on drone attacks, that while ‘intoxicated’ he had lambasted the whistleblower Bradley Manning — at the same time launching a ‘sustained and scathing attack on Julian Assange’ — and that as a student at Georgetown he had supported the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq. Other biographical details had appeared at first to be mundane — ‘likes Bob Dylan’; ‘misses his mother’ — but it was one such seemingly innocuous observation that unlocked the entire operation.

At a dinner party hosted by the Dutch Ambassador at his wife’s private residence in Ortaköy, Kleckner had been heard to say that as a graduate he had ‘hoped to live the kind of life that meant he didn’t have to wear a suit to the office’. Kell had remembered the remark, only because it had made him smile, but as he studied the footage of ABACUS’s visits to Arada, something became extraordinarily clear to him, extraordinarily quickly.

Twice Kleckner had visited the tea house first thing in the morning while wearing a tie — on a weekend. Three times he had visited the tea house in the evenings in a suit, twice during the week, but once on a Sunday evening. At no point had he gone there, at any other time of day or night, wearing anything other than casual clothes, even when in the company of a woman. The more Kleckner spooled back and forth through the images, the more Kleckner’s clothes looked out of place. Why wear a jacket and tie on a hot spring morning en route to work, or on his day off? Why not put them on as he entered the Consulate or immediately prior to a meeting? Why meet a smartly dressed girl for dinner dressed in chinos and a button-down shirt, but play an aggressive, sweat-inducing game of backgammon with a Turkish man without even removing his jacket?

Kell looked at the times and dates on the footage. He was interested in Kleckner’s movements in a twenty-four hour period either side of appearing at the café in a suit and tie. If clothing was a signal — either to a fixed camera or to somebody who had been instructed to go to Arada at a particular time of day or night to watch for the mole — then Kell had to follow it up. Were there other idiosyncrasies in his appearance? Did a tie signify one thing, a pair of shorts another? If Kleckner sat in a certain seat, did it mean that he was in a position to hand over classified information? Had the game of backgammon been interpreted as a request for a crash meeting? Kell could not know. All he was certain of was the fact that something was out of place. There was ninety-degree heat in Istanbul and Ryan Kleckner hated wearing suits. The clothes were wrong.

He rang the safe house in Sultanahamet in the hope of finding a member of the team off shift. Javed Mohsin himself picked up.

‘It’s Tom.’

‘Oh. Hello there.’

A typically cool greeting. Mohsin had a habit of sounding irritated by any intrusion Kell happened to make into his day-to-day affairs. It was the insolence of the underling; a man too old to be ordered around.

‘Have you got ten minutes to run something for me?’

‘Suppose so.’

‘Don’t sound too excited, Javed.’

A grunt on the end of the line. Kell asked him to load up the surveillance reports for the seventy-two-hour period either side of Kleckner’s first Saturday visit to Arada, when he had worn a tie. It took Mohsin almost five minutes to get himself ready, a period in which Kell could hear a toilet being flushed and the cough of another member of the team in the background.

‘OK. Got them,’ he said eventually.

‘Can you tell me what ABACUS was doing on Friday, fifteenth March and Sunday, seventeenth March?’

‘Don’t you have these reports?’ The tone of Mohsin’s reply implied that Kell was either being stupid or lazy in requesting his assistance. ‘I sent digital files over ages ago.’

‘Those were edited highlights and they’re right in front of me. I want a second pair of eyes on the hard copies. I want to know what you remember, what’s on the originals.’

The terseness of the response appeared to have no effect on Mohsin’s complacency. For reasons that were unclear to Kell, he began with the report from Sunday, 17 March. Kleckner had been clubbing, had gone home alone, had slept late, then spent the rest of the day reading in his apartment, talking to his mother on the telephone and ‘masturbating’.

‘Not at the same time, I hope.’ Kell wondered why he had bothered making the joke. ‘What about the Friday?’

A rustle and flick of pages as Mohsin searched through the report.

‘Looks like a normal day. Goes to the gym. Train to the Consulate. Long lunch with a colleague we haven’t yet been able to identify. Then gets on a catamaran at Kabataş.’

‘Where to?’

‘Princes Islands.’

Another irritating Mohsin power play. Providing only the minimum amount of information on a request. Making Kell push for more detail.

‘Did somebody follow him?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can you elaborate on that, Javed? This gnomic thing you do is starting to irritate.’

There was a murmured apology, nothing more. ‘He got off at Heybeliada.’

‘What’s that? One of the islands?’

‘Yup.’

‘Sea of Marmara?’

‘Yup.’

Ordinarily, Kell would have lost his temper, but he needed to keep Mohsin onside, at least until the end of the conversation.

‘Then what?’

Another pause. A subtle change in Mohsin’s tone of voice. ‘Well. Then he went to Büyükada. Then we don’t know. That was one of the times we lost him.’

There was a map of Istanbul on the wall of Wallinger’s office. Kell could see the necklace of tiny islands in the Sea of Marmara that were reached by the ferry from Kabataş: Kinaliada, Burgazada, Heybeliada, Büyükada. Motorized vehicles were banned on all four.

‘You lost him on an island the size of Hyde Park with no cars, no motorbikes, no bridge to the mainland?’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

Kell at last had leverage in the conversation. ‘Not a problem,’ he said. ‘These things happen. Let’s look at some other days.’ He had written down the other dates when Kleckner had visited Arada while wearing a tie. There was a Sunday a week later. ‘What do you have for ABACUS on Monday the twenty-fifth?’

‘March?’

‘Yes.’

It was apparently another routine day. Kleckner had gone to the gym, gone to work, gone home.

‘And the Saturday before that?’

Again the rustle and flick of pages. Mohsin moving more quickly now, trying to do a better job. ‘OK. Here we are. Saturday, twenty-third March. Subject wakes earlier than normal. Six o’clock. Has slept alone at the apartment. Breakfast at the apartment, listening to music. Isis. Oh.’ A sudden cut-out, a silence. Kell felt his heart jolt. ‘This is interesting. Subject took a taxi to Kartal.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘On the Asian side. I remember this gig actually. I was on it.’ It was like talking to a different person. Mohsin sounded relaxed and anecdotal, like a man reminiscing in a pub over a pint. ‘Took me two hours to get there. He boarded a ferry and went to Büyükada.’

‘Back to the Princes Islands?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Kell could feel a rush of gathering excitement. ‘And once he was there? What happens next?’

Mohsin overlapped him. ‘Let’s see. Has a coffee and an ice cream with a friend near the ferry terminal.’

‘Who’s the friend?’

Mohsin’s response took several seconds. ‘Er, Sarah got a clear image of him. We identified him as a journalist who lives over there. Matthew Richards. Knows a lot of ex-pats, diplomats in Istanbul. He and Ryan see a lot of each other.’

Richards. A reporter for Reuters. Kell had seen transcripts of his telephone conversations with Kleckner, conducted on open lines, as well as copies of their email and text exchanges. He had never paid much attention to them, because Richards was reckoned bona fide by London. Mohsin picked up the story.

‘It turned out he wanted to look at one of the houses that’s for sale on the beach. Right next door to where Richards lives. Maybe he recommended it. Afraid to say we couldn’t get near him at times, sir. I had to make a judgment call. He would have smelled us.’

‘Sure.’

‘But I remember he took a towel down to the beach, had a swim. That’s in the log. When we picked him up again at the ferry terminal he still had wet hair.’

‘And Richards? He didn’t go swimming with him?’

‘No. Don’t think so. He’s got two kids. Married to a French girl. Was probably putting them to bed because it was getting late. Ryan maybe went into the house before the swim. Gets on well with the whole family. Likes the son, teaches him baseball.’

Kell knew that from the files and said: ‘OK.’

There was one more date. The mid-week evening when Kleckner had played the frenzied game of backgammon in 80 per cent humidity while wearing a jacket and tie. Mohsin took a couple of minutes to find the original surveillance report. This time he started with ABACUS’s movements in the twenty-four-hour period prior to his appearance at Arada.

‘OK, got it,’ he said. Kell was staring at his packet of cigarettes on Wallinger’s desk. As soon as the call was over he would walk out through the Chancery and go for a smoke at the tea house between the Consulate and the Londra hotel.

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Girl slept with him that night. The Turkish one. Elif.’ Kell knew her, remembered the name. Pneumatic, husband-seeking starlet from Bar Bleu. ‘She leaves at dawn, he goes to the gym.’ There was a fractional pause, then: ‘Jesus …’

Kell pitched forward in his chair, knowing in his bones exactly what Mohsin was going to tell him. The opiate rush again, pouring through him now.

‘Guess where he went, sir?’

‘I think I know what you’re going to tell me.’

‘Ferry. Kabataş.’

‘To Büyükada?’

‘You got it.’