A Colder War

69

The Gulfstream soared down in the black night, kissed the runway and taxied to an isolated corner of the airport. Once the plane had come to a halt, Phil emerged from the cockpit, walked halfway down the aisle and announced that a vehicle was en route to the aircraft and that ‘all passengers have been asked to remain on board’.

‘That include me?’ Kleckner asked.

There was a look of weary triumph on his face, as though he knew that his safe passage to Moscow was now assured.

‘Yes,’ Kell told him. ‘That includes you.’

Kell unbuckled his seatbelt and approached the American. He took a knife from his back pocket and moved it in front of Kleckner’s face.

‘Wait a minute—’ said Phil.

Kell reached behind Kleckner’s back, cutting the plastic cuffs around his wrists. Danny was smiling. As soon as his hands were free, Kleckner popped the catch on his seatbelt and stood up. He was stiff and in pain, reaching for the area on his thigh where Jez had injected the ketamine.

‘What you guys use on me?’ he asked.

Kell ignored him.

Phil returned to the cockpit as the engines on the Gulfstream powered down. Orange lights were strobing beyond the fuselage, the aircraft encased by the night. As the noise of the jets diminished, Kell looked out of the starboard window to see a second plane parked alongside. The registration mark began with the letter ‘N’. An American flight. Kell felt the dark echo of extraordinary rendition. Kleckner had begun to walk around the aircraft, stretching his legs, rubbing his wrists. The strength returning to him, the lean, exercised cunning. Kell watched him for a while, trying to glimpse the traitor within, trying to get some sense of the motive that had driven Kleckner to deceive. But he looked just as he had looked on that first night in Bar Bleu: tanned, fit, good looking. Throw stones on a beach in California and you would hit fifty men just like him. Most likely there had been nothing more than money, and a malign pleasure in deceit: no ideological conviction, merely betrayal for its own sake.

‘You look tired, Tom,’ Kleckner said, turning towards Kell.

Again, Kell did not respond. Instead he crossed to the opposite side of the cabin. A vehicle was making its way across the concrete apron. Yellow headlights moving at speed. Bob emerged from the cockpit and opened the main door on the plane. The wind and the jet scream of Boryspil punched into the cabin. Kleckner reacted by blocking his ears. Danny winced and sat down. Kell walked towards the door and looked out over the airport.

‘Who is in the car?’ he shouted.

‘You tell me,’ Bob shouted back.

There were three of them. Kell stood at the open door and watched as a black Mercedes Benz came to a halt a few metres from the Gulfstream. A powerful wind was blowing across the apron, two passenger aircraft taxiing on the runway three hundred metres to the south. The driver snuffed out the headlights, switched off the engine and opened the rear left door.

Amelia Levene stepped out into the night. Kell looked across to the opposite side of the vehicle, where the passenger door had opened ajar. As a plane passed overhead, a spotlight sweeping across the runway, the short, stocky figure of Jim Chater emerged beneath the starboard wing. He was wearing a suit. He turned and looked up at the Gulfstream. With an almost imperceptible dip of the head, he acknowledged Kell. Kell did not move. Chater leaned back into the car, retrieved what appeared to be a mobile phone, and slammed the door.

Kell turned to Danny and to the two pilots, who had gathered at the front of the plane.

‘You’d better give us some time,’ he said. ‘Wait in the car.’

‘Sure,’ Danny replied, and followed Bob and Phil down the steps. They stopped on the tarmac and shook Amelia’s hand, like visiting dignitaries. Chater ignored them. Kell turned back into the plane and called out to Kleckner.

‘Ryan! Your friends have come to see you.’

Kell saw the look of hope in Kleckner’s eyes, his delight at the prospect of Moscow rushing to his aid. Yet his expression barely changed when he saw Jim Chater at the top of the steps. Kell had expected Kleckner to look stunned, the victory slumping out of him. If anything, he looked relieved.

Chater brushed past Kell and stared at Kleckner. Eye contact. Kleckner turned and looked out through a portside window. Kell felt the sudden, pure fear that SIS had been duped. ABACUS a triple, played against Minasian for a purpose so obscure, so brilliant, that Langley had been prepared to give up HITCHCOCK and EINSTEIN just to sustain the deceit.

Amelia was at the top of the steps. She walked into the cabin, nodded at Kell, playing a hand of cards to which he was not yet privy. Chater raised the steps on the Gulfstream and sealed the door. It was suddenly very quiet.

‘So we’re all here,’ Amelia said.

Kell could feel his heart quickening. He knew that if Kleckner spoke next, if he stood up and went to Chater, the game was up. A handshake between trusted colleagues, an operation blown, and two high-ranking Brits to shoulder the blame. Kell could tell nothing from Amelia’s expression. Chater simply looked angry and tired. Kell had to keep reminding himself that the notion of Kleckner’s innocence was absurd.

‘Ryan,’ said Amelia, narrowing her eyes as though she was having difficulty bringing Kleckner into focus. It seemed enormously significant to Kell that Amelia, rather than Chater, had spoken first. ‘Jim has kindly agreed that Tom and I should be allowed a few moments with you before you are taken into American custody.’

Kell felt a surge of relief, even as he absorbed what Amelia was saying. SIS was to be given no opportunity to interview Kleckner, to measure the extent of his treachery. ABACUS was Kell’s catch, the Service’s triumph, but Langley was taking him home.

‘Ryan?’ Amelia said again. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘I can hear you,’ Kleckner muttered.

He was going to play a long game. Acting cool, trying to stay calm. Kleckner had been cornered but would not allow his captors the satisfaction of seeing him fold.

‘My Service has some questions regarding an asset in—’

‘I’m sure you do—’

‘Don’t interrupt, Ryan.’

They were the first words Chater had spoken. Kell found something touching in the use of Kleckner’s Christian name. How many times would Chater have sat with Kleckner in meetings, secure speech rooms, in restaurants and bars, assessing him, teaching him, trusting him?

‘Thank you, Jim,’ Amelia replied, with regal precision.

Kleckner stood up. He began to move towards them, only for Chater to erupt in sudden fury.

‘Sit the fuck down.’

The sudden outburst caught all of them by surprise. Kell saw the hate coiled in Chater’s face. He thought of Kabul, the cramped room, the sweat and the fear of the Gharani interrogation. Chater feral and raging, spewing venom in the heat. His mood had turned in an instant.

Kleckner sat down. He seemed aware of the wretchedness of his situation, but there was a look of forced pride on his face, as though he was determined to go down fighting. Kell heard the smothered roar of a jet landing on the far side of the airport.

‘So,’ said Amelia, looking at her watch as she took a seat opposite Kleckner. ‘As I was saying. We have a question about an asset in Iraqi Kurdistan. Somebody that Paul Wallinger was looking at.’

Time was a factor, but Kell instinctively felt that Amelia was moving too quickly into interrogation. It did not surprise him when Kleckner ducked the question.

‘You know Tom well, right?’

Amelia turned and smiled at Kell. ‘For many years, yes.’

‘So you know about these two?’ Kleckner indicated Chater. ‘You know their story?’ Amelia produced a weary sigh. She had no interest in being drawn into second-rate mind games. ‘Must be just like old times, huh?’ Kleckner said.

‘Just like it.’

‘Yeah? Wanna throw a punch, Tom? Wanna put a sack over my head? These fingernails sure must look attractive to you.’ Kleckner had raised his hands, palms towards his face. ‘I’m sure Jim can find some pliers. Why don’t you guys make yourselves comfortable? It’s what you’re best at.’

Kell felt nothing. His conscience was clear. Amelia also remained impassive. Both of them were too experienced to react to Kleckner’s simple tactic.

‘That what this was about for you?’ Chater asked. Kell was disappointed that he was taking the bait. ‘You had some trouble with our methods, Ryan?’ Chater took a step towards him. Kell saw then that Kleckner was physically afraid of him. There was a moment of cowardice in his eyes. ‘You feel like getting it off your chest?’

‘I would certainly like to make a statement,’ Kleckner told him.

‘Let him talk,’ Amelia replied.

Kleckner leaned back in his seat. After a long pause, he said: ‘I know what you guys did, Jim,’ his voice seemingly rich with the moral disappointment of a young man whose innocence had been stripped away by men and women in whom he had once fervently believed.

‘Yeah? And what did we do to you?’ Chater replied.

‘I know that you walked prisoners around on leads. I know that you sanctioned waterboarding. I know that you had OMS check Yassin Gharani to make sure he was healthy enough for you two guys to continue torturing him.’

The OMS was a medical unit within the CIA. Amelia folded her arms and let out another quiet sigh. Kell was waiting, biding his time. He did not want to waste words on Kleckner.

‘How do you feel about working for an Agency that kills innocent women and children every day?’ It wasn’t immediately clear to whom Kleckner had directed the question.

‘We’re gonna do the drone conversation?’ Chater replied wearily. ‘Is that what you want? Really?’

Kleckner turned towards Kell. ‘What about you, Tom?’

Kell knew that the exchange was pure theatre. ‘We are at war, Ryan,’ he replied, and tried to convey, both by his manner and by his tone of voice, that Kleckner’s moral and philosophical musings were as inconsequential to him as they were naïve.

‘Really? War? That’s what you call it? Thousands of innocent people living in targeted communities, frightened to come out of their homes, living in fear not just of the violence of a drone strike, but the noise of a drone strike? Psychological torture. You think that’s part of a war?’ Kleckner was fuelling himself on rhetoric. Amelia stood up and wandered down the aircraft, like someone in a bar waiting for a drunk to sober up. ‘These communities are now ravaged by psychiatric disorders, kids too afraid to go to school and get the education they need to keep them away from extreme Islam’ — Chater snorted derisively — ‘and all the time we’re creating and sowing the idea around the world that my country, the United States of America, thinks it’s OK to participate in extra-judicial killings, targeted assassinations. We are creating terrorism. We are generating threats.’

‘And you thought the way to stop that was to get into bed with the SVR?’

Amelia asked the question from the back of the Gulfstream. Nobody did merciless condescension quite like Amelia Levene.

Chater weighed in. ‘You thought the way to stop that was to give the names of SIS and CIA assets inside the Iranian nuclear programme? You thought the way to stop that was to have a truck full of Red Cross volunteers murdered by Bashir Assad? Tell me, Ryan. How does the blowing up of a high-ranking Iranian general, a man who fully intended to cooperate with the West in his determination to resolve the conflict between the United States and Iran—’

Kleckner interrupted him. ‘I had no idea that Shakhouri would be killed,’ he said, looking at Kell as though he alone had misconstrued his involvement in the HITCHCOCK debacle. Kell was mesmerized by the intensity of Kleckner’s self-delusion. A sociopath dressing up betrayal as a moral position.

‘You didn’t consider that Moscow would pass on that information to Tehran?’ Amelia asked, walking back down the plane. ‘By the way, did you know that Alexander Minasian was lying to you in the safe house? Cecilia Sandor was murdered on the orders of the SVR. Luka Zigic has gone missing. Were you aware of that?’

Kleckner did not reply. Chater muttered something under his breath and stared at the man who had betrayed him. There was a fold-down seat behind him. He lowered himself into it, tetchily adjusting his ill-fitting suit, as though he had borrowed it for the meeting. Amelia looked out of a starboard porthole. Kell remained standing. Kleckner’s motives for betrayal were as prosaic as they were predictable. Sophomoric arguments from a first-class mind. Almost everybody in the intelligence community with whom Kell had discussed droning had expressed doubts about the long-term consequences in the battle for hearts and minds. But nobody — from Amelia Levene to Jim Chater to Thomas Kell — was in any doubt about its political expedience and military efficacy. Kleckner was talking like an activist but it was no more than a pose. Treachery was treachery. Kleckner could dress it up all he liked, but he no more cared about a villager in Waziristan than he cared about Rachel Wallinger. He had been motivated solely by self-aggrandizement. For such men it was not enough to affect events collectively; the narcissist had to put himself centre stage. The moral and philosophical arguments for Kleckner’s behaviour could be all too easily made; it was just a question of self-persuasion.

‘How much did they pay you?’ Chater asked, but before Kleckner had a chance to react, Kell’s phone began to ring. He glanced at the screen, saw that it was a Ukraine number. Harold, perhaps, or one of the team back in Odessa. He ignored the call, but whoever was trying to reach him immediately rang again.

‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ he said, going into the cockpit. Amelia and Chater nodded. Kell closed the door, sat in the starboard pilot’s seat and answered the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr Thomas Kell?’

‘Speaking.’

‘This is Alexander Minasian.’