Games Traitors Play

69

Dhar listened in silence as Primakov told him about his mother’s rendition. He knew that anger was a weakness, but it took all of his strength to remain calm and listen. The only outward sign of distress was a twitch in his lower left eyelid.

‘This Spiro is the bane of many brothers’ lives,’ Dhar said. He was sitting upright, his hands flat on the table in front of him, on either side of a glass of water. They were talking in the hangar at Kotlas. Outside, it was raining again, rattling the metal roof.

‘He was the one who waterboarded Daniel Marchant.’

Dhar tried not to think where the Americans would take his mother, how she would cope.

Reaching for the glass of water, he watched Primakov walk over to the window and look outside. Sergei was right. There was something about the Russian — other than the mix of cologne and garlic — that made Dhar wary. But he had no option but to work with him. He had come straight from seeing Marchant in India.

‘If it’s any consolation, your British half-brother is distraught,’ Primakov said, turning back to face him. ‘He gave your mother his personal word that she would be taken to London. If Spiro hadn’t been armed, Marchant would have killed him.’

‘He is ready to help us, then?’ Dhar asked, happy to move the conversation away from his mother.

‘Marchant could forgive the West once. But now, following your mother’s rendition, he is struggling to call Britain his home.’

Dhar flinched again at the mention of his mother. He closed his eyes, trying to calm the twitch, control the body with the mind.

‘We need to be sure,’ he said, raising a reluctant hand to steady his eyelid. It was too much. ‘Rendition’ and ‘mother’ were words he never wanted to hear together again. ‘After all that happened to Marchant before, he still went back to work for the infidel.’

‘He wants to meet you. I have told him everything about your father, how I recruited him in Delhi, his twenty years of service to Moscow.’

‘How did he react?’

‘Like you, I think he suspected already. There was relief in his eyes. Let us see. He must pass one final test before he joins us.’