Games Traitors Play

87

‘I became too fond of this in Morocco,’ Dhar said, pouring out two glasses of mint tea. ‘It is my one other luxury.’ He had already offered Marchant some dried apricots from a paper bag on the floor between them. He was sitting cross-legged, his posture upright. He had changed out of his flying suit and was now wearing a long white dishdasha of the sort that Marchant had seen in Marrakech and a matching kufi skullcap. His austere appearance was reflected in the formality of their conversation. There was a stiffness to proceedings that was making Marchant tense. He was also struggling to sit comfortably on the ground. His crossed legs were cramping up, forcing him to rock forwards. He knew it made him look nervous.

‘How long were you in Morocco for?’ Marchant asked, taking the hot glass by the rim. ‘Did you go there straight after Delhi?’ He was hoping to slip into small talk, but knew at once that it was the wrong question to ask a man on the run.

‘Please,’ Dhar said. ‘Let us talk first of family. My journey is of no concern. All that matters is that we are once again reunited.’

Dhar had hugged him when they first met in southern India. This time there had been no such warmth. Marchant had been caught snooping around his possessions, which didn’t help, but there was also a different tension in the air: a pressing sense of expectation. Fielding had warned him that he would be killed if Dhar suspected anything. Embrace your worst fears. They may be the only thing to keep you alive when you meet Dhar.

‘Dad wrote me a similar letter,’ Marchant said, nodding at the Koran on the crate.

‘Dad,’ Dhar repeated, mocking the word. ‘Father. Papa. Pop.’ He reached forward and took another apricot. ‘All those years I never knew him, never knew he was waging the same wars against the kuffar. It must be harder for you. Coming to the crusade so late. In some ways, I am closer to him than you ever were, even though I met him only once.’

Marchant could feel himself bridling inside, but he remembered why he was here, why Dhar had wanted to see him. They were the sons of a traitor, united in family treachery.

‘It’s true,’ Marchant said. ‘The man I thought I knew was someone else.’

‘And it wasn’t a shock? Primakov said you were relieved.’

‘It was like finding the missing piece of a jigsaw. After the way I was treated by the Americans — ’

‘The waterboarding.’

‘Yeah, after being nearly drowned at a CIA black site in Poland, I was beginning to wonder, you know, about our great Western values. When Primakov told me about Dad, my life began to make sense.’

‘Brother, come here,’ Dhar said, beckoning Marchant to stand. Both men rose, and hugged each other long and hard. Marchant was expecting it to feel awkward, but it wasn’t. He hadn’t been embraced by his own flesh and blood since his father had died. And as he held Dhar, breathing in the faint aroma of apricots, he wondered if this was what it would have been like to hug Sebastian if he had survived into adulthood. He had told Dhar all about his twin when they had met before, explained how his death had cast such a long shadow over his life, but, for the first time in years, Marchant no longer felt like an only child. When they let go of each other, both men’s eyes were moist.

‘My life made sense, too,’ Dhar said. ‘Can you imagine how hard it was for me when I first discovered that my father was the head of an infidel intelligence agency?’

Dhar managed a laugh in between wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his dishdasha. Marchant smiled, too, as they sat back down on the floor. It was a rare moment in a spy’s life. Marchant had crossed over, immersed himself in a role like a seasoned actor, forgotten that he was playing a part. But no sooner had the spell been cast than it was broken. All the old fears came tumbling down around him again. Why had he found it so easy to celebrate his father’s treachery?

‘After he had been to see me in Kerala, the clouds began to clear,’ Dhar continued. ‘At first, I was confused by the visit, some of the things he said, but when I met Primakov and he told me everything — the nature of the American intelligence our blessed father had once passed to Moscow — it was like being reborn.’

‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Marchant said, trying to steer the conversation onto safer territory. He had been genuinely angry about what had happened in Madurai, regardless if it had been fabricated by Fielding, and knew he could talk about it with conviction. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could listen to Dhar extolling their father’s treason.

‘I’m sorry too. This man Spiro…’

‘I promised your mother I would look after her. I feel I failed her, and you.’

‘Inshallah, the time will come when such things will not happen again.’

‘The deal was that we would bring her back to Britain, keep her away from the Americans. I gave her my personal undertaking that she would be safe. I can never forgive myself for what happened. I let her down, Salim. She trusted me, against her better judgement. I persuaded — ’

‘Enough.’ Dhar held up a hand, as if he was halting traffic. Had Marchant pushed it too far? Dhar was angry, his equanimity disturbed by talk of his mother. He moved his raised hand to his eye as he turned to look out of the window.

‘Do you trust Primakov?’ Dhar asked, changing the subject.

‘I don’t know him well, but I respect our father’s judgement. You read the letter. “Trust him as if he was a member of our family.”’

‘Grushko, the Russian who came today, has his doubts.’

‘Grushko doesn’t trust anyone. I think he even doubts me.’

Dhar turned to look at him with an intensity that Marchant had never seen in anyone before. In a certain light, his brown Indian irises shone as black as onyx.

‘So do I.’

‘I don’t blame you. It doesn’t look that convincing on paper, does it? MI6 agent bonds with jihadi half-brother.’ Marchant was keen to lighten the mood, but Dhar wasn’t smiling.

‘What I am struggling to understand is why you returned to your old job in London. After all that had happened. The waterboarding in Poland, the way the Americans treated our father. How could you continue to be a part of that?’

‘Because I wanted to meet you again. Remaining in MI6 was the only way. I wanted to come sooner, but the Americans wouldn’t allow it.’

‘The Americans,’ Dhar repeated, smirking. ‘You could have travelled on your own.’

‘I thought I’d be more useful to you if I still had a job with MI6.’

‘Such a Western way of looking at things. The job more important than the person. You’re family. You got my text? Yalla natsaalh ehna akhwaan. Let’s make good for we are brothers. It was sent more than a year ago.’

‘I got it. It was impossible to come sooner without losing my job. I couldn’t have helped you — arranged for the MiGs to fly over Scotland — if I was on the outside, on the run again.’

‘Tell me one thing. Your return to MI6, after Delhi, was before you discovered our father had been working for the Russians.’

Dhar’s probing was beginning to worry Marchant. He was right. He had gone back to his desk in Legoland with his head held high, proud of his father’s innocence rather than celebrating his guilt.

‘There was a time when I believed in Britain, I can’t deny that. Just as there was a time when our father believed in his country too. But the doubts were growing when I returned to MI6. About what I was doing, why I was doing it. I’m sure you’ve sometimes questioned what you do too.’

Dhar didn’t respond.

‘And those doubts became something stronger when Primakov showed up in London with the letter,’ Marchant continued.

‘We are blessed to have had such a brave father.’

Dhar smiled, and Marchant thought he was through the worst of it. But he wasn’t.

‘There is only one problem. Grushko is convinced that Primakov is lying.’

Dhar leaned over to his bed and took a pistol from under the pillow. He brushed the handle with his sleeve, then cocked it with the assurance of someone familiar with firearms. ‘And if Primakov is not telling the truth, then neither are you.’