Revenger

5

Carver and Alix flew into London on Tuesday morning. They queued for three hours to present their passports to untrained temporary personnel in dirty polyester uniforms, brought in to cover the regular Border Agency staff, who were protesting at the under-manning of their posts by simply not manning them at all. Or perhaps they had joined the widespread strikes against the scrapping of all earnings-related pensions for state employees, a move forced on the government by the IMF as a condition of their latest loan. Or maybe they were just bunking off. It was hard to tell these days.

There were no luxury stores to be seen any more in Terminal 5. The number of air passengers was down by more than fifty per cent, and most of those that remained had a hard enough time affording their tickets, let alone a six-hundred-pound purse from Smythson or a spontaneous four-figure jewellery purchase at Tiffany & Co. Carver walked along unswept corridors, past ‘Out of Order’ signs and shabby staff who were going about their work with a kind of surly, resentful indifference to their customers’ wellbeing. Passport control had become a lottery. Some days passengers were held up for hours, others they were waved through without more than a casual glance at their passports. This was one of the slow days, the queues at the immigration desks compounded by the long lines outside the few functioning, but filthy, toilets.

Carver was a man who was always more interested in solutions than problems. But now he could sense himself becoming infected by the negativity he could feel all around him. He’d come to London with Alix because it had seemed like a good opportunity to visit the land where he was born and for which he had gone to war. He still planned to stick it out for the few days it would take Alix to conduct her business. But once that was done, he’d be leaving on the first flight he could find.

‘I wouldn’t even wait that long, if I were you,’ said his old sparring-partner Jack Grantham, when they met up for an early supper on Tuesday evening. ‘I’d be off like a shot, if I had the chance.’

‘You’re the head of MI6,’ Alix pointed out. ‘If you made a run for it, everyone would think you were defecting.’

‘But defecting to where? That’s the question,’ Grantham replied, with his usual bone-dry, cynical sense of humour. ‘Clearly I’m not going to take the Philby road to Moscow, but I don’t need to tell you that, do I, dear? You got out as fast as your lovely legs would carry you.’

Alix smiled, knowing that this was as close as Grantham would ever get to a compliment. ‘How about Beijing?’ she suggested, playing the game. ‘I’m sure the Chinese would welcome you and your secrets with open arms.’

‘I’m sure they would, too. But have you ever been to China? There’s no way they’re going to rule the world. They’ll all choke to death on their pollution long before that happens.’

‘The Dordogne?’ suggested Carver. ‘Or a spot of Spanish sunshine, perhaps?’

‘You must be joking… and don’t even suggest Switzerland. I know you’ve wasted half your life away in some poky little flat in Geneva, but—’

‘Don’t be rude about Sam’s flat,’ Alix interrupted. ‘I happen to adore it.’

‘That can only be for purely sentimental reasons.’ Grantham sighed, waving for another bottle of wine. That, at least, was as good as ever. He waited till their glasses were refilled and then said, ‘I hate to break the atmosphere of jollity. There’s not much of that around, after all, so I’m all for anything that even remotely resembles happiness.’

‘Ha!’ Carver exclaimed. ‘You wouldn’t know happiness if it got up on its hind legs and bit you.’

‘Possibly not,’ Grantham admitted. ‘But indulge me, anyway. It’s about Mark Adams. I gather you intend to see him, Alix.’

‘Yes, I’m a political lobbyist. He’s a politician. It’s my job to meet people like him.’

‘And work for them?’

‘That depends on what he expects my company to do for him, what he is willing to pay, and whether I think he is the kind of client we want to work for.’

‘He isn’t,’ said Grantham. ‘Take it from me.’ He looked at Carver. ‘So are you going to Adams’s night rally, too?’

‘No, Alix has got work to do. I’d only get in her way. I’m having a drink with an old mate instead.’

‘Very sensible. Anyone I know?’

‘Snoopy Schultz.’

‘Ah yes… the one that helped you carry out the hit-that-wasn’t.’

‘That’s him… So, what’s your problem with Mark Adams?’

‘It’s not a problem. It’s a simple observation of fact. He’s an exceptionally nasty, dangerous piece of work. As foolish, incompetent, corrupt and generally useless as ninety-nine per cent of our politicians undoubtedly are, they’re still a thousand times better than Mark Adams.’

‘You sure about that?’ Carver asked. ‘Have you seen the state they’ve reduced this place to? Maybe you haven’t noticed, living here. But coming back after a couple of years away, it’s a real shock. Those politicians you’re talking about did that.’

‘Them and the bankers, the regulators, the euro-fanatics, the Iranians, the Israelis and, if we really want to point the finger, all the voters in all the countries who thought they were entitled to health and welfare systems, and pensions, and new cars, and foreign holidays, and bigger houses and God knows what else — all without ever paying the bill,’ Grantham countered.

‘So maybe that’s why you need someone new, with a different attitude, to come in and knock some sense into people,’ Carver suggested.

‘Someone, maybe… just not this one.’

Alix knew that the two men had a complicated, highly combustible relationship: they were two alpha males who couldn’t resist butting heads, challenging one another, constantly trying to do the other down. And yet beneath it all they had a fundamental trust in one another that came from working together under extreme pressure, when lives were on the line and the fate of nations was at stake. Neither man had ever broken his word, or disappointed the other, and though they would never even have considered, let alone admitted it, Alix felt certain that neither had a better friend in the world.

‘Look,’ she said, wanting to resolve the situation. ‘I’m sure you have very good reasons for saying all this, Jack. And I know that you have access to information that we certainly don’t have. But I’ve told Mark Adams that I will meet him, and I’m going to keep that appointment. I don’t know what will happen after that, but I can absolutely assure you that I have no intention of working with anyone who is, as you say, a nasty piece of work. I have my own reputation to protect. And I certainly don’t want to be opening doors in Washington, just so an evil man can walk through them.’ She reached across, laid her hand on Grantham’s wrist, looked him in the eye and said, ‘Can we agree on that?’

Grantham sighed. ‘If you insist, yes, we can. But I’m advising you both as the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service and as someone who has known you both a very long time: have as little to do with Mark Adams as humanly possible. Ideally, have nothing to do with him at all.’