The Network

4

In the course of the following week I make two journeys. The first needs an accomplice. An old friend in London is happy to oblige. We’ve long ago agreed on an innocuous code word signifying alarm that can be slipped into a telephone conversation, so his suggestion that we have dinner together in London that evening sounds spontaneous enough to anyone who might be listening. It also allows me to name the restaurant, the location of which means I can walk credibly past a certain street corner in Maida Vale and, in the act of posting a letter, leave a chalk mark for an elderly lady to see on her daily walk the following morning. It’s old-fashioned, but it works, and allows me to avoid making a phone call which Seethrough’s minions are no doubt already authorised to intercept.

Halfway along Pall Mall, and sandwiched between what its occupants consider to be lesser places, stands a stone building said to be inspired by Michelangelo’s Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Nine steps lead up to dark heavy doors. It’s late morning. I check the time and walk up into the imposing entrance, where the porter, as porters are wont to do in such establishments, looks me up and down with a dour expression of enquiry.

‘Baroness K- is expecting me in the library,’ I say.

He glances down at the papers on the kiosk counter and looks up again with a marginally more friendly expression.

‘Very good, sir.’

I walk up the second set of steps into the flamboyant atrium. Glancing overhead I can see the graceful arcs of lead-crystal lozenges in the roof and the dark and slender Ionic columns of the upper gallery. I turn left towards the stairs, passing beneath the grand oil paintings on the walls and the marble facings in deep red and green, until I reach the cavernous opulence of the library. After the rush of traffic on the street below, the long room seems magically quiet. A few members glance discreetly up through the ritual dimness at the entry of a stranger, then return to their subdued conversations.

At the eastern end of the room stands the woman I’ve come to see, studying the spines of a row of leather-bound volumes beside the bay of a tall window. She turns and peers over her glasses just as I enter, and steps forward to meet me.

‘My dear boy,’ she says as we embrace. ‘You look more like your father every time I see you.’ And you, I think to myself, look older. It’s only been a month since our last meeting, but the radiotherapy has taken its toll on her body. She’s grown noticeably thinner, and there’s a visible space between the collar of her black cashmere sweater and the sinews of her neck. There’s a growing stoop to her bird-like frame, the bones of which seem too narrow and fragile to contain the sum of her life’s experience. Yet her movements are nimble and precise, and her voice is still charged with the quiet authority and confidence of an adviser to ministers and confidante to heads of state, and of her lifetime calling of scholar and spy. She ushers me to a marble fireplace and her voice lowers as we settle into a pair of red leather armchairs beneath a worn and austere-looking marble bust of Milton.

‘Your signal was awfully faint; I wasn’t sure if it was you. Or perhaps it’s my glasses. I lose them so often nowadays.’

‘They don’t make chalk like they used to,’ I suggest.

She presses a discreet button by the fireplace. A waiter appears a few moments later and she orders her usual, a whisky and soda with no ice. I ask for the same.

‘You’re well,’ I say.

‘Eighty-seven isn’t a bad innings, if you think about it. I do have trouble with opening things, which is the worst aspect of getting old, but other than that everything seems to be working.’ A gentle smile comes over her gaunt features. ‘You must enjoy your youth while you have it. Did I tell you the president of Naronda offered me a state funeral? I don’t suppose one can take him up on it. He was a child when we all had to leave but it seems he never forgot the constitution I drafted rather in his favour.’

‘I trust you’ll keep him waiting,’ I said.

We chat for a while and, postponing the inevitable, catch up on personal news. Then she puts her glass gently onto the small table between us. Her cheeks and the skin beneath her eyes droop noticeably downwards and give her a bloodhound’s perpetually sad look of enquiry. But the clear grey steely quality of her gaze remains unchanged, and now her eyes fall undistractedly on me.

‘But we have more important things to talk about. Tell me.’

I tell every detail of my encounter with Seethrough, the operation he’s proposed and the decision I’ll soon be forced to make. The Baroness listens intently, and when I’ve told her everything, she nods gravely and gazes towards the window, reciting in a quiet voice,

‘Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.’

‘Your memory always astonishes me,’ I say.

‘In our day your father and I had to memorise everything before a mission. He had the advantage of perfect French – not like me. I shall never forget the occasion when he asked a German soldier for directions. We were somewhere in the Vosges. The soldier was perfectly civil, but of course he didn’t know our guns were pointed at him in our pockets. If he’d spoken to me, we would’ve had it. I came from Section D and I don’t suppose my Arabic would have got us very far.’

‘Section D?’

‘Did I say that? It’s such a long time ago now. I don’t suppose St Ermin’s even exists any longer. But your father was a brave man. And a patriot, though he would never admit it. After the Blitz his attitude towards the Germans changed. I don’t suppose he ever forgave them, but he never let revenge get in the way. You must above all do the same.’

‘I haven’t given it much thought,’ I say, which is untrue.

‘But you must be prepared. Perhaps you know the story of Ali and the knight? Rumi tells it in the Mathnawi.’

I haven’t heard it, though I know of the reverence in which the famous poet is held in the Persian-speaking world. It’s an odd moment to be recounting an eastern fable, but the Baroness always has her reasons.

‘I’ll tell you, but then we must have some lunch.’ She studies the backs of her hands thoughtfully for a moment, then clasps them neatly together and lets them come to rest on her lap.

‘You know that the fourth caliph, Ali, was said to have been a courageous fighter as well as a political leader – not like today’s, I need hardly say,’ she snorts. ‘Well. Ali is on the battlefield and engages a Christian knight. They fight, and the Christian falls to the ground. Ali is about to kill him when the knight, in a final act of defiance, spits in his face. But instead of lopping off his head, Ali sheathes his sword, and lets the knight go free. Now, the knight is a bit surprised by this and asks why on earth he didn’t kill him when he had the chance. “Because if I’d killed you at that moment,” says the great warrior, “it would have been from anger, and against the principles of war.” The knight is so impressed he converts to Islam. It’s a good story, and of course the Shi’a love it.’ The Baroness sighs. ‘The man who strives for freedom doesn’t allow himself to be provoked, even in the heat of battle. At least that’s how I understand it. Freedom. You must strive for the same thing.’ She pauses. ‘Things will happen quickly now that they’ve found a role for you. It suits our purpose, and you must play the part.’

‘You said you’d arrange a context for me. I won’t ask how you managed it.’

She doesn’t rise to this but smiles benignly. This frail old woman has succeeded in having me recruited to the Secret Intelligence Service for a purpose unknown even to the Service itself.

‘You will jump aboard and must be prepared for the journey. When you know more, contact me in the usual way. In the meantime I shall watch, and pray.’

She says nothing more, but with a simple gesture indicates it’s time to move to the coffee room, as the dining room is misleadingly called. We walk down the carpeted stairs in silence, and a jacketed member of staff greets us with a deferential bow and shows us to a table. Two menus are produced, though no prices appear on the one I’m given.

I look out of the window. From it I can just see the Duke of York’s Monument and coated figures scurrying past the shrapnel-scarred statues in Waterloo Place. I wonder how many of them have undertaken work about which they can speak to no one, how they have managed the burden of secrecy, and how they have mastered the division in one’s life that comes with a double task.

As if from afar I hear the voice of my hostess. I’m reminded that her presence is a comfort, even though we hardly talk. A wine list is in her hand and she’s peering at me over her glasses.

‘Can we manage a bottle? There’s a Montrachet that’ll go very well with the sole.’

I nod enthusiastically, but my thoughts are somewhere else. I’m remembering how the plastic sheeting on the windows of the house in Kabul used to balloon inwards whenever there was a detonation in the city, and how the whole house used to shake when a Taliban rocket landed nearby, and how rich I felt just to be alive afterwards.

I’m haunted by the prospect of returning to Afghanistan, a country that has left its mark on me like no other. There’s a discovery waiting for me there, and the answer to a secret that I can mention to no one except the Baroness. I’m not sure I’m ready for it. The Baroness long ago taught us the power of a single thought: that in the Network we are never alone. There are always others among its members in similar or more difficult situations, suffering or struggling with the same situations, unable to reveal their true purpose to the world, and this know-ledge has often come to my aid, as it does now.

‘My dear boy,’ I hear her say, ‘you’re miles away.’

I make the second journey after the agreed interval of a week, the following Sunday. Two hours after leaving home with Gerhardt I’m crossing the Thames at Vauxhall Bridge, trying to decide whether the building looming ahead of me on the left is ugly or not. It still looks brand new, though I wonder how its clean and angular lines will eventually age.

I park in Kennington Lane. Now that Gerhardt is at rest, I can smell the transmission fluid burning off the hot manifold. With a few minutes to spare, I take the opportunity to check the fluid level, to see how much poor Gerhardt has leaked on the way. It isn’t good. It’s dropped considerably, and the dark liquid streaks all the way from the torque converter to the rear silencer. I feel a pang of regret that I can’t afford a new transmission, then remember how old Gerhardt is. Replacing his transmission is akin to giving a heart transplant to an elderly man. Much in life, I reflect gloomily, simply isn’t solvable.

At midday I walk through the doors of Number 85 Albert Embankment, and enter the lobby. The place has a stripped-down and anonymous look with the smooth flat colours of a modern hotel, and there is everywhere a slightly greenish hue, cast by the triple-glazed glass of the windows. I announce myself at the reception area, which is overseen by an unexpectedly cheerful pair of young women.

‘Plato to see Macavity,’ I say.

One of the women picks up a handset, passes on the names and motions me, as might a hotel receptionist, to a black sofa opposite, where I wait next to an imitation Monstera deliciosa. Seethrough appears a few minutes later from behind the futuristic door system that stretches across the far side of the entrance lobby, and comes up to me. He’s dressed in a charcoal mohair suit, one of his Savile Row shirts with a swept-back collar and antique garnet cufflinks, and a grey silk tie. An identity card hangs from his neck, bearing his photograph but no name. Beside his image is what looks like a globe surrounded by yellow lightning bolts. He sees me looking at it.

‘Now, now,’ he says, tucking the card into his breast pocket. We shake hands and he looks me up and down approvingly.

‘You clean up quite well,’ he says.

‘Thank you. New shirt?’

‘Yes. Had it made in Italy. Little place off Piazza Navona,’ he replies with a knowing grin, correctly locating my tailor in Rome. I’m not sure if I’m reassured by this detail. He must have had someone search my credit card records since our meeting a week earlier. At least it means he listens to everything I say.

‘Shall we? I need your phone first.’ No one, he explains, is allowed a mobile phone inside the main building.

He hands it to the security guard, who gives me a receipt like a raffle ticket.

‘Right. Follow me and don’t even think of wandering off,’ he says. ‘And by the way, you never run in this place. Whatever happens, you never run.’ We walk to the doors, where he passes his card through a reader and enters a number on a keypad. A door slides open, he goes through, it closes again, and he repeats the process from behind a second door on the far side, allowing me to enter. I’m reminded of French high street banks where the customer is isolated for a few moments in a glassy pod before being able to escape. Then the door in front of me slides aside and I join Seethrough in a tall and spacious inner courtyard with tropical-looking plants overhanging a cream-coloured marble floor. There are broad corridors radiating from a pair of central lift shafts. Kew Gardens, I’m thinking, meets Terence Conran. The plants are plastic.

Seethrough watches my reaction. ‘Welcome to Babylon-on-Thames.’ He grins. He’s visibly proud of his workplace. We take the lift to an upper floor, where the pale marble turns to grey floor tiles. Halfway along an anonymous-looking corridor we come to an empty briefing room identified by a letter and a number. Seethrough offers me a chair at a large oval table with expensive veneer, from which the cables of two slim computer monitors and a pair of complicated-looking telephones run into plugs recessed into the floor. He picks up a handset and says, ‘Ready now,’ and a few minutes later we’re joined by a woman carrying a handful of variously coloured files.

We sit down and Seethrough ignores me for a few minutes as he types at a keyboard.

‘What’s the reg on your car?’ he asks and types it in. ‘Look at that.’ He grins again. ‘We’ve got you on camera 150 times since you left home.’ His eyes are glued to the screen. ‘You’re actually speeding in this one. Eighty-two miles an hour. I didn’t know your Unimog could go that fast. What were you doing in Amesbury?’

‘Petrol,’ I say. ‘And it’s not a Unimog.’

He peers more closely at the screen, and his fingers tap and scroll at the keyboard.

‘You bought thirty-five pounds of four-star. And a Mars bar. Bloody clever, this point of sale stuff,’ he mutters, then looks up. His assistant is standing beside him.

‘Sorry. This is Stella,’ he says. ‘Inside joke.’ She’s about fifty, slim and slightly built, and has a gaunt sad-looking face with large dark eyes. She puts the files on the table, glances at me and utters a timid hello. Then she leaves the room.

‘Right, let’s take care of the paperwork,’ he says, opening a Manilla file and pushing it towards me. A document marked top secret in big red letters glares back. It’s a copy of the best bits of the Official Secrets Act.

‘Haven’t I already signed this?’ I ask.

‘Yes, but it’s got a bit more draconian since then, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘Now it authorises us to kill you and sell your children.’

I let him know with a look that this isn’t a good joke.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot. In Washington, aren’t they? Mother was American, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes.’ As if he didn’t know.

‘Rotten luck. Well, just sign the bloody thing so we can get on. I can’t brief you until you sign.’

As soon as I’ve signed, Seethrough begins a short lecture about the Service, sparing me what he calls the grisly details but wanting, he says, to give me an outline of where the operation he’s planning fits within the intelligence jigsaw. Seethrough’s fellow Intelligence Branch staff, of whom there are fewer than I imagined, divide their efforts between a number of regional controllerates and another called Global Issues. The combined work of the controllerates is carried out by P and R officers, standing for production and requirements, a division of labour, roughly speaking, between the first half and second half of what is called the intelligence cycle. I’ve already been introduced to the idea in the army during my stint with the Green Slime, as members of the Intelligence Corps are affectionately known on account of their spinach-coloured berets.

Intelligence is broadly described as having four main phases: raw intelligence is first gathered or collected by a variety of means and technologies, then converted or collated into a form useable by analysts. It is then disseminated to the right people at the right time, and finally put to use – or, as we used to joke, misuse – by decision makers. In the army intelligence is used to enhance what military analysts, with their characteristic love of terminology incomprehensible to ordinary people, call battlespace visualisation.

The vocabulary of the Firm is different. I never once hear the words secret or agent. Raw intelligence is used to produce varying grades of CX – finely sifted intelligence reports – for the top feeders in the intelligence food chain. I never find out why it’s called CX, or why intelligence from the Security Service, better known as MI5 and whose members Seethrough calls the River Rats, is called FX. They sound like types of nerve gas to me.

Since its area of specialisation is the use of human assets, the Firm’s officers engage in four parallel tasks: targeting, cultivating, recruiting and then running their assets. Those in the know are said to be indoctrinated; Seethrough’s philosophy is to keep the number of people indoctrinated into an operation to a minimum, and is emphatic that I discuss the material he’s about to show me with no one but himself unless specifically instructed otherwise. My questions, he said, will go to him. My ideas will go to him, and my contact reports will go to him. I’m to write nothing down.

‘This one’s at the request of the Americans,’ he says, opening the uppermost file. ‘Provisional code name is Elixir.’ He pushes the opened file towards me with a laminated companion list of commonly used acronyms and code words with their explanations – from Actor, meaning the Service’s headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, to Zulu, meaning Greenwich Mean Time. The contents of the file are divided into several sections, which we examine in turn.

The first is a description of three civilian airline crashes. Each plane has dropped out of the sky shortly after take-off, killing all on board. The three incidents have been briefly reported in the press, but none of the photographs I’m looking at has ever made it into the papers. They’re too gruesome. The debris from the first aircraft is strewn over a mile, along with the bodies of 200 passengers, many of whose charred and mutilated remains are still strapped into their seats. The second and third aircraft have crashed into water, and their wreckage has been gathered and secretly reassembled in long and dangerous recovery operations. Here too the passengers have been photographed as they were found, their bloated and limbless corpses still attached to their seats. In each case the accidents have been publicly blamed on engine failure, which official investigations have later confirmed. The most recent of them occurred only a few months ago.

‘Even the airlines don’t know this,’ says Seethrough, ‘but the culprit in all three is the same.’ He turns to another section in the file, and shows me a US Defense Department image of an FIM-92.

Better known by its common name: the Stinger missile.

‘Not a shred of doubt,’ he went on. ‘The Americans have verified it and we’ve double-checked at Fort Halstead. There’s a machine there that can identify the exact stock of explosive from a tiny fragment of wreckage. Stingers in every case.’

At the mention of Fort Halstead I think involuntarily of my strolls with the Baroness through the gardens of Chevening House, and I picture the incongruous-looking palm trees swaying above the rear porch. Fort Halstead, the secret research establishment labelled only as ‘works’ on ordinary maps, is over a mile away at the top of the hill that overlooks the village, but on a still day we could often hear the faint cry of the warning alarm, at the sound of which the Baroness’s finger would rise like a conductor’s in anticipation of the muffled thump of a subterranean explosion. Somewhere in the complex, more recently, white-coated technicians had identified residues of TNT from Stinger warheads, matching its chemical profile against a database of known explosive stocks.

‘Probably by spectrometric analysis of the isotopic ratios,’ I say because I know a thing or two about explosives.

‘Yes, quite,’ agrees Seethrough, looking up for a moment. ‘PTCP reckons they came through Iran but we don’t know for sure. And if you can’t stop the flow, you go back to the source.’

‘Afghanistan. Where we handed them out in the first place.’

‘To your old friends,’ he adds with a dark look.

‘Only some of them.’

‘Now they’re easy pickings for al-Qaeda, and you know what that means.’

‘Yes, I do. In Arabic it means base or capital or seat of operations. But the way you pronounce it, it sounds like al-qa’da, which means buttocks.’

‘I refer,’ says Seethrough, clearing his throat and choosing to overlook this impudence, ‘to the threat, not the etymology.’

The threat is an obvious one. If sufficient of the missiles are acquired by terrorists from Afghans willing to sell them, the potential for chaos and slaughter is impossible to contemplate. Governments will be held to ransom, says Seethrough. Anti-missile technologies are too costly to install on civilian airliners. The only solution is to recover the missiles themselves from the same people they were delivered to fifteen years earlier, when the Afghans were fighting the Soviets.

‘This is the update on the American buyback programmes,’ he says, turning the pages of the final section of the file. ‘There’ve been several initiatives, mostly relying on middlemen in Pakistan, and too many of the deals have come to nothing. Over the past couple of years they’ve had a final push and thrown a lot of cash around inside the country. Going rate is $100,000 apiece, sometimes more. In the north it’s been working quite well, where Massoud’s chaps have proved very willing. They get them across the border here.’ He points on a map of Afghanistan to the northern border with Uzbekistan. ‘But now that the Taliban control the rest of the country the Yanks haven’t got anyone they really trust who can move them. There’s a bloody great stash of Stingers but they can’t get them out. Somewhere down here.’ He points again to the map, north of Kandahar this time. ‘Too complicated. They need to be destroyed.’

‘Why can’t the Americans drop a bomb on them from a great height? They’re good at that,’ I say.

‘Too sensitive. The Paks won’t let them use their airspace for an offensive operation and the politics are too difficult. Imagine they hit the wrong target or the missiles are moved at the last minute. We need trusted eyes on the ground. There’s also a time factor. You’ve heard of bin Laden?’

‘Isn’t he wanted by the Americans for his role in financing the bombing of their embassies in Kenya and Tanzania?’

‘Yes. But now we’re hearing he’s looking for surface-to-air missiles. If he or his people get hold of the Stingers, God knows what he’ll try next. We’re asking you to go to Afghanistan and do the job yourself. Find a reason to be there, get a team together, verify the Stingers are where they say they are and blow the bloody things up so we can all go home.’

I don’t have to think too long. I feel a great sense of relief, in fact. The mission is a straightforward one. I have both the contacts and the know-how. I know how to move in and out of the country, and I know how to blow things up.

‘I think I can do that,’ I say.

‘Good,’ says Seethrough.

He leans back in his chair and runs his hands through his hair.

‘There’s a bit more,’ he says, then reaches for a different file, labelled TRODPINT. ‘Last month one of the Americans’ tribal int teams was approached by one of bin Laden’s chaps. Says he’s got top-grade time-sensitive CX on bin Laden’s plans and needs to get it to us. But he doesn’t identify himself and doesn’t show up for their next meet.’ He hands me a surveillance photograph taken in Afghanistan. It shows two dark-skinned heavily bearded men in conversation beside the roof of a car with a yellow plastic housing marked taxi in Persian letters. One wears a loose-fitting Afghan shalwar kameez, and the other an old army jacket.

‘Taken in Jalalabad last month. Chap on the left is one of bin Laden’s best mates. The other one’s our potential source, but we can’t identify him. We’ve run his face through every database we’ve got, but there’s no match.’

That’s because he’s supposed to have died nearly ten years ago, I’m thinking as I look at the photograph. He’s almost unrecognisable. His face is half hidden by his beard, his skin is dark, his face is older and leaner. But it’s Orpheus, I’m certain of it. He’s finally surfaced and needs to come in. I pull my eyes away from the photograph. Seethrough is still talking.

‘We’ve asked around. The Europeans don’t have anyone of their own in bin Laden’s circuit. Mossad swear they don’t have an illegal out there, but you never know with Mossad. This one’s too good to get away. We need to make an approach, God knows how.’

He doesn’t need to explain where the plan’s leading.

‘We can put you onto the source while you’re out there and you can do some fishing to see who bites. Could be a bit risky, but if you run a tight ship we should be alright. You feeling OK? It’s a lot for one session, I know. I thought I’d give you a little tour to cheer you up. There’s just one more thing. It’s alright, this is the fun part. Gadgets. Back in a minute.’

He gathers up the files and leaves the room while the image of Orpheus floats stubbornly in my vision. Then he returns with two small white cardboard boxes, which he opens on the table.

‘Let’s have a look at what the tossers have got for you. Sorry – another in-joke, I’m afraid. Technical and Operations Support. They decide on the kit for an op.’

From the first box he takes out a Motorola mobile telephone with a stubby antenna. ‘Identical to the real thing but there’s a chip inside that screens the call with white noise,’ he says. ‘Even the NSA can’t get their grubby hands on the signal. It’s GPS-enabled so we can keep track of it even if it’s switched off. It’ll also record a conversation up to sixteen hours.’ He shows me the keypad configurations for each instruction. ‘Now this is good. Have you ever used a firefly?’

I’ve heard of the small infrared strobes called fireflies being used by special forces, but never actually seen one.

‘It’s the next best thing to the military version. There’s no visible output, but to anyone with night vision gear it’ll look like a searchlight. Land a heli with it if you need to.’ I don’t know if he’s serious. ‘There’s an ultraviolet function too. Use it with this.’ Opening the second box, he takes out an ordinary-looking gel-ink pen with a retractable tip. A single click causes it to produce visible black ink. A second activates a flow of ink that’s only visible under a narrow frequency of ultraviolet light. To demonstrate, he draws an invisible line from the back of his hand to the surface of the table, then keys a sequence on the keypad of the phone. As he holds the phone over the table, a bright white streak appears on the table, merging with the streak on his hand as he draws it closer. The slightest movement of an object marked with the ink, when viewed under the light from the phone, will be immediately obvious.

‘Use it for security when you’re out and about, and you’ll always know if anyone’s been in your stuff,’ he says. ‘You need to sign for these, by the way.’ He leaves the room again and returns with a final folder containing the release forms, carrying a long dark-blue overcoat and elegantly battered leather briefcase. He drapes the coat over the back of a chair, then notices a bulge in the fabric and removes from the inner pocket some envelopes and a chequebook. I just make out the Coutts emblem embossed on the black outer cover before it disappears into his briefcase.

Our briefing is over. I stand up and wander over to the windows. The river looks grey and sullen. Closer to, I can see the chequerboard pattern in dark and light tiles of the veranda below us.

‘Don’t do that, please,’ says Seethrough.

‘Don’t do what?’

‘Stand by the windows. We don’t do that.’

I return to the table and ask him why the windows are so thick. They’re not as green as they look from the outside, but they’re visibly thicker than normal windows.

‘Something called TEMPEST. Can’t remember what it stands for. It’s to stop people listening to our computers. If you’re very clever you can actually detect the little bits of radiation coming out of the screens and piece them all together somehow. That’s it,’ he remembers. ‘Tiny Electro-Magnetic Particles Emitting Secret Things.’

I’m never entirely sure when he’s joking. He gathers up his coat and case and we walk back along the corridor to the lifts. As we’re waiting he turns to me with a smile and says: ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of deniable operations.’

‘I’ve always wondered what exactly that means.’

‘It means,’ he explains thoughtfully, ‘that if the whole thing goes pear-shaped and you get yourself killed in Afghanistan, then the nice people in I/OPS upstairs will make sure there’s a story in the papers about a careless British tourist beheaded by a loony Afghan mullah.’

‘They don’t actually behead people in Afghanistan,’ I correct him. ‘But I agree it’s certainly evocative.’

‘Yes,’ he muses, ‘I/OPS are very good at that.’

The lift falls gently but swiftly; I imagine it will stop at the ground floor, but there are several subterranean levels and we descend to the final one. Leaving the lift, we pass through another set of double glass doors like the airlock of a high-security laboratory. On the far side we emerge in a stony-grey corridor resembling one of the passageways of the Heathrow Express. Everything is grey; it’s an appropriate colour for all the grey people who move along its secret grey spaces.

‘Nobody uses the main entrance,’ says Seethrough. ‘If we did, we’d all be famous within twenty-four hours.’

From this side tunnel we come into a broader older-looking tunnel equipped at intervals with red fire hoses and alarms. High-pressure sprinkler pipes run overhead, and the walls are criss-crossed with metal cable conduits, junction boxes and switches. Nearby is a line of half a dozen small open carriages resembling golf caddies. They must be electrically powered. At the front sits a driver wearing the same dark uniform as the security guards above us. Behind him, each doorless carriage has a single seat, large enough for two passengers.

‘All aboard,’ says Seethrough, indicating one of them. After a minute’s wait we begin to move forward at a speed slightly faster than walking pace. ‘There’s another London under here,’ he says, looking lazily at the gently passing walls. Tributary tunnels and doorways, marked with acronyms above their entrances, lead away at right angles. Occasionally we pass giant blast- and flood-proof doors hanging from hinges the height of a man. At each of the main intersections the train comes to a gentle halt, and passengers get on and off; twice an identical train passes us in the opposite direction. We must be heading north because a few minutes later he points out a sign indicating the Security Services building, which lies across the river on Millbank. There are many other tributary tunnels, and I realise the hidden network beneath London is far more extensive than anything I’ve imagined.

‘God, this is nothing,’ he says. ‘Half of Wiltshire’s a bloody great Emmental.’ He points out a cryptic sign on the wall. ‘There’s a C4 facility through there where we can run a whole war from. Can’t take you there, I’m afraid. Or there.’ He points to another sign bearing the acronym of the subterranean Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms. We’re somewhere under Whitehall now. The train draws once more to a halt and Seethrough adjusts his coat. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I’ve got an appointment topside.’

We leave the carriage, turn into a tributary tunnel and come to a lift entrance, where he swipes his card and enters a number on the keypad by the doors. The lift glides up and we emerge in the lobby of an older but grand official building with an alert-status board by the entrance. It reads yellow. A grey-haired guard at the security desk looks up from his newspaper, then down again. Beyond him, I can make out traffic in the street, but I’m not sure where we are.

‘I won’t see you out,’ says Seethrough. ‘Cross the river and head down Albert Embankment. The walk’ll do you good.’ I’m still trying to take in the substance of our meeting, and perhaps it shows. He detects my feelings and, in an unexpectedly avuncular gesture, switches his long overcoat into his left arm and puts the other over my shoulders. ‘Let it settle,’ he says in a near whisper. ‘Get your stuff tied up so that you can do some travelling, and I’ll have some briefings organised. I’ll contact you in a week on the mobile. Look after the things I gave you.’

I walk outside. It’s overcast and has begun to drizzle. I’m at the south-east corner of St James’s Park, looking along Horseguards Road and a stone’s throw from Downing Street. I don’t mind the walk. I can’t help thinking how confident and grown-up Seethrough seems. I picture him retiring at fifty-five to sell his expertise to big businesses from his Home Counties mansion, dividing his time between Glyndebourne, charity balls and unofficial meetings with heads of UK industry.

I reach Gerhardt half an hour later, remove the parking ticket from the windscreen and, resisting a momentary urge to weep, start up and head for home.

Jason Elliot

The Network