A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [1]
www.penguin.com
First published by Michael Joseph 2001
Published in Penguin Books 2002
13
Copyright (c) Charles Cumming, 2001
All rights reserved
Extract from The Sportswriter copyright (c) Richard Ford. Published in Great Britain by Harvill Press 1986
Extract from The Uses of Enchantment copyright (c) Bruno Bettelheim. Published in Great Britain by Thames & Hudson 1976
Extract from Rabbit Redux copyright (c) John Updike. Published in Great Britain by Andre Deutsch 1972
‘Fake Plastic Trees’, Words and Music by Thom Yorke, Edward O’Brien, Colin Greenwood, Jonathan Greenwood and Philip Selway (c) 1994 Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8BS. Reproduced by permission of International Music Publications Ltd
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-192291-1
for my wife Melissa
Author’s Note
Were the events of this story entirely true, they would inevitably breach clauses in the Official Secrets Act. Nevertheless, members of the intelligence community both in London and in the United States may find that they catch their reflection in the account which follows.
‘I remember, in fact, the Lebanese woman I knew at Berkshire College saying to me, after I told her how much I loved her: “I’ll always tell you the truth, unless of course I’m lying to you.”’
Richard Ford, The Sportswriter
PART ONE
1995
‘If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.’
Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment
1
An Exploratory Conversation
The door leading into the building is plain and unadorned, save for one highly polished handle. No sign outside saying FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, no hint of top brass. There is a small ivory bell on the right-hand side and I push it. The door, thicker and heavier than it appears, is opened by a fit-looking man of retirement age, a uniformed policeman on his last assignment.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
‘Good afternoon. I have an interview with Mr Lucas at two o’clock.’
‘The name, sir?’
‘Alec Milius.’
‘Yes, sir.’
This almost condescending. I have to sign my name in a book and then he hands me a security dog-tag on a silver chain which I slip into the hip pocket of my suit trousers.
‘Just take a seat beyond the stairs. Someone will be down to see you in a moment.’
The wide, high-ceilinged hall beyond the reception area exudes all the splendour of imperial England. A vast panelled mirror dominates the far side of the room, flanked by oil portraits of black-eyed, long-dead diplomats. Its soot-flecked glass reflects the bottom of a broad staircase, which drops down in right-angles from an unseen upper storey, splitting left and right at ground level. Arranged around a varnished table beneath the mirror are two burgundy leather sofas, one of which is more or less completely occupied by an overweight, lonely looking man in his late twenties. Carefully, he reads and rereads the same page of the same section of The Times, crossing and uncrossing his legs as his bowels swim in caffeine and nerves. I sit down on the sofa opposite his.
Five minutes pass.
On the table the fat man has laid down a strip of passport photographs, little colour squares of himself in a suit, probably taken in a booth at Waterloo sometime early this morning. A copy of the Daily Telegraph lies folded and unread beside the photographs. Bland non-stories govern its front page: IRA hints at new ceasefire, rail sell-offwill go ahead, 56 per cent of British policemen want to keep their traditional bobbies’ helmets. I catch the fat man looking at me, a quick spotcheck