A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [119]
‘Sure,’ says Fortner quickly, too casually, as if he wants the conversation to end before Mike says anything else. ‘Usual number?’
Everything that has happened tonight has been curiously unnatural, almost like the rehearsal of real events. Katharine’s insistence that I follow an exact procedure, their lies about surveillance.
‘Yeah, usual number. See you Saturday.’
Fortner presses the red button on the telephone handset and Mike’s voice disappears.
What would they want with Strickland? What would he want with them?
Katharine asks the very same question, but it may be just a bluff.
‘Why’s he calling?’
‘Not sure,’ Fortner replies, and is it my imagination or does his gaze slip towards me, a concealed warning to Katharine to stay away from the subject. Certainly he does not call Strickland while I am still in the car. Instead, I am driven back to Uxbridge Road, and let out a block short of my flat.
27
The Sting
I have waited so long for Caccia’s people to prepare the data from 5F371 that when it finally arrives there is a hurried sense of expectation which catches me off guard.
It is a grey March day at work and the morning has adhered to its usual routines: phone calls, reports to be written, a meeting with some clients in Conference Room C on the sixth floor. I have a late lunch - steak sandwich, Sprite - in a cafe down the street, doing my best to avoid making eye-contact with two Abnex employees eating spaghetti at a Formica-topped table on the far side of the room. Then, just before three o’clock, I make my way back to the office.
Cohen, who is working studiously at his desk, looks across at me as I come in, putting down his pen.
‘Since when did you start getting packages from the boss?’ he asks, an uncharacteristic suggestion of defeat in his voice. ‘Barbara Foster, the chairman’s PA…’
‘I know who she is.’
‘Well, she left that package for you while you were out getting lunch.’
He is pointing at a white padded envelope in my in-tray. I know immediately what it is and experience a surge of grateful satisfaction which proves critical.
‘She did?’
‘Yeah. Told me to let you know it was there.’
I make no gesture to pick it up.
‘So what is it?’ he asks.
‘Probably his remarks on a report I did for the board three weeks ago. The one about Turkmenistan and Niyazov.’
‘I didn’t know you’d done a report for the chairman,’ he says, a flicker of envy about him as he looks away. His ego has been wounded by a lie. ‘Can I look at it?’
‘Sure. But I’m taking it home tonight. Want to read over what he’s said.’
Cohen nods unconvincingly and returns to his work. I open my briefcase, drop Caccia’s envelope inside it and, without even pausing to think, retrieve the small card on which Katharine wrote down the contact number for Don Atwater. The card is frayed at the edges now, worn by the constant movement of pens, coins and files in my case. So keen am I to alert the Americans that I dial the number right away, with no thought of Cohen’s proximity, the receiver clamped between my neck and chin. It starts to ring out as soon as I have punched in the last digit.
There is no immediate answer, but I wait. Still no one picks up, even after a dozen rings. I am on the point of replacing the receiver, thinking that I have dialled the number incorrectly, when a voice responds at the other end.
‘Hello?’
It’s a woman, Irish accent. For some reason I had been expecting an American male.
‘Hello. This is Mr Milius calling. Is my dry-cleaning ready? I brought it in last week.’ As an afterthought, as if to take the edge off the absurdity of what I am saying, I add: ‘A jacket.’
Cohen is tapping something into his Psion Organizer. There is a brief pause on the phone line backgrounded by a rustling of papers. The woman seems vague and disorganized and this worries me.
‘Yes, Alec Milius. Hello,’ she says eventually. There is relief in her voice, an enthused lilt. ‘That’s fine. You can come and get it.’
‘I can?