A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [63]
‘Anyway, Warner didn’t return any of my calls for a week and I must have been ringing him five times a day. I needed some figures. Eventually I gave up and just got them from someone else. Alan went spastic, said I’d gone over his head and questioned his authority. And I’m at Abnex on a trial basis, so it doesn’t bode well.’
‘A trial basis?’ says Fortner, looking up immediately. He hadn’t stopped listening to me. ‘You mean you’re not a full-time employee?’
‘I’m halfway through a trial period. I have to attain a consistently high standard of work or they’ll kick me out.’
‘Jesus,’ says Katharine, swallowing a mouthful of Chianti. ‘That’s a lot of pressure to work under.’
‘Yeah,’ adds Fortner. ‘You’re a human being, not a high-performance saloon.’
I laugh at this, making a snorting noise which is loud enough to cause someone on a neighbouring table to look up and stare at me. I bring my napkin up to my face and dab away an imaginary speck. Keep going.
‘The trouble is that they don’t give me any indication of how well I’m doing. There’s very little in the way of compliments or praise.’
‘I think people need that, the encouragement,’ Katharine says.
‘That’s right,’ says Former, his voice going deep and meaningful. ‘So is that usual for young guys like yourself to get hired by a company and then, you know, just see how it pans out?’
‘I guess so. I have friends in a similar kind of position. And there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it. It’s work, you know?’
The pair of them nod sympathetically and, sensing that this is the best opportunity, I decide to tell them now about my interviews with SIS last year. It is a great risk, but Hawkes and I have decided that to tell the Americans about SIS may actually draw me further into their confidence. To conceal the information might arouse suspicion.
‘It’s funny,’ I say, taking a sip of wine. ‘I nearly became a spy.’
Katharine looks up first, vaguely startled.
‘What?’ she says.
‘It’s true,’ I say, very relaxed and cool. ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you, Official Secrets Act and all that, but I got approached by MI6 a few months before I got the job at Abnex.’
Not missing a beat Katharine says:
‘What is MI6? Like your version of the CIA?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jesus. That’s so… so James Bond. So… are you… I mean, are…?’
‘Of course he’s not, honey. He’s not gonna be sitting here telling us all about it if he’s in MI6.’
‘I’m not a spy, Katharine. I didn’t pass the exams.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why? Why are you sorry?’
‘Well, weren’t you disappointed?’
‘Not at all. If they didn’t think I was good enough for the job, then fuck ‘em.’
‘That’s a great attitude,’ Fortner exclaims. ‘A great attitude.’
‘How else am I supposed to react? I went through three months of vetting and interviewing and IQ tests and examinations and at the end of it all, after they’d more or less told me I was certain to get in, they turned around and shut me out. With a phone call. Not a letter or a meeting. A phone call. No explanation, no reason why.’
My sense of disappointment should be clear to them.
‘You must have been devastated.’
But I don’t want to overplay the anger.
‘At the time, I was. Now I’m not so sure. I had a pretty idealistic view of the Foreign Office, but from what I can gather it’s not like that at all. I had images of exotic travel, of dead drops and seven-course dinners in the Russian Embassy. But nowadays it’s all pen-pushing and equal opportunities. Right across the board, the Civil Service is being filled up with bureaucrats and suits, people who have no problem toeing the party line. Anybody with a wild streak, anyone with a flash of the unpredictable, is ruled out. There are no rough edges any more. The oil business has more room for adventure, don’t you think?’
They both nod. It looks as though the gamble has paid off.
‘Sorry. I don’t mean to rant.’
‘No, no, not at all,’ says Katharine, laying her hand on my sleeve. A good sign. ‘It’s good to hear you talk about it. And I have two things I wanna say.