one more time for clarity. So he drives for another twenty minutes while Katharine runs them past me once more.
We are almost home when their car phone rings out loud and shrill. The interior of the Mondeo is miked up and Fortner is able to answer the call without lifting the receiver from its cradle.
“Yup,” he says.
“Fort?”
The caller, an American, is trying to shout above the roar of the road. His voice sounds distant and warped, as if lost under a great, vaulted ceiling.
“Hi, Mike.”
“Hey, buddy. Can you call Strickland ASAP?”
I instinctively flinch away from Fortner when I hear his name, an uncontrolled movement to disguise my surprise. Strickland. The agent Lithiby used to leak my SIS file to the CIA. Is this just coincidence, or is there another level to this, a conspiracy that I’m not seeing?
“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 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 toward 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 released a block short of my flat.
27
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 that catches me off guard.
It is a gray March day at work. 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 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 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 that 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 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 dialed the number incorrectly, when a voice responds at the other end.
“Hello?”
It’s 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 Organiser. 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?” I say, with enthusiasm. “Great.” These simple words feel unnatural and self-conscious. “See you then.”
“All right,” she says, abruptly hanging up.
As I replace the receiver, my left thigh is shaking involuntarily beneath the desk. I need to walk around, need to splash some cold water on my face to throw me clear of worry. In the gents’, I run the cold tap for a few seconds, eventually filling a sink. Then I scoop handfuls of icy water onto my face, letting it wash out my eyes and cool my temples. Having lifted the lever to release the plug, I stare open-eyed into the mirror. Bloodshot whites, tired and weary, with a spot coming up on my nose. I run through Katharine’s instructions one more time.
It’s watertight. Relax. Just do what you’re being paid to do.
Crossing the room to the hand dryers, I stick my face in a rush of warm air, eyes squeezed tight against the heat. Behind me, a cubicle lock snaps open, making me jump. Duncan from accounts emerges from one of the booths looking disheveled. I glance at him briefly and leave.
Toward six o’clock, Piers invites me to join him for a drink with Ben, but I explain that I already have a dinner engagement and make my excuses. I need time in which to settle myself before the handover tonight, time in which to gather my strength.
At half past, I join the early evening rush hour and for once am glad of the people crowding up the tube, glad that we stop between stations and wait in the darkness for the train to jerk just a few yards down a tunnel. It takes three times as long for the sheer volume of passengers to get on and off at each station, and every passing moment shrinks my waiting time before meeting Atwater. I dread the inevitable slowness that precedes a handover, the dead period in which I can only anticipate capture. Every enforced delay is welcome.
It is quarter to eight by the time I get home. A weak drizzle has begun falling outside, a wetness that clings to the roads and buildings, glistening under the street lights. My hair is damp when I get inside, and I dry it off with a towel while boiling the kettle for tea. Then I sit for more than an hour half watching television, my mind working slowly over the details of the plan for the last time: the circuit of the roundabout, the route to Chelsea Harbour, the tenor of the meeting with Atwater. I stay off the booze and occasionally pick at a microwaved potato, but deep concentration has left me with no appetite.
Just after nine o’clock, I go through the contents of Caccia’s package. The envelope is padded with bubble wrap and contains a light blue plastic folder labeled CONFIDENTIAL in bold black ink. Inside it there is a twelve-
