experience, and the others appear quietly deferential toward him.
All three are probably wearing the clothes in which they went to work this morning: Lithiby in his customary blue shirt with its white collar, Caccia still in his gray flannel suit, the third man in cords and a tweed jacket. Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, I feel untidy and slack beside them, yet their formal clothes are incongruous in this kitchen with its cheap fixtures and fittings, its linoleum floor patterned with worn beige checks. They are visitors here, too.
There are three mugs of tea resting on a Formica-topped table in the center of the room, brown milky fluid gradually souring in dregs at the base of each.
I try to gather myself into courage by speaking first, looking at each of them in turn.
“Good evening, David. John.” I look directly into the glasses of the older man. “Sir.”
“Good evening to you,” he says. He has no accent, but there is a gravelly resonance in his voice like that of a well-trained actor. I notice that his shoes are brown suede, one of them stained.
“Have a seat, Alec,” says Lithiby, failing to introduce me to the older man. I would have preferred to remain standing-and he knows that about me-but this is typical of the way Lithiby operates. He is a student of control, of bending others to his will.
I sit with my back to the door. Barbara makes herself scarce, most probably to the sitting room nearby, where she will record and minute the conversation that follows. Sinclair loiters near the sink and Lithiby tells him to make four cups of instant coffee, an order he obeys like a butler.
“You take milk, don’t you, Alec?” Sinclair asks.
Never accept tea or coffee at an interview. They’ll see your hand shaking when you drink it.
“Black, please,” I reply. “Two sugars.”
Caccia now sits on my left. I take out a cigarette.
“This is okay, isn’t it?” I ask him, holding it up. I want to hear Caccia speak.
“Of course, of course,” he says breathlessly. “This isn’t going to be anything sinister, Alec. We just want to have a little chat.”
I light the cigarette. Sinclair puts a small white plate in front of me to use as an ashtray. They’ve got him well trained.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me, David?” I say, nodding toward the old man. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to say that to Lithiby.
“Of course,” Caccia says quickly. “Forgetting my manners. Alec, this is Peter Elworthy.”
A cover name.
“How do you do?” I say, trying to stand up to shake the old man’s hand. My legs get trapped under the table as I say, “Alec.”
His look here is revealing: Elworthy knows exactly who I am-of course he does-and gives a passing glance of annoyance. He lacks entirely Caccia’s easily peddled charm and, unlike Lithiby, is too old for me to make any sort of a connection with him.
“How do you do?”
His suit is a very dark tweed with a waistcoat underneath. Men of his age often don’t seem to mind being too warm in the summer months. And although it is late now, he looks sharp and alert, more so than Caccia, who looks significantly more tired than he did this afternoon.
“Do you know what the Russians are up to these days?” Elworthy appears to have directed the question to Lithiby, who is standing beside him.
“No,” he replies, as if he has learned his lines.
“Rather than track down all their traitors, the KGB-or whatever those fellows are calling themselves these days-are trying to turn them into double agents, to play them back against our side. They even have a number that the Russian agents can telephone if they’re having second thoughts and want to turn themselves in. The Yeltsin government then offer them money to feed us disinformation.”
“Is that right?” says Lithiby blandly.
Elworthy continues, “The Americans are finding it difficult to recruit new officers as well. You need fluency in two or three languages coupled with a high level of computer literacy. And if one has those as a graduate, why opt for a CIA starting salary of thirty thousand dollars when Microsoft will pay three times that amount?”
“Mossad has the same problem,” Lithiby replies. “We all have.”
Caccia looks down at the table as Elworthy moves farther toward me.
“My feeling is-”
I interrupt him.
“Can we cut the shit? Is that possible? We all know why I’m here, so let’s talk this thing out. Stop fucking around.”
Elworthy looks taken aback: I would almost say that he is impressed. I do not know where this courage has come from, but I am grateful for it. Nothing is said for a few moments. Sinclair takes the opportunity to place two mugs of coffee on the table. He passes one to Lithiby, but Elworthy raises his hand.
“Listen to me, young man.” He leans on the table, palms down, fingers spread out like a web. “I will do this in my own time.”
His voice is a dark hiss. It has shifted from nonchalance to malice in a matter of seconds. Only now do I realize the extent of their anger. All of them.
“I apologize. I’m just a little edgy. You bring me out here in the middle of the night…”
Elworthy stands again, leaving sweat prints on the red plastic surface of the table as he rises to his feet.
“We understand,” Caccia says, interjecting gently. He has obviously been designated to soften me up. “This must be as difficult for you as it is for us.”
“What does that mean?” I say, turning to him. I had not intended to lose my temper so quickly. “How can this in any way be as difficult for you as it is for me? Is your life in danger? Is it? Are your friends and family safe? Have you just fucked something up on this scale?”
“Let’s calm it, Alec, shall we?” Lithiby says, walking across the room toward the door. He is soon directly behind me, and his presence is enough to make me want to move. I pick up my cigarette, push back the chair, and stand up. Sinclair looks briefly startled. The cigarette has left a tiny nicotine smear on the plate.
“Where are you going?” Lithiby asks.
“Just let me walk around, will you? I think more clearly that way.”
At some point I have accepted that this will be my last encounter with any of them. They are preparing to cut me loose. It is pointless to hold out any hope of a reprieve. After this, there is no chance that MI5 will keep to their promise of a permanent job. That was conditional solely on the success of the operation.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened tonight,” Elworthy announces, his voice back to its characteristic level of flat understatement.
I inhale very deeply on the cigarette and almost choke on the smoke.
“You know what happened,” I tell him. “You heard it all. There’s nothing for me to add.”
Behind me, Lithiby says, “It would be helpful, nonetheless, if we could get a handle on things from your point of view.”
“What, so that Barbara can get it all down for the record?”
“You’re being very aggressive, Alec,” he says. “There’s really no need.”
Perhaps I am, and this checks my rising anger. Perhaps I have read the situation incorrectly and have not been summoned here simply to be mocked and fired. There may be a chance that they are prepared to notch this up to experience.
“I don’t mean to be that way,” I reply. “You can understand that it’s been a bad day.”
Caccia smiles. He is still sitting at the table, fingers playing idly with the handle of his mug. He has always looked too well preserved, too decent and respectable, to be involved in something like this. A diplomat out of his depth, a dull foil for Hawkes. Caccia was never SIS, merely window dressing.
“Of course,” says Lithiby, empathetically. “Why don’t you sit down and tell us what happened?”
His trickery has the effect of putting me once again on my guard.
“I’ve told you, John, I prefer to stand. All that happened was this. I had a meeting with David at Abnex this afternoon. He told me that our people had seen Fortner skip the country, and that Andromeda had pulled out of
