Baku. That was it. I feared the worst, though David didn’t seem too upset. Looking back on it now, that was disingenuous.” I glance down at Caccia. “You must have known that I was blown, but you wanted me to be the one who found out why. You wanted me to be the fall guy.”
“There’s no truth in that whatsoever,” Caccia says, maintaining his cool. “There is only one person responsible for this cock-up, and that is you.”
“But you weren’t to know that, were you? At that stage you had no idea why these things were happening.”
“What happened when you got home?”
Lithiby has interrupted, trying to prevent things from escalating into a full-scale argument. I am still surprised by how quickly I have allowed the civility of the meeting to break apart.
“I made the phone call. You heard it all for yourselves. Surely I don’t need to go over all that?”
Elworthy coughs, an old man’s way of saying that he wants to be heard.
“That won’t be necessary,” he says. “But we need to know about this girl. Kate Allardyce. We’ve had a problem with her before, haven’t we?”
Elworthy looks across at Lithiby and I instinctively follow his lead. He nods just once.
“A problem with Kate?” I reply. “What do you mean? Who are you, anyway? Nobody has even told me how you fit into things.”
Elworthy ignores this.
“In your first meeting with the friends,” he says flatly, “you led the interviewer to believe that you were still involved with her.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“There’s a pattern of deceit, Alec, don’t you see?” Elworthy is now to my left, no more than a foot away, with Lithiby closing in on the right. It is like a pincer movement as Lithiby says, “You’ve tried to pull the wool over our eyes about her before. We’d like to know what role she has in this. How does Kate Allardyce fit in?”
What is this assumption they have made about Kate? Where is it coming from? Have they got to her, too? I cannot think how to reply.
“Alec?” Caccia says, trying to prompt me into saying something.
“She doesn’t have any role in this,” I tell them. “This is a blind alley. That was the first time I’d seen her in over two years.”
“When?” Elworthy asks very quickly. He is convinced that there is more to this.
“Last week. When I went to her house. When I told her about what happened to Harry in Baku. About JUSTIFY. About all of this.”
“And she knew nothing of it before?”
“No. Of course not.”
They appear to have had doubts about her for some time. Trained to see trickery in even the most blameless situations.
“So how is it that the Americans discovered what was going on?”
This comes from Caccia, and I hand him a look of derision.
“Are you not getting this, David? Can you guys stop asking all these fucking obvious questions? You know how the Americans found out. They had her fucking house tapped.”
“But why?” says Elworthy, and the malice returns now to his voice. He doesn’t like the fact that I have been disrespectful to Caccia.
“Because I lied to Fortner about her. Told him we were still seeing each other. This is all on your tape. You heard the fucking conversation with Katharine. They put a bug in Kate’s house.”
“Just because of that?”
They think I’m lying.
“What other reason would they need?” I ask, exasperated.
“The fact that you were still sleeping together hardly justifies a wiretap.”
“On the contrary,” I reply. “If tonight has proved anything, it’s that Fortner was entirely justified in making that decision. After all, that’s what caught us out.”
“That’s what caught you out,” Elworthy replies.
I look at him, itching to retaliate, knowing that what he has said is entirely justified. Now he begins to pick over his words, choosing them with great care, like a politician wary of being caught out by semantics.
“You asked who I am,” he says. “I will tell you. There are people in this room who are answerable to me. That is all that I am prepared to say. What I have come here tonight to tell you is this. In view of what has happened today, we are terminating our arrangement with you. I imagine that you might have expected as much.”
I nod.
“You will be only too aware that we are under no obligation to keep you on as a support agent. Your contract is with Abnex Oil. Whether or not David decides to renew it is a matter to be settled entirely between the two of you, with the possible input of Alan Murray. The position of the Security Service is straightforward. We are letting you go.”
Only Sinclair has the guts to look at me. Both Lithiby and Caccia stare down at the floor, briefly ashamed by what Elworthy has said. The room is suddenly very silent, as if even the walls are absorbing the news. Then Caccia speaks.
“Abnex is in a similar bind, I’m afraid. After what has happened in the last few days, we feel it would be ill- advised for you to continue as an employee. There may be risks involved. I’m thinking, for example, about Harry coming back to work in due course. How will he feel if you’re still on the team?”
I am enraged by this.
“I am not the one responsible for what happened to Harry…”
“That’s not the point I’m making,” says Caccia. “As far as he is concerned, you are a liability, an industrial spy, for God’s sake. The last thing we need is for him to start digging all of this up once it’s been put to bed.”
“Whether I’m there or not won’t stop him doing that.”
“Oh, I think it will,” says Lithiby, and I see that they have agreed to present a united front against me. Tonight is not about argument or debate. Tonight is about eradicating Milius.
“So I’ve outlived my usefulness. Is that it? You just wash your hands of me, after everything I’ve done?”
“You will receive a generous payoff from Abnex Oil,” says Caccia, blinking rapidly.
Lithiby again interrupts.
“We suggest that you get out of London for the time being. Take a holiday or something. Let the dust settle.”
I actually laugh at this, at the effrontery of it.
“Take a holiday? That’s it? That’s your advice?” Even Elworthy, for the first time, looks uneasy. “And where do you think I should go? Where’s nice this time of year? Do I check the brakes on my car? Spend the next thirty years looking over my shoulder?”
“That is an overreaction,” he says, though, with the knowledge of what happened to Cohen, it is the least authoritative thing Lithiby has said all night.
“I’ll tell you what I want,” I say to them, and for a moment it is as if I have a measure of control. Having expected to be sacked, and having no great wish to remain at Abnex, the single thing I care about now is my safety. I look Lithiby directly in the eye. “Before I leave here tonight, I need concrete assurance that you will negotiate with the Americans on my behalf to guarantee that I go unharmed.”
It is some time before any of them responds.
“We’ll see what we can do,” says Elworthy.
“That isn’t good enough,” I tell him, pacing toward the door.
“Well, it’s unfortunate that you should think that,” he replies. “I would remind you that there are more important things at stake here than misguided concerns about your safety.”
“Such as?”
“We must protect the institution of secrecy, first and foremost. We told you that you had to be completely deniable. You failed in that respect.”
“The institution of secrecy?” I am almost shouting. “That is meaningless. What the fuck is that above a man’s
