someone closer to what took place. Because of our strategic retreat we don’t have anyone in place to be our eyes and ears. This is the best solution.’ His austere look showed that everything had already been decided and explained.
The cripple — an epithet used with no intention of insult, only an allusion to something about someone who doesn’t like to reveal his name — didn’t hide the anger in his face, but ended up sitting down without saying more.
‘Who’s after us, then?’ Raul asked. He had not yet gone to put the water on for the tea.
The old man threw the blanket that had covered Raul over his legs. Warmth was a necessity he should never scorn at his age. Raul waited for a reply, which was glacial, unfeeling.
‘Opus Dei.’
23
‘There are a lot of things happening under our noses, and I’m not happy we don’t have even minimal control of the situation,’ Geoffrey Barnes shouted as he came into the Center of Operations of the CIA in London.
He walked through the enormous room, filled with monitors, computers, and a large screen that filled an entire wall where a map of the world appeared with various symbols that would have meant little to the common person, although they had much to do with the lives of these common people, shouting and gesturing, red with anger. Here in this station only a few lives were important; the rest were disposable, always or whenever necessary.
The printers vomited pages and pages of information and added to the agitation that reigned in the Center of Operations. No one paid attention to the director’s angry words. There was no time or patience. He himself would stop if he thought anyone should listen, but he didn’t. Geoffrey Barnes entered his office, separated from the Center of Operations by a thin structure of aluminum and glass. The director had a privileged view over the room. Nothing escaped his attention, as he wished, but if he wanted to enjoy a few minutes of privacy, all he had to do was lower the inner blinds and no one could see in. Staughton and Thompson followed him into the office and closed the door after them, shutting out the noise from the outer room completely.
The chief sat down and put his feet on the desk. Staughton and Thompson only watched him as he swept aside some papers to arrange his legs better and enjoy some ephemeral rest. He didn’t dare mistreat the three telephones lined up on the mahogany desk on the right. Not these. One green, another red, the other beige. The green was direct contact with Langley, the headquarters of the CIA in the United States; the beige, his colleagues at the agency. Barnes avoided answering that phone, whether or not he knew who was on the other end of the line. The people who used that phone were very powerful, some even more powerful than the man who used the third, red phone, the president. When it rang, it meant someone from the Oval Office, or the president himself. It had rung only once since Barnes had assumed his responsibilities more than seven years earlier, the morning of July 7, 2005, when terrorists detonated explosives in the London transportation system. He remembered flushing when the phone began to ring. It had never crossed his mind that the phone even worked, he was so used to seeing it silent. On answering he realized it was some assistant to the president wanting to know more details first-hand to inform the chief of state. Barnes was not caught off guard and gave him the official version, to which anyone had access. Sometimes the truth was not for the ears of the president.
This is not to say Geoffrey Barnes wasn’t patriotic. Anyone who didn’t want to see his life laid wide open should never say so where he could hear them. Geoffrey Barnes was one of the few men privileged to sift through intelligence information and sort it into categories, the essential, the important, and the normal. The important was given out to others. The country had so many crooked dealings that certain things couldn’t reach the knowledge of the president. Everyone understands, surely.
‘We’re fucked.’ He was recovering, still furious. ‘Set up a meeting for six-thirty.’
‘So early?’ Staughton questioned timidly.
‘I’m awake, aren’t I?’ Barnes yelled. ‘So no one else better lie around in bed.’ He saw that Staughton wasn’t going to object.
‘Okay,’ Staughton replied, opening the door to carry out the order. For a few moments noise filled the office, shattering the quiet in there.
‘Thompson,’ Barnes called.
‘What, boss?’
‘I want a report in a half-hour on my desk with all the facts and events we know up to now.’
‘It’s done,’ the other obeyed, immediately looking for the door out.
‘You should warn all your contacts,’ Barnes ordered.
‘All?’ the other asked with his hand on the doorknob. All he could think about was the cigarette he wanted to smoke as soon as possible.
‘All.’ Barnes got up with difficulty and leaned on the table. ‘How much time do you need?’
‘I just have to make a few calls,’ Thompson replied thoughtfully. ‘Fifteen minutes. I want to know what rumors are going around now.’
‘Do that.’
Thompson opened the door. Now he could already anticipate the bitter tobacco calming his nerves, refining his olfactory pleasure, his fighting instincts. Things would be hard from now on.
‘And don’t forget to bring me the report in half an hour,’ Barnes warned, turning his back and looking over the city. He hated not having control over situations. Worse, he hated not understanding shit about what was happening. Three murders in a public bathroom in Holland, one of them an old CIA agent. The memory of him with a dark, purple cavity right in the center of his head marking the end of his life. Whoever killed him was a son of a bitch, since everything indicated only one killer, and statistics don’t attribute crimes of this sort to women.
The city was an immense lamp of yellow lights, punctuated below by the red tail-lights of cars. London was also a city that never sleeps, never. At this hour he’d rather be taking breakfast at Vingt-Quatre on Fulham Road in Chelsea. Being known there saved him from having to stand in the long line of people waiting for a table night and day. The thought of some scalloped eggs with fried sausage made his mouth begin to water. To hell with those who came between his proud gut and the possibility of filling it with nutritious substances. He’d have to leave it for another night. It was lucky Vingt-Quatre hadn’t moved.
He forgot the city and picked up the phone. Someone was waiting on the other end of the line, his secretary, Theresa, who asked him what he wanted.
‘Hello, Theresa. Bring me a double burger with cheese, pizza, and a Carlsberg, as quick as possible.’ Barnes’s mouth watered at the thought of all that in front of him. At the same time he listened to his secretary’s solicitous questions. Barnes always showed respect and never raised his voice with her. ‘I prefer Burger King, but if you can’t find one open, it can be anyplace else, don’t worry about it.’ And he hung up.
He turned his thoughts back to the situation at hand. Once again Jack Payne or Rafael, or whatever he called himself, had crossed his path. The difference was that this time Rafael wasn’t going to get the best of him. There wouldn’t be deals to save him. Why had he carried off the two corpses in Amsterdam? For what? The bodies were useless, or were they? He needed a clue as soon as possible. That was it. He picked up the telephone, but this time pressed three numbers. Two seconds later someone picked up and spoke his last name, the organizational rule for avoiding ‘hello’ and ‘who’s calling?’
‘Staughton,’ said the recipient of the call.
‘I want you to put a team on Jack’s trail. I want him in front of me before the morning is over.’
‘After Jack Payne, really?’ There was no room for misunderstandings in this profession. One was playing with human lives, and errors were costly.
‘Of course Jack Payne. Who else?’ Jack had a gift for leaving him irritated, and, consequently, hungry.
‘Okay. I’ll take care of that,’ Staughton replied, disconnecting without waiting for Barnes to give him more instructions. Giving orders was fine, if you didn’t have to carry them out yourself.
Barnes hung up also, a little stupefied. He looked at the room beyond the divider window. A continuous stream of men and women moved back and forth, people swinging their arms with their hands full of papers, others shouting into the phone, some listening attentively but not to music. The more distracted or less familiar with this
