gatherings when there is a Swiss need and, in return, the Swiss government has recently granted him permission to build a $20-million chalet in our poorest canton, Valais.’
A heavily mascaraed waitress takes the order for another round of drinks. Frank drinks coffee, the rest of us beers and wine. The Troll lights his umpteenth cigarette and Finn follows him in this, as usual, as if reminded that he smokes. When the drinks have arrived, Finn looks around the table at each of us.
‘When I had just started in the Service,’ Finn begins, smiling at this retrieved memory, ‘I was asked to take the place of a more seasoned intelligence officer who was ill, during an operation in London. My task was to follow a Soviet embassy official and I was in the company of one of our occasionals called Kirill. Kirill was an old white Russian, nice guy, slightly mad, well into his seventies, and way past his sell-by date.
‘The Russian embassy official we were interested in had previously been at the Soviet embassy in Kabul just before the coup in ’79, and we were certain he was KGB,’ Finn says. ‘And now he had been posted to London. We decided to surprise him on his way home one evening and make him an offer.’ Finn puffs on his cigarette without pausing to drop the long ash into the ashtray. ‘It was my first face-to-face contact with a real Russian spy!’ he says and he squeezes my knee under the table.
‘Kirill and I were to wait in a pub by one of London’s commuter rail stations. The Russian took either the 5.10 or the 5.35 train each day to Blackheath where he lived. But the target didn’t show and Kirill proceeded to get drunker and drunker and angrier and angrier until I called back to base to say we should abort. They told us to stay where we were. When the target finally turned up after seven o’clock, Kirill was completely plastered. We followed the Russian on to the train and sat in the next carriage. Kirill had a bottle of beer and started walking up and down the carriage cursing and shouting about Russian spies. I thought he was going to be arrested as soon as the train pulled in.
‘Eventually I managed to manhandle him into a seat and we got off at Blackheath and began to follow the target across the common, the old boy growling and swaying as we went. When we decided to make our move, the two of us came up alongside the man and I tapped his arm to ask directions. But as soon as we had his attention I told him that this was his moment of truth-either come over or we would fatally compromise him. Kirill was singing some old white revolutionary song and shouting something or other in Russian at a tree.
‘The target just looked scornfully at the old boy and then right into my eyes. Then he said calmly, “Why don’t you just fuck off,” and walked away.
‘I had to practically carry Kirill all the way home to Hampstead.’ Finn finally grinds his cigarette into an ashtray and smiles. Then he gets to the purpose of the story. ‘I’m telling you this to demonstrate that even our fine British intelligence service can conduct an operation of complete ineptitude.’
He looks around the table.
‘So don’t let anyone think we’re not up to this task. We are as good as anybody, perhaps better. Who would believe that we had come so far already?’ he says.
James, the blunt end, nods with soldierly approval, although he has no doubt heard better pep talks than this one on real parade grounds. Everyone is now looking at Finn.
‘What happened to Kirill?’ Karin asks.
‘He was retired with honour,’ Finn says, and arches an eyebrow at her. ‘But in 1991 he decided to revisit Moscow for the first time in over sixty years. He arrived on the day of the coup against Gorbachev, saw the tanks on the streets and assumed they’d come for him, the idiot. He had a heart attack and died on the spot.’
The Troll laughs uproariously. He is full of black humour.
‘Intelligence agencies usually overrate themselves,’ Finn continues, when the Troll’s rumblings subside. ‘It’s how they get their funding. If the British secret service makes mistakes like we did with Kirill, then all services do. All services anyway contain the inbuilt flaw of being forced to do what they’re told by politicians.
‘The KGB is no better, and in some ways it’s worse. It’s disor-ganised, bloated, overconfident and at war with itself. So we should not underestimate what we few can achieve.’
Karin raises her glass and we all toast ‘the Italian job’, as Finn has named the operation, and ‘Italy’, which is what we call Exodi.
The final push now, Finn says, ‘is to find what the Kremlin plans to do with all this money it has clandestinely brought to the West. What is it for? What does Exodi exist to do?’
‘There aren’t enough football teams in the world…’ the Troll muses.
‘No amount of their intelligence operations in the West could possibly soak up these sums of money.’ Finn pauses and leans back in his chair.
‘The Russians are now the world leader in raw, brutal capitalism,’ Karin says.
‘Like America a hundred years ago,’ Willy adds. ‘There are no rules for them. The oligarchs have secret accounts all over Europe. It’s unbelievable.’
‘I’ve almost completed an investigation into one of them on just this theme,’ Frank says.
‘Which one?’ the Troll asks.
‘Mikhail Khodorkovsky,’ Frank replies.
Frank is referring to Russia’s richest man and the owner of its biggest oil company, who has just been arrested by special forces in Siberia, as his private plane prepared to take off.
Finn looks up at Frank and leaves his gaze hanging in his direction, but he doesn’t respond.
‘If we can find where Exodi’s funds are going,’ Finn says, bringing the conversation back, ‘I believe we will find the answer to all questions of Russia’s foreign policy.’ He looks at Frank again and smiles. ‘Frank, what do the illegal and secret accounts at Westbank exist to do? Where does the money go?’
‘That would be difficult to find out,’ Frank replies, and I sense he now regrets displaying his expertise a moment earlier.
‘But possible,’ Finn presses him. ‘We know what’s in the in-tray, but what’s in the out-tray? What are the funds paying for?’
‘Possible? Yes, it’s possible,’ Frank replies. But his habitual smile is no longer on his face.
Finn turns away.
‘And can you’–he looks at the Troll–‘look at the same question from Exodi Geneva’s point of view. With Karin perhaps? Both of you work together. What is going out of Exodi’s accounts in Geneva and where to?’
The unlikely combination of the Troll and Karin escapes nobody. The Troll, so grumpily confident of his own skills, is reduced to an embarrassed boy by just appearing even in the same sentence as the beautiful Karin. His blush spreads downwards into the russet beard and he merely grunts his acknowledgement.
‘Anna, James and I will be in Geneva for a while. There’s an important lead here that needs following up,’ Finn says. ‘Our first move on to the offensive, in fact.’
‘Oh yes?’ Frank’s smile has returned as he enquires, but Finn doesn’t expand.
‘I expect to make a start this afternoon,’ Finn says, discouraging further questions. ‘It’s already in motion.’
‘Oh go on, tell us,’ the Troll says mockingly.
Finn grins.
Finn puts his arm around Willy who is sitting next to him.
‘I have the name of a girl who works at a bank in Valais, Willy,’ he says. He hands over a piece of paper to Willy, presumably with the name of this girl and the bank on it, but there is more writing than that. I see there are names and account numbers, but I can’t read them, and Finn is careful to shield them from all but Willy. ‘I want you to see if you can ask her these questions,’ Finn says. ‘Who are they?’ He is referring to the unseen names, I guess. ‘What is their history of payments, in and out. And why are the accounts under the control of the bank’s president alone.’
‘Sure, I can go to Valais.’ Willy shrugs and takes the paper.
‘There’s good walking there,’ Karin says. ‘And excellent golf.’
‘Thank you,’ Willy says, and smiles back at her. ‘But I don’t play golf.’
When we leave the cafe half an hour later, Finn makes a point of taking Frank aside and they walk up the street towards a tram stop. Frank seems anxious.
‘You need money, Frank?’ Finn asks.
‘Oh…you know,’ Frank answers.
Finn has always said Frank has little or nothing. He has always worked for peanuts because of his messianic belief in attacking big, criminal capital.
