The Blind Spy

over to stand beside Dupont. “But how many people in Cougar knew of Anna’s assignment, Bob? The details. And who outside Cougar?”

“The three of us. And Larry—but none of the other boys with him.”

“Did you tell the Russians, Bob?” Burt said mischievously.

Dupont looked momentarily wrong footed, before realising that this was Burt’s usual line of humour. He didn’t respond.

“The three of us and Larry,” Burt said. “Who outside?”

“You informed the CIA,” Dupont pointed out.

“But not the times or dates, just the general outline.”

“The general outline, but they could have looked more closely if they’d wished. They might have been checking out the hiring of the freighter, I suppose, and found it was ours. We disguised it, of course, but you never know. They might even have been tracking Anna. It’s possible.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Professional jealousy, that’s the only reason. You know how the agency feels threatened by Cougar. And you also know, Burt, how they like to know everything.”

“Lish is our man,” Burt said.

“But who knows if he passed it on to anyone. Watching us, or Anna, is in the normal run of things for the agency.”

“Get him on the phone.”

Burt picked up the cigar from the ashtray and champed it between his teeth.

“Why are you asking this?” Dupont said.

“There’s been a leak. Anna could have lost her life.”

“And the courier was killed,” Anna reminded him.

Dupont looked shocked. Against Burt’s easy acceptance of the status quo he was visibly disturbed.

“Don’t get in a state about it, Bob. Let’s just deal with what’s happening.” Burt’s mantra was always the same, familiar refrain to Cougar employees and, before that, to CIA recruits whom Burt had once taught at the CIA’s training centre, known as the Farm, in Virginia. “The only thing that matters is what happens”—no regrets, no self-chastisement, no anxiety—just act in the frame of what happens, that was Burt’s time-honoured method. “What happens is king, God, and all you need to know.”

“You want to talk with him in here?” Dupont asked.

“Yes, call Theo from the dedicated phone. I want to get him right away, give him no time to consider it.”

And so Dupont put a call through to Langley from Burt’s yacht. Lish came to the phone after a minute or two. When Burt took the phone from Dupont, he walked away from the table towards the stern of the ship and spoke to him from the far end of the operations room. After a five-minute conversation he returned, handing Dupont the phone as if he were unable to put it down himself.

“I have my own ideas about this,” he said, but he didn’t expand, nor did he relay the contents of the conversation he’d just had with Lish. “Now, let’s have an early dinner. You must be tired, Anna, and there’s something else I want you to do before the NATO meeting next week. And by the way, I want you at that meeting, Anna,” he said. “Alongside me.”

Dupont looked questioningly at him.

“Not this time, Bob. This time I’m taking Anna. She’s going to make a presentation.”

He looked at her, expecting a question, but she wasn’t going to give him the easy satisfaction and, once again, she saw he liked her self-contained coolness.

They dined onboard the ship. The Cougar, as well as the ranch in New Mexico and half a dozen other possessions of importance to him, had a crew of forty-five, and eight of them were chefs. “It’s the best food in the City of London,” Burt boasted, though clearly without intending anyone to believe him. Burt’s world was one of endless positive beliefs. He was the epitome of positive thinking no matter what the situation was.

Throughout the three-course meal, with the usual accompaniment of excellent wines, he regaled Dupont and Anna with stories of his youth in the CIA, stories both of them had heard before but which Anna listened to each time in order to spot the occasional inconsistency. Burt liked to elaborate—or fabricate—much of his experiences in the field. She doubted, in fact, that he had ever been to Novorossiysk at all.

After dinner, Dupont left the ship and Burt suggested that Anna should stay and sleep on the Cougar, instead of at the company apartment. She readily agreed. Pouring himself a brandy in the saloon, Burt sat in a large armchair.

“You were too young to have worked in the days of the Cold War,” he said.

“I joined the KGB in 1990,” she replied.

“And now the world is reshaping itself again,” he said. “Who will come nearer the top of the pile and who will drop back?”

She didn’t reply this time, knowing that these conversational brushstrokes were his way of getting to the point.

“The new Cold War is different from the old one only in terms of geographical location,” he said. “Once it was worldwide; arming African and South American potentates, spreading our rivalling ideologies thinly across the globe. Now the new Cold War is being fought in the former states of the Soviet Union. In central Asia it’s about oil and gas supply, as well as Russian and American military bases in countries like Kyrgizstan. American wars in Afghanistan and no doubt beyond Afghanistan before long require us having bases there. The Russians see our soft spot and try to exploit it. In the Caucasus, Russia invaded Georgia to prevent NATO expansion there. And then there’s Ukraine, Russia’s soul. That’s where we must look now.”

“Endless conflict,” Anna murmured.

“We find out who our enemies are in times of conflict,” he said. “And that is why we need conflict. Conflict cleans out the stables, reveals what lies underneath history’s layers. Conflict is necessary to see the enemy.”

“Haven’t the Americans had enough conflict?” she said. She got out of her chair and poured herself a brandy.

“America has made mistakes,” he answered. “America always sees the obvious at the expense of the obscure. It waited until it was attacked before it addressed the jihad. Now it talks of wars of prevention, of preemption—as if that were a new concept, but it’s always tried to preempt. Central and South America are one long, and generally disastrous, episode in America’s preemptive struggle against its enemies. But they were small fry. Deposing the odd dictator in the Third World doesn’t even sharpen the teeth. No. America has gotten scared of its real enemies. Maybe it always has been. Maybe it has only ever reacted against its real enemies, rather than acted. The Cold War was one long reaction.”

“What are you saying? That they should have nuked Moscow?”

Burt laughed. “No, nothing of the sort and you know it.”

“There were enough proxy wars to fill an encyclopaedia,” she replied. “What else could America have done?”

“I’m not interested in history, let alone potential history,” Burt said. “History never taught anyone anything. I’m interested in flushing out our enemies now. And I want you to pursue this theme for Cougar. In the field, if you insist. Though I’d rather you were directing operations.”

“You know the deal. I’ll only work in the field. That’s where I’m best.”

“I know that.”

“And you mean against Russia.”

“Yes. But the purpose is twofold. Russia is becoming the enemy again. But of equal importance, I want to know who Russia’s appeasers are in the West. I want to flush out Russia’s intentions but also find which way certain other countries in Europe will jump. With us—with America—or with Russia.”

“What has this got to do with Novorossiysk?”

“Maybe something. But that’s for down the line a little. I need to send someone into Ukraine again. If it’s you, you need to leave tomorrow in order to be back in Brussels in time.”

“Is it important that I come to Brussels?”

“I’d like you to be there.”