Our Kind of Traitor

Fired by a need to protect the subdued Hector, Luke appointed himself the somebody who would tell Matlock what a black hotel was:

‘You buy a bit of prime land, usually on the sea, Billy. You pay cash for it, you build a five-star luxury-hotel resort. Maybe several. For cash. And throw in fifty or so holiday bungalows if you’ve got the space. You bring in the best furniture, cutlery, china, linen. From then on your hotels and bungalows are full up. Except that nobody ever stays in them, you see. If a travel agent calls: sorry, we’re fully booked. Every month a security van rolls up at the bank and unloads all the cash that’s been taken in room rentals, bungalow rentals, the restaurants, the casinos, the nightclubs and the bars. After a couple of years, your resorts are in perfect shape to be sold with a brilliant trading record.’

No response beyond a raising of Matlock’s avuncular smile to maximum strength.

‘It’s not only resorts either, actually. It can be one of those strangely empty white holiday villages – you must have seen them, trickling down Turkish valleys to the sea – it can be, well, scores of villas, obviously, it can be pretty well anything that’s lettable. Car hire too, provided you can fudge the paperwork.’

‘How are you today, Luke?’

‘Fine, thanks, Billy.’

‘We’re thinking of putting you up for a medal, courage beyond the call, did you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Well, we are. A secret one, mind, nothing public. Nothing you can flash on your chest on Remembrance Day, mind. That wouldn’t be secure. Plus it would fly in the face of precedent.’

‘Of course,’ said Luke, totally confused, now thinking a medal might be the one thing that would get Eloise over her depression, now that it was yet another of Matlock’s wiles. Nevertheless, he was about to say something appropriate in reply – express his surprise, gratitude, pleasure – only to find that Matlock had lost interest in him:

‘What I’m hearing so far, Hector, if I cut away the guff, which I like to, is in my humble view straight international crookery. All right, granted, the Service has a statutory interest in international crookery and money- laundering. We fought for a piece of it when times were hard, and now we’re landed with it. I refer to that unfortunate fallow period between the Berlin Wall coming down and Osama bin Laden doing us the favour of 9/11. We fought for a piece of the money-laundering market the same as we fought for a larger slice of Northern Ireland, and whatever other modest pickings were available to justify our existence. But that was then, Hector. And this is now, and as of today, which is where we are living, like it or not, your Service and mine has better things to do with its time and resources than get its knickers caught in the highly complex wheels of City of London finance, thank you.’

Matlock broke off, expecting Luke knew not what, unless it was applause, but Hector, to judge by his stony expression, was a long way from providing it, so Matlock drew breath and resumed.

‘As of today, furthermore, we also have, in this country, a very large, fully incorporated, somewhat over- financed sister agency that devotes its efforts, such as they are, to matters of serious and organized crime, which I take it is what you are purporting to be unveiling here. Not to mention Interpol, and any number of competing American agencies falling over each other’s very large feet to do the same job while careful not to prejudice the prosperity of that great nation. My point is, Hector – wait till I’m finished, please – my point is, I’m not seeing what I was brought here for at extremely short notice. We all know that what you’ve got is urgent, though to whom I’m less sure. Maybe it’s even true. But is it ours, Hector? Is it ours?’

The question was evidently rhetorical, for he rolled on.

‘Or could it be, Hector, that you are trespassing, at your peril, on the highly sensitive preserves of a sister organization with which, over painful months, I and my Secretariat have thrashed out very hard-won lines of demarcation? Because were that to be the case, my advice to you would be this: package up that material you have just played to me, and any other material of the same ilk that is in your possession and, with immediate effect, pass that material to our sister organization with a grovelling letter of apology for trespassing on its sanctified areas of competence. And when you have done that, I suggest you award yourself, and Luke here, and whoever else you’ve got tucked away in your cupboard, two weeks of well-deserved sick leave.’ Had Hector’s fabled nerve finally run out? Luke wondered anxiously. Had the strain of bringing Gail and Perry to the water taken too much of a toll? Or was he so driven by the high purpose of his mission that he had lost his grasp on tactic?

Lethargically reaching out a finger, Hector shook his head and sighed, and fast-forwarded the tape.

* * *

Dima calm. Dima reading, whether Billy Boy likes it or not. Dima powerful and dignified, orating from script in his best ceremonial Russian:‘Example. Details of very secret pact in Sochi 2000 between seven bonding vory Brotherhoods, signed by the Seven Brothers and called The Understanding. Under this pact, personally brokered by usurper bitch Prince with arm’s-length connivance of Kremlin, all seven signatories agree:‘One: to avail themselves and make communal all proven and successful money routes designed by the one they call Dima, henceforth number-one money-launderer for all seven Brotherhoods.‘Two: all communal bank accounts will be conducted under vory code of honour, any deviation will be punished by death of guilty party, accompanied by permanent exclusion of responsible vory Brotherhood.‘Three: corporate respectability will be created in following six financial capitals: Toronto, Paris, Rome, Berne, Nicosia, London. End destination of all laundered monies: London. Best centre of respectability: London. Best outlook for long-term banking entity: London. Best prospect to save and conserve: London. This is also agreed.‘Four: the task of obscuring origins of black money and directing its passage into safe havens will continue to remain the primary and sole responsibility of the one they call Dima.‘Five: for all major movements of money, this Dima will have first-signature rights. Each signatory to The Understanding will appoint one clean envoy. This clean envoy will have second-signature signing rights only.‘Six: to effect substantive alteration to above system, all seven clean envoys will be simultaneously required to be present under vory law.‘Seven: the pre-eminence of the one they call Dima as master architect of all money-laundering structures agreed under The Understanding of Sochi 2000 is hereby acknowledged.’

‘And amen, as we might say,’ Hector murmurs, and once more switches off the recorder and glances at Matlock for a reaction. Luke does too, to be greeted, of all things, by Matlock’s indulgent smile.

‘D’you know, Hector, I think I could have made that up myself,’ he says, shaking his head in what must pass for admiration. ‘Beautiful is all I can say. Fluent, imaginative, and puts him right at the top of the heap. How can anyone possibly question the veracity of such a magnificent global statement? I’d give him an Oscar for a start. What does he mean by clean envoy?’

‘Clean like cleanskin, Billy. No previous convictions, criminal or ethical. Accountants, lawyers, moonlighting policemen and Intelligence officers, any made brother who can travel, sign his name, owes his allegiance to his Brotherhood and knows he’ll wake up with his balls in his mouth if he robs the till.’

* * *

Appearing to Luke more like a careworn family solicitor than his irrepressible self, Hector consults a bit of battered card on which he had apparently scribbled himself a march route for the meeting, and again fast-forwards the tape.

‘Map,’ Dima barks in Russian.

‘Bugger it. Too late,’ Hector mutters, and runs back a stretch.‘Also conditional upon reliable British guarantees, will be very secret, very important map.’

Dima resumes, reading rapidly, as before, from script in Russian:‘In this map will be recorded international routes of all black monies under control of the one they are calling Dima who is speaking to you.’

At Matlock’s bidding, Hector yet again pauses the tape.