Confessor (8 page)

Worst of all, a commercial airliner that had just taken off from La Guardia exploded in midair. Luckily, the debris fell into the East River, but all forty-two passengers and crew died at three thousand feet above the city.

Nobody claimed responsibility, but individuals with both the FBI and CIA counterintelligence departments knew that, in the end, these gross actions were their responsibility. They were stunned, looking gray, sick, their eyes carrying a haunted expression.

People on the streets had a similar demeanor: an anxiousness around the eyes, and a newfound hurrying step, as though they wanted to move quickly through the city and flee the impending doom of a terrorist action.

The President went on television that night, admitting that this was the worst terrorist action the country had ever experienced and urging his fellow Americans not to be fearful of what might lie ahead.

In many ways, it was as though millions of American citizens were joined together in a collective mourning. Some had not felt the like since the dark days of the Vietnam War, which meant that many thousands were again feeling the soft stench of Death’s breath on their cheeks.

H
ERBIE HAD BEEN RIGHT
about Gus’s study: there was a strange feeling in the room, as though the old interrogator still inhabited the place. The aroma of his pipe had impregnated the curtains and his books, so that Herbie felt he was surrounded by the essence of Gus Keene, bringing him back to mind with frightening clarity.

Herbie walked around the room trying to rediscover his old friend. This, he soon realized, was a disturbing experience. As he wrote in his diary, it was disconcerting, for he heard the sound of the interrogator’s footsteps, imagined the door opening—it still had a slight squeak of the hinge, which, he assumed, had not been oiled for a purpose. The way Gus had his worktable set up, he was forced to sit with his back to the door. Gus never liked sitting with his back to doors, so some kind of warning was necessary, hence the squealing door, which Kruger recalled in dreams of the time he had faced Gus Keene in this very place.

On the first night, the three of them—Bitsy, Ginger and Herbie—drove into Salisbury for an Indian: Ginger driving and not drinking, which allowed Herb and Bitsy to knock off an entire bottle of unconscionably ragged red with no pedigree. They also shared a chicken vindaloo, and Bitsy became almost girlish about the heat generated by the curry. In fact, they got quite chummy and exchanged the names of mutual friends, both in and out of the Office.

“Herb, you’ve lost a lot of weight, you know,” Bitsy told him. “You’re not ill, are you?”

“Lost my appetite for a while, Bitsy. Getting it back now.” He placed a spoon heavily loaded with chicken and mango chutney into his mouth and chewed. To himself he admitted he
was
getting an appetite again. If truth be told, Bitsy could tell that Herb found her attractive, after a physical and lustful manner. As for Herbie, he allowed himself to flirt outrageously with Ms. Williams. Later, he chided himself. The thought of light, or even heavy, relief with Bitsy was not unpleasant, but he had vowed not to go through all that again.

Life, he had long decided, had a tendency to screw you. Under his breath he had muttered, “The screwing you are getting ain’t worth the screwing you get.” This was an adage—slightly fractured by Herb’s English—passed on to him many years ago by Tony Worboys, when the world, and Worboys, really were young.

Bitsy was attractive in a manner difficult to describe. The hair was not brilliant; dark, though not the jet of a nightshade witch. Her face was slightly irregular, the nose just a trifle too big, though the eyes, large and brown, would widen, becoming disconcertingly innocent; while her mouth was molded after the manner of Carly Simon—something that lit up Herb’s libido like a marker beacon.

The interest did not go unnoticed, for she kissed him lightly on the cheek before retiring, and the faithful Ginger remarked that he should “take heed of the lady.” A strangely Shakespearean comment, which Kruger put down to the fact that Ginger had done a lot of work with members of an old Office family—just as Kruger had—and to be with any of
them
meant Shakespeare was an obligatory second language.

Books surrounded him in Gus’s old study, and he browsed quietly, noting titles. There was, of course, some fiction.
Crime and Punishment
nestled close to
Anna Karenina
and a Folio Society
Collected Plays of Chekhov
. Modern authors were also there: the more humorless espionage authors. Only the very good ones. No dross. Not a hint of the Bond-wagon.

Inevitably, there were the famed books on torture—Parry,
The History of Torture in England
; Andrews,
Bygone Punishments
; Haggard,
The Lame, the Halt and the Blind
; Jardine,
The Use of Torture
; Duff,
A Handbook on Hanging, The Methods of the Inquisition
, Edited by A. C. Keene. So, Gus had even added to the literature.

The bulk of the volumes, though, were required trade reading. Histories of the Office—as they called the SIS—both whimsically bad and inaccurate, as well as scholarly and near-perfect. Nigel West rubbed shoulders with Christopher Andrew. There were works on psychiatry and tradecraft and international diplomacy, plus obligatory tomes on intelligence services—Mossad, the KGB, CIA, NSA and others in a similar line of business. Most of these were now period pieces, outdated in the rush to realignment since the main enemy had ceased to be, and the true menace lay under different patches of earth, in unfamiliar places.

He heard the line of some once-popular song in his head, and he turned it around, as was his practice. Singing under his breath, “I’ll be seeing you, in all the unfamiliar places …”

In the center of the room an old, polished table, almost too big for the space, sat covered with items of work. It was a fine and wonderful table, probably worth a small fortune. Herb suspected that it was the real thing: a refectory table from some convent.
Get thee to a nunnery, Gus.
There was a laser printer at the fireplace end, next to a Macintosh Centris. To the left of the high-tech hardware lay a small printout of manuscript, about an inch high, while the rest of the table was taken up by piles of bulging ring binders, riding into a skyline.

On that first night, full of vindaloo and vegetable curry, Kruger looked only at one red folder carrying the word “Correspondence” on a laser-produced sticky label. The correspondence seemed haphazard, mainly between Gus and his publishers: for the most part a series of letters between the interrogator/author and a faceless editor with the unlikely name of Mark Collier. He flipped through the letters, noting that the earliest dates had very correct salutations and sign-offs:

Dear Mr. Keene,

I was delighted to learn that we have finally come to an agreement, via your agent, Mr. De Monds, whom I have known for a number of years … et cetera, et cetera …

Sincerely,

Mark Collier.

As things progressed, after a first meeting was arranged and kept—at The Connaught, no less—the letters became more relaxed. “Dear Gus” and “As ever, Mark.” The formal wooing was over and the honeymoon began. There was an enthusiastic piece about the title,
Ask a Stupid Question
. (So what was the twaddle Carole was giving me? he wondered.)

Mark had written: “It is absolutely right for a wide market, as it should appeal to the serious scholars of what you refer to as your trade, plus the huge readership of the more superior novels of espionage.”

Herbie pondered, sitting there at three in the morning, asking himself if Gus was pulling a fast one, with the connivance of the Chief. Producing a book of only near-fact, for who but the archivists—and Angus Crook—would be able to gainsay him?

The thought was banished when he came to a long letter bemoaning the news that it was unlikely Gus would be allowed to include the more juicy details of some highly sensitive interrogations, in both Belfast and London, concerning operations against the Irish Republican Army. “For instance, we could sell the book on Operation
Cataract
alone,” Mark had written more in sadness than in anger.

Kruger nearly fell from Gus’s comfortable chair at the mention of
Cataract
. His heart thudded, he could hear it in his ears; and a lance of alarm passed through his nervous system, for this had been one of the closely guarded secrets of the late 1980s. The simple fact of its being there, in an open letter, caused him to peer earnestly around the room, as if to assure himself that nobody was peeping over his shoulder.

Unless he was very much mistaken,
Cataract
documents were classified at the highest level, and everything remotely touching on it was probably locked away in a nuclear shelter in some remote part of Norfolk, never to be opened until the last trump.

Herbie knew about
Cataract
because he had been involved, as had the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Special Air Service—the PIRA and the SAS—not to mention the Office—the SIS. Shame and scandal in the family that is the British Government would heap embarrassment on great names should any of
Cataract
become public property.

For the first time, Big Herbie fully realized that his investigation of Gus Keene’s long professional life, and his fast, horrible death, would be like a trip down the Burma Road, or even the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Long and arduous.

He scribbled in his diary, which was more a way to quiet his own soul than apprise anyone else of his most secret feelings, and took himself to bed, where he dreamed of rolling green hills and a faceless man who followed him with deadly intent. He woke, sweating and alarmed, just after five, before the advent of the dawn chorus, and went out onto the landing, trying to find his way, fuddled and drunk with sleep, to the bathroom.

Returning to bed, he could not sleep. Gus penetrated his waking thoughts and he found himself worried about the mountain that had to be climbed. Finally, he dropped into sleep again, awakened by Ginger with coffee. “She wanted to bring it to you, sir. But I thought that might be a bit iffy.”

“Very iffy, Ginger. Thanks.”

“Breakfast in half an hour.”

“Great,” which he did not mean. Herb wanted to close his eyes and retreat under the covers. With that realization he suddenly sat bolt upright, wide awake now. Why did he want to sleep and hide from the day? Gus, he thought. Gus, or Gus’s ghost, warning him off.
List! List! Oh, list.
He saw with a new clarity that this journey down memory lane with Gus Keene was going to be bloody dangerous. Particularly if Gus had originally planned to publish details of
Cataract
. He could not have done this, Herb thought. Never in a hundred years. But there it was, last night anyway, on a computer-generated page, a letter no less, coming from a London publisher, which meant Lord knew how many people had seen it—the very word
Cataract
.

Before heading for the dining room, having showered, shaved and dressed in record time, Kruger returned to Gus’s study, where he opened the red file again, just to make sure he had not dreamed it. It was there, just as it had been there last night, in a letter dated May 28 of this very year. “For instance, we could sell the book on Operation
Cataract
alone,” the unknown, as yet unseen, Mark Collier had written.

Big Herbie felt considerably edgy as he walked into the dining room.

“Herbie, dear, what’ve you been doing? I thought I heard you come down ages ago.” Bitsy Williams was all done up in an elaborate black two-piece suit, saved from being severe by many gold buttons and piping around the collar and cuffs.

“Had to look something up.” He knew that it sounded like a lie and he put on his big daft grin. “I’m in charge, so I can come down when I like anyhow.”

“Of course you can, but I brought your breakfast through.”

She had made him bacon, two eggs and a slice of fried bread, all beautifully arranged on a plate. A photograph for a Julia Child cookbook would not have been amiss.

“What you all dressed up like a dog’s dinner for, Bits?”

“The inquest. Eleven o’clock. I’m to represent the Office. Deputy Chief Worboys called while you were, presumably, in the shower. Wants you to give him a tinkle when you’re free. I told him you’d call soonest.”

Herbie nodded and attacked the bacon and eggs, not giving his cholesterol a second thought. “You want Ginger for the inquest?” he asked Bitsy, but it was Ginger who replied, “Kenny Boyden’s driving, and Mickey Crichton’s going to mind her.”

“I thought Mickey was with the widow Keene?”

“He is, but she doesn’t seem to want him. Prudence is with her all the time. Mrs. Keene’s not good, guv’nor. It’s sunk in and she’s grieving hard. That’s the word from the Guest Quarters. I think they’ve put her on something to help.”

Yes, he thought. Prudence. Pru Frost, that was the name he could not put to the female nurse. Why the hell had they not sent two females? Mickey was in Ginger’s class: very good with his hands, and exceptional with a weapon. Someone up the Smoke, in the Office, was worried about the widow Keene, even though she was surrounded by the highest possible tech security.

He drank four cups of excellent coffee, asking Bitsy if she was expected to do all the cooking. “I like cooking, Herb,” she said. But he made a note to ask Worboys to send them a very secure chef, and lumbered off to the study to call him, as instructed, and then begin the long journey back with Gus.
A Dance to the Music of Time
, he thought; then, the Long March Through the Organs, which was how the old-style KGB had once spoken of the recruiting of their long-term penetration agents.

As he was leaving, Ginger asked if he had heard the news.

“What news?”

“Four large briefcase bombs on the London Underground. Waterloo, Paddington, King’s Cross and Victoria.” These are all main-line railway stations, each served also by the network of London’s Underground.

“Many casualties?”

“At least sixty. FFIRA’s denying it.”