Читать книгу Alec Milius Spy Series Books 1 and 2: A Spy By Nature, The Spanish Game - Charles Cumming - Страница 24

The offices of Abnex Oil occupy five central storeys in an eyesore Broadgate high-rise about six minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street station.

The company was founded in 1989 by a City financier named Clive Hargreaves, who was just thirty-five years old at the time. Hargreaves had no A levels and no formal higher education, just a keen business sense and an instinctive, immediate grasp of the market opportunities presented by the gradual collapse of communism in the Eastern bloc and, later, the former Soviet Union. With private investment attached to a chunk of money he’d made in the City during the Thatcher–Lawson boom, Hargreaves expanded Abnex from a small outfit employing fewer than one hundred people into what is now the third largest oil-exploration company in the UK. At the start of the decade, Abnex had minor contracts in Brazil, the North Sea, Sakhalin, and the Gulf, but Hargreaves’s masterstroke was to realize the potential of the Caspian Sea before many of his competitors had done so. Between 1992 and early 1994, he negotiated well-workover agreements with the nascent governments of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan, and sent down teams of geologists, contractors, and lawyers to Baku with a view to identifying the most promising well sites in the region. The Caspian is now awash with international oil companies, many of them acting as joint ventures and all competing for their chunk of what are proven oil reserves. Abnex is better placed than many of them to reap the benefits when the region goes online.

On New Year’s Day 1995, Hargreaves was killed riding pillion on a motorcycle in northern Thailand. The driver, his best friend, wasn’t drunk or high; he was just going too fast and missed a bend in the road. Hargreaves, who was single, left the bulk of his estate to his sister, who immediately sold her controlling stake in Abnex to a former cabinet minister in the Thatcher government. This is where Hawkes came in. A new chairman, David Caccia, had been appointed by the board of directors. Caccia was also ex-Foreign Office, though not SIS. The two men had been posted to the British embassy in Moscow in the 1970s and become close friends. Caccia, knowing that Hawkes was approaching retirement, offered him a job.

I work undercover for M15 as a business development analyst in a seven-man team specializing in emerging markets, specifically the Caspian Sea. On my first day, just four or five hours in, the personnel manager asked me to sign this agreement:

CODE OF CONDUCT

To be complied with at all times by employees and associates of Abnex Oil.

 The Company expects all of its business to be conducted in a spirit of honesty, free from fraudulence and deception. Employees–and those acting on behalf of Abnex Oil–shall use their best endeavours to promote and develop the business of the Company and its standing both in the UK and abroad.

 All business relationships–with government representatives, clients, and suppliers–must be conducted ethically and within the bounds of the law. On no account should inducements or other extracontractual payments be made or accepted by employees or associates of Abnex Oil. Gifts of any nature must be registered with the Company at the first opportunity.

 Employees and associates are forbidden to publish or otherwise disclose to any unauthorized person trading details of Abnex Oil or its clients, including–but not limited to–confidential or secret information relating to the business, finances, computer programs, data, client listings, inventions, know-how, or any other matter whatsoever connected with the business of Abnex Oil, whether such information may be in the form of records, files, correspondence, drawings, notes, computer media of any description, or in any other form including copies of or excerpts from the same.

 Any breach of the above regulations will be construed by the Company as circumstances amounting to gross misconduct, which may result in summary dismissal and legal prosecution.

August 1995

All the guys on my team are university graduates in their mid-to-late twenties who came here within six months of leaving university. With one exception, they are earning upward of thirty-five thousand pounds a year. The exception, owing to the circumstances in which I took the job, is myself. I am over halfway through the trial period imposed by the senior management. If, at the end of it, I am considered to have performed well, my salary will be bumped up from its present level–which is below twelve thousand after tax–to something nearer thirty, and I will be offered a long-term contract, health coverage, and a company car. If Alan Murray, my immediate boss, feels that I have not contributed effectively to the team, I’m out the door.

This probationary period, which ends on 1 December, was a condition of my accepting the job imposed by Murray. Hawkes and Caccia knew that they had brought me in over the heads of several more highly qualified candidates–one of whom had been shadowing the team, unpaid, for more than three months–and they were happy to oblige. From my point of view it’s a small price to pay. Like most employers nowadays, Abnex knows that they can get away with asking young people to work excessively long hours, six or seven days a week, without any form of contractual security or equivalent remuneration. At any one time there might be fifteen or twenty graduates in the building doing unpaid work experience, all of them holding out for a position that in all likelihood does not exist.

So, no complaints. Things have swung around for me since last year and I have Hawkes to thank for that. The downside is that I now work harder, and for longer hours, than I have ever worked in my life. I am up every morning at six, sometimes quarter past, and take a cramped tube to Liverpool Street just after seven. There’s no time for a slow, contemplative breakfast, those gradual awakenings of my early twenties. The team is expected to be at our desks by eight o’clock. There is a small, aggressively managed coffee bar near the Abnex building where I sometimes buy an espresso and a sandwich at around 9 A.M. But often there is so much work to do that there isn’t time to leave the office.

The pressure comes mainly from the senior management, beginning with Murray and working its way steadily up to Caccia. They make constant demands on the team for reliable and accurate information about geological surveys, environmental research, pipeline and refining deals, currency fluctuations, and–perhaps most important of all–any anticipated political developments in the region that may have long-or short-term consequences for Abnex. A change of government personnel, for example, can dramatically affect existing and apparently legally binding exploration agreements signed with the previous incumbent. Corruption is at an epidemic level in the Caspian region, and the danger of being outmanoeuvred, either by a competitor or by venal officials, is constant.

A typical day will be taken up speaking on the telephone to clients, administrators, and other officials in London, Moscow, Kiev, and Baku, often in Russian or, worse, with someone who has too much belief in his ability to speak English. In that respect, little has changed since CEBDO. In every other way, my life has taken on a dimension of intellectual effort that was entirely absent when I was working for Nik. I look back on my first six months at Abnex as a blur of learning: files, textbooks, seminars, and exams on every conceivable aspect of the oil business, coupled with extensive MI5/SIS weekend and night classes, usually overseen by Hawkes.

In late September, he and I flew out to the Caspian with Murray and Raymond Mackenzie, a senior employee at the firm. In under eight days we took in Almaty, Tashkent, Ashgabat, Baku, and Tbilisi. It was the first time that Hawkes or I had visited the region. We were introduced to Abnex employees, to representatives from Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP, and to high-ranking government officials in each of the major states. Most of these had had ties with the former Soviet administration; three, Hawkes knew for certain, were former KGB.

It is not that I have minded the intensity of the work or the long hours. In fact, I draw a certain amount of satisfaction from possessing what is now a high level of expertise in a specialist field. But my social life has been obliterated. I have not visited Mum since Christmas, and I can’t remember the last time I had the chance to savour a decent meal, or to do something as mundane as going to the cinema. My friendship with Saul is now something that has to be timetabled and squeezed in, like sex in a bad marriage. Tonight–he is coming to an oil industry party at the In and Out Club on Piccadilly–will be only the third time that I have had the opportunity to see him since New Year’s. He resents this, I think. In days gone by, it was Saul who called the shots. He had the glamorous job and the jet-set lifestyle. At the last minute, he might be called off to a shoot in France or Spain, and any arrangements we might have made to go to a movie or meet for a drink would have to be cancelled.

Now the tables have turned. Freelancing has not been as easy as Saul anticipated. The work hasn’t been coming in, and he is struggling to finish a screenplay that he had hoped to have financed by the end of last year. It may even be that he is jealous of my new position. There has been something distrustful in his attitude toward me since I joined Abnex, almost as if he blames me for getting my life in order.

It’s a Thursday evening in mid-May, just past five o’clock. People are starting to leave the office, drifting in slow pairs toward the lifts. Some are heading for the pub, where they will drink a pint or two before the party; others, like me, are going straight home to change. If everything goes according to plan, tonight should mark a significant development in my relationship with Andromeda, and I want to feel absolutely prepared.

Back at the flat, I put on a fresh scrape of deodorant and a new shirt. At around seven o’clock I order a taxi to take me to Piccadilly. This early part of the evening is not as awkward as I had anticipated. I am clearheaded and looking forward finally to making progress with the Americans.

There are flames leaping from tall Roman candles in a crescent forecourt visible from the cab as it shunts down a bottlenecked Hyde Park towards the In and Out Club. I pay the driver, check my reflection in the window of a parked car, and then make my way inside.

An immaculate silver-haired geriatric, wearing a gold-buttoned red blazer and sharp white tie, is greeting guests at the door. He checks my invitation.

‘Mr Milius. From Abnex. Yes, sir. Just go straight through.’

Other guests in front of me have been ushered into a high-ceilinged entrance hall. Most of them are, at a guess, over thirty-five, though a hand-in-hand, good-looking couple of about my age are gliding around in a circular room immediately beyond this one. The boyfriend is guiding an elaborate blonde counterclockwise around a large oak table, pretending to admire some cornice work on the oval ceiling. He points at it intelligently, and the girlfriend nods, openmouthed.

I walk past them and turn right down a darkened corridor leading into a spacious, paved garden where the party is taking place. The noise of it grows sharper with every pace, the rising clamour of a gathered crowd. I walk out onto a terraced balcony overlooking the garden from the club side and take a glass of champagne from a teenage waiter who breezes past me, tray held at head height. The party is in full swing. Polite laughter lifts up from the multitudes in their suits and cocktail dresses, oil people in dappled light amid the ooze of small talk.

Piers, Ben, and J.T., three members of my team, are standing in the far right corner of the garden, thirty or forty feet away, sucking back champagne. As usual, Ben is doing most of the talking, making the others laugh. Harry Cohen, at twenty-eight the oldest and most senior member of the team after Murray, is just behind them, schmoozing some mutton-dressed-as-lamb in a little black dress. No sign of Saul, though. He must have been held up.

Just below me, to my left, I see the Hobbit talking to his new girlfriend. It is still extraordinary to witness the change that has come over him. Gone are the spots and greasy skin, and his once-raggedy hair has now been cropped short and combed forward to shield a gathering baldness. There are things that he still gets wrong. On his lapel he is wearing a bright orange badge imprinted with the name MATTHEW FREARS above the logo of his company, Andromeda. And his glance up at me is nervous, almost intimidated. Yet he is reliable, and honest to the point of candour. We make eye contact, nothing more. He’ll be as fired up as me.

I walk down a short flight of stone steps and make my way through the crowd to the Abnex team. J.T. is the first to spot me.

‘Alec. You’re late.’

‘Not networking?’ I say to them.

‘Pointless at parties,’ Piers replies.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Everyone’s up to the same game. You’re never going to make an impression. Might as well neck the free booze and fuck off home.’

‘It’s your optimism I admire,’ says Ben. ‘Life-affirmin’.’

‘Murray arrived?’

‘Coming later,’ he says, as if it were inside knowledge.

‘Why’d you go home?’ Piers asks me.

‘Change of shirt.’

‘Sweaty boy,’ says Ben. ‘Sweaty boy.’

‘You haven’t met someone called Saul, have you?’

He is a vital component in tonight’s plan, and I need him to get here.

Ben says, ‘What kind of a name is Saul?’

‘He’s a friend of mine. I’m supposed to be meeting him here. He’s late.’

‘Haven’t seen him,’ he says, taking a sip from his drink.

Cohen separates himself from the middle-aged woman with the facelift and turns towards us. His coming into our small group has the effect of tightening it up.

‘Hello, Alec.’

‘Harry.’

The woman gives him a final smile before disappearing into the crowd.

‘Mum come with you?’ Ben says to him, trying on a joke. Cohen does not react.

‘Who was she?’ J.T. asks.

‘A friend of mine who works for Petrobras.’

‘Sleeping with the enemy, eh?’ Ben mutters under his breath, but Cohen ignores him.

‘She’s involved with exploration on the Marlin field,’ he says, turning to me. ‘Where’s that, Alec?’

‘You giving me a test, Harry? At a fucking party?’

‘Don’t you know? Don’t you know where the Marlin field is?’

‘It’s in Brazil. Marlin is in Brazil. Offshore.’

‘Very good,’ he says with raw condescension. J.T. looks at me and rolls his eyes. An ally of mine.

‘Glad I could be of some assistance,’ I tell him.

‘Now, now, boys. Let’s all try to enjoy ourselves,’ Ben says, grinning. He must have been drinking for some time. His round face has taken on a rosy, alcoholic flush. ‘Plenty of skirt here.’

J.T. nods.

‘You still seeing that journalist, Harry?’ Ben asks.

Cohen looks at him, irked by the intrusion into his private life.

‘We’re engaged. Didn’t you know?’

‘Matter of fact, I think I did know that,’ he says. ‘Set a date?’

‘Not as such.’

None of us will be invited.

‘Who’s that young bloke next to Henderson, the one with the dark hair?’

Cohen is half pointing at a lean, jaded-looking man in a crushed linen suit standing to the right of our group.

‘Hack from the FT,’ says Piers, taking a satay stick from one of the waiters. ‘Joined from the Telegraph about three months ago. Going places.’

‘Thought I recognized him. What’s his name?’

‘Peppiatt,’ Piers tells him. ‘Mike Peppiatt.’

This is registered by Cohen, the name stored away. Before the evening is out, he will have spoken to the journalist, made contact, chatted him up. Here’s my card. Call me anytime you have a query. Cohen has the patience to forge contacts with the financial press, to feed them their little tidbits and scoops. It gives him a sense of power. And Peppiatt, of course, will return the favour, putting another useful name in his little black book. This is how the world goes round.

I spot Saul now, sloping into the party on the far side of the garden, and feel relieved. There is a look of wariness on his face, as if he is here to meet a stranger. He looks up, sees me immediately through the dense, shifting crowd, and half smiles.

‘There he is.’

‘Your mate?’ says Ben.

‘That’s right. Saul.’

‘Saul,’ Ben repeats under his breath, getting used to the name.

The five of us turn to greet him, standing in an uneven semicircle. Saul, nodding shyly, shakes my hand.

‘All right, man?’ he says.

‘Yeah. How was your shoot?’

‘Shampoo ad. Canary Wharf. Usual thing.’

Both of us, simultaneously, take out a cigarette.

‘These are the people I work with. Some of them, anyway.’

I introduce Saul to the team. This is J.T., this is Piers, this is Ben. Harry, meet an old friend of mine, Saul Ricken. There are handshakes and eye contacts, Saul’s memory lodging names while his manner does an imitation of cool.

‘So how are things?’ I ask, pivoting away from them, taking us out of range.

‘Not bad. Sorry I was late getting here. Had to go home and change.’

‘Don’t worry. It was good of you to come.’

‘I don’t get much of a chance to see you these days.’

‘No. Need a drink?’

‘Whenever someone comes round,’ he says, flatly.

Both of us scan the garden for a waiter. I light Saul’s cigarette, my hand shaking.

‘Nervous about something?’ he asks.

‘No. Should I be?’

No reply.

‘So what sort of shampoo was it?’

‘You really care?’ he says, exhaling.

‘Not really, no.’

This is how things will start out. Like our last meeting, in March, the first few minutes will be full of strange, awkward silences and empty remarks that go nowhere. The broken rhythm of strangers. I can only hope that after two or three drinks Saul will start to loosen up.

‘So it’s good to finally meet the guys you work with,’ he says. ‘They seem okay.’

‘Yeah. Harry’s a bit of a cunt, but the rest are all right.’

Saul puffs out his lips and stares at the ground. There is a waitress about ten feet away moving gradually towards us, slim and nineteen. I try to catch her eye. A student, most probably, making her rent. She sees me, nods, and comes over.

‘Glass of champagne, gentlemen?’

We each take a glass. Clear marble skin and a neat black bob, breasts visible as no more than faint shapes beneath the thin white silk of her shirt. She has that air of undergraduate self-confidence that gradually ebbs away with age.

‘Thanks,’ says Saul, the side of his mouth curling up into a flirty smile. It is the most animated gesture he has made since he arrived. The girl moves off.

We have been talking for only ten or fifteen minutes when Cohen sidles up behind Saul with a look of intent in his eye. I take a long draw on my champagne and feel the chill and fizz in my throat.

‘So you’re Saul,’ he says, squeezing in beside him. ‘Alec’s often spoken about you.’

Not so.

‘He has?’

‘Yes.’

Cohen reaches across and touches my shoulder, acting like we’re best buddies.

‘It’s Harry, isn’t it?’ Saul asks.

‘That’s right. Sorry to interrupt but I wanted to introduce Alec to a journalist from the Financial Times. Won’t you come with us?’

‘Fine,’ I say, and we have no choice other than to go.

Peppiatt is tall, almost spindly, with psoriatic flakes of chalky skin grouped around his nose.

‘Mike Peppiatt,’ he says, extending an arm, but his grip goes dead in my hand. ‘I understand you’re the new kid on the block.’

‘Makes him sound like he’s in a fucking boy band,’ Saul says, coming immediately to my defence. I don’t need him to do that. Not tonight.

‘That’s right. I joined Abnex about nine months ago.’

‘Mike’s interested in writing a piece about the Caspian,’ Cohen tells me.

‘What’s the angle?’

‘I thought you might have some ideas.’ Peppiatt’s voice is plummy, precise.

‘Harry run out of them, has he?’

Cohen clears his throat.

‘Not at all. He’s been very helpful. I’d just welcome a second opinion.’

‘Well, what interests you about the region?’ I ask, turning the question back on him. Something about his self-assuredness is irritating. ‘What do your readers want to know? Is it going to be an article on a specific aspect of oil and gas exploration or a more general introduction to the area?’

Saul folds his arms.

‘Let me tell you what interests me,’ Peppiatt says, lighting a cigarette. He doesn’t offer the pack around. Journalists never do. ‘I want to write an article comparing what’s going on in the Caspian with the Chicago of the 1920s.’

No one responds to this. We just let him keep talking.

‘It’s a question of endless possibilities,’ he says, launching a slim wrist into the air. ‘Here you have a region that’s rich in natural resources, twenty-eight billion barrels of oil, two hundred and fifty trillion cubic feet of gas. Now there’s a possibility that an awful lot of people are going to become very rich in a very short space of time because of that.’

‘So how is that like Chicago in the twenties?’ Saul asks, just before I do.

‘Because of corruption,’ Peppiatt replies, tilting his head to one side. ‘Because of man’s lust for power. Because of the egomania of elected politicians. Because somebody somewhere, an Al Capone if you like, will want to control it all.’

‘The oligarchs?’ I suggest.

‘Maybe. Maybe a Russian, yes. But what fascinates me is that no country at the present time has a clear advantage over another. No one knows who owns all that oil. That hasn’t been decided yet. Not even how to divide it up. It’s the same with the gas. Who does it belong to? With that in mind, we’re talking about a place of extraordinary potential. Potential for wealth, potential for corruption, potential for terrible conflict. And all of that concentrated into what is a comparatively small geographical area. Chicago, if you like.’

‘Okay–‘

I had tried interrupting, but Peppiatt has still not finished.

‘–But that’s just one angle on it. The former Soviet states–Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan–are just pawns in a much bigger geographical game. Look at a map of the region and you see the collision of all the great powers. China on the eastern flank of the Caspian Sea, Russia on its doorstep, the EU just a few hundred miles away to the west of Turkey. Then you have Afghanistan in the southeast and a fundamentalist Islamic republic right next door to that.’

‘Which one?’ Saul asks.

‘Iran,’ Cohen says, without looking at him.

‘So you can see why the Yanks are in there,’ Peppiatt says, as if none of us was aware of an American presence in the Caspian. ‘They’re over-reliant on Middle East oil and they’re trying to get a piece of the action. And their best way of doing that is to toady up to the Turks. And why not? We Europeans treat the government in Ankara as though they were a bunch of good-for-nothing towel heads.’

Saul snorts out a laugh here and I look around, just in case anyone has heard. But Peppiatt is on a roll. This guy loves the sound of his own voice.

‘In my view it’s an outrage that Turkey hasn’t been offered membership in the EU. That will come back to haunt us. Turkey will be Europe’s gateway to the Caspian, and we’re allowing the Americans to get in there first.’

‘That’s a little melodramatic,’ I tell him, but Cohen immediately looks displeased. He doesn’t want me offending anyone from the FT.

‘How so?’ Peppiatt asks.

‘Well, if you include Turkey in the EU, your taxes will go up and there’ll be a flood of immigrants all over western Europe.’

‘Not my concern,’ he says, unconvincingly. ‘All I know is that the Americans are being very clever. They’ll have a foot in the door when the Caspian comes online. There’s going to be a marked shift in global economic power and America is going to be there when it happens.’

‘That’s true,’ I say, my head doing an easy bob back and forth. Saul smiles.

‘Only to an extent,’ Cohen says, quick to contradict me. ‘A lot of British and European oil companies are in joint ventures with the Americans to minimize risk. Take Abnex, for example.’ Here comes the PR line. ‘We got in at about the same time as Chevron in 1993.’

‘Did you?’ says Peppiatt. ‘I didn’t realize that.’

Cohen nods proudly.

‘Well, you see, that in itself will be interesting for my readers. I mean, are all these joint ventures between the multinational oil conglomerates going to make millions for their shareholders in five or ten years’ time, or are they all on a hiding to nothing?’

‘Let’s hope not,’ says Cohen, giving Peppiatt a chummy smile. It’s sickening how much he wants to impress him.

‘You know what I think you should write about?’ I say to him.

‘What’s that?’ he replies briskly.

‘Leadership. The absence of decent men.’

‘In what respect?’

‘In respect of the increasing gap between rich and poor. If there aren’t the right kind of politicians operating down there, men who care more about the future of their country than they do about their own comfort and prestige, nothing will happen. Look what happened to Venezuela, Ecuador, Nigeria.’

‘And what happened to them?’ Peppiatt asks, his brow furrowing. I’ve found another gap in his knowledge.

‘Their economies were crippled by oil booms in the 1970s. Agriculture, manufacturing, and investments were all unbalanced by the vast amounts of money being generated by oil revenues in a single sector of the economy. Other industries couldn’t keep up. There was no one in power who foresaw that. The governments in the Caspian are going to have to watch out. Otherwise, for every oil tycoon fucking a call girl in the back of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, there’ll be a hundred Armenian farmers struggling to make enough money to buy a loaf of bread. And that’s how wars start.’

‘I think that’s a bit melodramatic, Alec,’ Cohen says, again smiling at Peppiatt, again trying to put a positive spin on things. ‘There’s not going to be a war in the Caspian. There’s going to be an oil boom for sure, but no one is going to get killed in the process.’

‘Can I quote you on that?’ Peppiatt asks.

Cohen’s eyes withdraw into calculation. That is what he wants most of all. His name in the papers, a little mention in the financial press.

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Of course you can quote me. But let me tell you a little bit about what our company is doing down there.’

Saul catches my eye. I can’t tell whether he’s bored.

‘Fine,’ says Peppiatt.

Cohen takes a step back.

‘Tell you what,’ he says, suddenly looking at me. ‘Why don’t you tell him, Alec? You could explain things just as effectively as me.’

‘All right,’ I reply, slightly off balance. ‘But it’s quite straightforward. Abnex is currently conducting two-dimensional seismic surveys in several of Kazakhstan’s one hundred and fifty unexplored offshore blocks. It’s one of our biggest projects. Some of this is being done in conjunction with our so-called competitors as a joint venture, and some of it is being done independently without any external assistance. I can have details faxed to you tomorrow morning, if you like. What we want to do is start drilling exploration wells in two to three years’ time if evidence of oil is found. We have sole exploration rights to six fields, thanks to the well-workover agreements negotiated by Clive Hargreaves, and we’re very hopeful of finding something down there.’

‘I see.’ This may be too technical for Peppiatt. ‘That’s a long and expensive business, I take it?’

‘Sure. Particularly when you don’t know what you’re going to find at the end of the rainbow.’

‘That’s just it, isn’t it?’ says Peppiatt, with something approaching glee. ‘The truth is you boys don’t know what you’ve got down there. Nobody does.’

And Saul says, ‘Print that.’