Читать книгу The Man Between: The gripping new spy thriller you need to read in 2018 - Charles Cumming - Страница 14

Carradine’s apprehensiveness in the build-up to the meeting with Mantis had been completely erased by what had happened on Sussex Gardens. Arriving at the address on Lisson Grove, he felt numb and dazed. Mantis buzzed him inside without speaking on the intercom. Carradine walked up six flights of stairs to the third floor, slightly out of breath and sweating from the climb. The landing carpet was stained. There was a faux Dutch oil painting on the wall.

‘Kit. Good to see you. Do come in.’ Mantis was standing back from the door, as though wary of being spotted by neighbours. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’

Carradine was led into a sparsely furnished sitting room. He laid his jacket on the back of a brand-new cream leather sofa wrapped in clear plastic. Sunlight was streaming through the windows. The sight of the plastic made him feel constricted and hot.

‘Are you moving in?’ he asked. The flat smelled of old milk and toilet cleaner. There was no indication that Mantis had prepared any food.

‘It’s not my place,’ he replied, closing a connecting door into the hall.

‘Ah.’

So what was it? A safe house? If so, why had Mantis arranged to meet on Service territory? Carradine had assumed they were just going to have a friendly lunch. He looked around. Two mobile phones were charging on the floor by the window. There was a vase of plastic flowers on a table in the centre of the room. Two self-assembly stools were positioned in front of a breakfast bar linking the sitting room to a small kitchen. Carradine could see a jar of instant coffee, a box of teabags and a kettle near the sink. The kitchen was otherwise spotlessly clean.

‘Did you hear about Lisa Redmond?’ Mantis asked.

Carradine hesitated.

‘No,’ he said, feigning surprise. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Grabbed by Resurrection.’ Mantis opened a double-glazed window on to a small parking area at the rear of the building. Cool air poured into the room. ‘Thrown in the back of a Transit van and driven off – in broad bloody daylight.’

‘Christ,’ said Carradine.

He was not a natural liar. In fact, he could not remember the last time he had deliberately concealed the truth in such a way. It occurred to him that it was a bad idea to do so in front of a man who was professionally trained in the darker arts of obfuscation and deceit. Mantis gestured outside in the direction of Edgware Road.

‘A mile away,’ he said. ‘Less! Three men kicked the living shit out of her poor husband, who’s apparently some kind of hotshot TV producer. One of them had a pop at a have-a-go-hero who tried to save the day. It’s all over the news.’

‘What do you think will happen to her?’ Carradine asked, though he knew the answer to his own question.

‘Curtains,’ said Mantis. ‘Another Aldo Moro job.’

Moro, the Italian Prime Minister kidnapped by the Red Brigades in 1978, had been murdered in captivity, his body discovered in the back of a Renault two months later. Carradine wondered why Mantis had made such an obscure historical connection but conceded his point with a nod.

‘I’m surprised she didn’t have any security,’ he said. ‘People kept saying she was a target. In America, employees in the White House, staff at Fox News, prominent Republican officials, they’ve all been carrying guns for months.’

‘Quite right too,’ said Mantis with an impatience that reminded Carradine of the way his temper had flared on Bayswater Road. ‘People have a right to defend themselves. You never know who’s going to come out of the woodwork and take a pop at you.’

Carradine looked at the sofa. Mantis understood that he wanted to sit down and invited him to do so ‘on the plastic cover’. He asked Carradine to switch off his mobile phone. He was not particularly surprised by the request and did as he had been asked.

‘Now if you wouldn’t mind passing it to me.’

Carradine handed over the phone. He was delighted to see Mantis place it inside a cocktail shaker that he had removed from one of the cupboards in the kitchen. He had used an identical piece of tradecraft in his most recent novel, stealing the idea from an article about Edward Snowden.

‘A Faraday cage,’ he said, smiling.

‘If you say so.’ Mantis opened the door of the fridge and put the cocktail shaker inside it. The fridge was completely empty. ‘And if you could just sign this.’ He crossed the room and passed Carradine a pen and a piece of paper. ‘We insist on the Official Secrets Act.’

Carradine’s heart skipped. Without pausing to read the document in any detail, he rested the piece of paper on the table and signed his name at the bottom. It occurred to him that his father must have done exactly the same thing some fifty years earlier.

‘Thank you. You might want to take a look at this.’

Mantis was holding what appeared to be a driving licence. Carradine took it and turned it over. Mantis’s photograph and personal details, as well as a Foreign Office logo and a sample of his signature, were laminated against a pale grey background.

‘This wouldn’t be enough to get you into Vauxhall Cross,’ he said. It was necessary to demonstrate to Mantis that he did not fully trust him. ‘Do you have any other forms of ID?’

As though he had been expecting Carradine’s question, Mantis dipped into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a moulded plastic security pass.

‘Access all areas,’ he said. Carradine had wanted to inspect the pass, if only to experience the buzz of holding a genuine piece of Service kit, but Mantis immediately put it back in his pocket.

‘Always worried about losing it on the number nineteen bus,’ he said.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Carradine replied.

He asked for a glass of water. Mantis produced a chipped William and Kate mug and turned on the cold tap in the kitchen. It spluttered and coughed, spraying water onto his hand. He swore quietly under his breath – ‘fucking thing’ – filled the mug and passed it to Carradine.

‘Who owns this place?’

‘One of ours,’ he replied.

Carradine had met spies before but never in these circumstances and never in such a furtive atmosphere. He leaned back against the thick plastic cover and took a sip from the mug. The water was lukewarm and tasted of battery fluid. He did not want to swallow it but did so. Mantis sat in the only other available seat, a white wooden chair positioned in front of the window.

‘Did you tell anybody that you were coming here today?’ he asked. ‘A girlfriend?’

‘I’m single,’ Carradine replied. He was surprised that Mantis had already forgotten this.

‘Oh, that’s right. You said.’ He crossed his legs. ‘What about your father?’

Carradine wondered how much Mantis knew about William Carradine. A rising star in the Service, forced out by Kim Philby, who had given his name – as well as the identities of dozens of other members of staff – to Moscow. Surely somebody at Vauxhall Cross had told him?

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘And your mother?’ Mantis quickly checked himself. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Of course …’

Carradine’s mother had died of breast cancer when he was a teenager. His father had never remarried. He had recently suffered a stroke that had left him paralysed on one side of his body. Carradine made a point of visiting him regularly at his flat in Swiss Cottage. He was his only surviving blood family and they were very close.

‘I haven’t told anybody,’ he said.

‘Good. So nobody has been made aware of our chat in the street?’

‘Nobody.’

Carradine looked more closely at his interlocutor. He was wearing pale blue chinos and a white Ralph Lauren polo shirt. Carradine was reminded of a line judge at Wimbledon. Mantis’s hair had been cut and his beard trimmed; as a consequence, he no longer looked quite so tired and dishevelled. Nevertheless, there was something second-rate about him. He could not help but give the impression of being very slightly out of his depth. Carradine suspected that he was not the sort of officer handed ‘hot’ postings in Amman or Baghdad. No, Robert Mantis was surely lower down the food chain, tied to a desk in London, obliged to take orders from Service upstarts half his age.

‘Let me get straight to the point.’ The man from the FCO made deliberate and sustained eye contact. ‘My colleagues and I have been talking about you. For some time.’

‘I had a feeling our meeting the other day wasn’t an accident.’

‘It wasn’t.’

Carradine looked around the room. The flat was exactly the sort of place in which a man might be quietly bumped off. No record of the meeting ever happening. CCTV footage from the lobby conveniently erased. Hair samples hoovered up and fingerprints wiped away by a Service support team. The body then placed inside a thick plastic sheet – perhaps the one covering the sofa – and taken outside to the car park. Should he say this in an effort to break the ice? Probably not. Carradine sensed that Mantis wouldn’t find it funny.

‘Don’t look so worried.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You look concerned.’

‘I’m fine.’ Carradine was surprised that Mantis had failed to read his mood. ‘In fact, it did seem a bit odd to me that a serving intelligence officer would talk so openly about working for the Service.’

‘Good.’

‘What do you mean “good”?’

‘I mean that you obviously have sound instincts.’ Carradine felt the plastic rippling beneath him. It was like sitting on a waterbed. ‘You obviously have an aptitude for this sort of thing. It’s what we wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Go on.’

‘You have a Facebook page.’

‘I do.’

‘The other day you were asking for tips about Marrakech. Advertising a talk you’re doing at a literary festival in Morocco.’

Despite the fact that C.K. Carradine’s Facebook page was publicly available, he experienced the numbing realisation that the Service had most probably strip-mined every conversation, email and text message he had sent in the previous six months. He was grateful that he hadn’t run the name ‘Robert Mantis’ through Google.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘Get much of a response?’

‘Uh, some restaurant tips. A lot of people recommended the Majorelle Gardens. Why?’

‘How long are you going for?’

‘About three days. I’m doing a panel discussion with another author. We’re being put up in a riad.’

‘Would you be prepared to spend slightly longer in Morocco if we asked?’

It took Carradine a moment to absorb what Mantis had said. Other writers – Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Frederick Forsyth – had worked as support agents for the Service at various points in their careers. Was he being offered the chance to do what his father had done?

‘There’s no reason why I can’t stay there a bit longer,’ he said, trying to make his expression appear as relaxed as possible while his heart began to pound like a jungle drum. ‘Why?’

Mantis laid it out.

‘You may have noticed that we’re somewhat stretched at the moment. Cyber attacks. Islamist terror. Resurrection. The list goes on …’

‘Sure.’ Carradine felt his throat go dry. He wanted to take a sip of water but was worried that Mantis would see his hand shaking.

‘Increasingly, things fall through the gaps. Agents don’t have the support they need. Messages struggle to get through. Information can’t travel in the way that we want it to travel.’

Carradine was nodding. He knew that it was better at this stage to listen rather than to ask questions. At the same time he could feel his vanity jumping up and down with excitement; the flattery implicit in Mantis’s offer, coupled with the chance to honour his father’s career, perhaps even to surpass his achievements, was hitting a sweet spot inside him that he hadn’t known existed.

‘We had a station in Rabat. It was wound up. Folded in with the Americans. Manpower issues, budgetary restrictions. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that all of this is strictly between you and me.’

‘Of course.’

‘I have a desk responsibility for the region. I need to be able to put somebody in front of one or two of our agents out there, just to reassure them that they’re a priority for London. Even though that may not be entirely the case.’

Mantis flashed Carradine a knowing look. Carradine was obliged to return it in kind, nodding as though he was on intimate terms with the complexities of agent-running.

‘I’m afraid it would require you to go to Casablanca as well as Marrakech. Ever been?’

Carradine had heard that modern Casablanca was far removed from the romantic image of the city conjured by Hollywood: a crowded, choking industrial conurbation entirely devoid of charm and interest.

‘Never. But I’ve always wanted to check it out.’

He set the mug of water to one side. In the distance Carradine could hear the sound of sirens, the familiar background soundtrack to life in twenty-first-century London. He wondered if Redmond had already been found and could scarcely believe that within hours of witnessing her kidnapping, he was being offered a chance to work as a support agent for the Service. It was as though Mantis was handing him an opportunity to prove the courage that had so recently been found wanting.

‘Can you be more precise about what exactly you need me to do?’

Mantis seemed pleased that Carradine had asked the question.

‘Writers on research trips provide perfect cover for clandestine work,’ he explained. ‘The inquisitive novelist always has a watertight excuse for poking his nose around. Any unusual or suspicious activity can be justified as part of the artistic process. You know the sort of thing. Atmosphere, authenticity, detail.’

‘I know the sort of thing,’ said Carradine.

‘All you have to do is pack a couple of your paperbacks, make sure your website and Wikipedia page are up to date. In the highly unlikely event that you encounter somebody who doubts your bona fides, just point them to the Internet and hand over a signed copy of Equal and Opposite. Easy.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’

‘We do!’ Mantis beamed with his beady eyes. Carradine must have looked concerned because he added: ‘Don’t be alarmed. Your responsibilities will be comparatively minimal and require very little exertion on your part.’

‘I’m not alarmed.’

‘There’s no need – indeed no time – for detailed preparation or training. You’ll simply be required to make your way to Casablanca on Monday with various items which will be provided to you by the Service.’

‘What sort of items?’

‘Oh, just some money. Three thousand euros to be paid to a locally based agent. Also a book, most likely a novel or biography of some sort, to be passed on as a cipher.’

‘Who to?’

‘Yassine. A contact of mine from Rabat. Feeling slightly neglected, needs to have his tummy tickled but I’m too busy to fly down. We usually meet up in a restaurant, Blaine’s, which is popular with businessmen and – well – young women of low social responsibility.’ Mantis grinned at the euphemism. ‘Yassine will recognise you, greet you with the phrase, “I remember you from the wedding in London.” You reply: “The wedding was in Scotland.” And your meeting can proceed.’

Carradine was surprised that Mantis was moving at such a pace.

‘You really do have everything worked out,’ he said.

‘I can assure you this is all very normal and straightforward, as long as you can remember what to do.’

‘I can remember …’

‘As for the money, you are to leave that at the reception desk of a five-star hotel under the name “Abdullah Aziz”. A very important contact. He is owed money.’

‘Abdullah Aziz,’ Carradine was trying to remember his answer to Yassine’s question about the wedding. He wondered why Mantis was flooding him with so much information so quickly and wished that he was free to write things down.

‘Sounds easy enough,’ he said. ‘Which five-star hotel?’

‘I’ll let you know in due course.’

Carradine was seated with his palms face down on the sofa’s plastic cover. He became aware that they were soaked in sweat.

‘And what about Marrakech? What am I doing there?’

Mantis was suddenly at a loss for words. Having rushed through Carradine’s responsibilities in Casablanca, he became hesitant to the point of anxiety. Twice he appeared to be on the brink of replying to Carradine’s question only to stop himself, biting the nail on the index finger of his left hand. Eventually he stood up and looked out onto the car park.

‘Marrakech,’ he revealed at last. ‘Well, that’s where things will become slightly more … nuanced.’ The man from the FCO turned and looked into the room, slowly rubbing his hands together as he moved towards the sofa. ‘It’s why we’ve picked you, Kit. We’re going to need you to use your initiative.’