2.
The Old Man
James didn’t have to wait too long before the familiar voice rasped over the intercom in the secretary’s office.
“Send him through”.
James strolled calmly through into his chief’s office and waited a polite moment until he was asked to take a seat.
He settled himself comfortably and unbuttoned his jacket.
Not many could get away with that in the old man’s presence.
There he sat.
C.
The head of British intelligence.
James didn’t even know his real name.
He knew the chief had had a distinguished career in the army, rising to the rank of Major-General, before an old friend had cornered him one evening and over a few brandies, had asked if he’d ever considered the intelligence services. There were others in the running of course, his friend had said, but he could have a little word with the PM, if the idea sounded like a goer?
He had proved a tough and resourceful boss and inspired loyalty amongst his staff. A favourite rumour was that he’d personally drowned the Papal Legate in a Wetherspoons toilet, but the Vatican kept quiet and the dark shutters of Whitehall had closed on any scandal before it had a chance to breathe.
The fact was, as James knew all too well, that the real world was never as it seemed to the public, intent on their promotions and their barbeques.
The things he’d seen himself he could barely believe.
C had told him, years before, just after he’d joined, that it was far better for everyone to fret about religious extremism, terrorists and climate change – if the public knew the dangers that were really out there, the real mad men in the shadows, the country would have a heart attack.
“Good morning, James. Congratulations on Istanbul, I read your report”.
“Thank you, sir. I think we got what we wanted. Incidentally, I’m sorry about Fekish; I had no idea that barracuda pond was behind him”.
“He would have been more useful alive, but there we are. I know how these things can escalate – I wasn’t always behind this desk”.
James had a sudden vision of the Papal Legate’s head going up and down in a porcelain toilet bowl, water and bleach flying everywhere, C bracing the cleric’s ankles round his neck; probably thinking about the test match and calmly smoking a Chesterfield.
C fumbled with his pipe until he got it going. He eyed James.
“Please, go ahead if you’ve got one”.
“I gave up, sir”.
“Ridiculous. You’ll be cutting out dairy next. Now then, what’s this all about?”
“Sir?”
“Boyd. That’s why you asked to see me isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir”.
James thought for a moment.
“I’d like you to re-consider his suspension, sir”.
C took a few puffs of his pipe before replying.
“Boyd hasn’t approached me about it. Why isn’t he here?”
James shifted in his chair. This was a little awkward.
“Well I did in fact call him earlier, but he was at the London Dungeon”.
Seeing C’s puzzled face, James explained.
“It’s a tourist attraction by the London Eye, sir. Costumed actors and green smoke, that sort of thing”.
C grunted.
“He was in the Jack the Ripper Experience when I rang”, James continued. “I couldn’t hear properly, there was a lot of screaming”.
“All right, all right. I’m not concerned with amateur dramatics for gullible tourists. Say what you have to say”.
James took a breath.
“It’s been nine months now. I think Harry should be re-evaluated”.
“Is he in any state?”
James' mind went back to Boyd balancing pint glasses on his head.
He answered carefully.
“I think if it’s left any longer he won’t make it back at all”.
C’s face set hard.
“Boyd is nearing the end of his useful life”, he said. “In point of fact, I think it would be best to terminate him now, rather than have him struggle on for another year or two”.
“He’s had a good run, sir. It wouldn’t be right to end it all without giving him a chance to leave with dignity”.
C grunted.
“The words ‘dignity’ and ‘Harry Boyd’ mix about as well as gin and slimline tonic”.
James agreed.
Slimline tonic was ghastly stuff.
C pulled open a drawer in his desk.
“My problem, James, is this report. It cleared Boyd of the most damaging accusations but there’s too much else here. Have a look at the bits I’ve highlighted”.
James reached over and took the sheaf of papers. C re-lit his pipe and leant back in his chair, puffing away at the ceiling.
James shuffled through the pages and saw that C was right to be concerned. There was a litany of small errors scattered throughout Boyd’s Moscow file; nothing major taken in isolation, but a chorus of daft mistakes and unforced errors, pointing to a bigger problem.
This wasn’t the Harry he used to know.
He read a bit.
Confusion over snatch point…Bolshoi Theatre named in error by B; arranged location was Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
Team in place after fault realised; B not contactable…B arrives late, citing problems with Moscow Metro…‘shopping trolley on track’
Operation commenced at seven pm local time; B and F get L into car…F proceeds with target to airport; B tails in Saab to Moscow suburbs; proceeds to McDonalds takeaway restaurant…orders Big Mac meal…run over by a taxi…
“Something went horribly wrong in that half hour”, James said.
“What was he doing there in the first place?”
“He said expenses aren’t what they used to be. I can see his point.”
“Don’t be clever, James. He was supposed to follow them all the way to the airport. ”
“Yes, sir”.
C jabbed his pipe at James.
“Boyd’s become careless. He’s gotten conceited”.
James smiled.
“I’m not talking about his boorish way with women, James, I’m talking about his attitude to his seniors, his manner towards Whitehall. At the last Canada Day reception, the Foreign Secretary overhead him calling her a ‘dumpy social worker who couldn’t find her own arse with two hands and an atlas’.
“I hadn’t heard that one, sir”, said James, trying to keep a serious face.
“We had to waste days getting her back on side. I even had to have the wretched creature to dinner. Three hours I had to listen to her ideas on gender politics and ‘safe spaces’ for teenagers still on their mother’s tit”.
James watched as his chief’s hand slowly squashed his pipe stem out of shape.
Hadn’t lost his grip.
“I don’t like them anymore than you do, but we’ve got to work with these halfwits. Tactless and conceited, James, he’s tactless and conceited”.
C got up, paced around, and sat back down again.
“And he drinks too much”.
James arched an eyebrow.
“With respect, sir, you could say that of practically every one of us. It’s a pressured job”.
“Well Boyd can’t handle it anymore. Jill’s told me countless times he comes through the office reeking of booze and cigarettes. She found half a dozen stubs in an empty bottle of Magners someone had tried to hide behind one of the photocopiers. I can’t have it”.
“But could he not have a medical, sir, a full evaluation? If he fails, fine, let him go, but surely he deserves a last chance?
C looked hard at him. He knew they were close and he also knew that Harry was – had been – one of the best. But he had seen countless agents over the years all go the same way. Alcoholics, drug addicts, failed marriages; desperate men found swinging in the wind under London bridges.
It wasn’t a job you could do forever.
He looked at James, his expression softening like a patient father.
“If we let him go now, he could have a new life”, he said, trying to sound gentle. “That’s not guaranteed if he stays”.
“I’ll take him on myself, sir. I’ll get him fit”.
C got up from his chair again and walked over to where a painting hung on the far wall. He stood and looked at it, hands clasped behind his back, silent for a few moments.
“I’ve always liked this picture”, he said suddenly.
James turned to look. He couldn’t see anything particularly special about it; a bucolic view of a French countryside, competently realised but nothing to suggest the artist had any special talent. It was a little incongruous really, in a room dominated by a Nelson and a Wellington, a bust of Churchill on the sideboard between the two large windows, Her Majesty glaring imperiously across at a table lamp.
“The peaceful order of the country, where everything is in its place and all as it should be”.
“Where was it painted, sir?” James asked, feigning interest.
C ran a finger over the oils.
“Somewhere outside Orleans. We used to have a small place there. I must have picked it up – oh – thirty years ago”.
“Very nice”, said James, politely. Though as something of an appreciator he wondered if the artist had ever actually seen a cow.
“Without order you have chaos”, C said, almost to himself. “When someone on your team makes even the slightest mistake, lives are destroyed. I look at this picture to remind myself.”
James waited.
C seemed to have frozen, gazing at the painting.
“Remind yourself of what, sir?”
C let out a breath.
“Never mind”.
He returned once more to his desk.
“I’m putting you on the Lyubimov job, James. I think this one fits squarely in your ballpark”.
He pushed a large envelope across the desk.
“Here’s the file. For your eyes only as per”.
James reached across and picked up the bound manilla folder, with its red seal and slight sniff of copier ink.
Hot off the press.
“We need to get him back before the Americans decide to take matters into their own hands”.
C looked hard at James.
“What Boyd did was catastrophic. Someone, somewhere, has our Russian, and with him the key to a nuclear nightmare. Do you know what a network bomb is?”
“One host unit exploding a chain of others; remotely, undetectably”, recited James, smoothly. “Minimum yield of anywhere between four and six megatons, housed in devices that are impossibly small and practically untraceable”.
“Well you’ve got to trace them. Get onto it pronto”.
James accepted his dismissal and rose to leave, buttoning his jacket and tucking the folder under one arm. He walked to the door, where he paused for a moment and looked back.
C was writing on a memo pad.
“And Harry, sir?”
C answered without looking up.
“Everyone makes mistakes, but Boyd is a liability. The answer is no”.
Comments