A Spy's Life (37 page)

‘What’s Ostend got to do with this?’

‘One of the enterprises that we know Mister K has an interest in is an air freight business in Ostend. Two modified Boeings and a few smaller cargo planes that will go anywhere if the price is right.’

It was certainly a better theory than Harland had supposed at the beginning of Zikmund’s little speech. He had always known that the phone-tracking operation which led Bézier’s soldiers to the hotel must have involved some cooperation from Nato to pinpoint Lipnik’s location and pass it to the French. The same influence that had staged his death could also be brought to bear on the War Crimes Tribunal, which was wholly reliant on Nato for the enforcement of the indictments. This wouldn’t mean the corruption of the tribunal, merely a firm prod here and there to suggest that Alan Griswald’s evidence didn’t amount to much and that the tribunal could spend its time more profitably.

Harland straightened in his seat and groped for the cigarettes and lighter on the dashboard. Zikmund flashed him a saturnine grin in the glow of the instruments and told him to make sure his belt was fastened. The speedometer rose to 120 kph, then beyond.

‘Is this necessary?’

Zikmund didn’t reply. They took a turning on to a smaller road and moved at breakneck speed for about ten miles. Then Zikmund pulled over into a deserted depot, manoeuvred behind a rusting petrol tanker and switched off the engine and headlights. They waited. Three or four minutes later a car passed by travelling fast.

‘Well, it wasn’t the Saab,’ said Harland.

‘No, it wasn’t. We’ll go back to the main route and continue to make periodic diversions.’

Harland’s mind returned to Kochalyin – anything rather than think about Eva and how he’d break the news to her. He thought about the code. Clearly the code’s significance was twofold. In the wider context, it had become a matter of urgency for the intelligence organisations to stifle the random exposé of their operations. This was reason enough for the five or six big agencies to combine in tracing the source of the transmissions, which had been quickly achieved with the discovery of the two computers in London. So, in that respect, Cuth was right: the heat was off.

For Kochalyin, the interest in the code was acute because it revealed that Lipnik, the war criminal, was alive. Harland thought back to his conversation with Sara Hezemanns. She had said that Alan Griswald received the crucial part of his evidence after a visit to the East. That trip must have been to Stockholm. Because the images were hidden in the same code as the transmissions, it was reasonable to assume that they were either being prepared for broadcast or had already been used. Either way, it didn’t much matter. The important point was that whoever killed Mortz must have learned that Griswald was in possession of the pictures. Plans were laid to destroy Griswald and the evidence. That left the only other member of the code-making syndicate to deal with. A week later Tomas was effectively silenced by the sniper’s bullet.

Harland now dwelt on his son’s motives. The more he thought about them, the more heroic they seemed to be. For in using the pictures, Tomas must have understood that he had signed his own death warrant. Kochalyin would know they could only have come from him. But why had Tomas released the video still which showed him with Kochalyin on the mountainside? Was it a kind of admission to the world of his guilt – a shriving of his sin? Or was he sending a discreet signature to Kochalyin? He must have appreciated that he would eventually be found and killed. It was at that point that the astonishing coincidence occurred. Tomas saw his picture in the newspapers and decided to risk going to New York. He knew he had very little time and he wanted to meet his real father.

Harland no longer needed to ask himself about Vigo. From the outset his only purpose had been to find out whether anything had survived the plane crash. All his actions were generated by the belief that Harland had retrieved the information or was somehow in league with Griswald and the code-makers. The cursory search of the files in Prague, the phoney Cre`che and the clumsy deployment of the surveillance teams were eloquent of Vigo’s agenda. Everything was designed to press Harland into giving him the evidence. That could only mean that he was working for Kochalyin.

Zikmund gestured to some lights in the hills above the road. ‘Welcome to Karlsbad’, they said. He pulled out the hip flask and raised it in the direction of the town. ‘Let us drink to Karlovy Vary – as we call this city – and to the success of your meeting.’ He passed the slivovitz to Harland who drank a silent toast. Then he remembered something Tomas had said in their last conversation. A man in Bosnia had been killed because of him. How could he have forgotten that?

The apartment building was not difficult to find. They drove past it quickly, then returned on the other side of the street to make a more leisurely inspection. The corner block had been built at the turn of the last century and was lavishly covered in art nouveau detail. Along the upper storeys ran metalwork balustrades which vaulted outwards in a series of balconies, each of which was supported by a pair of muscular hermaphrodite giants. At the corner of the building was a turret-like structure that rose high above the roof and was capped by a small cupola.

‘Money,’ said Zikmund, glancing upwards at the shuttered windows. ‘These people are rich.’

They checked into a small hotel nearby, having left the car in a public car park some distance away. They asked for a room overlooking the street so that they could see the apartment building. A tree stood in the line of sight, but they could just see the entrance from the corner of the room. Harland suggested that one of them should remain in the room and watch the building, while the other took a closer look.

Zikmund left and did not reappear until the early hours. He came back slightly high and bubbling over with information gleaned from a cleaner, a neighbour and a bartender. The Raths had moved to the building about ten years before, the old lady having been advised by her doctors that the hot springs of Karlsbad would do her arthritis good. The younger woman – who
was
known as Irina – taught yoga. But this was not because she needed the money: the Raths were well off. As far as Zikmund could tell, the building wasn’t being watched.

‘Did anyone mention Tomas?’

‘No one could remember a kid living there or visiting the Rath women, but this is an apartment building: people come and go without being noticed.’

From a supermarket bag he produced a royal blue jacket bearing a logo on the chest and back.

‘This belongs to the company that services the elevator. The last inspector left this behind. The cleaner kept it in his storeroom and I bought it from him for fifty US. Wear it when you go tomorrow.’

They took turns to watch the building. Harland’s shift ran to dawn. At eight he shook Zikmund awake and told him he was going. He put the jacket under one arm and a dark plastic folder used to hold the hotel stationery under the other. The folder would pass as an inspector’s clipboard, he thought.

Ten minutes later Harland walked past the doorman in the apartment building and motioned to the elevator with a grunt. He got in and pressed the buttons for all five floors, in case the concierge was taking sufficient interest to notice where he got out. Flat seven was on the second floor, opposite the entrance to the lift. He moved to the double-door entrance and listened for any sign of life with his hand hovering by the bell. There was no sound. He rang, and after a short pause a woman’s voice came. She seemed to be asking a question. Harland said hello in English, which struck him as stupid, but it had the desired effect. He heard two bolts being drawn and the turn of a key. Suddenly he was looking at Eva.

She had changed little since the picture was taken for the last identity card. If anything, she had lost some weight. She was slightly flushed and her forehead was beaded with sweat. Her clothes – a black leotard top and baggy red pantaloons – also suggested that she had been exercising.

She was frowning slightly, trying to reconcile the English greeting and the jacket. She said something in Czech.

‘Eva,’ said Harland, looking at her steadily. ‘It’s Bobby Harland. It’s me, Bobby.’

Her hands rose to her cheeks and her mouth opened slightly. But no words came out. Then three distinct emotions passed rapidly through her eyes – doubt, fear and pleasure. She took a step backwards. ‘Bobby? Bobby Harland? My God, it
is
you.’ She hesitated, then smiled.

The same perfect English, Harland thought, the same lilt in the voice, the same light brown eyes.

‘I’m sorry to come like this,’ he said. ‘I should have phoned, but I felt it was better I came in person.’

‘How did you find us? Why are you here?’ She looked him up and down again. Her eyes came to rest on the logo of the jacket.

‘Is it all right if I come in? I need to speak to you.’

An elderly woman’s voice called out from the corridor to his right. She used the name Irina.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot that you don’t call yourself Eva. I can’t get used to Irina.’ He said it pleasantly but Eva looked at him as if he was accusing her of something. This was not going to be at all easy.

Eva’s mother appeared in the light that was flooding into the apartment. She was the type of small, well-dressed old lady you see in tearooms all over Middle Europe. She held a metal walking stick and moved with difficulty. Harland nodded at her and briefly looked past her into the apartment. It was large and comfortably furnished. The dark parquet floors were covered in expensive rugs.

The two women spoke to each other in Czech. Eva’s eyes never left Harland’s face.

‘My mother asks the same question that I did. Why are you here?’

Harland waited for a moment. He had planned what he was to say.

‘It would be better if I came in.’

Eva stepped aside and motioned him through a second pair of double doors to a sitting-room filled with scent from a large bunch of lilies. Eva moved to her mother’s side, arms folded.

‘Does your mother know who I am?’

‘Yes, she knows who you are.’

‘It’s about Tomas,’ he said.

‘You’ve heard from Tomas?’ There was a proprietorial edge in her voice which seemed to say, ‘You have no right to talk about my son.’

‘Yes, he came to see me in New York. He told me I was his father.’

‘Where is he now?’ she demanded.

‘In London.’ The old lady touched her daughter’s arm. Eva’s eyes betrayed relief.

‘But …’ Harland was appalled at what he was about to say, appalled also at the arc of fate that had brought him there to say it. ‘But he is ill. He’s in hospital. That’s why I’m here, to tell you.’

‘Ill?’ she demanded. ‘How? How ill is my son? What do you mean ill?’

‘Please,’ he implored, ‘I think you will need to sit down. Your mother will need to sit down.’

Neither moved.

‘Tell me why he is in hospital,’ she said defiantly, as though he might be making up the story.

‘He was shot.’ The words were barely out before she had flown at him and slapped his face. She recoiled for a split second and then lunged again, beating his head and shoulders with her fists. Harland did not flinch. Eventually she fell back, head in hands, towards her mother’s arms.

‘Tell her what happened to Tomas,’ said Hanna Rath in perfect English.

Harland exhaled. ‘It is a very complicated story, but it ended with the shooting last week. I was with him when it happened. I’m afraid Tomas was hit several times.’

‘But he is alive, yes?’ said Eva, brushing back her hair. Her eyes blazed. There were no tears.

‘Yes, he’s alive, but he’s not well. I have brought the doctor’s phone number. You can talk to him and find out Tomas’s latest condition. He was improving when I left England.’ He waited. ‘It’s still only seven in the morning there, but we can call my sister, Harriet. She will know how he is.’

‘Who shot him? Who shot Tomas?’

‘They haven’t caught anyone.’ He had decided beforehand that he would leave out Kochalyin and Tomas’s involvement with the transmissions. That was too much for her to deal with. He stood in silence for a moment. ‘Look, do you want me to go? I can come back later.’

Eva moved to the window and looked out. Harland heard her saying something to herself in Czech – or perhaps it was to her mother because Hanna moved to the next room, to a kitchen and dining area. Eva now had her head down. Her shoulders were shaking with grief.

‘Why didn’t you come before?’ she said through her tears.

‘Because I didn’t know where you lived.’

‘But Tomas knows. Tomas has the phone numbers—’ She searched Harland’s face again. ‘Why didn’t Tomas tell you?’ Harland shook his head helplessly.

‘Because he couldn’t tell you,’ she said at length.

Harland moved two paces towards her, reaching out. But he stopped when he saw her recoil.

‘He was in a coma,’ he said. ‘As I left England I heard news that he’d come out of it. Eva – they had to remove a bullet from the base of his brain. He may be permanently disabled.’

Harland saw Hanna looking through the door, horrified. It was as if both women had been scalded.

‘I will go to London,’ Eva said. ‘I must go to London to see him. I will leave today.’ She cast about the room, evidently trying to collect herself and think about the arrangements.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Harland. ‘I’ll take you to the hospital.’

Hanna came back into the room and motioned him to sit down.

‘You will now tell us why Tomas was shot.’

‘How much do you know about Tomas’s activities in the last year?’

‘Activities is a sinister-sounding word,’ she said. ‘It suggests something not legal. Tomas is a good boy. He needed to get away. He had his problems and we were content to let him work them out by himself. My daughter and Tomas have not spoken for some time. But we knew he was in Stockholm and that he had put his talents to good use there.’

‘Do you mind me asking why you had not spoken to him?’

Hanna looked over to her daughter. Harland waited, but neither said anything.