Dark Clouds (5 page)

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask when Daisy’s husband moves on and the slim, focused Carol is quickly taken over by an oily looking guy. He’s drawing her in and seems to be holding her interest. I’m intrigued by the greasy but practised leer in his eyes and what I’m sure are his depraved and evil intentions.

‘It’s that shit Bellingham from
The News
,’ Fiona fumes. ‘He’s about to make a move. Still – never mind … I’ll introduce you to Camilla if I can find her. She’s in publishing publicity, and I have to say Rudi, she’s rather forward. So you’ll need to assert yourself from the start and keep a firm grip on the reins … ah, there she is!’

Chapter 4

Camilla Quince had a rude sense of humour, long legs and other engaging attractions. She took several lines of cocaine at Daisy’s party and then suggested that we go to a cool place in the West End. It was a challenge, but it was too much too soon, so I slipped away, and dreamt that night of Valkyries coming down on chariots from the frozen North. They were a wild tribe, but there was a princess called Ingrid. She had silky blonde hair, a deft touch with her wand and a tantalising influence with the warriors.

There was then a nightmare with Mike, now Mohammed, Sharif shaking my hand while someone he financed placed a suitcase with Plutonium and a detonator on a subway train in a Western city. In the morning, however, the sun is shining and I’m blinking when a plainclothes cop drives into the square and calls my mobile.

On the way out to the airport, we chat about the English weather, civil war in the Labour Party and how Islamic activists are forming terror cliques in Her Majesty’s prisons. It’s all stuff of the moment and it passes the time. It also means I don’t have to think too much about what I’m meant to be doing in Geneva. Not for long though, because the driver makes a call on his radio as we get into the tunnel at Heathrow. Carla Hirsch answers straight away, and she’s waiting when we pull up outside the terminal entrance.

‘We need to talk,’ she says, taking my arm and guiding me through the building. She’s definitely in control and my calves are tingling just trying to keep up with her.

She’s still wearing designer jeans and boots, along with an expensively distressed leather jacket. She is also giving out a strong, uber cool ‘
don’t fuck with me
’ message. I follow in silence, and when we’ve collected a couple of lattes we take them to a secluded table.

‘So you’ll stay with your friends tonight,’ she says.

It’s all been arranged, so she fills me in on the fictitious interview I’m meant to be having with a UN guy in Geneva.

‘But what exactly do you want me to do when I get to the Sharif’s place?’ I ask.

For a moment, Carla Hirsch’s eyes are blank and she shakes her head. She’s not used to holding people’s hands. The men and women she works with are professionals who know what they’re doing. I’m an accidental infill. But the stakes are high, so she puts down her coffee and considers me across the table.

‘If we have a nuclear incident, either here or back home, it would be serious,’ she says. ‘You do appreciate this, Rudi.’

‘Yes – of course.’

There’d be mass evacuations. Everything would have to be re-located. The West End or Broadway could all just fizzle away. If my President or anywhere in Washington was the target, the White House and the Pentagon would have to be moved out to Texas or Wyoming, or maybe even to the Rocky Mountains.

‘We suspect that the Sharifs are funding a group who could make this happen: ruthless Islamists who think we’re all decadent children of Satan. For these guys, it’s a war, Rudi, and martyrdom’s an honour. They don’t care about what happens in our corrupt Western societies. They see us as a diseased tribe that needs culling … and quickly.’

I’m thinking of seductive Arab and Asian virgins. They’re sitting on clouds in heaven, opening their arms to welcome battle scarred brothers, while down on planet earth there are mushroom clouds erupting in the sky over every Western capital of any consequence.

‘It’s a terrible thought, I know,’ my Controller says, ‘and we could be wrong. But these people are your friends, Rudi, and we must assume the worst. They’re up there on our wanted screen just now and we hope you can check them out.’

‘Right – ’

‘Initially, you’ll need to embrace the Sharifs. Win them over and show genuine interest in whatever it is they’re doing. The Foundation that offers scholarships to bright young Muslims sounds interesting … you might get to meet some of the these guys.’

*  *  *  *  *

It is, I suppose, elementary spy school stuff, but it leaves me cold. I don’t have any ideas about where to start as a covert operator. I’m resisting, and Carla’s picking up on it. She sucks in her elegant cheeks, considers the state of her nails and takes a deep breath. She’s scarily focused and appears to be quite detached from any emotions she might have. Agents, however, have to be managed, so she changes gear and becomes specifically pro-active.

 ‘What you must do,’ she suggests with a pinched smile, ‘is to see if anything’s changed. Find out why Mike or Michael is now Mohammed. Is his sister, Sulima, singing from the same hymn sheet? We need to know for sure if they’ve joined up with the fundamentalists or if they’re just making a show to assuage their Muslim consciences. It might also be interesting to consider the exact nature of their relationship … are you with me on this, Rudi?’

‘No – not at all … what do you mean?’

‘Well – they are brother and sister. They’re both in their thirties and they live together in a secluded lakeside mansion. They are, I assume, emotionally, if not sexually active. Mike or Mohammed, or whatever you want to call him, has never married, and neither has Sulima … so what’s the story?’

This is prurient, mean-spirited conjecture and I think Carla Hirsch is vile. The Sharifs are lovely people and there is nothing improper about their living together. I’m sure about this, I think. OK – maybe it’s a little unusual, but Mike needs Sulima. She’s an astute accountant and he couldn’t run his oil shipping business without her. He was always hot on ideas, but useless with figures. He said so himself, many times.

‘Look – I’m not fooling around on this just for the hell of it,’ Carla assures me. ‘We need to know what’s happening with these people as individuals, but their house is also worth checking out.’

In what way? Do I slip up to the attic or maybe creep down into the cellars.

‘Oh for Christ’s sake!’ My controller spits it out impatiently, and I’m instinctively crossing my legs under the table. ‘You’re looking for computer files, letters, e-mails – whatever the fuck it takes … all right!’

I’m not happy about what I’m being asked to do. I’m seriously considering a toilet break followed by a quick exit. I’ve got a cousin with a farm in a remote part of Wyoming, and I’m sure he could do with some help. But I’m torn, because in a few weeks it will be the 11th day of September. I can still feel the dust in my throat whenever I think about it, so I’ll go through the motions. I won’t find anything. The Sharifs will be clean.

I’ll have gone on a wild goose chase, and with luck, Carla fucking Hirsch will get off my case. I’ll go back to earning a living of sorts. I’ll stop writing about Osama and his challenges and the difficulties we’re all having getting along with each other. I’ll go back a hundred years and block out a book about Mary Rose and the Fenian rebels in West Cork. OK, it’s an opt out; I’m retreating into a fairy tale world. But I’ve had it with reality; it’s doing my head in.

*  *  *  *  *

‘I’d better go,’ I say stiffly. I want to put some distance between us, but my controller needs me on side. Her cold eyes are morphing into a smile and she’s reaching out to cover my clenched knuckles with surprisingly delicate hands.

‘Listen to me,’ she says. ‘I know this isn’t easy for you. You probably haven’t done anything like it before … but you have a mother and father, Rudi – right?’

Yes indeed, and a brother and sister, and they’re all doing fine in L.A. and San Francisco, thanks.

‘But if they were in danger, whatever the circumstances – you’d want to help them, wouldn’t you? And if the clock went back, and there was something you could have done to stop those lunatics who killed your girlfriend on 9/11, you wouldn’t have hesitated – right?’

Of course not. I’d have jumped on Mohammed Atta and I’d have cracked the bastard’s head with a shoe or a plate, or maybe I’d have strangled him. I’d then have yelled at my fellow passengers to pile in on the other jihadists. We might not have saved the day, but at least we’d all have gone down knowing we had done our best to thwart the prophet’s misguided zealots.

She’s got me over an emotional barrel and her eyes are reinforcing the message as she squeezes my knuckles with her neatly manicured fingers. I’m trying to think of her as a student at Princeton or maybe Harvard. Was she always like this? There’s a powerful presence on the other side of the table, but I’m not getting any frisson of excitement from her touch. The
I want you now
thing is missing. There isn’t anything even vaguely sexual in our skin contact. It’s irrelevant though. Carla Hirsch has, I’m sure, a higher agenda. I respect her refusal to be deflected. Togetherness isn’t in our current script. She’s photographically attractive, but there’s no point in my conjuring up passionate fantasies about what might happen if we suddenly found ourselves alone and excited in the same bed.

‘OK – we’ll debrief when you get back,’ she says decisively. ‘I’m sure the Brits will do whatever they can for your friend, Rashid Kumar, if he’s prepared to cross over. My understanding, however, is that he’s not on our radar at the moment … so I’m hoping he’ll contact you again. If he does, maybe you could ask him to call Earl.’

‘Sure – ’

‘But I’ve got something for you.’

Oh my god. This is getting mawkish. I don’t want anything from her, but she’s reached into her bag and taken out what looks like the window section on a thin mobile phone.

‘It’s a camera,’ she tells me. ‘The focus is automatic, but you’ll need to switch it on.’

 Her expression has hardened. She’s back in role as Agent Hirsch from US Homeland Security. We walk without talking to the Geneva check-in desk. She’s standing to the side, but before I disappear, she reaches out and takes my hand again.

‘Take care, Rudi,’ she says. ‘And remember what happened to your girl-friend, Faria, when the towers collapsed in New York.’

*  *  *  *  *

The plane is half-empty and I’m uneasy. If I close my eyes, I get Ingrid, the Valkyrie princess swooping down in a chariot from Scandinavia, and it’s exciting. On the other side of the world however, there’s the bearded Osama. He’s having trouble with his kidneys in the Tora Bora Mountains. There’s an Egyptian doctor on hand with a flowing grey beard, a turban and a rudimentary dialysis machine. In between changing the blood or whatever is required, they curse the West and talk about mushroom clouds over our cities.

They want to nuke us. I can’t quite quite work out what this actually means, although I know it’s got to be serous and that many people would perish in a most unpleasant way.

A little light meditation plus a couple of glasses of Jameson’s whisky helps me to escape briefly, and after a while Captain O’Shea comes through on the PA system. He says the Alps are down below and that we’re about to land at Geneva airport. The mountains are impressive, and the Swiss are, as usual, effortlessly efficient. They don’t encourage asylum seekers or package tourists. The arrivals area is full of uniformed chauffeurs and smartly dressed company greeters with printed name cards for their clients.

I’m already into role as a serious visitor on a meaningful assignment. I’m checking out the faces. They’re all robotic extras. But a glass door suddenly opens, and I see Sulima Sharif. She’s a welcome apparition and when I wave, her troubled expression switches to a smile.

‘Rudi … it’s so good to see you!’ she exclaims with open arms. We’re giving each other a proper hug and I’m instantly feeling warm and loving towards everyone.

Sulima’s a tall and fragrant Syrian beauty whose family once ruled over parts of Persia and the ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia. She’s already turning addled heads in a dull sea of corporate suits. I can sense the guys’ brains moving from thoughts of costly divorce settlements to fantasies about true love with a goddess.

‘We’re so pleased that you’ve come at last,’ she says when we get outside. ‘Mike would have been here, but he’s finalising details for a presentation ceremony this afternoon at the Foundation. He would be so pleased if you could come and meet some of the scholarship students.’

Of course. I’d be delighted. We’re linking arms as we go outside to where an infatuated Swiss cop is keeping a friendly eye on Sulima’s neat black Porsche. He wilts when she thanks him in perfect French. He then holds back a stream of traffic to let us out.

‘I thought we might have lunch by the lake before we go to the Foundation,’ Sulima suggests. It’s a great idea. I’m not hungry, but I’ll toy with a bread roll and I’ll certainly try a glass of wine.  For now though, we’re catching up on what’s been happening since we last met and Sulima’s talking about going over to London for a while.

‘But more of that, in a moment, Rudi,’ she says as we get to a discreetly upmarket lakeside restaurant. The location is awesome, and a blond Aryan boy comes out and bows respectfully when we stop at the entrance. He’ll park the Porsche, and when Sulima has given him the keys and a special smile, he flushes with confusion. A comfortably rounded Maitre D then appears on the steps. Madame is, as always, most welcome and her favourite table has been reserved on a terrace overlooking Lake Geneva.

I’m still adjusting to the totally unfamiliar Swiss opulence. It’s restrained but seems to envelop the whole place. I’m thinking of Julie Andrews and the good guy who refused to give in to the Nazis in
The Sound of Music
. What Sulima wants to know though is how things are going for me emotionally, and whether or not I’m seeing anyone.

‘Well – ’