Liz Carlyle - 07 - The Geneva Trap (7 page)

‘Look, Geoffrey. I agree with everything you say …’

‘Well, that’s unusual for a start,’ he broke in.

Liz smiled. ‘It’s true. We don’t know anything about Sorsky. Or what his motives really are. Asking for me by name was certainly a weird way of making contact. But it worked. Whatever he is, he’s not a fool. And even if he is the front man in some complicated deception operation, what could it be about? Designed to set us against a third country perhaps or cover up something real that the Russians are doing? Who knows? But we can’t afford to ignore what he says. We are going to have to look into this Operation Clarity, if it exists.’

She sighed. She had some experience of searching for infiltrators – moles – and it was a hard, messy business. Any mole as well placed as this one must have covered his tracks very cleverly, which meant that innocent people would become suspects, and distrust and disruption would be rife.

Geoffrey Fane stood up and walked over to the window. He turned his back to the view, leaned on the window ledge and surveyed the room – and Liz in particular. She looked tired today, he thought, not surprisingly. She’d done a good job in Geneva. Russell White had told him that she thought someone had had her under surveillance as she went to the meet. White thought she’d been imagining it, but he didn’t know her. Fane did know this girl and if she’d suspected surveillance, it was very probably there. They would need to look after her – though she was very difficult to look after. He wished she were more malleable. Together they could be a great team. But now she seemed to spend all her spare time in Paris. He sighed and Liz looked up, her grey-green eyes reflecting the light from the window.

‘Even though it may be a bluff, we’ll have to tell the Americans,’ she said.

Fane eyed her. ‘Why don’t you leave Bokus to me? I think I’ve got his measure by now ’

Andy Bokus was the CIA Station Head in London. He was a big, blunt Midwesterner, an ex-American football player, who enjoyed pretending he was stupid when in fact he was very shrewd. Liz wasn’t at all sure that Fane had got his measure – he tended to respond to Bokus’s pretence of stupidity with his own ‘English gentleman’ act, which meant that they both got embroiled in role-playing and ended up merely annoying each other. Liz would have much rather gone home at this point in the day, but she thought she’d better go with Fane and try to hold the ring. She said, ‘I’d prefer to be there.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he replied sourly. ‘Let me try and get Bokus on the blower now.’

Chapter 12

Andy Bokus was in a bad mood. He didn’t much like London, and after four years he wasn’t about to develop a sudden affection for the place. But his hopes for reassignment had just been dashed – his boss at Langley, Tyrus Oakes, had told him the previous afternoon, ‘Sorry, Andy. You’re there for another year.’

The weather didn’t help. He couldn’t get used to the dispiriting greyness of England: its overcast sky in winter, the enervating drizzle in spring, summer’s inevitable failure to materialise, and the lack of sugar maple trees to give colour to the fall.

The people here struck him as equally unappealing – snobbish, undemonstrative, sometimes downright devious. His counterparts in the British Intelligence Services were clever, there was no denying that, but he never enjoyed the times he had to work with them.

Like this evening, when he had heard that Geoffrey Fane was coming over to Grosvenor Square in twenty minutes. At least he hadn’t summoned Bokus to Vauxhall Cross. He hated that place; it seemed to be a mixture of understated gloom and grandiose pomp. A bit like Geoffrey Fane himself. Fane acted as though he didn’t recognise Britain’s diminished role in world affairs; he tried to treat Bokus as though their dealings took place on a level playing field – sometimes, in fact, he acted like he occupied the higher ground.

In some ways, Bokus didn’t mind this: he rather enjoyed playing dumb with the likes of Geoffrey Fane. He found it elicited more information than competing with them would ever do. And, personally, Bokus didn’t give a damn if Fane thought he was an uncouth simpleton. Bokus’s grandfather had dug coal in the Ukraine with a pick, and Andy Bokus was proud of it. It wasn’t England which had welcomed his father when he’d refused to follow Grandfather into the mines. It was America where Bokus’s father had landed at the age of sixteen on Ellis Island, with nothing but his muscles and the clothes on his back. It was a classic immigrant’s story, and if it hadn’t quite gone from rags to riches – Bokus’s old man had ended up running a gas station in Ohio – it beat a life spent five hundred feet underground in front of a dwindling seam of anthracite. The America the Bokus clan was loyal to was a true melting pot – with opportunity for all. Not the half-baked imitation of a declining British nation which some of his WASP colleagues seemed to want to create.

Decline – that was a British disease, though Bokus was bothered by the nagging feeling that the virus was coming his own country’s way as well. He stretched out one leg under his desk and rubbed his aching knee, a college football injury. He might have played pro ball if it hadn’t been for that. Instead he was looking at a fifth year as Station Head in London.

At least he was kept busy here: in a post-7/7 Britain, the world seemed to be a dangerous place and getting more so by the day. Bokus had no time for those of his associates – especially his British counterparts – who liked to suggest there was an ethical complexity to their work. When it came to his job, Andy Bokus only worked in black and white.

The phone on his desk purred, and he picked it up. ‘Your British guests are here, Andy,’ said his secretary.

Guests?
He’d thought Fane was coming alone. He must have something important to say if he’s bringing a delegation, thought Bokus, as he left his office and walked out into a large open ground-floor room, normally full of people waiting for visas but empty this late in the day. Across the room he saw Fane standing with a woman whom Bokus recognised as he drew nearer – it was Liz Carlyle from MI5. Her presence made him uneasy. He found her much more difficult to deal with than Geoffrey Fane. She didn’t rise at all to his crude simpleton act, just ignored it and got on with business. She could show a relentless tenacity, which was awkward if you were keeping information from her. They’d crossed swords before.

‘Geoffrey,’ he said, with a pretence of pleasure he didn’t feel. ‘Good to see you. And you’ve brought some extra ammunition along.’

Fane shook hands. ‘You know Liz Carlyle, of course.’

The Carlyle woman smiled politely.

‘Sure,’ said Bokus, taking her hand. ‘I never forget a face. Especially a pretty one.’

Fane raised his eyebrows and Liz Carlyle didn’t react at all. Good, thought Bokus to himself grumpily; now they’ll think I’m not only a right-wing pig, but a sexist one as well.

They went down a wide flight of stairs and along a corridor that ended at a steel security door. Bokus swiped a card and the door clicked open. ‘You said this was confidential, so I thought we’d better use the Bubble.’

Like most major Embassies, Grosvenor Square contained a purpose-built room designed to foil any electronic eavesdropping. Down in the bowels of the basement, the ‘Bubble’ was lead-lined and windowless. Inside it the air resonated with a faint hum – like an air conditioner, but actually the by-product of a high-frequency wave baffler.

The door closed with a pneumatic hiss behind them, and they sat down on padded benches around the grey walls. Bokus nodded. ‘Okay, we’re secure now, Geoffrey. Shoot.’

Fane took his time, hitching a trouser leg, crossing his ankle across one knee and tugging at a cufflink. He’s getting used to me, Bokus thought. He’s doing it on purpose. ‘Do you know anything about Operation Clarity?’ the Englishman said at last.

Bokus shrugged. ‘I’ve heard of it,’ he said, which wasn’t true. ‘But I don’t know much about it’ – which was.

Fane elaborated: ‘It’s a joint programme between our two Defence Departments to develop a communications system for unmanned aircraft. It uses very hi-tech encryption, designed to obscure its existence. Part of the work is being done in the States; the encryption work is happening over here.’

‘Okay,’ said Bokus. Let’s get to the point, he thought.

‘We’ve learned from a source – a well-placed source we’ve codenamed Bravado – that there’s a problem at this end. Apparently, the programme has been infiltrated by someone working for a third country – a foreigner, he says, not a US or British citizen. Someone who’s been seconded to the Ministry of Defence.’

‘A foreigner working on a top-secret programme. Doesn’t seem very likely. Can you give me more detail?’

‘Elizabeth. Why don’t you carry on?’

Liz Carlyle explained how an approach had been made in Switzerland, and that she had flown out to Geneva and met the source they were calling Bravado.

‘I don’t get it,’ interrupted Bokus. ‘Why were you sent?’ He turned to Fane. ‘Geneva’s your territory, right?’

Liz leaned forward. ‘Bravado asked specifically for me.’

‘Why? Does he know you?’

‘Not really. He met me long ago, before I’d even joined the Service. But apparently I have appeared on his radar since then – he knew I was with MI5. He’s an intelligence officer himself so perhaps that’s not surprising.’

‘What nationality is he?’

Fane started to protest, ‘I really don’t think it’s relevant–– ’

Liz cut in, ‘He’s Russian. A mid-level intelligence officer, we think.’

For the first time Bokus was glad she was there, since Fane wouldn’t have told him – not because there was any reason to keep it secret, but from his addiction to keeping the cards close to his chest. Close? thought Bokus cynically. The guy had them tattooed on his skin.

He said to Liz, ‘Okay. So tell me about your meeting.’

And as she described her rendezvous in a Geneva park, Bokus stared at the wall. It was an old habit of his, which allowed him to focus on what was being said, not the gestures and expressions that accompanied it. He knew it seemed rude, but it worked for him.

When she’d finished, he said, ‘This sounds interesting.’

‘We think so,’ said Fane, adding smoothly, ‘and that’s why I wanted you to know about it straight away.’

‘Where do you think the threat’s coming from?’

‘China, I’d say,’ said Fane.

The Chinese were the modern-day Bogeyman, thought Bokus. If a thirty-year-old Defense Department computer belched twice in South Dakota, everybody attributed the problem to dirty doings emanating from Beijing. Bokus clenched and unclenched the fingers of one hand. Some days they hurt too, though unlike his knee he’d never used them much playing football. Just age, he’d decided.

He ignored Fane and looked at Liz. ‘Couldn’t the leaker here in London be Russian too?’

‘Well, anything’s possible at this stage,’ she conceded.

‘Very unlikely, I’d say,’ said Fane, avoiding Liz’s astonished gaze. After all, he’d made the same suggestion himself only an hour or so ago in his office.

Bokus sighed. ‘Geoffrey, however cosy we are with Moscow these days, I don’t think we’d let them join us on a top-secret project. If they found out about it, they might well have an interest in infiltrating it. I was thinking actually of an illegal – somebody the Russians planted here long ago. If your guy Bravado is telling the truth, and the leaker’s foreign, then he could be posing as a national friendly to the West. Christ, he could be Canadian, for all I know. He could be anything, but his real identity would be Russian.’

Liz intervened. ‘Our source was pretty clear on this. It’s not a Russian operation; according to him, the mole is working for some other country. But Bravado doesn’t know which one.’

Bokus didn’t buy this. ‘I think it’s far more likely that it’s the Russians who have somebody in place. And your guy is looking for some pay-off for the information.’

‘That would be the
obvious
way of looking at it,’ Fane said. He gave a deprecating sniff.

Bokus snorted back at him. ‘In my experience, the obvious wins nine times out of ten. Sure, you can always start navel-gazing, but this looks to me like a no-brainer. The Russians have infiltrated an agent into this Clarity programme. Simultaneously, and for whatever reason, one of their intelligence officers wants to turn – but he knows he’s got to bring something with him. So this is the dowry.’

When Fane and Liz Carlyle looked unconvinced, Bokus felt exasperated. Why did these Brits always want to make everything so
complicated
? He said, ‘Come on, if it’s not a Russian planted in the MOD, then how the hell did this source of yours find out about it?’

Fane looked to Liz, who said, ‘He says he only learned by accident.’

Bokus made a sarcastic tut with his tongue, but Liz shook her head impatiently. She said, ‘Don’t you see, that’s exactly why it rings true? Bravado didn’t claim to be in the know about everything; he didn’t bring us secret files all neatly wrapped in a box with a pink bow.’

Bokus replied, ‘He’s not giving us anything very concrete. He can’t think we’d pay much for something so vague. What’s his motivation?’

‘Funnily enough, he thinks he’s being patriotic. He’s only telling us because his superiors decided not to. They don’t want us to know: they’re happy for this third party to infiltrate the programme, and give themselves the capacity to control it – either to screw it up or turn it back against us or use it themselves. There’s no end to what you could do if you could get through the encryption and manipulate the software. But Bravado thinks his side is making a mistake in not telling us what they know. He thinks that if the system is sabotaged we might well blame the Russians, the Russians will blame the Chinese, the Chinese will blame us … et cetera. And eventually, all hell could break loose. ’