Sabbathman (18 page)

Cousins looked briefly down at Annie, and Annie found herself nodding in agreement. Quite why she did it, she didn’t know but she sensed that this powerful, impressive young man, so different to Francis Wren, had exactly gauged the mood of the meeting. They were listening to him in a way that they hadn’t listened to Allder. He’d taken them by the hand. He’d made them trust him. She glanced up at Cousins again, hearing her name. He was inviting her to report on her dealings with Willoughby Grant. She had, he said, ‘coaxed him to the trough’.

Annie stood up. She’d never been frightened of speaking in public. On the contrary, she loved it. She loved the way it raised her pulse and quickened her wits. She loved the extra twist it gave to that spring she kept coiled inside her. Above all, she loved the knowledge that people were watching her, listening to her, the sole focus of their attention.

She described her conversation with Willoughby Grant. She kept the details brief and factual. She explained the genesis of Mr Angry and she passed on Grant’s promise of more to come. For the first time, there was a question from the committee.

‘What can we expect next? Can you be more specific?’

The question came from a young man sitting beside the woman who’d opened the meeting. He didn’t bother with a name and neither did she. Annie looked across at him, remembering a phrase or two from Grant’s file.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, ‘and I suspect he doesn’t either. He’s very good at letting things develop. He has a knack of picking winners. He’s nerveless, too. Doesn’t panic under fire.’

‘An opportunist, in other words.’

Annie nodded. In the young man’s mouth, the description sounded like an insult.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And he thinks Mr Angry’s a winner?’

‘Yes. Most definitely.’

‘So we’ll be seeing more of him?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

The young man looked pointedly at Cousins. For someone his age, he seemed to have a great deal of authority.

‘What do we have inside the building,’ he inquired. ‘At
The Citizen
?’

‘Human sources? Or Sigint?’

‘Either.’

Cousins glanced round the table, a man whose command of his brief was disturbed only by a sensible concern for discretion.

‘We have both,’ he said carefully. ‘We have a woman on the subs’ desk, plus a number of taps in place.’

‘And?’

‘Our source confirms what we’ve heard.’ Cousins tilted his head
towards Annie. ‘This new angle’s been around a couple of days and now they’re all delighted with the result. They’ll push it. There’s no question about that.’

‘Push it where? In what direction?’

‘They don’t know. And we can’t say.’ Cousins offered the committee a smile. ‘Opportunism isn’t an easy condition to deal with. The usual drugs don’t work.’

There was a ripple of laughter. The young man was making notes. Then he whispered something in the older woman’s ear, stood up, and left the room. The older woman introduced the man from the MOD and Annie sat down. Cousins turned to her as the man from the MOD began to outline contingency plans in the event of further killings. Annie thought she heard the phrase ‘special forces’ but she couldn’t be sure.

‘Drinks on me,’ Cousins was whispering. ‘You were brilliant.’

They walked to a pub off Buckingham Gate, a big old Victorian tavern already comfortably full. Cousins found a quiet table in the corner and Annie wriggled out of her coat while he queued at the bar for drinks. Her blood was still pumping from her moment of glory and she could feel the warmth in her face when he returned with the beers.

‘You always drink pints?’ he asked.

Annie nodded. ‘On a good day,’ she said, ‘definitely.’

They talked for nearly an hour. Annie had been right about Francis Wren. He was being moved sideways, to a temporary position in ‘A’ Branch where he’d be compiling some kind of report on MI5’s dealings with British Telecom. The phone tapping operation, Tinkerbell, had recently been attracting outside attention and it was Wren’s job to find out why. It was obvious at once that the appointment was a major demotion, a hint – Annie assumed – that Wren should devote some serious thought to early retirement.

‘He’s a nice man,’ she said for the second time, ‘I like him.’

‘I like him, too. But that’s life. He’s past his sell-by date. I’m just surprised he’s hung on so long. You lose the appetite for it. And it pays to be hungry in this game.’

They exchanged glances and Cousins smiled. There was a subplot here, a reef beneath the conversation, and they both knew it. The lagoon’s full of sharks, Cousins was saying. Weaken, and they’ll have you.

‘The guy on the committee,’ Annie began, ‘the one who asked me about Grant.’

‘Andrew Hennessey. Tory Central Office.’

‘A party worker?’

‘Sort of. He heads something called Special Projects.’

‘I see.’ Annie nodded, surprised at the reach of the Tory political machine. Emergency committees like PYTHON offered a seat in the dress circle, ministers and key officials only. Riff-raff like Hennessey normally belonged at Tory headquarters in Smith Square, along with all the other party hacks. ‘So why the questions?’ she asked. ‘How come they’re all so worried about Willoughby Grant?’

Cousins didn’t answer for a moment. His eyes were the lightest blue and he had the knack of holding her gaze without the slightest hint of aggression. It was a piece of body language that sat oddly with the SAS tie and Annie was fascinated by it.

‘Downing Street have got the shits about all this,’ he said, ‘and Andy’s the guy with the bucket and the mop.’

‘But why Willoughby Grant? He’s no threat, surely?’

‘You’re right. He’s not. But Mr Angry …’ Cousins shrugged. ‘Who knows? Politicians are an odd bunch. You don’t realise it until you meet them. They’re like kids. Babies. Deeply insecure. They’re in the popularity business. Forget all the stuff about tough decisions and taking the medicine, all that crap. They want to be loved. They need it. So Mr Angry makes them very nervous.’

‘But he’s inane.’

‘Yes. But he’ll be incredibly popular. Even in Downing Street they know it’s all going wrong. They know they’re hated. They know the country’s in the shit. They call it voter-deficit. Come the next election, that’ll be a posh word for losing.’ Cousins balanced a beer mat on the edge of the table, and flipped it upward, catching it before it fell. ‘Politicians hate losing,’ he said, ‘which is where we can sometimes help.’

‘By trying to bribe Willoughby Grant?’

‘By marking his card.’

‘Same thing,’ Annie smiled, ‘isn’t it?’

Cousins didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he leaned forward across the table, lowering his voice, Mr Sincerity.

‘I know what you mean, Annie, and I agree. Believe me, I do. Where I came from, no one cared less about politicians. We just did what we did. We got on with it. But this game …’ He shook his head. ‘It’s different. They matter. You have to get to know them. You have to get to know the way they think, what frightens them, what turns them on.’

‘Simple.’ Annie grinned. ‘Power. Getting it. And keeping it.’

‘Sure.’ Cousins nodded. ‘But there’s more to it than that. Think what you like, they
are
in touch. In fact they’re probably
too
sensitive. Like I say, it’s every little nuance. Every little breath of wind.’ He paused. ‘Papers like Grant’s worry them a good deal. He can deliver, when he wants to. And other times, he can be a bloody pain. Which is why we want to nip Mr Angry in the bud.’

‘So he is a threat?’ Annie leaned forward, touching him lightly on the hand. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

Cousins smiled at her, those same blue eyes, and reached for the beer mat again. ‘Tell me about Flavius,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Tell me what you made of us all.’

‘How did you know about Flavius?’

‘I read your file. This morning. Plus …’ He fingered his tie. ‘You made a bit of an impact. The blokes aren’t blind. Far from it.’

Annie looked away a moment, warmed by the remark. Her first job for MI5 had been down in Spain, liaising between the SAS and the local intelligence people in Malaga. The Spaniards had mounted long-term surveillance on three Provo terrorists planning a bomb attack on nearby Gibraltar. In the end, the operation code-named Flavius had been botched, three killings in broad daylight that had made headlines around the world, but the preceding months of patient preparation – laying out the bait, closing the trap – had been Annie’s first taste of undercover work. She’d been amazed at the reach of MI5, the corners it could cut, the strokes it could pull, the rules it could ignore. Being part of all that, even as a lowly liaison officer, had given her a feeling of immense power.

‘I loved it,’ she said to Cousins. ‘I truly loved it.’

‘You were very good. From what I hear.’

‘Well …’ She shrugged. ‘Whatever. But I thought it was amazing.’

‘Better than real life?’

‘Much.’

Cousins went back to the bar for some crisps and when he returned, Annie found herself telling him the rest of the story, starting way back, leaving school with ‘A’ level distinctions in French and German and a hunger to work abroad. She’d signed on with a big travel company, working for a pittance as a rep in Lloret de Mar. She’d been good at it – tireless, good-humoured, happy to cope with whatever came her way – and she’d soon found herself supervising other reps, first in Lloret, then throughout the Costa Brava. After Spain, she’d returned to London, hopping from company to company, learning the business from the inside. She’d ended up with the market leaders. They’d given her a car, and an office, and finally a brochure of her own, and by her twenty-ninth birthday she was one executive promotion away from a seat in the company’s boardroom. At this point, typically, she’d resigned.

‘Why?’ Cousins asked.

‘I got another offer. Big German firm.’

‘More money?’

‘A little. But lots of scope. Lots of responsibility. Starting a whole new operation from the ground up. Blank sheet of paper. Fantastic.’

She beamed at him, remembering it, reaching for her drink. Cousins smiled back.

‘And then we came along?’

‘Yes. A year or so later.’

‘And wrecked it?’

Annie shook her head, returning the glass to the table. The approach from Gower Street had come out of the blue. She’d been at a travel fair in Frankfurt. They must have had an eye on her for a while. They’d taken her to the restaurant in the Sheraton-Century Hotel, two of them, a man and a woman from an executive recruitment outfit in London. They seemed to have known every last detail about her life: where she’d come from, the stops she’d made, the long list of battle honours on her professional CV.
Wherever she’d paused for breath – a new desk, a new company – they’d taken more soundings, and by the end of that long, long meal they’d made it plain that a job with MI5 was hers for the asking.

For reasons she’d never properly understood, Annie had found the offer immensely flattering, but she’d begun negotiating at once, leaving them with a series of stipulations. If they were serious about her talents – her languages, her drive, her track record, her singlemindedness – then it would have to be the fast lane. She didn’t want to be moored to some desk or other, endlessly reviewing files. She didn’t want to be snared by office politics, or any stone age ideas about the role of women. She wanted to be out there, doing it. She wanted to listen, and to learn, and in due course – take over.

Cousins blinked. ‘Take over what?’

‘The Service. The top job.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Still?’

‘Of course. The D-G’s a woman. Why not me?’ Annie drained the rest of her pint. ‘Not now, not yet, but one day …’ She nodded. ‘Sure, why not?’

They talked about Belfast, Annie more cautious now, sensing a new element in the conversation, a nerve in Cousins that her naked ambition seemed to have touched. The smile was a little less benign, a little less patronising, and when she brought the story up to date – nine months running agents of her own in Belfast – it vanished altogether.

‘You’ve really seen my file?’ she was asking.

‘Yes.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘Impressive.’ He nodded. ‘Very.’

‘What does that mean?’

Cousins shook his head, raising his glass, refusing her the satisfaction of an answer. Soon afterwards, the pub noisy now, he semaphored that he had to go. Annie nodded as he stood up, shaking her head at the offer of another drink, mouthing goodbye. She watched him as he picked his way through the crowd,
wondering if she’d already said a little too much for her own good. Cousins, after all, might be the new ‘T’ Branch Controller. It would be a wildly imaginative appointment, not at all Five’s style, but she knew they were after fresh young blood, and she doubted whether blood came fresher than Cousins’.

She was still deep in thought when she felt someone nudge her chair. She looked up quickly. Alan Kingdom was standing behind her. He had two pint glasses, one in each hand. He put them carefully on the table, one in front of Annie, and sank into the other chair.

‘So who was that?’ He nodded towards the door. ‘Friend or foe?’