The Ghost (20 page)

“But is that really plausible?” I asked. “I don’t know how these things work. Would someone join the CIA and then immediately be sent off to do postgraduate research in another country?”

“I’d say that’s highly plausible. What better cover could you want? And where better than a university to spot the future best and the brightest?” He held out his hand. “Show me the photograph again. Which one is Emmett?”

“It may all be balls,” I warned, pointing Emmett out. “I’ve no proof. I just found his name on one of those paranoid websites. They said he joined the CIA after he left Yale, which must have been about three years before this was taken.”

“Oh, I can believe it,” said Rycart, studying him intently. “In fact, now you mention it, I think I did hear some gossip once. But then that whole international conference circuit world is crawling with them. I call them the military-industrial-academic complex.” He smiled at his own wit, then looked serious again. “What’s really suspicious is that he should have known Lang.”

“No,” I said, “what’s
really
suspicious is that a matter of hours after McAra tracked down Emmett to his house near Boston, he was found washed up dead on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard.”

AFTER THAT I TOLD
him everything I’d discovered. I told him the story about the tides and the flashlights on the beach at Lambert’s Cove, and the curious way the police investigation had been handled. I told him about Ruth’s description of McAra’s argument with Lang on the eve of his death, and about Lang’s reluctance to discuss his Cambridge years, and the way he’d tried to conceal the fact that he’d become politically active immediately after leaving university rather than two years later. I described how McAra, with his typical dogged thoroughness, had discovered all this, turning up detail after detail that gradually destroyed Lang’s account of his early years. That was presumably what he meant when he said that the key to everything was in the beginning of Lang’s autobiography. I told him about the satellite navigation system in the Ford and how it had taken me to Emmett’s doorstep, and how strangely Emmett had behaved.

And, of course, the more I talked, the more excited Rycart became. I guess it must have been like Christmas for him.

“Just suppose,” he said, pacing up and down again, “that it was Emmett who originally suggested to Lang that he should think about a career in politics. Let’s face it, someone must have put the idea into his pretty little head. I’d been a junior member of the party since I was fourteen. What year did Lang join?”

“Nineteen seventy-five.”

“Seventy-five! You see, that would make perfect sense. Do you remember what Britain was like in seventy-five? The security services were out of control, spying on the prime minister. Retired generals were forming private armies. The economy was collapsing. There were strikes, riots. It wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if the CIA had decided to recruit a few bright young things and had encouraged them to make their careers in useful places—the civil service, the media, politics. It’s what they do everywhere else, after all.”

“But not in Britain, surely,” I said. “We’re an ally.”

Rycart looked at me with contempt. “The CIA was spying on
American
students back then. Do you really think they’d have been squeamish about spying on ours? Of course they were active in Britain! They still are. They have a head of station in London and a huge staff. I could name you half a dozen MPs right now who are in regular contact with the CIA. In fact—” He stopped pacing and clicked his fingers. “That’s a thought!” He whirled round to look at me. “Does the name Reg Giffen mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely.”

“Reg Giffen—Sir Reginald Giffen, later Lord Giffen, now dead Giffen, thank God—spent so long making speeches in the House of Commons on behalf of the Americans, we used to call him the member for Michigan. He announced his resignation as an MP in the first week of the nineteen eighty-three election general campaign, and it caught everyone by surprise, apart from one very enterprising and photogenic young party member, who just happened to have moved into his constituency six months earlier.”

“And who then got the nomination to become the party’s candidate, with Giffen’s support,” I said, “and who then won one of the safest seats in the country when he was still only thirty.” The story was legendary. It was the start of Lang’s rise to national prominence. “But you can’t really think that the CIA asked Giffen to help fix it so that Lang could get into parliament? That sounds very far-fetched.”

“Oh, come on! Use your imagination! Imagine you’re Professor Emmett, now back in Harvard, writing unreadable bilge about the alliance of the English-speaking peoples and the need to combat the Communist menace. Haven’t you got potentially the most amazing agent in history on your hands? A man who’s already starting to be talked about as a future party leader? A possible prime minister? Aren’t you going to persuade the powers that be at the Agency to do everything they can to further this man’s career? I was already in parliament myself when Lang arrived. I watched him come from nowhere and streak past all of us.” He scowled at the memory. “Of course he had
help
. He had no real connection with the party at all. We couldn’t begin to understand what made him tick.”

“Surely that’s the point of him,” I said. “He didn’t have an ideology.”

“He may not have had an ideology, but he sure as hell had an agenda.” Rycart sat down again. He leaned toward me. “Okay. Here’s a quiz for you. Name me one decision that Adam Lang took as prime minister that wasn’t in the interests of the United States of America.”

I was silent.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s not a trick question. Just name me one thing he did that Washington wouldn’t have approved of. Let’s think.” He held up his thumb. “One: deployment of British troops to the Middle East, against the advice of just about every senior commander in our armed forces and all of our ambassadors who know the region. Two”—up went his right index finger—“complete failure to demand any kind of quid pro quo from the White House in terms of reconstruction contracts for British firms, or anything else. Three: unwavering support for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, even when it’s patently crazy for us to set ourselves against the entire Arab world. Four: the stationing of an American missile defense system on British soil that does absolutely nothing for our security—in fact, the complete opposite: it makes us a more obvious target for a first strike and can provide protection only for the U.S. Five: the purchase, for fifty billion dollars, of an American nuclear missile system that we call ‘independent’ but that we wouldn’t be able to fire without U.S. approval, thus binding his successors to another twenty years of subservience to Washington over defense policy. Six: a treaty that allows the U.S. to extradite our citizens to stand trial in America but doesn’t allow us to do the same to theirs. Seven: collusion in the illegal kidnapping, torture, imprisonment, and even murder of our own citizens. Eight: a consistent record of sacking of any minister—I speak with experience here—who is less than one hundred percent supportive of the alliance with the United States. Nine—”

“All right,” I said, holding up my hand. “I get the message.”

“I have friends in Washington who just can’t believe the way that Lang ran British foreign policy. I mean, they were
embarrassed
by how much support he gave and how little he got in return. And where has it got us? Stuck fighting a so-called war we can’t possibly win, colluding in methods we didn’t use even when we were up against the Nazis!” Rycart laughed ruefully and shook his head. “You know, in a way, I’m almost relieved to discover there might be a rational explanation for what we got up to in government while he was prime minister. If you think about it, the alternative’s actually worse. At least if he was working for the CIA it makes sense. So now,” he said, patting my knee, “the question is: what are we going to do about it?”

I didn’t like the sound of that first person plural.

“Well,” I said, wincing slightly, “I’m in a tricky position. I’m supposed to be helping him with his memoirs. I have a legal obligation not to divulge anything I hear in the course of my work to a third party.”

“It’s too late to stop now.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, either.

“We don’t actually have any
proof
,” I pointed out. “We don’t even know for sure that
Emmett
was in the CIA, let alone that he recruited Lang. I mean, how is this relationship supposed to have worked after Lang got into Number Ten? Did he have a secret radio transmitter hidden in the attic, or what?”

“This isn’t a joke, my friend,” said Rycart. “I know something of how these things are done from when I was at the Foreign Office. Contact can be managed easily enough. For a start, Emmett was always coming to London, because of Arcadia. It was the perfect front. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole institution wasn’t set up as part of the covert operation to run Lang. The timing would fit. They could have used intermediaries.”

“But there’s still no
proof
,” I repeated, “and short of Lang confessing, or Emmett confessing, or the CIA opening their files, there never will be.”

“Then you’ll just have to get some proof,” said Rycart flatly.

“What?” My mouth sagged; my everything sagged.

“You’re in the perfect position,” Rycart went on. “He trusts you. He lets you ask him whatever you like. He even allows you to tape his answers. You can put words in his mouth. We’ll have to devise a series of questions that gradually entrap him, and then finally you can confront him with the allegation, and let’s see how he reacts. He’ll deny it, but that won’t matter. The mere fact you’re laying the evidence in front of him will put the story on the record.”

“No it won’t. The tapes are his property.”

“Yes it will. The tapes can be subpoenaed by the war crimes court, as evidence of his direct complicity with the CIA rendition program.”

“What if I don’t make any tapes?”

“In that case, I’ll suggest to the prosecutor that she subpoenas
you
.”

“Ah,” I said craftily, “but what if I deny the whole story?”

“Then I’ll give her this,” said Rycart, and opened his jacket to show a small microphone clipped to the front of his shirt, with a wire trailing into his inside pocket. “Frank is recording every word down in the lobby, aren’t you, Frank? Oh, come on! Don’t look so shocked. What did you expect? That I’d come to a meeting with a complete stranger, who’s working for Lang, without taking any precautions? Except that you’re not working for Lang anymore.” He smiled, showing again that row of teeth, more brilliantly white than anything in nature. “You’re working for me.”

AFTER A FEW SECONDS
I started to swear, fluently and indiscriminately. I was swearing at Rycart and at my own stupidity, at Frank and at whoever would one day transcribe the tape. I was swearing at the war crimes prosecutor, at the court, the judges, the media. And I would have gone on for a lot longer if my telephone hadn’t started to ring—not the one I’d been given to contact Rycart but the one I’d brought from London. Needless to say, I’d forgotten to switch it off.

“Don’t answer it,” warned Rycart. “It’ll lead them straight to us.”

I looked at the incoming number. “It’s Amelia Bly,” I said. “It could be important.”

“Amelia Bly,” repeated Rycart, his voice a blend of awe and lust. “I haven’t seen her for a while.” He hesitated; it was obvious he was desperate to know what she wanted. “If they’re monitoring you, they’ll be able to fix your location to within a hundred yards, and this hotel is the only building where you’re likely to be.”

The phone continued to throb in my outstretched palm. “Well, to hell with you,” I said. “I’m not taking my orders from you.”

I pressed the green button. “Hi,” I said. “Amelia.”

“Good evening,” she said, her voice as crisp as a matron’s uniform. “I have Adam for you.”

I mouthed, “It’s Adam Lang,” at Rycart and waved my hand at him to warn him against saying anything. An instant later the familiar, classless voice filled my ear.

“I was just speaking to Ruth,” he said. “She tells me you’re in New York.”

“That’s right.”

“So am I. Whereabouts are you?”

“I’m not sure exactly where I am, Adam.” I made a helpless gesture at Rycart. “I haven’t checked in anywhere yet.”

“We’re at the Waldorf,” said Lang. “Why don’t you come over?”

“Hold on a second, Adam.” I pressed Mute.

“You,” said Rycart, “are a fucking idiot.”

“He wants me to go over and see him at the Waldorf.”

Rycart sucked in his cheeks, appraising the options. “You should go,” he said.

“What if it’s a trap?”

“It’s a risk, but it’ll look odd if you don’t go. He’ll get suspicious. Tell him yes, quickly, and then hang up.”

I pressed Mute again.

“Hi, Adam,” I said, trying to keep the tension out of my voice. “That’s great. I’ll be right over.”

Rycart passed his finger across his throat.

“What brings you to New York, in any case?” asked Lang. “I thought you had plenty to occupy you at the house.”

“I wanted to see John Maddox.”

“Right. And how was he?”

“Fine. Listen, I’ve got to go now.”

Rycart’s throat slashing was becoming ever more urgent.

“We’ve had a great couple of days,” continued Lang, as if he hadn’t heard me. “The Americans have been fantastic. You know, it’s in the tough times that you find out who your real friends are.”

Was it my imagination, or did he freight those words with extra emphasis for my benefit?

“Great. I’ll be with you as fast as I can, Adam.”

I ended the call. My hand was shaking.

“Well done,” said Rycart. He was on his feet, retrieving his coat from the bed. “We have about ten minutes to get out of here. Get your stuff together.”

Mechanically, I began gathering up the photographs. I put them back in the case and fastened it while Rycart went into the bathroom and peed noisily.

“How did he sound?” called Rycart.

“Cheerful.”

He flushed the lavatory and emerged buttoning his fly. “Well, we’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?”

The elevator down to the lobby was crammed with members of the Church of Latter-Day Online Traders, or whoever the hell they were. It stopped at every floor. Rycart grew more and more nervous.

“We mustn’t be seen together,” he muttered as we stepped out at the ground floor. “You hang back. We’ll meet you in the car park.”

He quickened his pace, drawing ahead of me. Frank was already on his feet—presumably he had been listening and knew of our intentions—and the two of them set off without a word: the dapper, silver Rycart and his taciturn and swarthy sidekick. What a double act, I thought. I bent and pretended to tie my shoelace, then took my time crossing the lobby, deliberately circling the groups of chattering guests, keeping my head down. There was something now so ludicrous about this whole situation that, as I joined the crush at the door waiting to get out, I actually found myself smiling. It was like a Feydeau farce: each new scene more far-fetched than the last, yet each, when you examined it, a logical development of its predecessor. Yes, that was what this was: a farce! I stood in line until my turn came, and that was when I saw Emmett, or at least that’s when I thought I saw Emmett, and suddenly I wasn’t smiling anymore.

The hotel had one of these big revolving doors, with compartments that hold five or six people at a time, all of whom are obliged to lunge into it and shuffle forward to avoid knocking into one another, like convicts on a chain gang. Luckily for me, I was in the middle of the outgoing group, which is probably the reason Emmett didn’t see me. He had a man on either side of him, and they were in the compartment that was swinging into the hotel, all three pushing at the glass in front of them, as if they were in a violent hurry.

We came out into the night and I stumbled, almost falling over, in my anxiety to get away. My suitcase toppled onto its side and I dragged it along after me, as if it were a stubborn dog. The car park was separated from the hotel forecourt by a flower bed, but instead of going round it I walked straight through it. Across the parking lot, a pair of headlights came on and then drove straight at me. The car swerved at the last moment and the rear passenger door flew open.

“Get in,” said Rycart.

The speed with which Frank accelerated away served to slam the door shut after me and threw me back in my seat.

“I just saw Emmett,” I said.

Rycart exchanged looks in the mirror with his driver.

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“Did he see you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I was holding onto my suitcase. It had become my security blanket. We sped down the access road and pulled into the heavy traffic heading toward Manhattan.

“They could have followed us from LaGuardia,” said Frank.

“Why did they hold back?” asked Rycart.

“Could be they were waiting for Emmett to arrive from Boston, to make a positive ID.”

Up to that point, I hadn’t taken Rycart’s amateur tradecraft too seriously, but now I felt a fresh surge of panic.

“Listen,” I said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go and see Lang right now. Assuming that was Emmett, Lang must surely have been alerted to what I’ve been doing. He’ll know that I’ve driven up to Boston and shown Emmett the photographs.”

“So? What do you think he’s going to do about it?” asked Rycart. “Drown you in his bathtub at the Waldorf-Astoria?”

“Yeah, right,” said Frank. His shoulders shook slightly with amusement. “As if.”

I felt sick, and despite the freezing night, I lowered the window. The wind was blowing from the east, gusting off the river, carrying on its cold, industrial edge the sickly tang of aviation fuel. I can still taste it at the back of my throat whenever I think of it, and that, for me, will always be the taste of fear.

“Don’t I need to have a cover story?” I said. “What am I supposed to tell Lang?”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” said Rycart. “You’re just following up your predecessor’s work. You’re trying to research his Cambridge years. Don’t act so guilty. Lang can’t know for sure that you’re on to him.”

“It’s not Lang I’m worried about.”

We both lapsed into silence. After a few minutes the nighttime Manhattan skyline came into view, and my eyes automatically sought out the gap in the glittering façade, even though we were at the wrong angle to see it. Strange how an absence can be a landmark. It was like a black hole, I thought: a tear in the cosmos. It could suck in anything—cities, countries, laws; it could certainly swallow me. Rycart seemed equally oppressed by the journey.

“Close the window, would you?” he said. “I’m freezing to death.”

I did as he asked. Frank had turned the radio on, a jazz station, playing softly.

“What about the car?” I said. “It’s still at Logan Airport.”

“You can pick it up in the morning.”

The station switched to playing the blues. I asked Frank to turn it off. He ignored me.

“I know Lang thinks it’s personal,” Rycart said, “but it’s not. All right, there’s an element of getting my own back, I’ll admit—who likes to be humiliated? But if we carry on licensing torture, and if we judge victory simply by the number of the enemy’s skulls we can carry back to decorate our caves—well, what will become of us?”

“I’ll tell you what will become of us,” I said savagely. “We’ll get ten million dollars for our memoirs and live happily ever after.” Once again, I found that my nervousness was making me angry. “You do know this is pointless, don’t you? In the end he’ll just retire over here on his CIA pension and tell you and your bloody war crimes court to go screw yourselves.”

“Maybe he will. But the ancients thought exile a worse punishment than death—and boy, will Lang be an exile. He won’t be able to travel anywhere in the world, not even the handful of shitty little countries that don’t recognize the ICC, because there’ll always be a danger that his plane may have to put in somewhere with engine trouble or to refuel. And we’ll be waiting for him. And that’s when we’ll get him.”

I glanced at Rycart. He was staring straight ahead, nodding slightly.

“Or the political climate may change here one day,” he went on, “and there’ll be a public campaign to hand him over to justice. I wonder if he’s thought of that. His life is going to be hell.”

“You almost make me feel sorry for him.”

Rycart gave me a sharp look. “He’s charmed you, hasn’t he? Charm! The English disease.”

“There are worse afflictions.”

We crossed the Triborough Bridge, the tires thumping on the joints in the road like a fast pulse.

“I feel as though I’m in a tumbril,” I said.

It took us a while to make the journey downtown. Each time the traffic came to a stop, I thought of opening the door and making a run for it. The trouble was, I could imagine the first part well enough—darting through the stationary cars and disappearing down one of the cross streets—but then it all became a blank. Where would I go? How would I pay for a hotel room if my own credit card, and presumably the false one I’d used earlier, were known to my pursuers? My reluctant conclusion, from whichever angle I examined my predicament, was that I was safer with Rycart. At least he knew how to survive in this alien world into which I had blundered.

“If you’re that worried, we can arrange to have a fail-safe signal,” said Rycart. “You can call me using the phone Frank gave you, let’s say at ten past every hour. We don’t have to speak. Just let it ring a couple of times.”

“What happens if I don’t make the call?”

“I won’t do anything if you miss the first time. If you miss a second, I’ll call Lang and tell him I hold him personally responsible for your safety.”

“Why is it that I don’t find that very reassuring?”

We were almost there. I could see ahead, on the opposite side of Park Avenue, a great, floodlit Stars and Stripes, and beside it, flanking the Waldorf’s entrance, a Union Jack. The area in front of the hotel was cordoned off by concrete blocks. I counted half a dozen police motorcycles waiting, four patrol cars, two large black limousines, a small crowd of cameramen, and a slightly larger one of curious onlookers. As I eyed it, my heart began to accelerate. I felt breathless.

Rycart squeezed my arm. “Courage, my friend. He’s already lost one ghost in suspicious circumstances. He can hardly afford to lose another.”

“This can’t
all
be for him, surely?” I said in amazement. “Anyone would think he was still prime minister.”

“It seems I’ve only made him even more of a celebrity,” said Rycart. “You people should be grateful to me. Okay, good luck. We’ll talk later. Pull over here, Frank.”

He turned up his collar and sank down in his seat, and there was pathos as well as absurdity in the precaution. Poor Rycart: I doubt if one person in ten thousand in New York would have known who he was. Frank pulled up briefly on the corner of East Fiftieth Street to let me out and then eased deftly back into the traffic, so that the last view I ever had of Rycart was of the back of his silvery head dwindling into the Manhattan evening.

I was on my own.

I crossed the great expanse of road, yellow with taxis, and made my way past the crowds and the police. None of the cops standing around challenged me; seeing my suitcase, they must have assumed I was just a guest checking in. I went through the art deco doors, up the grand marble staircase, and into the Babylonian splendor of the Waldorf’s lobby. Normally I would have used my mobile to contact Amelia, but even I had learned my lesson there. I went over to one of the concierges at the front desk and asked him to call her room.

There was no reply.

Frowning, he hung up. He was just starting to check his computer when a loud detonation sounded on Park Avenue. Several guests who were checking in ducked, only to straighten ruefully when the explosion turned into a cannonade of gunning motorcycle engines. From the interior of the hotel, across the immense expanse of the golden lobby, came a wedge of security men, Special Branch and Secret Service, with Lang enclosed among them, marching purposefully in his usual rolling, muscular way. Behind him walked Amelia and the two secretaries. Amelia was on the phone. I moved toward the group. Lang swept by me, his eyes fixed straight ahead, which was unlike him. Usually he liked to connect with people when he passed them: flash them a smile they’d remember always. As he began descending the staircase, Amelia saw me. She appeared flustered for once, a few blonde hairs actually out of place.

“I was just trying to call you,” she said as she went by. She didn’t break step. “There’s been a change of plan,” she said over her shoulder. “We’re flying back to Martha’s Vineyard now.”