The Spy I Loved (11 page)

The old
boy, ‘Big F’, was a bit eccentric at times. The brain was still
good and that was all that mattered—he knew his work, he knew his
environment, and he knew his people. He also knew the enemy’s
people, for the most part, and that helped immensely.

“
Sir. I’m about ready to upload data.” He turned, standing on
the beach, back to the boat launch and dock areas.

He could
clearly see his back door, and the front porch area of Cabin Seven.
He could see the gap on the far side of their cabin. The odds of
someone coming in the far window in two or three minutes were
exceedingly small in broad daylight, although it had happened. They
would almost inevitably draw attention to themselves, something he
was assuming they weren’t ready to do just yet. He turned and faced
the open, empty lake again.

“
I’ve found something. I’m sending pictures. I can recover it
alone, but that’s not very smart. Get back to me, sir, and advise.
Basically, I want some backup. More backup, and by that I mean
professionals.”

“
Ah, yes, absolutely.” Was that the edge of excitement in Big
F’s voice?

Would
wonders never cease?

Liam
Kimball, for all intents and purposes, was just out stretching his
legs a bit while speaking on the phone. This was not an uncommon
sight these days. He ambled back up the slope to Cabin
Seven.

It was a
pain in the ass to have to act naturally all the time.

“
Okay, I’ll ring off now and send you that email.”

“
Thank you. I’ll let Frank know you called. Don’t forget to
read the briefing packet.”

“
Ah. Very well, sir. Goodbye.”

Liam
plugged into the laptop, verified his identity, and then sent the
data. Next came the pictures. His own daily briefing packet was
more extensive today.

He sat at
the kitchen table and had a quick read. Some of it was general and
some of it was specific to EMERALD.

Sightings
of various opposition members had declined in the centres of
power—mostly Ottawa, but in London, Paris and Berlin; Washington,
Moscow and Beijing as well. It was always interesting when known
personalities disappeared. It drew a lot of attention as the
security services in a hundred countries scrambled to play catch-up
and locate them again.

Sightings
of certain and particular individuals, and one or two unknown but
possible players, had increased in a gradually tightening radius.
They were converging on his area of operations. So far none of them
had done anything exactly illegal. They were being watched insofar
as that was possible without blowing covers…

It was
old stuff, a rehash of previous briefings.

If you don’t have anything, why don’t you just say
so?

It was
morning now and he’d better get going. Today his job was to be
innocent—he would fish every-which-where, piddle around, and
hopefully, come home with what the locals called a
shit-load.

As for a
bunch of new arrivals in-country, it was nothing they hadn’t
anticipated. With the summer season upon them, an influx of
tourists was only to be expected.

As to
whether it was anything more than that, only time would
tell.

The
names, considering the calling of those wearing them, didn’t mean
much. They all checked out clean. All identities were fully
sanitized. Backgrounds were extensive and convincing, in fact
highly detailed.

One or two of the faces on that list were
suggestive,
according to the
biometrics people. Their places of origin and most recent movements
were interesting.

***

Emil and
Conrad, after carefully going over the cabin for the more obvious
clues, wiped everything down. They had everything they came in
with, as they drove out through the mostly symbolic gates. This was
a pair of slightly-incongruous and rather badly-done totem poles
standing where the road left the clearing, went out past the store
and disappeared into the pre-Cambrian wilderness.

After
being useless so far, now Conrad was questioning their hasty
exit.

“
But why? We know he’s up to something—and he is, after all,
their biggest asset. Surely they wouldn’t have sent him here if
there was nothing to be found, Emil.”

“
Yes, but he has clearly
made
us. And that means our job is done.” Their cover
was blown.

What part
of that did the man not understand?

There
were other lakes, other fishing camps, camping and trailer parks,
hotels and motels, bed and breakfasts, all sorts of places giving
access to the hinterlands. They could camp anywhere on Crown land,
which was almost worse than a motel—like a guerilla camp in
wine-resort country.

There
were hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of Crown lands,
undeveloped private lands, and parks. They had some really big
wilderness parks up here although the logging roads threading every
which way somewhat negated that. The parks were a façade, with
logging going on a hundred metres, even less, from scenic
shorelines and watercourses.

It really
was vast, he told Conrad.

“
Don’t worry. Our friend will have company every step of the
way—in fact
we
may have had company in that camp. It’s definitely possible.”
Their employer was nothing if not thorough, and seemed able to
provide sufficient, even lavish funds.

This was
always a consideration—running a proper operation took money,
otherwise it just wasn’t going to happen.

Even the
most fervent martyrs needed a little sponsorship sometimes. Looking
in the mirror as he adjusted the volume on the radio, their dust
hung in the air in a blue haze behind them. The Pines had winked
out of existence—but only temporarily, to be sure.

When they
were a half a kilometre from the camp, just coming up on the first
intersection, Emil stopped the truck. There was a young couple,
sitting in a sky-blue sedan. Both were fair, flaxen-haired and
blue-eyed, and both wore steel-rimmed spectacles. The man got out,
giving an impression of high-school furtiveness with the little
goatee and the pot leaf emblem on his ball cap. Just their luck, a
camper-truck went by, heading straight for The Pines. Inside was a
family grouping with Ma and Pa in the front seat and three kids in
the back. Since western intelligence agencies rarely involved the
kids, there wasn’t much to worry about.

“
So. You were taken out by a sixteen-dollar part.”

“
Yes. Be careful. This one is very resourceful—but not as good
an actor as he believes himself to be.” Emil glanced over at an
impassive Conrad.

He heaved
a deep sigh and then gave the slender young man standing by the
door a terse grin.

“
All right. Wait a half hour or so and then give it a
try.”

The
gentleman handed over a set of keys and a sealed envelope, bulging
with what was hopefully cold hard cash and the appropriate
documents.

“
Your own arrangements are in order?” Emile handed him an SD
card with some minor briefing notes, photos of the subject, maps
and a few pointers recorded on it. “Ditch that as soon as you’ve
read it.”

“
Yes. We’ll call you later.”

It was
unreadable to anyone’s system but their own, at least
theoretically. Nothing was beyond decryption, a good rule of thumb
that was ignored at one’s own peril. It had the usual auto-wipe
feature in case of tampering, but at this level of investigation
there wasn’t much on there anyways. Any kind of official
involvement was the kiss of death to a stringer or part-time
operative. You could keep all their secrets and your employer still
wouldn’t ever talk to you again. They just wouldn’t risk it,
assuming you weren’t a threat and they didn’t just off you. In this
country, you could be out on bail for years and the jails weren’t
much safer—an incongruous thought.

Losing a
lucrative, yet part-time assignment, was a pretty fit punishment
sometimes. It sent a message. It didn’t invite or provoke severe
reprisals on the part of foreign governments, who also had to
endure a certain amount of internal surveillance. This included
foreign agents, moles and their own citizens with causes of their
own.

“
Call me once in a while. Don’t be calling every five
minutes.” He shook his head decisively. “And good luck with those
alleged lake trout. If you get a really big one, make sure you take
good pictures and email the hell out of them.”

“
Absolutely.” The fellow tipped his abominable ball cap and
stepped back.

It was
all part of their cover. Just a game, really. As long as all
parties understood the rules, not too many people got hurt and it
was really sad when they did, too. It was like the whole community
mourned sometimes.

Emil put
it in gear and drove away. Their new home was less than sixteen
kilometres away. He’d been having one or two thoughts on how they
might go about disguising themselves. Step one might be to get rid
of the mustaches. For that little operation, any sort of track
going into the bush would suffice. He’d hated that damned mustache
from day one.

His plan
was to go thirty or forty kilometres and look for tails. The
vehicle must be swept for tracking devices. It was nothing they
couldn’t deal with. They had multiple identities, and the current
ones would die un-mourned.

Different
faces, different names. Different boat, different haircuts,
different jackets. It was easy enough to switch rental cars. They
would do more trolling next time, with the convertible top raised
to keep out sun and rain. According to the weather people, there
was a day or two of rain and mist coming up.

They were
driving down the road, winding through the hills, clad in their
dark pines and lighter green maples, beech and oaks, with the odd
birch peeping through as if it felt naked and was maybe a bit shy
about revealing itself.

“
So what do you think?”

Conrad
sensed what he meant. They were being paid a per diem and expenses.
It was interesting, perhaps absorbing work at times, and it was all
for a good cause.

“
It’s all right.” He grinned slightly, watching the scenery go
past on the passenger’s side.

They were
passing over a culvert, a vast swamp stretching off to the horizon.
A person could get lost out there in a hurry, he
thought.

“
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Conrad’s
eyebrows rose but he said nothing.

At least
Emil was in a better mood now.

Sooner or
later the Englishman would get what was coming to him.

That was
all that really mattered, that and getting EMERALD.

Get in,
get the job done. Get paid, and get the fuck out.

That’s
how it would be.

Chapter Eight

His
observers had departed, leaving fifteen minutes before he came out
the door.

He
approached the boat cautiously, taking a good look at everything.
It would look a bit off for a man to examine the bottom of the
hull. There were times when there was this sick thrill at the
possibilities, and sooner or later these turkeys would try a bomb.
Standing in the water in his bare feet, Liam lifted the gunwale as
high as he could get it, trying to see the whole bottom, first one
side then the other. Mark was in the kiosk, becoming a bit curious,
and so he gave it up. He clambered into the boat.

Liam
stuck his hand in the regular place.

Ah.
So.

The
transponder chip was still there. If so, why? While they weren’t
all that expensive, it did leave a bit of a trail. It was a
giveaway. Speaking of which, he peeled it off. He held it over the
side with his right hand, a foot deep in the water, which would
interfere with the extremely short-wave type signal. His scanner,
located in his telephone, (as he faked a short call) indicated no
other devices aboard. Either they had new technology or there was
nothing else there. He stuck their transponder in his pocket for
the time being.

Liam was
setting off shortly after the sun had burned the mist off the lake.
There were few signs of life in the camp, although he’d heard some
of the other boats go out before dawn. Only a pair of crows sitting
atop the outdoor lighting masts seemed to care, squawking their
comments back and forth.

The boat
fired up. He undid the rope and cast off. The water was smooth as
glass, looking every colour of the spectrum in some mad, splashy
palette. He headed upriver, into the sunrise. It wasn’t long before
he was well away from camp, idling back and enjoying the peace. It
was time to deploy his rig.

Over the
side it went.

He fished listlessly, here and there, bringing in an
embarrassing number of bass, trout and some rather small pan fish
which he released. With his lures trailing, he looked like any
other ambitious angler out for the bigger game fish. Every so often
he pulled his outriggers, stopped in water with some shallower
structures, put a hook out and if he caught something, he hung onto
it. He could always say the fishing wasn’t that good and then be
suitably impressed when some other lucky stiff pulled out a
fifteen-pounder and patiently explained how it was
done,
Buddy.