Charles Cumming - A spy by nature

She smirks at this. She does not want to believe any of it.

“I’m serious,” I tell her. “So that’s it. You’ve got it?”

“Yes,” she says, exasperated.

“Good. Because I’m trusting you.”

I travel home numbed by all the bad decisions I have made, each falling on the heels of the other. Young and blind to consequence, I have done and said things that have led me to the point at which I now find myself. This afternoon was just another example, a pointless tracking back into the past.

When Kate and I were together, there was such arrogance in me, an inability to see things for what they were. I just threw everything we had away on a whim and never properly fought to get her back. And then with Hawkes, what was it? Vanity? Is that all it was, a craving for recognition? What do Saul and Kate know that I do not, that they can make the right decisions, that they can appear to live life in the way that it is meant to be lived?

More waiting now. Nothing to be done. Always the ball in someone else’s court. So I open a bottle of wine and read for five hours straight about Philby.

I cannot conceive of the scale of his deceit. The entire span of a life lived as a vast deception-to friends, to family, perhaps even to wives. I have done it for less than two years, and the relentless demands of total secrecy have been overwhelming. What must have been going through his mind as he contemplated all of that coming to an end?

Earlier in his career, British intelligence had been convinced that Philby was the Third Man, even to the point of asking for his resignation. Yet they held off, because the consequences of publicly revealing an enemy within outweighed the practical necessity of unmasking him. The shame would have been too much for the establishment to endure. Philby, Burgess, and Maclean all survived undetected for so long precisely for this reason, precisely because of their gentlemanly polish, their wit and erudition. In short, no one believed it possible that such men would betray their country. They induced a sort of class blindness in the intelligence community.

In spite of their suspicions, SIS allowed Philby to operate in Lebanon for some time, using journalism as cover. While still on the SIS payroll he filed for The Observer, in between feeding cocktail party gossip to low-level KGB agents in Beirut. Throughout all this, SIS acted as if Philby was a problem that would eventually disappear. Which in the end, of course, is exactly what he did.

When they were sure, when they knew that they had their man, they sent Philby’s best friend-his Saul-to Beirut to flush him out. Nicholas Elliott, also SIS, was under instruction to offer him immunity from prosecution in return for a full confession. He was given twenty-four hours to reveal the full extent of his activities, but over that period was left to his own devices. What is astonishing to me is that on the night of Elliott’s visit, Philby attended a dinner party at the residence of the first secretary to the British embassy, and then drank himself into a coma on cheap Lebanese whiskey. When he woke up, he made the decision to defect. He contacted his KGB controller, was given false papers as a Russian sailor and spirited back to Moscow on a freight ship before anyone had time to notice.

The days after seeing Kate continue to feel awkward and unsettled, like the guilt that follows an infidelity. The morning after I first slept with Anna there was a sense that I had succumbed to a needless temptation with no net gain that threatened to destroy everything. The pursuit was all. To wake up beside her, to adjust to her routines and smells, was the least enjoyable part of it. And yet I went back to her, time and again, for no better reason than that she provided me with a sense of excitement, a pitiful rush of adrenaline.

Telling Kate about JUSTIFY, having not seen her for more than two years, feels oddly similar, for she is a stranger to me now, someone whom I no longer know. The confession was pointless. None of my anxiety has subsided, and, if anything, telling her has actually compounded the problem. I feel no less guilty about Cohen-whose condition in Switzerland is deteriorating-and I have broken my explicit pledge to Lithiby, Caccia, and Hawkes to maintain absolute secrecy.

Perhaps the most damaging consequence of contacting Kate is that there is now someone out there who knows the truth about me. This endangers both her and the security of the operation. Although I can trust Kate to keep her mouth shut in the short term, it may not be too long before she feels the need to open up to someone. There is a sell-by date on secrets.

It is astonishing how quickly things begin to slip out of control.

On the afternoon of Thursday, May 1, election day, I get a call at my desk directly from Caccia. Normally he would never phone me in person. Barbara would do it, or he would send an encrypted message to Uxbridge Road.

When I pick up, he says, “Alec. It’s David. We need to have a talk. Right away. Can you come up?”

“Of course.”

Instinctively, I look up to check for Cohen’s whereabouts, to ensure that he has not overheard the conversation, and it is only after a couple of seconds that I realize my mistake. Tanya is eating a yogurt at her desk and I smile at her as I leave the office, riding the lift to the executive floor.

Caccia is waiting for me on the other side of the elevator doors, alone and trim in a gray suit. It is not his style to look worried, though there is an undertow of concern as we shake hands. He would not have contacted me unless it was absolutely necessary to do so.

“Come into my office,” he says, telling Barbara that we are not to be disturbed. She looks up at me warmly, as if I am somebody whom she has been instructed to impress. I smile back as Caccia ushers me inside, closing the door behind him.

“Drink?”

“Not for me, thanks.”

“Mind if I have one?”

He turns to a bookcase in the corner of his office, pouring a large whiskey from a duty-free bottle of J B concealed inside a cupboard. I have been in Caccia’s office on only three occasions, twice with Hawkes in the very earliest days, by way of preparation for JUSTIFY, and then several months later with Murray, J.T., and Cohen to discuss a project in Kazakhstan.

“Terrible about Harry,” he says.

I do not reply.

“I said, it’s terrible about Harry.”

Caccia is facing me, a tumbler in his right hand, waiting to see how I respond.

“Yes,” I say, slowly. “A terrible shock. Who would have thought a thing like that could happen?”

He murmurs something, and his head drops as if suddenly weighed down by thought. If Caccia is privy to what has gone on behind the scenes, if he has knowledge that the assault on Cohen was authorized by Lithiby, he does not reveal it. Nothing in his demeanor suggests a willingness to conceal the facts from me. He appears to be legitimately upset. And, of course, it is entirely possible that Lithiby has left him out of the loop. Caccia may have no idea just how close Cohen had come to the truth. On the other hand, Lithiby may have told him everything. At all times, I have to remember that these guys are in a different league when it comes to deception. Whatever they say, they say nothing.

“They haven’t caught the bastards who did it,” he says. I always forget how well spoken he is, the certainty of his place in the world revealed through polished vowels.

“No. Not yet.”

Caccia clears his throat.

“One of our best people, too,” he says, a remark that irritates me. He sits down in the high-backed, black leather chair behind his desk. “Normally I would ask how things are proceeding. My impression was that things had been going rather well. Do have a seat.”