Jon Stock - Games Traitors Play

Dhar had been told that today would be different. Not the weather, which showed little sign of lifting, but the daily training: less theory. His personal routine, though, would remain unchanged. Self-discipline was how he had kept his life together, the only constant in his world. It was something that his mother had taught him from an early age, when they were living in the American Embassy compound in Chanakyapuri in Delhi, although in those days it had meant helping with her early-morning pooja rather than praying towards Mecca. He had been born Jaishanka Menon, a Hindu, but by the time he was eighteen he had converted to Islam and was reading the Koran in Arabic. At first, his conversion was about spiting the man he thought was his father, an infidel who had tyrannised his childhood with his demeaning obsession with all things American, but he had soon grown into his new life, first in Kashmir then in Afghanistan.

His guards knew not to disturb Dhar until he had finished his prayers and ablutions. Sometimes, as he lay awake at night, he heard the stamping of their feet outside, the strike of a match, the rubbing of thick gloves. He felt no sympathy for them. They were part of the FSB, the domestic arm of the former KGB, and had been instrumental in the slaughter of thousands of his Muslim brothers in Chechnya.

He knocked on the side door of the hangar and waited for the guards to unlock it from the outside. He moved his toes in his oversized flying boots, trying to force warmth into them. In winter, he had been told, there was a place in Siberia called Oymyakon where spit froze before it reached the ground, birds froze in mid-flight. He shivered, glad it was summer.

By the time the door was opened, Dhar had wrapped a scarf around his face so that only his eyes were visible, and then put on an old pair of mirrored sunglasses. Without even a glance, he walked past the two guards, who stepped back and followed him across the runway towards the training hut.

To his right, a jet fighter was being prepared in the secluded parking area surrounded by trees. Dhar knew at once what it was: a Sukhoi-25, rugged workhorse of the Soviet air force, the plane he had first seen in Afghanistan as a nineteen-year-old jihadi . That one had been a rusting wreck, a legacy of the Soviet invasion almost thirty years earlier. More than twenty had been brought down by Stinger missiles supplied to the Mujahadeen by the CIA. The pilot had been shot after he ejected, and the remains of the plane covered in camouflage netting, deceiving the Soviet search-and-rescue helicopters that had flown over later.

For years afterwards, Taleb children had sat and played in its titanium bathtub of a cockpit, until the wingless fuselage was eventually moved to a training camp. When Dhar had first set eyes on it, he too had sat at its controls, transfixed by the possibilities. It was eighteen months before 9/11. Planes and their potential role in the jihadi struggle had always fascinated him. One of the camp leaders had noticed his interest, and encouraged him to start playing flight-simulator games.

Gaming was widespread amongst jihadis at the time, a way to stave off boredom during the endless hours of concealment. (The only problem was the pirated software, which crashed continually.) There were a few consoles in Dhar’s camp, run off car batteries, and there was talk of a real role for those who excelled at virtual flying.

Dhar had been one of the best, and he knew his planes. He looked again at the jet on the runway and saw that it was in fact an SU-25UB, similar to the model he had been flying on the simulator for the past week, except that it was a two-seater trainer. It must have flown in overnight, as there had been no plane there before. A mechanic was by the far wing, looking up at the under-side. Dhar turned away when one of the guards gestured at him.

He felt a thrill ripple through his body as he looked ahead again. He pushed his gloved hand into his coat pocket and felt for the letter, which was still there, a little crumpled. But before he could pull it out and read it again, a voice was calling from the training hut in front of him.

‘Today, I watch you fly the Grach , our little rook,’ the man said, using the SU-25’s Russian nickname. ‘Then I must leave for London.’ It was Nikolai Primakov.

Marchant had been surprised to get a call from Monika. She had wanted them to meet alone for a drink, and they were sitting now in the roof terrace restaurant at Tate Modern, after a whirlwind tour of the galleries. He had thought her interest in art at the Polish guesthouse more than a year earlier had been purely cover, but like all good legends, it was based on fact. Her knowledge was considerable.

‘You know what Picasso once said?’ she asked, sipping a glass of rosé. The London skyline was spread out below them, St Paul’s immediately across the river. ‘“Art is a lie that makes us realise truth.” In our work, you and I lie every day, but somehow the truth gets lost along the way.’

‘Were you lying in Warsaw?’

‘Of course.’

‘And there was no truth in what happened?’

She held his gaze as she put an olive to her full lips. Then she turned away.

‘I lost my brother last month. He was with the Agencja Wywiadu, too. A more senior officer than me, always more professional. I tried to do a good job, make sure you had your freedom.’

‘And you did.’

‘I enjoyed being with you,’ she said, keen to change the subject. ‘You were very gentle.’

Marchant recalled the brief time they had spent together, making love, smoking joints, each playing out their legends: he the tie-dyed gap-year student, she the hippy hostel receptionist. He had thought about her often since then, her confident sexuality worn so close to her skin.

‘But not as gentle as Hugo.’

She laughed, throaty and heartfelt, then lit a cigarette.

‘You’re not jealous, are you, Mr Englishman?’

Marchant looked away.

‘You are.’ She laughed again and prodded him in the ribs. ‘Daniel.’

It wasn’t what he had expected. For a moment, he wondered if he really was jealous. He had been with Monika for twenty-four hours in Poland, most of it spent in bed. But he knew it was something else — suspicion rather than jealousy — that made him keep probing.

‘Of course I’m not jealous.’

Her smile faded. ‘Hugo’s been a good friend. Lifted my gloom.’

Marchant felt a pang of guilt. Prentice had helped him through difficult times, too, particularly when his father had died. He could be a generous colleague, a man who lived life for the moment and wanted others to share in his luck.

‘I’m sorry about your brother.’ Marchant sensed that Monika wanted to return to the subject, talk about him some more.

‘He was shot by the SVR. Four of our agents have been killed in the past year. Another one was murdered last week.’

‘All by the Russians?’

‘We think so. Someone’s betraying them. An entire network’s been taken down. The WA’s in turmoil, searching for a mole.’

‘Is that why you’re here in London?’

She paused. ‘No. Hugo wanted to show me off to his friends.’

‘I lost a brother once. He was called Sebastian. Sebbie. We were twins. He died when I was eight.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She rested a hand on Marchant’s forearm. ‘I had no idea.’

‘He died in a car crash. His turn to sit in the front seat. We were living in Delhi at the time.’

‘You must miss him. They say the bond of a twin is unbreakable.’

‘Every day. I wish I could say it gets easier with time, but it doesn’t. I’m sorry.’

They sat in silence for a while, her hand resting on his. For once there were no legends, no cover stories. Their grief was real, their own.