Jon Stock - Games Traitors Play

‘About Marchant?’

‘About everyone. Marchant, Comrade Primakov.’

‘The Muslim is keen to see his brother.’

‘I just think we should use him.’

‘Argo?’

‘That’s what he’s there for, isn’t it? Moments like these.’

‘It’s a risk. Warsaw is on to him.’

‘They get on well. Marchant will confide in Argo if he’s genuinely upset. He should try to meet him at the airport when he arrives back in Britain.’

The recording ended suddenly. ‘Argo’ was an unusual choice, nostalgic. It was the codename the KGB had assigned to Ernest Hemingway in the 1940s. Fielding tried to linger on the historical detail, delay the realisation, the rising nausea, but it was impossible. In one awful moment, he had traced the line of succession, identified the inheritor. He reached for the phone, too heavy in his hand, and dialled General Borowski, head of Agencja Wywiadu, Poland’s foreign intelligence agency, at his home on the outskirts of Warsaw.

‘Come on, Daniel. That’s what we do. We use people.’

Marchant hadn’t been pleased to see Prentice waiting for him at arrivals. It was a sight that was starting to annoy him, particularly as this time Prentice explained that he had been sent as a peace envoy by Fielding. But he was an old family friend, someone he had always found it easy to confide in. His offer of alcohol was welcome, too. Marchant had been drinking on the plane, and was happy to keep going. A bender loomed. Prentice had driven him into central London, and they were now sitting at an outside table at Bentley’s Oyster Bar in Swallow Street, off Piccadilly. It was one of Prentice’s favourite restaurants.

‘Are you using Monika?’ Marchant asked, a smile softening the question’s harsh undercurrent. Something about their relationship was still bugging him, and he was sure it wasn’t jealousy.

‘You’ve got a thing for her, haven’t you?’ Prentice washed an oyster down with a deep draft of Guinness. ‘I can see why. She’s a great lay.’

‘I’m sorry, Marcus, we should have informed you of our suspicions.’

Usually, Fielding’s conversations with General Borowski were upbeat. He was an old-school spy who liked to be taken to the Traveller’s Club for a sharpener whenever he came to London. Now, as they talked, Fielding felt only numbness. There was always the chance in his line of work that the man sitting at the next desk was praying to a different god, but it had still come as an almighty shock. Was this how the happily married felt when they discovered their partner had been cheating all along?

‘How long have you known?’ Fielding asked, trying not to think back, recalibrate the past, reassess the future.

‘We never knew exactly, but the worry has been there for several months. At first, we thought it was someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘Come on, Marcus. You know there’s little point in our game of causing offence unnecessarily. We have the right man now. That’s all that matters.’

‘And you’re confident the codename matches?’

‘We picked up “Argo” in an intercept last month.’

Fielding closed his eyes. For the first time in years, he felt he wanted to weep. ‘You really should have pooled it. The damage could be irreducible. Ongoing operations jeopardised, entire networks blown.’

‘I’m sorry, truly.’ Borowski paused. ‘There’s something else. We put someone onto him as soon as he became our main suspect. Monika is one of our best agents — you may remember she helped Daniel Marchant earlier last year — but I’m worried. Argo has not only betrayed our country, he has caused the death of several colleagues, most recently her brother. She’s taken it very personally.’

Marchant ordered another Guinness, his smile now slack with alcohol. Prentice liked to provoke him, and the only response was to join battle.

‘I’m surprised you can still eat seafood, after what happened with the sushi at the gallery,’ Marchant said.

‘It wasn’t the food, it was the wine,’ Prentice replied.

‘And there was I thinking you had a strong head. One glass of red and you were arse over tit.’ Marchant paused, thinking back to the evening at the Cork Street gallery. He hadn’t seen Prentice since he had collapsed in the corner. It had been unlike him. ‘Monika was good to me in Poland, that’s all. I wouldn’t want her to get hurt.’

‘She’s a big girl, Dan.’

‘Maybe she’s using you.’

Prentice looked at Marchant for a moment, his gaze cutting through their drunken banter. Marchant was in no doubt that one of them was using the other. He just wasn’t sure why.

‘I’m a father figure. She lost hers when she was young. We’re in the same business, we lie and cheat for the same noble causes.’ Prentice shucked another oyster open with a knife. ‘Where’s the harm?’

CCTV cameras never pointed exactly where you wanted them, but Fielding could see enough from the intercepted live relay in his office to know that both men were drunk, relaxed, laughing. It couldn’t be worse. The reason he had sent Prentice was to reassure Marchant, give him an opportunity to whinge about MI6 and its methods. And that was exactly what the two of them appeared to be doing. He could only blame himself. They were good friends, even closer after Prentice had rescued Marchant from the CIA’s waterboarders in Poland.

Fielding had to move fast. Moscow would be listening to their man, live-streaming every word. It was essential that Marchant played the right music, said nothing that undermined the genuine anger he had displayed in Madurai. If he revealed that it had been fabricated in order to convince the Russians, they would never go near him again. As far as Moscow was concerned, Marchant was ready to defect, not comparing drunken notes with a colleague about an unscrupulous boss. Fielding reached for his mobile phone.

‘Talking of lying,’ Marchant continued, ‘you’ve known Fielding a lot longer than me. Has he ever double-crossed you?’

‘First, he’s using you, now it’s double-crossing,’ Prentice said. ‘What mortal sin did our Vicar actually commit?’

Marchant knew Prentice had been told the basics about his trip to India, that he was there to bring back Salim Dhar’s mother, but it was still an unusual question to ask another officer. Both of them were steeped in MI6’s strict culture of compartmentalisation, Prentice more than anyone. He was one of MI6’s longest serving field men, an old friend of his father’s and one of Fielding’s allies. He should have known better. Marchant decided to keep things general.

‘Fielding told me I was to bring the target home, but that was never the plan. She was always heading further west.’

‘And our cousins couldn’t have renditioned her without your help?’

‘That’s about it.’

‘A premier-league stitch-up. But it’s unlike Fielding. Lakshmi Meena?’

‘Way over her head.’ Marchant suddenly felt protective. He was sure it hadn’t been her plan. ‘Spiro.’

‘What an arsehole. You don’t seem too cut up about it all. Fielding said you’d be out the door.’

‘Did he?’

Marchant tried to gauge where the conversation was heading, what he could reveal. He wanted to confide in Prentice, confess to him that he had failed to play the traitor. But he knew he couldn’t. Prentice had been told nothing of Primakov’s past, or of Marchant’s efforts to be recruited by him. There was something else bothering him too, a distant nagging that he had learned not to ignore.

‘Let’s face it,’ Prentice continued. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you were on the outside.’