Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

Do I have regrets? "Yes, I have a regret," Vicary said, surprised to hear himself actually saying the words. "I regret my failure to marry has deprived me of children. I always thought it must be wonderful to be a father. I think I would have been a good one, in spite of all my quirks and shortcomings."

A smile flickered across Jordan's face in the half darkness, then dissipated. "My son is my entire world. He's my link with the past and my glimpse into the future. He's all that I have left, the only thing that's real. Margaret's gone, Catherine was a lie." He paused, staring at the dying ember of his cigarette. "I can't wait for this to end so I can go home to him. I keep thinking what I'm going to say when he asks me, 'Daddy, what did you do in the war?' What in the hell am I supposed to tell him?"

"The truth. Tell him you were a gifted engineer, and you built a contraption that helped us win the war."

"But that's not the truth."

Something about the tone of Jordan's voice made Vicary look up sharply. He thought, Which part isn't the truth?

Vicary said, "Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions now?"

"I thought you were allowed to ask anything you liked, with or without my permission."

"Different setting, different reason for asking."

"Go ahead."

"Did you love her?"

"Have you ever seen her?"

Vicary realized he never had seen her in person, only in surveillance photographs.

"Yes, I loved her. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, she was charming, and obviously she was an incredibly talented actress. And believe it or not, I thought she would make a good mother for my son."

"Do you still love her?"

Jordan looked away. "I love the person I thought she was. I don't love the woman you tell me she is. Part of me almost believes this is all some kind of joke. So I suppose you and I have one thing in common."

"What's that?" Vicary asked.

"We both fell in love with the wrong woman."

Vicary laughed. He looked at his wristwatch and said, "It's getting late."

"Yes," Jordan said.

Vicary stood and led Jordan across the hall into the library. He unlocked his briefcase and removed a sheaf of papers from inside. He handed Jordan the papers and Jordan placed them inside his own briefcase. They stood in an awkward silence before Vicary said, "I'm sorry. If there was some other way to do this, I would. But there isn't. Not yet, at least."

Jordan said nothing.

"There's one thing that always bothered me about your interrogation: why you couldn't remember the names of the men who first approached you about working on Operation Mulberry."

"I met dozens of people that week. I can't remember half of them."

"You said one of them was English."

"Yes."

"Was his name Broome, by any chance?"

"No, his name wasn't Broome," Jordan said without hesitation. "I think I'd remember that. I probably should be going."

Jordan moved toward the door.

"I just have one more question."

Jordan turned and said, "What's that?"

"You are Peter Jordan, aren't you?"

"What in the hell kind of question is that?"

"It's a rather simple one really. Are you Peter Jordan?"

"Of course I'm Peter Jordan. You know, you really should get some sleep, Professor."

Clive Roach was sitting at a window table in the cafe across the street from Catherine Blake's flat. The waitress brought his tea and his bun. He immediately placed a few coins on the table. It was a habit developed from his work. Roach usually had to leave cafes on short notice and in a hurry. The last thing he needed to do was attract attention. He sipped his tea and halfheartedly leafed through a morning paper. He was not really interested. He was more interested in the doorway across the street. The rain fell harder. He was not looking forward to going out in it again. It was the one aspect of his job he did not like-the constant exposure to foul weather. He'd had more colds and bronchial infections than he could remember.

Before the war he had been a teacher at a down-at-the-heel boys' school. He decided to enlist in the army in 1939. He was far from the ideal soldier-thin, pasty skin, sparse hair, an underpowered voice. Hardly officer material. At the induction center he noticed he was being watched by a pair of sharp-suited men in the corner. He also noticed they had requested a copy of his file and were poring over it with great interest. A few minutes later they pulled him from the queue, told him they were from Military Intelligence, and offered him a job.

Roach liked watching. He was a natural people watcher and he had a flair for names and faces. He knew there would be no medals for battlefield heroics, no stories he could tell down at the pub when the war was over. But it was an important job and Roach did it well. He ate his bun, thinking of Catherine Blake. He had followed many German spies since 1939, but she was the best. A real pro. She had embarrassed him once, but he had vowed he would never let it happen again.

He finished his bun and drank the last of his tea. He looked up from his table and saw her coming out of her block of flats. He marveled at her tradecraft. She always stood still for a moment, doing something prosaic, while scanning the street for any sign of surveillance. Today, she was fumbling with her umbrella as if it were broken. Roach thought, You're very good, Miss Blake. But I'm better.

He watched as she finally snapped up her umbrella and started walking. Roach got up, pulled on his coat, and walked out the door after her.

Horst Neumann came awake as the train clattered through London's northeastern suburbs. He glanced at his wristwatch: ten thirty. They were due in at Liverpool Street at ten twenty-three. Miraculously, they would be only a few minutes late. He yawned, stretched, and sat up in his seat. He looked out the window at the bleak Victorian tenement houses sweeping past. Dirty children waved at the passing train. Neumann, feeling ridiculously English, waved back. There were three other passengers in his compartment, a pair of soldiers and a young woman who wore the overalls of a factory worker and pulled a frown of concern when she first saw Neumann's bandaged face. He glanced at each of them now. He always worried about talking in his sleep, though the last few nights he had dreamt in English. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. God, but he was tired. Up at five o'clock, out of the cottage by six so Sean could give him a lift to Hunstanton, the seven twelve from Hunstanton to Liverpool Street.

He had not slept well the previous night. It was the pain of his injuries and the presence of Jenny Colville in his bed. She had risen with him before dawn, slipped out of the Dogherty cottage, and pedaled home through the dark and the rain. Neumann hoped she made it safely. He hoped Martin wasn't waiting for her. It was a stupid thing to do, letting her spend the night with him. He thought about how she would feel when he was gone. When he never wrote and she never heard from him again. He worried about how she would feel if she ever discovered the truth-that he was not James Porter, a wounded British soldier looking for peace and quiet in a Norfolk village. That he was Horst Neumann, a decorated German paratrooper who came to England to spy and who had deceived her in the worst way. He had not deceived her about one thing. He cared for her. Not in the way she would like, but he did care about what happened to her.

The train slowed as it approached Liverpool Street. Neumann stood, pulled on his reefer coat, and stepped out of the compartment. The corridor was packed. He shuffled amid the other passengers toward the door. Someone ahead of him threw it open, and Neumann stepped from the still-moving train. He gave his ticket to the ticket collector and walked along a dank passageway to the underground station. There, he purchased a ticket for Temple and caught the next train. A few minutes later, he was walking up the stairs and heading north toward the Strand.