Daniel Silva - The English Spy

“I didn’t have to tell him. He already knew.”

“How?”

Gabriel explained.

“Devious bastard,” muttered Keller.

“He’s British,” said Gabriel. “It comes naturally.”

Keller looked at Gabriel carefully for a moment. “It’s funny,” he said, “but you don’t seem terribly upset about the situation.”

“It does present you with an interesting opportunity, Christopher.”

Beyond the rim of the valley a church bell tolled midday. Keller placed the photograph atop the file and lit a cigarette.

“Must you?” asked Gabriel, waving away the smoke.

“What choice do I have?”

“You can stop smoking and add several years to your life.”

“About Graham,” said Keller, exasperated.

“I suppose you can stay here in Corsica and hope he doesn’t decide to tell the French about you.”

“Or?”

“You can help me find Eamon Quinn.”

“And then?”

“You can go home again, Christopher.”

Keller raised his hand to the valley and said, “This is my home.”

“It isn’t real, Christopher. It’s a fantasy. It’s make-believe.”

“So are you.”

Gabriel smiled but said nothing. The church bell had fallen silent; the afternoon shadows were gathering at the edge of the terrace. Keller crushed out his cigarette and looked down at the unopened file.

“Interesting reading?” he asked.

“Quite.”

“Recognize anyone?”

“An MI5 man named Graham Seymour,” said Gabriel, “and an SAS officer who’s referred to only by his code name.”

“What is it?”

“Merchant.”

“Catchy.”

“I thought so, too.”

“What does it say about him?”

“It says he operated undercover in West Belfast for approximately a year in the late eighties.”

“Why did he stop?”

“His cover was blown. Apparently, there was a woman involved.”

“Does it mention her name?” asked Keller.

“No.”

“What happened next?”

“Merchant was kidnapped by the IRA and taken to a remote farmhouse for interrogation and execution. The farmhouse was in South Armagh. Quinn was there.”

“How did it end?”

“Badly.”

A gust of wind stirred the pine. Keller gazed upon his Corsican valley as though it were slipping from his grasp. Then he lit another cigarette and told Gabriel the rest of it.

IT WAS KELLER’S APTITUDE WITH language that set him apart—not foreign languages, but the various ways in which the English language is spoken on the streets of Belfast and the six counties of Northern Ireland. The subtleties of local accents made it virtually impossible for officers of the SAS to operate undetected within the small, tightly knit communities of the province. As a result, most SAS men were forced to utilize the services of a Fred—the Regiment’s term for a local helper—when tracking IRA members or engaging in street surveillance. But not Keller. He developed the ability to mimic the various dialects of Ulster with the speed and confidence of a native. He could even shift accents at a moment’s notice—a Catholic from Armagh one minute, a Protestant from Belfast’s Shankill Road the next, then a Catholic from the Ballymurphy housing estates. His unique linguistic skills did not escape the notice of his superiors. Nor was it long before they came to the attention of an ambitious young intelligence officer who ran the Northern Ireland account for MI5.

“I assume,” said Gabriel, “that the young MI5 officer was Graham Seymour.”

Keller nodded. Then he explained that Seymour, in the late 1980s, was dissatisfied with the level of intelligence he was receiving from MI5’s informants in Northern Ireland. He wanted to insert his own agent into the IRA badlands of West Belfast to report on the movements and associations of known IRA commanders and volunteers. It was not a job for an ordinary MI5 officer. The agent would have to know how to handle himself in a world where one false step, one wrong glance, could get a man killed. Keller met with Seymour at a safe house in London and agreed to take on the assignment. Two months later he was back in Belfast posing as a Catholic named Michael Connelly. He took a two-room flat in the Divis Tower apartment complex on the Falls Road. His neighbor was a member of the IRA’s West Belfast Brigade. The British Army maintained an observation post on the roof and used the top two floors as barracks and office space. When the Troubles were at their worst, the soldiers came and went by helicopter. “It was madness,” said Keller, shaking his head slowly. “Absolute madness.”

While much of West Belfast was unemployed and on the dole, Keller soon found work as a deliveryman for a laundry service on the Falls Road. The job allowed him to move freely through the neighborhoods and enclaves of West Belfast without suspicion and gave him access to the homes and laundry of known IRA members. It was a remarkable achievement, but no accident. The laundry was owned and operated by British intelligence.

“It was one of our most closely held operations,” said Keller. “Even the prime minister wasn’t aware of it. We had a small fleet of vans, listening equipment, and a lab in the back. We tested every piece of laundry we could get our hands on for traces of explosives. And if we got a positive hit, we put the owner and his house under surveillance.”

Gradually, Keller began forming friendships with members of the dysfunctional community around him. His IRA neighbor invited him for dinner, and once, in an IRA bar on the Falls Road, a recruiter made a not-so-subtle pass at him, which Keller politely deflected. He attended mass regularly at St. Paul’s Church—as part of his training he had learned the rituals and doctrines of Catholicism—and on a wet Sunday in Lent he met a beautiful young girl there named Elizabeth Conlin. Her father was Ronnie Conlin, an IRA field commander for Ballymurphy.

“A serious player,” said Gabriel.

“As serious as it gets.”

“You decided to pursue the relationship.”

“I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“You were in love with her.”

Keller nodded slowly.

“How did you see her?”

“I used to sneak into her bedroom. She would hang a violet scarf in the window if it was safe. It was a tiny pebble-dash terrace house with walls like paper. I could hear her father in the next room. It was—”

“Madness,” said Gabriel.

Keller said nothing.

“Did Graham know?”

“Of course.”

“You told him?”

“I didn’t have to. I was under constant MI5 and SAS surveillance.”

“I assume he told you to break it off.”

“In no uncertain terms.”

“What did you do?”

“I agreed,” replied Keller. “With one condition.”

“You wanted to see her one last time.”

Keller lapsed into silence. And when finally he spoke again, his voice had changed. It had taken on the elongated vowels and rough edges of working-class West Belfast. He was no longer Christopher Keller; he was Michael Connelly, the laundry deliveryman from the Falls Road who had fallen in love with the beautiful daughter of an IRA chieftain from Ballymurphy. On his last night in Ulster, he left his van on the Springfield Road and scaled the garden wall of the Conlin house. The violet scarf was hanging in its usual place, but Elizabeth’s room was darkened. Keller soundlessly raised the window, parted the gauzy curtains, and slipped inside. Instantly, he absorbed a blow to the side of his head, like the blow of an ax blade, and began to fade from consciousness. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was the face of Ronnie Conlin.

“He was speaking to me,” said Keller. “He was telling me that I was about to die.”