Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

Nothing in the file suggested that Poliakov was an especially important or successful FSB agent. He had recruited a minor Dutch member of the European Parliament and had been responsible for spreading some low-level misinformation about elements in the Gilets Jaunes in Paris. Alice wasn’t fooled. She had learned, back in her days on the council estate, that the criminals to fear were not the famous, showy ones who had spent more time inside than out, but the quiet, clever ones. The ones the police could never pin anything on. So it was with spies. A thin file didn’t necessarily suggest a lack of activity. Sometimes it just meant they were good.

Was Poliakov good? It was impossible to say from the information available. But if he’d been assigned contact with General O’Brien, the smart money was surely on him being higher up the tree than his file suggested. She kept this in mind as she continued to work her way through it. She found copies of his children’s school reports, and the transcript of a Skype conversation between his wife and her mother in Kiev. There was an unconfirmed report from an agent in Moscow that he had a penchant for cocaine. Someone had written, in red pen, the word ‘Blackmail?’, and circled it twice.

Then, at the back of the file, she found something interesting.

It was a one-page report from a British agent she knew well. His name was Mark Cawley and he worked under diplomatic cover at the British Embassy in Moscow. He was a sleazy old dinosaur, but his information was usually reliable. She read his memo greedily. It was dated just two days ago and reported a rumour that Dmitri Poliakov had been missing for one week. Ordinarily, this would not merit any kind of comment. Poliakov could be anywhere, for any reason. He was a spy, after all. However, his wife and two children were also missing. And for anybody who knew anything about Russia, that was alarming. The families of FSB agents were protected citizens, but only for so long as the agent was in favour. If the agent messed up in any way, the family could expect to pay a price.

Alice put the file down and stared out of the window over the train tracks. A South Western service trundled by, glinting in the bright sunshine. She thought it through. Poliakov was General O’Brien’s point man. But he’d messed up. He’d been spotted with the General in Crete, their conversation overheard. Did the Russians know this? If so, they would most certainly want to eliminate Poliakov. So, was he still alive? Was his family still alive?

So many questions, impossible to answer from a broom cupboard in Vauxhall. She picked up her work phone.

It was a regular smartphone, but with a dedicated app for making encrypted calls. She used it to dial Mark Cawley in Moscow. He answered quickly.

‘Cawley,’ he said. He had the affable, patrician voice of British diplomats all over the world.

‘Mark, it’s Alice. From the Office.’

‘What can I do you for, Alice?’

‘You can speak openly?’

‘As openly as anyone can speak in Moscow, my dear.’

Alice let the ‘my dear’ pass. ‘I’m looking at your communication regarding Dmitri Poliakov.’

‘Yes,’ said Cawley. He elongated the word. Yeeeessss. ‘I have an intelligence source who is a friend of his. He’s rather unreliable, to be honest. Bit too fond of the old Stolichnaya. Told me about Poliakov and his family after a sherbert too many. Didn’t think it would be of much interest, if I’m honest.’

‘Can you find out more?’ Alice said. ‘Is he still missing? Do we have any idea of his whereabouts?’

‘Of course, my dear. Might it be important?’

‘Just putting my ducks in a row, Mark.’ She made a face. It was the sort of thing the PMS contingent said, but she used it now because this was Cawley’s language. ‘Could you make it a priority? I’ve got the fifth floor breathing down my neck.’

‘Say no more,’ Cawley said. ‘And maybe we could have a spot of lunch next time I’m over?’

Alice made a sour face. ‘That would be super, Mark,’ she said. ‘You’ll call me as soon as you know anything?’

‘The very moment, my dear.’

The line went dead.

FIVE

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. 05.00 hrs, Eastern Standard Time

Hamoud Al Asmar’s sheets were soaked in sweat every morning when he woke. Today his thin, boney, naked body was clammy, the mattress uncomfortably damp.

At least he hadn’t woken to the sound of his own screams. That happened two or three times a week, and it made him feel bad all day. Not bad for himself, but for his wife, Rabia, and his children, Malick and Melissa. It distressed them terribly to hear their father in such anguish. No matter how often he tried to persuade them that it was just a silly bad dream, that it was really nothing to worry about, that he was absolutely fine, they never believed him. Why would they? They weren’t stupid.

Hamoud’s night terrors had haunted him ever since the blessed day he had left Guantanamo Bay. During his two years as an inmate, he’d never dreamed at all. The horrors had happened when he was awake. When he was asleep, his mind blocked them out.

Now a free man, he relived them every night. This time it had been the salt water. In his dream, as in real life, rough men had woken him in his cell. That cell! Empty but for Hamoud, the flies and the two bowls in the corner. One bowl was his toilet. The other contained dirty water to wipe himself clean. They changed the bowls only every three or four days. He slept on the hard floor and the flies would crawl over his waste and drink at the foul water and then settle on his face. In the early days he would flick those germ-ridden insects away. As time passed and his spirit broke, he lacked the motivation and the energy even to do that.

The men had arrived in his cell without warning. Perhaps it was midnight, perhaps midday, Hamoud had no way of knowing. There were four of them. Two carried five-gallon containers full of water. Two carried a piece of apparatus that resembled a child’s see-saw. He knew what it was for and he panicked. He tried to fight the men, but he was thin and malnourished, and they were burly and strong. One of them hit him. He fell and hit his face against the raised end of the see-saw. It collapsed under his weight, but the corner was sharp and it cut him badly. He could still remember the agony of the skin tearing in a line up his right cheek, over his eyelid and up over his right eyebrow. He could feel the hot blood stinging his eye, and the panic that he might be blinded.

They strapped him to the see-saw. They pivoted the see-saw so Hamoud’s feet were higher than his head. They placed a bucket under his head and a thick, wet cloth over his face. Hamoud’s eye was agony and he found it difficult to breathe. He strained against the strapping and emitted a muffled cry. He knew what was coming.

They had waterboarded him before. They had poured fresh water over his covered face. That was bad enough. Within seconds he had been screaming at them to stop. When they repeated the process, he had shouted at them whatever he thought they wanted to hear. Yes! He was a jihadist! Yes! He had come to America from his native Mauritania with the express intention of murdering American citizens! Yes! He could name others! Mohammad! Ahmed! Kalil! Never mind that these so-called accomplices were entirely made up. Never mind that Hamoud would never hurt another living creature, let alone murder an American. If they needed to hear these confessions to make it stop, he would say them.

This time was worse. The five-gallon containers contained not fresh water but salt water, which burned his throat as well as the wound on his eye. It made him want to retch, which only made him ingest more and increased the terrifying, paralysing suffocation. And when the sluicing stopped, although he tried to gasp for breath, his burning throat was so full of salt water that he could do nothing but splutter and choke. And then, after only a few seconds, they started again.