Nom de Guerre Read online

  They told her then; Vaczka was involved in something illegal, or so they believed. They needed her help to get information. They were, she realized now, some kind of agents for the security services. They told her that if she wasn’t able to help them, then she might have some trouble with her visa renewal. And it would be such a shame to have to go home to Poland without her qualifications.

  Christine walked alongside her now, past the withered flowerbeds, the earth rock hard behind the wire-meshed borders. ‘What news, Amaya?’ she said without looking up. There was no one on the path save an old man a hundred yards ahead of them. Another tube train thundered over the bridge at their backs. Glancing behind, Amaya saw Julian under the arches, the other side of the fence.

  ‘No news.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Christine made a clicking sound with her tongue. ‘You’re not doing very well, are you, my dear.’

  Amaya felt the shallows of her belly knot together; the old helplessness welling up inside her. ‘He’s doing something. Jeconec is always talking to him. He takes calls on his mobile phone.’

  ‘Who from?’ Christine squinted sideways at her. ‘Stahl? Herbisch?’

  ‘I don’t know. Herbisch, I think.’

  ‘What about the newsagent’s?’

  ‘Jeconec looked today. I looked today. You saw me. But there was nothing there.’

  ‘Has he mentioned anything to you about Ireland?’

  Amaya stopped then and looked directly at her. ‘No. Nothing.’

  Christine sighed. ‘Something is happening, Amaya. We know that from other sources. We need you to find out what. Sleep with him. Men talk in bed, especially when they’re satisfied.’

  ‘I am sleeping with him.’ Amaya wrung out her hands. ‘What more can I do?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’ Christine’s face was cold now, black-gloved hand clasping her bag, the collar up on her navy cashmere coat. ‘Think about your visa, Amaya. Think about your father and mother in Poland. Think about all their expectations. I’ll be in touch.’ She turned and walked on.

  Jack Swann sipped coffee from a plastic cup and placed it on the conference room table on the sixteenth floor of New Scotland Yard. Colson had summoned him and Webb to a briefing given by Christine Harris. The situation she had been watching had moved on enough to bring the Branch in. Harris was speaking. Next to her sat Julian Moore from MI5. On the table between them, a slide projector hummed quietly.

  ‘It’s been a joint Box/SO12 operation thus far,’ Harris was saying. ‘Julian?’

  He cleared his throat. There were only a handful of them there: Swann and Webb, DI Clements and Colson. Our colleagues from Box 850 gave us the original information. Jorge Vaczka was resident in the UK.’ He made a face. ‘We didn’t know him before then. I suppose he had always been small time.’ He stood up and switched off the lights. Harris picked up the handset to move the slides and slotted the first frame into place. A man’s face appeared on the expanse of white wall at the head of the table.

  ‘He looks younger than forty,’ Webb said.

  Harris nodded. ‘Ladies’ man, George. Keeps himself in shape. Right now, he teaches the Stanislavsky method to drama students at the Polish Centre on King Street, Ravenscourt Park.’

  Swann scraped his fingers across the wood of the table. ‘Nice work, if you can get it,’ he muttered. He studied Vaczka’s face—cold, blue eyes and dark, short-cut hair, bright with the sheen of gel.

  The next slide was a younger man, again with short-cut hair, and puffy cheeks, full-lipped, and unshaven as Vaczka. ‘Adam Herbisch,’ Harris went on. ‘He runs the support group, premises, vehicles, employment. He has huge contacts within the Polish community here in London.’

  She paused and flicked to the next slide and Moore spoke again now. ‘Innocent looking, isn’t he,’ he said. Swann stared at the boyish, blond-haired man with blue eyes and a mischievous grin on his face. ‘Robert Stahl,’ Moore went on. ‘According to our colleagues at Vauxhall Cross, he’s responsible for at least three killings in Eastern Europe. Over here he’s responsible for operations.’

  Harris moved the slides on to other faces. ‘Blunski,’ she said. ‘Looks after their intelligence. Jeconec. Vaczka’s personal eyes and ears.’

  When she was finished, Moore put the lights back on. ‘Professional,’ Swann said.

  ‘And well funded.’ Moore folded his arms and looked at Colson. ‘We believe they’re backed by Sabri al-Banna, alias Abu Nidal. The Abu Nidal Organization’s been around for years. Nidal himself lived in Poland between 1981 and 1984, and he’s got a multinational arms company based there. His group, as we know, has been used by Syria, Iraq, Libya. There’ve been others, though. His Palestinian links are all but gone now and he’s pretty much for hire. Mossad first alerted 850 to this Polish element years ago; they infiltrated the ANO way back.’

  Swann toyed with his coffee cup. ‘Is Vaczka’s team directly linked to Nidal?’

  ‘Funded by, I suppose, is a fairer term. Or at least they have been. They run weapons for him predominantly, but they have all the attributes, structure etc., of a terrorist group in their own right. Intel’, support activity and ops.’

  ‘Just like us,’ Webb commented.

  ‘The game’s the same, isn’t it.’

  ‘What’s Vaczka doing over here?’ Colson asked him.

  Moore sighed heavily. ‘That bit we don’t know. Like we said just now, he teaches at the POSK, but he has no qualifications. He’s got all the right bits of paper, but he’s never been near a drama school.’ He glanced at Christine Harris. ‘It’s a cover. The ANO pay him indirectly. He lives on Lime Grove, a ground-floor flat with stripped floors, basement study and a landscaped garden.’ Again he looked at Harris.

  ‘We’ve suborned an informant,’ she said. ‘Somebody close to him. Female.’

  ‘Pillow talk,’ Webb said.

  Harris smiled at him. ‘That’s the idea. You know how men like to talk in bed, George.’

  Swann flinched. Harris caught his eye and coloured. Quickly she turned to Moore.

  ‘Box 850’s original information was related to Ulster,’ he said. ‘The word was he might have links with some of the underground Loyalist factions.’

  ‘Weapons from Abu Nidal?’ Swann curled his lip.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time, would it.’ Colson pushed back his chair. ‘So, what’ve you got from your snout?’

  Harris sucked breath. ‘That’s the difficult bit. We haven’t got much. All she can tell us right now is that something is going down. Vaczka contacts the rest of the cell through advert cards in a newsagent’s window. It’s simple and effective and safe. Every day hundreds of Poles gather on King Street and look at them. It must be how things are done in Poland. I don’t know.’

  ‘The activity is high right now,’ Moore put in. ‘We know that much. Something is moving and we need to keep tabs on it. We’re briefing you chaps now, so if we need to move quickly, you’ll be ready.’ He looked again at Harris. ‘That’s about it, yeah?’

  She nodded. ‘Jack, I’ll liaise directly with you downstairs, if there’s anything else we need to talk about.’

  ‘Fine.’ Swann got up, tossed his coffee cup in the bin and followed Webb out of the room.

  Boese watched Terlucci disinterestedly across the woodwork shop. He was fashioning the prow of a boat. Five minutes till they were exercised like hounds in the yard. Boese bent to his own work, a small wooden image of Geronimo the Apache. Boese bunched his eyes, aware of the knot of thought at his temple. He considered again the little man from Scotland, with the New York City accent and questions about the Jackal. Six months of silence and then the visitor with eyes that did not belong. Boese had seen eyes like that before, and the beginnings of an anger burned inside him. Yet he could not be sure. He could never be sure. He stopped then, scuffing at a burr of wood on the muzzle of the Springfield rifle that Geronimo held across his chest. He carved the wood from memory: an old photo of the renegade standing by a t
rain with Naiche. The slash of his mouth and the cunning cruelty in his eyes; he was the very last one to be captured, back in 1880. He could sense Terlucci’s confusion and, as he looked up, the Italian knifeman looked away. Boese allowed his own gaze to linger for a moment or two, just to remind him. He did not know what Terlucci had said to the Blues Brothers, but no one was bothering him now.

  Morgan was in the exercise yard, collar up on his jacket, pacing with his hands in his pockets like a polar bear trapped in a zoo. Again, Boese remembered Swann’s words: Forty-two paces in one direction and then you have to turn. He looked up at the sky through the grim slits of wire and tried to remember what the pale sun looked like without lines of grey running across it like scars. Irritation; his calm was broken and he knew it. He sought Morgan’s face as they moved past one another in opposite directions. The warden watched from the doorway, leaning with his back to it, his coat buttoned and his breath coming as steam. Morgan held his eye, the same coldness reflected in the darkness of his own.

  Inside, they sat across the chess table from one another. Boese had played him once since he won, and was able to lose without it looking obvious. Morgan was pleased, the desire to win was evident in the clipped tension in his jawline. Afterwards, he had almost managed a smile. Now they sat across from one another again and Boese studied the board. He knew that the wardens were watching them from the control room and he spoke without looking at Morgan’s face.

  ‘Take your tobacco out and drop your cigarette papers on the floor.’

  Morgan did not answer him, his arms folded against the tabletop, scrutinizing the move Boese had just made with his second knight. He said nothing. Boese said nothing, and then Morgan reached behind him to his jacket pocket and took out his tobacco. The packet of Rizla papers fluttered to the floor under the table. As he bent to retrieve it, Boese let go two papers himself. Morgan retrieved them and scraped them under the tin as he placed it on the table. He quietly rolled a cigarette and returned his attention to the game. Boese beat him, then went back to his cell.

  Brynn Morgan recalled Griffiths’s response when he had asked him to send the money for a train fare to his sister. Initially, his expression had been one of suspicion, because she had not visited in a year. But then Morgan explained his motives, his desire not to lose touch with the only family he had. What would happen to him when he eventually got out, if he did? Now he laid the two flimsy papers with one glued edge on the bed. Picking up the paperback novel he was reading, he slid both papers against the page and leaned on his elbow to read.

  5

  A WEEK AFTER BOESE and Morgan played chess for the third time, Morgan’s sister came to visit. Morgan did not mention it. Boese only found out when Morgan was strip searched before being allowed in to the visitors’ suite. Others had visitors—McClellan and Gianluca Terlucci. Boese worked out in the gym while Morgan saw his sister. Calm again, he hung upside-down as he liked to, allowing the heat of blood to pucker the skin of his face and soak into his brain.

  Morgan spoke quietly to his sister across the table in the visitors’ suite. Nothing unusual in that, he always spoke quietly, said little. It was a habit he had perfected during early stretches inside. An old lag had advised him, avoid the quiet ones who look as though they would not hurt a fly. His sister was fifteen years younger than him; Cathy, the only member of the family who had not disowned him. She had a son of eleven; her husband having run off as soon as he knew she was pregnant. They spoke about life outside, what was going on, how she was doing, how her son, Ieuan, was getting on at school. Halfway through the conversation Morgan took out his tobacco, rolled himself a cigarette and laid the green package of Rizla papers on the table. The warden was gazing disinterestedly at the wall, twirling a set of keys round the end of his finger. Morgan looked in his sister’s eyes and tapped the green packet with a bitten-down fingernail. She sat forward and covered the papers with her hand, then fished in her pocket for her packet of Golden Virginia. She laid a fresh packet of papers on the table and Morgan rolled a cigarette for her, before slipping the packet inside his tin.

  October had been cold, November was much better. The Cambrils beachfront was empty, though the sun shone low above the greenish blue restlessness of the Mediterranean. A few English expatriates wandered along the footpaths that flanked the flat pale sand, and mini, white-foamed breakers crawled at the edges of rocks. Tal-Salem sat at an aluminium table in an aluminium chair outside his favourite bar, where the Turkish waiter made him Café Arabi. Cigarette smoke drifted in the light breeze, and he flapped open the pages of the International Herald Tribune, as he had done once a month since the summer. Today was the fifth, bonfire night in England. He perused the pages, sipping thick, dark coffee and sucking at the end of his cigarette. He found the advertisements and read each one very carefully. He did not know exactly what he was looking for, but he would know if he found it. His gaze settled on a strange collection of words.

  TO SELL BOOKCASES TO ENGINES TO XYLOPHONES.

  AND SHORTLY TO BE IN YORK AND BIRMINGHAM AND BRIGHTON.

  IN KENDAL NEXT YEAR. FOR BEDS OR QUEEN ANNE OVAL MIRRORS, XYLOPHONES OR VIOLINS, CALL BRITISH AND ANGLIAN.

  Tal-Salem stared at the page, aware of the pulse heightened against his temple. He finished his cigarette and, folding the newspaper on the table, summoned the waiter for more coffee and a sheet of paper and pencil. The coffee came and he lit another cigarette before settling down with the pencil. Very carefully, he went through the advertisement again and started picking out letters; the first in every other word. TBEXSBYBBKYBQOXVBA.

  He paused and sat back and smoked some more, watching a girl in shorts walk down to the sea with a pair of white tennis shoes in one hand. A seagull hovered in the wind and cried above her head, as if it were expecting her to throw some bread or fish. The same breeze caught her ink-black hair as she stared at the boats, dotted like chips of paint against the grey of the horizon. Tal-Salem looked back at the letters, then wrote out two English alphabets beneath them, beginning the second one under the D of the first one. It was a code they had agreed on, very simple, but nonetheless effective. It had been used centuries before, when Caesar wrote covertly to Cicero. When he was finished, a little chill ran through him and he sat back. The cigarette had burned low in the ashtray. He stared at what he had deciphered. WE HAVE BEEN BETRAYED.

  Amaya Kukiel sat on the rug that Vaczka had placed in front of his smokeless fire. He stood before the rectangular mirror that dominated the wall above the mantelpiece, combing wet hair. Through the bay window Amaya could see the dark strip of hedge and the windows of the houses opposite.

  ‘Where we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Just for a drink.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Bush Ranger. They’ve got a band tonight.’

  ‘Just us?’

  ‘No. A couple of friends will be there.’

  ‘Do I know them?’

  He stopped combing his hair and looked down at her, one hand on his hips. ‘Robert, Adam, Pieter maybe. Some girls, I guess. I don’t know. I just said I’d meet some people. Go home if you want to. You don’t have to come.’

  She stood up and slipped her arms about his waist. ‘Course I want to come.’

  ‘Then why ask so many questions?’ He pushed her arms off and took a clean T-shirt from where it lay on the tallboy. Briefly, he inspected the dusty leaves of the rubber plant and then went into the kitchen for water. Amaya stared at herself in the mirror and saw the nervousness in her eyes. This was her state of mind these days; it had been ever since that night when those two security officers wandered into her life. She had no idea such things were possible in a liberal democracy like this. Poland before Solidarity, yes. East Berlin and Moscow before the Wall came down. But this was England. Her visa, and with it her future, hung perpetually in the balance.

  Vaczka came back and bent down to lace his shoes. ‘Get your coat, if you’re coming,’ he said.

  Silent Stahl, with
the laughing eyes and boyish grin, was already sitting at a table. Next to him were Jeconec and Blunski. Three girls, only one of whom Amaya recognized, were also there. She looked about for others and saw Herbisch at the bar. This was different, she thought; never had she seen all of them together like this. Occasionally, she would see Jorge with one of them, maybe Herbisch and Blunski together, but never all three of them, and rarely with Stahl at all. Herbisch crossed the dusty wooden floor and placed a tray of drinks on the table. On the far side of the pub, a girl was plucking at the five strings of her banjo, plinking the note, then tightening the string. Seated at the bar with his back to them, a bearded, dark-skinned man smoked Turkish cigarettes.

  Vaczka was in a good mood. The band played their first set and the dark-skinned man swivelled on his stool to watch. The girl’s voice was good—sweet, deep and mellow in her throat. She sang with a low passion and seemed to look above the faces of the audience as she did so. The set ended and she put her banjo down, spoke briefly with the guy on the guitar and bought a drink at the bar. The dark-skinned man lit another cigarette, finished his vodka and bought another. Now and then he would glance out of the window, then his gaze would fall momentarily on to the gathering at the table behind him. Vaczka; Stahl was with him. Herbisch and Blunski too. And women, a particularly pretty girl, blonde hair and big eyes. She sat close to Vaczka with her palm between his thighs. Her drink looked untouched on the table before her.

  Just as the band was about to start up again, a slim-built man in his twenties stumbled along the bar, with his Japanese girlfriend attempting to steady him. His hair was long, well past his shoulders and heavy over his face. He kept sweeping it back with his hand. He carried a glass of pale beer which slopped on to the floor as he lurched. The music began and he clicked his multi-ringed fingers to the beat, and jogged against Stahl as he turned to watch. Stahl pushed him away and beer slopped over the long hair’s leather trousers.