A Spy's Life (16 page)

‘They knew they’d got the right man because the Americans had traced his phone and intercepted a conversation with Lipnik making an arrangement to be at the restaurant. Luc was doubtful about spotting their target, let alone being able to seize him and spirit him away without a fight. Their plan was to pretend to be Serb security agents who had been sent to protect him against an assassination attempt. It gave them the perfect excuse for hustling the man out of the place and into a car.’

‘Sounds as though it might have worked,’ said Harland.

‘Well, they never found out,’ said the Colonel emphatically.

Harland was worried that he was becoming too agitated. He wondered whether his son’s death had sunk in properly.

‘What happened then, sir?’ he asked quietly.

‘They saw him arrive at the front of the hotel. There were no guards in evidence – just a driver. To their amazement, Lipnik chose a table at the front of the restaurant overlooking the street. He and his guest were visible to the whole team. Luc got the vehicles into position and waited for a wedding party to pass inside. Then he gave the order to move in, but at that moment two men appeared from the throng of wedding guests and began shooting. The men at the table were killed instantly – quite an irony, considering the cover story Luc’s team had made for themselves. In the confusion that followed, one of Luc’s men went into the restaurant to check that Lipnik was dead. It was a terrible scene – complete carnage, apparently. Those men were dead all right – they were unrecognisable.’

‘When was this?’

‘Late ’96 or early ’97, I’m not certain.’

Colonel Bézier’s gaze left Harland and drifted over the meadow in front of them. The sun had come out again to light the few brilliant yellow leaves that clung to the poplars and dance on the barely rippled water beyond. He fumbled for another cigarette. Harland understood that the Colonel was going to smoke as much as he liked now. There was no point in minding his health. They sat in silence for a long time before the Colonel shook a small hand-bell. A maid arrived. He ordered a cognac and cocked his eyebrow interrogatively at Harland. Harland said that he was driving.

‘But that was not the end of the story,’ he said. ‘A little time afterwards Luc left the army. He’d had enough and he was interested in making some money and settling down. Sensible boy. He went into the art business. It sounds odd for an ex-soldier, particularly of Luc’s calibre, but he had a very good eye and he was ready to learn. He made a success of it because he applied himself. He’d been with a gallery for about two years last summer when he was sent to Vienna on business. He was walking in the street right outside a hotel when he ran slap-bang into Lipnik who was getting out of a car. This was only two or three months ago – about three years after the shooting in Serbia. But Luc was certain that it was the same man. Remember, Monsieur, that he’d studied his target minutely – he knew his mannerisms, his walk, everything. It was Big Cat! He was walking around, breathing like you and me – like you, at any rate.’

‘Who is Lipnik? Do you know his first name?’

‘A moment, Monsieur,’ he said irritably. ‘Let me finish. Naturally, Luc did his best to make some inquiries about the man he’d seen and eventually he told a friend in the State Intelligence Service. They took no action. But it was obvious to him that the whole thing had been a set-up – the shooting had been planned for the benefit of his team who, of course, had been made the unwitting accomplices to yet another crime in the Balkans. Two men were killed that day, remember, shot to pieces so no one would take a close look and ask whether one of them was indeed Lipnik. There was enough circumstantial evidence for the identification to go unquestioned. The restaurant booking, the fact that several people had seen Lipnik enter the establishment and the things they found on his body must have convinced them that this was indeed Lipnik. But it wasn’t. The man was a double, somebody who was persuaded to act like Big Cat for an afternoon and got killed for his trouble.’

‘But the tracing of the phone?’

‘All part of the plan,’ said the Colonel decisively. ‘Luc realised that the whole thing had been a set-up. The phone was the lure that drew in Luc’s team.’

‘But surely they didn’t suspect that the Americans were in on this.’

‘Who knows, Monsieur, who collaborated with whom? It could be that they were really hearing Lipnik’s voice on that phone and they had been genuinely fooled like we were.’ He stopped and put his hand down to a tortoiseshell cat that had wandered in from the garden and was twirling round an oxygen cylinder propped against his chair. ‘Or it might equally be the case that the whole thing had been American-inspired right from the start. Luc said there was no way of telling. About four weeks ago he was down here for some hunting and he asked my advice. I said if you feel strongly that you are right about this man and he has got away with something, then you should go to the War Crimes Tribunal. Let them handle it. This is how he met your friend Mr Griswald. And this is why he’s dead.’

Harland was silent for a moment. ‘To be frank, sir, I can’t see why Griswald took your son along with him. He had all the information he needed. There was no reason why he shouldn’t pursue his lead alone.’

‘That might be correct if the Tribunal was immune to pressure from the United States and Britain and France. Apparently Monsieur Griswald did believe that. He felt Luc could persuade them of the importance of pursuing this matter.’

‘Can I ask you again who Lipnik is?’

‘Having heard the beginning of the story, I asked Luc to keep me up to date with developments. I was interested and it gave me something to think about sitting in this damned chair. Monsieur Griswald believed that Lipnik was not his real name from the start. It was a
nom de guerre
, used during his time dealing with the Serbs at the time of the war. He smuggled arms and ammunition and traded secrets with them and he acquired an identity to do that.’

‘Did your son know what nationality he was? Did Griswald have any idea?’

‘They thought he was Russian. That was their belief, but I cannot tell you why. They knew they were dealing with someone
comme Protée
.’ Harland asked what he meant. The Colonel said someone who could assume different forms like the sea god Proteus. ‘They believed he had several different identities – and lives to go with them.’

‘Even so, supplying arms and selling secrets is not an indictable offence,’ said Harland, now certain that he had been right about Griswald’s purpose in gathering together the witness statements from 1995.

‘The point is that they knew from other sources that Lipnik was involved with the implementation of the massacre. They knew that way back and they knew what he looked like. Otherwise they would not have sent Luc’s team in. The question is, was Luc being used? He suspected that he had been. That’s all I can say.’

Harland could see the Colonel was getting tired, and he said that he ought to leave. But before he could get up, Madame Clergues brought the phone to the Colonel and asked if he was up to talking to a person from the United Nations in New York about arrangements for the shipping of Luc Bézier’s remains. He looked at Harland with an expression of great sadness, then shook his head.

‘Will you deal with this please, Béatrice,’ he said.

His voice had grown weak and his eyes were closing for longer periods each time he blinked. Harland rose and touched his hand.

‘Thank you, Colonel. I think I should leave now.’ He had planned to say something encouraging about continuing the investigation, but words failed him. He wished the Colonel well and thanked him for his time.

At that moment the Colonel propelled himself forward and clutched Harland’s hand.

‘As you can see, Monsieur, I will not live long. I am the last of the Bézier family now. We have served France for two hundred years and we have lived on this land for generations. All that was extinguished when my son was killed. If you can do anything to avenge his death and set things right, please remember that, Monsieur Harland.’

11

THE CRÈCHE

By the time he reached Heathrow, Harland was exhausted. He had taken a short nap on the plane from Toulouse but it had only made him feel worse. As he waited in a line of jaded businessmen on their way home for Christmas, he switched on his phone and called Harriet to let her know that he would be with her by nine. She told him that Robin was hosting his office party and he wouldn’t be there until late.

A few seconds after he had hung up, his phone rang. He put his bags down and answered. It was Tomas.

‘Mr Harland? Where are you?’ He was shouting against the noise of traffic.

‘I’m in London. Where are you?’

‘In London too. I need to speak with you. It’s very important. Something has happened.’

‘Look, I’ve just arrived at the airport. It’s a bit difficult now. Let’s talk later.’

Tomas wasn’t listening. ‘My friend has been killed. She has been killed – murdered.’

Harland stepped out of earshot of the queue. ‘Murdered? What are you talking about, for Christ’s sake? Who’s been murdered? Which friend?’

‘Felicity – Flick. She has been killed … She was in the apartment when I got back. They shot her and tortured her.’

‘Have you told the police?’

‘No, I cannot. I left her there.’

Harland gave him Harriet’s address in St John’s Wood and told him to go there immediately. He made him repeat the address then phoned Harriet to explain that a young man was about to arrive and that he would be in some distress. He’d explain when he got there.

He had missed his place in the queue and other passengers from another flight were now in front of him. Furiously wondering what the hell Tomas’s call meant, he rejoined the line and moved slowly forward to the immigration desk where an official in an ill-fitting blazer was taking rather longer than usual to inspect the passports. Two men were looking over his shoulder and glancing along the queue. One of them appeared to focus on Harland and said something to his companion. As he approached the desk, one of them came forward, a thickset man with wiry black hair and ruddy Celtic cheeks.

‘Mr Harland,’ he said, ‘my name is Griffiths.’

‘Yes,’ Harland said crossly. ‘What do you want?’

‘Would you come with us, sir? Mr Vigo wants a word. There’s a car waiting outside. We’ll have your luggage brought on, if you’ll give my colleague here the baggage receipts.’ A third man had appeared from nowhere and put out his hand.

‘But what does Vigo want?’

‘I’d rather not discuss it here, if you wouldn’t mind. Mr Vigo wanted to talk to you this evening. It’s nothing to worry about. He says it won’t take long.’

Harland wondered how they knew to meet the flight from Toulouse, then realised that SIS would have had no difficulty in finding out about his departure from the US and would have then contacted the airline to alert them when he was on the London-bound plane. There seemed nothing else for it because he knew perfectly well that they could force him to go with them. He put the baggage receipt into the man’s hand.

He was driven to a four-storey office block in West London, somewhere between Hammersmith and Earls Court. The car turned into a side street and passed a sign which announced
FM AGRO PRODUCTS: NO DELIVERIES
and then into a garage area where several cars were parked. A door closed automatically behind them.

Harland realised he was in The Crèche, an almost mythical establishment among MI6 staff, which periodically changed location but always served the same purpose. It was where MI6 conducted its initial interrogations and where various suspects and defectors were placed on ice in conditions of quasi-arrest. He had taken it for granted that all the dreary outposts of the service had been subsumed into the spanking new headquarters at Vauxhall Cross. Plainly not. This one still possessed the atmosphere of the Secret Intelligence Service that he had joined – the down-at-heel drudgery and suspicion of the Cold War. There was a feeling of impermanence about the building, as if its occupants were prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

He was led into a room where there was a small conference table, several chairs and a functional sofa at each end of the room. They asked him to sit down and told him he wouldn’t have long to wait. Then they left, closing and locking the door behind them. He could hear voices recede in the corridor. He reckoned he had a very short time. He took out his cellphone and pressed redial. Harriet answered.

‘Bobby, where the hell are you?’

‘Listen, I want you to call the UN in New York. Get on to the Secretary-General’s office. Make it clear that you are phoning on my behalf. Tell them that the British government is attempting to hold me without charges. It’s got something to do with the affair that the Secretary-General has asked me to look into.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in a building belonging to SIS – in West London somewhere. A former colleague – Walter Vigo – had me picked up at the airport just after we spoke. Get the Secretary-General’s people to phone the duty desk at the Foreign Office and kick up a stink. Tell whoever you speak to that I’m working on the Secretary-General’s personal instructions. Got that? Good.’

While he was speaking he used his free hand to transfer the interview transcripts, which had been uncomfortably rolled up in his breast pocket, to the front of his trousers. The moment he hung up, he slid the phone’s battery off, extracted the SIM card and placed it into the fold of material on the underside of his shirt collar. Then he opened his wallet and removed the bits of paper, on which he had written various numbers, and tucked them into the slit of a little coin pocket just beneath his waistband. None of these measures would be remotely effective if he was searched, but he hoped they weren’t going to take things that far.

There was a murmur outside the door. Griffiths entered with two other men. They did not introduce themselves, neither did they smile or give any other sign of greeting.

As they sat down opposite him, he leaned forward, placed his hands on the table and said, ‘Where’s Vigo?’