The Spanish Game (27 page)

47

Taploe’s colleagues gave him a lot of credit for volunteering to break the news to Ben; that was a brave thing to do in the circumstances, a grim taskhe might easily have delegated to someone junior on the team. Taking three Special Branch officers to Elgin Crescent, he put Alice and Ben in a vehicle en route to a Kensington safe house where he informed them of Mark’s death. He thought Ben had recognized his face from the night of Keen’s murder, but perhaps the shock of the news deflected any suspicions he might have had. Watching his reaction, Taploe was reminded of Tamarov’s remark in the club on Friday night -
they were screaming, like animals on the floor
- and he was glad that Alice seemed to provide some comfort to her husband, a wife’s consoling touch. It looked as though things had improved between them since the end of her affair with Roth. God knows he would need her now. God knows Ben will not want to be alone.

Juris Duchev made it to Moscow from Helsinki, but customs stopped Tamarov at Heathrow checking on to a late Aeroflot flight with an unidentified woman who would later be released without charge. The translation of his conversation with Duchev came through shortly after midnight, but was lost until morning in the panic and confusion of events. It appeared that the Russians had had no concerns or worries about MI5 surveillance until Taploe had mentioned the land in Andalucia to Duchev in his pitch on Sunday morning. The Latvian had told only one person about his secret plans to retire. That one person just happened to be Mark Keen.

At first they couldn’t find Philippe d’Erlanger. He was not at the restaurant in Covent Garden, nor sleeping at his flat in Tottenham Court Road. The Belgian was eventually discovered back at the lap-dancing club in Finchley, tucked into a darkened corner with Ayesha giggling softly in his ear. Accompanied outside by two officers, he was taken swiftly into custody and visited at dawn by Paul Quinn.

Macklin had flown to New York on Libra business on Sunday, and when Taploe heard that he had received a telephone call from Roth and then fled immediately to Grand Cayman, he thought that at last he had conclusive proof of Roth’s involvement. The call had been logged at 15.47 local time, ten minutes before the shooting in London. How else could Roth have known that Mark was about to be killed? How else could he have been in a position to tip-off Macklin that the game was up?

But this was to prove the final irony of the Kukushkin case, the one random element that neither Taploe nor Quinn could ever have anticipated. It bore the stamp of SIS. It was the revelation of Elizabeth Dulong.

48

She came to Thames House at midday on Tuesday, accompanied by Jock McCreery and an attitude of barely suppressed hostility. Quinn had returned from interviewing d’Erlanger and was drinking tea with Taploe in his office on the third floor. Neither man had slept for thirty hours.

‘Can I help you?’ Taploe said when Dulong entered without knocking. He recognized McCreery instantly as Keen’s friend from SIS.

‘This room’s too small, too public,’ Dulong announced. ‘We have a very serious problem. Can you take us somewhere more private?’

She, too, had been awake all night, coming to terms with the fact that senior employees at the company belonging to one of her most valuable intelligence assets had been under MI5 surveillance for almost a year. There were simple reasons why Taploe had never been able to pin anything on Sebastian Roth, and why Macklin had been given such free rein at Libra. In a windowless conference room in the basement of Thames House, Dulong explained that Roth had been an SIS agent for three years.

If Taploe’s reaction to the revelation was at first one of numb resignation, Quinn almost exploded.

‘Why the fuck weren’t we told?’ he said.

‘Why the fuck didn’t you ask?’ McCreery replied bluntly.

That exchange set the tone of the three-hour meeting, a period characterized by long, embarrassed silences, the unmistakable sound of careers on the skids, of buck-passing and the covering of backs. When Quinn had recovered enough to ask his first question, he directed it at McCreery.

‘How did you find out that we were investigating Libra?’

‘Audio surveillance,’ McCreery told him wearily. ‘A conversation between Benjamin and Alice last night. That was when we put two and two together.’

Quinn, slumped heavily in a chair like a man who had overeaten, looked stunned.

‘
Audio surveillance?
‘ he said. ‘Why was Elgin Crescent being bugged?’

McCreery coughed nervously and made an unnecessary fuss of straightening a set of papers in front of him. He was seated opposite Quinn at the far end of a long wooden table in the conference room, his walking stick leaning against the wall.

‘The property was under audio surveillance because of a letter Benjamin received from a retired CIA agent who was murdered recently in New Hampshire.’

It took a further forty-five minutes for McCreery to brief Taploe and Quinn about Robert Bone. Tired after working eighteen-hour days for almost a month without cease, his account of the Kostov operation was matter-of-fact to the point of bloodlessness. The men from MI5 listened in awed silence to the litany of SIS deceits: from Bill Taylor, a subordinate of McCreery’s, issuing instructions to a Tracy Frakes for the theft of Bone’s letters from Elgin Crescent and Torriano Avenue; to McCreery himself engineering a meeting with Ben at the British Museum at which he had lied about Keen’s workin Afghanistan and misleadingly blamed the CIA for Mischa’s recruitment. Taploe and Quinn’s proper astonishment, however, was reserved for the story of McCreery’s entirely fictitious son, Dan, and his difficult wife, Bella, invented apparently as a means of gaining Ben’s empathy and trust.

‘That was a quality touch,’ Quinn said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Really first-rate, mate, really classy. What was that about, eh? Showing Ben we’re all human? Implying he’d been wrong about his dad? Jock’s children don’t really understand their parents so Christopher’s didn’t as well? What was the thinking behind it? Share your wisdom and experience with the rest of the class.’

‘Can we get just back to the subject?’ Dulong said, before McCreery had a chance to retaliate. He looked genuinely angry at being spoken to in such a manner by a junior officer.

‘Of course we can,’ Taploe said. His approach was conciliatory, because he had nothing left to lose. ‘So what happened with Macklin? We heard this morning that Roth tipped him off.’

‘He’s in Grand Cayman,’ Dulong replied, stumbling on another bit of awkward news. She was at the angle of the table, just a few feet from McCreery, a white polystyrene cup of water lying untouched at her right hand. ‘And it wasn’t a tip-off,’ she said. ‘Sebastian just flew off the handle.’

Standing by the door, Taploe spoke in a voice that was barely audible.

‘Come again?’

‘I said, Sebastian flew off the handle.’ Dulong’s voice was clipped and authoritative, the faint Lothian accent becoming increasingly pronounced with stress. She smoothed out the sleeves of her white blouse as Quinn stared at her, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I telephoned Sebastian last night as soon as I learned of your investigation. I wanted to arrange an emergency meeting with him, to discuss the best way to proceed…’

‘… and Roth then called Macklin straight away,’ Quinn said contemptuously, arms folded into a visible reproach.

‘Against his better judgment. And against my strict instructions.’

‘And how long did you say you’ve been running him?’ Taploe asked.

‘About three years.’ Dulong was fighting for a way out. ‘A long time before you started to have your suspicions about Libra, in any event. Roth has been doing some very important work for us on the Russian government. His government contacts in London are also first-rate. It’s important that you both realize he brings in pedigree CX on a vast range of subjects.’

Quinn stirred. ‘And you’re - what - here to tell us how determined you are to keep him on board, to keep that sort of information rolling into the Cross?’

He could see it happening, even if Taploe could not, could already sense what they had come for. The fix. The deal. All the hard work on Kukushkin lost for the sake of a few careers.

‘That is certainly one of my aims,’ Dulong conceded.

A long silence ensued. The trepidation of a game of cards. Then Taploe moved forward, emerging from the corner of the room as if from within his own shadow.

‘So what are SIS saying?’ he asked. His manner was oddly deferential for one who held the FCO in such high contempt. ‘What is the exact purpose of this meeting?’

McCreery answered on Dulong’s behalf.

‘We’re saying that it won’t have escaped your attention that Sebastian Roth is an immensely well-connected young man.’ As he spoke he tapped a Biro on the surface of the table, as if to reinforce his point. ‘He has friends in high places. His father, for example, is a Tory peer who sits in the Lords…’

‘Who Roth never speaks to,’ Quinn said quickly.

McCreery dropped the pen.

‘Do you think that I might be able to finish?’ There was a military sting to the question. ‘I was nevertheless going to say that there are a number of people, Elizabeth included, who would prefer it if Roth were not exposed, which would inevitably happen if your enquiries into Libra and Kukushkin ever entered into the public realm.’

Taploe breathed very deeply.

‘I don’t understand how Roth can be so invaluable to you,’ he said. ‘After all, he’s not even aware of what’s going on in his own backyard.’ The observation was almost apologetic. ‘How can Elizabeth trust an agent who alerts a suspect against her own specific instructions?’

‘Sebastian’s a strong character, a hothead,’ Dulong replied.

Quinn laughed undisguisedly.

‘What’s funny?’

‘A
hothead
? A
strong character
?’

‘Yes - a strong character who makes split-second decisions and acts on instinct.’ Dulong had to raise her voice. ‘Usually that quality is a great asset to us. It is illustrative of how hard Sebastian has been working for SIS that he has allowed Thomas to assume a greater responsibility over the running of Libra. He trusted him, of course, with unfortunate consequences.’

Briefly Dulong looked flustered. Quinn was getting under her skin. ‘

That’s what you’d call it, would you? Unfortunate consequences?’

McCreery stood up and appeared to wince at a stab of pain in his legs.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘we’re all here today to try to sort this thing out. We’re all of us here today attempting to resolve this little dilemma.’

But Quinn did not back down.

‘That’s what we’re here for, is it, Jock? Is that the line you’re peddling?’ Quinn was the youngest person in the room, yet he would not allow his relative lack of experience to count against him: on the contrary, he felt professionally and intellectually obliged to question MI6 every step of the way. ‘I’ll tell you what I think you’re here for. I think you’re here for cover-up. I think you’re here to make sure we take the heat for what’s happened. I think you’re here to make sure that nobody steals your pension.’

‘I am merely stating,’ McCreery said, coming down hard on the consonants, ‘our desire to go about this in a civilized fashion.’ He was leaning on the table. ‘Stephen, I’m sure you would concur.’

‘Of course,’ Taploe replied, ‘of course,’ and flashed Quinn a look of disquiet. ‘Let’s just hear them out, Paul, eh? Let’s just at least do that.’

Dulong seized on this.

‘I may as well tell you that Jockand I came here directly from a meeting at the Cross. Seeing as you’ve brought it up, the consensus is that Libra should remain untouched. Thomas Macklin cannot be prosecuted.’

‘Here we go,’ Quinn muttered under his breath. ‘Here we go.’

‘In these unfortunate circumstances, Macklin must be allowed to remain in Grand Cayman.’ Dulong continued as if he had not spoken. ‘We wouldn’t ask the authorities there to make an arrest. Equally, if and when he returns to the UK, the Crown cannot prosecute for money laundering. Sebastian’s role would inevitably emerge.’

‘Fucking bullshit,’ Quinn shouted, flinging a fist out into the room. Everyone turned to face him. ‘That is an absolute load of fucking bullshit and you…’

‘It is not…’

But he could shout louder than Dulong.

‘… you know as well as I do that the only reason you’re prepared to protect Macklin is to conceal the fact that a former KGB agent slipped out of Moscow and murdered two Western intelligence officers before anybody knew what was going on.’

McCreery stood in a bid for control. Quinn’s idealism needed to be snuffed out quickly or the plan would unravel.

‘We cannot deny that we are anxious to keep Kostov’s movements under wraps,’ he conceded. ‘That much is true.’ Slowly he limped towards the door. ‘But this has an impact on the Security Service just as much as it affects our side. Imagine how difficult it will become to recruit agents if potential targets think British Intelligence cannot protect them. Would you fancy going back to Ireland, to Paris, to Frankfurt, with the Kostov scandal hanging in the air?
Would
you?’

‘I’ve never been to Frankfurt,’ Quinn said flatly, because he could not resist the joke. ‘I’m a lawyer, mate. I’m paid to work in London. I’m employed by the Home Office to help track down and prosecute the kind of people you’re talking about setting free.’

‘So we’re just going to let Macklin go?’ Taploe asked, as if the revelation were still dawning on him and did not yet seem scandalous. ‘What about Tamarov?’

‘I’m afraid we would also condone Tamarov’s release.’ Dulong did not dare look at Quinn. ‘He would not be permitted to return to the United Kingdom, although any established organized crime networks would of course be dismantled. But prosecution is out of the question. Ditto Juris Duchev. Now nobody’s saying that’s the ideal solution but…’

‘Too fucking right it’s not the ideal solution.’ Quinn pressed himself up from the table and walked towards McCreery. He knew that his appearance worked against him - his weight, his sweat - but he still held out the faint hope that his arguments would carry the day. ‘Tamarov has a UK right of residency. How are you going to take that away from him?’

‘Look,’ Dulong countered, ‘this has come from very high up…’

‘What,
God
doesn’t want Tamarov arrested? Did He tell you that in person, or just send a courier?’

Nobody laughed.

‘It’s not all bad news,’ Dulong said stiffly. ‘Macklin won’t be coming home. He’ll think the Russians know about the double dip and assume he’s a marked man in London. At our earlier meeting my colleagues also discussed the possibility of asking the Cayman authorities to implement a Mareva injunction on Macklin’s accounts.’

‘What’s a Mareva injunction?’ Taploe asked, as a phone rang in an office across the hall.

‘It means they’re going to try and freeze Macklin’s assets,’ Quinn explained quietly.

‘That is correct.’ Dulong straightened her skirt. ‘So you can see that it’s not as if he’s got away scot free.’

‘Well, that’s assuming the Cayman courts agree,’ Quinn said, swallowing a glass of water in three loud gulps. He sat down. ‘Any foreign authority would need conclusive evidence linking Macklin to the Pentagon accounts and to the criminal activity in London.’

‘But we
have
evidence, Paul,’ Taploe said. ‘More than enough, in fact.’

‘Course we do,’ Quinn tried. ‘But will Elizabeth and her merry men be sharing it with their new pals down in the Caribbean? Somehow I doubt it.’

Dulong caught McCreery’s eye and he dug her out of a tight spot.

‘You needn’t have any concerns about that, Paul,’ he said, collecting his stick from the wall. ‘The boys in Cayman are pretty keen nowadays to be seen to be cleaning up their act. They’ll comply, believe me.’

‘And then wonder why we haven’t asked to have Macklin extradited.’

‘Well, let’s worry about that one later, shall we?’

Quinn collapsed into a slouch. This was self evidently a
fait accompli
. He wished, not for the first time in his career, that he were ten or fifteen years older, not just the bright, straight-talking Cockney whose views were eventually expendable.

‘Macklin would also be disbarred from practising law in the UK,’ Dulong said, almost as if she were trying to cheer him up. ‘He won’t be able to gain registration with any foreign law society or enjoy rights of audience in a foreign court.’

Wearily, Quinn contested even that assertion.

‘Not true,’ he said. ‘Macklin was dual-qualified. He’s a member of the Florida Bar. Did a degree in Miami nine years ago.’

This was a revelation too far for McCreery and Dulong, both of whom looked stumped.