The Traitor's Story (9 page)

He wanted to say something to comfort her, because she was pretty and seemed desperate to find someone, to be in love. But he could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t sound cynical or jaded. Instead, he thought of Adrienne, who had perhaps wanted only the same, to be in love, and he thought of the reasons why he’d made that so hard for her. They were good reasons, perhaps, but he felt ashamed nevertheless.

History

In bed that night, Sofi lay on her side, idly running her fingers across his chest, a habit she’d developed, something he usually liked, but tonight he wished she’d stop. He stared up at the ceiling, and the soft trace of her fingertips was a distraction from what really preoccupied him.

He should have been thinking about what Louisa had proposed to him, but instead he was thinking about what it would mean to the girl who was in another bedroom not far away, probably sleeping, her trust placed entirely in Finn’s ability to rescue her.

He almost resented Katerina for that trustfulness. In the context of her life thus far, the fact that he’d killed a man to protect her, had found her a place to stay, and had promised to get her to
safety shouldn’t have counted for much. Perhaps it was simply that
she was still a child, or that she’d seen something within Finn that was different.

Because he
would
get her to safety, no matter what it took. He wouldn’t get more accurate timings for Sparrowhawk until tomorrow, but it was already looking tight in terms of getting the girl to Stockholm next weekend. Still, he wouldn’t be deterred, whatever the obstacles.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Sorry, nothing important.” He raised his hand and put it on hers, as much to stop its gentle progress around his chest as a sign of affection and reassurance. “Just thinking through the business we were discussing this evening.”

Sofi knew, more or less. She was a journalist, a canny one at that, but she’d never pushed at the edges of his cover story, had never asked questions, had never even mentioned stories from the paper that might touch on the world she imagined he inhabited.

Now, though, she said, “It’s odd, that she should give important work to you, when she knows you’re leaving. Odd that she doesn’t give the work to your colleagues.”

“Ours is not to reason why.”

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s an old saying. She asked me, anyway.”

For a moment Sofi didn’t respond and then, curious, she said, “Will you keep in touch with your friends from work, when you leave?”

It was the closest she’d ever come to hinting at his real job. He could tell what she was really asking, if the clandestine nature of his work would make it possible to stay in touch, even though he’d still be living in Tallinn. But she’d inadvertently hit on something more serious, something he hadn’t considered until now.

How could he stay in Tallinn, the thing he’d suggested to her
only that evening, if his former colleagues were under the impres
sion he was a traitor? And why hadn’t Louisa considered that, knowing his domestic setup? The answer to the second question was easy enough—for all Louisa’s jolly-headmistress warmth and informality, she was ruthless when it came to getting results.

“I’ll stay in touch with Harry, probably.” Perry, of course, wouldn’t be around if it all worked out.

“Good,” said Sofi. “I like Harry.”

She’d met him twice. Everyone liked Harry.

They picked Finn up the next morning, Saturday, and took him to the office. It wasn’t always the case that the office was empty at weekends, but it was today. Crucially, Perry had been sent to Moscow on the early flight, to soothe concerns about the Kremlin mole story.

He wouldn’t have liked that, but when Louisa arrived to fight fires, no one questioned her methods. If she’d been in a generous mood, she’d have assured Ed that it was a job requiring someone with experience, someone who was respected.

Louisa and Finn headed into the small conference room, and then a moment or two later a guy came in who Finn hadn’t seen before. He was wearing a pale-gray suit, scarf, city overcoat, and he had an oddly bouffant mass of gray hair.

“Finn, this is John Castle.”

No introduction was needed in the other direction—Castle undoubtedly knew everything about Finn. They shook hands, but then Castle sat and didn’t say another word. Finn waited for Louisa to sit before taking a seat himself, and she smiled and threw a look of teasing admonishment at the older man. Castle looked unimpressed.

“Okay, Finn. Time really is short on this, and it’s going to take considerable nerve to pull it off. I hasten to add, if you don’t get the evidence we need on Perry, it’s not a disaster—that’s just one strand of this operation.”

“For you, perhaps, but if I’m about to make myself look like a traitor, I intend to take Perry down.”

He looked for a change in either expression, but there was none.

“Admirable,” said Louisa. “Now, the ship is called the
Maria Nuovo.
Our current intelligence is that it’s due to arrive in Kaliningrad next Saturday, just after dark. However, smarter people than I have suggested this is unlikely, and that Friday night or the early hours of Saturday morning is a better guess. Naturally, we’ll know more nearer the time. Demidov’s lieutenant will be there to meet it, but we think he may have as few as three other men with him, primarily because most of the others have been arrested.”

“So it should be a tempting target for Karasek.”

“And for anyone else who found out about it, I shouldn’t wonder. But the important thing is this—we have less than a week for you to get in to see Karasek, convince him that you’re looking for a final payday, get him to trust you enough that he’ll spill about Perry, and lead him into the trap in Kaliningrad.”

It sounded a ridiculously ambitious task when put like that, and Castle grimaced slightly, as if he wanted to voice concerns to that effect.

Louisa ignored him, suggesting that this was an argument they’d already had, and looked at Finn as she said, “Do you envisage any problems?”

“I envisage only problems.”

“Good,” she said, and laughed. “Anything I might not have accounted for?”

Finn shook his head, then said almost absentmindedly, “I was planning to go away next Friday for a long weekend.”

“Can’t it wait? You’re about to have one very long weekend.”

“It could, but it might arouse suspicions, particularly as I’m winding down.”

Louisa nodded, thinking it over. “We wouldn’t want you in Kaliningrad anyway, but Karasek might.” She tapped out a short little rhythm on the table, and finally said, “We’ll have to play it by ear. You may have no choice but to cancel.”

He didn’t push it for now, but he knew that his plan depended on convincing Karasek that he didn’t want him in Kaliningrad. That was assuming they could get Karasek to show an interest in the first place.

“What’s my reason for going to Karasek? If I just go in and offer him this, he’ll know it’s a phony.”

Castle reached down to his briefcase, took out an envelope, and passed it across to Louisa.

“You know one of Karasek’s men was killed here the other day. Turns out he was escorting a young girl Karasek had a particular interest in, and the girl disappeared. Karasek’s furious. I think one could even say
incandescent
.” She patted the envelope. “You’re going to pay him a visit, tell him we might be able to help each other, that we have a surveillance picture of a man leaving the church just after the murder. If he can help us identify the man, we might be able to help him get his property back. We don’t need to give him any more information than that—indeed, any more and he’ll be suspicious. I think this will get his attention.”

It had certainly managed to grab Finn’s attention. His body had flooded with adrenaline, to the extent that it was taking all his concentration to keep still. For a moment, he couldn’t even think how to respond without giving something away. Then he hit on it.

“Just a second. I’m assuming this is an underage girl, and we’re going to hand him a photo that could help him find her?”

With a strange sense of liberation, he realized he obviously couldn’t be identified from the surveillance photo. But his heart kept beating hard, even as Louisa said, “The photo’s a fake. Take a look.”

She slid the envelope across to him and he pulled the picture out and looked at it. It had been well done. The guy walking away hurriedly from the church was wearing a winter coat, no hat, his fair hair caught in the wind and looking ruffled—a lot of detail, but nothing that made him easy to identify.

Hardly visible at first, there was a girl on the far side of him, her head obscured by a protective arm. With some relief, Finn couldn’t see anything to convince Karasek it wasn’t Katerina, and he presumed Karasek had never actually seen her in the flesh.

“Who is he?”

“Doesn’t matter—he’s not in Tallinn now.” She paused, pleased with herself. “And I can see from your face that you think it’ll be enough to interest him, maybe even enough to get his guard down.”

Finn nodded, but from his few meetings with Karasek and his greater knowledge of the man, he also knew how volatile he would be right now. For whatever reason, Karasek had invested a lot of energy in Katerina, and his rage at losing her would make him even more unpredictable than usual.

“It’ll get his attention, but I’ll have to judge on the day whether to put the other matter to him.”

“Of course. You’ll have received an email—it’s in your inbox now, in fact—outlining the intelligence on the
Maria Nuovo
.
Realizing that you’re the only person to have been sent it, you’ll have
spotted the opportunity to make a little business deal of your own.”

Once again, Castle pulled an awkward face. It made Finn wonder what his job usually entailed, because this didn’t sound a great deal more wing-and-prayer than many of the other operations he’d been involved with. And with more detail it would seem less ramshackle.

But then Louisa said, “As for judging on the day—that day is
today.”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, given the narrow window within which they were working. Even so, Finn found himself veering toward Castle’s position now, doubting whether this had been thought through clearly enough, wondering if Louisa was sending him on a near-suicide mission, with only the slightest hope that it might yield a result.

“That’s quite short notice.”

“It is, but you’ll have all the information you need. This is high risk, Finn, I won’t deny it—high risk in terms of whether it’ll work, rather than regarding your own safety—but sometimes that’s what it takes.”

“Trust me, Louisa—with Karasek, this is high risk in every sense. It’s not as if I can go in there armed. I presume I’ll be going to his club.”

“You presume correctly, on both counts. And although we’ll be aware of what’s going on, there’ll be no close support, so if you get into trouble, it’s unlikely anyone will get there in time to help you. For obvious reasons, this has to be, to all intents and purposes, a lone wolf operation.”

“I understand that.”

“Good. Now, in some senses I’m rather glad we don’t have much time, because it won’t allow you to overanalyze things before going in. But we do have a great deal of ground to cover, so let’s get on with it. John?”

Castle reached into his briefcase again and pulled out two folders, sliding one across the table to Finn, the other to Louisa. They opened them simultaneously, and Louisa started talking. But as important as it was for him to listen, a part of Finn was distracted, wishing for more time, to think through the consequences of this operation for the other things he’d planned, for Sofi, for Katerina.

Most of all, he wished he had more time to think through whether this stacked up in any way that was good for him. Just as he had one foot out of the door, he was being asked to step back inside, to put himself on the line in a complex and potentially dangerous operation, and he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe his resignation had suddenly made him expendable in Louisa’s eyes—expendable in every sense.

Chapter Twelve

Finn had often wondered who still used Internet cafés. The answer seemed to be predominantly a mix of backpackers and immigrants. The place was busy, with a friendly coffeehouse vibe to it. Jonas wasn’t there but came in just as Finn was deciding whether or not to go ahead and book a session.

Once they were sitting down in front of a screen—Jonas on the keyboard, Finn just off to one side like a late learner—Jonas brought up the Facebook homepage and started typing. Finn looked closer; it was Hailey’s email address. Jonas clicked in the password box, then turned to Finn.

“Let’s hope she’s as much a creature of habit as I think she is.”

He smiled, and typed
Patch22
. He hit the “Enter” button and Hailey Portman’s Facebook homepage appeared before them.

“That’s amazing. How did you know that—Patch22?”

“Hailey’s wanted a dog for as long as I’ve known her, so much that she’s always known exactly what it would look like and what she’d call it. So some time when she had to make a password for a site she tried to use ‘Patch,’ but she needed to use numbers, too, so she used ‘Patch22’—you know, kind of like the novel. She’s used it ever since, for almost everything.” As if he’d completely forgotten the Facebook page in front of him, he said, “Have you read
Catch-22
?”

Finn shook his head. “Friend of mine at college recommended it to me, but I couldn’t get on with it. I’ve seen the film.” He pointed at the screen and said, “I do have one question. You’re a smart guy—so why didn’t you think of doing this before? You know, you were wandering up and down outside the apartment, but you didn’t think of checking Facebook?”

Jonas glanced at the screen, Finn sensing he almost didn’t want
to look at it, perhaps fearing what it might reveal, then said, “I thought
about it after we met this afternoon. I guess she made a fool of me because we were meant to be best friends and I didn’t get what was going on, not at all. See, I had an idea she had a Facebook page but I didn’t think it’d tell me anything because I thought she was on the run. I never realized it might be her choice to run away. I was wrong about that. I think maybe I’ve been wrong about a lot of things to do with Hailey.”

The look of resignation on his face was total, as if he couldn’t understand why he’d ever expected any more from her.

Finn nodded. “For what it’s worth, she probably didn’t think it through. People let you down in life, but they don’t usually mean anything by it, it’s just that they’re fallible—weak.”

“Is that why you became corrupt?”

A burst of laughter sounded across the room—three Africans laughing at something on the screen in front of them, full of a joy that struck Finn as nostalgic, tinged with sadness.

Finn smiled. “I shouldn’t have used the word
corrupt
, but yeah, I suppose it’s why I went off the rails—I was curious, I got off on the machinations of it all, like it was a puzzle or a game, not real life.” He looked at the kid, feeling for him, and said, “I’m sure Hailey will come to her senses sooner or later.”

“We’re just friends.”

“I know.”

Jonas looked at the screen, scrolling down as he said, “I think these are updates by her Facebook friends.”

“Do you know any of them?” Jonas shook his head. Finn noticed
the text in a number of the updates, and said, “Quite a few of these are in Swedish or Danish.”

It filled him with a certain degree of hope for her—it was fanciful, perhaps, but he imagined there was less chance of her coming to harm in a Scandinavian country. It also filled him with a strange sense of nostalgia and sadness of his own.

Jonas scrolled back up and said, “I think we need to go to her profile page.”

He hit a button and another page opened, with a picture of Hailey in a hat and sunglasses, skillfully obscuring enough of her face that she could have been any age. There was some information along the top of the page: a line saying she was studying at the University of Geneva; then, after a small heart, another saying she was in a relationship with Anders Tilberg.

Finn didn’t get it. Assuming Anders Tilberg was in Scandinavia, she couldn’t have met him until a few days ago. Finn was fully conversant with the online world, but couldn’t understand how an entirely digital exchange could be described in that way—perhaps it was the twee little heart that troubled him most.

Jonas had clearly seen it at the same time and seemed to tense up like someone braced against a blow, but he sounded oddly casual as he said, “So now we find out who Anders Tilberg is.”

He clicked on a link and another page opened. With some relief, Finn saw that he was a young guy, looking not much older than Jonas. He was studying at Uppsala University, and he was in a relationship with Hailey Portman, a declaration that was in some way still astonishing to Finn.

“So I guess she’s in Uppsala,” said Jonas. He stared at the screen, his hand poised over the mouse, then turned to Finn and asked, as if it were the only thing that intrigued him, “How would you get there on an InterRail pass?”

“I don’t know. Through Germany, naturally, Copenhagen maybe? Then Stockholm. Uppsala’s north of Stockholm.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Not to Uppsala. But how can they be in a relationship? Allowing for the journey, she could only have been there a day or two.”

Jonas smiled at him. “People of your generation are doing it all the time. So is Hailey, apparently, even though we used to joke about people having virtual friends. I’m sure we could find the whole history of it on here if we wanted to, but that’s not what we’re looking for, is it?”

Finn wondered if Jonas would be able to resist looking at the page again later, in the privacy of his own room. It was hard to know. The only sure thing was that he was an extraordinary kid trapped in that most ordinary of youthful traps: an unrequited love.

Jonas scrolled down the profile page of Anders Tilberg, copied a block of text from a friend, opened a new page and brought up Google Translate, then converted it from Swedish into English. He took his notebook out and scribbled something in it, then repeated the process with another couple of blocks of text. Then he copied a single word and searched for it on Google, making notes the whole time.

Finn looked at the text as it appeared and was highlighted and disappeared, taking in snippets even though Jonas worked remarkably quickly. He understood immediately that Jonas had allowed the puzzle-solving instinct to take over, perhaps as a way of pushing her betrayal to the back of his mind.

Finally, Jonas tore a piece of paper out of his notebook, the contents once again capitalized, and said, “A group of them are meeting for dinner at Domtrappkällaren—a restaurant next to the cathedral. Someone asked him when they’d get to meet Hailey. He said they’d meet her Thursday at the dinner. Sounds like quite a few of them are going. Their table’s booked for eight thirty.”

“That’s tomorrow night.”

“Is it too soon? I could look for something else, maybe an address, though I don’t think most people list their addresses.” He looked back at the screen.

“No, I’m sure I’ll be able to get a flight out tomorrow.”

Jonas started tapping away at the keyboard as he said, “Of course, it would make more sense for Mr. and Mrs. Portman to go, or for them to alert the police, but I guess you want to go because you want the memory stick.”

“And because we haven’t found her yet. We have an idea where she might be tomorrow, but not where she’s staying.” Jonas was looking at him with a knowing smile. “But yes, I want the memory stick.”

Jonas pointed at the screen. “There’s a flight out of Geneva just after midday tomorrow.”

“You’re good at this.”

He smiled, then asked, “What will you do with it? The memory stick, I mean?”

Finn shrugged. “Try to find out why they’re watching me, what they want, who they are. But I don’t want you thinking I’ve only searched for Hailey because of the memory stick. I could have looked into who these people are just by using the notes you gave me—running an information trail on BGS.”

“What’s BGS?”

“The company that rented Gibson’s apartment.”

Jonas tapped the keys without even looking, then glanced at the screen and did a double take. “British Geological Survey?”

Finn laughed. “No, some things aren’t quite as easy as doing a Google search. But anyway, don’t worry, I’ll find out what’s going on, and in truth it’s probably nothing.”

Jonas looked thoughtful for a moment, and stared at the screen as if expecting something new to appear there. He shut down some of the pages, then logged out of Facebook.

“Are you a bit disappointed?”

Finn said, “What do you mean?”

“It was like a mystery, wasn’t it? I was worried about her, of course, but it was a mystery, too. That’s how it looked, anyway, but I guess it wasn’t a mystery at all. She just met a guy on the Internet and went to visit him.”

That last sentence summed up everything Finn had feared for Hailey, and yet now it did seem as mundane and innocuous as Jonas was suggesting. Okay, she was somewhere she wasn’t meant to be, no doubt doing things her parents wouldn’t want her to be doing, but she was almost certainly safe and, for a few delirious days at least, happy.

“No, I’m not disappointed. I’m relieved for her and her family. Because it could’ve been so much worse.”

“Have you seen an old film called
Picnic at Hanging Rock
?”

“Yes, I have. I’ve read the book, too—by an Australian.”

“Joan Lindsay.”

“That’s correct. And you know what, she made it up. In real life, girls don’t just vanish into thin air—they run away or they’re taken, and there’s no mystery about what happens to them. It’s nearly always bad.”

Jonas nodded. “I’m glad she’ll be coming back, despite everything.”

Despite everything
. Those two words summed up how hurt he was. Finn felt the urge to comfort him, as little as they knew each other. But he had no doubt he’d bounce back, if not with Hailey then with someone else.

“I have to go and see the Portmans.” He stopped short of thanking him, remembering the way it had been received earlier, but said, “Hopefully we’ll be back in a day or so—maybe I’ll see you then.”

Jonas laughed. “Okay, but it’s not like we’re gonna start hanging out together.”

Finn laughed, too, and they left. They stopped briefly outside in the bracing cold, and Jonas put his hat on. It was similar to the others but yet another design.

“You have a lot of hats.”

“I have six.”

Finn nodded and pointed as he said, “I’m going this way.”

“Me too.” So they set off walking together, and after a few paces Jonas said, “You probably think I’m pretty lame.”

It was the closest he’d come to an admission of how he really felt, perhaps emboldened because they were both facing forward as they walked along the night-lit street.

“I don’t think you’re lame at all.” Finn thought back across the messiness of his own life and added, “Thinking you have a special connection with someone and then finding out it’s not actually reciprocated, it’s the toughest thing.”

They walked in silence for a few seconds, long enough that Finn wondered if he’d talk again, but then Jonas said, “You’ve been there?”

“Yes, I have.”

“You think it’s why she left? Adrienne, I mean.”

Finn’s thoughts stumbled, because he hadn’t been thinking of Adrienne, but he could only say, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh—only, Hailey said she saw her crying a couple of times, when she was talking to Mrs. Portman. And once we heard her saying it was like you were never really there.”

And now Finn’s confusion crystallized into shock and shame and an urgent desire to call her, so injured was he by the thought that he’d ever reduced her to tears.

“I didn’t know that. I’ve been a pretty crummy boyfriend.”

“I thought that, too, so did Hailey, but actually, you’re okay. You should be more like this with Adrienne.” They reached a corner, and Jonas stopped before Finn could answer and said, “I turn here, you carry on.”

“Okay. Well, thanks for the help, and maybe I’ll see you when we get back.”

“Okay. Bye.”

He raised his hand and walked away, but just as Finn prepared to cross the street, Jonas called to him.

Finn looked in his direction and Jonas said, “Actually, I have seven hats, but one’s too small for me now. That’s why I said I have six.”

He really didn’t lie. Finn waved and watched him walking off with his easy stride, feeling an odd affection for this kid who’d seemed so strange, but who no longer seemed strange at all.