The key to socially engineering people is to get them on your side. Make them like you, and if they can help you they might, even when it flies against reason. With de Clerk that battle was half-won before it began. But Jenny was up against years of training and role-play. That was why the bump was necessary: his ‘saving’ her had nurtured the fertility of the emotional ground exponentially.
Jenny could see how effective it had been as de Clerk bumbled around his kitchen, looking for something to occupy himself with. Like a sommelier of human sentiment she identified his emotions. Longing, protectiveness, and … now, what was that last essence? Pride, perhaps. Yes, that was it: vanity at this newfound machismo. The wave of emotion she had unleashed broke against the walls of training and duty.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “And I won’t try and talk you out of it – you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. But before I start running can we call a truce for a few minutes. My nose …”
Blood dripped from one nostril. Jenny was glad of the injury – it added a layer of realism to the bump.
“I won’t do anything for now,” said de Clerk, scrambling for kitchen roll. “I promise. Let’s catch our breath.”
“Thanks,” she replied, meeting his eyes a heartbeat longer than was decent.
Jenny glanced around the flat. The only traces of his personality were a stack of running magazines, a computer and a shelf of books on maths and computer science.
“Cup of tea?” he asked lamely.
“Thanks,” she said. “I could probably do with one.”
De Clerk’s hands shook as he prepared the brew and his breath tapered through his lips. He poured himself some milk and took half the glass in two gulps. She could turn this man. She was sure of it.
“Why did you go rogue?” said de Clerk. “You leave me no choice, Jenny. I’ve got to take you to Charlie. I’ve got to.” He looked at her face, then the floor. “But I want you to know it will hurt me. Very deeply, in fact.”
In a world of secrets and lies the best way to make someone do your will is to be honest with them – one of the crowning ironies of espionage. Win their trust, make them want to help, then tell the truth. So that is what Jenny did.
She described her disillusionment with the operation; how she had realized Jake was a good man; why she thought Waits was working not for the good of Britain, but his own maniac delusions of power. As Jenny spoke she saw de Clerk’s heart and his head do battle. In the pacing, in the fingers that wrung around each other, in the glass of milk that lay half-drunk, condensation running down its sides.
“You say all this,” muttered de Clerk. “And it’s convincing, I’ll admit. But you don’t have any actual proof, do you?”
The whole gamble relied on her judgement that de Clerk was a ‘clever-stupid’ person. Jenny’s grandfather had taught her there were three types of people in the world. Stupid-stupid – well, they weren’t much good for anything. Clever-clever – that was her, even if she admitted it herself. And clever-stupid, like Jake. In her experience, geniuses were prone to the latter state: brilliant, but fundamentally lacking in judgement. A Churchill, a van Gogh. If de Clerk was clever-clever they were in trouble.
Jake was outside, eavesdropping via the open phone line in her pocket. Who would win in a fight between these two men? Jenny didn’t want to find out – she cared for them both. It was time to play the trump card.
When she reached into her pocket de Clerk jumped.
“It’s ok, Edwin,” she said. “I haven’t got a weapon.”
“Sorry. I’m feeling a bit jumpy. It’s been a crazy morning.”
“I understand,” said Jenny, a pen drive in her fingers. “Can I plug this into your PC?”
Jenny studied de Clerk’s reaction as the recording began to play. Davis and Guilherme filled the screen, larging it in an Ethiopian hotel room; those boasts about waterboarding were no more palatable with the passing of time.
“I don’t believe it,” de Clerk whispered. “I thought all this stopped years ago. And they planned to do it to a British journalist?”
But when the carnage at Debre Damo played out he was speechless.
“Why haven’t you sent this to the newspapers?” de Clerk said when it was over.
“It’s enough to send Frank down,” Jenny admitted. “But Charlie’s not implicated. Frank would say he was acting alone – and then it would be my word against theirs. You know Charlie’s standing in the Firm. There would be only one winner in that tussle. And you can see how they deal with their enemies. The only way is forward. Gather more evidence, blow the whole scandal out into the open.”
De Clerk staggered to the kitchen table and sat down, cradling his head in his hands. For a time there was silence. Then without looking up he said, “I’m not going to turn you in, Jenny. Of course I’m not.”
She walked over to de Clerk and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Edwin.”
De Clerk put his hand on hers. Then he sharply withdrew it, glancing up at her. “What were you even doing here at this time in the morning?”
Jenny stared out of the window, in the direction of the Thames. “When they caught me I was on the way to Vauxhall Cross,” she said. “I wanted to scope out which guards they had on, in case there was any chance of getting in.”
“But why?”
“Because there’s something in there that might solve this,” she said. “Something that might put them away – if only we could get to it.”
A thought occurred to de Clerk and his face brightened. “Well, I still work there, don’t I?”
Clever-stupid.