THE SUN MOVED IN THE SKY. STILL NOBODY CAME TO HIS aid. How could that even be, in a city like Cairo, where one was never alone? There was always someone watching. It had just taken him a while to figure out who they were.
When he did, it made his name.
But first there was Opal.
*
‘There are many kinds of courtship and seduction, Vasily,’ Edgar had told him once, his second year at the Advanced School. ‘The bloom of first love, the fumbling passion of adolescence. There is the ritual of mutual attraction, the pretence and counter-pretence of observing every mannerism on the surface, yet sending subtle signals to each other. A sort of speaking in codes. It is a dance, and when it is at last consummated it is not yet over, though some fizzle out quickly. Others last into a marriage, almost—’
‘We are talking about recruitment, now?’ Vasily said.
Edgar sighed. ‘You must learn not to be so bloody blunt,’ he said.
‘Sorry.’
‘You can force a man to become a source,’ Edgar said. ‘Blackmail him, have power over him. This is true in any relationship. Others may be more like a fling, even a transaction. They’ll come to you, wanting money, wanting something they don’t have. Your average spy is probably in middle age. He drinks too much. He is single or divorced, and at any rate unhappy. And he has money troubles. This is as true for the Western spy as for the Soviet. Keep an eye for men like these, present yourself, and they will make themselves available for a price. Just never mistake the exchange for true love.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you, Edgar…’ Vasily said.
‘A true source,’ Edgar said, ‘what you’d call a spy, Vasily, will only come willingly. He will do it for reasons that you may well never understand. It would be ideology, only ideology is never a true enough explanation. You could say faith, but the truth is even I, having been one, cannot say for sure. A true spy, like true love, is a rare and wonderful thing, and seldom encountered in the wild. He is worth waiting for, and when you see him, hold your nerve. It is a courtship, Edgar. It is a dance.’
‘Who recruited you?’ Vasily said, discomfited.
Edgar smiled.
‘A dear woman,’ he said. ‘A dear and ruthless woman, who saw me for what I was long before I saw myself. She runs a bookshop in some English seaside town now… I want you to have this.’
He reached in his pocket and brought out an old, battered pocket watch on which the gold paint was peeling. Edgar felt it with his fingers, as though trying to smooth the metal. He handed it to Vasily. It felt warm to the touch. At the base of the watch, in faded letters, was the name Feebes.
‘An old family heirloom,’ Edgar said. ‘But I have no children, and I find I have no use for it. I don’t know why I kept it with me all these years. Sentimental, I guess. I’d like you to have it.’
‘Thank you,’ Vasily said, touched. ‘I really couldn’t, Edgar.’
Edgar shrugged.
‘I don’t need it,’ he said.
Vasily slipped it into his pocket.
‘What’s Feebes?’ he said.
‘An old family,’ Edgar said. ‘They rose to power with the empire and as the empire fades their power does too. I was never sure how my mother got this. I had it evaluated in London by a watchmaker on Bond Street once but he couldn’t tell me much beyond that it was a cheap but sturdy construction, and that a small number of them were etched and plated on behalf of the House of Feebes for its employees back in the 1850s. It is only worth a few quid, even now.’
‘I will cherish it,’ Vasily said—
*
Why was he thinking about the stupid gold watch now? He didn’t even have it anymore. He’d given it to Soraya.
Where was the rat? He hadn’t come back. Vasily missed the rat all of a sudden. The thought of not having any company at all was terrifying. He didn’t want to die alone. Real spies, agents, they died in violent ways. Executed. The Egyptians hanged the ones they caught. The Soviets shot them. The Americans used the electric chair. But case officers died in their beds, surrounded by family. This just wasn’t fair. He wasn’t supposed to be here!
‘Tell me about Opal,’ Saakashvili demanded one night. They were working late in the rezidentura.
‘That’s none of your business, Igor,’ Vasily said.
‘Is he a man? A woman? Where does he get his material from?’
‘You know I can tell you none of that. Why don’t you go back to making plans to assassinate Nasser?’
‘Why would I want to assassinate Nasser?’ Igor said, confused. ‘But I have plans in place for when the American president visits Cairo.’
‘You want to assassinate the American president? Also, why would he ever come to Cairo?’
‘I don’t want to assassinate him,’ Igor said. ‘It’s my job to have a plan for it, Vasily. Are you stupid or something?’
‘How would you do it?’ Vasily asked, interested despite himself.
‘Bomb at the airport,’ Igor said. ‘Sniper on stand-by.’
‘How are you going to get a bomb into the airp— Never mind.’
‘It’s easy,’ Igor said. ‘Egyptians have lax security.’
‘You’d start World War Three if you carried out an assassination on Kennedy,’ Vasily said.
‘I don’t make that kind of decision,’ Igor said happily. ‘Now, tell me about Opal.’
‘Opal is just a source.’
‘I just don’t see it,’ Igor complained. ‘You’re a nobody, Vasily. A little KGB rat from Leningrad who didn’t do well enough at the Advanced School to go somewhere exciting like Washington. Cairo is where they dump second-rate people – myself excepted, of course.’
‘Why are you excepted?’ Vasily said.
‘I’m very good at my job,’ Igor said.
‘Then why were you assigned to Cairo?’
Igor shrugged. ‘I just needed to lie low for a while.’
‘Why, who did you sleep with, Semichastny’s wife?’
Semichastny was chairman of the KGB. Their boss. Vasily only saw him once, when he came to the Advanced School.
‘His secretary,’ Igor muttered.
‘Is that a punishable offence?’
‘He is apparently very fond of her. Who knew!’ Igor said.
‘You could have married her,’ Vasily said.
‘She was already married.’
‘Ah.’
‘Tell me about Opal.’
Vasily dropped the casual tone.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why do you need to know? Who are you going to tell? Do you work for the Americans, Igor?’
‘What? No!’ Igor said, alarmed. ‘Just making conversation—’
‘Got you!’ Vasily said. He started to laugh. ‘You should have seen your face,’ he said.
‘You bastard.’
‘Don’t ask me about Opal again,’ Vasily said. ‘Or I’ll tell Kirpichenko.’
‘Bastard,’ Igor said. But he fell quiet after that.
*
‘Igor was asking about Opal,’ Vasily told Kirpichenko. ‘How much do you trust him?’
‘How much do I trust you, Vasily?’ Kirpichenko said. He looked annoyed. ‘How much do you trust Opal?’
‘He gives us good material,’ Vasily said.
‘Good but low grade,’ Kirpichenko said. ‘If I was a suspicious person I’d say it was the sort of material meant to build confidence in a source without really giving anything away.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Vasily said.
‘I’m not. I’m telling you,’ Kirpichenko said. ‘He needs to prove himself. Give us something real.’
‘He is a long-term prospect,’ Vasily said. ‘A few more years, he will move up, he will have more access. We’ve got to play the long game here.’
Kirpichenko shrugged. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That’s one possibility. But Moscow is telling me to cut him loose. If he isn’t genuine, Vasily, then he is trying to play you.’
‘He’s genuine,’ Vasily said.
‘Then let him prove it.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘What about that girlfriend of yours, though?’ Kirpichenko said.
‘Who?’
‘Henrietta Feebes. She is connected. Is she useful?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
‘Then bloody make her your girlfriend.’
‘I don’t think she goes that way,’ Vasily said. ‘She wants to do business in Russia, though.’
‘Yeah? I’m not in the trade delegation, last I heard.’
‘We can offer her preferential treatment. Build the connection that way.’
‘I’ll kick it upstairs,’ Kirpichenko said. ‘Her dad was in Parliament, her granddad was something big in the navy.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose she’s best handled at a distance,’ he said.
‘That’s what I figured, too,’ Vasily said.
‘Well, get lost then, will you? Come back when you have something real for me.’
*
This was it, he thought miserably, sitting at the bar at the Balmoral. This was the fine art of spying. Rooting through garbage hoping to find a bone the rats hadn’t gnawed on so much already that it still had some meat left. This wasn’t the Rosenbergs or Klaus Fuchs, smuggling nuclear plans under the Americans’ nose. Even Edgar Waverley, high up as he had been in MI6, what real material did he ever procure – what difference had he ever made? And next to them, Vasily was just an errand boy with an allowance.
‘Hey,’ Pikorski said. He came over and sat down, smiling that smile that was sardonic or boyish, depending which way the light fell on it. ‘Bad day at the office, Vas?’
He motioned to the waiter, who hurried over with a bottle of Dom Pérignon.
‘Expensive,’ Vasily said.
‘Business is good,’ Pikorski said. He touched Vasily’s hand lightly. ‘How have you been?’
‘Fine,’ Vasily said. ‘It’s just hard to make new business, you know? Egypt wants to buy all the weapons for that war they’re going to have, but I don’t sell guns, I sell…’
‘Tractors,’ Pikorski said.
‘Right.’
‘Moskvitch cars.’
‘Right.’
‘Red Moscow perfume. Zorki cameras. Smirnoff vodka.’
‘There’s real money there, Daniel.’
‘I know,’ Pikorski said. ‘I have been talking to Henrietta. She is interested. Well, not in tractors. But luxury brands. Vodka, perfume, furs. She thinks they could do well on the British market and in the Far East.’
‘Doesn’t help me, though, does it?’ Vasily said gloomily. He drank the French wine but it just tasted like fizz.
‘What do you need?’ Pikorski said.
‘Something better than good, Daniel.’
‘Bosses giving you trouble?’
‘What boss doesn’t?’ Vasily said.
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’ Vasily said. ‘Do you understand?’
‘I said I understand, Vasily!’
For just a moment the mask of affability slipped, and Vasily got a glimpse of the real Daniel Pikorski.
Or did he? This was the problem in this line of work. You could never really tell.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right. Let’s not talk about work.’
‘Want to hit the casino tonight?’ Daniel said, jovial as ever, the mask – if that’s what it was – firmly back on.
‘I thought I might stay here and drink,’ Vasily said.
Now Pikorski genuinely smiled. ‘My,’ he said. ‘We really are feeling sorry for ourselves tonight. You want misery? I have a better idea than the hotel. Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’ Vasily said.
‘You’ll see.’
‘It’s a surprise, is it?’ Vasily said.
Daniel looked over his shoulder at Vasily and grinned.
‘It’s a birthday party,’ he said.