Games Traitors Play (17 page)

Marchant was shown by the female
maître d'
to a back room of Goodman's, separated from the main restaurant by a screen.

‘A drink while you're waiting?' the woman asked, ushering him to a table that had been made up for two. She let her hand linger on his shoulder a moment longer than was appropriate. There were four other tables in the room, but they were empty. ‘Nikolai will be here in a few minutes.'

‘A whisky, thanks,' Marchant said. ‘Malt.' He had drunk a glass of wine at the gallery once he had seen others being served from the same tray, but he had declined a top-up, despite the persuasive charms of the waitresses. He wouldn't drink his malt until he had heard what Primakov had to say.

The taxi from MI5 had dropped him off in Maddox Street, outside the restaurant, where the parked cars were a wealthy mix of Porsches and Bentleys. He needed to talk to Primakov on his own, but it was no bad thing if Armstrong's people knew where he was. He thought for a moment about Prentice. He had looked tired tonight, too old for street work.

Goodman's served American steaks, but it was owned by a Russian who ran a chain of similar restaurants in Moscow. To judge from the main room, at least half the clientèle was Russian too. Marchant had seen few female diners when he was shown through to the back room.

He glanced at the starters on the menu – sweet herring with hot mustard – and listened to the subdued hubbub of conversation on the other side of the panel, which must have been more solid than it appeared.

Then suddenly Primakov was in the room, quieter now, taking a seat opposite him, leaning back to whisper something to the
maître d'
, who had reappeared with two crystal glasses of whisky. Marchant thought how at home he looked in a restaurant, his natural habitat. The waitress put the glasses down on the table then left the room, closing the sliding door firmly. They were alone.

‘I presume you've had the “big talk” with the Vicar,' Primakov began, burying the corner of a linen napkin under his chins and spreading the rest out across his chest as if he was hanging out the washing. His breathing was thickened by a slight wheeze. ‘Let MI6 believe what they want. Your father and I were very close, it is true – unnaturally so, I suppose. But I never once considered working for him. Please remember that.'

Marchant tried not to blink at the Russian's bold opening gambit. If Primakov was lying for the sake of Moscow Centre's ears, he was making a good job of it. For a split second, Marchant doubted everything – his father's judgement, his own, Fielding's. Maybe the Americans had been right to suspect the house of Marchant. Then he recalled the Vicar's words.
Betrayal requires faith. Don't expect the smallest sign that Primakov is one of ours. He'll give you nothing
. Marchant's immediate task, he told himself, was to be recruited by Primakov.

‘So why do you want to see me?' Marchant asked. ‘I don't really have the time or the desire to sit around discussing old times.'

‘You share a family look, and the same taste in whisky.' Primakov took a sip from his glass, ignoring Marchant's insolence. ‘Your father liked Bruichladdich, too. I ordered it in specially. It takes me back, just sitting here across the table from you. We shared many happinesses together, your father and me. They were good times.'

‘Different times. The world's moved on.'

‘Has it?' Primakov paused, raising a silver lighter to his cigarette.

Marchant wondered if his father might have been friends with the cultured Russian even if there hadn't been an ulterior motive. In Delhi, they had both enjoyed going to the theatre, visiting galleries, attending concerts, which had made meetings easier. And Primakov had an undoubted warmth about him: a camaraderie that drew people in with the promise of stories and wine, the stamina to see in the dawn.

‘When we were both first posted to Delhi, we used to argue late into the night over local whisky – Bagpiper in those days – about the Great Game, what our countries were doing there. Your father was an admirer of William Moorcroft, an early-nineteenth-century East India Company official who was convinced Russia had designs on British India.'

Marchant knew the name well. ‘He wanted to publish a book about Moorcroft,' he said. ‘It was going to be his retirement project. Unfortunately, he found himself retired earlier than expected, and wasn't ready to write it.'

‘No.' Primakov paused, lost in thought. ‘Moorcroft was also dismissed earlier than he intended. He took it badly, felt betrayed by his own country, just like your father, but he continued on his great quest to buy horses in Bokhara. Turkomans. He was a vet by training. He tried to reach Bokhara through Chinese Turkestan, but was held up in Ladakh, where he discovered he had a rival.'

‘A Russian?'

‘Persian-Jewish, a trader called Aga Mehdi. But he impressed our Tsar so much with his shawls that he was given an honorary Russian name, Mehkti Rafailov, and was sent to talk with Ranjit Singh, ruler of the Punjab kingdom, on behalf of Russia.'

‘So Moorcroft was right.'

‘Rafailov's orders were to open up trade routes, nothing more.'

‘Of course.'

‘What intrigued your father was the relationship between Moorcroft and Rafailov, who was due to arrive in Ladakh while Moorcroft was there. The British spy was keen to meet his Russian enemy, but Rafailov died in the Karakoram pass before he reached Ladakh.'

‘So they never met.'

‘No, but Moorcroft made sure that Rafailov's orphaned son was provided for and educated. He was an honourable man, respected his adversaries.'

‘Maybe that's why my father wanted to write about him. He respected you.'

‘And he had a son whom I promised to look after.' Primakov hesitated, but not long enough for Marchant to decide if he meant him or Salim Dhar. ‘I'm sure there would have been a market for the book,' he continued. ‘Maybe you should write it?'

‘I don't think you came here tonight to offer me a publishing deal.'

Primakov sat back, looked around and finished his whisky. ‘We are free to talk in here. The room was swept before we arrived. So tell me. How much did the Vicar explain to you? About your father?'

 

‘Nothing,' Fielding said, removing his headphones. The live feed had deteriorated until he could hear little more than white noise. He had heard enough, though. Marchant was being swept out of his depth.

‘The entire area's been jammed,' Armstrong said, putting one hand over her mobile. ‘Our best people are on it.'

That was what worried Fielding, but he didn't say anything. He wished MI6 was running the show, but London was Armstrong's patch and he needed her support, particularly as his own man, Prentice, had uncharacteristically messed up.

‘What about your officer in the restaurant?' he asked.

‘Shown the door after his starter.'

Fielding turned away and looked out onto the river, glowing in the evening sun. The encrypted feed from the restaurant was being relayed to his office and to no one else, given the extreme sensitivity of Primakov's case. Armstrong was one of the few who knew that Primakov had once been a British asset, and Fielding trusted her. It was Marchant who was starting to worry him.

Marchant glanced at Primakov, trying to read his face for more. His nose was big, slightly hooked. It was a strange question to ask.
How much did the Vicar explain to you?
What did the Russian want him to say?
He told me everything, that you betrayed Mother Russia and worked for my father?
The room might have been purged of British bugs, but Moscow would be listening in on their conversation.

‘He told me that there were doubts about my father's loyalty to the West. Fielding didn't personally believe them, but he said the Americans had harboured suspicions about my father for many years. But that was the nature of his job, the risk he took – when he agreed to run you.'

‘Run me?' Primakov managed a dry, falsetto laugh, shifting in his seat as it dissolved into a wheezy cough. Somewhere in Moscow Centre, Marchant thought, an audio analyst would be adjusting his headphones, calling over a superior. Had he overplayed it?

‘Fielding showed me some of the intelligence you supplied to him,' Marchant continued.

‘It is true, we gave your father some product once in a while, to keep his superiors happy, but it was nothing important.'

‘Chickenfeed?'

‘Organic. Nice writing on the label, but overpriced.'

Primakov paused, as if to reassess the rules of their engagement. Marchant wondered again in the ensuing silence if he had said too much. Then the Russian leaned forward, his voice suddenly quieter, like a doctor with news of cancer. Marchant smelt the garlic again as he traced a delta of broken blood vessels across Primakov's cheeks.

‘It was the least we could do, given the nature of the product your father was supplying us.' Primakov drew on his cigarette and sat back, watching Marchant, his barrel of a body turned sideways as he blew the smoke away into the middle of the room. ‘I think you already knew, deep down.'

Now it was Marchant's turn to shift in his seat. Primakov's words weren't a surprise, but they still shocked him. Up until this moment, he had tried to convince himself that the knowledge of his father's betrayal of America could be kept inside Fielding's safe, confined to an A4 piece of paper covered with green ink. Hearing a third party confirm it brought it out into the open, made it tangible.

‘You seem troubled,' Primakov said. ‘Hurt, perhaps.' His voice was even softer now, almost tender in tone. ‘Please understand why he never told you himself. It was not because he didn't trust you. He wanted you to come to it yourself, to reach your own, similar conclusions. And I don't think you are so far from the place that your father occupied.'

‘No.' It was time to give Primakov some encouragement, to tire on the line, but Marchant was struggling to sound convincing. Too many thoughts were chasing through his mind. What if his father had been happy to give more than he received?

‘Not everyone can boast of being waterboarded by the CIA, after all. And they accuse us of being animals. Understandably, you share a similar distrust of all things American, which is to be applauded. Apart from their grain-fed steaks from Nebraska, of course, which your father loved, just as I do. Come, we must eat.'

Marchant laughed. It was detached, out-of-kilter laughter. Then he laughed again, like the last man standing at a late-night bar.

‘What's so amusing?'

‘I came here tonight with orders to sound you out for recruitment, but now here you are trying to recruit me.'

‘I don't blame you for the confusion. Sometimes I find the Vicar's faith in his flock almost moving.'

Marchant looked hard at the Russian in the silence that followed.
Don't expect the smallest sign that Primakov is one of ours.
For the second time, as Primakov's words lingered in the twisting cigarette smoke, he wondered if the Russian was telling the truth and Fielding was wrong.
He'll give you nothing
. Perhaps there was nothing to give.

‘I'm not trying to recruit you, Daniel. I just want you to meet someone. Another son who has discovered he has much in common with his father. Family business.'

Marchant paused. Had he fought hard enough against the rod?

‘And if I don't want to meet him?' The words stuck in his throat. He realised how much he wanted to see Salim Dhar.

‘Moscow will have no option but to go public on your father, expose him for the traitor he was. Your government would no doubt respond in kind, accusing me of treachery, but then we would tell the world about Salim Dhar, that his biological father was the former head of MI6. I think the world would make up its own mind, don't you?' He paused. ‘Please, read this. It's a letter from Stephen, which I have kept with me until this day. I hope it will make things easier for you.'

Marchant looked at the folded letter before taking it, as much to steady his hand as wonder about its contents. He knew already that it was genuine, that the writing was his father's. He began to read, resting his hand on the edge of the table:

‘…
you can trust him as if he was a member of our family
.'

Salim Dhar rested the letter on his lap, tears stinging his eyes, and looked out of the cockpit at the slanting rain. It was only his second flight in the two-seater SU-25UB, but already he felt at home in the confined titanium-alloy space. It would take longer to adjust to the colossal G-forces that blurred his vision as the aircraft banked and climbed into the sky, but he was determined not to show any weakness.

Sergei, his Russian instructor, also known as the Bird, was sitting behind him, putting the plane through another roll, the Archangel countryside spinning around to settle above his head. There was something about Sergei that Dhar liked. He became a different person in the air, less lugubrious, as if all his worries had been left on the ground. And Sergei had plenty to worry about. According to Primakov, he had been one of Russia's best pilots until he had crashed a MiG-29 into the crowd at an air show, killing twenty-three people and ending his career. The crash still haunted him day and night.

‘I don't trust him,' Sergei said over the intercom, spinning the jet back over and pulling into a steep climb.

‘Who?' Dhar managed to say, his jaw heavy with G-force. He could feel himself being pressed down into his seat, the blood rushing to his legs and feet. In training, Sergei had taught him how to squeeze his abdominal muscles to prevent blood flowing to the lower body. He tried to squeeze, but his vision was already greying at the edges.

‘Primakov,' Sergei said calmly.

‘Why not?' Dhar harboured similar suspicions, but he was struggling to speak, unable to see anything now except blackness. He was close to losing consciousness as Sergei banked hard left.

‘Just a feeling. Are you ready to fly?' According to the dials swimming in front of Dhar, the plane was levelling out at 15,000 feet.

‘I'm ready,' Dhar said, his vision returning. Euphoria swept through him as he looked around, blood flowing freely to his brain. He had waited a long time for this moment.
Inshallah
, his new life was coming together. He could do this. What lay ahead suddenly seemed possible. More importantly, his past had shifted too, on a tectonic scale, giant plates of data slipping into place beneath the surface.

Primakov had left him twenty-four hours earlier, and in that time Dhar had read and reread the letter the Russian had given him, thinking back to the only time he had met his father, when he was being held prisoner at a black site facility in Kerala.
To Salim, the son I never knew.
South Indian
jihadis
were suspected of being behind a series of bomb attacks in Britain at the time, and Stephen Marchant, then Britain's head of MI6, had travelled all the way to Kerala to ask Dhar if he knew anything about the campaign. Dhar couldn't help him.

It was then, as the monsoon rain beat down outside, that Marchant had detonated a bomb of his own: Dhar was his own son.

‘If it's any consolation, I loved your mother,' Marchant had continued, walking around Dhar's dank cell. A solitary lightbulb hung from the ceiling. ‘I still do.'

Dhar had been too tired, tortured too many times, to feel anything at first. Instead, he just stared at the betel-nut juice stains that streaked down his cell walls. There was blood mixed in with the red marks; his own blood. Eventually, he looked up from the threadbare
charpoy
on which he was lying. Any anger he felt towards Marchant was tempered by relief that the man he had thought for so long was his father, a man he despised above all others, was no such thing. After a long pause, during which the rain outside increased to a deafening downpour, Dhar sat up with difficulty, and spoke.

‘How did you meet her?' he asked, rubbing his bruised and swollen wrists together. They were shackled and chained to a steel ring on the wall.

‘She worked as an ayah at the British High Commission when I was stationed in Delhi. 1980. She was there for a year, I think. Before she switched to the American Embassy.'

Dhar had cast his eyes down at the mention of America.

‘She asked me never to make contact with her or with you again. I agreed, with reluctance, but I always provided for you both, sending money once a month.'

Dhar wondered why the British spymaster had broken his promise. He could have sent a colleague to interrogate him. The south Indian rendezvous was a risk in itself, but the news Marchant had brought was far more dangerous, more compromising – for both of them. Western spy chief fathers
jihadi
. Then, as Marchant had talked on into the monsoon night, peppering his conversation with anti-American asides, Dhar had begun to understand. His world, far from being fractured by the revelation, had in some way become more complete.

‘The West is not as simple as your people sometimes like to think,' Marchant had said – the last words Dhar was ever to hear his father speak.

Now, here in his hands, 15,000 feet above the Archangel countryside, was written confirmation of what Dhar had barely dared to hope: a father who had the same enemies as him. If Primakov was to be believed, Stephen Marchant, Chief of MI6, had spent more than twenty years spying for the Russians, inspired by a mutual distrust of America.

‘Your father was a true hero of Russia,' Primakov had said. ‘It was an honour to work with him.'

Dhar knew it wasn't important, that,
inshallah
, he would answer to a higher calling, but it mattered. He was being asked to follow in his father's footsteps. And for a son who had never known paternal love, never been shown the way, the feeling of comfort was almost overwhelming.

He took one last look at the letter, then folded it into one of the clear plastic pockets of his flying suit.
I will not try to guess at what path led you to him, only to offer reassurance that I have trodden a similar one before you.

‘The
Grach
is yours,' Dhar heard Sergei say over the intercom. And for a brief moment, as his hands tightened on the stick and endless pine forests passed in a blur far beneath him, it felt as if life had a coherence that had so far evaded him.