44. The Vanishing Englishman

Bocaito is packed. It’s ten minutes past nine when I push through the door towards the seating area at the rear of the restaurant. Waiters in aprons and white jackets are preparing canapés at the crowded bar. There’s a smattering of tourists eating an early dinner in the restaurant, but no sign of Lithiby. I’m given a pre-reserved table near the kitchen and listen to the constant clatter and sizzle of plates and pans as my mind races once again through the thesis. Is there a flaw? Is there still something I’m missing?

By half past nine Lithiby has still not shown. I order a second glass of wine and rub my right hand under the table, trying to soothe the intense pain in my fist. I go to the bathroom again and check my face for marks. A small scratch has appeared, unnoticed before, within the two-day stubble on my jaw. Kitson is still not answering his phone and it feels like Museo Chicote all over again, waiting for Arenaza to show even as Buscon was digging his grave. A British couple – The Rough Guide to Spain on their table next to a bottle of Vichy Catalán – have been arguing for twenty minutes about a flight back home in the morning. The man, bald and tired, keeps checking his watch, drinking the water constantly as his wife suggests over and over again that they ‘must order the cab for six o’clock’. Beside them, at a table tucked in the far corner, three quieter Americans are grazing on steaks and fish. Then the mobile phone pulses in my jacket pocket and I tear it out.

‘Richard?’

‘This is not Richard.’

It is as if the room tilts and makes strange, the cold air of shock enveloping me in a dizzy confusion. For an instant I can barely breathe as my body revolts at the sound of her voice. It can’t be. Not now. Not after everything that has happened tonight.

‘Katharine?’

‘Hello, Alec.’

I take the phone away from my ear and check the read-out. Número Privado. Then she speaks again.

‘John Lithiby’s not coming tonight. No doubt he sends his warmest regards. Last I heard John was earning $450,000 a year working for Shell out in Nigeria. So how have you been?’

She doesn’t let me answer. The voice doesn’t let me respond. It’s part of a script I haven’t read, words in a hideous scheme. I am on the point of challenging her, trying to find out how or why this could be happening, when Katharine Lanchester says, ‘The Central Intelligence Agency would just really like to take this opportunity to thank you for all of the hard work that you’ve done on our behalf over the course of the last few months. We really couldn’t have pulled this thing off without you. You’ve gotten so good, Alec. What happened?’

‘Kitson is CIA? Richard is an American?’

‘Well, Brown University out of Charterhouse, but we like to think of him as one of our own. His Mom’s American, after all. You were mirror-imaging, Alec. Seeing yourself in him, just as we knew you would.’

Katharine is laughing under this, contempt and delight in each revelation. I want to lash out at her. I feel more humiliation in this single instant than I have ever known in my life. I have been played for a fool by all of them, one after the other.

‘But how did you… What… I don’t…’

I cannot get the words out. The British couple are staring at me, as if sensing that something is not right. When I look at them their eyes flick away and there’s a split-instant realization that Michelle wasn’t Canadian SIS; she was American all along. Did Geoff and Ellie smother their accents? Did Macduff?

‘How did we know about you?’ Katharine asks, picking up on my question. ‘How did you fall for such a dumb trick?’ I look at my left hand and it is gripping the edge of the table so hard that I can see the white bones of my knuckles bulging like pearls. ‘Well, what can I tell you? It was all just such a coincidence. You dropped right out of the sky. There we were in Spain, just a small-time operation tracking Buscon, and who do we find on his tail? None other than Mr Alec Milius. As you can imagine, one or two people at Langley were kind of interested to see you, so we cooked up a little revenge.’

They weren’t tailing Buscon because of a consignment of Croat weapons. They were tailing him for something else. That explains why Kitson slipped up about Guantánamo. I try to maintain a physical dignity in this public place, but my body has cooked to a fever-sweat. It feels as if every part of me is shaking.

‘You see what happened, Alec? Is it starting to make sense? Luis was connected to A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist. A big player, in other words. Tried to sell uranium-enrichment equipment to the Libyans. Now we can’t have guys like that roaming the quiet European countryside, can we? He wasn’t looking out for a box of rifles for the Real IRA. Christ, you were so gullible.’

Her voice is exactly how I remember it, not a note change, not a day gone by. America’s seductive trap. Where is she speaking from?

‘You had no idea about the dirty war until I told you?’

‘Oh, that was such a bonus.’ Somebody laughs in the background. Fortner? ‘We must confess that without your help we would never have established a link between Luis and the Spanish government. The war would have gone right ahead and chances are that democratic Spain would now be on its knees.’ She pauses. ‘And we want to thank you for giving us that golden opportunity, Alec. Really we do. I needed a break. The Agency needed a break. You see how invaluable we are now to the Europeans? You guys can’t live without us.’

Questions start forming in my mind. Do they know about Carmen? I cannot work it out while Katharine is still talking; every one of her sentences seems to noose and tighten around my rage. Does the CIA know that Maldonado and de Francisco were Basque spies? Does that theory even hold any more? Again the British couple look up at me and I realize that I am breathing so loudly it must be audible to the nearby tables.

‘So here’s the deal.’ Katharine has cleared a slight catch in her throat. I can sense the coup de grâce and she delivers it with bitter precision. ‘There’s no job for you with MI6, OK? No precious work and no future for Alec Milius. Nobody has forgiven you for what you did and John Lithiby does not offer redemption. It was all for nothing. You suffered for nothing.’

With this my mood subsides in a switch to pure hatred. ‘I don’t care about the job,’ I spit. It is like the torture again, the same defiance in the face of my tormentors, as if I have been freed by the shame of defeat. There is nothing left to lose.

Yes you do,’ she replies, startled. ‘You care about the job. It’s all you’ve ever cared about -’

‘You killed Kate,’ I tell her.

She stops talking. There’s silence on the line, as if we have been cut off by poor reception, a glitch of technology. Then, very quietly, ‘I don’t ever want to hear that accusation repeated. We are not murderers. You believe what you want.’

She’s still angry about what happened, even after all these years. That gives me strength now. Later, when I am alone and going back over Kitson memories, the jar of Marmite at the safe house, the Hob Nobs and the car magazines, then I will feel humiliated. But at the moment it is enough to deny Katharine the triumph of her plan, just as Carmen and her accomplices were ruined by the failure of theirs. ‘You killed Kate,’ I repeat. ‘You killed two innocent young people with their whole lives ahead of them.’

‘Let me tell you something about that, Alec’ There is a hiss of stubborn control, a tone I remember from our final conversation in London, all those years ago. ‘Let me tell you about your girlfriends. Right now Sofía Church is looking at photographs of you and Carmen Arroyo rowing your nice little boat in the Parque Retiro. Right now, Sofía Church is looking at shots of her boyfriend kissing another woman…’