15
He woke at six and checked his nose. It wasn’t actually broken. He could breathe through it, but it was bruised a faint purple and slightly swollen, which would make his surveillance that much harder.
Beneath his suit and tie he wore the London T-shirt and a pocket held the white socks. He took the half-empty Sunday morning tube to Hampstead, then walked up to East Heath Road. Among the facades looking out over the park was an inconspicuous Georgian belonging to a man named Edward Ryan.
There were two London vignettes within Dzubenko’s stories, and Milo had been assigned to verify one that focused on a man the newspapers commonly described as “xenophobic, racist, and nationalist,” much like the political party he headed. Despite having been the subject of exposés by the Guardian and BBC’s Panorama linking it and its leader to pro-Nazi movements, the party had gained 4.6 percent in the most recent round of local elections.
Drummond had briefed him in the Explorer at JFK while Einner, still beside him, listened. Assumedly, he had received his brief beforehand. Drummond first showed Milo a photograph of a trim, gray-tinted Englishman in a bowler. “Edward Ryan, national chairman of the Union of British Nationals. According to Marko, he’s on the receiving end of Russian money funneled through the SSU. Essentially, Moscow’s funding the revitalization of the UBN. Once the party gets a member into Parliament, Moscow can point to the growing racism in England. That in turn will energize the anger of British Muslims and lead to deeper divisions. That’s long-term. In the meantime, Moscow and Kiev get inside information on the Labour Party, which the UBN regularly spies on.”
Beside him, Einner said knowingly, “Why risk sending in your own people, when a bunch of xenophobes will do it for you?”
The question, of course, was how to verify that this was true. On that point, Drummond repeated Dzubenko’s own suggestion. “On the second to last Sunday of each month, Ryan passes Labour Party information to the SSU’s representative, who he thinks is a Ukrainian businessman sharing his interest in racial purity. You will shadow him, and if he meets the representative you’ll ID him for me.”
“The head of the party does this?” Milo asked doubtfully.
“Trust, Marko tells us, is in short supply in the UBN. He’d rather do it himself.”
Ryan’s Sunday itinerary was no secret. An adoring interviewer had, in December, spelled it out in order to show what a busy and important man the politician was. At eight o’clock, he went for a jog on the Heath. By ten thirty, he was in his front pew for the Anglican St. John-at-Hampstead’s parish Eucharist, having walked the distance along busy Heath Street, where the occasional supporter (few and far between in an area full of liberals and Muslims and Jews) could shake his hand. When the interviewer asked how a man of his high principles could take part in the services of a church with a reputation for encouraging multicultural and interreligious cohesion, Ryan smiled and said, “My community is my community. The effort to clean white Britain must begin on our own streets.”
Afterward, like any respectable family man, he returned home for tea and newspapers, then took his two sons, six and nine, to whatever Sunday activity had been decided upon that week.
Milo had been over the schedule the previous night, considering where Ryan might best hand over information. Each place, it seemed, was perfect. The expanse of Hampstead Heath was classic dead-letter drop territory. Pass-offs could be made all along Heath Street, and it was part of the nature of church that its members mingled and whispered to one another. Children’s events, as Milo knew, divided instantly into children on one side and parents on another, and the parents quickly sank into lengthy chats. There were any number of ways for Ryan to pass on information, if he were going to pass on anything at all.
Milo found a spot in the park and pressed his phone to his ear, so that in his suit he looked like a churchgoer involved in early business. He drifted to some bushes and used the camera phone to zoom in on the front of the house. Tourism had long ago eschewed the high-end phones that were a magnet for thieves, instead making its own adjustments to mundane models, like increasing the camera range and resolution of this store-bought Nokia.
Just after eight, Ryan emerged in jogging pants and a sweatshirt. He walked briskly down the sidewalk, knees high, then crossed into the park and began his morning run. No security detail followed him.
The environment worked to Milo’s advantage. Winter had stripped the concealing foliage of its leaves, and the Heath’s naturally rolling terrain gave him numerous vantage points. While Ryan was in motion, the chance of a drop was unlikely; anything thrown on the ground could easily be intercepted by passersby. It was during the pauses-and despite Ryan’s air of athleticism, there were plenty-that Milo brought the camera to his eye and zoomed in on the man’s hands. Two stops at trees, where he leaned against the trunk and tugged his ankles up high behind himself, and three stops at benches. At the third one, he reached into a pocket in his running pants but only took out a pack of cigarettes, which went back into his pocket. While he smoked, Milo found a better position, then watched him deposit the butt into a trash can. At one point, Ryan ran into a friend, also jogging. They shook hands, the friend still bouncing in his springy shoes, and talked for a couple of minutes. Milo took photographs of the entire encounter.
Ryan returned home by nine thirty. Milo found a trash can, in which he dropped his jacket and tie, and slipped on his sunglasses, so that when Ryan left for church he was a slightly different man.
Ryan reemerged in a charcoal suit, joined by a thin, birdlike wife and his two cleaned and pressed sons. Heath Street was waking up, the stores just opening. While in most of London blue laws kept Sunday shop hours to a minimum, tourist areas like Hampstead were exempt, and the mixed population raised their blinds in preparation for the rush of Sunday shoppers arriving from quieter neighborhoods.
The Ryans paused three times along that walk, and Milo photographed each encounter. The first was with an old woman heading in the same direction. Mrs. Ryan approached her and helped her cross the street. Then, after a moment’s consultation, the whole family remained with the woman, keeping to her shuffling pace. Next, a heavy white-haired man shook Ryan’s hand in both of his, grinning madly, his pink cheeks glowing. Ryan made a joke, which caused the man to erupt in fits of laughter, then patted his shoulder to send him on his way. The third encounter occurred outside a halal butcher’s, when a bald younger man stopped Ryan, shook his hand, and whispered something close to the side of his face. Ryan smiled broadly but didn’t laugh. As they talked, a bearded man in a taqiyah opened the butcher shop’s front door, and both men stopped their conversation to stare at him. Then the bald man left, and the family continued with the old woman past the Hampstead tube station to Church Row, where more Georgian houses led down to the crowd of parishioners entering St. John-at-Hampstead.
Though there were plenty of ideal aspects to passing messages in a church, the Ryans sat, without fail, in the front pew, a location that precluded any secret conversations. The only chances were just before services, or just after, as they greeted their fellow worshippers. From across the street, Milo shot pictures of Ryan’s various handshakes, then headed back to Heath Street until services ended. He took advantage of the opening shops to buy a pair of jeans, a jacket, and some sneakers, which he carried in a bright red shopping bag. As he hurried back to the church, he noticed a Hyundai parked halfway down Church Row, with a man in his fifties sitting behind the wheel. He glanced at the face and kept moving toward the church.