"What was the Iran link?"
"The Iranians wanted mixing machines for their programme WIVID development. You know what that is, don't you? Weapons of Mass Destruction, microbiological, chemical and nuclear."
"But the export to Iran of those machines is blocked by legislahon, enforced by Customs and Excise. Isn't that right?"
"The machines are dual-purpose you were informed of that, and the Customs interest. The same machine can be legally exported to mix chewing-gum or toothpaste to industrial quantities, and illegally exported to mix explosives and the chemical precursors for nerve gases and bio-toxins, which are the anthrax or suchlike end of the business. His company's machines, with falsified export declarations, were for the equipment of military factories."
"What was his importance?"
"He's a sharp salesman, as I said, everybody's good guy. People warm to him, people want to be his friend. The man who is liked and makes friends, he gets access. The access was disproportionate to the importance of the product he supplied. No need to go to Tehran to meet him, have him down to Shiraz or Bandar Abbas, sort the problem out there and save time. He's a popular man and not stupid. He doesn't push his luck, just keeps his ears and eyes open, and he oils the friendships with gifts. It gets so that he's hardly noticed when he's there. I'm not exaggerating he was remarkable, one of the most valuable assets we've ever had."
"Who was the controller running him?"
"Ran him a bit myself at the end, when it was leading up to the sensitive time. We were into him about eighteen months before it finished. We'd picked up the illegality bit. He faced a Customs and Excise investigation and he'd have gone to prison. We had him well stitched, and he knew it. He was always very co-operative. You don't need to know who recruited him, did the heavy stuff and pulled him on-side they wouldn't give you the time of day."
"What happened "at the end"? What finished it?"
"We and other agencies became aware of the pace of the development of chemical warheads. We needed to obstruct, or at least impede, that progress. Necessary action was taken."
"What was the action taken?"
"You should never try to run, Mr. Markham, before you've learned to walk. That's not your concern.
"Sorry, but it is my concern if I'm to be in a position where I can assess the contemporary threat level."
"If you've ever rammed a stick into a wasps' nest then you make the wasps angry. They want to sting you. At which point you're advised to get the hell out. That'll have to be good enough for you.
"How would the Iranians have known that he was the source of information?"
"They're not idiots, certainly not in our eyes. At the same time they were clearing up the debris, he'd disappeared, left home and work. Yes, they could put that together. They would have been very angry.
"Has he been looked after?"
"What you already know new life, no Customs and Excise feeling his collar, new identity. We treated him well and expensively."
"That's a minimum of five years ago. Would their anger have lasted?"
"With the action that was taken, yes. The anger might have matured, but it wouldn't have diminished."
"What are we supposed to do now?"
"God, why'd you ask me? Water under the bridge, as far as we're concerned. He's no earthly use to us or anyone now, just another engineer doing whatever engineers do."
"But if he was brilliant and remarkable, we owe him."
"Understood you've done that, offered help. I know his reaction too. He's made his bed. We don't acknowledge debt to civilians, businessmen. They work for us, we explain the risks, they stand on their own feet. Actually, we were surprisingly generous in this case. Nothing is owed."
"One last thing. What was the quality of the information on the renewed threat?"
"There's an American in Riyadh, a funny little fellow from the FBI. He's their Iran guru. He dug up Perry's name, a little consolation on a failed raid. If you call him, don't have a pending appointment and don't expect him to draw breath and let you get a word in. Get the message Perry or Hughes is a spent cartridge, he's of no importance. At the reception they'll show you the lavatory. The American in Riyadh is Littelbaum…"
The electric fan always distorted the television picture, and the cranking air-conditioner set in the wall did the damage to the sound. Mary-Ellen was responsible for catching the local-language news programme because Littelbaum found it hard to remember schedules. He was at his desk, the fan blast riffling the papers in front of him. This small section of the embassy building that he used with Mary-Ellen and the larger area in an adjacent corridor, the Agency's place, were not served by the building's main air-coolant system. The pipes had been cut off and sealed. A security review, two years back, had decided that the Bureau and the Agency should be protected from the possible hazard of lethal gases being fed into the system, so they had their own air-conditioners, a nightmare of noise and unreliability that needed the back-up of electric fans.
The local-language news bulletin was usually a catalogue of the King's palace meetings and the public appearances of the prime princes. The picture was awful, the sound worse, and the content negligible, so he let her monitor it. Even above the clatter of the air-conditioner and the whine of the fan, he heard her gasp. Littelbaum swung in his chair.
The man's head was down, his voice a monosyllabic whisper. Goddammit… The man was dressed in a white robe, like a long shirt. dress, was round-shouldered as if the hope had gone from him. Under the loosely draped gutra, the scarf covering his head, his eyes had lost their light. Damn, shit, damn… The man mouthed a rehearsed confession. Littelbaum listened as he confessed to terrorism and subversion of the kingdom. He was shrunken, as if dehydrated, from when Littelbaum had last seen him, dragged in the sand towards the waiting helicopters. The bastards, the lying, deceiving, double-talking bastards… He grabbed his herringbone jacket, and ran, a fast waddling gait, for the door, the corridor, the grille gate where the Marine stood guard, the elevator, and the ambassador's floor.
He stood to his full squat height, and his body shook with anger as he hammered his complaint.
"It is just obstruction. I have been blocked at General Security six times and I have made two dozen, more, calls to General Security, the ministry, God knows who else. I have not only been denied the chance to talk to this man myself, I have not been permitted to read the interrogation dossier. They are supposed to be fucking allies -I know, sir, about their delicate sensibilities, and I know they are a proud and independent people, and please don't tell me to humour them, but I don't give a shit what happens in this country. The place is a cess-pit, it is corrupt, devious, lying, complacent. Americans died in Dhahran and Riyadh. If this man is on TV and making a confession, then he has been tried, convicted, condemned. Three Americans died in Riyadh, nineteen in Dhahran. Finding the killers of Americans is my job. This man, sir, was in contact with an organizer who I am paid to track and find. This man could give me the name and the face of that organizer, but I am blocked. When he has been, one-way ticket, to Chop-chop Square, I have lost the chance to get from this man that information. I was so goddamn close. So what the fuck are you going to say to our good sweet allies? I have been working more than two years for this one chance so I can hunt the bastard down. What are you going to say?"
The ambassador wrung his hands and said he would make telephone calls, which was what he always said. Littelbaum went back to his section. The fan blew the papers on his desk and Mary-Ellen put a decent slug of 'brown' in his coffee.
The coffee, laced with whiskey, might just make him forget that he had no face and no name to work towards, and that he did not know where the footprints led.