Crossfire

The best part of any MI6 file, as far as I was concerned, had always been the title, and this one said simply: 'The Need to Locate Dominik Condratowicz, Polish TV Journalist'.

The reports themselves might be full of gobbledegook, but the titles were always bang on the money. The best one I'd ever seen was: 'The Need to Assassinate President Milosevic of Serbia'. There hadn't been a yellow card on it, though, which was probably the reason he'd ended up in the dock at The Hague instead of dead in a Belgrade gutter.

I opened the folder to find just two printed pages of A4. The document might have been stamped by whoever had had to read it, but the signature page on the inside flap was missing.

The two pages included a digital photograph, probably from his passport application. It was definitely Dom.

I looked up. 'Locate? Don't the Firm know where he is? I assumed you—'

'He's disappeared. Nobody's heard from him.'

I ran a thumb over my stubble. 'He was pretty shaken after what happened, by all accounts. I left messages for him, and made arrangements for Media Ops to look after him when he turned up. It was all I could do before I flew out. I had some other stuff to see to here. Then I was going to make some calls. You sure he isn't just off on some story?'

'I don't believe so.' The Yes Man reached for the coffee and nudged a full cup my way. 'I'm still trying to sift through what I can rule in and what I can rule out. Did he mention anything out of the ordinary while you were there? Anything about his home life, family, Dublin, that sort of thing? Anything that might give us any indication of his whereabouts or plans?'

'Nothing. He just got on with his job, really. I'm not exactly a bosom buddy.'

The Yes Man sat forward and took one of the shortbreads. 'Did he say anything about his work, perhaps?'

I had to give him something or he'd know I was fucking him about. Which would mean Sundance and Trainers being told to fuck me about. 'Nothing much. I know he was fixated on the heroin trade, but on the whole Dom kept things close to his chest.'

The Yes Man sat back with his brew, deep in thought.

'You don't think he's been lifted, do you?'

He pursed his lips. 'It's a scenario, Nick.'

I frowned, and not just because of what he'd called me. If Dom was being held, the decision whether or not even to try to rescue him would be made very high up. It all boiled down to PR. What was the propaganda value of a rescue? Would it actually be better for the government if the fucker died? Would a nice beheading online get the public sparked up? Chances were, the Regiment had only gone in for that charity worker Norman Kember because somebody had done their sums and worked out there was more mileage in a recovery than a beheading. I could just hear the discussion. 'He's already done the interviews to camera. We've seen him making his statements online. Public opinion has already reached the height of shock and horror. There's nothing to be gained by letting him be killed. He's old, he's a peace worker. Let's see if we can get him back before his head rolls.'

Would the Yes Man help make the risk assessment? If the danger of SAS casualties was too high, the troopers would stay in their tents. The PR gain wouldn't be worth the pain, especially if the hostage got killed in the attempt. Maybe that was what this was about. They were going to send in Ks. It was a matter of economics as much as anything else. It cost the taxpayer three or four million pounds a time to train an SAS trooper. All I'd cost was the price of a cremation.

I scrolled down the page. Dom had read English literature at Krakow University and found a job straight away on a Polish national newspaper. The rest was platinum-plated history.

Now was the time to ask. 'He's not a British national. What do you want him back for?'

The Yes Man sighed and pushed the second folder across the table. 'Because Dominik Condratowicz is not just a journalist, Nick. He's an asset.'

30

People paid by Her Majesty's Government to provide information or 'keep their eyes open' are known as 'assistants', 'onside' — or 'assets'. Journalists have perfect cover because it's their job to investigate and be nosy. The Firm pays them, but only just enough to establish the contract. Money isn't the issue. They usually become assets for reasons of ideology, or simply to get themselves the inside track on any good leaks.

Frontline reporters aren't the only ones approached and asked if they'd like to 'do something interesting' for HMG. Newspaper editors are sometimes onside, though they're unlikely to be recruited directly. The Firm needs permission from the foreign secretary for that level of stuff, and they hate asking a politician for anything. They wouldn't like to be refused. On the other hand, if journalists are recruited early in their careers, it can eventually mean high-ranking assets in most news and media organizations. Whatever, reporters are the one group the Firm never fucks over: they never know where even the lowliest local stringer will land up.

The Yes Man tapped the folder in front of me. 'Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that Dominik Condratowicz should be seen in an entirely different light.' He lifted the cover. 'This is what happened to one of our people last year.'

I opened the folder to see half a dozen colour eight-by-tens of a young Arab, maybe early twenties, sitting on wet concrete. He was held upright by a pair of over-inflated forearms. The right one had an ageing scar that looked like a badly laid railway track. I flicked through the pictures with no idea if the man was dead or alive. His body was a mess of cuts, bruises and burns. His face was so swollen his eyes were forced closed and his lips were like plastic surgery gone wrong.

'They were taken in Afghanistan. An illegal prison. Freelance bounty-hunters, normally torturing their victims for information about the Taliban and al-Qaeda.'

I shrugged. 'There's a lot of those guys about over there. It's the new Wild West. Bad things are going to happen.'

'Condratowicz was in Kabul at the time, ostensibly filming a documentary. I have to ask myself whether there's more to that than meets the eye.'

One of the pictures was a wider shot of the room or cell. The door had a sheet of steel screwed over it and a gaoler's spyhole. The last one showed a tabletop with the legs removed, bolted to an oil drum. It looked like an oversized see-saw, but I knew this was no game. Two buckets of water stood next to it. A tap stuck out of the wall. A fat roll of clingfilm sat on a pile of empty hessian sandbags.

Waterboarding is guaranteed to get its victim telling everything he knows, and even some things he doesn't — anything to keep breathing. The physical experience is like being trapped under a wave. But that's fuck-all compared to the psychological horror. Your brain screams at you that you're drowning. And the reason I knew all this was because the Americans and the Brits had invented this shit.

'Then we have a major drugs haul unearthed in Basra, and yet again it happens that Dominik Condratowicz is in town. There is more. Believe me, I could go on. Stack up enough of them, Nick, and you have to start asking yourself whether they're not coincidences, but positive correlations.

'I know that he was with the FCO in Basra the day before a raid that resulted in the confiscation of a huge haul of heroin. What are we to make of that? Was Condratowicz colluding with others to misbrief the military for certain ends — for example, to disrupt or stamp out any competition to their trade? I just don't know. I don't know any of what he's been up to for sure, but I've started to wonder, for example, how a television reporter can afford a seven-million-euro house in the best street in Dublin…'

The Yes Man fixed his gaze on the garish neon across the road. The pause wasn't to give me a chance to ask a question. It was to give his words time to sink in.