‘That’s not what either of the As in NASA stand for,’ Dixon said.
‘You sure?’ The grin on Murphy’s face faded as soon as he finished his joke. ‘This is a mess, Patrick.’
‘That it is, Phinn.’
‘Want another one?’ Murphy asked, offering Dixon his cigarette case.
‘Thanks, but one’s enough for me.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Murphy prepared another cigarette for himself as he made his way to the door. ‘See you tomorrow, if we both still work here by then.’
CHAPTER 35
Knox’s hangover was vicious. His head was pounding, his mouth was dry, and he could barely focus. He couldn’t remember how long he’d stayed at the bar under Tisbury Court. The taste of whisky was still on his tongue, but it was mixed with enough other flavours for it to feel like a drop in a large ocean of alcohol. He wasn’t sure what else he’d drunk, or eaten, but given how queasy he felt he was fairly sure he’d skipped dinner.
He also had no idea how or when he’d got home. Or who with. Someone was lying next to him in his bed, completely covered in sheets that rose and fell in time with their unconscious breathing. Knox had no memory of meeting anyone last night. But he clearly had. At some point he’d work out what had happened. But first, he wanted to know who was in his kitchen, loudly grinding coffee beans.
He slid out of his bed and slipped on a robe. He left the stranger under the covers and walked out into the kitchen, half-expecting to see Peterson waiting to question him about his ungentlemanly nocturnal habits. Instead, he found a young woman pouring two cups of fresh coffee.
This was the second time in three days someone had surprised him in his own home – the third if he counted the person still asleep in his bed. Through the haze of his hangover it took him a moment to recognise her pixie-cut hair and realise that he’d met her before.
‘So, you’re not Kaspar’s assistant, then?’ he said. His voice was croaky. He picked up the coffee she’d made for him and took a tentative sip, letting a small amount of the hot liquid mix with whatever was still sloshing around in his stomach.
‘Afraid not,’ she replied, her Midwestern accent coming through even in this short phrase.
‘Are you working for Peterson?’ he asked, realising she was also the right size and build to be the person in the hat who had followed him two nights ago.
She shook her head. ‘I’m a friend.’
He resisted the dismissive grunt he felt in his throat. ‘What were you doing in Cambridge?’ he asked instead.
‘The same thing as you, I reckon,’ she replied. ‘Not finding the answers I was looking for.’
Knox made a mental note to have some better locks fitted to his front door as she slid a photograph over the kitchen counter to him. It was a slightly blurred, blown-up image of a woman on a street. Knox reached out to pick it up, wincing as his side reminded him of the kicking it had taken last night. He didn’t recognise her, or any details in the background of the picture that would tell him where it had been taken. All he could see was that whoever she was, she looked like she’d been through hell.
‘Who is she?’ he asked. ‘And who are you?’
‘I’m Abey Bennett, CIA. And that is Irina Valera. She is, or was, one of the Soviet Union’s most promising physicists. She disappeared in Leningrad three years ago, and no one has seen or heard of her since. Until she walked into the Swedish embassy in Helsinki yesterday afternoon.’
Knox looked at the photo again. ‘Very interesting, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.’ He took another, larger gulp of the coffee and briefly wondered about finding some food before his gut confirmed it wasn’t ready for that just yet.
‘Before she disappeared, Miss Valera was working on manipulating radio waves. The same kind of manipulation your dead Italians were working on’ – she took her own sip of coffee for dramatic effect – ‘and that Mr White is so fond of.’
Knox slowly lowered his cup. He’d been happy to entertain Bennett, whoever she was, while he woke up and got his head straight. The photo of the woman meant nothing to him, and she could easily have learned Bianchi and Moretti’s names from Kaspar just by waiting for him to return to his office after his encounter with Knox. But her knowing who White was and about Operation Pipistrelle told Knox two things. First, she was a bona fide member of the intelligence community. And second, one of MI5’s most closely guarded secrets was out. He needed to tread very carefully for the next few minutes and find out exactly what she knew.
‘Bianchi and Moretti were just a couple of opportunists,’ he said, giving her MI5’s de facto official line.
‘Maybe they were. But they were killed because of their work.’
‘That’s supposition.’
‘This is all supposition,’ she replied, a smirk on her lips. ‘That’s what spies do. We suppose.’
Knox had to give her that. ‘The investigation into Bianchi and Moretti is no longer active.’
‘Your behaviour suggests otherwise,’ she said.
Knox wondered how much she really knew, and how much she was fishing. He’d stored the crate from the Italians’ flat in his bedroom wardrobe after he’d found Peterson rifling through its contents. And she definitely couldn’t know about the new papers he’d found in Deptford, unless everything she’d told him was a lie and she was working for the people who had come after him under Trafalgar Square. But he doubted it. However, he also doubted that she wasn’t above having given the rest of his flat a quick once-over while he was still asleep.
‘MI5’s interest in them has ended,’ he said.
‘Which makes sense, if someone’s trying to cover their ass,’ Bennett replied. ‘You’re not the only one who thinks there’s a wolf in your henhouse.’
‘There’s no proof MI5 has been compromised.’ Knox was aware he sounded like Peterson when he’d voiced the exact same idea to him outside the Fountain.
‘Well you sure are acting like there is, and here’s the evidence,’ Bennett said, pointing at the photo of Valera.
‘That’s a big leap,’ he said, covering his relief with another swig of coffee.
‘This is a big problem.’ She wasn’t smirking any more. ‘We were watching Bianchi and Moretti too. They were murdered, and now there’s a Russian genius in the same field suddenly in play. There’s no way they aren’t connected.’
Bennett had made the link herself the night before. It was what made her finally decide it was time to talk to Knox.
‘And, for argument’s sake,’ Knox replied, ‘so what if they are?’
‘We’re peering through the keyhole of a door that’s about to be thrown open. Whoever is at the front of this technology will have the power to spy on anyone, anywhere, any time.’
‘Big Brother isn’t real,’ Knox said.
‘Not yet he isn’t,’ Bennett replied. ‘But one day he will be. If we’re lucky it’ll be a friendly face watching over us. But what if it isn’t? Living under constant surveillance. No more privacy. Never knowing who we could trust.’
If Knox had any other job, he’d think she was crazy. But he was a spy, and as alarmist as he thought Bennett was being, he knew what she was suggesting wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
‘You can’t stop progress,’ he said after a moment, now repeating the phrase White had used on him countless times over the last six months whenever he’d expressed doubts about Atlas.
‘No,’ she replied between sips of coffee, ‘but you can guide it in the right direction. Make sure the right people are in control.’ She picked up the photo of Valera. ‘This will be circulated to the heads of MI5 and Six this morning as part of our regular information exchange. By now, the Russians will have realised one of their prized scientists is missing, and they’ll want her back. If they’ve turned someone here, they’ll send them after her. But if we get Valera first, we can secure a vital asset for both our countries, and set a trap for the mole.’