The best way to deal with Bokus’s aggression, Miles had learned over the years, was to punch back hard. He said sharply now, ‘What’s your point?’
Miles could see Sandy Gunderson, the Director of Counter-Intelligence and Bokus’s boss, sitting next to him. His face was a study in bland neutrality. Miles thought there was something bloodless about the man; he was entirely unlike his predecessor, the legendary Tyrus Oakes, who had been a much-admired character, a wry, diminutive Southerner with gentle manners that belied a will of steel and a penchant for writing copious notes during meetings on old-fashioned yellow legal pads. Gunderson, by contrast, kept his notes strictly in his head, and his desk and office were almost fanatically tidy, and as neutral as his expression now.
Across the Atlantic, Bokus sat back in his chair. ‘I’m not making any point,’ he snapped. ‘Just questioning the timing of all this. We tell the Brits we don’t want to contact Mischa since we’re trying to get a fix on his brother, and then lo and behold, up pops Mischa himself, demanding a meeting. Not with us, but with the Brits, no less.’
Miles was shaking his head. ‘If you’re suggesting this is a put-up job, I can’t agree. Until now, the Brits hadn’t heard from Mischa any more than we had. I saw the postcard Mischa sent. It’s legit.’
‘A postcard from Berlin,’ Bokus said scathingly. ‘It wouldn’t take Einstein to manufacture that.’
Gunderson’s expression remained impenetrable. Miles said firmly, ‘I’ve worked with the Brits before – almost as long as you, Andy. It’s not the kind of stunt they’d pull. And Liz Carlyle is a straight-shooter. Even you have to admit that.’
Bokus looked ready to dispute this, but then thought better of it. He sat back, lips pursed like an unhappy bullfrog.
Gunderson spoke at last, his voice roughly half the decibel count of Bokus. ‘You say that Mischa wrote to Miss Carlyle specifically?’
‘That’s right. She met with him in Tallinn, if you remember.’
‘Does she have any idea what he wants?’
Miles said, ‘No more than we do. But she’s determined to go herself, and given that he wrote to her, I think she’s right. You have to remember that Mischa has lived in Britain; he was at college here. He’s met Liz Carlyle and he must trust her as he wants to meet her again. If we sent one of ours instead he might well abort the meeting. We’d probably lose him for good then.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’ It was Bokus again.
Miles nodded. ‘You’re right; I can’t. But then we can’t be completely sure of anything about this. It could be a set-up but I think it’s very unlikely.’
Was there the hint of agreement on Gunderson’s face? Miles hoped so, but it was impossible to tell, especially with the flickering feed of the video. Whatever Gunderson decided, both Miles and Bokus would have to accept it.
‘Gentlemen, I can see you’ve got a difference of opinion.’ He turned to Bokus. ‘Andy, we have no reason to distrust the Brits. If they say this is a legitimate approach, I’m sure it is. Miles has seen the communication and knows the circumstances of its arrival. If Mischa wants a meeting he must have something to say; so we should listen. It may be directly relevant to his brother’s position and if so we need to know what it is.’ He turned back to the camera to look at Miles. ‘Tell the Brits we have no objection to this meet. Offer them backup in Berlin if they want it, which I doubt, and make sure you get briefed by them pretty damn quick after Carlyle sees the guy. OK?’
‘Yes. Many thanks,’ said Miles as Gunderson stood up and moved out of camera range. As the video feed terminated and the picture faded, all Miles could see was the angry face of Andy Bokus.
10
It had been a dreadful week in Brussels, Dieter Nimitz thought, though flying home to Hamburg for the weekend wasn’t necessarily an improvement. A senior officer in the office of the EU Commissioner for Refugees, he worked devising and trying to implement European-wide policy on migration and refugees, but despite his best efforts and those of his colleagues the situation was a shambles. Thousands of refugees were pouring into the south of Europe and the member countries of the EU could not agree on even the first step of what to do about it.
Matters weren’t helped for Dieter by his boss, a Dutchman called Van der Vaart, who was both critical of his staff and unhelpful. Dieter mentally divided the Dutch into two categories: the benign, pipe-smoking type, with liberal opinions, and the less common Calvinist sort, dour and right-wing. Van der Vaart was decidedly of the latter, and it made him an intolerant taskmaster, always looking for someone to blame. Dieter, the most senior of the staff, bore the brunt of the Dutchman’s criticisms, and he sometimes felt that but for his friendship with his British colleague Matilda, and the loyalty of the juniors he spent much of his time defending, his job would be intolerable.
Coming through Customs now, Dieter froze. Ahead of him, waiting behind the rail, was a middle-aged woman, with greying hair parted in the middle. For a split second he thought it was his wife, come unexpectedly to meet his flight. But as the woman turned and the light fell on her face, he saw that it wasn’t Irma, and he relaxed.
Once it might well have been her: in the early days of their marriage, Irma would often drive the forty minutes to the airport to meet him as he flew in from Brussels. Ostensibly, she came out of love, so delighted to see her husband that she couldn’t wait for him to make his way home. But he knew even then, in the early days of their marriage, that she was there to keep an eye on him – to make sure he didn’t stray; that he hadn’t struck up a conversation with some blonde on the short flight home from Brussels.
Her jealousy seemed odd, since he didn’t believe she really felt strongly for him even then. Sometimes he wondered whether it was jealousy at all, or just some need to control him. Thank God she didn’t know about Matilda. There was nothing more than friendship between them, and there never would be, but that didn’t mean Matilda wasn’t special to Dieter. He was at pains to keep the friendship secret from Irma, and since he only saw Matilda during his working week in Brussels, that wasn’t difficult.
He took the train from the airport to Blankensee, the affluent suburb of Hamburg where he and Irma lived. Theirs was a pleasant villa, not one of the larger houses on the street, but ample for their needs; they had no children. It had a garden with rose bushes and an ancient elm that lost a branch or two in the storms each autumn. As he reached the house and climbed the steps to his front door, Dieter tried to remind himself how lucky he was. And how far he had come.
A month prior to this, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, had visited their offices. Van der Vaart had escorted her around, staying close to her side, reluctantly introducing her to his more senior staff with a proprietary air. When it was Dieter’s turn he had addressed the Chancellor in German. She had asked where he was from and he’d explained that he had grown up in Bavaria, which wasn’t true at all, but that he lived now in Hamburg. This made her smile as she explained that Hamburg was where she had been born – though she had moved as a little girl to East Germany.
Dieter thought of the ironies in their exchange. Merkel, born in Hamburg, had moved to Templin, sixty miles east of Berlin, and grown up in the German Democratic Republic. He had moved to Hamburg after a childhood that he claimed had been spent in a village in Bavaria, hundreds of miles south, but actually he had been born and raised in Templin. None of this did he ever admit to anybody.