Charles Cumming
Alec Milius Spy Series: Books 1 and 2
A SPY BY NATURE and THE SPANISH GAME
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2011
Copyright © Charles Cumming 2011
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Charles Cumming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007432967
Version: 2014-12-16
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
A Spy By Nature
The Spanish Game
Extract from A Foreign Country
Keep Reading
About the Author
By Charles Cumming
About the Publisher
CHARLES CUMMING
A Spy By Nature
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarpercollinsPublishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
This HarperCollins edition first published 2011
First published in Great Britain by Penguin Books Ltd. 2001
Copyright © Charles Cumming 2001.
Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2011
Cover photographs © Silas Manhood
Extract from The Sportswriter copyright © Richard Ford.
Published in Great Britain by Harvill Press 1986
Extract from The Uses of Enchantment copyright © Bruno Bettelheim.
Published in Great Britain by Thames & Hudson 1976
Extract from Rabbit Redux copyright © John Updike.
Published in Great Britain by André Deutsch 1972
Fake Plastic Trees Words and Music by Thom Yorke, Edward OBrien, Colin Greenwood, Jonathan Greenwood and Philip Selway © 1994 Warner/Chappell Music Ltd., London W6 8BS. Reproduced by permission of International Music Publications Ltd.
Charles Cumming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780007416912
Ebook Edition © July 2011 ISBN: 9780007416905
Version: 2014-12-15
Dedication
For my wife, Melissa
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Authors Note
Part One: 1995
One: An Exploratory Conversation
Two: Official Secrets
Three: Tuesday, 4 July
Four: Positive Vetting
Five: Day One/Morning
Six: Day One/Afternoon
Seven: Day Two
Eight: Pursuit of Happiness
Nine: This is Your Life
Ten: Meaning
Part Two: 1996
Eleven: Caspian
Twelve: My Fellow Americans
Thirteen: The Searchers
Fourteen: The Call
Fifteen: Tiramisu
Sixteen: Hawkes
Seventeen: The Special Relationship
Eighteen: Sharp Practice
Nineteen: Seize the Day
Twenty: Creating Justify
Twenty-One: Being Rick
Twenty-Two: Plausible Deniability
Twenty-Three: The Case
Twenty-Four: Final Analysis
Part Three: 1997
Twenty-Five: The Lure
Twenty-Six: The Approach
Twenty-Seven: The Sting
Twenty-Eight: Cohen
Twenty-Nine: Truth Telling
Thirty: Limbo
Thirty-One: Baku
Thirty-Two: End of the Affair
Thirty-Three: Caccia
Thirty-Four: Think
Thirty-Five: Fast Release
Thirty-Six: West
Epigraph
I remember, in fact, the Lebanese woman I knew at Berkshire College saying to me, after I told her how much I loved her: Ill always tell you the truth, unless of course Im lying to you.
Richard Ford, The Sportswriter
Authors Note
Were the events of this story entirely true, they would inevitably breach clauses in The Official Secrets Act. Nevertheless, members of the intelligence community both in London and in the United States may find that they catch their reflection in the account which follows.
C.C.
London, 2001
PART ONE
1995
If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.
Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment
ONE
An Exploratory Conversation
The door leading into the building is plain and unadorned, save for one highly polished handle. No sign outside saying FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, no hint of top brass. There is a small ivory bell on the right-hand side, and I push it. The door, thicker and heavier than it appears, is opened by a fit-looking man of retirement age, a uniformed policeman on his last assignment.
Good afternoon, sir.
Good afternoon. I have an interview with Mr Lucas at two oclock.
The name, sir?
Alec Milius.
Yes, sir.
This almost condescending. I have to sign my name in a book and then he hands me a security dog tag on a silver chain, which I slip into the hip pocket of my suit trousers.
Just take a seat beyond the stairs. Someone will be down to see you in a moment.
The wide, high-ceilinged hall beyond the reception area exudes all the splendour of imperial England. A vast panelled mirror dominates the far side of the room, flanked by oil portraits of grey-eyed, long-dead diplomats. Its soot-flecked glass reflects the bottom of a broad staircase, which drops down in right angles from an unseen upper storey, splitting left and right at ground level. Arranged around a varnished table beneath the mirror are two burgundy leather sofas, one of which is more or less completely occupied by an overweight, lonely-looking man in his late twenties. Carefully, he reads and rereads the same page of the same section of The Times, crossing and uncrossing his legs as his bowels swim in caffeine and nerves. I sit down on the sofa opposite his.
Five minutes pass.
On the table the fat man has laid down a strip of passport photographs, little colour squares of himself in a suit, probably taken in a booth at Waterloo station sometime early this morning. A copy of The Daily Telegraph lies folded and unread beside the photographs. Bland non-stories govern its front page: IRA hints at new ceasefire; rail sell-off will go ahead; 56 per cent of British policemen want to keep their traditional bobbies helmets. I catch the fat man looking at me, a quick spot-check glance between rivals. Then he looks away, shamed. His skin is drained of ultraviolet, a grey flannel face raised on nerd books and Panorama. Black oily Oxbridge hair.
Mr Milius?
A young woman has appeared on the staircase wearing a neat red suit. She is unflustered, professional, demure. As I stand up, Fat Man eyes me with wounded suspicion, like someone on his lunch break cut in line at the bank.
If youd like to come with me. Mr Lucas will see you now.
This is where it begins. Following three steps behind her, garbling platitudes, adrenaline surging, her smooth calves lead me up out of the hall. More oil paintings line the ornate staircase.
Running a bit late today. Oh, thats okay. Did you find us all right? Yes.
Mr Lucas is just in here.
Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
A firm handshake. Late thirties. I had expected someone older. Christ, his eyes are blue. Ive never seen a blue like that. Lucas is dense boned and tanned, absurdly handsome in an old-fashioned way. He is in the process of growing a moustache, which undercuts the residual menace in his face. There are black tufts sprouting on his upper lip, cut-rate Errol Flynn.
He offers me a drink, an invitation seconded by the woman in red, who seems almost offended when I refuse.
Are you sure? she says, as if I have broken with sacred tradition. Never accept tea or coffee at an interview. Theyll see your hand shaking when you drink it.
Absolutely, yes.
She withdraws and Lucas and I go into a large, sparsely furnished room nearby. He has not yet stopped looking at me, not out of laziness or rudeness but purely because he is a man entirely at ease when it comes to staring at people. Hes very good at it.
He says, Thank you for coming today.
And I say, Its a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Its a great privilege to be here.