Spook Country

“We’re going now,” Garreth said.

The old man shook hands with Tito, then Garreth. Then he offered his hand to the woman. “I’m pleased with our arrangement, Miss Henry,” he said to her. She shook his hand, but said nothing.

Tito, wrapped from waist to armpits, beneath his jacket and sweatshirt, in sixty feet of black nylon climbing rope, with the rare-earth magnets down the front of his jeans, the black respirator bulging out of one side pocket of the green jacket, and the yellow hard hat under his arm, led the way downstairs.

73. SPECIAL FORCES

G oing somewhere she’d never seen, at night, in a van with two men, with equipment, reminded her of the begi

Garreth driving now. Perfect fifty kilometers per hour, along this downscale industrial strip. Smooth, considered stops. Even acceleration. Model driver. No excuse to pull him over.

Tito in back, sitting as far from the black plastic case as he could. White iPod plugs in his ears, nodding to some rhythm only he could hear. Looking tranced. Like a kid in a chill-out room. Why had they wrapped him in that black rope? It must be uncomfortable, but he didn’t look uncomfortable. She’d watched him practice a trick with it, before Garreth and the old man had wrapped him in it. Tying one end of it quickly around a vertical pipe, pulling it tight, then standing back and flicking it. The knot tight and solid when he pulled on it, but letting go instantly when he flicked it. He did it three times. She couldn’t follow his hands, when he knotted it. He was pretty enough, at rest, almost feminine, but when he moved with purpose, he became beautiful. Whatever it was, she knew she didn’t have it herself. That had been her weakness, onstage. Inchmale had once sent her to a French movement teacher, in Hackney, in an effort to change that. The man had said he’d teach her to walk like a man, that that would make her very powerful onstage. She’d satisfied him, finally, but had never even considered trying it onstage. The one time she’d demonstrated it for Inchmale, though, after a few drinks, he said he’d paid good money to have her taught to walk like Heidi.

Garreth took a right onto a main street, heading east. One-story retail, car leasing, restaurant furniture. A few blocks later, he took a left. They headed downhill, into what once would have been a neighborhood of modest frame houses. A few were still there, but unlit, each one painted a single dark color, no trim. Placeholders in a real estate game, next to small factories, auto-body shops, a plastics fabricator. Patches of weedy grass that had once been lawns, gnarled ancient fruit trees. No pedestrians here, almost no traffic. He looked at his watch, pulled over, put out the lights, and shut off the engine.

“How did you get into this?” she asked, without looking at him.

“I heard that someone was looking for a really odd skill set,” he said. “I had a friend who’d been in the SAS, another BASE enthusiast. We’d jumped together, in Hong Kong. He was approached first, actually, and didn’t want it. He said he was too military, not unconventional enough. He recommended me, and I came down to London and he took me along to my meeting. I couldn’t believe it, but he was wearing a tie. Bastard. Amazing. Turned out it was his club tie, the only one he owned. Special Forces Club. That’s where we went. I’d no idea there was one.”

“What did it look like? His tie.”

“Black and gray, thin diagonal stripes.” She felt him glance at her. “And himself waiting in an alcove off a sitting room.”

She knew he meant the old man. She looked out the window, not really seeing anything.

“He introduced us and left me there. Pot of nasty coffee. Old-school British coffee. I had a list of questions I’d prepared, but I never asked them. Just answered his. It was like some weird inversion of a Kipling script. This old man, this American, in a Savile Row suit he’d probably bought in the sixties, asking me these questions. Pouring nasty coffee. Utterly at home in this club. Wee decoration on the lapel of his suit, the ribbon for some medal, no bigger than a windowpane of acid.” He shook his head. “Hooked. I was hooked.” Smiling.

“There must be things I shouldn’t ask you,” she said.

“Not really. Just things I mustn’t answer.”

“Why’s he doing this, whatever it is?”

“He used to be in national security, American government. Career man. Retired a few years before 9/11. I think he went a bit feral, frankly, after the attacks. Frothing, really. Not a good idea to get him on the topic. He’d been hugely well co

“There’s more than one of him, you mean?”

“Not really, no. I find it easiest to think of him as slightly off, really. I imagine they do too, though it doesn’t stop them giving him help, and funding. Amazing what you can do with a little money, when you’re given a free hand. He’s as sharp as anyone I’ve met, sharper, but he has obsessions, topics he’s queer about. One of them, a big one, is people profiting from the war in Iraq. He gets onto things, things he learns certain people have done. Through his various co

“What for?”

“So that he can fuck with them, frankly. Fuck them up. Over. Sideways, if he can manage it. Loves it. Lives for it.”

“Who are those people?”

“I don’t know, myself. He says it’s better that way. He also says that, so far, none of them have been anyone I’d ever ordinarily have heard of.”

“He was telling me about money laundering, about huge shipments of cash, to Iraq.”

“Yes indeed,” he said, looking at his watch. He turned the key, starting the ignition. “We’ve been driving them wild, with this one. He plays this game of cat and mouse with them.” He smiled. “Makes them think they’re the cat.”

“You enjoy it yourself, it seems to me.”

“I do. I do indeed. I’ve a very diverse and peculiar skill set, and ordinarily no place to use the half of it. Soon enough, I’ll be too old for most of it. Truth to tell, I probably already am. Main reason we’ve got our man Tito in the back here. Snake on ice, our Tito.” He took a right, another left, and they were waiting at a light, turning left on a street with more traffic, more lights. He reached back and thumped the back of his seat. “Tito! Ready up!”

“Yes?” asked Tito, removing his iPod plugs.

“Hotel’s in sight. Coming up. Climb over the lady, here, get out that side. He’ll be parked just past the hotel, waiting for you.”

“Okay,” said Tito, as the van slowed, tucking his white plugs back into the hood of his sweatshirt.

He looked, just then, she thought, like a very serious fifteen-year-old.