Borderless Deceit (41 page)

“So the Caliph got equipment for fabricating WMD in,” Heywood reasoned, “and then helped take it back out. Twice he received handsome payments which then got laundered by the Junker. Heywood kicked himself for not divining this side of things before. They would have known Iraq's WMD capacity was gone. But how did this information get passed to Carson?

Question:
Did Carson travel to see the Junker and the Caliph?

Answer:
If he did, it wouldn't have been on official time
.

Question:
If not official, then how?

Answer:
As a tourist maybe. He'd have taken time off
.

Question:
Has Carson recently been on vacation?

More clicking of the mouse. Zadokite Port delivered an extract from attendance records. Ah, Carson booked off work during the spring about a year before.

A spring vacation? Heywood weighed this. Don't most people go on holidays in summer? Why in spring? And where to? Who or what might know?

I would, Heywood realized with startling clarity, I own the capacity to know.

Many databases had been erected under the Czar's authority and one of them was passports. If Carson had travelled he'd have used one.

The Czar didn't need Zadokite Port to check out passports. He had access to that database anytime. Carson's passport details appeared on his screen, including a photo of Carson. Strong, long nose, determined mouth, jutting chin – it reinforced what he'd always known, Carson's outside disguised the ugliness within.

The Czar reviewed the data: when the passport was issued, when it was used, the places he travelled, how long he stayed. Every time the passport was swiped somewhere, information had trickled in.

Promising stuff. Next he went to the database for travel claims. Thick fingers teased the keyboard. Such economy of motion; so vast the reach. More details arrived – the stated reason for travel, flights taken, hotels used, the taxi rides. The Czar stared at them for some minutes, then began nodding. He breathed deeply and locked his hands behind his head while in his mind a scene unfolded: Carson arriving in Berlin, catching a cab and checking into a hotel, then meeting up with the Pullach spooks, the pretext for the trip. The next scene played out in his head too, but it was better, for he gave it sound. In a dark and quiet corner Carson and the Junker are huddled around a candle. Heywood could hear the whispered secrets shared.
They won't find WMD in Iraq, Mein Freund. I know because I helped get them out. Some are hidden in a warehouse in Oman and what's not there is already in P'yongyang
.

Heywood swivelled his chair towards the window. The outside light was blinding, but it didn't bother him. Because with still greater luminosity he was convinced he had just put his finger on a smoking gun. Case closed. All done. Tomorrow the formal investigation could begin. He looked at his watch. Not that late yet. Why not go home to celebrate? Imagine the surprise on Ivy Crescent if he returned now.

Home already, darling? A blessedly short Sunday in the office
.

IT, sweet. It's efficient. And the results are brilliant. Can I help in the garden?

But wait. Think ahead. Are all loose ends tied up? Is the package covered in neat ribbons?

The investigators, the Czar knew, were accomplished second-guessers. They'd start with tiresome rounds of questions and seek endless clarifications. A week would go by before they'd get around to hanging a fresh lock on Carson's door. By then he would have put his hard drive and many other sources of information through a thorough rinsing. By then he would be antiseptically clean. Gotta go higher, the Czar thought. Convince the Head, get Carson sidelined by fiat. The Czar knew, if someone is released from duty pending an investigation, no matter the eventual findings, the stain will be permanent. With Étienne on side Carson's disfigurement would be certain and eternal. One good memo would initiate the long-awaited sacrificial rite.

Heywood pondered the keyboard for a while, then began a slow tapping. When daylight faded – a signal that impatience on Ivy Crescent was now inevitable – he felt he was still only beginning.

“…so he's been busting his ass,” Jamie was saying. “The case for the Head. For four days he's been spinning it out. Draft after draft. A potboiler, I guess. All about national security. He's thinking it'll get you arrested. You know the guys who do that, handcuffs first, then some banging of your head against the cruiser hood to get your mind attuned. A year goes by. Finally the chance to explain your side to the judge. Irv knows, when it's national security, justice doesn't mind skating backwards. I'd say he's seeing your future with glad eyes.”

She had taken on a yoga position, cross-legged, back straight, arms on her knees, thumbs and fingers touching lightly. But there was nothing transcendental in her eyes; they were blitzing out bad news.

“You've been checking in on him?” I said.

“Couple of times a day. He's so steamed up he doesn't notice I'm peeking.”

“What's the line of argument?” I knew when witch hunts start they must run their course and was resigned this one could affect me a long time.

“You sure you want to know? Here and there it's pretty trashy.” Ruefully she added, “I feel responsible for some of it.”

I shrugged. Deep down hadn't I known all along that this was foreordained? I thought back to the day when my computer blipped. “Why did you do it, Jaime? I mean, give him Zadokite Port. For a long time I didn't know what it was. When I finally checked on Heywood I saw it was some kind of function he had to get through firewalls. But he wasn't using it much. All he had was a bunch of e-mails snitched from the account of the Legal Advisor.”

“I sort of liked those kooky legal e-mails,” Jaime said sheepishly, thereby confirming she had lifted them. “Hilarious huffing and puffing about American double standards. I hung them in a Zadokite Port ante-room, sort of as a decoy. The real Zadokite Port stuff was stashed further back. Tougher to get at. I wondered whether you would suspect there was more. When will Carson come looking, I thought? I
watched everyday.” She continued the yoga pose, but started grinning. For her it had been a game.

“What's he got then, Jaime? And what's he making up?”

“He starts with badmouthing your career. Stuff from your personnel file, you know, the fact that you've done the intelligence thing twenty years but were never good enough to get beyond it. And he plays up the fact that you always sucked up to the Yanks, constantly narrowing your horizons instead of broadening them like everybody else. He concludes you're your own worst enemy.
Quarrelsome and eccentric, more so than most
. That was this morning's version. Yesterday it read:
Stroppy and splenetic. Counterproductive in the extreme
.”

I laughed. “That's par for Heywood, judging people who won't kiss his ass.”

“Don't pooh-pooh it too much. There's others who think that description fits you. Ready for insight into your attitude?”

She sat down before my laptop and punched in a code. Seconds later she was scrolling through a file list, then opened one up. “Listen to this, dude.”

When I heard how Heywood borrowed from the annual evaluation files, my expression hardened. Years before he had insisted that his personal comments on my contribution to something he was working on be appended to that year's routine appraisal document. Jaime began reading out loud.

Mr. Pryce's input to what I was asked by Cabinet to complete was subjective: it derived from a personal agenda, and was therefore irrelevant. He also embarrassed me as the senior officer in charge of an otherwise excellent task force. He appeared to be resentful, spoke up too much and wasted time
.

I recalled these sentences. At the time I considered them laughable. All the same I was forced to take formal note by signing a short statement that I'd read them. I had been unable to resist jotting down some marginalia.
Crazed and crazy
, I wrote.
Mr. Heywood's next incarnation will be as a bedbug
.

“I've taken a peek at your appraisal file,” Jaime admitted. “Irv's a slick quoter. Accurate down to the commas. This is what he adds to that stuff now.”

What I heard was classic Heywoodian humbug. Absurdities filed away years ago were now brought forward as long-established truths.

Files show that Mr. Pryce for many years had been incapable of suppressing his personal views. Other material corroborates that his failings were pointed out to him, but rather than expose himself to counselling and show a willingness to acquire a capacity for anger management, he attacked those who offered remedy. While it was made clear to him that his resentment, demonstrated by the habit of undermining senior management, was professionally unbecoming, he showed no remorse. He belittled the well-meant guidance offered, calling it lunatic – “crazed and crazy” – and he maligned it further by voicing an incantation from an exotic religion – “reincarnation as a bed bug.” His habit of claiming that others are what he himself is – “crazed and crazy” – indicates a serious irrationality. The root cause (see below) of this psychological instability can be found in his lust for power
.

As she read, Jaime dropped her voice progressively and when she arrived at
lust for power
the tone was deep and mocking. She tilted her head towards me when she finished, laughing at her own antics. “Mirror, mirror on the wall…Tell me, Carson, see yourself in this?”

“A farce,” I said, stone-faced. “Lust for power? That's Heywood describing himself.”

“Well, it's just a small part. There's better.” She scrolled some more. “Wanna hear another accusation? Abuse of Trust. He claims you spend most of your time kowtowing to the Yanks.”

Once more Jaime adopted a deep, surrealistic voice.

For the past dozen or so years Mr. Pryce has been point man for exchanging intelligence information with the Americans. This routine administrative function with low payback was considered in line with his abilities. Part of the arrangement is custodianship of a dedicated data exchange channel vulgarly known as the pipeline. He has always been secretive about what passes through the pipeline and he abuses the security designation process. He draws on the “Need to Know” clause, then claims only he meets it
.

An inquiry into the events of last January 23 when the Service network was destroyed by a complex computer virus showed the attack gained entry to our network through the intelligence channel
.

“And so on and so forth. Blah, blah, blah. We know the Benedictus – Radu story by now. This is what he thinks it all means. If I read it right he might even try to get you extradited.”

Incontrovertible proof has been found that a cover-up for the plague's real origin was carried out by Mr. Pryce. His computer imprint has been identified on Mr. Corioanu's false death certificate in Zurich and the algorithms which allowed the falsification process to take place have been located in Mr. Pryce's decrypted files. Such falsification may well be a criminal act under Swiss law and deserves full investigation. For the Service, however, at a minimum, Mr. Pryce's abuse of the trust placed in him to safeguard data exchange through the intelligence channel deserves strong censure
.

Assessing how this would damage me, I buried my face in my hands.

“Sorry about that,” Jaime said lightly. “Guess I overdid things. It's just that when I discovered what you'd done with the plague I was all lah-de-dah and had to run out to tell someone. So I went to Irv. Wish now I'd gone to you.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Well, I was starting to think you weren't what Irv was saying. He started calling you
The Resident Toad
. ‘If that's what he is,' I said to him, ‘a princess should kiss him.' Truth is, Carson, your piece about the El Salamlek Palace, you know, where she's waiting for the yacht – it gave you away. It showed you're not that slimy.” Jaime shrugged. Something in her manner made her seem less young.

After a while I said quietly, “So he knows the death certificate is fake and he's got his pretext for being holier-than-thou. Is Berlin next?” I gestured at the laptop. “What did Heywood do with that?”

Jaime took her time. She stroked her rings slowly, first on one hand, then the other. “He's so proud over Berlin,” she said. “I was the source for all his stuff on Krause, Abou-Ghazi, the Foundation,
etcetera. But your Berlin trip he discovered on his own. What he doesn't know is that you went there for a sweet-talk with Miss Dunn. If he did, he'd go bananas. His princess off for a romp with the resident toad? Suppose she kissed the beast, put her lips on all that slime.” Jaime clucked her tongue in censure.

“You should hear him when he reads stuff with her in it. He starts bellowing.
Baloney!
Nixes it all. Wanna know what he said to me about you and your friend Miss Dunn? ‘Never forget, Jaime, Carson is warped. He thinks hatred, towards her, towards himself. In his mind's black depths hatred swirls around and he swaps the objects of his hatred. When you see Rachel's name appearing, he's actually describing himself. All that cavorting around with a banker – it isn't her, it's Carson doing that. It's his way of living out his fantasies. Psycho, Jaime, a basket case, that's what he is, and Berlin proves it.'”

Jaime shrugged. “Guess Irv's no different than anybody else. He likes his fairy tales just so.”

Black depths? Swirling hatred? Acting out fantasies? Where did Heywood get this stuff? What he'd written wasn't worthy of reaction and I shook my head with disgust. “Read me the last bit then,” I said finally, nodding at the laptop.

“Ready for it? You sure? Promise you won't drop off your twig again?”