How to Betray Your Country by James Wolff (pocket ebook reader txt) 📗

and 30 (assuming the culprit didn’t steal someone else’s credentials), the pay-as-you-go mobile in Waterloo may yield fingerprints (if you manage to find it), and of course knowledge about the agent’s problems with her ex-boyfriend will have been tightly held.

I’ll leave it there, with best wishes for a swift and bloodless hunt.

Margaret

13

“There’s a Syrian man called Youssef here to see you.”

“William, darling – I said no interruptions.”

“Not you, Beatrice. He wants August.”

“What? He’s busy.”

“It won’t take a minute,” August said. “I’ll get rid of him.”

He was grateful for a reason to leave. The meeting, which had started two hours earlier and was ostensibly a review of his first week in the job, had begun with Beatrice’s views on the importance of professionalism (“you’re rarely here on time, you wander around in a daze, you disappear for hours”), moved on to August’s budget proposal for the hive (“way, way under the amount HMG would be prepared to spend on something so bold and ambitious”) and finally settled into a comfortable, well-worn groove that weaved its way through the motivational flagpoles of art, history and the destiny of man (“not since Napoleon brought the printing press to Egypt has the region stood on the threshold of such monumental change”).

Beatrice had talked without drawing breath for much of the meeting. She possessed absolute faith in the idea that the judicious use of strategic communications could pat the world into a better shape. “This job, it’s like sailing a boat,” she said. “There will always be a million and one practical tasks to be done but you have to remain just as focused on the smallest change in the wind, in the tremors of the ocean. You have to find it in you to wonder where all the seagulls have gone. And sometimes you will be toppled into the sea, that’s the nature of the game, but you have to fight your way to the surface with, with —”

“With an ancient Greek amphora in each hand.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I was just —”

“Come on, what do you mean?”

“A bit Russian, isn’t it?” said August, rubbing his head.

“You’ve lost me.”

“Sorry, nothing. Go on.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Using social media to destabilize another government.”

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing. I’m rambling. You were talking about the sea.”

August didn’t know what he was doing. He had no interest in an argument. It was his wedding anniversary. He had made a considerable effort the night before to obliterate the occasion by drinking enough to render him chaotically distracted by pain on the day itself, each gin and whisky and beer like an explosive charge primed to go off at a different hour the following day. By his calculations he’d be fine until nightfall, at which point he’d start to feel better. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut.

Beatrice shook her head. Her stiff helmet of blonde hair barely moved. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious,” she said. “This is about access to the facts, August, this is about producing an honest and unbiased informational flow to combat the other side’s disinformation and lies. We’re taking power away from a tyrannical regime and placing it in the outstretched hands of ordinary people who are hungry for truth. That’s the beauty of the new media landscape, that anyone can —”

“Okay, okay, I see your point.”

“Good. Shall we get back to the plan for the hive? Did you speak to the property agent about a viewing tomorrow?”

August longed for his bed. At least they were off philosophy and back to practical matters. It wasn’t as though he disapproved of what the British government was doing. In a way he even admired it. States that thrived were those that focused ruthlessly on their own interests, that entered into alliances on pragmatic rather than sentimental grounds, that didn’t care about their neighbours beyond wanting to make sure any trouble stayed on the other side of the border. Emotion was too unstable an ingredient to introduce into such matters. Emotion led to weakness, emotion led to defeat; it would be like giving a beautiful spy a job in the minister’s office. It was obvious what would follow from that: one or two minor lapses in security, a new and dangerously casual attitude towards classified material. The unwanted sound of laughter disrupting the quiet industry of civil servants. Long-standing policies would turn out to have been amended in the small hours to allow room for compromise. The only response to such a disaster was a purge. Weed out sympathizers, interrogate anyone who looked guilty, remove all evidence that the spy had ever set foot in the building. Even an old paperback tossed into a corner, even a pea-green coat hanging on the back of a door.

Youssef was slumped in a chair, his red Playboy tie dividing into two meandering streams just below the baggy knot.

“There’s nothing I can do for you,” August said.

Youssef spent a second or two overcoming the exhaustion evident in his bloodshot eyes before leaping to his feet with huge sudden energy. “My friend, my old friend,” he said, rushing forward with his trembling hand extended. His small belly pushed proudly against his shirt. When he smiled his cheeks filled and stretched his beard so that it appeared threadbare. “How are you? You look very well. My goodness.”

August couldn’t have looked worse. He was unshaven and his crumpled shirt had worked its way loose of his trousers. In that sense they were a good match. Youssef’s collar was rimmed with dirt and he smelled of sweat and tobacco.

“There aren’t any jobs at the moment,” said August. If he could get rid of Youssef quickly there would be time to escape to the roof for some fresh air. “The best thing would be to call back in a few weeks.”

“No, no – I did not come here to discuss employment.” Youssef laughed awkwardly. “I was passing through the neighbourhood and I thought to myself: I wonder how my friend is on this fine day.” He paused