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

anyone watching might have wondered if he’d make it to the bottom in one piece, but by the time he finally came to a standstill, a few minutes clear of the hill, he found to his surprise that beneath the rust and dead leaves and bird shit he was still a car. It was as good a feeling as he’d had for a long while.

Lawrence’s smile had disappeared.

“What’s so funny?” he said, his face turning red.

“I mean … you as an agent handler, Lawrence, and me as your agent. You have to admit it’d be a funny pairing.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Come on, you’re not thinking straight.”

“I know what I’m doing, August.”

“No, you don’t. You’re out of your depth. It’s not your fault, but that’s the truth.”

“I doubt you’d find it so amusing if you lost your job.”

For the second time that day Lawrence had surprised him.

“What do you mean?” August asked.

Lawrence took a step into the middle of the room. “I’m just saying, I doubt you’d find everything so fucking amusing if you found yourself out of a job for the second time this year.”

It was quiet, except for the sound of the car radio outside and the distant rustle of water. It was unmistakable what had just happened: the sudden bloom of humiliation, Lawrence’s threat charging the air with heat. The last thing anyone wanted was an agent who had been coerced. As a handler, you wanted an agent who was doing it freely and for their own reasons, whether patriotism, ideology, money or even revenge. It didn’t much matter if their motive was dishonourable – a grubby banknote was worth the same as a clean one. But a coerced agent was a different thing altogether. August wondered whether he was responsible, whether by humiliating Lawrence first in London and now here he had planted in him a desire for revenge that had quickly outgrown whatever values of respect he had been taught. Perhaps the surprising thing was that more officers weren’t like Lawrence. It would always be easier to secure cooperation through coercion than by being clever, persuasive and likeable. No one doubted that in this respect Russian spies had a much easier task than their British counterparts.

“Why would I lose my job?” said August.

“Ah, it’s just idle speculation. Hypothetically, though? There’s an economic downturn or the war in Syria comes to an end or…” Lawrence shrugged. He was quiet for a moment, as though coming to a decision. “The British government imposes all sorts of regulations on contractors like Beatrice. One of them being that she has to properly vet all her staff, and if she found out that an employee had been in prison or used a fake reference or tweeted something unacceptable she’d be forced to fire them.” There it was, a clear suggestion of pressure, doing its best to look innocent like a criminal in a line-up of respectable citizens. “Not that any of that applies in your case, of course,” he added. “You’re not on Twitter, August, are you? There you go, you’re in the clear. I’m merely saying that life is full of uncertainty and anything you can do to give yourself an insurance policy is a good thing, right?”

So that was the offer. Either he accepted it, made a bit of extra money and from this point onwards took his orders from Lawrence, or he would find himself out of a job. It was an easy decision to make; it wasn’t Lawrence’s fault that he didn’t know how much August hated working for Beatrice, that he thought of quitting every day. But something held him back – he wanted to know how Lawrence had found out about 34c and the vizier, and the only way to do that was to let things play out. It was professional curiosity more than anything else. Had he been careless with his tradecraft – allowing himself to be followed to the cemetery or overheard on the phone – or had the mistake been the vizier’s? Or had 34c talked?

Lawrence took out a packet of French cigarettes and lit one. He didn’t offer them to August. He didn’t need to pretend any more: they both knew what had just happened. August understood that for Lawrence, whether he recognized it within himself or not, his offer of work was fuelled by the urgent need to reassert himself as the dominant party. August had made him look bad – by running rings around him for four years, by cracking his nose open in front of colleagues. He wondered whether he was witnessing the first act in the ruining of an intelligence officer.

“Well, I’m glad we’ve found ourselves on the same page at last.” He crossed the room to stand directly in front of August. “I’m sure it’ll take a little time for us both to get used to this new arrangement. And that’s fine. Rome wasn’t built in a day. To make it easier we can start off with a few little things – errands, you might call them. Low risk, eyes and ears stuff, pass on any gossip you hear around town. While you get used to being on a leash.” He breathed out a mouthful of smoke and smiled. “But a friendly warning might be in order. Ah, warning is too strong a word, August. I don’t like talking about things like chain of command. We’re not in the military after all. I just don’t want you to make a mistake and ruin what could be a good thing for both of us because you’re still adjusting to this. So let’s agree that you’ll take things slowly and come to me if you’ve got any doubts, if anything’s worrying you. We can talk it through.” Lawrence took another slow mouthful of smoke, letting the silence build. “Remember that I know your style. It got to the point that I was able to spot your fingerprints at a hundred metres. We might not have found enough evidence