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

told them what was happening they’d be able to corroborate his story and identify the individuals involved. It was time to let them deal with this. August had taken things as far as he could. Even his own, unusually elastic sense of risk was showing signs of fatigue when he thought about what IS planned to do. The situation required the judgement and resources of a professional intelligence agency. They would easily be able to identify the Iranian on the basis of his hotel booking and DNA. And he’d have something else for them by the end of the evening: a description of the vizier.

Before walking to the cemetery, he went back to his hotel and dropped off the things he’d collected, rehearsing the story he planned to tell: that he’d been challenged by a security guard, that he’d realized he was the one taking all the risks, that it was outrageous he wasn’t trusted enough for a proper, face-to-face conversation with the man who claimed they were on the same side. He’d be emotional, he’d be angry. He’d accuse the vizier of tricking him. One way or another, he’d turn around. He’d make sure he got close enough to see his face. He didn’t know what would happen after that. He’d sensed the potential for violence within the man, and for that reason he planned to be ready for anything, to limit himself to one drink in a nearby bar. Halfway through that drink it occurred to him that he could use the fact he’d admitted to a drinking problem to add to the theatre of what he planned to do. Given that this would be their last meeting, it didn’t matter what the vizier thought of him any more. And if August appeared drunk, there was a greater chance the vizier would write him off as harmless and walk away, never to see him again. By that point it would be too late. August would have everything he needed to disrupt their plot. And so he settled in to make it look real.

Before he knew it he was drunk again. When he arrived at the cemetery it was after midnight. He fell asleep underneath a lemon tree and dreamed of a hand as heavy and cold as stone lying across his forehead and pressing him down into the earth. When he woke at dawn he saw that someone had gone through his pockets and placed everything in a neat pile, his phone and hotel key and money and a crumpled picture of Martha.

And August understood for the first time that he wasn’t in a fit state for any of this, that it had all been a huge mistake, and that the idea he was in control of himself or anything around him was nothing more than an illusion, but it was much too late to turn back.

19

file excerpt from investigation into august DRUMMOND

INKWELL/128

top secret

foia exempt

subject:Transcript of August DRUMMOND disciplinary hearingdate:28 September 2016

imogen: Is that wretched contraption finally working? Everyone ready? Marvellous. For the purposes of the tape recorder, this is Imogen, Deputy Director for Human Resources and Workforce Planning. We are here this morning to review, consider, challenge and ultimately decide upon the disciplinary case against August DRUMMOND that has been compiled by the Gatekeeping team, represented here today by Lawrence. The panel consists of three senior managers: Bill from CT HUMINT; Daphne from Vetting; and Desmond Naseby, on loan from our friends across the river in SIS because of the international aspects of this case. Susan here will be taking notes in case the tape recorder fails us. Now, you’ve all had the opportunity to study Lawrence’s paper and will ask questions and make comments as we go. My role is to oversee the process and ensure that relevant policies are followed. Any questions at this stage? August, how about you? Marvellous. Now, this part is important. As I’ve said, it is the responsibility of this panel to decide on the merits of the case. Your role, Lawrence, is not to act as prosecution or defence but simply to describe events in a clear and straightforward manner. While it is certainly true that our threshold for withdrawing an officer’s security clearance is much lower than the threshold for criminal liability, it is important that we do not terminate what has been an impressive career by placing undue weight on speculation, however tempting that might be. Is everyone happy with that as a basis for proceeding? Excellent. Then let’s begin. Lawrence?

lawrence: Thank you, Imogen. Some background to start us off. WINDMILL POET is an agent of nine years’ standing, considered to be established and reliable. A dual British–Egyptian national in his mid-thirties, originally recruited by the police CTU in Manchester to provide eyes-and-ears reporting on mosques in the Rusholme area, where he was living while completing a PhD in Engineering. Not a spectacular career as a reporting agent, chiefly because he didn’t have an extremist profile, but he was hard-working and liked by his handlers.

bill: Any disciplinary concerns noted on his record?

lawrence: None.

bill: No laziness, no lies, no unauthorized disclosures?

lawrence: Nothing. We took over the case from the police in 2011 when the revolution began in Egypt. August has been his handler since then. In addition to providing CT reporting in the UK, WINDMILL POET had access through family members to a number of key figures in the opposition movement and so was deployed upstream to Egypt on a semiregular basis.

daphne: Interested in that, are we?

lawrence: The Egyptian opposition? An excellent question, Daphne. No, not really. Certainly not any more. But in the right circumstances an opposition can become a government very quickly. SIS – Desmond, with your vast experience you might be in a better position to comment here – SIS in particular argued that having someone at ground level on day one of a new government in Cairo would have been invaluable. Obviously things didn’t turn out that way. But everyone