Bokus thought about this for a moment then got up from his chair, which creaked when relieved of his weight. He went over to the wall and stood staring at a framed photograph of an American football team. Though Fane swung round in his chair, his only view was of Bokus’ back.
‘Mitchell Berger joined a couple of years before I did.’ Bokus’ voice sounded curiously disembodied, like the narrator’s in a film. ‘He was an operative in the field… kind of a famous one even when I started out. But he never had any interest in climbing the ladder.’ Bokus turned back towards the room and lifted his right hand, in a gesture designed to encompass his surroundings, his office, his status, his rise through the ranks… everything apparently that Mitchell Berger had not had time for.
Bokus looked straight at Fane. ‘I never met the guy. Heard he’d left the Agency a few years ago. Who knows?’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes a fella wants a quiet life, and the way I heard it, Berger finally realised that one day his luck could run out. That’s not surprising – most sane people wouldn’t have taken half the postings he’d asked for. So I wouldn’t think there was any other agenda going on – he just took the buy-out and opted for a safer berth. Certainly I don’t know of any secret Langley agenda; like I said, the guy retired.’
This was as far as Bokus would go, Fane sensed. But it was enough – Berger was ex-Agency, all right, but not working on Langley’s orders. Fane believed Bokus about that; he had responded too quickly to have made up the story.
‘Your turn,’ said Bokus, without amusement. He clearly didn’t like having to offer up information.
‘In a minute,’ said Fane. ‘First, I’d like to ask you to find out if Mr Berger is active again.’
‘I just told you, he retired.’
‘You know as well as I do, one’s always on call. We may not be priests, Andy, but we work under the same terms and conditions. I’d like to know if Berger’s been reactivated.’
Bokus thought about this for a moment, then said, ‘OK, I’ll check it out. Now tell me why you want to know.’
And so Fane recounted the entire chain of events, from the first hijack to the phone call from Blakey and finally, reluctantly, Maria’s Galanos’ murder – there was no point in omitting it since it would be one of the first things Bokus would hear about.
When he’d finished the Agency man asked, ‘What do you think’s going on?’
‘Hard to tell. I would think, as I said, that someone inside UCSO is tipping off the hijackers. Why, I don’t know – it seems a pretty roundabout way to make money when other pickings off the Horn are so rich.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ Bokus’ voice had lost its detachment, and Fane sensed the American had something specific in mind. That was the last thing Fane wanted, so he said quickly, ‘We’ve got some leads in Athens we’re following up and Five are on to the UK end, trying to find out how Amir Khan got out there.’
‘Yes, but what about Somalia? Don’t you want to know what’s happening there?’
‘Presumably your asking means you do,’ said Fane.
His subtlety was lost on the CIA Head of Station. ‘Damn’ tootin’ I do,’ he said vigorously. ‘Yemen and Somalia are top of our list for Al Qaeda movements right now.’
‘More than Afghanistan or Iraq?’
‘I didn’t say that. But in those places we know the bastards are there, and we can take the fight to them. We don’t want them taking root all over the place or it defeats the purpose of our military campaigns.’
Precisely, thought Fane, who had never been gung-ho about either the Iraq or Afghan adventures. To him, Al Qaeda was a global movement that used criminal means; it was best tackled through intelligence and, when necessary, specifically applied force, not with the blunderbuss of NATO’s military might – unless the US and its allies were going to be happy to fight a ‘war against terror’ on fifty fronts. But Bokus obviously didn’t agree, so Fane merely nodded.
The American added enthusiastically, ‘If we can find the Somalian end we could go in big-time.’
Fane had visions of F16s and Huey helicopters swarming over the Somalian coast, firing indiscriminately at targets that would turn out to be non-existent or entirely innocent. He suppressed a shudder, and the temptation to say ‘Down, boy’. He extemporised quickly, ‘That’s exactly what we had in mind. We’re planning to place our people on the next UCSO ship leaving Athens. We’ve set it up so it looks like a particularly attractive shipment; if things run to form, they’ll try to hijack it.’
‘When does it sail?’
‘Two weeks’ time,’ said Fane, thinking by then he could arrange to put someone on board. Anything to keep the Yanks from barging in; if Bokus had his way they’d never find out the truth. It would be lost in American overkill.
‘All right, but we want in on this. You haven’t got the firepower there to handle it yourself.’
