Alec Milius Spy Series Books 1 and 2: A Spy By Nature, The Spanish Game. Charles Cumming

       Five: Day One/Morning

       Six: Day One/Afternoon

       Seven: Day Two

       Eight: Pursuit of Happiness

       Nine: This is Your Life

       Ten: Meaning

       Part Two: 1996

       Eleven: Caspian

       Twelve: My Fellow Americans

       Thirteen: The Searchers

       Fourteen: The Call

       Fifteen: Tiramisu

       Sixteen: Hawkes

       Seventeen: The Special Relationship

       Eighteen: Sharp Practice

       Nineteen: Seize the Day

       Twenty: Creating Justify

       Twenty-One: Being Rick

       Twenty-Two: Plausible Deniability

       Twenty-Three: The Case

       Twenty-Four: Final Analysis

       Part Three: 1997

       Twenty-Five: The Lure

       Twenty-Six: The Approach

       Twenty-Seven: The Sting

       Twenty-Eight: Cohen

       Twenty-Nine: Truth Telling

       Thirty: Limbo

       Thirty-One: Baku

       Thirty-Two: End of the Affair

       Thirty-Three: Caccia

       Thirty-Four: Think

       Thirty-Five: Fast Release

       Thirty-Six: West

      Epigraph

      I remember, in fact, the Lebanese woman I knew at Berkshire College saying to me, after I told her how much I loved her: ‘I’ll always tell you the truth, unless of course I’m lying to you.’

      Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

      Author’s Note

      Were the events of this story entirely true, they would inevitably breach clauses in The Official Secrets Act. Nevertheless, members of the intelligence community both in London and in the United States may find that they catch their reflection in the account which follows.

      –C.C.

       London, 2001

      PART ONE

      1995

      If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.

      —Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment

      ONE

      An Exploratory Conversation

      The door leading into the building is plain and unadorned, save for one highly polished handle. No sign outside saying FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, no hint of top brass. There is a small ivory bell on the right-hand side, and I push it. The door, thicker and heavier than it appears, is opened by a fit-looking man of retirement age, a uniformed policeman on his last assignment.

      ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

      ‘Good afternoon. I have an interview with Mr Lucas at two o’clock.’

      ‘The name, sir?’

      ‘Alec Milius.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      This almost condescending. I have to sign my name in a book and then he hands me a security dog tag on a silver chain, which I slip into the hip pocket of my suit trousers.

      ‘Just take a seat beyond the stairs. Someone will be down to see you in a moment.’

      The wide, high-ceilinged hall beyond the reception area exudes all the splendour of imperial England. A vast panelled mirror dominates the far side of the room, flanked by oil portraits of grey-eyed, long-dead diplomats. Its soot-flecked glass reflects the bottom of a broad staircase, which drops down in right angles from an unseen upper storey, splitting left and right at ground level. Arranged around a varnished table beneath the mirror are two burgundy leather sofas, one of which is more or less completely occupied by an overweight, lonely-looking man in his late twenties. Carefully, he reads and rereads the same page of the same section of The Times, crossing and uncrossing his legs as his bowels swim in caffeine and nerves. I sit down on the sofa opposite his.

      Five minutes pass.

      On the table the fat man has laid down a strip of passport photographs, little colour squares of himself in a suit, probably taken in a booth at Waterloo station sometime early this morning. A copy of The Daily Telegraph lies folded and unread beside the photographs. Bland non-stories govern its front page: IRA hints at new ceasefire; rail sell-off will go ahead; 56 per cent of British policemen want to keep their traditional bobbies’ helmets. I catch the fat man looking at me, a quick spot-check glance between rivals. Then he looks away, shamed. His skin is drained of ultraviolet, a grey flannel face raised on nerd books and Panorama. Black oily Oxbridge hair.

      ‘Mr Milius?’

      A young woman has appeared