Dirty Little Secret. Jon Stock

Meena. ID’s over there.’ She nodded at the bedside table.

      ‘Where is he? Daniel Marchant? The Brit,’ a more senior Seal asked, coming into the room behind the others.

      ‘Dan?’ She paused, smiling wanly.

      ‘Don’t fuck us about, lady. Where is he?’

      ‘He’s gone home.’

      27

      There were no lights on in the house as Marchant crept up the driveway, keeping off the gravel and in the shadows. It was strange to be back. He had spent some time here after his father’s funeral, but it had been a harsh February, and the place had never really warmed up, despite the roaring fires he had made in the sitting room. It had been his intention to visit at weekends, but he had never made the journey, and the longer he stayed away, the harder it was to return.

      He wished he had come before. The sight of the house at dawn triggered happy memories, stronger and more lasting, it seemed, than those of the funeral, when the place had been full of dark suits and white lilies and forced conversation. An air of guilt had hung over proceedings that day. Friends and colleagues knew they could have done more to stop the CIA from driving his father out of office and into an early grave.

      But those dark memories were fleeting. It was here in the orchard, on the other side of the drive, that Marchant had spent some of his most blissful days with Sebbie, his twin brother. For a few years they had come here every summer, escaping the heat of Delhi to play in the shade of the Cotswolds, climbing trees, throwing water balloons, chasing the cat. He had returned in the aftermath of Sebbie’s death too, hoping the wounds would heal.

      Now, in the family home, he was about to meet another brother. He knew he didn’t have long. He might even be too late. Despite the heavy encryption, the call would already have been traced. It felt as if he was here to say goodbye. Dhar would be dead within hours; there was no escape from here.

      He walked around to the back of the house, where a rusting greenhouse leant against the rear wall. His father used to call it the conservatory. A door to the kitchen was inside. Marchant was about to slide the greenhouse open when he saw that the window in the kitchen door had been smashed. Dhar must have come in this way. There used to be a complex alarm system installed in the house, including floodlights, but it kept going off for no reason. Marchant had deactivated it after the funeral.

      Moving quietly, he stepped into the greenhouse, lifting the glass panel as he slid it to avoid noise, and then stopped. He could hear a muffled sound inside, and what he thought was a chair being scraped across the tiled kitchen floor. He walked up to the kitchen door and looked in through the broken glass. A man in a flying suit was sitting on a stool, arms and legs tied and mouth taped. He was trying to shuffle his way across the room. When he saw Marchant, his eyes widened with fear or relief, it was hard to tell which.

      Marchant put a finger to his lips and opened the door. The man must have been from the Search and Rescue helicopter that picked Dhar up.

      ‘Where is he?’ Marchant asked. The man nodded at his bound feet in desperation. He was clearly expecting to be released, but Marchant wasn’t going to be rushed. First, he needed to find Dhar.

      28

      ‘I’m not happy with where things are going,’ Turner Munroe said. He was in the back of his official car, with Fielding beside him. Oleg was in the footwell. ‘Not at all happy. What I just saw in Vauxhall is an embarrassment – to Washington. It shouldn’t be happening. I knew Spiro was going ahead, but I needed to see it with my own eyes.’

      ‘Me too.’

      ‘You know I’ve worked hard over the last few years on the relationship. We’re meant to have a presidential visit next year, when it’s set to be upgraded from “special” to “essential”. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is in my world – the culmination of a lot of hard work by my staff in London. I’m not prepared to see it all going to waste over one lousy jet.’

      ‘Quite an expensive one, I gather.’

      ‘Production’s already halted on it. The F-35 will be the game-changer. And hey, we spent twenty billion last year on aircon alone in Afghanistan.’

      On paper, Fielding should have despised Munroe. The Ambassador was widely regarded in Whitehall as a hawk, and he had been a surprise appointment by the incoming President in 2008. Like Spiro, he had fought in the first Gulf War and believed that military intervention was the only way forward in Iran. He was also a fitness fanatic, running 3.30 marathons around the world, whereas Fielding limited himself to a daily swim in the basement pool in Legoland. If all that wasn’t enough, he preferred Bruce Springsteen to J.S. Bach.

      But despite their differences, Fielding was more than happy to step into his car. It was Munroe’s behaviour in the chaotic aftermath of the London Marathon that had changed his opinion of him. He had gone away, studied the evidence, and concluded that it was Leila, not Marchant, who had tried to kill him. Marchant had saved his life. And it seemed he was prepared to be equally open-minded about Marchant’s role in the air show. Unfortunately, his was a lone American voice.

      ‘There are people in Langley who want you out of office, Marcus, you know that.’

      ‘They’ve almost got their wish.’

      ‘You’re not going down without a fight, though?’

      Fielding paused, looking out of the window at a slowly waking London. The street cleaners were out already, sweeping up the excesses of the night. He was too tired to fight.

      ‘The latest CX to cross my desk points to a Russian mole high up in MI6.’

      ‘When wasn’t there?’ Fielding knew what was coming. The Americans had long suspected him of treachery. He had been too close to Stephen Marchant, his predecessor.

      ‘My source says it wasn’t Hugo Prentice.’ Fielding flinched at the name of his old friend. No one had wanted to believe Prentice had been a traitor, least of all Fielding. ‘Apparently someone framed him to protect themself.’

      ‘And Langley thinks it was me?’ Fielding asked, wondering for the first time if there might be more to Primakov’s allegations about Denton than he had thought. Nothing would make him happier than clearing Hugo Prentice’s name, even if it were posthumously.

      ‘They want to believe it was you, but there’s no evidence.’

      ‘There’s a surprise.’

      ‘Find the mole and your position will be safe. Nothing scares us Yanks more than British intelligence run by Moscow.’

      ‘And does your source know who this mole might be?’ Fielding thought again about Denton. Why was he reluctant to point the finger at his deputy? Because it was he who had appointed him? Fielding had brought Denton on over the years, encouraged him to apply for jobs, happy to see the cosy old mould of MI6 being broken by an intelligent grammar-school boy from Hull.

      ‘I’m working on him. First, I wanted to check that you had the stomach for a fight. And that you’re close to finding Salim Dhar. That would kinda help the relationship.’

      ‘We’re close.’

      29

      Marchant walked into the high-ceilinged hall, stood still and listened. Somewhere far above him, he could hear the sound of a muffled voice. It wasn’t Dhar’s. He had heard it before, a long time ago, but he couldn’t place it at first. Then he remembered. What was Dhar doing?

      He looked around and saw the old phone on a corner table. Above it, numbers had been written in ink by his father on a piece of paper stuck to the wall. He went over and saw his own mobile number next to the word ‘Daniel’. His father had never called him ‘Dan’, despite all his friends using the name.