Bennett looked up from his personal iPhone as the 7:12 from Stoke Newington rattled into Liverpool Street Station. As usual, he left the carriage last and followed a long and indirect route to the street. Outside in Bishopsgate it was not yet properly light. He walked to the river and crossed London Bridge to Southwark.
From Borough Market it was a brisk walk of about twenty minutes to the office. Bennett liked to vary his route. Today he went via St. George’s Circus and the Albert Embankment. He was below six feet and thin as a marathoner, a balding man of fifty-two with hollowed-out cheeks and deeply set eyes. His suit and overcoat were hardly Savile Row, but owing to his slender frame they fit him well. His school tie was carefully knotted, his oxfords shone with fresh polish. The trained eye might have noticed a telltale watchfulness in his gaze, but otherwise there was nothing about his dress or aspect to suggest he was bound for the hideous secret citadel that loomed over the foot of Vauxhall Bridge.
Bennett had never cared for it. He much preferred dreary old Century House, the anonymous twenty-story concrete office block where he had arrived as a new recruit in the dying days of the Cold War. Like all the other probationers in his intake, he had not applied to work for the Secret Intelligence Service. One did not ask to join Britain’s most exclusive club, one was invited. And only if one came from the right sort of family, had the right sort of connections, and had earned a decent degree from either Oxford or Cambridge. In Bennett’s case it was Cambridge, where he had studied the history and languages of the Middle East. By the time he arrived at MI6, he spoke Arabic and Persian fluently. After completing the rigorous IONEC training course at Fort Monckton, MI6’s school for fledgling spies, he was shipped off to Cairo to recruit and run agents.
He went to Amman next and then to Damascus and Beirut before landing the job as Head of Station in Baghdad. Faulty or misleading reports from several of Bennett’s Iraqi assets found their way into the infamous September Dossier, which was used by the Blair government to justify Britain’s involvement in the American-led war to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Bennett, however, suffered no damage to his career. He went to Riyadh, again as Head of Station, and in 2012 was promoted to controller for the Middle East, one of the most important jobs in the service.
Bennett entered Vauxhall Cross overtly from the Albert Embankment and endured a thorough search and identity check before being allowed beyond the lobby. It was all part of the post–Rebecca Manning security overhaul. Suspicion hung over the building like the Black Death. Officers scarcely spoke to one another or shook hands for fear of catching the dreaded disease. There was no meaningful product coming in and virtually nothing going out to the customers on the other side of the river that they couldn’t read in theEconomist. Bennett’s career had intersected with Rebecca’s only briefly, but like many of his colleagues he had been dragged before the inquisitors for a thorough roasting. After many hours of questioning he had been given a clean bill of health, or so he had been informed. Bennett trusted no one inside MI6, least of all the bloodhounds in the vetting department.
Once free of the lobby he card-swiped, key-punched, and retina-scanned his way to his office. Entering, he closed the door behind him, engaged his privacy light, and hung his overcoat on the hook. His computer hard drive, per service regulations, was locked in his safe. He inserted it and was working his way through the overnight telegram traffic when a call on his internal phone interrupted him. The ID screen indicated it was Nigel Whitcombe on the line. Whitcombe was “C’s” head butler and chief executioner. He had come to Vauxhall Cross from MI5. For that reason alone, Bennett loathed him.
He brought the phone to his ear. “Yes?”
“‘C’ would like a word.”
“When?”
The line went dead. Rising, Bennett straightened his jacket and self-consciously ran a hand through his hair.Christ! We’re not going on a date.He went to the elevators and boarded the first upward-bound carriage. Whitcombe was waiting when the doors opened, a slight smirk on his face.
“Morning, Bennett.”
“Nigel.”
Together they entered Graham Seymour’s executive suite, with its mahogany desk used by all the chiefs who had come before him, its towering windows overlooking the river Thames, and its stately old grandfather clock constructed by none other than Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first “C” of the British Secret Intelligence Service. Seymour was scribbling a note in the margin of a document with a Parker fountain pen. The ink was green, the color reserved for him.
Bennett heard a rustle and, turning, saw Whitcombe slipping from the room. Seymour looked up as though surprised by Bennett’s presence, and returned the Parker pen to its holder. Stretching his frame to its full height, he stepped from behind the desk with his hand before him like a bayonet.
“Hullo, Charles. So good of you to come. I think it’s about time we got you up to speed on a special operation we’ve been running for some time. I’m sorry we had to keep you in the dark until now, but there it is.”
That evening Bennett drank a single whisky in MI6’s private lounge and departed Vauxhall Cross in time to make the 7:30 out of Liverpool Street. The carriage he entered was crowded. Indeed, only a single seat was unoccupied. It was next to a small man in a duffel coat and black beret—a Pole or a Slav, reckoned Bennett—who looked as though he might at any moment pluck a volume ofDas Kapitalfrom his worn leather satchel. Bennett had never seen him before on the 7:30, a train he took often.
They passed the thirteen-minute ride to Stoke Newington in silence. Bennett left the carriage first and climbed the steps from the platform to the glass box that served as the station’s ticket hall. It was located on a tiny triangular esplanade in Stamford Hill, next to a financial establishment that catered to the neighborhood’s immigrant community, and a café called Kookies. A couple in their early forties, both blond, were drinking smoothies at one of the maroon picnic tables.
The little beret-wearing man emerged from the station a few seconds after Bennett and made straight for the Kingdom Hall in Willow Cottages. Bennett in turn set out past the parade of shops along Stamford Hill—the Princess Curtains and Bedding Palace, the Perfect Shirt, Stokey Karaoke, the New China House as opposed to the old, King’s Chicken, of which Bennett was rather fond. Unlike many of his colleagues he did not come from a family of means. The smart neighborhoods like Notting Hill and Hampstead were far too expensive for a man who existed only on a service salary. Besides, he liked the fact that Stoke Newington had retained the feel of a village. Sometimes even Bennett found it hard to believe the bustle of Charing Cross was only five miles to the south.
The shops and restaurants in Church Street were of a higher caliber. Bennett, seemingly on a whim, entered the flower shop and purchased a bouquet of hyacinths for his wife, Hester. He carried the flowers in his right hand along the southern side of the street, to the corner of Albion Road. Warm light spilled from the windows of the Rose & Crown, illuminating a couple of nicotine addicts sitting at the single table on the pavement. One of the men Bennett recognized.
He turned into Albion Road and followed it past the redbrick Hawksley Court council flats. A woman pushing a pram approached from the opposite direction. Otherwise, the pavements were deserted. Bennett heard the echo of his own footsteps. The rich scent of the hyacinths was irritating his sinuses. Why did it have to be hyacinths? Why not primrose or tulips?
He thought about his summons to the top floor of Vauxhall Cross that morning and the operation that “C” had finally decided to brief him on. Upon learning that Prince Abdullah, the next king of Saudi Arabia, was a long-term asset of MI6, Bennett had struck a pose of righteous indignation.Graham, how could you possibly keep me in the dark about a vital program for so long? It’s unconscionable.Still, he had to admire the audacity of it. Perhaps the old service was not quite dead after all.
Beyond the council flats, Albion Road turned suddenly prosperous. The house where Bennett lived was a handsome white structure, three stories, with a walled front garden. He hung his coat in the entrance hall and went into the sitting room. Hester was stretched out on the couch with the new Rebus and a large glass of white wine. Something tedious was seeping from the Bose. Bennett, wincing, switched it off.
“I was listening to that.” Hester looked up from the book and frowned. “Flowers again? Third time this month.”
“I didn’t realize you were keeping track.”
“What have I done to deserve flowers?”
“Can’t I bring you flowers, darling?”
“As long as you’re not doing something foolish.”
Hester’s eyes returned to the page. Bennett dropped the flowers on the coffee table and went into the kitchen in search of dinner.
50
Harrow, London
