The Last Run Read online

  Crocker shook his head, dismissing the apology as unnecessary. Szurko was, by far, the oddest figure in the room, and at thirty-eight years old and standing five feet five inches, also the youngest and the shortest. Unlike Crocker and Rayburn, he never wore a suit or a tie, instead dressing, as he called it, “casual Friday,” in jeans or slacks, often with a button-down shirt, but sometimes, when it actually was Friday, with a T-shirt. His sense of style, or lack thereof, had begun to infect the rest of his directorate, and more and more often, Crocker felt himself out of place in his three-piece.

  It would have been easy for Crocker to resent Szurko, but he didn’t. Intelligence had to change with the times, it had to not only keep up, but to get ahead. Szurko, with his BlackBerry and his ever-present laptop, was the face of the new SIS, the next generation coming up through the ranks. While Rayburn and Crocker still brought paper to the daily meetings, Szurko avoided doing so if at all possible. If the technology and the clothing had been an affectation, a performance, it would have been different, but neither were, and the man was decidedly brilliant at his job, something that even Rayburn, who had been D-Int for several years prior to his promotion to Deputy Chief, readily admitted. The only real problem with Szurko, and Crocker had seen it before with other exceptionally gifted analysts, was that the man didn’t actually seem to be entirely with them in the room at times.

  “I did have one more thing,” Crocker told C. “This morning Chace submitted her resignation from the Special Section to me. She’s asking to be moved to the Ops Room staff, into Mission Planning.”

  “That’ll hurt,” Szurko said immediately, more to himself than to the others. “That’ll hurt a lot, actually.”

  C glanced to D-Int, then to Crocker. “Has something happened?”

  “She feels it’s time. Past time, actually, and she may be right.”

  “You’ll want Poole as Head of Section?”

  “And move Lankford to Minder Two, yes.”

  “When does she plan to leave?”

  “She doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, said she’ll stay on until we find a new Minder Three.”

  “Is there anyone in the pipeline?” Rayburn asked.

  “I haven’t had a chance to check with the School as yet,” Crocker answered. “She informed me of the decision just before I came up for the meeting.”

  “There won’t be,” Szurko said. “I was looking at scores this morning, there’s no one in the current class. Or in the previous class. Or the class before that one, actually.”

  “Thank you, Daniel.” C got to her feet, and Crocker and Rayburn followed suit. “I think that’s all, gentlemen. Paul, if you’ll stay for a moment, please.”

  Szurko and Rayburn headed out of the office, but not before Crocker heard D-Int say, again, “That’ll hurt.”

  When the door had closed, C said, “How much will it hurt us, Paul?”

  “It’ll depend on how long it takes me to find a replacement for the Section.”

  “That’s not precisely what I’m asking. Can we afford to lose Chace?”

  Crocker, who had been asking himself the same question ever since Chace had handed over her letter of resignation, said, “I don’t think it’s a question of that, ma’am. She’s made her decision.”

  “Again, you’re not answering me.”

  “She’s one of the best Special Operations Officers working anywhere in the world today, despite what she may think of herself at the moment. Can we afford to lose her? No. Have we lost her already? In everything but body, yes, I think she’s already out the door.”

  C frowned as she settled behind her desk. “Did you try to argue her out of it?”

  “I considered it, but you didn’t see her. She’s made up her mind. And, to be honest, she made some very good points, not only that her departure was due, but that it was overdue, perhaps. She’s been in the Section since she was twenty-four. That’s a long time for anyone to be a Minder. In fact, I think it may be a record.”

  “Overdue, you say.”

  “She thinks so.”

  “Sometimes we stay too long,” C said. “She does understand that Mission Planning is technically a step down on the career track? You didn’t suggest a position in Whitehall? I should think it would be rather easy to have her assigned a position on the JIC as soon as one opens. That would preserve her prospects for future promotion, at the least.”

  “I can make the suggestion, but I doubt she’ll entertain it. She wants to stay in the Ops Room.”

  C gazed at him for several seconds, her expression unreadable. Alison Gordon-Palmer—if the rumors about the New Year’s Honors List were true, it would soon be Dame Alison—perhaps three years Crocker’s senior, with limp brown hair that, like Crocker’s own, was beginning to streak with gray. Her attire was always professional and conservative, today the blouse ivory, the long skirt a rich, royal blue, matching the blazer that hung on the stand behind her desk. As usual, she’d eschewed makeup, something she resorted to applying only while being ferried in her Bentley to Downing Street.

  Rayburn was smart, and Szurko unquestionably, eccentrically brilliant, but Gordon-Palmer, as Crocker had learned from personal experience, operated from a cunning all her own. It wasn’t simply her understanding of the Firm, of how SIS worked, that had made her C; she understood the political game as well, in a way that Crocker had never been able to master. It was a game she had played so deftly, it had cost the previous C his crown.

  “Very well,” C said finally. “If that’s everything, Paul?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Crocker said, and he left her office to return to his own, knowing full well it wasn’t Tara Chace his C believed had stayed on too long.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SOUTHEND-ON-SEA—77 AVE ROAD, RESIDENCE OF DOROTHY AND KILLIAN NEWSOM

  7 DECEMBER 0947 HOURS (GMT)

  The woman who answered the door was stocky, pleasant, wearing a bright floral print apron and a just as pleasant and bright smile.

  “My name’s Tara,” Chace said. “I called ahead about seeing your father-in-law?”

  “Oh, that’s right, come in, please do.” She stepped back, allowing Chace through the doorway and into the narrow hall of the narrow house, shutting the door after her, and then literally having to squeeze past her again to lead the way into the front room. The whole house was filled with the smell of bacon, a late fry-up breakfast, and Chace could see boxes of Christmas decorations set out, waiting to be disinterred and mounted.

  The woman offered her hand. “Dorothy Newsom, a pleasure. Da’s upstairs. I should check on him first, if you don’t mind?”

  “No, I’m happy to wait,” Chace replied.

  Dorothy Newsom smiled, unfastening her apron as she stepped back into the hallway. Chace heard her climbing the stairs, treading heavily, and from above the sound of a television, audible but incomprehensible, through the floor. She moved further into the room, taking in the decorations, the various photographs on the mantel and walls. Dorothy and her husband had three children, it seemed, the eldest somewhere in mid-teens, if the pictures were recent. Chace didn’t see any pictures she thought might be Jeremy Newsom.

  The footsteps descended, as noisily as they had climbed, and Dorothy returned. The smile, this time, seemed more forced.

  “You said you would want to speak with him alone, Miss Chace?”

  “Yes, if that’s possible.”

  “He’s … he’s having a harder time this morning, I’m not sure how with us he’ll be today. Some of his days are better than others, you understand. Some days … his mind wanders.”

  “Is it Alzheimer’s?”

  “The doctor says senile dementia, but I suppose that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Just you and your husband taking care of him?”

  “The children help, of course, but yes. We couldn’t bear to put him in a care home. I suppose we’ll have to, soon, but not yet. Not until after the holidays.”

  “I shan’t be long,�
� Chace said. “It’s just a couple of quick questions.”

  “This is about when he was with the Foreign Office, you said on the phone.”

  “That’s right.”

  “May I ask you, miss, was he a spy?”

  Chace looked at her curiously. “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s just that Killian says he thinks his father was a spy, only he never talked about it to him when he was growing up, you see, and now he can’t really talk about anything at all. But Da says things, very odd things, places he’s been that Killian never knew about. We’d started to wonder if there wasn’t some truth to it, that perhaps it weren’t all his mind going. So a spy perhaps, something like that.”

  Chace laughed softly, shaking her head. “No, my understanding is that your father-in-law was a special courier for the FCO, Mrs. Newsom. There was certainly a lot of travel involved, but nothing terribly glamorous or exciting.”

  “And that’s what you need to ask him about?”

  “We have some questions about a job he did, yes. Nothing that need worry you or your husband, I assure you.”

  Dorothy Newsom nodded, clearly not satisfied. “Well, you can go on up, I suppose. I was making myself breakfast. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re finished, if you’d like a cuppa.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind,” Chace said, and she headed upstairs to meet what was left of Jeremy Newsom, former Tehran Station Number Two, 1977–79.

  It had been just past noon the previous day when the Ops Room had received responses to their separate queries. The first to come in had been from Thomas Bay, in Jakarta. It was a brief signal reporting that Falcon was present in theatre, and asking if there was a reason for the inquiry. The second had come from Barnett.

  “The message was received via dead drop, all signals proper and confirmed,” Lex had relayed to Chace. “The Number Two, Caleb Lewis, cleared it Saturday morning, found the message. The drop is currently assigned to an agent they’re running, code name Mini. But it’s not his code, and as Mini is hands-off right now, they can’t confirm if he’s been blown or not.”

  “Currently?” Chace asked.

  “Direct quote,” Lex answered, checking her copy of the signal.

  Chace chewed on her lower lip, staring at the map on the wall. The callout for Operation: Bagboy was still positioned over Mosul, now with a notation reading, “Pending.” Once Lankford was on the ground in Iraq, the label would change, declaring the op as “Running.”

  “Where’d we stash Ricks after he got back from Iran?” Chace asked, and when Lex shrugged, turned to Ron at the Duty Ops Desk. “Anybody know?”

  “Think he’s on leave.” Ron picked up one of his many telephones. “I’ll check with Personnel.”

  “Please.” Chace made her way across the room, to Mission Planning and its companion Research Desk, taking a seat at one of the three terminals stationed there. Access from the Desk was limited, only to files graded Restricted or lower, but that was adequate for her current task. The system was painfully slow, the computers already several years out-of-date and creeping towards obsolescence despite the Systems Group’s best efforts, and before she could actually begin her search, Ron called out to her.

  “Confirmed. Terry Ricks is on leave, due for return to duty first January. I’ve got a leave address and contact number.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Someplace up north, in the Ribble Valley. Clitheroe—”

  “Right, Lancashire, I know the place,” Chace said. Tom Wallace’s mother, Valerie, lived some fifteen kilometers east from Clitheroe, in Barnoldswick. “Could you set me a call with him, please, Ron? Soonest?”

  “As it is either that or resume struggling with my crosswords, I shall do the former.”

  Chace went back to the computer, started working through the message. She ignored the substitution code, working instead with the keywords from the book code as she came across them. She received two results for “grapes,” the most recent from 1989, when the word had been used as code for automatic rifles during an operation in Cairo. “Water” kicked back nearly two thousand instances in the last ten years alone, and Chace realized it was useless, as whoever had inputted the information into the database had felt compelled to identify the use of “water” to mean any reference to any body of water in any operational theatre, ranging from the seven seas all the way down to a small lake in northern Cameroon. “Falcon” garnered five results, the oldest twenty years ago, in each instance used as a code name for a contact or agent, none of them in Iran.

  “I’ve got Terry Ricks for you,” Ron called from his desk, and Chace swiveled around to pick up the phone as the call was transferred over to her.

  “Terry? Tara Chace.”

  “Hello, lovely. Calling to see if I’m lonely in Lancashire?”

  “Everyone’s lonely in Lancashire, Terry. Got two queries for you.”

  “Anything for Minder One.”

  “First one, does the name ‘Falcon’ mean anything to you?”

  “Not at all. Should it, love?”

  “That’ll depend on the answer to the second question. It’s about one of the cars you were using in Iran.”

  The levity vanished from Ricks’ voice. “Which one?”

  “Mini,” Chace said. “He had his own parking space, yes?”

  “All the cars did.”

  “Mini’s space, was it yours, or was it inherited?”

  “Ah, I see what you’re asking. Inherited. The, ah, garage, as it were, has been using it since before Mossadegh’s ouster.”

  “That pretty, is it?”

  “It’s like they say about real estate. Location, location, location.”

  “I understand.”

  “My little Mini having engine trouble?”

  “Trying to determine that right now. Thanks for the help.”

  Chace hung up, logged out of the terminal, and sat, collecting her thoughts. Then she rose and headed out of the Ops Room, asking Ron to inform D-Ops that she’d be down in Archives should war be declared. She rode the elevator down to the first subbasement, stuck her head into the Pit, the cramped office that all three Minders shared. Lankford’s desk was empty, but Nicky Poole was seated at his, elbows propped on the desk, head in his hands, apparently concentrating on the file open before him.

  “You SAS types,” Chace said, “can fall asleep anywhere.”

  Poole’s head jerked up. “It’s all those long nights I’ve been spending alone. Hardly getting a wink of sleep.”

  “C’mon, I’ve got something tedious and boring for you to do.”

  Poole closed the file, locking it away in his desk, before moving to join her. They started down the maze of identically decorated hallways, passing door after unmarked door, designed to preserve security between departments.

  “You say boring,” Poole said, “but I’ll have you know, I am a discerning judge of tedium.”

  “We’re going down to Archives.”

  Poole promptly pivoted on his toe, reversing direction one hundred and eighty degrees, heading back to the Pit, and Chace laughed and caught hold of him by his shirt.

  “But I’ve been good!” Poole complained.

  “That’s probably why you’re having so many lonely nights.”

  “Why are we being punished with Archives?”

  “Need to go through the old records for Tehran.”

  “Aren’t they in the computer?”

  “The computer doesn’t have anything older than twenty years or so. The rest are still on paper.”

  “We’ll need written permission for the files.”

  “Only if they’re graded above Restricted,” Chace said, then added, “I turned in my resignation this morning.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Dead serious.”

  Poole stopped. “Tara.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Dead serious?”

  “Soon as the Boss finds a new Minder Three, I’m off to Mission Planning. He’s
going to make you Minder One. Don’t look so bloody happy, Nicky.”

  “Do I?”

  “No, you look like I just uprooted your herb garden, actually.”

  Poole made a clicking sound with his tongue. “You tell Chris?”

  “Figured it could wait until he was back from Mosul.”

  “Probably best. If I tell you how much you’ll be missed, it’s not going to make a bit of difference, will it?”

  “Not a whit of it,” Chace said. “But the effort is appreciated.”

  It took two hours of searching through Archives before Poole found references to an agent named Falcon in the reports of Jeremy Newsom. For security reasons, the documents couldn’t be removed from the room, so Chace and Poole spent another ninety minutes working at a set of facing desks, in surprisingly poor light, reading through the reams of paperwork Newsom had produced. All Stations delivered daily reports, normally no more than a page or two in length, but as the Revolution had approached, Newsom—along with his Number One, a man named Andrew Thurman—had seen the writing on the wall, and their signals had consequently increased in both frequency and length. SIS had, in turn, responded, accepting their analysis, and at several points Chace ran across “US–UK EYES ONLY” stamps, indicating that the information had, in fact, been shared with the CIA, only to be disputed and even disregarded, in turn, by the U.S. State Department.

  There were only a handful of references to Falcon, but from what Chace and Poole could gather, he was a young man, a soldier, and had passed on some minor, but useful, information about support for Khomeini within the armed forces. His associated expenses totaled up to just under twenty-two thousand pounds, which led Chace to conclude Falcon had been a paid source, rather than an ideological one.

  Nowhere within the files did either of them find anything that explained the phrase “the grapes are in the water.”

  As Poole was replacing the reports, Chace used the internal circuit to call up to D-Ops. Personnel files were kept by the Security Division, technically part of the Operations Directorate, and classified anywhere from Secret, in the case of general staff, to Top Secret, in the case of senior staff, for a minimum of fifty years from the date of recruitment to SIS. Access required written permission from D-Ops, or, in the case of senior staff, from the Deputy Chief or C.