The Righteous Spy

8 | Swiss Cottage, London – The Same Day

8

Swiss Cottage, London – The Same Day

It was good being back in London and interesting too. Eli sat opposite Gidon in the Singaporean restaurant; ostensibly he was there to get an update on Red Cap but Eli had an additional agenda; he wanted to find out just how close Gidon was to being sent home.

‘I’ve had such a lousy run of luck,’ Gidon paused with a spoonful of hot soup halfway to his mouth. He sounded more like a washed-up gambler bewailing his lack of success on the slot machines than a station manager with two decades of intelligence experience.

‘First the passports get left in a phone box by the i***t bag boy and then your man Red Cap goes mad – both in the same month. God knows, I could have handled one crisis; but two, so close to each other? Can’t be done. And what’s killing me, is that neither of those incidents were my fault.’ Gidon swallowed the soup and coughed over the chilli.

As ever, Eli contained his thoughts: he didn’t say that if Gidon had run a tighter ship, better procedures would have been in place and passports might not have been left in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag in a phone box. Neither did he say that Gidon had completely mishandled a valued asset whose most recent intelligence had given them the tools to target Klondyke. Without Red Cap’s product, Klondyke would have been helicoptering to his golf club instead of transiting a crocodile’s digestive track. But explaining all of this to Gidon was pointless. What would it achieve? Nothing. Eli would just be grinding yesterday’s man’s face down in the dirt.

‘How’s your laksa?’ Eli said.

‘Good. Delicious in fact. I didn’t know about this place and I’ve lived here for three years.’.

There was silence at the table. Gidon broke it, ‘So, what are you working on? You seem to be here mob-handed.’

‘You know I can’t say,’ Eli smiled at the freckled face and creased forehead across the table.

‘Come on. I know I’m last year’s flavour, but I’m still head of London station – at least I am for the moment.’

‘Gidon, drop it.’

‘What’s the new guy like?’ Gidon said, still anxious to be ‘in’ with the news.

‘Different.’

Gidon attempted to pour more wine into Eli’s still full glass and then refilled his own. ‘D’you remember those morning meetings we used to have with Avigdor? The discussions and debates? Now, that man was a leader; a philosopher, a man of intellect and culture.’

‘Like I said, Yuval is different,’ Eli said.

In terms of discovering what had driven Red Cap to trash the safe house, the evening was a washout. All Gidon did was reprise the contents of the contact report. However, by the time Eli returned to the serviced apartment it was clear that Gidon was more than halfway out of the door and the job of head of London station would be vacant soon.

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The next morning Eli was able to observe just how different Yuval’s leadership style was to Avigdor’s. They were sitting in the safe room at the embassy in Palace Gardens crowding round one end of the big table since it was only the three of them: Yuval, Rafi and Eli. A folder with a printout lay on the table but it was being shunned as if it contained a virus. They had already received the report in their overnight mailbox and it didn’t make happy reading; it was a transcript of Sweetbait’s conversation with her brother.

‘So, the situation is like this,’ Yuval said. ‘We have a problem; we need a solution. Ideas please.’

Eli laid down the croissant he was eating on the paper plate, ‘We can’t move until we’ve got a lot more information about Sweetbait’s brother. If he’s well connected he might make waves.’

‘So what?’ Yuval said. ‘So, he thinks it’s not Hamas but some other group. Or maybe it is Hamas but for once they’ve got an operation that’s so water-tight no one knows about it. I don’t think we should fixate.’ Yuval said.

‘I agree,’ Rafi said. He picked up the plastic glass that contained an inch of a kale and kiwi fruit smoothie. He tossed the drink to the back of his throat and then threw the empty container in the direction of the bin in the corner. The glass plopped in but some drops of green liquid spattered the cream plaster.

‘It’ll be a total mess if he turns up in the UK,’ Eli said trying not to sound as negative as he felt, trying to find a solution to the problem. ‘But he won’t be able to find her if we take away her phone.’

‘That won’t work. We take her phone, she uses a phone box,’ Yuval said working his lips with concentration. ‘We change the sim card and block international calls but we still have the same problem.’

‘Okay, if we’re going to do this we need someone in the school,’ Eli said. ‘We need someone in the school to be her friend and mentor, who’s there round the clock. Someone who, if push comes to shove, can get Sweetbait away from the brother if he turns up.’

‘Good, I like that. Rafi see who might make a good student. Maybe one of our youngsters – a boy. No, better a girl. That’s what the experts say.’

Rafi opened the laptop in front of him and with his big hands started to access the organisation’s database. The tap-tap of his fingers filled the room.

‘I thought you didn’t believe in the experts’ reports,’ Eli said.

Yuval didn’t look up. ‘It depends on the expert.’ He pulled another laptop towards him, pecked at some keys with his two index fingers and then started to read the screen. ‘No, no, that’s not going to work. The experts say she is shy with men and... here...’ he pointed at the screen and read out: “Unlikely to be influenced by a woman of her own age or peer group.” Have we got anyone older who could be a student?’

Rafi looked up from his screen. ‘What about Trainer?’