The English Spy

Keller followed the coastline to the town of Porto and then turned inland. It was a Sunday; the roads were quiet, and in the hill towns church bells tolled. In the center of the island, near its highest point, was the small village of the Orsatis. It had been there, or so it was said, since the time of the Vandals, when people from the coasts took to the hills for safety. Time seemed to have stopped there. Children played in the streets at all hours because there were no predators. Nor were there any illegal narcotics, for no dealer would risk the wrath of the Orsatis by peddling drugs in their village. Nothing much happened there, and sometimes there was not enough work to be done. But it was clean and beautiful and safe, and the people who lived there seemed content to eat well, drink their wine, and enjoy time with their children and their elders. Keller always missed them when he was away from Corsica for long. He dressed like them, he spoke the Corsican dialect like them, and in the evening, when he played boules with the men in the village square, he gave the same disgusted shake of his head whenever someone spoke of the French or, heaven forbid, the Italians. Once the people of the village had called him “the Englishman.” Now he was merely Christopher. He was one of them.

The historic estate of the Orsati clan lay just beyond the village, in a small valley of olive trees that produced the island’s finest oil. Two armed guards stood watch at the entrance; they touched their Corsican flat caps respectfully as Keller turned through the gate and started up the long drive toward the villa. Laricio pine shaded the forecourt, but in the walled garden bright sunlight shone upon the long table that had been laid for the family’s traditional Sunday lunch. For now, the table was unoccupied. The clan was still at Mass, and the don, who no longer set foot in church, was upstairs in his office. He was seated at a large oaken table, peering into an open leather-bound ledger, when Keller entered. At his elbow was a decorative bottle of Orsati olive oil—olive oil being the legitimate business through which the don laundered the profits of death.

“How was Berlin?” he asked without looking up.

“Cold,” said Keller. “But productive.”

“Any complications?”

“No.”

Orsati smiled. The only thing he disliked more than complications were the French. He closed the ledger and settled his dark eyes on Keller’s face. As usual, Don Orsati was dressed in a crisp white shirt, loose-fitting trousers of pale cotton, and leather sandals that looked as though they had been purchased at the local outdoor market, which was indeed the case. His heavy mustache had been trimmed, and his head of bristly gray-black hair glistened with tonic. The don always took inordinate care with his grooming on Sunday. He no longer believed in God but insisted on keeping the Sabbath sacred. He refrained from foul language on the Lord’s Day, he tried to think good thoughts, and, most important, he forbade his taddunaghiu from fulfilling contracts. Even Keller, who had been raised an Anglican and was therefore considered a heretic, was bound by the don’s edicts. Recently, he had been forced to spend an additional night in Warsaw because Don Orsati would not grant him dispensation to kill the target, a Russian mobster, on the day of rest.

“You’ll stay for lunch,” the don was saying.

“Thank you, Don Orsati,” Keller said formally, “but I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You? Impose?” The Corsican waved his hand dismissively.

“I’m tired,” said Keller. “It was a rough crossing.”

“You didn’t sleep on the ferry?”

“Evidently,” said Keller, “you haven’t been on a ferry recently.”

It was true. Anton Orsati rarely ventured beyond the well-guarded walls of his estate. The world came to him with its problems, and he made them go away—for a substantial fee, of course. He picked up a thick manila envelope and placed it in front of Keller.

“What’s that?”

“Consider it a Christmas bonus.”

“It’s October.”

The don shrugged. Keller lifted the flap of the envelope and peered inside. It was packed with bundles of hundred-euro notes. He lowered the flap and pushed the envelope toward the center of the table.

“Here on Corsica,” the don said with a frown, “it is impolite to refuse a gift.”

“The gift isn’t necessary.”

“Take it, Christopher. You’ve earned it.”

“You’ve made me rich, Don Orsati, richer than I ever dreamed possible.”

“But?”

Keller sat silently.

“A closed mouth catches neither flies nor food,” said the don, quoting from his seemingly bottomless supply of Corsican proverbs.

“Your point?”

“Speak, Christopher. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

Keller was staring at the money, consciously avoiding the don’s gaze.

“Are you bored with your work?”

“It’s not that.”

“Maybe you should take a break. You could focus your energies on the legitimate side of the business. There’s plenty of money to be made there.”

“Olive oil isn’t the answer, Don Orsati.”

“So there is a problem.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” The don regarded Keller carefully. “When you pull a tooth, Christopher, it will stop hurting.”

“Unless you have a bad dentist.”

“The only thing worse than a bad dentist is a bad companion.”

“It is better to be alone,” said Keller philosophically, “than to have bad companions.”

The don smiled. “You might have been born an Englishman, Christopher, but you have the soul of a Corsican.”

Keller stood. The don pushed the envelope across the tabletop.

“Are you sure you won’t stay for lunch?”

“I have plans.”

“Whatever they are,” the don said, “they’ll have to wait.”

“Why?”

“You have a visitor.”

Keller didn’t have to ask the visitor’s name. There were only a handful of people in the world who knew he was still alive, and only one who would dare to call on him unannounced.

“When did he arrive?”

“Last night,” answered the don.

“What does he want?”

“He wasn’t at liberty to say.” The don scrutinized Keller with the watchful eyes of a canine. “Is it my imagination,” he asked finally, “or has your mood suddenly improved?”

Keller departed without answering. Don Orsati watched him go. Then he looked down at the tabletop and swore softly. The Englishman had forgotten to take the envelope.

10

CORSICA

CHRISTOPHER KELLER HAD ALWAYS TAKEN great care with his money. By his own calculation he had earned more than $20 million working for Don Anton Orsati and, through prudent investing, had made himself vastly wealthy. The bulk of his fortune was held by banks in Geneva and Zurich, but there were also accounts in Monaco, Liechtenstein, Brussels, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. He even kept a small amount of money at a reputable bank in London. His British account manager believed him to be a reclusive resident of Corsica who, like Don Orsati, left the island infrequently. The government of France was of the same opinion. Keller paid taxes on his legitimate investment earnings and on the respectable salary he earned from the Orsati Olive Oil Company, where he served as director of central European sales. He voted in French elections, donated to French charities, rooted for French sports teams, and, on occasion, had been forced to utilize the services of the French national health care authority. He had never been charged with a crime of any sort, a noteworthy achievement for a man of the south, and his driving record was impeccable. All in all, with one significant exception, Christopher Keller was a model citizen.

An expert skier and climber, he had been quietly shopping for a chalet in the French Alps for some time. At present, he maintained a single residence, a villa of modest proportions located one valley over from the valley of the Orsatis. It had exterior walls of tawny brown, a red tile roof, a large blue swimming pool, and a wide terrace that received the sun in the morning and in the afternoon was shaded by pine. Inside, its large rooms were comfortably decorated in rustic furnishings covered in white, beige, and faded yellows. There were many shelves filled with serious books—Keller had briefly studied military history at Cambridge and was a voracious reader of politics and contemporary issues—and upon the walls hung a modest collection of modern and Impressionist paintings. The most valuable work was a small landscape by Monet, which Keller, through an intermediary, had acquired from Christie’s auction house in Paris. Standing before it now, one hand resting on his chin, his head tilted to one side, was Gabriel. He licked the tip of his forefinger, rubbed it over the surface, and shook his head slowly.

“What’s wrong?” asked the Englishman.

“It’s covered in surface grime. You really should let me clean it for you. It will only take—”

“I like it the way it is.”

Gabriel wiped his forefinger on the front of his jeans and turned to face Keller. The Englishman was ten years younger than Gabriel, four inches taller, and thirty pounds heavier, especially through the shoulders and arms, where he carried a lethal quantity of finely sculpted power and mass. His short hair was bleached blond from the sea; his skin was very dark from the sun. He had bright blue eyes, square cheekbones, and a thick chin with a chisel notch in the center of it. His mouth seemed permanently fixed in a mocking smile. Keller was a man without allegiance, without fear, and without morals, except when it came to matters of friendship and love. He had lived life on his own terms, and somehow he had won.

“I thought you were supposed to be in Rome,” he said.

“I was,” answered Gabriel. “But Graham Seymour dropped into town. He had something he wanted to show me.”

“What was it?”

“A photograph of a man walking through Heathrow Airport.”

Keller’s half-smile evaporated, his blue eyes narrowed. “How much does he know?”

“Everything, Christopher.”

“Am I in danger?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you agree to do a job for him.”

“What does he want?”

Gabriel smiled. “What you do best.”

Outside, the sun still held dominion over Keller’s terrace. They sat in a pair of comfortable garden chairs, a small wrought-iron table between them. On it lay Graham Seymour’s thick file on the professional exploits of one Eamon Quinn. Keller had yet to open it or even look at it. He was listening spellbound to Gabriel’s account of Quinn’s role in the murder of the princess.

When Gabriel finished, Keller held up the photograph of his recent passage through Heathrow Airport. “You gave me your word,” he said. “You swore that you would never tell Graham that we were working together.”

“I didn’t have to tell him. He already knew.”

“How?”

Gabriel explained.

“Devious bastard,” muttered Keller.

“He’s British,” said Gabriel. “It comes naturally.”

Keller looked at Gabriel carefully for a moment. “It’s funny,” he said, “but you don’t seem terribly upset about the situation.”

“It does present you with an interesting opportunity, Christopher.”

Beyond the rim of the valley a church bell tolled midday. Keller placed the photograph atop the file and lit a cigarette.

“Must you?” asked Gabriel, waving away the smoke.

“What choice do I have?”

“You can stop smoking and add several years to your life.”

“About Graham,” said Keller, exasperated.

“I suppose you can stay here in Corsica and hope he doesn’t decide to tell the French about you.”

“Or?”

“You can help me find Eamon Quinn.”

“And then?”

“You can go home again, Christopher.”

Keller raised his hand to the valley and said, “This is my home.”

“It isn’t real, Christopher. It’s a fantasy. It’s make-believe.”

“So are you.”

Gabriel smiled but said nothing. The church bell had fallen silent; the afternoon shadows were gathering at the edge of the terrace. Keller crushed out his cigarette and looked down at the unopened file.

“Interesting reading?” he asked.

“Quite.”

“Recognize anyone?”

“An MI5 man named Graham Seymour,” said Gabriel, “and an SAS officer who’s referred to only by his code name.”

“What is it?”

“Merchant.”

“Catchy.”

“I thought so, too.”

“What does it say about him?”

“It says he operated undercover in West Belfast for approximately a year in the late eighties.”

“Why did he stop?”

“His cover was blown. Apparently, there was a woman involved.”

“Does it mention her name?” asked Keller.

“No.”

“What happened next?”

“Merchant was kidnapped by the IRA and taken to a remote farmhouse for interrogation and execution. The farmhouse was in South Armagh. Quinn was there.”

“How did it end?”

“Badly.”

A gust of wind stirred the pine. Keller gazed upon his Corsican valley as though it were slipping from his grasp. Then he lit another cigarette and told Gabriel the rest of it.

11

CORSICA

IT WAS KELLER’S APTITUDE WITH language that set him apart—not foreign languages, but the various ways in which the English language is spoken on the streets of Belfast and the six counties of Northern Ireland. The subtleties of local accents made it virtually impossible for officers of the SAS to operate undetected within the small, tightly knit communities of the province. As a result, most SAS men were forced to utilize the services of a Fred—the Regiment’s term for a local helper—when tracking IRA members or engaging in street surveillance. But not Keller. He developed the ability to mimic the various dialects of Ulster with the speed and confidence of a native. He could even shift accents at a moment’s notice—a Catholic from Armagh one minute, a Protestant from Belfast’s Shankill Road the next, then a Catholic from the Ballymurphy housing estates. His unique linguistic skills did not escape the notice of his superiors. Nor was it long before they came to the attention of an ambitious young intelligence officer who ran the Northern Ireland account for MI5.

“I assume,” said Gabriel, “that the young MI5 officer was Graham Seymour.”

Keller nodded. Then he explained that Seymour, in the late 1980s, was dissatisfied with the level of intelligence he was receiving from MI5’s informants in Northern Ireland. He wanted to insert his own agent into the IRA badlands of West Belfast to report on the movements and associations of known IRA commanders and volunteers. It was not a job for an ordinary MI5 officer. The agent would have to know how to handle himself in a world where one false step, one wrong glance, could get a man killed. Keller met with Seymour at a safe house in London and agreed to take on the assignment. Two months later he was back in Belfast posing as a Catholic named Michael Connelly. He took a two-room flat in the Divis Tower apartment complex on the Falls Road. His neighbor was a member of the IRA’s West Belfast Brigade. The British Army maintained an observation post on the roof and used the top two floors as barracks and office space. When the Troubles were at their worst, the soldiers came and went by helicopter. “It was madness,” said Keller, shaking his head slowly. “Absolute madness.”

While much of West Belfast was unemployed and on the dole, Keller soon found work as a deliveryman for a laundry service on the Falls Road. The job allowed him to move freely through the neighborhoods and enclaves of West Belfast without suspicion and gave him access to the homes and laundry of known IRA members. It was a remarkable achievement, but no accident. The laundry was owned and operated by British intelligence.

“It was one of our most closely held operations,” said Keller. “Even the prime minister wasn’t aware of it. We had a small fleet of vans, listening equipment, and a lab in the back. We tested every piece of laundry we could get our hands on for traces of explosives. And if we got a positive hit, we put the owner and his house under surveillance.”

Gradually, Keller began forming friendships with members of the dysfunctional community around him. His IRA neighbor invited him for dinner, and once, in an IRA bar on the Falls Road, a recruiter made a not-so-subtle pass at him, which Keller politely deflected. He attended mass regularly at St. Paul’s Church—as part of his training he had learned the rituals and doctrines of Catholicism—and on a wet Sunday in Lent he met a beautiful young girl there named Elizabeth Conlin. Her father was Ronnie Conlin, an IRA field commander for Ballymurphy.

“A serious player,” said Gabriel.

“As serious as it gets.”

“You decided to pursue the relationship.”

“I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“You were in love with her.”

Keller nodded slowly.

“How did you see her?”

“I used to sneak into her bedroom. She would hang a violet scarf in the window if it was safe. It was a tiny pebble-dash terrace house with walls like paper. I could hear her father in the next room. It was—”

“Madness,” said Gabriel.

Keller said nothing.

“Did Graham know?”

“Of course.”

“You told him?”

“I didn’t have to. I was under constant MI5 and SAS surveillance.”

“I assume he told you to break it off.”

“In no uncertain terms.”

“What did you do?”

“I agreed,” replied Keller. “With one condition.”

“You wanted to see her one last time.”

Keller lapsed into silence. And when finally he spoke again, his voice had changed. It had taken on the elongated vowels and rough edges of working-class West Belfast. He was no longer Christopher Keller; he was Michael Connelly, the laundry deliveryman from the Falls Road who had fallen in love with the beautiful daughter of an IRA chieftain from Ballymurphy. On his last night in Ulster, he left his van on the Springfield Road and scaled the garden wall of the Conlin house. The violet scarf was hanging in its usual place, but Elizabeth’s room was darkened. Keller soundlessly raised the window, parted the gauzy curtains, and slipped inside. Instantly, he absorbed a blow to the side of his head, like the blow of an ax blade, and began to fade from consciousness. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was the face of Ronnie Conlin.

“He was speaking to me,” said Keller. “He was telling me that I was about to die.”

Keller was bound, gagged, hooded, and bundled into the boot of a car. It took him from the slums of West Belfast to a farmhouse in South Armagh. There he was taken to a barn and beaten severely. Then he was tied to a chair for interrogation and trial. Four men from the IRA’s notorious South Armagh Brigade would serve as the jury. Eamon Quinn would serve as the prosecutor, judge, and executioner. He planned to administer the sentence with a field knife he had taken from a dead British soldier. Quinn was the IRA’s best bomb maker, a master technician, but when it came to personal killing he preferred the knife.

“He told me that if I cooperated, my death would be reasonable. If I didn’t, he was going to cut me to pieces.”

“What happened?”

“I got lucky,” said Keller. “They did a lousy job with the bindings, and I cut them to pieces instead. I did it so quickly they never knew what hit them.”

“How many?”

“Two,” answered Keller. “Then I got my hands on one of their guns and shot two more.”

“What happened to Quinn?”

“Quinn wisely fled the field of battle. Quinn lived to fight another day.”

The following morning the British Army announced that four members of the South Armagh Brigade had been killed in a raid on a remote IRA safe house. The official account made no mention of a kidnapped undercover SAS officer named Christopher Keller. Nor did it mention a laundry service on the Falls Road secretly owned by British intelligence. Keller was flown back to the mainland for treatment; the laundry was quietly closed. It was a major blow to British efforts in Northern Ireland.

“And Elizabeth?” asked Gabriel.

“They found her body two days later. Her head had been shaved. Her throat was slit.”

“Who did it?”

“I heard it was Quinn,” said Keller. “Apparently, he insisted on doing it himself.”

Upon his release from the hospital, Keller returned to SAS headquarters at Hereford for rest and recovery. He took long, punishing hikes on the Brecon Beacons and trained new recruits in the art of silent killing, but it was clear to his superiors that his experiences in Belfast had changed him. Then, in August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Keller rejoined his old Sabre squadron and was deployed to the Middle East. And on the evening of January 28, 1991, while searching for Scud missile launchers in Iraq’s western desert, his unit came under attack by Coalition aircraft in a tragic case of friendly fire. Only Keller survived. Enraged, he walked off the battlefield and, disguised as an Arab, slipped across the border into Syria. From there, he hiked westward across Turkey, Greece, and Italy, until he finally washed ashore in Corsica, where he fell into the waiting arms of Don Anton Orsati.

“Did you ever look for him?”

“Quinn?”

Gabriel nodded.

“The don forbade it.”

“But that didn’t stop you, did it?”

“Let’s just say I followed his career closely. I knew he went with the Real IRA after the Good Friday peace accords, and I knew he was the one who planted that bomb in the middle of Omagh.”

“And when he fled Ireland?”

“I made polite inquiries as to his whereabouts. Impolite inquiries, too.”

“Any of them bear fruit?”

“Most definitely.”

“But you never tried to kill him?”

“No,” said Keller, shaking his head. “The don forbade it.”

“But now you’ve got your chance.”

“With the blessing of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” Keller gave a brief smile. “Rather ironic, don’t you think?”

“What’s that?”

“Quinn drove me out of the game, and now he’s pulling me back in.” Keller looked at Gabriel seriously for a moment. “Are you sure you want to be involved in this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s personal,” replied Keller. “And when it’s personal, it tends to get messy.”

“I do personal all the time.”

“Messy, too.” The shadows had reclaimed the terrace. The wind made ripples upon the surface of Keller’s blue swimming pool. “And if I do this?” he asked. “What then?”

“Graham will give you a new British identity. A job, too.” Gabriel paused, then added, “If you’re interested.”

“A job doing what?”

“Use your imagination.”

Keller frowned. “What would you do if you were me?”

“I’d take the deal.”

“And give up all this?”

“It isn’t real, Christopher.”

Beyond the rim of the valley a church bell tolled one o’clock.

“What am I going to say to the don?” asked Keller.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s personal,” replied Gabriel. “And when it’s personal, it tends to get messy.”

There was a ferry leaving for Nice at six that evening. Gabriel boarded at half past five, drank a coffee in the café, and stepped onto the observation deck to wait for Keller. By 5:45 he had not arrived. Five additional minutes passed with no sign of him. Then Gabriel glimpsed a battered Renault turning into the car park and a moment later saw Keller trotting up the ramp with an overnight bag hanging from one powerful shoulder. They stood side by side at the railing and watched the lights of Ajaccio receding into the gloom. The gentle evening wind smelled of macchia, the dense undergrowth of scrub oak, rosemary, and lavender that covered much of the island. Keller drew the air deeply into his lungs before lighting a cigarette. The breeze carried his first exhalation of smoke across Gabriel’s face.