A Perfect Spy

“Gentlemen,” Wexler resumed — except that he said “junnlemen.” Reload, aim again, take your time, thought Lederer. “Our position, Sir Eric,” Wexler resumed, with something unpleasantly close to a bow in the direction of Mountjoy’s knighthood, “that is — the ah Agency position overall on this thing — at this important meeting, and at this moment in time — is that we have here an accumulation of indicators from a wide range of sources on the one hand, and new data on the other which we consider pretty much conclusive in respect of our unease.” He moistened his lips. So would I, thought Lederer. If I’d spoken that mouthful, I’d spit at least. “It looks to us therefore that the ah logistics here require us to go back over the ah course a little distance and — when we’ve done that — to ah slot the new stuff in where we can all take a good look at it in light of what has — ah latterly gone before.” He turned to Brammel and his lined but innocent face broke into an apologetic smile. “You want to do it different in any way, Bo, why don’t you just say so and see if we can accommodate you?”

“My dear chap, you must do exactly whatever makes you feel most comfortable,” said Brammel hospitably, which was what he had been saying to everybody all his life. So Wexler went back to his brief, first centering the folder before him on the table then tilting it cautiously to the right, as if landing it on one wingtip. And Grant Lederer III, who has the impression that the inside surfaces of his skin have been afflicted by an itchy rash, tries to lower his pulse rate and his blood heat and believe in the high level of this conference. Somewhere, he argues to himself, there is worth and secrecy and an all-knowing intelligence service. The only trouble is, it’s in Heaven.

* * *

The British had fielded their usual intractable, over-fluent team. Hobsbawn, seconded from the Security Service, Mountjoy from the Cabinet Office and Dorney from the Foreign Office all lolled in varying positions of disbelief or outright contempt. Only the placement had changed, Lederer noticed: whereas Jack Brotherhood had hitherto been placed symbolically at Brammel’s side, today that position had gone to Brammel’s bagman, Nigel, and Brotherhood had been promoted to head of the table, where he presided like an old grey bird glowering down on his prey. On the American side of the table they were a mere four. How typical that in our Special Relationship the Brits should outnumber the Americans, thought Lederer. In the field the Agency outguns these bastards by about ninety to one. In here we’re a persecuted minority. To Lederer’s right, Harry Wexler, having cleared his throat not before time, had at last begun wrestling with the intricacies of what he insisted on calling the ongoing ah situation. To Lederer’s left lounged Mick Carver, Head of the London Station, a spoilt Bostonian millionaire considered brilliant on no evidence Lederer was aware of. Below him the egregious Artelli, a distraught mathematician from Signals Intelligence, looked as though he had been hauled from Langley by his hair. And, between them, here sit I, Grant Lederer III, unlovable even to myself, the pushy law boy from South Bend, Indiana, whose tireless efforts in the interest of his own promotion have dragged everyone together this one more time to prove what could have been proved six months ago: namely, that computers do not fabricate intelligence, do not sidle over to the opposition in return for favours, do not voluntarily compose slanders against men in high standing in the British service. They tell the disgraceful truth without regard to charm, race or tradition and they tell it to Grant Lederer III, who is busy making himself as unpopular as possible.

As Lederer listened impotently to Wexler’s floundering, he decided that it was himself not Wexler who was the alien. Here is the great Harry E. Wexler, he reasoned, who in Langley sits at the right hand of God. Who has been featured in Time as America’s Legendary Adventurer. Who played a star part in the Bay of Pigs and fathered some of the finest intelligence fuck-ups of the Vietnam War. Who has destabilised more bankrupt economies in Central America than are dreamed of, and conspired with the greatest in the land from the heads of the Mafia downwards. And here is me, an ambitious jerk. And what am I thinking? I am thinking that a man who cannot speak clearly cannot think clearly. I am thinking that selfexpression is the companion to logic and that Harry E. Wexler is by this criterion circumcised from the neck up, even if he does hold my precious future in his hands.