CHAPTER TWO

I was surprised when Harry told me that he wanted me to debrief Lucas North. He had a lot more experience, and he knew Lucas better; I had only just met the man, and he hadn't exactly left an indelible impression on me. Hardly surprising in the circumstances. When I told Harry as much, he shook his head.

"That's the point, Ros. I'm too close to him. You'll do a better job. It needs someone with more emotional distance."

Well, that was something I had in spades, at least according to the sour grapevine in Thames House; I was notorious for it. I still wasn't convinced that I was the best person for the job, but I didn't argue, because apart from anything else, the time and effort involved might distract me from the shock of Adam's death.

Not that I was going to admit, at least to anyone else, to being in shock. Harry knew, of course; any attempt that I might have made to pretend otherwise to him had been rendered null and void by losing control of myself so spectacularly in the hotel on the evening of the explosion. I still didn't know quite what had happened there. It was an almost total blank, as if someone had reached in to the data base of my memory and carefully wiped about half an hour's worth of files. I could remember leaving Harry in the bar downstairs, and had a vague recollection of a painful burning sensation somewhere in my gut as if I'd just drunk half a bottle of acid instead of red wine. Then nothing - until a frantic knocking on the door of my room as Harry burst in with the manager in tow. I'd been as stunned as they were to see myself surrounded by smashed glass, broken picture frames and shattered crockery, and when the manager asked me how the television had come to be lying on its side in the middle of the room with its screen a fine spider's web of cracks, I genuinely couldn't tell him. After a while, Harry bundled me into his coat and took me home with him. When it eventually dawned on me that I was responsible for the devastation in the room I anticipated disciplinary measures, being sued, possibly being decommissioned, or any combination thereof. Nothing happened. Only much later did I learn that Harry had protected me by dropping mysterious hints about 'national security' to the manager and, probably more to the point, paying for the damage. I was still engaged in a low-level war of attrition with him to let me pay him back.

So, I agreed to do the debriefing. I read Lucas North's Service file, retrieved from the archives, noting with interest that he had been married to a Russian. The security checks alone took me an entire evening to wade through. When I discovered that Lucas's wife had divorced him two years after his capture I asked Harry if he'd been aware of it. Apparently not - Harry confirmed that he'd learnt about it only on his repatriation. That was the first time Lucas North became more to me that a name in a file; became a little more rounded and human. In a way it gave us something in common; he too had returned from Russia to the loss of someone he'd loved. When I read that Elizaveta, his ex-wife, had given birth to a child by her second husband while Lucas was still in jail, I almost caught myself feeling sorry for him, a dangerous error that I corrected instantly. 'Innocent until proven guilty' is a fine sentiment that doesn't apply in this job. MI-5 prefers 'suspect until proven clean', and I approve of that.

Harry had outlined what we needed from the debriefing – 'get as much detail as you can about where he was held, who interrogated him and how … find out how damaged he is, how fit to return to work,' and then given me a free hand to decide my approach to obtaining it. The one thing he hadn't mentioned was the obvious main purpose of the exercise, but he didn't need to. I knew that my principal goal was to determine whether Lucas North was still loyal or whether he had been turned by the FSB over the course of the last eight years and planted back with MI-5.

I had only a sketchy recollection of meeting him on Remembrance Sunday, and when he arrived on the Grid to start the debriefing, my first concern was whether he would be able to cope with it at all. He was still sallow and drawn, and there was sleeplessness writ large in the dark rings under his eyes. But when I looked into them, I knew instantly that he was going to be no pushover. Intelligence, wariness, and a tiny trace of hostility swirled in their depths. And he was sizing me up, quietly assessing how much of a challenge I represented. He had more experience of this process than I had – eight solid years of it. We both knew that I was the interrogation novice, but were equally aware that I had one great advantage over him. Harry had told me how much Lucas longed to return to MI-5 ('it's his home' was how he put it). Well, he was unlikely to do that unless he proved himself to me.

I'd expected him to be nervous - anyone would be – so it took me a while to realise that his initial apprehensiveness, quickened breathing and the occasional shivers that ran through him weren't due to fear of me or – more likely – reminders of past interrogations in Russia, but to claustrophobia induced by the interview room. It was the way he didn't do what you would have expected a claustrophobic to do – keep fidgeting, looking around for a way out - that gave it away. Instead, to block out the walls around us, he kept his eyes riveted on my face as if he were hypnotised by it. I could still see the strain though, because when his panic reached a crescendo his face muscles quivered and he would clasp his hands so tightly that the veins stood out like ropes. Nonetheless, he answered my questions, and gave me the information I sought for over two hours without a murmur of protest. Despite myself, I was impressed.

Harry listened attentively to the report I made to him during the break I called for lunch. I saw North pass the office while I was doing it, and caught the quick, almost furtive glance he shot towards us. I thought I glimpsed anger, but when he saw me looking at him he stepped up his pace and hurried out of the Grid, leaving me unsure.

"He doesn't trust me, you know," I said bluntly to Harry.

"Nor me. He doesn't trust anyone," Harry said wearily. "Would you, Ros?"

"I suppose not." I glanced back at my notes. "He talks about Kachimov sometimes as if he were a favourite uncle rather than his interrogator."

"Stockholm Syndrome?" Harry suggested, giving voice to my own concerns. We both knew how very possible that was, and how dangerous it could be in intelligence terms, especially now that Arkady Kachimov was the official FSB rezident in London.

"Maybe. He told me how they used to talk about literature … poetry, would you believe. Blake, I think he said."

Harry half-smiled. "Lucas loves Blake. Always did. It's a more sophisticated way of getting information than beating a man half to death, Ros. Especially when that man's alone and cut off from anything that's familiar to him. Building bridges. Exploiting someone's vulnerabilities and their loneliness. Often very effective."

"Mm." I watched him pace. "Apparently not entirely in his case. They did turn the screws, he said. Later."

"Has he told you about it?" Harry asked.

"Not yet. I thought I'd broach it after lunch. He did say how the other prisoners used to knock him about, though. Probably at the guards' instigation. And he was the chuzhoi." He looked quizzical. "Sorry. The … alien. The one who doesn't fit. Not one of the gang." As I said the words I recognised another, uncomfortable similarity. I could have been describing myself as much as Lucas North.

"Yes." Harry nodded thoughtfully. "He mentioned that when I saw his tattoos. Something about 'if you don't do it, you don't belong; if you don't belong, you're dead.' "

"I … I thought - " I hesitated.

"You thought … what?"

I told him about Lucas's discomfort in the interview room. "I thought we could use that disused office in that back corridor this afternoon." I pointed. "The old storage room."

"Thoughtful," Harry observed, although there was a touch of curiosity in his voice. He was watching me closely. Instantly, I threw the unspoken challenge back at him.

"It's just a question of efficiency. He might open up if he's more relaxed."

"Of course." I still wasn't sure that he didn't think I was going soft, but at that moment his phone rang, and I took the opportunity to go and make myself a coffee in the kitchen off the Grid. I was drinking it and thinking about Lucas when Malcolm Wynne-Jones came in.

"Oh, hello, Ros!" I murmured a reply, and he started rinsing his own mug. After a moment I heard him chuckle to himself, and looked up.

"Lucas and Harry." He pointed out into the Grid. "It's like the old days to see them chatting like that. They were so close. Lucas was Harry's protégé, you know. And he was damned good; the best we had, actually. Popular too … charmed everyone." He paused. "Do you think he's all right, Ros?"

I muttered something non-committal about thinking he would be, even as I recalled the fear and the fire, the despair and the deviousness that I'd seen chasing each other through those bright blue eyes this morning. Loyal 'all right', truthful 'all right', stable 'all right'? The truth was, I didn't know. It was time to have another go at finding out.

oOoOoOo

"Shall we go, Mr North?" I invited briskly as I joined them. I saw a fleeting expression of dread cross his face, but it was gone in an instant. I allowed him his little victory over the use of his Christian name; even a tiny triumph like that can encourage someone to involuntarily drop their guard a little with their interrogator. When we were settled in the office I opened his file.

"How long was it before the FSB began to use intensive interrogation techniques on you, Lucas?"

He gulped. "Three … four months. After I'd repeatedly refused to tell them anything other than my name. They put me in solitary first for a month or so. Softening up." His voice was rough, his face taut. "Kachimov came … twice, I think. Otherwise I – spoke to no-one. Saw no-one. Not even the guards. When they brought food or – or I was taken to the showers they put a hood on."

"You were still in Lefortovo?"

He nodded. "Then, yes. The actual … torture … started a bit before New Year." He shuddered and wiped his hand across his mouth. I gave him a few seconds.

"How often?"

He had been staring at the table; now he looked up. "Every day for seventeen days without a break."

"You must have been disoriented," I said. "How can you be so sure?"

He gave an empty smile that chilled with its utter lack of mirth. "The tried and tested way. When the guards didn't bother to do their rounds at night we could sometimes communicate by tapping on the pipes. The prisoner in the next cell told me."

"Was it Kachimov who carried out the interrogations?"

"No." He shook his head. "He was never present – I mean, as far as I remember. I … sometimes I was unconscious. I might not have seen him. But he didn't question me, not during … during those sessions."

The tension was coming off him in waves, and I spoke quietly. "Who did?" No reply. "Who was it who questioned you, Lucas?"

He lifted his coffee cup, but his hand was shaking, and some of the contents spilled. I reached across and blotted it with a tissue.

"There were several. Prodin .. an Axyonov … but the main one was a captain. FSB. They called her Zoya. Zoyushka. I heard a name … once … Tukhachevskaya. I think it was her."

"What did she want from you?" I asked.

"The names of my .. my contacts. I had none to give her. The only name I had was the name of the asset and they – they knew that already. She didn't, or – or wouldn't … believe that I had no more."

They didn't take seventeen days to reach that conclusion. I put the thought into words. "There must have been more than that, Lucas. Why did they carry on?"

He moistened his lips. "They wanted … operational information about the Service. Staffing … policy. Details."

"Of specific operations? Did they mention any?"

He shook his head. "I'm not sure. I … I think so. But after a while it all blurred. I passed out a lot, and I was … confused by exhaustion … and the pain. There's a lot I can't remember, even now. They did mention … penetration."

I frowned. "Of the Service?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Any names?"

"Not that I recall. But they taunted me with it … hinted that – that they had assets … long-term sleepers. And they were very insistent about the community here, too. The Russian community … what links it may have had with - with MI-5. If any of their people were working for us against them."

I could see beads of sweat along his hairline, and he was very pale. Out of the blue I remembered Adam's flashbacks after the death of his wife. I didn't want to trigger one in Lucas North, but I had to get an idea of how badly he had been affected by his ordeal, and to do that, I had to ask what had been done to him.

"I know this will be distressing." I was trying to be gentle and sympathetic, which didn't come naturally, and even to me the words sounded awkward and wooden. "Can you tell me what they did?"

His eyes flickered up from the table – heavy-lidded, red-rimmed, beseeching. His lips moved but no words emerged. I tried to help.

"Had they ill-treated you before?"

"N – not systematically. The occasional beating, but they were almost routine." His chin quivered for a second. "But once they put me in solitary I was on strict regime. Restricted diet. So I – I'd already started to lose weight. Sometimes they'd interrogate you at night … to disrupt your sleep patterns. And the guards would rough-handle you but no … not like ... not the methods she used."

"Which were?" I prompted cautiously.

He was staring not so much at me as through me, his mind, I was sure, a long way from Thames House.

"Blindfolding you, then pretending to shoot, Russian roulette-style." He put a hand over his eyes for a moment. "Make you stand outside in the cold while they hurl questions at you; that's pretty effective when it's twenty below. But the worst was … was the - " His voice cracked on the last word, and I didn't hear it. He was holding his head in his hands, and, I noticed uneasily, rocking slightly from side to side. I sat back for a moment, wondering whether I should call it a day; although coherent, he was clearly distressed.

Coherent is what matters, Ros. I leaned forward. "Could you please repeat that? The worst was …?"

"The .. the w – water boarding." This time I caught it and my skin crawled. I had read descriptions of the technique in connection with some of the hearings on the British suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay.

"They did that to you?"

"Yes." He sat up again; he was visibly trembling, holding on by a thread. "Do you know what it – what it means? " When I nodded, he said: "I - then – don't ask me. Please. Please … I can't talk about it."

For a second the thought flashed into my mind that he was playing me - it was, after all, the perfect excuse for avoiding further questions. Any intelligence officer has a streak of actor in him, but if Lucas's current distress was feigned, he deserved an Oscar. I remembered my own terror when Adam and I were trapped beneath the Thames Barrier, and compromised.

"Did you tell them anything? Anything at all?" I hesitated. "It's understandable if you did, under that kind of duress, Lucas. Nobody would blame you."

"No." He wiped his sleeve across his eyes. "Ros, even if I'd wanted to … I was just screaming, begging them to stop, that's all I could do. Once it started I wasn't conscious for more than a few seconds at a time. I couldn't breathe … barely think …" He stopped and mumbled a helpless apology. "Nothing ... I swear to you … I told them nothing."

I put my pen down and poured both of us a cup of coffee. When Lucas mumbled a refusal I nudged the cup into his hands. "Come on, drink it, it'll help." I added a heaped spoonful of sugar. "It's Harry's own private stash; never usually leaves his office."

He managed a tremulous smile at that. For a moment I let the silence stretch while I pondered my next move. I'd read all the interrogation manuals, but something told me that this man had too. More, he'd lived them. When he nodded to the offer of a refill, I said casually: "Has the abuse caused you any problems?"

Suddenly the distress was replaced by his previous wariness. "What problems?"

I shrugged. "Health-wise. Personal. Like I had." I gave him a potted version of what had happened to me and Adam at the Barrier and told him the truth; that I'd been uncomfortable in and around water ever since, and that for a year afterwards, despite having a swimming Blue from Oxford, I could go to a pool only if I bullied myself into it. Lucas blinked rapidly.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry." Carefully, he replaced his coffee cup onto the saucer, and tried to smile. "I've got a thing about showers. And getting caught in the rain terrifies me. I don't suppose that will help my promotion prospects?"

There was a note of appeal in his voice and his expression, but I ignored it. Sympathy was one thing, and I was surprised at how much I felt for him, but I wasn't yet convinced of his reliability, and this debriefing still had a way to go.

"We'll see." I looked back at the file. "When you were transferred from Lefortovo you went to a prison out of Moscow?"

His body sagged at the prospect of further questions. He massaged his forehead slowly with one hand.

"A prison camp. Yes. Leshanko, in the Urals."

"With the same interrogators?"

Wearily, he shook his head. "No. No, Oleg took over once I got to Leshanko."

I noticed the easy use of the Christian name; in his exhaustion, Lucas hadn't noticed what he'd said.

"Oleg?"

"Darshavin." He rolled his shoulders to release the accumulated tension, and winced. "My guard, my shadow, my tormentor, my friend. Oleg Darshavin."

I noted the name, and closed my notepad. "All right. I think we'll leave the introduction to Mr Darshavin for next time. Thank you, Mr North."

He looked at me. "Miss Myers."

"Ros," I said automatically as I rose and collected my things together.

"Exactly." He managed a wry smile. He looked, I realised with a slight pang of guilt by which I felt both annoyed and embarrassed, a lot worse than when he'd arrived this morning, yet just for a second I glimpsed a flash of the charm Malcolm had mentioned. I made an effort and smiled back.

"Lucas. Sorry."

"It's all right." We turned back towards the Grid. "No-one's called me Mr North for eight years. Whoever he is, I don't think it's me."

When I stopped by my desk, he hesitated and glanced towards Harry's empty office. Then he met my eyes and gave another wan smile.

"Same time, same place tomorrow, then?"

I made a spur of the moment decision. He was white as a sheet, and he didn't look too steady on his feet, either.

"No need to push it. We'll call you in. Get some rest tomorrow." I cut off the protest I knew was coming with a shake of the head and Harry's three favourite words. "That's an order."

I stooped to put my papers into the safe, but then both of us turned as a gale of laughter came from the direction of the pods. Two junior officers burst through, both damply bedraggled and spraying rain from drenched umbrellas. They stopped laughing abruptly when they saw me glaring at them.

"Sorry, boss," one said hurriedly. "It's throwing it down out there."

Behind me, I heard Lucas's sharply indrawn breath, but when I looked up, he merely said, "Goodnight then."

"Goodnight." I locked the safe, and surprised myself with my next words. "Lucas!" He stopped. "How did you get here?" When he said 'bus' I said firmly: "I'll give you a lift back."

I expected an argument, even if only for show. He looked momentarily uncertain, but couldn't quite hide his relief.

"Thank you, Ros. Are you sure you - "

Don't mind. Such a stupid question, and everyone asks it. What I wasn't sure was whether this was the right thing to do professionally. It certainly reduced the 'emotional distance' between us that Harry had talked about, and if Lucas North was trying to deceive us he might take compassion for him to mean that he'd won this first round.

Well, he'll be wrong. I wasn't an inexperienced junior about to fall under the spell of his 'charm' or be seduced by his vulnerability. He was still potentially a traitor and until I was convinced that his proclaimed loyalty was genuine, he'd get no quarter from me. But he was a human being, and I could treat him humanely in the meantime. So I pulled on my raincoat, handed him my umbrella, and led him out of the Grid.

oOoOoOo

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