Espionage: A Jigsaw in 500 Pieces [parts nine and ten]

Peter Wild

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[100]

Things are getting complicated, aren't they? Such is the nature of Espionage. Such is the nature of a jigsaw. Such is the nature of a jigsaw about Espionage. Especially a jigsaw about Espionage that comprises 500 pieces. And it can only get worse. At least in the short-term. Because look. There is John C Reilly. Or at least there is the man with a passing resemblance to the character actor John C Reilly. He is not a happy clapper. Part of the reason is that he doesn't like John Cassavettes. John Cassavettes always makes him feel so damn useless. John C Reilly always sweats like a pig whenever he has to deal with John Cassavettes. Just the fucking thought of John Cassavettes makes John C Reilly break out in a sweat. It got so, he dreaded meeting the guy. It got so, he couldn't sleep the night before. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was the treatment he received at the hands of John Cassavettes was like the tip of a cruel iceberg. Nobody liked John C Reilly. He was one of those people. He had one of those faces. He rubbed people up the wrong way. Not that he was a failure or anything. He did alright, John C Reilly. He had money. Nice clothes. A fine house. A holiday home. All of that. The only thing was, nobody liked him and it galled John C Reilly all to Hell, galled him so much he'd decided, once and for all, to do something about it.



[101]

John C Reilly was stationed in a small office on the fourth floor of the Portland Building, which is a building on Portland Street, almost but not quite in the centre of Manchester. The office in which John C Reilly found himself stationed was responsible for 'observing' the local populace. Or rather, the office in which John C Reilly found himself stationed was responsible for 'observing' certain groups within the local populace. Given the nature of the world in which we live, it probably comes as no surprise to learn which groups within the local populace the office was busy observing. Personnel were assigned to observe - and you should know, when I say observe, it's an example of double-speak, or triple-speak, or worse, some kind of speak that acts deceptively to cover its trail and prevent you from glimpsing what really goes on (man) behind the scenes - Personnel were assigned to observe young muslims, in the main. Young muslims being perceived, as they are, to represent the greatest threat to the security of the nation. Which meant, of course, that certain of the personnel - certain current or former muslims themselves - spent a great deal of time out of the office on Portland Street in order to frequent mosques and certain other gathering places, the ultimate object of which was to keep an ear to the ground and report back on happenings. This is the nature of observing. But the office on Portland Street didn't just observe muslims.



[102]

Immigration was a key word. And movements. Movements was another key word. Immigration, movements, observing. That was the three word story of the office on Portland Street. Forming part of a hub that covered the whole of the north of England, a hub that acted as a sort of unofficial liaison with customs and excise, the office on Portland Street tracked people and tracked suspected people and suspected objects, as if they were so many vehicles travelling upon a busy motorway. The office on Portland Street created information, coded files and coded electronic data, which was then passed forward, via the usual channels (dummy offices, dummy safety deposit boxes, dummy money tubes, dummy drop off points and dummy decoys) to - somewhere else. The office in Portland Street didn't know where the information ended up. Well, they did. They knew it made its way to the very top of the tree. But they didn't know how it got there and they didn't really know what happened after the information was decoded. Well, they did. They had theories. They knew that the work they did informed legislation. But they also suspected that further covert work, further subterfuge, hinged on what they observed, covert work and subterfuge that more than likely ended in the deaths of the guilty and the innocent, deaths that would go unrecorded, or classified as accidental. Deaths that would possibly never ever show up on the radar.



[103]

And so certain of the personnel in the office on Portland Street soldiered on as if beneath the burden of a heavy yoke. Because it was depressing. It was depressing having to go to work, to work minimum wage jobs alongside Poles and Somalians and French Africans and Bulgarians and countless other nationalities, knowing that many of these people were good people struggling to make a life for themselves in a strange, unfamiliar and surprisingly racist country. Many of the personnel from the office on Portland Street found themselves applying for antidepressants, questioning their role in the great scheme of things, doubting their worth, overthinking everything to the nth degree. Not that the overthinking prevented them from doing their jobs, collectively. They observed and reported on what they observed, as they saw it, as they had been trained to. But at the same time they were intelligent people and the nature of their creative faculty was to question and so they questioned. They questioned themselves, maintained intensely circular internal dialogues that hinged upon and revolved around the central premise of whether or not they were part of the disease or part of the cure. Many of the personnel in the office on Portland Street wondered if they were in fact the symptom, or a symptom, of a wider malaise. The introduction of John C Reilly into the equation did little to raise spirits or offer good cheer.



[104]

Because John C Reilly was the numbers guy. John C Reilly was the headcount guy. John C Reilly was the efficiency man. The time and motion man. John C Reilly was a black fucking cloud, the prospect of future unemployment, a signal of possible disgrace. John C Reilly was like the fucking vulture circling the fucking carrion. When John C Reilly walked into a room, people stopped talking. When John C Reilly walked into a room, efforts were redoubled, heads were lowered, eyes were focused, attentions were concentrated. Leastways whenever people were about. The office on Portland Street was empty most of the time. Personnel were out. Or about. One of the two. Most days, John C Reilly was the only person in the office which made time and motion something of an uphill struggle. If anyone had to stop by the office, you could bet your bottom dollar they wouldn't stop long, not with John C Reilly around. John C Reilly gave them the creeps. Fucking fat fuck. The number of times John C Reilly found himself, emerging from the toilet zipping his fly or the kitchen with a steaming mug of java, in the presence of two members of the Portland Street team, two guys usually, laughing and joking, slapping each other on the back, whatever it was guys did together - the number of times John C Reilly walked in on that scenario only to have the scenario freeze and fall apart. Well. It didn't bear thinking about. Not for too long.



[105]

But John C Reilly did think about it. He thought about it all the time. Look, he wanted to say. I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy doing a job. I'm like you. I don't like what I do but I'm paid to do it. If you want to hate anyone, hate the people at the top. Hate the people collecting the big payouts. Hate the people with all the cashola. They're the ones who are looking to scrimp and save. They're the ones who want to be able to point out the fucking savings that they're making, the fucking savings that they're making as they travel to and from work each day, when they can be bothered travelling into work at all, in their chauffeur driven cars. Those people are parasites. Those are the people you should focus on. Blame them. This is what John C Reilly wanted to say. Blame them. Don't blame me. It isn't my fault. But then John C Reilly wondered. John C Reilly wondered if, in fact, his job was just the scum on the surface of the black water. John C Reilly wondered if, in fact, his job was a calling. If his job was the kind of job that suited him. He wondered if (in fact) all of the people who couldn't meet his eyes and wouldn't give him the time of day (all of these people who wouldn't spare him the steam off their piss) - if in fact they saw something about him that wasn't immediately obvious. John C Reilly wondered how great the gulf was between what he thought of himself and what others thought of him.



[106]

It kept him awake at night. It kept him rooted before the bathroom mirror long after the spittle on his toothbrush was dry. He looked and he looked (he occasionally pored at his skin like a prospector looking for gold), but he couldn't see. He wanted to know what they all thought of him. He was desperate to learn why it was people hated him. And he was lonely. He was so lonely. But it wasn't just loneliness. Loneliness was part of it, sure. But that wasn't all. John C Reilly felt like an ant. An ant on an intricately-patterned house-mat. What he wanted (hell, what he needed) was an opportunity to look down on himself, as if from a great height. That way he could maybe work out what the pattern was. John C Reilly was perplexed. He was aware that there were people in the world who spent their lives searching for answers to the great questions. But John C Reilly wasn't even sure what the questions were. He was confused. Lost. In need of guidance. He wanted to change things. Shake things up. Fuck things about. Days, he wanted to stand in the street and just scream. Days, he wanted to scream, Why me? Why me? Some days, he just wanted to scream. If he could just talk, he reasoned. If there was just some way to lay it all out (he imagined his life as a series of flash cards, dealt upon a deal table). Perhaps then he'd have closure. But he didn't know. And he didn't know. And he didn't know.



[107]

He was able to visualise. John C Reilly could visualise all to Hell. If there was where he wanted to be and here was where he was - if he was a fat and flabby frog upon a lily pad keen to hop from one lily pad to another - then it was simple. Work out how to get to there from here. When you wrote it out like that, in the painfully harsh overhead light of day, it looked straightforward. But the problem was, so many things were unquantifiable. John C Reilly didn't know why people hated him so. He didn't know what it was about him that set their teeth on edge. He couldn't understand why he cared. And, perhaps most importantly, he didn't know where he wanted to go. If he didn't do this job, what job could he do? What was he good for? Some nights, he'd try to fast forward. He'd lie in bed, with the blankets tucked up under his chin (his mother used to tuck his blankets up under his chin, it was a habit he'd got used to, a habit he found himself clinging to as the world grew steadily more unpleasant to him) and he'd fast forward. Imagining the slate wiped clean, waking up to a new day. What would he do? The short answer was: he'd eat. That's what he thought. If I woke up tomorrow and I woke up happy, I'd eat. I'd fill my belly. This is what John C Reilly said to himself. I would eat until my belly was full. And then... And then, John C Reilly thought time and again, then...



[108]

Then came adventure. That was what John C Reilly wanted. Adventure. He didn't know what shape or form the adventure would take, but that was what he wanted. If the slate could be wiped clean right now, this very instant, then adventure was the thing. There was a hunger in him. Recognising the hunger, John C Reilly came to understand that the hunger had always been there. It could even be that what he now saw as hunger others saw as desperation. Whatever it was, hunger or despair, it came accompanied by a junkie urge. John C Reilly needed this. Or needed something. John C Reilly needed something. That was it. The problem was external. Like those fellows who spent their lives in search of the answers to the great questions, he was on a journey. He was in search. Of what he didn't know. At first it was enough to know that he was in search. That felt like a whole lot. But then of course such satisfaction doesn't last. It really wasn't very long at all before John C Reilly started to wonder if he was in fact just sitting around waiting for his life to happen. Adventure rarely came knocking at your door. You had to get out there, take adventure by the hand, slap him heartily on the back, make a friend of him. That was the only way. And that was why John C Reilly started to intercept messages to and from the office on Portland Street.



[109]

Which explains how John C Reilly found out about the brown paper package. Not that the brown paper package was referred to as the brown paper package in official communications. No. In official communications, the brown paper package was referred to as twenty-three nineteen. John C Reilly didn't even know that twenty-three nineteen was a brown paper package. He had no idea what it was. All he knew was, everyone was talking about twenty-three nineteen. Everyone but everyone was talking about twenty-three nineteen. And everyone wanted twenty-three nineteen. Everyone in the department, here and in the US, but also everyone else. Or so it seemed. As far as John C Reilly could fathom, everyone working in the intelligence community - and a few people who either wanted to break into the intelligence community or wanted to break up the intelligence community - everyone but everyone wanted twenty-three nineteen. Whatever it was. So John C Reilly started to track information. That was one of John C Reilly's strengths. As far as tracking information was concerned, John C Reilly was second to none. Or second to not many. He compiled a dossier. Made a record. Made the record known. It was that - making the record known - that got John C Reilly noticed by his superiors. It was that that brought him to the attention of John Cassavettes.



[110]

John Cassavettes was a high-up. He wasn't the highest. You never knew who was the highest. Which isn't to say that there weren't nominal heads. Functionaries and diplomats wielding the reins, holding the maces (or whatever it is you call them) aloft. But they were not as powerful as you might suspect. And often it was the men behind the men (or the men behind the men behind the men, or the men behind the men behind the men behind the men) who yanked all the strings. And power was not a fixed commodity. If the I Ching teaches us anything, it teaches us that, right? One day you're the big kahuna and the next, you're nothing. Less than nothing. If a week is a long time in politics, imagine how long it is behind the scenes. Behind the scenes a week is like a dog year. But John Cassavettes was a big man all the same. He was a high-up, one of those people about whom legends shift and shimmer like Papal smoke. John Cassavettes was one of those men people only ever appear to be able to see as if through a haze of heat. Whatever the campaign was, whatever the problem had been, howsoever the resolution had been reached, John Cassavettes figured somewhere. Whilst by no means yet one of the men behind the men (or the men behind the men behind the men or the men behind the men behind the men behind the men), John Cassavettes was, nevertheless, something of a big deal.



[111]

To have John Cassavettes notice you, then, was a form of credit. Leastways so John C Reilly thought. At first. At first it felt like a sincere thrill to be talking to John Cassavettes on the telephone. The guy called him up, asked a few questions and sort of nodde his head. John C Reilly couldn't see John Cassavettes nodding his head but there was something about the pause. John C Reilly just presumed John Cassavettes was nodding his head. John C Reilly figured John Cassavettes had taken the measure of him and liked what he heard. That's how things proceeded for a short time. Cassavettes would call, ask a question, Reilly would answer and that would be that. Cassavettes didn't shoot the shit. There was never any Hey John, how the fuck are you today? Nothing like that. Cassavettes called. Said Hi. Cassavettes. And then launched in with whatever the question was that day. Cassavettes was always really clipped. John C Reilly started to hear the snap, the brittle twist as Cassavettes broke words off on his teeth like hard caramel. As Cassavettes became more clipped, so John C Reilly became more verbose. But not in an eloquent way. John C Reilly stammered. He bit his lip mid sentence, struggled for the right word, dipped first this way and then that way down the same group of words. Cassavettes took to heading him off at the pass, chivvying him along. A sour note entered their telephone relationship.



[112]

A lot of John C Reilly's research was historical. He attempted to piece together the passage of the parcel (twenty-three nineteen) as far back as contemporary records would allow. As long as the research remained historical, John C Reilly continued to receive begrudging questions from John Cassavettes at intervals of between a week and a month. The thinking was that twenty-three nineteen was lost forever. Nothing had been heard of the damn thing for years. Which wasn't to say that intelligence circles weren't beset by a plague of white elephants from time to time. The white elephants - all of the hoax appearances, all of the invalidated nonsense, the spurious rumour - formed an interesting adjunct to the action, sure. But they decorated the formal history as little more than footnotes. The white elephants were academic. Certainly John C Reilly's interest in the white elephants far exceeded the interest displayed by John Cassavettes. Yes yes yes, he'd say whenever Reilly was sidetracked. But what about X? What about Y? John C Reilly didn't quite understand what it was that John Cassavettes wanted. The questions were often obscure, the answers sometimes trivial - and Cassavettes always reacted in the same way. It didn't matter how John C Reilly answered, positively or negatively, Cassavettes always reacted the same way, mumbling sure or yeah or okay. All that changed, however, when twenty-three nineteen surfaced again for real.



[113]

John C Reilly intercepted a coded communication. The coded communication was the thing that tipped the scales. Before he intercepted the coded communication, John C Reilly didn't mind Cassavettes' shit all that much. Before he intercepted the coded communication, John C Reilly felt that the shit meted out to him in his dealings with Cassavettes was a fair and equable return on his admittance to the upper echelons of power. Not that he had more power. It was just in talking with Cassavettes John C Reilly felt a sheen, the vaguest shadow of some other, better world, drift closer than it ever had before. Talking with Cassavettes lifted John C Reilly's spirits, briefly, despite the fact that almost everything that passed between them was in some way derogatory. It didn't matter. At best Cassavettes treated him negligently; at worst, Cassavettes treated him like shit. But, for the longest time, he didn't mind. He took it. John C Reilly took it like a bitch. He was okay about it, too. He was okay about being treated like another man's bitch for the simple reason that it was what he wanted. But then John C Reilly intercepted a coded message and John Cassavettes fucked up, fucked up big style, shit hit the fan, and Cassavettes' treatment of John C Reilly took a nosedive.



[114]

The message, once deciphered, revealed the location of the legendary twenty-three nineteen. There was a settlement in the Hindu Kush, a small cluster of huts on the highway that joined Kabul and Peshawar. Twenty-three nineteen was thought - hell, twenty-three nineteen was known - to be in the possession of a young girl, a young girl with a checkered history, links to the Hezbollah, links to Al-Qaeda. John C Reilly embraced the unthinkable. He initiated contact with John Cassavettes. Using the occluded system of passwords and short-cuts previously agreed between them, John C Reilly relayed the information. Twenty-three nineteen was in the Hindu Kush. Cassavettes grunted once in acknowledgement and cut the line. John C Reilly sat with the receiver flush against his ear for a minute or more, the furious palpitations in his heart briefly quelled as a result of Cassavettes' brushing him off like some worthless dung beetle. But the quaver of discontent didn't last because he was excited, damn it! Twenty-three nineteen had been located. Not by their people, admittedly, but - all the same - they knew where it was, more or less. Twenty-three nineteen was within their grasp. Twenty-three nineteen was within their grasp and it was all down to him. John C Reilly!



[115]

Maybe he was being overly optimistic. He was certainly running away with himself. John C Reilly tried to take what he'd heard some of the younger members of the office refer to as 'a chill pill'. It didn't really work, though. It certainly didn't work as effectively as being kept in the dark as to what happened next. Cassavettes was in it up to his eyes. He was the man at the centre, the man with the plan, the man - more than likely - making sure he got the credit for whatever went down. John C Reilly tried to keep his ear to the ground but there was nothing doing. He thought, wrongly, that Cassavettes would, at some point, contact him in order to fill him in. But no such luck. It was all quiet on the Hindu Kush. Leastways until the aforementioned shit hit the fan. From what John C Reilly could gather, Cassavettes had commandeered a phalanx of local thuggees who intercepted the young girl as she made her daily rounds. Although their orders were simple kill the girl, steal the package the thuggees still managed to fuck things up. The girl was dead. They did that right. But then they got carried away, taking turns to rape the bloody corpse. The thuggees were intercepted in flagrante delicto, as it
were, by the local law enforcement. A skirmish ensued. Everyone died. Twenty-three nineteen was left, stamped into the mud by the roadside.



[116]

John C Reilly was blameless. All he'd done was intercept information. Valuable information. All he'd done was intercept information, all he'd done was intercept, decode and relay valuable information. He was blameless. It got to be like a mantra. No way can they pin this shit on me. That's what he thought. But all the same he circled about the reports on what went down in the Hindu Kush like a tongue evaluating the beginning of an ulcer. John C Reilly went so far as to try and blame himself. He spent an afternoon working out ways in which so much as an iota of blame could be apportioned to him. For all his efforts, though, he just couldn't do it. There was no way they could pin any of the shit on him. That was what he thought. Until John Cassavettes tore him a new arsehole. You're a fucking liability. This is what John C Reilly heard when he picked up the telephone. John Cassavettes roaring You're a fucking liability. Reilly didn't even have to say Hello? or What? Cassavettes launched straight in: You're a fucking liability. And a cunt. You're a fucking liability and a fucking cunt. This is what Cassavettes said. And, of course, John C Reilly acted like a total pussy. Cassavettes roared and cursed and John C Reilly tried to appease him, told him to calm down, even went so far as to apologise.



[117]

Afterwards he wanted to kick himself. What was he doing apologising? He'd done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing. And yet that was precisely what he did. Taking one step back, just one step was all it took, John C Reilly could see exactly how it worked. John Cassavettes fucked up, had his arse kicked and lashed out. And the person John Cassavettes lashed out at was John C Reilly. Which wasn't on. It wasn't fucking on at all. Which, as is often the way with these things, helps explain what happened next. He carried on tracking twenty-three nineteen. That was for starters. He charted the progress of twenty-three nineteen as it made its way through Peshawar, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgar and Kypchak. He even went so far as to keep John Cassavettes up to speed. But that wasn't all. John C Reilly started to research certain other avenues of information. Such as who else was interested in twenty-three nineteen. John C Reilly compiled a list. There was money here. This is what he figured. His research, what he was learning. It was valuable. What he knew was valuable. Research alone, however, would never change his fortunes. Which goes some way toward explaining how John C Reilly found himself sitting in Heaton Park in early May in the company of Heplock and Stent.



[118]

Vuh boss dunt see just anybody. This was Stent talking. John C Reilly wondered if Stent was cockney. He's either cockney or stupid. This is what went through John C Reilly's head as he sat there on a park bench in Heaton Park in early May. He's either cockney or stupid. Stent said something about credentials. Only it came out credensheeyulls. Stent moved his entire mouth when he spoke. It was like watching someone gargle with mouthwash. Maybe he's cockney and stupid. John C Reilly caught himself staring vacantly into Stent's mouth as Stent paused in the expectation of some reciprocal dialogue. John C Reilly told Heplock and Stent who he worked for. What he did. He didn't tell them what he knew. He merely alluded to what he could tell them. He also made sure to note - as a sort of sly aside - that he'd heard their boss was interested in what some people were calling the brown paper package. Stent didn't register the mention of the brown paper package one bit but Heplock did. John C Reilly caught the electric flicker that passed like sheet lightning over the imposing man's brow. It wouldn't serve him to play his hand too soon. They had to think that he was as stupid as they were. This was a game, after all. But, for once, it was a game John C Reilly intended to win.



[119]

So it came as no surprise whatsoever to John C Reilly that they made him wait. He knew from the get-go - he knew as he watched Heplock and Stent shamble away from the park bench, Heplock making sure not to reach for his mobile until he thought they were out of sight - they'd make him wait. These people. They were players. As such, as players, they had to obey extremely formal rules predicated upon a sortof poker-faced adherence to tradition. Seven days had to elapse before anyone touched base again. John C Reilly knew this. He didn't break a sweat. When they did touch base, another formal meeting was arranged which - John C Reilly further knew - they would cancel at the last moment. Everything was implicit. Yeah yeah yeah, they were telling him. We'll meet up, sometime. It isn't urgent. You aren't important. You don't figure. Okay? Are we straight on that? John C Reilly knew exactly what they were doing. He also knew it was killing them. They were desperate to know what he knew. Next thing: a telephone call from the big man. Krakow - that was the name of their boss, Krakow - called him up. No mention of the brown paper package. Surprise surprise. Seven days after that, Krakow called him a second time and said: Vee haff to meet. John C Reilly chuckled to himself and gave the mental finger to Cassavettes. He'd show 'em. He'd fucking show 'em all.



© Peter Wild 2006 / 2007

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Peter Wild is co-founder Bookmunch and editor of The Flash [Social Disease] and Perverted By Language: Fiction inspired by The Fall [Serpent's Tail]. His writing has appeared in NOÖ journal, Word Riot, Nude magazine and Dreams That Money Can Buy, to name but a few.