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Back A Shadow Intelligence
Chapters (58)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Oliver Harris
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. TWENTY-NINE
  32. THIRTY
  33. THIRTY-ONE
  34. THIRTY-TWO
  35. THIRTY-THREE
  36. THIRTY-FOUR
  37. THIRTY-FIVE
  38. THIRTY-SIX
  39. THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. THIRTY-NINE
  42. FORTY
  43. FORTY-ONE
  44. FORTY-TWO
  45. FORTY-THREE
  46. FORTY-FOUR
  47. FORTY-FIVE
  48. FORTY-SIX
  49. FORTY-SEVEN
  50. FORTY-EIGHT
  51. FORTY-NINE
  52. FIFTY
  53. FIFTY-ONE
  54. FIFTY-TWO
  55. FIFTY-THREE
  56. FIFTY-FOUR
  57. FIFTY-FIVE
  58. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The handover of Mescaline had been as tricky as most handovers. I could see Joanna, and the venue she’d chosen, dark and sweaty and debased. Where there’s a war there’s a border, and over the border places like the Lighthouse. It was one of several neon-signed nightclubs on a new strip in the middle of Hatay province, near Turkey’s border with Syria – young girls, refugees, forced into the sex trade, wearing sequinned belly-dancing costumes, paraded for local men and bride tourists: men from Kuwait and Qatar, and the richer of the Iraqi refugees. You saw the same phenomenon on the outskirts of Damascus during the Iraq war.

All intelligence officers have superstitions. Joanna didn’t like using hotels. She had a nose for the dark corners in which rival agencies rarely ventured. The Lighthouse worked. Joanna kept a room above the club itself. Heat and music rose through the floorboards.

It all felt rushed. She had met me at Trabzon airport a few hours earlier. I hadn’t recognised her at first: she’d dyed her hair dark for the job. She wore a blouse and skirt, managing, as ever, to be imposing at 5’4”. Chameleon ways; clear, well-bred English features that transformed from glamorous to businesslike with the application of a hair clip. She was skilled at looking like a variety of Western women who made it to exotic places: intense, ambitious, outraged, well-meaning even.

She looked genuinely pleased to see me. That was what I remembered. And even though I realised, in retrospect, how desperate she was to get out of there, I don’t believe that was all of it.

‘Of course I’m pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘Elliot, you trust your instincts with other people. Trust them with me.’ Then: ‘It’s been hell the last few weeks.’

She’d been blamed for a questionable bit of intelligence that shouldn’t have mattered, should have been dismissed at analysis, but got rushed into the public domain and ended up stalling UN action. It shouldn’t have been her thing at all. Joanna was I/Ops. Information Operations covered a lot, from briefing agents before missions abroad to more covert psychological operations: planting stories, attempts to influence events in another country or organisation in a direction favourable to Britain. Hearts and minds, which wasn’t always as fluffy as it sounds. On the wall of their HQ in Basra I’d seen a drawing of someone’s brain exploding, above the unofficial slogan: Because physical wounds heal.