Typhoon by Charles Cumming

Author:Charles Cumming [Cumming, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312654207
Amazon: 0312654200
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2011-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

A silent quarter-mile later, David Waterfield and Joe Lennox were queuing for sandwiches in the near-deserted Members Room at Tate Modern. Waterfield paid while Joe found a couple of facing seats with a view across the river to St. Paul’s. He had so many questions running through his mind that he had been glad of the brief time alone to compose himself. Had Isabella been introduced to Lenan? Had Miles made her conscious of TYPHOON? He thought of all the weeks and months she must have spent alone in Chengdu while Miles shuttled around the country running his network of subversives. What a life. That she was prepared to exchange their future together for a thankless existence in Sichuan province had always struck him as the final, debilitating irony of their separation. To swap one spy, one set of lies, for another. Wasted love.

“You look deep in thought,” Waterfield said, bearing a plastic tray on which he had balanced two bottles of mineral water and a brace of pre-packaged sandwiches. “Is everything all right?”

He sat opposite Joe, looking down at the Millennium Bridge.

“Where was Isabella through all of this?” Joe asked.

Waterfield was surprised by his candour. Isabella Aubert was the name you didn’t mention around RUN.

“They’re still together,” he said, answering the question that he felt Joe had wanted to ask. “She’s been living in Shanghai with Miles for the past two years.”

Joe’s heart did its usual thing: the thump of loss, then the bile of jealousy and regret. Nothing had changed in seven years. He said, “So they were friends with Lenan?”

“Kenneth was visiting Shanghai when he was killed. We don’t know if he had meetings with Coo lidge during that period. If he had sold out the CIA, and if Miles had found out about that, you can imagine that he might have felt somewhat aggrieved.”

“This has something to do with Isabella, doesn’t it?” Joe had not thought through the question, which betrayed the true direction of his feelings. Waterfield buried his reaction in a sip of water.

“Do you want it to have something to do with Isabella?”

Joe had made a mistake. An officer made privy to the information that Waterfield had disclosed should not be dwelling on an aspect of his private life. He should be thinking about blowback, about murder, about the implications of TYPHOON for the Special Relationship.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It just sounded as though . . .”

Waterfield put him out of his misery. “Look, from what I can gather, it hasn’t all been plain sailing between them. Let’s leave it at that. She got a job working with underprivileged children in Chengdu and might have chucked the whole thing in had it not been for that.”

Joe felt his spirit quicken. “Where are you getting your information?”

“Grapevine.” Waterfield stared at a point beyond Joe’s shoulder. “Wasn’t Isabella Catholic?”

Joe nodded.

“That might explain a few things. Marriage vows. No release in the eyes of God from a lifetime of commitment. Graham Greene country. Never underestimate the obstinacy of the Catholic bride.

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