THE JADED SPY
The curator who lost Captain Cook
PART TWO OF THE JADED SERIES
Nick Spill
Copyright © 2019 Nicholas Spill, Miami Beach, Florida
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the copyright holder.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance or correlation to any events or places or dates or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The Jaded Spy, Nick Spill – 1st US Edition
The Jaded Spy
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Spill, Nick
Crime – Fiction Mystery- Fiction
Action and Adventure–Fiction
Thriller–Fiction
New Zealand–Fiction
ISBN-13: 978-0-578-56937-6
Book Cover: Angie Alaya
Interior book design: 52 Novels
Author photo: Leon Smith
More information about The Jaded Spy can be found at
http://nickspill.com
and
http://nickspill.blogspot.com
WARNING
“If you publish this story, you can never return to New Zealand. You’re finished. Too much rings true and relates to real people and events. Some very important people are going to be pissed!”
“I know. But it’s fiction. I have a disclaimer. The dates are different. The names have been changed. It’s a story. A good yarn, I hope, but it’s still fiction.”
“You’re deluding yourself. You have no idea what they could do to you. You were once one of them.”
“You’re forgetting an important fact. Four people knew about me—Muldoon, the Prime Minister; Alan Highet, the Minister of Internal Affairs; Richard Catelin, the Under-Secretary; and me! I’m the only one still alive.”
“For now.”
To Wiremu, wherever you are.
For Joy, always.
In memory of Wade Doak.
“Diplomats and intelligence agents, in my experience, are even bigger liars than journalists, and the historians who try to reconstruct the past out of their records are, for the most part, dealing with fantasy.”
MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE,
Chronicles of Wasted Time: Number 2: The Infernal Grove.
“This inability to distinguish between the fiction and the reality of the intelligence world is ironically appropriate, because that was how it all began—in fantasy.”
PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY,
The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century.
Contents
Warning
Dedication
Epigraph
Captain James Cook
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Epilogue
Excerpt from The Jaded Widow, the final novel of the Jaded trilogy.
Author’s Note
Bibliography
Playlist
About the Author
Other books by Nick Spill
Portrait of Captain James Cook, circa 1780, England, by John Webber. Gift of the New Zealand Government, 1960. Te Papa (1960-0013-1)
Prologue
August 1976
There is a large crater off the Southern Motorway close to Drury, once a busy petrol station. On the edge of the charred moonscape is a memorial, a slab of dark marble two meters tall with the names of the victims of the largest and deadliest explosion to occur in New Zealand six months ago.
Among the names are Terry Turner, the leader of the Auckland underworld, and John Eustace, his feared henchman. It was rumored Turner’s wife, Barbara, donated the money for the memorial.
North of Auckland, at the entrance to the track where the Titirangi shootout took place, is another memorial. The names of the five dead officers are inscribed on a large block of granite. Above is the badge of the police. Five native trees were planted behind the memorial and are fenced in to protect their roots.
The memorial was unveiled a month ago and the Police Commissioner, dignitaries, the entire command staff and many of the rank and file attended the unveiling. The road was blocked off and they were bussed in from the shopping center a few miles south. It was a somber affair with deference to the grieving widows of the slain officers. The Commissioner, Ian Thompson, declared that the individual police sacrifices were not in vain, that valuable lessons had been learned from the shooting. The war on drugs had started.
Chapter One
Alexander Newton squeezed the shutter release with his left hand and kicked out his right leg, spilling the milk bottle full of pee. Yellow liquid flowed across the floor into his new Italian loafers. Through his telephoto lens touching a hole in the black paper, he spied the red-haired Soviet diplomat in a tan trench coat hand a newspaper to the doctor. Inside the Toyota van the Nikon motor drive sounded like a machine gun.
The Soviet kept walking and the doctor, who wore a similar coat, entered his house, a couple of doors from where the photographer was parked. Through a crack in the black paper, Alexander could see an ordinary-looking man in a dark suit on the other side of the street. The man kept glancing across, as if the Soviet diplomat might disappear. The Soviet waved at the ordinary-looking man as if he knew him. The man kept walking till he reached the van. Alexander lost sight of him. He held his camera and tripod to his chest. He wrapped his raincoat over his six foot three frame and sank into the Chesterfield, closing his steel grey eyes. He heard the thermos break beneath hi
m and stuck out his square chin in a grimace. He knew the ordinary man would press his face into the windscreen to peer inside. He resisted the temptation to run his hands through his short dark hair and held his breath.
Alexander had parked between the lights, on a street lined with restored Edwardian and late-Victorian wooden villas in an inner-city suburb. A green Ford Escort had cruised past him and parked around the corner at the top of the hill. He had taken a few shots of the two men inside but did not know if their faces would show. Now the ordinary man, who was not so ordinary, tried to force the driver’s door.
The van started to rock. Alexander opened his eyes and reached out with his right foot to stop the empty milk bottle. He wanted to leap out and hit the ordinary man. Instead, he breathed out his aggression, relieved to be in control. He had been fired from his part-time job at the Listener after he called his editor an ossified turd. They had argued over one word. One word out of a thousand, in an article he had written on a “School of Nicolas Poussin” painting he had discovered tucked away in the basement of the National Art Gallery.
He heard the man walk away, the whine of an engine and squealing brakes. Alexander sat up and aimed his telephoto lens through the windscreen and managed a couple of shots of the Escort as it screamed downhill. The van stank. His feet felt like ice. Yellow ice.
Alexander had researched his target. Doctor Cedric Winter had been an advisor to four prime ministers, was an avid Labor supporter and, now semi-retired, held the prestigious title of Emeritus Professor of the Economics Department at Victoria University. He had headed the New Zealand delegation at the United Nations to save UNICEF against the United States’s opposition. Dr. Winter was writing a memoir of his political life. He was described as a socialist and a true patriot by his political peers and enemies. Labels he did not dispute. The week-long spy trial had gripped the nation. Found not guilty of espionage, he had walked out of the courtroom a free man, much to the consternation of the National government and the Security Intelligence Service, known as the SIS. Several Soviet diplomats had flown home before the trial.
Four weeks ago, Alexander had been summoned to the office of his real boss, Richard Catelin, the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Department of Internal Affairs. Catelin inhabited, rather than occupied, a huge office on the second floor of the old Government Building on Lambton Quay. It was the second time he had been in Catelin’s office. The first, more than a year ago, had been a formal interview for the exhibition curator’s position at the National Art Gallery, which was administered by Catelin’s department.
The Permanent Under-Secretary rose from his high seat and walked around the massive desk piled with papers, books and folders with government crests to greet Alexander with a firm, dry handshake. In a new single-breasted grey suit, white shirt with a white pocket square and a thin black tie, Alexander looked more like a playboy than a curator.
“Alexander, so glad you could make it at such short notice.” Catelin’s neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, the wave in his full head of dyed black hair and his Prussian-blue floral waistcoat lent him an air of a 19th-century aristocrat rather than a 20th-century antipodean bureaucrat. He reeked of power, persuasion and pipe tobacco.
Catelin motioned to the other side of his office where three large black leather chairs and a matching sofa were arranged around a low marble coffee table, stacked with newspapers, magazines and books. Alexander realized the seating was a test. He chose the most comfortable armchair but not his boss’s. He adjusted the knife-edge crease in his pants, admired his shiny black loafers, and settled down so as not to tower over his boss. He made a mental note to look into purchasing floral waistcoats, although the French cuffs and gold cufflinks were not his style.
Catelin eased into his seat, next to a large telephone set. He pressed a button and summoned his secretary. “Would you like a drink? Coffee? Tea? Something a little stronger?”
“Coffee would be marvelous.” Alexander noted a well-stocked cocktail cabinet against the nearest wall, surrounded by maps, photographs of politicians shaking Catelin’s hand and paintings with familiar metal labels on golden frames. He watched Catelin find a pipe on the table and inspect it before using a small penknife to scrape ash from the bowl into a large marble ashtray.
The secretary appeared in the doorway. “Mavis, two coffees please and the usual. Thank you.” She was in and out of the office without a word.
Catelin finished cleaning his pipe and filled the bowl from his leather pouch. “How are you finding the gallery?”
Alexander leaned forward, stuck out his jaw and fixed Catelin with his intense grey eyes. So, he was not to be fired or reprimanded. “Great. I’m sorting out the inventoried works and organizing a few new shows.” Keep it short and confident. Don’t give anything away, he had told himself.
“Good.” Catelin found a box of matches on the table, inspected it, and started the ritual of lighting his pipe for the first time. After a certain amount of puffing he turned to Alexander. “You like photography.” It was not framed as a question.
Alexander smiled. He had no idea where this was going.
“Do you have a camera?” He inspected his pipe and relit it.
“Yes.” Alexander placed his hands on his thighs and breathed out.
“What type?”
“A Canon A1, couple of lenses, and a Leica, an old 3 series from 1937. Has an amazing lens for color.”
“How would you like to use a new Nikon with an extra-long telephoto lens, a tripod of course, and a fast motor drive? It’s almost a movie camera.”
“What for? Something to do with the gallery?”
“Not exactly. It’s for some candid photos.” He let out a cloud of smoke, looked at Alexander and broke into a smile. “I might as well lay out all my cards. I trust whatever I say to you here will not be repeated, ever, outside these walls? Not even to your ex-girlfriend.” He looked around as he puffed on his pipe.
Alexander frowned. He thought his break up was a secret. Without thinking he replied, “I’m far too curious to say no.”
“That’s a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Here goes, then. The minister is concerned about a certain someone, a well-known man, who might be meeting with a diplomat, who might be something else. Do you see where I'm going?”
Alexander nodded. “All the way down the garden path.”
“Not quite, I hope. You see, the minister wants photos of the target, to keep an eye on him, very discreetly of course, and get evidence of a contact. You know what a contact is, don't you?”
“You mean passing national secrets? Envelopes stuffed with production figures of wool and butter?” Alexander did not mean to sound sarcastic. He brushed his hair away from his face, a gesture that worked when it was longer. He smiled.
“Along those lines. But just the photos would be enough here. It’s like art, or a performance. Context is so important.”
“I think I get it.” Alexander nodded and leaned forward again.
“Well?”
“I cannot resist.” He held up his hands and kept the smile on his face.
Catelin placed his pipe on the ashtray. “We'd loan you the equipment. You could develop the film yourself, right? You have a darkroom at home.”
It was not a question. Alexander did have a darkroom no one, he thought, knew about.
“I have high-speed film, paper and instructions on developing for you, I’m sure you already know all that, and you would furnish us with all the negatives and prints. Everything. Very simple, really. We’d give you a couple of weeks to complete the assignment. Then we’ll see. There could be more work. But if you get into any trouble, we would know nothing. You’d get no help from anyone, officially, but we can always work it out. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I think I do. And you can rely on my discretion.”
“Absolutely. Don't even tell your girlfriends.” He paused. “You cannot tell anyone.”
When Alexander wa
s a pimple-faced teenage virgin, he had read Ian Fleming. He had dreamt of being a spy. He did not have enough time to think about what Catelin had said. He had thought he was going to be fired, then the comment about his break-up and all his girlfriends put him at a disadvantage. What girlfriends? Then he was offered a job as a spy. Alexander did not have the foresight to consider why he was being chosen for this assignment. He should have asked “Why me?” But he only thought about the interview much later, and by then it was too late.
Instead he asked, “Where’s the camera?”
Chapter Two
Alexander developed the Tri-X film in the darkroom he had in the tiny bathroom of his one-bedroom flat in Thorndon. First he ran a test strip to make sure he had the right calculation, before pushing the 400 ASA negatives to 1600. The contact strip looked promising, if a little dark. The 8" x 10" black-and-white prints were grainy, but he could make out the Soviet, the doctor and the Russian newspaper. The two SIS men were captured. The ordinary-looking man was older, dressed in a dark suit. The younger man had a lighter suit jacket with a wide-open shirt collar. Alexander could make out the long sideburns and swept-back hair. With the prints drying on a line over his bath, he thought about Catelin’s comment, “Don’t tell your girlfriends.” What girlfriends? He had moved out of his girlfriend’s flat months ago and had not dated since. He was too busy with the gallery and now his night job consumed his spare time.
He developed two copies of every correctly exposed print. In the morning, he would return the gallery van, fold up all the black paper for another time and store the Chesterfield in the loading bay before delivering the original prints and negatives to his boss.
Alexander reminded himself he did have one girlfriend, or rather a sauna friend, a sauna platonic friend, to be precise. On Sunday nights he went to a private sauna party held at a Swedish diplomat’s Victorian home in Oriental Terrace, a double-story wooden villa nestled against a hill. There was a tiny garden in the back with an ice-cold pool they could skinny dip in, one at a time, after sweating in the sauna with other naked strangers. Kathy, as his guide, had instructed him to put $5 in a Chinese vase on the mantelpiece. She was the best friend of one of the shadow minister’s daughters. On one of their long walks back across town late on Sunday night, towels over their shoulders, she had confessed her affair with the shadow minister. Alexander had felt embarrassed and hoped she never brought up the topic again.