The Ghost

Adam.”
    “Not that loyal,” I said. “Not if he was in touch with you.”
    “Ah, but that was only right at the very end. You mentioned a photograph. Can I see it?”
    When I fetched the envelope, his face had the same greedy expression as Emmett’s, but when he saw the picture, he couldn’t hide his disappointment.
    “Is this it?” he said. “Just a bunch of privileged white kids doing a song-and-dance act?”
    “It’s a bit more interesting than that,” I said. “For a start, why’s your number on the back of it?”
    Rycart gave me a sly look. “Why exactly should I help you?”
    “Why exactly should I help you ?”
    We stared at one another. Eventually he grinned, showing large, polished white teeth.
    “You should have been a politician,” he said.
    “I’m learning from the best.”
    He bowed modestly, thinking I meant him, but actually it was Lang I had in mind. Vanity, that was his weakness, I realized. I could imagine how deftly Lang would have flattered him, and what a blow his sacking must have been to his ego. And now, with his lean face and his prow of a nose and those piercing eyes, he was as hell-bent on revenge as any discarded lover. He got to his feet and went over to the door. He checked the corridor up and down. When he returned he loomed over me, pointing a tanned finger directly at my face.
    “If you double-cross me,” he said, “you’ll pay for it. And if you doubt my willingness to hold a grudge and eventually settle the score, ask Adam Lang.”
    “Fine,” I said.
    He was too agitated now to sit still, and that was something else I only realized at that moment: the pressure he was under. You had to hand it to Rycart. It did take a certain nerve to drag your former party leader and prime minister in front of a war crimes tribunal.
    “This ICC business,” he said, patrolling up and down in front of the bed, “it’s only hit the headlines in the past week, but let me tell you I’ve been pursuing this thing behind the scenes for years . Iraq, rendition, torture, Guantánamo—what’s been done in this so-called war on terror is illegal under international law, just as much as anything that happened in Kosovo or Liberia. The only difference is we’re the ones doing it. The hypocrisy is nauseating.”
    He seemed to realize he was starting on a speech he’d already made too many times before and checked himself. He took a sip of water. “Anyway, rhetoric is one thing and evidence is another thing entirely. I could sense the political climate changing; that was helpful. Every time a bomb went off, every time another soldier was killed, every time it became a little bit clearer we’d started another Hundred Years’ War without a clue how to end it, things shifted farther my way. It was no longer inconceivable that a Western leader could wind up in the dock. The worse the mess he’d left behind him got, the more people were willing to see it, wanted to see it. What I needed was just one piece of evidence that would meet the legal standard of proof—a single document with his name on it would have been enough—and I didn’t have it.
    “And then suddenly, just before Christmas, there it was. I had it in my hands. It just came through the post. Not even a covering letter. ‘Top Secret: Memorandum from the Prime Minister to the Secretary of State for Defence.’ It was five years old, written back in the days when I was still foreign secretary, but I’d no idea it even existed. A smoking gun if ever there was one—Christ, the barrel was still hot! A directive from the British prime minister that these four poor bastards should be snatched off the streets in Pakistan by the SAS and handed over to the CIA.”
    “A war crime,” I said.
    “A war crime,” he agreed. “A minor one, okay. But so what? In the end, they could only get Al Capone for tax evasion. It didn’t mean Capone wasn’t a gangster. I carried out a few discreet checks to make sure the memo was authentic, then I took it to The Hague in person.”
    “You’d no idea who it came from?”
    “No. Not until my anonymous source called and told me. And just you wait till Lang hears who it was. This is going to be the worst thing of all.” He leaned in close to me. “Mike McAra!”
    Looking back, I suppose I already knew it. But suspicion is one thing, confirmation another, and to see Rycart’s exultation at that moment was to appreciate the scale of McAra’s treachery.
    “ He called me ! Can you