Free A Colder War by Charles Cumming Page B

driving, thinking up ways to cheer up her mother, even if it was just by spending time with her so that she was not left on her own.
    This ability to organize her behavior, to compartmentalize her feelings, was a characteristic that Rachel had observed in her father. He had been a tough and opinionated man, perceived by many as arrogant. From time to time, Rachel herself had been accused of being distant and cold, usually by boyfriends who had been drawn to her self-confidence and energy, but eventually repelled by her refusal to conform to their expectations of her.
    When she considered the many traits that she had inherited from her father, particularly now that he was gone, it felt to Rachel as though he was living inside her and that she would never shed his influence. Nor, now, did she want to. Her feelings about him in the aftermath of his death had become altogether more complex. She was angry with Paul for keeping her at such an emotional distance, but remembered the rare moments when he had held her, or taken her to dinner in London, or watched her graduation at Oxford, with great yearning. Rachel wished that he had not betrayed his family, but she also regretted never having confronted him about his behavior. Her father had probably gone to his grave knowing that his daughter resented him. The guilt Rachel felt about that was at times overwhelming.
    They were so similar. That was the conclusion she had drawn. At odds all her adult life, because they were alike in so many ways. Was that why they had come for her? Was that why she had been approached?
    Spying in the DNA. Spying as a talent passed down through the generations.

 
    12
     
    With the tide in his favor, Kell could have swum to Turkey in a couple of hours. It was less than ten kilometers from Karfas to Cesme; a ferry from Chios Town would have got him there in forty-five minutes. Instead, sticking to the itinerary arranged by London, he flew back to Athens and took a bumpy afternoon plane to Ankara, landing a little after five o’clock and losing his bag for an hour in the late afternoon chaos of an overstaffed Turkish airport.
    Douglas Tremayne, Wallinger’s number two in Ankara and the acting head of station, was waiting for him in the arrivals area. Kell couldn’t work out whether his presence at the airport was an indication of the seriousness with which he was taking the Wallinger investigation, or evidence of the fact that Tremayne was bored and starved of company. He was wearing a pressed linen suit, an expensive-looking shirt, and enough aftershave to water the eyes of anyone within a twenty-foot radius. His hair had been carefully combed and the brown brogues he was wearing polished to a brilliant shine.
    “I thought we were meeting for dinner?” Kell asked, shouldering his bag as they headed toward the car park. Tremayne was an unmarried former army officer with a fill-in-the-blanks personality whom Kell had briefly worked alongside in the late 1990s when both men had been stationed in London. Along with several other colleagues, Kell had formed the opinion that Tremayne had not yet found the courage to admit to himself, far less to others, that he was gay. Personable to an almost suffocating degree, he was best enjoyed in small doses. The prospect of spending the next several hours in his company, not to mention two full days and nights at the British embassy combing through the Wallinger files, filled Kell with a sense of despondency bordering on dread.
    “Well, I had some time on my hands, I know what the taxi drivers are like round here, thought I’d surprise you so we could make a start on things in the car.”
    Given that Tremayne was declared to the Turkish authorities, there was a chance that anything they discussed in the vehicle would be recorded and relayed back to MIT, the Turkish intelligence service.
    “When did you last have this thing swept?” Kell asked, swinging his luggage into the trunk. There was a dent in the left