BOX 88 Charles Cumming Copyright Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020 Copyright © Charles Cumming 2020 Cover design by Stephen Mulcahey © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020 Cover photographs © Marina Endermar/Dreamstime.com (church), CollaborationJS/Arcangel Images (man) Charles Cumming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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Source ISBN: 9780008200367 Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008200381 Version: 2020-08-19 Dedication for Harriette Epigraph ‘We have as many personalities as we have friends’ Ralph Waldo Emerson Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Index of Characters 21 December 1988 London, the present day Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Keep Reading … Acknowledgements About the Author By Charles Cumming About the Publisher Index of Characters The Kite family: Lachlan Kite (‘Lockie’), intelligence officer Isobel Paulsen, Lachlan’s Swedish-American wife, a doctor Cheryl Kite (née Chapman), Lachlan’s mother Patrick Kite (‘Paddy’), Lachlan’s father (d.1982) The Bonnard family: Xavier Bonnard, Kite’s childhood friend Luc Bonnard, Xavier’s father Rosamund Bonnard (née Penley), Xavier’s mother Jacqueline Ward (‘Jacqui’), Xavier’s younger sister BOX 88: Michael Strawson, veteran CIA officer and co-founder of BOX 88 Rita Ayinde, senior officer (UK) Jason Franks, head of Black Ops (a ‘Closer’) Carl Fowler, surveillance officer (a ‘Falcon’) Freddie Lane, computer analyst (a ‘Turing’) Ward Hansell, senior officer (US) James (‘Jock’) and Eleanor (‘Miss Ellie’) Carpmael, office managers at ‘The Cathedral’ The Reverend Anthony Childs, a vicar Alford College: Lionel Jones-Lewis, Kite’s housemaster, known by the initials ‘LJL’ Cosmo de Paul, joined Alford in the same year as Kite William ‘Billy’ Peele, history teacher The Security Service (MI5): Robert Vosse, leader of MI5 investigation into BOX 88 Cara Jannaway, intelligence officer Matt Tomkins, intelligence officer Other Characters: Ali Eskandarian, an Iranian Abbas Karrubi, bodyguard to Ali Eskandarian Hana Dufour, a friend of Ali Eskandarian Ramin Torabi, an Iranian businessman Martha Raine, a schoolfriend of Jacqueline Ward Zoltan Pavkov, a Serb Bijan Vaziri, an Iranian exile 21 December 1988 They were just another American family heading home for the holidays. A taxi had been booked to take them from their house in Pimlico, little Gaby facing backwards on the fold-down chair, her legs not yet long enough to reach the floor, every inch of the cab crammed with suitcases and boxes and Harrod’s carrier bags full of presents wrapped for Christmas. Mommy and Daddy were facing her, side by side on the back seat, her giant Hamleys’ teddy bear wedged between them. Whenever the driver braked, Gaby could feel herself pulled backwards and then forwards, weightless for an instant, like the feeling of being on the swings in Battersea Park and wanting to fly off into the afternoon sky. Her mother said: ‘Careful, sweetie,’ but there was no way she was going to fall, not with the suitcases to steady her and the handle on the door to hold onto. She loved the growl of the taxi’s engine, the Christmas lights receding in the back window, her father’s voice as he pointed out the Italian restaurant they had been to for Grandpa’s birthday, then the home of the Martins in Chelsea, the other American family they knew in London with their golden retriever, Montana, who licked Gaby’s face whenever she gave him a hug. Mommy had told her that there were only three more bedtimes until Christmas Eve. One tonight, on the aeroplane which was taking them across the ocean to New York, then two in her bedroom at the house in Stamford. Gaby felt giddy with excitement. She would miss her friends from school – Claire and JenJen, Billy and Pi – but they had promised to stay in touch and write postcards to one another from wherever they were going. Soon the taxi started going faster and they were on the freeway heading out to Heathrow. At the airport, the driver found a trolley. Gaby watched her parents pile the suitcases one on top of the other until Daddy insisted Mommy fetch a second trolley to cope with all the bags. He had given the driver thirty pounds saying: ‘Keep the change.’ The driver’s name was Barry. When he asked where they were going, Gaby told him: ‘New York. Pan Am flight number 103. Have you ever been to New York?’ ‘’Fraid not,’ Barry replied. ‘You have a safe trip, sweetheart, lovely Christmas.’ There was a tree with tinsel but no lights near the desk where they queued with the trolleys. Afterwards Gaby showed her passport to a man wearing a turban who wished her a happy Christmas. She had to walk through a special door that detected metal while her rucksack and teddy bear went through the X-ray machine. A boy beside her was crying. Gaby couldn’t understand why someone would be crying when there were only three more bedtimes until Christmas. Eventually, after Mommy had taken her to the bathroom and bought some earplugs in a pharmacy inside the terminal, they walked down a long corridor to a big room where the other passengers were waiting to board the aeroplane. Gaby heard American accents, lots of them, saw older children listening to music on Walkmans, a woman lying asleep, sprawled
