Spy Games by Adam Brookes Page A

left, a few remaining staff pottering about, goats tethered in the sidings. Mangan had a vague plan to use the scene as color in a piece about Ethiopia’s economic turnaround.
    “Why do the trains not run any more?” he said, in strained French.
    The elderly guide looked grave.
    “
C’est un problème d’argent, monsieur
,” he said. A problem of money. He walked stiffly toward a pullman, the brown paintwork ofwhich was peeling, and indicated that Mangan should climb aboard. Inside were compartments with leather banquettes, resplendent with leaf residue, dust and bird droppings.
    “
Entrez dans le premier classe
,” said the guide with a flourish. The banquettes in first class pulled out into beds, the smell of rubber and decay rising off them.
    They walked up to the disused station. Along the platform the signage was all still displayed in a beautiful deco font,
Bagages. Facteur-Chef Renseignements.
And above, the Amharic script, its letters unanchored, dancing.
    “And now,” said the guide, “the Chinese are to build a new railway, all the way to Djibouti and the sea.”
    “I have heard that,” said Mangan. “Will you go to work on the new railway?”
    “No,
monsieur
. I will remain here,” said the old man.
    From inside the station building, Mangan was sure he heard the hiss of static. He walked, footsteps echoing, into an ancient, decrepit office of yellowing walls and fluttering birds. The static came from an old radio receiver jury-rigged with antenna and rusting microphone, a frequency dial glowing. It sat atop a wooden table, a power cable winding off into the gloom.
    “In case we are needed,” said the guide.
    History is not curated here, thought Mangan. It is strewn about, waiting for you to happen across it.
    At the hotel that night, Mangan ate alone. He ordered steak and St. George’s and read a book, a blood-soaked memoir of life under Ethiopia’s military dictatorship, the Dergue. In the lobby, two Ethiopian men sat quiet and unmoving, their backs to a corner, facing the door. Mangan watched them from the corner of his eye.
    After seven or eight minutes, they stirred. Three perspiring Americans had entered the lobby pulling their luggage. The Ethiopians greeted them solemnly, stood by them as they checked in, and escorted them into the lift.
    Later, the American men came down to the restaurant and walked past Mangan’s table. They smelled of shower gel, toothpaste. Two of them were young, in polo shirts and jeans. An older, ruddy-faced man wore tan cargo pants and a shirt with a corporate logo stitched on the left breast. They sat and ordered Cokes. Mangan listened to their murmured conversation. They talked about software. Just as they were about to order food, a fourth man wearing sunglasses and a gold chain joined them. There were introductions, first names only, Mangan noticed. The new arrival said he was “in from Bagram.” The older man asked what he’d been up to there.
    “Oh, I process stuff,” the man said, smiling.
    “Right,” said the older man, “we fix stuff.” And they all laughed quietly.
    What is this? wondered Mangan. Americans, “contractor” written all over them, flitting in from Afghanistan? Hard-eyed Ethiopian minders? This smelled of something military, or clandestine. A drone base? Some tiny outpost sucking up signals intelligence from Somalia? Or perhaps a link in the vast surveillance net the Americans had cast across the Sahara, the covert flights out of Djibouti, twin-engined Bombardiers crammed with listening equipment tracking chatter and movement from Sudan to Mali. The men were leaning into each other across the table, talking in low voices. Mangan watched them and experienced a sudden, gnawing sense of loss, of a life closed to him.
Old, blown agent sits in far-flung backwater, enjoys pathetic sense of yearning.
    He turned, looking for the waitress, and realized that the two Ethiopian men were now sitting not far behind him, watching him. He paid