A Most Wanted Man II

In the next few chapters, Le Carré introduces different points of view, such as the private banker, a lawyer, the German intelligence, and the local police. What I find interesting is how Le Carré introduces the characters. He doesn’t introduce the characters’ background right away, which tends to add a sense of mystery. In the second chapter, we meet Brue, the banker, and Annabel Richter, the lawyer. Annabel’s client (Issa) needs Brue’s help to access a bank account so he can go to medical school. She tells him, “He’s [Issa] drowning. All you have to do is hold out your hand… He trusts you… All right, he doesn’t trust you. But his father did. And you’re all he’s got” (38). I find it amazing that Issa never met Brue, but Issa’s willing to risk everything to get a hold of this account. At this point in the story, the reader doesn’t know who the client is. Later, you find out that the client is Issa. In the next chapter, the reader meets Bachman, a member of the German domestic intelligence service. The German intelligence still feels disturbed because they didn’t figure out that the hijackers of 9-11 plotted their attack on German soil. Bachman wants to recruit a live source to work as an Islamic terrorist spy. Le Carré writes, “He was chaffing against the dismal failure of Western intelligence services—and the German service most off all—to recruit a single decent live source against the Islamist target” (55). He figures that Issa can be this live source. Bachman seems a little nationalistic. His disappointment in ‘the German service most of all’ suggests that he didn’t think much of the other intelligence services. He obviously thinks highly of Germany.

In the last chapter I read, the story returns to Melik’s house. Issa is finally meeting Brue, to take possession of the money. When Brue starts talking to Issa, Issa’s sad past is revealed. He says, “…Anatoly is the best friend a murderer and a rapist could possibly have, sir” (80). We find out that Issa’s Chechen mother is raped by Issa’s Russian father. She is killed after he is born. Issa hates his father for murdering and raping innocent people. Because of this Issa wants to become a doctor so he can help others. With hesitancy Brue is talked into helping Issa. Annabelle explains, “Last year I had a client called Magomed. He was a twenty-three-year-old Chechen who’d been tortured by the Russians… Magomed didn’t have Issa’s track record. He wasn’t a militant or a suspected Islamist. He wasn’t wanted by Interpol… they dragged him out of his hostel bed and put him on a plane to St. Petersburg…His screams were the last anybody has heard from him.” (89). This is the first instance of Annabel sharing something from her past. She is determined to help Issa and save him from deportation and more torture. I think it’s to help rectify the case she lost the year before. It must be frustrating to be powerless in a situation like this.