It was one thirty and Liz Carlyle was walking to work. Her enjoyment of the walk was not dampened in the least by the rain. No more gloomy Northern Line tube journeys for her, she reflected, just a stroll through Pimlico and along the river. A few months ago, at the end of a very stressful period both at work and in her private life, she had sat down and thought about what changes might make her happier. She had often thought how much better it would be if she lived nearer to Thames House, where she worked in MI5’s head office. So she had taken the plunge, stepped into the local estate agent and put her flat on the market.
It had turned out that her particular part of Kentish Town was a lot more desirable than she realised, and the asking price the estate agent suggested had amazed her. But before long she had a firm offer. She’d hesitated for two days before accepting it, thinking of how thrilled she had been to be able to buy her flat in the first place and of all the happy times she had spent there. But finally she had shrugged her shoulders, told herself it was time to move on and accepted the offer. Within a few weeks she had found and fallen in love with a top-floor flat overlooking the gardens of St George’s Square in Pimlico. What really sold it to her was the small roof terrace, which had a tremendous view over the rooftops of Westminster Cathedral in the distance.
She had moved in a week ago and had woken every morning looking forward to the mile or so walk to work. The fact that it had rained almost every day had not depressed her in the least. Today she had taken the morning off to take delivery of a large, comfortable sofa and was feeling particularly pleased with her choice and how well it fitted in to the sitting room.
Up in her small office in Thames House she hung her dripping raincoat on the back of the door and sat down at her desk. As she did so she reflected how lucky she was to have an office, however small, in these days of open-plan floors and hot-desking. When the building had been repartitioned to form large open floors to accommodate the increase in manpower – first after 9/11, then again in the wake of the 7/7 bombing of the London Underground – something had gone slightly awry and some odd corners had been left out of the open plan. Some were big enough to form small meeting rooms, though Liz’s space wasn’t big enough for anything except a small office with just enough room for a desk and two chairs. But it did have a window and the window looked over the Thames. There wasn’t much to see at present, since the steady rain distorted the view until it flickered like a television on the blink. But Liz liked her own space and even when the weather was bad she liked the outlook too.
As she sat down at her desk Liz wondered how Peggy was getting on at Grosvenor. She had delegated the liaison role with the Americans because she was busy running her counter-espionage team and also because she thought it was time to give Peggy some extra responsibility. Peggy had originally joined MI6 as a researcher, having become bored by her first job after leaving university in a small private library in the north of England.
She and Liz had first met when Peggy was seconded to MI5 to work with Liz on a particularly delicate case involving both their Services. Liz had been impressed with Peggy’s talent for research and her tenacity and Peggy had admired Liz’s drive and operational skills. When the case was concluded, Peggy had decided that the domestic service would better suit her abilities than MI6 and, encouraged by Liz, had transferred to MI5. Since then she had worked closely with Liz, moving with her from the Counter-Terrorism Branch to Counter-Espionage.
During that time Peggy had developed from a rather shy, scholarly young woman who hid behind her hair and her glasses. She had turned out to have considerable operational skills, particularly in extracting information from unsuspecting people. To Liz’s, and her own, surprise, she had become highly talented at role-playing and had successfully transformed herself into, among other things, a social worker, a census official and a debt collector. Liz felt a little like a proud mother hen as she watched and encouraged her junior’s development.
Recently, Peggy had suffered something of a blow, however, when Tim, her partner of several years and a lecturer in seventeenth-century English Literature, had go himself into trouble – by behaving like the spineless erratic geek Liz had always suspected he was. His behaviour had come as a shock to Peggy, who had seen only the gentle, scholarly side of Tim. The revelation of this other side had upset Peggy greatly and their relationship had broken up.
It was partly to take Peggy’s mind off all this that Liz had asked her to be the main contact point with Miles Brookhaven at the CIA Station in the US Embassy. But there was another reason too. When Miles had been posted to London several years earlier, he had asked Liz out, sent her flowers and behaved like a lovestruck teenager. Though Liz had been amused by Miles, she had found his romantic attentions entirely unwelcome; when she heard that Miles was returning as Head of Station she had tried to avoid a repeat of his failed courtship by appointing Peggy as liaison.
In fact, she needn’t have worried. The Miles who arrived in London this time round was a much more mature character. Liz found they could now meet as friends and colleagues without any embarrassment. Miles was still unmarried, however, and was undoubtedly attractive – something Liz noticed Peggy had recognised as well. Half of Liz hoped that Peggy would get over her breakup with Tim and start a relationship with Miles; the other half worried that an American CIA officer, however Anglophile, might not be the right choice for Peggy.
Liz was mulling over this when Peggy herself appeared in the doorway of her office. Her coat was soaking wet but her face was glowing.
‘Heavens, Peggy, you look chirpy for such a rotten day. How did you get on at Grosvenor?’
‘It was fascinating,’ said Peggy. ‘Do you mind if I just dump my coat for a minute? I need to check my emails, then I’ll come back and tell you.’
In a few minutes she was back. ‘Have a chair,’ said Liz. ‘And fill me in. I hope it’s good news.’
‘Well, I don’t know about good. But it’s certainly interesting.’ She told Liz what Al Costino had reported about the Swedish lecturer in Vermont and his mysterious visitor from Canada.
‘They seem pretty certain that the Petersen man who died was the Illegal that Mischa said was in America. Now the Bureau is pulling out all the stops to find out about his visitor. He called himself Ohlson.’
‘Another Swede.’
‘Yes. He claimed to be a childhood friend of Petersen. Anyway, Al Costino said his HQ in Washington asked if we and Six had any source that could help. Miles and I both thought of Mischa.’
‘Mischa?’ asked Liz thoughtfully. Her mind went back to the church in Tallinn last autumn. Mischa was a Russian army officer, a specialist in sophisticated weaponry who had taken a degree at Birmingham University. He had been in Ukraine with the Russian forces when a Malaysian passenger aircraft had been brought down by a Russian surface-to-air missile. Disgusted by this, and by the denials of any involvement immediately issued by the Kremlin, Mischa had made contact with the CIA’s Kiev Station through an American journalist who had been at the crash site. Mischa had rapidly become a paid source of the Kiev Station, providing information on Russian military activity in Ukraine. Then, out of the blue, he had asked to meet a more senior officer of the CIA, and Miles Brookhaven had gone to Ukraine from London to see him.
It was Mischa who had provided the first information about the Russian Illegals operations in Europe and the US. His source was his brother, a middle-ranking officer in the Russian intelligence service, FSB, who was working on the Illegals programme in Moscow and liked to boast about it when he was drunk. Mischa’s information, though tantalising, had not been sufficiently detailed to act on, and it was not until months later when he had resurfaced in Tallinn, asking to meet a contact from the British Special Services, that Liz had met him. She had gone out to Tallinn under the cover of a recently bereaved schoolteacher who had joined an academic-led tour group.
He’d provided her with enough information for MI5 to locate and the police subsequently to arrest two Russian Illegals working in Britain. After the excitement of the operation to round up the Illegals working in Britain was over, Liz had occasionally wondered whether there had been any repercussions for Mischa or his brother. There must have been an investigation in Moscow to try to find out how the Illegals had been discovered. She was curious whether Mischa’s brother had come under suspicion and if so whether the suspicion had spread to Mischa himself. Nothing further had been heard from Mischa, and no information had come from the MI6 Station in Moscow – not that she had heard anyway – though she knew they had made some effort to find out who Mischa’s brother was, as he sounded like a possible recruit.
‘Do the Americans have a way of contacting Mischa?’ she asked Peggy.
‘Miles is going to find out. He thinks the Kiev Station may have an emergency arrangement.’
‘It’d better be a secure one,’ replied Liz. ‘I would imagine the FSB grew very suspicious once we wrapped up two of their Illegals.’
‘Shall I set up a meeting with Six? They don’t know anything about the American Illegal yet and I said we’d inform them and ask if they have any useful sources.’
‘Yes, do,’ replied Liz. ‘And then we can see what they think about contacting Mischa.’