Saturday
Ax-les-Thermes, France
Back in his hotel room, Richter was in something of a quandary. He really didn’t like the idea of being stuck in one place, one known to Simpson and very likely others as well, when he had no idea what was actually going on. And there was an analogous situation that kept on popping unpleasantly into the forefront of his mind. In India, during the good old days of the Raj, when they were trying to get rid of a man-eating tiger, the hunters would first tether a goat to a tree in order to attract it, then somebody would shoot the beast while it was busy enjoying a couple of goat steaks, extra rare.
Ever since he’d arrived in this small French town, Richter had been feeling increasingly like some form of tethered animal, set up as bait or target, and he didn’t like the experience at all. He couldn’t just leave Ax, because the surveillance team would know it, so he was committed to following Simpson’s orders and staying inside the hotel for that evening and throughout the night. So what he needed to do now was find some way of evening up the odds, so that when the tiger eventually turned up for dinner, he’d find a goat with very sharp teeth and a nasty attitude.
And there was one way he might do that, but first he needed to check out two things. One was the layout of the hotel rooms, and the other to establish what the floor of his room was made from.
Ten minutes later, Richter stepped outside the hotel again and started up the Ford. Waiting until the road was clear in both directions, he swung the car around in a U-turn, and headed back towards Ax-les-Thermes. As he passed the Renault Laguna, he gave its driver a pleasant wave. The man gave him a hostile glare, and Richter grinned as he drove on.
He parked near the casino at the southern end of the town centre, and wandered off into the side streets situated on the west side of the main road. He was looking for a particular kind of shop, and soon he found just what he was looking for. He made two inexpensive purchases there, both of which he tucked into a large plastic bag. Then he walked back towards his car, but stopped off at a small supermarket to buy the final item he needed.
Back outside the casino, he glanced around for the Renault Laguna, but saw neither the car nor its driver, though he felt sure he was still under surveillance from some quarter. After that he drove back to the Hostellerie de la Poste, to begin his own preparations for whatever the night might have in store.
Stazione Trastevere, Rome, Italy
The moment the doors slid open at Stazione Trastevere, Raya stood up and moved towards them. But she didn’t immediately alight, and for several seconds just stared up and down the platform, looking out for any sign of danger. But all she saw was the bustle of passengers leaving the train, pushing their way through equally large crowds of people who were trying to get on it. Nobody stood out as a potential threat, but then, she realized, stepping down onto the platform, if the SVR were covering this station they’d most likely be waiting for her outside.
She paused at the station entrance, trying to check the street beyond, but she saw nothing to worry her, apart from the sheer volume of urban traffic. Cars were everywhere, as well as countless scooters and mopeds weaving in and out of the dense traffic, the sound of their buzz-saw exhausts ripping through the air as a counterpoint to the deep bass rumble of the diesel engines of trucks.
What she needed now was a bus or something else to get her away quickly from the station. Raya shot a final look in both directions, then stepped warily out into the street. A short distance away she spotted a tabacchi, or tobacconist, where she knew she could buy a bus ticket. Her rudimentary Italian proved unnecessary, as the proprietor spoke enough English to understand exactly what she wanted. A couple of minutes later she emerged clutching a comprehensive ticket that was good for all-day unlimited travel on buses, trams and the Rome metro. All she had to do then was find a bus or a tram or a metro station.
But, before she could make a move, a dark-coloured saloon car swept past her and squealed to a halt directly outside the station. Two burly looking men got out and hurried over to the entrance, their heads swivelling left and right as they scanned the passengers emerging. Raya didn’t need telling who they might be or who they were looking for.
Her heart thundering in her chest, she paused deliberately for a few seconds outside the tabacchi, peering in the window and using the reflection in the glass to watch what was happening in the station opposite.
One man had stopped directly in front, where he would be able to see everyone who used the main exit. The second man forced his way through the crowds and vanished inside the station itself. The reflection in the tabacchi window was slightly distorted, and nothing like as clear as a real mirror, so Raya couldn’t see what the driver of the car was up to: whether he was focusing his attention on the station, or scanning the people moving along the street.
Forcing herself to move slowly, Raya turned away to walk in the opposite direction, her senses preternaturally alert for the first shouted order that would mean one of them had spotted her. After several paces, she risked a quick glance over her shoulder.
Just then the driver, who had now climbed out of the vehicle and was standing beside it, with his door wide open, suddenly turned in her direction. Their eyes met, and in that instant Raya knew she’d been spotted.
A sudden yell followed immediately by an insistent blast on the car’s horn was all the confirmation she needed. She turned and ran, clutching the bag to her side, desperate to put some distance between herself and her pursuers.
Outside the station, the driver dropped back into his seat and slammed the car door shut. The engine was still running, and he immediately pulled the gear lever into reverse and began driving the car backwards up the street, into the teeth of oncoming traffic and weaving around cars and scooters as he went.
Even for Italian drivers, who generally seemed to regard any road signs as just part of the scenery, and tended to drive wherever and however they liked, this was too much. A frantic cacophony of blaring horns greeted his erratic progress, which then came to an abrupt halt when the rear of his vehicle encountered the front of an approaching cement lorry. The truck driver had no room to avoid the reversing car even if he’d wanted to, which he probably didn’t. So he just let the truck roll on until it struck the back of the reversing car with a satisfying crash. Then finally he applied the brakes.
Raya registered all this briefly as she ran, but it wasn’t the car that now bothered her. The man previously standing outside Stazione Trastevere had responded immediately to the yells of the car driver, and was now sprinting down the street towards her.
She risked another glance behind her. He was perhaps fifty yards back, and gaining steadily. Raya was no runner at the best of times, and her footwear – a pair of soft black leather shoes with kitten heels – would have been sufficient handicap even for a decent sprinter. She knew there was no chance of outrunning him, so she’d have to do something else.
Ax-les-Thermes, France
Adamson’s mobile suddenly shrilled, almost startling him, and he reached over to retrieve it.
‘You don’t seem to be very good at this,’ Simpson declared, without preamble.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that Richter made you, and he even guessed you were here two-handed. The only thing he didn’t know was where exactly Dekker was positioned, but he assumed he’d be somewhere behind the hotel.’
‘I thought you told us Richter wasn’t a professional?’
‘He isn’t, and neither are you by the sound of it. Anyway, if Richter’s spotted you, it’s not too big a stretch of imagination to guess that Gecko might have as well. So stop pissing about and get the hell out of there, right now.’
‘What about Dekker, sir?’
‘He stays where he is,’ Simpson said. ‘I may be throwing Richter to the wolves, but I want Dekker out there to cover his back, and to take Gecko down if he gets the chance.’
‘I don’t think Dekker’s got any food or drink up there.’
‘That’s his problem, then. He’s SAS, isn’t he? Perhaps he can nibble on a few blades of grass or something, drink his own urine, that kind of thing. And it’ll only be for tonight, anyway, because if Gecko is here, that’s when he’ll have to strike.’
‘And where do you want me to go?’
‘Don’t tempt me.’ Simpson sounded extremely irritated. ‘Somewhere well away from the Hostellerie de la Poste, obviously. But if you can find a vantage point where you can still cover the building without erecting a large sign on the car announcing “This is a surveillance operation”, that would be good. Right, brief Dekker, then off you go.’
Rome, Italy
Raya took a deep breath and screamed as loudly as she could, and simultaneously angled herself slightly to one side of the pavement, a route that would take her close to the front of a cafe with several tables sitting outside.
Half a dozen young Italian men were already standing, their eyes fixed on the incomprehensible accident that had happened almost right in front of them. At the sound of distress they all spun round, taking in the scene in an instant. A young and pretty girl running for her life, pursued by a heavily built dark-suited man probably intent on rape or worse.
Raya’s breath erupted in short, ragged gasps as she neared them, and she realized she couldn’t carry on much further. As she reached the young men, they parted to let her through, as if coordinated by a silent signal, then immediately closed ranks as the running man approached.
Seeing the human obstacle blocking the pavement, he didn’t hesitate. He swung out into the roadway, obviously intending to run around the Italians. As he swerved, one of the young men grabbed for him, but missed. A second one didn’t and this man, the biggest of the half-dozen Italians there, timed his move to perfection.
As the runner reached about six feet from him, he simply extended his left arm at a right angle to his body, directly in front of his target, and braced himself, a move known in close-combat as ‘the clothes line’.
The dark-suited man had no chance. He was going too fast to swerve or avoid the outstretched arm, so caught the Italian’s forearm squarely in his throat. His momentum drove his legs on for a couple of feet before he tumbled backwards, retching and choking, to the ground. Two of the other young men immediately leapt forward and sat on him, pinning him down. He was going nowhere any time soon, even without the injury to his throat.
Raya registered all this in another backward glance, but knew she still daren’t slow down. Because the driver of the car was now out of his vehicle and running as well, angling his way towards her from the road and obviously intending to intercept her.
But, actually, that wasn’t going to happen either. A crowd of passers-by had already assembled, and when they saw the man who’d just caused the accident trying to escape from the scene, several of them grabbed him and wrestled him to a halt, shouting and gesticulating in fast and very angry Italian.
As Raya kept on running, but now a little more slowly, she saw the SVR officer struggling violently and trying to fight his way free of the men holding him. A road junction loomed, and she swung left to run down the side street.
But, as she did so, she heard a sudden gunshot from behind her, and turned to look. The SVR man had wriggled free of his captors and had pulled out a pistol, which she could clearly see in his hand, and one of the men who’d been holding him now lay on the ground, clutching his stomach and screaming in agony.
Raya didn’t wait to see what would happen next: she just took to her heels again, finding new energy and additional speed from somewhere. She pounded along the street, dodged across the road, weaving through the traffic and down another side street, hoping she’d managed to get out of sight before the man wielding the pistol saw where she’d gone.
But that faint hope evaporated seconds later, when another shot rang out from behind and a bullet smashed into the wall only a few feet in front of her. She glanced back.
The man had just swung round the corner and was at least seventy yards back, still a slim enough margin. ‘Kosov, stop now!’ he yelled in Russian.
Raya ignored him, and ran. Ran for her life.
She dodged around the next corner, putting solid stone between herself and her pursuer, then turned left again, and almost immediately right, anything to try to confuse the SVR pursuer, to try to slow him down by making him stop at each junction to work out which way she might have gone.
And then, at the far end of the road, an unlikely source of salvation beckoned. A young Italian girl was just buckling on a crash helmet as she prepared to ride off on a Vespa scooter. Raya summoned her last reserves of strength and tried to speed up, desperate to reach the Vespa before the girl rode away.
Raya knew her safety margin was only seconds, maybe even fractions of seconds. As she approached, the girl glanced round curiously, then took a step closer to her scooter.
Another shot cracked out, the bullet ricocheting off a wall somewhere nearby.
The girl whirled round in panic, just as Raya reached her.
Raya knew she had no choice. She grabbed the girl by the arm, spun her round and pushed her away from the Vespa. The girl tumbled backwards, stumbled against the kerb and fell flat on her back.
Raya leapt onto the seat of the scooter, her eyes already flickering over the unfamiliar controls. She guessed the throttle was on the right of the handlebar, while the numbers on the left-hand side were the gear change and clutch.
The engine was already running, with a reassuring throb that she could feel through the seat. She pulled in the clutch lever, rotated the handlebar control to the number ‘1’, then simultaneously twisted the throttle and released the clutch.
It was a long way from being the smoothest start ever. The Vespa leapt forward, its engine screaming in protest, the front wheel almost lifting off the road, but Raya didn’t care. She was moving, already moving faster than any man could run, and right then that was the only thing that mattered.
She accelerated as hard as she could down the street, which continued straight for perhaps a hundred yards. Halfway along it, she risked changing up into second gear, then braked hard for the T-junction at the end. Only then did she risk a glance down the street.
The scooter’s owner had scrambled to her feet, and was staring straight along the street towards her. Raya could guess what the girl was thinking but, right then, pissing off an Italian teenager was frankly the least of her worries.
The SVR officer stood in the middle of the street, eighty-odd yards away from her, now well out of effective pistol range. He was talking into a mobile phone, no doubt calling for help and providing a description of the scooter Raya was riding. The Vespa had got her out of trouble, but she couldn’t stay with it long. She’d be altogether too exposed, and there was a good chance a policeman might stop her for not wearing a helmet.
What she had to do was get well clear of this district before any other SVR men turned up, then ditch the Vespa and lose herself somewhere in the sprawling city of Rome.
Ax-les-Thermes, France
He had to do it that same night, Stanway knew, because he needed to be back at his desk on Monday morning. As he’d have to drive all day on Sunday to achieve that, the Russian clerk would have to die tonight.
He’d found a cafe a few miles up the road, and stopped there to eat a very early and very average dinner, and now he was on his way back to Ax-les-Thermes, heading south down the N20. As soon as he entered the village, he noticed that the Renault Laguna was no longer parked opposite the Hostellerie de la Poste.
That could simply mean that the SIS officers sent to debrief the Russian defector had checked out of the hotel, that continued surveillance wasn’t considered necessary. Or it could mean that they were already satisfied with what the defector had told them, and had decided to move him elsewhere, in order to start processing him. Stanway had no way of knowing which. If they’d moved the Russian, Stanway would have to abandon his plans and try again the following week, after he’d found out where the man was being held. But that would probably be both difficult and messy.
As he drove past the front of the hotel, he shot a glance to his left. The dining-room windows were wide open, it was a warm evening, and he could see, perfectly clearly, the fair-haired man sitting eating a meal by himself in the corner.
‘Excellent,’ Stanway breathed, and continued down the road without stopping, the Peugeot becoming just one more vehicle in a long line of cars heading south.
Palazzo Margherita, Via Vittorio Veneto, Rome, Italy
‘So what in hell’s got our Russian friends so riled up? Any ideas?’
Clayton Richards III laced his hands behind his head, leant back in his leather swivel chair, and stared across his desk at the junior CIA officer who had just brought in the surveillance report.
Richards was the Central Intelligence Agency’s Chief of Station in Rome, and he headed up the covert CIA section that resided in the big, square-cornered building on the Via Vittorio Veneto, which housed the Embassy of the United States of America to the Italian Republic.
‘They’re obviously looking for someone, sir,’ George Edwards said, ‘but right now we’ve no idea who. A little under an hour ago they scrambled a whole bunch of personnel. The first team went out to Fiumicino, and a second group headed to Termini. Others positioned themselves outside various railway stations situated between the airport and the city. That much we do know.’
Before Edwards could continue, there was a brief double-knock on the door.
‘Come,’ Richards ordered, and it swung open.
A tall, slim, dark-haired man stepped into the room. ‘Mind if I sit in on this?’ he asked politely.
Richards got to his feet and nodded. He might be the most senior CIA officer stationed within Italy, but this new arrival was John Westwood, the Company’s Head of Espionage, a Langley big wheel, currently over in Rome for a liaison visit.
‘Of course, sir,’ Richards said. ‘Please take a seat.’
Westwood strode across the room and sat down in one of the leather easy chairs positioned against the wall opposite Richards’s desk.
‘Edwards has just been telling me about the recent activity noticed from the Russian Embassy,’ Richards explained.
Westwood nodded. ‘I’m curious about that, so please continue.’
‘Yes, sir. We noticed that they sent men out only to Fiumicino, not to Ciampino, so we assume whoever they’re looking for was known to be on a flight due to land there. And the fact that they were also covering the railway stations suggests that the aircraft was already on the ground. So if their target had already landed and they missed him at the airport, they’d try to pick him up as he walked out of one of the railway stations. The further implication is that their target is either hostile or a fugitive, and most likely the latter, because if they were looking for a criminal, they surely would have asked the carabinieri for help, but the Italian police have not so far been contacted. So increasingly it looks as if Moscow may have a defector.’
Edwards paused to glance at both men in turn, and Richards nodded for him to continue.
‘We checked all today’s inbound flights, and one of them stood out immediately. An Aeroflot from Sheremetievo landed at Fiumicino just a few minutes after the Russkies scrambled their teams, but before any of them could reach the airport. That’s obviously why they’ve been covering the railway stations as well. We’re trying to get a passenger list for that same Aeroflot flight, but it’s not going to be easy – and might even be impossible if the SVR have already sealed it. That’s what we’d do, too, in the same circumstances. Our guys have been tailing the Russian teams, but they’ve been keeping well back for obvious reasons. The Russians have been issued with identification details of their target, because our guys have noticed the pages of details in their hands. They don’t seem to amount to more than a few lines of text and a photograph. We’ve got people out there with high-resolution cameras, but trying to get a decent shot of the paper has so far been near impossible. Now, the next—’
He was interrupted by a knock on the door, and strode across to open it. Edwards held a brief conversation with the man outside, then closed the door and walked back over to Richards’s desk, looking slightly puzzled.
‘There’s been a development,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure about the reliability of this information. We’ve just received reports about a disturbance outside the Stazione Trastevere. That’s on the main Ferrovie Regionali route between Fiumicino and the main station at Termini,’ he added, for Westwood’s benefit.
‘What kind of a disturbance?’ Richards asked.
‘Apparently a car was in a collision with a lorry, but that’s common enough in Rome. What’s rung bells is that at least one pistol shot was fired at the scene, and a man was injured.’
‘The putative defector, maybe?’ Westwood asked.
‘No, sir. Or, at least, it doesn’t sound like it. According to what I’ve been told, the injured man was a bystander who tried to intervene to stop a pursuit. The odd thing,’ he finished, ‘is that, according to this report, the fugitive was a woman.’
Rome, Italy
A little under an hour later, Raya was standing at the counter of a small cafe in a narrow side street just off the Via del Corso, and not far from the Piazza del Popolo on the old northern edge of the city, and taking her first sip of a cappuccino. She preferred standing inside rather than sitting at one of the tables outside, for two good reasons. First, she had read enough about Rome to know that the price of a cup of coffee depended on where you drank it, and by standing at the counter she would pay about a quarter of the amount charged for sitting at an outside table. But the second reason was perhaps more obvious: she needed to keep out of sight.
She’d driven the Vespa about halfway across the city, before pulling it to a stop by the roadside and abandoning it. She’d tucked the keys under the seat, and hoped the young Italian girl would eventually recover it. Though she felt bad about stealing it, the vehicle had undoubtedly saved her life.
From then on, she’d stuck with public transport, solely buses, in fact, ending up at the northern end of the Via del Corso about fifteen minutes earlier. In a public toilet, she removed the dark make-up, the contact lenses and finally the black wig, which was now itching like crazy.
Standing there in the cafe, Raya felt herself truly starting to relax for the first time since she’d left her Moscow apartment that morning – even though it now seemed like weeks ago. There was no way at all that those Rome embassy men could still be tracking her. For the moment, at least, she was safe.
What had surprised her was the degree of surveillance she’d witnessed, and how quickly the SVR had moved once the alarm was raised. And to have nearly caught her twice, they must have deployed virtually every agent available. This was a clear and unequivocal measure of their determination to find her before she could contact any Western intelligence service.
She’d picked up a bus and railway timetable, as well as a tourist map of Italy, which she’d put down on the counter beside her cup. She began studying routes and timings and costs, and trying to work out exactly what to do next, while simultaneously trying to avoid the gaze of two young Italian men standing a little further down the bar. They’d stared at her intermittently ever since she walked in, but at least their interest was obviously carnal rather than homicidal, so she was cheerfully unconcerned. The attention of over-eager young men she was well used to dealing with; what she couldn’t handle so easily were the thugs from the SVR.
One thing was for sure, if she was going to get out of Rome alive, she’d have to avoid all the railway stations, and obviously the airports as well. But at least there was another option. The SVR might have the manpower to cover every railway station and airport in and around Rome, but there was no way that they could also mount surveillance on all the bus stops. There were literally hundreds of them, served by over two hundred separate bus companies, so that had to be by far her best choice unless . . .
Another thought struck her, and she stood for a few moments, considering. She realized that she’d barely escaped death twice already that day, and it really would be bad luck if the SVR managed to spot her trying to get out of Rome on a coach. Even so, a private car would obviously provide the best option of all, since she’d be completely undetectable amidst the sheer volume of traffic.
But if she was going to attempt that route, she had to do it quickly, because the SVR might soon enlist the aid of the Italian police after painting her as a fugitive from justice on some really serious charge, resulting in roadblocks and increased surveillance on all modes of traffic attempting to exit the city.
It all depended, she decided, on what such a strategy would cost her – and not necessarily in purely monetary terms. She glanced over at the two young Italian men and gave them a half-smile. Perhaps, she mused, eyeing them critically, it wouldn’t be too high a price to pay.
A few minutes later, her mind made up, she walked over to stand close to them.
‘Do either of you speak English?’ she asked sweetly, not trusting her rudimentary Italian for this encounter. If neither of them did, there would be other men in other bars and cafes. Somewhere, soon, she would find what she was looking for.
The one standing closest to her nodded. He looked about twenty-five, and the other one slightly younger.
‘Yes, I work as a tour guide,’ he said. ‘My name is Mario Villani and I speak English and French.’ He added, ‘My friend here just speaks Italian.’
Raya smiled at him again. ‘And do you have a car, Mario?’ she asked.
Again the young man nodded.
‘Are you doing anything tonight? I need to get to Civitavecchia as quickly as possible. I can pay you for the petrol or . . . perhaps we can come to some other arrangement?’
‘What kind of arrangement?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’re in the car,’ Raya said briskly. ‘Let’s go.’