Sunday
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi Headquarters, Yasenevo, Tëplyystan, Moscow
Major Abramov was still imprisoned in the darkened interview room. Sitting on a hard chair, he slumped forward over the table, sleeping fitfully. He felt uncomfortable, exhausted, hungry and thirsty, because he’d had nothing to eat or drink since Zharkov had left him there several hours earlier. That, he guessed, was deliberate, for nobody had entered the room since, or responded to his knocks on the locked door.
Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of brisk footsteps approaching along the corridor outside. Then the door swung open, the main lights snapped on, and Colonel Yevgeni Zharkov strode back in.
Abramov lurched upright, his aching joints protesting, and leant back again in his chair. Strictly speaking, he should have stood up when the senior officer entered, but he was too far gone to care any more. He still guessed Zharkov would order his execution when all this was over, just because Raya Kosov had worked for him.
‘So have you arrested her?’ Abramov asked, as Zharkov sat down opposite him, looking pleased with himself.
‘Not yet, but we know where she is.’
Abramov immediately doubted the truth of that assertion. If Zharkov’s assassins really had located her, by now she’d either be dead or strapped heavily sedated to a stretcher on her way back to Moscow. Despite his own problems, a tiny part of him still hoped Raya would make it to the West and elude the pursuit. But Zharkov’s next words simply stunned him.
‘And now we know for sure that you’re working with her, because last night she sent you an email.’
‘What?’ Abramov stared at the man. ‘She did what?’
‘I said she sent you an email, but it’s encrypted. So you will now decrypt it for me.’
‘But I—’
Zharkov smiled wolfishly. ‘You’re not refusing to assist us, I hope, Major? After all, if you really are as innocent as you claim, then perhaps this email will prove it and you can go home.’
Abramov knew there was virtually no chance of that happening, no matter what the contents of this message that Raya had apparently sent.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I meant that I might not be able to decrypt it, because I don’t know what code she used. Where did she send it from?’
Zharkov hesitated for a moment, apparently deciding whether or not Abramov could derive some advantage from this piece of information. Then he shrugged and gave his answer.
‘She used a cyber cafe on the outskirts of Rome,’ he said. ‘Now, Major, we will go to your office and see if you are able to decipher this email. But mark my words, Abramov, if you cannot produce the plaintext, there will be only one conclusion we can reasonably draw.’
And that would be confirmation of his guilt, Abramov thought.
As he preceded Zharkov down the corridor, he wondered about two things. First, what cipher Raya had employed, which probably wouldn’t be that difficult to work out, given that there was only a handful in use in the section, email being inherently unreliable and insecure. Second, and far more importantly, what on earth had Raya got to say to him after her flagrant betrayal of both him – and indeed the entire SVR? Was she gloating? Or apologizing? Or was there some other dimension to this entire affair that he had so far entirely missed?
West London
Andrew Lomas was wakened by the ringing of his mobile. He muttered in irritation as he switched on the bedside light, grimaced at the time indicated on his alarm clock, and snatched up the phone.
‘Yes?’ he snapped.
‘Is that Mr Weaver?’ The voice was high-pitched, almost nasal.
‘No, you’ve got the wrong number, you idiot.’
‘Isn’t that seven-five-three-nine-eight-two?’
‘No, it bloody isn’t.’
Lomas punched the button to end the call and then sat upright in bed. There was a pad and pencil beside the clock, and within a couple of seconds he’d written down both the name and number the caller had used: ‘Weaver’ and ‘753982’. The call wasn’t a wrong number. It was a coded message, and it meant he needed to take immediate action.
The name ‘Weaver’ meant there had been a leak of some sort from Moscow Centre – for instance a breach of security, a lost file or a defector – which Lomas thought might well relate to the story of the Russian clerk that had so alarmed Gerald Stanway. Or it might be something completely different, something new. To find out anything more he needed to decode the rest of the message.
Lomas strode out of his bedroom and into the lounge, pressed the button to power up his laptop, then went into the kitchen to make himself some coffee. By the time he got back to the computer, the operating system had finished loading.
He first ran a program that generated spurious information resulting in a false IP address. That was necessary to conceal his physical location from any type of surveillance method in use. He had no idea whether any intelligence service was taking the slightest notice of him, but running this IP program was a sensible precaution. He ran his Internet browser, checking that his apparent location was outside the United Kingdom, and then input a website address from memory. The site was apparently located in Australia, but was actually based in Russia itself. Lomas accessed this site regularly, but usually from a cyber cafe, and only ever visiting that establishment once.
When the homepage appeared on his screen, the site appeared to be very badly designed, and was purportedly intended for hobbyists interested in the manufacture of aboriginal musical instruments. Lomas clicked the centre of the top border twice. Nothing happened for twenty seconds – which was about four times the attention span of the average browser. Then a new page appeared, which simply contained a dialogue box, and nothing else. Lomas copied the six numbers the caller had given him into the box and then pressed the Enter key. There was another delay, this time for only about five seconds, and then the screen cleared.
Lomas leant forward to read the text very carefully. Immediately he could understand why he had received the call. An important officer in the SVR had defected and, through her position at Yasenevo, was ideally placed to reveal the identity, not only of Gerald Stanway, but also of a second penetration agent working inside the SIS – an agent for whom Lomas also acted as a handler.
Lomas was instructed to warn and assist Stanway in any way he could, the message from Moscow stated, but ultimately the British agent was considered expendable. The greater prize was the other agent, the more senior and much more important man, and Lomas was instructed to contact him as soon as possible, and brief him fully on the defection. Moscow Centre would keep Lomas fully informed about the SVR’s pursuit of the traitor Raya Kosov, and it was hoped they would have her in custody within days or even hours, in which case the crisis would be over.
The final paragraph contained explicit instructions regarding what Lomas must do should Kosov somehow manage to make contact with any British intelligence organization or, even worse, actually arrive on British shores. He smiled when he read that section. That might prove to be the most entertaining part of the entire operation.
Ax-les-Thermes, France
‘The light’s been switched on,’ Dekker said urgently into his microphone, though there was nothing Adamson could do from where he was. And little enough that Dekker could do either, since his orders were perfectly clear.
He watched a figure enter the room, some kind of semi-automatic pistol in his right hand, then move to one side, out of sight of the open window.
‘Tango One’s in the room, but now out of sight. Standby. And there’s somebody else there as well.’
As Stanway levelled the pistol, and took a couple of cautious steps across the room, he suddenly became aware of a presence behind him. He half turned, swinging the pistol towards the man who seemed to have materialized from nowhere. But he was too late . . . far, far too late.
The fair-haired man raised some kind of tube towards Stanway’s face, and suddenly he was enveloped in an eye-stinging spray that threatened to choke him. And then the agony was compounded when some brutally hard object smashed down on his right forearm. He could actually hear the crack of the bones breaking.
In a reflex action, he squeezed the trigger, and the pistol bucked once and tumbled from his hand. Then the sudden sharp pain of his injury overwhelmed him, and he screamed in a long, blubbering wail of utter and total agony.
Half-blinded and staggering, Stanway felt a sudden hard shove into his stomach and he stumbled backwards, tripped over the carpet, and landed with a crash on the floor. But his suffering wasn’t over, even then. He heard a click from somewhere nearby, a powerful hand seized his left wrist firmly, and then a blade of some kind was driven clean through his hand, pinning it to the wooden floor.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Adamson demanded. ‘I heard a shot and a scream. Was that Richter or Gecko?’
In his agitation, he’d forgotten to use both code words.
‘I heard it, too, but didn’t see what happened,’ Dekker replied. ‘My view through that window is very restricted . . . Wait, just hang on.’
Through the telescopic sight, Dekker saw a figure move back into view at the window. Even though the man was back-lit, he could still tell that it was Richter. The figure waved, then dangled what appeared to be a set of keys out of the window.
Dekker grinned to himself and stood up. The show was over.
‘Get mobile, Whisky,’ he said. ‘Target Romeo is fine. Call Simpson again and tell him that the trap is sprung. It’s time to go down there and see what sort of a rat he managed to catch. If you get there before me, go around to the back of the hotel. Romeo’ll throw you down a set of keys, so you can let yourself in.’
Ten minutes later, Dekker and Adamson were both standing in Richter’s hotel room, looking down at the moaning figure lying on the floor. His right arm was badly broken, and his left hand pinned to the bare floorboards by the five-inch blade of the flick knife Richter had bought that same afternoon in Ax. The man was still conscious and obviously in pain, a rough gag thrust into his mouth and held in place with a binding of adhesive tape around his head.
Richter himself was lying comfortably on the bed, with Stanway’s Browning resting on the bedside table right next to him.
‘What did you use?’ Colin Dekker asked. ‘Was it mace or something?’
‘Nothing so exotic,’ Richter replied. ‘Just good old-fashioned hairspray. It has much the same effect, or at least for a few seconds, and that’s normally all you need. Oh, thanks for the warning, by the way – the laser, I mean. That was a big help. Once I knew this comedian was on his way, I stood by the window listening, so I heard him on the gravel outside. I’m not sure I would have detected it, if I’d still been lying on the bed.’
‘You were waiting somewhere outside the room for him?’
Richter nodded. ‘As soon as it got quiet in the hotel tonight, I walked down to reception, borrowed the key for the room opposite and unlocked the door. Then I put the key back so he’d know where to find me. Once I was sure he was coming in, I walked across the hall and waited inside.’
Dekker nodded. Richter’s other improvisation in weaponry was a crowbar leaning against the wall beside the door.
‘You don’t fuck about, do you?’ the SAS officer suggested, with a slight smile. He pointed at the flick knife, and the blood still welling from the savage wound and pooling around the man’s hand.
Richter shook his head. ‘No, not when people are trying to kill me. You got a problem with that?’
Dekker smiled again. ‘Hell, no,’ he said, ‘I’m on your side. As far as I’m concerned you could have used a couple of flick knives and a nail gun, too, and just crucified the bastard. And if I’d been in here myself, I’d have helped you do it.’
‘It doesn’t sound as if you fuck about either,’ Richter said. ‘But it’ll be interesting to hear what Simpson has to say about all this.’
‘He should be on his way now,’ Adamson said, sticking his head out of the door as they heard footsteps on the landing. ‘No, it’s the hotel proprietor. I’ll go and talk to him, and head him off. I’ve left the front door open, by the way.’
‘What was your brief?’ Richter asked, as Adamson headed away along the corridor.
‘Simple,’ Dekker replied. ‘Observation of the target room, meaning your hotel room, then I was supposed to take this guy down if he managed to get away safely from the hotel. Preferably leaving him in a fit state to talk, of course. But you seem to have achieved that all on your own, so you’ve saved the Queen the price of a rifle bullet.’
‘I hope she’ll be pleased,’ Richter muttered. ‘You people from Hereford?’
‘Good guess,’ Dekker nodded. ‘I’m Regiment, but the other bloke, Adamson, he’s SIS, a spook, sent along just to hold my hand and smooth the way with the Frogs because I don’t speak French. My job’s simple – I just shoot the bad guys.’
Footsteps again approached along the corridor, this time brisk and purposeful.
‘That sounds like our esteemed leader,’ Dekker said, ‘so you’d better mind your manners.’
Three seconds later, Richard Simpson strode into the room, looking as fresh and immaculate as ever. He glanced at Dekker, then at the figure moaning on the floor, and finally at Richter.
‘Dear God,’ he said. ‘What the fuck happened here?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ Richter said, the tone of his voice low and dangerous. ‘You set me up as a Judas goat . . . No, in fact that’s wrong. A Judas goat is trained to lead other animals to slaughter, but is the one animal that’s always spared. In this case you didn’t give a flying fuck whether I lived or died. You just used me as bait, as an unarmed target for this comedian. Then I suppose, once he’d shot my head off, you’d have called the French plods and had him arrested? Devious little pink bastard, aren’t you?’
Simpson turned slightly pinker. ‘It was necessary. You don’t have any idea of the bigger picture.’
‘Of course I don’t,’ Richter snapped, ‘because you didn’t fucking well tell me, did you? And you didn’t even give me a weapon.’
‘No,’ Simpson admitted curtly. ‘And I’ll take that Browning now, thank you,’ he added, pointing to the pistol on the table beside Richter and holding out his hand.
‘No fucking chance.’ Richter snatched up the weapon and aimed it at the floor, just in front of Simpson. ‘You want this pistol, you come over here and try to take it off me.’
‘Disarm him,’ Simpson snapped at Dekker.
The SAS officer shook his head. ‘I’ve fulfilled my brief and I’m not getting involved in your domestic, thanks very much. This is your mess, Simpson, so you clean it up.’
For a few seconds, Simpson alternated his gaze between Richter and Dekker, then it settled on Dekker. ‘I’ll be talking to your superior as soon as I get back,’ he snarled.
‘Help yourself,’ Dekker said. ‘He’s not a great fan of your secret squirrel outfit, so he’ll probably tell you to go screw yourself. I’ll even give you his phone number, if you want.’
Simpson stood in silence for another few moments, then again studied the wounded man pinned to the floor.
‘You broke his arm,’ he remarked flatly. ‘And what you’ve done to his hand with that flick knife is just plain sadistic. That’s overkill and unnecessary violence.’
‘What do you mean “unnecessary violence”?’ Richter replied, then leant forward and kicked Stanway sharply in the thigh. ‘This bastard came here to kill me, so what should I have done? Made him a coffee and then helped him point his pistol at me? I don’t fuck about in this kind of situation, Simpson – anyone who points a gun at me can face the consequences. And he can still talk, can’t he, which I presume was the point of this whole bloody charade?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? You were trying to flush some rodent out of the woodwork. You had a traitor somewhere within British intelligence but you didn’t know exactly where. So you spread some story about me, or whoever I was supposed to be, so that he would come after me just to shut me up.’ He kicked Stanway again, and the wounded man moaned in pain. ‘I presume that was the point of all the fannying about with the sealed packet of papers, and my debriefing in Russian with the Chuckle Brothers downstairs.’
For a long moment Simpson didn’t reply. ‘That’s a remarkably accurate assessment,’ he said at last, eyeing Richter appraisingly. ‘You’re not what I expected. When we recruited you, I assumed you’d just do what you were told.’
‘I do follow orders, when they make sense, but this whole set-up stank from day one. I’ve told you before that I trust you about as far as I can spit a rat.’
‘Good,’ Simpson nodded, ‘very good. I have a feeling you might have a future in my organization, after all.’
‘You can dream on. I’ll be handing in my resignation as soon as I get back to London. I’ll go off and sell insurance or something. At least I wouldn’t have to spend all my time watching my back and trying to work out what the hell’s really going on, as opposed to what other people tell me is going on. And, most of the time nobody’ll be trying to kill me.’
Simpson smiled for the first time since entering the hotel room. ‘Your resignation might not be accepted,’ he said, ‘because I seriously think I might be able to use your talents. Anyway, we’ll talk about that later. Now, who exactly is this man?’ He bent forward to look more closely at the injured man on the floor.
‘His name’s Gerald Stanway,’ Richter said, ‘and he lives in South Kensington, in London.’
Simpson looked surprised. ‘You know him?’
Richter shook his head. ‘Of course I don’t know him. I simply checked his pockets once I’d sort of immobilized him.’
Dekker smiled at Richter’s choice of verb.
Richter picked up a wallet from the bedside table and tossed it to Simpson. ‘I found that in his jacket pocket.’
Simpson flicked rapidly through the contents, before sliding it into his own pocket. He bent over to lift up Stanway’s head by the hair, staring at the man’s flushed and pain-racked face for a few seconds.
Then Simpson shook his head. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’
‘I have, though,’ Richter explained. ‘He came into the hotel bar earlier today, while I was trying to think up convincing lies for your two blokes about my work at the SVR headquarters in Moscow. He spoke fluent French to the barman, read a French newspaper, had a drink, and then buggered off. I presume that was his idea of reconnaissance: to eyeball me and check out any possible opposition. That’s before he came back tonight to make sure I’d never collect my pension.’
‘OK,’ Simpson rubbed his hands together briskly, ‘it looks to me as if we’ve got the result we wanted. Stanway here presumably works for SIS, or maybe GCHQ – but we’ll soon find out which. I’ll make a couple of calls to sort out a compliant Frog doctor who’ll patch him up enough so that he can travel, then we’ll freight him back to London and put the screws on him.’
‘I think if you just stepped on his broken arm right now, he’d probably tell you anything you need to know,’ Richter suggested. ‘I’ll do it myself, if you like.’
Simpson shook his head. ‘I’m sure you’d enjoy it, but I don’t know what questions to ask. The interrogation will have to be done by someone from SIS, and we won’t necessarily have to resort to physical persuasion. We have an interesting selection of chemical compounds that can loosen any tongue.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘There won’t be any afterwards. The days when former traitors could live out their days in genteel retirement are long gone. Mr Stanway will either die after a short and tragic illness, or he’ll be involved in a motor accident. Either way, he’s dead as of right now. He just hasn’t stopped breathing yet.’
Simpson’s cool and matter-of-fact tone sent a chill up Richter’s back, and in that moment he realized that he would never, ever, underestimate this man.
‘So what about me?’ Richter asked.
‘Your part of this job is over. Get yourself back to London, back to the office, and then we’ll talk further. Make sure you bring those briefing papers with you. I know the Victor manual isn’t exactly top secret, but I don’t want to leave a paper trail over here in case the Frogs start getting interested in what’s going on. I suggest you lose the Browning before you try to cross the Channel, because if you get caught carrying it, I won’t feel any particular inclination to haul you out of the slammer.’ Simpson glanced at the SAS man. ‘You, too, Dekker, you can head for home as well. Thanks for your help.’
‘I didn’t actually do anything,’ Dekker pointed out. ‘Richter here did it all by himself.’
‘Whatever,’ Simpson said, pulling a mobile phone out of his pocket. But, before he could dial a number, the phone suddenly rang. The conversation between Simpson and the caller lasted less than three minutes. What unnerved Richter was that Simpson switched his gaze directly towards him about half a minute after they’d started talking, and his eyes didn’t leave him until the call finally ended.
‘What?’ Richter demanded.
‘You’ll be keeping the Browning, Richter,’ Simpson declared, ‘at least for the moment. I’ll see you get a couple of spare magazines and a box of 9-millimetre ammunition, too. Everything’s changed, and right now you’re the only asset I’ve got here that I can use. And this time,’ he added, ‘it’s for real, so I expect you to do exactly what I tell you.’