––––––––
Grabasov sat alone in his office, high above the city.
This time he didn’t gaze out over the skyscrapers, but instead contemplated the framed photograph of a smiling Dominika on his desk.
Dominika, whom he hardly knew, and cared less about.
The news of the incident on the Athens Metro had reached him forty minutes earlier.
Ten minutes after that, he’d called the Ferryman’s number for the last time.
His phone lay on the desk. There’d been no return call.
So it was over. The gods had won, after all.
Grabasov had three courses of action open to him.
The first was to do nothing. To continue as before. He’d receive a message before long, he knew, from Vale or Purkiss or both. It wouldn’t be gloating, but it would remind him that he’d violated their stipulations once, and would not be given another chance if he transgressed. They wouldn’t blow his cover to Moscow, he was almost certain of it. But the threat would always be there.
Option two was for him to be proactive. To inform SIS of what he knew. Vale and Purkiss would be apprehended - there was no way they could evade the collective might and cunning of British Intelligence for ever - and Grabasov himself would be recalled, to face whatever fate was deemed necessary. Apart from petty revenge on Vale and Purkiss, this scenario would achieve nothing.
The third option was the most immediate.
Grabasov reached for the bottom drawer in his desk, the one he kept locked most of the time.
He drew out the pistol.
Standard practice was to drink oneself into a semi-stupor first, but Grabasov - Clay - regarded himself as a professional to the last. The irony of failing to carry out this final task would be supreme.
He rose and carried the gun to the window, where the city lay resplendent before him.
He had a preprepared suicide note on his computer, one he’d composed soon after taking up his position and which he’d regularly updated over the years. The current version cited pressures of work, and fears about the financial performance of the bank. It was standard operational procedure for an agent in his position. You always protected the Service, to the end.
In the end, he thought, I did some good. There’s no gainsaying that.
He raised the pistol, his reflection ghostlike in the glass.