‘Legoland got the access code or whatever you call it by snail mail on Friday,’ Richard Simpson said late on the Monday afternoon, the less-than-polite epithet referring to the Secret Intelligence Service’s avant-garde building at Vauxhall Cross on the Thames. ‘Baker ran checks on the SD card using a standalone computer with no internet connection and no link to our system. It was clean, which is what we expected bearing in mind the source.’
‘So, what was the data?’ Richter asked. ‘Was it worth all that fannying about in Amsterdam?’
‘Definitely, yes,’ Simpson replied. ‘There wasn’t actually that much on it, but what there was has answered several quite awkward questions about one particular event. There were a few short video sequences, taken with mobile phone cameras most likely, and a kind of overview in Russian that we’ve had translated already.’
Simpson picked a single sheet of paper out of the red Secret file open in front of him and passed it to Richter over the double row of cacti that lined the edge of his desk.
‘That’s the original, so give me your version of it, just as a check.’
Richter took the document and glanced at the title, which contained three proper names: Salisbury, Novichok and Skripal. He looked up at Richard Simpson.
‘A good start,’ Richter said. ‘Is Moscow admitting what happened?’
‘Not exactly, or not in so many words.’
Richter didn’t say anything else, he just read the document, translating the Russian text into English, sentence by sentence as he did so. Then he looked up again at Simpson.
His boss was, as usual, immaculately dressed in a dark grey suit, white shirt and dark blue silk tie, his pinkish complexion and clean-shaven, bland features making him look something like a benevolent bank manager, an impression that was entirely erroneous: the one word that could never be used to describe Richard Simpson was ‘benevolent’. He was a mandarin, a high flyer in the civil service who had been appointed the head of the Foreign Operations Executive, a deniable executive arm loosely attached to the Secret Intelligence Service, purely on merit. And in his case, the word ‘merit’ meant he was ruthlessly efficient, highly organised and utterly vindictive. He was, without any doubt, the right man in the right job at the right time. Richter didn’t particularly like him, but he had enormous respect for Simpson’s undeniable ability and competence.
‘I see what you mean,’ Richter said. ‘I assume that the video sequences show the actions taken by these two men in Salisbury, who I also assume are not two of the sharpest tools in the shed.’
‘They are not,’ Simpson agreed. ‘The Russian text confirms that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok administered by these two men, who filmed themselves depositing the agent and then disposing of the delivery medium, the perfume bottle, as well as a couple of spares that they had. The other video sequences just show them walking to and from the Skripals’ house, and there’s one slightly longer sequence where they discuss exactly how they’re going to do it. It looks as if their idea was to claim credit for the assassination with their masters at Khodinka once the Skripals had croaked, and the videos would prove that they had been responsible. All that implies that it was an unauthorised assassination attempt, that they were trying to get rid of a troublesome former agent – Sergei Skripal – presumably to curry favour with their bosses.’
‘Or alternatively,’ Richter pointed out, ‘it might have been a genuine operation authorised by somebody at the Aquarium and these two numpties had been told to document everything to prove that they had followed orders. Either way, they don’t appear to be that tightly wrapped. Orders or no orders, even someone with a double-digit IQ ought to have realised that filming yourself attempting an assassination is never going to be a good idea in any circumstances. So, what are we going to do about it?’
Simpson shook his head.
‘We’re not going to do anything. The data helpfully identifies exactly who these two people are, and the route they took while they were in Salisbury. I’ve already had a few words with my opposite numbers at Five and Six, and the FCO, come to that, and we have a plan that we’ll push through the Woodentops.’
Simpson’s shorthand was simple to understand: ‘Five’ was the security service, MI5, located at Millbank in London, while ‘Six’ was the Secret Intelligence Service, popularly known as MI6, based at Vauxhall Cross. And he almost invariably referred to the British police as ‘Woodentops,’ because he had an extraordinarily low opinion of their capabilities, competence and even usefulness.
‘And the plan is?’
‘Easy. Because this is domestic Millbank will take the lead. They’ll release the information from the SD card to the Woodentops, suitably sanitised and probably in dribs and drabs so that it looks as if Five have actually done some investigative work to find out what happened rather than had it handed to them on a plate by us. We’ll let the plods put together a case once they’ve checked CCTV footage and the like from Salisbury, as well as relevant airline records and hotel reservations. When they’ve done that, the British government can start demanding the extradition of these two guys from Russia – which we all know will never happen but will look good in the press and take everybody’s mind off the shambles they’re making of Brexit – and start pounding the table in righteous indignation complaining about Russian special forces’ operatives blatantly carrying out illegal acts on the soil of our precious sovereign nation. All the usual bollocks, basically.’
Richter didn’t reply for a few seconds, and then he too shook his head.
‘I’m not really sure why the Russians have bothered giving us this,’ he said. ‘They never came out of the woodwork after the Litvinenko assassination or the killing of Georgi Markov, so what’s different about this one? Apart from the fact that it was a failure, obviously?’
‘We’ve talked about that, and the Intelligence Director has a theory that does hold together.’
‘Oh, yes?’
Richter only rarely saw eye to eye with the ID, and had had a somewhat public row with him, albeit by telephone on a conference call, with representatives from SIS, MI5 and GCHQ all listening in, in the initial stages of an operation a couple of months earlier.
‘He thinks,’ Simpson went on, ‘the reason is exactly that: because it was a failure. The difference is that the Skripals are alive and talking, and Litvinenko and Markov are dead and buried. When the Russians carry out this kind of operation they do it to eliminate a troublesome agent or traitor or dissident, but they also do it to remind anyone else out there in the field that Mother Russia has a long reach and an even longer memory. And because the attack on the Skripals was such an obvious and clumsy failure, the Russian state organs are distancing themselves from it and trying to pretend that it didn’t work because it was not officially sanctioned. They’re claiming that it was nothing more than an amateur attempt that didn’t succeed, and they’re holding up the two men involved to ridicule both here and in Russia. Whatever the truth behind the attack, if it had succeeded and the Skripals had died in agony in a British hospital, the ID doesn’t think the Russians would have said a word, because the deaths would just have been another reinforcement of Russian omnipotence and Moscow’s refusal to ever forgive and forget.’
‘I have to say,’ Richter replied, almost unwillingly, ‘that does make quite a lot of sense. This time, I think the ID might actually have got something right for a change. So what do you want me to do?’
‘Nothing, obviously. I’ve just kicked the whole thing sideways to MI5 at Millbank and now it’s their problem. We’ll probably see the tabloids frothing at the mouth about it over the next few weeks, demanding this, that and the other, and then it’ll all die away because Moscow will simply ignore any extradition requests or anything else that Westminster sends their way, just like the Russians always do. So you can just get back to work and forget all about it.’
Simpson glanced down at an unopened file on his desk, an indication that Richter was being dismissed, then glanced up again.
‘Well done in Amsterdam, by the way,’ he added. ‘That was very competently handled.’
Simpson looked at Richter and raised one eyebrow a bare couple of millimetres.
‘I hope the nubile Tash gave you every satisfaction,’ he added. ‘I gather she’s quite athletic, in the right circumstances.’
Richter’s face remained expressionless and he didn’t respond as he stood up and walked out of the office.
He had no idea where Simpson got his information from, because he’d said nothing to anybody and he was quite sure that Tash had also remained tight-lipped. But somehow Simpson seemed to always have at least one of his fingers in almost every pie, and to know almost everything, almost all of the time.