And then onto the fourth floor of the British Embassy in Moscow where it had all gone downhill.
She had taken an immediate dislike to the head of section in Moscow, ‘M’. She didn’t know what it was about him, but there was something in the way he looked at her and the way he spoke to her. He got right up her nose. She had taken over from M34 (Moscow, the 34th member of the team) and had assumed his nomenclature. The boss, M’s, real name was Simon Page. But he clung to the superior, old-world title of ‘M’ – when everyone else in the business was on first-name terms. For Sam’s portfolio, he’d stripped away some of the previous M34’s responsibilities, and she was left with one objective: co-operating with FSB, the Federal Security Service for Russia – MI5’s equivalent, responsible for internal affairs. The work was low-level intelligence cooperation: looking at the movement of drugs into Russia; organised crime; and some illegal arms exports. It didn’t fill her day and, not unexpectedly, the Russian FSB team she dealt with treated her like a woman – she wasn’t afforded much respect, and she was often ignored altogether.
Typical.
During training it had surprised her to learn that SIS staff would openly assist other nations, especially former sworn enemies such as Russia. It quickly became clear that none of them on the fourth floor were undercover spies per se. The Russians knew every member of the SIS team. She might hold the Embassy title ‘Projects Officer’, and have a fancy ID card with that title on it, but the FSB knew that she was SIS. To make the point, when she moved into her apartment (the flat came with the post), there was a small box of Russian chocolates and a litre of very expensive vodka on the kitchen table. Next to it was a card with her name on it. Her predecessor, who was showing her around before flying home to a welcome retirement, had said, ‘It’s from the FSB. They’ll keep an eye on you from here on in. Just accept it and plan accordingly.’
So, the work was dull – and her boss was an idiot. In six months she had made few friends that she could count on, and the only release she felt was when she worked out in the Embassy’s basement gym.
That was until she met Alexei Orlov.
He had caught her at an Embassy party four months ago – both were on the right side of 40, unlike most of the guests. They’d chatted about this and that. He was a journalist for the fledgling e-magazine, Moscow Talks. It was a live website which gave information on the local nightlife, usable emerging technologies – such as the latest mobile phones, and other fashion ideas. For Sam, the highlight was the excellent weekly editorial called ‘Abroad’. It was written by Alexei and gave a Russian slant on world news. Alexei was smart and funny. But Sam knew all the rules when having a conversation with someone like him; she’d given nothing away, whilst really enjoying his company.
A couple of weeks later she received an email from him asking that they meet. She cleared the liaison with M, who was dismissive, and they had met openly at a cafe just around the corner from the Embassy. They didn’t discuss much, but as he left he slipped her a bit of paper with a Hotmail address on it.
That had been the start of her first, home-grown agent. From then on they had exchanged emails using the reasonably opaque Hotmail, sending them to each other via third-party servers. And they had met on five occasions. As their meetings progressed, so had the level of information and intelligence they shared. Alexei didn’t want anything in particular from Sam, but was keen to share snippets of anti-government intel that he was collecting. By not answering some of his questions directly, she confirmed a couple of his lines of enquiry. Soon, a second weekly editorial entitled simply, ‘Freedom’, blossomed on Moscow Talks. Sam was impressed with the edge to the journalism – it was honest and hard-hitting. Most of it focused on government corruption and cronyism.
As if catching up with its younger sibling, Abroad also became more pointed, and started commenting on Russian involvement in world affairs, such as their military’s presence in Syria and, much closer to home, the conflict in Ukraine.
Not surprisingly Alexei had had a couple of visitations without coffee from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). But Moscow Talks had stuck to its guns. Last week’s edition covered both the Russian involvement in hacking the US presidential candidates’ email accounts, as well as major military manoeuvres on the Baltic States’ borders. Sam had given nothing to Alexei on either of these two issues, so he was obviously getting his information from a variety of sources.
They met every three weeks; each time a different day of the week and a different final location. They always made initial contact at a bus stop a short distance from the final RV. Locations and dates were agreed face-to-face at the previous meeting, and no changes could be made by email, so there was little chance of intercept.
Except for this afternoon. The meeting at The Karsotty had been impromptu, arranged two days ago after Sam had received an opaque email from Alexei:
It would be good to meet as soon as we can, please. We need to talk about SH and his work down south. I hope you’re having a fun time. Pass my regards to Martin.
The flowery language was a simple aid to camouflage – but Sam recognised the immediacy of the need to meet. To talk about SH? She had no idea who or what that was.
Sam almost sought advice from one of her SIS colleagues as to how to proceed, but as most of them regarded her as wet behind the ears, she didn’t bother.
Sod them.
She arranged the meeting.
A meeting destined to end in death and disaster.
And now here she was, sobbing uncontrollably in her kitchen. A tough six months had just dissolved into abject misery. Someone had turned the lights off without asking her.
Sam knew that most of the tears were from shock – a delayed reaction to having almost been murdered for the fourth time in her life. She knew it was shock, as she couldn’t get rid of the accompanying cold strip that ran down her spine. Cold, shivering and uncontrolled emotion. The body’s reaction to things it couldn’t comprehend.
She also knew the shock was exacerbated by losing Alexei. Almost a friend. Someone who treated her like an adult. Her very first agent. A prize.
And her miscalculation had cost him his life.
She knew he was dead. One of the organisation’s analysts had checked as soon as she’d got back to the Embassy. And it was her fault? She had arranged the meeting – he had died. He had something to tell her about SH and that had cost him his life. Surely that was the case?
Sam had visited the Embassy’s medical centre to get her cheek seen to as soon as she got into the building. She’d pulled out the glass as she jogged away from the scene and had stopped the bleeding by pressing her hanky to the wound. The Embassy’s medical staff had stitched her up on the spot and given her some cream for the light burns to her face. Once on the fourth floor, a few of her colleagues had gathered round and listened to her story and offered condolences. One of the team, with responsibility for internal affairs, had questioned her on the location of the explosion and what she thought the type of explosive might have been. By then, tiredness and anger had congealed. She had given monosyllabic answers.
M had come in just as she was heading home. Normally he would have walked straight through to his office, but for some reason he sauntered up to her desk.
‘What’s wrong with you, Green?’
Sam asked him if he had heard the news about the bombing. He had. She then explained about her meet with Alexei.
‘Don’t give yourself too much credit, Green. It’s almost certainly: wrong place, wrong time. The Chechens are responsible. Trust me.’
She didn’t, of course. Not as far as she could launch him from one of the fourth-floor windows – if they opened. Which they didn’t. That was a good thing; as he stood beside her with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets fiddling with something unmentionable, she was sorely tempted to give it a go.
He walked off whistling ‘I’m singing in the rain.’ Sam looked to the closest window. It had just started to
pour.
Now, back in her apartment, she was feeling incredibly sorry for herself. She was still staring vacantly at her hands, the blue, checkered dishcloth soggy and motionless on the worktop. Sam sensed the tension in the dressing on her cheek loosen and felt it drop from the top downwards, pivoting on the bottom tape which held firm. She couldn’t see her face, but she had good imagination: curly, out-of-control auburn hair, pink eyes, red cheeks, an inflamed scar with three black stitches, and a wet dressing dangling from her face as if it was about to abseil to the floor.
Not a good look.
Sam sniffled and held back the tears. She looked out through the kitchen window, which now rattled against the ferocity of the wind. She was on her own. Completely. Yes, she could phone her old London boss, Jane, tomorrow, and have a gas with her. But Jane had wider responsibility (which sadly didn’t include Russia); she wouldn’t be able to afford Sam much time.
So, and she didn’t mean to repeat herself, she was on her own.
I am on my own.
With the initials SH.
And a dead journalist.
She had two choices.
She didn’t need to rehearse them; she knew which one she was going to take.
And damn the consequences.
Chapter 2
No 7 ExtraOil Rig, Yamal Field, Northern Russia
Jim Dutton was not a happy man. It wasn’t because, even in mid-autumn, the temperatures were already struggling to make it above freezing. He could cope with whatever the weather threw at him. Ten years on the North Sea rigs was enough to prepare any man for weather extremes. At least here on the Yamal Peninsula, looking out across the Kamal Sea, it was dry. On the exposed sea rigs, wind, rain and salt water were ever present. A single-degree drop in temperature was amplified five times. And the salt in the wind piled on the misery, irritating exposed flesh and penetrating cuts and sores. No, he could cope with the Arctic weather.
Neither was it the general dour atmosphere in which he worked, although he did miss the camaraderie of his previous rigs. Fun wasn’t a word in the northern Russian’s dictionary – unless it was accompanied by a vodka bath. So, he didn’t expect much by way of teamwork. Everybody was working flat out and the conditions hardly encouraged merriment. He currently worked for ExtraOil, a part state-owned Russian start-up oil and gas company, hurried along by the need to produce more oil. Western sanctions against Russia, after their annexation of Crimea and partial invasion of Ukraine, were hitting hard. Very low crude oil prices had exacerbated the situation and, as a result, the Russian government were pushing ahead with new fields at a rate hitherto unseen anywhere in the world. If you can’t sell it high, make a lot of it.
It was true to say that he didn’t have many pals on the rig. Most of the crew were Russian. Out of the five English speakers he was the only Scotsman. There were a couple of Canadians, big men (in every way), who he shared a whiskey with every so often. There was a Kiwi, with whom he played the odd game of chess. And a Norwegian, Jürgen, who spoke very good English; he guessed he was as close to a friend as you could get in conditions where what little time off you had, was spent either eating or sleeping. All of them worked 12-hour shifts, the benefit of which was six weeks on, two weeks off. For him, as getting home involved a 48-hour journey by way of a truck, a helicopter, a train and two planes, he worked a double-shift: 12 weeks and four. Taking off journey time, that gave him a luxurious three weeks at home.
As the QA (quality assurance) for the whole site, he didn’t naturally make many friends. His job was to check all the industrial work and ensure that it was up to the required standard. On the Russian fields, the post also subsumed Health and Safety. Although, the owners seemed less worried about accidents involving their workers than they were insistent on the efficiency of the processes – keeping the oil and gas flowing. As a result, his job was tough. It was a full day, often in very inhospitable conditions. And when things weren’t right, he had to give the bad news to the relevant senior engineer. They often disagreed with his assessment; they knew their business better than he did? Six times out of ten their dispute had to be run past the chief engineer for arbitration. Five times out of ten the chief sided with him – and the fault had to be rectified.
As the QA, making pals on a rig was always going to be difficult.
He didn’t care. He was an outstanding oilfield operator with 32 years’ experience; and QAs were notoriously unlikeable – it went with the territory. As a Scot, he was born with skin thicker than a rhino, and he had friends aplenty back in Aberdeen. Work was work. It was tough, but he could cope. He knew the oil business better than anyone on the field and he was meticulous with what he did – he made few, if any, mistakes. And he was proud of that.
And they paid him $125,000 a year. Tax free.
He could do without friends. And he could cope with the weather.
No, it was something else that was gnawing at him; something he had discovered three weeks ago.
It had been a chance find. He was in the chief’s office waiting for him to get in from Salekhard, a small town 100 klicks to the south of the rig where ExtraOil had their local HQ. Getting to and from the town was quickest using the firm’s helicopter, or their twin-engine ChelAvia P2006 light aircraft. Alternatively, the field’s purpose-built railway ran a twice-daily freighter which had space for several passengers. The drive by 4x4, along the dirt road, was always problematic. In the short summer, it was often flooded as the ice melt took its own course, often taking bits of the road with it. In the winter, it was frozen solid, and whilst there was very little new snow (technically much of northern Russia was classified as desert), the ice fractured the road, and, between the cracks, it provided skid pans for unsuspecting drivers. The ExtraOil infrastructure maintenance team did what they could. But few travelled by road unless they had no other choice.
The chief’s secretary said the boss was coming in by helicopter; it was delayed by 30 minutes for some technical reason. Touchdown was at 16.35pm.
Jim had walked round the chief’s desk to the window to look out across the site at the Arctic Sea. When the weather was benign and the light just so, it was mesmerisingly beautiful. Everything was a shade of blue. The dark blue water, the piercingly bright blue sky, darker towards the heavens than at the horizon, and the floating ice – white with a hint of blue. He was pretty sure Dulux made a paint that colour – one of the ‘almost whites’ from their 1980s range.
He turned around and, with nothing else to entertain him, looked down at the chief’s desk. And there it was. Among a pile of paper, just sticking out from what Jim thought might be the chief’s overflowing pending tray. He could see the top third of a paper. Other than a US company, Drillmec’s, sales catalogue, it was the only document clearly in English. It was a three-page, loose memo. What caught Jim’s eye was the header: COMMERCIAL SENSITIVE – CONFIDENTIAL. He checked his watch: 16.20pm. The chief would be back in about ten minutes. It was a windless day; he’d hear the helicopter well before it landed.
His Scottish inquisitiveness got the better of him.
Jim pulled the paper from the pile and read it. Cover to cover. And then he read it again.
What he read shocked him to the core.
He was a QA in the oil industry. He knew everything there was to know about getting the stuff out of the ground. Gas, fracked gas, crude oil. You name it; he knew about it. He’d seen it done well. And he’d seen it done badly. He knew what happened underground. And he knew what happened on the surface.
What he had just read wasn’t right. It wasn’t ethical. In fact, it was downright dangerous. He knew that. What was ExtraOil up to?
He heard the melodic wocker-wocker of the helicopter blades grow louder as the aircraft came in to land. He carefully put the paper back where he had found it, and took a deep breath.
He couldn’t recall the details of his subsequent meeting with the chief. It had been short and sharp. During the meeting his mind had been on other things,
but the boss didn’t seem to notice. Five minutes later he was back out on the rig checking the mud hydro-pneumatic units.
Since then, Jim had spent all his spare time researching what he had uncovered. He had access to the firm’s databases and a good number of their e-files. He looked over the mud and slurry reports from the post-drilling records, and he checked the freight export log, both by rail and the few by road. He also got to know the company better. Where ExtraOil’s rigs were. What and where they drilled. Who owned the company and what its subsidiaries were. And he checked their public accounts.
It had taken him about a week, but by then he knew a good deal about ExtraOil, its founder, its sister companies and their worldwide operations.
But what to do?
Ten days ago, he had emailed a pal of his in Moscow. He was an ex-North Sea engineer who had left the business and gone into lecturing at Moscow State University. He was now a professor, or something similar, with a PhD in oil exploration. They had become great friends about 15 years ago when they both worked on the British Petroleum Kittiwake oil platform. Which was a surprise, because his pal Grigori was Russian – ‘White Russian’ – Grigori had always corrected. Jim guessed the ‘White’ bit, from the mid-west of Russia, is what made him more Western – more likely to become a friend. They’d kept in touch over the years and Jim trusted him implicitly. Grigori was neither new nor old Russian. He was a realist and avoided politics as best he could. That’s why Jim felt he could share his disturbing news with him without risk of bias.
Grigori had pinged back a holding email immediately, and had replied in more detail a couple of days later. He response was one of incredulity. He asked whether or not he could share the detail with a trusted friend; the answer from Jim was ‘yes’. There’d been a further short exchange a couple of days ago – but nothing since. Jim continued to trawl the internet looking for more clues, whilst keeping a close eye on the by-products of the ExtraOil field.
The Innocence of Trust Page 3