‘Wow. Good work, Sam. That’s impressive. What are MSF going to do next?’
‘Just report their own findings and see whether the authorities will look into ExtraOil’s and Sokolov’s wider businesses. I’m concerned about his global oil interests. Apparently, ExtraOil is drilling in Alaska under a different name. And they have secured the rights to frack in California. It doesn’t bear thinking about?’
It was at that point that things got a little weird.
‘Sam, Frank has been keeping me in the loop about the whole Sokolov thing. Do you really think your life’s in danger?’
‘Well… yes. I told you about the Tesla incident. Being pursued in Salekhard. And now the message on the fridge.’
There was quiet for a moment.
‘And you’ve briefed M?’
‘Yes. This morning. The outcome of which was two coincident six-monthers. He asked me to lay off the oil thing. Let it drift for a bit.’
There was another pause.
‘I think that’s sound advice.’
What?
‘You think I should let MSF push the issue and hope that they have enough clout to get the wider authorities to look into ExtraOil’s reach overseas? I’m sorry Jane, but it doesn’t make sense. There’ll be a cover-up. And there are people’s lives at risk here.’
‘I know.’ Jane paused, and then, almost in a resigned tone, continued, ‘OK. We’ll deal with it here. Has Frank got all the details?’
This doesn’t make sense – it’s my op.
‘Ehh. No. But I can bring him up to speed.’
‘Do that, Sam. Please. Now, what about the other thing you wanted to talk to me about? The dirty bomb?’
‘Hang on, Jane. You want to take the ExtraOil thing from me? I’m not sure I’m prepared to let it go that easily.’
The line went silent for a few seconds.
‘Sam. You know that Sokolov’s file has an orange marker on it. There are reasons for that which I’m not prepared to go into. You’re going to have to trust me on this.’
And what about Sokolov’s involvement with the dirty bomb?
Sam sighed. She wasn’t convinced. She’d seen the anguish in Dr Sabine Roux’s eyes. Sensed her passion for the villagers. Had had a look at the list of patients and their ailments. Felt the death. And learnt of the dying mayor of the next-door village.
She really wasn’t convinced.
In answer to Jane’s question about the dirty bomb, Sam ran the same briefing she’d given to M. She was getting bored of talking and not acting.
‘Good. Good work, Sam. This is huge. Do you have the right manpower in Moscow?’
‘Yes – we do.’
‘Good. I’ll brief Frank. Use him as your point-man here. Ask for anything you want. And copy me in on your briefs to M. I’ll have a chat to the DA in Riyadh and see what he has on Osama bin Fahd and the prince.’
And that had been the end of a shitty and incomprehensible morning. M acting almost reasonably. And Jane the latter; not jumping up and down on the ExtraOil conspiracy thing.
Sam didn’t get it.
To compound the rubbish as she left for her beasting in the gym, she’d opened an email from M which was addressed to all case-officers in station:
Just to remind you that you are all expected at the reception tonight for the Foreign Secretary: 7-9.30pm. It is a three-line whip. No excuses. And, unlike last time, I do not expect to be the last man standing. Girls - wear something revealing. The Foreign Secretary likes a bit of flesh. M.
It wasn’t the last line that had made Sam want to reach for a razor blade – although it had made her stomach turn (the idiot). It was the fact that she had to put on something smart and make small-talk to people she really didn’t like, and didn’t find interesting. She was hopeless at it, and always felt like a prune. She would need to drink heavily. Even before she got there.
She glanced back down at the running machine’s display, which was covered in her sweat. It read: 6.95km, 14.2 km/hr.
50 metres to go.
She held on for the last couple of seconds…
Done!
Sam smacked the ‘Stop’ button. The machine wound itself down quickly – in as much need of a break as she was.
She staggered off the running belt, bent double, holding onto one of the machine’s arms to steady herself. Her chest was heaving and her legs were crying out for a warm bath. Her meagre breakfast was trying its best to escape northward.
What a day. What a rubbish day. She still needed to brief Frank on ExtraOil and Op Samantha; and see what Debbie had been able to unearth. Maybe the Saudi DA had something, or the SIS team in Riyadh?
Oh shit! I’ve forgotten to check the photofit results of Sokolov’s two thugs from Cynthia. She’d do that as soon as she’d showered.
Then it was off to Lubyanka for the Op Samantha meeting. After that, a quick change, and for her the worst nightmare of all: the formal reception. She was bound to say something out of place, or use the wrong knife. She hated it when people laughed at her – especially when she would be trying so hard.
As she dried the sweat from her face, she looked up at the gym’s main TV screen which was showing the BBC News channel. There was no sound, a couple of the gym’s occupants preferring the heavy beat of some hip-hop music to accompany their spin session. The screen showed a photo of a young, attractive woman – all teeth and smiles. The red title block showed the words ‘Congressman’s daughter goes missing in Istanbul.’
At least she wasn’t having that sort of day. Small mercies.
4th Floor, British Embassy, Moscow
Simon Page was struggling to get the end of the whole baguette into his mouth. Too much ham. As he squeezed the bread together, a dollop of mayonnaise escaped from the side of the sandwich and fell onto his suit trousers.
Fuck! He hated it when that happened.
The morning had been a trial. But he had to congratulate himself. He had stayed calm with the lesbian Green in the room. Calm was what was needed. He couldn’t afford to push her over the edge. And this was not the time to get rid of her. If he had, Vauxhall would doubtless have taken her back for a period of reconciliation. And then, who knows what stories she would tell? He needed her within reach. To control.
And he needed her to lay off Sokolov.
He had done a good job. In fact, if she pulled off this dirty bomb op with the FSB, there could be accolades all round. Simon Page CBE. That sounded the business. He would help her with that. Certainly.
After Green had left the office, he’d briefed his contact on the details of her weekend jaunt.
When she had booked the original flight from Moscow to Salekhard on Friday, he’d placed a call; he’d sensed surprise on the other end of the line. It was as though no one had any idea what she was up to. He certainly didn’t; but that was often the case. He reported and carried out specific instructions. He wasn’t given the bigger picture, unless that helped him task assets effectively.
It wasn’t until Green had briefed him that he was able to put the pieces together. It now all made sense. He had to hand it to her. She was a very good, if maverick, agent (he hated the relatively new term ‘case-officer’, the original term ‘agent’ had a satisfying Ian Fleming ring to it). He didn’t think there was anyone in the building who could have put together the ExtraOil conspiracy as quickly and efficiently as she had. And then brought the Russian piece of it to such a neat and successful conclusion. It was impressive.
Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell her that.
Now, she did need to leave well alone – for her own good.
But also for mine.
If she came to heel and survived long enough, she could be a useful asset. And if she pulled off the dirty bomb thing, it wouldn’t do any of them any harm.
Yes, he would certainly help her with that.
He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. What else had his PA ordered from the very good Embassy kitchens? He searched his desk.
Ahh! An apple and strawberry tartlet; with cream.
That would do nicely.
Ballroom, British Embassy, Moscow
Sam was standing on her own, just to one side of the ‘great fireplace’. She held a tumbler of gin and tonic in both hands, cupping it as though it emanated warmth. She looked across at the huge grandfather clock that stood to one side of the main exit from the ballroom. The big hand was pointing to the ‘5’ and the small hand just beyond the ‘8’. It was, she thought miserably, just 8.25. There was another hour to go before she could leave without fear of incurring the wrath of her boss. Not that she cared about that. For her it was about ‘doing the right thing’. Following orders. It was her military training.
She looked down at her gin and tonic. The ice had melted, but a slice of lemon still floated on the surface – the only thing in the drink that was good for her. Who gives a shit? It was her third, and she wasn’t counting the glass of red she’d wolfed down in her apartment. And the Embassy didn’t serve half-measures.
A stonking run in the gym, a day without a glimpse of a let-up, an inconclusive and ultimately disappointing meeting at the Lubyanka, and, with very little to eat (apart from some fruit for lunch and now a couple of ‘devils on horseback’), the alcohol had surged unopposed into her bloodstream and was now playing havoc with her inhibitions. If the reception had had a karaoke, she would have been ready to barge to the front of the queue and belt out, ‘I Will Survive’.
She could do that as well as the next woman.
Unfortunately, the only music came from the sinuous warblings of a string quartet, playing something ‘background’. And there was no microphone.
Oh well…
She hadn’t been alone for the whole all evening. Rich had found her after about half an hour and they had chatted about this and that. She had tried to reconcile how she felt, but no matter which way she looked at it, she couldn’t trust him. Someone was keeping a very close eye on her, alerting Sokolov’s henchmen, and he was an obvious suspect.
Why him? She couldn’t say. But he certainly had the ‘how’.
She gave Rich a watered-down version of the weekend’s activities and decided not to tell him about the break-in at her flat. He had gently pressed her on the ‘dirty bomb’ op, and she had given him a brief outline.
To change the subject, she had asked him what he had been up to. His story was that he ran a couple of Russian government agents and, unsurprisingly, three members of the Russian state police. He was leading an op which he hoped would expose endemic election fraud under the control of the Russian government. Nobody was sure if anyone would do anything with the findings. But, it was the sort of information that might be leaked to the OSCE (the Office for Security and Coordination in Europe; often called to oversee national elections to ensure that they were ‘free and fair’). That organisation would then expose the Russian government and, just maybe, Russian democratic activists might be encouraged to bring down – what was now agreed to be – the current dictatorship. It sounded interesting.
Rich had fetched Sam her second large gin and commented, in a benign way, on the way she looked.
‘You scrub up well, Sam. The Doc Martens suit you, but you also look good made up to the nines.’ He’d smiled apologetically, to cover up any perceived patronising or sexist slant to his statement.
Sam glanced down at what she was wearing.
Post the earlier meeting at the Lubyanka, it had all been a rush. She had made it home in 20 minutes, employing limited decoy tactics while sprinting for a taxi. She had showered, held her shortish, scraggly auburn hair back with two grips, applied the simplest of make-up, thrown on her just-below-the-knee black dress and slipped on a pair of matching, kitten-heeled, shoes. The crowning glory was her grandmother’s exquisite gold chain suspending a drop-pearl, complemented by a pair of pearl-stud earrings her mother had left her.
Sam wasn’t a clothes horse – she was more Claudia Winkleman than Claudia Schiffer. But she also knew that she wasn’t unattractive. She had no boobs to shout about (‘A handful is more than enough,’ her mum always used to say when Sam complained about how flat-chested she was), but she did have a bum.
The ‘little black number’ had nothing to do with her; the dress and the shoes were Jane Baker’s choice. At the end of training, all the team were bussed up to London for a formal dinner at SIS headquarters. She knew it was coming and she didn’t own anything that would do for a dinner where the blokes were wearing black tie. As the day approached, she tilted closer and closer to a flat spin, and in a moment of panic had phoned Jane. Jane had been privately educated at a school in the southwest somewhere – she would know what to wear, and have wardrobes full of the stuff.
As a result, they’d spent an afternoon in London choosing outfits. The dress came from L.K. Bennett, and the shoes from Russell & Bromley. She’d not been into either of the shops before and was flabbergasted at the price tags: she could have bought a very decent alpine walking jacket for the price of the dress; and some top-of-the-range Gore Tex trekking boots for the cost of the shoes – which were made with less leather than a couple of cow’s ears.
But it had been a fun afternoon.
On the way into the reception an hour before, she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the huge mirror in the entrance hall of the Embassy. She had done all right – for a council house girl.
She looked up at Rich. He was waiting for a reply to his rather back-handed compliment.
‘Thanks Rich. I’m sure you understand when I say that I’d much rather be wearing my Patagonia fleece, walking trousers and a pick-any-colour-you-like beanie.’ She played with the end of her hair, pulling a curly strand and then letting it go. ‘You look fabulous in your penguin suit, by the way, but I guess you’d rather be dressed more casual-like.’
Rich laughed.
‘How right you are, Sam. How right you are. Anyhow, there are a couple of the lads I’d like to have a chat to. You happy if I make a move?’
‘Be my guest.’ Sam half-curtseyed. Rich, smiling, bowed. And then took off.
That was 20 minutes (and another trip to the bar) ago. And she was still standing on her own – like the prune she’d known she would be. Still holding her tumbler of gin as if her life depended upon it; her legs crossed at the ankles, her shoulders hunched a touch. She couldn’t give off any more ‘leave me alone’ vibes if she tried.
She emptied her glass, and burped a small womanly burb, discreetly holding one hand to her mouth. The grandfather clock, which thankfully was still in focus, struck 8.30pm. The string quartet played another incomprehensibly dull, but genuinely pleasant piece of classical something or other.
And then the course of her history changed.
It wasn’t a cataclysmic event, like paralysis after a bad car accident. Or falling head-over-heels in love with a complete stranger, marrying him six weeks later, and then mothering a six-aside football team. The flippancy had kicked in.
It was the final twist of a screw. A screw that had bored its way into her life over the past ten days. A screw that had tapped into her emotional core, playing havoc with it.
The final twist of a screw that would send her on a journey that could only end in tears. Or worse.
The Foreign Secretary’s party were late arriving. There had been an earlier rumour that the talks with the Americans and Russians, over the brokered ceasefire in Syria, had taken longer than anticipated. So, they had taken a break to come to the reception, and would reconvene later in the evening.
M was with the main man, directly opposite where Sam was standing; small clusters of ‘cocktail party’ groups partially obscuring her view. There were three other men with him: the ambassador, the Foreign Secretary, and a third, who had his back to Sam. He was big. Tall and broad. He towered above the other three.
M was in his element. He was a social animal; never afraid to mix with the high and mighty. Sam thought he had probably just finished recounting some wit
ticism. The other three men laughed, the big man with his back to Sam, touched M on his elbow. It was a gentle gesture; one possibly exchanged between two friends.
She was just about to head left to the bar, and inadvisably grab a fourth G and T, when the big man turned his shoulders, and then his head, and looked directly at Sam. He made some comment to the group and left them, heading in her direction.
She knew who it was instantly. She had seen at least a dozen photographs of him. She knew he was tall, and broad. But he was much bigger than she had imagined. He looked incredibly composed as he strode the six or seven steps it took to join her at the fireplace. The black dinner suit and the white, golf-ball fronted shirt, couldn’t have suited him better. He was too big to be Sam’s type, but the power and confidence he exuded was magnetic. This was a man who didn’t understand barriers. Who could get anything done that he wanted. Nothing got in his way.
But, as he approached, Sam spotted something that had not come through when she had read his file. His face was strong; his features chiselled. He was blond, but not Danish blond – more somewhere between Aryan and mouse; attractive, not shocking. His eyes were blue-green; penetrating. His mouth was wide, his lips thin. The perfect combination for an orator. People would listen to his words and not be put off by the movement of his mouth.
But there was one feature that, unless you were a casual observer, was striking. The right side of his face, around the eye socket, was motionless. He smiled as he approached Sam, but his right eye didn’t respond. She spotted his left eye blink; but his right didn’t follow suit. If he didn’t look so composed, so complete, Sam would have said that he had suffered from a stroke that had affected that side of his face.
She couldn’t stop staring.
‘Hello, Samantha Green.’ Perfect English.
Sokolov held his hand out.
Sam, still bewitched by his right eye (I must stop staring), didn’t take it. She couldn’t shake it.
The Innocence of Trust Page 18