Cressida?
Sam slowly lifted herself up, using her good arm – her left – to steady herself, and swung her feet off the bed. She looked at what she was wearing. Dark blue coveralls. No underwear. Give her a white hard hat and some mirrored shades and she could understudy for the Village People. She poked at her right shoulder. Padding, under the coveralls. A dressing. She lifted the collar and had a look. Competently done. No signs of blood. She wanted to put her finger under the bandage and have a look at the hole. She assumed she’d see a big gash – an exit wound. She wouldn’t see the entrance wound without a mirror. She leant forward and peered into the en suite. No mirror. The whole place was devoid of anything that wasn’t riveted down. Except for her.
Definitely a cell.
She’d leave the dressing alone. It was doing a good enough job.
She studied her feet. White slippers, the sort you get given in a hotel. No shoelaces. She wouldn’t be hanging herself from the rafters any time soon then.
Sam attempted to stand, but needed two goes. The pain in her shoulder nagged like a decaying tooth. She waddled across to the en suite. As she thought: a metal shower, a metal sink and a metal bowl. Nothing to be used as a weapon.
She carefully undid the press studs on her coveralls and sat down. The seat was cold against her bum.
As she peed, the sound oddly comforting against the metal of the pan, she tried to remember anything she could about the last… how long had she been out for? She had no idea. They had taken her watch and her phone. There was no porthole, and, therefore, no sun. The only light was artificial, neon strips imbedded in the ceiling with the metal surrounds riveted in place. Was it morning? Her stomach rumbled. I’m hungry. So at least one meal time later than when she was last awake. Saturday morning? Possibly.
She remembered being shot. Think, what else? She closed her eyes, the vision of the man with the gun coalescing into her consciousness. Then what? Boot of a car? Did she remember the smell of rubber? A spare tyre? And… it was no use. Her memory had failed her. Maybe they had drugged her?
Try the here and now.
She was on a boat. A big one. Very likely to be Cressida. She hadn’t seen the satellite photos that had come through of the berth. But, what was in Debbie’s report of Thursday night? The berth had been empty on all images.
Was it in transit somewhere – carrying the device?
That’s right. She’d just opened vesselfinder when the two goons had arrived at the cabin. She had been trying to establish where Cressida was.
No. That didn’t make sense. Why would anyone put a radioactive bomb on a, what had Sokolov’s file said? A £100 million superyacht. She and Vlad – God, Vlad! How could I forget? I wonder how he is? Her heart started to sink. All of a sudden, she was in freefall. She tried to banish the thought.
Stop!
She couldn’t banish the thought. Her world started to crumble at the edges. She felt anguish closing in. He was down; she had tried to get away. Without him! Both of them shot. Was he dead? Her bottom lip wobbled. The thought was too much for her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. No tears. She couldn’t afford tears. Flippancy had been uprooted and been replaced with pain.
Come on, girl. None of this was helping.
She shook her head. Her shoulder reminded her that that wasn’t necessarily a good plan.
Get with the programme!
Now!
Good.
She breathed out heavily.
Where was I?
She sniffed.
She and Vlad had agreed that Sokolov was doing this for the chaos that would ensue; and what that impact would have on commodity prices. But, even so, you wouldn’t spoil a £100 million yacht for the chance that that might happen. Would you?
She wiped herself – there was a loo roll on the floor next to the pan. But there was no soap and no towels. Showering was going to be a lot of fun.
Clunk.
The door. Sam quickly stood up and pulled on her coveralls. Her shoulder protested. She poked her head into the bedroom.
It was a woman. A big woman. Not hugely fat, although she carried plenty of spare flesh. Big, though, as in rugby prop-forward big. She wore grey joggers, a black hoodie with a zip down the front and two pockets, and a pair of white Asics sneakers.
She was carrying a plastic tray. Various bits of cold food were chopped up on the tray: cheese, ham, chunks of bread, whole baby tomatoes. And a plastic beaker with, she could smell it, coffee. The woman placed the tray carefully on the bed.
‘Eat this. I will be back in ten minutes to pick up the tray and the mug.’ Her English was unpolished, but comprehensible.
‘Thank you.’ Sam came back in perfect Russian. She chose a Muscovite accent.
The woman didn’t flinch.
‘How is your shoulder?’ English again.
Compassion?
‘Fine, thank you.’ Russian.
She reached into a pocket and pulled out a couple of green and red pills.
‘Take these.’ Still English.
‘No. Not until you tell me what they’re for.’ Sam continued in Russian.
‘Please yourself.’ English. She put them back in her pocket. ‘Ten minutes. Then I’ll be back. Enjoy.’ The woman put her right eye (check) up against the reader and pressed the button. The door opened.
The perfect waitress. It could have been an exchange in any cafe in Paris.
Sam paused for a second. And then ate the food on the tray as though she hadn’t eaten for a week. She left the coffee until last, sipping at it, savouring every drop.
4th Floor British Embassy, Moscow, Russia
Debbie had a hangover. She didn’t normally drink, certainly not in quantity. But last night had been an exception. She was an SIS analyst. That’s all. She wasn’t trained to operate in the field. To assist with saving the life of a man who had been shot – and burnt. To discover that someone she knew well and liked a lot, hadn’t survived a fire. To be at the scene where all of this had happened.
She didn’t begrudge being involved. On reflection, she wouldn’t have had it any other way. But it had knocked her sideward. Taken the wind out of her sails. And every other appropriate cliché she could think of.
And it had led her to drink. Too much.
The three of them left the scene after about two hours, once Jane had handed over to an FSB agent. Throughout, Jane was pensive; fretful. But in control. Rich was fantastic. He had been so good with the poor man who had been shot. She assumed that Jane was equally qualified in first aid. Perhaps all case-officers were? Debbie certainly couldn’t have done what Rich had done. The man wouldn’t have survived a minute in her hands.
When they’d got back to the Embassy it was almost 5pm. Jane had sent her home. It was an order she was glad to be given. She’d been tearful in the car on the way back thinking about poor Sam. She couldn’t handle seeing her yesterday sat at her computer, and then not seeing her today. Even though they were just metres from each other.
If she’d have got back behind her desk, she wouldn’t have managed to do anything meaningful. Being sent home was a blessing.
She’d drunk a whole bottle of red wine – thick stuff; gorgeous. It was the one she had won in the raffle at the staff Christmas party. She was halfway down the bottle before she’d decided to cook. And then she had been too fuzzy to make any sensible decisions, so had had some toast and ham. She then drank the other half, trying hard not to go over the events of the day. At about 10pm she had showered and, rather wobbly, made her way to bed.
She’d made it to Saturday – and she didn’t have to be in work. But she needed to purge the alcohol and get away from being alone in her apartment – thinking. And, she needed to complete what she had started yesterday – with Sokolov’s yacht. For Sam’s sake.
Both Rich and Jane were in when Debbie arrived. Rich was onto the FSB, waiting for any forensics to come back from the fire site. Jane was in M’s office. She had no idea what she was up
to. It was quiet and sombre.
Start.
Coffee and paracetamol in one hand – mouse in the other. Head throbbing.
After yesterday there were now eight photos of the berth in Sevastopol: five daylight shots (10am and 4pm Thursday, the same for Friday and 10am this morning), and three night-time infrared shots (2am Thursday, Friday and, again, 2am this morning). Langley had failed to deliver the first shot that Sam had ordered – Wednesday 4pm. They hadn’t managed to get their act together.
It had taken her 30 minutes to look at all the photos in detail. There was only one anomaly: it was on the 2am Thursday infrared (IR) shot. IR shots are notoriously difficult to read. For a start, the quality is nowhere near as good – around 80-centimetre resolution, as opposed to ten centimetres for daylight images; but you work with what you have. The real complication is that normal photographs show light and shade, which is what the brain naturally recognises (and the ones she had were monochrome, giving the very best possible resolution). IR images, on the other hand, display hot and cold (again, monochrome). Hot is white. Cold is black. Shades of grey in between. You had to think differently. For example, providing it had been driven recently, an IR car isn’t car shaped. It’s just a hot engine – a ‘hotspot’, with warm tyres heated by the friction of rubber on tarmac. Its windows, which reflect IR, are dark grey or black. It doesn’t look like a normal car; it looks like an IR car. If you have experience, you can pick out make and, sometimes, model. It was a skill. And Debbie was good at it.
The anomaly on the Thursday 2am IR image was a particularly bright hotspot on the quayside. It was rectangular, although a bit fuzzy at the edges. Debbie did some calculations: it was two metres by one metre. And it was ten metres away from the berth – which was empty. Cressida still wasn’t in any of the photos.
She looked at the next image, that from an overhead at 10am, Thursday morning. Even though there were some clouds, the quayside was as clear as anything. There was nothing where the hotspot had been eight hours previously.
All images can throw up distortions; light-sensitive electronics have a habit of doing their own thing sometimes. IR was notorious for it. This was probably one of those? But she’d be thorough. She looked at the next image in sequence; 6pm Thursday. Nothing. And then the next – another IR shot: Friday 2am.
That’s odd.
In exactly the same place as the previous IR image, there was a faint replica of the original hotspot. She put one image on one screen, and the second on the other. Two IR images side by side. She glanced from one to the other: hotspot – trace. She looked again: hotspot – trace. She didn’t get that at all. She almost called Rich over for a second opinion. But thought better of it. She would come back to it.
Debbie was about to move onto Sokolov’s dacha, to look over the old and recent images, when she remembered what GCHQ had said about Sam’s mobile browsing history. The last page she’d looked at was vesselfinder.com.
She reduced the images and opened the website. The opening page was a map of the North Atlantic and a dialogue box: Search by Ship name/IMO/MMSI. She typed in Cressida. Three ships were immediately displayed in a drop-down box. She opened the first, it was a huge oil tanker. Position: somewhere in the Caribbean. Debbie thought probably coming into or going out of the Panama Canal.
Nope.
She hit the jackpot with the second.
CRESSIDA
VESSELS>>YACHTS AND SAILING VESSELS
There was an accompanying photo of a 230-foot-long, brilliantly white super yacht. It shouted luxury and opulence. The app gave its current location as 44.616N, 33.525E, and it had yesterday’s date. Further down the page was a ‘Track on Map’ icon. She clicked on it.
And there it was.
Sevastopol. A yellow arrow designated its location. She stretched the image. It was quayside, in its berth. But Debbie knew Cressida wasn’t in Sevastopol. The berth was empty. The images told her that.
Something wasn’t right.
She did five minutes’ research on how the tracking system worked. In essence, each ship sent out an Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal, which was used to triangulate where they were. It had been around for ages and seemed pretty bomb-proof.
The AIS from Cressida must be broken?
‘Rich?’ Debbie called out across the office.
‘Yup?’
‘Can you pop over here, please?’
Rich was on his feet and across at Debbie’s side in no time.
He looked miserable; reflective. He struggled to find a smile.
I know how you feel.
She explained what she had found with Cressida’s AIS.
He pulled up a chair.
‘I spent some time working alongside the Coastguard when I was a copper. They use the AIS system all the time. If there’s a satellite system fitted, then the ship can be tracked anywhere in the world. If it’s VHF, radio signals, it’s only trackable to within about 60 kilometres of any landmass. So, some boats can get hidden at sea.’ His mood had picked up. He was working.
Debbie was impressed. Rich leant forward and gently motioned for her to release the mouse. He took it and clicked on the current display.
‘No, Cressida’s is VHF only. Which is a surprise. I’d have thought Sokolov’s yacht would have both fitted. Can you throw up the image of the berth?’
Debbie did so on her second screen – it was the latest monochrome from yesterday afternoon.
‘Pan out, as far as you can, please.’
She did. The image showed one square kilometre of marina, quayside and sea.
Rich drummed his fingers.
‘Cressida is not in this photo. But if you look here…’ Rich was back on the original screen and playing with the vesselfinder. He clicked on a couple of icons. ‘You can see the boat’s recent movement, with these sets of new arrows – normally a history of the past seven days. According to this, it’s been sat quayside for the last four days. Mmm. Photo says “no”; vesselfinder says “yes”. But…’ He paused, rubbing his chin with his hand.
‘Go on, Rich.’
‘The VHF signal is not wholly accurate. It depends how close you are to the land; it could be hundreds of metres out.’
‘But this is a square kilometre? That would subsume any error? The boat would be here on the screen somewhere?’ Debbie still thought they had an anomaly.
‘It would seem that way. But I wouldn’t be so sure. These things aren’t foolproof.’
Debbie was still unconvinced.
‘Sam was onto this – it was the last thing she looked at, before, well, you know.’ She was struggling to hold it together. She coughed, to clear the frog from her throat. ‘What do we do?’
Rich placed a comforting hand on her forearm.
‘Somehow, we get a full overview of the shipyard/marina, call it what you will. If Sokolov’s boat is there, somewhere, out of picture, this is a red herring. If not, then somebody is purposefully deceiving the AIS system. They want the world to think the boat is in Sevastopol. When – who knows where it is?’
‘Do you think the boat could be carrying the bomb?’
There was a pause.
‘No. I think this is a genuine gremlin in the system. Sokolov’s boat is in dry dock, off image. Or, some other plausible explanation. Come on, let’s face it. Would you carry 30 kilograms of uranium waste on your pristine mega-yacht?’
Debbie shook her head. She wouldn’t.
‘So, we need to sort this. Let’s take it to Jane. The earliest we could get a full set of images of the whole area is in, say, 12 hours?’
Debbie nodded. ‘A complete set. Yes. Maybe quicker. Or slower? It is a Saturday.’
He rubbed his chin again.
‘What are you doing for the rest of the weekend?’
That made her sit back.
‘Do you think we should go down there?’
‘I’ve been before. Flown. We could easily be down in eight hours and back within 24. We’ve got so
me simple radio detection equipment in the store. We could find the boat, easily enough.’
‘And if it’s not there?’
Rich shrugged his shoulders.
‘It’s somewhere else.’
Jane had sent Rich and Debbie off to Sevastopol. There was little else for them to do, and she needed to get some certainty on Cressida. She guessed it would also help to take their minds off where they all found themselves.
The quickest way to verify if Cressida was in the dock, would have been to speak to the FSB. They could contact someone at the port, and do what she’d asked of Rich and Debbie.
But.
If this were an elaborate scam – a sort of pillow-under-your-blankets deception, then she wouldn’t put it past Sokolov to own men at the port who would ‘see’ the boat in the berth, even though it wasn’t actually there.
And she needed to be absolutely sure before she alerted the whole of the Western European security infrastructure to look out for a big white boat. Especially as it didn’t fit. She couldn’t rationalise it. You don’t carry a hugely radioactive device on a mega-yacht. Not without encasing it in lead – or similar. And then you’d struggle to manhandle what you had. You’d need a big crane and a huge truck at your destination to take it anywhere. No, she’d need confirmation that Cressida wasn’t in the port before she sent those hares running. And, if Rich were as good as his word, they’d be at the port by early evening. They’d taken some gadget with them which Jane had never seen before, but Rich assured her would track down the VHF beacon.
The hares would have to wait.
So, what to do now? She needed to keep herself occupied. She needed someone to give her something to do, like she had for Rich and Debbie. Sure, she had plenty of work – there were countless reports from London from her other desk-officers that she should be reading. But, the sense of grief she felt for Sam was a burden she couldn’t compute. It sat on her shoulders like a heavy, damp coat; pulling her down. Tears were never very far away. Throughout the morning she’d spent more time with her head in her hands, than at her keyboard. It was all too awful to contemplate.
The Innocence of Trust Page 32