Grinin wiped his hand over his face.
Thank God La Magdalene is locked away. Maybe it’s a good thing so few people knew the Secret: the Brazilian priest who translated it, two cardinals in Vatican Intelligence—whoever would have guessed the German would be made Pope—the Mother Superior of Lucia’s convent; Kitty. Al dead.
And the one she shared it with, me. Should I tel Diana?
A song that had played when he’d been on the Steve Wright show came to mind. About not being brave and angels lifting you. Brave by Leona Lewis.
Kitty was brave, brave like a soldier. Too brave. I told her: Keep the Secret in your heart—and go on home to the Big Apple.
Why didn’t she listen?
‘Grigori?’
He felt his wife gently nudge him.
‘He is here. Have you forgotten the Eucharist?’
After they received communion from Father Deiniol, Diana helped her husband up and walked outside into the sunshine with him, fol owed by the children and the Nanny.
At the door, uniformed police accompanied Major Grinin as the press appeared, the paparazzi, to take more photographs.
For Felicity La Bombe show time had arrived.
As Grinin, fol owed by Sokol, walked out from the Cathedral, Prosthetics John let off thunder flashes at the back of some
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distant trees. The noise could be mistaken either for gun shots or a car back-firing.
Sokol and officer Gabor, giving away their cover, leapt in front of Grinin, drawing their pistols.
At the same time, eight-year-old Brian fel and cut his knee in front of Paddington.
While she and the other officers were distracted, Felicity whistled for Jimmy to act. He ran in with helium bal oons from the orphans' fair (a red, a white, and a blue) and handed them to Emma and Olga.
As the twins excitedly clutched a bal oon each, and fought over the third, the wind blew their blonde hair into their eyes and over their faces.
‘We can’t get our shots,’ the paparazzi shouted.
The Nanny produced a hairbrush from her bag, and handed it to Diana, who brushed their hair. In the confusion, everyone's attention was either on the children or on Grinin.
Like a ghost, Felicity glided past behind the Nanny, tipping a vial of norovirus into her pocket.
La Bombe was away and out of sight before anyone, including Sokol, knew it.
Trained as a field agent, Felicity had learned to do drops like that blindfolded. With all the advantages of a young OhZone, and with Hebe enthusiastical y riding shotgun, it was child’s play.
No one has detected us, Hebe reported to her.
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The next day: Monday.
River Heights, Victoria Embankment.
Lara, dressed in blue engineer’s overal s, watched from the back seat of another black surveil ance-proof BMW SUV
60 yards down the river bank, as Crusoe Robinson (in green water board overal s) walked up Richmond Terrace.
An embassy technician applied the finishing touches to the prosthetic appliance over her face, transforming her Russian features to those of a younger Middle Eastern woman. She wrapped a hijab over her face, and nodded.
The driver pul ed out north, sped up Horse Guards Avenue, drove 50 yards back down Whitehal , and turned into the other end of Richmond Terrace. They saw Crusoe, now at the rear of River Heights, knock on the back of a water company truck, where he relieved Hans, an East German-born agent.
Hans sat slumped in his chair, next to Farringdon, at a bank of thirty screens monitoring River Heights. Five of the screens showing the inside of the penthouse were black.
As Farringdon let Crusoe in, he greeted them.
‘G’day OhZone crew.’
Hans replied matter-of-factly, in a good German accent.
‘Did you have a nice weekend, OhZone 3? So nice of you to drop in. Captain Lara Starikova also dropped in.’
He waited for Crusoe to react. Crusoe raised his eyebrows, and replied in good Australian:
‘Crikey, why haven’t we arrested her, mate?’
‘Your brother’s team lost her, I believe,’ Hans replied. ‘In Pimlico.’
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Crusoe exhaled loudly.
‘She left the back of her hotel in the direction of Wonderland,’
added Farringdon, in Cockney English.
‘And what a surprise,’ said Hans. ‘It turns out she wasn’t staying there after al .’
He flipped a soft pack of Marlboro White, and caught the cigarette in his lips.
‘That how you get laid so much?’ asked Crusoe. ‘Magic tricks?’
Hans grinned, and offered him a cigarette.
‘Wel , you know who does the best magic tricks? Our glorious leader,’ he said, leaning over to light Crusoe’s cigarette.
‘Has C given this wet job to Felicity? She bangs like a dunny door—she might fuck Grinin to death!’ joked Crusoe, exhaling.
Hans laughed, ‘I’m one of the few who hasn’t had that pleasure.’
‘Good on ya, mate; close encounters with that sheila can damage your health.’
Embarrassed, Farringdon adjusted a monitor.
‘To be fair,’ he said, ‘the Russians hacked the security cameras and traffic lights within a two click* radius of Pimlico. It was chaos.’ [* kilometre]
‘And we are short staffed,’ said Crusoe.
‘Exactly so,’ said Hans.
‘What did Blanka say? What’s the plan?’ asked Crusoe.
Hans and Farringdon exchanged sheepish looks.
‘We protect Major Grinin. And his family, of course,’ said Hans. ‘From MI6 assassins, and the Russians. Except for Lara.’
Watching Crusoe’s nonplussed face, he stood and offered him his chair.
‘Would you like to talk to Blanka? It’s the direct line.’
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Crusoe looked at the ‘90s turquoise princess phone, bizarrely out of place in the hi-tech surveil ance rig, and picked up the handset. It rang automatical y, and a woman answered.
‘Like me to explain about Lara?’ Blanka’s voice said.
‘G’day, guv’nor,’ said Crusoe. ‘That would be sweet.’
‘If the KGB were going to kill Grinin, they wouldn’t send Lara.’
‘Ah, she’s here to offer him a pardon.’
‘It won’t succeed. I’ve got this, I know them both wel ,’ the voice said. ‘I warned him she was coming. He said he’d be delighted to see her again. He won’t be persuaded. His mind is set on making the vaccine in Ireland.’
‘So let Lara go in?’ Crusoe said.
‘Yes. Let them have their talk.’
‘Roger that. Does Sokol know?’
‘No,’ Blanka said curtly. ‘Keep it that way, I don’t need her temper in the mix.’
Crusoe put down the phone.
‘Anything happen in the penthouse?’ he asked Farringdon.
Farringdon grabbed his notebook.
‘06:30, Grinin wakes, makes tea in a samovar, starts disabling cameras and bugs. Takes Diana tea in bed.’
‘Okay, okay.’
‘Telephone engineer back in?’ asked Farringdon.
‘Yep,’ replied Crusoe. ‘Last thing that happened?’
‘09:10 Diana left for Sea Life with the twins.’
He cal ed Sokol on the Scanner.
‘We need the telephone engineer back in,’ he said.
‘Can I go home?’ Hans asked Crusoe. ‘For some breakfast and bed –’
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They were suddenly glued to monitors: an Arab woman wearing a hijab, bearing an engineer’s case, was accessing the rear entrance with the Trade button. Crusoe zoomed the monitor into a freeze frame on her overal s. The logo read, London Aquarium Maintenance.
‘Could be for Grinin. Have they been before?’
Crusoe asked.
Hans flipped back through the written log.
‘What’s happening?’ said Sokol over the Scanner.
‘Aquarium maintenance is here, maybe for him,’ said Farringdon.
‘Of course, it’s for him,’ said Sokol, ‘He’s got the biggest tank outside Sea Life. I’l get our telephone engineer on his way.
Anything else?’
Crusoe turned to Farringdon, and firmly shook his head.
‘No, Mobile Two out,’ said Farringdon, and hung up.
Crusoe’s AI rotated small components of the aquarium woman’s appearance in 3D, and analysed them.
‘I ID her at 65 percent as Lara,’ he said. Then, stil out loud, he asked his backup. ‘Hebe?’
76 percent, Hebe replied, inside his head.
He turned to the others. ‘Hebe says 76.’
‘Looks like Lara has landed then,’ announced Hans. ‘I can’t wait to have that sexy woman inside my head.’
He put his greatcoat on.
‘Hebe I mean, not Lara.’
‘Good on ya. Lara’s dead cute, but how d’you know Hebe’s sexy?’
‘Or even heterosexual?’ added Farringdon. ‘Drox is gay, after all.’Hans waved his arm dismissively, as he stepped out of the truck.
‘My Hebe will be uber-sexy whatever she does or doesn’t look like,’ he laughed.
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The private-key elevator light lit Penthouse, the door opened, and Lara stepped into Grinin’s plush hal .
She had not met the notoriously eccentric Chess Grand Master and Nobel Laureate since she was15, but Grinin did not disappoint. He stood in front of her on a red, blue and gold Turkish carpet, wearing a Kashmir housecoat and matching slippers, and holding a children’s bal oon pump in his one hand.
He smiled (sympathetical y Lara thought) but said nothing.
Lara noticed the Royal Doulton toby jug of Queen Elizabeth on the fine antique table beside him.
As the elevator door closed, Grinin turned and walked into his enormous lounge, where Russian fine art jostled for space on the wal s with originals by Man Ray and David Hockney. The 1812 Overture boomed from a vinyl record.
Lara was staggered; the tropical aquarium she was pretending to service occupied a sixth of the room. Beside it, the Grinins’
long-legged Russian Nanny stood on a short ladder taking down decorations and balloons from Emma and Olga’s birthday party.
‘I have to attend to the fish!’ Grinin shouted above the music to the mousy-haired Nanny as she took down a banner reading: С днем рождения 3
The canons fired in the climax to the music, and Grinin grabbed the Nanny and waltzed her around the aquarium, grinning at Lara as they passed. As the drums rolled, he produced a slip of paper.
‘Do the shopping now.’
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‘ Khorosho,’ nodded the Nanny taking a pair of spectacles from her pocket. ‘Madame Diana says to wear your distance glasses.’
The playing arm lifted from the record, Grinin flashed her a false smile, and she headed for the elevator.
The view from the panoramic window took in a fine stretch of river from the London Eye to the Palace of Westminster.
The bronze sculpture of Boudica on her chariot at the foot of Big Ben reminded Lara of Blanka.
Grinin softly closed the door behind the Nanny. Putting on the glasses, he looked at Lara more intently.
‘I don’t think you know very much about aquaria. Are you here to kil me? Take that thing off, there’s no camera in here.’
Lara tugged off the hijab, approached to a couple of feet and politely held out her left hand to shake his.
‘I’m not here to kil you, far from it.’
Grinin took a spray bottle of DNA-denaturing solvent and a pack of forensic wipes from his pocket.
‘I like to cover al the traces,’ he said. ‘Agents of al sorts come and go as they like here, water people, telephone people…’
‘Butchers, bakers and candle-stick makers,’ suggested Lara while Grinin careful y sprayed and then wiped down her hands.
‘You’ve become adept with one hand.’
‘And your English is impeccable,’ he said, as he kissed her on both cheeks, Russian style. ‘ Kak vy pozhivayetye? I leave some bugs working, so they think they have me under surveil ance.
But I was expecting you, so I swept everything in here.’
‘Dobroye utro Mayór Grinin,’ she said.
He studied the brown eyes staring at him out of the prosthetic appliance.
‘I seem to remember you having green eyes, and bearing a
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striking resemblance to Kitty Maguire…’
He ran his hand along the aquarium glass, and stared at a group of red and white fish.
‘And a little fish tel s me that the girl I taught to play chess –’
Lara stepped forward, ‘Has grown into a woman, a soldier who has her orders.’
Grinin nodded.
‘And you have something I want, Captain,’ he said.
He ushered her into an antique armchair, one of a pair arranged with a chess table between them; with pieces in three colors: white, red and black.
‘And what is that, Major?’
‘Have you kept up your study of the game?’ he asked. ‘Your cousin Blanka has been profoundly disappointing in that regard.
A very erratic player.’
‘I’m afraid I wil disappoint also.’
Lara eyebal ed him.
‘Sokol came to your children’s party yesterday. Since you’re both defectors it must have reminded you of the old days.’
‘Ah, “the old days.” Touché,’ said Grinin. ‘Memories are powerful things.’
He sat down opposite her, and laid out the white pieces on one side of the board.
‘Since you are here, you wil of course play. I am old, so I’ve taken white.’
‘And you give me the choice of the black or the red?’
‘Only two can play on the board. But in the real world, three is a key number. Rule of three. Outer, middle and inner world.
Three colors of quarks. Three states of matter.’
‘Three sides al wanting you. Mr Corduroy is so worried, he’s sent MI5 to guard you as wel as OhZone.’
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‘Yet, here you are’
‘Yet, here I am.’
He picked up the red queen and the black queen.
‘Now, what kind of opponent are you going to be? What color wil you chose?
Lara picked up the two colored queens and examined them.
‘You will never live to make the vaccine. Neither OhZone nor President Obama can protect you from this.’
She held up the black queen and handed it to Grinin. He took it, and his face became pale.
‘We don’t need to give a name to this,’ said Lara. ‘Do we, Major?’
Then she held up the red queen.
‘However, we can protect you. Valentina wil protect you. A complete pardon, your old life back, a return to the Petersburg suburb you love so wel . Freedom for Diana and the children to come and go as they want.’
‘You want me on hand to get Dr Carlos out of trouble,’ he laughed. ‘It’s touching everyone’s so concerned for my welfare.’
He handed the black queen back to her.
Lara set the two queens down, opened her metal case, and held up the photograph of Kitty.
‘I choose the color of valour,’ she said, handing it to Grinin.
‘Al three sides agree she was nothing if not heroic.’
‘Yes, yes, al sides agree. They made it look like an accident, but she was murdered, after al , wasn’t she? And which side kil ed her?’
Lara knew she was treading on dangerous ground, and chose her words careful y.
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‘Remember when you
showed me your favourite Polanski film?’ she said. ‘“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown”.’
‘Ah.’
Grinin sighed and got up from the chair.
‘You are saying, “Forget it, Grigori.” But what are you asking me to forget?’
‘I was 15. That movie made a big impression on me.’
Grinin shook his bear-like head.
‘I was so hoping we could play a friendly game of chess.
Instead, you want to play this other game, this hero game.’ He stared at the photo. ‘A game of tears, why do you want to play it? We could have talked like real friends.’
‘I’m in the photo. I saw you take it. You saved Kitty’s life.’
‘It was the picture of a dead woman walking. I think I knew that at the time. Now you are showing a picture of a dead woman, to a dead man? What kind of game is that?’
‘An end game? Something with dignity?’
‘So we’re back to chess?’ said Grinin. ‘And Valentina wants to put Kitty on the board. What kind of piece shal we make her?
She played with the bishops, many bishops… the German one in particular.’
Lara was out of her depth; tiredness hit, and her eyes glazed over.‘A queen? A knight? The poor girl should have stayed a pawn.’
‘What about Diana? Emma, Olga?’
‘They do not belong on the board. And neither does Kitty.’
Lara watched Grinin brush his fingers over the glass of the aquarium.
‘I’m not certain, but I don’t think the dead stay in the game,’
he said, as several fish swam toward him. ‘Do you know one of the strategies in an end game?’
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Lara felt herself floundering.
‘No. You tel me.’
‘Most advice is about pawns. But you can surprise your opponent by activating your king, making him an attack piece.’
Desperate, Lara saw her last chance, and brought out a 5 kilo Russian diplomatic pouch from the case. She broke the seals, and placed a pair of Gyurza 9mm pistols on the chess table.
‘If you’re going to attack,’ she said, ‘You better have something to attack with.’
Grinin picked up one of the pistols, and studied it as if it were a curious artefact from a long-dead civilization.
‘It would make a strange chess piece indeed. Not particularly elegant. Tell your Aunt she shouldn’t send me toys, I wouldn’t use them as intended. A bul et through my head is a great temptation. You see, I’m not going to attack—I’m going to declare stalemate and leave the board. The fox wil lead the hounds away from his den.’
Girl Who Fell 1: Behind Blue Eyes. Offbeat Brit spy series-cum-lesbian love triangle. Killing Eve meets female James Bond meets Helen of Troy returns (HAIL THE QUEEN series) Page 16