Red Strike

by Chris Ryan

  Porter nodded, understanding. The public-school girl from the well-respected family, the dream job in politics. A video of her getting spit-roasted by a pair of Russian cokeheads would have killed her ambitions. That was for fucking sure.

  He said, ‘What did they want from you?’

  ‘Just to report back to them regularly, let them know who Derek was meeting, what he was saying behind closed doors, that sort of thing. Nothing else.’

  ‘Why did they want you to search our room?’

  ‘Boris told me his people needed to run a security check on you both. Make sure you were who you said you were. He showed me how to break into your luggage, what to look for. Told me to let him know if I found anything incriminating.’

  ‘Have you called him yet?’

  Jansen gave a slow shake of her head. ‘I was still searching through everything. Thought I had more time.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘How did you know we were out?’

  ‘I asked the concierge to call me if you left the hotel. I thought you’d be gone for longer. Figured you had both left to explore the city.’

  Porter took a deep breath. ‘Listen, whatever you’ve done is in the past. The people we work for don’t care about any of that. But you’ve got to make this right.’

  ‘Make what right?’

  ‘We’re here as part of a major security operation. You nearly blew our cover,’ Bald explained.

  Jansen frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Is Derek in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘More than a little,’ Porter said. ‘But that’s nothing for you to worry about. Right now, you’ve got to help us take care of this problem. If you do, everything will be fine. Can you do that?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Call your handler. Tell them you didn’t find anything. You checked through our luggage but there was nothing suspicious. No listening devices, just clothes and toiletries.’

  Jansen shook her head quickly. ‘I can’t! Boris told me never to lie to them. If I do, he’ll release the footage. That’s what he said.’

  ‘He’s not going to do that, because you’re going to play it cool. We’ll be here when you make the call. As long as you stay calm, he won’t have any reason to doubt you.’

  Jansen looked doubtfully at Porter. ‘What if he realises I’m lying?’

  ‘We’re not asking you to spy on anyone here. You just need to make one call.’

  ‘Think about your family,’ Bald put in. ‘You need to do the right thing here. For them.’

  Jansen looked back and forth between the operators. ‘One phone call? That’s it? Then we’re done?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Porter said.

  ‘But remember,’ Bald added. ‘If you try anything funny, if you try to warn your handler or lie to them, the deal is off. We can get to your loved ones anywhere, anytime. Understood?’

  Something occurred to Jansen. She looked at Porter hopefully. ‘What will happen to me? Once this is over?’

  ‘Do as we say, and this will all be forgotten about. No official records, no criminal investigation. It’ll be as if it had never happened. You can go back home, get on with your life.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Aye, we promise,’ Bald said. ‘Now make the fucking call.’

  Porter retrieved the burner phone they had discovered on Jansen earlier. The no-brand Chinese handset. He held it out, gesturing for her to pick it up. Jansen stared at the burner as if it was a bomb. Faced with the biggest decision of her young life. Am I really going to do this? She inhaled deeply.

  Then she picked up the phone.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The conversation with her handler took less than a minute. Bald and Porter listened in on the loudspeaker as the guy named Boris answered the call from Jansen’s burner. He spoke good, well-pronounced English with only a trace of his Russian accent. Not like the two guys at the Hotel Flamingo across town. The guy named Boris didn’t make any small talk. He dived straight in. ‘Well? What did you find?’

  Jansen gave him the answer she’d rehearsed with Bald and Porter. ‘I did as you asked. Searched their luggage, closets, drawers. Everywhere I could think of. All I found was clothes and toiletries.’

  Boris No-Last-Name asked a couple of follow-up questions. ‘Are you sure? What about their backgrounds? Did you check their credentials with the security company they had worked for?’

  Jansen answered confidently and calmly, with the air of someone who had done a thorough job and was certain of her findings. She would have made a fine actress. By the end of it, the handler sounded pleased. Reassured, almost. He thanked her for her work, reminded her to keep an eye on Lansbury and said he would be in touch again soon. Then he hung up.

  When it was over, Jansen looked up from the burner screen and said, ‘Was that okay?’

  ‘That’ll do fine,’ Porter replied.

  ‘What happens now?’

  They took her out of the bathroom, sat her down on the edge of Porter’s bed. Porter glanced at his watch. Exactly half past twelve. Thirty minutes until Lansbury was due back at the hotel. He said, ‘Have you got a key card to your boss’s room?’

  Jansen nodded. ‘In my wallet.’

  Bald retrieved her Orla Kiely wallet from the side unit, flicked through the card section. He plucked out a key card, identical to the one for their room, and chucked the wallet at her. She pocketed it, wiped her nose with a tissue taken from her other pocket and looked up at Porter.

  ‘So that’s it?’ she asked. ‘We’re done?’

  Porter’s phone buzzed before he could reply. New message. Delivered to the regular phone, not the encrypted mode. From an unknown local number. A message he had been told to expect by Strickland. It said simply, In car park. He deleted it, put his phone to sleep. Tucked it away and turned to Bald.

  ‘Let’s take her downstairs, Jock. Car’s waiting.’

  ‘Roger that, mate.’

  Bald grabbed Jansen by the arm, ushered her towards the door. The assistant struggled against his grip, pulling her arm back, panic-stricken eyes flitting from Bald to Porter.

  ‘What car? What the hell are you talking about?’

  Porter said, ‘There’s a wagon waiting in the car park with two guys from the security services in it. They’ll transport you across the border to a safe house in Austria. You’ll be interrogated and debriefed and taken back to the UK. If you scream or resist in any way, your mum and sister will suffer. Do you want them to suffer?’

  Jansen’s eyes went even wider. ‘No.’

  ‘Then keep your fucking mouth shut and do exactly as we say. Got it?’

  ‘But . . . we had a deal,’ she said pleadingly. ‘You promised.’

  ‘We lied.’

  Bald yanked on her arm. Jansen dug in her heels and stood her ground, shaking her head frantically. ‘No, no. Please, no. Don’t do this. This is my career!’

  ‘Find another one.’

  ‘I’ll work for you! I can be helpful. I can watch Derek for you, like I did for Boris.’

  ‘The people we’re working for don’t need someone on the inside. They’ve already got us.’

  ‘But I know things! Please, I’ll do whatever you say.’

  ‘Sorry, lass,’ Bald said. ‘Nothing personal, but we can’t have a cokehead knowing our secret. Too much of a fucking liability. You’re finished here.’

  ‘Please!’

  Porter stared at her with a cold look of indifference.

  ‘At least let me say goodbye to Derek.’ Jansen looked desperately from Bald to Porter, searching for a shred of pity in their hardened expressions, and finding none. ‘I can’t just up and leave. He’ll wonder what happened.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ Bald said. ‘Come on. The wagon’s waiting.’

  ‘Bastards! You can’t do this!’

  ‘See this?’ Bald indicated his face. ‘This is me giving a flying fuck. Now get moving, or your mum is gonna have another visit from James.’

  H
e tugged again on her arm, escorted her out of the room and down the corridor towards the bank of lifts. Porter hurried ahead of them and took the stairs down to the lobby. He waited for the next empty lift, rode it up to the third floor. The doors sucked open to reveal Bald and Jansen waiting in the hallway. Bald shoved Jansen ahead of him into the lift, and the three of them rode it down five floors to the underground car park. Porter stepped out first, checking the coast was clear. Then Bald frogmarched Jansen out of the lift and over to the waiting vehicle. A Volkswagen Jetta, parked up in the shadows. Two forty-something guys Porter didn’t recognise were sitting in the front, both dressed in civvies. Two of the assets Strickland had mentioned at the briefing. Local agents, on call whenever Six needed them. They wouldn’t know anything about the mission, or Bald or Porter.

  The assets had mobilised as soon as Porter had given Strickland the heads-up about the PA. She had told Porter that they would be ready to lift Jansen once she had put in the call to her Russian handler. Better to make her disappear, Strickland had said. They would need to explain her abrupt disappearance to Lansbury, but that was less risky than leaving Jansen in play. The assistant shuffled over to the car, slack-jawed and ghostly pale, eyes frantically glancing left and right, looking to see if there was anyone else in sight. Anyone who might save her. But the car park was empty.

  ‘Please, you don’t have to do this,’ she said, weeping as they drew nearer to the Volkswagen. ‘I won’t tell anyone, I swear to God.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Bald snarled under his breath.

  ‘You’re ruining my life!’

  ‘Be glad you’ve got one. Be glad you’re fucking alive.’

  The two assets remained in the car while Bald and Porter walked Jansen over to the boot and popped it open. The assistant caught sight of the empty boot and went rigid with fear. Bald gave her a shove, forcing Jansen inside. She resisted at first, and then Bald gave her a dig to the ribs and bundled her into the cramped interior. Jansen swore tearfully at Bald, calling him the vilest things her mind could conjure up. Bald simply grinned at her. Women had called him worse. Much worse.

  ‘Her Majesty thanks you for your service,’ he said.

  He slammed the boot shut, handed over the wallet and passport to the guy in the front passenger seat. Gave a thumbs-up to the driver, signalling for the backup team to depart. They pulled out of the parking space, rolled up the exit ramp and disappeared into the grey afternoon. From the hotel Jansen would be taken to another RV outside the city, close to the Austrian border. The team would transfer her to a haulage truck with a sealed compartment inside an ISO storage container, smuggle her across the border to an MI6 safe house in Vienna. Jansen would be questioned and held there until the operation was finished. If anyone on the Russian side started asking questions, all they would find out is that the PA had unexpectedly absconded from the hotel. They would conclude that she had lost her nerve and run off, perhaps fearful of being exposed by a third party.

  Once the Jetta had left, Bald took Jansen’s mobile and burner, removed the SIM cards from both, crushed them beneath the heel of his shoe and stamped on the screens. He disposed of the phones in separate bins around the car park, while Porter put in another encrypted call to Strickland and gave her the good news.

  ‘We’ve got news of our own,’ Strickland said. ‘Good and bad.’

  ‘Tell us the good news first.’

  ‘We ran the photographs you sent through to us. The two men pictured with BROKEN RECORD outside the Hotel Flamingo are senior agents with the FSB. We’re talking high-ranking officers, closely connected to the Kremlin.’

  Porter said, ‘How is that good news?’

  ‘We’re a step closer to implicating BROKEN RECORD. Whatever he and his friends are up to at the conference, it has to involve the Russian security services.’

  ‘Any clue what they were talking about?’

  ‘Not yet. We have theories, but nothing concrete. Which is why we absolutely need eyes and ears on tonight’s conference. It could be crucial to bringing BROKEN RECORD down.’

  ‘What’s the bad news?’

  ‘Our surveillance team lost BROKEN RECORD and his friends on their way to the meeting.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The FSB agents were running counter-surveillance tactics, we think. Our guys followed them to an out-of-town shopping centre. They switched vehicles in the multi-storey car park and gave our guys the slip. We’re not sure where they went after that.’

  ‘So we’ve got no clue who this mystery Russian guest is?’

  ‘No,’ Strickland admitted. ‘But whoever it is, the FSB clearly think he’s important enough to get BROKEN RECORD and his political allies onside. We really need to find out what’s going on at this gathering.’

  ‘That won’t be easy.’

  ‘Just don’t get caught,’ Strickland cautioned. ‘Otherwise this whole thing is going to blow up in our faces.’

  Porter tightened his grip around the handset. He was determined not to fail their mission. He’d fought hard to re-establish his credentials after years of being blackballed by the Regiment head shed. I fucked up once before, Porter reminded himself. He cast his mind back to the op in Beirut in 1989. Several lifetimes ago. The teenager whose life he’d spared. A kid who had subsequently killed three good Hereford men. A tragic mistake. One that had cost Porter his reputation, his marriage and his relationship with his daughter. It had taken him thirty years to rebuild his life.

  I’m not going to fuck up this time.

  ‘We’ll bring the bastard down,’ Porter said. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  He hung up, told Bald the news as they climbed the stairs leading to the lobby.

  ‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Bald. ‘If the FSB are involved, it’s going to be a bastard getting eyes and ears on the meeting.’

  ‘We’ve got the GPS trackers,’ Porter reminded him.

  ‘Aye, and what if Lansbury tries to block us, or ditches it again? Then we’re really fucked.’

  ‘What about planting another secret mic?’

  Bald considered. ‘Won’t work. That’s a one-time trick. After what happened this morning, the FSB will be checking everyone for bugs at this shindig. That’s for sure.’

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ Porter muttered.

  ‘Whatever it is, we’d better come up with it fucking quick.’

  Porter tapped his watch. ‘We can’t worry about that now. We’ve got to get those bugs planted in Lansbury’s room. Now, before he gets back from his meeting.’

  Bald nodded. ‘Lead the way.’

  They vaulted up the stairs.

  Twelve forty-five in the afternoon.

  Three hours and fifteen minutes until they departed for the conference.

  Not long to go now, Porter thought. Not long at all.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  They trotted back across the lobby, took the stairs to the third floor and slipped into their room. Gathered up the surveillance kit spread across their beds and hustled down the corridor to the next room along from Jansen. Lansbury’s room. Porter touched the key card he’d snatched from the PA against the door lock and entered a lavish suite the approximate size of a Surrey mansion. There was a main bedroom with a king-size bed, an adjoining lounge with a fifty-inch flat-screen TV, coffee table and a balcony with a commanding view of the Danube. The biggest room in the hotel, probably.

  ‘My kind of gaff,’ said Bald admiringly. ‘All that’s missing is the toot and the Roger Moores.’

  ‘Roger Moores?’

  ‘Whores, mate.’

  ‘Where did you learn that?’

  ‘You move around the circles I do, you pick up the lingo.’

  Porter shook his head. ‘Me and you lead different lives.’

  ‘Aye. Mine’s better.’

  Porter ground his teeth. ‘Just get on with it. We don’t have much time.’

  They went to work, following the instructions given to them by Hogan. The Scaley h
ad explained that the listening devices used a lot of energy, which meant they needed to be wired up to a live power source. Porter placed bugs in the power sockets in each room and installed a third device in the back panel of the TV. Meanwhile Bald swapped the charging units for Lansbury’s phone and laptop with the modified chargers, so that MI6 could remotely pull passwords, data and files from any devices the target plugged into them. They moved swiftly but carefully, taking care to leave everything exactly as they had found it. Once the devices were up and running they left the suite, closed the door and started back down the corridor. Back in their room, Porter took one of the passport-sized portable drives from his holdall and plugged it in. The bugs in Lansbury’s room would automatically transmit their recordings to the passport drive, storing the audio file in a securely encrypted format for Vauxhall to transcribe and analyse at a later date.

  Bald stopped abruptly before they checked out of their room again, turned and said, ‘Have we got any bugs left?’

  ‘A few. Why?’

  ‘I’ve got an idea. Don’t put them back in your luggage. Hand them over.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Porter gave him the trio of matchbox-sized bugs. Bald tucked them inside his jacket pocket and quickly sketched out his plan as they made their way downstairs.

  They hit the lobby at twelve-fifty in the afternoon. Ten minutes ahead of schedule.

  The front lobby was bustling with activity. Late checkouts and early check-ins, business types in expensive suits arriving for lunch meetings at the brasserie. Tourists heading out for an afternoon of sightseeing, armed with backpacks and selfie-sticks and bored-looking kids staring dead-eyed at iPad screens.

  There was no sign of Lansbury yet so Bald and Porter found a quiet spot to the right of the reception area, planted themselves on a pair of armchairs and waited. For the first time since they had walked in on Jansen in their room, Porter breathed a sigh of relief.