A Covenant of Spies

by Daniel Kemp

  “I had my people take a close look at one place in particular … named Nikel, a few kilometres over the border from Norway into Russia. The place where Avogova's aircraft took off from. It's aptly named as they found references to the nickel mining that went on there for hundreds of years. They had Russians, Finns, and Germans all fighting over who had sovereignty of those valuable mines. Even us Brits were there at one stage digging out the nickel, but nothing on why Avogova and your family would want to go anywhere near there. It seems a very popular place, does the Arctic Circle. Any ideas you'd like to share with me as to why that might be, Nikita?”

  Apparently, he had none. But he did have demands. “When you do eventually devise a plan to get my granddaughter safely away from Moscow, I must be told of it at least twenty-four hours beforehand. If that does not happen, then a piece on the chessboard will not move in time and, in consequence, it will jeopardise the whole game, Mr West.”

  * * *

  As I left him, and walked the fluorescent-lit corridor to the staircase to the house, it was apparent that no matter what I used as a distraction, all I could see was Hannah's smiling sculptured face that fateful Thursday morning as she left the Whitehall apartment on her way to the offices and then onto our home here in Sussex. Her elegantly tall, curvy body, her long black hair with her porcelain white skin was kissed by the sun as we had breakfasted together before a call from the Cabinet Secretary delayed my departure. I had mouthed a silent no, in reply to her scribbled note of: Do you need me to stay?

  On her notepad I wrote back: I'm holding for the PM. He needs updating on Iran. With luck I'll be at The Lodge for dinner. I signed that off by drawing a heart on a separate sheet of notepaper. She marked that page with five crosses, as kisses.

  As she walked away I stood watching her, first to our office and then through the outer doors to her car that waited in the courtyard below. We had planned to return to Whitehall late on Monday, ready for work on the Tuesday. Nothing was on my desk to prevent that break, nor was there anything on the intelligence radar to unduly worry over. Very seldom had we travelled to The Lodge in the same car, but how I wished we had, then either I would still have her beside me, or it would have been me killed if we'd used her car. Both options were better than the apparitions that now devoured me.

  Chapter Eighteen: The Levant

  Frank and Jimmy were back on duty by that Sunday afternoon and it was with them that I travelled to Fraser Ughert, first depositing Kudashov at the deportation centre in Croydon on the way from The Lodge, on the grounds that his detention was conductive for the public good, and he needed to be kept in a secure confinement, pending expatriation.

  At Chearsley, Fraser's Circle of Eight was up for discussion with a previously investigated American and Russian pinned firmly to our agenda. They had both first crossed our path five years earlier when the three of us, Hannah, Fraser, and I, successfully managed to stop the aspirations detailed inside the top-secret, corrupted CIA file—Gladio B.

  We were fortunate in preventing the vast majority of the short-term aims of Gladio B, and in the process we believed we had deterred one particular man who would have been crucial to the long-term aims as set out in that file. That man was Tucker Stoneman, a Rosicrucian, with access to the Panamanian bank accounts holding a sizeable part of the trillions of dollars Donald Rumsfeld had identified as missing from the US defence budget. Rumsfeld, a former American Secretary of Defence, went on to allege that the biggest threat to world peace was his own country's military and intelligence bureaucracy. His speech was made the day before the Twin Towers attack and, as a consequence, passed without much notice. Although Tucker was, at the time of our first investigation, the Democrat Party's presidential candidate, he was not in this inner circle of Fraser's, but he had connections in very high places that could well be part of the Eight families, who were behind the objectives of the corrupted file.

  When Kudashov spoke of the eugenic manufacturing laboratory he had either knowingly, or unwittingly, connected the Gladio B file to the here and now, as one section proposed that those deemed to be undesirable, in the Elysium that was to be created, were to be sent to parts of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, western Iran, and eastern Syria along with Pakistan, India and Southeast Asia, all of which were destined to become a cesspit for the human beings not required by those Eight families of world builders.

  I have never been a great believer in providence. However, Kudashov's appearance in London telling about a granddaughter named Cilicia and the subsequent murder of my wife was anything but a coincidence. With hindsight, I should have realised Kudashov's appearance could have been the catalyst to something else, but hindsight is a friend who's never available when he's needed. I was taught that maxim of everything leads to everything until I could recite it letter by letter in double quick time, but where was its corporeal worth? If the truism in that statement was correct, then could her murderer be closer than I thought?

  Hannah had no enemies, whereas I had many. Luckily most of mine were not capable of a murder of this precision, which not only needed the keen eye of a sniper, but also required money and logistics, which were only available to a very few I'd run across and were still alive. Five years ago, I had authorised the murder of two associates of the inner circle of families suspected of having objectives amounting to such desolation, suffering and injustice on this world, it could never be imagined in any dystopian nightmare.

  The first man who was eliminated was an Israeli businessman, a justifiable kill, whilst holidaying on an island off the coast of Maine, North America, and the other was a man in a Paris hotel room, the main coordinator of fundraising for the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Although they came from opposite ends of the political spectrum, they shared a love of the wealth that money could buy and the destiny it could ultimately control. One of the people that was used on that operation had died near the scene of the Israeli shooting, her dead body being disposed of in the water close to Mount Desert Island, as the surviving perpetrator made his escape.

  A British submarine had recovered her remains, but we could not be certain nobody had identified her before that could be done. The Israeli was staying at an estate named The House of Cilicia. The closeness of the wording on the gift box and that estate had not escaped me at the time of our wedding, but the name of Cilicia had occurred so many times during the investigation the three of us had undertaken, I lost no sleep over it. Now, however, his killing took on a completely new significance.

  The MI6 officer who murdered the PLO fundraiser in Paris and went on to partner our commissioned killer at Mount Desert Island was, in due course, engaged in a game of exchange with Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service. Politics being what they are, an ever-changing scene of self-interest, the assassination in Paris was done in exchange for a favour that suited our Foreign Office in the affairs of state; however, that was where the leak of our sponsored assassination must have been. I needed to speak to Christopher Irons, our man on the spy with our Mossad friends.

  It had taken from late Thursday evening until the very early hours of Sunday morning to catch up with Irons, who was on a covert mission in Iran. Yes, he confirmed that he had told his Iranian contact, who had then told Mossad of the Paris success and, yes, he knew a man who might have sold that information on. That man was beyond Christopher Irons' immediate reach. Despite that inconvenience, he knew of someone who could influence the situation.

  By the time I arrived at Fraser's home, I had most of the information I needed. Christopher assured me that the man who sold the information of my involvement in both killings to Hannah's assassin did not have his name. All he had was a description dating back to the year 2000 when the two had met during the War in Eritrea. The man we were after had killed the commander of one of the main Ethiopian Army groups along with his deputy. Mossad had sanctioned and paid for that operation and that's how Christopher's agent, who was connected to Mossad, and the killer came to meet.

 
For all this man's assassinations, including Hannah's, he only conducted business by fax. Christopher had the fax number address, an empty launderette in Bagdad where the words—Defenders of the Levant—were painted in red on the wall facing the door. The launderette's address was worthless without extensive enquires being made and I was uncertain as to how long it would be before this killer would strike again. I instructed Michael Simmons to set up a task force to include Interpol and the Iraqi police, and search for answers. In the meantime, Fraser christened Hannah's murderer, Solidus.

  He told me he had taken it from the name of the first chairman of the KGB—General Ivan Aleksandrovich Solidus. I waited for an explanation but, as with most of Fraser's discoveries, it came at a price. I watched as his normally studious facial expression gradually changed to the one bearing his distinctive trademark—I know more than you and I'm keeping you in the dark until I decide to include you. He took an inordinate time before he did include me in his secret. However, there were other facts he was willing to share whilst he kept me waiting.

  * * *

  “I have found out who Claudette Avogova was, Patrick, and I think I know why Kudashov came to us.” I was interested in his first discovery, but not his second, as I doubted he had grasped the full intricacy of that word—why—when applied to Kudashov and, if he had, then I already knew the complications behind that decision. Although already knowing Fraser's opening remarks about Avogova, I did not interrupt. What he then went on to tell me was of immense importance.

  “Claudette Avogova was Italian by birth, but British by marriage. She was a bacteriologist who worked at Porton Down research laboratories and who died in 2001 in Sierra Leone. She volunteered to join part of a scientific team put together by the United Nations to work on finding a cure for a virus that escaped from some chemical vials stolen from a ship that had docked at Freetown, Sierra Leone. The stolen vials, twelve in all, were in transit to the Brazilian archipelago of Saint Peter and Saint Paul for destruction, from Murmansk in northern Russia. The woman who died in the aircraft crash was in the same profession as Avogova, but her name was Paulette Simona.

  “If you remember back to that tale I told you of me and a Gurkha sergeant skipping over the border in Russia … well, from that operation I made friends with a Norwegian counter-intelligence officer who helped me out on this one. Did you know the Norwegians have the fifth largest intelligence service in the world? You wouldn't think of that unless you took into account the closeness to Russia and the fickleness of their neighbours, Sweden and Finland. Anyhow, I doubt you need a geography lesson to go with the whisky. I asked the chap I know and he tracked this Simona woman down through fingerprint data to a CIA register of the Directorate of Science and Technology, where she's recorded as an inspector. Smart work on his behalf, eh? That leaves us with the question of why would anyone want to pose as Claudette Avogova?”

  * * *

  I gave Fraser each one of the recordings of my conversations with Kudashov from his arrival at The Lodge until I took him to Croydon. We were still recording in the car on the way there, and Michael was at Group downloading information of use from more agencies than our own. Following a few formalities at the South London detention centre, I had Kudashov taken in an unmarked private ambulance to a part of the Beaulieu House estate, on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, where he could be kept safe away from prying eyes and assassins' loaded rifles. I had no idea how much danger Kudashov was in until most of the story had unfurled. Although completion was still a considerable distance away, at least it felt as though this rolling ball of Dickie Blythe-Smith's was closer. Kudashov was right in assuming that I would never have believed him until certain things had been established as true. I would have considered a lot of it as a fairy tale.

  Given that I had no way of knowing Kudashov's life was in need of protection when he arrived in this country, the same rationale did not apply to the Ugherts. Fraser needed no warning. His home was already as secure as it realistically could be, but I'd taken the extra precaution of saddling Molly with eight static guards. Her kitchen skills would delight them all as well as, hopefully, driving away Fraser's protests of being self-sufficient with security.

  * * *

  I had a communication in answer to one of mine from the Ministry of Defence, intelligence section. In the listings of service personnel they supplied me there was one stand-out name that I could hardly miss—Jacqueline Price, head of C-section photographic analysis, Germany, in 1982. Jacqueline instead of Jack, with Price as her surname! How close was that? I knew the two were not related, but where else would Dickie hide a secret than some place we both knew? The trouble there was how did he know I would still be in the SIS business? At the back of my mind something, or someone, said: it wouldn't matter if you were not. How on earth would I interpret that? I read on without addressing those issues.

  Jacqueline retired full-time from the Civil Service roughly two years ago, remaining on their register as part of the Board of Commissioners of what was called Sentinel Development Policy, whatever that was. She lived near Windsor, Berkshire. Could it be luck that Dickie found a Jacqueline for Jack, leaving the clue staring at me from the personnel page? Or, had there not been a Price in the Ministry of Defence, would Dickie have continued to look to find an alternative?

  * * *

  Fraser wearily removed his thick black-rimmed glasses and wiped his eyes with a scrupulously folded and ironed chequered handkerchief. It was approaching six o'clock in the afternoon and I too was suffering from fatigue. Ordinarily, I would have left Chearsley and asked to be driven back to Whitehall, which was considerably nearer than The Lodge, but these were not ordinary days. With Jacqueline Price of Sentinel Development living in Windsor, which was not that far out of our way to Sussex, I suggested to Jimmy we go there. Frank remarked how exhausted I looked when I gave Jimmy the address, but I shrugged his observation off, saying I would grab a nap in the car.

  I watched as our journey was lodged with Special Branch and the vehicles that now travelled constantly as my escorts, took up their position front and rear of my car. The blue flashing lights of the motorcycle outriders were switched on and away we went to Berkshire, or so I thought as I lay out on the rear seat and closed my eyes. It was Frank who disturbed my thought-filled solitude with an urgent message from Sir Elliot Zerby at Thames House, the MI5 headquarters.

  There was, he said, a credible terrorist alert for Victoria railway station. The threat originated from an organisation calling themselves the Defenders of the Levant.

  Chapter Nineteen: Gunfire

  Destination Windsor was scrubbed, as indeed was Sussex. It was to Whitehall that the convoy returned. I quickly changed and freshened up, then used the underground tunnel from the Foreign Office building and emerged in the offices of the private secretary to the Prime Minister. After an intolerably long time spent briefing the PM from the information that Zerby had given me, I escaped back to the apartment in the FO building. I consulted with both Zerby and Simmons over the security arrangements at the site of the threat: Victoria railway station, along with arrangements made at all ports of entry and departure in mainland Britain.

  Special Branch, along with every department of interior security, was being stretched once again by a succession of penny-pinching governments who sought popularity rather than security as their number one priority in order to continue in the 'power' it wantonly craved. Having agreed on the measures taken to face this latest terrorist threat, I gave in to the utter weariness I felt, but as tired as I was, I could not bring myself to sleep in our bed. It was to the second apartment I went, hoping to find what rest I could.

  I was awakened by the ringing of my private mobile telephone. I glanced at the small square, digital clock; it was 08.03. I'd slept solidly for nine and bit hours, but still felt shattered. It was Michael Simmons on the other end of the phone. He had confirmation of a Polish Army colonel of the same name as the colonel Jana Kava had met, being arrested by
Russian KGB officials on September 3rd 1982, whilst in barracks in Kaliningrad.

  Kudashov had told me of this during our conversation; however, he had added that the colonel never reached the KGB interrogation station on the perimeter of the base. He had, according to Kudashov, bitten on the potassium cyanide L-Pill he had hidden in his mouth. I had searched all that was recorded of his and Jana Kava's meetings and there was no record of us supplying him with a death pill. If we hadn't supplied him with the lethal tablet, then the Americans must have, making the Polish colonel a CIA operative all along the way, but did we know that?

  I thanked Michael and returned to our once shared main apartment, marvelling at its tidiness. I showered in the now minimalistic bathroom, minus all Hannah's toiletries, and was sitting at my desk by nine-thirty that Monday morning. As I sat there, reading my computer screen, the realisation of being on my own and lonely whilst so much surrounded me, was a consciousness I had not anticipated. It's not always the big occasions one shares with another person that the unconscious mind clings to until the space it occupied is empty. Often, it's the little things one shares that stay the longest time in one's conscious state, hammering in one's skull to be remembered. The first thing Hannah would do at the start of a working day, when we were at our separate desks divided by an unmovable wall, was to send a heart in a message along with an X as a kiss. It was through a combination of repetition and love that I looked at my computer, waiting for them both, knowing that neither would come.

  * * *

  Variously coloured signals from Thames House filled part of my main computer screen, awaiting my attention but, despite the importance they represented, it was another message on another screen that captured my attention. It was an eyes-only scrambled message for me from the personal secretary to the relatively new Prime Minister. There was to be a special security conference called for late September, where I would be required to give an overall view of the intelligence reports emanating from Iran in respect to the United Kingdom's support to any firm US proposals for an invasion mounted from neighbouring Iraq. I wondered if this had anything to do with the update in my briefing of the situation I'd provided him.