by Daniel Kemp
Chapter Twenty-Three: A Cup of Tea
“If you're sure the only time Dickie mentioned Kudashov's name to you was in conjunction with an operation he was running on his own in Odessa, Fraser, then whatever code was being used then is how he had the name of the insider at GCHQ sent directly to him from Warsaw. That way, it would have avoided touching Sir John Scarlett's desk or any on the seventh floor. He and Kudashov had a previous special code for the Russian op and worked it up again. You said yourself that Dickie never did things, or said things, without having a reason. He was laying the ground for something he might, or might never, have to use by telling you of Odessa.”
My conjecture was met by a hard, dubious look on Fraser's face that remained when Molly opened the office door and sent him to bed. I begged permission to use his computer, adding I would curl up in an armchair when tiredness overtook me. He scowled his agreement, adding as Molly defiantly stood in the doorway, hands on hips, “If you find any dirt on the Macintosh name used in Switzerland be sure to keep it for me to look at.” I had forgotten about him!
* * *
Although it was late, I sent a message off to Michael Simmons to look into all he could find on Sir Russell Macintosh of the Diplomatic Corps and send his results directly to Fraser Ughert. I very much doubted Dickie had instructed Miles Faversham to use the name without there being a hidden agenda, so I hoped whatever Michael could find would give Fraser some useful reading. As for me, I went to find this friend of a friend I said we had inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology; it was to be a tough task as I hadn't anyone on the inside, but I did have Spencer Morrell. It was a little after half one in the morning when I sent a message off to him hoping, but not expecting, a reply later that day. One came back on the screen from his terminal straight away.
'Sunday last, we were put on the highest internal alert status because of a possible missile strike over Norwegian airspace. It was a civil aircraft that was brought down, flying out of Nikel, Russia. The flight plan registered Torp Sandefjord in southern Norway as the destination. There was one passenger on board, an employee from the CIA's Science and Technology. We're looking into her record of assignments. Is it you that's asking or your Government, Patrick?' he asked and I typed me, then pressed the send button.
My mobile phone rang; it was Spencer.
“On the surface this looks big, but I'm caught in the crossfire here and nobody is telling me much. My office got lumbered into handling the inquiry as we're the heaviest staffed in Europe after Berlin, who can't deal as they're working on something else. It sounds as if you're more up to speed on this one than me and have probably worked out it wasn't a Brit named Claudette Avogova on that flight.
“We contacted the Norwegians and then ran all they gave us through everything we've got and came up with nothing other than a confirmation on the passenger's name—Paulette Simona. To make matters worse, we have the passport holder Claudette Avogova registered with the Directorate of Science and Technology, as well as Simona. The records show she is the Technical Analyst Manager at the Directorate's regional office in Oslo, Norway. I've heard of the Science and Technology department, but I'd never had dealings with them.
“On paper they are pretty innocuous. From what I can understand, they deal in making signal traffic easier to send and receive, and they deal with any technology issues our agents encounter. I'm still getting info on her role in Oslo, Norway. The higher-ups at Langley are a bit touchy about filling in the details for me on this one. I guess you've heard about the flight departure point, this place spelled Nikel in Russia. I would be mighty glad if you could send any intel you have on it to me, Patrick, as we don't seem to have shit here. There have been overflights of the place since the name pinged up in Langley and I've seen the analyst's reports—nothing. There's been some large construction near a lake that's not in keeping with the surroundings and what appears to be another nearby site that's recently broke ground, but apart from that there's not much else there other than a few homes, an airstrip, road in, the same road out, and a small harbour.”
I asked him why he thought it was a missile that brought down the flight and he confirmed the notification I had seen from RAF Menwith Hill of the traced trajectory of a surface to air missile they had intercepted from a previously undesignated source outside of Luostari, not far from Nikel. As the aircraft was registered to a Russian oil magnate named Bohdan Dimitriyevich Valescov, there was no complaint made to the Russian ambassador in Washington DC, as the CIA would never admit to one of their officers working anywhere on Russian territory. From the remaining conversation, I couldn't be sure if Spencer was telling the truth as he knew it, or was aware of the significance of Nikel, but for the time being I had no choice but to accept what he said as he said it.
* * *
There was a message remaining from Monday, sent from Sir John Scarlett's office that I had not seen. It was headed: The PLO.
Aybak Khoury's family had, so Scarlett's report alleged, been expelled from Israel during the 1982 war with the Lebanese and the PLO in particular. His mother and father had not survived that upheaval, dying on the route they and many others were forced to take to Amman in Jordan. Aybak was four years old when that happened and nursed by his sister until she too died, by which time Aybak was old enough to look after himself on the streets of Jordon.
His sister's life was taken by the remote control she used to detonate the bomb she wore outside the American compound in Amman. By the time Aybak was seventeen, he had been in Israeli custody on seven occasions, but never held for a crime. Scarlett had run down six assassinations where Aybak was and could have been directly responsible. He was, so the report went on to emphatically demonstrate, a hired killer only a few could afford. MI6, working alongside other worldwide agencies, was looking at possible principals. It was the principal behind Dickie Blythe-Smith's message of NOMITE to Jacqueline Price that was on my mind as I curled up on the sofa-cum-daybed in Fraser's office and fell asleep without once thinking of Hannah.
* * *
I awoke that Tuesday morning with a head full of ideas; the trouble was Fraser had his own all to do with Sir Russell Macintosh, and he didn't want to hear mine. Frank and Jimmy were back at work, starting off the day eating Molly out of house and home, with her contented smile as they did.
“Would you like everything for breakfast, Patrick?” she asked with a wholesomeness about her the world needed to adopt, or at least the two newscasters on the television playing in the kitchen who loved to make all their morning viewers miserable. After consuming so little food the previous days, but drinking so much whisky, I gratefully accepted the offer, sitting back and listening in to the sporting news Frank was extolling.
Fraser made a hurried appearance, hoping it was not he who had awakened me; nevertheless, he added he was pleased his office was cleared of vagrants. At first I simply smiled at his attempted humour, but something triggered my eyes and nostrils into gear, and at once I knew to what he referred—me! I needed a shower, a shave, and more than likely the third 'S' that army drill sergeants are keen on mentioning so indecorously on parade grounds throughout the world. Having heard no complaints from any other person, I concluded that his lack of office ventilation had exacerbated the problem. I should have thought of this last night before staying too long as I had a long day in front of me, and the last thing I wanted to do was waste time.
* * *
I travelled from Clearsey to Whitehall straight after breakfast but, despite my swiftness, it wasn't until almost eleven o'clock that I could journey on to Beaulieu to see Kudashov and perhaps put some things to rest. There was some news about his granddaughter that I could relay to him and, if I was careful, I could omit telling the parts that he would not like to hear.
It was a glorious day as we set off with a now perfunctory escort of armed motorcycle police and ever-present SO9 Special Branch vehicles to accompany us.
A hot sun beaming down from a cloudless sky g
reeted me as I stepped from the car, walking the short distance to where Kudashov waited in the gardens, full of summer colour. The first thing he asked was how the plans to extract Cilicia were going. I'd had the best two officers Sir John Scarlett had at foreign intelligence, both well known to me, in Moscow for the past seventy-two hours. The first officer was the man who killed the PLO treasurer in Paris and then assisted in the kill in Maine, America, a few days later. The other man was who I was talking to in the Derry pub when the nail bomb exploded. He was also included in the last operation Fraser and I ran against political corruption. Liam Catlin, of Derry fame, was who I first spoke of in relation to any forthcoming operation in Moscow.
Liam, with three lamp-burners from Group, was watching the movements of Cilicia Kudashov, twenty-four hours of the day. One of Group's lamp-burners had an additional local contact, an entire family he had run for years who interchanged with our personnel on a normal irregular tag routine. The party had an operational van, plus two other vehicles at their disposal. Lines of communication from the van to Liam's fixed location were sealed and secured. The other officer on the ground worked alone. Christopher Irons had earned his reputation for excellence the hard way.
In terms of age, both Catlin and Irons were getting on a bit—the wrong side of forty—but for any assessment of skill, tenacity and effectiveness, then both were in their prime. Irons had always been a loner. He'd been of service in most countries throughout Europe and the Americas, but predominantly his expertise was of use in the old, and now the new, Russia. He had many disguises, ranging from a travelling musician to a poet in the more liberal Soviet community. For this operation, he masqueraded as a municipal housing inspector, carrying all the correct paperwork to fit his vocation with telephone numbers that went straight to the console installed in our observation van. Playing this role, he paid a visit to the prestigious block of apartments in the Kitay-Gorod area overlooking the Zaryadye Park where Cilicia Kudashov lived. He had 'accidentally' bumped into her the day before my visit to Beaulieu.
Nikita Kudashov and his granddaughter had formulated a means to communicate when he had left Moscow for London. A secret word the two had dreamt up was to be said by a third party by way of introduction and as Cilicia's proof of identity. Christopher Irons knew the word—articulate—and made contact.
All this information delighted Kudashov so much so that when I hedged my bets over when Cilicia would be invited to leave her position in Russia, he wasn't as disconcerted as before. I managed to move the conversation on before his calm mood altered. We went over the exchange in Warsaw once again as we strolled through the magnificent rose garden in this private part of Beaulieu, away from public gaze.
“Tell me more about Odessa, Nikita. Did you and Dickie devise a code for that mission that was subsequently used for the signal traffic from Warsaw?”
“Numbers from letters, Patrick. Simple and easily remembered. We'd used it before a couple of times. One thing you must understand before we go any further and that's Dickie and I go back a long way, you know. He was twelve years older than me and a lot wiser when we first met, but I was a quick learner and he was a good teacher. Our first meeting was at a police conference in East Berlin of all places. I had graduated straight from the academy to the investigative side of the civil police, working my way up under the influence my family had that I've told you of. The reason I was instructed to travel to Berlin was 'to further my police education alongside my security counterparts,' which meant, buy their patronage for a future date that might become useful. You know what I mean.
“Dickie Blythe-Smith said it was my brother Philip who first made the English security services aware of me and apparently they marked me down as a possible candidate for long-term activities. He was so laid back. Said he'd come into East Berlin to meet, have a chat and a cup of tea. I can never forget that. Such a civilised man in a far from civilised world. He sold me on all the right things and hey presto there I was, an international spy! You say on the spy, don't you? I must be truly honest and say that I've enjoyed every heart-thumping, dangerous moment. But having led you on since our first meeting, I can understand how you might distrust that statement and me in general. Let's start at the beginning of your friend and mine's relationship and, just perhaps, I can reveal something about Dickie neither you nor Fraser Ughert ever knew.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: Granitnyy
“Odessa was a big gain for us, Patrick, one of the best, but Granitnyy was the breakthrough moment for me. As I progressed through the Czechoslovakian civil police, so my contacts in the StB grew larger and, more importantly, I got close to military intelligence here in London. Dickie was my Control and apart from my brother, whom I never heard from, the only one I knew in England. Our exchange of intelligence was difficult but not impossible. I had police business beyond the Czech border, in Poland, East Germany and, on very special occasions, in Austria.
“There were three murders committed in Prague in 1976 and one of the suspects escaped across the border with Austria, which meant I went to Vienna to liaise with the police there, who had a similar situation only in reverse. It all became quite convenient. That's where Dickie and I set up the sting in Odessa. The Czechs and the Russians rotated officers above a certain rank in all branches of the military, security services and police. By 1975, I was on that rota, so was a KGB officer stationed in Odessa, but in May that year he was working within the StB in Prague. During the normal course of events we met several times and by the time he returned to Odessa in the Ukraine we had developed quite a friendship. The following year, I was posted to his home town and this KGB officer invited me to his celebrations of being promoted to lieutenant colonel. I went, but I didn't stay long. It was held in a male-only brothel. I made my excuses and left, unseen by the lieutenant colonel.
“But I didn't go far. I climbed the drainpipe to a second-floor window where he was with someone I didn't know, but they seemed to be getting on well, if you catch my meaning. I photographed them together. Before I returned to Prague, I left a copy of one of the photographs for him to find. When I was back at my post he called me and, almost in tears, he pleaded not to show them to anyone or he would be shot.
“Dickie said he made hay with the first batch of documents I left in dead-drops in Vienna for him to find. It took me the best part of a year to find out what the silly English expression of made hay, meant.
“There was no ceremony of course, but I was signed on full-time in the SIS after that major coup. When Dickie was promoted in the SIS, he continued as my Control and handler while our little sting bore fruit. But I lost touch with the KGB lieutenant colonel sometime around '79. I made tentative inquiries and found out he'd died. Although Dickie continued for a couple more of years as Control, eventually my handlers changed within the set up and I only met with Dickie once more, and that was in Vienna after he sent a man named Macintosh to Switzerland for the papers General Solidus hid.”
I asked him why he had played so many games with the different emphasis he implied London took when Jana mentioned the letter, and how that conversation was designed to lead me to believe his Control had changed. He made an interesting reply and one that should have filled me with self-belief and confidence, but it didn't and I had no idea why.
“I wanted to see if you were as good as Dickie said you would become if you did survive. And not only have you survived, you've excelled yourself. You know, Patrick, Dickie had your back through every step of Operation Donor.”
He stopped speaking to look me up and down from head to toe and then in reverse order, as if there might be a sign of resilience or longevity hanging somewhere loose from my clothing to prove Dickie right. When he was satisfied I was a mere plain human, he continued. “I wasn't anywhere near London when the Soviet Satellite desk became aware of the American interest in Jana Kava, but I have some knowledge of how they work, and Dickie knew precisely how they would react if their agent got blown and you were left standing under the se
archlights. At best, you'd plead for mercy from the KGB and at worse, well, you don't need me to explain what would have happened.
“I would bet everything I owned on it being Dickie who insisted you made the pick-up at Warsaw central railway station, unbeknown to the CIA. That way, he pulled you away from what they were up to in killing Jana in Gdańsk. If you had stayed in the open in Warsaw, I'd bet everything on them throwing you into the place where she was shot.
“What's more, Patrick, Dickie knew you would take care of Dalek Kava. I know that because we discussed it when he told me he had selected you for the operation and told me to draft those files. That was done in London in 1981. By then, I had one of highest clearances possible to have in Czechoslovakia and I posted myself to the Czech Embassy as head of security for a month. I ran internal checks and simulated counter-intelligence exercises to keep them busy, and I think they were all pleased when I slipped away to put Donor together.
“There was one thing, of course, he could never know about you and that's if you would stay the distance and piece together what this is all about. Well, he was right in one respect. You've come this far, Patrick. I wonder if that brain of yours will go that bit further.”
We were sitting on a wooden bench beside a fast running stream full of different breeds of ducks, as well as swans and their cygnets. A cooling breeze was blowing that ruffled the long grass and reeds at the water's edge. Nothing, it seemed, could trouble Kudashov's philosophical frame of mind.
“Do you know who was the plant inside GCHQ, Nikita? Was it obvious by the coding of the signal that was passed to Jana, or did you have to wait until Cilicia could decode it?”
He laughed heartedly, throwing his head back as he did so. Some ducks were not so amused, flying off to the opposite bank. “No, Patrick, but I did hope Cilicia could have deciphered it. You must remember that Sir Richard Blythe-Smith did not receive that knighthood of his for being a fool. Yes, no need to look so surprised. Of course I knew of it. By the time Cilicia had the coded signal I'd lost all my interest in it. But there must be something you know more about that signal, otherwise the mystery ends here. Dickie had faith in you. He showed that when he was alive, and I bet he showed that before he died. Somewhere in this mystery there is a message only you would know, Patrick. Find it and work out what it means.”