Fit For Purpose

by Julian D. Parrott

  Nia had temporarily put aside the script for a guest starring role on a weekly detective drama playing a doting single mother whose only child goes missing. She would have several good scenes with the show’s star who played a damaged but brilliant detective. Nia would be required to go through lots of emotions. There would be shouting, crying, desperation, and gut-wrenching tragedy. Her concerns that the script would stir up her own feelings of maternal loss were not shared with anyone. Tom didn’t know of the pain and guilt she still carried. Rachel’s advice to Nia to talk to Tom about the loss still resonated with Nia. She lay there, fuck, Tom should know, she thought.

  She got out of bed with an audible shiver and put her heavy dressing gown on. Partly to jump-start another stream of thought she moved across the bedroom to open the curtain. As she did, she noticed someone move quickly into the square’s small park across the street below her window. Nia could still see the damp footprints the person had left behind.

  “Fucking paparazzo,” she said out loud. “I do one public event and the bastards are back.”

  In the square’s small park opposite Nia’s house, the

  cold and tired SVR watcher whispered into his hidden microphone and reported a confirmed sighting of the actress.

  ***

  Heathrow

  Gagnon was ‘made’ as soon as he made it through passport control. Being six feet five, rail thin, with a long red beard, and cue ball bald, and Canadian, he was always strikingly noticeable. Somewhere in the depths of a Border Force database, Gagnon’s passport was flagged as belonging to a member of the intelligence community and passport control automatically notified MI5. The database system noted that Gagnon’s visit was not official and, that the Canadian, against intelligence service standard procedure, had not informed any of the UK’s security services. MI5 would need to call him in for a little sit-down chat. More troubling for Gagnon, was that he was also made by the SVR. The SVR look-out, who possessed a preternatural ability to remember faces, called the sighting into the Rezident’s office at the Russian Embassy, SVR’s London central. There, it didn’t take the intake analyst long to confirm that Dr Jacques Gagnon, now of Canadian Military Intelligence, was in London. Kamenev would discover Gagnon’s arrival when he went through the SVR’s sights and sounds activity logs the very next morning.

  It was clear to the SVR tail that the tall Canadian wasn’t a trained or experienced field agent as he shadowed him across the concourse, through a large revolving exit door, and to the taxi rank. The Russian noted to himself that Gagnon had no field craft, that he must be some sort of analyst. The watcher called the embassy and they directed him to note the taxi’s licence plate but to return to his general surveillance duties. SVR control knew that, if needed, the licence plate would give them the taxi company, the driver and, for either a few pounds or through some medium level skill hacking, they’d discover where Gagnon was dropped off.

  Gagnon took a taxi directly from the terminal to his hotel. He paid for the taxi and got out onto the pavement, picked up his bag and turned to walk into his hotel. He remembered some field craft training and scanned the small lobby and didn’t see any potential surveillance. He checked in and made his way up to his room. There he unpacked his bag, showered and changed clothes. He left his room and found the stairs and proceeded to go down to the lower level and through a labyrinth of corridors to an exit that opened on to a small service alley behind the hotel. He stood in the alley by a small skip taking in the surroundings and checking for a tail. He smiled to himself. He made his way down the alley and out onto the street.

  Gagnon made his way through London’s busy streets. He found a small supermarket where he purchased a burner mobile, a small paring knife, a bag of chocolate bars, and a half bottle of bourbon. He found a Pret A Manger, ordered a red eye, fired up his new pay-as-you-go phone and called Tom.

  On the Periwinkle, Tom chatted with Gagnon but didn’t put the phone down at the call’s end. He called Rachel and asked her to look after Jack as he had business in London. Rachel asked whether it was Nia related and Tom said it was a meeting with an editor. Tom didn’t like lying, so he called his editor and arranged to meet to discuss the narrowboat book idea.

  The next morning, Tom dropped off Jack with Rachel and drove south in his Land Rover. He stopped at a big-box store and bought his own pay-as-you-go burner phone. He called Gagnon with it to let him know his ETA in London. As Tom drove, he felt that he was cheating on Nia. This drive had been part of their romance, a rendezvous in the city had become a special part of his, and Nia’s, life. But now he was driving to London to meet his old Canadian comrade in arms to discuss the life and death of a Russian military intelligence officer. Gagnon, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He was looking forward to meeting with Tom and to the possibility of enacting some revenge. He had slept well and had taken a run through the early morning emptiness of a slumbering city.

  Kensington, Russian Embassy

  In the same still greyness in the same city, Kamenev looked through the previous day’s SVR, FSB and GRU reports. It was a quiet day and so the report of Gagnon’s arrival at Heathrow had grabbed Kamenev’s attention. He felt it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. He ran some quick background checks of the life and career of Jacques Gagnon. Kamenev scanned the text on Gagnon’s military service and his deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

  “So, another old hand from Afghanistan eh?” he noted softly to himself.

  He cross-referred his own records and his own after-action reports. He searched through publicly accessible UK and Canadian records, and through hacked Western military and intelligence service records. “Thank you, WikiLeaks,” he thought. He re-checked the timeframes and knew instantly that they cross-referenced with his last missions in Afghanistan. He sat back in his chair and took a long draw on a cup of coffee. So, he thought, I’m guessing it was this Gagnon and Price who were in the field the night my helicopter went down. Instinctively, his hands went to his face, touching the scars and skin grafts. He pulled up pictures of the two men on his computer screen, both appeared younger, both fresh faced wearing slight smiles. “You bastards,” he said softly. “You ruined my face, set back my career. Now you show up to ruin the mission that will make my career. That’s not going to happen chaps. It’s going to be time for a little payback.”

  It was time to move the official reaction up a notch, Kamenev thought. Two retired Western military officers who had once crossed his path are now in and around London. Kamenev decided to circumvent the Rezident. He picked up a phone and called Moscow Centre on a secure line. Ten minutes later, he replaced the phone in its cradle and smiled to himself. He now had two operations to manage. He was confident both would run smoothly to his and the Kremlin’s satisfaction.

  ***

  Thames House, Home of MI5, London. January 12th

  The harried deputy director was looking forward to grabbing a quiet five minutes with a cup of coffee and a chocolate digestive. Maybe even a quick online peep at the football result even though she knew it would ruin the excitement of watching the game’s evening rebroadcast. An officer, female, young, pretty, ambitious, a graduate from a red brick university, knocked on her door.

  “Do you have a quick second, ma’am?” the officer, an intelligence communications analyst, asked.

  “Sure,” the DD said, with an inaudible sigh while subtly switching her screen from BBC Sport to a spreadsheet.

  The analyst spread out three large grainy photos on the DD’s desk.

  “We just got these in from Holyhead, off of the ferry from Dublin.” She pointed at what looked like three men in a car; a driver and the other two in the rear seat. All were clearly trying to avoid having their pictures taken.

  “These two,” she pointed to the men in the rear seat, “Have come up hot.” She paused for effect and looked to the DD for some affirmation.

  “Go on,” the DD encouraged indulgently. The DD tried to remember the analyst’s name.


  “Low level FSB heavies,” the analyst continued. “The kind of thugs they bring in for dirty business. Not wet jobs but enforcing compliance through beatings and so forth.”

  The DD was now alert. It was not uncommon for the SVR, FSB or GRU to mete out punishment and retribution to those Russians living abroad who had displeased the Motherland. Even when those émigré Russians were supposed to be under the protection of their adoptive countries. The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal had happened on her predecessor’s watch.

  “Any other chatter to suggest why they’re here and how did the Garda miss them in Dublin?” Patel, her name is Patel the DD remembered.

  “No chatter yet, ma’am, but we’re monitoring. As for the Garda, it looks like the Russians came in on a private flight and then went straight on to the ferry terminal. Still, they should have been flagged at least by airport passport control.”

  “I’ll have a word with our Irish friends later as they clearly dropped the ball on this one. Let’s not do the same here,” continued the DD. “Private jet. I don’t like the sound of that. Suggests speed which suggests something is up, Ms Patel. Let’s find out what.”

  Patel nodded.

  “The bloody Kremlin is always sensitive to criticism,” continued the DD. “They’re jailing and beating their domestic critics and even assassinating a few. And now it looks like there’s an uptick in their international suppression campaigns; interfering with the domestic political elections of NATO countries, running fake news campaigns, and intimidating Russian nationals living in the UK and abroad. Do we think they have anyone in the crosshairs?”

  Patel shook her head. “Nothing really, ma’am. Although the exiled journalist Daria Kirov is still very vocal and visible.”

  The DD nodded, “Still refusing official protection?”

  “Yes, says she knows how to look after herself.”

  The DD snorted. “Typical arrogant Russian. Litvinenko and Skripal were experienced intelligence operatives and still Moscow Centre got to them rather easily, too easily I’m afraid.” She held up the pictures again. Russian heavies. “Let’s get a track on them; traffic cameras, CCTV, I want to know where they go, who they meet with, and why the bloody hell they are here? Grab a couple of analysts to help you and keep me informed. If they stop for a shit on the M6, I want to hear about it, understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Patel said, rather excited by the assignment and the prospect of heading up a team.

  Good kid, the DD thought, as Patel left her office. But what the hell is going on; FSB, FSK, SVR, GRU, KGB, NKVD, SMERSH lots of changing initials but still the same bunch of brutal bastards.

  “Not on my watch,” she said to herself.

  The deputy director returned to her computer and refreshed the football result. There was another knock on her door, “what now,” she thought but switched the screen again and smiled as another analyst came into her room.

  “Sorry to disturb, ma’am,” the analyst, male, middle aged, pushing retirement, announced. “Not a big issue, perhaps, but we just confirmed that a Canadian Military Intelligence officer named Jacques Gagnon entered Heathrow yesterday and is staying at a London hotel.”

  “On official business?” the DD asked.

  “No, ma’am, unauthorised and unreported as far as we can tell.”

  The DD thought for a moment, “Call Ottawa. Let’s see if signals were crossed or if they know what the hell is going on with this Gagnon. And, get me all the info we and Six have on Gagnon. Especially, any Russian connection.”

  The analyst nodded and quietly left the DD’s office. The DD sighed, “Russians and Canadians, what the hell is going on,” she said to herself. “Coincidence? I think not.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brighton, January 10th

  Daria Kirov seldom took the same roads home. She alternated her routes and the times she travelled. She changed her home address frequently and no longer had a permanent office, preferring to work in coffee shops, pubs, and libraries with good Wi-Fi. She attempted to memorise the faces of strangers and car number plates, and was alert to persons or vehicles that appeared out of place. She wasn’t just a highly observant journalist; she was considered by the Kremlin as an enemy of the state. Her reporting on Chechnya, the Ukraine, and domestic suppression had led to threats and intimidation, at least one beating, numerous arrests, and what she considered to be an assassination attempt through poisoning. Even now as she took her Honda CB300R up to forty miles per hour along the almost empty road meandering through an industrial park on Brighton’s outskirts, she constantly scanned the road behind her through her motorbike’s handlebar mirrors.

  She was anxious to get home, at least to her temporary home, a small rented cottage in the Sussex village of Ditchling, after a meeting with her agent. Her agent had good news; a major British newspaper and a French magazine had agreed to publish a new series of articles Daria was already preparing concerning the further revocation of press freedoms in Russia. An Irish daily was also expressing interest in publishing her work. The commissions would keep her solvent for the year but, more importantly, she thought, it would keep the issue of the Kremlin’s increased authoritarianism in the forefront of the world’s press. She felt rather pleased.

  Daria stepped up a gear and took the 300cc bike up to fifty miles per hour as the road emerged into almost empty countryside. Although she was dressed warmly under her leathers she wanted to get back to her cottage and warm up in front of its small fireplace. The difficulty of motorcycle riding through a British winter was offset by the sense of personal security she felt on the bike. She felt more anonymous in leathers and helmet, liked the bike’s immediate speed and manoeuvrability that gave her confidence that, if needed, she could outrun any car. She was alone for most of her eight-mile journey. Daria swung right at a crossroads in the tiny village of Tovey moving away from Ditchling, checking no one was behind her. Then she noticed a grey Ford Fiesta appear in her mirrors. She knew it could have only pulled out of the dead-end lane she had passed on her left. She was suspicious and accelerated so the Fiesta quickly disappeared from her mirrors. Daria pulled a fast right, leaning expertly into the curve. She accelerated past sixty miles per hour on the country lane leaning into a sharp left-hand hairpin and hit seventy on a straight. The country lane emerged onto a larger B road. Daria crossed it, again moving away from Ditchling only slowing down as she hit the outskirts of the small town of Hassocks. She zigged and zagged through a few outlying streets ensuring that there was no Fiesta on her tail before finally turning right on the connecting road that ran into her home village.

  The rest of her short trip was uneventful. She reached her home and parked the bike behind the cottage so that it would be unseen from the road. She went inside her cottage and immediately upstairs. She stood in her road-facing bedroom observing the quiet street from behind the room’s net curtains. No grey Ford Fiesta crawled past, just a tired-looking middle-aged man who didn’t even glance at the cottage. Daria stepped away from the curtain. She sat on her bed, pulled out her laptop from her backpack and began to search for short term home rentals.

  Lost in Hassocks, a few miles away from Daria’s cottage, the driver of the Fiesta pulled into the curb to await instructions. He was one of four FSB drivers out that morning patrolling the roads leading into Ditchling. He had radioed in his sighting and then one of the other FSB drivers had picked Kirov up on the Hassocks to Ditchling road. Shadowed her, saw the bike slow down and was adroit enough to follow on foot to see Daria wheel the bike behind a cottage. The information had been relayed to the team and all but one began to program their GPS units for a return to London. One surveillance team would stay in the area. The Fiesta driver hit ‘home’ on his GPS and smiled to himself, “We got the bitch. Colonel Kamenev will be most pleased.” He put his car in gear and he too drove away.

  Russian Embassy

  Kamenev ended the call on his secure desk phone and smiled with self-satisfaction. So, afte
r weeks of searching, his team had finally found the slippery Kirov woman. She was another traitor, no surprise as she wore a traitor’s name. Kamenev knew the story; Sergei Kirov, Stalin’s chosen man in Leningrad, was assassinated by a mysterious gunman. Although Stalin denied complicity, it was he who benefitted from his potential rival’s death, even using it to purge the party of those less than true believers. Kamenev smiled as his poured a cup of hot tea from the traditional samovar that graced his office credenza. He respected the work of Stalin and Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD, a forerunner to his own organisation. The NKVD were devoted to the party, to the state, and especially to the man who ruled it and Kamenev felt a kindred spirit with them.

  Kamenev was totally devoted to the former KGB man who now ruled from the Kremlin. Putin had returned a pride to the country and had won the country a new degree of international respect. Kamenev liked the feeling that Russia was once again a great power, one with influence, one to be feared and if the ephemeral trappings of democracy and a free press had been sacrificed to attain Russia’s rightful place in the world, then so be it. Russians liked to be ruled by a strong man who possessed an iron fist. Ms Kirov, who had been tireless in her opposition to the Kremlin, would soon be crushed by that iron fist of the Motherland. The prospect gave Kamenev a sense of joy. There was a knock on his door and a small, pretty, red-headed woman entered.