Fit For Purpose

by Julian D. Parrott

  “Sit,” Kamenev said with a smile and motioned to the chair opposite across his desk. “I know you Irish are great lovers of tea, would you care for a cup?”

  “Not if it is that Russian shite,” the unsmiling assassin replied in a broad working-class Dublin accent.

  Kamenev’s smile slipped. He took the afront personally and wanted to slap the woman opposite him but instead took a deep breath, he needed this uncultured woman, she was one of the best.

  “Okay,” he said through a rictus-like fake smile. “Let’s get down to business. The Kirov woman has been found and her literary agent may be interested in getting a meeting with you in your journalist guise. But, before that, I have another job for you.”

  “Oh yes,” the assassin said with real interest.

  “Yes, here in London. And I think you’re going to like it,” Kamenev said.

  The assassin tuned her face slightly, “And why would that be?”

  “Because one of the targets is a former British soldier.”

  The assassin smiled, “I would like that. I’d almost say that I’d do that for free, but I won’t. I’m assuming this will be for my usual fee with the additional tariff for a quick job?”

  Kamenev nodded. He watched a slight smile emerge at the sides of the assassin’s almost clenched lips. He was more than willing to employ her and to work with her, but he didn’t like her. He couldn’t help but wonder what had driven this hard and unpleasant young woman to become a ruthless killer.

  ***

  Gagnon looked at his official phone’s screen after another incessant ‘ping’ of a text. It was his Ottawa office, Canadian Military Intelligence. He ignored the message, the latest in a number of texts and such emails demanding to know what he was doing and to get in contact with his home office or MI5. He buried the phone deep into a coat pocket and slipped out of the hotel’s hidden entrance, put up his heavy winter coat’s collar and eased his way through the small service alley. The FSB man who had observed Gagnon from the alley’s dark corner called in his observation into the embassy. “Yup,” he said to himself. “The Canadian’s not a field agent.”

  Gagnon walked through some busy shopping streets, found a Costa Coffee, he avoided Starbucks when he could, entered and ordered a double espresso. He found a seat and called Tom to reaffirm their meeting time and place. Gagnon had been more perceptive than his tail imagined. With his coffee in front of him on the cafe’s small table he pretended to read the phone while surreptitiously observing the clientele in the busy cafe. Gagnon had thought he spotted a tail in one of the shop front’s reflection. His furtive assessment of his fellow coffee drinkers confirmed it.

  The Russian’s field craft had been good, but Gagnon had spotted him. Most field agents maintained a tell. Gagnon spotted the Russian’s. There is something about operating in the world of secrets, lies and deception that changes a person. It’s like a weight or a worry or a nagging pain. People look different, their faces have expressions not in keeping with their surroundings, their gestures are unnatural or forced, they walk differently as if they are a poor teenage actor in a school play. They’re often unsettled, agitated and nervous and they often appear to change, morphing into a variety of characters, gaits, even accents. Simple things can give them away; the way they look at their wristwatch, the way they pretend to read something on their phones, the way they smoke. At first, Gagnon thought the guy tailing him was maybe MI5, but the suit and the shoes screamed something else. They were too formal, slightly ill fitting, too out of place. Like the guy was foreign, not Canadian or American foreign, Gagnon knew, but middle European foreign. He called Tom back suggesting a change of venue for their meeting.

  Gagnon continued to exercise his basic field craft as he made his way back to his hotel. He glanced at people he passed on the street suspiciously, seeing enemy agents in the faces of the uniformed schoolboys laughing at what they viewed on a phone, of the young Asian mum pushing a pram, on the face of the elderly postman done with his shift. Gagnon used shop window reflections and naturalistic backwards glances to check on his tail. He moved in and out of shops, he occasionally stopped to tie shoelaces. He was cautiously convinced that he had lost the original tail and not picked up a new one. Gagnon walked past the hotel’s service alley, stopped, looked behind him, didn’t see an obvious tail and ducked back into the alley. The access door was unlocked, and Gagnon slipped back into the hotel. He worked his way through the service corridors until he emerged in a public area.

  The tall Canadian made his way to the check-in area and saw a concierge wearing a morning suit with golden keys on his lapel. Gagnon asked the concierge to order a taxi and have it pick him up discreetly. The clever concierge organised two taxis, one for Gagnon, the other to block any potential tail car. Gagnon laughed as his taxi took off and the second following taxi pulled out across the lane of traffic and stalled. Gagnon looked behind him and smiled again. With his back safe, he looked forward to meeting with Tom.

  The taxi made its way through central and tourist London and out into an old, unfashionable neighbourhood. The taxi circled around the block, stopping on a quiet street in front of a small pub. A Land Rover Defender was parked on the other side of the street. Gagnon paid the taxi driver, added a large tip and entered the pub. He saw Tom leaning against the small bar, the only patron in the pub. They hugged.

  “Jacques,” Tom said.

  “Good to see you, brother,” Gagnon responded.

  Tom ordered a beer for his Canadian ally and they moved to sit at a small, round table. They took long draughts of their beers and talked about Gagnon’s flight, the worrying experience with the tail, and what tactics to take with Zalkind/Kamenev. Gagnon ordered another round and returned to the table with two pints in his hand, “I think I told you in Afghan that if I ever came across that Russian bastard that I’d give him the bad news, that I’d kill him,” Gagnon said.

  “Jacques, mate, but this is London. We can’t go around slotting anyone here even if they are low life bastards like Zalkind,” Tom implored. “I thought we could go to MI5 or MI6 and if that didn’t result in some kind of action, then maybe the press.”

  “The intelligence services won’t do anything,” Gagnon tutted. “I know, because I work for one of them. I have a kitchen knife in my belt, if I see him, I’ll go for him.”

  Tom looked deep into his friend’s face and then smirked, “C’mon Jacques let’s think seriously about this.”

  They drank their beers. Tom got another round. They ordered some pub food. They talked about Zalkind and they eventually agreed that they would call MI5 in the morning. If there is any slotting to be done, they decided, they’d leave it up to the spooks of Thames House. The topic of conversations moved beyond the Russian. Gagnon talked enthusiastically about turning his dissertation into a book. Tom responded that his next book would still be about journeying along British waterways. Another round relaxed Tom and he mentioned Nia and his depth of feeling for her. Gagnon expressed an interest in meeting her and wondered, half seriously, whether she had a sister. At last orders, they left, both a little wobbly, by separate taxis to different hotels. Tom planned to return in the morning to pick up his vehicle, probably after they had secured an interview with MI5. Tom’s taxi dropped him off at his hotel, but Gagnon had his move past his hotel before dropping him off. Pleased with his rudimentary field craft, the Canadian doubled back around the street and entered the alley from the opposite side. He was buzzed and overconfident.

  Gagnon was aware of his mistake as soon as he entered the hotel’s service alley. Two men, one he recognised as his earlier tail stepped out of the shadows next to a full skip and approached him. The first man smiled but it wasn’t genuine. Gagnon read his facial expression as a mask of deception but then it turned worse, it began to read violence. The man’s smile had turned into a sneer.

  “Dr Gagnon,” the accent was Russian. “You’ll be pleased to accompany me.” He made a gesture that was clearly meant to suggest
he was armed. Both Russians closed on Gagnon, crowding him, one was so close that Gagnon could smell his rather unpleasant breath.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you guys,” Gagnon said and pushed the first Russian. The man immediately approached again, and Gagnon lowered his six-foot five frame and headbutted the FSB man across the bridge of the nose. The Russian put his hands up to his face as blood gushed between the fingers of the cupped hands over his nose, he groaned and staggered into the alley. Gagnon turned quickly to face the second man who was reaching into his coat. Gagnon was surprised when the hand that came from the coat held an evil looking knife rather than a gun. Gagnon smiled and pulled the paring knife from a jury-rigged cardboard scabbard from under his belt at the base of his spine.

  “You want to do this, fucker?” Gagnon asked, again smiling with a confidence he didn’t really feel.

  The Russian smiled back, showing surprisingly good teeth, and moved towards Gagnon. Gagnon felt himself being grabbed from behind. He immediately thrust his head back connecting again with the first Russian’s already broken nose. This time, the Russian groaned in pain and went down and stayed down. Gagnon swung to face the knife man, saw the blade a moment too late and felt it sting across his chest. Instinctively he thrust his own knife somewhat blindly up and out towards his attacker just as the Russian tumbled into him. The Russian held him as if initiating a hug, and Gagnon heard a low grunt and gurgle and watched the FSB man’s eyes appear to turn opaque with death. Gagnon let the Russian drop onto the alley’s wet and dirty concrete.

  Everything happened so quickly, Gagnon didn’t have time to think. His chest burned and his hand returned covered in blood after he touched it to his breast. The knife wound on his chest made a deep breath painful, but he realised that he’d been lucky as the knife had glanced off a rib and had not pierced a lung. The Russian, however, had not been so lucky. Gagnon’s knife strike had been quick, luckily accurate, and fatal. The Russian had fallen to his knees almost immediately and was dead by the time he toppled forward on to his face. Even as an analyst, Gagnon had received some field training, and even while he tried to clear his head, some of the training had taken over. He quickly went through the man’s pockets lifting his wallet, phone, pocket litter and his watch. Gagnon moved to the first Russian, but he was coming around. Gagnon stood up and a deep breath reminded him of the pain in his chest. He decided to move. He needed to confirm his attackers had been SRV, FSB, or GRU, clean up, see to the wound, from which he could feel the blood seeping through his coat, and inform the authorities.

  Gagnon tidied himself up. He used his scarf as a crude chest bandage and, with a quick last look down the alley to where the Russians lay behind the skip, walked as nonchalantly as possible to a more populated and better lit street and turned and walked to the front entrance of his hotel. He passed the check-in counter and the patrons that always seem to be hanging out in the foyer as quickly and nonchalantly as he could. He made it to his room before collapsing onto the bathroom floor. He wound a towel around his chest and called Tom on his burner phone.

  Gagnon sat in a hot bath whilst his blood pinked the water. He went through the Russian’s wallet. He was relieved, the attacker’s documents clearly suggested he was a foreign agent of some sort not some unfortunate mugger. Gagnon guessed FSB. The Russian’s UK driver’s licence was good but a fake, suggesting he had been in the country only a short time. Gagnon wondered why he had been followed, how did the Russian know his name, why had the FSB dispatched heavies, possibly trained assassins, from outside of its London station to case him? Given the clothes, it looked like the Russian had come directly from Europe.

  Gagnon dressed the shallow knife wound and bagged his bloody and torn clothes and the towels he had used to staunch his wound. He called the front desk asking for a couple of additional towels. He planned to dispose of the most heavily bloodstained towels in waste bins outside of the hotel. He then packed his things. He felt dead tired. The adrenaline rush of the fight, of being alive, was dissipating, leaving him feeling smothered in fatigue. He went through the events in his mind as an after-action report. He had formed a sense of the narrative he’d share with MI5 when there was a knock on his door. He placed a towel over his wound and tightened a hotel robe around him.

  He expected it was Tom. Gagnon reached for the doorknob, then hesitated.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Room service, sir,” replied a young female voice in a thick Scottish accent. “Dropping off more towels.”

  Gagnon looked through the door’s peephole and could make out a young woman in a maid’s uniform holding a stack of towels, a chambermaid’s cart directly behind her.

  He opened the door to the young woman who was small, pretty and red-headed and looked good in her tight uniform. She held a pile of towels in her arms. She had a sweet smile. As Gagnon approached, she squeezed the trigger of the suppressed Walther PPK/S she was concealing among the towels. The nine-millimetre bullet caught Gagnon high above the left breast. He fell back into the room. The woman moved in quickly, she kicked the door behind her, but it failed to catch and close. She approached Gagnon who was prostrate on the floor gasping for breath. The assassin was disappointed with herself. She had meant to shoot him in the heart but had missed by a centimetre or two. She dropped the towels and took aim for a shot to the head to be sure this time. Tom entered the room at a run and barrelled into the woman. She fell across Gagnon and rolled to her right before she sprang up on her feet still holding the gun. She fired at Tom without aiming. The bullet passed above his right shoulder and thundered into the plaster and brick behind him. She swivelled towards the Canadian and fired once again at the prostrate Gagnon. The big Canadian reflexively rolled to his right. The bullet dug into the floor a few centimetres from his forehead. Tom dove into the redhead’s midriff and they crashed to the floor heavily together. This time, the assassin dropped the Walther. Tom saw the gun before she did and reached for it. As his hand grasped for the Walther the assassin kicked him in the stomach. Tom was still able to grab the pistol and he rolled onto his back bringing the gun up towards the red-headed killer. She dove, rolling again through the open doorway then turned and ran down the hotel’s corridor and was gone.

  Tom closed and locked the door and then knelt next to Gagnon. He felt for a pulse. Stronger than he had expected. He noticed the knife wound while using more towels to staunch the bleeding gunshot wound.

  “My friend,” Tom said. “What the bloody hell have you been doing?”

  Gagnon grunted. Tom called for an ambulance and the police. He waited impatiently for their arrival so Gagnon could get professional attention, knowing that he would undoubtedly be the police’s prime suspect. His bloody fingerprints would now be on the Walther. He thought about calling MI5, he thought about calling Nia, but he made neither call. Two young but experienced paramedics arrived quickly. They knelt next to Gagnon and began working on him. Tom moved back allowing the paramedics to do their work, he noticed a tattoo on one of the paramedic’s forearm’s.

  “Military?” Tom asked.

  “Yes mate. RAF Regiment,” the paramedic replied without looking up.

  “The guy on the ground did four tours in Afghan,” Tom said. “Take care of him.”

  The paramedic looked up, “No worries mate, we’ve seen a lot of bullet and stab wounds both there and here. He’s in good hands.” He gave a quick smile. “He’ll pull through.”

  Tom felt a massive sense of relief. He sat on the floor with his back to the wall. He watched the paramedic’s work on Gagnon and too many memories came flooding back. He smelt blood, cordite and desert. He hadn’t noticed the police enter the room nor heard their first questions.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Russian Embassy, January 14th

  Kamenev was puce with anger. He took a huge gulp from a tall glass of ice-cold vodka. He hadn’t had vodka for breakfast since his time in Afghanistan. The evening had been a litany of disaster. His surveillanc
e team had overstepped and precipitated a street brawl where the damn Canadian had killed one of the FSB men and beaten the other. Then his most trusted and experienced contract assassin, for the first time, missed her target and, worse, was eyeballed, reducing her future utility. Kamenev had spent the dark morning hours arranging the exit, via London’s City Airport, for his walking wounded. However, he had cannily used the opportunity to appear to also leave the country himself. He had made sure he was seen entering the aircraft but a quick change into a mechanic’s overalls, a wig and a peaked cap pulled low over his eyes had made him virtually invisible as he left the jet with other ground crew personnel. He travelled back from City Airport hidden in the back of an embassy Range Rover.

  Back at his desk, Kamenev had spoken with Moscow Centre. Their anger and disappointment had been made abundantly clear. His career was on the line. He was ordered to expedite the Kirov mission. Snatching her was no longer an option, the mission now was a straightforward assassination. It didn’t need to be clever, kill her and get his team safely out of the UK. Her death would send yet another ripple of fear and anxiety among the Russian exile community and Moscow Centre would simply deny involvement. Kamenev was ordered to personally be on scene to supervise and then to return to Moscow immediately after the mission’s conclusion.