Tom smiled slightly, “Well after a few beers and some big talk about slotting him, we actually decided that we were going to attempt to get eyes on Zalkind, confirm his identity as Kamenev, and then Gagnon would use his intelligence connections to bring you guys in.”
Tom stared, at the DD, “Wait a moment, how did you know he’s a Colonel?”
“We’ve been aware of his presence for some time. Were you involved in the fight?”
“No. It happened after I had left. Gagnon called me from his hotel after the fight. Said he’d been jumped in an alley. Had beaten one guy badly and stabbed another in a quick knife fight. He had been stabbed so I went over to see if I could help and to accelerate our involving the security services as this whole thing was clearly getting out of hand. At the hotel, as I got off the lift on Gagnon’s floor, I saw a small woman, red hair, dressed as a hotel maid in the door of a room, clearly raise a pistol. You know the rest.”
Tom leaned forward and held the DD’s gaze. “Look,” Tom continued. “I’m worried about my…” what was Nia? “… my friend, err, my girlfriend.” He winced when he said it. “Zalkind may have used her to find a link to me and to Gagnon. If so, she could be in some danger.”
“Nia Williams is perfectly safe,” the DD answered. “We had the local plod out to the filmset this morning. And one of our lads is on set now. No worries, it’s secure. We think Zalkind, or Kamenev as he is now called, and, possibly, the injured and or dead SVR or FSB men, have already been spirited away. There was some last-minute activity at London City airport early this morning. The embassy filed a hurried flight plan to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport. Private jet flew in and left later this morning. All this was accompanied by what appears to have been an increase in embassy chatter.”
“So, you know of Kamenev?” Tom said trying to disguise some of the anger he was beginning to feel.
“Somewhat,” the DD said. “We thought he was low level FSB trying to make connections and contacts in the media world. One of those louche Russians who enjoy hanging out with celebrities, keeping an eye on oligarchs, that kind of thing. But over the last few days we picked up an increase in Russian Embassy chatter, followed some FSB imported heavies, and then the link to Gagnon and to you, Major Price, became rather obvious in the early hours of this morning.
“We got CCTV tape of Russian Embassy cars at Gagnon’s hotel reversing into the alley, we now assume they were picking up Gagnon’s assailants. We purposefully watched the activity in and out of the embassy. Again, an increase in chatter, a quick filing of flight details occurred at London airport and surveillance followed a couple of embassy cars that later headed out to London airport. Two chaps went up the air-steps into the jet. A large bag, which we think probably contained a body, went into the hold.”
“So, Gagnon did kill the Russian?” Tom asked, feeling sick.
“It’s what we’re assuming,” the DD noted. “But we’re pretty convinced that it was self-defence. We don’t intend to pursue the situation any further,” she added with a gentle smile.
“And Zalkind’s, what, safe in Moscow?” Tom asked.
“I’m afraid so,” the DD answered with genuine empathy. “Again, we’re assuming that it’s too hot for him in London and that he’s been recalled to Moscow. I’m sure his reception at Moscow Centre will be anything but pleasant. We’ll ask for the suspension of his diplomatic immunity and extradition back to the UK as a person of interest in a violent altercation outside of a London hotel,” she sighed. “But we know the Russians will refuse. They don’t extradite their own citizens. Let alone an intelligence officer.”
Tom grimaced.
“But,” the DD continued, “He’s now on our radar, and on our allies’ radar, too. He won’t be able to show his face, whatever face he has now, so his usefulness to the SVR and FSB has been much reduced. Plus, as you may know, Major Price, we have long memories. He ordered the killing of one of our own so we, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Canadians, and the CIA will be very alert to the whereabouts of Zalkind or Kamenev or what the hell he’ll call himself. He’s a marked man.”
“Somehow, I don’t feel that’s enough.”
“No, but it’s the reality of the situation,” the DD continued. “Worse, perhaps, is that Gagnon, probably will be a marked man. I’m sure he’ll now be looking for a new career after his home service deal with him. You too, Major Price, may now be a person of interest to the Russians. I wouldn’t plan any trips over there if I were you.”
Tom grasped the reality of the situation. “Shit,” he said.
“Shit indeed,” the DD added.
***
Outside of Ditchling
Daria Kirov made sure there were no cars in front or behind her, nor any pedestrians around when she turned her motorbike into the lane from where the Fiesta had emerged previously. She was nervous as she knew it was a dead end and she could be trapped. She hoped that there would be at least a gate or two which would offer a possibility of egress and escape across farmers’ fields if necessary. She slowed the bike and raised her visor while still constantly scanning her rear-view mirrors. She reached the end of the lane and slowed the bike to a crawl. Daria noticed tyre tracks in the mud close to the verge of hedgerows that lined the lane. More telling, she observed, was the pile of fresh cigarette butts. In her mind’s eye she saw a Russian waiting in the car smoking, like all FSB or SVR men did, waiting for some signal to pull out of the lane to follow her as she sped past. Her heart raced, she was convinced that her location, and therefore her very safety, had been compromised.
Daria turned the bike around. She pulled a phone from one of her jacket’s numerous zipped pockets. She dialled a number and waited for the innocuous automated response that would convince most members of the public that they had misdialled. Daria, however, spoke loudly and quickly. “I need to talk to Patel and quickly,” she said. She replaced the phone, gunned the Honda’s motor and accelerated out of the lane and onto the adjoining B road.
Thames House
The deputy director sat at her desk digesting the morning’s worth of heavy work. Something she couldn’t quite put a finger on continued to niggle her. She sat up as if mildly shocked. She went to her door, opened it and called across the hive of cubicles for Patel. The DD liked to preserve a sense of the personal contact rather than summoning one of her team by email, text, or IM. Patel entered quickly.
“Do you have notes from the Price conversation?” asked the DD.
Patel retrieved her laptop, “Yes, ma’am.”
“How did Price describe the assassin at Gagnon’s hotel?”
Patel scrolled quickly cross her laptop. “As a small red-haired woman,” Patel answered.
“I’ve come across that description before. Can you pull up the reports on the suspicious death of that Russian journalist in Tel Aviv Rabinovich, Viktor Rabinovich?”
Patel searched through her laptop. She looked up, “Petite, pretty, red-headed woman, possibly Irish.”
“And Gagnon also described the hotel shooter as…?”
A click-clack of laptop keys. “Err, pretty, red-headed, and Scottish,” Patel responded.
The DD leant forward. “Patel this keeps getting better and better. We have a bloody Russian hit squad operating in London again. Those brazen bastards. Get me all the intel on suspected Russian assassinations of their exiles and a list of their potential targets in the UK. And be quick about it. This is top priority.”
“Errr, ma’am, I just got a call from one of our Russian exiles, Daria Kirov, the journalist.”
“Go on,” the DD said.
“She thinks she was followed. She’s been super savvy, ma’am, more so after Skripal. Basically, took herself off the grid and went underground. If she thinks she was followed, she probably was.”
The DD thought for a moment. “The redhead in Tel Aviv purported to be a journalist, yeah? Let’s get a team over to wherever the hell Ms Kirov is; quietly,” the DD ordered. “And, Patel, let’
s make sure it’s an A1 team.”
“Yes, ma’am, on it,” Patel replied as she moved towards the door.
The DD didn’t notice Patel leaving the office as, reaching for her desk phone, she contacted her assistant asking him to schedule a meeting with the director general.
Chapter Eighteen
Brecon Beacons, Mid Wales, January 14th
The inn was an old coach house on a road that ran through the middle of moorland. The inn owed its placement to the fact that it was at the way point of a coach horses’ fatigue between the nearest towns of any size. It was a low, heavy stone building with small windows designed to fight off the violent winds that whipped over the moors. It had survived two hundred and fifty years of vicious winds and harsh winters. It was currently surviving a bunch of pretentious actors and a self-important TV film crew. The landlord was grateful for the business. All his rooms were booked, and he was even earning extra money from the crew parking their caravans, lorries and other equipment on his property. And then there was the money he was making from the food and drink. These TV types liked a drink or two. The poor weather, what did they expect from mid January, had delayed the shoot, so he was making almost as much money as he normally did for the entire high tourist season. He stood behind the small bar drying glasses when the first patron came in, ordered a white wine, and settled into a comfortably worn leather high back on the right-hand side of the roaring fireplace. He continued to dry pint glasses while watching her from the corner of his eye. She sipped her wine while she read a book, feet tucked under her body on the chair.
He wasn’t a TV or film buff, but he knew that she was Nia Williams, the Welsh Spitfire. He always liked her as she was Welsh and, he remembered, she used to get her kit off in her younger days. Looked like she still had a decent body, he thought. Ten years and two stone ago, he may have tried to work some charm on her, but he knew, now, that it was not an option. He liked her never-the-less. She was polite and respectful and didn’t treat him as if he was the hired help. She kept to herself and was quiet, liked her books and a glass of wine, so unlike the Nia he used to read about in the News of the World. She looked up from her book and caught the landlord’s eye. She knew he was embarrassed to be caught staring, so she smiled and nodded her head slightly. He smiled back. Yes, he thought, a nice lady.
The landlord had served in the army as a younger man but his postings overseas had only made him long for the cold damp hillsides of home. Since returning to his homeland, he had tended bar and managed pubs across south and mid-Wales for most of his working life. His experiences had made him, he felt, a fine judge of people. He looked over towards Nia and guessed by the way she would check her phone that there was a boyfriend a text away. Mobile reception this high up on the moor was spotty but when Nia received some communication through the ether, the landlord had noticed that she beamed like a lighthouse. Whomever the boyfriend was, he was a lucky fella, the landlord thought. The landlord suspected that Nia’s chap was nicer than the guy, the TV film’s leading actor he’d been told, who constantly pestered her. Speak of the devil, he thought, as the actor came in.
Goldenboy sidled up to the bar and ordered a bourbon without looking at the landlord. He took his glass without a word of appreciation and sat in the chair to the left of the fireplace across from Nia.
“Another rather beastly night,” he said.
Nia looked up from her book.
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a beauty in wild Welsh weather,” she said authoritatively.
Goldenboy watched her for a moment and then laughed.
“Fuck, Nia,” he said. “Really? Already? Oppositional defiance is a disorder you know.”
She sighed and closed her book on her lap.
“No, I mean it,” she said. “Like this afternoon, the way the clouds formed and darkened over the valleys, how the hills became monotone, and everything became still and silent before the wind and the rain kicked up, was beautiful. It was like being at the birth of a storm. In a crucible of meteorological conditions.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Goldenboy began sceptically. “I heard you went for a walk on the hills. Is this some kind of health kick or are you trying to rediscover your Celtic roots? What do you people call that kind of nostalgia?”
“You people?”
“C’mon Nia, you know, the Welsh, the Celts.”
“Hireath,” Nia confirmed. “But it’s not that. It’s just that I like the tranquillity of being in the countryside,” Nia responded, slightly curtly.
Goldenboy laughed. “Nia darling, seriously? You hated quiet. You were always the party girl; you got off on the noise and energy from being around people.”
Nia frowned, “That was a long time ago. I no longer need the party crowd to energise me.”
Goldenboy laughed again but leant forward. He reached out and touched Nia’s left knee.
“God, we had some good times, didn’t we? And, funny you should mention being energized.” He dropped his head, conspiratorially, “I’ve got some first-class blow in my room. We both could get energised like the old days. We could do some of the other things we did in the old days too. What do you say?” he leant back and beamed, displaying perfect teeth.
Nia smiled. “That’s a lovely offer. Thank you. But I haven’t had any coke in fifteen or more years, and if it’s a shagging you’re after then I’d suggest you go back to your room and go fuck yourself.”
“Aw, c’mon Nia. Once or twice for old time’s sake. We were good, weren’t we?”
“No,” Nia stated with a raised voice. “We weren’t and that was a long time ago. Different people, different places.”
“A leopard doesn’t change…”
“This one did,” Nia said. “Look, for the first time in my bloody life, I’m happy. Really content, really happy.” She smiled sweetly but patronisingly, “I’ll work with you but I’m not going to shag you. Now piss off and leave me alone.”
Goldenboy downed the remainder of his bourbon. “Can’t blame a chap for trying, Nia,” he said as he got up. He smiled at her again and purposefully looked her up and down as if he was appraising cattle, “You’ve still got great tits.” It was his attempt at a last word.
“And you’ve still got a small prick,” she said.
Goldenboy laughed. “Nice one,” he said as he left the bar.
At the bar, drying his pint glasses, the landlord smiled. Well done girl, he thought, well done Cariad.
Nia returned to her book but she had been rattled. Being around Goldenboy had evoked memories of a time in her life that she hadn’t actually forgotten but had buried deep, like a time capsule. Now the capsule was opened, she had to revisit events and moments from the past as if they were artifacts. Most were painful, but she had to admit a few were good and happy. Her heart raced. She finished her wine and decided to head back to her room. Like most of the cast, Nia was staying at the inn and she made her way through the bar around the small dining room cum lounge and up steep, narrow stairs to her second-floor room. Her bed was against the room’s exterior facing wall, below a small window, which had been mercifully double-glazed. The low ceiling sloped dramatically towards the window and Nia had to duck as she walked around the room. She held up her phone searching for signal bars.
Nia wanted to talk to Tom. She wanted to hear his voice, take reassurance and comfort in it, to tell him about Goldenboy, about her past, to blather on about her work. And to hear him laugh and tell her that her voice sounded like music. She wanted to tell him that the job was a good one for her and there was already some buzz generated about the quality of the piece. She had been her usual consummate professional self and the authenticity she brought to the role had led to the director and screenwriter expanding her scenes and adding dialogue. But the tabloids were already posting headlines about Goldenboy and Nia. She had prepared Tom for such gossip. Tom had told her that he would ignore it, but she worried about how Tom would react if he read such gossip column bullshit.
“Oh Tom,” she said to herself. “I wish you were here.”
She sat on her bed, grabbed the small pad of paper and pen that rested on the bedside table and began to write a letter.
***
The next morning brought a small break in the weather. There was a gentle mist that had transformed a bright, morning sun into something from a Turner painting. The director liked the light and the almost supernatural feel of the weather and decided to try a location shoot. Nia would be in one long scene. She would appear on the crest of a hill, observing the teacher and his young love interest run across a hassocky sheep meadow into an epic embrace. The longing in her eyes and disappointment across her face would symbolise the cold and passionless old order yearning for what the lovers embraced as the light and energy of modernisation. Nia watched as the crew worked setting up the meadow scene from her mark on the hillside. A drone camera buzzed overhead. The steady-cam operator, who would shoot the close up of Nia’s face, kept her company. She was cold, even though she wore long underwear under her full, heavy period costume of long dark woollen dress, white cotton shirt, serge cape, and a heavy woollen shawl. She was still concerned that she’d shiver on camera. Nia asked the steady-cam operator when he would be ready to shoot the scene. He radioed down to the valley floor to the director. Ten to twenty minutes, he reported to Nia. Nia nodded and turned and walked to the top of the hill. She took out her phone, she had broken the director’s rule that phones were strictly not allowed on set, for an opportunity like this. She had a bar. She called Tom. The call went through, but he didn’t pick up. She left a message. “Tom, I love and miss you,” she said to her phone. “I’d love to see you.” She hesitated, “Maybe could you pop over?”
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