Secret Service

by Tom Bradby

  And that was very, very nearly true. When she thought of him even now, she could still feel a twinge of the ache that had gnawed away at her that summer. She’d certainly lusted after him: with his dark stubble, blue eyes and steady gaze, he was nothing if not handsome. But it was worse than that. He had a droll, laconic sense of humour and made her laugh, more than anyone before or since. More even than Stuart. Slowly, inexorably, she had come to accept that she loved him.

  Lucy, predictably enough, had told her to go ahead and roll in the hay with Sergei. ‘The Russians must have more hay than they know what to do with,’ she’d said. ‘And you only live once.’

  But she wasn’t her mother. And since she was already committed to Stuart, that summer had been about proving it. It was the last time she’d ever asked her mother’s advice, and on the plane home, she had pushed Sergei forcefully from her mind – right up until the moment she’d bumped into him at the reception at the US ambassador’s London residence.

  He hadn’t changed much. His languid lopsided smile was as ready as it had ever been. A wife and mother now, she’d felt no more than a pleasant hint of the old glow, and they had reminisced happily for half an hour about their time in St Petersburg and the turns life had taken since. He had joined the foreign service, he said, and been posted to Hanoi, then Washington, between long periods chained to a desk in Moscow. He’d never married. ‘Your fault,’ he’d told her, with an easy laugh. ‘You broke my heart.’

  Kate had considered the encounter no more than a pleasant interlude until the letters had started arriving. There had been four in total, written in his unmistakable flowing hand and accompanied by a clear instruction to burn upon reading. The first two had been full of relatively inconsequential information, but the third had directed her towards a chain of secret companies controlled via a Swiss lawyer by two of the Russian president’s closest friends. And then the tip-off that Igor’s super-yacht was a meeting place for the power brokers of Russia’s intelligence elite in early autumn each year – a place to meet up, plot and gossip, away from the eyes and ears of Moscow Centre.

  She might well have set up the operation anyway, or something like it – Igor and Mikhail had long been targets – but she had to admit it was doubtful she would have pushed it through so hard and so fast without Sergei’s impetus.

  All of which left her with Sir Alan’s questions: why had he done this? What were his motives?

  The truth was she trusted him, as absurd as that would sound were she to articulate it anywhere beyond the confines of her own head. Lovers they might not have been in the physical sense, but she knew every fibre of him. He’d done it for her.

  And it had worked. Without the knowledge of the prime minister’s condition, she would undoubtedly have put it under Ian’s heading of misinformation, but how else could the Russians have known such an intimate secret were it not for a source – or sources – close to the heart of the British establishment?

  Kate stayed in her office until close to midnight, and left with a strict instruction to Rav that he should stay no longer, which she knew he would ignore.

  In the lobby, she caught sight of a familiar figure. ‘Rose …’

  Her aunt turned. ‘Kate, my dear …’

  ‘You’re here late.’

  ‘C wanted something. And what he wants, he gets.’

  ‘He’s just been on my case, too.’

  ‘Yes … I don’t know what’s going on. Something’s got to him.’ She clasped Kate’s hand. ‘How are things on the top floor?’

  ‘Ian bats his little-boy-lost eyes at our political masters and everyone else has to watch their backs. Alan will prevail, but it’s like watching a tired old lion trying to keep the pack’s most ravenous cub at bay. Ian makes no attempt to hide how much he wants it, these days.’

  ‘But he won’t get it. He’s cut too many corners, and that will come back to haunt him.’ Rose’s smile lit her penetrating blue eyes and handsome features. ‘But, most important of all, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, fine.’ It occurred to Kate as she said it that she had no idea whether that was true. ‘I think.’

  ‘Jane mentioned you were looking for me.’

  ‘Oh, yes. It wasn’t urgent. Something that didn’t quite chime from way back. If I gave you a name, I wondered if you’d be able check if someone was ever on the books.’

  ‘I think the most honest answer is that it depends.’ Rose looked towards the entrance. Kate had the sense that her aunt knew exactly what she was talking about, even if she was pretending that she didn’t.

  ‘I’ll pop down at some point.’

  ‘Of course. Any time.’

  As they made their way towards the security portals, Kate tried to convince herself that her aunt was not being deliberately evasive.

  ‘Stuart called me this afternoon,’ Rose said quietly.

  ‘Oh, yes? What about?’

  ‘Your mother.’

  ‘One of our favourite subjects at the moment.’

  ‘He’s right, you know.’ Rose touched Kate’s shoulder. ‘You’re not your mother and you never will be. You need to see her for what she is: a difficult and damaged woman, who deserves our pity, not our anger.’

  ‘I’m her daughter. I can change what I think, perhaps, but what I feel is a different matter. I suspect pity is out of reach.’

  ‘Well, I’m here for you if you need me.’ Rose took Kate in her arms and, for a moment, in the warmth of her embrace, Kate found herself close to tears. ‘Come down to us for a weekend,’ Rose said. ‘I haven’t seen the children for far too long.’

  ‘The way they’re behaving, you won’t want to.’

  ‘They’re great kids and charm itself with us. So you must be doing something right.’ Rose kissed her niece and strode out into the night.

  Stuart was sitting on the edge of their bed, hunched over his iPad. She was at his shoulder before he noticed her, and he almost jumped out of his skin. ‘Christ,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Don’t do what?’

  ‘That spy shit. Save it for the day job.’

  Kate was taken aback. He looked startled. Guilty, even.

  He clicked off the iPad and put it on his chair. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You gave me a shock.’

  ‘Why did I give you a shock?’

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘You look like someone caught in the act of emailing his mistress.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He got up and went into the bathroom. ‘I should be so lucky. Where have you been?’

  ‘I have to go away in the morning.’

  He came out again, toothbrush in hand, foaming at the mouth. ‘Why?’

  ‘Sir Alan thought I deserved an all-expenses-paid holiday.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘An op.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Greece.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘I just did.’

  Stuart went back into the bathroom and completed his nightly regime more noisily than he needed to. It didn’t take a genius to spot that he was spoiling for a fight when he returned. Kate knew she had overplayed her hand.

  ‘When did you find out you were going to Athens?’

  ‘I didn’t say I was going to Athens.’

  ‘Well, through Athens, I assume. Don’t split hairs.’

  Suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness, she dropped her bag on the chair and sank on to the bed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have called. We have something quite big going on, and new intelligence came through earlier this evening.’

  ‘You can’t go.’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘You can’t. Whether or not you approve of what I’m up to, the next few days are critical for Imogen’s campaign. I can drop the kids at school in the morning and probably pick them up, but I can’t be tied to the house in the evenings.’


  ‘Fi will keep an eye on Gus for a few hours.’

  ‘Who’s going to feed them?’

  Kate gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘You knew it was going to be like this, Stuart. We talked it all through. You agreed to—’

  ‘I agreed to do my level best to support you.’

  ‘Look, maybe I could delay my departure to the second flight tomorrow, so I can take them to school …’

  Stuart circled around her. It was not a good sign. ‘Is this to do with national security or your own personal ambition?’

  ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’

  ‘All right, then. It’s standard Service advice that one’s closest relative can be briefed on some detail of one’s activity in order to share its burden. Or words to that effect. That’s the deal, isn’t it? So what the fuck are you doing in Greece that can’t be done the week after next?’

  ‘Investigating a serious and credible attempt to undermine British democracy during this leadership election.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘We bugged a boat and overheard some major Russian intelligence officials cooking up something horrifying.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘A significant attempt to undermine and corrupt our democracy.’

  ‘Come off it, Kate. We’re doing a pretty good job of undermining our so-called democracy all by ourselves. Which is why I’m doing what I’m doing, by the way. A few spotty wankers in Vladivostok posting crap on Twitter is hardly a global conspiracy.’

  ‘You’re right. But the possibility that one of the candidates for the leadership is a Russian spy isn’t so easily dismissed.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘We don’t know. Yet. That’s what we’re trying to work out.’

  For the first time she could remember, Stuart seemed not to know how to respond. He got into bed and turned over.

  ‘When did you buy a new iPad?’ Kate asked.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m really sorry – I knocked yours on to the kitchen floor this morning and cracked the glass. But you’ve got a new one.’

  There was a momentary silence. ‘The office swapped it.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was an office one. I wouldn’t have worried so much.’

  ‘I asked them to fix it. They loaned me another in the meantime.’

  ‘Christ, some government departments are freer with their cash than others.’

  ‘Go to sleep, Kate.’ He switched off the light.

  She had little choice but to swallow her resentment and get undressed in the dark. She went to the bathroom and took a long, hard look at herself in the mirror. Then she switched off the light and sat on the toilet to try to calm down.

  Stuart could be a grumpy git on occasion, but he had a point. She should have called him earlier. His willingness to hold the fort at short notice, at random moments, was more remarkable than perhaps it should have been.

  She went back into their room, got into bed and tried to sleep, without success. The iPad loomed. Had his department really supplied a new one at the drop of a hat? That wasn’t her experience of government procurement. And why had he been so startled when she’d appeared at his shoulder?

  She tossed and turned and tried to think about other things, but the doubt kept nagging. She retrieved Stuart’s new iPad from beneath his sweater, left him snoring, and took it down to the kitchen. She said hello to Nelson and made herself a cup of herbal tea.

  Pretty much anyone could have cracked Stuart’s passcode, since he only ever remembered his own birthday. He’d never have made any kind of spy.

  Once in, she glanced through his emails and texts. Weirdly, months of archived texts appeared, and not just those sent through iMessage, but nothing of any interest. She accessed his WhatsApp exchanges with Imogen and scrolled down and down. Nothing to set the alarm bells ringing there either. Just endless discussions about MPs and ministers who might or might not be joining the cause, policy ideas, media enquiries, the procedural tedium that one would expect of a professional relationship between a politician and a trusted aide.

  Kate went back upstairs, replaced the iPad and slipped into bed. This time, finally, she slept.

  13

  The journey to Andros was longer than she’d bargained for. They flew into Athens International, hired a car and drove to Rafina, a sleepy port just south of the capital. They shared beer, pitta and Greek salad in a taverna on the quay and sunned themselves at the water’s edge as they waited for the ferry. When it arrived, the port burst into life with the organized chaos that is the hallmark of so much of Greek life. They waited their turn at the back of a long queue. ‘Do you think the fact we have a ticket for this ferry will make any difference?’ Rav asked.

  ‘No.’

  They got on, just when it looked as if they might not, and Kate was preparing to argue the toss with the men waving cars and lorries forward. They locked the car and went to catch the sun on the upper deck. As the ferry cast off and steamed away, Kate watched the mainland dwindle into the distance, lost for a while in pleasant memories of a childhood holiday when her father, Aunt Rose and her husband had taken Kate away without her mother. She couldn’t remember which island they’d visited, the memory little more than an imprint of sound, scent and colour, with a rare feeling of happiness and contentment.

  Rav came over and insisted on briefing Kate on his trawl through the company accounts of James Ryan’s security business. It had managed to rack up losses of almost a quarter of a million pounds in three years on a very modest turnover, before it was wound up. He’d then acted as a consultant for a while before entering politics. It begged a number of questions, not least who had bankrolled the venture.

  It was more than two hours before the ferry cruised in towards its destination. Andros was a big island, more rough and rugged than its prettier cousins with sparse rocky hills, but the whitewashed cottages in the port of Gavrio were as attractive as any. The ferry steamed into a sweeping turn, past the fishing boats bobbing against the harbour wall, then backed onto the jetty. Kate marvelled at the efficiency of the seamen this time as they lowered the ramp and had the cars rolling off within seconds. They went downstairs to discover they were holding up a line so got in swiftly and disembarked.

  Julie was waiting for them on the main road ashore. ‘You’re burnt,’ she said. ‘It’s still hotter than you think.’ She slid into the rear of the hire car and directed Rav, who was driving, to the end of Gavrio’s main street.

  It was a tiny town, full of small shops and stalls, and cafés with white sofas where tourists watched the chaos along the main street as if it was the most interesting thing that had happened all afternoon, which perhaps it was. Julie directed them and they wove through the speeding mopeds, then drove over the hill to their hotel on the beach at the far side of the town.

  ‘It’s not exactly the Bel-Air.’ Julie wasn’t kidding: the reception area was like a set from the seventies classic Saturday Night Fever, with a ceiling that hoped to be mistaken for a distant galaxy.

  They all had rooms along the poolside, and sat out for drinks and dinner on the terrace. Danny had already set up, and the surveillance team was billeted in a bed-and-breakfast halfway down the main street, ready to start work the next morning.

  ‘What have they been doing on the yacht?’ Kate asked.

  ‘It seems very quiet. They’ve been ashore once – you probably saw the pictures – but went straight back on-board once they’d bought ice-creams. We’ve seen Lena and the little boy on the deck a couple of times today, but there’s been no sign of Mikhail and his wife.’

  ‘Any idea why they’re here?’

  ‘None, really, apart from the obvious. It’s not the most popular destination for foreign tourists, which may be why Athenians love the place. A load of them have holiday homes here. It’s pretty, in its own way, so if you were planning a tour of the Cyclades, it would be no hardship to stop here for
a day or two.’

  ‘How far is it to Mykonos?’

  ‘A couple of hours, I guess. I’d have to check.’

  ‘Perhaps Mikhail intends to head there by himself. Is it still the gay capital of the Med?’

  Rav remained staring into the still waters of the pool.

  ‘Ground Control to Major Rav. That question was beamed in your direction.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, I don’t know. It’s not really my scene. I think things have moved on a bit, but I imagine it’s the kind of place you might get some action if that was what you were looking for.’

  ‘Can you ask the surveillance team to be ready to infiltrate and wire a room at short notice?’

  Julie nodded. ‘Are we looking for the same kind of play?’

  A young couple had wandered in, holding hands, and settled at the far end of the terrace. Kate pulled her chair forward and turned her back to them. Rav and Julie leant in. ‘We’ll give Lena another bug, but the boardroom isn’t likely to yield much while Igor’s in Moscow. So Mikhail’s our target. We know he loves England. I think there has to be some doubt as to the depth of his loyalty to modern Russia, and he certainly isn’t going to want his father to find out how he likes to entertain himself on his nights off.’

  ‘You think it’s possible Igor doesn’t know?’ Rav asked.

  ‘Who goes digging around for uncomfortable truths about their own loved ones?’

  ‘Psychopaths, like Igor.’

  ‘So here’s our challenge. Even if we pick something up on the mic, Ian and the others will dismiss it as deliberately planted. If the foreign secretary wins this contest and makes it into Number Ten, our investigation is going to get even more difficult, or perhaps impossible. We need something more tangible, and we need it quickly. If we can corner him, Mikhail may be able to ID the agent of influence, and Viper. That would give us enough to open a formal investigation.’