by Tim Heath
“I’ll order a cab,” the husband said, aware his car was not working. Anissa made the call, giving the firm their home number, as the husband and younger son helped get the older one to his feet. The boy could put some weight on his ankle, which was a relief. It couldn’t have been broken, the swelling suggesting a bad sprain.
“It’s going to be a while. They say maybe twenty-five minutes.” The boy cried out in pain as he caught his leg on the door frame. “I’ll take the cab to work. You take my car,” Anissa said in a hurry, passing her husband the keys, kissing him on the lips, happy that he was so calm under pressure. She was good at putting on a brave face, but inside she was anxious.
She helped them into the car, as the home phone began to ring.
“Go,” she said, shutting the door and kissing her older on the forehead. “That’ll be my taxi telling me how late I’m going to be.” She ran back inside.
“Yes?” Anissa said, managing to answer the phone before it rang off.
“Anissa, it’s Sasha! I’m so glad I caught you,” he began to say. The next few seconds passed in slow motion. Anissa would not be able to accurately recall what really happened and what her mind had invented.
She remembered the warning from Sasha about a bomb as she heard the car engine starting up, the front door still open, herself standing there in the hallway. She did remember dropping the phone and charging out through the door, though everything was frozen, her legs as if made of concrete, the ground treacle. She was screaming, she remembered that, as she watched the car pull away.
Then the blast. Anissa was less than ten metres from the car, getting close as she cut across the neighbour's lawn, desperate to get there and warn them. She remembered flying through the air, propelled backwards by heat and force, and then nothing. She blacked out.
She wouldn’t wake up from the induced coma for nearly a month.
Sasha had arrived at the scene of the explosion within an hour, though by then the area was closed off. The police were aware of the victims, and the link the wife and mother had to MI6. It was quietly being treated as a terrorist incident. The whole of the British Security Service was put on high alert.
There was nothing Sasha could do. He had learnt that Anissa wasn’t in the car when it exploded, but the presence of the white police tent over the burnt out vehicle, and the fact the car was in the middle of the road, only confirmed someone had been driving. Sasha had a fair idea of who that was before anything was confirmed by the officers at the scene.
Anissa had been found on the road. She was taken to the hospital and was under heavy police guard. Sasha would try and see her when he was able.
The priority now was getting those behind the attack. Sasha went straight for Rad.
“You have to tell me where to find them,” Sasha said, and Rad was happy to give him the information. He cared little about the three thugs glad to blow up children and he gave Sasha their names and hideout.
“You didn’t get this from me,” Rad said but Sasha was having none of it.
“Oh yes I did, and when this is over, we are having a serious talk!” Sasha left the room. He pulled his mobile from his pocket as he headed to his car.
“Gordon, it’s Sasha,” he said, getting hold of the only other man he knew he could trust at MI6 now that Alex and Anissa were unavailable. “I need an armed response unit immediately. I have the gang who planted the bomb.” Gordon had heard about the explosion already, they all had, despite it still being early. An alert had been sent to all MI6 staff informing them to check their vehicles carefully before using them and to be extra vigilant. “I also need you to pass on everything we have about May to the Director General.” It was time Filipov’s link to MI6 was exposed once and for all.
“Okay, I will. I’ll have security take the DDG to one side when she arrives,” Gordon added. She was a flight risk unless detained, as she would find out before too long what had been passed to the top.
Half an hour later Sasha joined the unit of armed police officers. They were at a property in the east of the city. Using battering rams, they hammered opened the front and rear doors for the terraced house, storming the building in force, guns ready and orders clear. The three men were found quickly, in the kitchen. They were unarmed and outnumbered. The arrests were made, Sasha keeping his distance, but his eyes eating into each of them. Had it been Russia, he would have taken them out the back and executed them, most probably. His blood was boiling.
Bethany May was arrested as she walked into Vauxhall House that morning. The Director General, one of the first to arrive that day and already in possession of the compiled evidence, had made the call almost immediately. He’d begun to have his own suspicions himself.
The DDG said nothing as she was ushered into a side room, besides denying any involvement in the bombing. The news had indeed sickened her. It was all too extreme. There were a hundred ways to have taken Anissa out of the picture––disciplinary action, the end of her career, prison even––but blowing her up was something even May would never have sanctioned.
Sasha arrived at the office a man on a mission. He was denied access to Bethany May, however. She was in with the Director General, the two given time alone.
“I’ll give up everything and everyone I know in exchange for immunity,” she stated, the first proper words out of her mouth, now that she was alone with the Director General.
“You think you can trade your way out of this one?”
“I had nothing to do with the bombing. But I know all about who does.” That mattered little, as the DG had just been informed by Sasha that they already had these people in custody. “I can expose Filipov, too.”
“Why would I ever believe you? You've betrayed us all.”
“I’ve done no such thing. I’ve never given Filipov anything that wasn’t easily discoverable.”
“You shouldn’t have given him anything, goddamn it! He’s been financing you for years.”
“That’s a lie!” She had no idea about any money coming her way. She knew nothing about the account set up offshore and apparently connected to her, yet another fail-safe to keep her in line should she try and turn.
“We have all the evidence. You’ve been caught.”
“I never received a penny from him.”
“Then why do anything?” It was a justified question. If she claimed not to have done it for the money––though he had the account information, there was plenty there that people would have killed for––then what was she doing it for?
“It wasn’t money.” She was resolute.
“You’re going to have to give me a lot more than that if you are to convince me you have anything of worth by turning at this late stage.”
“I’ve not been turned!”
“Like hell you haven’t! You’ve been leaking information to the Russians ever since taking the position.”
“No, I haven’t! He wanted the evidence about Kaminski. He needed to know who the British had used. I got him that. We should never have been involved in the Russian election.” The DG knew that only too well. He’d had no part in any of it, and had been shocked when the government fell as a result of those who had.
“I don’t think taking the moral high ground is going to help you. Can’t you see with all you’ve been doing, it’s a bit rich of you to now point out the faults of others?”
There was a frosty silence.
“Do you actually know what happened to Alex Tolbert?” The Director General had never really bought the explanation she’d offered him about Alex's sudden disappearance. She nodded slightly. He was apparently about to find out.
“Go on,” he said.
“He was caught smuggling a known terrorist into Russia to kill the President.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s true.” She left it at that, and after a moment’s pause, he could see she was telling the truth.
“On whose authority?”
“Not on mine or yours. They were work
ing on their own.”
“They?”
“Anissa and Sasha were aware of what Alex was doing.”
“Is that why you arranged the bombing?” the Director General interjected, coming back to the situation at hand.
“I had nothing to do with that, nor would I ever have wanted anyone dead,” she lied, though the part about violence was at least partly correct.
“Is Alex dead?”
“Probably, yes, though he’s in Filipov’s hands. They were stopped, though, I know that. I presume they are both dead.”
The Director General swore.
“I have a lot more on Filipov than anyone realises, though,” she said, coming back again to her main line of defence.
“You still think a bargain is in the offing?”
“I’d like to think that, given our history, given my record, you would hear me out.” They had no significant history. The Director General had wanted Alex to take on the position. She’d been a compromise when the British agent had turned down the offer. And her record was undoubtedly tainted now, though there were plenty of examples when that was overlooked.
“I’ll hear you out,” he conceded. He would never ultimately trust her, certainly not personally, despite what public face he might have to show. But the Security Service the world over traded on information and power. If she brought something to the table that they couldn’t otherwise get access to, it put her in a strong position. The more she had, the better off she would be.
It took three days of fierce negotiations and assurances before Bethany May was ready to make the deal offered to her. She had to prove herself first, but if both sides were satisfied, the British wouldn’t throw her into prison. She could even keep her rank in the Security Service, though she would be quietly moved into another department. The strain on present relations was just too high to ever recover. The hunt for a new Deputy Director General would start again, for the second time in a year.
Bethany gave MI6 the names of the rest of the members of the House of Lords and MPs who’d backed the British bid to oust Putin from office. A few more scalps would fall, therefore, but this time MI6 would carry out the arrests carefully. The new government was only just getting back on its feet. An energy crisis was looming. She would save the link she knew about the nuclear weaknesses for much later on in the process.
She was free to move around. Within seven days of the explosion which had killed Anissa’s husband and two sons, Bethany May was a free woman. Sasha could not believe it.
17
Berlin––Germany
Anastasia had seen the news from London. Anissa’s family's name had jumped from the page, though nothing in the article had mentioned the British agent in person. It was about the murdered father and his two sons. The wife was quoted as being linked to the Security Service but wasn’t named or otherwise referred to. Reading between the lines, it was clear Anissa had been the intended target.
Anastasia was moved by the news. She had flown to Germany a few months before. There was nothing but sorrow for her in England. She had relatives in Germany, mostly in and around Berlin. She was staying with them while taking stock, and while the divorce papers cleared through the courts, allowing her to sell the properties that still remained in her name following her husband’s arrest, trial and imprisonment.
She’d looked into getting tickets to Russia, in the hope of finding where Alex was being kept if he was even alive. Anissa had not been able to give any specific details about him the last time Anastasia had demanded answers.
The Belarusian, who didn’t require a visa for Russia because of her nationality, had the tickets blocked by the airline. Her name was on a no-fly list because of her husband’s actions. She was denied access. She’d taken up the issue with the Russian embassy in Germany, but the answer had been the same. There was nothing they could do.
Anastasia sat in the garden, despite the cold weather. She’d celebrated New Year with the family there, seeing most of them for the first time since her wedding. Many had always been suspicious of the man she’d married. Nobody mentioned that now, though they were pleased to see her.
Nobody asked her anything about the affair she’d allegedly had. The scandal had rocked the election campaign of one of the leading challengers in the previous year's Russian election and even the German papers had picked up on it. The family were sure there was truth in the rumours. It hadn’t been the first time they’d suspected Anastasia had been unfaithful.
Anastasia was particularly close to her cousin. They’d spent most of the time talking. Anastasia was shown the sights of the city and was about to sound off and get out the hurt she’d been carrying for too long. She’d told her cousin everything about Alex, swearing her to secrecy. She talked about first meeting him, aware that Alex was MI6. It sounded like a James Bond plot-line, and the cousin was gripped by every conversation. Anastasia told her how he hadn’t known who she was in the early stages.
She talked about the time she was hiding in the hotel. She could see her home from the window, making love to a man while in a line of sight of her own marital bed. She said that added something to the occasion.
She cried when she talked about being discovered. She’d made a split second decision to go with it, to play the role. She shared how she’d started gathering evidence, piece by piece. She avoided the details of having to lie to Alex in front of his face but mentioned it as it had been one of Dmitry’s conditions. She had said she was wearing a wire while she did it so that Dmitry could listen in.
She finished with how she had hoped Alex had worked it all out. Germany was always meant to be the place he would come looking for her when the dust had settled. Kaminski was in prison and wasn’t coming out anytime soon. She was there, out of the country and now in Germany. Yet Alex was gone. And she couldn’t even go to find him.
The two cousins ended up in yet another German pub. They would spend the rest of the night there, drowning their sorrows as best they could.
London & Moscow
Rad was at the airport for the evening flight to the Russian capital from Heathrow. He’d spent a couple of days with Sasha, the day before the bombing and then, once he’d discovered the plot, the day immediately after. Sasha had insisted Rad stayed around. He wanted to fully understand as much as he could. Rad obliged, feeling he owed Sasha at least that much. It was the least he could do.
They’d chatted a lot about old times, though their shared history was relatively short. Rad had been in the orphanage a matter of a few weeks when Sasha had stepped in and saved him. Then he’d fled.
The flight to Moscow was not full. Rad took a seat in first class, his expenses account seemingly unlimited, and he’d used it very little. He assumed that Filipov would be none the wiser about the actual circumstances of what had happened in London. Rad didn’t know why he had gone along with the cover story suggested to him via Sasha to explain away the death of both MI6 agents. He didn’t have any allegiance to the UK, but the same was true of his new President. Since Filipov had won the election, Rad had been working exclusively for him. He seemed to be targeting more Russians in the few months Filipov had been in the Kremlin than any other nationality. It appeared with a man like Filipov, enemies were often much closer than just the battlefields of Syria or some other far-flung nation.
Rad knew what type of President his country now had. He didn’t fear the man, much as he knew Filipov didn’t take betrayal lightly. Sitting in his seat, the complimentary drinks and snacks already served, Rad pondered his options for a while. He would undoubtedly be called into action again. There was always someone, and Rad hadn’t yet seen through his entire list. Mark Orlov and those behind the Machine were still at large. Would Filipov really stop at nothing to get to these men? Rad feared he already knew the answer to that one.
Rad dealt with Svetlana mostly, anyway. She was the go-between, the woman you went to if you needed time with the President, though in Rad’s case, it was always the other way a
round. She summoned him, and he came. But there was nothing Rad needed from the President. He was far more useful to them than they might ever be to him. That thought sat heavy in his mind for a while. He was the expendable one. If someone had to take the fall, it wouldn’t be Svetlana or Filipov. It was men like Rad. Rad knew this. It was partly why he loathed the situation he found himself in. But he’d been raised on following orders. He’d gone a long way by doing that. No one from the orphanage––besides Sasha, a man who’d done equally well himself––would recognise him now.
Rad landed in Moscow shortly after midnight local time. The airport was only half as busy as usual. The Russian was quickly off the plane, clearing customs when Svetlana Volkov walked out from the shadows and stopped right in front of him.
“Welcome home,” she said, though he knew she wasn’t there to take him to a homecoming party. He followed her without saying a word. A few onlookers had spotted what they thought was the famous actress, but soon the two were lost in the exiting crowds, the front of the airport terminal crammed with taxis looking for the last fare before finishing for the day.
Svetlana had a car waiting. Rad was half expecting to see Filipov himself in the vehicle, so was relieved to find it empty, as he ducked into the open door, Svetlana following behind. The driver put Rad’s case into the boot and then, once behind the wheel, proceeded to pull the vehicle into the slow moving traffic. There was no police convoy this time. Maybe the Presidential-aide didn’t warrant the same level of protection that the President himself did? Perhaps this meeting wasn’t for anyone to know about?
“I have to congratulate you on London,” she said, now that the partition was up and the vehicle moving. She had a guarded tone, clearly picking each word carefully. It put Rad on edge immediately.
“The gang you arranged were amateurish and stupid.” That he could say with total honesty.