How the tables quickly turn, Sean thought. Within twelve months, even France and Germany were turning against Iran. While EU policy focused on saving the landmark international nuclear deal in 2018, anger had now grown in some EU countries over the Islamic republic’s espionage activities, which led to them applying restrictive sanctions following their role in plots to kill political opponents in France, Germany and Denmark. Now in Britain too it seemed.
Sean lunged into a dark brown satchel and scratched around to retrieve some oils and a battered old palette. The sun had risen to its zenith and he revelled in the splendour of his favoured retreat. How on earth would he get into Nadège’s tight circle of life though? What were the levers he could pull? What if he buggered it all up from the outset? He cringed at how she had mentally incapacitated him during their fleeting relationship some years ago. He caught a glimpse of a flight of ducks gracing the skyline, sighed and then started to make broad brushstrokes to capture the dense pine forest. He sipped his wine, sat back to critique his work and opened the drawer. A mental drawer in his mind. A single drawer amongst many others sealed shut.
His thoughts drifted back to Nadège and the first time he had met her. He started to quiver inside. Sean rarely brought back memories from his damaged past, preferring to lock them away in his virtual drawers. Every now and again he’d pull one open in his mind. It was never a good experience.
He had met Nadège at a desperately low point in his life following months of depression after the sudden death of his wife, Katy. She was only thirty-three years of age and had died of a brain haemorrhage while he was away on a mission in Moscow. It was a pure accident when he first met Nadège on the Eurostar journey back to the UK from Paris. Or he thought it was an accident. But it was part of a well-planned operation by the Russians, who were using Nadège as a plant to try and recruit Sean. He grimaced as he recalled how that chance meeting, a true piece of serendipity at the time, wasn’t true at all. The Russians had spotted an opportunity when Sean was at his most vulnerable and tried to latch onto him using one of the world’s oldest espionage tactics. A glamorous woman. The trap had worked. Sean had a crazy sex-fuelled relationship with Nadège for many months, but he never gave any secrets away. That didn’t matter to the service though. He was caught fraternising with a foreigner from a country on a list of nations that, as a British intelligence officer, he should have formally declared. That was nearly ten years ago. How on earth did he plummet so far, he wondered? It was no surprise that the intelligence services had placed him in suspended animation for so long. The equivalent of being sacked.
Enough. Sean didn’t want to think any more. He closed the drawer in his mind before picking up a twenty-millimetre brush immersed in indigo oil. He started to flick some paint at the canvas, aiming at the light blue sky, when his phone buzzed. It was Melissa. She had sent a text with a code alerting Sean to log on to the dark web and retrieve a message. He stepped inside the chalet to the bright, nicely adorned lounge, with a wooden stove in the centre of the room and a bunch of large cushions sporadically placed around it. He grabbed his laptop and sat on a cushion, leaning back against the leather sofa. After the laptop had booted up, he opened the TOR browser and looked for the message spreadsheets specifically designed for him to communicate whilst on operations.
‘Any news? Send Sitrep.’
Melissa was being impatient as normal, and Sean immediately knew she wanted some of the action. Time to brief her.
‘You’re in. Jack will ask you to investigate the background to a British FCO diplomat who was kidnapped two days ago in London. He’ll send details. Met Police are investigating but The Court want you to dig - do a deep delve on his background and the man he was with that night. A former CIA agent by the name of Fletcher Barrington who is linked to neocons. Standby. Jack will send details by this means. I’m tasked to conduct some surveillance on a target who is due in Istanbul soon. I’ll be calling in the team.’
Sean leant back and put his hands behind his neck. Jack had instructed him to make his way back to the UK in a couple of days. He remembered Jack’s precise words: ‘This is too big to have you run off into the wilds of Asia Minor without being properly read in Sean. We need to plan this with accuracy. Follow the instructions in the cache and we’ll get you the intelligence you need and a helping hand from our friends over the pond.’
He smirked at the thought of being back in the fold again after all the years of being persona non grata, grateful that Jack had saved his arse on more than one occasion. Most notably by saving him from dying in an Afghan jail after Sean had been framed for being an illicit weapons dealer. Sean ran his hand through his hair, reminding himself that he needed to get it cut, get it dyed and to transform his guise as soon as possible if he was to be on the move. He was still a target for the thugs of Russian SVR.
He wondered how Billy Phish was. He knew he'd need Billy to give him a head start by hacking the relevant friends, businesses and colleagues of Nadège – whoever they might be. And he knew Billy Phish would be crucial in getting the vital leads that Sean needed on Nadège’s activities. He also needed more from Jack’s source. Something didn’t seem right on that score.
Sean waited until dark to make his next move to find the hidden cache located a short distance from the chalet. He pulled on a headtorch and stepped out into the blackness of the forest. He had to use his memory now. His memory of where the small cache of equipment and escape pack was buried. They had been buried by him and Melissa when they had first set up their emergency bolt-hole and the metal battle box contained everything they needed if ever they needed to make a planned escape. The Russians were still after Sean and that contract still lay on his head – but he was certain that, by now, the task of tracking him down would have been sub-contracted from the Russian SVR agents to organised crime gangs. But any move he made internationally might just trigger the state apparatus of the Russian intelligence services and they would home in on him quickly. He needed to make sure his digital footprint and travel measures were sound.
He recalled his route to the battle box. He had to memorise a series of markers to get back to it – day or night – under pressure. He spotted the wooden fence that provided the delineation between the forest and the national park, making sure he kept it on his left-hand side as he traipsed through the mud, over a few hillocks and through a tiny stream until he reached a deep hollow with a tree trunk sat in its centre. A marker that indicated he needed to take a left turn at ninety degrees before heading on that bearing for fifty metres deep into the undergrowth of the coniferous forest. Sean swiftly jumped over the fence and then paced fifty metres until he arrived at a strange-looking tree with a hollow archway at its base. He angled his headtorch to the ground, retrieved a small trowel from the side pocket of his trousers and began to dig, reminding himself to be careful of the explosive booby trap he’d previously armed. A simple pull wire that would initiate two pounds of explosives if anyone opened the lid of the battle box.
Tugging at the undergrowth, it wasn’t long before he’d scraped away the peaty soil to reveal a small patch of green painted metal. He carefully ran his fingers around the left-hand side of the box, gently feeling for the wire, which was tightly sprung against a bolt fixed to the base of the container and which, if pulled, would release a small pin that would initiate a detonator placed in the explosives. He slowly unwound the wire and gently pulled it away from the box, releasing all the tension. He lifted the lid three inches before reaching inside with his fingers to unscrew a bolt that would cause the C4 explosives to detonate if the lid was lifted too high. Safe. He was in.
Inside the box, protecting his cache from the damp and rot, was a double wrapping of thick canvas which he peeled away to reveal its contents. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple. He placed a large tin to one side and then checked that the other contents were in good shape. A Beretta ARX160 semi-auto pistol which he’d give a quick oil. Two Beretta 92S pistols wrapped in a tarp,
and an HF radio set if he needed to transmit by old-fashioned means. He opened the contents of the tin, revealing bundles of Euro notes wrapped in paper sleeves, two passports with separate identities that he could use on overseas operations and two credit cards with five-year expiries ready to go. He placed Melissa’s passport back in the tin, closed the lid and placed a pistol with a ream of ammunition in his rucksack. His thoughts momentarily considered that Russian and Iranian sleeper agents across Europe might be doing exactly the same thing. Tracing their hidden weapons caches in readiness for war.
Chapter 8
Brussels
Sean was up and out of the wooden chalet before daybreak, making his way at speed to Turin airport. He glanced at the open passport on the passenger seat and checked in the rear-view mirror to see if the picture matched his new disguise. ‘Pretty bloody good,’ he mouthed.
The flight from Turin to Brussels was incident-free and he felt relaxed when he eventually got through border control at Brussels airport unhindered. Jack’s preparations had been immaculate so far. Sean knew only too well that the SVR and other intelligence agencies had insights into passenger manifests, sources within border officers and plenty of people-watchers outside airports taking pictures of people, so his disguise was crucial.
He bought a bus ticket and was soon heading towards the Eurostar terminal in the city centre. When he arrived, he bought a monthly commuter’s ticket for frequent travel between Brussels and Lille, knowing he didn’t have to supply a passport or driving licence. He had no intention of alighting in Lille. He then made a series of counter-surveillance moves at the Gare Du Midi and was content he had not been followed but would be surer of it when he was on the train. He boarded the train with a few minutes to spare and only showed his season ticket to Lille. The train journey to London St Pancras was uneventful and he was glad they had not changed the rules about where they checked passports on the Eurostar routes. He only showed his passport once when he boarded at Brussels, and it was not checked again throughout the entire journey to the UK. This helped him arrive on British soil with a minimal footprint.
He walked down the escalator and into the St Pancras terminal, turned left and walked out of the exit to have a cigarette. He stood with his back against the wall, watching every individual who exited on the same route behind him. Nothing. Anyone following him would have had to have looked left as they exited or have people placed ahead of him looking directly into the area where he stood next to an ashtray. He knew Jack would have a team watching his every move, but he couldn’t see them – these were highly skilled MI5 surveillance teams and they were tasked with following Sean, looking to see who else might be following him. It was a nervous journey for Sean as this was the first time he had stuck his head above the parapet for the Russians to have a look at his movements. He wondered if they had given up, having decided he wasn’t worth pursuing.
Sean then made his way to Baker Street on the Metropolitan Line, again making several counter-surveillance moves, knowing that the teams who were covering his back would want him to be doing exactly that – to help them spot any SVR followers. Having satisfied himself that he had done his job thoroughly he sat in Pret A Manger on Marylebone High Street and, using his second phone, sent a text using the TextSecure app. It simply asked, ‘Can I cross the line?’
Five minutes later he received a positive response, walked around the corner and jumped into a fast car that took him to RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk.
Chapter 9
Suffolk
The fierce Suffolk breeze ricocheted inside the rear cabin of the Toyota Hilux as Sean struggled to stay awake on the long journey from London. He grappled for the handle above the window to heave himself up into a more comfortable position as the vehicle approached its destination.
RAF Bentwaters nestles quietly in the heart of the Suffolk countryside, close to the Heritage coast and some eighty miles north-east of London. The airfield is a former RAF base that once housed the largest US Air Force fighter fleet in Europe during the cold war. With a combination of A-10 Tank Busters, F84-Thunderstreaks, F-16s and its own nuclear command bunkers for the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, the air station was once a thriving American community in deepest Suffolk.
The Americans were gone now, but the revetments and toughened air shelters remained, together with a thriving business community run by a local farming family. The air traffic control tower sits beside the breezy airfield entrance, giving superb views across the runway and the local ancient farmlands.
Sean caught a glimpse of the tower’s mast, a Union flag flying proudly above it, and could just make out the curious shapes of the aircraft shelters scattered across the former cold war base. Only this time they were being used by small businesses. Some were bonded warehouses, others were used as TV film studios and a vehicle depot, and some creative entrepreneurs had even converted some of the three-feet-thick shelters into high-tech data centres and children’s play zones.
Sean watched a Cessna aircraft twist precariously to land on the active runway, which was primarily used by vintage air enthusiasts and hobby flyers. The car came to a halt in front of a concrete command centre complete with a set of huge bomb-proof doors set just behind a blast-proof wall. The entire complex, built in the late ‘70s, had its own decontamination units and was constructed to withstand chemical and nuclear attacks from Russian aggressors. Sean’s mind drifted back to the days of the cold war, and the fond memories he had of living in West Germany as a kid.
Sean was chaperoned through the bomb-proof doors, coming face to face with a polished silver door that provided the biometric entry to the complex from within a secure airlock. He marvelled at the genius of the site and the state-of-the-art facilities constructed behind the cold war facade. The huge outer bomb door began to close automatically. Eventually the lights dimmed, and the second door eased itself open on automated hinges before juddering to a halt, revealing a huge inner sanctum buzzing with activity.
He stepped inside the void, surprised to see a huge reception lobby fully adorned with modern furniture, with French paintings on its walls and small corporate accoutrements, including green planters and a water feature on a semicircular table which dominated the room.
‘Over here Sean,’ Jack shouted as he appeared from one of the glass-walled side rooms, waving a hand for him to enter.
‘Very corporate Jack,’ Sean said, gesturing with his right hand and smiling. ‘You entertain here as well?’
‘In a fashion, yes we do. Now, leave your rucksack in this room and place any phones or devices in the cabinets over there. Compartmented facilities. You know the drills by now.’
‘I assume I’m here to be indoctrinated?’ Sean said knowingly.
‘We need to plan meticulously,’ Jack replied, leading Sean to the briefing room. ‘You’ll be read into a number of intelligence compartments before we let you loose on this one I’m afraid.’
Sean nodded and followed Jack to a double set of oak doors, watching him punch in a numeric code before placing his finger on a biometric console. The telemetry took a moment to kick in before a loud click released the left-hand door, which opened automatically. The lights came on slowly, revealing a large oval table with a dozen leather chairs perfectly aligned and set up for a conference. It had the air of a corporate boardroom, with numerous leather-backed notepad holders regimentally placed in front of each chair. An air of immaculate precision. Sean walked slowly around the table, frivolously running a finger over a long oak sideboard to check for dust. He held his finger in the air, made an approving face to Jack and continued his inspection, admiring the decor and the series of pencil drawings of London’s iconic attractions placed around the ovate walls.
‘Welcome to the club,’ Jack said, taking a seat at the head of the table. ‘We’ll be joined by a few others shortly, and we have a live video conference at 4pm direct to our operator in Istanbul.
‘Some club,’ Sean said, as he continued inspecting the room. ‘
Bomb-proof, nuclear-proof and, knowing you, the place has probably got its own decontamination showers and a fully fledged artificial intelligence hub too?’
Jack, dressed as usual in a navy-blue suit, reached below the table and flicked a switch. Sean heard the motors first, before turning behind him to see a large oak panel divide and slowly open to reveal a data centre with a high-tech operations room taking centre stage. Sean walked towards the glazing and peered into the dimly lit digital void. ‘Bloody hell Jack. This is taking the piss. It’s bigger than the MI5 hub for Christ’s sake.’
‘Indeed. There is no such thing as the split loyalties of MI5 and MI6 here. It’s a full-capability fusion centre for global operations run by The Court, complete with high-end data mining and artificial intelligence capacity for all of our intelligence collection assets. D is very proud of it, after years of wrangling to get it built in total secrecy.’
Sean studied the huge banks of live-imagery screens, counting twelve operators, who were controlling the communications and command and control stations. The flashing lights of an internal data centre sat behind a glass wall with banks of servers and high-grade IT racks.
‘Very neat,’ Sean said, swivelling on a leather chair. ‘Mesmerising in fact. Cyber-ops too?’
‘Everything Sean. The entire building is chemical- and blast-proof, and we have our own air-conditioning units, emergency power supply and protected telecoms cables as well as access to all the intelligence systems we need, including American compartmented intelligence.’
Sean rolled his eyes, puzzled at the US connection. This was his first ever job for The Court and it looked as if Jack was going to fully induct him into the entire secret operation. Jack pointed to the data centre beyond the clear glass walls. ‘You see Sean, this was D’s vision. Modern intelligence where he could counter hybrid warfare with his own. It’s a mix of artificial intelligence and cyber-capability which we simply couldn’t operate without the Americans and their investment. After the Snowden leaks the Americans wanted something more secure, recognising the leaky nature of their intelligence agencies and justice systems. D needed the same so, over a few years, he brokered a partnership with them.’
The Kompromat Kill Page 7