Chapter 52
Asturias
‘How many bombs has he planted?’ Sean demanded, looking at Nadège. ‘You’re next to get slotted if you don’t comply.’
Nadège looked perplexed, a vision of blankness. She just stood there, no emotion, no soul. Was she in shock? What did it matter anyway? She had conspired to kill thousands of people by leading the charge to unleash evil across Europe.
Nadège ignored the question but Petra responded as if she were her advocate. ‘There are two, and she was forced to put all this together. He’s the bastard you want, not Nadège.’ She pointed to the General, who was now propped up against a sofa, blood oozing from his thigh.
‘Pass me a towel. Wrap the wound up: please, please,’ implored the General.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Sean blasted. ‘You will die anyway at some point. You deserve nothing.’
Nadège finally spoke, breaking her haunting silence. ‘You will never understand my life, will you Sean?’ She threw him a cutting glance then slowly drew a Makarov pistol from the back of her jeans, casually biting her lip and keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Sean’s. Sean tensed, knowing Swartz was behind him, probably with two hands on his weapon, knees bent and aiming right at Nadège’s head.
‘Give it a rest. I’m not here to get mind-fucked by you ever again. You’re a dead woman if you pull that trigger,’ Sean ventured, frowning.
‘I’m a dead woman anyway,’ Nadège replied, taking a pace forward, now smiling. Sean studied her face, now beginning to see that what was behind those inhuman eyes was a cloud of pleasure. Was she drugged? Before his mind could process that thought, Nadège slowly moved her arm to the left, lowered the barrel a fraction, pulled her other hand onto the steel grip and fired a single shot directly into the head of the General.
Sean raised his hand to stop Swartz from firing, watching the General’s last gasps of air suck into his lungs before he slumped onto the carpet, blood oozing garishly from his forehead. The smell of cordite lingered in the air. The look of relief on Nadège’s face was palpable. Sean was stunned.
‘He’s the bastard who ruined her life, he’s the bastard who killed her,’ Petra shouted, before breaking down in tears, hands firmly clasped to her head.
Sean looked across to Nadège, who was now bawling at him. ‘If you ever listened, if you ever looked inside me, you’d know,’ she said wearily. ‘I bet all you ever thought was that I’d strap myself to one of those bombs and kill myself, eh?’
Sean calmed himself. ‘That thought did cross my mind. What if I cash in my chips now and call this fucking charade a day?’
‘What do you mean?’ Nadège said defiantly.
‘You tried to kill me, twice. You tried and failed to kill thousands more than just the bastards who abused young women in Bosnia, and you don’t give a fuck about anyone except yourself.’
‘What is with you Sean? You succeeded. That’s all that you’re about. Yourself. You’re as cold a killer and as evil a sociopath as I am.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, you are. You’re as fucked up in the mind as I am. Only you never want to see it.’
‘I’m not the mass killer here, remember?’
‘Enough. Let us go. We’re leaving and you’re not going to stop us.’ She turned and began to pull the nearest suitcase, the wheels squeaking harshly on the wooden floor.
Sean shouted at the top of his voice, exasperated and raging. ‘Stop moving. Stop right there and stand still, you piece of fucking shit.’
‘What, are you going to shoot us both?’ Nadège was agitated now, her sharp features frozen like blood run cold. The anger inside her was rising and Sean knew his own was close to boiling point too.
‘Just stop. It’s over for you. You’re going to jail for a very long time. Don’t make me kill you now.’
The silence spread torpidly across the room. Three guns, four faces, one body, four suitcases. Sean looked around him, each person looking scornfully at his face, which was now twitching uncontrollably with anger. At that moment he saw sadness everywhere. He felt out of control.
Nadège looked down towards her training shoes, releasing her hand from the suitcase, looking drawn. ‘I had a job to do, a job he made me do to release me from my own shackles.’
‘You made my life a shithole,’ Sean replied furiously.
‘You were my only male friend. My only true male lover.’
‘You didn’t let me in, never, you were just cold.’
‘You hated me.’
‘I don’t hate anyone.’
‘But you do Sean. Look inside you. Unravel it all.’
‘Fuck you. You fucked me up.’
‘I did, but in my heart, you were close to me,’ Nadège murmured, taking a moment before pointing to the General, her hair now flopping over her face. ‘He burnt me, made me the way I am and threatened I’d never be able to leave and take my family away from his dirty hands unless I did all this. For years he owned me.’
‘Why didn’t you just kill him?’
‘She couldn’t, she just couldn’t, could she?’ Petra now shouted, her mascara dripping from her eyes. ‘Can’t you see?’
‘See what?’
‘He was her captor, her father figure, her saint,’ Petra shouted back.
‘What? He abused her?’
‘Yes, but he’s not the only one. Her father sent her on that traumatic journey as a child. That bastard lying there just took advantage of it and became her emotional captor. Mind-numbing control. Stockholm syndrome, I think you call it.’
‘What?’ Sean asked again, shocked to the core and unable to process his confusion. He turned his head towards Swartz to see if he had made any sense of it all. He’d gone. Where was he, for fuck’s sake? Bloody hell. Then came a voice from the stairs. Swartz’s voice. A calm voice encouraging someone down the stairs.
‘Sean, hold up for a minute mate,’ Swartz called from up the stairs, out of view. ‘Just wait. We need to sort something out.’
To Sean’s astonishment, Swartz turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs with his hand placed around the shoulder of a young boy, with an elderly lady following. Sean studied the boy. A small boy with wispy brown hair and a face of distress. A face like his own. Hair like his own. The same square jaw and chiselled features as Sean’s father. The same features that Sean bore. It was haunting.
A deep chill ran through him, a lingering chill that drove right through his body. His mouth went dry.
‘All these years, it’s my life that’s been a sham, not yours,’ Nadège whispered in a calming tone.
Sean turned. He gulped twice then raised his hand to his mouth. His eyebrows narrowed. ‘All this time… I’d have done anything for this boy.’
‘I know.’
‘My son.’
‘But you’re MI6.’
‘Not any more. I’m not sure who I am any more.’
‘Let us all leave Sean. I need to run away and make a life for this boy, not be stuck in jail for years. I’ll never abandon him.’
That hit a nerve for Sean. Abandoned. The word ‘abandoned’. How he had felt when his mother disappeared. How would his son feel growing up thinking that his father had abandoned him?
‘I hate the Iranians, I’m done now. Let us leave. We all love each other, and the plane is waiting now.’
Sean didn’t answer but turned again to face his son.
Nadège whispered again from behind him. ‘Do you know Colonel Sergei, my Russian handler?’
‘No.’
‘Well I think you probably do. He’s the only man who could have leaked on this job. But it doesn’t matter now. I’m free, the job was done, Alimani’s dead. I want to leave with the three people in my life who love me. Surely you’ll let that happen, right?’
‘OK, so I know Sergei,’ Sean replied, turning again to face the mother of his child. ‘So what?’
‘Well, I left something for him in a dead-letter drop just outside Warwick Avenue s
ome time ago, just in case the Iranians found out I was working for the Russians and had me killed. My Syrian facilitator who helped me recruit the bomb-maker will give Sergei the directions if I’m killed, and it’s something that will be of use to you. You see Sean, you nearly convinced me to go to the Brits, and so did Petra. She’s been trying to help me escape for a long time, but now it’s here – my escape is here - and our destiny lies in your hands. There isn’t much time. I don’t need anyone to help us any more, we just need to get that flight to South America and be gone.’
Sean’s shoulders dropped, his agitation lessened. He nodded at Swartz, knowing this was the right thing to do. He wasn’t being a maverick this time, he told himself, just human. It was an act that might just one day see him find the solace he was seeking. In a sense, he was envious of Nadège. Envious of her freedom but gutted that his son would leave too.
Nadège walked past him, pulling her suitcase. Then she stopped, her back facing Sean. ‘Here, take this,’ Nadège said, turning to face Sean and handing him a note. ‘He’s a young man from Syria, not associated with any intelligence services and he was my helper. Nothing more. You’ll need to give him the codeword. Use FITZROY. He’ll know what has happened.’
‘Then what?’
‘He’ll give you the location of the dead-letter drop that contains the full list of Iranian sleepers in your country.’
With that final pass of a note Sean watched his son walk out through the door he himself had entered some fifteen minutes earlier. Sean’s eyes welled up and he imagined a drawer in his mind that he’d never ever close.
Chapter 53
London
‘Can you find a derelict place somewhere around London?’ Sean quietly asked One-Eyed Damon. ‘It will need to be a place that no one would think of entering for a while after I’ve committed a crime.’
One-Eyed Damon shrugged his shoulders, drank his pint of beer in one long swig and nodded. ‘Any specific plan you have?’
‘Yes, an interrogation followed by a death. Here, take this: this is what I’m after. Within the next week would be good.’
One-Eyed Damon leant across the table and rolled his one working eye. His face narrowed and his shiny false eye glinted, revealing a lens with an RAF roundel in red, white and blue. ‘You are fucking joking, right? This is insane.’
One-Eyed Damon stood and asked Sean if he wanted another pint. A quiet nod. He dwarfed Sean. He was a gargantuan man and had been a second-row rugby forward in his prime before he was shot in Iraq. One-Eyed Damon was Sean’s go-to man for operations in London. He was a Northern Ireland and Iraq War veteran and a legend of the veterans circuit. A surveillance and weapons expert who, even with only one eye left, was still one of the best operators and a man who had contacts across the UK who could fix up anything that was needed. Break into a law firm, Damon was the man. Provide a weapon or plant some bugs, Damon was the man.
One-Eyed Damon returned with three pints. Two for him and one for Sean. ‘Can’t be arsed getting back up again waiting for you to drink your pint, you snowflake.’
‘Thanks. Love you too.’
‘Now Sean, this will cost a lot of money,’ One-Eyed Damon said, looking at what Sean had written on the note. ‘I know a man who has a place like this but why, for fuck’s sake?’
‘I thought it’d be a good idea.’
‘Sadistic I’d say.’
‘Slow death though,’ Sean replied, chinking his beer glass against Damon’s.
‘How do we find this bloke then?’
‘He’s due into London tonight and I want you to follow him everywhere. Let me know every moment of the day where he is, who he’s with, what he’s doing.’
‘OK, who’s gonna help me?’
‘Swartz and Phil ‘The Nose’.’
‘Great. Samantha involved?’
‘No, she’s tying up a few loose ends in France mate.’
A huge grin began to form across One-Eyed Damon’s face. He had once been a very handsome man, many said he still was despite huge scars across his face and skull, the result of dozens of operations to save his life and make his future more palatable. Somehow, this Northern icon had survived. ‘Money upfront please. Can I frighten him a bit first?’
‘No, but you can interrogate him a little. He’ll talk if you’re dealing with him.’
One-Eyed Damon smiled affably. ‘OK. Now, when do you want me to lift him off the streets?’
‘Once the site is all prepared and good to go. We need to capture as much information as we can for the American investigators who will take this on.’
Three hours later, Sean emerged from the Tube station into the thunderstorms of a gloomy London evening. He felt depressed at seeing his son in the flesh and was deeply disturbed by the thought of never ever seeing him again. Feeling sluggish and dejected he wandered past Marble Arch, heading towards the Victory Services Club. It was a time of calm contemplation that would bring finality to this case, and he quietly wondered what the future held for him next before he slipped away back to France. His hair had grown long enough to carry a small ponytail, and he’d spent the last hour taking a sauna and trying to get his head around everything that was swimming inside it. He chose to wear a dark grey suit, white shirt and club tie for his meeting with Jack, which he sensed would reveal the forlorn puzzle behind the operation.
Once an American servicemen’s hospital, the Victory Services Club sits proudly in prestigious Seymour Street in the outer heart of Marylebone, a haven for veterans.
Sean entered and was shown to a small window table in the bar, where Jack was reading The Times. Sean glanced at a TV in the corner of the room which showed that the G7 conference was underway in Biarritz.
‘It’s gone ahead then I see,’ Sean said, shaking Jack’s hand tightly.
‘Touch and go I’d say,’ Jack replied, pointing to a picture on the front page of The Times showing the PM arriving a day late for the conference. Mechanical delays with the airplane, the newspaper suggested. ‘There was a lot of activity between Washington and London, deciding if it was safe,’ he continued.
‘Should be some conference discussion now then. How on earth have you stopped them going to war over this then?’
Jack passed Sean a glass and nodded at the bottle of Bordeaux. ‘Not one of my finest operations, if I’m fair, but luckily you eventually played a blinder.’
They both smirked, and Sean felt a little more at ease. Jack explained to him how the Brits now had a hold on the way forward with the Americans over Iranian aggression, and that snippets of intelligence would soon be leaked to Western nations showing the extent of nefarious activity between Russia and Iran. In time, Jack surmised, sanctions would bite, the tide of diplomacy would turn against Iran and Hezbollah and the mullahs would be overthrown.
‘But what about that artillery shell Jack? You had a live one on the go from the outset?’
‘Wasn’t viable though. It might have registered on a machine as being so, but it wasn’t high-grade enough. Plus, we fed Hewitt some confusing information using the Hotmail address from the Pakistani scientist. He’s fine by the way, and we’ll be allowing him to come to the UK with his family.’
‘Smart,’ Sean said, thinking that Jack would have had a failsafe plan somewhere. ‘So, I guess the second device must have caught you out then?’
‘That was always the risk, and one that was always at the back of my mind. None of these operations are perfect Sean, as you know. But using you as a deniable asset to find the bomb-making factory was key. It was the start we needed, even though there were still risks we didn’t know about. It was a big bonus to get that list of sleeper agents though. The services are mopping them up one by one.’
‘Love it when a plan comes together, eh? What’s next for me then?’
‘Probably some sort of big thank you from the Director General I’d have hoped. The new one will be appointed in the next few months, but we owe you a lot Sean. We now have the list of sleeper
agents on our turf thanks to you. And we have a bit of a swop planned which might work out in your favour.’
‘Go on.’
‘We’re going to do a swop with the Russians for the female agent you captured a few years back. She’s been in jail for a while now, but it does at least mean the Russians might cancel that contract on your head.’
‘Wow. Who for?’
‘The Russians have agreed to release a senior GRU officer who we recruited in Copenhagen but was convicted of high treason and sentenced to eighteen years in a Moscow prison. He made a number of basic errors and was arrested when he returned to Moscow to visit his mother. The case is very similar to Colonel Skripal, who was poisoned with nerve agent last year in Salisbury.’
‘Well if it gets the SVR off my back, all the better.’
‘Of course. And if it all goes well I have a plan where I want you to work with Colonel Sergei and this guy over the coming months and years. The GRU have been sloppy over the last year or so and I want to exploit that a lot further. They really hate that we know more than they do at the moment, so let’s see how it all pans out, eh?’
Sean glanced out of the window, wondering how Jack found the time to continually plot. Jack poured them both more wine. ‘You’ve certainly been busy Jack, but how on earth did you manage to blindside all these ministers from the shit that was happening with General Alimani?
‘It had to be deniable Sean and, what’s more, I needed to get the right civil servants on-board with my plan. We’d have got nowhere if ministers had found out.’
‘How though?’
‘No names, no pack drill. You see, mandarins operate behind a wall. Eventually you will find a door. But it only opens from the inside. And when, after receiving well-evidenced advice, ministers make a decision, it’s the duty of civil servants to execute it. But you may be surprised to learn that, amongst civil servants, this often doesn’t happen. That’s how it works in Whitehall Sean and I had to exploit that with one or two of them. It’s the powerhouse. We knew we had a problem with the Iranians and, after a bit of observation, we had to act, but not be constrained as D often said to me.’
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