Understrike

by James Barrington

  ‘I don’t buy designer labels. You don’t pay me enough to waste money that way. A pair of jeans is just a pair of jeans. It doesn’t matter what the label says. What about a diplomatic passport? Or a weapon?’

  ‘In your dreams. You’re supposed to be visiting the place as a tourist, and just to observe, so no equipment, no stuff a normal tourist wouldn’t be carrying. In any case, Longyearbyen is stuffed full of rifles and pistols. Almost everyone there is armed.’

  ‘They are? Why?’

  ‘You’ll find out. So go away and pack your bags. Check in with me by phone if you find out anything interesting. Otherwise just tell me the tale when you get back. One other thing you need to know but which isn’t in the briefing document is that a couple of the surveillance officers employed by The Box thought that Burdiss might have attracted the attention of another group of watchers, but they were never able to confirm this, which is why there’s no written record of their suspicion.’

  ‘That’s a bit bloody vague,’ Richter said. ‘Didn’t they do anything to investigate it?’

  Simpson shook his head.

  ‘No. Their primary task was keeping tabs on Burdiss, and they had no concrete evidence that another group was involved, or instructions to follow. According to the desk officer I spoke to, on a couple of occasions when Burdiss was on the move, a black cab followed exactly the same route and a couple of men climbed out in pretty much the same place as the target. And before you ask, it was a different cab each time, with different occupants, so it could easily have just been a coincidence.’

  ‘I don’t believe in coincidence, Simpson, and nor do you.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m telling you this.’

  * * *

  Back in his office, Richter opened the envelope, spread the contents on his desk and scanned the pieces of paper and tickets. Simpson hadn’t told him he would be taking four flights, not three, to get there. The SAS route – which Simpson had specified but not actually obtained the tickets for, on the grounds that Richter was supposed to be a tourist and tourists booked and paid for their own flights and accommodation – would take him from Heathrow to Bergen in about three and a half hours, because there was a short stop in Stavanger on the way, so that was two flights. Then the third leg would take him to the Gardermoen Airport at Oslo for an overnight stop, and then on to Longyearbyen the following day.

  The travel arrangements and documentation were clear enough, but the briefing instructions were rather less clear-cut. He was tasked with ‘observing and reporting on the activities of identifiable agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other friendly or hostile intelligence service operatives. No contact is to be established with any such agents, or interference in or interaction with any of their observed activities. No close surveillance is permitted.’ The name, a somewhat grainy photograph and a brief description of one CIA agent – he was called Steve Barber, but it wasn’t clear if that was the name in his genuine passport or a work name he was using to conceal his true identity – was included in the orders.

  That was clear enough, but the orders were extremely restrictive and arguably internally contradictory: if all Richter could do was sit about the place watching a handful of CIA agents having lunch or whatever, pretty much all he could report would be where and what they were eating, which at best might show whether or not one of them was on a diet or a vegetarian or a vegan or something. But without getting close enough to hear what they were saying or following them around, both of which would certainly be classed as ‘close surveillance’, there was no way he would be able to acquire any useful intelligence.

  He rang Simpson and told him so.

  ‘Rules,’ Simpson told him briefly, ‘are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men. Somebody or other said that, but I’m buggered if I can remember who.’

  ‘Harry Day,’ Richter interrupted.

  ‘Happy day?’

  ‘Not "happy day", "Harry Day." He was a fighter pilot for the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, and he was supposed to have said it first. Or something pretty similar.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Simpson asked icily.

  ‘No. I just thought you’d like to know.’

  ‘I didn’t, and don’t interrupt me again. That bit of your briefing document came word for word from one of the desk officers at Vauxhall Cross, and he was very keen to make sure that your instructions contained exactly the same wording. They do, and now you’ve read it. But I expect you to use your own initiative, and if that means striking up an acquaintance with one of the Cousins, then get stuck in. Just don’t tell him that you’re a member of the British intelligence establishment, and don’t make it obvious that you’re pumping him for information. I know subtlety isn’t exactly your strong point, but the wheels at Legoland would appreciate it if nobody found out who you really are and what you’re actually doing up there. And you seemed to manage to blend into the East End quite well last month, so not standing out on an island full of polar bears and tourists shouldn’t prove too difficult for you.’

  For a couple of seconds, Richter didn’t reply, frankly stunned at Simpson’s breadth of knowledge.

  ‘How did you—’

  ‘As I keep telling you, Richter, I know almost everything, almost all of the time. I gather the people you encountered in Stratford managed to walk away, so with that experience behind you, Legoland would certainly appreciate it if you tried not to kill anyone on this trip.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Richter said.

  ‘And next time you decide to spend some of your spare time as a kind of vigilante tramp, let me know first.’

  ‘So you can tell me not to?’

  ‘No. So that I can arrange proper back-up and extraction for you. I applaud your motives, Richter, and taking half a dozen East End thugs off the streets is a lot more than the Met plods have managed so far this year, but you’re too valuable to me to lose. If a brace of Woodentops in an ARV had turned up at exactly the wrong moment, you might have found yourself in a shooting match for real, or ended up in the cells in Stratford nick. Either eventuality would have pissed me off, and you don’t ever want to do that.’

  ‘Understood,’ Richter said, then replaced the phone on the rest. He thought for a moment, then opened up the Booking.com website on his desktop PC to try to find some accommodation on Svalbard while he started mentally preparing a packing list of warm clothes.

  Chapter 6

  Wednesday

  MV Semyon Timoshenko, at sea

  Appearances can often be deceptive, especially when considerable efforts have been made to foster that deception.

  The expression ‘ships that pass in the night’ is often used by people to describe a fleeting acquaintance, sometimes of a sexual nature, because it sounds rather better and slightly more romantic than ‘one night stand,’ but its literal meaning is surprisingly accurate. On long voyages at sea, it is comparatively rare for any particular ship to sight another one, except as a distant shape on the far horizon, and this is particularly true in the vast expanses of some of the great oceans of the world – the Pacific, the Indian and of course the Atlantic, where days can pass without seeing another craft of any kind except for the occasional high-flying aircraft on a transoceanic flight.

  The situation of course is very different if the vessel is passing through one of the various checkpoints dotted around the world, places like the English Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, the areas around the Suez and Panama canals and the approaches to most harbours, but the course being followed by the Semyon Timoshenko had been carefully plotted to avoid any waters where other shipping might be encountered. This was not of course possible in the relatively congested White Sea, but once the vessel had cleared the comparatively narrow entrance between Mayak Gorodetsky to the west and Kiya to the east, and had tracked north-west into the Barents Sea, following the coast of the Murmansk Oblast but well outside the normal coastal routes, the ship encountered almost no o
ther vessels. That situation had remained unchanged all around the North Cape as they entered the Norwegian Sea and turned south-west.

  The crews of those few vessels in the White Sea that had got close enough to see the Semyon Timoshenko saw precisely what the Russian planners had intended them to see: a smallish and oldish container ship, its sides streaked with rust, that was presumably en route between a couple of ports.

  That deception also extended to the crew. They appeared to be typical small ship merchant sailors, clad in casual clothing that was suitable for the work they were doing, but which in no way resembled a uniform. The officers on the bridge were a little smarter, but most of them still wore clothing that was casual and comfortable. The only person there who always wore anything approximating a uniform was the oldest of the group, a man in his late fifties in faded black jeans and a once-white heavy sweater, and his only concession was the battered officer’s hat, the badge above the peak so old and faded that design was indecipherable, that topped his greying head.

  In fact, the entire crew had been hand-picked from the cream of the Russian Navy, the lowest ranked sailor on board being a starshina 1st stage, the equivalent of a petty officer in a Western navy, while the slightly scruffy-looking man sitting in a tall chair at the rear of the bridge closely watching the world go by from under the brim of his cap was a kapitan 1st rank, a full captain named Vadim Pankin. The only people on board who were not serving in the Russian Navy were the dozen special forces – Spetsnaz – troopers, who had also been hand-picked for the operation, and who were on board the vessel solely to defend it in the unlikely event of it being attacked by hostile forces.

  The ship had sailed a week earlier and had met no particularly bad weather conditions until it started approaching the Faroes-Iceland Gap, when a developing Atlantic weather system forced them to alter course further to the west to avoid the worst of the seas. That avoiding action had added perhaps a hundred miles to the total distance they had to cover, but that was not, in the overall context of the operation, a significant delay. One of the more unusual features of the briefing the captain had been given before he set out from Severodvinsk was that no firm timescale had been specified. The only criterion he had been given was that the weapon was to be launched in daylight, presumably to avoid any flare or unusual lights being seen at the moment of deployment, because those might serve to identify the launch vessel, and it was of critical importance that the Semyon Timoshenko should not be linked to the events that would unfold in the hours after the deployment. But the date was not important. The captain had been assured by his briefing officer, a full admiral, that Moscow – and indeed the whole world – would be aware almost immediately of exactly what time the operation had been completed.

  ‘Where are we now, exactly, Navigator?’ Captain Pankin demanded, taking a sip of tea from a glass mug.

  The navigator walked briskly over to the GPS display and read out the latitude and longitude coordinates to the captain.

  ‘That puts us just over three hundred and twenty-six nautical miles virtually due south of Vik in Iceland, sir,’ he said. ‘The distance to run to the drop point is now a little under one thousand nine hundred and fifteen nautical miles, and unless we encounter any further weather delays we should arrive there as planned next Tuesday afternoon. If we do have to reduce speed or alter course, we should still arrive there no later than Wednesday.’

  ‘Very good,’ Pankin replied, and placed his now empty cup on the chart table behind him. ‘I will be in my cabin. Standard orders apply.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ the navigator said, snapping off a crisp salute as the senior officer turned and left the bridge. Every other man on the bridge also turned and saluted the captain as he left.

  The Semyon Timoshenko may have looked like a rusty tramp steamer, and the crew like a typical bunch of undisciplined merchant marine sailors, but there was absolutely no reason why normal naval standards and rank structure should not be maintained on board when the vessel was unobserved.

  Chapter 7

  Thursday

  Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard Archipelago

  The Arctic Circle is an artificial construct. There are five major circles of latitude drawn on maps and globes of the Earth, and the Arctic Circle is the most northerly of these. It’s defined as the southernmost latitude within the Northern Hemisphere where at certain times of the year the sun remains either entirely above or entirely below the horizon, hence the midnight sun and the midday night. To add a slight layer of confusion, the location of the Arctic Circle isn’t fixed. Its position on the planet depends upon the axial tilt of the Earth, which alters by about 2 degrees during a roughly 40,000 year period, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century it was drifting north at the rate of about 50 feet every year.

  When viewed from directly above the North Pole, the Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that just clips the northern coast of Iceland, takes in most of Greenland, chunks of Canada, Alaska and the far northern coast of Russia, and roughly the northern quarter of the adjoining countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway. Longyearbyen, on the Svalbard Archipelago, lies almost exactly 1,900 miles to the south of the North Pole, and London is a further roughly 1,900 miles south of Longyearbyen.

  Paul Richter was entirely unaware of most of this, and wouldn’t have cared if he had known it. What he did know was that the journey from London to the Svalbard Archipelago seemed to have taken not merely hours but days. Which it had, but only two of them. It had felt much longer. And that simply reinforced his long-held view that airline travel is by any standards one of the most tedious experiences that ever has to be endured by most travellers.

  It’s the hours of waiting before anyone bothers to open the check-in desk, and the security screening which anyone with more than a double digit IQ would realize is completely pointless, and the hours of hanging about at the departure gate waiting for your flight to arrive, let alone depart, because it’s delayed for a reason that nobody who actually knows is prepared to tell anyone. The seats are always far too small, far too cramped and with far too little legroom, and the overhead lockers never have enough space in them, and the food is crap, and there’s nowhere near enough alcohol on board to even start to numb the pain. There aren’t enough toilets, and those that are installed are usually far too small for normal people to use with any degree of comfort. And in the last half-hour before the aircraft finally starts its descent, almost every toilet will immediately be taken over by some irritating bloody woman who doesn’t actually want to pee or poo but feels the need to take a leisurely 20 or 30 minutes to redo her make-up or change her clothes or do something else equally pointless and unnecessary before landing, completely oblivious to an ever-lengthening line of other passengers standing in the aisle outside with their legs crossed.

  And when it does finally managed to reach the destination airport, assuming the flight deck crew manage to put the thing down on some strip of concrete without breaking anything, the baggage handlers take their own sweet time about delivering your luggage to the arrivals hall and then do a kind of Russian roulette number on the carousel, so that no matter which one you’re standing beside and no matter what the illuminated signs tell you, your bags – if they appear at all – will certainly be on a different one.

  There’s the old joke about the man checking in for a flight with three suitcases. Once he’d produced his passport, birth certificate, driving licence, blood donor card, library ticket and any other bits of paper that the airline had decided were necessary before he could be allowed to embark on one of their aircraft, he pointed to his suitcases and said to the check-in girl: ‘I’m flying to New York, but I’d like that case to go to Stuttgart, the second one to Bangkok and the third one to Vienna.’ The check-in girl was obviously surprised and said to him: ‘I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir.’ To which the man replied: ‘I don’t know why not. It’s what you did last time I flew with you.’ With some airlines, and some airports, that isn�
�t actually a joke any more.

  The actual flying, the act of being in the air in an improbably large and heavy object made almost entirely of metal, didn’t bother Richter, because he had, after all, spent a good portion of his working life wearing a dark blue uniform and sitting at the sharp end of a Sea Harrier. But even then, he was conscious that there were around half a dozen entirely different and mutually contradictory theories about how and why aircraft actually stayed in the air. Not even NASA had so far come up with a theory that had been proven to be correct, though the agency’s website did list several theories that their scientists had determined to be incorrect. Which wasn’t particularly helpful. Or comforting.

  For all Richter knew, the particular theory of flight that he had been taught at the Dartmouth Royal Naval College, more years ago than he could remember with any degree of comfort, might well have been superseded by now. That was basically Bernoulli’s principle, which stated that the wings of an aircraft were sucked into the air by the faster-moving and hence lower pressure air above them. But in his view, if an aircraft had wings and engines and fuel and somebody sitting at the pointed end who had some idea about what he was doing, there was a pretty good chance that it could take off, stay in the air until the fuel ran out, but hopefully land again before that happened, irrespective of which theory was actually right. After all, in the 1930s a French entomologist named August or Antoine Magnan had proved to his own satisfaction that technically a bumblebee shouldn’t actually be able to fly at all, but because the insect didn’t know that, it seemed to manage to take to the air without any problem.

  But flying as a passenger had never been one of Richter’s favourite occupations. Like every qualified pilot, he would have been far happier sitting on the flight deck, and ideally at the controls, on the reasonable basis that he would then at least be in charge of his own destiny. And, as a bonus, he would also have a far more comfortable seat and better service from the cabin crew.