A Hostile State

by Adrian Magson

  I walked up the stairs to the third floor, stepping past two bicycles and a baby stroller on the way. There were three apartments on each floor and very little noise save for a hum of unseen activity which might have been a vacuum, a television or a washing machine. I checked my door for signs of a forced entry but everything looked pristine.

  The air inside smelled a little musty and needed a good airing. But I resisted the temptation to throw open the windows in case the place was under observation. It would be a clear tell-tale sign that I was inside and open to attack.

  There was very little here that I needed to take away. But there were a couple of items I certainly couldn’t leave behind. I went to a small safe I’d installed in the bedroom and tapped in the code. The door swung open. Inside was a plastic folder containing emergency cash in various currencies, two spare passports in different names, driving documents and Visa cards to match and a Beretta 92SB semi-automatic pistol with a spare magazine. As long as I didn’t have to pass through any kind of scanning device I’d be fine to carry it with me.

  I placed the Beretta and passports in the bottom of my backpack and pocketed the cash. From here on in I was going cash-friendly to avoid using my existing cards. I didn’t want to use them unless I had to.

  I checked the apartment one last time, making sure there was nothing to identify me to anyone who came looking, and cleared out some old invoices for some building work I’d had done. I’d dump those later in a skip. Then I left and walked three streets away to a general store where I bought an envelope and scribbled a note to go inside with the apartment keys.

  After that I dropped the envelope through the letterbox of the lawyer I’d used to negotiate the paperwork for acquiring the place. My note told him I’d send instructions later. Until then he could set about looking for a buyer and wait to hear from Belnex who would have shared responsibility for settling any outstanding bills and approving the contracts.

  I walked for twenty minutes until I found a small hotel near the Parmentier métro and took and paid for a room for three days. Then I left through the rear door and walked some more and took another room for the same length of time at a hotel close to the Place de la République. I was probably being over-cautious but after the events of the past few days I wasn’t taking chances. As I’d learned over many years, having a plan A and a plan B and a safe place just in case, is never a waste.

  In the second hotel I replaced the sim in my phone and dialled Callahan’s number. Because of our past association I didn’t have to go through the CIA switchboard, which would avoid any exchange of names being overheard. An additional plus point was that both our phones were encrypted. He picked up within two rings.

  ‘Callahan.’

  ‘It’s me.’ I said.

  ‘It’s good to hear from you.’ He sounded as calm as always, if a little relieved. ‘After Cyprus and Frankfurt I was beginning to worry. Frankfurt was you, right?’

  I confirmed it was. ‘They arrived right on the spot where you told me to be and spotted me immediately.’

  ‘Yeah. They knew who to look for.’

  ‘Obviously. In a place that big it should never have happened. And after the other team attacking the British facility in Cyprus not long after I left, how was it possible?’ I wasn’t angry, although I put some stick into sounding it. But I didn’t think it would hurt. I had, after all, been shot at and nearly sliced open by people who should not have known where I was.

  As a wise man had once said to me, it doesn’t do any harm just to occasionally let the people around you know that you’re royally pissed off.

  ‘I’m sorry – truly. We’re working on tracing the leak.’

  So there was one. ‘Any ideas?’ Not that it would matter directly to me but I also wanted him to know that I was annoyed enough to ask. Callahan or the people above him had to realize, if they didn’t already, that the threats against me and the attempts on my life so far were more than simply an unscheduled blip in events caused by a chain of bad luck.

  ‘Not yet. I’m working on that. Where are you now, Marc?’

  ‘On the move. Why?’

  ‘That’s good. In fact it’s better than good because staying on the move is just what I was going to recommend. In fact, I have a job for you.’

  ‘What – now? How does that help my present situation?’

  ‘There’s a woman journalist on our payroll in France who’s being hunted by a small extreme right-wing organization. As part of her cover working for us she’s been investigating their activities with a friend, compiling data on their strength and members. She got too close and a couple of days ago they killed the friend to blow her off the scent. She can’t go to the French authorities as that would signal our involvement, and there’s nobody else we can ask right now. You’re there and I know you can handle this. But we need to keep close contact throughout. It’s a sensitive issue.’

  I’ll bet. Spying on people in a friendly nation state doesn’t go down well when the friendly nation state finds out what you’ve been doing. And the French could be righteously and noisily angry about such behaviour, even though they were well versed in doing a bit of snooping on their allies when the spirit moved them.

  ‘What do you mean, close contact?’

  ‘I’ll need to know where you are so we can provide support. We can have a team standing by but we’ll have to use the locator system we’ve been using recently. The group chasing her is particularly nasty.’

  ‘What, worse than the group chasing me?’ I didn’t disbelieve he had a job for me or that it involved pulling a female asset out of a sticky situation, but the thinking behind it was devious.

  ‘Sorry. You know what I mean.’

  ‘You want me to be a decoy.’

  ‘I want you on the move, is what I want. The more you move the less chance there is of the Russians being able to target you. Staying still is a guarantee that they will find you.’

  He hadn’t denied the decoy bit, I noticed. And he was right about them finding me. They had the resources and the manpower, and would be able to call on as much help here as they needed. If I sat and waited for them, they would eventually pin me down.

  My problem was, I was now going to be threatened by two groups, not one. Part of it might reveal who the mole was, but it didn’t make me feel any safer. I didn’t say anything for a few moments while I thought it over.

  ‘And the real reason?’ I needed at the very least for him to admit what he wanted.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said it yourself: you think you’ve got a leak. I’m not even in the building but I know you have. There’s no other explanation. It must begin with your own department.’

  If he was offended by the implication he didn’t say anything. But he was a professional and knew the game. ‘I can’t be certain of that – I wish I could. All I can say is we’re narrowing down the possibilities.’

  I said, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and disconnected. I was keeping our conversation deliberately brief and wanted him to be a little off-guard. I needed time to think. Having another job to do right now had not been part of my thinking. With unknown elements after me I needed to think carefully about what I was doing. While having to worry about another person was a normal part of what I did, right now it was a distraction I could do without.

  In the end, though, I had to concede that Callahan was right; moving meant staying alive. But if I did this I was going to do it my way.

  I rang him back. ‘All right. I’m in.’

  ‘Good.’ He sounded relieved. ‘I’ll text you the asset’s location. The meet will be some time tomorrow, so stay in touch and let me know when you’re there.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The following day Callahan was still ruminating over the unsettling idea that the former spook, Russell Hoffman, had voiced at their meeting: that someone on the inside was fingering Portman’s location trail to the people trying to kill him. A sleepless night had not filled in an
y blanks and he still wasn’t sure what action to take next.

  It might have seemed implausible had it not echoed his own fears. The CIA was not impregnable or immune to having a traitor inside the walls, as spies Aldrich Ames and Jerry Lee had proved. But a new scandal would hollow out the guts of the organization at a time when it needed to be operating at full capacity against external enemies and threats rather than beating itself to death over a possible repeat of history.

  Yet he had to concede that it was more than a possibility.

  How else would the Russians have been able to get so close to Portman each time? And if Hoffman was right, and they were committed to doing away with Portman, there might be no way of stopping them unless he disappeared for good.

  He stood up, deciding it was about time he spoke to Sewell, when an incoming call stopped him. It was Fred Groll of the National Security Agency.

  ‘Brian, I figure you’d want to know about some chatter we picked up that might involve your man in Lebanon.’

  Callahan sat down again. ‘Go ahead. I could do with some good news.’

  ‘On the surface it’s not a great deal but it sounds interesting. One of our operators picked up a transmission from a source located close to the Russian embassy in Nicosia, northern Cyprus. It said, and I quote: Delivery location 333420 cancelled. Delivery to be re-scheduled, advise of new address.’

  ‘Do we know where the transmission went?’

  ‘We’re working on that but it’s a slim hope. Like I said, it was a chance pick-up, so there wasn’t time to run a full trace. The thing is, that location 333420 is a basic code the Russians have used before. It refers to the British RAF base at Akrotiri. We know they keep a close eye on it for strategic reasons, and there’s been a rumour that they have someone on the inside, most likely posing as a civilian contractor.’

  ‘Akrotiri. That’s where they had the recent attack.’

  ‘Right. The “delivery cancelled” speaks for itself. Failed would have been more accurate but they don’t like using that word much. It gives them a ticklish sensation across the back of their necks.’

  ‘Thanks, Fred. Good work.’

  ‘Glad to help. I’ll keep you informed if we hear anything else.’

  Callahan ended the call and sat back. Well, that confirmed who was behind the attacks on Portman. So now, if Groll was right, they had confirmation of the who and the why, no doubts about that. What they didn’t have was the identity of the person pointing the finger.

  He dialled a number, the decision to speak to Sewell delayed. It could wait until he’d got something moving. In any case, he’d been told to let Watchman go, so he’d best not advertise the fact that he was still helping him out.

  The phone was answered immediately by David Andrews, a CIA researcher with the National Resources Division. While the CIA itself was forbidden from operating within the US mainland, the NR division was tasked with, among other things, recruiting students and other foreign nationals visiting the US, to be schooled as assets when returning to their home countries. Andrews had a specific interest in and knowledge of Russian security and intelligence operations, and had been useful in providing information to Callahan on a number of occasions before.

  ‘Do you have a moment?’ Callahan asked him. ‘I could do with some help.’

  ‘You kidding?’ Andrews replied. ‘I haven’t been away from my desk in weeks. Is it dangerous, is it exciting, do I get to carry a gun?’ There was a definite hint of boyish laughter in the young man’s voice which made Callahan smile. There were times this place could do with more of that.

  He said, ‘None of those things, but you might have to go outside the building for a while, if the thought of daylight and vitamin D doesn’t scare you.’

  ‘Hell, no, sir. I’m on it. Be there in three.’ The phone went down.

  David Andrews was in his twenties, short and chunky, with a thin moustache and a sallow complexion everyone put down to spending too much time under subdued lighting crouched over his monitors. He wore a tie in name only as it rarely looked as if it belonged and was usually skewed to one side or tucked into the front of his shirt.

  When he arrived he dropped into a seat opposite Callahan and looked around with ill-concealed interest.

  ‘I haven’t been up here before. Is this where you send out men to do dastardly things to our enemies?’

  ‘That’s pretty sexist,’ Callahan told him mildly. ‘We have female field officers, too.’

  Andrews looked unabashed. ‘My bad. How can I help?’

  Callahan had been rehearsing just how much he could tell the researcher, and he’d decided he had to be as frank as possible, otherwise he’d be asking Andrews to operate with his hands tied. He explained what had happened to Portman, how he was being hunted by a kill team belonging to a hostile state who appeared to be operating with the guidance of someone using Portman’s location tags.

  Andrew dropped the boyish air and got serious. ‘You mean someone in here? Jesus. Are you sure?’

  ‘Not yet, which is why I need your help. I don’t have proof other than that the opposition have now turned up three times for sure right on Watchman’s last known location.’

  ‘I get it. Too much to be a coincidence. But isn’t this a job for internal security?’ He added quickly, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to palm it off on some guy in uniform who knows nothing about Russian ops, but I don’t want to tread on any toes.’

  ‘I’ll cover you on that, don’t worry. But as of this moment, you keep this to yourself, you hear? I don’t want it doing the rounds that you’re working on our behalf. Should anyone ask, we’ll keep it to a simple research job.’

  ‘No problem. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I want you to take a close look at how these details might have got out; where there might be a weakness in the system that allows someone not in this office to have picked up data received or circulated internally. Also, who it might have been passed to on the outside, although that might be expecting too much.’

  Andrews nodded. ‘If they committed the details to memory and walked out the door then passed it on, there would be no trace.’

  ‘In that case it would be the potential recipient I’d like to know about. There has to be an external contact point somewhere. I figured you might have some views on that.’

  ‘A Russian contact? There are a few I can think of, some of them right here in DC. If you have any hints, though, it would help me narrow down the search field.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, an idea of who not to look at is always good. It saves time and from what you say I’m guessing this is time sensitive, right?’ When Callahan nodded, he continued. ‘You mentioned that this photo has been outed once before, and has now turned up again?’

  ‘Correct. We don’t know exactly how, but we think it was acquired a few years ago from the entrance security system at one of our field offices. The person we think was responsible was using an outside source with access to the building – but they’ve now gone dark or are deceased.’

  ‘I get it. In that case turn it on its head: who benefited most the first time by getting the photo out there?’

  Callahan was impressed. He was no investigator himself; he kept his analytical skills for a different kind of search and detect – the kind that looked for people in foreign lands who might prove useful to the endeavours of the CIA. He’d been instinctively thinking about current events, not whether they might have some relevance to what had happened in the past. But already a fresh mind looking at the issue had come up with a new perspective, and Andrews could be right: the original theft of the photo might prove the lead they required.

  He thought back to when the photo had first popped up. Portman had been tasked with pulling a State Department official named Edwin Travis out of Ukraine, where he’d gone to conduct talks. Instead Travis had been held hostage by one of the factions in a bid to disrupt progress. It was while he’d been getting the m
an out of the country that he’d run into opposition from some FSB operatives, one of whom was carrying photos of both Portman and Travis.

  ‘We were told a senator named Benson instigated Portman’s photo being outed, but that was on the say-so of a man we haven’t been able to trace, so it’s unconfirmed. And since Benson is dead that avenue is closed, too.’

  ‘Unless he had associates,’ Andrews pointed out. ‘Maybe someone who shared a grudge against your guy and is still out there.’

  ‘That could be a broad field. Benson had been around for a long time and had a lot of supporters. As to grudges against Portman, I wouldn’t know where to begin looking.’

  ‘So we should look at who knew Benson best. He might have confided in someone he was close to, maybe someone who felt they wanted to get pay-back. If so they could have been sitting on the information ever since, biding their time.’

  ‘Good point. How do you reckon on moving it forward?’

  ‘Was he married? Did he have children?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. But you can check that out, I’m sure.’

  ‘Will do. If I can focus on a couple of people to start with, it might help me before I have to look wider at other candidates. I’ll start close to home, say, associates and the people he worked with.’

  ‘You’re thinking like a cop,’ Callahan said. ‘Does this mean you can do it or not?’

  Andrews looked pleased. ‘Actually I wanted to be a cop at one time, but I got side-tracked into this job and never looked back. And yes, I can do it. You get me covered for a free rein with my supervisor and I’ll see what I can turn up.’

  ‘Good. I’ll send over whatever we have on Benson and you can start from there.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  I took a rental car and headed south-west out of Paris on the E5, then the A10 past Paris-Orly Airport. Hopefully if anyone was already on my tail they might conclude I was taking a flight out and set off to intercept me. Good luck with that.