A Hostile State

by Adrian Magson

  ‘Had to be,’ Callahan muttered. ‘Do we know who’s running the operation?’

  ‘Yes, we do. Or did. But that’s changed. And before you ask, yes, it’s a reliable source.’

  Callahan said, ‘And you’re going to share that with me?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll send you a report.’

  ‘Thank you. Hang on – you said there’s been a change.’

  ‘That’s right. The group responsible for hunting Portman is or was based in the Khoroshyovsky District of Moscow.’

  ‘Isn’t that GRU Headquarters territory?’

  ‘Pretty much. You could throw a samovar and hit their front door. The group are not officially connected in any way as far as we can tell, but I’d be surprised if Putin’s fingerprints weren’t all over it.’

  Callahan was inclined to agree. He didn’t doubt the Russian president’s willingness to set off a fire-cracker in the intelligence world if he felt the desire. Anything that would portray him in a good light would always be appealing.

  Vale continued, ‘I doubt we’ll ever see his signature on an order, but I think we can accept that it was only going to be official if it was successful. In any case the group has been disbanded.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘I use that term with caution, since none of us knows what has happened to them, save that the group’s leader has dropped out of sight and their office is now closed and sealed.’

  ‘That sounds promising.’

  ‘I believe it is.’ He shrugged. ‘Either way, the operation against Portman has been terminated. How is he, by the way? Sorry – I should have asked earlier.’

  ‘He’s fine at the moment and keeping his head down. But Christ, Tom, how do you know all this? Have you got a bug up Putin’s ass or something?’

  Vale laughed. ‘Not quite – and that’s definitely not for sharing. All I can say is one of the group members has been reporting back to Putin’s office about the operation, and we were able to tap into the flow. They say the great man himself was kept informed of each stage in the operation but offered no specific input save for using a proxy voice.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘The old clean hands methodology: Putin was aware of what was happening but nobody was going to be able to pin it on him if it all went wrong – which it has. That means anyone who thought he had issued an order was wrong … it was merely a talking point. Our information is that he became displeased with the poor return on investment of the venture and called a halt to further action. He has a notably short fuse regarding failure.’

  Callahan waited but Vale didn’t say any more. Instead he looked quietly pleased.

  ‘You’ve got someone on the inside,’ Callahan said with a mix of accusation and admiration.

  ‘You know I can’t confirm or deny that, Brian,’ Vale murmured blandly. ‘All I can say is our source is well placed.’

  ‘So this is not a piece of fancy Moscow misinformation.’

  ‘Absolutely not. In fact the source suggested we tell you as a matter of urgency, to save any further “unnecessary repercussions”. I think that makes it as pretty near official as we can get.’

  ‘And Portman’s in the clear?’

  Vale winced. ‘As far as any future instructions go, yes … but I think you’ll find it’s too late to stop this operation. I’m told they can’t call back any operatives in the field as they’re observing strict radio silence. Whether he likes it or not, Portman’s now a known face – and a target for anyone seeking to make a name for themselves. It’s a pity because he has been a great asset for both of us. But all good things come to an end.’ He stood up and added, ‘By the way, I know foreign agents operating here are not your main concern, but you’ll have heard of a Russian sleeper named Seraphim?’

  Callahan nodded, struggling to get to grips with what to do for Marc Portman. ‘Sure, vaguely. Heard mention of him a few times through inter-agency briefings. But that was a while back. The general view is he was a bogeyman – a bit of Kremlin play-acting to fool us western imperialists into wasting time and energy looking up our own exhausts. The FBI will know more than me. Why do you ask?’

  ‘We thought the same. All we’d ever picked up was that there was a Moscow sleeper known as Seraphim based in the States but nobody had been able to verify the fact.’

  ‘And now you have?’

  ‘We’ve had confirmation that Seraphim is a she, not a he, and goes under the name of someone I think you might have heard of.’

  Callahan suddenly knew what was coming. ‘Christ, go on.’

  ‘Valentina Desayeva.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Callahan didn’t bother hiding his disgust.

  Vale smiled at his reaction. ‘Our source tells us Desayeva’s been playing the double, supposedly running information both ways between here and Moscow, but with her sole focus on pleasing her bosses in Moscow Centre – namely the SVR.’ He studied Callahan’s face before saying, ‘Something tells me this isn’t entirely news to you.’

  ‘Let’s say I had my suspicions,’ Callahan confirmed sourly. ‘Unfortunately I haven’t been in a position to do much about it. Until now, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t think you should get your hopes up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ask your friends at the FBI to check. I think they’ll find she’s gone on a long holiday and won’t be coming back.’

  After Vale had left, Callahan reflected on what he’d just been told. If it was true – and he’d no reason to doubt Vale’s sources – it meant his early instincts about Desayeva had been right; the State Department had somehow got themselves into bed with a Moscow double, and they hadn’t seen it coming. Or maybe they hadn’t wanted to, being too keen to have a pipeline to and from the Russians to drop information of dubious quality. No matter what value they thought she had provided on Russian thinking and strategy, if Desayeva really had been working for the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, she would have been intent on passing back to Moscow only hard-core intelligence culled through her many ingenuous contacts in and around Washington. In return the goofs in the State Department had sent whatever they thought was useful down the wire, congratulating themselves on doing a grand job.

  What he wouldn’t have given, he thought idly, to be a fly on the wall when Jason Sewell threw that bit of embarrassing information back at Walter M. Broderick, the Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department.

  FORTY-TWO

  Just under three hours after my text to Callahan I saw a vehicle top the rise on the road running past the marshlands. There had been a few since I’d been here but they’d continued on by, a mix of the everyday country traffic you’d expect in this part of the world. It wasn’t the busiest road I’d ever seen and I couldn’t imagine anyone coming after me in a truck or a John Deere tractor.

  This latest arrival was a SUV. I couldn’t tell the colour because it was profiled against the horizon, but it looked dark and bulky, the kind capable of carrying men and equipment while being common enough to pass without comment save an occasional glance of envy.

  The engine sounded smooth, the hum floating down the hill to where I was standing in the treeline. The vehicle was moving along the road at a steady clip, and for a second I thought I was mistaken and that it was going to drive on by and disappear like all the others. But at the last moment it slowed and turned onto the track. Then stopped.

  I knew what they were doing: they were checking the location on their digital map, the little square locator telling them where I should be found right down to a three-metre square.

  They began the descent of the track, a plume of dust whirling in their wake. One look through the binoculars and I needed no further confirmation. I saw three heads up, the driver and two, and what looked like assault rifles carried at the ready.

  I dialled Callahan. He answered as if he’d been crouched over his phone.

  ‘They’re here,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Shit.’ He sounded weary, that one word
carrying a world of meaning, as if too much bad news had arrived all in one hit. I knew how he felt.

  I cut the connection; talking about it further wouldn’t solve the problem and Callahan had to get on with whatever he was doing at his end to plug the leak for good.

  The SUV was coming closer. I wasn’t concerned they could see me, because where I was standing was too dense, too well concealed against the greens and browns of the trees and vegetation around me. I was hoping they weren’t as well versed in this kind of environment as me, but I wasn’t taking anything for granted; anyone the Russians sent after me would not be a boy scout with no experience of urban or rural conflict. They had that built into their DNA but, like all contractors, it could fade a little if not used regularly.

  The SUV stopped a little way short of the gate, leaving enough room to turn on a dime if needed and head on back up the hill. They sat there for a while, the engine running, and I knew they were studying the area carefully, deciding what to do. They were probably puzzled by the gate being locked and chained, and were figuring I might have found my way inside from another direction.

  Then one of the passengers stepped out and approached the gate. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, dressed in a plain shirt and combat pants. He was staring down at a cellphone in one hand and carrying an assault rifle in the other. I couldn’t tell from this distance but it looked like an AK variant with a twenty-round magazine. Serious stuff.

  He tried the lock and chain without luck, and gave the gate a kick to test the wood. It rattled but held fast. He shook his head and waved impatiently at the driver before standing to one side. He wanted to get on with the job.

  Seconds later the SUV kicked forward and hit the gate head-on, ripping it apart and carrying the torn and broken woodwork away on the hood. The passenger gave a whoop of laughter and jogged after it to clear the debris away before jumping back inside and making a forward motion with his phone hand.

  I watched them go by and set off after them. Instead of going further into the trees I moved round towards the track to come up behind the vehicle. I wasn’t sure what kind of plan they had in mind, but if they were counting on me being here and to be standing in the middle of the locator square waiting for them like a good boy, they were going to be disappointed.

  I followed a parallel line to the track a few steps into the trees, keeping a screen of vegetation between me and them.

  The fact that the passenger had jumped back in the vehicle was a good sign. Had it been me I’d have ducked out and stayed low, checking for movement in the trees, which was far more effective than doing it from a moving vehicle. You might not be able to see a target among trees but you can hear them move. All you need is patience and focus. And concentrating all three men in the vehicle was a risky move rather than spreading them out because they’d all be vulnerable if they came up against a concerted attack.

  I stopped every few yards in case one of them had got cute and bailed out to watch and wait. The engine noise was still floating back to me through the trees, muted now but clear enough in this quiet place and undisturbed by outside influences. The big difference was that the birdsong I’d enjoyed earlier had fallen silent as if nature had thrown a giant switch.

  Then the engine noise ceased.

  I moved slower, wary of branches and brambles, anything that would betray my presence. The muffled sounds of three doors closing gave me a fix on their position. If they were close enough to the river to have spotted the bridge they were probably wary of putting the SUV’s considerable weight on the wooden sleepers, and would go for a look first.

  What the hell? A movement from the corner of my eye. But instead of being anywhere near the bridge and the SUV, it was way off to one side, in the wrong place. I froze, hardly daring to breathe, and waited to see if the figure would notice me. I had no idea where he had come from, as if he’d materialized out of the earth.

  He moved again and I saw him clearly this time. He was about fifty yards away from me and dressed in old camo clothing and a woolly cap. He moved slowly, with the gait of someone old rather than with deliberate caution, and I guessed he was in his sixties at least. He had a greasy looking canvas bag hanging from one skinny shoulder and carried an old-style military water bottle in one hand. He was heavily bearded and what little skin I could see was deeply tanned. But there was no sign of a weapon.

  A homeless guy.

  He must have heard the SUV and was following it to take a closer look, hoping for a handout. I was guessing he’d come into the trees across the fields after I’d done my recce, otherwise I would have seen him.

  I went to move towards him, to intercept him and warn him off. But I was too late. There was a crack as he stepped on a branch, and he went still.

  I heard a shout from over by the bridge and hit the ground, sensing what was coming next. The silence was shattered by a sustained volley of gunfire, ripping apart tree trunks and foliage, each contact between lead and wood a relentless snapping noise as the men from the SUV hosed down the area with no target in sight.

  I dropped to the ground and waited. When it came, the silence was complete. And there was no sign of the homeless guy.

  I waited, the Famas at the ready. The three men were jumpy. I guess they’d heard what had happened to the previous teams and weren’t taking any chances. Better to use a heavy-duty approach on a target than taking the trouble to use tactics to flush it out.

  More shouts and a whistle, followed by a rustle of undergrowth, then all went quiet. I slid forward towards the fallen man, barely moving the grass around me and ready to open fire at the first sign of a threat.

  Then I saw him.

  He was dead. He lay on his side, his head thrown back and his throat bare, the skin beneath his chin starkly pale in contrast to the rest of his face. There was blood on his chest and more had seeped out from the ancient combat jacket bearing badges from an unknown regiment in a forgotten war. His shoulder bag had taken hits, too, the fabric torn apart revealing an old aluminium flask with a plastic screw-top, a fold of faded blue cloth that might have been a shirt, and a red toothbrush, the bristles soft and worn down with use.

  I moved away. There was nothing I could do for him and if I stayed here the men would eventually come looking to see if they had bagged their intended target.

  I stayed low, my thigh muscles protesting at the unaccustomed effort, and came to a long dip in the ground between three large trees. I eased into it, feeling the give of soft earth beneath me and the cool kiss of moisture seeping into my clothing. I ignored it. This was a deadly game of hide-and-seek and a bit of wet was the least of my worries.

  Then, as I rolled to get a better view of the area I’d just left, I felt something hard and sharp dig into my ribs.

  FORTY-THREE

  The last thing I needed right now was a distraction; checking the trees surrounding me was essential for survival. If the men made a concerted effort to scour the area they’d be certain to spot me in the end. But I had to see what was digging into me. I turned my head and looked down.

  And stopped breathing.

  I was lying on top of a large artillery shell. Undoubtedly a relic of the First World War that had ravaged this area of France over a hundred years ago, it was now only half-buried in the grass and damp soil of the marsh. It must have worked its way to the surface as the layers of mud and rotting vegetation had shifted over the years. The locals, who regularly came across many such dangers in the fields, referred to them as ‘the deadly harvest’ and the description couldn’t have been more apt.

  I started breathing again and studied the ground around me, not daring to move. Most of what I could see was short, coarse grass and moss, interspersed with dark soil verging on mud. It was the soil I was looking at.

  That was when I saw another shape a couple of feet away. Covered in a skin of dirt and rust it was too regular and smooth to be a log. Smaller than the one beneath me it looked just as sinister, every bit as lethal. Alongside it la
y a clutch of smaller shells barely held together by the remains of a belt-feed from a heavy machine-gun.

  Suddenly the three men looking for me were no longer the only danger I was facing. The more I saw the more I realized that I was lying on the site of an old ammunition dump. A nest of discarded explosives, probably unmapped and now overgrown by nature, known if at all by only a handful of people in the area but with no way of doing anything about it.

  No wonder this place was unused and fenced off. What lay in the ground beneath me was a cocktail of death that even after all this time was likely to explode if moved. And any one item could easily set off any other ordnance around it like giant firecrackers, razing this wood to the ground with every living being inside it.

  I eased my weight off the shell, gently feeling my way across a surface soil I couldn’t see clearly, and over a subsoil harbouring who knew how many similar deadly objects. In the clammy heat among the trees, where no trace of fresh air was able to penetrate, I found a sheen of perspiration on my skin, running into my eyes and making them sting and causing my clothes to stick to my body.

  I’d gone perhaps no more than fifty feet, confident that I was clear of the worst of the ammunition dump when I saw a shape moving among the trees ahead of me. A man with a rifle.

  I thought I’d got away without being seen but something about me must have jarred with the vegetation around me. Swinging his weapon towards me he opened fire on full auto.

  The sound of the volley echoed over the marsh, snapping through the branches of the trees above my head like spiteful hornets. Luckily for me he’d been in too much of a hurry and the shots went wide. But he’d effectively nailed my position to his colleagues and more shots came my way from other directions.

  I rolled to my knees behind a tree and saw another man off to my side moving in my direction, eager to come in for the kill. I fired two shots from the Famas before ducking down again and rolling.