Execution (A Harry Tate Thriller)

by Adrian Magson

  ‘How is it we didn’t hear about Tobinskiy’s presence here until now?’

  ‘Deliberate cut-outs,’ Ballatyne responded simply. ‘Left hand knowing he was there, forgot to tell right hand when and why.’ He kept his face neutral, but his tone was clearly angry. ‘His gunshot injuries weren’t considered life-threatening, but he was placed in the Major Trauma Centre at King’s by the Russian desk, something they hadn’t got round to telling the rest of us.’ He turned his attention on the one person who hadn’t seemed surprised by the news of Tobinskiy’s death, a woman at the far end of the table.

  A blonde with large, frameless glasses and an intense, studied air about her, Candida Deane was deputy director of the Russian Desk, standing in for the director who was recovering from a lengthy illness.

  If Ballatyne felt any reservations about turning on a colleague, he didn’t show it. Like everyone else, he’d been caught on the hop by this development, revealed only when he enquired into the disappearance of Clare Jardine with the hospital authorities. The idea that she had been lying in a room next to a staunch Russian opponent of Vladimir Putin – an opponent known to have been on a search-and-kill list by the Russian FSB for some years – had come as a shock. Now he wanted some answers and he was going to push until he got them.

  Not that it would help Tobinskiy any.

  ‘There was no need to copy other sections on the detail, that’s why,’ Deane replied crisply, her glasses flashing. Her voice carried a distinctly south London edge, considered by detractors to be a sign of the new tide of ‘talent’ being flushed through the Service as the reliance on the old Oxbridge source of recruiting was losing ground. She didn’t believe in making friends and was known to have her eye on one of the top jobs in the Service. Her uncompromising demeanour showed her intentions for all to see, and she didn’t care who knew it. ‘He had to be kept safe while he recovered. We took the decision to keep it strictly in-section only.’ She stared coolly at Ballatyne, daring him to challenge her.

  ‘Safe from what?’ Fitzgerald’s voice was calm, almost bored, but there was no mistaking the look in his eye; given the high-profile nature of the dead man and the potential repercussions, he too, wanted answers.

  Deane shifted in her seat. ‘Tobinskiy was caught up in a shooting in a Brighton nightclub a week ago. According to witnesses the shooter walked straight up to him and shouted something in an east-European language before opening fire. It wasn’t the first time there had been trouble with Lithuanians or Albanians in the local drugs trade, so it was written up by the police as another gang-related hit.’

  ‘What happened to the shooter?’

  ‘He got away. The injured man was taken to the Royal Sussex. He had no ID on him, but one of my officers heard about it and recognised him. We got him out of there immediately.’

  ‘And hid him among wounded military personnel?’ Fitzgerald looked puzzled, although whether it was at Tobinskiy’s final refuge or what an officer of MI6 was doing in the Royal Sussex Hospital at the time wasn’t clear. ‘Was that wise?’

  Deane flushed. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time and I stand by it.’

  ‘He wasn’t that well concealed, was he?’ commented a man with a bushy head of hair. His name was Andrews and headed up the internal security section. ‘Somebody found him. If you’d let us know, we could have looked after him properly.’

  ‘There wasn’t time. We had one extra man on duty. Placing too much security on that unit would have attracted media attention. They already keep a watch to see who goes in there, hoping for some Special Forces personnel to put under the microscope. The duty guard must have wandered off.’ She looked at Ballatyne. ‘In any case, there has already been a precedent for stowing non-military patients in that unit by members of this Service. Isn’t that right?’

  All eyes swivelled like spectators at a tennis match towards this new focus of attention, and Ballatyne silently cursed the woman to hell and back for her indiscretion. But it was too late now; in defending herself, she had effectively swung the spotlight his way.

  ‘You had better explain,’ said Fitzgerald with a sigh, flicking a finger towards the red light on the digital unit in the ceiling. ‘For the record.’

  Ballatyne did so with reluctance. Words uttered here without great care could sometimes prove fatal for a career, often long after the event. ‘It’s correct that another patient in the unit was a former Six officer named Clare Jardine. She was shot and wounded during an operation against the organisation known as the Protectory. The man responsible was a Bosnian named Milan Zubac, one of their enforcers. As you may recall, they were preying on deserters from the army, looking for information to sell to the highest bidder, before killing off the people concerned.’

  ‘Yes, we know who they were,’ said Deane aggressively. ‘But if memory serves me well, hadn’t Jardine already been dismissed from the Service after murdering one of our own officers?’ She frowned dramatically at the ceiling. ‘Let me see . . . Sir Anthony Bellingham, wasn’t it? Stabbed just along the embankment from here, if memory serves me right. How the hell she wasn’t locked up in a maximum security cell for a hundred years is beyond me.’

  The silence in the room told its own tale, and Ballatyne felt his gut sink. They all remembered Bellingham. What some chose to forget, however, was his involvement in creating a covert dumping ground outpost in Georgia, code-named Red Station. It had not been an auspicious time for MI5 or MI6, and the echoes were still rattling around the corridors of both organisations.

  ‘The case against Jardine was never proved,’ he said calmly, relieved that Deane wouldn’t be aware of the initial reason for Clare Jardine’s loss of position in Six: a messy honey-trap operation that had gone badly wrong in all sorts of ways. Those details had been stamped on at a higher security level than Deane was able to access, but revealing them would only have detracted from anything he might say in Jardine’s favour. ‘What is important to remember,’ he continued quickly, as she made to interject, ‘is that Jardine was shot and seriously wounded while saving the lives of two of our people. I considered that sufficient reason to argue in favour of treatment in a secure unit like the MTC at King’s.’ He glanced at Fitzgerald. ‘Others agreed with me.’

  ‘Maybe so. But it still remains to see which side she’s on,’ Deane muttered sourly, sensing a temporary defeat.

  Fitzgerald tapped the table with his mobile, effectively cutting off further argument. There was silence in the room for a few moments, then he said, ‘I suggest that in view of Tobinskiy’s . . . chequered history and the known threats against him, we wait for the results of the tests and decide on our next course of action from there. If the suspicions we probably all harbour are correct and his death came about through the intervention of those chasing him, then it needs very careful handling.’ He frowned and looked at Deane. ‘As well as an immediate investigation into how his presence there became known.’ He turned his gaze on Ballatyne. ‘As a matter of interest, where is Jardine now?’

  Ballatyne kept his face under control to avoid looking at Deane. ‘I wish I knew. She walked out of the unit last night and hasn’t been seen since.’

  As he spoke, he was aware of Deane smiling maliciously in the background.

  ‘It was nothing to do with us,’ she put in bluntly. ‘Bit of a coincidence, though, isn’t it – her going missing like that immediately after a Russian dissident dies.’

  Ballatyne said nothing. There was nothing he could say in response to the loaded inference that she had dropped into the room; that the unexplained death of a Russian in hiding, and the disappearance from the same location of a rogue former MI6 officer could only mean one thing:

  Jardine must have been instrumental in his death.

  EIGHT

  ‘I don’t know if Jardine’s got herself involved in something, but you’d better find her before somebody else does. The dogs are being let out.’

  Ballatyne didn’t wait for Harry to sit down, but spoke urgen
tly. He was seated at a rear corner table in Richoux’s restaurant along Piccadilly, across from the Burlington Arcade. For once his minders were nowhere in sight, although Harry guessed they wouldn’t be far away.

  He looked around at the gilded interior of the restaurant and said, ‘A move up in the world from Wigmore Street, I see. Is that promotion?’

  Ballatyne grunted. ‘It’s closed for renovations. I got tired of the décor.’ He nodded at the coffee pot. ‘Help yourself.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Not for me. What did you find out?’ It was barely eight in the morning and he’d already had his quota by the time Ballatyne’s call had come in, suggesting the meeting. He’d sounded stressed, cutting the connection immediately.

  ‘Jardine’s gone on the lam. She walked out of the hospital in the middle of the night without telling anybody, dressed pretty much in the clothes she arrived in. Silly girl’s going to kill herself if someone doesn’t get to her first.’ He frowned. ‘I spoke to the consultants. You’ve no idea what hoops I had to jump through to do that. Anybody would think I’d asked for the Queen’s medical history, not that of a former employee. Anyway, upshot is, she was very lucky. The bullet slipped by any critical organs, so no life-threatening damage was done. But she’s going to be on a boring diet for a long, long time. And no strenuous exercise.’

  Harry nodded. It confirmed what one of the nurses had told him. Fortunately, Jardine was a born fighter and made of tough stuff, which had helped.

  ‘What happened to make her leave?’

  Ballatyne sighed. ‘There’s only one reason. A bloody sound one for her, too. She might have a hole in her but she hasn’t lost her instincts. Have you heard of a man named Tobinskiy?’

  ‘No. Should I?’

  Ballatyne explained briefly about the Russian and his connection with Litvinenko, and how a section of MI6 had confined him to King’s College Hospital for his own protection. ‘It didn’t work too well – he was found dead in his bed two days ago.’

  ‘Did they check the radiation levels?’ It was a reference to Litvinenko’s death.

  ‘First thing they did. No more ticks than you’d get off your grandma’s second-hand wristwatch. The Russian desk people are now pedalling fast beneath the surface to protect themselves. Fact is, there are those in the know about Russian affairs who think Tobinskiy might have been the primary target in 2006, and Litvinenko happened to get in the way.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that it makes much difference; the Kremlin was undoubtedly going after both of them, anyway. The Brighton shooting confirms that.’

  ‘I take it they didn’t get the shooter?’

  ‘No. Probably back in Moscow the following morning; one of their wet job specialists.’ He dropped a black-and-white photo on the table. ‘Tobinskiy’s on the left.’ It showed two men in uniform, grinning into the camera. One he recognised immediately from press photos. It was Alexander Litvinenko, former FSB officer and later journalist, broadcaster and stated enemy of his former employers. He’d never seen the other man before. The photo was grainy and dated and, Harry guessed, probably taken from official files. Both men looked healthy, happy and full of life, and so similar in appearance they could have been brothers.

  ‘To answer your question, we still don’t know what caused Tobinskiy’s death. But it certainly wasn’t through falling out of bed.’

  ‘A hit.’

  ‘Bloody certain of it. Finishing what they started. His wounds wouldn’t have killed him; he was over the worst, apparently, although he was carrying a fever and rambling quite a bit, according to reports. Kept waking other patients with his shouting.’ He stared up at the ornate décor. ‘Unfortunately, there are those among my esteemed colleagues who have conveniently jumped on the idea that Jardine being on-site at the time, as it were, means she must be in league with Vladimir’s boys and girls. They know she went rogue in the first place, although not the details, ergo two and two makes five. Her going after Bellingham didn’t help. Vanishing on the same night Tobinskiy gets bumped off has just about put the ribbon on the cake.’

  ‘That’s crazy. She wasn’t in a fit state to kill a fly.’

  ‘You know that and I know it. But she was clearly fit enough to get out of bed and disappear. She’s got no money or cards, though; her stuff’s still in the hospital lock-up.’

  ‘That won’t stop her.’ Clare Jardine was a trained survivor; somehow she would find the means to keep her head above water. ‘Could she have been taken?’ It wasn’t beyond the bounds of reason, although why the killers would do so was a puzzle. Lifting somebody from the hospital and taking them out into the street presented risks, even at the dead of night.

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t fit, somehow. Look at it from the other side’s point of view and you’d make the same assumption – that she bugged out under her own steam.’ He shrugged. ‘Whatever. We need to find her. Correction – you need to find her. If she’s out there too long, she’ll get scooped up. I’d rather that didn’t happen.’

  Harry felt a needle of cynicism. ‘You’re all at it, aren’t you? Secrets within secrets. Who are you protecting?’

  Ballatyne brushed the comment aside. ‘I’m not. Unlike the others, I cleared Jardine’s treatment in that unit with higher authorities. But placing a targeted Russian – and a former FSB man at that – in the same hospital was certifiably insane.’

  ‘Are you worried about her safety?’ Harry knew what Clare was capable of. ‘She’s no school kid. And she stayed under cover perfectly fine before she got herself shot.’

  ‘As you say, that was before she got shot and because she wasn’t important enough for us to go looking seriously. Now she’s walking wounded and it does matter, because on the one hand she’s a useful scapegoat in the event of an enquiry, and on the other they’ll want to stop her blabbing about what she saw or heard.’ He looked sombre. ‘I mean it, Harry; our people aren’t going to mess about. They’ll put some sub-contract ex-military attack dogs from one of the more iffy agencies on her trail until they get her. And if the people who knocked off Tobinskiy are still out there and looking to do the same, she’s as good as stuffed.’

  ‘Russians, you mean.’

  ‘Who else? Nobody else cared about him. I don’t have a line on who they are because it doesn’t really matter. But I’ll bet they’ve got the FSB oath of allegiance tattooed inside their eyelids.’

  ‘Why should they care about Clare? If it was a Moscow hit team they’ll be long gone by now.’

  ‘Maybe. Thing is, she might have heard something, put two and two together. And after the Litvinenko scandal, the last thing Moscow needs is someone leaping out of the woodwork proving they’re a ruthless bunch of bastards who’d murder a helpless man in his hospital bed to stop him talking.’

  Harry pushed his coffee away. He had a feeling Ballatyne was being unusually frank about Clare. Rik had already come up against one brick wall on the HM Prison Service transfers database, but was currently trying other ways in. Unless her name had been deliberately kept off any official list, she must have gone to ground for her own reasons.

  ‘So you want me to find her?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  Harry was surprised. ‘Then what are we doing here?’

  ‘We’re not. We didn’t speak, you haven’t seen me.’ He swept a hand out. ‘None of this took place. If you say it did, I’ll have you taken out and shot.’

  It explained the absent minders. Ballatyne was being very discreet.

  ‘So this is off the books?’

  ‘So far off, it’s on the other side of nowhere.’ Ballatyne looked grim. ‘I’m not kidding, Harry. You and I don’t know each other.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give me your mobile.’

  Harry did so, and Ballatyne keyed in a number and handed it back.

  ‘That’s how you contact me, but by text message only. It’s an untraceable number. If you need to speak, say so and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.’

  Harry stared at him. He had neve
r known Ballatyne to be so cautious before. Whatever was worrying the MI6 man had to be internal – something that he couldn’t talk about. Whatever it was, to be using ‘black’ phones and numbers, it was serious.

  ‘Find Jardine and make it toot-bloody-sweet,’ Ballatyne concluded. ‘If only to prove I wasn’t wrong in putting her in that hospital in the first place. I’ll work out a way of paying reasonable expenses, but it’ll be right under the counter, so keep the costs down.’

  Harry nodded. ‘In that case I’ll start here and now. First off, I’d like some clear photos from her personnel file, in case we need to show them around.’

  ‘Agreed. What else?’

  ‘Her home address. I doubt she’ll go back there, but it’s a start.’

  ‘You’d be wasting your time. She sold her flat through a solicitor after the Georgia business; took the money in cash and went underground.’

  ‘I’d still like the details.’

  ‘Why – because of friends, drinking buddies, the man at the corner shop remembering her for her cheery hello? That’s a hell of a reach.’ When Harry said nothing, he sighed. ‘Fair enough. You know best. And I owe you that, I suppose. What else?’

  ‘CCTV in the hospital?’

  ‘I’ve asked, but they’re playing silly buggers, citing invasion of privacy. It might take time, so work on the basis that you’ll have to do without.’

  Harry frowned. ‘It’s a murder enquiry at the very least. Doesn’t that trump those issues?’

  ‘I thought so, too. But our legal brains say because of other personnel being treated there, it’s rather delicate.’ Ballatyne pulled a sour face. ‘Bloody silly if you ask me, but there you go. Is that it?’

  ‘Who were her buddies around the water cooler at Vauxhall Cross? You know she had some.’

  Ballatyne looked wary. It was a sore point. Following the Red Station debacle, it had become apparent that Clare Jardine had been receiving information from inside MI6, helping her to stay out of reach of the authorities. The friends responsible had so far remained hidden, but Harry was willing to bet that some still worked in the MI6 building.