Execution (A Harry Tate Thriller)

by Adrian Magson

  She nodded and put a hand out to prevent Clare from arguing further. ‘Very well. That is enough for now. This man . . . Gorelkin. He’s a special; one of the old guard. He retired years ago. Some said he was not a fan of modernity, others said he was simply tired of the game.’

  ‘Game?’

  ‘He started out in the GRU – military intelligence – and was very active during the Cold War in Germany and the West. He also organised counter-terror units during our Afghan War and was highly decorated during that time. He transferred to the KGB and worked under Vladimir Kryuchkov until Kryuchkov’s forced retirement in ’91. Gorelkin continued but some say the fight had gone out of him, that he was not happy with the new ways of the FSB or of the new government.’

  ‘Of Putin?’

  ‘Especially of Putin. But not even a man of Gorelkin’s status could voice those opinions for long without attracting trouble. Eventually he dropped out of sight. There were rumours that he was doing special work for the government, but they were like many rumours, impossible to prove. It was part of the mythology of men like him. Then, I think two years ago, it was said he had died of cancer.’ She glanced at Clare. ‘I tell you this only so that you know who you are dealing with. If Sergei Gorelkin is, as you say, controlling the team in London, then he was asked to come in and do so at the very highest level.’

  ‘Why? The FSB can’t be short of good leaders.’

  ‘They are not. But a man who retired, disillusioned, then died? Who would think it? I can barely believe it myself.’

  ‘Why not?’ Harry countered. ‘It makes him very deniable. Was he involved with the death of Litvinenko?’

  Katya paused before answering, and blinked, as if adjusting her thinking. Then she said, ‘I don’t know. Nobody does. That is a subject not talked about anywhere in the FSB. There is a saying among the ranks, “You can think your thoughts but do it quietly”.’

  ‘And Lugovoi?’ Harry said it before Clare did – or in case she could not. Andrei Lugovoi, a former member of the FSO, like Katya, but now a member of the Russian parliament, was the prime suspect in Alexander Litvinenko’s murder in London, and Litvinenko’s widow was pushing hard for an investigation. ‘Is he also a non-subject?’

  She looked straight at him. ‘I never knew him and I don’t know if he did it or not. We are trained to save lives, not take them.’ Her face moved momentarily in some kind of inner conflict, but she said nothing else.

  ‘My point,’ Harry said gently, ‘is that if Gorelkin played any part in the tracking down and killing of Tobinskiy, he could have done it before. It would have made him a natural choice.’

  She nodded fractionally. ‘Yes, I agree. It would.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ said Clare. She looked nervous, as if the talk was irritating her, and was tapping the empty miniature on her knee in a furious drum-beat. ‘We can’t stay here forever, can we?’

  ‘No.’ Katya looked at her with sympathy, then at Harry. ‘After seeing you at the wheel, I was ordered back to the FSB office in the embassy. I was questioned about my motives for going to the wheel and asked if I had arranged to meet somebody. I denied it, of course; I didn’t even know Clare was here in Vienna. But they kept asking me, over and over. They checked my mobile phone, they searched my luggage, they questioned my colleague and the three banking experts we were guarding. It was only then, and the bankers all agreed that it had been entirely their idea to visit the wheel, and that I had not even mentioned it, that they seemed to believe me.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘They did not, of course. Mud sticks, isn’t that what you say? Especially as I suspect somebody had told them about my record.’ She looked angry for a moment, then continued: ‘It is not often that anyone is given a second chance in the FSB – or anywhere else in our security system. One infraction and that is the end of your career. I know there were some who believed I was guilty all along, and this would have been enough to confirm it in their minds.’

  ‘Would Gorelkin have known?’

  ‘Possibly, but not likely. It was all too recent for him. But he is a very experienced man; he would have made it his business to find out.’ She hesitated. ‘Especially, as I say, if the poison had been administered in the first place.’

  The memory stick, Harry thought. Or did they have some other source of information?

  ‘How did you get away now?’

  ‘They let me go. They had no reason to hold me or send me back. I’m due to return to Moscow tomorrow afternoon, in any case.’

  Harry walked over to the window and looked out. It was dark now, with a glitter of lights over the zigzag-pattern rooftops. He wondered what was going on out there. Were they having Katya followed? He had taken great care in bringing her here and watching out for tails, but shaking off a good surveillance team was not an exact science. Not that he could do much about that.

  He turned back. ‘And you’re sure you don’t want to go back? It’s a big step.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘What about Gorelkin’s men in London?’ he asked. ‘Is there any way of stopping them?’

  Katya frowned. ‘Legally, I’m sure there is. If they have been recruited to kill a foreign national outside of the direct rules of conflict, then possibly they are acting against the constitution. Since 2010 there has been a new set of rules governing the use of force by all military and security personnel.’

  ‘Does that include the FSB?’

  She gave a thin smile. ‘I cannot answer that.’

  ‘How about a non-legal answer?’

  ‘If they are acting under the direction of a person who is not part of a government agency, then they are classified as criminals. The only way to stop them would be by direct force.’

  The words, voiced without drama or heat, seemed to lower the temperature in the room instantly.

  ‘Then that’s what we have to do.’ Harry was reaching for his phone to call a cab, when it buzzed.

  It was Rik.

  ‘Bogeys are on us,’ he said quietly. ‘Two cars, one at each end of the street, plus two on foot. Looks like a war party, and they know exactly where we are.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  ‘They’ve found us.’ Harry relayed the information to the two women. He drew his gun. This really wasn’t the place for a fire-fight, but he wasn’t about to let any of them be taken without some kind of resistance. If these new arrivals were acting on orders from Gorelkin, then they were looking to silence Clare and anybody with her. Finding Katya would be a bonus and her future would be equally short-lived.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Katya. She had gone pale, but looked quite calm. ‘How could they know?’

  ‘No idea – unless you were followed or have a tracker on you.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I was not followed, I promise you. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Then it’s a tracking device. But let’s get out of here first.’ He went to the door and opened it a fraction. The corridor was empty. He didn’t waste time checking the front window onto the street, but led the way along the corridor to the back stairs. Clare was in the middle with Katya bringing up the rear, gun still drawn.

  Unlike most hotels, this one believed in making the fire stairs as comfortable as possible, with a decent carpet to deaden the sound of footsteps and lighting to make the descent easy. Harry went one floor ahead to check the way, cracking the floor doors a little each time to listen, in case the Russians had had time to insert anyone ahead of the main force arrival. But the building was quiet save for the hum of air conditioning and the occasional sound of music or voices.

  They had just arrived at the ground floor where a lobby gave access to the kitchens and office, when a door to the front reception area opened and Rik appeared.

  ‘They stopped outside for a powwow,’ he told Harry quietly. ‘But they haven’t split up yet. I think they’re waiting for orders. The two on foot are right by the front entrance. They’re all in casual
gear.’

  Harry was still puzzled by how quickly the followers had got here. He was certain the hotel wouldn’t have had any reason to tell the authorities. And if they had, the new arrivals would have been police, not men in street clothes. But there had to have been something.

  He looked at Katya and said quietly, ‘We can’t stop here, but you need to start dumping anything that could have been fitted with a radio tag. Otherwise there’s no point in us running; they’ll catch us wherever we go.’

  She nodded and pulled out a wallet and her mobile phone. ‘I have never given my wallet to anyone. But this,’ she hefted the phone. ‘They took it away while I was being questioned. I think they were checking my calls and contacts.’ She put her gun away and ripped off the back of the phone, and took out the battery. ‘Dura!’ she swore softly. ‘I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Rik. He took the phone and slid out the battery. Behind it was a paper-thin disc, with a tab placed to share the phone’s power supply. He took it out and handed back the phone. ‘They didn’t trust you much, did they? Leave this with me. I’ll lose it. Come on.’ He turned and went through a rear door fitted with an emergency handle, although this was down. The door was propped open by a block of wood, no doubt where the staff took their breaks.

  They emerged onto a small yard piled with beer crates, aluminium casks and a stack of delivery cartons, all lit by a single overhead light. It was impressively tidy. Double gates led out onto a service alleyway running parallel to the front street. It was shut fast. Harry pointed to a door set in a high wall bordering the side of the yard. ‘Where does that go?’

  Rik stepped across and slid a bolt. The door opened to reveal a narrow passageway running between the buildings on either side, no doubt a left-over from when the area was criss-crossed with narrow channels to allow pedestrians easy access without venturing onto the streets.

  ‘They’ll know we went out that way,’ said Clare.

  ‘Not if it stays bolted,’ said Rik. He held it open while they filed through, then closed it behind them and slid the bolt. Using one of the beer casks to stand on, he put his hands on the top of the wall and kicked the cask away before clambering up. The cask rolled away and came to rest across the yard, near the rear gates. Dropping down the other side, he trotted after the others, flicking the tracking bug away into the dark.

  ‘Go!’ Captain Yuri Symenko gave the order to his men and switched off his radio. The rest was now up to him. A chance to prove himself worthy of better things.

  The team piled out of the car and crossed the pavement to join their two colleagues at the front entrance to the hotel. Four of them moved inside while two others trotted along the street to an intersection to check the rear of the building. Symenko followed at a more relaxed pace, enjoying the feel of power at the flick of a finger.

  Inside the hotel, a man was sitting behind the reception desk, reading a book on French architecture.

  ‘BVT.’ After two years, Symenko’s German was fluent enough to pass muster. He flashed an ID card stating that he represented the Federal Agency for State Protection and Counter-Terrorism. ‘You have suspects in this hotel we wish to interview.’ He produced photos of Clare Jardine and Katya Balenkova and slapped them on the counter in front of the clerk, who seemed bemused by the show of strength rather than intimidated.

  ‘The dark haired one, yes,’ he said, pointing at the picture of Jardine. ‘But I’ve never seen the blonde one. What have they done?’ He stared around at the men with Symenko, all dressed in jeans and jackets, none of them bothering to hide the automatic weapons they were carrying. They seemed to fill the space with their presence and were all staring at him in silence.

  ‘Never mind that. Which room?’

  The man told them, and stood watching as two men headed for the lift and the others took the stairs. ‘Don’t break anything,’ he called after them, then shrugged and went back to his book. They hadn’t even asked for a key. He made a note to get the cleaning ladies in early tomorrow; no doubt they’d be needed.

  Upstairs, the team gathered along the corridor leading to the English woman’s room and waited for Symenko to give the order to go. When he nodded, one of the men leaned across, knocked on the door and waited. No answer.

  ‘Force it.’ Symenko moved back to allow the men to kick the door in, which they did with a crash.

  The room was empty. They checked every drawer and the bathroom, but there was nothing of interest.

  Symenko was about to call in the results when his radio crackled.

  ‘They went out the back.’ It was one of the men outside. ‘I can see them moving along an alleyway.’

  ‘Follow them and keep them in sight. And keep this channel open.’ He ordered his men out and back to the vehicles.

  Symenko was smiling in eager anticipation. This was no longer a simple trace and report; it was now turning into a hot pursuit.

  FORTY-NINE

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Rik, as Harry led them across an intersection towards a darkened area in the distance. ‘We’re not going down in the sewers, are we? I saw that film. It gave me the creeps.’

  ‘Relax,’ Harry murmured. ‘If we do I’ll send one of the girls down first to shoo away the nasty spiders.’

  They were passing between a seemingly endless collection of four-and-five storey apartment blocks set back on streets that were too wide for comfort. All the Russians would have to do was hit the right street and they would be caught out in the open.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Katya. She seemed calm enough, but there was an air of tension about her that spoke volumes about the kind of men pursuing them.

  ‘There’s a safe house we can use,’ Harry replied. ‘If we can get to it. But we can’t do that with them following us.’ He had tried calling Richoux, but there was no response. The man’s local knowledge would have been invaluable, but they were going to have to fall back on their own resources. So far they had seen no sign of a taxi, and hanging around for one to turn up was not an option. If the Russians called up reinforcements and flooded the area, it would be only a matter of time before they were seen.

  Up ahead the glow from the street lights between the apartment blocks appeared to fade, showing an area of relative darkness. Harry had mentioned it to be a park near the Praterstern, a large gyratory system connecting a number of roads like spokes of a wheel. If they got to that safely, they could go under cover in the park until they managed to pick up a taxi and head south to the district of Favoriten, where the safe house was located.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Rik turned to check on Clare, who was being helped along by Katya. She had refused his help earlier, and he’d figured she was better off doing it herself if she chose.

  He was about to turn back when he noticed a flicker of movement a hundred yards away. A figure was jogging along the street, flitting in and out of the shadows. He’d seen some movement before, but had dismissed it as normal. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  ‘I’m going to drop back,’ he told Harry. ‘I think we’ve got a tail. I’ll catch up at the park.’

  Harry turned and looked behind them. The pursuer had vanished. ‘You sure you can handle it?’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘OK. Don’t take all night; his buddies won’t be far behind.’

  Rik stepped of the street and into a small belt of trees and bushes bordering an apartment block. The trees conveniently blanked out any view of the windows above and behind him, leaving him in almost complete darkness. He allowed his breathing to settle and listened to the night, trying to block out the hum of traffic and focus instead on noises closer at hand.

  He heard the man before he saw him. Whoever he was, he had a clumpy tread and was breathing heavily with a faint wheezing sound, like a worn-out prize-fighter who had encountered too many punches. Rik waited until the last second, then peered out as the man passed beneath a street light. He was short and stocky, dressed in jeans and a nylon jacket. He had close-cro
pped hair and a developing paunch, but walked with the resolute gait of a man accustomed to long route marches.

  The glint of a weapon showed in a hip holster to one side.

  As the man drew level with his hiding place, Rik stepped out and hit him across the throat with his gun.

  Whatever his physical state, the man had good instincts. He moved to one side the moment he sensed trouble, lifting his forearm to block the attack and uttering a sharp expletive. But he was a fraction of a second too slow. His arm took most of the blow, but the gun barrel glanced off the solid mass of muscle and bone and thudded into his throat. He grunted and made a choking sound and pitched over backwards.

  Rik bent and dragged the man into the bushes, picking up the gun which had slipped from its holster. He flipped the body over and took out the man’s shoelaces, then tied his little fingers and thumbs together, palms outwards to prevent him from breaking them, and used the man’s belt to secure his ankles. It wouldn’t last long, but would give them breathing space to get away unseen.

  He stopped, hearing footsteps approaching along the street. Another one? He waited, then heard a snuffling sound, and came face to face with a red setter ducking its head beneath the foliage. It stared at him, tongue hanging out, then whined. He wasn’t sure who was most surprised, but was thankful when the dog retreated at a sharp command from a woman walking by just a few feet away.

  He allowed her to move away before going back to searching the unconscious man’s pockets. He felt a bulky object in the jacket. It was a shortwave radio. He made sure he didn’t touch the controls and put it in his pocket to dispose of later. Then he set off after the others.

  ‘Preshkin’s not answering.’ One of Captain Symenko’s lieutenants, a recent addition to the team, had been monitoring the lead man’s progress along the back streets. He had been getting a regular commentary by radio about the direction in which the fugitives were moving, but that had ceased, accompanied by some interference and background static. ‘Hello, Preshkin. Come in,’ he barked, as if to prove it.