The Frozen Circle

by Peter Watt

  Coupled with this was the presence of a former Russian special forces soldier attending an Aussie folk festival. Olev was a fish out of water and good cops were able to pick up what didn’t fit in the picture. It was time to talk to Petrov Olev again.

  On his way to the hotel where the Russian was staying Morgan spotted the man walking along the footpath in the direction of the town’s one and only general store. He parked the police vehicle and alighted in front of the Russian.

  ‘Mr Olev,’ Morgan said. ‘Do you have a moment to spare?’

  Batkin eyed the policeman suspiciously. ‘Ah, my friend,’ he said. ‘It is a beautiful day and I have time to talk with you. Are you still going for your run up the hill out of town?’

  ‘Not lately,’ Morgan replied. ‘But things are settling down and I hope to hit the hill again soon.’

  ‘Good, we can run together,’ Olev answered with a disarming smile.

  ‘What business brings you to Valley View, Mr Olev?’ Morgan asked. ‘It does not seem the type of place that would hold any interest to a Russian citizen.’

  ‘I have always wanted see Australia,’ Batkin replied calmly. ‘I hear of Aussie folk festival when in Sydney and, how you say, get feel for Aussie culture by coming.’

  ‘But you are still here and the festival is over,’ Morgan countered.

  ‘I like town,’ Batkin said, spreading his arms to encompass the surroundings. ‘Is good. I might buy property here one day and retire.’

  Morgan shook his head. ‘I’m not a fool, Mr Olev,’ he said. ‘We both know that you have little interest in retiring here so just give me something I can believe.’

  Batkin’s smile disappeared. He sensed that the man standing before him was no fool and could be dangerous.

  ‘I think in your country I no have to answer questions,’ he said calmly. ‘You must arrest me first.’

  ‘Just a friendly conversation, Mr Olev,’ Morgan said with a faint smile. ‘You are free to walk away at any time.’

  ‘I think I do so,’ Batkin said and brushed past Morgan to continue his short journey to the store.

  As Morgan watched him walk away he wistfully thought about how good it would have been to be a member of the old KGB. Now, there was an organisation that didn’t have to worry about the rule of law. But Morgan had what he had come for. He was now convinced that the Russian was a fish out of water and that put him at the top of his list of suspects in the attempted murder of Monique. All he had to do was get proof.

  What worried Morgan was the statement given by Gladys Harrison concerning her assault at the museum. She had been adamant that she had been attacked by a man and a woman with distinctive English accents. He knew from speaking with her that the break-in had been to find the journal of Joshua Larkin. Was it possible that the British government or one of its agencies was involved? The thought did not sit easily when he remembered how the French many years earlier had used agents to sabotage the Rainbow Warrior Greenpeace ship in a New Zealand harbour. That had caused the downfall of the French government of the time. Surely the Poms weren’t that stupid.

  London

  Present day

  In the true tradition of all good intelligence agency practices, the next contact Harry Stanton had with the government grey man was in a small Asian food mart in a London suburb. The two men walked slowly along the cramped aisle, sometimes side by side, occasionally stopping to seemingly examine the produce.

  ‘You called this meeting, Mr Stanton,’ the grey man said.

  ‘We have … what I can see … shaping up to be a situation,’ Harry said, picking up a jar of Chinese pickled vegetables. ‘Something unforseen has cropped up in Australia.’

  The grey man did not look at Harry when he spoke but pretended to be interested in the tins of Chinese mixed vegetables too. ‘Is it a situation that might cause embarrassment to the PM?’ he asked.

  Harry took in a deep breath. ‘It might if what I suspect is about to happen goes forward.’

  This time the grey man looked at Harry. ‘I think that you should elaborate.’

  ‘I am not saying it is inevitable that anything will ever be traced back to us,’ Harry replied, placing the jar back on the shelf. ‘I have mechanisms in place to prevent any threat to our security in the matter. But I am reluctant to initiate a counter-strike unless absolutely necessary. And even if our blocks failed we still have the fact that the Aussie authorities may not put two and two together. After all, Australia is a long way from here.’

  ‘Not in this age of global communications,’ the grey man replied. ‘You should be very aware of that. After all, was it not the internet that opened this matter after such a long time dormant?’

  Harry nodded. A call across the Indian Ocean was all that was needed to activate Daniel Kildare to carry out a mission on behalf of MI6 – except that it would not really be MI6 that authorised any killing of a British subject in a foreign land. He could not authorise murder – only conspire to abet such an act.

  ‘It could be that you are right,’ Harry said quietly. ‘We cannot take the chance. I will initiate an action to cut off any potential threat to the government. Leave it with me.’

  ‘I feel that it has gone somewhat pear-shaped,’ the grey man said. ‘Just remember that all this can only be traced to you if the PM’s department is pushed into a corner. If that event occurs I doubt that you will be on the list of next year’s honours for a gong.’

  Receiving a decoration from the Queen was the last thing on Harry’s mind, although he currently held an MBE and was hoping for a higher honour in the announcements on the New Year list. There were rumours that such a decoration was in the wind for his services to MI6.

  The grey man departed with his little shopping bag under his arm, leaving Harry to think on the call that he would make to Daniel Kildare’s mobile phone. He felt sick and trapped but he had no choice now.

  Valley View

  Present day

  Daniel Kildare stared through the window of the bar onto a view of the main street. Very few vehicles passed by, a contrast to the week just gone when the main street was packed end to end with cars and pedestrians. He had failed to locate the journal and knew that his presence in the town would not go unnoticed by the locals. He was a stranger and any questions regarding the possible whereabouts of the journal would raise suspicion among the normally taciturn drinkers propping up the bar. He would have to use every skill he had ever learned with MI6 to find a way into their trust as he was certain that someone in town knew where the book might be.

  But the major matter occupying his thoughts at the moment was the call from Harry Stanton. What he had been ordered to do was causing him grief. More grief than Harry would have comprehended. Kildare had not let on that he was currently having a passionate affair with Sarah. Such a relationship would not be viewed with favour by his department.

  He continued gazing out the window, the glass of beer in front of him on the bench under the window hardly touched. It was, after all, just on midday and Kildare had a long day to go.

  Then he saw her crossing the street towards the pub. She was wearing jeans and a tight-fitting blouse. Kildare was aware that the other drinkers in the bar had turned to watch her as she walked in and sat down on a stool beside Daniel. They looked more like father and daughter than lovers.

  ‘Did you miss me this morning?’ Sarah beamed, disarmingly.

  ‘I was rather too busy to notice,’ Kildare replied, feebly attempting to appear aloof to her charms.

  Their affair had commenced in Sydney when she unexpectedly arrived at his hotel room to announce that she had been assigned to shadow Petrov Batkin and assist Kildare with his case involving the same subject. A shared dinner under subdued lighting in the four-star hotel restaurant, a couple of bottles of good Aussie wine and it had happened. Kildare had not been able to believe his good fortune. She could have stepped off any catwalk in Milan into his bed. The lovemaking had been ferocious. Sarah had a liking f
or inflicting pain and when Kildare had eventually staggered out of their shared bed the next morning he had both a hangover and a trail of bite marks all over his body. He gave a short prayer of thanks that he was single and would not have to attempt to conceal the marks to a wife when he returned to England.

  But he would have to conceal the affair from his departmental supervisor, Harry Stanton if he were to keep his posting, and killing Sarah was something he was not sure he could do – despite Stanton’s direction. Sarah now sat beside him, chatting cheerily about how wonderful the spring weather was in Valley View and how quaint the town was.

  Kildare brooded. ‘Sarah, did you get a clearance for this assignment?’ he asked, cutting across her chatter.

  Her expression registered a look of surprise. ‘I was directed to get close to Petrov Batkin, and when he chose me to accompany him to Australia, I had no other choice but to follow him,’ she replied. ‘I am still working to my original assignment. That it has brought me here is purely coincidental. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I had a call from Harry,’ Kildare answered. ‘He is a bit annoyed that you did not report your sudden move over here to him.’

  ‘I may be guilty of not following procedures to the letter,’ Sarah said. ‘I wanted something substantial to report before I made contact with the department.’

  Her excuse sounded too hollow to be true, Kildare knew, and he wondered why. What was she really up to? This question nagged him because of what Harry had told him over the encrypted phone call. ‘Are you related to a Major James Locksley, formerly of the Secret Intelligence Service?’ he asked bluntly.

  Sarah’s calm composure shifted slightly. ‘He was my great-grandfather,’ she answered. ‘Why should that be of any interest in the present day?’

  ‘Well, we know the reason we are in Australia because he failed to carry out his assignment over here in 1920. In fact, I suspect that one of the bodies the Aussie coppers found in Valley View is probably his. Tell me that you didn’t know that?’

  Sarah gazed through the window at the fluffy white clouds boiling up in the sky. They threatened a late afternoon thunderstorm, as the morning had been so sultry.

  ‘I didn’t know anything about the case until I was told by Batkin when I reached Valley View. All I was told in St Petersburg was that my skills were needed for an unspecified mission in Australia. I was in the dark until I got here. The rest is pure coincidence although I will admit what I have learned since has held some fascination. Are we going to order a counter lunch or do I go down to that terrible little café at the end of the street and eat alone?’

  Kildare thought over what Sarah had said. Harry must have it all wrong. Sarah’s explanation made a lot of sense and her motives appeared innocent. After all, she had worked closely with him to search for the journal. Even risking capture by the local police over the break-in at the museum and the bashing of the woman who had walked in on them. He would need to contact Harry and explain what he had learned from Sarah. Hopefully he had found a way out of the most disturbing order Harry had left him with. Kildare had no desire to dispose of the girl who was seen as a threat to Britain’s security service; that would be cold-blooded murder. Despite the beautiful young woman’s role in MI6 she exuded an innocence that he was in love with, and he hoped that she could see that.

  Petrov Batkin was bored. There was only so much one could do in a tiny rural village so far from any real civilisation. As a good former Spetsnaz soldier he had already walked every street and lane in town, noting the buildings, high ground and escape avenues into the hills should the need arise. Sarah Sakharov had disappointed him. Monique Dawson had made no move to contact his organisation and Sarah, the English girl of Russian imperial sympathies, was sleeping with an English MI6 agent. When he had confronted her with his knowledge of the affair she had owned up, saying that it was part of her cover. He should be pleased that she was able to seduce the English agent and be in a position to learn what he knew over the pillow talk. Under other circumstances the honey-trap technique employed by the old KGB in the Cold War might have been considered a good move, but what worried Batkin most was how she knew Daniel Kildare was an MI6 agent, when he had not passed on that information to anyone.

  Sarah had, however, told him that Kildare had admitted to attempting to kill Monique Dawson by tampering with the brakes of her car the night Batkin had been shadowing him at the hall. That was an important bit of information, confirming Batkin’s theory that the English would attempt to eliminate the last in the line of the Romanov dynasty. It only spurred him on to wrap up his mission before the English were successful in silencing the woman. Time was running out, however, and Petrov Batkin was now questioning Sarah Sakharov’s role in his mission. Maybe he had been a bit smitten by her looks and charm. He was, after all, still a man and the young woman had the kind of allure that could seduce St Basil himself.

  And there was that local cop, Senior Constable Morgan McLean. Who was he really? Paranoia had indeed kept Petrov Batkin alive through many dangerous situations. It was again time to submit as much as he could to the organisation in Russia and let them dig up as much as they could on Morgan. Batkin began to undress and slip into his jogging gear. It was time to explore the countryside as any good former special forces soldier would. A place was needed to discreetly dispose of a body. He suspected Sarah Sakharov of double dealing. It would take a lot for her to prove her loyalty to her Russian heritage.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Archangel

  September 1919

  Grigor located his friend’s bookshop and they were fortunate that the man was still operating in a city increasingly seen as doomed by those who knew that the Red Army was gaining strength in northern Russia.

  The bookseller Grigor introduced as Lev Fedorov was a little man, bald, and wearing glasses and a threadbare jacket. Joshua guessed the man to be in his fifties – if not older. He did not smile when he saw the three standing on his doorstep but Grigor spoke rapidly, gesturing down the street that they had just walked up.

  At length Federov turned to Joshua and said in English, ‘My old friend tells me that you need help, also some preposterous story that the young lady with you is the Princess Maria.’

  Joshua was surprised at how fluent he spoke English and as if to answer Joshua’s unasked question, Federov continued, ‘I have lived many years in England,’ he said. ‘I made the mistake of thinking that I should return to Archangel to sell English published books here. Grigor was a loyal customer – if you can call a young man who sits in your shop all day reading your books without paying such a person.’

  Joshua looked at Grigor who ducked his head. ‘I help Mr Federov around the shop to pay,’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘No matter,’ Federov said and ushered the three into his shop, closing the door behind him and placing a closed sign in the window.

  Joshua could see that the bookseller was either unpacking or packing books given the wooden crates that took up most of the space on the floor. He guessed it would be the latter considering what he had just said.

  ‘Grigor has told me that you need temporary refuge before leaving Archangel,’ Federov said, leading them through the crates to a tiny back room that served as bed-sitter and kitchen. He placed a large well-used pot on the tiny stove and Joshua could smell tea brewing. ‘You must realise that I have very little room here and do not intend to remain in Russia so I can give only a little help.’

  ‘Any help is appreciated, Mr Federov,’ Joshua said. ‘We do not intend to stay long. We need a way out of Russia ourselves, and in saying that I think I can include Grigor. I suspect that he is now a persona non grata as I am probably too by now.’

  ‘On that matter I may be of help,’ Federov said, pouring tea into tiny cups. ‘I am afraid I cannot offer you cream or milk. Not even lemon for your tea,’ he apologised.

  Joshua did not mind. It was hot and strong. He noticed that Federov was eyeing Maria with great interest.

  �
��If you will excuse me for the moment,’ Federov said, placing his cup on the tiny sideboard cluttered with newspapers. He disappeared back into his store and a few moments later reappeared with a large, flat book in his hand. It contained many photographs and Joshua recognised them as being of the Russian royal family. When Maria realised what was in the book Joshua noted the change in her expression. It was a mixture of shock and sorrow. Federov flipped the pages and glanced up at her.

  ‘You look very much like the Princess Maria in these pictures of her,’ he said in French. ‘And if you are she then you will also have a rudimentary grasp of the language I am speaking.’

  ‘Oui, monsieur,’ Maria replied. ‘I was tutored in French by my mother.’

  Federov slowly placed the book on an upturned crate by the door. ‘I am sorry that I still have doubts about you,’ he said, switching back to Russian. ‘The Princess Maria was not tutored in French by her mother – a fact you seem to have overlooked.’

  Joshua could not follow the conversation but saw the tears well in Maria’s eyes. Whatever was being said had caused her normally pale cheeks to redden.

  ‘I will give you all the assistance you need,’ Federov said in English, addressing Joshua. ‘Maria has told me that you are responsible for saving her life on more than one occasion, Sergeant Larkin. From what she has told me about her family she has suffered so much already that she deserves to escape this sad land.’

  Joshua shrugged off the man’s words. ‘You are also a part of helping the princess stay alive,’ he replied. ‘As you are planning to get out of this godforsaken part of the world yourself, no doubt you have contacts.’