Games Traitors Play

by Jon Stock

  Everyone knew Spiro had messed up over the drone strike, but the truth was that the CIA needed people like him, and they didn’t have anyone to replace him with. What Spiro didn’t know, as he addressed the meeting in tones of barely disguised vindication, was that he was still dancing to Fielding’s tune.

  ‘I’m sorry to do this to you again, Marcus, but Daniel Marchant has got a lot of questions to answer.’ Fielding had to admire Spiro’s resilience. A few weeks earlier, he had been sitting at the same spot at the table, his career in tatters, listening to Paul Myers humiliate him.

  ‘Are you saying that Marchant in some way facilitated the breach of airspace?’ the chairman of the JIC, Sir David Chadwick, said, looking across at Fielding.

  ‘“Facilitated” is one way of putting it,’ said Spiro. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he was standing on the shores of Stornoway with a couple of paddles and a fluorescent jacket, instructing the MiGs where to taxi.’

  A chuckle rippled through Sir David’s jowls, then he checked himself when he realised that no one else was laughing. He was an odious chairman, Fielding thought, obsequious in the extreme, always looking to see where the real power lay. Not so long ago, Spiro had been trying to frame him in a child-porn sting. Now he was cosying up to the Americans again.

  ‘These are serious allegations,’ Fielding said. ‘Sorry to sound so old-school, but do we have any evidence?’

  ‘I appreciate that this is the last thing you need, after the Prentice affair,’ Spiro said, hoping to pile on the public embarrassment. Although he owed his own rehabilitation to Fielding, he couldn’t resist the moment. There was too much history between the two of them, their respective organisations. ‘One Soviet mole could be construed as careless. But two…’

  ‘The evidence, please,’ Sir David said, convincing no one with his attempt at neutrality.

  ‘Where do we start?’ Spiro asked, shuffling some papers and photos in front of him. ‘The covert meeting with Nikolai Primakov in central London?’ He waved a couple of photos in the air, one of Marchant entering Goodman’s restaurant, the other of Primakov.

  ‘“Covert” might be pushing it,’ Fielding said. ‘I seem to remember the dinner – sanctioned by me – took place at a well-known Russian restaurant in the middle of Mayfair. We were listening.’

  ‘So were we,’ said Spiro, ‘until the Russians jammed the entire area. Must have been quite an important meeting. Then we have Madurai, south India. After we took Dhar’s mother off your hands, Marchant hitched a ride back into town with – guess who? – one Nikolai Primakov.’

  He waved another surveillance photo in the air. ‘I’m not sure I want to ask why Marchant’s meetings with Primakov, former director of K Branch, KGB and now high-ranking member of the SVR, were sanctioned by MI6, so let’s not go into that here. It kind of brings back bad memories when you discover Primakov had been good friends with Marchant’s father. Of more interest to today’s meeting is what Marchant was doing in an Internet café yesterday – after knocking off work early and dropping in for a warm beer or three at his favourite pub – forwarding photos of the MIG-35s to various national newspapers.’

  Another sheaf of documents was waved in the air, this time press cuttings, as a murmur went around the room. Fielding was conscious that all eyes were on him now, but he had read the cuts in the car into work, smiled at the quotes from the twitchers. He was a bit of a birder himself, when he had the time, although these days he was reduced to spotting oystercatchers on the bank of the Thames below his office window.

  ‘He used an anonymous Gmail account,’ continued Spiro, ‘but our people at Fort Meade narrowed the IP address down to three Internet cafés in Victoria. They needn’t have bothered. All emails leaving that particular café go out with marketing headers and footers – unless you switch them off, which Marchant failed to do. I don’t know how much evidence you need, Marcus, but we have photos of him entering the café five minutes before the anonymous emails were sent out.’

  Fielding didn’t reply. Instead, he was thinking of Marchant, the intentional trail he was leaving. Primakov must be close to exfiltrating him. According to the UK Border Agency, the Russian had left on a flight to Moscow earlier in the day, which Fielding took as a good sign. Marchant had been smart to attract the attention of the Americans: it was the easiest way to reassure Moscow Centre that it had the right man, that he was ready to defect, keen to meet Dhar. But it was a risk if the Americans got to him first. He hoped Marchant had his timing right.

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Let’s bring him in,’ Fielding said. He had no choice. He must be seen to be hard on Marchant.

  ‘I kinda hoped you’d say that,’ said Spiro. ‘He’s with Lakshmi Meena as we speak. Having yet another drink. She’s ready when we are. I just thought that, you know, in the interests of resetting our special relationship, I should inform you first.’

  Spiro looked around the table. His eye was caught by Harriet Armstrong.

  ‘Would you like us to handle Marchant?’ she asked. Fielding turned away. It was an unusual offer, a blatant challenge to MI6 that had all the hallmarks of their old turf wars. She was also reaching out to Spiro, a man she had once admired before she had fallen out of love with America. Fielding knew that she had felt increasingly sidelined by Six, but he was still surprised by the move.

  ‘That’s kind of you, Harriet,’ Spiro said. ‘And unexpected. I appreciate it. But I think, if it’s OK with the assembled, this has now been upgraded to a NATO Air Policing Area 1 issue. And as such, we’d like to take care of it.’

  83

  Marchant knew his defences would drop if he had any more alcohol. Meena was looking more beautiful than he could remember, wearing the same embroidered Indian salwar that she had worn in Madurai. Her body language then had been diffident, hard to read. Tonight she was radiant, the mirrorwork on her neckline reflecting the candlelight, lightening her whole demeanour. He just wished they were meeting in different circumstances, where they could be true to themselves rather than to their employers’ agendas. The last time he had felt like this was when he had said goodbye to Monika at the Frederick Chopin airport in Warsaw, hoping that she would step out of her cover and into his life.

  ‘My mother used to read me a new tale every night,’ Meena was saying as they sat at the small bar in Andrew Edmunds, a restaurant in Lexington Street. Her mask was slipping too. Marchant stuck to his script, trying to stay sober behind the miasma of Scotch. Soon they would be moving from the bar to the cramped dining area, where the lines of sight were less good. In his current position he had a clear view of the main entrance and the door to the kitchen. Tonight he needed to see everyone who came in or out.

  ‘After each story, I would ask if Scheherazade had done enough, if King Shahryar would spare her,’ Meena continued. ‘I was more worried about her dying than anything else. And each time, the King let her live for another night. I was so relieved.’

  ‘And this all took place in Reston? In between trips to the mall?’

  Marchant had eaten a meal in Reston once, as part of a visit to the CIA’s headquarters down the road, in the days before the Agency had become too suspicious to allow him on campus. All he could remember was the piazza at the Reston Town Center, an open-air mall that had boasted Chipotle, Potbelly Sandwich Works and Clyde’s, where he had been taken for lunch by a gym-buffed field agent who swore by its steaks. It was strange to think of Meena living in such a sterile suburb in Virginia.

  ‘Our home was a little corner of India. At least, my bedroom was. Wall hangings, incense, my own pooja cupboard. Mom didn’t want me to forget.’

  Marchant signalled to the barman for another drink.

  ‘I don’t want to sound like your mom, but haven’t you had enough?’

  She was right. Marchant was at the very edge of what he could consume and still be able to react quickly when it happened. There were only a few more hours, maybe less, of playing the drunk. A coded text from Primakov
had told him it would be sometime tonight. It wouldn’t be pretty. The American presence had made sure of that. He looked again around the small, candlelit room, scanning the punters. Someone had followed him to the restaurant, but he was confident that they were still outside.

  ‘I don’t blame you for Madurai,’ he said. ‘You had your orders.’

  ‘That didn’t make it any easier.’

  He wanted to ask if Shushma was OK, but he knew he couldn’t. It was better that he could still entertain the possibility that she was with Spiro. The thought of her in CIA custody, the genuine anger the thought stirred, was central to his imminent defection. It might even save his life when he finally met Dhar.

  ‘I’m going away,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Of me?’

  Marchant managed a smirk. ‘Of the West.’

  ‘Was that why you helped to give the MiG breach so much publicity?’

  He struggled to conceal his surprise.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Dan, we met here tonight because I’ve got orders to bring you in.’

  ‘Spiro’s?’

  ‘With the Vicar’s blessing.’

  Marchant paused, weighing up the situation. He was pushing it to the limit, and hoped that Primakov would move soon. Meena knew how to look after herself, but he was still concerned for her. And for the first time he felt that she was being straight with him. He wished he could reciprocate, but he knew that he couldn’t, not yet.

  ‘Are you going to ask me to come quietly?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’m not going to do anything.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I just want you to tell me what’s really going on.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  ‘If you did, then maybe I’d know how best to help you.’

  Marchant studied her eyes, calculating the implications. She was speaking too freely to be wired, which made him believe her. ‘You really mean that, don’t you?’

  ‘I want to do one worthwhile thing while I’m still with the Agency, and I’m not sure bringing in a drunken MI6 agent with a penchant for rare Russian seabirds is what I had in mind.’

  ‘The Steller’s eider breeds in Alaska, too, you know.’

  ‘Spiro’s fallen for it, hasn’t he?’ Meena said, turning the wine-glass in her hand. ‘He’s seen you go off the rails, but he’s forgotten to ask why. Well, I know what makes a British MI6 agent try to be recruited by the Russians. Because he knows they have someone he desperately wants to meet. Fielding knows it too, which is why he asked Spiro and me to take Dhar’s mother away. You hated the West for that, didn’t you? And it made the Russians love you even more. That helicopter in Morocco – I know now that it was Russian. You were right all along. Tell me what I need to do, Dan. You’re the only person who can stop Dhar.’

  Marchant hesitated before speaking. ‘How many people have you got outside?’

  ‘Two vehicles, six people.’

  ‘Do you know any of them?’

  ‘Some, yes.’

  ‘Good friends of yours?’

  ‘Decent colleagues.’

  ‘Walk out into the street and tell them I’m leaving in five. Then go home. All of you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t want anyone to get hurt.’

  But he already knew it was too late. He heard the car before he saw it, a black Audi pulling up outside. Two men wearing balaclavas got out from the back and ran into the restaurant while a third stood by the front passenger door, a handgun aimed into the dark street.

  ‘Don’t touch her!’ Marchant shouted, as several diners screamed. The men grabbed him by both arms and frogmarched him out of the restaurant, barking orders at each other and at the diners, and waving a gun at Meena. The men were Russian, and it wasn’t subtle, just as he had predicted. A moment later, the shooting started. The third man fired down Lexington Street towards Shaftesbury Avenue, where a black SUV had stopped at a diagonal, blocking the road. As Marchant was bundled into the back of the car, he looked back at the restaurant. The front window had been shot out, and the noise of the screaming diners was sickening. There was no sign of Meena.

  84

  ‘It just makes us look like such a bunch of bloody fools,’ Harriet Armstrong said, declining Fielding’s offer of a chair in his office. ‘I’ve got Counter Terrorism Command demanding answers, and Jim Spiro can barely speak.’

  A quiet American, Fielding thought. He almost felt sorry for Armstrong, but her recent rapprochement with Spiro had extinguished any sympathy he might have had for her situation. Besides, there was very little he could say to mollify her. MI5 was a bunch of fools.

  ‘Much as I’d like to say that this was Marchant’s work, the facts are these,’ he said, steepling his fingers under his chin and sitting back. ‘One of my agents has been seized on the streets of London by what we think were officers of the SVR –’

  ‘Come on, we know they were.’

  ‘– and I have urged the Prime Minister to protest in the strongest terms to the Russian Ambassador. Meanwhile, Six’s stations around the world are on heightened alert, and I hope that the same can be said for Britain’s ports, railways and airfields.’

  ‘What’s going on here, Marcus? Primakov was once one of ours.’

  ‘A fact that only a very few people are privy to.’ The last thing he needed was Armstrong spilling state secrets to Spiro.

  ‘I thought Marchant was being sent to see if Primakov could be ours again.’

  ‘He was. But I should remind you that certain senior figures in the SVR – Vasilli Grushko, for example – were opposed to Primakov’s London posting from the start. They didn’t completely trust him. It’s no coincidence that Primakov left the country in a hurry this morning, and my guess is that seizing Marchant is the SVR’s consolation prize. Marchant will be interrogated about Primakov, who will no doubt shortly be charged with betraying the motherland.’

  Armstrong looked at him, weighing up what he said. She wasn’t convinced.

  ‘You don’t appear to be too concerned that one of your officers has just been taken by a hostile country.’

  ‘It’s not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last.’

  ‘America is not our enemy,’ Armstrong said, walking to the door.

  ‘It was when you and I were in India, fighting for what we believed in. Why are we suddenly being nice to Spiro again?’

  Armstrong paused by the door. ‘Because we’ve got no option, have we?’

  Fielding knew she was right. Britain needed America. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we hear word of Marchant,’ he said. ‘We’re doing everything we can to find him.’

  He watched her leave. As with the best lies, there was a strong element of truth in what he had told her. Grushko had long had his doubts about Primakov, but he must have overcome them to sanction the operation in Soho. Such a brazen act on the streets of London could not have gone ahead without the consent of the SVR’s local Rezident. Which meant that Marchant was in. He had passed all the tests, and would soon be with Salim Dhar. Fielding just hoped that Dhar would believe in him too.

  85

  An alert officer at UK Passport Control at Heathrow had picked up Primakov’s hurried exit, but they had failed to spot Vasilli Grushko, who had also left Britain earlier in the day, travelling with false documents on a flight to Moscow. He was now standing in the hangar at Kotlas with Primakov and Marchant.

  ‘Welcome to Russia,’ Grushko said, looking out at the rain on the runway. He was a short, wiry man with rimless glasses and sallow skin, in stark contrast to Primakov’s rubicund presence. ‘Is it your first time?’ There was no warmth in his voice, nothing excessive about him at all, just a cold matter-of-factness that made Marchant wary.

  ‘Officially or unofficially?’ Marchant replied. His head was hurting from the alcohol of the night before, and the journey in an Illyushin cargo plane from Heathrow to Mo
scow, which he had spent curled up in a container. He had then been flown by an Antonov military transporter to Kotlas.

  ‘You must be tired after your flight,’ Primakov suggested, filling the awkward silence. ‘If it’s any consolation, my Aeroflot flight was no more comfortable. Your brother is out flying at the moment. Sleep now, and you will be ready to meet him.’

  ‘Just one thing,’ Marchant said. ‘Was the American woman hurt? In the restaurant?’

  ‘I am surprised by your concern,’ Primakov said, glancing at Grushko, his superior, who remained impassive.

  ‘She will shortly be leaving the Agency,’ Marchant added. ‘Disillusioned, like me.’

  ‘She is in hospital, a gunshot wound to the arm,’ Grushko said. ‘Our men were authorised to kill her if necessary, but she did not resist, and for some reason you asked for her to be spared.’

  ‘But she’ll be OK?’ Marchant asked, thinking back to the chaotic scene, his shout to protect Meena.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Primakov said. ‘She should be grateful for the injury. Her superiors are already a little surprised that she did not do more to stop you being taken. We will leave you now. You did well with the MiGs. Your brother was impressed. We all were.’

  Primakov turned to Grushko, hoping for some supportive words, but none came.

  ‘Do not step outside,’ Grushko warned. ‘The guards have orders to shoot.’

  Marchant had passed two armed guards standing by the side entrance to the hangar when he had arrived. After Grushko and Primakov had gone, he looked around the empty space. Some camouflage nets had been hung on one wall, otherwise there was little to soften the oppressive concrete surfaces. So this was where the world’s most wanted terrorist had been hiding, in a draughty hangar, surrounded by rain-soaked woodlands in a remote corner of a Russian military airfield in the Arkhangelsk oblast.

  He turned away from the large doors, and saw a curtained-off area at the far end of the building. He assumed it was where Dhar lived. A mattress and some bedding had been put in the opposite corner for Marchant, along with a towel, a bar of unwrapped soap and a change of clothes. It wasn’t exactly a defecting hero’s welcome.