by Mark Dawson
And now he was dead.
15
Milton flicked through the briefing pack, but, after a moment, he found that his attention drifted back to the woman whom they had picked up. She looked frazzled, as if she had only very recently been woken up, and he got the distinct impression that she—like him—was only really pretending to study the notes. She bore the very faint smell of alcohol and sweat, and that reminded Milton of his previous lost night, his memories sunk somewhere within his blackout, the evidence of his misdeeds in the aching of his ribs.
“Here we are,” the driver said.
They were in Battersea, the curve of the river ahead of them. The heliport was a commercial operation, but SIS occasionally chartered flights that took off from here. HQ was just up the road, after all, and they had no facilities of their own. A wire mesh gate was rolled out of the way and the driver took them all the way out to the landing pad. There was a helicopter waiting for them. It was an AS365 Dauphin, one of the Airbus line that was typically used as a medium-distance executive shuttle. Another car was waiting alongside the AS365. It was similar to their own, one of the MI6 pool cars that ferried staff around the country on occasions like this. Milton opened the door and stepped out, the wind from the river tousling his hair.
The rear door of the second car opened and two men stepped out. Milton recognised the first: it was Tanner. He had never seen the second man before. He was middle-aged and Asian, slightly overweight and dressed in a tatty suit that was beginning to look a little shiny at the elbows and knees.
Milton left Ross in the car and went across to Tanner.
“Evening, Milton,” Tanner said.
“Evening.”
“We need to get going,” Tanner said. “We have a major situation. Did you read the file?”
“Yes,” Milton said. “It’s just background. I’ll need more than that.”
“You’ll be read into it properly in the air.”
Milton turned and gestured back toward the car. Jessie Ross was making her way across to the second man. She called out to him; it was evident that they knew each other. “You know her?” he asked.
“She’s MI6,” Tanner said. “An agent runner.”
“The other guy?”
“That’s Raj Shah. Runs counter-intelligence.”
Milton nodded over to where Ross and Shah were talking. “Do you know anything about the girl?”
“Probably not much more than you,” he said. “She’s young. File says she’s ambitious. She’s been overseeing Aleksandrov and the other ex-pat Russians who’ve ended up here.”
Milton was going to say something else when Tanner glanced over his shoulder; Ross and Shah were on their way over to them.
She strode ahead of her boss and went to Tanner. “Hello,” she said.
Tanner put out his hand. “David Tanner,” he said.
“Jessie Ross. SIS. You work with Mr. Smith?”
“I do.”
“Military liaison?”
“That’s right. Better to have something and find you don’t need it—
“—than not have something and find that you do. I know. He said the same thing.”
Shah took Milton’s hand. “I’m Raj Shah. Good to meet you.”
“And you, sir,” Milton said.
The pilot jogged out from the ready room and indicated that they should get into the cabin. “We’ve got clearance,” he said.
Tanner opened the door and held it for Ross, Shah and Milton to embark. The interior was plush: four leather seats faced each other in opposing rows, with small tables separating each pair. There was fake wood panelling, overhead reading lights and wide windows on both sides of the cabin. Tanner climbed in awkwardly—he had lost half of his leg to an IED outside Kabul—and then pulled the door shut. They put on the headsets that rested above the seats.
“Strapped in?” the pilot radioed back.
“Good to go,” Tanner said.
“Flight time is thirty-five minutes,” he said. “I’m going to push it.”
16
Raj Shah spoke loudly, having to compete with the sound of the engine despite the headphones that they were all wearing.
“All right, then. I’ll assume you’ve read into the file. This is a very fast-moving situation, and it’s evolving all the time. What we know now will likely be out of date by the time we land, but I’ll do my best.”
The helicopter banked sharply as the pilot curved around onto a new vector, racing low across the city.
Shah waited until the helicopter had straightened out again and then continued. “Pyotr Aleksandrov has been living in Southwold for ten years, for almost as long as he’s been in the country. We gave him a new legend: Vladimir Kovalev, retired businessman, came here to marry an English woman now deceased. All fairly standard. He’s not been operational since he’s been here. He’s consulted for us now and again, and he’s done some work for OpSec and Intelligence companies in the city, but nothing of particular importance. His knowledge of the SVR is historic. He’s been spending his time writing a history of Soviet military intelligence, from what I’ve been led to believe.” He turned to Ross. “That, and moaning about how badly he’s been treated since we brought him over.”
“Only met him a couple of times, sir,” Ross said. “But that’s my understanding from reading into the file. I believe my predecessor found him difficult.”
“That he did,” Shah said with a smile. “They were quite a pair.” Shah paused as he looked down at his notes. “This is what we have. At approximately five o’clock this evening one of Aleksandrov’s neighbours reported seeing him on the floor of his kitchen. The neighbour’s kids were playing football and the ball went over the fence. The neighbour went and got it and saw him. They called an ambulance which attended at 5.12 pm. The crew broke into the house and found him. He was pronounced dead at 5.16 pm.”
Ross had taken out a pen and was scribbling notes on the back of the briefing document from the car.
“Cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head,” Shah said.
“Fuck,” Ross breathed to herself, and then, aware that everyone had heard her, she added, “Sorry.”
Shah ignored her and carried on. “The first police officer was on the scene at 5.30 pm. He requested a PNC check on Kovalev. We have an alert on his name, just like we do for all the other defectors we’ve got here, and, in the event that anything happens to any of them, SIS gets pinged.”
“What’s the working assumption?” Milton asked.
“He had no real enemies over here that we could ascertain. He was living a quiet life. We’re assuming that he was assassinated. That’s the only conclusion to be drawn.”
The helicopter raced over the M25 and kept going. Milton glanced around the cabin. Shah was finished, looking at the others just as he was. Tanner was pensive, his hands clasped in his lap. Ross looked both excited and anxious.
“Questions?” Shah said.
“What about Geggel?” Ross asked.
“Who?” Milton asked.
“Leonard Geggel,” Shah said. “He was Aleksandrov’s handler before Jessie.”
“They were friends,” Ross said.
“That might be exaggerating it,” Shah said. “Aleksandrov didn’t have friends. Geggel doesn’t either, to be fair.”
“But it might be worth speaking to him.”
“I agree,” Shah said. “I’ll make sure he’s called.”
“What about the situation on the ground?” Tanner asked.
“The street is locked down. Police are holding it for us.”
“The intelligence assessment?”
“Do you mean who do we think might have done this?”
Milton nodded.
“We don’t have anything concrete yet, but common sense points to Moscow. We don’t know why they’d go after an old hand like Aleksandrov, but it seems most likely.”
“Moscow has form for similar attacks in the past,” Tanner added.
“They do,” Shah said, “and whatever the motive turns out to be, it’s most likely something from Aleksandrov’s past with them.”
“You said we didn’t have anything concrete,” Ross said. “What do we have?”
Shah looked as if he was weighing up whether to say more. “This is classified,” he began, “but it’s relevant and so I’m going to read you in. We think the Russians are operating illegals in London. Have you heard of Directorate S?”
“Sleepers?”
Shah nodded. “SIS has intelligence that suggests we might be looking at multiple enemy assets who may have been in place for years. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if it was them. We have one man under heavy surveillance—we think he might be a runner for the others. He’s been careful so far, nothing to give us anything to go on, but they’ll know that what’s happened to Aleksandrov will make a lot of noise.”
“Who?” Jessie asked.
“Details are on a need-to-know basis, and it might not be relevant. He’s in London. We have a team on him. We’ll see if he makes a mistake. We see some unusual activity, something out of his ordinary routine—if we see that, maybe we get a break. Maybe.”
Ross was quiet and Milton had nothing else to ask. He had been involved in situations like this before, although never in this country. The facts were essentially fluid in the hours following an incident. Fresh evidence would emerge to disprove previous hypotheses and new witnesses would be found to open up different avenues of investigation. Shah was right; they were better dealing with the incontrovertible basics rather than indulging in speculation that would already be out of date by the time they landed. But Milton agreed with much of the assessment. The Russians had the best motive for taking out a defector whom they would see as a traitor. The Kremlin was most likely.
Milton closed his eyes and tried to blank out the muffled roar of the engine. His hangover ached and he could taste the old vomit in the back of his throat. He didn’t want to be here, but he knew he had no choice. This was already a big deal, and, if they could track down the people responsible, he knew that there was a good chance he would be deployed to bring them in or take them out. The thought of it brought back flickers from the previous night, of Callaghan on his knees begging for his life. It nauseated him, and reminded him that he needed a drink. He would find peace at the bottom of a glass, a means to forget.
Moscow
17
It was eight thirty in the evening when Deputy Director Nikolai Primakov was chauffeured through the Borovitskaya Gate in the western corner of the Kremlin. It had been drizzling intermittently all afternoon, and the wipers of his official BMW scraped as they sluiced the run-off from the windshield. Primakov gazed out of the wet windows as the driver took him past the Grand Palace and the Cathedral of the Archangel, and then turned into the vast open space of Ivanovskaya Square. The chauffeur slowed the car so that he was able to slip it between the narrow walls that offered access to the courtyard of the Senate building. Primakov gazed thoughtfully out of the window as the car drew to a stop. The driver opened his door, collected an umbrella from the trunk, and opened it to offer shelter as Primakov stepped out.
“Thank you,” Primakov said.
He took the umbrella and made his way across the slick cobblestones until he reached the entrance to the building. Primakov was anxious; there was no point in pretending otherwise; the Security Council was one of the most powerful bodies in Russia, and, more than that, today’s meeting would be chaired by the president himself. Primakov intended to present the meeting with a subtly amended version of what had just taken place in the United Kingdom. He knew that there was a chance that the president might see through the tissue of lies that he would weave in order to direct attention away from the real reason for the operation. They all knew it: the president’s intuition bordered on the clairvoyant, and Primakov had seen many men, in situations like this, crumble under the most seemingly benign of questions. He had to guard against that as best he could.
The meeting was held in a vast room that was dominated by a long table that ran down the centre. It was large enough to accommodate forty people, with their aides and secretaries seated at additional tables that were spaced around the walls. The room was opulent, with a magnificent chandelier suspended from the barrel ceiling, and with a series of decorative marble columns spaced around the room. Primakov took his usual seat. He was one of the last to arrive. The president would be last of all, summoned when everyone else was in place, and Primakov looked at his empty chair at the head of the table and felt the usual knot of fear at the prospect of reporting to him. He turned away, looking at the others who had gathered. The attendees were the knyaz’ki, the Kremlin power brokers who exercised total control over the Russian state. There was the Chairman of the Government, the Manager of the Presidential Administration, the Chairwoman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly, together with the ministers for defence, foreign affairs, and internal affairs and the directors of the external and internal intelligence agencies.
The agenda for the meeting had been distributed in advance, and copies were set out on blotters around the table. Primakov picked up the sheet of paper on his own blotter and glanced over it. His report had been scheduled as the first item; he would be expected to leave as soon as that point of business had been concluded.
The doors at the end of the room were opened by uniformed officers, and the president stepped inside. His chair was flanked by the flags of the Russian Federation and, as he stepped forward, his aide drew back the chair for him to sit down.
The president opened the meeting. He was curt, avoiding pleasantries, and moved straight to the top of the agenda. Primakov started to speak but found that his throat was dry; he reached for a glass and filled it with water from a carafe. He was painfully aware that everyone was watching him. He swallowed the water, ignoring the clammy sensation beneath his arms and in the small of his back, and cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Mr. President. I realise that not everyone has been briefed, so I will summarise what has happened today. Ten years ago, a former GRU colonel who was convicted of spying for the British was exchanged for several Directorate S agents who were arrested by the Americans. This man—Pyotr Ilyich Aleksandrov—was relocated in the United Kingdom. We recently received intelligence that Aleksandrov was seeking to sell classified information to MI6. The president authorised Directorate S to mount an operation against Aleksandrov and that operation was successfully concluded today.”
“I’ve received a briefing,” said major-general Alexei Nikolaevich, the First Deputy Director of the Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, or FSB, the internal security service. “The means deployed were unusually… flagrant.”
“That is correct,” Primakov said. “We didn’t see the point of disposing of him stealthily.”
“Even though this will bring attention to us?”
“The decision was taken that we should make a point. We want our involvement to be deniable, of course, and my colleagues in Line PR are already seeking to cast doubt on our involvement, but it will be obvious to those who need to know. The British, for one. The other Western governments who need to be reminded that we are not a country to be pushed around. And, most importantly, the other dissidents and defectors who have settled in the west. We want them to know that the SVR has a long reach, and that there will be no forgiveness for continued treachery. We believe that this will have a sobering effect on anyone who might otherwise have sought to follow Aleksandrov’s example. Our course of action was agreed to in advance, of course.”
He glanced at the president; his face was as impassive as a Sphinx. His pale blue eyes were locked onto him and, once again, Primakov felt that his lies were being stripped away like the skin of an onion, layer by layer by layer.
“This intelligence,” the Minister for Internal Affairs said. “What was Aleksandrov trying to sell?”
Primakov swallowed and fou
ght the urge to look back at the president. He needed to be convincing.
“Aleksandrov told his old handler at MI6 that he was in possession of a list of all of the SVR’s active agents in Western Europe.”
“And did we believe him? Where could he have come across such a document?”
“We do not know,” he said. “It is possible that he made contact with a source within the Center.” The president was watching him with those limpid eyes, seeing everything. “Line KR has initiated an operation looking into that as a matter of the utmost importance.”
“Thank you, Deputy Director Primakov,” the president said, his voice as smooth as silk. “There will be political repercussions from this operation, but I am satisfied that the benefit outweighs the cost.” He smiled, just a little, his mask shifting.
“Who carried out the operation?” Nikolaevich asked.
“Directorate S agents,” Primakov said. “They remain in place. We will monitor the investigation. If we feel that there is a risk that their involvement has been detected, we will recall them to Moscow at once.”
“Where I shall be delighted to meet them,” the president said. “They have performed a great service for the Rodina today. They are to be commended. Thank you, Deputy Director.”
The president said no more, and, instead, looked down at his agenda. Primakov knew that the ordeal was at an end. He slid his chair away from the table and stood, noting, to his alarm, that his legs were weak. He nodded his acknowledgements to the colleagues around the table; Nikolaevich smiled and gave him a wink. Primakov buttoned up his jacket and made his way to the exit. He held onto the balustrade as he descended the staircase and hurried to where his chauffeur was waiting for him. He had forgotten his umbrella and was quickly soaked in the growing downpour that hammered against his car and on the cobbles of the courtyard. His chauffeur opened the back door and Primakov collapsed inside. He closed his eyes and scrubbed the rain away from his face. The driver swung the car around and they passed through the Borovitskaya Gate once more. Primakov looked back at the tower, layered like the sections of a cake with a spire topped with a single red star. They had plotted to kill Brezhnev here. Assassinations. Death. Primakov couldn’t keep such thoughts from his mind.