The John Milton Series Box Set 4

by Mark Dawson

  73

  Ross was jostled and buffeted as the van raced away from the station. She was sitting next to Romanova. The Russian was terrified, her knees pressed up to her chest and anchored there behind locked arms. Romanova had the wheel arch on one side and Ross on the other, bumping left and right as they progressed. Ross was frightened, too, but there was more to it than that. She had seen everything: Stepanov ordering them to be still, the man behind him—she didn’t know him, but knew it had to be BLUEBIRD—opening fire, the other agent they had left behind at Moscow Station appearing from the back of the van with an automatic rifle. Ross was frightened, but she was also angry and embarrassed.

  The van swerved sharply to the left and then skidded to a stop. Smith opened the doors and hopped down. They were in a parking lot near the river terminal. There were half a dozen vehicles scattered around the lot. The others disembarked the van and the driver led the way to two scruffy rentals parked next to each other. Ross looked left and right and saw no cameras or any other security; an elderly man made his way up the steps to the terminal, but he was staring at his phone and didn’t look as if he had noticed them.

  Romanova was taken to a BMW.

  Smith took Ross by the wrist and led her to a Volvo.

  “How lovely,” she said. “A nice drive together, just the two of us.”

  “It’ll be much more pleasant if you spare me the attitude,” Smith said. “You’ll be back home in a day or two to see your son and your parents.”

  “You think? We’ll never get out of here.”

  Smith opened the door. “Get in.”

  He held the door open for her and then went around to the driver’s side. She lowered herself into the seat and stared out of the windscreen into the bright blue sky, a wide canvas over the river and the town beyond. She put her finger to her lips and chewed on a nail. Her trousers were tight against her thighs and she could feel the lipstick in her pocket. Smith thought he had power over her. He thought that he had taken away her ability to choose. He hadn’t. She still had the elektricheskiy pistolet. She could decide what happened next.

  Smith started the engine and pulled out. “You might want to get some sleep,” he said. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

  Moscow

  74

  Primakov was close to panic. The rendezvous had been an hour ago and he had heard nothing from Stepanov. He had tried to call him, but his phone rang through to voicemail every time. Stepanov was usually so punctilious and now, in the aftermath of a particularly sensitive operation, to have heard nothing? It was out of character. He tried Mitrokhin’s number with the same results.

  He had tried to distract himself with a new operation that he had been planning. Yehya al Moussa and Sameera Najeeb were scientists who had, until recently, been employed by the Iraq Atomic Energy Agency. They had been swept up by the Iranians following the fall of Saddam and had contributed to the recent progress that the Ahmadinejad regime had made toward the production of the first Islamic bomb. The Center had been directed by the Kremlin to provide assistance to the Iranians, and, as a part of that, a meeting had been arranged with a corporation that would be able to provide them with the zirconium they needed for their reactors. The meeting was to be in the French Alps and Primakov had activated a local sleeper to provide security. He had a pile of papers on his desk that he needed to review and he was already late.

  His intercom buzzed. He reached back to the credenza and took the office phone.

  “What?”

  “Sir,” she said. “Major-General Nikolaevich is calling.”

  He swallowed. His throat was suddenly dry.

  “Sir?”

  “Put him through, please.”

  There was a pause and then a fizz of static as the call was connected.

  “Alexei?” he said, trying to keep the uncertainty from his voice. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve just had a report from my chief in the Amur oblast,” he said. “There’s been an attack there—four men and a woman have been shot and killed at the railway station at Komsomolsk.”

  Primakov felt sick. “Really?”

  “Nikolai—please. Are you telling me you don’t know?”

  “No,” he said. He put his hand on the desk to steady himself.

  “The dead haven’t been identified yet. No papers on them. One man was still alive—Boris Mitrokhin. He’s been shot in the leg. I remembered his name. Didn’t he transfer from Vympel to work for you?”

  “Yes,” Primakov said. There was no point in lying about it.

  “He’s in hospital—not life threatening. I’m waiting to speak to him. But I don’t understand. What was one of your men doing in Komsomolsk?”

  Primakov’s breath caught, as if a metal band had been slipped around his chest and then cranked tight. “I cannot say,” he replied, unable to think of anything that he could do other than to stonewall.

  “The others? Were they yours, too?”

  “There was an operation, but it is sensitive.”

  “What kind of operation—”

  “I have to go, Alexei,” Primakov said, interrupting him. “Thank you for bringing me the news. I need to find out what has happened. I’ll speak to you when I know more.”

  “Nikolai. The president is—”

  “You’ll get a full report. Goodbye.”

  Primakov slammed the phone down, grabbed his jacket and put it on. He swept the al Moussa and Najeeb papers into his briefcase, stepped out of the office, told his secretary that he was going out and that he would be back later in the day, and hurried down to the garage.

  He didn’t know what to do. All of his meticulously constructed plans were collapsing. His mind started to race: there would be an enquiry into whatever had happened in Komsomolsk, why Stepanov and Mitrokhin and the others had been sent there, and he was going to have to work hard to keep ahead of it. What could he say? Honesty was impossible; it would expose his lies and his attempts to cover up the consequences of Natasha’s mistakes. That would bring them both down. He would have to think of another reason for the operation, and an explanation as to why it had so evidently been bungled. And Mitrokhin… he didn’t know him as well as Stepanov, didn’t know how well he could be trusted when the investigators of Line KR got their hands on him. What would he say? He knew a lot. Too much.

  Primakov took a deep breath. He could do it. It wasn’t too late. He just had to keep it together until he could get on top of the facts. He needed to speak to Mitrokhin, find out what had happened.

  He saw the man as he walked toward his car. He didn’t recognise him. He was slender, in his mid-thirties, with tight curls of blond hair. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a leather jacket and he had a rucksack over his shoulder. He came out from between two parked cars and turned into his path.

  “Excuse me,” the man said in lightly accented Russian.

  “Yes?”

  “You are Deputy Director Primakov?”

  Primakov took a step back, a sickly bloom of fear welling up in his bowels. The man followed and, as he did, he took out an aerosol. Primakov noticed the smaller details: the branding on the aerosol looked like it was a deodorant and the man was wearing flesh-coloured latex gloves. He aimed the aerosol and pressed down on the dispenser, sending a jet of liquid into Primakov’s face. It was cold and wet and oily and it got into his mouth and eyes and nose. It had a metallic taste, not overpowering but distinctive: the taste of copper pennies.

  Primakov bumped back against the hood of the car behind him, setting off the alarm. He tried to wipe the liquid away, but there was too much of it and he only succeeded in smearing it about.

  “Proshchay,” said the man.

  “What?” Primakov grunted.

  “Control says goodbye.”

  The man put the aerosol into his bag and zipped it up.

  Primakov suddenly felt unwell. He could feel his heart beating faster, and then faster still, quickly racing out of control. He started t
o sweat and, as he leaned back against the car, his muscles began to tremble. He reached into his pocket for his phone, thinking that he could call his secretary to send someone down to help him, but his hand was shaking so badly that he lost his grip on the phone and it dropped down onto the concrete. The man stamped on it, breaking it into three pieces. Primakov’s heart raced faster still and he felt warm drool as it gathered in his mouth and then ran down his chin and onto his shirt. He tried to stand, lost his balance, and toppled down onto his front, scraping his face. His arms and legs spasmed helplessly.

  The last thing Primakov remembered was watching the man with the pale skin and blond curls crouch down to pick up his briefcase. The man raised himself up and crossed the garage to the service exit that led out onto the street beyond. The door opened, the man passed through it, and the door swung closed once more.

  Epilogue

  Moscow

  1

  Boris Mitrokhin got out of the taxi, collected his crutch and leaned on it as he hobbled into the restaurant. Mesopotamia was an up-and-coming establishment that served Turkish food. It was busy, with most of the tables taken. Mitrokhin made his way inside, passing through the restaurant until he reached the private dining room at the back. There was a single table there; they could close the door and ensure their privacy against prying eyes.

  There was a man waiting for him.

  “Hello, Boris,” First Deputy Director Alexei Nikolaevich said.

  “Hello, sir.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m well.”

  “And your leg?”

  “It’s healing. Thank you.”

  “Please. Sit.”

  Mitrokhin pulled a chair back and lowered himself into it. His leg was more painful than he liked to admit; the bullet had been well aimed, slicing through the fleshy part of the thigh, but that did not mean that it hadn’t been excruciating and debilitating. It had been a necessary inconvenience, though. The wound had bought him credibility with the FSB investigators who had questioned him following the botched operation in Komsomolsk.

  “You did very well, Boris. Thank you.”

  Mitrokhin nodded, happy to accept the gratitude of his patron.

  “The investigators were not too thorough, I hope?”

  “Thorough enough,” Mitrokhin said.

  He was underplaying it. He had been taken to the cellars beneath the Lubyanka and questioned for two days and two nights. Primakov’s secret operation to protect his sweetheart’s reputation had been uncovered, as had the fact that it had been compromised by a source within the Center. The Director was furious that he had been deceived by his deputy, but that was only part of it. Mitrokhin knew that the real concern was the leak: the president would not stand for it. Someone had sold Primakov out and they wanted to find out who.

  “They have filed their report,” Nikolaevich said. “You are not suspected.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “What did they ask you?”

  “They wanted to be sure that I was not compromised.”

  “And?”

  “We spent many hours discussing my love for the Rodina.”

  “I can only assume that you were persuasive.”

  Mitrokhin stared at the general, watching, ready to assess. “They asked about you, sir.”

  His face flickered with concern. “Really?”

  “The investigation into the leak is broad. They know that there is a problem and they are intent upon fixing it. They wanted to know about Deputy Director Primakov. They were interested in his malfeasance—that he had lied to the Security Council and misled the president—but they were more interested in how the British agents were able to disrupt his operation against Romanova.”

  “Of course,” Nikolaevich said.

  “They asked about you, sir. They said that you had been in contact with Primakov.”

  “And that is true.”

  “They said your contact was more frequent than usual.”

  “And?”

  “I think it is likely that they will want to speak to you.”

  Mitrokhin watched Nikolaevich, looking for a reaction. He was good at observing people. He had developed the skill during interrogations, the ability to spot the smallest tells that would give away someone’s true feelings: the way a man might rub his wrist when he was lying; the inability to hold eye contact; a glance up and to the right, the classic sign of dissembling. He looked at Nikolaevich now and saw a muscle twitching in his neck and a bloom of blood suffusing his cheeks.

  “I’m the Deputy Director of the FSB,” he said, summoning indignation. “Are they really going to accuse me?”

  “I thought you should know,” Mitrokhin said placidly. There was no sense in aggravating Nikolaevich, but his mind was made up.

  The Deputy Director changed the subject. “Your meeting with Smith at the airport. What happened?”

  “I told him about PROZHEKTOR, as you requested, and gave him the means to contact me. The others met me in Komsomolsk. There were two of them. They told me what they were intending to do and gave me the weapon that I was to use. I explained that they would need to shoot me once it was done.”

  “What did you think of them?”

  “Professional,” Mitrokhin said. “They worked quickly and efficiently. I was impressed. Can I ask if they were able to exfiltrate the women successfully?”

  “They did. I imagine Romanova is being debriefed now.”

  “And PROZHEKTOR?”

  “We won’t hear from her for months,” Nikolaevich said. “The British will try and turn her back against us. It may work. The SVR see her as a valuable asset, and they will want her to be clean—it will blind them.”

  There was a bottle of raki on the table. Nikolaevich opened it and poured out two measures. He held up his glass, Mitrokhin raised his and the two men touched them together. Mitrokhin drank his, the unsweetened aniseed flavour sticky on his tongue.

  Nikolaevich poured again. “The deaths of Primakov and Stepanov opens a rare opportunity for you, Boris. Once you have been cleared to return to duty, you will assume Stepanov’s position. And Primakov will be replaced as First Deputy Director next week. Do you know Sharipova?”

  “The rezident in Athens.”

  Nikolaevich nodded. “She’s dour and uninspiring and close to retirement, but the Director wants a safe pair of hands after what has happened. Sharipova will keep the seat warm for you. I will see to it that you are well placed to assume the Deputy Directorship when she decides that the time is right to move on—that’ll be a year, two at the most.”

  “Of course, sir. Thank you.”

  “Your new position will allow you to furnish me with intelligence on foreign operations. You’ll have access that you don’t have now. That information will be valuable—for both of us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nikolaevich made no mention of what the operation meant for him, but Mitrokhin knew. Primakov had been a rival ever since the Academy, and, now that he was out of the way, the way was a little clearer for Nikolaevich to climb the ladder. Perhaps he was eyeing the Directorship of the Federal Security Service or the Foreign Intelligence Service. Mitrokhin didn’t know his plans other than that he was determined to do everything possible to scupper the president’s intention to resurrect the corpse of the Soviet Union, and that the higher he could climb, the better he would be able to do that.

  Mitrokhin did not share his patron’s reforming zeal. Indeed, he found it childish; Nikolaevich might be able to inconvenience Vladimir Vladimirovich, but he could no more stop him than he could hold back the tide. He was wasting his time and, eventually, there would come a time when he himself was blown. Mitrokhin was concerned that day was approaching.

  Nikolaevich looked at him and smiled. “I realise you haven’t been paid,” he said. “I wanted to wait until the investigation was complete.”

  “And now it is,” Mitrokhin said.

  “The money has been transferred,�
�� Nikolaevich said. “It has been deposited in your Swiss account. And I’ve added a small bonus for a job well done. You performed flawlessly, Boris, and I feel bad about your leg.”

  Nikolaevich’s driver took him back to his house on Mokhovaya Street. It was a grand property and had cost him more than €1.5 million when he had purchased it two years previously. It had reminded him then of a small castle, with façades built from limestone and brick and covered with Virginia creeper that changed colour with the seasons. He loved the different aspects of the property; from the river, it still looked to him like a castle on the top of a cliff, surrounded by a wall with towers and battlements; from the street, it looked more like a cosy mansion with a collection of outbuildings. There were six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a spacious living room, a music room, a billiards salon, a bar and a sauna.

  “Here we are, sir,” his driver said.

  “Thank you,” Nikolaevich replied, opening the door and stepping out onto the street.

  He watched the driver pull away, climbed the steps to the front door, unlocked it and went inside.

  The house was quiet. His wife would normally have the television on, but he couldn’t hear it tonight.

  “I'm home,” he called out.

  There was no response. That was strange. Maria was not due to be out this evening.

  “Hello?” he called again.

  There was still no reply.

  Curious, he took off his jacket and made his way into the living room. The house was silent, with just the dripping of a tap from a nearby bathroom. He dropped his jacket over the back of his armchair and went to the bar. He took down his favourite bottle of vodka, opened it and poured out a measure into a crystal tumbler.

  He was about to sip it when he sensed movement behind him.

  Too late.

  Hands reached over his head and pulled back hard, a wire garrotte biting into the flesh of his neck. He tried to struggle, but it was no use. The person behind him was stronger, and the more Nikolaevich fought, the tighter the wire cut into his skin.