Slingshot s-3

by Matthew Dunn

  That didn’t surprise Will. He was certain the company was a cover for an intelligence unit, the same team who’d supplied his name and home address to Alina, and that anyone allegedly working for the company would be using an alias.

  “Nothing on Kronos.”

  Peter asked, “You’ve checked with DIA in case it’s a weapons system?”

  “I know how to do my job. I’ve told Langley to check in all the right places, including DIA. Kronos has no meaning to us.”

  “Except one.” Will smiled. “In Greek mythology, Kronos was a Titan who carried a scythe that could slice open the sky. He defeated his father, the ruler of the universe, and devoured most of his sons when they were babies so that they couldn’t grow up and depose him.”

  Peter asked, “How on Earth do you know that?”

  Will shrugged. “Peter Paul Rubens did a painting of him eating his child, Poseidon. I’ve seen the painting and read about Kronos on the plaque underneath it.”

  Peter laughed. “It must be a blast hanging around you outside of work.” He turned, looked mischievous, and wrote, Kronos-the god who devoured his offspring.

  Suzy said, “Kurt Schreiber. Former Stasi colonel.”

  Peter spun around, his expression now serious. “Details of what he did in the Stasi?”

  Suzy shook her head. “All we have is his rank. To have reached that level of seniority without his name appearing elsewhere means he must have kept his head down for most of his career.”

  Peter looked at Will. “Or his identity was protected.”

  Suzy frowned and said quietly to the caller, “You’re sure?” She looked at Peter. “Six months ago, Interpol sent out a flag to London, Langley, and most European agencies-if the name Kurt Schreiber emerges in the course of our work, we’re to alert Interpol immediately.”

  Will said, “We need to understand Interpol’s interest in Schreiber.”

  “It’s being followed up.”

  Will nodded. “What else have you got, Suzy?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Then she shut her cell phone, rubbed her tummy, and said, “Simon Rubner. Mossad intelligence officer. And for the last six months he’s also been a CIA agent.”

  Will and Peter simultaneously exclaimed, “CIA!”

  Suzy nodded.

  Will’s mind raced. “Give me the details. Everything.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have the security clearance to read anything about Rubner.”

  Impatience surged through Will. “Patrick can get that clearance!”

  Suzy was unflustered. “It was Patrick on the end of the phone. He tried to get clearance, but was then hauled into the Director of Intelligence’s office and told to mind his own business. In fact, the director used far stronger language than that.”

  “Then Patrick needs to go over his head and speak to the president!”

  Peter shook his head. “Come on, Will. It’s a delicate time for us. Patrick and Alistair won’t want to risk a fight at that level. The section could lose, or worse could happen.”

  Will banged a fist against the wall, recalling what Alistair had told him in London.

  Things are changing. There are cries for transparency from the intelligence community, demands to do away with so-called shadowy task forces and the like. This is not just about you. If we get this wrong, some might grab this as an opportunity to shut us down.

  Will asked Suzy, “Any reference to Mikhail in the double agent files?”

  “I’m still searching. Nothing yet.”

  Roger entered the room, checking the workings of his handgun. “Have I missed something?”

  “Not a thing. We’ve hit a fucking roadblock!” Peter walked up to Will and asked in a near whisper, “Did you get these names at Yevtushenko’s house? How are they connected?”

  “I found them among other stuff in Yevtushenko’s basement. I’ve got no idea if they’re connected and, given the delicacy of our situation, we’ll never find out.” Will looked at Roger and Mark. “Our only chance now is to follow the Russian team to the target.”

  He tried to understand what had happened in the valley. The surveillance team should have killed him; instead it seemed that they were trying to drive him back toward the police so that he could be arrested or killed by them. That was the only reason he got out of there alive. One thing he was certain about was that knowledge of his intended break-in of Yevtushenko’s house was limited to the section, its coheads, and a handful of other senior officers in Langley and London. One of them had betrayed him, and that person had to be the same individual who’d leaked his name and address.

  He wondered if that person was in the room with him.

  Twenty

  Kurt Schreiber was sitting at his desk in the farmstead’s study. In front of him were ledgers containing the accounts of his multiple companies, six files that he’d drawn up for potential new business associates, a folder containing a draft business plan to derail a major oil conglomerate’s bid to establish drilling rights in the South Pacific and to then charge the conglomerate a small fortune to get the bid back on track, a list of men and women who needed to be killed, and a file that had the letter K on the front. That file had nothing in it-committing anything to paper would be far too dangerous-but he kept it in front of him to focus his mind. After all, none of his other projects were as significant as activating Kronos.

  Simon Rubner entered the room and sat down opposite him. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Schreiber.”

  Kurt placed the cap over the nib of Will Cochrane’s gold fountain pen and put it on top of the list of people he wanted dead. “What is the situation on our perimeter?”

  “We think there’s about fifteen of them on at any one time. At least double that number in total. All are armed, they’ve got sophisticated surveillance equipment, fast vehicles, and they look professional. They don’t seem concerned that we know they’ve surrounded our place.”

  The old man waived a hand dismissively. “They want us to know they’re watching us.” He removed his glasses and polished the lenses. “Yevtushenko?”

  Rubner ran fingers through his short beard. “We’re trying to force food and water down his throat. It’s not easy. His health’s deteriorating; he’s petrified.”

  The former Stasi officer smiled. “Of course he is.” He became motionless, deep in thought. “Are matters progressing in Russia and the United Kingdom?”

  Rubner nodded. “Cochrane’s sister and her two guardians have moved location. We’re watching them.”

  “The guardians?”

  “A husband-and-wife team: Alfie and Betty Mayne.”

  “Their backgrounds?”

  “Both ex-army, though they’ve been out for a very long time. God knows, Cochrane could have chosen better foot soldiers.”

  “They’re not foot soldiers and that is precisely why he chose them. He trusts them more than anyone else to protect his sister. And that means they are very valuable to him.”

  “Do you want us to kill the target?”

  Kurt thought for a moment. “Not yet. We don’t know if Cochrane’s still after us, so his loved one can still be used as leverage.” His expression turned cold. “What about the SVR officer?”

  Simon Rubner spoke quickly. “Mikhail Salkov’s wife and children have been located and approached. We’ve explained to the wife the seriousness of her family’s predicament. That happened twenty hours ago. Almost certainly she’s communicated the approach to her husband.”

  “Of course she has.” Kurt Schreiber glanced toward his study’s window. “He’s still out there?”

  “On and off. But he always keeps men on the perimeter.” Rubner walked to the window, looked out of it, and folded his arms. “The wife and children have moved locations. We’ve kept them under observation. What do you want us to do?”

  “The tactic against Mikhail didn’t work. Kill his family.”

  “Yes sir.”

  K
urt asked, “Is everyone ready?”

  “Your men here and beyond the perimeter are primed. Mikhail’s men will be taken completely by surprise.”

  “What time?”

  “Three A.M.”

  “No survivors.”

  “Yes, Mr. Schreiber. I estimate that the convoy will be leaving here a few minutes later.”

  Kurt picked up the two sheets of paper containing the codes. “Good. Don’t let me down, Simon.”

  Kurt placed the sheets alongside each other.

  “What do you want us to do with Yevtushenko?”

  “You’re still keeping him in shackles?”

  “He’s chained up in the basement. But even if he wasn’t, I think he’d be too weak to escape.”

  Kurt looked around. “This place has served us well, but after tonight it will be compromised. We’ll change our base of operations to one of the other German locations.” He smiled. “You’ll kill our unwanted guards; we’ll depart in convoy; Mikhail’s reinforcements will arrive sometime thereafter, but by then we’ll be long gone; they’ll search the farmstead and they’ll find Yevtushenko.”

  “Alive or dead?”

  “Alive. But I wonder what the Russians will do to him, given that his theft of the paper has ultimately led to the massacre of their colleagues?”

  Rubner felt a moment of unease. Though he was no stranger to death and violent acts, he took no pleasure in them. Kurt was very different. The former Stasi officer reveled in seeing others suffer. “They’ll tear him apart.”

  “Precisely.” Kurt looked sharply at the former Mossad officer. “All that matters is that you get me safely to the Black Forest tomorrow. In forty-eight hours, Kronos will be let loose. Then everything will be different.”

  Twenty-One

  Betty Mayne tried to imagine how Sarah Cochrane felt. During her service as an operative in Fourteenth Intelligence Company and her subsequent deployment by Will and others in MI6, she’d done a lot of protection work. It had taught her that the emotions felt by those in her care varied enormously depending on the circumstances of the threat against them, what types of person they were, how much freedom of movement they were given, what age they were, their gender, and, crucially, how long they’d been kept under protection. But over time, there were common patterns of behavior. If the duration of protection was longer than a week, the sequence was often absolute fear and confusion, open hostility toward the guardians, resignation to the situation, rebellion toward the protection detail, reckless behavior, confrontation, then resentment. The sequence was very different from patterns of behavior displayed by hostages. But sometimes the people Betty had protected had tried to hide their emotions by acting as if they were fine or resigned to their situation. Then they might try running away in the dead of night. Fortunately, she’d been wise to their playacting and had stopped them from making an idiotic mistake. She’d quickly learned that for the sake of their safety, it was vital that she never trust the people she protected.

  But Sarah was different. Since she’d been in Betty and Alfie’s care, she’d gone deeper and deeper into her shell-barely speaking, getting out of bed only at her husband’s insistence, struggling to eat, her appearance deteriorating. She wasn’t pretending, Betty was sure of that. Instead it seemed that she was in some kind of trauma that was the result of something far bigger than her current circumstances.

  They’d arrived in the Scottish Highlands three days ago, having left their previous location in the West Country’s Dartmoor within thirty minutes of receiving a call from Joanna. Located on the shores of Loch Damph in the Northwest Highlands, the large four-bedroom hunting lodge would ordinarily have made a stunning holiday retreat. It was surrounded by mountains, had a stream that ran through a copse at the back of the property, was located at the end of a mile-long track beyond which it took twenty minutes to drive to the nearest residence, and had recently been renovated and extended to include a big dining room and conservatory, a gun room, and a double garage containing a walk-in freezer for hanging deer.

  Betty had chosen it not only because it was isolated, provided an excellent view of anyone driving toward the house, and was very difficult to access on foot from other directions, but also because she thought the location would change Sarah’s mood. It hadn’t. If anything she’d grown even more withdrawn.

  From the kitchen fridge, Betty withdrew bacon, venison sausages, eggs, mushrooms, and roasted potatoes left over from last night’s meal. She doubted Sarah would eat much, but that wouldn’t stop her cooking for everyone. At 1:00 P.M. exactly, they would all sit down around the kitchen table with food in front of them. And at 7:00 P.M. they would sit at the conservatory dining table to eat their dinner. When not on the move, routine was essential. It helped to normalize each day.

  She walked out the kitchen door to fetch the men. Alfie was walking toward her, down one of the mountain slopes. The former SAS sergeant looked much more at home in the wilds of Scotland than he had when they’d collected Sarah and James from their elegant London home. Dressed in hiking gear, he was striding and leaping over the uneven and frozen ground with the vigor of a man half his age. He’d been checking his traps-primitive alarm systems made out of wire and empty coke cans that if walked into would trigger sufficient noise to be heard from within the house. They knew the alarms were effective. It was the off-season of the tightly regulated deer-hunting calendar; at this time of the year, deer would often come down from the mountains to seek shelter in the valley and to eat food that was left for them by the estates’ gillies. Last night, Alfie had jumped out of bed three times because of the noise of cans rattling against each other, only to discover that each time his traps had been triggered by large red deer.

  James was visible between trees in the copse. Standing beside the mountain brook, he was cursing loudly because his fishing line had got caught in the trees. It was the third time today it had happened, much to Alfie’s amusement, though the ex-Special Forces man was the one who’d had to clamber up trees and untangle the line. Betty had disliked James on first meeting him-though no doubt highly intelligent, he was also pedantic, fussy, weak, and foolish-but the more time she spent in his company the more he’d endeared himself to her. He always got up at 6:00 A.M., called in to his law firm and lied to them that his wife was still ill and he needed to stay home to care for her, played cards with Alfie until the early hours, and washed dishes. And now he was hopelessly trying to catch their supper.

  Betty looked around. Right now, the loch and its surrounding mountains had four climates. In the north, it was raining; east, snow was falling; west, the sky was clear and blue; and in the south, dark clouds obscured mountain peaks. She lowered her gaze and looked at the track. At the top of it was a stationary blue car.

  Alfie reached her and said, “Second sighting I’ve had. What about you, petal?”

  “The same.” She kept her gaze fixed on the vehicle.

  “Do we move locations on the third or fourth sighting?”

  “Third sighting.”

  Alfie put one hand into his jacket pocket and placed a filterless cigarette into the corner of his mouth with the other. “I think you’re right. Reckon they’re just tourists who’re back for a photo shoot.” He lit his cigarette. “But third sighting means they’re a bunch of bad ’uns.”

  Betty squeezed her husband’s hand and said quietly, “I can’t let Sarah see anything messy, angel. She’s in a bad enough way as it is.” She sat down on the frozen heath. “If anyone comes for us, we should try to minimize fuss.”

  Alfie passed his half-smoked cigarette to Betty, who took a drag on it and gave it back to him. “Where is she?”

  “On the sofa, doing nothing.”

  “It’s to do with her brother, isn’t it?”

  Betty nodded. “I think so.”

  Alfie flicked ash off the cigarette. “Can never get my head around the deep and meaningful stuff.”

  Betty kept her attention on the blue vehicle as it drove
off. “That’s one of the reasons why I love you. You’re straightforward.”

  Alfie grinned. “Either that, or it’s ’cos I ain’t got the brain cells to know how to answer you back.” An idea came to him. “After lunch how about I drive her to Lochcarron, make her useful, tell her she’s got to buy some stuff for dinner, and by the way she’s cooking?”

  “It’s worth a try.” Betty held her hand out, and Alfie gripped it and pulled her to her feet. “I’ll get lunch on. Be a love and help James with his tangled line. But don’t call him a stupid plonker this time.”

  “Right you are.” As Betty walked off to the lodge, Alfie placed his concealed handgun’s safety catch on, withdrew his hand from his jacket, watched the stationary blue car, and muttered under his breath, “Best you don’t come back.”

  One of Kurt Schreiber’s men watched Alfie through his sniper rifle’s telescopic sight. “He’s looking in our direction, but there’s no chance he can see into our car from this distance.”

  His colleague turned on the ignition. “Let him watch. The others are all in position to take over surveillance.”

  Four three-man teams, all secreted in the mountains around the lodge.

  “Glad they’re the ones who have to freeze their balls off today. And I’ll be gladder still when Schreiber gives us the order to gun her down.”

  “Don’t worry. Any day now.” Keeping Alfie’s head in the crosshairs of his rifle, the sniper mimicked the sound of firing a silenced bullet.

  Twenty-Two

  " Got it!” Suzy beamed as she stared at her laptop screen. “Mikhail Salkov.”

  “You’re certain?” Will placed a hand on the Auguststrasse dining table and leaned over her shoulder, looking at the computer.

  The CIA analyst nodded. “It’s taken me days to be certain. I’m damn sure he’s the one.”

  “How did you get him?”

  “Postings. I focused on the double agent files where we’d recruited agents being run by Russian officers posted overseas.”