But even if he was innocent, Greer needed to understand the forces that were now in motion. A desperate hope that they could somehow head this off, before it got completely out of control. Before anyone else ended up dead.
The former director-general laid his phone on top of his chest of drawers, briefly glancing at his own reflection in the mirror before opening the top drawer, pulling away a pair of folded shirts to reveal the holstered Sig-Sauer P320 subcompact nestled beneath.
He started to reach for it, then stopped himself—grim resolution playing across his features.
As ever in his career, if it came down to guns. . .the situation was too far gone to be salvaged with one.
The drawer slid shut with a click as Marsh turned away, plucking his sports jacket from where it hung on the door.
He would just have to take his chances. As always before.
11:56 A.M. Central European Summer Time
The Ardennes Forest
Belgium
A pair of shots, crashing out through the forest—their echoes returning to him, again and again. The echoes of death.
Harry closed his eyes, and he could see—feel—it all again, the Walther recoiling into his hand.
The condemned man, dropping like a marionette whose strings have been cut—blood and brains exploding from the back of his skull. Staining the grass.
It had been the wrong choice, he knew that now, gazing out the heavily-tinted windows of the BMW as the forests of the Ardennes flashed past. Knowing that he should have turned the gun on Belkaïd.
Accepted his fate, ended it all—right then and there.
But that seemed to be the one thing he was incapable of doing, strange as it seemed. Capable of ending any life. . .except his own.
He could feel Belkaïd’s eyes on him—sitting across from him in the backseat of the SUV—but his own gaze remained fixed out the window. The forest was so peaceful at this time of year.
A forest that had just borne witness to violent death. Belkaïd’s men had been tasked with disposing of the body, somewhere, he knew not where. He—
“You’re still angry with me, aren’t you?” He heard the Algerian ask quietly.
“It was wrong,” Harry responded, his own voice barely above a whisper.
“Perhaps it was.” He could hear the shrug in Belkaïd’s tone. “It was also necessary. He needed to be punished—and I needed to know that I could trust you. You weren’t wrong about Said.”
It felt as though Belkaïd had just dropped a bomb on the vehicle, Harry’s head whipping around to face the trafficker. “What?”
“His apartment is still crawling with police, but he had another place—in Antwerp—under a false name. My men finished searching it last night—took his computers. He was receiving money from someone.”
“So he was a spy!” Harry exclaimed, channeling all the fear of this moment into an angry hiss. Was it possible, even yet. . .?
That he could have killed a man working for Western intelligence. . .
“We don’t know. Not yet—haven’t been able to trace the money back far enough. If that proves fruitless, we’ll simply respond using the contact information provided. Request a meeting.” A quiet, knowing smile creased Belkaïd’s lips. “See who shows up.”
12:41 P.M. British Summer Time
“The Nell”
The Strand, London
“My God.” There was no mistaking the surprise in Greer’s eyes—the look of disbelief telling Marsh everything he needed to know. Whatever had transpired, his colleague wasn’t involved. Not knowingly. “Are you sure about this, Julian?”
“That he was one of ours, back in the day?” A nod. “I talked with his handler. They were the source for the files I gave you, Phillip. More specifically, Natashkin himself was. And now he’s dead. I struggle to think of that as coincidence.”
“You would, of course,” Greer acknowledged slowly, a light seeming to dawn in his eyes behind the thick glasses—his fingers toying idly with the toothpick which had skewered the as-yet-untouched sandwich on the plate before him. “But there are other things going on here, Julian—things you’re not aware of.”
Marsh leaned back into the booth, his eyes never leaving Greer’s face. Alert once more for any sign of duplicity. “Tell me about them.”
“We have a mole.”
Neither man had yet touched their food by the time Greer finished, Marsh’s sandwich grown cold on his plate, unnoticed.
“So Alec was innocent after all,” he mused, his mind struggling to comprehend everything he had just been told.
“Potentially, yes,” was Greer’s cautious reply. “Or at least he wasn’t alone—though a pair of moles together seems unlikely.”
A pause, before the counter-intel spook went on. “He tried to warn me—last week, when I visited him in Belmarsh. Confronted him with the evidence of Colville’s financial. . .entanglements. He warned me that we were looking in all the wrong directions—that, if what I was showing him was true, we still had someone under our very noses. Working for the Russians. He was right, Julian, and I couldn’t see it.”
Such were the recriminations that came with this line of work. Those endless moments of realization that, despite your best efforts, you’d missed something along the way. Something vital.
“And you still don’t know who it could be?”
A shake of the head. “No, I don’t. When you called, I’d just left Vauxhall Cross—asked them to begin digging into connections. But that’s going to take far too long. And if your intel on Natashkin is accurate. . .Moscow already has the names.”
“Some of them, at least,” Marsh observed quietly. “Likely not all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Phillip. According to your man, the Russians haven’t extracted their asset yet. He’s still here, in this country—waiting for them to get him out. If you were him, would you give up your leverage before you were safe?”
“No.” Greer shook his head once again. “No, I wouldn’t. But if I were the Russians, I would need some proof that the intelligence was real—some way to verify that the asset could deliver what he promised.”
Of course. That’s the way this game was played. Marsh saw the realization in his colleague’s eyes as he reached the conclusion Marsh had drawn him to. “Natashkin was the verification.”
“I believe so, yes. At least part of it. But the rest of the list is likely safe, at least so long as your mole remains on British soil.”
Greer picked up his sandwich, turning it around between his fingers before replacing it on the plate, as if something had struck him. “I’m going to need you to talk to Ashworth.”
Marsh’s eyes narrowed, taken aback by the proposition. “Are you sure? Why?”
“I need more cooperation from Six than I can secure on my own. If he could be convinced to place an official request with C, it might just do it.”
“And when he finds out that you’ve kept the investigation open, counter to his explicit instructions? That you’ve confided the results in me, despite my fall from grace?”
“It’s a risk we’re going to have to take.” Greer’s voice brooked no disagreement. “We don’t have a lot of time, Julian—perhaps even less than we think.”
“All right, then. Why me? Why not confront Patrick with this yourself? Your admissions to me don’t have to enter into it, then.”
“I’m a branch head. You were his chief. That gives you influence with him that I don’t have.”
Marsh’s eyes grew distant. “Patrick has never been as. . .open to my influence as you might imagine. But I’ll do what I can, Phillip. You know that.”
1:59 P.M.
Embassy of the Russian Federation
Kensington Palace Gardens, London
“Really? Today?” Dmitri Litvinov exclaimed, aware that his voice was too sharp almost as soon as the words left his mouth. Still struggling to process his wife’s words. “I mean—that’s wonderful,
Natalia. It will be good to see her again. And she’s bringing Katya with her?”
“Of course,” he heard his wife reply. “That’s what she said in the message. Is everything all right, Dima?”
“Da, da,” he lied absently, his mind racing. “It will be wonderful to see her again.”
It shouldn’t have surprised him. Flights between Moscow and London were a matter of routine these days, more than half-a-dozen every single day. Nothing could be more natural than that his daughter would come for a visit. It was only the timing.
But the timing could be perfect, he realized, if only Greer could be convinced to cooperate. To extract he and his family from this situation.
All of them, here in the UK. . .with the exception of Yuri, he thought, a cloud passing across his face at the thought of his son-in-law. But that was a chance he was prepared to take. If only. . .
His train of thought broke off abruptly, realizing only then that his wife was still speaking. “. . .I’m to pick them up from Heathrow at seven, so I won’t be here when you get home. But the chicken from last night is still in the refrigerator.”
“Spasiba,” he smiled, feeling a sense of peace wash over him for the first time in days. This was all going to work out. “I will see you soon, darling.”
2:31 P.M.
Thames House
Millbank, London
“But of course, Julian.” Patrick Ashworth leaned back in his desk chair, the phone’s receiver held against his ear. “I’d be happy to meet. Today? Why, is it a matter of some importance?”
His brow furrowed as he listened to his predecessor on the other end of the line. What was Marsh up to now? He’d never trusted the man, not even when he’d worked under him. The man was a relic of an earlier age—someone who couldn’t bring himself to admit that the world had changed. Moved on past him. Because the costs of such an admission. . .were more than he could face. The structure upon which one had built one’s life, crashing down all around. “I understand. Drinks at my club this evening, then? Around 7. My wife is away, visiting her parents in Cornwall. Good. It will be my pleasure, Julian.”
He hung up the phone with a grunt, eyeing the receiver with suspicion for a moment longer.
Whatever else drinks with Julian Marsh might prove to entail, he was fairly certain that “pleasure” wouldn’t enter into it.
6:43 P.M.
High Street Kensington Underground Station
London
And so here he was again, Litvinov thought—walking out onto the station platform, dusting his hands to remove faint traces of the chalk he’d just dropped in a rubbish bin in the corridor.
The signal placed.
It had been on this very night—in this very station—a week ago, that Phillip Greer had come walking back into his life. Up-ending it. Ripping it asunder.
Only a week? It felt like a lifetime. A part of him hated the man for it—but deep inside, he knew that, in Greer’s position, he would have done exactly the same thing.
And now Greer would know to send Roth in for another meet—tomorrow morning, likely, where they could discuss extracting him from all of this. He and his family, both.
Irina’s arrival was fortuitous, he thought, filing onto the carriage along with the crowd of businessmen and women leaving the city for the night. Providential, even, though he had never subscribed to his wife’s faith. Believed in her God.
Perhaps that, too, should change. In their new life.
And the carriage doors closed.
On the platform, a young man in a blue tracksuit—apparently arrived just too late for the departing train—turned, retracing his steps back down the tiled corridor toward the exit. Touching a finger to his Bluetooth headset as he moved.
“Da, he’s on the train,” he announced after a moment. “Headed your way.”
6:59 P.M.
The Rag
Pall Mall, London
Somehow, it just felt right that this should be Ashworth’s club, Julian Marsh thought, following the uniformed back of a butler through the club’s carpeted hallways.
The Army & Navy Club—referred to colloquially as “The Rag” by its intimates for generations upon generations—occupied a starkly modern building on a street corner in Mayfair, just off St. James’s Square.
The staff were doing yeoman’s work to preserve the atmosphere of the traditional English gentlemen’s club, but the contrast with the Old World antiquity of Brooks’s—Marsh’s own club—couldn’t have been more striking, for all that.
“This way, sir,” the butler instructed, bowing almost imperceptibly as he ushered Marsh into the Smoking Room.
The bar was directly in front of the former intelligence officer as he entered, its attendant acknowledging him with a polite nod as his gaze swept across the room. Taking in the sight of Henry Pilleau’s 1879 oil canvas “Elephants in a Dust Storm” hanging on the far wall before falling on the figure of Patrick Ashworth, sitting in a red leather armchair just to the right of the room’s fireplace.
The acting director-general rose at his approach, a broad smile creasing his face as he extended a hand. “It’s good to see you again, Julian. I’m so glad you were able to join me this evening.”
But it wasn’t, and he wasn’t, as they both knew perfectly well. Marsh murmured a polite reply before taking his seat on the sofa opposite Ashworth. Neither of them were suffering under any delusion that this was a social affair.
“Your pleasure, sir?” a waiter asked, materializing at Marsh’s elbow.
“Your sixteen-year Lagavulin, if you please,” Marsh replied, his eyes never leaving Ashworth’s face.
“So what do you think of my club, Julian?” the acting DG inquired, sinking back into his chair. “It’s quite a place, isn’t it?”
“Quite,” Marsh replied noncommittally. “I spoke to Lord Robertson for a moment on the way in.”
The former NATO secretary-general was getting on in years, Marsh reflected, looking into the fresh, far more youthful face across him. As were they all—a generation, on its way out. Soon to be replaced. By men like Ashworth.
May God defend the realm. “I didn’t realize you had served in the military, Patrick.”
A laugh, harsh and grating on Marsh’s nerves. “Oh, I didn’t. I was sponsored for membership soon after taking over at JTAC. We all serve in our own way, I suppose.”
“Indeed.” There was something to be said for tradition. And for those who dispensed with it.
“So tell me, Julian. . .your call, what’s this all about?”
“Unfinished business,” Marsh replied, taking the measure of the man across from him. “Pertaining to the late Arthur Colville.”
7:23 P.M.
The terraced house
Hounslow, West London
The house was dark as Litvinov made his way toward it, pausing for a moment with his hand on his own front gate, scanning the lengthening shadows of the street—the weakening rays of sunlight glancing off the windscreens of parked automobiles. Quiet.
There was a peace he had always loved about this neighborhood, and yet it made him feel alien, somehow. As though he remained an intruder in it. He. . .and everything he represented.
London was the home away from home for the nouveau riche of Moscow—hundreds and thousands of Russians, scattered all across the city. Scarce a day had gone by in his three years in this city that he hadn’t heard his native language spoken on the Tube.
It should have been a comfort, but Russia wasn’t that way. Perhaps it never had been.
He unlocked his front door, shrugging off his suit jacket and draping it over the tree in the entry hall, glancing briefly up the stairs to the flat’s second level. His briefcase still in hand as he made his way into the first floor kitchen, setting it on the table as he turned on the light.
And then he felt it, a presence there in the room with him—standing in the kitchen doorway through which he had just entered—his blood running ice-cold.
Fingers trembling as though seized by a sudden fever, Litvinov turned to look into a face he knew only from file photos. A face he had hoped never to see in person.
Hard eyes, a startling shade of ice blue, staring out from a lined, weathered face, surmounted by a rough, disheveled shock of silver hair.
Cruel, bloodless lips, distorted into an insolent caricature of a smile.
“Welcome home, Dmitri Pavlovich.”
7:26 P.M.
The Rag
Pall Mall, London
“And do you believe him?”
“I have not seen the raw intelligence,” Julian Marsh replied, measuring his words carefully, the single malt half-raised to his lips. “People at our level rarely do—you know that, Patrick. But Greer has given me his professional assessment, and I’m inclined to agree with it. He knows his business.”
“Greer. . .” Ashworth put his head back, a skeptical light glinting in his eyes as he seemed to search for words. “Is a good man.”
But. Marsh smiled, unable to escape the irony of it all, the mirror image of his own words to Greer, at the meeting which had set all this into motion. Concerning Ashworth.
His gaze drifted over to his right, his eyes falling on the nude portrait of Nell Gwynne which hung on the opposite wall, Peter Lely’s 17th Century masterpiece—the half-amused eyes of the royal mistress gazing down upon the two of them from the canvas.
It was strange how Charles the Second’s paramour seemed to dog his steps in recent days—a mocking presence. No doubt she had borne witness to many such scenes in her own life. The palace intrigue, men and women scheming for power. For survival. But had the stakes then been this high?
No doubt they had seemed so, in the moment. They always did. But Ashworth was speaking again.
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