Severinov leaned against the door of his black Mercedes Maybach parked on the quay—it was one of several in his fleet. He gazed out over the waters of the Black Sea southward in the direction of the Turkish coast, a couple of hundred miles away.
Today, under an azure sky, the sea was a deep blue, not black.
But neither the hue of the ocean nor the good news he had received altered Severinov’s frame of mind. Redtail was a much-needed victory. But his battle to shake off the mood that had encompassed him had so far been a losing one.
Chapter Six
Saturday, March 22, 2014
London
As soon as she was clear of passport control at terminal four of London’s Heathrow Airport, Major General Anastasia Shevchenko of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, headed straight to a toilet designated for disabled users and locked herself in. There she removed an unused pay-as-you-go SIM card from her purse and inserted it into the cheap burner phone that she was carrying in her hand luggage.
She typed a message into a voice synthesizer app on her main cell phone, then dialed a number from memory on the burner device, and when the call was answered, she pressed the play button on the synthesizer and held it close to the microphone of the burner. The message, in a woman’s voice speaking an electronic but fluent form of English, began to play.
“Hello, this is Anna from Private Finance Advice Line,” the voice said. “Have you been sold payment protection insurance at any time in the last three years? If so, we might be able to help. We have four simple checks we would like to run through with you.”
But the recipient of the heavily coded call replied, “No, thank you, I’m not interested.” The call, largely indistinguishable from thousands of uninvited electronic sales calls made to phones everywhere in the world each day, was immediately terminated.
Shevchenko turned off her burner phone and immediately removed the SIM card and battery. She deleted the message from the synthesizer, flushed the toilet, washed her slim hands in the basin, and dried them using the electric drier in the corner. She put the burner phone and battery in her hand luggage and, after quickly brushing her neatly groomed shoulder-length black hair, left the cubicle.
She then wandered around the baggage hall for ten minutes, checking yet again that there was no sign of coverage from British counterintelligence officers. When she was sure she was clean, she threw the SIM card into a bin near to a help desk where she knew there was a blind spot between CCTV surveillance cameras. She continued through customs control toward the exit and the car waiting for her outside the arrivals hall.
It had been a good few days for Shevchenko. Just that morning, she had received two short encrypted emails and a secure text message, all congratulating her on a job well done. None of them mentioned Gennady Yezhov, and there was no reference to the previous day’s incident in Berlin. But the fact that not just the SVR director but the Russian president himself—the senders of the emails—had noted the work she had done left her feeling puffed up with pride.
The text message was from someone who was no longer in the SVR but who had a strong interest in Yezhov’s demise. He was also someone with whom she had remained extremely close. In fact, he was her occasional lover whenever she was in Moscow on business and had an opportunity. Her husband was rarely at home and her two children, both now in their midtwenties, had moved overseas to work.
There was no doubt in her mind that her handling of her mole in Western intelligence had been flawless over the past few months. She knew she was now in an increasingly strong position to eventually push for the SVR director’s role—in charge of Russia’s entire foreign intelligence operations—once the current incumbent, Maksim Kruglov, had slipped on a banana skin, as he was bound to do at some point.
Shevchenko, a wiry, attractive woman who looked younger than her fifty-eight years, checked her watch as she climbed into the black Mercedes S-Class with its diplomatic plates. It would now carry her down the M4 from Heathrow to the Russian embassy at Kensington Palace Gardens, next to Hyde Park in central London.
The sunshine made London several degrees warmer than Moscow, from where she had just flown with the Russian airline Aeroflot. It was a nice welcome back.
Shevchenko knew for certain that following the demise of Yezhov, not just the CIA and MI6 but probably all Western intelligence agencies would be on red alert, humming with activity and panic, carrying out witch hunts right, left, and center as they tried to detect the identity of the traitor in their midst.
She conjured up an image of the anthill-like chaos that she was certain was underway at CIA and MI6 stations from Washington to London to Moscow.
As a declared intelligence officer, she had official status in the UK as an SVR employee attached to the embassy, unlike most of her SVR colleagues in London, who were mainly undeclared, working under the cover of other job titles and functions.
However, her official status did mean that she was subject to constant surveillance by MI6 teams. It was difficult to deal with and made any covert meeting hazardous. So, she relied on her skill on the street to combat that because there were times when such meetings were simply necessary.
In an hour or so, after checking in at the rezidentura, the SVR’s station within the Kensington Palace Gardens building, she would need to start the lengthy surveillance detection route that was necessary prior to her scheduled rendezvous if she was to be sure she was free of the normally ever-present eyes that were on her.
They were good, but she knew she was better.
Chapter Seven
Sunday, March 23, 2014
London
Johnson and Vic were only ten minutes away from MI6’s futuristic-looking headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, on the banks of the Thames in west London, when Vic’s secure phone rang. It was Mark Nicklin-Donovan with some terse instructions.
Johnson could hear only one side of the conversation, but it was rapidly evident that the MI6 director of operations wanted them to sit in on a briefing he was about to give on the Yezhov shooting to a small group of senior people from the CIA, US embassy, and MI6 teams.
“He wants me to sit at the table,” Vic said when he had finished the call. “I may have to contribute. He wants you to join the meeting given that you saw the whole thing—you can supplement my responses if needed, and he might also want to ask questions about the process involved in dealing with historic crimes. He said you’ll have to sit at the back and we can bring you in as needed.”
“Suits me,” Johnson said.
Half an hour later, the two men were sitting in a secure briefing room on the fifth floor of the SIS building, overlooking the river. Both had already been security vetted and cleared by Vauxhall Cross as soon as the visit to London had been confirmed. In Johnson’s case, given that he wasn’t a CIA employee, the process had been somewhat more complex but nevertheless went smoothly.
Vic joined five others around an oval maple conference table, with Nicklin-Donovan sitting at the head. Johnson was perched on a chair at the rear of the room next to a drinks cart, his back to the wall.
A tall, unsmiling man with a slight paunch and graying hair combed forward into a fringe, Nicklin-Donovan cut a slightly formal air as he spoke, quite different than Vic’s easy manner, Johnson thought. He reminded Johnson of some sort of middle-aged schoolboy, perhaps because of his gray V-neck sweater and white shirt with open collar.
Johnson knew something about the others around the table because Vic had spoken about them at length as the operation had gone on, but he had only met a couple of them previously. To his surprise, they included Richard Durman, the chief of MI6, known universally as C, who in turn reported to Foreign Secretary Harriet Miller. Durman, an urbane man with a neat parting in his brown hair, was clearly taking the issue seriously enough to come in from his country house during the weekend. Johnson had seen his driver drop him off in a silver Porsche 4x4.
There was also Bernice Franklin, whom Johnson knew
from his CIA days in the ’80s. The two of them had joined the Agency at around the same time, and she had been helpful and encouraging to him in those early days. She had even been among those who had called him after he had run into trouble in Islamabad and asked if there was anything she could do to help.
A slim, athletic woman, Franklin’s long dark hair was now showing more than a few flecks of gray but she was clearly still keeping fit: she turned up wearing Lycra cycling gear and a somewhat loud orange bike helmet. Before changing into a business suit, she casually mentioned that she had pedaled to Vauxhall Cross from her home.
She was flanked on one side by Peter Ogrizovic, an assistant to US Ambassador Louise Bingham, and on the other by Will Payne, the head of MI6’s UK controllerate, who was rotund, bald, and bespectacled but, somewhat incongruously, was also carrying a cycle helmet.
Johnson was thankful that Payne hadn’t opted for the Lycra like Franklin and was instead wearing chinos and a polo shirt. He looked as though he needed the exercise more than she did, Johnson couldn’t help noticing.
He’s the Fat Controller, Johnson thought, his mind going back to a character in the children’s train storybooks he used to read to his kids when they were small. For a few seconds, he had to resist the temptation to laugh.
Nicklin-Donovan started by explaining that Vic and Johnson were there because of their direct involvement in Berlin and then launched into a factual, blow-by-blow account of what had happened, based on the detailed briefings he had received from Vic and others. He used a few PowerPoint slides that showed maps and photographs of the area around Friedrichstrasse station and some video taken from the security cameras, including the footage showing Yezhov’s death, to illustrate his points.
“Yezhov was a dead man walking from the moment he got on the train in Prague,” Nicklin-Donovan concluded. “It has Moscow Center’s hallmarks stamped all over it. We and Vic’s team will, of course, be doing our utmost to locate the source of the leak.”
Johnson caught Vic’s eye. He could see his friend was holding back a smirk at hearing Nicklin-Donovan replay the same language Vic had used in describing the incident.
There followed a barrage of predictable but largely unanswerable, questions from those around the table.
“What is your gut feeling about the source of the leak?” Ogrizovic asked. “And do you think it came from the same source as the other leaks we’ve seen in recent months?”
Nicklin-Donovan shrugged. “Logic would suggest that, but I’ve no more certainty than you have.”
“How tight were the security processes you have in place with the BND?” asked Franklin. She propped her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands, addressing Nicklin-Donovan directly. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “I can see that the CIA team has been tight, but you were managing the BND. How much did they know? I’m assuming quite a lot. And how many of them were in the loop?”
Johnson was thankful that Franklin appeared to be supporting her own CIA colleagues, but she was apparently intent on having something of a dig at the British contingent. He had always remembered her as a combative character from his early days in the CIA—she obviously hadn’t changed, and he could see that Nicklin-Donovan was fighting to keep his temper in check.
“It was need-to-know with the BND,” Nicklin-Donovan said, beads of sweat now decorating his forehead. “Rick Jones was handling that relationship, and he tells me he kept the information strictly compartmentalized. Only the logistics details went to the BND.”
“That’s a relief, then,” Franklin said, a note of sarcasm in her voice. “Who’s going to run the inquiry into how this happened?”
“The question of who will run it and what shape it will take is something I’m currently deciding.” Now Nicklin-Donovan’s voice held a distinctly irritated tone. “It will be low-key and discreet. I will keep you all informed when I have done that, and I don’t need to stress, as always, that those details should go no further unless you are instructed otherwise.”
Fat chance of that, Johnson thought. They’re all going to have to report back to superiors.
There were more questions, but Nicklin-Donovan concluded the meeting after an hour. Durman left first, with a curt nod of the head to all around the table, followed by Will Payne, fastening his cycle helmet under his double chin. Then Nicklin-Donovan escorted Franklin and Ogrizovic out of the secure area to the elevators, leaving Johnson and Vic in the meeting room.
A few minutes later he returned. “Get your things,” Nicklin-Donovan said. “We’re going somewhere else for a further discussion about all this.”
“Where?” Vic asked.
“I can’t tell you. I’ll drive.”
Chapter Eight
Sunday, March 23, 2014
London
Nicklin-Donovan had driven three miles west from Vauxhall Cross before Vic asked the question for a second time.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“Safe house,” Nicklin-Donovan said. “A village called Datchet, around twenty miles west of London. We can talk more freely there.” He had obviously chosen somewhere that was free of the surveillance and hidden microphones that kept a twenty-four-hour watch on everyone and everything that moved and spoke at Vauxhall Cross.
During a circuitous route to Datchet, Nicklin-Donovan several times doubled back on himself, parked temporarily down side streets, and went through a couple of red lights. Despite his seniority—or possibly because of it—he was clearly still hands-on when it came to surveillance detection precautions.
He finally pronounced that he was satisfied they were clean and proceeded to the safe house, an anonymous Tudor-style property set back from the street down a short driveway. The village was quaint, well maintained, and clearly well heeled. Its main feature was the River Thames, considerably narrower here than in London, that formed a natural boundary to the west.
The three men crunched their way across the gravel driveway to the rear door of the house, past a hedge that was showing the first green shoots of spring. There Nicklin-Donovan stepped into the shadows of a stone porch and unlocked the door.
He led the way to a kitchen and made coffee for all of them.
“As you can imagine, I’m doing my best to keep the almighty screwup in Berlin beneath the radar,” Nicklin-Donovan said as he led the way to a living room. “I could have done without that meeting this morning, but some of the others, unhelpfully including C, were demanding a briefing and an update.”
“I bet you are,” Vic said. “Must be difficult to stomach for you. Even harder for me. Tell me who doesn’t know what happened.”
“We’ve so far kept it away from the politicians who make the noise, from the prime minister downward,” Nicklin-Donovan said. “And internally I’ve tried my best to keep it tight, but it is difficult, as you have just seen.”
“That’s why I brought you two here,” Nicklin-Donovan went on. “I wanted to speak to you both about a few different aspects of this whole business.” He sat in an armchair, leaving Johnson and Vic to take positions at either end of a long sofa.
Nicklin-Donovan took a sip from his coffee. “Now, first, I just want to say I don’t know what your surveillance team was doing on the ground in Berlin and why that sniper wasn’t spotted,” he said, alternating his gaze between Vic and Johnson, “but I’m sure it will all come out eventually.”
“As I am sure will the details of the other busted operations with your people over recent months,” Vic said pointedly.
“I’m talking about this operation,” Nicklin-Donovan said. “The basic surveillance on the ground seemed to be lacking.”
“Unfortunately the surveillance team left their sniper detection kit at home,” Johnson said. He had always hated playing the blame games that were so much a part of the intelligence agency culture. “Strange as it may seem, nobody assumed the other side was getting a briefing on BLACKBIRD’s movements.”
Vic cut him a look. “The
ground team handled everything in the immediate vicinity according to plan, but snipers add a different dimension.”
Johnson leaned forward, looking at Nicklin-Donovan. “I think it would be more constructive to look forward, not back.”
“Yes, but we’re going to have to do some looking backward if we’re going to move forward, aren’t we?” Nicklin-Donovan said. “We’re missing a few vital ingredients, all of which were in BLACKBIRD’s head.”
“By looking backward, you mean an inquiry?” Vic ventured.
Johnson tried to avoid sighing. Of course, Nicklin-Donovan was going to make use of the small amount of ammunition he did have, which was to blame Vic and the Agency for the operation on the ground.
But surely an official inquiry was the last thing the MI6 man would want, given it appeared the much bigger problem—the mole—was buried somewhere underground at his end. He would be the one holding the bag if such details emerged, and he would also be blamed if an inquiry failed to deliver a result. Either way, he lost.
The MI6 chief looked at Johnson, his gaze steady. “What are your plans now?”
“I’ll be heading home soon, back to Portland. I don’t want to get under your feet. It seems you’ve both got a lot on your plates.”
“Hmm. I know your background, Joe,” Nicklin-Donovan said. “And I know your record. Jayne Robinson told me all about you. We keep in touch. And Vic briefed me that you’re here because of the historic angle of the information Yezhov was bringing out. It crossed my mind that your curiosity about that might have been deepened by what has happened, not reduced. Is that a fair assumption?”
Johnson sat up. Surely the MI6 chief wasn’t suggesting what Johnson thought he was suggesting. The answer was going to be no.
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