The Nazi's Son

by Andrew Turpin

  “Yes, we should. And cut who out?”

  Jayne lifted her hands, palms upward, in a gesture that said she didn’t know.

  “I’m thinking the support team,” Johnson said. “The MI6 admin people. And the secretaries hear and see too much, in my view.”

  “All right, we’ll do it. It will mean more paperwork and hassle for us to process everything, but maybe there’s no option in this case.”

  “I think not. We must.” Johnson leaned back in his chair and sipped his latte.

  “Anything else you want to discuss?” Jayne asked.

  “Yes, now that you mention it. There is something else.”

  Johnson glanced out the window at a group of schoolkids who were running into Hyde Park, near to a couple who were leaning against the iron railings at the entrance, busy kissing seemingly without bothering to breathe. He glanced at Jayne and then back outside again.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  Johnson laughed. “Meow.”

  “Ooh. Playful.”

  “Speaking of cats, remember that one in Islamabad? It came in through the window.”

  Jayne giggled. “When I was naked. Yes. Good thing it couldn’t talk to tell the tale.”

  “It’s probably still dining out on the story,” Johnson laughed. He placed his hands behind his head and gazed at Jayne. “Listen, I’m not very good at saying these things, but while I was on that boat up the Saimaa and after I’d extricated myself from Leipzig, I found myself sort of missing you, and—”

  “For my handgun expertise?” Jayne asked, raising her eyebrows.

  Johnson smiled. “Yes, that too. All kinds of expertise. And I’m serious.”

  It was true. He had suddenly found himself missing Jayne. In fact, during the months since their last investigation in Afghanistan had ended the previous year, he had thought about her many times.

  There had been something about going back to the region where in 1988 they had conducted a furtive love affair while based in Islamabad. Johnson was working in Pakistan for the CIA and Jayne for MI6, both of them focused on secret programs to help the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against Russian troops who had invaded their country.

  The affair was terminated after only a few months, when Johnson was sent back to Langley by his then boss Robert Watson and fired from the CIA. The catalyst for that had been a cross-border operation into Afghanistan that went wrong, but the final straw had been when Watson found out about the affair. Having a relationship with an intelligence officer from another country’s service was seen as too much of a risk.

  After that, Johnson had married Kathy, while Jayne had never married, despite a few relationships over the years, the details of which Johnson had not delved into.

  The two of them had remained vaguely in contact, but apart from a brief dinner in 1996, when they both happened to be in Buenos Aires on business, they didn’t see each other again until 2011. That was when Johnson headed to London as part of an investigation into a former Nazi commander who had disappeared after the Second World War and asked her for help.

  Their collaboration after the Nazi investigation deepened, and Jayne left MI6 to go freelance the following year, when she again worked with Johnson on a hunt for a Yugoslav war criminal from Mostar who had vanished.

  Since then they had flirted occasionally, and Johnson felt there was still chemistry between them, but nothing had happened. He had always had it at the back of his mind that he needed to be based in Portland, where his two children were rooted, and Jayne was based in London. He felt reluctant to start a relationship that might not prove workable.

  Yet, since last year’s Afghanistan trip, he had started to feel differently. They had a history and went back a long way together.

  Jayne was not only very smart, she had a steely, resilient character and kept her head in a crisis. She had a good sense of humor and was resourceful—a damn good partner to have. He had almost lost count of the number of times she had saved his ass on various jobs.

  Johnson admired all of that. But he had to admit to himself, the attraction also remained a physical one: Jayne had managed to keep her body almost in the same slim, lithe, sexy shape that had first attracted him to her in Islamabad. Yes, she had acquired a few wrinkles, her dark hair was graying in places, and she had put on a few pounds, but essentially she had stayed in remarkably good shape for someone who was now in her fifties.

  Jayne’s arm rested on the table, her hand next to her coffee cup. Johnson leaned over and placed his hand on hers. She looked down at his hand and back at him.

  “That trip to Afghanistan last year,” Johnson said.

  “What about it?”

  “It felt like the wheel had turned full circle. It was taking us back. I’ve thought about you differently since then.” He felt his chest tighten as he said it.

  Jayne’s eyes met his, and for a moment, she didn’t move, processing his words. Then she responded by turning her hand over and grasping his. Her face broke into a smile, her dark eyes twinkling at him.

  Johnson smiled back.

  Jayne looked out the window. “Look at those two,” she said, pointing at the couple kissing by the park gate. She glanced back at Johnson, and ran her tongue over her lips.

  “Shall we go for a walk in the park?” she asked in that low honey-and-whisky low tone that he had found so attractive in the first place.

  Johnson nodded.

  Ten minutes later, they were sitting on a black-painted wooden bench in the park beneath a giant oak tree that was just starting to sprout its first leaves of spring. Johnson had his arm around her shoulders, and she was pressing her thigh hard into his. They were kissing as if twenty-six years had never passed between them and the clock was being rewound.

  Perhaps we should start again, Johnson wondered, as his tongue explored the inside of her mouth and she pressed closer. She tasted good. Maybe they were starting again.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Sunday, April 13, 2014

  London

  When Johnson and Jayne arrived back at the Rossmore Road safe house, they walked in several yards apart. It was implicit between them that despite their relationship having just changed somewhat, in the work setting they were simply professional colleagues.

  Johnson walked over to Bennett, who was hunched over his laptop. An analysis had just come back of Anastasia Shevchenko’s movements over the previous couple of weeks, based on surveillance by the new and old teams, and the results had shown a pattern of sorts, Bennett said.

  Johnson stared at the screen, which showed a satellite map of central and west London superimposed with a series of colored lines representing the routes that Shevchenko had taken around the city, at least up to the points where she had evaded coverage.

  Many of the lines were in and around an axis between St. John’s Wood and Westminster on the Underground’s Jubilee line and between Maida Vale and Embankment stations on the Bakerloo line. Even when she had taken taxis, the routes were broadly in that same arc. The stations she had used most often were Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, both of them complex and busy.

  “The main divergence from this directional bias is when she goes near to or into Regent’s Park,” Bennett said. “She’s done that occasionally when we’ve managed to keep eyes on her.”

  “Interesting,” Johnson said. He was pleased to see that Bennett’s team was being so proactive, although he felt, as the analysis was only arriving now, that it probably had something to do with a push from Jayne.

  “Now that we have the new team in place, can we play more of an anticipation game?” Johnson said.

  Jayne was already nodding. “I’d like to have people on the ground in areas where we think she’s heading to rather than having people behind her as she travels there. If we reduce the trailing coverage, it might persuade her she’s black and to take more risks as well.”

  “The problem with that is if she does something unexpected and we lose her,” Bennett said
.

  “Yes, but it’s worth the risk of losing her if there’s a chance of a big win,” Jayne said. “She’s more likely to be watching behind her ass, not in front.”

  “True,” conceded Bennett. “We can give it a go, yes.”

  “Good,” said Jayne. “Let’s have people in Baker Street and Piccadilly Circus stations and in Regent’s Park, as soon as she shows movement in those directions, starting tomorrow.”

  Bennett nodded. “Fine. We’ll do that.”

  “What about the video analysis of her car journeys?” Johnson asked. “Anything showing up there?”

  “That’s what I wanted to show you,” Bennett said. “It’s all from dashboard cameras, so it’s a little limited since our surveillance cars are mostly hanging well back to avoid being spotted. However, there are a couple of instances where I think we should have a closer look. Check these out.”

  Bennett opened a video app on his laptop, selected a video file, and flicked the play button.

  The footage showed Shevchenko’s BMW heading along Outer Circle past the London Business School, just outside Regent’s Park. A small monitor window at the bottom of the screen indicated the car’s speed in real time.

  “Just watch the speed indicator,” Bennett said. “See what you think.”

  Johnson leaned over the screen and watched carefully as the BMW continued northward around Outer Circle, then turned left into Hanover Gate.

  “Stop it there,” Johnson said. “Can you replay that segment again?”

  Bennett reran the video.

  “There!” Johnson said as the car approached London Business School from the south. He pointed at the car speed indicator. “She’s slowed from thirty miles per hour down to twenty-four, and there’s no other cars in sight. Then after about fifty yards she’s accelerated again. Why has she done that? Play it again.”

  Bennett again replayed the video. “That’s what I hoped you would see.”

  “Has she done the same thing in that place before?” Jayne asked.

  “That’s the point. Just wait a second.”

  Bennett trawled through a few older video clips of Shevchenko driving in the same area until he found the one he wanted. It also showed the Russian slowing down, although to a less marked degree, when driving along Outer Circle the previous week, also on a trip ostensibly to collect cigarettes.

  “Interesting. Once is possibly just an anomaly. Twice might be deliberate. And it’s more than just a slight speed variation,” Jayne said. “And if you look carefully, in the second clip she’s driving dead straight to start with, completely under control, but then the car wobbles a bit during that stretch when she’s driving slower. Just a little, and it’s hardly noticeable, and it may be nothing—but why?”

  Johnson shrugged. “Sometimes we all do that. Maybe her phone rang and she looked down at the number calling and took her eyes off the street.”

  “Yes. Maybe she received a text message,” Bennett said. “Maybe she was changing radio stations, changing music tracks. Or on the other hand . . .”

  Bennett let his voice trail off, not speaking the obvious as they watched the video finish playing.

  “You mean she might be activating a transmission device?” Johnson asked.

  “Precisely.” Bennett looked up. “And if she is depositing or collecting material there, then somebody else must also be doing likewise.”

  “Are there any CCTV cameras along that part of Outer Circle that we could get footage from?” Jayne asked.

  Bennett went away to get his team to check and came back later on in the evening to report that that stretch of street was a CCTV blind spot. Although the London Business School had them outside its building and cameras were placed at the junction with Baker Street, there was nothing in-between.

  “I suggest we get some temporary cameras of our own put in that spot as soon as possible, just in case she does it again or if someone else does,” Jayne said. “Make sure the cameras are ultrahigh-definition ones so we can slow the footage right down, and make sure there’s a few of them. On trees, lampposts, whatever, so we get a variety of angles and at different heights. And ensure we get license plate recognition software hooked up to the outputs.”

  “Good idea,” Bennett said. “We’ll get it fixed.”

  Sunday, April 13, 2014

  Moscow

  Putin’s face remained motionless as he read the short report that Medvedev had handed to him.

  Eventually he stood and walked slowly to the far end of his office and back again to his seat next to the chess table in front of his desk, where Medvedev was sitting.

  “These damned Americans are being exceptionally foolish,” Putin said. “Their president is an idiot if he really thinks he can do this. Taking a helicopter to visit a heavily armed warship when it is sailing right next to our territorial waters at a time like this is just a provocation.”

  “I agree,” Medvedev said. “What the hell is he doing?”

  “That is a good question. And I am going to put him through hell,” Putin said, slapping the palm of his hand on the desk.

  “What should we do?” Medvedev asked.

  “I am going to put a few shots across the bows of this destroyer. I want to send a few Su-24s to carry out an extended exercise against the Donald Cook that will put so much shit up the asses of the crew and the White House that they will not come back in a hurry.”

  “Using armed aircraft?” Medvedev asked.

  The Sukhoi Su-24 was a twin-engine attack aircraft that could carry a variety of laser or satellite-guided bombs and was armed with various missiles and a 23 mm rotary cannon. But Putin knew that deploying them could swiftly escalate the conflict and turn the Black Sea into a battle zone.

  Putin stroked his chin. “I don’t know. Get Valery to have armed and unarmed aircraft ready for deployment, to give us options.”

  General Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov was chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces and first deputy defense minister.

  “Yes, I will go and see him immediately,” Medvedev said.

  “And ensure the unarmed aircraft have the Khibiny on board. Even if we don’t bomb and sink the damned ship, we will knock out their systems and give them a fright. If the president goes off the radar screen and can’t phone home, that will send him the toughest of messages.”

  The Khibiny was an electronic warfare system that could be mounted beneath the fuselage of the Su-24 tactical bombers and was designed to disable enemy radar systems, communication networks, and certain electronic control systems.

  Medvedev grimaced. “Indeed. I’ll ensure that Valery gets it arranged.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Monday, April 14, 2014

  London

  The array of cameras that had been installed overnight by MI6’s technical team along the stretch of Outer Circle covered the street and the area of Regent’s Park that bordered it. To Johnson’s satisfaction, it was providing very comprehensive coverage of the area.

  “Your boys have done a good job,” he said to Bennett, who was about to run through the results of analysis on vehicle license plates that the cameras had captured from cars that had traveled along that stretch of the street.

  A large video monitor screen on the wall was showing live footage from Outer Circle, taking its feed alternately at different angles from the cameras that were now operating. Johnson, Jayne, and Vic had been taking turns to watch the video, but nothing useful had shown up.

  Bennett had also installed two unmarked cars at different points in the parking bays along Outer Circle, manned by members of the surveillance team, in case any anomalies or suspicious vehicles showed up that required an instant response.

  At the same time as installing the cameras, the technical team had run metal detectors over an area of Regent’s Park adjacent to the street. A number of large metal objects buried underground had shown up, including one in particular buried beneath some evergreen bushes next to the hedge that se
parated the park from the street. The techs were convinced it was an SRAC base unit. But they hadn’t dug it up for fear it was somehow booby-trapped or that it might have an built-in shutdown facility or sensor that would turn it off if disturbed or, worse, alert the person using it.

  Nevertheless, the fact that the suspected SRAC had shown up provided a lot of reassurance for Johnson and Vic. Both of them had until then remained slightly skeptical that two sightings of Shevchenko slowing down a little on a stretch of street equated to any certainty that she was operating a data transmission unit.

  “Yes, the techs have done a good job, but it’s not providing any results—so far,” Bennett said. He explained that the analysis was showing no links between any of the thousands of license plates collected and anyone with any remote connection to the ongoing MI6, CIA, and military operations that were being leaked to Moscow Center.

  The system was now delivering live analysis of all license plates passing along that stretch of the street and would automatically flag any vehicles that were registered to members of intelligence or security services or armed forces, or civil servants operating in the relevant sensitive areas, particularly the Ministry of Defense.

  “Pedestrians?” Johnson asked. “Anyone in the park?”

  “No. Our illegal hasn’t been there since we started surveillance on her. And there’s no one else that has given us any grounds for concern.”

  Johnson strolled around the desk where Bennett was sitting with his laptop. He leaned against the windowsill and glanced at Jayne, who was sitting in an armchair opposite him.

  “What do you think, Jayne?”

  “What about motorbikes?” Jayne asked. “If they’re using one for the dead drop, they might use one to load an SRAC.”

  “They’ve been covered as part of the license plate checks,” Vic said. “Nothing.”

  Johnson folded his arms. “Buses. What if the person is just sitting on one of those red London double-deckers and activates their SRAC from there?”