Spy Out the Land

by Jeremy Duns

  ‘Please leave us for a moment, comrades.’

  Proshin got to his feet and followed Cherneyev into a waiting room encased in lacquered wood panelling. They sat there in silence on a low sofa that needed upholstering. After ten minutes, the intercom sounded on the secretary’s desk and she waved at them imperiously to go back in.

  Borzunov was still seated at the table, a self-satisfied look on his face, but Ivashutin had taken his jacket off and was standing by the window. He spoke with his back turned away from them, gazing down into the courtyard that nobody ever used.

  ‘Operation ROOK was a disaster, and the two of you are to blame. It needs to be finished, and it needs to be done quickly. Our latest intelligence is that INDEPENDENT is currently on his way to Brussels. If it is the case that the British are involved in kidnapping his family, we must intervene.’

  He turned on his heels and looked directly at Proshin. ‘I want you to go there and complete the work you should have done six years ago. You know the man, and you know at least some of his ways. But as you’re not to be trusted on this alone, Cherneyev will go with you. I would like to see this man dead within the next twenty-four hours. If you fail, there will be consequences for you both. Your flight leaves in precisely –’ he looked at his wristwatch – ‘forty-seven minutes. A car is waiting for you downstairs with further instructions.’

  He nodded to indicate they were dismissed, then poured some tea from the samovar into his cup and took a sip.

  Proshin and Cherneyev took the lift together, both men staring sightlessly at the dulled metal of the doors as they closed in front of them.

  ‘Did you bring any other clothing with you?’ said Proshin. ‘I suggest you change before we get in the car.’

  The other man didn’t answer.

  ‘Did you hear me, comrade?’

  Cherneyev slowly turned his head and looked at him with his hard grey eyes. ‘Oh, I heard you, old man. Now you hear me. I don’t appreciate being fished out of my unit because you weren’t thinking straight six years ago, and I don’t intend to risk my neck on your say-so again. I’m making sure Dark is killed this time, and you’re not going to stop me with your effete little ways. So I’ll be giving the suggestions from now on, are we clear?’

  His hand shot out and grabbed Proshin by the throat.

  ‘I said, are we clear?’

  Proshin nodded, and the hand relented.

  Chapter 45

  Sunday, 24 August 1975, Salisbury, Rhodesia

  Ian Smith waited for his wife to climb aboard the Command Dakota before following her up the ramp to take a seat next to her. Once they were securely in place, the pilot pressed a button that sent a prepared encrypted message to Air Force headquarters: ‘DOLPHIN 3 DEPARTING’. Then he ran through one last check of his controls.

  A few minutes later, the Dakota was in the air and heading for Victoria Falls.

  Chapter 46

  The DC-9 skidded onto the runway at Zaventem at a quarter to ten. The cabin lights came up and Paul Dark joined the crush of passengers hurrying down the staircase. A thin veil of fog swirled across the tarmac and the sky spat rain. Dark had the urge to turn up the collar of his jacket, but that was one thing you never did when trying to remain inconspicuous – even a glance at a distance could have people humming the tune from The Third Man.

  At the foot of the staircase a stewardess was pointing passengers towards a bus parked about fifty yards from the plane, which was waiting to take everyone to the arrivals terminal. Dark stepped onto the tarmac and leaned down as if to tie his shoelaces, but his peripheral vision was waiting for the fraction of a moment he needed. After several agonising seconds, it came – the stewardess turned away from him to answer a question from a young woman holding a baby in her arms. Dark, still crouched down, scuttled his feet backward like a spider until he was under the fuselage. He closed his eyes so the whites of his eyes wouldn’t be visible in the darkness, and held his breath, expecting to hear a call from the stewardess any moment to ask him what he was doing. But it didn’t come, and after a few seconds he heard her speaking to another passenger.

  He had spent most of the flight wondering about his options on landing in Belgium. He’d made it through passport control and security at Arlanda without any trouble, but he knew that the agency or agencies searching for him wouldn’t have given up simply because he had managed to evade them once. They would have people working around the clock, glued to computer screens, searching for any sign of him in the haystack of radio-waves and electronic communications. And if any of those worker bees had managed to figure out which identity he was using in the three hours since he had boarded the flight in Stockholm, the authorities here would have been alerted and ‘Henrik Jansson’ would be picked up the moment he showed his passport.

  With this in mind, he’d roamed the check-in area at Arlanda looking for someone he could impersonate on arrival in Brussels, but there had simply been no suitable candidates. He had searched again on the flight, walking up and down the aisle, but he had struck lucky with Jonas and the bar had now been raised for how much he had to resemble his mark. Because if he had been detected, the men hunting him would be furious that he’d given them the slip and the customs officials would have been given instructions to be even more rigorous. He had decided he didn’t fancy his chances trying the same trick again.

  Dark sat beneath the plane and listened until the last passenger had come off and the stewardess had walked back up the staircase. He opened his eyes and saw the doors of the bus close and then head off.

  He took a deep breath. He could hear the low chatter of the crew above him, perhaps discussing their plans for a night in the city. He’d gone out with a BOAC stewardess for a few months once and had spent many an evening waiting for her in airport bars: he doubted the drill she’d described would have changed much in the intervening years. They’d be cleaning the aisles and packing up their gear now, and would be coming down the staircase themselves in a few minutes. The pilot and co-pilot had less to do but usually waited until the crew were finished so they could all leave as a group. Not always, though.

  He stepped out of the shadow and walked across the tarmac towards a parked Sabena jet in the next bay. He’d spotted a small flickering glow beneath one of the wings that he thought he recognised. As he drew near, he saw that he’d guessed right: a member of the airline’s ground crew was seated cross-legged on the rear of his service truck, smoking a cigarette.

  He was alone.

  Dark marched up. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he called out to him in French, his voice terse and authoritative. ‘You should be working.’

  The man stood and arched his shoulders back, peering into the darkness. Dark stepped forward and punched him in the solar plexus, thrusting his fist hard into the flesh. The man doubled over, winded, and Dark followed through with a knife-hand strike to the vagus nerve behind the ear. The man slumped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Once Dark had checked he was unconscious, he removed the cigarette from his fingers and crushed it beneath his shoe. Now the darkness was near-absolute. He quickly began stripping off his clothes.

  Five minutes later, dressed in the man’s yellow and blue overall, he parked the truck in the Sabena bay outside a low boxy building adjacent to the terminal. He descended and followed a group of men wearing Alitalia insignia who were heading towards the building. One of the men held the door open for him, and he nodded his thanks. He walked into the baggage handling area, busy with men unloading cases. He found one of the carousels that was deserted and, glancing around, stepped over it, then ducked and crawled through the plastic curtains. A small boy clutching a balloon was staring at him. Dark smiled at him and stood, wiping the dust off his knees, then headed purposefully into the body of the arrivals hall.

  Soldiers were patrolling here, as they had been in Stockholm, but none of them paid him any attention. Dark located the bureau de change and exchanged his kronor for francs, then took the es
calator down to the railway station and bought a ticket into the centre of Brussels.

  A quarter of an hour later he walked out of the Gare du Nord and was greeted by a throng of taxi drivers wanting his business. One of the men, burly with wild grey hair, caught his eye, and he nodded at him. The man gestured obscenely at his disappointed colleagues and then opened the passenger door of the cab with a flourish.

  ‘On y va, m’sieur!’

  Dark climbed in. The car stank of cigarettes and the driver’s body odour.

  ‘Rue de Stassart soixante-quatre, s’il vous plaît.’

  The man nodded and roared off, forcing Dark’s spine into the back of the seat.

  He had a hollow feeling in his stomach, only partly caused by the man’s driving. He was hoping Manning lived at the address directory enquiries had given him, but if he didn’t he’d just wasted several hours flying out here and he’d be no closer to finding out who had taken Claire and Ben, or where they were now. Somewhere in the world, men with guns were holding them both. How were they dealing with it? Had they been hurt? Did Ben understand, was he scared . . . ?

  The city flashed by in a succession of tunnels and intersections and sparks flashing on tramlines. He saw a billboard reading ‘MAES PILS’, and remembered steins of cool beer in a darkened bar. He licked his lips unconsciously.

  The driver took a turn and Dark had a sudden intuition he was being duped – that it was a deliberate detour to increase the fare. He leaned over and glared at the man.

  ‘Qu’est-ce que vous faites?’ His nails were digging into the palms of his hands, and he realised his nerves were drawn so taut that even a delay of a few seconds might make him snap. Perhaps sensing this, the driver sped up.

  ‘Ne vous inquiétez pas, m’sieur,’ he said, raising his palms fractionally on the wheel. ‘Nous sommes presque là.’

  They came into the African neighbourhood. Dark wound down his window to get some air and the smells of grilled fish and plantain drifted in from a nearby restaurant. The taxi slowed for the lights and a young woman in a bright green dress came to the crossing. Time stilled. Claire. He was reaching for the handle of the door and was about to tell the driver to stop the car when she turned and stared straight at him and he realised his error.

  She crossed the road, and he leaned back against the leather seat. Cold sweat licked his forehead, and his heart was thumping.

  Pull yourself together, man.

  The driver veered into Rue de Stassart. It was a narrow street, a mix of shabby nineteenth-century houses and concrete office blocks: it looked like someone had taken all the ugliest parts of Paris through the ages and smashed them together while wearing a blindfold. They passed a group of young Africans dressed up for a night on the town – Dark registered the insistent thump of music from further down the street – and then he saw number 64: a massive and monstrous red-brick house that occupied an entire corner, with a four-floor turret uniting both sides like the spine of a book.

  ‘Juste ici, s’il vous plaît.’

  He paid and climbed out, gulping air. The taxi sped off and he walked up to the house and peered at the list of occupants next to the door. One of the placeholders read ‘MANNING, G. – AFRICA TRUTH’. Dark pushed the button beneath it and stepped back.

  A couple of minutes later the door opened and a neck craned out, watery eyes peering from a crumpled face. He looked like a frightened turtle. Dark pushed at the door and stepped into the stairwell.

  ‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to pick your brains.’

  Chapter 47

  Cherneyev and Proshin were the first two passengers off the plane. They were both tired and irritable, but Proshin knew he was lucky to have been given this option at all – he could have been sent in disgrace to the provincial office in Kuibyshev, thrown into a cell in the Lubyanka or worse. And he had no doubt what the ‘consequences’ Ivashutin had mentioned would be if he failed now: the firing squad.

  Despite the unpleasantness in the lift in Moscow, Cherneyev had recognised the impossibility of travelling in his fatigues and had told Proshin to take him to his office. ‘It’s not Savile Row, is it?’ he had sneered when Proshin had shown him the brown cotton suit he kept in his wardrobe, but he had put it on nevertheless. It was two sizes too baggy for his muscular frame, but he was passable.

  They now made their way through customs without any difficulties, and were greeted on the other side by a young man in a leather jacket and jeans holding a sign bearing their assumed names. This was Yuri Diadov, the communications man for the GRU’s illegal rezidentura in the city. After establishing identities with the phrases they’d been given, they followed him out to where he’d parked his car.

  Diadov got behind the wheel and the other two climbed into the back. Once they’d all squeezed in, Diadov reached under his seat and took out a parcel, which he passed wordlessly to Proshin behind him before starting up the engine. As they came through a tunnel, Proshin unwrapped the oil-cloth and found two Browning Hi-Powers nestled against each other. Cherneyev put out a hand, and Proshin dutifully handed one of the guns to him. Cherneyev examined it in the glow of the streetlamps, checking the magazine and inspecting it for markings – there were none.

  ‘Where did you get these from?’

  ‘A personal contact.’

  Diadov glanced in the rear-view mirror and noted the wintry expression on Cherneyev’s face. He recognised the type: he was what was known euphemistically as an ‘executive agent’, a special forces operative trained to hunt and kill the enemy, and to follow orders unthinkingly and to the letter. The other man was an officer, a flabby functionary rather than a killing machine, but he was perhaps more dangerous, as he would be watching his every move and then reporting back to headquarters. He decided a little more information might be advisable. ‘One of our agents bought them from a Belgian who assists the mercenary community here,’ he said. ‘We’ve used him before and he’s always been reliable and efficient. To our knowledge, the authorities here have no records of him or these weapons.’

  Cherneyev gave a curt nod. ‘I hope your evaluation of that is accurate, as it’s we who will pay if it isn’t. What about INDEPENDENT? Have you established where he’s headed?’

  Diadov showed no surprise that the younger man appeared to be in command even though the signal he’d received had indicated that the older one would be. ‘I made some enquiries, but I hope you can appreciate that I haven’t had a lot of time. However, I did manage to discover that a man broadly matching INDEPENDENT’s description took the train into the city about an hour and a half ago.’

  ‘How broadly?’

  ‘Same height, weight and general appearance, but no beard and he had fair hair. He’s dressed in some kind of uniform, perhaps airport ground crew.’

  ‘How many stops are on that train?’

  ‘Just two – the northern and central stations.’

  Cherneyev exhaled, making a noise somewhere between a sniff and a grunt. As he’d suspected the moment he had seen the man, he was an incompetent novice. How did these people get posted into the field? Perhaps, like Proshin, he’d landed the job through family connections.

  ‘“Just two”,’ Cherneyev repeated, his voice laden with sarcasm. ‘That’s one too many, Diadov, because he could have got off at either of them and we don’t know which. In fact, he could be anywhere by now. He could be in Antwerp, or Ghent, or got off the train and taken another straight back to the airport and caught a plane somewhere else.’ He slammed his fist into the headrest of the empty seat in front of him, shaking the car for a moment.

  Diadov stiffened. ‘My instructions were to arm you, drive you into the city and go home. No more than that.’

  He took the turning onto the motorway and the three men fell silent, each of them resenting the others for different reasons.

  Chapter 48

  The flat had once been rather a grand affair: the ceilings were high, the floor was parquet and there was a marble firep
lace in the living room. But the glory years were long gone now. The paint was flaking from the walls and the frames of the windows, and a smell of mould hung over everything.

  Manning had done his best to liven the place up with the décor, which had a somewhat contrived African theme: garish paintings featuring zebras, toucans and flame trees and a few fierce-looking tribal masks hung from the living-room walls. In one corner was a teak bookcase and next to it a small desk, on which rested a typewriter, piles of paper and an open bottle of Johnnie Walker. Behind that were two battleship-grey filing cabinets and a rickety chair in which a pyjama-clad Manning was now seated on Dark’s instructions. Funny, thought Dark, he had been wearing pyjamas the first time he had met him, too. Perhaps it was the same pair. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced, but otherwise he looked much the same as he had when Dark had last seen him, six years ago in a clinic overlooking a courtyard in eastern Nigeria.

  ‘How’s Marjorie?’ Dark said. ‘This place doesn’t really look like her style.’

  Manning’s jaw hardened. ‘She left me, as I’m sure you know.’

  Dark hadn’t, but he wasn’t surprised. He had forgotten all about Geoffrey Manning until he’d happened to catch the end of a programme on P1 one Sunday morning and had been astonished to hear his plummy tones emerging from the transistor. The programme had naturally made no mention of his time in the Service, referring to him simply as a ‘former British diplomat’, but that confirmation of his identity had alone been enough to make Dark’s jaw drop. The Colonel Blimp who had laughed along with the good old boys in the Lagos Yacht Club had apparently had the most unlikely of Damascene conversions, as well as reserves of political nous and organisational efficiency Dark would never have suspected of him in a million years.