Had brought her in all those months before and had frightened her a little, not greatly. Had arranged that she would be dismissed from her course at the Conservatory. No longer a student of music, boredom gripping her. The Major had assumed she would be sucked deeper into the lifestyle and company of the dissident group, his assumption was vindicated. The others in that group, foot soldiers, had the basics of tradecraft. They moved with care, understood the procedures of police surveillance teams, were hard to tail and ate manpower. Not so Yekaterina. She had not done well when they had switched buses, wearing a bright yellow anorak which showed up well under the streetlights. They would have taken her with them to ingratiate themselves with a renowned leader. They called the target the Lawyer; he had no exam passes, no diplomas, or university degrees in jurisprudence, but had always defended himself in court and had the wit to make idiots of the prosecutors employed against. him. For two years he had been underground, and the prominence of slogans on walls and flyers in public places had mushroomed. He would talk with the Lawyer later, argue in court for a remand in custody, look for a significant sentence of incarceration. He heaved the strap of his bag over his shoulder, turned his back on the window.
It was the Major’s habit that as soon as he reached home in the evening he would go to the bathroom and scrub his hands until the effort made him gasp. His work place was filthy, dirt encrusted, and there might be rats in the interrogation quarter of the building. Certainly there were cockroaches – the guard duty, at weekends, did races with them, and bet on them – and the drains seldom worked although the building was not old, not like Lubyanka in Moscow, and not like Detention Centre No. 1in his native Minsk. She would have realised, alone except for a silent guard at the door, that her situation was grave and – as the arrest reports told him – she had suffered the further humiliation of being almost undressed for sex when taken. He went down the corridor. Beyond two more locked doors was the section of the cell block where the others were held and he heard shouts, demands for release, for access to lawyers. On another floor, watched, was the Lawyer, awaiting his attention.
Since leaving university in the Belarus capital, the Major had spent his adult life working in similar places. The smell of the corridor revolted him; it was designed to break brave spirits. The Major swallowed hard, arrived at the door, was admitted. He sat opposite her. From his bag he took her passport, and laid it in front of her, the red cover and embedded gold letters and the symbol of crown and eagle within reach of her hand. She stared at it. He saw the swollen bags under her eyes, the make-up around them hardened in the streams of her tears. He saw little fight in her. The Major gave a wintry smile, of disapproval and disappointment, not enmity – which would have augmented her status – and reached forward, opened the passport, and showed her the page with her name, details and photograph. She had applied for it only weeks before her arrest and its confiscation, and might have gone to a summer camp in rural Finland or a concert in a resort town in Sweden. He dropped it into his bag. He stood, told her he would see her the next day, or the day after, told her she would be permitted one telephone call, two minutes’ duration, in the morning, and wished her goodnight.
The Major would go home, would sit with his wife after he had washed himself clean of the cell block, and would talk of her day, and his son’s, and tomorrow’s weather, and the prices in the street market, and perhaps look at a holiday brochure together. He had big plans for Yekaterina, but they would wait for the next day.
‘You have support, I assume it, for – in effect – an act of terrorism?’
‘Yes, I have support, support from where it matters.’
Boot drank a weak gin, and his Swedish host sipped with little enthusiasm at a non-alcoholic beer. Boot had been met off the plane and driven into Stockholm and the bar was across the road from his hotel. The street outside led to the open square where the asset, Nikki, had been picked up.
‘They are bullies and expert at handing down pain and confusion, but I think they make a poor show of absorbing it themselves.’
‘They are due for pain, and for confusion.’
‘To gain it, the “support” you required, what argument? An inappropriate question?’
Only very occasionally did Boot permit himself, in company, a dry and humourless chuckle. Such a moment. He spoke of deniability, and the certainty of attribution. Spoke of clan warfare inside the mafiya groups of St Petersburg, and the potential of serious eye-scratching among senior FSB officers who controlled and profited from such groups.
‘Easier than I thought it might be. A bit of predictable wobbling, a query as to whether I led too fast. Truth is, I gave my superior what he wanted to hear, always best.’
Spoke of the damaged relationship caused by the assassination of a British citizen in London by poisoning, the killing of another who was a refugee and granted safe haven, spoke of lies and distortions involving intervention in Ukraine.
‘They complain, like a bloody dripping tap, about a new Cold War and spend their limited cash building main battle tanks, spitting a fresh generation of fighter aircraft off the factory floors. They have as many – could be more – agents tripping round our streets as in the dark days half a century ago, tasked to steal information, and to finance their cohorts, the hackers, with the frauds from credit card theft. Yes, a sharp kick to the shin bone should be administered with a hard-tipped Wellington boot.’ Another chuckle.
The Swede said, ‘We have little appetite for confrontation, so they abuse us. Their submarines are continually diving in our territorial waters. They have flown a simulated nuclear attack over Stockholm itself, in daylight. We are deluged with their spies . . . and we are frightened. A little frightened also, perhaps, of what you hope to achieve, dear friend.’
More to drink? No, neither wished for that. Was Boot able to amuse himself for the following day? He was. His host left him. A silly conversation, but inevitable, and both had offloaded small rants. Necessary to justify, in some slight way, what he did and what the Swede helped him to do. He crossed a darkened street to the hotel, old and expensive, and climbed the stairs, past old prints of Swedish mariners, and went to his room, closed the door behind him . . . and pondered. Transported himself. Was at the municipal cemetery in outer Brussels. A dark, dank place, heavily shaded by evergreen foliage, with little sunlight and much rain: the only British memorial to the battle. He took himself there most weekends that he travelled to Belgium, perhaps by taxi from the station, perhaps by bus. A great gloomy work in age-stained bronze that was topped by a larger-than-life female, flowing robes ensuring modesty, and holding a long-handled trident. Below her was a crush of fallen infantrymen and savagely wounded horses and discarded rifles and dying lions. On the schedule he imagined for himself, it would be over within 100 hours and then – of the bright young men surging into the Belgian city – 17,000 would be dead and injured, and the medical staff accompanying the army would be overwhelmed. Food for thought, but a commander could not allow himself to be deterred from action by the prediction of how many would be lost. He would usually find time to go into the musty, leaf-filled crypt underneath and would stand in front of the stones commemorating a few of the dead, and imagine them: Captain William Stothert, 3rd Royal Foot Guards, or Sergeant Major Edward Cotton of the 7th Hussars, and many others. He undressed, prepared for bed . . . He believed implicitly, and Oliver Compton had hammered it home, that the prospect of casualties should not deter a man of war – or an agent handler – if the end-game was worth the effort.
‘All well?’
She was startled. He had come silently to the doorway, found it ajar, seen the light on and eased it open. She faced him, the Director – Big Boss – surprised to see him still in the building.
‘I think so, sir. Heard nothing to the contrary.’
‘A good paper he sent me, read well. Simple and direct – hard to argue with.’
‘The work of bright young people. What Boot attracts. And his plan is sou
nd, sir.’
The Big Boss looked past her, but the door to the inner office was closed. He might have expected to see the cartoon poster, Duke and Boot, gold spurs and a feather-capped hat, or perhaps the set of Waterloo teeth, but was denied. The Maid knew him as an isolated figure, promoted too high to have access to field operations, no doubt yearning for a ‘whiff of grapeshot’, or the crippling uncertainty of waiting safely beyond a frontier for an asset to make it back. Herself, she had a camp bed she could set up, and would do soon, and there were toilets and showers down the corridor, and she’d a set of night clothing, and a dressing-gown, in the wardrobe behind her desk, and he was away and so was Daff, and a neighbour would feed the parrot. He showed no sign of leaving. She wondered if he wanted coffee from the machine, or a sandwich made for him.
‘They’re launching from Narva. Don’t know the place. Just a map’s name to me.’
‘Not to worry. Interesting town. Slap on the interface. Up to the river, one road bridge, and permanent aggravation with the big neighbour. The Danes built a fortress there eight centuries ago, and the Russian one went up a hundred years later. Two strong points and within cannon range of each other. A massive World War Two battle and a series of amphibious landings as the Red Army pushed the Axis back. In 1944 there were five hundred and fifty thousand casualties on a small front line, mostly in the depth of winter, and more than three-quarters were Russians. The town was flattened by air and artillery, but held for six months. Much of the defence was from Estonian units who sided with the Germans, and there were Dutch and Norwegian volunteers. Interesting that Estonians from the west of the country thought it their duty to fight alongside SS divisions, held up the Soviets long enough for thousands of their families to get across the Baltic to Sweden. Rebuilt after the war and scores of Soviet citizens drafted in to work in the uranium extraction mines. Narva appears like any other insignificant Russian town, ugly and with few historic buildings, endless apartment blocks. Nine in ten speak only Russian and so have no integration with Estonian culture. Against the country’s tiger economy it is a backwater, and a place of old people. The young Russian speakers have gone abroad. High alcoholism and high drug dependency. There is a large Russian consulate, there will be a sizeable FSB presence, and the frontier runs down the river’s centre. It is a depressed and helpless community but better off than the sister town of Ivangorod. The river is a formidable barrier, still is, and that’s going to have to be crossed twice by our boy. The increments will go by car, “grey” passports mean they do not need visas to travel into Russia. A morning’s drive from Narva to St Petersburg, it’s very close. Quite exciting really – a bridge, a river, a no-man’s-land, watch-towers and a restricted zone, a jump-off point where personal security matters. That’s where Boot will be when he’s ready, and where Daff is now – and our boy . . . I doubt they’ll eat well, not much chance of it. Anything else, sir, I can help with?’
He shook his head. He seemed unwilling to leave. Quite a good looking man, a strong face but sad.
He said, ‘We had to do something . . . Not looking on the black side, but if things should go, know what I mean? Not work as per the plan . . . if he does not make it out, if—’
The Maid cut across him firmly. ‘Do we have something in place – what to leak, side of mouth stuff? Of course we do. All taken care of. He’ll go into the river tomorrow evening for the first crossing. I’m sure it will all go well. It’s first class, sir.’
The Big Boss left her. ‘All well’? It had been put together in the barest minimum time. She thought the cold there would be bitter and the street lighting hardly adequate, and the streets near empty. She searched among the papers on her desk until she found the picture: fatigues, a cigarette at the side of his mouth, hair cut short and stubble on the cheeks and a chiselled chin. She lingered on it . . . Alone, the quiet returned, unwatched, the Maid fingered the crucifix hanging at her neck – hidden most of the time because it was viewed as a religious symbol that might cause offence to other, ethnically diverse, employees – and held it tightly and said words, silently, that she thought important.
They drove into the town, used the main E-20 route from Tallinn and then swung right and on to Alexander Pushkinisi, and Merc saw the darkened windows of the Old Trafford bar, and a few kids were on a bench and might have been close to hypothermia, and they headed towards a major church with a major tower. Around a quarter of an hour before, Merc had woken from a good sleep, and a comfortable one – his head seemed to have found a pillow – and he realised his head had been on her shoulder, might have been lower and there had been softness under his ear. An on-coming set of vehicle lights had shown him the amusement that crinkled the sides of her mouth, and she had grinned, raised her eyebrows, taken a hand off the wheel and had reached with her fingers to tweak a fold of flesh on his jaw, then had retrieved her hand and laid it back on the wheel. Ahead was a street called Igor Gravof and Daff swung the BMW’s wheels and parked.
They emptied the vehicle: first the steel-cased box, then their bags, last the fold-up cycle and the board. The building, plastered ochre, was two storeys high with one narrow door, and puddles of water lay beside the step. The sewage system stank, and water dripped from a gutter overhead. She said they were to the right, ground floor, that it was a KaPo property. They went inside. She did not switch on the light but navigated the darkness, hit a low table and swore, and reached the window. Merc saw, over Daff’s shoulder, the flash of a cigarette lighter. One of those Zippo versions that went with old-fashioned Marlboro packs, what soldiers and cops and fire teams smoked. Its flame lit the inside of the BMW saloon. Showed the faces of the occupants. They were parked under a tree, and in the lee of another block some seventy-five metres away.
Daff came close and put an arm around him so that her mouth was against his ear and whispered, ‘We’ll screw them for a bunch of . . . Back in a bit. Ferret in my bag and you’ll find some food, milk, tea bags. Won’t be too long.’
Predictable that local security would want to keep them in close view. Predictable also that they should be free agents and not report in with details of their movements and conversations, just use the KaPo as facilitators. She crossed the room and went down the corridor into a darkened kitchen. He heard her wrench at the window fastening and something snapped and came away, and she’d sworn again. She’d have hitched herself up on to the window sill, and the wind coming in was ice cold, and he shivered and heard the scrape of her feet landing and the window being pushed shut. He switched on the ceiling light. Two bedrooms. He chose one, left her bag in the other.
Merc sat in a chair, and waited. In his AutoTrader was a feature on a Mercedes-AMG 63, the coupé, £125,000. It said it had ‘musclebound performance’ and ‘addictive character’, and was said to be in a ‘slugfest fight’ with its Audi rival. He did not know how much he would be paid for going to the edge of St Petersburg with a turn coat and a laptop stuffed with high-grade explosive. Had to hold faith, believe he would not be swindled, could not have imagined haggling. Didn’t know if all the shares that the bank in Stoke Poges held were sold, how easy it might be to raise the money for that Mercedes model. He saw her sitting beside him, the wind lifting her dark hair, as he hammered the country roads in Buckinghamshire and out into Oxfordshire, or maybe north on the motorway as far as Warwick. He might get the frown off her forehead and the fight out of her eyes, might get her to soften, and if the slipstream lifted her T-shirt then he might see the puckered scar, neatly closed. It was what he dreamed of.
‘Bloody hell. This is what I’ve signed up.’ Daff let the words choke in her throat.
She faced them. Spoke cheerfully, in her good accented Russian. ‘Good to see you, boys. Thanks for getting here on schedule.’
One was asleep, head on his folded arms on the café table, and another had turned towards her and showed interest, summarily abandoning a conversation with a girl at another table – like Daff was a better offer. The third played a card game, agains
t himself. Other than the arms and the scattered cards, the table was covered with bottles, empty, and two ashtrays, full. She recognised two of them from the photographs supplied her by the Polish agency, old but relevant enough. They might have waited two hours, and drunk enough to empty their wallets. They’d have cursed her lateness and wondered whether she would come at all, whether the promise of easy money was a fiction. Blotched eyes, large with suspicion, greeted her.
‘Come on, boys, let’s walk a bit.’
Cold outside, bitter and frosty. She took control, would employ an old adage: never explain and never apologise, handed down to Daff by Boot, and he would have inherited it from Ollie Compton. She gestured at the door. The bar owner hovered near them, had come from the cash till looking for payment. They had stood and the girl at the next table was now ‘yesterday’ and the cards were tidied and pocketed and the third guy smeared a hand across his eyes, and they were groping for wallets and small change. Daff looked hard at the owner and he’d have recognised her authority and he did a sign with his fingers as to how many euros they owed. Good bloody try, my old chum. She took a roll of notes from the hip pocket of her jeans, peeled off a couple, half of what he asked for, left them on the counter, and she was through the door and they followed – stumbled a bit, looked sheepish. Told herself that in the circumstances, time available, they were the best available. Tried to believe it. She put a swing in her hips and thought that might interest them. Her hair would be coursing out in the night air and she heard them stamp their feet, close up on her. In front of them was a viewpoint. It would have been a cannon’s battery position three centuries before. Two kids sat on a bench; might have been there to shoot up or pop some pills, and she told them – good Russian – to get lost: they scurried away.
A Damned Serious Business Page 16