A Damned Serious Business

by Gerald Seymour

  Boot assumed the American appreciated that a retaliation was imminent. He could not predict such matters as blowback or collateral. Had rarely done so in operations he had constructed . . . nor had the great Duke. Would have slept a few hours through the early morning of that day in mid June, shaken off the tiredness from a night moving between the ball guests, fielding the anguish of the Duchess because her evening was spoilt, reading reports and sending young men forward. Then would have followed them, astride Copenhagen. Would have hoped for clear-cut victory, would not have known how the dice would fall within the next forty-eight hours. Fickle hours ahead, uncertainty and diminishing opportunity to shape events. Boot thought himself a pygmy but believed he walked – in a manner of fashion – with his shoulder close to the spurs on the heels of the Duke’s boots, which gave him comfort. Going out into the dawn, not knowing . . . He doubted the American air force colonel had heard of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, or known the name of his horse. Eccentric, unhinged, or merely using a fine example of leadership as a mentor? He would not have tried to answer the question. He was glad of the conversation, hoped it would enhance his resolve . . . It was launched, for better or worse, and he could not have called it back even had he wished to.

  ‘On the face of it, we are supposedly in a state of peace, but their attacks come in every day. We are the servants of a civilised society. Our citizens expect us to protect them from external aggression. The reality? We are making a poor job of providing it. What is strike back? In our terms, inside legality, it would be to introduce a honeybomb in their gear, done as a malware beacon . . . Is that the end of the world? For them, it’s an inconvenience. To have weight, strike back is by definition illegal by all national and international legal forums – a big bang for a big buck – but, my friend, you know that.’

  Coming to the end of their walk they saw a patch of lawn where several figures, draped in white overalls, were kneeling, their heads buried, and there was a moment when both men’s eyes met and they laughed, and went for coffee.

  At the table, the colonel asked the question. ‘I have a fair understanding of the men under my command. I’m not assuming you are in Estonia for health reasons. The classic stuff is putting guys across frontiers. I don’t expect either confirmation or denial. The query – hypothetically – the ones who do the fancy stuff, what sort are they? Where do they fit in the general scheme of life?’

  A pursed mouth, a deepening frown, Boot stirred his coffee. ‘Same as me, but younger. Wedded to it. Special Forces mentality, unable to ditch the treadmill. Sad, a little or a lot . . . and, awful. I hope they’re awful, and hard . . . awful and forgettable. That’s a tough place to be, over there, and the cavalry won’t come hurrying to lift them out . . . Disposable, of course. That’s my burden. I’m grateful for your time.’

  Just beyond the walls and the main gate of the Old City of Tallinn was the line of kiosks where flower sellers traded. Among them was one on whom fortune had not smiled in recent years. He had held a position of high responsibility in State Security, had often received gifts – the best cakes – because his favour was advantageous to many. Not now. Seven days a week, winter and summer, he managed his stall of blooms; he was up before dawn to collect produce from the wholesale market and he didn’t finish till late. A call had come . . . He had waited until trade had slackened, then had slipped from the kiosk, and went where he would not be overheard and called a number located in a room at the back of the embassy of the former power, and delivered the message. It seemed to him of limited importance. But he did it, and the old wounds of the collapse of power remained alive, still hurt . . . A British intelligence officer, name unknown, disembarked from the Stockholm ferry this morning. Recognised as a bag carrier at the ’92 Conference on Baltic Mutual Security to Oliver Compton, SIS. Today had no VIP welcome.

  Merc crossed what he thought of as a no-man’s-land. Had a rucksack strap on a shoulder and barely felt the weight of it.

  Neither Toomas nor Kristjan had identified surveillance. Merc could not have judged how practised they would be in that discipline. Martin had the engine running . . . He owed them nothing and they owed him nothing. It was a financial arrangement. Money was there to be earned, loyalty was rarely bought and that was the nature of Merc’s business. The parking area was now half full and more cars came down the slipway.

  The girl had finished cleaning the Polo’s windscreen. Twice the boy had left the car to pace around and each time he kicked an abandoned drink can. His frustration was obvious.

  He wondered about the boy’s state of mind. Might be in the ‘second thoughts’ syndrome and needing persuasion. Might want to back away, clear off, and had brought the girl to stand alongside him, be his witness. Might wriggle and make excuses, even say – true or false – that the meeting was cancelled, postponed, a non-runner . . . And, might have been turned. Might have gone to a friendly face, a captain or a major in the political police, and spilled it, and was now the decoy lure . . . Might have done the deal and been the bait that brought Merc to the surface. He walked briskly and checked out the two women who chatted as they loaded a boot with their shopping and did not seem to hurry even though it was raining. Saw a man sitting in a car . . . saw another who had a dog on an expander lead and encouraged it to mess on the grass beside the parking area, and saw Toomas who was to his right, and saw Kristjan to the left, but no signal from them. . . . The boy was aware of him, had stiffened, and chucked down another cigarette that the rain extinguished, and must have called to her because the girl got out of the car.

  The boy was short and his clothing hung loosely on thin shoulders. His face was wet and pale and his clothing was thin, inadequate, and his eyes danced right and left and were on Merc, then off him, and they raked the boundaries of the parking area. The girl gazed hard at Merc, her face laced in suspicion. There were two vans parked sixty or seventy metres to the left, and each could have held half a dozen men in body armour and SWAT team gear. Both, silently, challenged him.

  ‘You are Nikki? It’s Nikki, yes?’

  A nod.

  He said, ‘I’m Merc. That’s what I’m called. They told you I would be here, and I am. And I brought what they said I would bring.’

  He let the rucksack slide across his chest . . . The girl glared at him, but his business was not with her.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Good to meet you, Nikki. I’m here as courier, and to help. We have, both of us, to be strong.’

  Should not stampede him, but not allow the meeting to drift. The boy blinked at him; might have wondered how deep in he was and where he could find an exit. Always the problem with coercion. The boy looked as if he hadn’t slept or washed. Merc knew about coercion. Boot had said that the boy’s fingers had been twisted, a tactic which had never bred loyalty.

  ‘The meeting goes ahead this evening?’

  A small voice, hard to hear, accented English. ‘It does.’

  ‘It is an important meeting?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Organised by the crime syndicate, and with FSB attendance?’

  ‘They will be there.’

  ‘It is a big thing we ask of you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We regard it as important, to send a message.’

  ‘It is important.’

  ‘And I take you out, and afterwards we offer you opportunities . . .’

  ‘My sister comes out.’

  A hesitation. ‘Hold, on. We have to—’

  ‘What I said, my sister comes.’

  No passengers. A basic rule had been set . . . no passengers.

  ‘I don’t think that is going to be possible, but . . . well, we could offer consular help, and . . .’ Unwilling to refuse, not outright; his mind churned. He could lie, then throw her out of the car . . . She looked defiant, and she might have heard their soft voices, intensity rising, and might have understood.

  ‘My sister was released by FSB last night. She is an activist, she is pe
rsecuted. She comes out with me. I look at you. You sleep rough. You stink. Maybe you came across the river. She has no papers. I have, she does not. You take her back the way you came. Yes, or no? We do it or we do not do it.’

  She pushed her hair off her forehead then shook her head brusquely and the rain came off in a spray. She was looking hard at him and seemed to Merc to weigh him up, consider what he represented, and whether he mattered to her. Her hands were at her hips and her feet apart and she challenged him. He had to field it. Merc was there to stiffen Nikki, hold his hand as long as possible – damn near walk him through the door . . . Had to be there. The sister had not been part of the equation. He thought they’d have talked it through, gone over it as a negotiating position. He had instructions – no passengers. With no documents, she could not go back over the bridge, through the checkpoints, past the guards and the guns. There would have been an explosion, and a headcount, and a list of participants at the meeting. Would have been an understanding growing, and suspicion building, that the one boy had clocked out early. Had not been at the meeting, was not in the casualty count, had not gone into a bag for transport to the mortuary, and it depended on getting the boy clear. Would have to be through the Kingisepp chokepoint, then on towards Ivangorod and on to the bridge before the understanding and suspicion hardened. What to do? He could not go back into the water, paddle himself across, see Daff, see Boot, tell them ‘Sorry and all that but you said I was not to accommodate passengers. He wanted his sister to come, but she’s an FSB target and has no documents. I said it was not possible. They called it off. We came home. Sorry.’

  ‘I appreciate, Nikki, these are stressful times for you. You may be looking for, in your eyes, a justification in—’

  ‘A justification for what?’

  ‘Second thoughts. I am sure we can work round this.’

  ‘You think I back away?’

  ‘You’d be entitled to. Do we ask too much? I hope not . . . I have to say, Nikki, the people I work for are unpleasant, they can reach far. Not a threat – but, we are where we are.’

  ‘It is an excuse? I use my sister for that?’

  ‘We are sidetracking. We have much to talk on. The matter of your sister is not for now. The mission is for now.’

  ‘Did you come to lift my determination? Are you like a drink, a pill?’

  ‘Natural, Nikki, when it comes to that moment, on the brink, to stop, think again. Not surprising. We have done the planning, it’s all in place. It will happen.’

  Was on the point of kicking the business of a passenger far down the road. Promise the world . . . sort the difficulties later. The problems raced in his head, and he hardly heard the response.

  ‘I’m doing it. Of course, I am doing it.’

  ‘That’s good, as we hoped.’

  ‘You should not threaten me.’

  ‘There are no threats, only respect.’

  ‘You could have sent it by UBS, by Amazon. You did not have to come.’

  ‘It was to help you get clear.’

  The girl watched him, did not react. If he, Nikki, was as good as they said, then he would be rolled up fast and delivered to an outstation of Five or Six or on a quick bus to Cheltenham. They’d feed her up and put some paint on her face and she’d look all right for meeting clients in a Mayfair restaurant and escorting them to the tables . . .

  How to get the sister out, no papers? Worry later.

  ‘And her name is?’

  ‘She is Yekaterina, Kat.’

  ‘I will bring her out, and you. End of story and we move on.’

  A small flickered smile. ‘It is good that we agree.’

  ‘Is she monitored by police surveillance?’

  ‘Sometimes. Probably.’

  He could see Toomas had taken a feeble sort of shelter behind some of the supermarket’s rubbish containers, and he could twist and make out Kristjan against the trunk of a tree. He looked for a parked car that had the wipers going and a mist on the windows but did not see a tail. The sister seemed not to notice the rain, stood her ground, and her eyes never left his face. Merc said he wanted to see the ground . . . He made a small gesture; that would send the two boys back to Martin. He walked behind Nikki, who took a seat beside her, and Merc had the back and pushed aside food wrappers and old newsprint and a couple of hack magazines from America, Black Hat stuff. He had the rucksack the laptop inside; and she started the engine and Nikki hit a button for rock music. He lowered the window, waved for the boys to follow.

  An official was manning the desk for a colleague on leave. The message came from the faint voice of an elderly man, and his speech was distorted. The official worked in the intelligence section of the Russian embassy on Pikk Street, but was not familiar with the caller’s identifying codeword . . . all so long ago, and a report to be prepared for the afternoon on a meeting between the Estonian military and an American commander in town for planning. More than enough for him to handle. And the message was vague . . . a British spy of a former era, identified from more than twenty years before and then a ‘bag carrier’ had arrived in Tallinn by the little used ferry route: name, not known, nor business, no address. But was not dismissed. Never safe to take responsibility for spiking or deleting. The information was filed, went into that great ravenous mouth, and might, one day, be checked out . . . A meeting between Estonians and Americans, hard to crack, took priority.

  Messages awaited the Major when he returned to his office.

  A tail had been recovered, her car identified. The location where it was parked and her actions, and her brother’s, dictated to the sergeant that he should not be close and he had stopped some 200 metres from the target . . . Nothing to report, no seeming purpose for them there . . . The Major had not answered any more calls requesting further direction. He had been in the interview room with silly little people who thought themselves brave and important and were of negligible value to the next ‘revolution’, at the lower end of any activist food chain . . . Then the arrival of a second car. It had parked 100 metres beyond the target. One individual, Caucasian male, mid-thirties, carrying a rucksack, dressed in creased, dirty clothing. Had seemed to check around him, then walked to the target vehicle. Had spoken at length with the target male, animatedly. Two other males had left the second car and taken positions where they could watch. The woman, the target female, had then driven her brother and the unidentified male away, and the second car, at a careful distance, had followed . . . Yes, yes, and what was the difficulty? The Major scrolled down the screen’s messages.

  He found the problem. Both vehicles had been lost. How? An old trick, taught in the basic surveillance courses of FSB in Russia, of KGB in Minsk, and no doubt at the British camps for recruits, or at Quantico for the Federal Bureau . . . Old, and often successful. He summoned the sergeant back to the Big House, would speak with him later. There were a score of other messages awaiting his attention, and the interview had to be concluded, and the charge sheet prepared for the self-styled Leader. And he had promised Julia that he would leave early that night, and not keep her waiting for him at the cinema.

  She drove. Nikki sat in the front.

  They spoke in their own language and in quiet voices. Merc had no comprehension of whether they talked about the price of vodka, how big the bomb would be, or if it would snow that evening . . . They gave him account of the sights of the outer city, most of them relating to the siege seventy-five years before, and different stages of the front line, but kept them short. He had told her what to do, she had done it – and the boys behind had responded. No discussion, no questions. From the fast lane heading for the city to the slow lane and the approach to the roundabout. All the way around it, and again. Twice round, then back to the fast lane, weaving, then off the highway.

  He could not have said for definite if they were being followed. Seemed a good idea to take precautions. Martin had done well, had not shunted, but had created chaos and the second time round there had been a chorus of screa
ming brakes and horns but he had not seen a tail vehicle. Never done the course, but Merc had learned the techniques from guys waiting to set off on a convoy or get down Route Irish. Rob and Brad were deep seams of information and Merc was good at listening. He’d told her, and the girl had thrown the little Volkswagen across the lanes and almost seemed to disappear under the front wheels of the big articulated vehicles . . . There might have been a tail and there might not. One of Brad’s maxims was: ‘We have to be lucky every time, they only have to be lucky once’, and it seemed apposite. They’d stopped in a side street and the boys had pulled up behind and Merc had gone to speak to them. Had tried to be relaxed, congratulated Martin on his driving, and he reckoned their debate was how far to follow him, or whether to ditch him. Not much he could do. They moved on.

  He’d seen her confidence grow, and she’d splayed out a big smile when they had been a cigarette paper’s thickness from scraping a heavy-duty lorry, and on the roundabout she’d squealed, like she had never done it before, not known such anarchic freedom, and Nikki was quiet beside her.

  They went through a housing estate, and past the railway tracks and a shunting yard, and into the middle and out of the far side of an industrial park of big warehouses. The rain had slackened, now came back. Suddenly, Merc saw the chain-link fence and the single coil of razor wire topping it, and the gate with the barrier down, and two big men huddled in thick clothing and little of their faces showing behind balaclavas. The building beyond was unremarkable, functional, two storeys high and some of the ground- level windows had steel shutters closed over them, and all the upstairs windows had lights showing but blinds lowered. Merc saw a glass-fronted reception area and glimpsed two blonde girls sitting there, and more security at a side table, and he knew there would be hardware. The far end of the square, beyond the building, was ringed with big towers, maybe ten floors, and topped with antennae and dishes. She went slowly, but did not crawl, and the guys at the gate eyed the car but Nikki had turned his head from them and would not have been identified and they went on another 100 metres, then turned into the forecourt of a Kentucky Fried Chicken place. She sniggered, as if the outlet demonstrated a level of sophistication. She went off to the side and might have been clear of the throw of any cameras.