by Dan Latus
‘So I understand.’
An influx of new customers disrupted their conversation for a minute or two. Americans. They were ebullient, happy and enchanted by this quaint café they had stumbled upon so unexpectedly.
Mayhew was distracted, a man not comfortable amongst tourists. ‘This really is a strange place, isn’t it?’ he said.
Harry smiled. ‘I like it.’
‘How did you find it?’
‘I’ve been in Prague a long time.’
‘Yes, of course you have. As long as anyone, haven’t you?’
‘Just about.’
‘Do you know George Mason?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. I met him briefly a couple of times after he took over from Callerton. Since then, not at all.’
‘But you knew he was moved here, to be station chief?’
‘No. I hadn’t heard that. When?’
‘Fairly recently. You haven’t had contact since he arrived?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Landis was the one who had contact with the embassy. Maybe that was one of the things he was going to tell us at the meeting he had called.’
‘Possibly.’ Mayhew frowned. ‘Well, from what I can gather, in the very limited time I have had to check all this, we now have a rogue senior officer here in Prague.’
Harry held his breath, stunned. ‘Not Mason?’
‘Exactly.’ Mayhew nodded. ‘And now he’s missing.’
‘And he initiated all this?’
‘It looks very much like it.’
‘Well, he’s not the only one involved,’ Harry said bitterly. ‘I know that much.’
‘You’re right. Jackson and Murphy, obviously, are involved. And Mason’s assistant, Grant. He’s the person you were supposed to meet last night, by the way.
‘Otherwise, I don’t know at the moment. But there might well be others implicated, including some back at home. Mason’s successor, for one. He’s an old buddy of his. So there are things to check when I get back there. Frankly, it’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast.’
Harry shook his head. The enormity of it! Was this story credible? He stirred his coffee unnecessarily, avoiding Mayhew’s eyes. Could he believe what he was hearing?
‘Why?’ he said eventually. ‘Do you know?’
‘I would only be guessing at this stage.’
‘Then, guess. Humour me.’
Mayhew sighed. ‘Callerton trusted you,’ he said obliquely.
Harry nodded. ‘Over the years I had given him good reason.’
‘So I’m going to trust you, as well. You’ve earned it.’
‘Nice of you to say so!’
Mayhew forced a thin smile. ‘Don’t be sarcastic with me, Harry. We need each other.’
Oh? Harry now, was it?
‘Well, Simon, I’ve done all right so far on my own.’
‘But you’ve hit a dead end now, haven’t you?’
‘Just about,’ he admitted.
‘OK. Try this. Mason was disenchanted, aggrieved and disappointed. You can put those words in any order you like. He wanted the job I was given. Instead, after my appointment, he was sent here. He believed here, Prague, was Nowhere Land, yesterday’s front line but no longer a place to win advancement and wield influence.
‘In that, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Unit 89, for example, was important when Callerton set it up, but it isn’t now. The Cold War, and the immediate aftermath, is ancient history. We – the service, that is – have quite different priorities now, and our manpower deployments have had to respond to that shift of focus.’
‘The Arabists in the Foreign Office must be delighted.’
Mayhew gave a thin smile. ‘You’re not wrong. Anyway, as the new broom, I was required to help bring about these changes. My recommendation was that we reduce our commitment in central Europe and wind up organizations like your own Unit 89. To be frank, I don’t know what you’ve been doing in recent years, and whatever it was, we don’t really need it any more.’
Harry gave a rueful smile. ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing myself for a while. But here we are still, and old habits die hard.’
Mayhew nodded. ‘Anyway, that’s the background.’
‘So not only had Mason not got the job he wanted,’ Harry reflected, ‘but the one he did get was about to be chopped, and himself made redundant. I would guess that at that point he was totally pissed off, and decided to look to his own interests. Right?’
‘What he thought were his own interests,’ Mayhew said wearily.
‘Then what?’
‘Well, contrary to what you suspected, HMG has not done – and is not going to do – a shady deal with the Russians in exchange for promises of gas. I can assure you of that. However. …’
Mayhew paused, stared hard and added, ‘However – as you want me to brainstorm – I believe George Mason very well might have done some sort of deal on his own behalf with parties unknown. I’ve no idea what is involved, but something has been going on. And that’s why I’m here, to get to the bottom of it.’
‘So you didn’t come to be part of the discussions going on at the embassy about gas?’
Mayhew shook his head. ‘I came because of the shenanigans at Vyšehrad, and because Mason was missing. I came to stop confusion and embarrassment becoming a crisis.
‘Just for the record,’ he added, ‘there are no discussions going on at the embassy about gas. The UK does have problems in that area but the need is for the new pipelines under construction to be completed, not for a new gas contract with the Russians.
‘The discussions going on at the embassy – involving certain Russian players, admittedly – are about our missing station chief. We had hoped our Russian counterparts might be able to shed light on that. Since I’ve been here, of course, I’ve learned that the problem is different from what I initially thought, and a lot more serious.’ He winced. ‘Unfortunately, it looks as though whatever deal Mason made required him to wipe Unit 89 off the map.’
It had begun to sound plausible to Harry. He wasn’t sure he could take everything Mayhew had said at face value, but overall it made sense.
He shrugged and said bleakly, ‘Three good men in my unit were murdered. Three colleagues. Callerton, as well. If you’re right, Mason has a hell of a lot to answer for.’
Mayhew nodded. ‘It’s a bad situation. I’ve told you what I know, and what I guess. At the moment I have nothing to add.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘Not a lot.’ Mayhew sighed. ‘There’s not a lot I can do officially. The Czech Republic is a friendly and loyal ally, but it is also a country with a weak coalition government and a high regard for its own sovereignty. We do not want to embarrass our Czech friends, still less destabilize their government. We must tread carefully.’
Harry shook his head impatiently and pushed back in his chair.
‘Hear me out!’ Mayhew said crisply. ‘I’ve told you the official position. Officially, we will proceed carefully. Unofficially, we will bring in search teams to look for Mason. Eventually, he will surface. God knows where, though.’
‘Nice,’ Harry said. It was hard not to sound sceptical.
‘Be that as it may,’ Mayhew continued unperturbed, ‘none of this is much practical help to you personally. You need to be very careful, Harry. You remain at risk and, to be frank, there’s not a lot I can do for you. Here, I can do virtually nothing. Back in the UK, there are things we could do – a new identity, and so on, if you wanted that?’
Harry shook his head. If he was to have a new identity, he would arrange it himself, not leave it to people he no longer trusted.
‘Effectively,’ Mayhew continued, with no attempt to sugar the pill, ‘I’m sorry to say that you’re on your own for the time being. Understood?’
Harry grinned. ‘I’ve known that for a couple of weeks!’
‘Good. We’ll get to the bottom of it eventually, but in the meantime look after yourself.’
&
nbsp; Mayhew pulled his sleeve up to check his watch. ‘I must go. Anything else before I do?’
Harry shook his head. ‘I’ve got the picture.’ He hesitated a moment and then added, ‘I appreciate your being frank with me.’
‘I couldn’t very well do anything else, in the circumstances. Take care, Harry. And if there is anything further, you can always contact me via the phone number you have.’
He stayed where he was when Mayhew left. He waited until Lenka joined him. Then he ordered more coffee.
‘Has he gone?’
Lenka nodded. ‘He went into Wenceslas Square and took the metro. He was alone. What did he say to you?’
Harry sighed. ‘That I’m on my own, basically. I have to look after myself. A rogue senior officer is behind all this, and they don’t know where he is right now. He’s gone missing.’
‘Who is that?’
‘George Mason. Know him?’
Lenka shook her head.
‘Well, Mayhew came to look for him, and to find out what’s been going on here. He says the discussions at the embassy with the Russians are all about that, Mason’s disappearance. Nothing to do with talks about gas supplies.’
Lenka frowned. ‘Do you believe him?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think I do. I believe he was levelling with me. The trouble is,’ he added, ‘I’m still at risk. Mayhew thinks Mason won’t have given up hunting me.’
‘Why?’
He grimaced. ‘Who knows?’
‘So what are you going to do?’
Harry smiled. ‘That’s easy. I’m going to go after him, and hope I get him before he gets me! ‘
Chapter Twenty-Six
In a way, the heat was off. After the meetings with Mayhew, Harry knew he didn’t have the whole of Her Majesty’s Government on his trail. It was just Mason, his two sidekicks, Jackson and Murphy, and a few other helpers he didn’t know about. That made it seem a lot better, the odds more manageable.
He didn’t know Mason. There had been a brief couple of meetings at which next to nothing was said. Just: Carry on the good work, basically. At the time, he had thought Callerton would prove a tough act for the new man to follow, but he hadn’t thought much else. Reporting arrangements had changed after that, but not much else was different.
Then, it seemed, Mason had been moved to Prague anyway, and whoever had taken over his job in London had helped him. Landis must have discovered some of this, but he had been murdered before he could pass it on.
And now? He sighed. Now he wasn’t sure what to do. He accepted Mayhew’s judgement that Mason would continue trying to hunt him down, and his instinct said to go on the front foot. But if he went hunting himself, what chance would he have? The Czech Republic was not a big country, but it was big enough. And Mason could be anywhere.
On his own, with time to reflect, Harry reminded himself that it might be a mistake to assume that everything Mayhew had told him was true. Or any of it. Mayhew was a professional, a high-ranking one at that. His priority would be getting the job done, whatever the job was, and whatever it took. So it would be sensible to do some checking.
Kuznetsov liked to take morning coffee in a small restaurant just off Old Town Square. He was there, as usual, when Harry entered and sat down to order a coffee.
If Kuznetsov was surprised, he didn’t show it. He didn’t even glance in Harry’s direction. He remained intent on a newspaper he was studying. But Harry was confident that he would have been noticed. Now Kuznetsov would be wondering why Harry had exposed himself like this, and what to do about it. It was an unusual situation.
Twenty minutes later, Harry was in the back half of a joined-up pair of trams heading towards Holešovice. Kuznetsov was somewhere in the front half; no contact had been made. Later, Harry was thinking, he might take the opportunity to visit Babička. He might as well, while he was in the vicinity.
Kuznetsov’s destination, it turned out, was the Trade Fair Palace, housing the National Gallery’s Collection of Modern Art. It was a vast, spacious, modernist building erected in the 1920s as a trade exhibition hall that only in more recent times had found its true vocation as an art gallery.
Kuznetsov stood rapt in thought on the third floor, studying a creature that had emerged from the imagination of a sculptor who worked in scrap metal. Harry joined him.
‘Good morning, Mr Gibson. Nice to see you again. I have been missing you. I thought you must have lost interest in me.’
‘Never! You are one of my special people. It’s just that I have been busy.’
Kuznetsov smiled and moved to another exhibit. ‘This!’ he said, clasping his hands together in adulation. ‘This, I understand. It is a bird, I believe, a Czech bird of some sort.’
‘Or a bad dream, a nightmare?’
‘Perhaps,’ Kuznetsov said with a chuckle.
They had never spoken before, but Kuznetsov was turning out to be exactly as Harry had long thought him to be. It was like meeting an old friend, an imaginary pal.
‘It is not us,’ Kuznetsov said quietly. ‘Whatever you think, I can assure you of that.’
‘Then who is it?’
‘Your Mr Mason is at the centre of it, here in Prague. But he is only the puppet. Someone else pulls the strings.’
‘And that is?’
‘Someone in London, not Moscow,’ Kuznetsov said, smiling. ‘London,’ he emphasized. ‘There is no grand conspiracy, Harry. Merely personal ambition.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘Of course.’ Kuznetsov inclined his head in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘We are good at this game, as you know.’
And it was true, Harry thought ruefully. He and his colleagues had been a handful of amateurs, dilettantes, by comparison.
‘Mason, then?’ he said.
‘Yes. He has done a deal.’
‘With?’
‘People in London.’
‘Do you know why?’
Kuznetsov rubbed finger and thumb together. ‘These people are Russians – oligarchs, as they are called. They have much money, and they have offered Mason a share in a new gas field in eastern Siberia. It will be very lucrative eventually.’
So Callerton had known, or guessed, Harry thought suddenly, remembering the newspaper headline he had circled. Trust Cally!
‘Do they have names, these oligarchs?’
‘The principal is a man called Kurst. You may have heard of him?’
Harry shook his head.
‘You will, in time. He is believed to have political ambitions, which is why Moscow would like him back, why he lives in London and why he protects himself.’
‘What does he want from Mason?’
‘We Russians are chess players,’ Kuznetsov said with a smile. ‘You of all people should know that, Harry. Who knows what the oligarchs want? Something now, something in future. Even if it is nothing now,’ he added with a shrug, ‘the time may come when a man who knows so much about Western intelligence will be very valuable. It is just a pity that the oligarchs thought of this before we did!’
Harry frowned with thought. ‘You are sure of this?’
Kuznetsov nodded. ‘The rest of your team – your Unit 89 – was killed. Yes?’
It was Harry’s turn to nod. He was astonished by how much the man knew.
‘The reason,’ Kuznetsov continued, ‘is that one of your colleagues had discovered this. The man called Landis? He was about to tell the rest of you and, presumably, London. Mason had to stop that happening. If he was discredited, his value to Kurst would be at an end, and their deal would lapse.’
So there it was, in the proverbial nutshell. Kuznetsov had confirmed what Mayhew had told him, and then in a few words had added a whole lot more. Mystery solved. But the enormity of it almost took his breath away.
‘Jesus Christ, Yuri!’ Harry murmured, shocked. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
Kuznetsov smiled his enigmatic smile. ‘Maybe I am tired, Harry. Maybe I, too, woul
d like to live in London?’
Harry shook his head. ‘We’re all wasting our time, aren’t we?’ he said despairingly.
‘Now, perhaps,’ Kuznetsov said. He shrugged. ‘The world is changing, Harry. And we must change with it.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Back at his hotel, he had plenty of time to mull things over. Lenka was not with him. She had said she had things to do, which he could well believe. Whether they were domestic or work things, he didn’t know, but he was sure there would be plenty of them by now. Lenka had been giving him a lot of her time. She would need to catch up.
Besides, there were things about Lenka that troubled him. He needed to think about them, and perhaps get them into perspective. How much she had known all along, for example. He knew she hadn’t told him everything. That still bothered him.
He also needed to talk to her about George Mason. Surely her department had some idea of where and how he lived, even if she didn’t herself?
He took a tram out to Strašnická again. It was early evening by then. People were making their way home as usual. Now the weather had eased, the city was returning to normal. The main roads had been cleared of snow and abandoned vehicles, and people were back in their routines. At the stop nearest to Lenka’s apartment block, there was quite a scurry as commuters flooded across the road, desperate to get home before anything else happened that day.
Harry watched them with a little envy. His own life was not like that, and never really had been. His world was no respecter of the clock. Feast or famine had been his work experience for many years, and with feast came urgency and pressure. Clock watching couldn’t happen then.
He glanced at his watch; just before 7 p.m. Was he too early or too late? He had no idea how Lenka lived, or how she accommodated the clock. The assumption that she lived as he had always lived could be well wide of the mark. She was office-based; he never had been.
Her phone rang for an unusually long time before it was answered, making him think she must be out. He took it away from his ear and studied the screen, checking the number he had called. It was then it was picked up and he heard a babble of Czech commentary in a woman’s voice he didn’t recognize.