37 Hours

by J. F. Kirwan

  Jake awoke in a different room. The smells were more familiar. Bacon. Sausages. A full English breakfast. He was just wondering where exactly he was when he heard the unmistakable chime of Big Ben. So, back in MI6. Which was maybe not such a good thing, since they had a mole, and Jake was obviously a target. He wondered if Salamander had swallowed it, that he knew what Blue Fan looked like. Maybe not. But either way, Salamander probably wouldn’t tolerate such a loose end.

  Lorne sauntered in, a smile that said ‘everything is fine, because I’m in control.’ She didn’t say ‘Morning’, or indicate whatever time it was. Not one for banter or automatisms. She was wearing a red dress. That red dress. He knew it a little too well. It had been his favourite on her back when… It hugged her breasts, but also hinted at her hip bones. Lorne was just the wrong side of thin. He’d always tried to make her eat more. Never mind. No longer his problem. If it ever had been.

  She sat on the bed, her hand light on his chest, and leaned forward a fraction. Her hair was down, not exactly regulation inside MI6. It brushed against his bare shoulder. His eyes flicked once to her breasts, moving gently beneath the flimsy silk. No bra. She could get away with it. Under the sheets he felt a stirring, an uninvited blood flow. She was messing with him, reminding him what he’d given up. He decided to return the favour, by turning on a cold shower.

  ‘Nadia?’ he croaked.

  Her smile hardened. She sat up straighter. Her hair left his skin. ‘Alive, back in Russia. It seems her father is in play again.’

  ‘What?’ He tried to process what that might mean for Nadia, who’d believed him dead all these years. He recalled the hazy recollection of Nadia back on Anspida. She’d been standing next to an older man.

  Lorne snapped her finger and thumb in front of Jake’s eyes. ‘We need to focus on the missing nuclear warhead. London is most likely the target. Again.’

  She was right. Focus. ‘The G20 meeting is in… What day is it?’

  ‘Five days.’

  ‘Surely the Russians have a tracker on all warheads, activated when it leaves the submarine missile silo?’

  ‘It’s being blocked. Perhaps the warhead is in deep water. Or else it’s been disabled.’

  Jake recalled the virus Nadia had told him about, the one she inserted inside the sub to prevent a launch. What if it had scrambled the tracker as well? But the tracker was a fully independent system… So, it was being masked. But how?

  He tried to sit up, then wished he hadn’t. He was sore as hell. ‘It would need a lot of shielding to block its signal. What about the sniffer?’ An advanced and top-secret satellite-based system capable of scouring the planet for the telltale radioactive signature of weapons-grade plutonium.

  ‘Not quite there yet, only the prototype. And you saw what happened to the last launch.’

  He had. So had millions, watching an Atlas V blow up on the Cape Canaveral launch pad. Pretty spectacular, though very few knew its payload.

  ‘Still, the only way to mask it for sure would be somewhere with a high background radiation level. A place where there’s been a lot of nuclear testing.’

  ‘Or a severe nuclear accident.’

  He thought about it. Chernobyl or Fukushima would do nicely. ‘But if a mini-sub loaded it onto a boat, then that boat must have docked somewhere.’

  ‘The Russians got a single grainy shot from one of their spy satellites, which may or may not have been the warhead. Assuming it was, it surfaced briefly in Murmansk, then vanished. Perhaps they dismantled it.’

  ‘Not if it’s like ours. Doing that would fry the trigger mechanism. You’d have a dirty bomb, but lose more than ninety per cent of the yield.’ He thought some more, and Lorne said nothing. This had been the basis of their teamwork for years. He analysed, then she wielded resources into action.

  ‘A nuclear spent fuel flask,’ he said. ‘A metal cube the size of a small lorry container, except on rail tracks. That would shield it.’

  ‘Destination?’

  ‘Chernobyl,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because a nuclear waste train could get it there undetected. The tracks still go all the way to the site’s bone dry feed-pond. Security would be relatively low at Chernobyl. Nobody worries about smuggling anything radioactive into Chernobyl.’

  ‘What about London? How will they get it here?’

  ‘No idea, not yet. Maybe we – well, the Russians – can see if it’s there, at Chernobyl. Still, it’s only a theory.’

  ‘The target, then, G20. We need to set up protection.’

  He sighed. ‘Good luck if it is London. If they somehow got it onto the mainland, a white van could house a warhead. Doesn’t have to get too close, or anywhere specific, to decimate the capital.’

  ‘And evacuation isn’t really an option.’

  He studied her. It was rare, but sometimes the fact that she actually cared about the world, and the people in it, surfaced through the professional veneer. He’d only seen it once before, the one time he’d fallen for her, years ago. She leaned further forward, elbow on the bed, her hair tickling his face. She was going to kiss him. He recalled she’d just saved his life. Not for the first time. He owed her. But… Nadia…

  ‘Friends,’ he said.

  She stopped, still close. She dropped her mask, and he saw the real Lorne.

  He spoke like they used to, when they were an item, for a whopping three whole days. ‘When I came back from Nairobi, you pieced me together, Lorne, no one else. I owe you, I know that. But we’ve tried being lovers; it didn’t work. And we’ve been colleagues. We’ve never tried friends. Maybe it’s time.’

  She gazed down at him, quiet for once, then kissed his forehead slowly, and drew back. ‘Friends,’ she said, and then said no more.

  He wanted them to get past the silence. ‘London is indefensible,’ he said. ‘Porous. Hundreds – maybe thousands of ways of bringing it in or close enough. What about calling off G20?’

  She sat up, shook her head. ‘They won’t do that without a credible and specific threat. The whole summit is geared around facing down terrorists. Imagine if they all go running.’

  ‘Imagine if they’re all vaporised.’

  She shrugged. ‘We have to make sure it doesn’t happen.’ She tapped his shoulder. ‘How good is Nadia, really?’

  ‘You should know, Lorne, after the Rose. What – are you worried you broke her in prison?’

  Lorne said nothing.

  ‘If anything you’ve made her more effective.’

  There was the tiniest hint of a smile, a self-satisfied one. Had that been her plan all along, to turn Nadia into an asset?

  ‘What about me? What’s next?’

  Her face lost its confident sheen, and her tone shifted, just the hint of concern. ‘Surgery. More skin grafts. A month or two of rehab. A lot of pain, Jake.’

  ‘The mole is still here.’

  ‘And you’ve just given me a good reason to let him or her continue. The mole may know the plan, the timing, the entry point if the warhead’s final destination is really London. Anyway, why do you think I really brought you back here?’ She gave him one of her trademark got you smiles. She got up, brushed down her dress longer than necessary, and left him alone.

  Of course. He was MI6 and understood the game.

  He was bait.

  Part Three

  Chernobyl

  Chapter Twelve

  The trip back to Moscow took for ever, and wasn’t long enough. Eleven years since she’d seen her father. But she’d thought him dead, and that was different to somebody being away for that length of time. For her his life had simply…stopped. She hadn’t been wondering what he might have been doing. So, the long flights and connections in dull, noisy, swarming airports in Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul and Frankfurt were precious to her.

  He told her about his second life much as he used to tell her and Katya stories in the cold winter evenings when they’d
huddled together by the log fire. But it was also a long confession. When she asked him questions, her tone had an inquisitor’s edge. She couldn’t deny some resentment that he’d stayed hidden for so long.

  ‘You could have come back after Katya and I had both moved to Moscow, after we left Mum, or even after she died.’ After Kadinsky trapped her into working for him.

  He nodded slowly, then fixed her with his haunting, lead-grey eyes. ‘It was selfish. No excuse. But I’d made my decision to stay away from you. I was still a hunted man. Not everyone was convinced by my disappearing act. I’d killed a Politburo member. They never forgive or forget such crimes. And if they’d had a hint I was alive they would have used you as leverage. Then, my new life took over. But after the Rose…’ He made a tight fist with his right hand, cupped and squeezed it with his left.

  It turned out he had kept an eye on both her and Katya, via one or two former brothers-in-arms he could still trust, but by the time he’d found out about the Rose affair, it was all over. Still, he’d been busy while she’d been in jail.

  ‘Salamander goes back further than you or MI6 think, Nadia. He was an urban myth in the Spetsnaz ranks, a legend, something some of the older soldiers talked about after one too many vodkas.’

  ‘How did he begin?’ Because in her mind, origins were everything. People rarely changed. How they began was key.

  Her father leaned back as much as he could in the cramped economy seat. At least they had three seats for just the two of them, and the air conditioning cushioned all conversation. No one was going to overhear them. Nevertheless, he lowered his voice.

  ‘Mixed blood, an unwanted orphan, deposited outside an Orthodox church in a shoebox. Some said half-Mongol, from the Russian steppes. The other half Korean, from the North. He was talented, no doubt about it. Ended up in Special Forces, top tier. They sent him undercover to infiltrate the ranks of our so-called friends in Pyongyang in 1968, a particularly turbulent time, when North Korea became ultra-aggressive, trying to assassinate South Korean leaders.’ He paused. ‘Now I am into rumour and my own speculation, but I think your friend Jake was on the same track.’

  Her stomach tightened, recalling those awful wounds. She hoped to hell Lorne was protecting him in Kuala Lumpur. She’d call her later to find out.

  A dark-haired, swarthy businessman came out from behind the curtain demarcating business class from economy, and walked down the rows to the toilets behind them. Odd. There were toilets at the front. He didn’t look at Nadia or her father. Her father pretended to be engrossed in the airline magazine until the guy passed. Then he resumed.

  ‘He fell in love with another agent, born in Hong Kong, which wasn’t part of China back then, still a British colony. You see, although both Russia and China liked to watch North Korea keep the West off balance, they didn’t want them to actually launch a nuke. Their nuclear capability was very crude then, more like a dirty bomb using enriched uranium from their Yongbyon reactor, and the delivery range was only a few hundred miles, but still. If they’d have launched it, it could have triggered reprisals by other nations with more serious nuclear capability.’

  ‘What was the mission?’

  ‘Wreck the guidance system prior to a major final test.’

  They must have succeeded.

  ‘Put the program back years, by which time a marginally more stable detente emerged.’

  ‘No happily-ever-after?’

  He lightly – but firmly – smacked his right fist into his left hand, and shook his head. Then he sat back. ‘Both countries needed to cover their tracks.’

  ‘Kill the agents,’ Nadia said. The small print that all operatives understood could be applied. For the greater good.

  He nodded. ‘They fled to Hong Kong, hid amongst one of the triads there. No one could touch them, and that’s where Cheng Yi was born. But as the Chinese influence grew… One night they ran to the British Embassy.’

  ‘They defected?’

  ‘Tried. MI6 promised, then did a deal with the Russians and the Chinese. Sold them out. The woman died during an escape attempt at Kai Tak airport. Salamander was captured, sent to a remote Chinese island to rot in prison, and tortured regularly for military secrets. After fifteen years he escaped, along with seven other inmates. No one else was found alive on the island.’

  He took her hand. ‘All of this, all his life, was off the books. No one wanted records to surface, ever, so none were kept, or else they were destroyed.’

  ‘A phantom,’ she said. Sold out by his country, then betrayed by the British, by MI6. Fifteen years of brooding. Together, that couple had stopped a nuclear war. They should have been heroes, not killed or imprisoned.

  That would twist anybody.

  ‘And then?’

  He sighed. ‘And then the trail goes cold, for almost three decades, during which time he slowly built up a network, always staying in the shadows. Until the Rose. I checked everything I could about Cheng Yi, his son. Your friend Jake and I were close to finding Blue Fan, but she vanished.’

  A thought struck her. ‘How old is this Salamander?’

  ‘My guess is late sixties.’

  Talk about playing the long game.

  The seat belt light came on, and the stewardess announced in Russian and English that they were preparing for landing.

  The business class passenger she’d almost forgotten about walked past them again, back towards the front cabin. As Nadia watched him, she noticed her father studying him.

  ‘We have a problem,’ he said. ‘Someone is tracking you.’ He took her wrist, touched her chunky diving watch. ‘Who was with Katya when she bought this?’

  ‘No one, except… Ah. Bransk.’

  ‘You said Bransk knew the name Salamander.’

  Nadia nodded. Her father had sent someone to pick up Katya and now she was Salamander’s captive. And the last time she’d seen Katya was with Bransk.

  ‘I’ll do some digging on this Bransk character,’ he said.

  The plane rumbled onto the tarmac, the reverse engine thrust shoving her forwards against the seat belt.

  But something they’d discussed earlier didn’t quite add up. ‘Why does he want me dead? I mean, I didn’t actually kill Cheng Yi. Salamander must know that.’

  ‘One reason you already know.’

  Nadia had prevented him getting the Rose.

  ‘The second reason?’

  ‘My fault. If one of his own turns on him, he hunts them down first, then their family. One reason his people are so loyal. Carrot and scythe. But he may also suspect I would try to contact you. He no longer knows what I look like. And I know about Blue Fan.’

  As did she, now.

  The plane began to slow.

  ‘We must separate,’ he said. ‘I cannot be found.’

  ‘But he’ll get off before us,’ Nadia said, nodding forward to the front section of the cabin, as the stewardess drew back the separating curtain.

  ‘Salamander will want a photo. Our business class friend will hang back, wait for me.’

  The seat belt light went off. Suddenly the cabin was awash with people in a hurry to disembark. Except her father, and the businessman whom Nadia passed while he was searching for something in a briefcase.

  Inside the terminal, she watched the other passengers emerge, waiting for either her father or the businessman to emerge.

  Neither came out.

  She thought about going back down to the plane, under the pretence that she’d left something in the seat pocket. But a hand landed on her shoulder, making her spin around.

  ‘Come with me,’ Bransk said. His sharp, dark eyes, strong nose, and four-inch square beard and moustache around thin lips, all spoke a message. Don’t mess with me.

  ***

  They made their way to Planernaya Metro station. She wondered why they weren’t taking the Aeroexpress, but didn’t say anything. Anyway, she loved the Moscow Metro. The single platform wi
th its white marble columns, black granite floor and cool geometric wall designs reminded her how much she’d missed Russia after being in the UK for most of the past five years. But where was he taking her? Why wasn’t anyone else with them? What if he was leading her straight to Salamander? At least the station was busy, plenty of people around, and this was the subway, where you were often safer than above ground.

  He walked to the far end of the platform, next to the tunnel, underneath the surveillance camera. She made sure there was some distance between them, in case he intended to make some Metro sushi. A blue train rattled into the station, its brakes squeaking. The doors opened. People got off; others got on. Bransk didn’t move. The train departed. The platform emptied. He walked along the narrow ledge into the tunnel. She didn’t follow.

  He turned. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘A secret office. If I were going to kill you, I would have used a contact poison at the airport, sat you down completely paralysed, and walked away while you turned blue.’

  She watched his eyes. Truth. She followed him into the tunnel, but maintained her distance. After fifteen metres, a cool breeze brushed over her face and hair. The next train. After another ten it was pitch black in the tunnel. She took baby steps. Her right hand grazed the rough wall. The wind grew stronger. She heard the train, like distant thunder. Another few metres and the first halo of light approached farther down the tunnel, arcing its way around a bend towards her.

  She bumped into Bransk. In the growing light, he tapped a code into a pad on the wall. The noise became a roar, accompanied by sharp electric clicks as the tracks crackled with deadly energy. One headlamp appeared farther down the tunnel, then another. A sliver opened up in the wall, spilling out pale light. The noise from the approaching train became deafening, the blast of wind making her squint. She could see the driver in his train cab.

  Bransk yanked her through a doorway and she staggered into a narrow corridor. The door sealed behind them with a sucking sound. The floor shook for twenty seconds as the train outside thundered past. She breathed heavily, trying to recover herself.