The Geneva Trap

by Stella Rimington

  Liz stifled a shudder. She was wondering how Sorsky had been detected. She felt confident it had not been through any slip on her part. She’d followed his instructions to the letter. But what about Russell White’s team – or the Swiss themselves? She glanced at White, who looked on edge, probably because he was having similar thoughts. Dr Bech’s face betrayed no emotion at all.

  She said, ‘What I really need to know is who Sorsky worked closely with at the Russian Residency, so we can identify the colleague he called Boris.’

  ‘Russell White has explained that, and I think we can help you,’ said Bech, and nodded at Le Plan who leaned forward to put more photographs on the table. These were hazier than the first lot, having been taken off a CCTV camera – the date and time were digitally marked in a lower corner of each photograph.

  The pictures showed a small stretch of a street at night-time, etched by a contrasting mix of shadows and pale light from the street lamps. The lens was focused on a building across the street, which had an awning in front that was adorned by white letters in italic script. Peering at the photograph, Liz could just make out the words PussKat Club. The place where Sorsky and his colleagues had gone after their celebration dinner.

  ‘Since we didn’t know exactly which night we were looking for, it took us some time,’ Leplan explained. ‘But eventually we found this.’

  He picked up one of the photographs and handed it to Liz. Russell White looked over her shoulder. It showed two men coming out of the club, with a uniformed doorman just behind them. One of the men was Sorsky – Liz recognised the receding hairline, and his sharp features. He was supporting the other man, who was slightly shorter, but much broader. His face was half in shadow.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Liz, though she thought she knew.

  ‘That’s Kubiak,’ Leplan replied. ‘The man at the airport. Head of Security.’

  Liz’s head was already spinning with the implications. ‘You mean, he told Sorsky of the infiltration plot and then shipped him back to Moscow? Perhaps Sorsky’s contact with me wasn’t blown. Maybe Kubiak just realised that, having given the information to Sorsky, he had put himself at risk. So he set him up.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ said Russell White, looking relieved. Turning to Leplan, he asked, ‘Do you know where Kubiak is now?’

  Bech replied. ‘He’s in the Trade Delegation. That’s where his office is, the Security Department must be housed there. He went in at nine this morning and he’s still there. We’ve had a static observation post on the office and on Kubiak’s flat. He lives in the business district of Geneva. You see, we have our own interest in Kubiak. One of our officers was killed last month in an accident some distance from Geneva. We have reason to believe that Kubiak was involved. Until we can prove it, we want to know where he is.’ He sighed. ‘Though even if we can prove it, we won’t be able to arrest him – he’s got diplomatic immunity. But at least we’ll be able to expel him. Until then I’m not going to let him out of our sight.’

  ‘Good,’ said Liz. ‘Sorsky said that Boris or rather Kubiak has been making regular trips to Marseilles. Could you liaise with the French if he crosses the border? It would be very helpful to have him followed there.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll certainly do that. I don’t want this fellow to slip out of the back door. If he was involved in the death of Steinmetz, I want to pin it on him.’

  Liz turned to Russell White. ‘Would you ask your Service for a Look Up on Kubiak, and I’ll do the same with mine? We need to know if he’s crossed our radar anywhere else.’

  White nodded. ‘Will do.’

  Chapter 26

  Officers Sillon and Mergas had been on the European Cross Border surveillance course so they were the obvious choices to follow the target thought to be travelling into France from Switzerland. The driver, they had been told, was a Russian intelligence officer, suspected of involvement in a fatal accident in Switzerland. If he did come into France, it was thought he’d be heading for Marseilles.

  They had just pulled into a layby on the A41 in their dirty Peugeot when the call came on the radio. ‘Target has just reached the border. He’s alone and driving the car we notified, dark Mercedes 500 with Swiss diplomatic plates. He’ll be with you in four minutes. Good luck.’

  Mergas adjusted the radio as Sillon turned on the ignition. ‘That was a close one,’ said Mergas. ‘We nearly missed him. Pity they didn’t give us a bit more notice.’

  ‘And a pity we haven’t got any back-up,’ replied Sillon. ‘But it should be pretty straightforward till we get to Marseilles – if that’s where he’s going.’ He sat, tapping his fingers on the wheel, checking his side mirror for the target car. He was always happiest when the chase was on; it was the waiting he hated.

  Suddenly he stiffened. ‘Here we go,’ he said, and the Peugeot started to move forward. The Mercedes flashed by, going at speed; by the time Sillon had manoeuvred the Peugeot on to the motorway the big dark saloon was receding fast ahead of them. Sillon accelerated, cursing under his breath. They should have had at least two cars to do this job properly, more ideally – but there was a big job on in Marseilles, monitoring a bunch of suspected North African terrorists who’d arrived at the weekend.

  Sillon wondered why this Russian was going to Marseilles. No one had said to them anything about suspected espionage, and there seemed to be no plan for a foot-follow if he left his car. It all seemed a bit half-baked to him. If their boss knew any more about it, he hadn’t told them, but then Inspector Fézard was always tight-lipped, a believer in telling people only what they needed to know. They’d just been told to follow this guy and report back. If he went into Marseilles, as was expected, one of the cars on the North African operation would be pulled off to help follow him in the city.

  Sure enough the Mercedes seemed to be heading that way, taking the clever route, avoiding Lyons and its snarled build-up of traffic, cutting down around Nîmes, then west to the A7 after skirting Chambéry. Traffic was light and the Mercedes was doing over 150 kilometres per hour, though the driver seemed to know the route well enough to slow down for the speed cameras. Sillon stayed back, closing the gap near exits in case the Mercedes left the motorway, and pulling closer when the black saloon slowed down to pay tolls at the péage stations. At Avignon the road split, and the Mercedes took the road marked Marseilles; it did it again before Aix-en-Provence. There didn’t seem much doubt about the driver’s destination, and mercifully he seemed entirely unaware that he was being followed.

  They were thirty kilometres from the city when Mergas alerted control. Fifteen minutes later, as they passed a slip road, a familiar car joined the motorway at speed and, pulling ahead of Sillon, closed on the Mercedes, sitting between it and the Peugeot. The Mercedes took the second exit for the city, and the two surveillance cars followed. They moved slowly through an outlying industrial zone, heading towards the Vieux Port.

  ‘Merde,’ said Sillon; the harbour area was a den of small tortuous streets, where it would be easy to lose any target.

  And when the A7 ended, the Mercedes drifted past the Porte d’Aix, standing isolated, like a smaller version of the Arc de Triomphe, down the Rue St Barbe with its modern concrete blocks and on to the wide Quai des Belges and the horseshoe-shaped harbour, the view studded by the unrigged masts of the hundreds of berthed sailing boats. Sillon could see the other surveillance car close behind the Mercedes, which now turned by the Air France office and swung eastwards on to La Canebière. It worked its way through the streets for five minutes, turning left and right, until it suddenly and inexplicably slowed down almost to a crawl. Sillon couldn’t understand why unless it was looking for a place to park. They’d have to follow him on foot, he guessed. But suddenly the Mercedes pulled a dramatic U-turn, right in front of the following surveillance car, which was completely unable to copy without showing its hand. And by the time Sillon managed the turn, the Mercedes had disappeared.

  Sillon cursed. The uneventful 300 kilometres they h
ad travelled had lulled him into thinking the Mercedes’s driver was completely unconscious of even the possibility of surveillance – then in the blink of an eye he was gone. As Mergas reached for the radio, Sillon said, ‘This guy’s a pro.’

  ‘Well, we were told. He’s a Russian intelligence officer,’ replied Mergas ruefully.

  Chapter 27

  Hugo Cowdray had none of Belinda Duggan’s arrogance, but Peggy worried that he’d be an equally tough nut to crack. When she’d last seen him at Brigham Hall he’d been wearing the uniform of the place – shabby sweater and jeans. Now, in a dark suit and tie, his tall figure seemed to dominate the little cubicle office. He looked distinguished but bewildered as he sat down.

  Peggy had decided that with Cowdray she would come straight to the point. She didn’t know whether Belinda Duggan would have already had the opportunity to contact him and warn him, but either way there was no advantage to be gained from beating about the bush.

  ‘Good afternoon, Dr Cowdray. We met at Brigham Hall the other day when I came up to see Charlie Fielding,’ she began. He nodded. ‘I’m from the Security Service and I’m investigating a breach of security at Brigham Hall.’

  ‘Really? What sort of breach?’ His surprise and alarm seemed entirely genuine.

  ‘An unauthorised email was sent from the house intranet to the MOD network.’ Peggy looked at the file on the desk and told him the date and time when the email had been sent. She watched a flush rise like a stain on his cheeks, and she hoped that Cowdray wasn’t going to be able to hold out for long.

  Yet his voice, when he spoke, was calm. ‘I’m not sure if there’s a question behind this, but I did not commit this breach.’

  Pressed by Peggy, he continued to deny point blank ever sending any emails to the MOD from Brigham Hall. His denials were emphatic – too emphatic, thought Peggy, who saw it as telling that he didn’t ask who the email had been sent to. So she asked, seemingly out of the blue, ‘What is your connection to Belinda Duggan?’

  Cowdray made a great show of surprise. ‘Belinda Duggan? What do you mean, “connection”? We’re colleagues, but distant ones – we’ve never worked together. I’d say we were passing acquaintances, no more.’

  This firm denial, which matched that of Belinda Duggan, rather threw Peggy. In the absence of any evidence to confront him with, she was contemplating what tack to take next when there was a tap on the office door. Annoyed, she looked up, expecting to see some member of the MOD HR Department trying to reclaim the use of the office. The battle axe who had installed her there in the first place put her head round the door and said, ‘There’s an urgent telephone call for you.’

  ‘All right,’ said Peggy slowly, wondering what was going on. ‘Excuse me a moment, Dr Cowdray.’ And she left the office, taking with her the file.

  Charlie Fielding was on the phone. ‘Sorry to disturb you but I thought you’d want to know that I’ve managed to retrieve some of the email Hugo Cowdray sent.’

  ‘I’m just talking to him now. What does it say?’ Her mind was racing with possibilities.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t able to retrieve much of it. But what I can see reads as follows:

  ‘N . . . blank . . . blank . . . o . . . t . . . e . . . blank. And six p.m. I can’t get anything else.’

  Peggy wrote the letters down and looked at them hard. She liked crosswords and, sure enough, an answer came to her. ‘That’s a big help,’ she said. ‘I may have more luck with Dr Cowdray now. Many thanks.’

  She walked back into the interview room and sat down again. She said abruptly, ‘Just to recap, you say you barely know Belinda Duggan?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then why did you meet her in the Novotel?’

  It was only a hunch, backed by the bare bones of an email, but it seemed worth the gamble.

  At first it didn’t seem to work. ‘Who says I did?’ Cowdray demanded.

  He stared at her defiantly, but Peggy’s hunch wouldn’t go away – and suddenly she saw what this was about. She had no evidence, but Cowdray didn’t know that, and if it didn’t work she wouldn’t have lost anything – she hadn’t got anywhere as it was. She said, ‘The French call it cinq à sept, I believe. You know, a quick rendezvous at the end of the day, then on home as if you’ve come straight from work. In your case, straight from Norfolk where you’d had a busy week.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But Peggy saw that his right hand was trembling.

  ‘I think you do. The Novotel is very convenient – a stone’s throw from King’s Cross, where the train from Downham Market comes in. We’ve checked the register,’ she said, her imagination in full flight. ‘You must have used a different name to sign in. But hotels have CCTV – what doesn’t these days? That’s what the interruption just now was about; they’ve been going through the tapes and they’ve found you on one of them. And on the right day of the week . . .’

  Peggy was slightly alarmed at how easily she’d invented all this, but Cowdray looked stunned. He tried to speak, licking his lips and opening his mouth, but nothing came out. He swallowed, then swallowed again. At last he said haltingly, ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Your email.’

  ‘But I––’ And he stopped, realising what he had admitted.

  ‘Yes, you deleted it, and Belinda deleted it – twice in fact, once on her laptop and once on the server.’

  ‘Then how did you read it?’

  ‘We couldn’t at first,’ Peggy admitted. ‘But finally we salvaged just enough. Why don’t you tell me what you two were up to?’

  Cowdray lowered his head and pushed his fingertips against his eyebrows. When he looked up his eyes were red, slightly teary, but he gave Peggy a sheepish smile. ‘Well, I’m not going to say “it isn’t what it looks like”.’

  Peggy nodded. ‘I wouldn’t believe you if you did. But your personal life is your own business, Dr Cowdray. I don’t want to know the details. It’s only the security aspect I’m concerned about.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to worry about that. The one thing we never talked about was work.’

  ‘No pillow talk about encryption?’

  Cowdray looked horrified. ‘Absolutely not. I wouldn’t talk about my work with anyone.’

  She believed him, though his indignation was a little hard to take, given the alarm he’d caused. ‘Why did you send an email? You know better than I do what the risks of doing that are. I understand it could help an outsider get into the system. That’s why security is so strict – you helped set the parameters.’

  ‘I know. What can I say? It was a fit of madness.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘We’d had a row. Belinda threatened to stop seeing me and I . . . I suppose I must have been desperate.’

  ‘Had you ever sent an email to her by that route before?’

  ‘Never,’ said Cowdray, so quickly and firmly that Peggy was left wondering if he was telling the truth.

  What would your wife think about it? Peggy wondered, but she said nothing. She knew that Cowdray had five children. He had a lot to lose on a personal level, as well as jeopardising his career. What on earth did he see in that cold, arrogant woman to make it worth risking all that?

  As Hugo Cowdray left the office, he looked smaller than he had when he’d come in. He’d asked what would happen next but Peggy had told him that would be decided by the MOD. Her job with him was done.

  Later that evening she met Charlie Fielding again in the Angler’s Arms.

  When she told him what Cowdray had admitted, he was dismayed at first, then angry. ‘We’ll have to suspend him at once. There’ll be a disciplinary board, and I know what their verdict will be. It’s such a waste. Hugo’s immensely talented, and he’s gone and thrown it all away for the sake of a fling. As for Belinda Duggan, she’ll be suspended too, though she may keep her job. After all, she didn’t initiate the security violation, Hugo did.’

  ‘But she lied to me,’ said Peggy. ‘If you
hadn’t cracked that email, Cowdray wouldn’t have admitted anything, and I don’t think we’d have got to the bottom of it. Duggan’s as unreliable as Hugo Cowdray, and that affects her vetting status. I’d like to be confident that she’s put somewhere where she doesn’t have access to highly classified information – at least for a time.’

  ‘I suppose your Service will be making that demand formally.’

  ‘I would think so. As for Cowdray, we have a bit of a dilemma. If I understand what you told me, the one possible way into the Brigham Hall system would be through the MOD intranet – which is why you were at such pains to keep the two systems separate?’

  ‘That’s right. I never thought anyone would breach that firewall – everyone knew it was absolutely forbidden.’

  Peggy nodded, but she wasn’t interested in Cowdray’s behaviour any more; she had something more important on her mind. ‘I also understand that even if the communication between MOD and Brigham were innocent, the danger is that someone – a mole in particular – could latch on to this link and somehow get into your system.’

  ‘It’s possible if you know how to do it. We call it “hitching” – like hitching a lift. It’s a very remote possibility, as I think I told you, but theoretically a mole could use the email as a vehicle to get in.’

  ‘But does it have to hitch in via Cowdray’s machine? Because if that’s the case, then if we immediately shut that down there won’t be any way in. The gateway will be locked.’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly right.’ said Fielding with relief. ‘Unless we’re too late, of course.’

  ‘But that’s exactly what we don’t want,’ Peggy said. Fielding looked baffled, and she explained: ‘Don’t you see? This is our best bet for catching the mole, if there is one. If he tries to get into Brigham Hall through Cowdray’s machine then we can spot him.’