The Geneva Trap

by Stella Rimington

  Bokus saw Fane give a small sigh and the Carlyle woman was looking uncomfortable as she shook her head. It looked like their source must have dried up.

  ‘Has something happened to Bravado then?’ he demanded.

  Fane pursed his lips. ‘You could say that.’

  Carlyle said, ‘It seems that he’s gone back to Moscow. But not voluntarily.’

  ‘So he’s blown.’ This was not a question.

  ‘Seemingly,’ said Fane. ‘But it doesn’t alter the situation. If the mole is working for another country, then I can’t see the Russians tipping them off, even if they know that Bravado has told us about it.’

  ‘They’ll know all right, if they’ve uncovered him. I wouldn’t give Bravado any chance of keeping schtum where he’ll be now.’

  Liz frowned and shook her head, as if to get rid of an unpleasant thought.

  ‘Anyway, you know my views,’ went on Bokus. ‘If anyone’s planted a mole in the MOD, it’ll be the Russians themselves; I never did buy this third-country story. It probably just means the mole’s an illegal – with third-country documents.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ Carlyle conceded. ‘But it seems unlikely. I was the one who talked to Bravado, and I was convinced. He only learned about this mole by accident.’

  ‘That’s what he told you,’ said Bokus caustically.

  The woman looked unruffled. ‘If you’re suggesting that Bravado wasn’t telling the truth – that he was part of some disinformation plot – I think you’re wrong. Why on earth would the Russians do that? Why alert us to the existence of a mole in the MOD if they’ve really got one in place? It makes no sense.’

  She was right of course and Bokus didn’t have an answer. But he wasn’t big on retractions.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ he finally asked. Meeting with the Brits, Bokus always felt he had to have everything spelled out. They had called the meeting; they presumably wanted something from him; yet here he was, having to tease it out of them. No wonder the Empire had gone down the tubes – their colonial subjects had probably had enough of English ambiguity.

  Liz said, ‘We’re focusing on the list of foreign nationals seconded to the MOD . . .’

  Bokus interrupted, ‘I told you, I’ve checked with Langley and they said all the ones who’ve been in the States were thoroughly vetted.’ He lifted a hand and let his palm come down hard on the folders on the table. ‘Have a look if you want.’ He turned to Fane, who was watching them spar with amusement.

  Liz said, ‘Hang on, Andy. Let me bring you up to date first with our investigation. Thanks to the Swiss, we are pretty confident that the source of Bravado’s information was a guy named Anatole Kubiak, the Head of Security in the Russian Mission in Geneva. He’s SVR of course. We know a bit about Kubiak already and he’s not a very pleasant type, as Geoffrey can explain.’

  Fane, who’d been lounging back with his long legs crossed, sat up and leaned forward.

  ‘It turns out that we have quite a file on our friend Kubiak,’ he began. ‘We first came across him in Delhi in the mid-1980s. He was working the Scientific and Technical area, getting alongside Western businessmen for what he could pick up and who he could recruit. He was quite young then, in his late twenties, and it was his first posting abroad. He seemed to be on a very loose rein and we wondered whether he had some protection – a father in a high position or something. He spent a lot of time drinking in private clubs with his Western contacts – drinking far too much. Because of his behaviour, our Station spotted him as a possible recruit. We had a couple of trusted business contacts get to know him, and they reported that he was very loose-tongued – especially for those days. He was quite prepared to criticise the Communist system and praise the West, and our contacts didn’t think it was a come-on to win their confidence – they thought he meant it. It was as though he was asking to be recruited.

  ‘But there was something else too. He frequented a brothel, the same one each time. It specialised in girls – and I mean girls, twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, tiny little things. We thought this made him pretty vulnerable, so we put one of our young officers alongside him to line him up for a recruitment pitch. We’d worked out quite a good scenario; it was going to be a combination of ideology and his own compromising behaviour. But just as we were ready to go with it, Kubiak was suddenly posted – he left Delhi almost overnight and soon reappeared in Poland. We couldn’t get at him there in those days, and he didn’t come out again, so we lost interest.’ Fane looked at Bokus. ‘I’d be very surprised if your Station in India hadn’t noticed him too, Andy. It’s worth getting Langley to do a trace.’

  Bokus grunted. ‘We had a big Station in Delhi in those days,’ he said. ‘Sounds like they wouldn’t have missed that guy unless they were asleep.’

  ‘Maybe you kept up the pursuit longer than Geoffrey’s colleagues,’ said Liz. ‘It would be interesting to know, because there is definitely something strange about the man.’ She explained that the Swiss had discovered that Kubiak was making regular trips to Marseilles, and had visited a particular office block there. ‘One of the firms in that building is a South Korean hi-tech consultancy which no one seems to know much about. It may just be coincidence, but I think we should look at the South Korean working in the MOD.’ Seeing a sceptical look on Bokus’s face, she said, ‘I know it sounds like a long shot, but we have nothing else to go on.’

  ‘That guy’s as clean as a whistle. I told you,’ said Bokus, scrabbling through his files and producing one. ‘Park Woo-jin. Thirty-one years old, a programmer in object-oriented languages. Whatever that means,’ he said with a grimace at Liz.

  He returned to the dossier. ‘He’s been vetted very thoroughly by us. Born in a suburb of Seoul. Father was a clerk in an insurance company, mother a kindergarten teacher – though I’m not sure how you say “kindergarten” in Korean. Park was spotted when he was just twelve, for his mathematical aptitude. He won a scholarship to Seoul University when he was sixteen years old, and studied high-level math before switching to computer science for his Master’s degree. During his National Service, he was moved into software development for their anti-missile systems. After that he joined Korean Intelligence, though his work remained military rather than intelligence-oriented. Unmarried, no known hobbies except for an addiction to computer video games – surprise, surprise.’ He closed the file. ‘Sounds like your average geek, only a Far Eastern variety. He worked for six months in the Pentagon – and, believe me, you don’t get through the outer corridor there until they’ve turned you inside out.’

  He looked at Liz. ‘Anyway, how do you know this Kubiak guy is visiting the Korean firm? You said there were others in the building. He might be visiting one of them.’

  ‘It is possible, Elizabeth,’ said Geoffrey, stirring himself again. ‘Don’t forget that, according to the French, one of the companies there is trafficking women. In Delhi Kubiak was very fond of whores; no reason to think that’s changed.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Bokus, leaping in. ‘I’ll bet it’s nothing to do with the Koreans. There are Koreans all over Europe. They’re big traders.’

  Liz shook her head. ‘I still think Langley should have another look at Park Woo-jin.’

  Bokus was annoyed by her insistence. He was sure she’d got the wrong end of the stick, and he strongly suspected that Geoffrey Fane thought so too. But he wasn’t going to argue, not at this stage anyway. There was just the smallest chance she might be right, so he gave her his warmest phoney smile. ‘I’ll get on to Langley right away. Anything else I can do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not for now,’ replied Liz Carlyle, with a smile he felt was equally bogus.

  When they’d gone, Bokus went back to his office on the fourth floor. Looking out of the window he could see Fane down in the square, striding ahead of Carlyle, waving his umbrella to hail a taxi. Bokus turned around when his assistant came in.

  ‘Did it go well, Andy?’

  ‘No,’ he said
, and started to reach for the phone on his desk, which was his secure direct line to Langley. Then he had another thought. ‘Hang on a sec. Get me the Korean Embassy, will ya? And after that, I’ll want to speak with our Paris Chief.’

  Chapter 33

  Peggy was in the A4 control room, sitting on the old leather sofa that was kept there for anxious case officers while a surveillance operation was in progress. Wally Woods, the A4 controller, set strict rules in the control room: case officers could be present provided they didn’t speak except to answer questions. Yet he did find it useful to have them there, as surveillance operations rarely went entirely as predicted and it was helpful to be able to involve the case officer in the quick decisions that often needed to be made.

  This was the third day of surveillance on Park Woo-jin. It was a miserable morning, unseasonably cold and spitting with rain. It was 8.30 when Reggie Purvis bought a coffee in the old-fashioned coffee bar on Broadway and stood by the window sipping it. Unusually for him, he was wearing a suit and tie under a raincoat. They made him indistinguishable from the civil servants and office workers who stood around him, having a quick shot of caffeine before starting work. Like many of them, Purvis had iPod plugs in both ears, and his face bore the vacant expression of someone listening to an interior orchestra the outside world couldn’t hear.

  Ten minutes later as another wave of passengers emerged from the subterranean bowels of the District line on to the pavement in front of St James’s Park Underground Station, Purvis spotted his target: a young man in a new-looking leather jacket. He was short, five foot six at a stretch, with cropped black hair and Far Eastern features. He paused briefly outside the station entrance and bought a paper, which he tucked under his arm, then he stood for a moment, putting his change away and looking around. But there was nothing particularly vigilant about his gaze, and he seemed completely unaware of Stephen Sachs, who had been in the same carriage all the way in on the train from Ealing Broadway, and who now passed him without a glance.

  The young man walked to the corner and Purvis quickly swallowed the dregs of his coffee and went out into the street. It was raining harder now, and Purvis turned up the collar of his coat, walking quickly, following the man in the leather jacket as he crossed Broadway on to Queen Anne’s Gate, heading for St James’s Park. This was the same route the man had taken on each of the previous days, and it was clearly his standard morning routine.

  But why did he get off the tube at St James’s? One further stop would have brought him to Westminster, much nearer the MOD building where he worked. Getting off here gave him a ten-minute walk. Fair enough, if the day were fine – perhaps he liked the exercise – but today nobody in their right mind would want a longer walk to work. Not in this rain.

  The iPod sitting in Purvis’s jacket pocket was a two-way radio, and the plugs in his ears weren’t bringing him the dulcet notes of Coldplay or Adele. ‘Tonto’s heading to the park. Same route as usual,’ he said, lowering his chin, so the mini-mic that doubled as a tiepin would pick up his words.

  ‘Got it,’ said a voice in his ears. Duff Wells, in tracksuit and trainers, was jogging slowly around the lake in St James’s Park. Further along by Horse Guards, Maureen Hughes, dressed in a smart black mac and black tights, was holding an umbrella with one hand and a small Schnauzer on a lead with the other. His name was Buster, and he belonged to one of the doormen at Thames House. In the foyer of the MOD itself, Marcus Washington sat like someone waiting for an appointment, but in fact making sure that the man in the leather jacket made it to work.

  According to the A4 team, on the last three mornings Park Woo-jin’s walk had followed the same pattern: down through Queen Anne’s Gate and into the park, across Horse Guards Parade and then through the Arch into Whitehall and the MOD. It was like the performance of a play with a constantly changing cast, though the lead character remained the same.

  They were all wondering how long they would keep following the Korean, who so far had gone innocently to work and back each day, returning home alone to his flat in an MOD-owned house in Ealing, never venturing further afield than the Thai restaurant at the end of his street and the DVD shop a hundred yards further along, where he had up to now rented Toy Story 2 and a Kung Fu film.

  Purvis slowed down as he neared the park. Along Birdcage Walk the buds on the trees were turning into tiny leaves, still too small to give shelter from the steady downpour. Rain was beginning to soak through his coat as he stood waiting at the lights while taxis chugged by, sloshing more water into the gutters at the side of the road. Duff Wells had certainly drawn the short straw today. He must be drenched jogging out there in the park.

  Then through his earphones Purvis heard Wells’s voice come to life. ‘Tonto has sat down on a bench. Halfway along the side of Birdcage Walk. He’s reading a paper.’

  ‘In the rain?’ It was Wally Woods in the control room.

  ‘Yep. Hang on a minute . . . he’s up. Walking again, approaching Horse Guards. Towards you, Maureen.’

  ‘Got him,’ came Maureen’s voice.

  ‘Why’d he stop?’ Wally Woods enquired.

  ‘Dunno. Looks odd. And he’s left his paper in the bin.’

  In the control room Wally looked at Peggy. ‘Do you want that paper?’

  Her eyes were shining. Something was happening at last. She thought for a split second. ‘No. Tell them to leave it and wait. Prepare to follow if someone collects it.’

  The instruction was relayed to the watchers. There was a pause. Purvis crossed Birdcage Walk and went into the park. He could see the bench in front of him. Several office workers were hurrying along the path, their heads down against the rain. As he approached the bench, he saw a man coming towards him, walking more slowly than the office workers, his hands in his pockets, seemingly oblivious to the rain.

  ‘I think we may have contact,’ said Purvis into his tiepin. He pressed a button in his pocket and a concealed camera started to take pictures of a heavy-set man in a dark overcoat. ‘I reckon he’s Chinese. Definitely not a Westerner.’

  Wally looked at Peggy with raised eyebrows. But before she could speak Purvis’s voice came over the speaker again. ‘He’s stopped right by the bench. He’s looking around.’ There was a pause, and the tension in the control room was building when, ‘Bingo!’ Purvis exclaimed. ‘He’s taken the paper out of the bin.’

  ‘Ask them to follow him. We need to know where he goes,’ said Peggy.

  ‘I have Tonto,’ said Marcus Washington from the MOD. ‘He’s gone inside.’

  ‘Unknown target heading north across the park now, towards The Mall and Waterloo Place.’ That was Maureen on Horseguards Parade.

  Some fast deployment by Wally Woods meant that by the time the target emerged on to Pall Mall, where he turned left heading for St James’s Street, he was being trailed by a black taxi containing two men and a woman. When finally he turned into the door of the Stafford Hotel, he was still apparently unaware that his progress from St James’s Park had been logged and photographed all the way.

  Chapter 34

  The digs Charlie Fielding shared with Hugo Cowdray were three rooms in a Norfolk farmhouse otherwise occupied by the owner – a widow who made up for the deficiencies in her late husband’s pension by renting out her top floor. She had initially seemed suspicious of the two prospective tenants put forward by the letting agency in King’s Lynn, but Fielding’s cheerful manner had won her over in the end – along with a hefty deposit and a guaranteed rental of six months. She didn’t know exactly what had brought them there, and Fielding hadn’t told her, though the man with the badge who’d come to inspect the flat before they moved in had made it clear it was something hush-hush. She had hoped Fielding would fill her in on the secret, but in answer to her veiled enquiries, he had merely smiled.

  Tonight he had the flat to himself – Cowdray had gone down to London for a long weekend, to spend time with his wife Cynthia and their children. He probably needed to; Fielding didn�
�t know what Cowdray would have told his wife about his adventures with Belinda Duggan, if anything at all. But Cynthia was a clever woman, and she would have sensed that something was up.

  Here in the flat, he and Cowdray each had their own bedroom, but shared the large low-eaved sitting-cum-dining room, and the adjoining makeshift kitchen. Fielding was working this evening on his laptop at the dining-room table; across the room, on a small pine side table, Cowdray’s laptop was also open, powered up, ready and waiting.

  Waiting for what? Fielding wondered. He was certain Cowdray had no involvement in leaking information about the work going on at Brigham Hall. His had been a personal failing, not a conscious betrayal of his country, though God knows what was going to happen to him when all this was over. Fielding felt upset about the whole business, still stunned that such a close friend and colleague had let down the side so badly. At least Cowdray was cooperating fully now, though Fielding had been strictly limited in what he could tell him about the . . . what precisely? Operation? Wasn’t that what these intelligence people called it? Yes, though intelligence had been the last thing Hugo Cowdray had shown.

  It was just as he was feeling lowest about the situation that a red light blinked and flickered in the corner of his screen. He stood up at once, and went over to Cowdray’s machine. Conventional anti-virus programs traditionally worked behind the scenes, but the detection program he’d installed on Cowdray’s machine was not an off-the-shelf item. He watched as the screen cleared and a pop-up window appeared in the centre. External Invasion it declared, and then began to list the sectors under attack, every five seconds pausing to write the cached information to disk. Whatever was out there, Fielding realised, it was moving through Cowdray’s machine at extraordinary speed, jumping seemingly at random through his FAT files and directories, but covering so much ground that it would soon have canvassed the entire local permanent storage of the machine – all 500 gigabytes.