The Oktober Projekt

by R. J. Dillon

  Hitting the alarm circling the suite in a continuous wide strip, McEntee held himself against a section of wall, and Soleby made off for a neutral corner as two minders rushed in.

  ‘Perhaps Mr. Torr could have a drink while we take a break,’ McEntee said as Nick dropped back into his seat, arms folded, staring in fury at Soleby who made it out through the door first.

  When they returned Nick had drunk a small bottle of warm mineral water and his mood had barely improved.

  ‘Think Lubov’s bleating for a defection justified an unauthorised extraction? Endangering not only your own life, but that of a fellow officer?’ Soleby asked.

  For a second, Nick thought they were going to bring a charge under health and safety as a means of ending his career. ‘Thinking on my feet,’ said Nick.

  ‘Course you were,’ McEntee smiled and shook his head. ‘Who decided to crash the roadblock?’ he demanded.

  ‘I did and Alistair went with it.’ It seemed a hundred years ago instead of more than a month when they’d set off for home.

  ‘But he’s not here to verify that is he,’ Soleby chided Nick.

  ‘They were waiting for us,’ said Nick, rubbing the crooked bone in his nose, unable to forget Foula’s limp arms flailing as the bullets tore into the Lada.

  ‘Did Lubov provide any insight into what his material might be?’ Soleby asked.

  Here it was thought Nick, the central question and he wondered which way he should take them. ‘He didn’t have time to provide a sample,’ said Nick as a starter for ten. A profitable exchange we will all benefit from, Nick recalled. Four for silver, five for gold, six for a secret never to be told.

  ‘So why did Lubov have the sudden urge to jump ship?’ McEntee asked.

  ‘Something had spooked him,’ replied Nick, placing the sole of his boot as flat as it would go. ‘He would reveal all once he was safely back in London.’

  ‘So if Lubov had, in your words, not mine, Nick, “no time to provide a sample”, why on earth did you proceed to attempt to crash your way out?’ Soleby wondered his long face puzzled.

  ‘I didn’t have time for him to apply for a visa,’ said Nick sourly.

  ‘Whether crashing out was the right decision is a moot point,’ McEntee said. ‘Either way, there you are, making for the border with what could be a hot asset in the back, Foula riding shotgun. I understand you were in a vulnerable position Nick. But what I can’t square is Lubov’s sudden decision to up sticks and leave.’

  ‘What made him jump ship, Nick? That is all we’re trying to establish,’ added Soleby.

  ‘You know agents, they’re unpredictable.’

  Whatever McEntee knew about agents, he kept to himself. ‘So they catch you cold,’ McEntee stated, ‘trying to extract an agent. Was that their starting point for your discussion during your time in Moscow?’

  ‘Discussion?’ Nick scraped back his chair, the thumbscrews visibly tensing.

  ‘Did they assume that Lubov had handed over his material to you?’ Soleby asked.

  ‘It crossed their minds.’

  ‘And did he?’ Soleby demanded.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Nick,’ McEntee warned him. ‘If Lubov was the means to end, why did they detain you for so long? Not checking the points on your licence were they?’

  ‘Come on, Nick,’ Soleby cajoled him, ‘What were they looking for?’

  ‘A confession.’

  ‘What to? An almighty cock-up?’ McEntee said, his lopsided smile rising higher.

  ‘Look,’ began Nick, only to be cut-off by a flap from one of Soleby’s enormous hands.

  ‘You listen, Nick,’ Soleby insisted and Nick complied as Soleby more or less accused him of deliberately misleading them and providing them with false information to cover his own guilty tracks.

  ‘From our point of view the whole operation was ill-conceived and poorly executed,’ said McEntee. ‘You’re providing us with more questions than answers.’

  ‘I made the right decisions given the circumstances at that time. I did happen to be up to my neck in a spot of bother,’ Nick avowed, knowing full well that Operation Salvage should have been called Operation Shambles and he’d be having a word with Parfrey about it.

  ‘Who was at the party in Moscow, Nick? Who was pulling the strings?’ Soleby ventured, scratching his arm.

  ‘FSB.’

  ‘That it?’ said McEntee, decidedly unimpressed.

  ‘You saying that I’ve been turned?’

  ‘Have you?’ retorted Soleby, leaning forward.

  ‘If you’re going to pursue that line of questioning, I’m requesting legal representation.’

  ‘Grow up, Nick and stop wasting our time,’ proposed McEntee.

  ‘So you couldn’t be sure if the SVR or GRU were present?’ McEntee politely enquired.

  ‘They didn’t exactly wear name badges,’ snapped Nick. ‘That’s the problem when you’re blindfolded, you’re not sure of what day it is. The friendly beatings don’t help much either.’

  ‘And Lubov never passed anything over to you?’ McEntee wondered, vexed that things were too messy.

  Nick felt queasy, imagining the SIM cut into his sole was about to come to life and give him away. Double the pressure, double the chances of him slipping up, admitting to sins that he’d squared the circle in an unorthodox style and they were waiting to trip him up. Sly smiles from the thumbscrews implying they had everything they needed to bring a charge, then suspension and goodnight Nick.

  ‘Lubov wanted out. Have neither of you been listening? He was spooked, had a bad case of the jitters because he thought he’d been tagged and wasn’t making much sense.’

  ‘Just like you, Nick,’ quipped Soleby.

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘You see Nick, we just can’t seem to understand why Viper would be regarded as very important to his own lot or to us. According to his case officer, he wasn’t the type to jump ship. It’s more fiction than fact,’ sighed Soleby. ‘I would be inclined to suggest that he was just playing us along, trying to sell us a cock and bull story for an increase in his monthly cash.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Nick, from behind gritted teeth, remembering the mess someone had made of the little accountant’s wife and nephew, which was a lot of trouble for a lowly agent with nothing to sell.

  ‘Let’s take it from the top again,’ suggested McEntee, in an inquisitional hiss.

  Which is exactly what they did. McEntee and Soleby smugly ignoring his explanations, going for disorientation by hurling names and facts in random order. Varying routines, alternating roles at each session, compounding the minutes into hours until he’d had enough as they entered the afternoon. At half-three McEntee and Soleby sick of their own voices withdrew for a conference, locking him in with a watery cup of tea and a Penguin biscuit.

  On their return, McEntee was flushed and Soleby seemed to have been forced to witness the burning of books. They’ve had to admit defeat thought Nick, and they’ve been hauled over the coals for their abject failure.

  ‘For the moment,’ McEntee said, the words burning his tongue, ‘You’re at liberty to leave.’

  ‘Ta, thanks very much,’ said Nick, up on his feet in seconds.

  Collecting the dossier, Soleby stood to one side as McEntee led the retreat gliding towards the door. ‘Catch you next time, Nick.’

  ‘I’ll save you some time, I’ll have my false confession already typed up.’

  ‘No need for sarcasm,’ snapped Soleby following in the pocket of air left by his colleague.

  Out in the corridor Nick was held in check by a pair of new minders. He was considering making a scene when Blackmore and Hawick turned the corner, total displeasure oozing from Hawick’s every pore. With a backward jab of his thumb Blackmore sent the minders retreating to a safe distance.

  ‘Not the sort of ruddy home coming I’d like myself,’ confessed Blackmore, a sly smile turning up the left corner of his mouth, ‘but we need
to be sure, Nick,’ he explained, ‘seems someone’s telling us porkies and it’s a priority we discover who.’

  ‘Let me get back to work and I’ll give you a name.’

  ‘That’s not an option,’ said Hawick, an inch from Nick’s face.

  ‘What are my options?’

  ‘If you’ve any inkling young Nicholas Torr what that ruddy Lubov had up his sleeve, I want to know,’ said Blackmore, twisting a cygnet ring around his little finger. ‘No one’s denying the Ruskies have given you a rough ride, but Lubov’s claim isn’t stacking up.’

  Trust me and be damned, thought Nick watching Blackmore ease away, operating as Hawick’s whipper-in. ‘I was just there to babysit…’

  ‘That is immaterial for the present,’ snapped Hawick cutting him off. ‘C has decided and I fully support his judicious decision,’ he continued primly, ‘that as a matter of urgency to safeguard the integrity of the Service, a full and frank formal inquiry will conduct a root and branch review of your actions. Until the inquiry sits, I have instructed personnel that you are suspended, on full pay naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Nick answered, his fists clenched. ‘What about Wynn, do I carry the can for her as well? ’

  Hawick exchanged a glance with Blackmore. ‘You will have to account for Wynn’s murder in Hamburg, have no doubt,’ Hawick promised him, fizzing with authority.

  And this fact alone, that Sally Wynn had died in Hamburg may not have made Nick any wiser as to why or what Sally Wynn was doing in the Hanseatic city, but he had the end of trail to begin searching for an answer. ‘If you’re finished, am I cleared to leave now?’

  ‘I most certainly am not,’ Hawick erupted. ‘First thing Monday morning I want you back here for a formal debriefing. I want solid answers. I want to know exactly what went on in Moscow and I want to know what Wynn was working on.’

  ‘Now can I leave?’

  ‘Do not bother returning to Vauxhall Cross, do not return to the Mad House, do not contact anyone currently or previously in the employ of the Service. You are in isolation until I or C say otherwise,’ announced Hawick, raising himself on his toes. ‘Naturally we have arranged transport for you.’

  ‘What, back to Moscow?’

  ‘Home, we’ll be taking you home,’ Hawick said finding somewhere for his eyes to assess.

  ‘Bugger off while you’ve got the chance,’ Blackmore said with a wink, arranging the point on a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket.

  ‘We had these sent over from your office,’ said Hawick, handing over a set of keys.

  ‘Thanks.’ Nick turned them over in his hand, the keys to his house, his marriage and maybe his future. He’d always left them in his office in the custody of a senior secretary to be collected on his return, up until what had now become his official excommunication.

  ‘Nick,’ called Blackmore as Nick started down the corridor. ‘You need a ruddy shower and a change of clothes,’ he advised with a broad smile.

  • • •

  Instead of the Galaxy that delivered Nick to Aspley that morning, a black Toyota Prius waited for him at a side entrance to the interrogation block. A pasty woman officer from the interrogation staff with short straight hair sat needlessly over-revving the engine. I bet she loves doing body searches, Nick decided sliding onto the back seat. On the quarter-light, two large pendants warned that it was against the law to smoke in this vehicle. Nick lit a cigarette and saw her top lip quivering, its fine line of dark hair unsettling him all through the drive back to London.

  Dropped at the corner of Upper Richmond Road and Gwendolen Avenue, he refused her offer of setting him down at his door on Ulva Road, preferring to settle into a loafing walk, taking a winding excursion home. He filed his way through Putney in what was left of a dull afternoon. Tomorrow I’ll take Angie shopping, to the Tate Modern if she’s interested, give her some room to get her head together. Tonight I’ll book a table; Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian, or whatever his wife’s whim dictated, just the two of us rekindling an old flame. In twenty-years they’d achieved what? An acrimonious existence as separate as if they were divorced Nick decided, and a dead son who’d only valued him for the presents he’d brought from his travels. After Thomas was killed by a hit and run driver when he was five, Angela blamed Nick for being away when she needed him the most. Everything was always laid at Nick’s feet; he had become the blame guru.

  The fickle light was evaporating and children home from school were playing out in groups, their sharp voices slicing through the damp air around the mellow walls of the Methodist church. Nothing else moved along the road and he felt the adrenalin tingle as he turned his key in the barrel of the night latch.

  ‘Angie?’

  The hallway floor was tiled in black and white mosaics, tiny diamonds stretching away into the large house built for a family not a broken home. An antique coat stand acted as a semaphore for who was in and out. Angela was definitely in. He called her name again and wondered if she had gone out, not bothering to use the mortise lock, her latest bête noire.

  ‘Angie?’

  She had a way with silence, her method of direct retribution, of punishing him for his absences, for not being a good husband, a good father. If Nick remained in the hallway he was safe, he could stand here all night and not be drawn into an exchange in this mutually agreed no-man’s land. This afternoon he knew that confrontation was unavoidable, so he set off in search of the enemy. Opening a door to a sitting room there was no Angela but music coming from a midi system. He guessed Tchaikovsky but couldn’t be sure; his heart sank, another salient retaken he thought.

  Wandering down to the kitchen he pulled a can of Japanese lager from the fridge. Japanese? Where was his normal pack of IPA he reserved for his returns after gruelling, sometimes bloody operations? He drank reluctantly from the can, toasting the memory of Sally Wynn. He glanced in the oven where a casserole was simmering away, and Nick wondered if it was to mark a family reunion or a new phase in Angie’s routine minus a husband?

  Nick pulled a wicker hen off the upright freezer, its base a store for odds and ends. Flicking through empty lighters, snapped necklace chains, broken buckles, strapless watches and drawing pins, Nick scattered the lot over a worktop until he found one of Angie’s old mobile phones, a Nokia 7373. Slipping off his boot he pulled open cabinet drawers, found a craft knife and worked its thin blade over the sealed slot in its sole, carefully easing out the SIM. Unsheathing it from its plastic film, he inserted it into the Nokia and one lone number glimmered for a Galina Myla, who, despite Nick’s persistence, obstinately refused to answer. Unlacing his other boot he dumped them in the kitchen bin.

  ‘Angie? I know you’re in.’ He was at the bottom of the stairs not wanting to inadvertently trespass; every room now had its own lexicon for the dissolution of their marriage.

  A door somewhere upstairs clicked closed and Nick measured her light footfall, fifteen steps in all to make her appearance, remind him of her defiance.

  ‘What happened?’ Angela asked. ‘You look dreadful.’

  She stood at the head of the stairs long slender and attractive, a deceptive forty-one and he’d wondered if she lied about her age. She never used make-up and her plainness revealed no happiness, no despair. Her head was held to one side as though she needed this angle to get a better idea of him. So many times she’d expected a different figure standing there, fidgeting, avoiding her eyes as he, she or they explained how her husband was dead, critical, missing, but still a credit to the Service.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said lightly not wanting her to fuss.

  ‘I hope you got a lift right to the front door.’

  ‘Still got your sense of humour, then.’

  ‘Was I supposed to expect you back today?’

  ‘I tried calling to let you know but you never answered.’

  She came four steps nearer, her head still cocked off centre. She’d dyed her hair blonde and parted it down the centre whilst he’d been
away. A stark contrast to her clothes comprising of everything black: polo neck, skirt, ribbed tights and pixie boots with broad buckles. She’s in mourning Nick thought, we’re divorced and she hasn’t bothered to let me know.

  ‘I was at my mothers.’

  She used her mother as a fortified outpost knowing he would never venture there. Angie’s father, a retired merchant banker unconditionally dismissed Nick as a waste of effort and the last time Nick ran into her mother, she badgered him on his failings, his immunity to her daughter’s needs.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘I’ve had a busy week. I’ve got a dealer interested in my work. Guy thinks next year is going to be my year,’ she said, lowering the pointed toe of a boot towards the next step, testing the water. ‘He’s planning a retrospective before pushing my new work at his gallery in Hoxton.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Don’t pretend that you care.’

  ‘Fine. Listen, I want you to pack. Stay at your mothers or check into a hotel.’ His head swam and the way he had to hold himself straight he wondered if his ribs had fully knitted together?

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s important.’ He desperately wanted to smile, to laugh at the bizarre situation but he jammed his jaw together, flexing the bones in his cheeks.

  ‘I’m bust Nick, Guy gave me a deadline to have everything finished.’

  Perhaps I should have issued deadlines too, he thought. ‘You can’t stay here.’

  There was a good nine feet and fifteen stairs between them. She folded her arms, her dark eyebrows accentuating her position of no surrender and no concessions, she’d made far too many in the past.

  ‘I’m not being thrown out of my own house.’

  ‘There’s been an incident, I think it’s best if you keep your distance from me and this place for a while.’

  ‘No Nick, don’t say it, please don’t lie to me, don’t try and possess me through fear.’

  ‘Any strangers called while I was away?’ He wanted to hold her tight, remind himself how light and good her body felt.