The Oktober Projekt

by R. J. Dillon

  He crossed a sheep grid and the car shook beneath him, spilling his map onto the floor. Out of the trees the wind tore through the branches in a wild shrieking symphony. Then the track shrank into wheel ruts with a grass hump strewn with rocks that smacked against the sump. He glimpsed a holed canoe abandoned in the ditch, and further along orange fragments from a life jacket snarled on barbed wire, as if the lake had risen and washed them there. A board tied to smashed gates had ‘Broom Hall Adventure Centre’ printed as big as a warning. Nick hit the firm drive and saw it all over again as he remembered it; house, school and sanctuary all at the same time, with somewhere in its history a seminary for priests who never smiled.

  An impressive hall of granite with two stiff wings and a whiff of Victorian eaves, there was a sense of grandeur long since departed. Over lawns worn bare and never reseeded, dirty ropes and car tyres were draped like rotten streamers and balloons from mature branches waiting for the saw. It could be Aspley all over again, and the only thing missing he thought, was the mock-up walls and fences to scale. Only you’re trying to sell a different type of adventure here; one not involving death, Nick thought.

  He parked in a gravel sweep next to a Ford minibus dumped on bricks, the centre’s name feint down its side. The hall faced the lake and the wind swept off it cold and bitter, straight into his face. A notice board sat in a glass case dangling by wire from a trellis panel in a lych porch. Empty of papers, rusty drawing pins made brown islands in a sea of mouldy green baize. Next to a bell chain a cryptic notice read: ‘Twice’. So Nick gave it two long tugs and heard nothing.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s like everything else round here, and given up the ghost. Can I help?’

  She had come out of the woods, a red setter at her heels.

  ‘I was hoping to have a word with Gav,’ explained Nick. Her advantage was height matched by a natural beauty and Nick thought she would always use them to get her way. Her ash blonde hair was combed forward from the crown out to the sides, the rest splayed in an angle. She sent the dog in advance sniffing his legs, friend or foe. Slowly she closed the distance.

  ‘Gavin’s down at the moorings,’ she said, making a point of using his name in full: in capitals, in thanks, woman and girl in the same smile. She waved a decadent arm towards the lake. ‘Some problem with a staging or pontoon, or whatever the silly things are called.’ Her eyes were bright blue and given an energy by her pale translucent skin. Tall and beautiful she moved in on him, holding him in a firm greeting with her eyes and point-to-point smile. Her defensive eyes wouldn’t let go of Nick, estimating, worrying, unsure and remotely concerned. ‘Does Gavin know that you are coming, Mr.…?’

  ‘Call me Nick. No, I was just passing.’

  ‘I hope you won’t take this as a rude question,’ she said with disarming energy, ‘but exactly why do you want to see Gavin?’ she asked, challenging him.

  ‘Old times.’

  ‘Jazz, stop that,’ she commanded, but the dog took no notice pushing it’s nose inquiringly into his crotch. She apologised with a weak ‘Silly thing,’ the woman in her dampening the smile. ‘Suppose you’d better come in and wait then,’ she offered with lukewarm charm. ‘We’ll take the back, we’ll never get in this way, the lock appears to be jammed. Only Gavin has the secret of getting it to open.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Nick, stepping around the dog.

  Walking round the house she did all the talking; throwing comments over her shoulder as sharp as a fin, all her plans for transforming the place into a country hotel. Nick smiled, refusing the bait. Unlocking a door that needed oil she kicked off her boots in what used to be the games store, the reek of damp cricket nets still in the air, mouldy, full of the seasons gone. For the hall had once been a prep school run by Gavin’s father after he left the Service, until the mounting cost of repairs or the pupils had driven him to suicide. Nick remembered the stories of priest’s holes and a bishop’s grave in the grounds that no one had ever found. Still playing her part, she guided him through a refectory with its trestle tables and rush matting between the aisles and a great fireplace that could spit roast a boar; through a kitchen big enough to serve a hundred boys, into a scullery modernised and equipped for two. She ran her fingers through her hair lifting, flicking it this way and that, making an effort to be noted.

  ‘I’m Tessa by the way, Gavin’s second chance at marriage. Fancy a drink?’

  ‘Coffee if it’s no trouble,’ said Nick, recalling Gav’s first wife, Grace. She was a brunette, dark eyed, sultry, given to much spending and fits of pique when Gav refused to dote on her. Grace preserved in a photograph carried by Gav because it inspired him into a state of pure hate. Nick saw the first wife’s eyes now, staring up out of the Gav’s wallet, round, inconsolable and devastating.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she scolded, grinding the beans with a no-nonsense routine that Nick guessed must have served her well with Gav. A fire had been lit in a small grate and she made a fuss of adding logs while the coffee filtered.

  ‘He shouldn’t be long now,’ she said, keeping her back away from Nick. ‘Gavin’s problem is that he does get so absorbed in whatever he’s doing.’

  ‘I know,’ Nick agreed, and Tessa glared at him as though he had spoken out of turn.

  ‘Oh, known him long?’ She was standing by the fireplace arms folded fully, on guard. ‘Except I don’t think he’s mentioned you?’

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  How much Tessa shared Nick’s reading of her husband was hard to say. She gave a little trite smile not quite prepared to engage him any further. So Nick drank his coffee in silence; a full ten minutes before a heavy door slammed signalling the arrival of Gavin Rafford, one time friend and officer in the Service.

  ‘How did you and Gavin meet?’ Tessa felt able to ask now, certain that her husband was coming to the rescue.

  ‘We worked together, he saved my life,’ Gav answered, entering the kitchen. ‘In the bad old days.’

  Short of six foot and muscular he carried his weight forward as though he’d need it in a hurry. His dark hair fastened in a ponytail knocked a couple of years off his age; forty-two, and he dressed with no intention of maturing, clad in jeans, boots and a heavy leather jacket. He hadn’t shaved for two days and the dark growth deepened his heavy jaw, a roadie home from a gruelling tour. Only the sluggishness in his right leg was never going to get better and he dragged it after him as though it didn’t belong, giving him a rolling gait. Nodding at Nick he helped himself to coffee, pouring without finesse, his heavy hands too clumsy for Tessa’s precious cups.

  ‘Hello Gav.’

  ‘Can’t say I’m pleased to see you,’ said Gav, sipping his coffee, the steam rising into his face. ‘I don’t know what you want, but say your piece and leave.’

  ‘Angie’s dead, she was murdered.’

  Tessa’s fingers plucked consolingly at a chain round her neck, unsure who or where to look at. An ‘Oh God’ mouthed, an empty comic strip bubble that floated up and away over her head.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ he said to Nick, then turning to Tessa, ‘Won’t be long.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, watching them go.

  With Gav pounding ahead at a fast hobble, Nick followed him into hallowed corridors stripped of their treasure; a chandelier by the great staircase, a tapestry from the panelled hall, and a suite of armour from outside his father’s study. They are selling the place piece by piece thought Nick, the possessions of one generation becoming the salvation for the next, he decided, as Gav directed him sharply into the study. His fingers to his lips, Gav locked the door, stood a radio on the floor the volume turned three quarters up; a throwback to the days when they improvised against the stealers of sound.

  ‘Angie… that’s hard.’

  ‘I thought you might have heard, Gav, a team from Moscow looking for me, but they found Angie instead.’

  ‘No… Christ.’

  A deep scowl clouding his face, Gavin threw himself into a broker’s chair it
s cushions knotted by tape to its spindles. Now Gavin’s office, the room carried mementos of the school like lingering debts. A robust chair for visitors, a bookcase gathering unopened letters and in one long group photograph after another, the tiered ranks of boarders, their faces bleached by passing summers joined by cobwebs into a forgotten strand of scattered generations.

  ‘Whisky’s in the old man’s cabinet, use the malt, the other stuff I save for prospective clients, the few that I get. If I’d have known, I’d have sent flowers, a wreath,’ he said, his eyes watching Nick locate the whisky.

  ‘I haven’t arranged the funeral yet.’

  ‘Course, just let me know.’

  On top of the cabinet Nick came face to face with Gav’s father, Josh Rafford in a Bakelite frame. A new man, one of C. P. Snow’s troubled breed, a very civil servant. He poured for them both nothing extra, just neat and long.

  ‘No one been in touch then?’ Nick asked, handing Gav a glass.

  ‘No…wouldn’t expect it after all these years, bit remote, not on the District Line, are we. Cheers,’ he said toasting Nick.

  ‘Cheers. Suppose you are a bit cut-off,’ said Nick, taking a seat in front of a solid wooden desk the whisky warming his throat.

  ‘How’s business?’ Nick started off gently, not wanting Gav to bolt.

  ‘Terrible, health and safety, risk assessments and injury lawyers almost wiped out adventure training,’ said Gavin, the old fieldman in him avoiding playing straight into Nick’s hands.

  ‘Tessa seems nice.’

  ‘Tessa is good.’ Gavin had drained his glass and was up and refilling. ‘Want another?’

  ‘I’ll pass.’

  He poured a second glass for himself, neat again, nothing allowed to impede the numbing effect. ‘A toast. Here’s to the bastards of this world and the next.’

  ‘Sod them all.’

  His glass seriously recharged for the third time, Gavin took cover behind his desk. ‘Want to tell me the real reason for dragging yourself all the way up here?’

  ‘A collection in Moscow was fouled up. I was a guest of the GRU for a bit. Don’t suppose you heard about that either?’

  ‘Not a whisper,’ said Gavin, drinking too quickly.

  ‘I was tasked to make a collection from Lubov, remember him, do you Gav?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ said Gavin, tapping his temple, ‘the old memory bank is pretty low.’

  ‘They were waiting for us, Lubov and Foula were killed,’ said Nick, pursuing the thread, ‘but Lubov had sent his material on ahead and the tricky thing is that I need to locate it.’

  ‘Come on Nick, this is Gav you’re talking to, don’t insult me with all this bullshit. You were never any good at waffle.’

  Accepting Gav’s invitation Nick went straight to the point. ‘A laptop,’ Nick began, ‘you wouldn’t know where I could find it?’

  Gavin shrugged not committing himself one way or another.

  ‘You ran Lubov for several years, how was he?’

  ‘Bloody lifetime ago,’ added Gav.

  Pressing on with his opening thrust, Nick continued: ‘Lubov couldn’t have contacted you to arrange for a collection, so who did?’

  Refusing to be drawn Gav stared into space making his mind up which way he’d jump. Finally, draining his glass, he asked, ‘Is this official?’

  ‘Unofficial all the way,’ Nick admitted. ‘I’m in a spot of bother actually, been accused of murdering a Lat.’

  With a deep sigh, Gav signalled his decision to talk.

  ‘I heard, Jamie gave me a call,’ Gavin confessed.

  ‘And the laptop?’ asked Nick, wondering what else Gav had been told.

  ‘Well I’ll keep it simple,’ promised Gavin. ‘Lubov was a proper pain in the arse…’ he confessed, before suddenly breaking off. ‘Tessa… what do you think of her, really, different to Grace eh?’

  ‘Totally,’ said Nick, ‘she know about Lithuania?’

  ‘Just that I got a bullet in my leg working for Her Majesty a long time ago.’

  Vilnius, Lithuania, a back street café Nick recalled; Gav and Nick working without official cover, Gav laying out and baiting lines to recruit new agents while Nick did the close handling and finalising deals. They left in a hurry after Gav, waiting for Nick, got himself cornered by the local security police, and if Nick hadn’t acted promptly, Gav would have bled to death. ‘Lubov and the laptop,’ Nick prompted him.

  ‘Jamie called up, out of the blue, said our Chief wanted a favour. What Chief, I asked. I’m off the payroll, or hadn’t he heard. Aubrey-Spencer, Jamie tells me, he’s got Jamie back in harness and wants me buckled up beside him.’

  ‘How did Jamie sell it?’

  Laughing, Gav said, ‘If I accepted, it might offer some closure to Operation Windfall,’ Gavin winced at the name. ‘Jamie said it would be nothing strenuous, a brush contact because we couldn’t use a dead drop as this contact was flaky, couldn’t be relied on.’

  ‘But you accepted?’ asked Nick, sensing Gav’s unease, but he pushed him along by adding, ‘and everything went to plan?’

  ‘She was scared totally out of her boots,’ Gav disclosed. ‘But she held her nerve and I made the collection.’

  ‘Where’s the laptop now, Gav?’

  ‘Aubrey-Spencer has it,’ he sighed. ‘There, you’ve got the lot,’ he smiled wanly.

  But Nick had only just begun. ‘Operation Windfall, Gav, what did you think Jamie meant by closure?’

  ‘My six weeks board and lodging care of the Latvian KGB goons. Jamie got out by the skin of his teeth and Jane got to watch it all go down the pan from Moscow didn’t she, poor sod. How is she, by the way, still delicious?’

  ‘Much the same,’ answered Nick.

  ‘I could never understand why she and…’

  ‘We weren’t really suited,’ said Nick, ‘I was an episode and she moved on, different tastes. You were telling me about Latvia?’

  ‘Course I was,’ said Gavin, thinking he’d poured water on Nick’s fire. ‘Jamie said he’d given you the background, so I’ll concentrate on the fine stuff,’ Gav suggested, with an extensive sigh. ‘Teodors was some sort of computer wizard who I’d plied with booze, softening him up. I praised his genius to heaven and back, which is when he gives me a speck of gold dust concerning this mythical facility in north Ossetia, some sort of fantastic R&D place designed for technical espionage. He wasn’t a stooge, Nick, I made sure before arranging our next meeting. He was well connected with some of the Lat dissidents I knew, Andrejs Valgos and his little brother Juris for two, so I knew there was a seventy-thirty chance he was for real.’

  ‘So Jamie cleared the way with London through Jane in Moscow, did he?’

  ‘Why?’ Gav asked defensively.

  ‘Just getting some background facts in order,’ Nick replied.

  ‘Jane was on the up and up, even then,’ Gav admitted. ‘Jane had taken over earlier than anticipated which I didn’t mind, she is a good deal softer on the eyes than Roly.’

  ‘She is,’ Nick agreed. And there was one question that he couldn’t avoid putting to Gavin. ‘When they picked you up in Latvia, Gav, how did that seem?’

  Gavin stared at Nick for a long time as though he’d never considered the question before. ‘I’d barely got my toes in the water with Teodors when they collared me in Riga,’ Gav disclosed, ‘Bang, I was busted,’ he recalled, his eyes narrowing. ‘All too damn easily if you must know and I was carted two-hundred kilometres off to Liepaja, on the west coast, to the cosy little naval prison of Karosta.’ Gavin shuddered, not wanting to think about it.

  But Nick couldn’t have the luxury of ignorance nor denial. ‘You were also working the Minotaur network at that time, weren’t you, when it was blown along with the American’s Driftwood network? I need it all, Gav, I really do.’

  ‘Knew I was in a port by the smell, sea and smoked fish. And then inside the gates they took off the blindfold and bundled me out. Know the first thing they showed me?�
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  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Three wooden upright posts for the poor sods they executed by firing squad and they let me know they’d be using them pretty soon. The place had a red brick exterior but everything in it was covered in thick black paint, walls, ceilings, the hearts and minds of the guards, the lot, all daubed in black.’

  ‘Is that where they took the Minotaur and Driftwood agents and your prospective agent, Teodors?’ Nick asked. ‘Talk to any of them at any time?’

  ‘Sure I did,’ retorted Gav with contempt. ‘Used to swap yarns all the time between the screams, just like an 18-30 Club trip to Faliraki,’ he snapped.

  Backing off, Nick offered Gav a less painful route to follow. ‘Did they expect to pick you up, Gav, or were you the bonus?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Nick, never seen anything like it, number one guest wasn’t I. They had a file all ready and waiting for me. Not the local goons either, special detachment from Moscow had come in just for us.’

  ‘You certain?’ Nick asked, realising that his own interrogation had followed the very same pattern.

  ‘Of course I’m certain,’ countered Gavin, ‘they were KGB and GRU from Moscow, the pros. After I’d done my fairy tale for the day they’d get straight onto the questioning, well, that was something else. Had a neat old dentists chair they strapped you in, big lights overhead… and…,’ but Gavin shied away from completing his sentence.

  ‘What did they want to know?’

  ‘What didn’t they,’ snorted Gav. ‘Tell us what you know about north Ossetia? Tell us what you know about the Driftwood network, the Minotaur network?’

  ‘Did you give them anything?’

  Gav shrugged. ‘Bullshit to begin with, least I could, getting names and places mixed up. But they just laughed, told me to stop being silly, I was only making things worse for myself. Then they started on the executions, two a day, regular as clockwork. Then I got my trial, all for show, lasted a good five minutes before they packed me off to the camp.’