The Oktober Projekt

by R. J. Dillon

  His glass empty, Nick made his way to the lavatories, down a flight of steps noticing as he went the layout for the emergency exit. Instead of a stall he chose a cubicle and waited. The footpad with only himself to blame, followed. Nick heard the outer door close, the footpad’s steps, then each cubicle door tried in turn. Standing on the toilet bowl his hands on the greasy top edge of the unlocked door, Nick waited for the pressure. Swinging the door inwards at the same time as the footpad pushed, and with the full weight of his knee, he caught the footpad just under the line of his jaw.

  Nick propelled forward by his own momentum, hit him twice more in rapid succession. ‘Bloody drunks,’ said Nick stepping over the footpad’s floored body, as someone came in and headed for the stalls. He heard a quip on tourists before the toilet door sprang shut, but by then he was through the emergency exit. Out into the yard he climbed up a stack of beer kegs, balanced on the rib of wall before dropping into the street. Cutting back away from the river then changing direction again, his back clean, Nick made his way to Poplar Dock.

  Staring at Nick from her houseboat Ruth Parfrey seemed reluctant to answer his knocks, or grant him entry. In the wheelhouse her arms folded tightly across her chest, Parfrey fixed Nick with a fierce glare.

  ‘A couple of minutes, Ruth, that’s all I want,’ Nick told her after his persistence finally persuaded her to open the door.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said belligerently.

  From the wheelhouse modified into a sun deck with wicker armchairs, potted palms and cane furniture grouped in a circle, she led Nick down to the main saloon. Two long sofas hugged the hull’s walls, a far bulkhead held bookcases, and in a corner a wood burning stove filled the air with its thick warmth. As far as Nick remembered Parfrey lived alone, but down here there was a sense of things being shared, of two people, not one.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, dumping herself onto a sofa folding up newspapers, putting a plate filled with crumbs by her feet. ‘I’m not feeling particularly well, that’s why I’ve taken a couple of days leave, must be coming down with something.’

  ‘It won’t take long,’ Nick assured her. ‘RUS/OPS is usually sitting on top of everything pretty tight, I just wondered why your briefing on Lubov was so sparse?’

  Laughing as though Nick had told a filthy joke, she shook her head.

  ‘You know I can’t discuss that for a number of reasons,’ she said, grabbing for a box of tissues.

  ‘I’m not asking for you to pin the blame on any one officer.’

  ‘That’s below the belt, Nick,’ she warned him, dabbing her nose. ‘Jo’s death has been difficult.’

  ‘It must be. If the method of making the collection from Lubov hadn’t been so rushed, well who knows….’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about your loss… about your wife, about what happened to you in Moscow, but there’s nothing that I can do to make a difference.’

  ‘It’s too late to make a difference, I want answers.’

  ‘You’ll have to get official clearance.’

  ‘Lubov was sold out, that didn’t require official clearance did it?’ Nick reminded her.

  Scratching her neck Parfrey was suddenly on her feet; finding more things to tidy, making a regular run between the galley and saloon as she collected cups and glasses. ‘Without a letter of authority I can’t help you,’ she said, the tidying exhausted; this her last word her fixed stare declared, after she’d continually rebutted Nick’s questions during her chores.

  ‘Why was the method for the Moscow collection changed?’

  ‘Please go or I’ll call the police,’ she yelled, close to tears.

  ‘Okay, that’s fine,’ said Nick, turning to leave, Parfrey quick to walk him out.

  On the stairs to the wheelhouse Nick slowed right down. ‘Nice perfume,’ he said over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes…it’s new,’ she told him, strangely flustered.

  Out on the deck Nick nodded. ‘Jane hasn’t called to see you by any chance?’ he asked and Parfrey tensed, standing in the doorway she simply shook her head, refusing to move until she was sure Nick was on his way before slamming the wheelhouse door with feeling.

  • • •

  The next morning, Nick suitably wired for sound wove in and out of the stalls in St. James’s churchyard, Piccadilly. A market set up three times a week, this morning’s pitches were selling handcrafted jewellery, paintings, organic soap, perfumes and what a couple of traders classed ‘Modern Antiques’. Browsing through Russian dolls and Soviet military memorabilia in the form of caps, badges and flags, Terence Galgate appeared unimpressed at the authenticity or quality.

  ‘Brigita can’t make it today.’ Nick announced tucking himself in by Galgate.

  Holding up a Soviet issue army officer’s cap, Galgate stared at Nick then noted Danny behind him. Turning the cap round as though searching for flaws, he said, ‘The strange thing is, many people seem to feel that Moscow is well…’ He threw the cap back onto a pile. ‘….no longer a threat,’ he added. Taking Galgate by the arm Nick manoeuvred him away from the stall.

  Entering the church of St. James, Galgate crossed himself and Nick wondered if this was an act of outright faith or merely for show? With a few curious tourists milling around Nick chose a pew at the rear, Galgate wedged in between Nick and Danny; Terence Galgate a professor of computing science, media star and pundit.

  ‘I am not contemplating doing anything rash,’ he snapped, staring at Nick.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Nick as the heavy church doors were banged firmly shut and bolted. To Nick sitting on Galgate’s right, the academic’s face seemed considerably older than his byline photograph that illustrated his weekly broadsheet column. Thin, wizened with black glasses and hair cut severely close to his scalp, Galgate satisfied the perceived stereotype of a gnomish academic and respected setter of opinion.

  ‘And which branch of our noble intelligence services do I owe the honour of my arrest to?’

  Showing Galgate his ID, Nick sat back. ‘Brigita gave you up straight away,’ Nick told him. ‘Moscow’s loyalty doesn’t stretch down the chain to you.’

  ‘I knew it would come to this, almost been expecting it.’ Galgate had that aloof, acerbic and cold manner of someone who expected to be listened to, of having his word taken as gospel.

  ‘Cooperate now and the court may take your assistance into account,’ Nick suggested.

  ‘What are we to be known as? The “SVZkom Ring” or something more romantic?’ Galgate stated authoritatively and Nick shook his head. ‘That’s the trouble with being blackmailed you can never rationally deal with it, you lose all control,’ Galgate ruefully admitted.

  ‘Did Brigita do the recruiting?’

  ‘No, God, no. It was at some Foreign & Commonwealth Office sponsored event when someone I’d known for years, a chap called Giles Motram introduced me to an MEP, Rowan Kawton-Lees who started twittering on about how he was an ardent admirer of my work, how he dutifully read my pieces.’

  ‘You didn’t suspect anything?’

  ‘Motram was a senior strategic cyber-terrorism analyst at the FCO and Kawton-Lees was somehow tied to cyber-intelligence and defence in Brussels. So no, I didn’t believe that I was having an approach made on behalf of Moscow.’

  ‘How did they sell it?’

  ‘Kawton-Lees was rattling on with the charm of a double glazing salesman, pitching up all this guff on SVZkom, how they really had their finger on the pulse regarding context awareness.’ With an irritable sigh he reserved for the uninitiated, Galgate explained: ‘In layman’s terms it’s a concept that computers, based on their environment, can sense and react to situations.’

  ‘That’s a threat?’

  ‘In the context of cyber-terrorism, it’s a very big threat,’ Galgate said with an expressive wave of his hand. ‘Whitehall and government departments have been constantly under attack by Chinese hackers forcing systems to crash, systems to be refigured, new firewalls introduced. T
hat, in comparison to what I believe the Russians have developed is, frankly, quite amateurish. This government’s idiotic belief in central databases makes the country vulnerable to meltdown. Think of the records they are electronically amassing.’

  ‘Like stuffing everything into a safe and giving away the combination.’

  ‘More or less,’ Galgate said, warming to his subject. ‘Military, medical, national insurance, criminal records, the details of every child under the age of eighteen, the national identity register, passports, biometric contact with the police. We are governed by donkeys unwilling to acknowledge that they are placing the country at risk. The Russian virus has the capability of feeding all this information to Moscow. Not only that, but it can destroy systems that are tightly woven into the effective operation of the country. Think of gas supply, electricity, traffic management, CCTV, air traffic control, these are electronic hostages to international blackmail. This virus is your intelligence agent, your sleeper because it defends itself, integrates so effectively that it becomes part of the system. It creates and opens two-way links. You only require one server to be initially infected, one that is believed to be above suspicion, a clean interface. It is the bad apple concept that I and I presume others like me, were recruited to safeguard. I was encouraged to report on the electronic counter-measures against what they termed the Oktober virus, so it can be immunised, allowing it to regenerate.’

  ‘And introduced by someone above suspicion,’ suggested Nick, considering the implications.

  ‘Naturally.’ Not inclined to enlarge on the subject further, Galgate returned to his recruitment by Moscow. ‘At the FCO event that inflated politician wouldn’t give up. He said SVZkom was organising a conference in Hamburg and I’d have a chance to meet some up and coming stars working on context awareness.’

  ‘And you accepted?’

  ‘Conference was above average. A lot of IT specialists and officials were in attendance. Latvians, Estonians and Poles mostly, all of them apparently on the rise as EU high flyers. Some of them even tipped to be future commissioners. Should have seen it coming, shouldn’t I?’ Galgate said thoughtfully, his fists clenched at his own downfall.

  ‘You weren’t the first.’

  ‘I’ve soldiered abroad many times on the conference circuit but in Hamburg I dropped my guard.’ Galgate gave a sardonic laugh, and nodded.

  ‘Male or female?’ Nick wanted to know.

  ‘Woman,’ he retorted, deeply offended. ‘Will you tell my wife?’ Galgate demanded in desperation, but Nick stared at him, waiting. ‘Pretty, too pretty for me,’ Galgate confessed with a sad smile. ‘Franziska she called herself.’

  ‘How long before they stung you?’ wondered Nick casually.

  ‘Got a call from someone claiming to be SVZkom’s representative in London. They told me they were providing a support pack following the Hamburg conference and it also contained a decent ticket to a West End musical. I went to the show and sitting next to me was Brigita. She’d brought along photographs of me with Franziska and after making it clear they had moving image and sound, she gave me a list of the things I needed to look out for, possible names that I should try and cultivate. Brigita ran the stall on the market and that’s where I’d meet her. That pretty girl today,’ said Galgate, nodding his head to the stall outside, ‘one of yours?’

  ‘I’m afraid she is,’ said Nick. ‘Where did you meet Franziska?’

  ‘We’d been to some casino or other in Hamburg then went on to a party miles out in the countryside, big old farmhouse,’ Galgate lamented, ‘she called it fantasy land and I indulged, much to my shame.’

  Nick got to his feet.

  ‘You have to understand that my actions were in keeping with my beliefs. Paradoxical as it may seem, I love this country, but we haven’t had politicians or a government since the war who haven’t put their own ambitions above those of the country. Oh the Russians are no different in that respect, but underneath their posturing and vanity, there is a belief in Russia as a country, as a nation, as a concept. I bought into that ethos, became a seasoned fellow traveller. Here we have only vacuous politics,’ declared Galgate. Taking a deep breath, glancing around him he asked: ‘What’s going to happen to me now?’

  ‘These officers will take care of you,’ Nick told him, as Special Branch and Security Service teams closed in, their cover as tourists abandoned, their curiosity now focused on one man.

  From a telephone stand on the Albert Embankment the cold numbing his back, Nick made a series of calls. The first to Paul Rossan lasted a little over two minutes, and for several reasons of his own Nick had no concern as to who might be listening. The second and third calls ran a good deal longer as Nick rang a number in Helsinki and then one in Hamburg. Heading towards Westminster Bridge he tried to loosen the harness and recorder digging into his side; only for a woman wheeling a supermarket trolley between bins, call him a pervert and demand a gin. Farther on he rested against the wall, pulling the tape off the skin on his breast where the microphone had been. The river was falling fast leaving the lights of Westminster embedded in the mud, a siren started somewhere behind him and lasted in his ears until Hungerford Bridge.

  Thirteen

  Cut Adrift

  Suffolk, November

  Nick arrived in Suffolk that same evening just as it began to snow. Stretching away to his left the town lay folded open in front of him, a panoramic map of a classic English seaside resort; civilised order on ordnance grid squares, symmetrical living by the sea. Parked on a quiet stretch of coast road Nick thought through what information he had to work with, covertly supplied by Rossan; the life and times of Giles Motram, recently retired from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and started up the BMW.

  The house on Longreach Road had salt smeared windows facing straight out to sea, its smooth render showed its age and a tiled roof was rubbed raw by winter gales and strong summer suns. When Nick pressed the doorbell he heard discordant chimes play Wandering Star. I know all about your sense of humour Giles, Nick said to himself; you’ve never made a secret of it and I know all there is on you. You’re single and in the market for romance after the divorce of Penny who thought your bedroom behaviour was crude. You’ve a daughter who lives in New York and you’ve accumulated quite a decent nest egg in savings through shrewd investments, you’ve also been a traitor and in the pay of Moscow for a considerable time. All additional background to your file Giles, all given freely by people you thought you could trust.

  So where are you Giles? No lights on, two cars on the drive; this just isn’t your style because you’re meticulous and a man of strict habits. Nick rang longer his thumb holding the plunger in. I was born under a wanderin’ star, I was born under a wanderin’ star played on and on. He opened the letter box and snapped it closed. Jesus Christ, he almost retched. Swinging off the step he upset an empty milk holder, ‘None Today’, arrowed with a sad little plastic arm.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ A parade ground voice boomed out of the darkness, as a light came on over a side door at a large detached villa a hundred yards away.

  ‘There could be,’ Nick shouted back.

  ‘Stay there.’

  Doing as he was ordered Nick watched a man in his sixties briskly approach, carrying a walking stick he didn’t need and a torch that picked out his route.

  ‘What d’ya mean by could be?’ barked the man, looking Nick over with his torch. ‘Brigadier Halwood-Hey, retired,’ he said. ‘You are?’

  ‘Concerned for Giles.’

  ‘Family, friend, official or rogue is what I meant.’

  ‘Official,’ said Nick showing his ID.

  ‘Can’t be too careful,’ declared the Brigadier firmly. ‘Haven’t seen Motram since last week but that’s not strange or unusual, Motram’s always away on his trips. Just come back from a Campari safari myself, or I’d be more use.’

  ‘He has two cars?’ Nick asked pointing to a Mazda and Land Rover on the drive, dusted in fine snow.


  ‘Foreign one’s his new lady friend’s, bit of stunner. T’other’s Motram’s,’ the Brigadier said, using his torch to illuminate his point as its beam glanced off the car and four-by-four. ‘Should I call the police?’ the Brigadier demanded.

  ‘I can manage,’ said Nick, crunching off down a gravel path heading round the back, his military companion striding along behind him.

  At the kitchen window the Brigadier swept the room with his torch, cups and saucers left to dry on the sink’s draining board were waiting to be put away and nothing else seemed out of place. Using his walking stick the Brigadier lashed out, smashing a pane on the kitchen door.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ he mumbled in justification.

  ‘Wait here,’ Nick told him, his arm and hand inside searching for the key in the lock.

  ‘What d’ya mean?’

  ‘Remain outside,’ Nick ordered him, letting himself in. ‘I need the torch,’ he said from inside the door, and after a second’s hesitation the Brigadier reluctantly handed it over.

  Time moved in abstract pieces all around Nick as he swung the beam along a wide murky oak floored hallway, throwing open each door as he went. Relaxing the muscles in his throat, regulating his breathing Nick went into the drawing room, fetid air escaping when he cracked open the door. Staggering back he sucked for breath that wasn’t foul, capping his nose and mouth with his handkerchief before re-entering. Heavy jacquard curtains kept out the light turning it into a room of intense dark corners, Regency stripe wallpaper in red and black added to the oppressive atmosphere.