The Oktober Projekt

by R. J. Dillon

  ‘You weren’t meant to, no one was,’ explained Nick. ‘Anything special about the house, Jack, anything you noted?’

  Balgrey, for once not playing for time actually had to think, his pudgy face grimaced in concentration as he went over the interior in his mind. Pulling together an inventory of each room, he considered what up to then he had taken for the mundane, seeing everything in an entirely fresh perspective. ‘It always reeked like a cosmetic counter,’ he ventured slowly, ‘odd now I come to think of it.’

  ‘What else, come on,’ Nick encouraged him.

  ‘Anything, old son, anything?’ Balgrey wondered, not sure what Nick wanted.

  ‘Anything out of the ordinary, anything that caught your eye.’

  ‘Difficult to say old son, one safe house is just like another, except…’ Here Balgrey perhaps recognised for the first time what Nick was striving to find; the anomaly that betrays the over confident, the ordinary that when read differently yields the extraordinary. ‘The main room seemed too personal, little objects, more like souvenirs really, dotted around.’

  ‘Where from? Can you remember Jack?’ Nick asked with an intensity and passion in his voice that was both threatening and fearful all at once.

  ‘Not all of ‘em, old son, think there was stuff from Nairobi, Stockholm, Washington and London, which I didn’t think was what your average Ukrainian General would class as important.’

  He wouldn’t thought Nick, it was only someone reaffirming a shared bond, a commitment to times they had spent together. ‘I need your comms room,’ Nick insisted, his mood now determined.

  ‘Whatever you say, old son, lead and I shall follow.’

  Which is exactly what Nick opted to do. In Jack’s communication room Nick transmitted the name of Elsa De-Beyer on the secure Arramis system to the CO8 duty officer, classed a priority and for the immediate attention of Rossan alone, requesting a name check on passports and visas beginning with the South African connection. He then drafted a separate cipher for Rossan again, classification Ultra, that asked for verification on the details he wanted clarifying regarding SIS worknames and postings matching Nairobi, Stockholm, Washington and London. When Nick had finished, Jack with a growing sense of relief showed him out.

  ‘Is that it? All you want? Free to go, old son am I, forget you’ve ever seen me. Let a failure get back to his wife?’

  ‘For tonight.’ Nick held out his hand, and Balgrey came forward to take it. Instead of reconciliation, Nick slammed him against a doorpost. Unable to move, Balgrey winced as Nick’s face came within an inch of his own. ‘Our arrangement is private Jack,’ Nick said. ‘You don’t need to discuss our joint operation with anyone.’

  Wistfully nodding, Balgrey hung his head and shuffled along towards his car.

  Twenty-One

  Suspicious Minds

  Hamburg, December

  The girl wore her golden plaits like campaign medals as she strode purposely up Hamburg’s Neuer Wall. Not displayed on her chest but falling evenly down her long back, over a velvet collar on a Sunday coat, a coat old fashioned in its cut, held by a row of double buttons and gathered round her tapering waist. It reminded Nick of the coats worn by his aunt and her sisters, refugees on painful photographs; a whole family album of them documenting his mother’s family exodus across Europe. Now of course like so many contemporary phases of fashion, retro was ‘seriously in’ though there were some things from the past better left undisturbed. In front of Nick the girl walked with assurance, her route predetermined while he had nothing to occupy him except keeping her in sight.

  Nick kept his steps brisk and short beneath the hooped splendour of festive lights as Hamburg began to prepare for the night. Demurely, her held high and proud, the girl wove through warps of women laden with children and bags. You follow Rosa, everything’s prepared, Harry had promised Nick. To hell and back if it proves Lubov correct vowed Nick, though he only had to go as far as the Wilhelmsburg district. In some major cities there are certain areas, perhaps consisting of a street or two, where the fieldman instinctively adjusts to a change of atmosphere; a menace in the air, a sense of knowing that somehow you have crossed into unknown and unfriendly territory. And Nick had that now, trailing right after Rosa into a café rooted right under a Second World War concrete flak tower that guarded nothing more strategic than a children’s playground. Picking her seat with deep concentration, Rosa stared out across marble-topped tables as dull as headstones.

  No eye contact Harry had said, let Rosa make the moves; only she has gone to sleep, she has forgotten Nick thought, trying to catch her wilful gaze. Decorating the walls were patchy relics of circus life. Posters from a different age were framed big and small, along with tickets, a whip, and suspended from the high 1930s ceiling, a trapeze the owner had once spectacularly performed on. As Harry predicted, Rosa ordered a coffee. ‘When she has finished Nick, she will ask you if you have a pen she can borrow. She will accept your pen and tell you a destination.’

  Except none of what Harry promised actually happened. In the middle of ordering his own drink, Nick watched as the whole performance went to pieces. A waiter crisp with authority, a starched towel across his forearm, bent to Rosa, spoke then fell back smartly. Holding his cheek, he yelled and swore as Rosa stood to aim another slap with her open hand. A couple of regulars sat immobile as the screams reached full pitch. The table upended, scattering the cup and menu. More staff appeared, the trapeze swinging furiously as they passed.

  In the melee a heavy hand pulled Nick sideways, dragging him away through empty tables into the kitchen. A precaution, a thin boy in chef’s whites assured him. Nick dug in his heels. From what? From who? From those following you sent by Moscow, the thin boy answered as Nick was tugged roughly by the arm; out into the cold evening air that pushed frantically into his face. Into the back of a Renault box van; nudged forcefully from behind Nick struck his head on a door pillar and instinctively felt for blood. Thrown head over heels as the van drew sharply away, Nick lay perfectly still amongst a collection of laundry sacks.

  Stabs of orange light came in quick succession through the van’s rear window, prison bars of amber flashing on his outstretched legs. Moscow all over again, Nick thought. Cold off the floor seeped through his coat and Nick slapped a couple of laundry sacks into shape forming makeshift cushions and began to replay key segments of Moscow’s cunning strategy. A moment of quiet reflection before the madness began. After his meeting with Balgrey, Nick had kept his own counsel, preferring his own dour company as he waited Rossan’s response. Moving between hotels, never staying longer than one night, Nick always paid cash in advance acutely aware that he had made himself a prime target. Leaving himself an exit, planning a route, he experienced once more some of the urgency he had known in his early days in the field. Now a different nervousness gripped him, a state of heightened anticipation and clarity, as well as the depression. Unshaven, eating only when he had to, when the weakness threatened to keel him over, he had become a creature of preparation. Long hours only punctured by the waiting.

  As he lay there atop the laundry sacks, Nick had a sensation of it all being a dream, of having no real concept of how it all had begun, or why so many had perished as he followed Lubov’s trail for the treasure. If he’d also demanded of himself a truthful assessment of whether he’d succeed, his answer would have to be that he couldn’t be sure. There were too many unknown factors in the equation. Had Rossan actually succeeded in carrying out Nick’s bidding, had he matched the souvenirs from the Puttgarden house with a face? Had the offer of opening a parley with Moscow been rejected? Asking himself a further rhetorical question of how much could go catastrophically wrong? Nick again had to answer – plenty, reminding himself that Rossan had not only Moscow to convince. And if Rossan… But Nick didn’t want to dwell on that particular ‘and if’.

  But waiting had always been an occupational hazard that stunned the liveliest senses, so that months and years seemed to have passed af
ter Nick and Foula had set out for Moscow. Since then Moscow’s main asset had always been a step ahead, and Nick sorely wanted an answer as to why someone would allow innocent people to die to protect their treachery. Right now, he wanted that answer more than ever.

  The van pulled up sharply flinging him into the partition behind the front seats. Cold air swam into the back and the driver’s voice insisted he didn’t move. Edging up to the back windows he pushed his face tight into the corner, giving himself a broad view through the glass, watching as the front passenger set off alone. On each corner of the market square four braziers caged in roaring flames, seasoned wood spitting in the heat, black tails of smoke corkscrewing over red roofs and families in small groups, chocolate for the children, plum brandy for the parents. Nick’s eyes wandered through them, a stranger come to steal their joy. Pulled open with a dry rusty cry the back doors brought in a handful of sleet, a familiar greeting and Danny Redman dressed in black.

  ‘From Rossan,’ Danny said, passing across a thin envelope as the van set off.

  As Nick reached forward for Rossan’s response, Danny saw his fingers hesitate for the briefest of seconds before he snatched the envelope off him, ripping open the flap as though an inner-turmoil, a craving, consumed him. Nick, his head dipped low, read the single sheet of A4 paper in the murky van’s light, grunted at the end of the page then scanned it again more quickly; nothing coded just all the facts presented clear – dates, locations and a name. When he’d finished Nick tucked the paper and envelope into an inside pocket; his eyes noted Danny, were ferocious, his mood dark, murderous even; staring so intently, that Danny later swore that Nick could see right through him and the side of the van.

  ‘Rossan also said to say that we’re on,’ added Danny, though because of his mood, Nick might never have heard him.

  Twenty-Two

  The Point of No Return

  Fehmarn, December

  End of the line, full circle reached and Nick was at the point of no return as his team of irregulars took up their positions on the island of Fehmarn. He snatched at his parka hood, losing a running skirmish with the freezing Baltic gusts storming in off the sea. This is it here and now, this is where he finally laid the ghosts to rest: Angie, Sabine, Lubov, Wynn, Lister, Parfrey and God forgive them Nick thought, all the others who the London traitor had condemned to death over the years. He swung away and glanced off to his right, not bothering to look up at the house’s windows facing Puttgarden’s small square. He knew he had an audience tracing his every step; standing there with all the lights off Hawick, Blackmore and Stratton with Rossan holding their coat-tails, come as official observers for a joint operation.

  What operation they had demanded? The culmination of a Langley led adventure Bailrigg had explained, in a thoroughly bad temper when he briefed them collectively the day before. Something Langley had simmering for a while when it unexpectedly came to the boil, but Harney had overstretched his resources. So, he’s had to go cap in hand asking for assistance which means Cologne have cleared the way and Torr and some freelancers are making up the numbers, coordinating the final stages Bailrigg announced as though it deeply pained him. Exactly who or what Harney had landed Bailrigg kept vague, stressing that with Washington, London and Berlin holding hands on the outcome of what had been touted as a high-value catch, he wanted them present to make sure the Service wasn’t palmed off with the left-over scraps.

  So the London observers had taken their positions in the house, a fine old property bordering the square its roof pitched unevenly towards the street, its bright shutters pinned back against white rendered walls. Smeared by sand urged off the shore by the Baltic, its windows were coated in a fine brown film giving the square an old world tint. A seasonal residence belonging to a senior civil servant from Berlin that Döbeln had secured for the operation; which Nick and his tireless team had worked solidly without a break to prepare it for the forthcoming show.

  Upstairs in one of the bedrooms Ernst had set up an airband receiver and sundry equipment on a dressing table lovingly treated to furniture wax. ‘Basic, but fine, enough for our needs for sure,’ Ernst had assured Nick, checking the equipment the previous afternoon. Danny hoped it would also be enough, because in Nick’s absence he had been delegated second in command and part of his duties including briefing the senior officers from London. Which he had done, by firstly standing with Jane as they watched Nick circle the square and disappear.

  ‘Nick his usual self?’ Jane asked casually, turning from the window her sharp eyes locked on Danny.

  ‘When isn’t he stressed or concerned about an operation,’ Danny admitted. ‘Everything’s up in the air. Organising this firewall around the joint reception party has been manic. Too many cooks and all that.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Jane hadn’t taken her eyes off Danny. ‘Do we know what sort of deal Harney has brokered?’

  ‘Something Harney has cooked up with us and Cologne stirring the pot,’ said Danny, following Nick’s script to the letter, though with the amount of culinary references it ought to be have been a recipe he decided. ‘Nick’s handling the reception and he’s keeping everything close to his chest.’

  ‘He would,’ agreed Jane.

  And Danny had used the same script for Hawick and Blackmore without deviation or variation, delivering his lines without so much as a hiccup. After that, to all casual observers, Danny disappeared from the stage, so too did Ernst’s very serious young man, Ignaz.

  Now, with their teams split between the square and the ferry terminal, Nick and Ernst did one final check and returned to the house with nothing before them but the night. A sullen moon had slipped behind heavy cloud and the darkness glowered over Puttgarden in a threat. Hostile and dirty it had crawled across the frozen plain seeking them out; it’s the night making fools of us thought Nick, come all the way from Moscow for its revenge. Nearby a dog barked out a lonely call that ran through the square as Ernst once more monitoring the airwaves, called out the time; Nick noting the taught voice, feeling the same tightness in his own throat. Outside a lively wind picked at the mounds of hard snow, kicking specks of white into the air where they shone for a few seconds and went out.

  On a tall stool borrowed from the kitchen Nick sat by the window, a group of kids wandering across his view obscuring a Volkswagen camper, three boys and a girl joking and playing about, pushing and jostling their way to a corner of the square. The exchange is not going to happen Nick panicked in a wild moment of doubt, the waiting, the suffering, the dead along the way, all would be for nothing, a useless epitaph for failure. For Nick felt nothing of triumph or achievement, merely the empty longing of someone who has had a glimpse of the future and can only helplessly watch it vanish. A big new estate laboured through the frozen streets before pulling over for the kids to climb in. Twisting to follow the red tail lights, he thought it’s all been called off and we’re the last to know, Moscow has broken its end of the deal. He turned to the camper again in the middle of the square where it sat at rest in a stark crater of light. Sitting up front was Markus; his hands on the wheel, clearly visible from a distance, while lying on the floor in the back Freja and Liesel had their weapons trained on Sergei Perekop.

  ‘Everything okay?’ asked Nick at the window as Erika walked in, and down in the square Lukas trailed off out of sight. ‘Where’s Rossan?’

  ‘Having a conference next door with the three seniors. Not to be disturbed, all of them deciding on procedure.’

  ‘Good,’ said Nick.

  Around Nick a haphazard stock of equipment stacked in no necessary order, a covert intelligence team’s wares packed for a busy night’s work. Radios and receivers, tool rolls and hard cases holding electronic devices, binoculars, night scopes; all the assistance specialists would require for the covert surveillance of an exchange. Was this how other great losers down the centuries had sat and fretted before a battle? Croesus, Harold, Richard III, all of them camped close to the battlefield which in a matte
r of hours would be the scene of their destruction and humiliation. Watching, waiting, hearing distant sounds of the enemy and seeing the flames from their campfires and the bark from their dogs of war. Did they also put on a smile and a mask of courage as they tried to conquer their own inadequacy and fear? he wondered as Ernst joined him, chatting to his boys and girls in the square and the ferry berths on his radio.

  ‘Why’s Harney so late?’ Nick asked no one in particular, panning a night scope along the road remorselessly flowing on and up from Hamburg on the E47, through Heiligenhafen to this skinny island peninsula where it dribbled into the sea. Ernst pacing behind him, the king of the airwaves, everyone’s friend of all time, Ernst and the wonders of modern technology.

  Nick let his mind drift following the crying wind as it plucked at mounds of hard snow, flicking specks through pyramids of light shining from the street lamps. In this mood Nick reminded himself that he was doing this out of duty for his country; that he agreed with Orwell on the concept of patriotism as being devoted to a nation, and its way of life rather that nationalism that was utterly divisive. And if that was too deep, too patriotic, Nick would have provided a popular analogy, that all his life he had refused to cross to the dark side because he despised what it offered, what it turned individuals into.

  ‘Coffee?’ asked Ernst. Not getting an answer, he poured boiling water over granules in three mugs.

  Watching wind and snow was a tiresome game, a countdown to destruction or humiliation that didn’t improve Nick’s inner gloom, less so when movement caught his eye. A figure crouched into a low run moving so fast it could have been mistaken for a shadow. Then it was no more, swallowed by a thick group of sturdy elder trees swaying and bowing by a Protestant church monopolising the town and square, easily outgrowing the trees with its steep straight corners and a high box tower.