by R. J. Dillon
‘It’s going to happen, Nick, no problems,’ Ernst reassured him. ‘Jesus, you’re making me jumpy, have some coffee,’ he insisted.
‘Why don’t we pull Anja off the ferry berths to boost numbers by the vehicles?’ Nick said, his binoculars swinging up and down the square.
‘Hey, think some of the time, Nick, please. The Ferry is due any minute,’ Ernst said, shaking his head as he looked at Erika. It’d be no use trying to reason with Nick at this point, realised Ernst. He’d lived with this tension before when the final round of surveillance actually takes its toll, even with experienced guys ready to blow. On his radio an atmospheric hiss played up and down a scale all its own.
‘What time is the last sailing?’
‘This is the last sailing from Denmark,’ Ernst said, rolling his coffee around the walls of a thick mug.
‘The American will show,’ Erika said, conciliatory, trying to damp down Nick’s fuse, bring him back from the edge.
‘Does everyone know what we’re doing?’
‘Actually I tell everyone we’re here for a vacation,’ said Ernst. ‘Nick, listen to me please. Everything’s going to be fine. I told my boys and girls they could have it rough. They know they’re not here for the view. Isn’t that right?’ he asked Erika.
‘Sure, we’re not kids.’
Consoling himself Nick counted the cars in front of a hotel opposite, eight assorted makes including the camper and parked strategically nearby, a second-hand BMW four-by-four, containing Dominik.
‘Everyone knows the fallback?’ asked Nick.
‘Nick, please,’ cried Ernst in total exasperation.
‘I was only asking,’ said Nick, marking off reference points, dividing up the square into areas of risk and threat as snow careered down, see-sawing romantically on the town.
‘We may have a problem,’ said Ernst, cranking his head from his radio. ‘Markus reports that he’s already sighted opposition.’
‘That’s too early, not what was agreed,’ snapped Nick.
Holding up a hand, Ernst spoke rapidly into his mouthpiece then pressed to receive. ‘He thinks Moscow have people in place okay. They may be observing, they may be rogues.’
‘That’s wonderful, Ernst. How long have we been making sure this exchange was going to run to our schedule?’
‘A small problem, Nick, okay.’
‘No, Ernst, it’s a big problem. We’ve got uninvited guests out there and we don’t know whose side they’re on. Go find them, Ernst,’ insisted Nick. ‘Erika you reinforce the team in the camper.’
‘We’ve action, the ferry’s berthing,’ Ernst announced his radio chattering away. ‘Ten minutes before they roll off. I’ll take care of it,’ promised Ernst, spinning on Erika’s heels and heading for the door.
I should have asked Döbeln to quarantine the town thought Nick; passports required, a full ten-year history, positive vetting to get in or out, of course I should. Behind him Nick heard the door open, glanced over his shoulder and saw Jane come slowly to his side.
‘Things not going to plan?’ she asked, her voice low, strangely disinterested.
‘I’ll get over it,’ Nick answered, his attention elsewhere. ‘Where’s Teddy, Roly and Paul?’
‘Still squabbling over whether it’s us, the Americans or Germans who get first bite. I gave them my opinion,’ she said.
‘You always do,’ said Nick slipping out the card written in Latin, the one he’d taken from the side of Angie’s grave. ‘Meant to thank you,’ he added snapping the creased card down in front of Jane.
Without answering Jane lifted it, stared at it for a moment before passing it back to Nick. ‘I didn’t think you’d know it was me.’
‘I had my suspicions. You were always good at Latin.’
Years impersonating minutes, Jane’s regular breathing by his ear, her perfume running down losing its appeal and power. Cars with Danish plates were rumbling through the town off the ferry, Ursel and Anja supplying a running commentary when the first foot passengers appeared over the bridge. One chance and it’s going to be tonight or never.
‘A Citroën, red, two on board,’ Nick relayed Ursel’s words to the camper and BMW. ‘Do you receive? Should be coming over the bridge around now.’
‘The Citroën has company, all the way from the ferry. Mercedes, Danish plates, three passengers on board,’ Anja reported.
Distorted voices answered in relays, booming round the room in a wide echo. Gothic clock bells clanged in the church tower, timing Nick would never forget. The Citroën sped into the square throwing up sparks of snow from under its wheels, stopping behind the BMW, becoming its very own shadow as a large Mercedes fresh off the ferry drew up across the square.
‘Senior members of the opposition,’ Erika’s crackling voice said. ‘Definitely.’
Pulling slowly into the square came a rugged Jeep complete with tinted windows, Mitch Harney’s arrival creating another flurry of radio traffic piped into Nick’s ear. It also brought Blackmore, Hawick and Rossan into the room after hearing and seeing for themselves the scenes unfolding from the monitors feeding the action directly next door.
‘Must the Americans always be late?’ demanded Hawick, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders, tucking his scarf inside his thick lapels.
‘Do we know who’s going to be in bag?’ wondered Blackmore, already dressed it seemed for a brisk evening stroll. ‘Thought the exchange was low key?’
‘I think Nick may have other plans,’ said Jane remotely. For Nick, intently staring from the window an immediate answer didn’t seem pressing.
‘Positive ID from Ernst on the Citroën and no one moves until I say,’ said Nick into the radio.
‘I wouldn’t think anyone’s in a hurry,’ said Rossan, comfortable on a chair at the back of the room.
By the church bare branches waved and cavorted in quick rhythm set by the wind, but it wasn’t their dancing Nick noticed, but a plain clothes GRU officer climb out of the Citroën and take up station as he surveyed the square.
‘Time to go?’ Hawick and Blackmore asked in unison, and without waiting for a reply they were already on their way down to the square.
Sliding back the camper’s door Erika and Liesel signalled their pledge, their token of good faith by illuminating Perekop’s face with a flashlight. Nosing forward the Mercedes made a pass, its headlights yellow plumes showing up the spreading snow. Reversing past the camper, the driver of the Mercedes craned to look inside. Uncertain, one final decision, this the big one thought Nick. You make your mind up if everything’s legitimate, if I have kept my end of the bargain reasoned Nick, then you jump one way or the other.
‘He’s not sure,’ breathed Jane.
‘You okay?’ Rossan asked her.
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ she curtly demanded.
‘Twenty, thirty seconds and we are going to make the exchange,’ said Nick into the radio’s mouthpiece. ‘Everyone ready to go? Is that a yes, Ernst? Did I hear you confirm?’ Ernst approved and Nick swallowed. ‘Dominik, you confirm?’ And Dominik did.
Coming full circle the Mercedes drew up a good forty metres short of the camper. Out of the house crossing the square slowly, Blackmore following Hawick. Nick had a stomach cramp as he watched for any signs of a problem, his thoughts running so fast they smeared and caught hold of each other. Snow blanking out the windscreens of cars parked in the square. Idling, its exhaust billowing in the icy air, the Mercedes stood ready in position so its rear seat passengers would have a grandstand view as their disgraced officers made an undignified run for home.
‘Let’s go everyone,’ said Nick, ushering Jane and Rossan out of the door.
In the square an agreed routine saw Perekop escorted from the camper by Markus, Freja, Liesel and Erika, their warm breaths punching holes in the minus air. None of them carrying bags and suitcases bearing gifts, but a hope that they would be received warmly on what was after all, Christmas Eve. Then out of the Jeep climbed Mitch Harney, ho
lding open the rear door as Colonel Evgeni Kasimov stepped neatly out into the snow, the ‘main man’ as Tolz described him.
With Nick’s chips clearly piled high on the table, it became as Rossan would later describe a tense second and a half as the Moscow contingent made their minds up if they were going to play or cry broke. To Rossan’s sheer relief as well as Ernst and his team, the rear door of the Citroën swung open and Irina Kralovic, better known to them by her workname of Elsa De-Beyer levered herself out.
‘Nick what have you done?’ said Jane, her voice alarmed, her hand touching his, her skin freezing as they took a slow diagonal route across the square.
Striding into position Mitch took the front with Kasimov dutifully at his side, a one man American delegation. A metre remaining to be covered between the two opposing teams as Irina walked forwards by herself, perhaps out of disgrace, and she seemed to be searching about her for a familiar face. Kasimov on the other hand had a tough spring to his steps, his eyes level and set, never varying his gaze from straight ahead as though off to war. On their walk from the camper Markus and Erika flanked Perekop, and as they neared the Mercedes, a rear door was flung open. A large thin figure in the rear of the car twisted to gain a better look, maximising his position to add his own form of humiliation and displeasure to the returning GRU officers.
Snowflakes stuck to Nick’s face, clung to his hair as he scanned the square a sense of fulfilment slowly rising.
‘It’s a trap,’ screamed Jane in Russian, darting towards the Mercedes.
Nick on her heels dived in a rugby tackle bringing her down. Screaming Jane’s name, Irina Kralovic’s face disappeared as a high velocity round struck her. Dropping in a heap her knees hit the hard snow, splaying out and buckling as the rest of her bounced, unfolded in a bundle.
Noise from a dream seemed trapped in Nick’s head; slow, slurred, a high-pitched scream, a record played on the wrong speed. A second shot cracked, then a third as Nick lost his grip on Jane. The severe kick in his back jerked him forwards. Nick locked in a capsule of pain and sound containing the Mercedes engine racing, more yells and screams all at a volume he couldn’t control. He tried lifting himself and did. He crouched and saw the Mercedes door slam closed as it sped off without Kasimov, Perekop or their London asset.
A serious bruise was growing in Nick’s back from a vengeful kick, delivered by Jane as she viciously set about him. Punches and desperate slaps delivered as she screamed and spat at him for being a bastard. ‘Why?’ she yelled her fists aimed in tight swings at Nick’s head. It took Rossan a good half a minute to haul Stratton off and he had to accept the help of Erika, Liesel and Ernst to restrain her.
‘Why Nick, why Irina?’ Jane demanded the snow clinging to her hair.
‘A means to an end,’ Nick said staring straight into her eyes. ‘The same as Angie was.’
‘I had no say in it,’ she screamed.
‘But you knew about Lister and Parfrey,’ Nick retorted angrily. ‘You exploited Parfrey and she unwittingly gave you Lubov. Parfrey even sacrificed herself because she thought you loved her.’
‘I had no choice, Nick, believe me, no choice,’ she shouted.
‘Everyone has a choice,’ Nick raged. ‘You let them murder Angie and you let them murder Juris Valgos, you even planted his phone in my house for them. Everything you did was to save your own skin,’ he shouted turning his back.
When they’d led Stratton away with her hands tightly cuffed, Nick kicked out at a pile of heaped snow. Forgive me Angie, but I had to make sure that you did not die in vain. Around him blue lights appearing as Harney, Rossan and Döbeln supervised the packing away of the Russian dead; Stratton’s lover and handler Irina, Kasimov and Sabine’s hated Perekop. In the melee and confusion no one paid much attention to two figures working their way through the trees by the church, walking quite calmly towards a reserve car where Erika waited to spirit Danny and Ignaz away, their weapons broken down, carried in neat blue holdalls.
• • •
Nick spent the days after Jane Stratton’s arrest at his Devon sanctuary slowly healing his mind and body in his beloved retreat. As part of Nick’s slow recovery he completely gutted the cottage, removing all traces of Angie and Stratton. Everything that held memories went into a skip, as Nick merciless in his own final act of cleansing undertook a redesign of the interior, his personal suture; books, rugs, furniture and paintings discarded without a second look. Replacing them with a style he could honestly call his own; furniture and fittings, all antiques to go with renovated bare floorboards and simple rugs, a sofa and chairs to curl up on and forget you’re alone. To lessen what Angie’s interior designer friends would have called the chromic diffusion between tint and shade, what Nick knew to be bare emulsion walls, he hung original photographs and paintings themed on the sea. He added a modest oak kitchen while he was in the mood for change, with upstairs treated to a bathroom half panelled and tiled, and his bedroom refreshed with a double bed that he did not intend to share with anyone ever again.
Nick knew that he would never be allowed anything so close to total closure from the events that he had set in motion, beginning with the attempted extraction of Lubov from Moscow. He realised that eventually there would be something to shatter the spell of normality and return him to the world of dirty work, which occurred one midweek afternoon. Nick had fallen asleep stretched on the sofa, a copy of Joyce’s Dubliners slipped and creased on the floor, in the corner the television silently played some inane repeat. Stumbling awake at the car’s crunching on the gravel, Nick reached the door before Blackmore could knock.
‘Hey ho, the bloody hermit is in,’ declared Blackmore his voice wound high, demanding that Nick get his coat right away for Roly had an urgent desire to take in the sea air, repeating the demand as though to a child. So off they set into a splendid crisp afternoon, enjoying the lazy sun until the long-off dusk came in its place.
‘Can’t hide away down here for ruddy ever, you know,’ Blackmore said, admiring the view over the Channel from a headland path.
‘I’m not hiding, I’m suspended pending an official review and inquiry.’
‘Bloody Teddy, everyone including C has tried to persuade him that demanding your retirement is not on, but he’s adamant. You assaulted him and he’s determined to have his revenge.’
‘He also has it on record that I sanctioned deadly force to settle a personal vendetta. Hawick won’t let up until I’m out of the Service.’
‘With what you’ve achieved, that’s not going to ruddy happen. Danny sends his regards by the way, he’s back on duty, returned to the fold, Paul and I made sure of it.’
‘Thanks.’
‘At least we haven’t had to rip the fabric of the buildings apart, not like the old days, now it’s just the systems. Millions so I’m told, just to ruddy purge all our IT, Whitehall’s, Uncle Tom Cobley and his brother’s, and then start all over again. Downing Street will whinge and complain but they won’t even receive the actual figure, just something to keep them happy. Galgate’s been quite helpful on the system side of things, put his talents to use for us for a change, might even get him a couple of years knocked off his sentence for good behaviour. More than can be said for our beloved darling Jane.’
‘They broken her yet?’
‘Not a ruddy chance. Jane Francis Stratton’s playing games, a piece here a piece there.’
‘How’s she taken it?’
‘Wonderful, how do you think? She’s full of bravado, spite and malevolence of course. Keeps telling us that we can lock her up and throw away the key now that she’s lost her one true lover Irina. Other than making us wait for a titbit here, a morsel there, not a meaningful tweet,’ confirmed Blackmore, striding off.
‘So what have you got?’
‘We know thanks to your fine work, that she met and fell for Irina when she was posted to Johannesburg, identifying and analysing the Soviet threat in Africa. But our Jane Francis Stratton became disillusioned an
d had her head and heart turned by Irina passing herself off as a South African freelance journalist and photographer. Irina has been her lover, mentor and handler ever since,’ said Blackmore, refusing to look at Nick, his eyes fixed remotely down.
‘She gave them the Minotaur Network in Latvia, didn’t she?’ said Nick walking on, aware that she’d more or less destroyed years of work and the lives that went with it.
‘That, she said, was part of her strict ideological phase,’ Roly explained, standing back out of range for he feared Nick was ready to express his rage.
‘What phase was Angie, ask her that?’
‘Of course you’re bound to feel bloody angry Nick, it’s natural.’
‘I should have seen through her act.’
‘You should be satisfied with what you’ve achieved, feel good for a change,’ said Blackmore trying to sound upbeat himself. ‘We’re just the ruddy travellers in this life who sometimes find ourselves going in the wrong soddin’ direction, that’s all. We all should have spotted her rotten core.’
‘That it, Roly, we all just get back into our normal routine?’
‘World’s not a safe place any more, Nicholas, don’t believe any sod who tells you otherwise.’
‘She wasn’t the only one, you know that.’
‘Oh, I reckon that Moscow must have planted others, maybe probably some who are far more important than our Jane Francis Stratton. The Chief’s had a new broom to all floors, your little outpost too, found nothing but officers long past their sell by date. Everyone’s been treble-checked, so we can claim to all concerned that we’ve had a bloody thorough spring clean, humans and systems.’
‘It’s come at a price though hasn’t it Roly?’ retorted Nick, turning for home.
‘And you’ve ruddy paid in full,’ declared Blackmore, slapping Nick on the shoulder.
Yes I have, decided Nick, I’m the silly bastard who’s walking home to a life without Angie. Bringing up his collar, he shoved his hands into his pockets and trudged off at Blackmore’s side.