Some pins remained in Joanna’s hair, the ones that had fastened the wig. I took a hairpin and pocketed it. I touched my lips to her frozen cheek because that was what I wanted to remember doing. A unique intelligence had gone from the world, a dangerous, discontented one that involved some knowledge of me, and that was gone too. I didn’t want to leave her here. I thought of people I had encountered in Abkhazia, exiles from a flurry of war who had dug up the corpses of their relatives to bring with them, all shrouded in tarpaulin on the back of a pickup truck. Who was going to collect Joanna Lake? Not Vectis. The embassy, perhaps. I imagined her loaded onto a plane, unloaded tactfully on British soil. A spy’s repatriation: anonymous, unmourned.
I returned to the half-excavated Chevy, retrieved the laptop. It was the one I’d seen her use on the mall CCTV. The battery was dead. I looked around, thought of her last minutes here. Terrified? Surprised by an incongruous euphoria? Still fighting, I thought. Where was she trying to get to?
I pointed towards the abandoned farm buildings at the back.
‘Anyone there?’
The caretaker shook his head. Then a thought occurred to him. I saw his sunken eyes come to life. He said something about ambulances.
‘Ambulances came?’ I tried both Russian and Kazakh. He lifted a hand as if to say ‘Wait’, went into the mosque and returned a moment later with a torch. He guided me towards the farm.
Blades of abandoned threshing machines lay around – dismembered combines, tractors. An air of desolation hung over the place. We went through to a long, breeze-block shelter, with rusted doors sealing it shut. The chain that had sealed them lay on the floor. The caretaker gestured for me to help him pull the doors open, and they scraped over the concrete.
The darkness inside was undiluted. He clicked a torch and pointed it. Hessian bags, more rusted metal, a stained floor. Then, in the furthest corner, a pile of medical kit: stretchers, a wheelchair, a drip stand, dressing pads, boxes of latex gloves.
There had been an ambulance here. It had been stripped; even the seats had been ripped out. There were also approximately forty canisters of petrol lying in a pile. The petrol would have been transferred to breakable containers, probably mixed with nails or other shrapnel. I estimated the volume of an ambulance as around 400 cubic feet, which would hold a horrific amount of explosive power.
My phone rang as I ran back to the stolen Honda. Number withheld. I answered.
‘Elliot, this is Suzanna Ford. We understand the various complexities of your situation. Right now we’re focused on preventing this attack. I’m sure that’s your priority too.’
I got in the car, started the engine.
‘He’s using an ambulance,’ I said. ‘That’s all I know. What resources do you have to stop it?’
‘I’ve got a four-man team here. We’re equipped.’
‘That’s not going to do it. Track me.’
‘Elliot—’
I called the number on Cherenkov’s business card. He answered.
‘I have what you want,’ I said. ‘We need to be quick.’
FIFTY-THREE
He told me to head straight to the Russian embassy. I was stopped 10 metres before the gates by three men in Russian military uniform, one with a pistol drawn. Joanna’s laptop was taken, along with my phone. I was patted down, steered down a driveway, pushed into the building.
Embassy stucco, pastel walls, pictures of Putin. Cherenkov sat in a reception room with oil paintings of forests, a prissy suite of antique furniture and one incongruous computer. He welcomed me without taking his eyes from the screen. He looked unslept but smarter than usual, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, absorbed in clicking his mouse. He turned the monitor towards me. It contained multiple images: more CGI versions of the room in the Triumph of Astana; me and Serik Ten; then me, Joanna and Serik Ten. Then low-quality images from other locations: my body on the ground with a spread of blood across my shirt; Joanna hanging from a belt in a toilet cubicle. Me and Joanna unconscious in the front seats of an SUV.
‘Sit down.’
‘Where’s Stefan?’
‘He’s fine. He gave us this. I thought you might want to see.’
‘We’ve got minutes before another attack. It’s vehicle-borne, using a stolen ambulance. Target’s Independence Square, I reckon.’
Cherenkov took a second to digest this, then relayed instructions to the men around him: communication channels to open, combat preparations to initiate. The guard showed him Joanna’s laptop and Cherenkov nodded. It was passed to a second man, a technical specialist of some kind in civilian clothes who took it out of sight.
Door locked. Just the two of us. A well-upholstered interrogation room.
‘Perfect Vision’s a large-scale psychological operation, set up to hit back at Russia,’ I said. ‘Developed by MI6 after you invaded Ukraine. The idea’s to inflame issues between you and your allies, China in particular. Kazakhstan’s being used for that.’
Cherenkov absorbed this information expressionlessly.
‘And the oilfield? How long have they known about Conqueror?’
‘There is no Conqueror. No oil. Just an attempt to get Russia muscling into Kazakhstan, to set China on the defensive, introduce a crack in that special relationship. Get Russia mired in Central Asia again, distracted from the Middle East, discredited among the ‘Stans. My theory is that it wasn’t originally intended to go this far. What started as an attempt to sow discord gathered a momentum of its own. Some people were wise enough to try and close it down, but there’s no monopoly on starting wars any more. When the British government got cold feet it just got moved into the hands of people with more resources. A lot of people left MI6 around that time. Vectis soaked them up. Robert Carter and his billions kept the operation afloat.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m proof that it’s real. You know what my presence means. You know my history. I suspect they kept all this from Joanna. She got uneasy about what was going on. She would have known she wasn’t being given full access to the scheme, so she used Ruslan Batur to hack in. Then she saw clips of me. Tried to save my life, and paid the price.’
‘You really don’t think she knew?’
‘No.’
‘I have to say, you played your part well.’
‘Ruslan Batur was shot by GL5. They would have shot her too but she escaped. The files she saw also contained information about a planned attack, the final straw that forces Russia’s hand. She almost got to the explosives.’
‘And the attacker’s using an ambulance?’
‘Yes. Loaded with two tons of plastic explosives. He’s probably on the move now.’
A guard returned, spoke to Cherenkov; he showed him a laptop with a satellite image of Astana. Cherenkov instructed him to bring up a connection with Moscow and got to his feet.
‘There’s one other thing you should know,’ I said.
‘What?’
I hesitated.
‘MI6 have been running a top-level agent in the GRU for six or seven years. The codename’s MADRIGAL. Rumours are that it’s Vladislav Vishinsky himself. I don’t have proof of that, but Vishinsky met Callum Walker in Moscow in 2005.’ I improvised. ‘This agent’s valuable enough to Six that they refuse to close him down. He’s protected. I thought you should know, in case it makes what happens now more complicated for you.’
‘Vladislav Vishinsky?’
‘Or someone in an equivalent position.’
‘There’s no one in an equivalent position.’ Cherenkov stared at me. ‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know what to believe any more.’
‘Stay here.’ He called the guard back to watch over me. We were sitting there, admiring Putin, when I heard a commotion; voices at the front, some speaking English. My guard hesitated, drew his weapon and went to look.
I followed.
About twenty GL5 contractors blocked the road in front of the embassy. The men wore helmet
s, draped in webbing and pouched vests, AKs and MP5s at the ready. Cherenkov was in heated discussion with their team leader, voices raised. The British-accented GL5 boss seemed to be saying that it wasn’t safe, the Russians should stay inside. That wasn’t going down well. No one stopped me getting close enough to hear.
‘You have no jurisdiction,’ Cherenkov said. But nor did he. It was quite a stand-off. Then Walker appeared.
He climbed out of an armoured SUV, moved through the GL5 officers, pistol in his right hand. He approached me cautiously, as if I was the one who was armed. ‘Come on, Elliot. Let’s go.’ When he was a couple of feet away he lowered his voice. ‘This was what she wanted, what she spent years building.’ And, when he was even closer: ‘I tried to keep you out of it.’
I leaned in and whispered, ‘Thank you.’
Then I drove the base of my right palm into his face so that the cartilage of his nose crumpled. He began to fall. I gripped his wrist and unhooked the gun from his fingers, pulling him up by his thin hair and ramming the barrel of the Browning into the side of his skull. Blood streamed down into his mouth and he spluttered. His hired backup froze, staring. I turned to Cherenkov.
‘Go,’ I said. ‘Do it.’
But it was too late. More trouble pulled up with a screech: a crew of ten British SAS in two Land Rovers. They jumped out, taking up combat stance. Suzanna Ford appeared from among them. She saw me and Walker.
‘Elliot. We can take him off your hands.’
‘Please do.’
Ford gestured to her men. They approached, one eye on the Russians, one on the GL5 contractors, and grabbed hold of Walker. Then, before I knew what was happening, Cherenkov had bundled me into a car and it was already moving, a glimpse of Suzanna Ford in the mirrors giving chase, yelling for him to stop before running back to her own team.
FIFTY-FOUR
I was in an armoured Mitsubishi Outlander filled with military communications systems, a compact signals intelligence suite and four Russian special forces officers dressed in civilian clothes but operation-ready. I saw a couple of AK-12 assault rifles, stun grenades, respirator kits and a sniper rifle. There were headsets and a blocky laptop monitor. They had the special forces habit of looking as unlike soldiers as possible. The driver was unshaven, gloved hands on the wheel, earpiece in. Beside him sat a malign-looking figure with a ponytail and webbed body armour over a denim jacket. The sniper sat behind mirror shades in the back beside a signals operator with a tactical data link system, involving a headset, mic and two screens on a portable box. It looked like they had a quad drone up.
Cherenkov briefed them on the situation. He brought up a feed on the laptop.
‘Know if the bomb involves chemicals?’ he asked me. ‘Gases? Radioactive materials?’
‘I don’t know. Try not to cause panic over the radio; we need to keep the streets clear. Have you got access to Emergency Command?’
‘Possibly.’
We headed into the centre. Cherenkov had a live feed of the square: it was packed edge to edge with people. They were still pouring in, holding candles and posters. The man who was working the data link touched his ear piece, checked the laptop screen, said:
‘Look at that.’
He prodded the screen. The roof markings made it conspicuous from the air: one ambulance, heading north. It was ten minutes from us and less than half a mile from the square.
‘It has its lights on, moving fast.’
‘We’ve got about four minutes,’ I said. The Mitsubishi accelerated. I checked the map again.
‘He’s going to circle and come from the east,’ I said. ‘That gives him the longest run-up. Either Akhmet or Jumeken. There’s no obstacles on either. He’ll get up to ninety miles per hour. We need to reach him before that.’
The driver muttered curses in Russian. Radios crackled. Moscow wanted to know what was going on. Cherenkov was struggling with his Kazakh counterparts.
‘Yes, I am FSB. Russia. The situation is live … ’
‘It’s already inside most security checks,’ the signals operator said. ‘I don’t see any further blocks between it and the square, until you get to the guards around the square itself.’
‘What defences do they have?’ I asked.
‘Crowd-control barriers. They wouldn’t stop a push bike.’
We tore down the deserted streets, Cherenkov desperately trying to radio various Kazakh commanders, but it was clear he didn’t have the authority to get his message taken seriously.
‘Evacuate the square,’ the driver said.
‘You’d need to evacuate more than half a kilometre,’ I said. ‘People will go straight towards the ambulance. They’ll block the road.’
‘He’s just crossing the M-36 into the centre,’ the man with the satellite feed said. ‘It’s at Sarayshyq Street.’
‘Get them to close the street down.’
After another minute of frustration Cherenkov took the phone from his ear and swore.
‘I can’t establish the chain of command,’ he said. ‘We’re on our own.’
‘Target now on Alash Highway.’
‘We can cut him off on Respublika,’ I said. It was an optimistic, high-risk suggestion. The driver checked his map, swung the car to the right.
The city centre had emptied entirely. The PA system from the memorial service echoed across its streets. We were conspicuous. Four Kazakh troops, heavily armed, waved us down. We ignored them. They released safety catches, caught a glimpse of us and became uneasy. We all exhaled when we we’d gone past without shots fired.
Then the ambulance appeared ahead.
‘There it is.’
There was a silence, save for the clicking of three safety catches.
‘Go easy,’ Cherenkov said.
‘How easy?’
We narrowed the gap between us. Either of the next two turns could take him to the square. I could see the crowd through gaps in the buildings. The street tightened ahead. I thought we could block him at least, but we’d have to move fast.
‘Don’t panic him.’
‘He’s stopped.’
‘Shit.’
‘They’ve stopped him.’
I tried to see what was going on. There were barriers in front of the ambulance, blue uniforms: a checkpoint of some kind. The ambulance’s sirens blared, its lights making the scene pulse. Cherenkov got on the radio and tried to ascertain if the Kazakh soldiers ahead knew who they’d stopped.
Our driver twisted in his seat, staring through the back window.
‘We’re blocked,’ he said.
The Kazakh troops had tailed us and now parked two armoured personnel carriers a metre or so behind our vehicle. They got out, shouting, pointing assault rifles in our direction. The ambulance was also boxed in now, vehicles on three sides, the crowd on the fourth. Speeches continued from the stage. This was it, I thought. He was going to detonate.
I don’t know what sparked the panic. There was no shortage of potential causes.
‘An attack!’ someone shouted. It was followed a second later by an order over the tannoy: ‘Please evacuate the square in an orderly fashion.’
People began to run. They filled the side road.
‘Fuck.’
The only people unfazed appeared to be the men in charge of the roadblock.
‘Jesus Christ, they’re going to let him through,’ Cherenkov said, as the first barrier was pulled aside.
‘They’ve got no idea.’
We climbed out of the vehicle. The Kazakhs behind us had their weapons ready. They stepped closer, six paramilitaries, then they lifted their weapons and ran. The Russians took up position behind the doors of the Mitsubishi. I stepped aside. Then they were past us.
‘Maybe they do,’ Cherenkov said. The crowd parted as the Kazakhs swarmed the ambulance. They took up positions around it then, at a hand signal, three men smashed the windows. I heard two shots, then two more. Then a second’s silence before the crowd began to scream.
Everyone ran. We were pushed back a block by terrified individuals and roaring Kazakh soldiers. Other troops arrived and I glimpsed British faces in the chaos: Suzanna Ford, her SAS detail. She locked eyes with Cherenkov. The leather-jacketed officer beside her had a gun, low but intent, focused on the Russian intelligence officer.
Ford was reading the situation, reading me. She beckoned me closer. I took a step.
‘Good work.’ She nodded in the direction of the ambulance. When I failed to react, she said, ‘We collected her body. I’m sorry, Elliot. If it’s any consolation, we’re holding Callum Walker. Going to need a full debrief from you, but you’ll be protected.’
Cherenkov caught my look of scepticism.
‘The invitation’s still open, Elliot. Moscow for Christmas. You’d be treated well.’
‘Maybe next time,’ I said.
He stepped back, eyeing Ford and her gunman.
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Keep my card.’ Then he disappeared into the crowd.
Ford winked. ‘Welcome back, Elliot,’ she said. ‘We’ll get a brew on the plane.’ She turned to the SAS team and began coordinating our own evacuation. They studied a handheld device with a map on it. I walked back towards the ambulance, against the flow of the crowd, curious to see the seventeen-year-old martyr, then lost interest and walked into the square instead. The ground was littered with placards. I passed on through, keeping an eye out for Aliya, then I was on the other side and still walking.
FIFTY-FIVE
No one tailed me through Astana’s freezing back streets. I cut north, flagged down a car, ended up at the train station. I bought a third-class ticket to Beyneu, near the border with Uzbekistan, picked up a loaf of bread, some biscuits, two bottles of local vodka. I bought some more gloves and a hat.
A Shadow Intelligence Page 37