‘I know about SCI,’ Slade replied, ‘but I’ve never been directly involved with it.’
‘Right. Okay, when the system was set up there were obvious concerns about security of the data, so the original programmers were forbidden from incorporating any kind of back door access. There’s also no master password that I can use to override Vernon’s own password.’
‘So does that mean we’re locked out?’
‘Yes and no,’ Lewis replied. ‘I do have a number of tools that I can use to bypass the password screen or gain access to the system in other ways, but I need permission from the Chief Executive to run them. Because of the security concerns, obviously. I have a security clearance up to Secret – I need to have that because of the work I do here – but I don’t know any of the SCI codewords that would allow me to view what’s on this computer. Not that I would understand most of it if I did see it, probably.’
Slade nodded. He had personally gone through both negative and positive vetting before he’d been appointed to Dstl, and his clearance was also up to Secret. Like Lewis he hadn’t been provided with any SCI codewords, and for the same reason, but as he was working under the direct instructions of William Poulson, and was the chief security officer, he anticipated that he would be given whatever access he needed to carry out the investigation.
‘You go and get whatever it is you need, thumb drives or disks or whatever, and I’ll get permission from Poulson to proceed. Just a question before you go. Did Vernon ever change his password more frequently than once every month?’
Lewis shook his head.
‘Quite the reverse,’ he replied. ‘Vernon’s argument was always that he was working in a secure building in an entirely secure site, guarded by armed police, and that it was difficult to justify having password protection at all because of that. Several times I had to remind him that it was time for a new password to be created, and he almost always grumbled about it.’
Four minutes later, George Slade stood in front of Poulson’s desk and explained what they had found.
‘But Lewis can get into the computer? He’s sure about that?’ Poulson asked.
‘He said so, sir, but we do now know a bit more about what Vernon did.’
Poulson nodded.
‘Yes, George, I hadn’t missed that. The fact that he changed his password two weeks ago means that he didn’t make the decision to leave on the spur of the moment. He’d been planning it for at least a week, maybe quite a lot longer. And it also probably means that there is something that’s relevant on his computer. Otherwise, why would he bother changing the password?’
Slade and Lewis walked back into Vernon’s office less than ten minutes later, and twenty minutes after that, having changed the boot sequence of Vernon’s desktop computer so that the system read the programs on the thumb drive first, the two men sat there staring at the directory structure. Lewis had had to run a number of utility programs before he’d finally been able to gain access.
‘We’re in,’ Lewis said, unnecessarily. ‘I’ll get out of your way while you do what you have to do, but first we need to change the user password.’
‘I’ll pick one,’ Slade said. ‘What is it? Twelve digits, including a capital letter, a number and a punctuation mark?’
‘That’ll do.’
Slade wrote down a random sequence of letters and numbers and included an exclamation mark and a colon. Then he copied the same password down on a different piece of paper and handed that to Lewis.
‘Thanks for your help. I can take it from here.’
‘Okay. Any problems, just give me a bell in the office.’
As soon as Lewis had left the room, Slade wrote out an entirely different password and input that into the computer, tucking the slip of paper inside his wallet once he had done so. He was by nature a cautious man and though he had no reason to assume that Lewis would wish to pry, changing the password at least placed an obstacle in the IT man’s way.
Then he started scanning the contents of the hard drive, starting with Vernon’s email client.
Chapter 24
Glavnoye Upravleniye Headquarters, Khodinka Airfield, Moscow, Russia
Monday
‘We cannot do nothing,’ Evgeny Beria said. ‘That is not an option.’
He was a heavily-built man, a general-polkovnik or colonel general, with a reddish complexion and the face of a Russian peasant, a man who had climbed almost to the top of the Glavnoy Upravleniye, Russian military intelligence, by willpower, dogged determination and an almost uncanny ability to sense the way the wind was blowing through the organisation. He was sitting at his desk in his spacious office at the new GU headquarters at Khodinka and glanced briefly at the other senior officer sitting on the other side of his desk as he made his remarks.
‘We have already done something, General,’ Viktor Bykov responded. Another GU career officer in the Russian military intelligence organisation and a Lieutenant-General, he was a tall and thin man with sharp features, a marked physical contrast to Beria. ‘In accordance with your orders, I arranged to provide information about the Skripal attack to the British intelligence services in a sanitised and unattributable format. As we had agreed, that identified the two failed assassins and clearly suggested that the men were acting for reasons of their own and that they were not following orders. The fact that the Novichok agent has received such publicity in the West is regrettable but not unexpected in circumstances. In my opinion, this renegade scientist, Charles Vernon, is also acting for reasons of his own and the fact that his product list, if that is the right expression, includes Novichok is just a reflection of that publicity. It would perhaps be more surprising if he hadn’t offered to supply it.’
‘You’re probably right, Viktor,’ Beria replied, ‘but that is not my concern. The entire world now knows that Novichok was developed by Russia. If some terrorist organisation, perhaps one representing the cause of radical Islam, purchased a stock of Novichok and used it in a major attack somewhere, the probability is that we would get the blame, either as the instigators of that attack, in which case we would be reviled around the world, or as the country that had provided the weapon. That would be a slightly less damning result but almost as bad.’
Bykov nodded. He had also considered that aspect of the matter, but unlike Beria he was much less concerned about it.
‘Russia has never reacted to external criticism, in my experience,’ he replied. ‘I believe that if the scenario you suggest came to pass, we could either distance ourselves from it by proving our non-involvement, if that were possible, or simply ignore it. The one thing we do know about the Western press is that they all have the attention span of a Siberian yak, and the big story that hits their headlines on Monday is often forgotten completely by the end of the same week.’
Beria chuckled at his remark, but the general’s serious expression changed only for a few seconds.
‘Again, Viktor, I do not disagree with you, but my orders are to intervene and ensure that this professor will not be able to fulfil any orders that he receives for the products he is claiming to be able to supply. I have been told that our masters have no particular interest in how this is done, but that they want a permanent solution. In other words, the elimination of this man as a threat, and there is only one way that that can be achieved beyond any doubt. We need to find him and kill him, and we need to do it quickly.’
‘We are an intelligence agency,’ Bykov responded, his irritation showing, ‘not an assassination bureau or the enforcement arm of the Moscow Mafia. A task of this nature should be handled by the SVR or possibly delegated to a Spetsnaz unit. It is not a part of our remit to murder foreign nationals.’
‘Not even when they pose a direct threat to mother Russia?’
‘I’m not convinced that this man Vernon does pose any kind of threat to anyone. I’m concerned that what he’s done may be something completely different, and that he may even be a part of some kind of disinformation exercise or
something of that sort.’
‘I note your opinion, Viktor, but that alters nothing. My orders are simple. You are to assemble a team of officers and order them to hunt down Vernon and ensure that he is neutralised. Our masters want to see him dead, and preferably in a road accident or a fall or perhaps as a result of a mugging that went wrong, something like that, but however it is done he is to be eliminated. And, quite obviously, there must be no link of any sort between his death and Russia. This has to be an entirely deniable operation.’
Bykov looked at his superior officer for several seconds before responding.
‘I will do as you instruct, General, but I still believe this is a mistake,’ he said. ‘And if it really is in the best interests of Russia to kill this man, the task could be better handled by the SVR. They have had far more practice at wet work than we have.’
Beria nodded.
‘That’s really the second part of the problem,’ he said. ‘You will have competition in the field, because the SVR is also assembling a team to track down Vernon.’
‘So why are we—’
‘We are going after Vernon to eliminate him. We want him dead but the SVR wants him alive. As you know, the Novichok used in England against the Skripals was obtained from the Kamera organisation, and that falls under the umbrella of the SVR. And what they want is rather different. According to the information released by the British, this man Vernon is both an expert chemist and expert biochemist, and the SVR is apparently concerned that the Skripals didn’t die. For whatever reason, the strain of Novichok that was used was ineffective, and they would like to haul Vernon back to Moscow so that he can be forced to work with the chemists and scientists of Kamera to ensure that, in any future assassination attempt that uses Novichok, the agent will deliver the result it is supposed to produce.
‘In other words, the SVR wants Vernon to help Russia perfect that nerve agent. And if he does a good job, I have already been told by my counterpart at the SVR that they will use his expertise to develop and refine further elements of our chemical and biological arsenal. If he proves to be incompetent, then he can act as a test subject for the nerve agent instead.’
Bykov could barely credit what he was hearing.
‘So our two main intelligence organisations are each sending out a team of trained agents, one group to kill Vernon and the other to kidnap him. And they’re in competition with each other. Why don’t we just join forces?’
‘Because of our different agendas. The SVR wants to pick Vernon’s brain clean, hence the kidnap order. The last thing they want is for him to die. But we were embarrassed by the failure to kill the Skripals. Unauthorised or not, those two officers should have had no trouble in carrying out the assassination, so our directive is now to make sure that the next death – that of Charles Vernon – is completed without any problems. We have never seen eye to eye with the SVR, and this time the honour of the Glavnoye Upravleniye is at stake.’
Chapter 25
Toulouse, France
Monday
Richter didn’t have the benefit of access to a time machine and was therefore unable to comply with Simpson’s peremptory order to travel to France no later than the previous day. But he did his best.
As soon as he’d left Simpson’s office he’d collected a diplomatic passport in the name of Paul Beatty that he’d used previously. Retaining an agent’s genuine first name as part of an alias was always a good idea, because everyone was conditioned to reply to their real Christian name immediately but responding to a learned first name was never going to be anything like as fast or as natural. The admin section also provided him with a British and an international driving licence and two unlimited credit cards in the same name plus a thousand euros in cash. They also handed him a compact Dell convertible laptop running Windows 10 and the latest version of the Microsoft Office suite, as well as several other programs that were not commercially available to civilian users, the laptop’s charging lead and a couple of continental adapters.
The armourer had clearly been pre-briefed by Simpson, and as soon as Richter stepped through the door he handed over a nylon shoulder holster, a Glock 17 with one spare magazine, both fully charged, and an unopened box of 9-millimetre shells. Richter was already in date for the weapon so he didn’t need to fire any rounds or be given a safety briefing on it. He just signed for the pistol and ammunition and walked away.
As part of Simpson’s regular efficiency drives, all his agents were required to have two carry-on cases packed at all times with everything they needed for a stay of at least a week, one case in the locker room of the building at Hammersmith and the other at their residence, so that they could be on their way virtually immediately whenever necessary. Richter collected his case from the locker room, opened it briefly to put the laptop, pistol, holster and ammunition inside it, then walked out of the building where one of the pool cars was already waiting at the kerb, engine running and the rear door open.
At Heathrow, Simpson had clearly pulled a number of strings and had had at least one passenger bumped from the next British Airways flight to Toulouse to allow Richter to take his seat. He bypassed the security checks on the strength of the Beatty diplomatic passport and was the first passenger onto the aircraft. He put his carry-on bag in the overhead locker and then sat down, checking for the latest messages from Hammersmith on his mobile phone, because he knew better than anyone that what he was doing was moving, but not necessarily progressing. Getting to Toulouse simply meant that he was in Europe and would probably be able to get elsewhere on the continent more quickly and have a much wider choice of means of transport than if he had stayed in London.
But what he wasn’t was necessarily any closer to finding Charles Vernon. All he knew for certain was that Vernon had landed in Toulouse about a week earlier. In that time, he could have flown to any part of the world and neither Hammersmith nor any other part of the British security establishment would necessarily know about it until quite some time after the event. If he’d flown somewhere, it all depended upon whether or not the man’s passport had been scanned at a departure airfield, in which case its details would be in the system somewhere, or simply checked for validity, in which case they wouldn’t. Chartering a light aircraft at a small civilian airfield, for example, would entail a routine document check but probably nothing more, and that would have allowed Vernon to get elsewhere in France or into Germany or Spain or other Western European countries almost certainly undetected.
But Richter knew that situation was only temporary. With the clear belief in the corridors of power at Vauxhall Cross and Millbank that Vernon was offering his services as a renegade biochemist to the highest bidder, the low-level searching that had been carried out so far would now be at an end. Within the day, perhaps even within a few hours, Europol, Interpol and virtually all of Europe’s police forces would have been formally alerted to the search for Charles Vernon, a search that would include his passport details, credit card numbers, a full description of him and a couple of the best quality photographs of his face that could be found.
Getting out of Blagnac airport at Toulouse was completely painless and very fast. Richter was the first person off the aircraft and, with only his carry-on, he walked out into the arrival hall less than fifteen minutes after the jet had touched down. The diplomatic passport had enabled him to walk almost straight through French passport control. In his pocket he had the printed reservation details for a car pre-booked in the name in his passport by Hammersmith, and inside twenty minutes he was sitting in the driver’s seat of a virtually new diesel Peugeot 3008. The car had insurance cover for the whole of Western Europe, a built-in satellite navigation system and a full tank of fuel.
All he had to do then was to decide where to go.
The Hammersmith admin section hadn’t made any hotel bookings for him, simply because neither he nor they had the slightest idea where he would be that evening. All the information they had so far gleaned from the French was wha
t Vernon hadn’t done. As far as was known, the scientist would have had to use his genuine documentation in order to fly anywhere out of Blagnac or to hire a car, and there were no records which suggested he had done either of those things. None of the airlines had sold a ticket to a man named Vernon and no car hire companies had rented him a vehicle. On the other hand, the airport was served by buses and trams and Toulouse itself had a busy SNCF railway station only a couple of miles from Blagnac, and none of those forms of transport required any identification whatsoever from their passengers, only the money to pay for their fares.
‘All dressed up and nowhere to go,’ Richter murmured to himself as he checked his phone once more for any helpful emails or SMS messages, but found none.
He knew there was no point in heading out of Toulouse, because whatever direction he moved in might well be diametrically opposite to the direction which Vernon had taken, so in the absence of any better ideas he drove the short distance towards Toulouse and the Péripherique ring road that surrounds the city and checked into the Campanile hotel at Purpan. He chose that establishment because it was only about half a kilometre from the nearest junction on the ring road. That location and the immediate access to the fast roads of France would ensure that he could move very quickly north or south out of Toulouse as soon as he or Hammersmith came up with any kind of a lead.
By the time he’d checked in, parked the Peugeot and found his room, it was already late afternoon. Richter started the laptop, put it and his mobile on charge and, again, checked the email account he had been provided with. There were a couple of messages from Hammersmith, but only of a routine nature, just confirming that the hunt for Charles Vernon had now stepped up a couple of gears and that the European police and security services had been officially informed about the renegade biochemist and asked to assist in locating him as a matter of extreme urgency. But so far there had still been no sightings of the man, nor any indication about even which country he might be hiding in.
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