The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller

by Mike Lunnon-Wood

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That will be the KGB,” said Chloe dryly, rising to her feet. “One big happy family.”

  That night, they stood amongst goods wagons, silent steel giants in the falling rain, the signal lights flickering as big diesel locomotives shunted wagons somewhere across the thirty acre yard. Quayle had insisted on a covert meeting. They had waited for two hours for him to phone the hotel after getting the message to the Bremen conduit, and Kurt had told him outright about Holly. After that, there’d been absolute silence down the line. Then it went dead. They’d had to wait another three hours for him to call back, listening for strength in his voice, hoping that his will was still there and strong and still fighting. Cockburn had taken the phone from Kurt, pleading with him to meet with them. “Don’t just go to war,” he’d begged. “Don’t just melt away. Think it through. Don’t go back underground Titus, let us work together. You have your reasons, we have ours, but the result is the same. Twenty years Titus, twenty years we’ve trusted each other.”

  Now, they could only hope it had done the trick.

  Chloe stood alongside Cockburn, wrapped in a huge coat, the empty freight wagon behind them shiny and wet. Kurt Eicheman stood a few feet away and miraculously managed to keep a cigarette alight, the brim of his fashionable hat pulled down over his face. Alexi Kirov waited back at the hotel in case of a fall back plan, settled in by the phone with a thermos of soup, a new Time magazine, and a feeling of resentment at being left behind.

  Above them, the floodlights spluttered for a second and then went out. Full darkness settled over the yard.

  Kurt smiled to himself and took another drag on his cigarette.

  “Is this it?” Chloe asked Cockburn in a whisper.

  “Could be a short or something.”

  “It’s him,” Kurt said firmly.

  “Will he have a gun?” Chloe asked. “I mean, what if he decides we’re the enemy or something?”

  Neither man ventured an answer to that. They just stood in the darkness, the rain falling gently, the wind buffeting and tugging at their coat tails.

  Suddenly a figure appeared. There he stood, a few yards away, his head uncovered, his short hair dripping water down his face. He wore no coat, just a lightweight shirt that stuck to his skin. As he stepped closer, Chloe recognised him from his pictures. Already she could see the exhaustion in his face. The eyes she had studied were real; they burned and glittered with an intensity, an anger that she could not describe. He seemed thinner and tired but the aura was still there. He’s down, she thought, but by God he’s not beaten.

  “Hello Titus,” Cockburn said.

  The eyes narrowed for a second and then he spoke, his voice laden with fatigue.

  “What happened?”

  “We got there a couple of hours too late. Marco’s OK. He saw them carry her out. Alive.”

  “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Titus seethed.

  “We...”

  “You had to try to find us.”

  “We knew we weren’t the only people looking.” Cockburn replied.

  “But you found her,” Quayle said bitterly. “Thanks Hugh.”

  “What the hell...”

  “You don’t understand, do you? You stupid cunt!”

  “Oh Jesus,” Chloe said, realizing suddenly what he meant. “We led them in…”

  “Yes,” breathed Quayle, “and you didn’t even know it.”

  “Impossible,” Cockburn said quickly

  “YOU SHOWED THEM WHERE TO LOOK!”

  “Oh my God,” he said, his brain reeling at the thought. “But that would mean they’re in...”

  “Sussed it have you?” he threw back sarcastically. “The master spy. You were always a good controller, Hugh, but you slipped up this time. You’re dangerous. Why couldn’t you stay out of it?”

  “I’m sorry, Titus,” Cockburn said, understanding immediately Tansey-Williams’ reluctance to involve any further personnel. Somewhere inside Six, somewhere inside Century, was one of the people they were looking for.

  “So am I,” Quayle replied – and, with his head bowed and his clothes soaking wet, he began to walk away.

  Cockburn tried to follow, but Kurt caught his arm, shaking his head.

  “Send the girl,” he advised. Slipping his overcoat off, he threw it to her.

  Chloe looked at Cockburn, and only when he nodded did she hurry after the figure who walked slowly away into the dark, like someone with nowhere in particular to go.

  She caught up to him and tried to match his pace over the granite stones.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Only to help…”

  “I think you people have helped enough.”

  “At least put this coat on,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “So you don’t catch pneumonia,” she dryly replied.

  “Piss off.”

  “No I won’t piss off,” she replied testily. “Look, you’re supposedly shit-hot. I’ve seen your record and heard the chat in the canteen. I even had a case officer who would shift nervously in his chair whenever your name was mentioned. But even the great Titus Quayle can’t take this mob on his own…”

  “What do you know?” Viciously, he turned on her. “Tell me what realms of experience you draw upon? What are you, a grade three? Fresh out of Lincoln and the FO French course?”

  “Yes I am!” she retorted. “But I’m something else. I’m a fan, and outside those two men back there, you don’t have many of those. I sat in front of my gas fire in a miserable little north London terrace house and listened to Tansey-Williams tell me the story of a man who paints like a dream, who can recite Shakespeare, a man who read history in the finest university in the world and gave twenty years to the service being hunted like an animal. I learnt to like him. I also learned of a girl called Holly who sounds a lot like my big sister. I wanted to help, but now we need help too...”

  Quayle turned and walked away – but Chloe continued after him, and this time he didn’t try to send her away.

  When she slung the coat over his shoulders, he left it there.

  Cockburn and Eicheman drove back to the hotel and picked listlessly at a room service breakfast while Kirov powered his way through a huge bowl of fruit salad, then sat back and began to strip and clean his weapon. The juxtaposition of silver foiled butter portions and a single carnation, and the stripped blued parts of his big gun, was both ridiculous and poignant.

  “I think we better round up that surveillance team he used. Find out where they went to ground and pick up the threads from there,” the Russian said.

  “He’ll be here,” Eicheman said in German. “He would have told all of us to get stuffed, but the woman’s touch will work with him.”

  “He’s close to something. That much is certain.”

  “How do you know?” Eicheman asked. He hadn’t briefed Kirov like he had Cockburn.

  “I just feel it,” the Russian answered honestly, easing the slide home and giving the barrel a final rub with a rag.

  Neither of the other two men found that odd. Both had been running agents long enough to respect their instincts without too many questions.

  Moments later, they watched him get up and walk to the phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Cockburn asked.

  “Borshin,” the Russian replied.

  “May I ask why?”

  “If he joins in, then we’re close. Close enough to want some backup close too.”

  “Look, I don’t want half of Moscow’s hoods roaming round Frankfurt,” Cockburn said wearily.

  Kirov laughed and kept on dialling. “Not KGB. Don’t worry.”

  “What then?”

  “You call yours the hooligans from Hereford. Ours have more respect.”

  “Spetznatz? Here in Frankfurt?” Eicheman snapped. “Jesus! That’s all we need!”

  “We may do, and if we do, there is nothing quite like them…”
<
br />   Cockburn sat back and let the two argue it out, wondering how Cloe was getting along. As far as he was concerned, Eicheman was right. If there was a way to bring Titus in it was with a woman. His old fashioned values would work against him there, even one as young and different as Chloe.

  She returned three hours later, let herself in with her own key and begged off a de-brief until she’d showered and changed her clothes. But this wasn’t good enough for Cockburn. Too impatient to wait, he stood outside the bathroom door, asking her questions while she dried herself off.

  “And?”

  “I left him at a bratwurst stand about two miles from the station. Or rather he told me to go home, and I wasn’t going to argue. My feet are killing me…”

  “Go home?”

  “Yeah. Nicely, you know, like go home and get warm and I’ll see you later sort of thing.”

  “Will we?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!” he said, exasperated. “Will we see him later? Is he going to come in?”

  She slid the door back, her bright face beaming at him. “I think so. He has things to do first.”

  “What things?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t ask you and I didn’t ask him. I just know he has things to finish. He’ll come looking for a deal, I think.”

  “What sort of deal?”

  “Not sure... but the flame of altruism has waned, I’m afraid. The Metro order saw to that. I think he became rather fond of Mr Pope, so don’t try Queen and country on him. He won’t laugh, he’ll just walk out. He believes we need him more than he needs us. And he’s probably right.”

  “What’s his frame of mind?”

  “Resolute. Strong. He’s tired, no doubt about it, but he’s going to take down this ‘Broken Square’ group with us or without us.”

  Cockburn hesitated. “Broken Square?”

  “That was Teddy Morton’s file name.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “That he was going to blow it back in their faces.”

  “Titus getting personally involved again,” he mused out loud.

  “Can’t blame him. He’s in love with her.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “No. But I could tell.”

  Cockburn sounded sceptical.

  “Women can,” she added.

  “And if she’s dead already?”

  Chloe thought about that for a second or two, then shook her head. “He doesn’t think she is.”

  Cockburn breathed deeply, trying to imagine what Titus Quayle in love might look and sound like – and what, in the name of all that is holy, that might mean if Holly was dead.

  “Let’s hope not,” he sighed.

  He arrived unannounced just before 7pm that evening and didn’t seem surprised to see Alexi Kirov in the room with his classic rivals.

  “The band’s all here, I see,” he said dryly.

  “Now it is,” Cockburn said, smiling and very pleased to see him.

  “Not yet,” Quayle replied. “I’m here to talk. That’s all.”

  “You’re not a talker, Titus. That’s what I do. You are here to do it.”

  “Not this time, Hugh.”

  Chloe watched them squaring off, trying to countenance Cockburn’s stand, understanding his need to control the meeting, to stamp his authority on it, because without that he would never be able to control his agent later. All controllers had their own style. With some it was paternal, with others it was fear. For others a respectful distance was the key. They usually had themselves being called Mister, because with the formality and the positioning came obedience. The last group were those who treated their agents as full equals, sometimes even superiors, servicing their needs rather like a secretary or a personal assistant, massaging their vanities and jabbing at their weaknesses while supplying logistical support and running interference for their men on the ground.

  Cockburn was trying to be agreeable but strong, but Chloe wasn’t certain how successful he was being.

  “Why not? We both want the same thing. You do what you’re good at and so will I…”

  “You want an operator. Use Dirty Harry here.” Quayle jerked a thumb at Kirov. “He’s quite good. Better than the wankers at Milburn. Or get Phillips. He’s still alive, is he? Or did someone decide he was better out of the way too?”

  “That was a mistake, Titus. Someone fucked up.”

  “Some fuck-up. Tell Jerry Pope that.”

  Cockburn said nothing. He knew there was more to come.

  “You probably never met Jerry,” Quayle continued. “Funny old guy, but a good bodyguard. They hit him with Teflon rounds and took his legs out with a shotgun. He was embarrassed because Holly was there. Imagine being embarrassed to die. What dignity did he have? None. We have none. None of us. I’m as bad as the rest. If I was a better man, I’d walk away.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “But I’m going to get Holly back and take these fuckers out – and you won’t be running me when I do it. This is personal.”

  “Pope is alive.”

  “Yeah. With a rubber bag to shit into for the rest of his life.”

  “Holly,” Cockburn ventured. “What if she’s already...”

  “She isn’t,” Quayle replied, his eyes glittering like wet slate, his voice so loaded with conviction and strength that it came like a force from within.

  The tension was palpable and Kirov broke it by coming to his feet, taking an apple from the bowl and biting into it. Then he turned to them both and talked with his mouth full. “I’ll come too. I’m still young and foolish!”

  Quayle couldn’t help the dry smile that crept across his face.

  Cockburn piped up, “OK. I won’t try and run you, but you have to agree that we can work better on this together…”

  “There’s only one way we’re going to work together at all.”

  “Go on…”

  Kirov bit noisily into his apple and Cockburn shot him a look that could kill.

  “I go alone until I’m ready for support,” said Quayle. “My decision all the way. I’ll tell you people what I need and you supply it. Nothing at all until I say the word. You throw nothing at this that I haven’t asked for, and when I do, you give me the best you have.”

  “That’s some demand,” said Cockburn. “What do I get in return?”

  “Broken Square.”

  “The whole group?”

  “Enough to work with,” Quayle confirmed.

  “The people responsible for the Midhurst killings, for Henry Arnold...”

  “Sorry Hugh. No promises there.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you, this is personal.”

  As they faced each other, Chloe realised the meaning of what Quayle had just said. He was going to finish it himself. She had just heard a death warrant.

  “Alright. You have a deal,” Cockburn finally said. Solemnly, her turned to the others in the room. “Let’s come up to speed and see where we go from here…”

  Some time later, they gathered around the table together.

  “OK Ti,” Cockburn began, “what have you got from your last few days?”

  “A little. Got a couple of names from Kurt and followed them up. I had an enquiry agent sniff about a bit. Not much on the surface. Have had several contacts with group members. Some of them wear a ring like this…” He threw one onto the table. “But they’re very tight and very security conscious. Anyway, I found out they were going to have a visitor so we picked them up at the airport and followed them down to a farm a few hours outside the city.”

  “Do they know you’re onto them?”

  “Not yet, but they’ll be expecting me to retaliate any moment now, try to find where they have Holly. That’s why they took her She’s the bait.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

  “They still want you,” Cockburn said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. “Any demand yet?”

  “It’s not me they want, Hugh. It’s
the file.”

  “So other than the ring, and a cell located here in Germany, we don’t have much else.”

  “It’s more than a cell. Could be dozens of them in this country. This is a big organisation. Big resources.”

  “Any idea who they are?” Chloe asked. “What they want?”

  Quayle picked up one of the many newspapers and threw it to her. “What’s all over the front and international pages?” he asked.

  She looked at the page.

  She scanned the page quickly. “Reform… the Brandenburg gate open… Peace Marches… East Germans shopping in the West…”

  “That’s it,” he said, biting hungrily into a bread roll.

  “What?”

  “Think about the last year or so. Hungary. Last year Jano Kadas out. Honecker in the East out. Solidarity in power in Poland. Riots in Czechoslovakia, even that prick Ceausescu six feet under. In Bulgaria, Zhivkov is out and Mladenov in, but for how long? In the Soviet Union –” he gestured towards Kirov, “– localised nationalism like never before. The entire fabric is changing. That worries some people.”

  “That makes Broken Square extreme left wing.”

  “Or extreme right,” Cockburn suggested.

  “Or both,” said Quayle. “A bunch of the old guard in the Soviet Union watching their power dwindle, their cronies in the Warsaw Pact, and their equals in the West. Men who liked the shape of the bear. Big and understood and stable. Men who don’t want thirty little states bickering and fighting amongst themselves. Men who liked the way it was. It wasn’t perfect, but at least everyone understood where the lines were drawn.”

  “Who in the West would want the Soviet union that powerful?” Chloe argued.

  “Men who have shares in Northrop or Lockheed or a hundred other defence contractors. Men who remember Mongols on the streets of Berlin liked the Warsaw Pact-NATO stand-off because it kept them in Mongolia. Men who hold power now. Men who are frightened for the future. Men who are shit scared at the thought of a united Germany again...” Quayle paused. “Do you want me to go on?”

  “So you’re saying that someone has welded these factions together,” Cockburn ventured.

  “It fits.”

  “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

  “The rest will cost,” he replied.

  “Why?”