The Germans had data from NATO’s Brussels HQ. The signals analysts there had picked up some mysterious communication between the island and this ship. It looked like a radio burst of some kind, coinciding with the ship’s redirection.
“And there’s some kind of interference on the island itself,” Taylor said.
“Yes, signals jamming. It looks like something’s disrupted a lot of the electronic kit, possibly to allow the Yantar to do whatever it needs to do. Which no one can guess at.”
“Could someone on the island trigger all this themselves?”
“Possibly. The jammers are operating at the same frequency as other satellite communication systems to block their signals. It’s basically thrown a bubble around the island, meaning external communications are down. We’ve seen devices as small as a briefcase that could have that effect, if there was someone in place to operate it.”
“What does the UK think?”
“That it’s preparation for an attack. A Royal Navy patrol ship has been dispatched to shadow the Yantar, supported by air cover from the Falklands. US satellites are watching closely. But there’s movement beyond this particular theater.” He pointed to another map. “We’re seeing US carriers shifting deployment from the Middle East toward the Pacific. Activity around Maui, in particular, but also the Marshall Islands.”
“They all host space surveillance infrastructure,” Taylor said. “Telescopes, observatories.”
Fischer nodded, studied the map again. “That fits.”
“Fits what?”
“Your government is leaning toward the theory that there’s going to be an all-out assault on their space capability—on the ground and in orbit. The relevant military and intelligence figures have been called into the Whitehall crisis center. The attorney general’s been asked to advise on the legality of any military actions. Our friends at the Free Space Foundation have turned up, advising the government directly now. Lawyers are working on the legal grounds for any first strike up there.”
He passed the printout of an email from the FSF to the Attorney General’s Office, from Professor Adrienne York:
While it remains a cornerstone of the 1967 Space Act that use of space has to be peaceful, this does not override Article 51 of the UN Charter: “Nothing shall impair the right of individual or collective self-defense.”
“They’ve used this before,” Fischer said. “Does peace mean nonmilitary, or just nonaggressive. If they can frame a first strike as necessary for self-defense, then the belief is that it’s justified. That all depends on a lot of clarity we’re not getting right now. This is a nightmare approaching fast and we need you to think if there’s anything you can do.”
“Show me the signal that came from Ascension.”
He passed over what they had. The data was raw, but Taylor could discern the spike representing the call-out to the ship. It looked like a beacon burst, an emergency signal. She’d been trained on devices that released a similar signal, to call in backup in the case of imminent death or discovery. They used it as a last resort for the really hairy jobs.
“It’s a rescue signal. I think it’s from an intelligence officer in trouble.”
“Someone already on the island?”
“Yes, that’s what I believe. The ship is on a rescue mission. The officer’s been under deep cover, but they’re blown. The signals blackout is to allow for their escape. This is a maneuver to retrieve them before they fall into the wrong hands.”
“Does Vauxhall know any of this?”
“I doubt it.”
“All the noises from the MOD suggest they believe the sabotage is external, coming from off the island, possibly from the boat itself.”
He passed over copies of recent governmental cables—both UK and US—all pushing for intervention: Downing Street, British Forces South Atlantic Islands, the US Department of Defense’s Combatant Command. Taylor looked through, checking the data they were drawing on, just to be sure of her own theory. Could she be missing something? The officer responsible for a lot of the instructions from the US side was a General Anne Lindgren. The name caught Taylor’s eye. It was Kane’s host.
“This woman,” she said. “Do you know anything about her?”
“We believe she heads the Space Force over there,” Fischer said. “Seems hawkish, ready to get their retaliation in first.”
“My officer on the island was with her,” Taylor said, puzzled. “Anne Lindgren was sheltering him last night.”
It was starting to seem more than coincidence, and she wondered how and why Kane had ended up in their home.
“Get me a phone line,” Taylor said.
Fischer brought a phone over. She called Kudus and he answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?” he said.
“Somewhere safe for now. Thomas and Anne Lindgren, the couple that were with Elliot—did you get anything?”
“Yes. Anne Lindgren. Google her. Take a look.”
She turned to Fischer. He’d already typed it in. His monitor showed a woman in a space suit, her youthful face behind the curve of an astronaut’s helmet. It was on the NASA website.
“Born Anne O’Shea,” Kudus said. “Doctorate in laboratory astrophysics from the University of Pennsylvania, then joined the Air Training Corps. She transferred to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in 1995 as part of the Mission Operations Directorate, where she was selected for the astronaut program.”
According to the website, Anne Lindgren had earned herself five NASA Space Flight Medals, two Distinguished Service Medals, and the Legion of Merit. She flew on four Shuttle missions between 1998 and 2005, served aboard the International Space Station as a member of the Expedition 18 crew. Next seen working at Lake Ravenna. The website didn’t specify what she was doing there, just that she served as a consultant.
“Consultant for a defense company,” Taylor said.
“Presumably,” Kudus said. The site carried an interview with her in which she spoke about life in space, how she enjoyed the peace, how chocolate tasted like wax, how she used to sleep strapped beneath the windows so that when she woke she saw the whole world floating before her.
“But look at the next paragraph,” Kudus said.
It was at Lake Ravenna that Anne met and married the government scientist Jack Moretti.
Fischer saw Taylor staring at the screen.
“Does this mean something to you?” he asked. The other BND officers had gathered around, sensing a breakthrough. Taylor logged in to her own emails, found Perryman’s cache, the interview with Moretti’s colleague.
Someone said his wife was having an affair. She worked there too. Jack found out a few days before he killed himself. I think she married the other guy a few months later. Lake Ravenna’s full of black tech, but I’m not sure there’s anything mysterious about Jack Moretti’s suicide.
Taylor no longer felt sure that the final statement followed from the rest.
“She remarried. She’s with someone on the island. Who is he?” Taylor asked. “What have we got on her current husband?”
“Thomas Lindgren,” Kudus said. “We have a full CV from when he applied to work in the Ascension Conservation Department, plus a scan of his passport. Finnish, came to the US a couple of decades back, studied environmental sciences at the University of California, then worked various jobs: lab assistant, landscape gardener, some teaching work. They married in 2010, around the same time she goes into the military. I can’t get her exact role, but it coincides with the development of the US Space Force. It looks like she was helping put it together. Went to Ascension six years ago.”
“Send me what you’ve got on Thomas Lindgren.”
Kudus sent it through. According to the CV, Thomas Lindgren had completed his course at the University of California, San Diego, then got a job with a company called Green Desert Landscape and Gardening. He remained in LA for several years, doing a combination of gardening, tuition, some delivery driving, and general maintenance. He
moved out to the suburbs in 1997: Apple Valley, then Santa Clarita.
Taylor was bringing up the map when Kudus said: “They’re both near Lake Ravenna.”
“Right.”
There was banging in the background at Kudus’s end.
“What’s going on?” Taylor said.
“They’re trying to get in.”
“Where are you?”
“Your office. I got the feeling I might be taken off duties very soon. I’ve blocked the door.”
“Are you okay?”
“So long as the door holds.”
Taylor read Thomas Lindgren’s CV as a narrative now, testing it for logic. Aged twenty-nine, he moves to the States, qualifies as an environmental scientist, then works a series of menial jobs that allow him to geographically circulate one of the most sensitive defense research sites in the country . . . She heard more banging, then an alert flashed up on the BND monitor: Three Chinese-flagged fishing vessels had been stopped approaching the Marshall Islands. The US Coast Guard was holding sixty crew members. Fischer swore, spoke with his colleagues to one side, then returned to the monitor.
“Daniel, are you still there?” Taylor said.
“I’m here,” Kudus said.
“What do we know about Thomas Lindgren’s childhood?” she asked.
“We’re not going to able to get confirmation of much before his time in the States,” Kudus said. “Thomas Lindgren attended a school called Turku Upper Secondary. I’ve had a look and there was a fire there in 1990 and they lost all their predigital records.”
Taylor exchanged glances with Fischer. She felt suspicion becoming certainty now. This was classic tradecraft.
“They’ve cut my internet connection,” Kudus said, then the line went altogether.
“Check this man’s passport photo against the Soviet archive,” Fischer said to his male colleague. Taylor knew that the Germans had the world’s most extensive archive of Soviet-era personnel: two million comrades dating from 1916 to 1991, leaked, hacked, purchased under the counter. They called them Das Geister: the ghosts. In the last couple of years, they’d hooked that resource up to some pretty sharp facial recognition software. It took less than five seconds to get a match.
Fischer angled the screen toward her.
“What do you reckon?” he said.
Nikolai Pravik. Directorate S, Foreign Intelligence Service, 1979.
The young Soviet intelligence officer stared out defiantly. According to their directory, Pravik had joined the air service in 1985, attended Chelyabinsk Higher Military Aviation School. Recruited out for special training in sabotage and stay-behind networks, then moved to the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, specifically Directorate S, which trained intelligence officers to work under deep cover. Then, as you’d expect, he disappeared.
Some years in Finland spent crafting Thomas Lindgren would have been standard practice, as was claiming an education at schools with no trace potential. Of the five to ten years you needed to establish adequate cover to be a sleeper agent, it was common to spend time in third countries building up your identity; muddying your background, blurring the tracks behind you. Remaking yourself before circling in.
“And he’s married to General Anne Lindgren? Jesus Christ.”
They studied the images side by side.
“The ship’s coming for him,” Taylor said. “They want to get their man back home.”
“A lot of people think it’s part of an attack.”
“I have to go in and explain, before this escalates further.”
“Where?”
“Where they are. Whitehall. Give me a car.”
“You won’t get out again.”
“I’ll help you expose this, Markus, I promise. I’ll blow every whistle there is. But I’m going to have to do this first. Give me some transport. Let me go in.”
31
Kane gripped the dashboard as they sped away from the base. Thomas drove with a focused ferocity, gun against the wheel. His eyes flicked to the mirror every few seconds, checking the road, checking his daughter. They veered around potholes, jolting over the rough surface, airfield to the right, the expanse of cawing birds to the left.
Kane thought fast. Rory had a predilection for children’s secrets. He also had a spy’s training, alert to stories about Russians turning up where they shouldn’t be. He must have looked a bit closer, connected it to the man who had befriended him, the husband of a US general working on something beyond top secret. Everything Thomas had said to Kane about the island was misdirection. He hadn’t passed on what Connor knew about that night to the police, because he was the man at the tracking station. He killed Petra. And when he learned that Lauren had seen what happened, he’d silenced her, too.
The Buick’s wheels slipped on gravel.
“Slow down, Daddy.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You got your seatbelt on?”
“Yes. Where are we going?”
“I told you. We’re going sailing.”
Thomas moved the gun into his left hand to wipe the sweat from his right on his thigh. Kane’s mind reeled as he tried to decide his next move. How many years had Thomas Lindgren been living a double life? Fifteen, perhaps? Even to survive a month undercover, you have to convince your own heart. You bury a secret deep in your core and then forget it’s there. You pray no one ever opens up a crack in that living facade. Connor had been running from his home just now. If that followed a confrontation over the past, over certain questions that Kane had placed in the boy’s mind, then Thomas knew the threat Kane posed. He knew Kane was the only thing standing between him and escape. The question remaining was whether he’d shoot him in front of his daughter.
“Let’s talk, Thomas,” Kane said.
“About what?”
“Maybe I can help. I owe you one now.” Thomas kept his foot down. The sun had broken from the horizon.
“What did you say to Connor?”
“I didn’t say anything, I asked him some questions. I think both of us need to get out of here. You’ve been good to me. I think you’re a good person. I don’t think many other people are going to be on your side right now.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
A military truck tore past in the opposite direction carrying firefighting equipment. Thomas swung the car out of the way, bouncing them onto rocky ground before regaining the road.
“I’ve seen what you have, as a family,” Kane said. “You can’t fake that. It’s real as anything. I don’t think you can leave it behind.”
“Who are you?”
“You can probably guess who I am.”
“What are you offering?”
“I can get you on an RAF flight, all of you, and we can take it from there. But you wouldn’t have to be separated.”
Thomas stared at the road ahead, sweat streaming. They were coming up to a crossroads: Georgetown ahead of them, a narrow track looping to the right into barren rocks. Thomas hesitated. Kane could see him making a decision. Suddenly he wrenched the wheel and they swung north into the emptiness.
“Why are we going this way, Daddy?”
“Small diversion, sweetheart.”
“You said we were going sailing.”
“We are. Just got to drop Edward off.”
The lava plains stretched endlessly around them. It would be hours before Kane’s body was found. Kane eyed the door lock, which was up, then the man’s grip on the gun. The road they were on began to climb into the basalt hills. The gun didn’t waver.
“We can get out of here our own way,” Kane said. “There are options. I can speak to people, make an arrangement to ensure you stay with Carina.”
“What about me?” Carina said.
“We’d get you out of here together,” Kane continued. “You’d have my word.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“You got trapped. I understand that. You didn’t have a choice.”
“You don’t
know anything.”
“I know this isn’t what’s best for the girl. What’s she going to do in Russia? What’s she going to do without her mum?”
They were still climbing, on the edge of a sheer drop now. Thomas pressed the accelerator down, throwing Kane back in his seat. He released the gun’s safety catch. He was driving directly into the rising sun. Kane turned and saw the man was blinded by tears.
“Poslushay menya,” Kane said. Listen to me. He continued in Russian: “There is a peaceful way out. For you, your children . . .”
“What’s happening?” the girl said.
“Look at her,” Kane said. “For Christ’s sake.”
Thomas’s eyes flicked to the mirror. Kane punched him in the throat.
The girl screamed. Kane grabbed Thomas’s wrist and he fired through the windscreen. The car swerved wildly. Kane couldn’t get the gun out of his grip. They were on the edge of the drop now, with the windscreen cracked. Kane changed course; he opened the passenger door and jumped.
The ground never arrived. He tumbled down a slope of loose cinder, arms up to protect his head, heard a second shot that whistled past him, then the car continued away. When Kane eventually came to a stop, he looked up toward the road and it had gone. His left side was bruised agonizingly where he’d landed, clothes shredded at the knees and elbows. But he was able to stand, able to walk. That was a small miracle. Kane caught his breath and began up the slope.
It took him five minutes to get back to the road. A pall of smoke had begun to darken the sky. He heard sirens from the east and followed the sound, cresting the shoulder of another peak, then staggering down a rough foot path. After a few minutes he saw the golf course beneath him, which meant he was near One Boat. Another couple of minutes and the refueling station came into view.
A cluster of British military vehicles had stopped under the canopy, with several RAF men and security contractors directing cars in some kind of evacuation, other officers in full combat gear fanned out across the lava, guns at the ready. Kane approached with his hands raised.
Ascension Page 28