Red Corona

by Tim Glister

  The slick feeling on her tongue took Valera instantly back to her first spring in Povenets B, when the sun was starting to get hot and the days were getting longer. She had sat on the scrub in front of her bungalow, smearing jam made from Zukolev’s private supply of raspberries that she’d kept over winter onto chunks of rye bread as Ledjo showed off his Young Pioneers neckerchief, which Valera had made for him the night before. He’d marched up and down as Valera clapped and laughed, chanting the Young Pioneers’ motto, ‘Be prepared!’, over and over between bites of jam and bread.

  Valera kept scooping jam into her mouth until the jar was empty. As the last of it slid past her tongue she came back to the present. She almost cried, remembering how proud Ledjo had been and that for a brief while she had been happy in Povenets B. She had no idea who was holding her, or what they had planned for her, but as she sucked her fingers clean she promised her son that she’d be prepared for whatever happened to her next.

  CHAPTER 52

  The Royal Institute of British Architects had occupied 66 Portland Place since 1934. The building was a masterclass in Art Deco restraint. Its near-smooth stone-clad walls were adorned only by a few tall, slim bas-relief sculptures. Through the bronze double doors, a grand marble foyer stood in front of an equally impressive glass and polished chrome staircase, which led up to a large, double-height ballroom.

  In a few hours’ time a reception for the heads of state who had come to London would be held at Buckingham Palace. But the ambassadors, foreign and finance ministers who would actually be working during the OECD conference were being treated to the splendour of the RIBA headquarters for the afternoon. And so were their top spies.

  Four Met officers stood outside the entrance, but when Knox and Bennett slipped down the narrow mews that led to the rear of Portland Place they didn’t run into any more. There was just a set of steps leading down to a basement door with a lock that put up little resistance to Knox’s shoulder.

  They made their way through the bowels of the building, eventually finding a flight of stairs that took them up to a corridor just off the foyer. Knox glanced round the corner and out through the glass panels of the front door, checking that the policemen standing in front of the building weren’t paying attention to what was going on inside it.

  The reception was in full swing. The rumble of conversation and clinking of glasses coming from the first floor echoed around Knox and Bennett as they exchanged a long, silent look. Knox knew he was about to commit professional suicide in front of the leaders of the global intelligence community. He only hoped he’d do it in such a spectacular fashion that he’d bring Manning down with him. And they both knew that once they were on the grand staircase there’d be no turning back.

  Eventually Bennett broke the silence, whispering, ‘After you.’

  On the first-floor landing they paused again. A string quartet played in the wraparound gallery above them, and waiters scurried around filling up trays with drinks and ferrying them through the tall doors that led through the glass wall of the ballroom. On the other side of the glass divide was a sea of old men in identical dark suits. Knox couldn’t see Manning or Finney in the crowd and for a moment he wondered if they hadn’t turned up after all. Then a waiter carrying a full tray forced the crowd to part round him and for a brief moment Knox saw Manning’s tall frame, and Finney’s shorter, broader one next to him, in the middle of the room. They were both wearing the same dark suits as everyone else – Manning’s hung off him and Finney looked like he’d been stuffed into his. By chance, Manning glanced past the waiter as the crowd flowed around him and made eye contact with Knox. Confusion flashed across his face as he disappeared again behind a wave of suits.

  ‘They’re here,’ Knox said to Bennett, and started towards the nearest door.

  The sight of Manning where Holland should’ve been fanned the flames of anger that were already burning inside Knox. He kept his eyes fixed on the spot where Manning and Finney had been standing, which meant he didn’t see another waiter walking towards the other side of the door. The waiter was only carrying a couple of empty glasses on his tray, but the sound of them crashing onto the ballroom’s parquet floor as the swinging door knocked the tray out of his hands was enough to draw the attention of most of the people in the room. Knox didn’t apologise for causing the crash. He’d wanted an audience for what was about to happen, and now he had one.

  The sea parted once more as Knox and Bennett waded into the crowd, revealing Manning and Finney still standing where they had been a few moments before. Manning still looked baffled.

  ‘Richard,’ he said, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘Surprised to see me?’ Knox replied.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you looking like that.’ The bruise across Knox’s cheek looked even worse in the bright light of the ballroom. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Murder, kidnapping, treason,’ Knox said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear.

  The crowd fell silent, every pair of eyes in the room suddenly focused on Knox and Manning.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Manning said. ‘But let’s discuss whatever you think is happening somewhere more private.’ He gave the room a reassuring smile.

  ‘I’m happy right where I am,’ Knox replied.

  Manning snapped his head back to Knox, his smile gone. ‘That wasn’t a request.’

  ‘I don’t take orders from you,’ Knox shot back.

  Manning leaned in closer to Knox, lowering his voice. ‘What’s happened to you, man?’

  ‘Your men happened to me.’

  ‘My men? You’re not making any sense.’

  ‘Or maybe they were yours,’ Knox said to Finney.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Finney replied, looking as confused as Manning had been when he’d first spotted Knox.

  ‘You heard me,’ Knox replied.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Manning said to Knox. ‘I won’t have you embarrassing the Service like this.’ Then he turned to Finney and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll deal with this and be back shortly.’

  ‘No way,’ Finney replied. ‘I want to know what I’ve done. I’m coming with you.’

  Manning glanced at the room and all the faces that were still turned towards them.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. Then he started to march towards the door.

  Knox didn’t want to lose his audience, but Manning wasn’t giving him a choice. At least he now had a room full of witnesses who had seen him confront Manning. The crowd kept watching as Manning stepped around the waiter, who was still clearing up the broken glasses, and left the ballroom. Then they watched Knox and Bennett follow him, with Finney taking up the rear of the little procession. And they kept watching as the group crossed the landing and disappeared through a pair of large wooden doors on the other side of the staircase.

  CHAPTER 53

  The four of them found themselves in an exhibition hall. If any of them had been paying attention they’d have noticed that they were surrounded by architectural models of new buildings planned for London. They’d walked into the future. There were scale reproductions of skyscrapers, bridges, and public spaces and, in the centre of the room, a rendering of the Barbican, the enormous brutalist complex planned for the hole in the city Knox had stumbled through the night before when he was being chased across the city by a ghost.

  ‘Now, what the hell is going on, Richard?’ Manning demanded once the doors had closed and he could hear the murmur of conversations starting up again behind them.

  ‘Stop playing the fool. You know exactly what’s going on,’ Knox replied.

  ‘I assure you I have no idea.’

  Knox’s anger intensified with every denial Manning made.

  ‘Don’t be so modest, Gordon. You’ve built an impressive web. But you should have left me out of it.’

  ‘This is non
sense,’ Manning said. ‘I offered you a chance to come back in. Gave you what should have been an easy job to do, then you disappear for two days and turn up looking like this.’

  Manning moved further into the room, putting the replica of the Barbican between himself and Knox. He towered over the model, like a giant about to destroy a helpless village. He made a show of checking his watch. ‘You’ve got five minutes to explain yourself.’

  Manning hadn’t mentioned Bianchi or Moretti or the details of the mission he’d given Knox. It was a basic precaution given Finney and Bennett’s presence. Knox, however, no longer had any qualms about breaking operational security. In fact, now he was finally in front of Manning with no Peterson to come to his rescue, he was ready to throw every accusation he had at him in excruciating detail.

  ‘You sent me off into the woods, and I found the one thing I wasn’t supposed to. What was your plan? Quietly retrieve Bianchi and Moretti’s real research when everything had died down, or were they just a distraction while you handed Pipistrelle over to the KGB?’

  ‘What’s Pipistrelle?’ Finney asked, seizing on the word he hadn’t heard before.

  Manning chose to ignore the question.

  ‘Those are not allegations to be made in public,’ he replied coolly. Knox ignored the warning.

  ‘Did you burn down my flat to destroy the Italians’ papers?’ Knox paused for a moment. ‘Or was that because we saw what you did to Irina Valera?’

  Manning’s face didn’t change at the sound of Valera’s name – it stayed in the same combination of confusion and irritation. ‘Should that mean something to me?’ he asked.

  ‘For God’s sake, drop the act,’ Knox replied. ‘We know who she is, you know who she is.’ He pointed to Finney. ‘He knows who she is.’

  ‘I do?’ Finney replied.

  ‘You’ve got her file on your desk,’ Bennett replied, moving round an oblong, honeycomb skyscraper that was nearly as tall as her to stand next to Knox.

  ‘Now, how in the hell would you know that?’ Finney asked her, seeming suddenly suspicious of the woman he’d so far ignored.

  ‘Because I pay attention to what’s going on. And I recognise one of the world’s most valuable intelligence assets when I see a picture of her.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  Finney’s suspicion turned to realisation, then amusement. ‘You’re that nut-job secretary who thinks she should be an agent, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m not a secretary,’ Bennett replied. ‘I’m a file clerk.’

  ‘You’re a little firecracker, I’ll give you that.’ He turned to Manning. ‘I’m not sure if I should laugh or apologise.’

  ‘No need for you to do either,’ replied Manning. ‘The only person who should be apologising is Knox.’

  ‘I’m not the one who ordered the abduction of a foreign national and the killing of a KGB directorate chief,’ Knox replied, trying to land another couple of blows on Manning. ‘Have your masters in the Lubyanka realised that was you yet? Or were you following their orders?’

  Manning looked stunned. ‘You’ve actually gone mad, haven’t you?’ he said.

  ‘I was there. We were in Stockholm. We saw your men put a bullet through his head and kidnap Valera.’

  Manning was silent for a long moment. He dropped his gaze down onto the model of the Barbican, but he wasn’t really seeing it. He was thinking about what Knox had just said. His hands reached into his pockets, then he looked back up at Knox. ‘What were you doing in another country?’

  ‘I was taking a leaf out of your book,’ he said.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Manning asked, his restraint wearing thin.

  ‘Remember Singapore? Don’t pretend Kuznetsov wasn’t killed because of you,’ Knox said. ‘When did Russia turn you, anyway? Was that your big initiation, or were you already a good little mole by then?’

  Now it was Manning who couldn’t contain his anger. ‘My mission to Singapore was a sanctioned operation within British sovereign territory. I have no idea what you’ve got yourself into, but if you were involved in the death of a KGB agent on foreign soil then you’ll have dragged MI5 into an international incident that could have disastrous consequences for the whole country.’

  There was more emotion in this single outburst than Knox had ever seen from Manning. He was sure he was close to cracking.

  ‘Christ, man,’ Manning continued, ‘we’ve got leaders from eighteen countries in the city. The Russians are begging for a reason to launch an ICBM at us.’

  ‘And you’d probably tell them exactly where to aim the missile, wouldn’t you?’ Knox fired back immediately.

  ‘This is insanity. Spouting wild accusations, running around with some mad secretary chasing conspiracies—’

  ‘A secretary,’ Finney cut in, ‘who will be on the next plane back to the States.’

  ‘I’m not a secretary,’ Bennett snapped again. ‘And will I be on the same plane back as the scientist you’ve got coming to question Valera?’ She saw a flicker in Finney’s eyes – she’d hit a nerve. ‘There’s no other reason for someone from NASA to be flown over here.’

  ‘The whole of NATO is meeting in one place, Khrushchev’s boasting he can take out any of our capitals with the push of a button, and you think there’s no reason for one of our top scientists to fly in?’ Finney asked. ‘Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are,’ he added.

  ‘That still doesn’t explain why you took Valera’s photo from the archive,’ Bennett said, suddenly on the defensive.

  ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ Finney said, his voice starting to rise. ‘And I won’t stand here and be called a traitor.’

  Manning pulled one of his long, bony hands out of his pocket and held it up, a sign for everyone to calm down.

  ‘I was happy for you to come back to Leconfield House, Richard,’ he said to Knox. His voice was quiet. The only emotion in it now was disappointment. ‘After an appropriate length of time. Or for you to leave if you decided you didn’t want to stay without Holland. I even gave you something to do to stop yourself festering while you were suspended. But all this is unforgivable. There’s no way you can come back in now. And I can’t let you walk out of this room alone.’

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ Knox sneered at him.

  ‘I already have,’ Manning replied.

  He walked over to the big wooden doors and opened them. Three stony-faced Watchers stepped into the room. ‘I told you you had five minutes to explain everything,’ Manning continued. ‘You chose to spend them damning yourself with insane fantasies.’

  Knox suddenly realised he’d let himself be outmanoeuvred again. He should have known he was on borrowed time as soon as he left the ballroom. He had no idea who the Watchers were loyal to – Manning or the Service. For all he knew, they were the men who had attacked Valera, set fire to his apartment, and tried to take out Bennett in the middle of Hyde Park in broad daylight.

  For a brief moment he thought about fighting his way out, but his body ached from everything he’d put it through and his energy was completely spent.

  ‘You know,’ he said, matching Manning’s sombre tone, ‘I thought I was paranoid too. Nothing made sense. None of what was happening seemed connected. Until I put you at the heart of all of it.’ He started to move around the Barbican model, closing the distance between him and Manning. ‘You were so keen to send me off to investigate Bianchi and Moretti, because you already knew exactly what had happened to them. You used them, then you killed them. But what does that have to do with a Russian scientist trying to defect? Nothing, except the amazing coincidence that she was working in exactly the same field as our dead Italians. And, of course, you.’

  He glanced over at the Watchers. Now they didn’t look like foot soldiers, ready to obey any order Manning might give them. They looked like they had no idea what they’d walked into the middle of.

  �
��You’ve been the perfect asset,’ Knox continued. ‘Ready to sacrifice your men and leave them dead and disavowed just to prove how loyal you are.’

  Manning’s face still hadn’t changed, but the Watchers’ had. And they weren’t looking at Knox like he might be crazy. They were looking at Manning like they weren’t completely sure if he was their leader or their enemy.

  ‘Tell me one thing,’ he said, launching his final attack. ‘Was getting rid of Holland the KGB’s idea, or yours?’

  Knox hoped Manning’s mask would finally slip and he’d give himself away. But he just sighed, gave the Watchers a nod, and walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the hall, both hands back in his jacket pockets.

  With a reassuring look to Bennett, Knox let himself be led out of the room. When the door closed again behind Knox and the Watchers, she turned to Finney and steeled herself for her own battle.

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’ she asked. She was ready to lay out everything for anyone who would listen, here, in Grosvenor Square, or even Langley, to prove that she’d spotted what everyone else had missed – that the CIA had been compromised just as badly as MI5.

  ‘Nothing,’ Finney replied.

  ‘What?’ Bennett had expected a tirade to match Manning’s, but there was no fire in Finney’s eyes, no sign he was going to snatch at any of the bait she’d dangled in front of him.

  ‘I don’t deal with the clerical staff,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 54

  Valera sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. She’d spent the last however many hours watching the colour of the sky slowly start to deepen. In Povenets B or Leningrad in July it would be as light as it was outside now until long into the night. Sunset in Stockholm would be late and brief too. But she suspected she wasn’t in Sweden any more.

  Five minutes ago she’d heard the heavy click of a lock and the deep groan of the large metal door being opened and closed. Then there were footsteps on the stairs and a prolonged sequence of shuffles and sounds from the other end of the house.