Double Agent

by Tom Bradby

  At first sight, it seemed an inconspicuous, underwhelming memorial to the many millions of Jews killed by the Nazis, but as you moved from the low tomb-like slabs of smooth grey concrete on the periphery and into those of monstrous scale in the interior, a sense of the awesome nature of this, the greatest crime ever perpetrated against humanity, became at first unnerving and finally overwhelming.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon by the time she returned to her hotel room. Ian had called three more times, but she decided on a visit to the spa and sauna over responding to any of his messages. She sat next to a very fat, determinedly manspreading German in the sauna and kept her towel tightly wrapped around her. She swam afterwards and felt, in the round, a tiny bit calmer.

  She returned to her room, only to find it much colder than she had expected. She came around the corner and saw the window was open, a man sitting in a deckchair outside with his back to her. It was Mikhail. He had a bottle of beer in his hand. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I helped myself from the minibar.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘You were followed.’

  ‘Our ops team was confident—’

  ‘Then they need a kick up the arse. We have been watching you ever since you landed at Tegel. And so have my former colleagues in the SVR. I am sorry you ran into trouble, but it was not of my doing.’

  Kate felt acutely vulnerable standing opposite him in her dressing-gown. ‘This is incredibly unprofessional.’

  ‘Relax. You’re safe with me, as I think you know.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Asylum. As we discussed.’ He picked up a bag on the floor beside him and came into the room. He closed the doors to the balcony, took out a laptop and placed it on the desk.

  ‘Take a seat.’

  She did so. Mikhail opened the computer and logged on with touch ID. ‘You’ll recall that your prime minister was once an army officer in Kosovo back in the late nineties, attached to army intelligence. As you have guessed, his interpreter was working for us. He had an affair with her, which provided plenty of useful information, but the most important revelation was the sheer scale of his greed and sexual appetite. The latter included a penchant for young girls.’

  Mikhail pulled up some video and hit play. It was evident straight away that the room had been rigged with more than one camera of the highest possible quality – and lit to ensure maximum visibility. There seemed absolutely no doubt that the man entering the room was James Ryan, now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and First Lord of the Treasury. There was an old woman with him, who pointed at three girls rapidly getting to their feet by the coffee-table in the corner. ‘Two virgin, but third also very young.’

  The girls looked thirteen or fourteen – fifteen at most – and were dressed in high leather boots and short miniskirts. Their faces were caked with make-up, which failed to conceal their ages or their anxiety. The old woman departed. Ryan took a packet of white powder from his pocket, poured a thin line of it on to the table, rolled up a US twenty-dollar bill and encouraged the girls to partake. He was the last to bend over and snort cocaine, before the orgy – if you could call it that – began in earnest.

  One thing was quickly evident: this was not his first time in such company. He knew exactly what he wanted for his money and directed the girls with all the confidence of a man who had done this countless times before. Initially, he only watched, but eventually he rose from a seat in the corner, unbuckled his belt and dropped his trousers and boxer shorts. He didn’t bother to take off his shirt or socks. ‘You don’t have to watch the whole thing,’ Mikhail said.

  ‘Given what is at stake, I’m afraid I do.’

  ‘It doesn’t get any better.’

  To begin with, Ryan was content to let the girls pleasure him, but he then insisted on having intercourse with each in turn – in the missionary position, while the others waited. All three of the girls cried as he entered them. ‘Just fast forward to the end.’

  ‘The end is the worst bit,’ Mikhail said, but he did as he was instructed. When he reached the part where James Ryan was putting his trousers on, he hit play again. One of the girls was still crying. ‘Tell her to shut up,’ Ryan instructed the others. ‘At least you will eat well tonight.’

  He put on his jacket and left the room. Mikhail stopped the video. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Not pleasant, but you can see there is no doubt it is him.’

  ‘How can we be sure you haven’t faked it?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  ‘We both know it’s possible.’

  ‘Not with that kind of quality. Ask your experts.’

  Kate nodded. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Mikhail said.

  She glanced up at him. ‘It’s a lot worse than that, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it is not. It is really very simple. I am offering you a quick and easy solution. No one can doubt that he is the man in this footage, or that its contents don’t amount to a resigning matter, so all you have to do is get myself, my family and my father into Britain with this computer intact and then you can release the pictures and it will all be over.’

  ‘You honestly think it’s going to be that straightforward?’

  ‘Why not? They say the foreign secretary is an honest woman. As long as you don’t make the mistake of consulting anyone else, I don’t see why it should be complicated.’

  ‘How do you want to proceed?’

  ‘Do we have your promise of asylum?’

  Kate hesitated a moment too long. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Signed off by the foreign secretary, and with the stipulations we made, we are afforded your meaningful protection and are allowed to keep all our assets in the West?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is the letter?’

  ‘I’ll have to get it. We—’

  ‘We can take this shit anywhere!’ The tension Mikhail had been doing his best to hide was starting to show. ‘And embarrass the hell out of you in the process.’

  ‘I said yes.’

  ‘I need a letter from the foreign secretary.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘You should have brought it with you!’

  ‘Come on, Mikhail. She was never going to authorize that until she knew the material was genuine.’

  He slammed the computer shut and put it back into his bag. ‘Well, now you have seen it.’

  Kate stood. She walked to the window. She went to her jacket for a cigarette and offered the packet to Mikhail, who waved her away airily. She lit up, if only to give herself a few moments to think. ‘We have a deal,’ she said. ‘I want to know how to proceed.’

  He watched her, hands thrust deep into his pockets. ‘I don’t know if we should trust you.’

  ‘Yes, you do. That’s why you came to me in the first place.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure of yourself.’

  ‘We have to lay our hands on this material. You know we do. So let’s get on with it.’

  He watched her smoking, his gaze unblinking. She wished she wasn’t standing before him in a dressing-gown, hair unkempt, but perhaps that had been part of his calculation.

  ‘My father’s family was originally from Georgia, as I am sure you know. We still have a home in Tbilisi and another in Kazbegi, just over the border. He thinks he can get himself, my wife and son there. So that is where we will meet. The Russians have the commercial airport covered, so you will need a private plane on standby to come in and pick us up – or, better still, to remain on the ground until we are ready.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This week. You can send me the letter from your foreign secretary tonight – tomorrow at the latest. I will find a way to show it to my father. You will need to unfreeze the assets you have seized in the UK, including the house in Knightsbridge, where we will have to live. The letter will need to confirm we are free to move around as we please in both Europe and America.’

  ‘As you know, that’s not in our gift.�
��

  ‘You can deliver it. We will come with this video and incontrovertible evidence of the money we have paid to your prime minister over the course of the time he has worked for us – more than thirty million pounds in all – along with a global paper trail, which will allow you to seize the cash and arrest those who have helped launder it.’

  They looked at each other. ‘All right,’ Kate said. ‘You very much have a deal.’

  Mikhail forced a smile. ‘And hang the consequences.’

  He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. ‘You’ll be the most famous British MI6 officer since Kim Philby.’

  ‘Just what I always wanted.’

  He walked to the door. ‘Sorry to have caught you off guard.’

  ‘There is one other thing.’

  He turned back to face her. ‘You’re getting more than enough for your money.’

  ‘This concerns both of us. Is it true that my husband Stuart was the agent codenamed Viper?’

  A flicker of alarm crossed Mikhail’s handsome face, all the more noticeable for the speed with which he tried to hide it. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you sure Stuart was Viper?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’ He was looking her in the eye now. Perhaps with a little too much intensity, as if he was determined to hide the momentary flash of alarm she’d witnessed a few seconds earlier.

  Kate leant back against the desk. ‘Well, since you murdered my old deputy I was forced to acquire a new one, and she has some questions about our original operation that I’m having to admit I struggle to answer.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Stuart didn’t know anything about Rav’s trip to Geneva.’

  ‘So . . .’

  ‘And Rav was much too smart to have drawn attention to himself while he was there.’

  Mikhail shrugged. ‘If I recall correctly, he went to see the lawyer François Binot. Maybe one of my colleagues had him under surveillance.’

  ‘Why? Binot worked for you.’

  ‘Exactly. Perhaps it was Binot who alerted us.’

  ‘Rav wouldn’t go anywhere near a man like Binot. And, besides, he would have called us straight away if he had sensed he was being watched.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ Mikhail looked exasperated. ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘Was Stuart Viper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. It was my father who recruited him.’

  There was something about Mikhail’s expression that unsettled Kate, not so much that he might be telling a lie – which he would likely pull off with consummate ease – so much as the sense that she, in turn, had unnerved him. But why? ‘How did Moscow Centre know what Rav was up to? Because Stuart could not have told them.’

  ‘Who says we killed Rav?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘If we did, it was done without my father’s knowledge.’

  Kate thought about that. She had kept her gaze fixed on Mikhail’s face. ‘What do you mean if? You must know.’

  ‘You are starting at shadows, Kate. It was not our work. That is what I am saying.’

  ‘What if there is someone else?’ she asked.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In SIS, working for Moscow Centre.’

  ‘You mean someone whom my father, the head of our foreign intelligence service until two years ago, was unaware of?’

  ‘Perhaps he or she does not work for the SVR.’ Kate moved to the window and looked out at the grey clouds illuminated by the dying rays of the sun. ‘What about someone recruited and run by the GRU?’ She turned back to him. ‘A man or woman in a position to tell his or her masters in Moscow that Rav was circling close to Binot, a lawyer with intimate connections to the Russian president.’

  She waited. ‘A man – or a woman – in a position to warn his masters that we had come to Berlin with the aim of persuading you to defect.’

  ‘You think anyone in the GRU gives a fuck what happens to us?’

  ‘I imagine, if they succeed in removing you, your father and his successor from power in the SVR, they would be rather interested in inheriting the British prime minister as an agent of influence.’

  ‘Stuart was Viper,’ Mikhail said, with finality. ‘The rest is just conjecture. I shouldn’t let it keep you awake at night.’

  But as he left, she knew with utmost certainty that this particular piece of conjecture would be keeping them both awake for many nights to come.

  14

  C WANTED TO see them once they had landed back at Heathrow, but there was a complication: his wife Alice was dying. Kate called him directly to reassure him it could wait and they would deal with the foreign secretary directly if need be. He would not hear of it, so the car delivered them in driving rain to the Lister Hospital, just down from Sloane Square. They had to cross no more than twenty yards of open ground, but they were dripping when they arrived in the Lister’s hallway.

  Kate had been instructed to go directly to room 307, but she asked Julie and Suzy to wait in the third-floor reception area.

  The door to 307 was wedged ajar and she could see her superior in a chair with his back to her, reading quietly to his wife. Alice’s eyes were closed, her pearly white face turned towards the window, classical music playing softly on a portable CD player in the corner. Kate watched for a moment, feeling like a voyeur. Middle age had written a few lines on Alice’s elegant features, but illness had not robbed her of her beauty.

  Sir Alan sensed Kate’s presence and turned slowly, without breaking the rhythm of his reading. He nodded at her to indicate he would be with her shortly and returned to his wife.

  Kate re-joined her colleagues. ‘How is she?’ Julie asked. Kate shrugged. She felt incredibly uncomfortable just being there.

  ‘What does she have?’ Suzy asked.

  ‘Cancer,’ Kate replied.

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Originally breast, but now secondary in the liver.’

  ‘That’s bad.’

  ‘Yes. But, for God’s sake, don’t say anything about it.’ Kate didn’t have a great deal of confidence in Suzy’s ability to adhere to social norms.

  ‘My mother had liver cancer,’ Suzy added, cutting the feet from under her. ‘The doctor said she would die in three weeks and he was right – to the day.’

  Kate went to get herself a cup of coffee from a machine opposite. ‘You want anything?’ she asked the others. They shook their heads.

  ‘That should definitely help you sleep,’ Julie said, as Kate returned with a plastic cup of dirty brown liquid.

  A few minutes later Sir Alan emerged. He’d arranged for them to talk in an empty room at the other end of the corridor. Kate sat in a chair in one corner, Sir Alan stood by the window, while Julie and Suzy perched on the empty bed, like children visiting their parents.

  ‘How is she?’ Kate asked.

  ‘She has a throat infection and a fever. She can’t swallow and is in a lot of pain. The doctors think she has a few weeks left, so I’m keen to get her home again, but for the moment we’re stranded here.’

  ‘Sir, I’m sure we can deal with the foreign secretary directly.’

  ‘Let’s just get on with it. Talk me through the video.’

  Kate couldn’t think of a worse time or place to be discussing this. ‘I’m not an expert, but, to me, there’s no doubt that it’s him. The entire thing is shot with very high- quality hidden cameras. He enters the room. Three very younglooking girls dressed in high leather boots and short skirts get up from a sofa in the corner. An old woman, who is clearly the madam, promises him that two of the girls are virgins and the other still very young. He takes a packet of what looks like cocaine from his pocket and encourages them to snort it first, before doing so himself with a rolled-up twenty-dollar bill. He asks them to undress and to . . . well, to pleasure each other, which they do not very convincingly. He is clearly no newcomer to this kind of scenario and he directs them to do a series of specific t
hings to each other.

  ‘Then he stands, unbuckles his belt and comes to the bed. He has removed his underwear, but keeps his shirt and socks on. The girls then pleasure him, before he has intercourse with each of them in turn – in the missionary position. All three girls appear to be crying as he enters them. Afterwards, one is still shedding tears and he instructs the others to “tell her to shut up”. He adds that all three will “eat well tonight”, then dresses and departs.’

  There was a long silence. Sir Alan had his back to them. He was staring out across the rooftops, which were just shapes in the darkness. ‘You watched the whole thing?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was unbearably sordid.’

  ‘And you are absolutely one hundred per cent certain it was him?’

  ‘Yes. It was the way he talked, the way he moved . . .’

  ‘It could not have been faked?’

  Kate hesitated. Had she been too quick to believe what had appeared to be the evidence of her own eyes? ‘It’s real – it has to be,’ she said. ‘And it is definitely him.’

  Sir Alan looked like a man trying to hide frustration, anger or both. ‘What arrangements did you make?’

  ‘He and his father want a letter from the foreign secretary guaranteeing protection, free travel in Europe and America, and the ability to enjoy their assets in the West unhindered, which I promised they would have tomorrow. They will assemble in Tbilisi, where Igor’s family were originally from, or a home they have in Kazbegi, close to the border, by the end of the week. They want a private plane to fly them direct to London, so that they do not have to pass through the main airport terminal, which he said was watched by the Russians. They also promised to bring with them evidence of the cash they have paid to Ryan – more than thirty million pounds in all.’

  ‘The foreign secretary wants to see us tomorrow morning at her London house,’ Julie said. ‘Just Kate and me.’

  Suzy looked as if she might object, but thought better of it after catching sight of the expression on Sir Alan’s face. Ice radiated more warmth. ‘Talk me through the operation,’ he said. He was still addressing Kate, as if the others were not there.