by Tom Bradby
‘Nothing,’ Kate said. ‘I just have to go away in the morning for a few days, so I wanted to check you were okay.’
‘I’m fine. Where are you going?’
‘Finland.’
‘What are you going to do? Invade Russia?’
Kate tried to smile. Sometimes she had to admit to finding her daughter’s humour baffling. But perhaps she should be grateful Fiona knew enough geography to be aware the two countries were neighbours. ‘No. Just a routine thing. I shouldn’t be away long.’
‘I’ll be home at the weekend,’ Fiona said, offering an olive branch.
‘Great. I’ll really look forward to it. Shall we do some cooking together?’
‘Okay.’
‘Anything you’d particularly choose?’
‘I like that new Indian book Rose gave you.’
Kate smiled again. Her daughter was a born-again vegetarian. She couldn’t help recalling the days when their conversation had routinely flowed with such ease. What had become of them? ‘Do you speak to Dad much?’ she asked.
‘Why?’
‘It’s just Gus said tonight that he and Dad talked most days and I thought that was . . . well, very good. I hoped you did, too.’
Fiona sensed a trap. ‘I do speak to him, yes.’
‘Then that has to be a good thing, doesn’t it?’
‘Of course.’
Kate could see she wasn’t going to get much further tonight. She stood, happy to bank such incremental gains. She wanted to tell her daughter how much she loved her, how she missed the easy familiarity they had once known. But the kitchen of her boyfriend’s parents’ home hardly seemed the place. She hugged Fiona and was pleased that she got at least a half-hearted hug back. ‘Night, my love,’ she said.
‘Night.’
‘I’ll really look forward to the weekend.’
‘Me too. Enjoy Finland.’
Kate walked back down to the street outside, some spitting rain and her ever-present watchers. She spent the journey home working out how she was going to lose her tail in the morning without her pursuers discovering her escape so that they put out an alert on all aliases she had on file, which would certainly prevent her passing through Heathrow. It was not going to be easy.
18
KATE WOKE EARLY and sat at the kitchen table, drinking tea and going over the provisional plan she had come up with the night before with the aid of an old London A–Z she’d located on Stuart’s bookshelf. It still seemed the most viable option in the cold dawn light.
She assumed that, if MI5 was tailing not only her but the head of the Service, they would have secured the legal permission to deploy a range of measures from the home secretary, including electronic interception – which was why she’d needed the A–Z, rather than Google Maps. But this gave her the chance to lull them into a false sense of security, too, particularly if they felt she was heading somewhere expected and routine.
So, she began the day with an early call to Dr Wiseman’s secretary, asking for an urgent appointment. She left a message, explaining she’d had another night without sleep and would be coming up to Ealing now, in the hope he could fit her in.
Then she left the house on foot, with a gym bag over her shoulder. The last impression she wanted to leave her watchers was of a woman off on a lengthy journey.
She walked north, skirting Battersea Park, crossing the river, then heading east with the flow of commuter traffic. She wove through Pimlico and finally disappeared underground and into the tube at Victoria. She’d estimated a team of at least four, but probably no more – resources were always tighter than anyone might imagine, even in the search for traitors – and she spotted the first man in the surveillance team as she swerved away from what seemed a full carriage at the last minute and ducked into the next one along. He was bald and wore blue jeans and a green Patagonia fleece, but he mistimed his lunge and only just made it through the doors. One or two commuters looked at him in surprise as he stared at the floor. Kate smiled. Amateur.
She picked out the second in the next carriage along once she had changed trains to the Central line at Oxford Circus. He was leaning against the side, reading a copy of The Times. He was wearing brown walking shoes, a grey outdoor shirt and a Gore-Tex jacket. But who goes to work in rush-hour dressed like that?
She’d noticed in the transfer between lines at Oxford Circus that the bald-headed man had disappeared from view. Clearly he’d sensed he’d been spotted. She moved closer to the man in the Gore-Tex jacket now, as if to let him know that she’d sussed him out, too. He paid no attention.
Part of the reason why using Dr Wiseman had appealed to her was that Ealing Broadway lay at the end of the line. And, since she had also picked the very last carriage in the change at Oxford Circus, the numbers began to thin out beyond White City. The man in the Gore-Tex jacket got off at West Acton. She saw him muttering into his lapel mic as he walked away down the platform.
Kate sat down to survey the rest of the passengers. There was an art, of course, in doing so without being seen to do it, which made it a slow process.
As the train rattled towards its final destination, she had mentally given the remaining passengers the all-clear, but she changed her mind at the last moment about the couple at the far end of the carriage. They’d been chatting amicably, a passable imitation of lovers going to work, but what were the chances of two people in their twenties heading to work at the same tube station at the same time?
A workplace romance, perhaps. But somehow she doubted it. Their conversation had been too intense, too consistent. Couples who were that garrulous were also physically all over each other, in the first flush of love. She made a mental note to check that the pair did not appear anywhere on the journey beyond Dr Wiseman’s office.
She left the train at Ealing Broadway and walked down the platform towards the barriers. She kept her gait easy and relaxed – it had long been a part of surveillance training to learn instinctively to spot changes in how a suspect held him- or herself – and, ten minutes later, hurried through Dr Wiseman’s reception without so much as a sideways glance.
The doctor’s secretary was on the phone, so, without greeting or explanation, Kate walked on to the bathroom at the back. She closed the door, opened the window, climbed through and dropped noiselessly into the suburban garden beyond. It was tougher to get over the fence on the other side without incident – she ended up having to commandeer a wheelbarrow – but she calculated she was into the street beyond in less than thirty seconds.
She allowed herself to look back, then carried on briskly along the route she’d memorized from the A–Z. Her phone, now switched off – as you would expect of a woman in an appointment with her psychiatrist – was no longer able to give away her progress.
The only part of the operation she had not been able to plan was how exactly she would get from there to Heathrow, but in the end her luck was in and she hailed a taxi shortly after she re-joined Madeley Road in search of a bus.
Kate waited for Julie as agreed at Pret A Manger on the other side of security at Heathrow. She had booked her own ticket for the next flight to Helsinki as soon as she’d arrived, having checked that there was another seat available for Julie. Her heart still thumped hard after the adrenalin rush of beating the surveillance team. The coffee did little to calm its rhythm. She’d resorted to a double dose of zopiclone the night before and the four hours’ sleep it had afforded her barely touched the sides of her fatigue. She still felt like death, and for a few brief moments she considered calling off the trip to St Petersburg – then immediately thought better of it.
Julie arrived, flustered, with a copy of The Times tucked under her arm. ‘Sorry, it took me ages to shake off the Security Service guys.’
‘I think they’ve changed their teams.’
‘Makes sense. Suzy must have advised them to. That girl is an absolute snake.’
‘She’s needy and insecure, which is not a great combination. You sure yo
u lost them all?’
‘Yes. You?’
Kate nodded. ‘There was a couple I only spotted at the very end, but I’ve been watching carefully. They’ve not reappeared. Did you book your ticket okay?’
‘Yes, the flight’s nearly empty by the looks of it. You want another coffee?’
Kate shook her head and Julie returned with a double espresso. She flipped over The Times so that it was headline up. It referred to the split in the NATO alliance between the boldness of the Germans and French and the caution of the British prime minister. ‘I accept we both have our doubts about the wisdom of this trip, but you’re right. We don’t have a choice.’ Julie gestured at the headline. ‘I’ve been thinking about the sacrifices all our forefathers made in the last war. And for this, a world in which our leader is an immoral traitor in league with our enemy? We’re growing uncomfortably accustomed to things being fucked up, but we shouldn’t.’
Kate shrugged. What else was there to say?
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come all the way with you?’
‘I’ll need some back-up here.’
Julie nodded and left it there. It was true enough and they both knew it.
Julie finished her coffee and they made their way towards Passport Control and security. They glanced at each other as they approached the border checks, but they passed through without incident and breathed a sigh of relief. By the time MI5 realized its mistake and caught up with them, they would, with any luck, be well on their way to the Russian border.
The flight landed at Helsinki in a hailstorm, the plane buffeted so violently on the approach that Julie’s knuckles went white as she gripped the armrests. But the sun had broken through dark clouds by the time they had hired the car. Leaving the airport, they drove east beneath a spectacular rainbow. ‘It’s a sign,’ Julie said, smiling.
But the risks inherent in what Kate was about to do weighed heavily on them and they passed most of the rest of the journey in silence.
They stopped at the coffee shop in Kotka where they had parted company when Kate had made her fateful journey to Sergei’s dacha on the Gulf of Finland six months before. It was not a place with comfortable associations. They ordered sandwiches and coffee and looked out at the tall ship still berthed on the quay. The clouds had almost cleared now and the sun glinted off the water. ‘I can’t shake the feeling that this journey does not lead to happy outcomes,’ Julie said.
‘Me neither.’
‘You think we should turn back?’
‘I can’t.’
‘I’d still rather come with you.’
‘I know you would and I love you for it.’ Kate smiled at her friend. ‘What are you going to do about Ian?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I’m trying to take my mind off what lies in wait the other side of that border.’
‘Well, I’ll definitely report him to HR if he even thinks about firing me for this, or you.’
Kate smiled. She swirled the milky remains of her coffee in the bottom of the cup. ‘How about a last fag?’ They stepped outside, where a chill wind was blowing in off the water. Julie took a packet of Marlboro from her pocket and offered it to Kate. ‘How’s your sleep?’
‘Chemically induced and not at all restful.’
‘You’re really not in a fit state to go. You know that? In fact, you look like you should be checking into a health farm for the rest of the year.’
‘I tell myself I’m doing it for Rav and that makes me feel better.’
Julie drew deeply on her cigarette and turned away to blow the smoke up towards the clear blue sky. ‘You ever think Suzy might have a point about Stuart not being Viper?’ she asked.
‘Stuart was Viper, I’m sure of that. She might have a point that he’s not the only person who’s been betraying us.’
‘You, me, C, Danny or Ian: it’s not the most encouraging collection of fucking suspects, is it?’
‘It’s also possible, as C says, that there is no one else and the questions are no more than conjecture, coincidence and paranoia.’
‘Does it ever bother you that he and the prime minister were close friends at school?’ Julie took another drag. ‘I mean, I forget about that inconvenient fact for long periods and then I suddenly remember and think, Fucking hell, that is weird.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just, if they were friends, I mean really friends, and James Ryan had been recruited by the Russians, wouldn’t it be a natural next step to bring his old mucker in on the action?’
‘You seem to forget that Sir Alan has been right behind us in everything we’re trying to do. It’s Ian who’s taken a stance one might suggest is helpful to Moscow.’
‘Ian’s not a Russian spy, I can tell you that much.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘He’s far too weak. He wouldn’t dare and the consequences of being caught would terrify him so much he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.’
‘What if he was blackmailed or bribed?’
‘How? His wife is rich, so he doesn’t need the money. I can tell you he’s straightforwardly and vigorously heterosexual, and I don’t think he has any particular kinks beyond the average – and I’m not sure even evidence of an affair, or several, would have been enough to push him to take the risk of working for Moscow. He’s basically just a child.’
‘Although that, in itself, might be a good cover.’
Julie thought about it. ‘Maybe. But still . . .’
Kate threw away her cigarette. She smiled. ‘Thanks for this last conversation. It’s encouraged me no end.’ She hugged Julie. ‘Wait only two days,’ she said, as she walked to the car. ‘If I’m not back then, return to London and confess. What will you do?’
‘Try to go off grid and see if I can avoid our pursuers from the Security Service once they catch up with us – for my own amusement, if nothing else.’
‘Trailing us here would involve a lot of manpower and expense,’ Kate mused. ‘They might just sit tight and wait until our return.’
‘You think Ian, or even C, will be so relaxed?’
‘You should call them. Give Ian a holding statement. A lead came up. We had to preserve operational security so—’
‘They’re never going to buy that.’
‘Agreed, but they’ll know damned well what I’ve gone off to do and they won’t want to do anything to jeopardize my safety.’
‘Showing a lot of faith in them both,’ Julie said, ‘but suit yourself.’
Kate found herself glued to the rear-view mirror until Julie had dwindled into the sinking sunlight. A farewell to security, for the immediate future, at least.
The journey through the endless pine forests passed swiftly, as she turned over the last conversation in her mind. It was better, perhaps, not to chase one’s tail in a state of doubt and confusion, always seeking yet more agents of the enemy: it had undone so much good work in intelligence agencies all over the world, from the days of the CIA’s James Jesus Angleton onwards. But Julie had had a point when she’d raised the schoolboy friendship between Sir Alan and the prime minister. On some level, it bothered her too.
It was dark by the time she reached the Vaalimaa border crossing, the European and national flags cracking crisply above it in the breeze on the Finnish side as she waited behind a long line of lorries. The wind blew in from the Baltic in great gusts, buffeting the hire car and unsettling her. It was half an hour or more before she was presenting an Irish passport in the name of Kate McGillis to the stony-faced young man in the glass booth on the Russian side of the crossing. ‘Dobrý den,’ she said.
He didn’t look up. He swiped the passport through the computer and glanced over the accompanying paperwork. All her passports – she had six at any given time – had in-date tourist visas for Russia.
The young man, his skin as flawless as his expression was impassive, stared at his screen for what felt like an age. ‘Drive your car in to the
right here and step out,’ he instructed her in English. ‘My colleague wishes to speak to you.’
Kate did as she was told, her heart thumping. By the time she had parked, a woman was waiting for her. She was young too, with blonde hair pulled back tightly and bright blue eyes. ‘Please come this way.’
She ushered Kate into a room with a table and two chairs on either side of it. The woman sat, the passport and accompanying entry form in front of her. She might have been pretty, but for the angular set of her chin and skin marked by childhood acne. ‘What is the purpose of your visit to Russia?’
‘I have always wanted to visit St Petersburg. I’ll only be here for a few days.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘At a hotel on Admiralty Embankment.’ Kate pointed at the form she had actually filled out in the office in London before she’d left. Then she took out the Expedia booking confirmation and pushed it across to her.
‘Do you have friends in St Petersburg?’
‘No.’
‘You travel alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you arrive in Finland?’
‘This lunchtime.’
‘Why did you not fly direct to St Petersburg?’
‘I had a friend in Helsinki I wanted to see. We had lunch together.’
‘Where?’
That caught Kate off guard, but she didn’t blink. ‘Well, she actually lives between the capital and Kotka, so we had lunch there, in a café on the quay. I can’t remember the name of it.’
The woman stared at the passport and the piece of paper beside it, as if both were a mystery, the truth of which would soon be revealed. ‘What is your occupation?’
Kate pointed at the piece of paper again. ‘I work for Oxfam.’
‘In Dublin?’
‘In London.’
‘You do not sound Irish.’
‘My mother is English and I was brought up in London. But my father is still alive and lives in Dublin.’
