by Tom Bradby
‘Exactly.’ He let that hang in the air for a moment. ‘So they do have a source. And I’d hazard a guess that he or she is inside this building.’
‘So Viper is real.’
‘I’d say so, wouldn’t you?’
Kate needed to buy time to think. She stood up, went to the window and looked out through the blinds. ‘How much do you think they knew?’
‘Let’s take a different route. What could they have known? Or, more precisely, what could someone have told them? The surveillance team first. More of them, so more possibilities. But, so far as I’m aware, they knew nothing beforehand, except that Andros was your target. Why would they think that would be of any interest to Moscow? And why would Moscow have wanted to send a wet team – which is, after all, not without risks of its own – for some unknown operation in a European backwater?’
‘Do you think they knew about Lena?’
‘My guess – and it’s only a guess – is no. At least, not initially. I suspect they knew that you and your team had somehow gleaned intelligence on their assets and wanted to make quite sure that your source was shut down. To put it another way, they knew the int came via you, so it was you they were tracking.’
‘You think they’ll suspect Mikhail?’
‘Depends on how unreliable they reckon he is. But even if they did, they wouldn’t move against him. He’s Igor’s son. I’m afraid that someone saw you with Lena near that quayside and drew their own conclusions.’
In despair, Kate came back and sat down.
‘We all make mistakes, Kate.’
‘Not like that we don’t.’
‘Yes, we do.’
‘She was just a kid.’
Ian waited until she had composed herself. ‘So who knew that you were about to get on a plane to Athens?’
‘My team, obviously.’
‘Anyone else in your office, apart from you, Rav, Julie and Maddy?’
‘No. And even Maddy didn’t know. She went home early.’
‘All right. You emailed me, so I was aware. Who else?’
‘Danny. And C.’
‘Did you tell anyone beyond the three of us?’
‘No.’
‘Your husband?’
‘Well, yes. I guess I did say I was going to Greece, but not to Andros.’
‘That might have been enough. He knows the form, of course. But could he have let any of that slip to anyone else, however inadvertently?’
She hesitated a moment too long as she turned over the possibility he had mentioned it to Imogen. ‘No. He was brought up to speed again in the latest vetting round. He knows that anything I tell him or talk to him about is sacrosanct, and can’t be discussed elsewhere, under any circumstances.’
Ian’s eyes seemed to glint in the low light, as if he sensed her doubts. ‘Did anyone in your team behave in any way you thought worthy of note? Did they appear uncomfortable? Did they disappear for a period, or do anything you remember thinking was odd at the time?’
Kate recalled Rav’s disappearance on the morning of Lena’s death. He’d be the last person on earth to betray her. So why was she even giving it a second thought? ‘No,’ she said.
‘How much did you tell Sir Alan?’
Kate stopped in her tracks. ‘What do you mean?’
‘When I arrived here in the morning, he clearly knew about the operation. But I hadn’t briefed him. Had you?’
Kate cast her mind back to the late-night stint before she’d left for Athens. ‘No. I didn’t formally brief him.’
‘But did you talk to him about it?’
‘Yes. He came to my office.’
‘And?’
Kate shifted uncomfortably.
‘Did he ask you where you were going?’
‘No! He didn’t need to. He seemed to know. He said, “Bound for Athens in the morning?” Something like that.’
‘How did he know it was Athens?’
‘He said we should move as soon as the Empress docked. You heard him. So I guess Danny must have told him. Why do you ask?’
Ian pursed his lips. ‘Don’t be naive. If you don’t know where this is headed, then you should. In all likelihood, the foreign secretary is going to win the leadership contest and become prime minister. So I don’t need to explain, to you, at least, that we’re holding a tiger by the tail. And sooner or later, as is the way of such things, it’ll turn and bite us on the bum. Then the hard-faced hatchet men across the river will launch the mother and father of all investigations.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Oh yes you do. We all have to protect ourselves. And we can only do that by ensuring that our loyalty is – above all – to our country.’
Kate narrowed her eyes.
‘Sir Alan is a school friend of the foreign secretary,’ Ian continued. ‘He will admit to it when he has to, but generally chooses not to shout about it. You know as well as I do that, when push comes to shove, children of the establishment always stick together. So all I’m saying is that we may have to answer for our conduct one day, and we need to be aware of that.’
‘Are you saying C could be Viper?’
‘I’m saying that no one here is above suspicion. Not me, not you, not Rav, Julie or Danny. And not Sir Alan – particularly given his close connection to James Ryan.’ Ian sat back. ‘To begin with, to be fair to all of us, anyone in Whitehall or beyond could be Viper. But this operation changes everything. Now we know he or she is in this bloody building. So from now on I’d like any information you uncover to come direct to me, please.’
Ian stood up.
Her audience was clearly over, so she rose with him. He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You must be … exhausted.’
‘That’s one word for it.’
‘C wants to see you in the morning. Go straight up as soon as you’re in.’
He ushered her out and she returned to her office in a daze. She sat at her computer and stared out into the darkness.
Her phone sounded. She glanced at the readout and pressed the green button. ‘Hi, love.’
‘Are you back?’
‘Just got to the office. Sorry, I was about to ring.’
‘Could you get over here? I’m at Millbank, waiting for this debate.’
Kate frowned in confusion, her mind blank. ‘What debate?’
‘The first of the TV leadership debates. It’s on Sky News tonight. It’s meant to focus primarily on foreign affairs, so James Ryan has the upper hand and we need all the help we can get.’
Kate glanced at her watch. ‘I was about to go home and see the kids.’
‘They’re fine. We’d appreciate a bit of assistance. Imogen’s nervous. She’s less confident on foreign-policy stuff.’
‘All right. I’ll come over.’
Given what she’d previously said about feeling uncomfortable around Imogen’s campaign, Kate had to suppress her irritation at being asked to help directly. But since Stuart had provided cover for Athens with no warning, she wasn’t in a strong position to object. She went out into the blustery autumn night and decided to walk along the river and over Lambeth Bridge. The lights of the Houses of Parliament shimmered on the choppy waters of the Thames.
The TV crews outside the offices of Number Four Millbank showed little interest in her. She swept through them unhindered and up to the Sky News office. She gave a fake name to the security people and was just wrestling with the absence of any ID to match it – she had left it in her desk – when Stuart appeared and talked her in.
He kissed her perfunctorily and led her down the corridor. ‘I know I’m not supposed to be here,’ he said, ‘but she needs me.’
Imogen did indeed look nervous, drained of her usual poise and self-assurance. She was heavily made-up and muttering quietly as she scanned her notes. Neither she nor the two male aides alongside her acknowledged Kate’s presence.
Stuart interrupted: ‘Imogen.’
She finally looked up, smiled at Kate and came
to kiss her. ‘Sorry, we have a minute to sum up our vision for the country. Which is, honestly, impossible.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be great.’
‘It’s such an unnatural thing, speaking for a minute. Oh, well, what will be will be.’
She was about to go back to her papers when Stuart stepped in. ‘Kate’s here to help on the stuff we talked about.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘I was going to take a tough line on Russia – strict economic measures, sanctions and so on, and a broad alliance against them, but I do think we have to be careful to avoid a march to war.’
‘Given the way the Russians have been deliberately trying to undermine Western democracies,’ Stuart said, ‘not to mention their enthusiasm for cold-blooded murder on our streets, attempted or otherwise, I think they should be the focus of our attacks. I mean, who knows what they may be up to in this election? Look what they did in the US!’
Kate glared at him.
He carried on regardless: ‘Our guys have been doing some analysis. A lot of social-media accounts heavily support the foreign secretary – more than you’d think he might merit – and an equal number say the vilest things about you, Imogen. I think we should tell it as it is. The new Cold War.’
One of the aides finally tore himself away from his phone. ‘We think they’re bots, like we saw in the EU referendum – fake automated accounts, set up and later deleted. Quite a few have already gone.’
Stuart was looking at Kate for some kind of reaction. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Is that possible? Isn’t that the kind of thing the Russians are always doing?’
Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s not really my area.’
Stuart’s face reddened. He stared at the floor. But if the tension was there for all to see, neither Imogen nor her assistants noticed it. She was too preoccupied with her notes, and they with their phones.
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She didn’t meet Stuart’s eye. ‘I’ll watch in the lobby.’
She fetched herself a glass of water and sat in a corner with a clear view of the TV screen on the wall. The foreign secretary swept in, late but unfazed, even though his cohort of aides could barely conceal their panic, and she shrank back to avoid being seen. She’d never been asked to brief him, but it was increasingly on the cards, and she wasn’t keen to have him feel – or, worse, know – that he’d seen her before.
He chatted cheerily to the Sky News producers and allowed himself to be led to the make-up room. He exuded charm, she thought, whatever his critics might say.
The debate began about ten minutes later.
James and Imogen both had a natural ease in front of the camera. If it had been a dating show, they would probably have hit it off immediately and rushed away for a wild weekend in Brighton, leaving Meg Simpson, pale, technocratic and dull by comparison, to stand beneath their window and complain about the noise. But about ten minutes in, James got to her.
‘I think we’ve probably had enough of the public-school charm,’ Imogen said. ‘After all, it’s provided us with little but uncertainty wrapped up as destiny.
‘It’s not that I don’t care about our relationship with the European Union – in the past and the future – and our place in the world. But right now I’d prefer to be talking about the scale of our social-care challenge or the still significant size of the deficit, not to mention our national debt. I’d like to talk about our students struggling with ever-increasing fees. They can’t get a well-paid job or buy a house. I’d like to talk—’
‘You do believe in capitalism, don’t you, Imogen?’ James shot her and the invited audience his trademark megawatt smile.
‘I do. Enough to want to save it.’
‘And if we don’t get out there and build our trade across the world, as our forefathers did, then we won’t have the money to do all the things you’ve so thoughtfully listed. And while I admire your ambition to double – to double – the education budget, you have not yet begun to let us know how you plan to fund—’
‘That is how we compete in this brave new world you and your fellow posh boys have created,’ Imogen said.
She was rewarded with a ripple of applause. Imogen was coming across as younger and fresher than her fellow contestants, with ideas that hadn’t been talked to death over the past few years, but Kate still found it hard to tell precisely how well she was doing.
She was certainly right about politicians failing to confront the things that really mattered. The ageing population, a health service that couldn’t continue in the way it had without an enormous injection of cash, unaffordable public-sector pensions, the fact that no one had a plan to build anywhere near enough houses, or that all public-sector finance projections relied on high levels of immigration, which the government was determined to reduce.
On and on. It seemed never to change.
And that was before you got to the really intractable issues – a deeply hostile Russia, and a China that grew in power each day without taking a single tiny step towards genuine reform. Who would want to talk about that when you could fill the airwaves with irrelevant shit about our place in the world from morning to night, dreaming up deals with every country and planet this side of Mars in the fond belief that it equated in some way to trade?
It was pathetic. They were pathetic. So pathetic she couldn’t take any more. Her head hurt, and filling it with more politics wasn’t the cure. She decided to walk home, in the hope that it might make her feel a bit better. She set off through the night, head down, mind drifting. And by the time she got to their front door, she had more or less forgotten her irritation with her husband.
16
When she got into the house, Fiona and Gus were already asleep, so Kate went straight to bed. But an hour later she was still trying to bury herself in a book when Stuart arrived back.
‘Where did you get to?’ he asked.
‘I was tired. I didn’t think you’d notice my absence.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s supposed to mean exactly what it said.’
‘You want to explain to me why you’ve been so weird these past few days?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Stuart put his hands on his hips. ‘So now we’re going to do the bit where we pretend we haven’t been married for ever?’
‘We might not be for very much longer if you keep salivating over Imogen twenty-four seven.’
Stuart stared at her. She could tell he was genuinely shocked, and cursed inwardly. She hadn’t meant to say it.
‘What the fuck are you talking about? She’s one of our best friends!’
‘One of your best friends, if we’re being brutally honest.’ Kate immediately regretted saying that, too.
‘Is that why you were so weird when I asked for your help and advice on Russia?’
‘You were inviting me to comment on something I’d told you in literally the deepest confidence – the most sensitive national secret that only five people know.’
‘I was absolutely not! Everyone knows you’re the local Russia expert. I was inviting you to chip in on whether you thought we might be the victims of a well-known modern intelligence warfare strategy. The use of bots and fake accounts has hardly been the deepest, most sensitive, only-five-people-know national secret during God knows how many recent elections, has it?’
His blood was up, but it wasn’t just bluster. She knew she had wounded him, genuinely and unnecessarily. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I had an operation that went very badly wrong in Greece.’ Suddenly she couldn’t stop herself. ‘I recruited a blameless young girl to work for us. Actually, “recruited” is too nice a way of putting it. I blackmailed her into it. And then, in the middle of an operation, she disappeared. Rav and I went looking for her and got ambushed in a stairwell and had to kill our three attackers. Back at the hotel, I had to wash the blood off and change my shir
t. I found the girl in my cupboard, with her throat cut. So … I’m probably not in the best frame of mind.’
Stuart was dumbstruck. She watched the emotions sweep through him, anger giving way to incomprehension and then, eventually, pity. ‘Oh, shit, Kate,’ he said. ‘I am really sorry.’
‘No. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’
He came to sit next to her and rested a hand on her leg. ‘I don’t know what to say. That is … horrible. Are you … all right?’
‘Physically, yes. I’m fine. It’s a long time since I had to fight my way out of a stairwell, but Rav is young, fit and very good. We’re both okay.’
She looked at him. ‘So, yes, you’re on the money. The Russians are ruthless murdering bastards. But I can’t say that in public, and especially not now.’
‘What will the consequences be?’
‘Of her death? For me, not good. For the Service as a whole, it depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Everyone is looking over their shoulder now. The Russians knew we were coming, so someone must have told them.’
‘Who?’
‘That is a very good question.’
Stuart had turned his back to her. ‘Yours is a brutal business. I sometimes forget that. Or maybe I try not to remember it. Politics is sweetness and light by comparison.’
‘War is brutal. And that’s what it is.’
He looked at her again. ‘Do you ever worry about the damage it’s doing to you?’
‘All the bloody time.’
Stuart began to undress, perhaps to make what he said next appear less loaded. ‘Do you think it’s possible to be the warrior you need to be and the wife and mother you want to be?’
So there it was. The question Kate could not and would not ask herself, articulated clearly between them at last.
She knew what his answer was, but she couldn’t get her head around it now, so she let the silence play out.
He appeared to be deep in thought. Then he said, ‘The Russians definitely killed this young girl?’
‘I’d better stop talking about it. We’ve already got down to which of us knew exactly what, when.’
