by Jeremy Duns
The street was quiet and deserted, and I ran down it looking for the Fiat. Yes, there it was. As I approached it, I smashed my glass against a wall, then yanked open the front door and pressed the jagged edge to Toadski’s throat.
‘Move over!’
He glared at me with a mixture of fear and fury and jerked his head desperately towards the back of the car. I looked: there was someone sitting there, hidden in the shadows.
I glanced down the street, then up at the windows of the embassy. No one. I pulled the glass away from Toadski’s throat, opened the rear door and climbed in. There was a strong smell of cheap Russian tobacco, and something sweet I couldn’t place.
‘You’ve got two minutes,’ I said, thrusting the glass forward. ‘Why are you trying to kill me?’
I didn’t know who he was, but I knew what he was: the head of Rome’s illegal GRU station. Toadski would have called him on landing at Fiumicino and this, no doubt, was his car. He spoke to Toadski in Russian now, calling him Grigori Mikhailovich and telling him to take a walk and come back in five minutes. His voice was high-pitched – reedy and fluting, with a slight lisp. Without a word, Toadski opened his door and climbed out.
As the echo of his footsteps faded, the man in the shadows leaned forward, bringing his face into the orbit of the nearest streetlight. It was long and slender, with bloodless lips and watery eyes hidden behind large lids: it reminded me of the husband in the Arnolfini portrait. He was young, early or mid-thirties – one of the new generation coming out of Moscow’s training schools – and he seemed to be chewing or sucking on something. I looked down and saw a small blue and silver box in his lap: Baci Perugina.
‘Good evening, Mister Dark,’ he said, inclining his head a little. ‘My name is Pyotr Yurevich, and I currently have a pistol aimed at your heart. However, I assure you I have no intention of using it.’
There was no trace of a Russian accent except for when he’d said his name: I’d have guessed he was French or Swiss. Pedantic sort of tone, but that seemed to come with the manual. A black-gloved hand appeared in the small pool of light available in the car, and enclosed within its grip was the gun, a nine-millimetre Makarov by the look of it. Another hand appeared and swiftly unloaded it, and then the voice continued: ‘Now, kindly remove that glass from my face and tell me why you think someone is trying to kill you.’
I considered for a moment, then opened the door, leaned down and placed the glass on the pavement.
‘A bullet,’ I said, closing the door again. ‘About an inch from my face.’
There was silence for several seconds.
‘How do you feel?’ he said, eventually. ‘I understand you recently suffered an ordeal in Africa.’
I stared into the darkness. I recognized the question from having run agents in the field myself. They sometimes lost it, either through fear or injury or simply fatigue. He thought I was still suffering from the fever I’d caught in Nigeria – and that it had made me delusional!
‘You don’t know what happened in London?’ I asked.
He chewed his chocolate treat and waited for me to continue.
‘At eleven o’clock this morning the new head of the Service was shot in the chest by a sniper in St Paul’s Cathedral. The bullet was meant for me. The sniper was an Italian.’
He stopped chewing. ‘No, I did not know this.’
His surprise sounded genuine, but then it would. Spying is acting, and acting of the hardest kind: you’re never allowed off-stage to remove your make-up, never get to re-take a fluffed line, and your life depends on your performance. I’d been acting for over twenty years, and had become so good at it that I even managed to convince myself some of the time. Perhaps he did, too. Because if he were acting, he’d given a very good line reading, inflected with just the right degree of innocent surprise.
‘What did Grigori Mikhailovich tell you?’ I asked, jerking my head towards the empty driving seat. ‘He must have given you a message from Sasha.’
‘He did not tell me anything about this. Do you really think I would have come to meet you in front of the British embassy if I had just ordered your death?’
He had a point. As a deep-cover agent, he was taking an enormous risk just being here at all. Then again, so was I. Was it possible Toadski didn’t know about St Paul’s, either? He was a bit player, admittedly, an errand-boy, but surely Sasha would have briefed him nevertheless? Unless the GRU hadn’t been responsible, of course…
‘What about the KGB?’ I asked. ‘How are your relations with your colleagues there?’ The infighting between the KGB and the GRU made the Service and Five look like something out of a Mills and Boon.
He hesitated for a moment. ‘As far as I know, neither we nor any of our colleagues had anything to do with the incident you mention.’
As far as he knew – very reassuring. It was a legalistic sort of answer, and the hesitation didn’t help make it any more convincing.
‘Why don’t you tell me what you do know,’ I said, ‘because I’m starting to wonder if I’ve stepped into the wrong car.’
He looked aggrieved, then sighed deeply, an Atlas of the spy world. ‘I am a mere cog in the machine, Mister Dark. You cannot expect me to be privy to every operation we undertake.’
‘We have a saying for that,’ I said. ‘The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.’ But, again, he had a point. The sniper had been Italian, but that didn’t mean he had just flown in from Italy. I remembered how surely he had run into the tunnel at Barbican. Local knowledge? Pyotr here might not have been informed about a plan to kill a British double agent in London – especially if it were by another agency. Then again, if the KGB were out for me, he wouldn’t want me to know that either. I glanced down at my wristwatch. I’d already been gone three minutes, and Barnes would soon be wondering where I was.
‘I think we should start again,’ he said. ‘You are my agent now, and I would—’
‘Your agent?’ I laughed, and turned to open the door.
‘If you leave this car,’ he said, his voice immediately hardening, ‘I will expose you.’ His eyes glinted beneath puffy lids. ‘Without hesitation.’
He reached inside his jacket, and for a moment I thought he was about to pull a second gun on me. He smiled at my panic and immediately opened his hand so I could see what it was he had reached for: the negatives. So it was that again.
‘These are copies,’ he said. ‘The originals are in a safe in Moscow. If you do not do precisely as I say, my superiors will send them to your colleagues indoors. If I don’t like the way you behave, they will send them. And if anything happens to me, they will send them. Is that clear enough for you?’
I let my hand drop from the door handle. He gave me a smug little smile and replaced the negatives in his jacket.
‘Why are you in Rome?’ he said. ‘Is it because of Edoardo Barchetti?’
Another surprise. There were only two ways he could have known I was here to investigate Barchetti: either through a leak at the very highest level of Five, the Service or the Cabinet, or…
‘He’s been blown,’ said Pyotr. ‘He is a British agent, and he has infiltrated a little group of ours that operates here.’ He unwrapped another chocolate and popped it in his mouth. ‘We need you to kill him at once.’
*
There was a sudden sound from the street, but it was just Grigori coming back from his stroll and Pyotr sent him away again. I should have heeded his advice in Heathrow – this was hardly low profile. Had Sasha known this assassination scheme was waiting for me in Rome and tried to warn me off?
‘Kill him?’ I said, to buy some thinking time. Part of me noted that hidden in the absurdity of it all had been the admission that Arte come Terrore was a Moscow front: so Zimotti had been right about that. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong man,’ I said, finally. ‘You’re looking for an assassin.’
Pyotr pursed his lips. ‘You had no such qualms in Nigeria.’
A lot of people seemed to have g
ot the wrong end of the stick about what had happened in Nigeria. I suddenly missed Sasha. Oh, I hated him – his tweed suits and his stamp collection and his patronizing manner – but I missed him nevertheless. This chap was too smooth by half, and he was giving me the bloody creeps.
‘Why me?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you get someone in the group to do it?’
‘That is our concern, not yours. But, as you ask, the group is not aware of our sponsorship, and we would prefer it remains that way. We also do not trust them to perform a job of this delicacy.’
So they were not just running Arte come Terrore, but they were doing so as a false-flag operation. Again, Zimotti had been right, although it was fairly standard procedure. Interesting that Pyotr felt they couldn’t handle a hit, though.
‘It doesn’t add up,’ I said, staring him straight in the face. ‘You didn’t know I was coming.’
He shrugged. ‘That is true. But the man who was to have done the job is no longer available, and you are here in Rome to meet Barchetti – it is providential.’
I could think of other words for it. The man who was to have done the job was no longer available… because he had recently died in Smithfield Market? Was I being targeted by the GRU after all? And if so, why did this man not seem to know about it?
‘Why do you want Barchetti dead?’ I asked. ‘You just said he’d been blown—’
‘He was carelessly given some very important information, after which he immediately contacted London. Which is why they’ve sent you, I suppose – to find out what it is he knows?’
‘Among other things,’ I said. ‘What was the information?’
He looked down at the box in his lap and started rummaging around in it. He wasn’t in any sort of a rush, this fellow, and that was unfortunate because I was. I’d find it rather difficult to explain to Barnes what I was doing in this car. He was armed, but he’d put his gun away and I wondered whether I should rush him, try to strangle the information out of him. Dangerous: he didn’t look like he could put up much of a fight, but there would be Grigori to contend with, too. And so far I didn’t seem to be having much luck getting information out of people by force.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Could you just forget the fucking chocolates for a minute and tell me what’s going on? I don’t have a lot of time.’
He winced at the obscenity. ‘It is information that could expose you,’ he said.
‘Then it’s no dice. He’ll run a mile the second he sees me – we used to work together.’
‘He doesn’t know it exposes you. But I will tell you no more. It is better for your sake.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’ He didn’t reply, so I tried another tack. ‘Severn is scheduled to meet Barchetti tomorrow morning. If I insist on taking his place and Barchetti winds up dead, how do you propose I avert suspicion?
‘Tomorrow morning will be fine,’ he said, though I hadn’t been asking for his approval on that score. ‘As for the other matter, you will find a way: the consequences of him remaining alive are much worse. Kill Barchetti, and you will be helping both yourself and us. Everybody wins.’ He smiled.
‘Except Barchetti,’ I said.
He leaned forward. ‘I understand your reaction,’ he said, in what I think he meant to be a confidential tone. ‘Believe me. I have only survived in this game myself through my ability to find opportunities where none seemed to exist, and for repeatedly turning the most hopeless-seeming situations into victories. I have studied your file, and I think the same could be said of you.’ His tone turned cold. ‘We have a saying in Russian: “Among wolves, howl like a wolf.” Do not mistake us for puppy dogs, Mister Dark. We expect you to howl with us, all the way. This time it really is the end of the road: there are no exits, and we have the winning hand. If you do not do as I say, I will expose you. I am afraid it is checkmate. Kill Barchetti tomorrow morning,’ – he patted his jacket pocket – ‘or I will make sure Charles Severn receives these by lunch.’
*
Barnes was waiting for me at the top of the staircase, wearing a dressing gown.
‘Everything all right, sir?’
‘Fine,’ I said, taking the pack of cigarettes from my pocket. ‘They were in the glove compartment.’
I threw him a couple of sticks and he grinned. He went back into his room to smoke them, and I went into mine. I undressed and climbed into bed.
VIII
Friday, 2 May 1969, Rome, Italy
I woke with a start. Something had touched me. I opened my eyes and saw Barnes seated on the bed, his hand shaking my shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, looking embarrassed. ‘But it’s time.’
I thanked him gruffly and rubbed my eyes. He left, and I went over to the basin and washed my face. Slowly, the nightmare of the previous evening returned. Curiosity killed the bloody cat, I thought: if I hadn’t left the building, I wouldn’t have found myself blackmailed into an assassination job I couldn’t see any way of completing. But I had left the building, and complete it I must. Pyotr had mixed a few metaphors but I didn’t think he was bluffing, and deep down I knew he was right: I could rattle my cage all I wanted, but there was no way out. I’d read plenty of reports about blackmailed agents, but until now had never really appreciated what it meant, I suppose because I’d never believed it might apply to me.
I went through my fitness regimen, then bathed, dressed in a light linen suit, and collected Barnes from his room. Downstairs at the Station, Severn came to the barrier and told the man on duty to let us through.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Yes, thanks,’ I said.
I said hello to Cornell-Smith and Miller, and a couple of others who I’d glimpsed but not been introduced to at dinner the evening before. Sarah was seated at a desk in the middle of the main area smoking a cigarette, wearing a crisp white blouse and a dark skirt that showed off her long golden legs. She caught me looking at them and smiled, pushing a wisp of hair away from her eyes.
I looked around. She had been right: it had changed since I’d last been here. There was significantly more radio equipment, some fancy Scandinavian-style furniture – her doing? – and even a cafetière, from which Severn was currently pouring himself a cup. But the layout of the place was basically the same, with the heavy wooden doors to the offices. Severn was in my old one, I saw.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to meet Barchetti.’
The cup clattered in its saucer as he looked up to see if I were serious. ‘But you can’t,’ he said when he realized I was. ‘You’re under diplomatic cover.’
‘So are you.’
He placed the cup on the table and wiped his hands against his trousers. ‘Well, yes. But I’ve been running him…’
‘I’ve run him, too,’ I said. ‘It’s set for the modern art museum, isn’t it? That’s just by the Borghese Gardens, if I remember rightly.’
He started stammering about unorthodox procedures and prior notice, so I pushed a little harder, reminding him that I was Deputy Chief and claiming for good measure that the Home Secretary had instructed me personally to report ‘from the spot’. It took me a few minutes to make him understand that he had no choice in the matter – the fact that I hadn’t either made it easier to do.
‘I also want you to send a telex to London,’ I said. ‘Message to read as follows: “Rivera and di Angelo in custody in Milan. Italians claim Moscow backing group, possible base on Sardinia, but as yet no evidence. Await further instructions. Dark.”’
‘Did Zimotti give you that bit about Sardinia?’
I nodded. ‘But that’s all I got, unfortunately. He disappeared to make a phone call just as we started talking.’
Severn pursed his lips. ‘I see. Shame. Sarah, did you get all that, darling?’
‘I’ll send it at once,’ she said, standing and walking over to the coding machine. I headed for the door.
‘You won’t be needing me, then,
sir?’ asked Barnes, and I shook my head. Slowly but surely, he was catching on.
*
I walked down Via Appia Nuova and found a small bar. The street was emptier than I expected for this time of the day, but then I remembered it was the Friday after a holiday. Many people would have fatto il ponte: made the bridge to the weekend. Half the city would be at the beach, or enjoying a picnic in one of the city’s parks.
I felt for my money clip: ten pounds at the bureau de change in Heathrow had got me just shy of fifteen thousand lire. I went inside and bought a couple of bread rolls and a double espresso, then took one of the outside tables. It hadn’t yet gone nine o’clock, but the sun was already blasting down and my eyes started to throb from the glare. I hoped it was a result of chasing snipers about rather than my Nigerian fever returning. I reached into my jacket pocket for a pair of ancient sunglasses I’d brought along, and as I did my hand brushed against the packet of capsules Urquhart had given me in London. I wondered for a moment if I should crack it open and take one, but decided against it.
I put the glasses on and looked around, just in case Severn had decided to be clever and send someone after me. I also scanned the roofs of the buildings opposite, checking for the glint of a telescopic sight. Whatever Pyotr said, the bullet in St Paul’s had been meant for me, and I had no doubt that whoever had ordered it fired meant to try again.
But, at least for the moment, the coast looked clear.
I had my breakfast, savouring the rich flavour of the coffee and vowing never to have another one in a British airport. Then I left a few coins as a tip and walked over to a kiosk across the road, where I bought a copy of the International Herald Tribune. I rolled it under my arm and hailed a taxi.
As the driver manoeuvred through the morning traffic, I considered my old friend and informant ‘Bassetto’ Barchetti. Pyotr had been lying through his teeth about him, of course: whatever information he had managed to pick up, it didn’t have anything to do with me. They’d already been planning to kill him before I arrived, and they couldn’t care less whether I was in danger of being exposed; someone or other was intent on killing me, in fact. No, Pyotr had thrown in that bit about the information as bait to grab my attention. It must be something else, something big that they didn’t want the Service to know, and it had got them into an almighty flap and desperate to get him out of the way for good, and sharpish. So sharpish that they had reached for their stash of negatives and tried to force me into doing the job for them.
