by T. M. Parris
“Things have moved on. That was part of a probe into a possible leak. I had to be seen to be investigating you. Orders from the top.”
“Ah, so it was all Marcus Salisbury’s doing.”
“That tends to be the way it works, John, if you’re part of an organisation. He is the boss after all. Anyway, the focus of the investigation has moved elsewhere, since there was never any evidence you were involved.”
“Such a relief.”
“And you made your views about the Service clear at the time, as I’m sure you recall. I regret that you wouldn’t consider my offer of an approach to Salisbury. I’m sure he can be persuaded to abandon any preconceptions he might have if you expressed an interest in working more constructively with us.”
“Working constructively with you of course would involve abandoning any attempt to find out what happened to my parents.”
“Well, you’ve made your views on the matter quite clear. I take it you want to talk about some other matter?”
“I do. You remember the conversation we had on my sixteenth birthday?”
Walter’s face set itself to a resigned blandness. “Yes, I remember. You didn’t like what I had to say.”
“I found that man. I found him, Walter! You said you’d looked. The Service. You put everything into it. That’s what you said.”
“And we did. But there wasn’t much to go on, was there? A physical description, no more.”
“A good physical description. And a likely nationality. I went to a speciality tobacconist and found the make of cigarette he was smoking. A Russian brand. Only for sale in Russia. New information, Walter! What did you do with it?”
“The make of cigarette on a pack you got a partial glimpse of, in passing, in a dark street. Not exactly fool-proof, is it? And I don’t need to remind you that you were ten years old at the time. MI6 is a big organisation, with stretched resources. If you’re going to open up an old line of enquiry like that, you need a strong enough reason, a justification in the here and now. Besides, what did his being Russian tell us exactly? It wouldn’t in itself clear their names, would it? And there’s the equipment that was found inside the flat.”
“That was planted.”
“He said that, did he, this fellow?”
“Yes, he did. You’re saying now that you think my parents were double agents?”
“No, John. I’ve told you, I’ve never thought that! They were working for me at the time, remember? But what was found was found. And we never heard from them again. Some people were never convinced after that, though I tried.”
That whining voice again. He’d heard these excuses most of his life. “So the problem went away. How convenient. Well, I met him, Walter. I’ve spoken to him. Stick that in your Scotch and drink it.”
Already he’d reverted to a sulky teenager, as he so often did with Walter. The drinks arrived. Unfortunately, the barman explained, they had no Scotch except for Johnnie Walker but he hoped Sir would be okay with Black Label, a fine premium? Failing to mention it was also the most expensive in the range. Fairchild’s tonic was miniscule.
“Are you expecting me to say well done?” asked Walter after the waiter had gone. “You’ve made this your life, John. You’ve let it twist you up. All the things you might have done if you could just let it go.”
“I can see how that would have suited you.”
“Well, let’s hear it, then. What did this man have to say for himself? That’s what you want to tell me, isn’t it?”
“But you already know what he said, Walter! Every time I find anything out and bring it to you, it turns out you knew already.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. How could I possibly know what some Russian said to you about something that happened thirty years ago?”
Fairchild drained his tonic. “He said that my parents were abducted on the orders of a senior KGB agent who used the street name Grom. Are you going to tell me you’ve never heard of that person?”
Walter sighed. “Grom doesn’t exist. He’s a scare story, a ghost identity the KGB used to frighten their own recruits in case any of them felt like turning.”
“That’s exactly what Peter Craven said. And yet, within days of the Moscow Head of Station hearing mention of that name, you show up. That’s a coincidence, is it? Or are you here for some other purpose entirely?”
No response.
“It’s a lot of trouble to go to for someone who doesn’t exist. When I asked Zack to throw the name around, I wondered how long it would take for you to make an appearance. And here you are.”
“Well, that’s all very clever of you, John. I can tell you’re pleased with yourself.” Walter sipped his Johnnie Walker as though it were lemon juice.
“So,” said Fairchild, “are you going to treat me like a grown-up? Or are you going to make me look elsewhere for someone who will? You know I’ll find out. Some of you people will help. Of course, that means spreading the word. Whispering the name Grom in the ears of spooks far and wide. And I get the impression you don’t want this particular body dug up.”
“Can I remind you,” said Walter, “that persuading or coercing intelligence officers to give out secrets makes you a significant security threat and could be considered treasonous?”
“You can. I also know how embarrassing it would be if it were to become public knowledge that a breach like that had happened. Not to mention if the information itself also got out. I know you don’t want a big fuss, Walter. You’ve spent the past three decades trying to drop this in the deepest well you can find. But I’m not going away. I will find out. If not from you, then from someone else.”
He waited. Walter sighed and began.
“Earlier in their MI6 careers, your parents were involved in an internal investigation. After a series of operational blow-outs, a senior officer came under suspicion of working for the Soviets. Edward and Elizabeth were sufficiently distant from his activities to be trusted with it. They were on the verge of amassing enough information to proceed, but before he could be detained he was killed in a car accident in the Scottish Highlands. At least, that was how things appeared. The leaks seemed to stop.”
Walter swilled the ice cubes around in his drink, apparently having lost the will to drink it.
“Years later, the Fairchilds were working for me. I was a rising star at that time, you know, fast promotion and all that. Anyway, this case niggled at them. They kept going back to it. You know how they liked to theorise. I told them to forget about it and move on, but they developed this idea of a new presence in the KGB, someone whose information seemed to lead right back along all those same trails. They starting talking about his death being a decoy and that he’d crossed into the USSR. They were based in Vienna at the time, to screen and recruit defectors crossing the Hungarian border. Then they disappeared.”
“So of course you diligently investigated the idea that they may have been right?”
“John, you need to develop a sense of realism. Without the two of them I couldn’t make a case. They were the ones who’d pulled it all together, but most people dismissed the idea as fantasy. A few thought there might be something in it, but there weren’t enough of us, I’m afraid. So I did try, although I’m sure you won’t believe me.”
He sounded like he wanted his dinner. Fairchild was unsympathetic.
“This person calling himself Grom might be a former British intelligence officer?”
“That’s what your parents thought. But the problem with that idea is that other defectors – Philby, Burgess and so on – never earned enough trust from the Soviets to play an influential role in the intelligence world in the East. They were sidelined, frozen out. Left to live out dreary unimportant lives in tatty communist apartment blocks, and serves them right. Which made the Fairchilds consider something else.”
Fairchild was already there. “He wasn’t British at all. He was Russian all along, with some cover that was deep enough to fool all the checkers.”
“
I went through every element of his back story, John. I couldn’t find anything amiss. It all checked out. I have to say, this idea that he was Russian didn’t exactly make the Fairchilds’ theory more popular within the Service. But if they were right, it would explain how he established himself in the KGB.”
Fairchild remembered Dimitri’s words: Grom is not a man who forgets.
“He had my parents killed because it was their investigation that blew his cover. He never forgave them for it, even though he got away.”
“Maybe. Or perhaps he saw them as a threat. He thought they might still track him down somehow.”
“But he framed them as well. He wanted to destroy their reputation as well as take their lives.”
“Well, some on our side argued the Fairchilds were in on it. That they were working with him the whole time, and took a suitable opportunity to go over as well. Not me, John! I always backed them up. But we were in the dark, really.”
Fairchild’s mouth was dry. The tonic had had no effect. “They would have taken me with them,” he managed. “They wouldn’t have left me behind.”
“Unless they thought you’d have a better life in the west. You were at boarding school most of the time anyway. Maybe they were told they couldn’t bring you. Maybe you just happened to leave the flat at a very unfortunate time.”
Fairchild thought back to that evening, the card game they were playing, his parents’ stupid forfeits, tricks and puzzles they were always foisting on him. Don’t go, his mother had said to him as he stormed off. Please don’t go, John.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Nobody knows his name. Theories floating about, that’s all we ever had.”
“His name in MI6! His name in the Service. What was he called?”
“That won’t mean anything to anyone, John. The man died, so everyone thinks. It’s just a file in the archives now.”
“Then it won’t matter me knowing, will it? Come on, Walter.”
Walter sighed. “His name was Sutherland. Gregory Sutherland. For what it’s worth. But careful what you do with all this, John. There may be good reasons for not digging these things up.”
Careful, careful. Walter had been careful all right. He could have told Fairchild this at any point during his life instead of watching him risk everything time and again to find out for himself. And now here he was, his lean, worn face, his sharp eyes tinged with concern, telling Fairchild to be careful. What a fraud.
He couldn’t stand to be in the old man’s company any more. He got up and left.
36
Fairchild walked out, too impatient to stop and chat at the front desk, too furious to check for shadows. With no destination he headed into the Metro. Knowing in advance that Walter was a two-faced schemer didn’t make it hurt any less. Years of his life he’d spent on this. Jinpa, his Tibetan friend, risked everything to pass him Dimitri’s identity, and after all that, why had Walter been so secretive all these years? To avoid the Service being embarrassed by its own incompetence. It really was that tawdry.
He paced along the platform, not even caring where the train was going. Walter was framing this as a thing of the past. But Walter didn’t know that Dimitri had been murdered. Or that Fairchild had almost been shot on a train. This was not history. It was live, happening now. The man was still active, this Russian who’d fooled MI6 and infiltrated its highest ranks. Even now capable of carrying out acts of revenge and settling old scores, just as he had with Fairchild’s mother and father. Walter hadn’t even asked what Dimitri had said about their fate. He probably already knew that as well.
The train pulled in and he got on. He stood and stared at his own reflection in the glass as it picked up speed. Grom, who killed his parents, was somehow involved in the Morozov business. Maybe it was the same person as Roman’s FSB contact, maybe not. Leaving the Morozov office the evening he’d discovered Alexei’s body, Fairchild had, on a whim, picked up the notepaper he’d thrown on the floor earlier and taken it with him, along with the laptop. He was sure that this piece of paper was still in his pocket when he’d gone to see Roman. Which meant that it was the same piece of paper Roman had used to scribble his contact name on. Which was why he was so enraged that he couldn’t now find this piece of paper. Normally, if someone gave him a name he’d commit it to memory. But last night he was drunk. They were both unspeakably drunk, and he couldn’t remember the name for the life of him, even though he’d seen it written down. Idiot, Fairchild! A wasted evening. Using self-pity as an excuse to lose focus. He’d never get anywhere acting like that.
He got off at the next interchange. On the way up the steps, his phone vibrated. It was a text from Zack: Call me when you can. Fairchild made for the exit. He emerged at Okhotny Ryad Metro, and once he’d walked far enough not to be overheard he was in Red Square. A funfair was still going, chattering groups gathering around the rides and stalls, strings of lights glowing against the night sky, bright colours penetrating lightly falling snow.
He made the call, following the agreed procedures for a secure line.
“Hey, Zack!”
“Can you talk?”
Tinny music played from a carousel. The massive wall of the Kremlin stretched out across the length of the square. Children squealed. It was as good a place as any.
“Sure.”
“Want to know what’s new?”
“Of course.”
“This is big. Seriously. You know the files we got from your lover Kamila?”
“My what?”
“Your lover. You went to bed with her in St Petersburg. That’s what Rose Clarke seems to think anyway. They were filming the whole damn thing.”
She thought that? Jesus. He fought to moderate his response. “Well, I don’t know what they filmed, but it certainly wasn’t me. Like I said, I left once I’d seen the technicians floating about.”
“Have it your way. She seemed pretty sure, though.”
“Zack, would you do that if you thought someone was watching? I’m not that nuts.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. That Clarke woman, though, she seems to think you are.”
“Really?” His delicate insides were reconfiguring. Was it good or bad? That she thought he was nuts, or that she gave a damn about who he slept with?
“Anyway, that’s not what I’m calling about. Those files on the zip drive Kamila provided. It’s all bogus. I mean, completely wrong. Intended to deceive.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
“This is about the supply lines, right? Using them to prep for military ops?”
“Yes. And they are. But not in Ukraine. We sent our teams out on the ground to look for all this gear and all these troops. Nothing. Checked it out by satellite as well. Looked at social media, any chatter in posts by Russian troops. These training exercises they were doing in the south were part of the deception. Confused us for a while. But Ukraine’s not the target.”
“So what is the target?”
“Georgia.”
“Georgia?”
“Morozov has plenty of contacts there as well, right through the region. Russia’s had its eye on Georgia since forever. They never exactly left after they invaded in 2008, setting up those enclaves and all. We’ve made it clear what we’d think if they tried anything. So’s the EU, so’s NATO. But they want it.”
“And how do we know this?”
“Because they’ve just launched a land invasion.”
“What? When?”
“Tonight. Now. Their tanks are rolling through Georgia as we speak.”
He was desperately trying to process it all through his thudding head. “Zack, who the hell knew about this?”
“Nobody. I mean, nobody. This is a complete surprise, believe me. Georgia’s tiny, Fairchild. They’ll be at Tbilisi by morning.”
“Christ.”
“You can say that again. My people are asking why we had no heads up, the Brits are in the same boat. We delibera
tely had the wool pulled over our eyes. This was calculated misdirection. And you want to know what else?”
“What?”
“I just spoke to Peter. Rose Clarke is in Tbilisi.”
A moment of blackness. The fairground music seemed to fade. “What for?”
“She was told about a potential FSB source who wanted to meet her there. All so urgent that she went straight away. She left this afternoon.”
Icy tendrils reached out, coiling around his skin. “And who told her that?”
“Guess who? The lovely Kamila. She’s been leading us all a merry ride. But it’s the Kremlin pulling her strings of course. Just as well you didn’t do the deed with her.”
“Who did Rose think she was going to meet?”
“Peter says some senior guy who’s been inside the government for years. He was pretty excited about it, which is why he let her go, even though it sounded dicey.”
“It was a trap, for God’s sake! A set-up!”
“Must be. Someone with the inside track on the invasion thought they’d make mischief with it. But here’s the weird thing. It was Kamila who passed on the message from this guy. But the name she had, his actual name, Rose told Peter she got it from you.”
The tendrils gripped, squeezed, turning everything numb. “Zack, do you have the name?”
He paused. “You mean it wasn’t from you?”
“I – it’s a long story.” Bloody vodka. Bloody Russia. Bloody stupid Fairchild. “Did Peter give you the name?”
“Yeah, it’s a – here we go – Mikhail Khovansky. That’s what Peter got so worked up about. Khovansky’s a real insider, massively influential. He’d be a hell of a target to recruit. Wonder where she got it from, then.”
That was the name. That was the blasted name, he knew it as soon as he heard it. How the hell did Rose have it? She’d long gone by that time. Unless she came back later, when they were… A vomit-stained carpet came to mind, almost making him retch.
Zack was still talking but Fairchild wasn’t listening. However Rose got it, she’d been set up nicely, helped by his own self-indulgent ineptitude. And now she was in danger.
