The Moscow Sleepers
Page 26
Perhaps this was the problem. Liz said tentatively, ‘It may sound odd, but I think I’m going to have to learn how to relax all over again.’
Pearson smiled, handed her a glass of wine, then sat next to her on the seat in the cockpit of the boat. ‘Cheers,’ he said, and they clinked glasses. ‘You’re not alone in that, you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’m the same,’ he said, looking out at the gentle swell. ‘I’ve tried to do all the sensible things – sailing where I couldn’t get a mobile signal and be contacted by the office; helping out my brother-in-law when the mackerel were running; even doing DIY. But all the time I’d be thinking of work – the latest case, the most recent staff problem, what I had to do as soon as I stood on dry land again. To tell you the truth, I’m still trying hard not to do it.’
Liz asked, ‘Has it always been like that?’
‘No. How about you?’
‘Not at all. I used to enjoy all sorts of things. Then—’ and she stopped, not wanting to mention Martin again. It seemed wrong to let her memory of him intrude on this moment.
But Pearson got her drift. ‘Same here. It was only after I lost my wife that it became a problem. Before that, I could switch off bang – just like that. I looked forward to holidays then,’ he said, as if recalling a lost Golden Age. ‘But after Lucy died, I was so shattered that I found only work could distract me. It wasn’t that work gave me pleasure, but it did take my mind off how bad I felt the rest of the time. Does that make sense?’
‘Of course it does. It’s exactly how I felt. I wouldn’t say I forgot about Martin when I was at work, but somehow the job made life bearable. Whereas whatever I did outside work, I just felt unbearably sad.’
Pearson reached for the bottle of burgundy and topped up their glasses. ‘It’s funny, when people talk about addictions, they don’t usually think of work.’
‘I don’t know about that – why else do they talk about workaholics?’
‘That’s true. But for both of us, it seems that work isn’t an addiction; it is more a necessary escape.’ He reached forward and twitched the sheet for the main sail and the boat slowly adjusted.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said, leaning back on the bench. ‘I love my job; it’s obvious to me that you love yours, too. But it’s just that because of our … situations, we don’t like doing anything else that gives us too much time to think. And I feel guilty about enjoying anything.’
‘Me too.’ She stared down at her glass. ‘Yet I’ve started to realise I’d like to feel I was living life again.’
Pearson nodded but said nothing; he seemed deep in thought. Then he turned to Liz, and said, ‘I will if you will.’
‘Will what?’ she asked, curious.
‘Try living again. It’s about time. Only I can’t do it on my own.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you can’t either.’
‘No, I can’t.’ She looked towards the shore, which they were approaching alarmingly fast. ‘Though you may want to alter direction a bit, before we run aground.’
Pearson looked up, then quickly reached for the rudder behind him and steered The Rubicon safely away from the shoals.
Liz said with a small laugh. ‘First obstacle successfully tackled by the two of us.’
‘There may be more to come,’ said Pearson.
‘I’m sure there will be,’ said Liz confidently. ‘It would be nice to tackle those together, too.’
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
DAME STELLA RIMINGTON joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1968. During her career she worked in all the main fields of the Service: counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. She was appointed Director General in 1992, the first woman to hold the post. She has written her autobiography and ten Liz Carlyle novels. She lives in London and Norfolk.
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The Geneva Trap
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It all began by accident. Geneva, 2012. When a Russian spy approaches MI6 with vital information about an imminent cyber attack, he refuses to talk to anyone but Liz Carlyle of MI5. But who is he, and what is his connection to Liz? At a US Air Force base in Nevada, officers watch in horror as one of their unmanned drones plummets out of the sky, and panic spreads through the British and American Intelligence services, Is this a Russian plot to disable the West”s defences? Or is the threat coming from elsewhere?
As Liz and her team hunt for a mole inside the MOD, the trail leads them from Geneva, to Marseilles and into a labyrinth of international intrigue, in a race against time to stop the Cold War heating up once again...
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Close Call
The most dangerous threats are those closest to home
In a Middle Eastern souk, CIA agent Miles Brook haven was attacked. At the time he was infiltrating rebel groups in the area. No one was certain if his cover had been blown or if the act was just an arbitrary attack on Westerners. Months later, the incident remains a mystery.
Now Liz Carlyle and MI5 have been charged with the task of watching the international under-the-counter arms trade: a trade that has been booming in the wake of the Arab Spring. As the clock counts down, Liz finds herself on a manhunt through Paris and Berlin, and into her own long-forgotten past. A past buried so deep that she never thought it would resurface…
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Rip Tide
To catch an enemy with nothing to lose, Liz Carlyle must venture into dangerous waters
When pirates attack a cargo ship off the Somalian coast and one of them is found to be a British-born Pakistani, alarm bells start ringing at London’s Thames House. MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle is brought in to establish how and why a young British Muslim could go missing from his well-to-do family in Birmingham and end up onboard a pirate skiff in the Indian Ocean, armed with a Kalashnikov.
After an undercover operative connected to the case turns up dead in the shipping office of an NGO in Athens it looks like piracy may be the least of the Service’s problems. Liz and her team must unravel the connections between Pakistan, Greece and Somalia, relying on their wits – and the judicious use of force – to get to the truth.
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First published in Great Britain 2018
This electronic edition published in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Stella Rimington has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-4088-5974-2; TPB: 978-1-4088-5975-9; EBOOK: 978-1-4088-5976-6
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