Man on Edge

by Humphrey Hawksley

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Grizlov interrupted. He held up one of the photographs like a shield. ‘That’s why I asked if he’s one of yours—’

  ‘He’s not.’

  Grizlov continued, ‘Gerald Cooper had been a major in the 16 Air Assault Brigade, 3rd battalion of the Parachute Regiment. He served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and was a founding officer in Britain’s new Joint Expeditionary Force, aimed at rapid reaction against Russia in northern Europe. He resigned his commission a year ago even though he was on a fast trajectory path to the top. So, my question is: why would an officer with such potential leave the army unless his government asked him to take another job serving his country?’

  Stephanie stayed quiet. She saw where this going and wanted Grizlov to get there himself.

  ‘The talented young officer turns up murdered in Russia near the city closest to the border he had been trained to protect,’ concluded Grizlov.

  Stephanie stepped directly in front of Grizlov. ‘Read my lips, Sergey, Gerald Cooper was not one of ours.’

  A condition of her taking the ambassador’s job had been that she would be kept informed of any intelligence operation that could compromise the embassy. She held a weekly meeting with the Secret Intelligence Service station chief, who appeared grateful for her insider perspective of Russia. If Cooper were on the payroll and had been tasked for something up in Murmansk, Stephanie would expect to know about it.

  ‘Why don’t we return to official channels?’ she said. ‘We’ll notify the family, do the paperwork, send someone up to identify the body, and get it back for a funeral.’

  ‘Cooper’s body was cremated this afternoon.’ Grizlov moved to the table, stacked the photographs into a pile, and slid them back into the envelope. ‘A British Embassy official was there. He identified the body, agreed to waive a post-mortem, and signed off on the cremation.’ He brought documents from his inside jacket pocket. ‘Here’s the paperwork.’

  Stephanie stiffened her wrist muscles to keep her hand steady. There were stamps, signatures, boxes and ticks, a photograph of the body in an open cheap wood coffin, another of it sliding into a crematorium furnace. There was the seal of Murmansk Oblast, the administrative area and the logo, in blue and yellow, a ship, a fish, and a spiky aurora which was meant to represent the Arctic Circle. Everything was in Russian Cyrillic apart from a box on the second sheet reserved for the witness signature. Inside, there was a signature and a printed name, Alan Scott.

  Shock and fear hit Stephanie, not head on as in physical threat, but a creeping, untouchable, and slippery anxiety where you think you see danger, convince yourself it is imaginary, then like a monster rearing up from a lake, it is there, lethal and unstoppable. Alan Scott was missing and probably murdered presumably by the same people who killed Gerald Cooper.

  ‘Who the hell is feeding you this?’ said Stephanie. ‘Alan Scott is a security guard at the embassy. He is neither consular nor chancery. He would not be authorized to sign this off.’

  The hotel phone rang. Grizlov picked it up. ‘Tell him to wait in the lobby.’

  He picked up her coat. ‘Sorry, Steph. Another crisis. On something like this, we have to work together. Russia is not one government, but I will get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘We both have to.’

  ‘I’ll see you—’

  He was interrupted by a commotion outside the door. They heard a raised male voice: ‘If the Ambassador is in there, I need to get in.’ English over the Russian. The handle turned. The door shook. Grizlov strode across and opened it. Behind his bodyguards, Stephanie saw Craig Slaughden, forehead cut, fresh blood, shoulder of his jacket torn, holster empty, composure rippled.

  ‘My security,’ said Stephanie.

  ‘Let him in,’ instructed Grizlov.

  The bodyguards melted back. Slaughden pushed through.

  ‘What is it, Craig?’ asked Stephanie quietly, trying to bring calm.

  ‘The vehicle, ma’am.’ He ran his hand through his hair, patted his empty holster, arranging his thoughts. ‘We were attacked.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Black balaclavas covered the heads and faces of the two captors riding with Carrie. The interior of the van smelt of polished leather and gasoline, the roof high enough for her to stand. There were sliding doors on both sides and a steel, sealed panel between the driving section and where she was. The windows were tinted. Carrie made out roads, traffic, and streetlamps. No landmarks. Drab suburbs. No idea where. The van moved smoothly, routine weaving for Moscow traffic, no sudden jerks and turns, no flashing headlights. No horn.

  One of her captors sat beside her with a pistol on his lap, the other on a jump seat across from her, weapon in a shoulder holster. They looked in shape, not fanatical body builders, but fit and not giving off male militia smells, sweat, tobacco, bad breath. They didn’t talk to her or each other. There were two more men in the van’s front seat, making four in all.

  She had been so near. Why had they taken her so close to Stephanie’s house? Why had her driver crossed the river on the Moskvoretsky Bridge instead of the closer Kammeny Bridge where they could have looped straight into the forecourt and British diplomatic territory? How did her captors know to put the snowplow across Bolotnaya Ploshchad which ran around the back of the property? Too many swirling questions.

  Slaughden had been chatting, reassuring, half friendly, half military. He loved New York, had walked the Brooklyn Bridge. Windy. Great views. That sort of thing. There had been a burst of radio traffic. They were five minutes out, he had said. They went over the Moscow River and a right turn into Bolotnaya Ulitsa, less than a minute with an empty road and another right into Faleyevskiy Pereulok, then the fated right, curving round a parking lot. Their headlights picked up the unexpected shape of the snowplow, its yellow streaked with rain dirt, a cigarette’s glow in the cab. A Kia truck, headlights off, boxed them in, a big operation with one driver in the snowplow, two in the truck, two motorcycles on each side of the road and four in the van with her. Nine in all.

  Slaughden reassured her: ‘You’re safe inside the vehicle. They can’t touch you.’ He snapped shut the divide with the driving section. Doors clicked locked. The vehicle was armored. Carrie’s captors appeared outside. They had some kind of drill for locked and armored vehicles. One guy, head down, focused on the door like a locksmith. Rat. Tat. Whir. Rat. Tat. Whir. Rat. Tat. Whir. Another behind, face out protecting him. A third, a few paces away, keeping a wider watch.

  Slaughden flung open his door, right fist around his weapon, and barely touched his feet to the ground when the third guy pistol-whipped him across his forehead, followed by a gloved fist hard against his right cheekbone, followed by a snow-covered boot up and fast into his groin. Another kick sent him down, snapping the wing mirror on the way. Slaughden was military, these men were in another class. Slaughden was down. He was brave, but he achieved nothing.

  The driver moved both hands from the wheel and placed them on his head. He stared straight ahead, rigid, not moving, not even shifting his glance when Slaughden was being beaten. His job was to protect the vehicle, Slaughden’s to protect Carrie.

  Carrie had released the clip on the central armrest and put her hand on the pistol that Stephanie showed her. Once the lid opened, the safety would be off, weapon ready to fire. The locksmith kept drilling until her door burst open. She was hit by a blade of freezing air. The guy keeping watch came forward. She could have shot him, two of them. Maybe all three. Then what? Soldiers were like mosquitoes, down one and another one’s there straight away. Besides, doctors don’t shoot people. Not generally. Not Carrie.

  Her captor reached in and took the gun. She read him as much as she could through the balaclava. A slit in the wool. Two brown eyes, calm, no anger, threat, or fear.

  He grasped her wrist, like a mountain climber helping a friend. She went with him. She saw Slaughden, fallen on his side, face cut from shards of the wing mirror, impossible to tell through thick clothing if he were brea
thing.

  Carrie pulled to get a closer look, which was the only time her captor spoke. ‘He’ll live,’ he said in Russian in a way that she believed him. He walked her round the Kia truck to a Mercedes Sprinter whose side door was open. The seats were black leather, wide and comfortable like a luxury minibus shuttling guests into town from a private airfield.

  They didn’t cover her face with a sack. No tape across the mouth. No blindfold. They kept themselves disguised instead. They didn’t speak. The Sarah Mayer passport, credit cards, travel itinerary, Semenov’s flash drive sat in her pockets untouched.

  Her wrists were lightly bound with plastic wire. They clipped in her seat belt, leaning across her, no sense of treat, no touching. They were very professional. But they removed her boots and thermal socks. She was barefoot, warm on the floor carpet of the van. Outside she would barely last a step. Then they searched her and found the flash drive her dying uncle had put in her pocket.

  Sergey Grizlov offered his car to take Craig Slaughden to a hospital. Stephanie knew enough first aid to conclude that Slaughden could fix himself up when they got back.

  ‘Anything more you need, call.’ Grizlov tapped his phone as he walked them to the lift. Stephanie nodded. Polite. Diplomatic. Grizlov stayed in the corridor. The elevator doors closed. Small lamps played across the top. Grizlov counted it down to the lobby and waited. The lights indicated the doors opening at the bottom, pausing, closing. It started its journey back up again. The elevator pinged. Grizlov took a step back as the door opened. His new guest wore the khaki uniform of a colonel in the Russian army with a custom-made dark green tunic, thin red threaded lines around the lapels, a jungle green shirt, and black tie. Grizlov ushered Ruslan Yumatov into the suite.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia

  Rake examined a live feed coming from the forecourt of Moscow’s Four Seasons Hotel. Using facial and gait recognition, most of those in the lobby had full profiles pulled up within seconds. They were a mix of well-heeled tourists and Moscow oligarchs and politicians. Some bodyguards and staffers came up blank. Most were identified.

  Rake studied the digital footage much as he would a hunting scene in the Alaskan wilds, narrowing his gaze, taking in a panoramic sweep, identifying specific elements, cutting out the wider arc and focusing on detail. He said to Lucas, ‘Go back to when the Ambassador entered the hotel.’

  All heads on the forecourt turned towards Grizlov and Stephanie Lucas, except for five. Three of Grizlov’s bodyguards kept scanning. A porter stepped out to stop a taxi coming up while the Foreign Minister was vulnerable, and the gaze of a bodyguard or staffer by the porter’s desk moved directly across the forecourt, nowhere near Grizlov.

  ‘Put this figure left of screen,’ said Rake. ‘Enlarge around, brighten and whiten it.’

  He worked better in contrast and less color. Dark sky, sea ice, and islands were mostly hues of gray. Even moonlight reflecting on snow did not do much color.

  ‘What exactly is it you need, Major Ozenna?’ intervened an agent, mid-forties, close-cropped blond hair.

  ‘Monochrome.’

  ‘We have software that does this work faster and cleaner,’ persisted the agent.

  ‘A moment, Jeff,’ said Harry Lucas.

  ‘Keep enlarging,’ said Rake. ‘Ignore pixelation.’

  The image ballooned out. Shapes became blobs of dark and light, indecipherable, except to an experienced eye. What Rake was looking for appeared as a distorted light-gray circle, which he judged to be halfway down the driveway heading east. Within that circle lay a pinprick of light.

  ‘Bring it back.’ Rake unfolded his arms, put both forefingers to his lips, waiting for the image to return.

  ‘Here.’ He tapped the screen. ‘Separate off that section. Check facial recognition. He’s using his phone for something.’

  The shadow shape Rake identified was blown up with colored lines that followed identifiable human contours. Within seconds, it had a match. The hotel forecourt once again became full screen. The footage spooled, stopped, and a red circle appeared around the half-turned head of the figure. An hour after Grizlov met Stephanie Lucas the same person walked purposefully into the hotel lobby a step or two ahead of his bodyguards. CCTV picked him up inside, meeting with two of Grizlov’s men who escorted him to the elevator bank. He was dressed in full military uniform.

  A nervous edge fell on the room as details of the man’s identity appeared. Colonel Ruslan Yumatov, attached to the 14th Separate Special Purpose Brigade at Ussuriysk in the Eastern Military District, a spetsnaz veteran of the Syrian, Venezuelan, and Diomede campaigns, aged forty-three, married to Anna, with two children, Natasha, five, and Maximilian, seven, who lived in Moscow.

  ‘That’s him,’ said Rake. ‘He was expecting the British Ambassador. He was signaled by the guy at the porter’s desk that the British Embassy car was leaving.’

  ‘How did he know who was in that vehicle and where it was heading?’

  ‘They knew the route?’ interjected Jeff, the CIA agent, running his hand across his short hair. ‘The Brits let them hack into their GPS.’

  ‘Or the kidnappers fabricated traffic and road closures prompting them to take the back route?’ said Lucas.

  ‘And who are you?’ said Rake quietly. He didn’t work well with people in suits in cramped spaces, the smell of ambition and trampling.

  ‘Agent Jeff Auden, CIA. I report to Director Ciszewski.’

  Quizzical expressions crossed the dozen or so faces, including Lucas. This was not a room where it was good to show or pull rank.

  ‘We have the British Ambassador,’ said Lucas.

  The hotel forecourt picture vanished, and a video link appeared, not of Stephanie Lucas, but her bodyguard, former Parachute Regiment captain, Craig Slaughden. He was clean shaven, wearing a dark jacket and casual shirt with no tie. A fresh dressing covered a gash on his forehead. He looked straight into the camera, a soldier on debrief.

  Harry Lucas had Slaughden’s statement on a tablet in front of him. ‘They knew you were coming?’ he began.

  ‘They did, sir.’

  ‘Were you using satellite navigation?’

  ‘Not on the vehicle. We use encrypted navigation on our phones. We take the back route often, particularly at that time of day, when traffic’s busy.’

  ‘Anything abnormal?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  Lucas nodded as if the answers satisfied him. ‘From what you know about the assault in Washington, and I appreciate it would be what you have seen on television, could it be the same people?’

  ‘What I saw in Washington were two armed men in a surprise shooting who were easily neutralized,’ said Slaughden. ‘There was a much higher caliber of organization and skills here in Moscow.’

  The door opened with yet another new face. The name tag on the white naval uniform read Matthew Allen, a captain from the Office of Naval Intelligence. He saluted Rake. Tilted his head in respect to Mikki.

  ‘What you got, Captain?’ asked Lucas.

  ‘The long single-file numbers are the craft identification numbers and hull identification numbers of US naval vessels,’ said Allen. ‘The shorter numbers attached to the yellow files are the NATO pennant numbers applicable to Canadian and European naval vessels. Basically, this is the same information but with different methods of registration. There are thirty-three vessels on the screenshots, seventeen in the US group, sixteen in the NATO one. Each is taking part in the upcoming Dynamic Freedom exercise. Most also took part in the last Trident Juncture exercise, which would not be unusual. Therefore, this could be an old compilation. Most would be in the North Atlantic theater now. Their current positions are classified. These registration numbers are open-source information.’

  ‘You’re saying this stuff any teenage kid in his bedroom could put together?’ Harry Lucas pushed back his chair and stood up.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then, what exactly is
it that’s worth killing for?’

  ‘My guess is that whatever else is inside that flash drive is gold dust on submarine warfare.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Moscow

  Sergey Grizlov had his back to Yumatov. ‘Who is responsible?’ he asked, looking out from the hotel windows over weather sweeping across Red Square, through lights on onion domes, crenelated high walls, and spires. ‘Even if you don’t know, tell me what you suspect.’

  Yumatov took his time, gauging how much to tell. Carrie Walker was in his custody. The stolen data was secure. His men had found her carrying Semenov’s one terabyte flash drive. It was time to deepen his deception against the Russian Foreign Minister and move on to the next stage.

  It was just over a year since Yumatov had been granted a five-minute meeting in President Viktor Lagutov’s everyday office in the Kremlin’s Senate Building. Lagutov, an introverted academic, had appeared irritated, bored with his role as a stand-in president, keeping the office warm until Russia could find a vigorous leader to hold the country together. He had aged, thinning gray hair, spectacles too big for his colorless face, no energy in the eyes.

  The President had agreed to see Yumatov because of the Diomede operation, which had given the young colonel the temporary superstar status of a Russian folk hero. Television loved his looks, his elegant wife and adorable children, his ruggedness, his composure in crisis, his ease in dealing with people, his turn of phrase, not least because Yumatov described convincingly how the Diomede had been a victory against American aggression.

  ‘So, Colonel, what plan does the Russian military now have for the future of our country?’ Lagutov began, staying behind his desk in the dark wood-paneled room and not offering Yumatov a seat.

  ‘NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise has humiliated Russia, sir,’ answered Yumatov, referring to the recent large North Atlantic military exercise. ‘We have no way to balance it.’