Overkill pr-1

by James Barrington

  ‘Explain,’ the grey-haired man said, looking up sharply.

  ‘If Ambassador Karasin genuinely knows nothing about this assault – whatever the hell it is – then we can only assume we’re dealing with some kind of freelance operation.’

  The President frowned. ‘You mean it’s some sort of terrorist attack?’

  Hicks shook his head. ‘No, sir. All the information we have received from our informant, and the data we have obtained from technical surveillance, point to official involvement of some sort. A private organization simply would not have the resources or the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon in the tundra.’

  ‘So what do you mean?’

  ‘What I mean is that this assault might be the brainchild of the SVR or the GRU or even of some Russian minister. What I don’t think, assuming that Ambassador Karasin is being truthful, is that it is official Russian government policy. There’s also,’ Hicks added, ‘some circumstantial evidence which might support his denial. Ambassador Karasin is one of the most senior and important Russian diplomats, and I simply do not believe that Moscow would knowingly leave him here in Washington if any sort of conflict were imminent. They would have recalled him on some pretext weeks ago.’

  The President nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense. Right, in the absence of the Director, what are your recommendations, Walter?’ The Director of Central Intelligence, an old friend of the President, was out of town. In fact, he was in Florida recuperating from a mild heart attack, and had not been consulted about the situation, on the President’s explicit orders.

  Hicks shrugged his ample shoulders. ‘We’re not getting very far, sir. Our own operatives haven’t been able to obtain any further data from our source in Russia, and the British haven’t so far been of any help.’ He paused, deducing that the President was seeking some approval, however tacit, for the actions he had already taken. ‘I would not presume to advise you about the political stance you have adopted, Mr President – that is not a function of my office – but I do think we should maintain a higher military alert state. In the absence of any definite information, escalating our operational readiness to DEFCON FOUR was, I believe, the wisest – and possibly the only viable – course of action. I think we should maintain at least that status until the implementation date quoted by our Moscow source.’

  ‘Or until the threat is actually implemented?’ the President asked, with a wintry smile.

  ‘Or, as you say, sir, until the threat is actually implemented,’ Hicks agreed.

  Orpington, Kent

  ‘Please don’t try to be funny, Mr Willis,’ Orlov said.

  ‘Who told you I was coming here?’ Richter asked.

  Orlov smiled, his thin lips parting to reveal excellent teeth. He pulled his dressing gown more tightly round his spare body and raised his hands in a gesture of mock surprise. ‘Told me, Mr Willis? What is your real name, by the way?’ Richter told him – as far as he could see it wouldn’t make any difference whether the Russian knew or not. ‘No one told us you’d be coming, Mr Richter,’ Orlov said, then paused. ‘We’ve never met before,’ he added, ‘but I know quite a lot about you.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do,’ Richter said.

  Orlov chuckled. ‘Oh, yes. It was a matter of simple deduction. When our bomb caught the wrong man this evening, we anticipated that you might be tempted to stop being on the defensive and do something rather more positive. It was, if our information about you is correct, entirely in character. You are a very dangerous man, Richter. The men we sent after you last week were two of the best we had. We brought them in especially to terminate you, and for what you did to them you’re going to die very slowly. Very slowly and very painfully.’

  ‘I didn’t think you went in for that kind of thing, Vladimir,’ Richter said. ‘Not if our information about you is correct, that is.’

  Orlov smiled again. ‘I don’t personally,’ he said, and gestured to the man on his left. ‘One of the men you killed was Yuri’s brother. When I’ve finished talking to you, I’m going to give you to Yuri. Yuri will enjoy it, but I doubt if you will.’

  Richter looked at Yuri. The Russian smiled, but it wasn’t the smile of a man who is enjoying life. It was the smile of a man anticipating future pleasures, and Richter didn’t like the look of it one bit. ‘So how did you know I was coming tonight? I could have come tomorrow, or the day after.’

  Orlov shook his head. ‘No, Richter. It had to be tonight. You were annoyed about the bomb – so were we, by the way – and in any case, your superior would probably have forbidden you to try, if you’d spoken to him first.’

  That was the only glimmer of light so far. They didn’t know Richter had spoken to Simpson, and therefore they didn’t know that Simpson knew as much as he did. Richter knew that if he never got out of the house alive, Simpson would know why, and Simpson was a very, very vindictive man. It was a cold comfort for Richter to take to his grave.

  ‘This house is an expensive property, Richter,’ Orlov continued, ‘and it has a very sophisticated burglar alarm system. Oh, I’ve no doubt you fumbled around looking for wires and so on, but these days we’re a good deal more subtle than that. There’s a photoelectric cell warning system, working in the infra-red spectrum, which is triggered as soon as anything bigger than a cat comes over the wall or the gate. That system is linked to three night-vision cameras covering the grounds and the approach to the house. As soon as my men realized we had an intruder, they dressed and then we just sat here and waited for you to arrive. If we’d known for certain that you were coming, we would have left the ladder out for you. I don’t think that plank is at all safe, you know.’

  Richter grunted. ‘I didn’t think it was either. Why didn’t you open the front door and invite me in?’

  Orlov shook an admonishing finger. ‘No, no, that’s not in the game at all. We just waited for you to climb in through a window. All the first-floor rooms have a system of sequenced photoelectric cells. If you go to open the window from inside the room, you break one ray, which switches off the second ray covering the window area. But if you come in from the outside, you break the second ray first, and the alarm goes off. We have a main alarm panel downstairs in the lounge, and three repeaters up here in the main bedrooms.’

  Richter didn’t need telling who occupied those three bedrooms. Orlov pointed to the wall above the desk, and there Richter saw a small square grey box, on which one tiny red light was winking. ‘Very clever, Vladimir,’ Richter said. ‘What else did you get for Christmas?’

  For the first time a cloud of annoyance crossed the Russian’s face. ‘I would suggest that you refrain from remarks of that sort, Richter. Yuri will shortly be making life very unpleasant for you, but just how unpleasant depends to a large extent upon how you behave in this room. Rule one is you don’t annoy me.’ He paused. ‘What I want to know, Richter, is just how much you and your organization know.’

  ‘About what?’ Richter asked.

  The smile left Orlov’s face. ‘Please don’t be coy. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.’ He signalled to Yuri, who got up and walked over to Richter. ‘I’ll ask you once again. How much do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re—’

  Richter saw it coming, but there was nothing he could do about it. Yuri’s fist smashed into the left side of his face. Richter saw stars for a moment, then tasted blood on his lips. His face felt numb – the pain would come later. Yuri changed his position slightly, and applied the same treatment to the right side.

  The first rule of interrogation, from the point of view of the subject, is never say anything. That may sound trite, but it is a perfectly valid piece of advice. Once you tell an interrogator anything at all, he can build on it and if he’s any good he can confuse you to the extent that you can’t remember what you told him, how much he knew already, and how much he’s guessing. And if you reach that stage you have no hope at all of recovering the situation.

  Orlov knew the rules just a
s well as Richter did, and as far as Richter could see the best thing he could do, bearing in mind that they were going to kill him anyway, was to try to mislead them as much as he could. Unfortunately for Richter, it was going to be a painful process, because before he could spill the fake beans, to confuse a metaphor, he was going to have to be ‘persuaded’ by Yuri. If Richter had been in Orlov’s position, he would have been very suspicious indeed of a rapid surrender.

  ‘Once again, Richter. Tell me what you know.’

  Richter shook his head. Yuri was smiling again and Richter realized he was just beginning to enjoy himself. Two more blows rocked Richter’s head from side to side, and the stars started getting brighter. Despite what may be seen in films, there is a limit to the number of severe blows to the head that can be tolerated before unconsciousness supervenes. Yuri was very big and very strong, and Richter could feel himself getting near the point where the blackness would envelop him.

  He was dimly aware of hands lashing his arms to the side of the chair, and then the work began in earnest. After the fifth or sixth blow Richter stopped counting and concentrated on keeping awake. When Yuri finally stopped, after a sharp command from Orlov, Richter hung his head and played dead. The way he was feeling, it wasn’t any effort at all. Someone grabbed Richter’s hair and pulled his head back. ‘He’s out. You want me to wake him?’

  ‘Leave him for a few minutes. I doubt,’ Orlov added, chuckling, ‘if a few slaps across the face are going to bring him round. There are some smelling salts in my bathroom cabinet, on the bottom shelf. Get them. Oh, and bring some towels and put them on the carpet. He’s bleeding quite a lot.’ Richter’s face was still too numb for him to feel anything as delicate as a stream of blood running down it, but he could still taste the blood in his mouth. He wondered briefly and inconsequentially what sort of a state his clothes were in.

  When the towels had been positioned to Orlov’s liking, Yuri thrust the bottle of smelling salts under Richter’s nose. He snorted, then opened his eyes. Or rather, his eye. His left eye seemed to be struck tightly shut, probably by drying blood. Orlov was still smiling. ‘And again, Richter. What do you know?’

  Richter tried to speak, but all he managed was a croak.

  ‘Water. Get him a glass of water.’

  Richter took a couple of sips, and coughed.

  ‘We’re waiting.’

  Richter tried again. ‘Did you hear about the Irish tap dancer? Fell in the sink and—’

  Yuri started again, harder this time if anything, and Richter could feel himself slipping away. Orlov stopped him.

  ‘Well, Richter?’

  Richter shook his head. Yuri started again, alternating between Richter’s face and stomach. And the pattern was repeated, time and again. Richter passed out at least twice, possibly three times, and was revived each time with the salts. His whole head throbbed, as if some great pump was inflating and deflating it, and his stomach ached as if he’d been kicked by a donkey. Richter could feel his will to resist slowly ebbing away.

  All he wanted, all he wanted in the world, was for them to stop. Silently Richter cursed Yuri, and he cursed Orlov and most of all he cursed Simpson for getting him into this thing in the first place. The one thing Richter couldn’t do was blame himself because he had to keep angry if he was going to have any sort of control left, and he had to have that control because when he finally told them, he had to tell them what he wanted to, not what he knew. So Richter cursed, and he cursed again and again.

  Yuri’s fists must have been aching by that time, because Richter was dimly aware that the blows had changed. Instead of the solid thump of flesh and bone, it was a stinging, slicing pain. He opened his eye cautiously and saw that Yuri had a bucket of water and a hand towel. He had moved his chair round so that he was more comfortable, with the bucket in front of him. Two blows, one left, one right, wet the towel, wring it out, two blows, one left, one right, wet the towel. Yuri looked as if he could go on all night. Richter knew, quite certainly, that he couldn’t. He had to stop it, and he had to stop it soon.

  And suddenly it did stop. The reeking, penetrating odour of the salts forced Richter’s head up, and he looked at Orlov. ‘That, Richter, was just for starters. Yuri is now going to start breaking your bones, starting with the fingers. Unless, of course, you feel like talking a little?’

  Summoning what strength he had, Richter nodded. He couldn’t allow Yuri to do anything to his hands. He couldn’t see any way out of the house, but if Yuri smashed his hands, that would be it. He would definitely die, without being able to do a thing about it. With his hands, there was always a chance.

  ‘You mean you will talk, Richter?’ Orlov asked and Richter nodded again.

  ‘Good, good. I thought you’d see things my way, eventually. Wipe his face, Yuri, and then give him another drink of water.’

  If Richter had been looking for a ministering angel, Yuri would have been right down at the bottom of his list of likely candidates. Wipe Richter’s face he did. He used the wet towel, but to Richter it felt like he had taken a rough file to it. A file wielded with most of his very considerable strength. The only benefit seemed to be that by the time he’d finished Richter could open his left eye again. The glass of water helped, but only a little. Richter knew that what he had to do was to take as long as he could to tell the tale. That way he could recover some of his strength before Yuri took him away to play.

  Orlov spoke. ‘Well, Richter? We’re waiting.’

  Richter coughed and shook his head. ‘Where – where do you want me to start?’

  ‘At the beginning, Richter, at the beginning. Where else?’

  Situation Room, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  As soon as Walter Hicks left the Oval Office, the President moved over to the desk and depressed a key on the intercom. ‘I’m on the way down,’ he said, and walked out of the office. Two minutes later he entered the Situation Room, a small, wood-lined underground chamber, some twenty-five feet long by twenty feet wide, located in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, directly under the Oval Office. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a hardened or bombproof facility, and is only designed to be used in the early stages of a crisis.

  ‘How’s it going, John?’ the President asked, walking across the room.

  John Mitchell, the tall grey-haired Vice-President, looked up from his copy of the Washington Post. The Vice-President is invariably placed in charge of crisis management and he had been running the Situation Room since Walter Hicks’ first meeting with the President. ‘Absolutely nothing new, Mr President. Despite what the CIA believes, there are no indications of any unusual military activity anywhere in the CIS. We’re just sitting here twiddling our thumbs.’ He gestured at the White House staff and senior military officers sitting at desks in the room.

  ‘I’ve just seen Karasin,’ the President said.

  ‘And?’ Mitchell looked interested.

  The President shrugged. ‘And nothing. He asked to see me because Russian satellites had detected our escalation to DEFCON FOUR and wanted to know what it was all about. He claims to know nothing about any threat to the US, and I think he’s probably telling the truth.’

  Mitchell grunted. ‘I’ve said it before, Mr President, and I’ll say it again. I think the CIA is paranoid about this so-called covert assault. I don’t believe there is a threat to America, and I think we’re just wasting our time. More importantly, we’ve now alarmed the Kremlin for no good reason, which will do nothing for our international relations. My recommendation, Mr President, is that we stop this nonsense, stand down to normal readiness, and tell the Russians it was all just a false alarm.’

  The President nodded. His Vice-President was no fan of the CIA, or any of the other intelligence organizations. ‘I hear what you say, John, but I disagree. As long as there is even the slightest possibility of any threat to the security of the United States, I’m going to take whatever steps I think are justif
ied. Right now, that’s DEFCON FOUR, and a meeting of the National Security Council here at the White House in thirty minutes.’

  Orpington, Kent

  Richter told Orlov about Newman, and the suspicions SIS had entertained about his death. He went slowly through his time in Moscow, telling him about the few inconsistencies he had found on the body – the injuries that weren’t there but should have been.

  Orlov interrupted. ‘That’s not enough, Richter. I grant you that one of his legs would have been likely to break, but there is no certainty in the matter.’

  ‘Quite right, Vladimir,’ Richter said. ‘Perhaps I should have pointed out that by then I was just looking for indications as to how the man had been killed. I knew as soon as I looked at the corpse that it wasn’t Newman.’

  ‘How?’ Orlov’s voice was a soft, silky purr.

  ‘Attention to detail, Vladimir. That’s where a lot of high-powered schemes fall down; attention to detail. Your SVR colleagues picked some poor sucker who was unfortunate enough to be about Newman’s height, weight and colouring, and I’ve no doubt they checked to see if Newman had any distinguishing marks. Because none were obvious – no scars, tattoos and so on – they assumed that he hadn’t got any. If they had bothered to look, they would have found that he had had an ingrowing toenail removed years ago. The corpse your people thoughtfully provided for the Embassy had all ten toenails.’

  ‘I see,’ Orlov said. ‘I take your point. The whole scheme, of course, was not of my doing but I was kept informed of the operation. I will see to it that the appropriate steps are taken in Moscow to reprimand the operatives responsible for this.’

  Richter nodded. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy that, Vladimir.’ The Russian made an impatient gesture. ‘Continue.’ Richter asked for more water, more as a delaying tactic than because he actually wanted any, then finished off Moscow and told him what SIS knew about the overflight of north-west Russia by the Blackbird. Richter sang the praises of the SR–71A fairly loudly, partly because he wanted to annoy Orlov just a little, to try to make him slightly less critical of the lies he was soon going to start telling, and partly because dragging the story out bought him just a little more time, and time was something he needed a lot of.