Overkill pr-1

by James Barrington

  He’d stopped for a few minutes in Clapham and rung Bentley from a public telephone box, just in case the Russians had somehow managed to tap into the GSM mobile system and could trace the numbers he called. He’d hung on for better than twenty rings before Bentley had picked up the receiver, and he’d told him almost nothing, just asked him to watch out for his arrival and to let him into the house without delay. Bentley, typically, hadn’t commented, just said that he would, and had rung off.

  The side door of the house closed. Richter heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, and then Bentley was back in the living room. ‘Can you stand?’ he asked, and Richter nodded.

  With Bentley’s help, Richter slowly removed the haversack, then eased his arms out of the leather jacket. Bentley looked quizzically at the Smith and Wesson in Richter’s shoulder holster. The Mauser HSc, which Richter had liberated from Yuri’s deceased colleague before leaving Orlov’s house, was stashed in the haversack. Richter had reduced the Glock 17 that he had used on Orlov and the bodyguard to its component parts and dumped them in several widely spaced rubbish bins between Orpington and Ickenham.

  ‘Is that loaded?’ Bentley asked, gesturing at the Smith. Richter nodded, pulled the pistol out of the holster and shook the shells into his palm. Bentley took them from him, and put the pistol, holster and bullets on the sideboard.

  Getting the sweater off Richter’s battered body proved much more difficult than the jacket, and eventually Bentley went into the kitchen and returned with a large pair of scissors, which he used to slit up the back of the sweater. The shirt was, by comparison, easy.

  ‘You’re a mess,’ Bentley said shortly, looking at Yuri’s handiwork. Most of Richter’s chest and stomach was a montage of blue and vivid purple bruises. ‘I’m surprised you managed to ride that bloody motorbike of yours all the way here.’

  ‘I nearly didn’t,’ Richter said, and sat down again.

  Bentley vanished into the kitchen for a few minutes and came back with another mug of coffee, a plastic bowl of warm water, and a selection of soft cotton cloths. He looked down at Richter and shook his head. ‘I’m no medical man,’ he said, ‘but I really think you need to see a doctor. You could have broken ribs, a cracked sternum or anything under that lot.’

  ‘No,’ Richter said. ‘I just need a place to rest and hide for a while, that’s all.’

  ‘OK. Now,’ Bentley went on, ‘this is probably going to hurt, but I’d be obliged if you didn’t scream, because Kate’s still asleep upstairs, and you really don’t want to wake her. If she doesn’t get her full eight hours she’s not a lot of fun to be around.’

  ‘I’ll bite on a bullet,’ Richter said, trying another smile, and leaned slowly backwards as Bentley began to gently bathe his cuts.

  It didn’t hurt as much as Richter had feared, but the water in the plastic bowl quickly turned a deep red, and he could see the concern on Bentley’s face as fresh blood flowed from the wounds. ‘I won’t say it again, but you know what I think,’ he said, getting up and carrying the bowl into the kitchen. He came back moments later with a first-aid kit, spread antiseptic cream on the wounds on Richter’s face and covered them with soft pads which he secured with a bandage wound round his head. ‘I can’t do much about your chest and stomach,’ he said. ‘I guess you’ll just have to sleep lying on your back for a while.’

  ‘Thanks, David.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. And I really do mean don’t mention it, and especially not to the people who did this to you. Now, can you make it up the stairs?’

  ‘If there’s a bed up there with my name on it,’ Richter said, ‘I can make it.’

  Richter awoke with the sunlight streaming through the windows, from which the curtains had been drawn. For the briefest of moments he lay still, trying to work out where he was. He didn’t recognize the room, and the pyjamas he was wearing were an unfamiliar pattern. Then everything fell into place. He turned to look at his watch on the bedside table and winced as a spasm of pain shot through his neck. He tried again, more cautiously. Almost eleven. He lay back slowly, luxuriating in the warmth.

  The ache from his stomach had eased somewhat, but his whole body was stiff and sore, and his face hurt like hell. He was wondering whether to try to get up by himself, because the one place he was definitely going to have to get to, and soon, was the toilet, when the bedroom door swung open and David Bentley walked in, bearing a laden tray. ‘Breakfast,’ he said, and put the tray on top of a chest of drawers.

  Richter tried a smile that almost worked. ‘Thanks, David. Actually, what I need more than breakfast is the bathroom.’ With Bentley’s help, Richter levered himself into a sitting position, and then to his feet. Three minutes later, and much relieved, he sat down again on the bed and leaned back against the headboard.

  ‘Coffee?’ Richter asked, took the cup from Bentley and put it on the bedside table.

  ‘I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I’ve just brought toast and marmalade. If you want anything else, it’s no problem.’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ Richter said. ‘I’ve never got much of an appetite in the morning.’

  Richter ate the toast and drank his coffee. Bentley poured a second cup and handed it to him. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

  ‘First of all,’ Richter said, ‘and if you don’t mind, I’m going to take this cup of coffee and go and have a long soak in the bath. After that, I’ll let you know what my plans are. Always assuming,’ he added, ‘that I’ve worked any out by then.’

  Richter looked at himself in the full-length mirror before he climbed into the bath. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a pretty sight. The bruises, although not aching quite as much, looked a damn sight worse than they had the previous night, and there were very few areas of his body which were free of some purple blotches. He pulled off the bandage and looked at his face. It was a mess, puffy and red with livid wheals on both cheeks – caused by the wet towel wielded by the late and unlamented Yuri – overlying the deeper bruises resulting from the early stages of his interrogation. The good thing was he still seemed to have all his teeth, and he could feel no evidence of deeper damage. What he wasn’t going to be able to do for a while was shave.

  Richter lay in the bath, feeling the heat of the water beginning to ease his aches, drank the coffee and then started thinking. He needed to talk to Simpson, face to face, and quickly. The problem was how. He knew Simpson was going to be at Hammersmith for most of the day, because he had told him so the previous night. Richter wanted to keep out of sight as far as possible, which meant he couldn’t risk going to Hammersmith, because there would certainly be a hostile watch there, and even if he got inside without being hit, there would definitely be a man with a rifle waiting for him when he came out.

  So he had to set up a meet, on neutral ground. Richter still wasn’t happy with the telephone situation, either. It was at least possible that his flat line had been tapped, and if it had, then he had no guarantee that the Hammersmith building exchange hadn’t got a few bugs as well. So, Richter knew he had to contact Simpson some other way.

  Richter walked slowly and carefully down the stairs, wearing a vivid blue dressing gown he’d found hanging in the wardrobe in the bedroom. Bentley was sitting in an armchair, reading a copy of the Daily Telegraph, and looked up as Richter walked into the living room. ‘Kate?’ Richter asked, interrogatively.

  ‘Weekend shopping,’ Bentley replied briefly. ‘Normally I go with her, but as you’re here…’

  ‘Is she OK?’ Richter asked.

  Bentley nodded. ‘Yes, she’s fine. She knows the sort of work you do, so she’s not too enthusiastic about having you in the house, but that’s all.’

  ‘If there was anywhere else I could go, David, I’d be out of here in a minute. The last thing I want to do is cause you or Kate any problems.’

  ‘It’s no problem, Paul. Just relax. Oh, and don’t, for heaven’s sake, let her see that pistol. You know what she’s like abou
t guns of any sort.’

  ‘Of course not. It’s tucked away in my haversack upstairs.’

  ‘Good. Now, would you like another coffee?’

  ‘I never say no,’ Richter said. ‘Have you got some writing paper and an envelope? I need to send somebody a message.’

  Bentley gestured towards a roll-top desk in the corner of the room. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, and walked out into the kitchen.

  Richter wrote out a note with some care. He hand-wrote it, so that it could be verified against the samples of his handwriting held at Hammersmith, and prefixed it with the code-word ‘TESTAMENT’, which he knew would capture Simpson’s undivided attention. ‘TESTAMENT’ was a code-word only used when the sender of the message had information which was believed with reasonable certainty to be likely to involve major powers in conflict or, to remove the top-dressing of Ministry of Defence verbiage, information likely to lead to war. The word had not, to Richter’s knowledge, been used at FOE since the formation of the department, but in the circumstances it was certainly justified.

  Richter read the note several times, ensuring that the contents were clear and unambiguous, then sealed it in an envelope and addressed it to ‘Hammersmith Commercial Packers’. At the top of the envelope he added in block capitals ‘For the personal attention of Mr Simpson’, and underlined ‘personal’ twice. He asked Bentley to ring one of the numerous motorcycle despatch firms working in west London and to request a rider as soon as possible.

  The front door bell rang forty minutes later, and two minutes after that Richter watched through the living-room windows as the black-clad rider climbed back onto his Suzuki and roared away towards the Uxbridge Road.

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

  ‘Gentlemen,’ the President began, ‘the folders in front of you contain the latest information we have about this alleged Russian assault. The code-name “Kentucky Rose” has been allocated to this, and the data is subject to a “Top Secret, US EYES ONLY” classification.’

  He looked slowly round the table at the three other statutory members of the National Security Council – the Vice-President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense – and at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the two statutory advisers to the Council. The other statutory adviser, the Director of Central Intelligence, was absent.

  ‘You should also know,’ the President continued, ‘that Ambassador Karasin has denied all knowledge of this threat. It could be argued, of course, that he would have been instructed by Moscow to make such a denial, which is certainly possible. However, I’ve known Karasin for three years, and I don’t think he’s following the party line. I think he really doesn’t know. If we take that as fact,’ he went on, ‘then the situation is even more dangerous than the Cuban crisis. At least then Kennedy knew who he was dealing with. This time, I don’t think we do. Accordingly, despite the fact that we still have no independent evidence to support the data the CIA claims to have uncovered, I propose to invoke SIOP with immediate effect.’

  The Single Integrated Operational Plan is the central and most secret part of the West’s nuclear deterrent. Despite the fact that SIOP has existed, in one form or another, since 1960, it is so secret that even the acronym ‘SIOP’ is classified and the plan has its own dedicated security classification – ‘Extremely Sensitive Information’ or ESI. SIOP has evolved from a simple ‘launch everything and blast the Commies to pieces’ strategy to a finely tuned and infinitely variable plan which would, in certain circumstances, permit nuclear exchanges between the superpowers to continue for weeks or even months.

  The plan identifies in excess of forty thousand potential military and civilian targets within the Confederation of Independent States, and contains a vast number of options and sub-options for both major and minor strikes. The American nuclear arsenal contains over ten thousand deliverable strategic nuclear weapons ranging in size from around fifty kilotons, or just over twice the size of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, up to weapons yielding over nine megatons. The accuracy of the missiles varies from less than six hundred feet to nearly one mile. SIOP factors-in the yield, accuracy and number of available missiles, and combines that with the type and number of suitable targets, and allows the nuclear commanders to select a multiplicity of possible responses to an attack.

  ‘We are now,’ the President continued, ‘at DEFCON FOUR. I propose to leave decisions on timing of increased readiness to the Secretary of Defense, but I require us to be at DEFCON ONE – maximum force readiness – no later than sixteen hundred hours Eastern Standard Time on the tenth.’

  Paris

  The British Airways Boeing 757 landed at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport fifteen minutes early, but the black Lincoln with CD plates was already there when John Westwood walked out of the terminal building. He didn’t know the junior diplomat who had been tasked with meeting him, and he only made small talk on the drive south through Paris to the US Embassy at 2 avenue Gabriel, just off the avenue des Champs-Élysées. Westwood hadn’t been to Paris before, although he’d visited France on three separate occasions, once professionally and twice as a tourist, and he looked with interest through the tinted windows at the bustle of the city.

  To an American, accustomed to the heavy traffic, but generally tolerant and competent drivers stateside, French driving habits were frightening – almost lethally aggressive. Cars swerved from lane to lane without warning, drivers gesticulated and hooted at each other, and the few pedestrians he saw crossing the roads were quite clearly taking their lives in their hands. ‘Is it always like this?’ Westwood asked the diplomat.

  The young man smiled and shook his head. ‘No, sir. This is mid-afternoon at a weekend – it’s quiet and peaceful. If you want to see it busy, stay here till next Friday and go stand at the Arc de Triomphe at about five thirty.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Westwood muttered.

  At the Embassy, he was ushered through the security doors at the rear of the building and taken to a guest suite. He was unpacking his suitcase when there was a gentle knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ he said, turning around from hanging up his jacket.

  A short, grey-haired man wearing rimless spectacles opened the door and walked into the room. ‘Miles Turner,’ he said, by way of introduction. ‘I’m Chief of Station,’ he added.

  ‘John Westwood. Pleased to meet you, Miles,’ Westwood replied, striding across the room and shaking his hand.

  ‘I know why you’re here, John,’ Turner said. ‘I had a classified signal from Roger Abrahams in London yesterday afternoon, and there’s a conference call with Langley scheduled in an hour or so. What I’m not sure about is whether you’ve had a wasted journey. The French are as prickly as hell about anything to do with espionage. If they had an agent who was valet to the head of the SVR, I doubt if they’d even tell you what colour pants he wears.’ Westwood grunted. ‘Anyway, we’ll do what we can,’ Turner continued. ‘I’ve arranged a meeting with the DGSE for Monday afternoon.’

  ‘Remind me,’ said Westwood.

  ‘The DGSE is the Direction Générale de Sécurité Extérieure,’ Turner said. ‘It used to be called the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionage, or SDECE, until Mitterand’s election in 1981. As well as being partisan and reluctant to talk to anyone who isn’t French, it’s also made some spectacular blunders, like sinking the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand waters a few years back. The DGSE has been quiet of late, which may mean it’s up to something. Or,’ he added after a pause, ‘it may not.’

  Ickenham, Middlesex

  ‘I’m really sorry to be a nuisance, Kate,’ Richter said, as Bentley’s wife walked into the kitchen carrying two bulging shopping bags.

  She put the bags down on the worktop and began pulling groceries out of them. ‘You’re not a nuisance, Paul,’ she said, dark eyes flashing under her fringe of black hair. ‘You’re a friend and we’re glad to be able to help. It’s just that yo
u’re dangerous – well, not you personally, but it’s the work you do and the people you associate with. That’s what worries me.’

  ‘I know,’ Richter said, ‘and I’ll be out of here just as soon as I can. Probably tomorrow, or Monday at the very latest.’

  ‘You don’t have to leave until you’re ready, Paul,’ Kate said, but Richter could detect the relief in her voice as she realized that he would soon be out of their house.

  After lunch, while Kate busied herself in the kitchen, Richter outlined what he was going to have to do the following morning, and what he was going to have to ask David Bentley to do to help him.

  ‘It seems bloody complicated,’ Bentley said when Richter had finished.

  ‘It is bloody complicated,’ Richter said, ‘but I have to be sure that the man I’m going to meet has shaken any tails – lost anyone following him, I mean – before he meets me. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that if I get seen by the wrong people, I’m dead.’

  ‘You do lead an exciting life, Paul,’ Bentley said, but there was absolutely no trace of envy in his voice. ‘On the whole, though, I think I’d rather just shuffle files at Uxbridge all day then come back home and mow the grass.’

  ‘To each his own,’ Richter said, ‘though right now I’d trade places with you if I could.’ He paused. ‘I know what Kate thinks, but could you help me tomorrow for an hour or two? Your part will, I guarantee, be risk-free. All you’d have to do would be to deliver me to the service area on the M4, and then pick me up after the meeting.’

  Bentley grinned at him. ‘I don’t see a problem. I think tomorrow it would be prudent if we took you along to the local hospital for a check-up. That way she’ll never know.’

  ‘Thanks, David. I really appreciate it.’