by Duncan James
She couldn’t really explain why she had wanted to see the man again. It was difficult to tell why. It wasn’t something she could properly explain, but she knew she wanted to keep in touch with him, and see him again. Of all the people she had helped, most of them out of Afghanistan, he had made the biggest impression on her for some reason. She had seen bravery before, and suffering, but they had always just been patients. People she had to help, because that was her job. Somehow, she felt differently about Dusty Miller. He was quite good looking, although you’d never have known to see him lying in the snow close to death. He was a smashed-up mess. It wasn’t even Dusty she had been parachuted in to Switzerland to help. It was another chap, a nuclear physicist of some sort, apparently of great importance, who the Russians were trying to assassinate. They had nearly succeeded, too, except that her Dusty, who was on the ground to look after him, had saved his life, and then come off worse chasing after the Russian.
She had got to the scientist first, but he wasn’t too badly hurt, so it didn’t take long to sort out his injuries. But then others in the team, including Commander Marsden, had found Miller. Her Dusty. The Commander had got to him just in time to save him from another, possibly fatal bullet from the Russian agent. She wasn’t used to this spy business. In fact, she had never got involved in it before. She didn’t know, until afterwards, that there were now more Soviet agents in the UK than there were during the height of the cold war. She had thought there would be fewer, but it seemed that the more relaxed immigration controls had made it easier for them to get in.
There was one less now, thanks to the Commander. But it could have been Dusty. Her Dusty.
She wondered about the man dozing in his wheelchair. Did he have a family? A regular girlfriend, or even a wife perhaps, or was he unattached like her? She’d never had a proper boyfriend, really. Her job didn’t give her enough time to develop any special relationships. The odd chap sniffing around from time to time, but they mostly got fed up with her long absences, even if she had shown any interest herself. Perhaps it was the same with Dusty. Her Dusty. He obviously lived much the same sort of life. People in the Special Forces were like that. Restless souls who never settled anywhere for long.
But, for some reason which she couldn’t explain, Dusty was somehow different. She felt she wanted to get to know him, to see him again and, well, be with him. She hadn’t felt that before about anybody. It was extraordinary, really, considering they hadn’t even spoken to one another until a couple of hours ago. Perhaps he felt the same. He had said he had wanted her to ring him; wanted to speak to her. He was even planning to write to her, and send her flowers. Nobody had ever done that.
She looked down at him. Not the best looking man in the world perhaps, but acres of courage and bravery. She smiled, and smoothed his ruffled hair.
“Sorry I drifted,” he said, as he stirred. “I’m not used to all this excitement. But at least you’re still here.”
“Of course I am,” she replied. “But I can’t stay for ever. I still have work to do, and we have a major training exercise tomorrow, providing no real emergency crops up, so I must get back soon.”
“That means I shan’t see you tomorrow, then?”
“Probably not, but I’ll give you a ring. Your boss rang, too, just now, to say that he and his wife could get here later after all. I’m to ring them if I judge you’re too tired.”
“Well I’m not! Stay on if you can, at least to meet them. They will have heard about you from Nick Marsden.”
“I’d like to meet them,” she said. “I don’t often meet real spies!”
“I don’t think they are, really,” said Dusty. “Bill Clayton is an ex-Army intelligence man, and his wife, Catherine, was Special Forces, like us. She was always known as ‘The Cat’, and we served together in Iraq for a time. I rather fancied her, if I’m honest, but she got sent to Northern Ireland where she met Bill.”
“Good!” said Annie. “But how did you come to get involved?”
“One day, I’ll give you all the background, but first I want to hear all about you.”
When they arrived, Bill and Catherine seemed genuinely pleased to meet Annie.
“We’ve heard all about you and your exploits from Nick Marsden,” said Catherine. “I gather you were responsible for keeping this man going, in spite of everything.”
“I’m so glad you did,” said Bill. “He’s one of my best.”
“I’m dying to know what’s been going on,” said Dusty.
“I’ll get off then,” said Annie.
“You’re more than welcome to stay if you want to,” said Bill. “You might find it interesting, and I’m sure you’ve got a good security clearance, so you being here won’t stop me telling Dusty what’s been going on.”
Annie sat listening, enthralled as Bill gave Dusty a detailed briefing about what had been happening. Even Dusty found it difficult to believe all they told him, especially about Barbara.
“I always thought there was something not quite right about her,” he said. “Nothing I could put my finger on, but she just didn’t quite seem to fit, somehow. Now we know why. She was a foreigner.”
“I still can’t adjust to the fact myself, I must say,” admitted Bill. “And I haven’t told Downing Street, yet, either. That will be fun, but not for them. They recruited the girl, and recommended her move to Section 11, on promotion.”
“Heaven knows what damage she’s inflicted on us in all this time,” said Dusty, “but even since I’ve been around, she’s been responsible for the death of her son’s father and Professor Barclay’s twin brother, as well as the Professor himself nearly.”
“And you,” Bill reminded him.
“She’ll be made to pay for this, if ever I meet up with her again,” threatened Dusty.
“Nick Marsden made a similar promise, if I remember, but I doubt your paths will ever cross again. If I’m right, she’s well out of the country by now, although we have no idea where she went. MI6’s Moscow station is keeping a look out for her, but until we find her car, we really shan’t have a clue where to look.”
“I feel sorry for the little boy. He obviously didn’t want to go away, even if he didn’t know where they were taking him.”
“We have a feeling that he might well come back, some time,” said Catherine. “Goodness knows what will happen to him, but in case he does, Bill and I can look after him for a bit if necessary. We’ve already arranged to collect his belongings; clothes, toys and stuff like that, so we can make him feel at home.”
“One way or another, that girl has made a proper mess of things for lots of people, not least Nick,” said Bill.
“I was supposed to be best man at his wedding too. At least she disappeared before they got married, which is something I suppose. By the way, have you heard from Roger Lloyd?” asked Dusty. “He rang me here once, early on, but I wasn’t in a fit state to speak to him.”
“He rang me too,” said Bill. “He seems to have settled in to his new job OK, but said he hadn’t been feeling well lately. Probably a reaction to his adventure in the Alps, and he must be feeling a bit isolated until he really gets his feet and finds friends and so on. He’d been leading a very sheltered life over here until we got involved. But he specially asked about you, though, and sends his best wishes and all that.”
One of the orderlies appeared.
“Sorry to interrupt Colonel, but there’s a phone call for you, in the Colonel’s office.”
Bill left with the man, and was away for some time.
“Another piece of the jigsaw falls into place,” he announced on his return. “They’ve found the car.”
***
It had been a quiet afternoon compared with all the hectic activity earlier in the day, which was why Bill had decided to change his mind, and to visit Dusty while there was a lull. Nick and Peter had been left in charge during something of an anti-climax. Nothing much was happening, and nothing much was expected to happen that afte
rnoon. And nothing much did, until Clive Newell received a call from one of his Special Branch colleagues.
He put his hand over the phone, and excitedly called across to Nick and Peter, in the Ops Room.
“They’ve found the car!”
Newell listened intently for a few moments. It seemed like hours, before he eventually ended the call.
“Where is it?” Nick and Peter both asked at once.
“Blackbushe Airport, on the Hampshire/Surrey border. On the A30, about an hour’s drive from Battersea.”
“What are they doing with the car?”
“And how long’s it been there?”
Suddenly, there were so many questions to be asked and answered.
“According to the Yard, they don’t yet know how long it’s been there. They only found it less than an hour ago, so they are still quizzing the airport staff. The car is already under wraps though, and they are putting it on to a low-loader ready to move it to the Met Police forensic science place at Lambeth for a thorough going over.”
“Any immediate clues?” asked Nick.
“There’s an envelope addressed to you on the dashboard, so I’m told. They’ve left it where it is, and it will come with the car to Lambeth.”
“When?”
“No idea, but it will take a bit of time to organise,” replied Clive.
“Tell them not to move it until I’ve had a look at it, and rescued my letter. I’ll get down there right away,” said Nick. “Can you hold the fort here, Peter?”
“Of course. I’ll ring Bill straight away, too. He’ll probably want to get back here to monitor things.”
“My immediate thoughts are that they’ve skipped across the Channel, and that Donald made his phone call from Blackbushe,” said Nick. “That would fit in with what the GCHQ experts made of the background sounds. Ask your people who are down there, Clive, to talk to the staff at the airport who were on duty the night I flew to Switzerland. I’m off!”
Marsden disappeared to grab one of the BMW motorbikes from the garage. “I’ll be there within an hour, with any luck. I need to look at this place and in particular get my hands on that letter.”
As he rushed out, Peter was staring at his computer screen.
“It doesn’t look much of an airfield to me,” said Northcot. “I’ve got the Blackbushe website up on the internet. Private flying, a bit of charter work, and a couple of flying schools, is about all. It used to be an old RAF airfield during the war, so it says.”
They peered at the screen.
“That’s interesting,” pointed Clive. “It shuts at six o’clock on a normal operating day, but can stay open until eight ‘by prior arrangement’. The Wilkinsons can’t have got there until ten or after.”
“Very interesting,” agreed Peter.
“I’ll tell my chaps down there. We could be looking for an un-authorised flight after the airfield closed, in which case we shall need to quiz local residents in case they saw or heard anything.”
“And unless there’s a flight plan, there’s no way of telling where the aircraft went to from there.”
“We need to know the type of aircraft then, to guess at the range and how far they could have gone.”
“From what GCHQ could make out from the background to Donald’s phone call, it sounded like a piston engine aircraft, rather than a longer range commuter jet.”
“That probably means just a short hop across the Channel, then. We need to check with Air Traffic radar somehow.”
“They may not have headed south, of course. They could have gone to Yorkshire, for instance.”
“They would have used an airfield north of London in that case – somewhere like Elstree. No - my bet is they went to the Continent.”
“And then on to Russia?”
Clive shrugged his shoulders.
“Finding the car seems to be only the start, rather than the end.”
“I’d love to know what’s in that letter to Nick,” said Clive.
“I guess we will soon enough, unless it’s entirely personal. But there’s bound to be something useful in it.”
***
Nick Marsden arrived at Blackbushe at about the same time as the Police low-loader which had gone to collect the Wilkinson’s car. It didn’t take him long to convince the Superintendent in charge that he was the intended recipient of the letter, still on the dashboard inside. It helped that Nick had a key to the car. It saved them breaking a window to get it open.
“If there’s anything in this letter,” he said, “that could be of the slightest value to you, I will let you know immediately. But we think this could be a vital clue in the hunt we’ve been mounting for a missing Russian agent,” he told the policeman, “so I’ll hang on to it, if I may. This is probably their car.”
The policemen made him sign for it; Gladys would have been proud of him. Nick declined to give them the car key, however, and they agreed to leave it unlocked. He had a quick look round the interior of the car and the boot, but spotted nothing else of immediate interest. He told the superintendent in charge the date and time they thought the car could have arrived.
“This place is closed for flying long before that,” said the policemen. “We’ll have to find the security chap who was on duty that night, to see if he noticed anything.”
“He should have noticed someone breaking the gate down to get in, and an unauthorised aircraft of some sort making a landing in the dark, loading up three passengers, and taking off again,” said Nick helpfully.
“There is no runway lighting here, either,” said the Policeman. “I haven’t come across this sort of thing before, but vandals often break the gate down to get in.”
“What sort of security is there when the airfield is closed,” asked Nick.
The policeman grimaced. “Pretty awful, if I’m honest. Private firm under contract to the airfield owner. Usually a couple of blokes with a dog in a Land Rover, and not much else.”
Nick looked around. “That’s pathetic if that is all,” he said. “There’s a few million quid’s worth of light aircraft parked here for a start,”
“I know. We do our best to check on the place from time to time, but mostly have to leave it to the contractors.”
“Well, we certainly need to get in touch urgently with the duty guys that night, in case they saw anything. We need to know what sort of aircraft it was for a start. And you will need to question local residents, too,” suggested Nick. “Someone should have noticed an aircraft landing and taking off after dark.”
“I’m already trying to organise a house to house enquiry, but this is a bit rural out here, so it may take some time. There are already a couple of my chaps at the Ely down the road. It’s quite a popular pub, and takes in residents as well.”
“I must get back,” said Nick, stuffing the letter into his pocket.
“How will I get in touch?” asked the policeman.
“Don’t bother. Special Branch will let us know how you get on.”
“A couple of their chaps are in the Control Tower now, and they’re taking the lead for obvious reasons.”
Marsden kick-started the BMW, and headed east down the A30 back towards London. He was very tempted to open the letter and read it there and then, but decided that as it was probably a vital part of their enquiries, he should wait until he got back to their Clerkenwell office, in spite of the fact that it was addressed to him by name.
He had noticed, though, that it was not marked ‘personal’.
***
By the time Nick got back, Bill Clayton had returned to the office from his visit to Dusty in the Birmingham Hospital, and was in the Ops Room with Northcot and Newell. Nick briefed them as quickly as he could about the airfield at Blackbushe, and produced the un-opened letter from his pocket.
“I admire you for not having opened that,” said Bill.
“It was a hell of a temptation,” replied Nick, “but let’s have a look at it now.”
He
tore the envelope open. There was only a single sheet of hand written paper inside.
My Dear Nick,
By now you will know that I have been deceiving you and many others for some years, but since I am not British I am not a traitor. My “mother” and I have served our fatherland well, but can no longer do so, not least because of my own close relationship with you, which has made my future here impossible and posed a risk to your own life.
I want you to know, Nick, that I really love you, and wanted to marry you as we had planned, but that would have put us both at real risk. I have already been a threat to you, and could not face the prospect of putting you in further danger as I did when you went to Switzerland. So my people have decided that we should be withdrawn, and when you find this note, you will know that we are now well away.
As I do, Donald loves you dearly. I am not sure how I will manage with him, as he is British and I am not. Neither am I sure of my own future, or even if I have one. We shall never meet again, and I will make no further attempt to get in touch.
Please forgive me,
Barbara.
Nick sat back in disbelief, looking on as the others read the note.
“I’ll need to copy this,” said Bill. “Is that OK?”
Nick nodded.
“At least we now have all the evidence we ever needed that she and her mother were Soviet agents,” he said. “It’s almost a relief to be certain at last, although of little comfort to me personally.”
“We must assume, too, that they were heading towards Russia when they left, although I can think of better ways of getting there,” said Peter.
“They were buying time for themselves.”
“Successfully, too.”
“We still have no evidence of where they went,” Peter pointed out. “All this fuss at a small airfield in the south could be a huge double-bluff.”
“We need to know about the aircraft they used,” said Clive. “I’ll get people checking airfields on the other side of the Channel to see if they can turn up something. We’re already checking with our own Air Traffic people.”
“I’ll have another word, too, with our Moscow station,” said Peter.
“That’s all very good,” said Bill, “but let’s look in detail at this letter from Barbara. What does she really say, and what does she not say.”
