Cold East

by Alex Shaw

  ‘I don’t know what I think.’

  ‘But something is fishy?’

  ‘I’m glad you said that. What about the falling man?’ Snow referred to the body found on the pavement outside the Russian-owned apartment. ‘What about the explosion? Two attacks within, what, an hour of each other involving Russian spec ops in Istanbul? I just don’t understand what was going on.’

  There was a shrill ringing from Patchem’s suit pocket. He reached inside, produced his phone, and answered it. ‘Patchem.’ He pressed the speaker button. ‘Please repeat that, Simon. You’re now on speaker with me and Aidan Snow from my Russian desk.’

  ‘Yes, OK,’ the tinny voice said from Turkey. ‘I’ve just had a call with Keser. The Turkish NIA coroner has confirmed the time of death for the suspected terrorists as being somewhere between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. The Russians hit the building at dawn, around 5.45 a.m.’

  Snow and Patchem swapped looks. Patchem felt a rushing in his ears. ‘How sure is the coroner of this timing?’

  ‘I asked Keser that question and he told me the man is very professional and has been doing his job for years. He one hundred per cent stands by the times he’s given.’

  ‘Simon, can you get someone into the building with a Geiger counter?’ Snow asked. ‘I want to know if this thing was leaking, or if it was actually there at all.’

  ‘We could try, but I don’t know how tightly the Turkish NIA has the place sewn up.’

  ‘Can’t you check your camera?’ Patchem asked thinly.

  ‘No. the camera’s gone offline.’

  ‘Simon, get James Brocklehurst over there to check the building and the camera immediately.’

  ‘Yes, Jack.’

  Patchem ended the call. ‘So the Russians didn’t take the bomb?’

  ‘Not the team we have on film, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t an earlier team.’

  ‘One that we didn’t see enter or leave… or did we?’ Patchem dialled Plato’s direct line. ‘Neill, drop everything else you’re doing. I need you to make a list of everyone who entered Inci’s building on the day before the assault… Yes, of course we want to see their faces.’ He looked at Snow and took a deep, calming breath. ‘He’ll have them ready by the time we get back to the office.’

  *

  New Jersey, USA

  The curtains were drawn to allow the fall sunlight into the room. Casey sat in an armchair next to the unlit open fire. A man Gorodetski hadn’t met before leant against the fireplace with his arms folded. His hair hung loosely on his shoulders and he wore a tan-coloured field jacket over jeans and a T-shirt.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’ Gorodetski asked.

  Casey pointed Gorodetski to a chair and, after he’d sat, said, ‘Congratulations. You’re in.’

  Gorodetski took a moment to understand Casey’s words. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘We have a fastball in your part of the world. This is Michael Parnell, one of my specialists. You’ll be travelling with him and both of you will be working under Harris. Is that an issue?’

  ‘No.’ It made no difference to Gorodetski who he worked with, just as long as he was working.

  ‘That’s what I thought. He wanted you in on this. Harris, Needham, and Beck are already in Europe. You and Mike will leave immediately. There’s a company jet standing by at Newark to take you to Timisoara airbase in Romania where Harris will give you further instructions. Any questions?’

  ‘What’s the mission?’

  ‘An Al-Qaeda cell is planning an attack within the EU. We’re hunting them.’ Casey omitted the small fact that the cell possessed a suitcase nuke; if Harris wanted Gorodetski briefed in, he’d do it himself. He leant back in the chair and collected an envelope from the floor. ‘Catch.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Inside was a US passport and credit cards in the name of James East, as well as three thousand dollars in cash.

  ‘You’re on probation and if anything goes wrong, if you even look at any of the team funny, you’ll find yourself sitting in an Interpol cell. Rozamish?’. Casey asked Gorodetski in Russian if he understood.

  ‘Da.’

  ‘I don’t mind telling you I’m taking a huge risk on you. Good luck and good hunting.’

  *

  Vauxhall Cross, London, UK

  Neill Plato was already standing by Patchem’s door as the two SIS officers stepped from the lift. He had a file under his arm and was rocking slightly on the balls of his feet, which were encased in a pair of cherry-red Dr Martens. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said as they approached. ‘I don’t know how the folks at GCHQ missed it.’

  ‘Let’s have it.’ Patchem unlocked his office.

  ‘After pulling up the images from the surveillance tape I spotted several very odd-looking visitors.’ Plato plonked the file on the desk as Patchem and Snow removed their jackets, Patchem’s jacket being part of a made-to-measure suit, Snow’s being made of leather. The three men sat. ‘I’ve sent you electronic copies but also taken the liberty of printing out the shots – I know you prefer paper to pixels.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Patchem opened the file and took out the photographs.

  ‘They’re in chronological order, starting at 10 a.m. when the building opened for business.’

  Patchem gazed down and studied the prints. Plato fell silent and Snow remained so. A minute later their boss looked up. ‘Kishiev.’

  ‘Yes,’ Plato said.

  ‘And two shooters.’

  ‘Yes,’ Plato said again.

  ‘Here.’ Patchem handed Snow four of the prints.

  ‘Were the Russians in Istanbul with Kishiev?’ Snow queried as he took in the first two prints, which showed a dishevelled Kishiev and another equally grubby-looking figure entering the building and then facing the camera as they left. ‘Who’s the other man, Neill?’

  ‘Haven’t found him yet, but if there’s a digitised image of him on the interweb I will. Until then let’s call him Vladimir.’

  ‘Vladimir’s beard makes him look Chechen to me. Is he part of Kishiev’s escape story, or is Kishiev really at large with his old group?’

  ‘We can’t discount either possibility,’ Patchem conceded. ‘But if he’s there without the Russians, it’s a hell of a coincidence, and that opens up a whole new set of targets.’

  Snow felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. ‘Moscow.’

  Patchem became pale. The Russians would never accept the detonation of a nuclear device as being the act of terrorists. Regardless of any evidence, the Kremlin’s fingers would be pointing at the US, shortly followed by their own nuclear warheads. ‘We’d better start praying he doesn’t have the bomb.’

  Snow now moved on to the next images; they were taken at dusk and showed two men with backpacks entering the premises. Both men were white and wore baseball caps. Plato anticipated Snow’s question. ‘With the exception of Kishiev and Vladimir, those were the only two individuals to pay Inci a visit that day whom we hadn’t seen before on the surveillance tapes.’

  ‘I see.’ The men looked unremarkable, like any other Western tourists, but the fact that they were the only tourists that day made them remarkable. Their perfect cover had been blown by imperfect timing. ‘Where are the photographs of them leaving?’

  ‘There aren’t any.’

  ‘Just a minute, Neill.’ Patchem sat forward. ‘Are you saying these two men didn’t leave?’

  ‘That’s correct, at least not by the front door.’

  Snow shook his head. ‘The camera only covers the front.’

  ‘It does indeed,’ Plato confirmed.

  ‘Can you ID them?’

  Plato seemed unfazed by the magnitude of the threat hanging over them all. ‘Well, that’s trickier because of the lighting conditions. I won’t be able to get as high a percentage match as I’d like. Feature extraction will be harder to do, as will getting a reference set for each face. But again, if their photos appear anywhere on the web, I’ll find ‘em.’

  ‘You’
re already searching, aren’t you?’ Patchem asked as he sat back and folded his arms.

  ‘That’s what you pay me for,’ Plato replied.

  ‘We need to focus on our only concrete lead, the passports.’ Patchem pushed the photographs into a neat pile. ‘Can you now check the Schengen Information System again to confirm a European-wide border alert has been issued for the three men?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’ Plato nimbly got to his feet and went back to his own office.

  Patchem took a deep breath and then exhaled. ‘Gut reaction?’

  ‘The Russians don’t have the device, the shooters do,’ said Snow.

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’re going to use it.’

  ‘Shit!’ Patchem was immediately embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, Aidan. I’ve not been feeling myself recently and having a bloody rogue nuclear device to find isn’t helping.’

  ‘We’ll find it,’ Snow said, with more certainty than he felt.

  ‘Right. You’re right. I’ve got to call Vince.’ Snow started to get up. ‘No, please sit in. I need your cool head.’

  It took five minutes to find and connect with the American, but after that Casey was gurning at the duo from the video screen. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen, what’s up?’ Patchem explained and Casey’s mood changed. ‘So we don’t know who has the nuke, where they are, or what they’re going to attack?’

  ‘In a nutshell.’

  ‘How long will it be until your guy gets a hit on the faces?’

  ‘He’s one of the best, so I’d say a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’ll inform my team of the development.’

  ‘Have your satellites picked up anything?’

  Casey shook his head. ‘Nope, not a thing. We were too late to spot them at the border and now too late to track anyone after the attack. There’s been a bit of chatter over the Echelon system about how swell it is that Kishiev has escaped from the Russians, but it’s nothing of any worth.’

  ‘Our best bet is still the EU. That’s where they’ll head for the maximum impact.’

  Snow shifted in his seat. ‘Why would the terrorists risk entering the EU?’

  ‘Where else would they go?’ Patchem frowned.

  ‘South to Syria, north to Ukraine?’

  ‘OK, I’m listening,’ Casey said via the screen. ‘I know you’ve got a theory somewhere, Aidan.’

  ‘If Kishiev hasn’t got the device, we’re assuming the target of any attack is going to be in the EU, correct?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the West and her allies,’ Patchem said, jutting his chin at Casey, ‘like America, are the traditional target of Al-Qaeda.’

  ‘Exactly. It would make the most sense to attack a traditional enemy now they have their hands on their deadliest weapon ever, but…’

  ‘But what?’ Patchem became impatient.

  ‘But what if the device doesn’t work? Our assessment is that, in its current state, the chances are very high that it won’t detonate.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve had this discussion.’ Patchem clasped his hands together. ‘The radioactive material inside would still produce a highly effective dirty bomb.’

  ‘I understand that, but I think we’re missing something. If I were an Al-Qaeda planner, why would I waste my time and people by deploying a faulty weapon?’

  A kernel of an idea formed in Casey’s mind. ‘What would you do if you had this faulty bomb, Aidan?’

  ‘I’d fix it.’

  ‘You’d also have to run diagnostics and, let me tell you, on a small, experimental device that takes an awful lot of time and money. We’re the CIA and we couldn’t get ours to work.’

  ‘But,’ Snow countered, ‘this bomb is a tactical multiplier that can be taken without a second glance into the heart of any capital city. If I were launching an attack, I’d want to secure the best possible chance of success.’

  ‘So make it a small dirty bomb,’ Patchem said flatly.

  ‘No, hang on,’ Casey noted with a wry look. ‘Aidan, I’m going to ask you again: what would you do if you had this faulty bomb?’

  ‘I’d get the original schematics, or find the designer, or, failing that, I’d go to the place that produced it, locate the people who made it, and get them to fix it.’

  ‘A quarter of a century later? Aidan, you’ve read my report on the RA-115A and the research centre in Kryvyi Rih. There’s no trace left,’ Patchem stated.

  ‘Vince, why doesn’t the CIA bomb function?’

  Casey sighed. ‘It’s in the info I gave Jack, but essentially it’s something to do with the firing unit decoder.’

  ‘So you find the person who designed the firing unit decoder, who may have failsafe codes for it, or perhaps even a new decoder.’

  Casey stroked his chin. ‘OK, I’m warming to your idea.’

  ‘Jack, have the scientists from Kryvyi Rih ever been traced or questioned by a Western intelligence agency?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware.’

  Casey shrugged. ‘We haven’t.’

  ‘The way I see it,’ Snow said, ‘is that back in ‘91 the workers had the Soviet mentality of staying shtum; the KGB had sworn them to secrecy on pain of death. But who’s going to threaten them now if they talk? The facility, the country, and their KGB don’t exist. If I’ve come up with this idea over the course of a morning, you can bet whoever’s running this Al-Qaeda operation has had more than enough time to come to the same conclusion.’

  ‘He has a point, Jack. The weapon’s effectiveness lies in its size and the punch it packs. Sure, you could make a dirty bomb, we all agree on this; and heck, Al-Q probably has the means to reuse the components and pack ‘em into a bigger case. But this device is portable and all but untraceable. It’s the ultimate stealth weapon and that’s the whole point of it. And if Kishiev does have the device, the easiest way for him to get back into Russia is via its rebel-held borders with Ukraine. He’d be just another Chechen fighter.’

  ‘Terrorist,’ Snow said.

  ‘It’s also not that hard to get into Poland from Ukraine, if you pay the right people,’ Patchem noted, as he steepled his fingers and thought about his next action. The Ukrainian Security Service was already on high alert and in May had intercepted a group of six men travelling from Moldova’s disputed autonomous region of Transdniester with 1.5 kg of a radiation-emitting substance, later confirmed as uranium-235. The fact that the SBU had successfully tracked, intercepted, and stopped a potential dirty bomb was noteworthy, but could the SBU be trusted with full disclosure? Patchem couldn’t rule out any possibility at this point, yet it still sounded like a wild-goose chase, and bringing in another foreign intelligence service, especially the SBU, had huge risks. With Crimea annexed by Russia, the Red Army shelling in the East, and an untold number of Russian sleepers in the SBU, Ukraine was a country where friends in power had to be chosen carefully. In short, there was a significant and palpable hazard that information shared with the SBU could end up in the hands of Russia’s FSB. But Knight had told him to pull out all the stops to locate the device. If Snow’s theory was correct, if there was anything to be found in Ukraine, then Aidan Snow was the man to find it. And it was better to have Snow working on a hunch than sitting twiddling his thumbs. ‘Aidan, do you trust the SBU?’

  ‘No, I trust Director Dudka and his team.’

  ‘Jack, I ain’t running your show, but I’d say we’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

  Patchem nodded, decision made. ‘Aidan, contact Dudka now. Make him get to a secure line. Tell him we need to trace any scientists who might have worked at the Kryvyi Rih plant. But even Dudka mustn’t know what we’re looking for; say we’ve had a tipoff that someone is trying to sell old classified documents to the Iranians.’

  ‘Iranians?’

  ‘Yes, blame them – difficult to prove otherwise.’

  ‘OK.’ Snow nodded at Casey. Casey in turn flashed Snow a salute as he exited.

>   ‘Who do you have in Ukraine?’ Patchem asked the American.

  ‘The usual embassy team, and a few military advisers training the Ukrainian army.’

  ‘What about your team?’

  ‘As I told you before, Jack, they’re on standby in Romania. Harris is directing them, and he’s very hands-on.’

  ‘As opposed to you?’

  ‘Ha!’ Neither Casey nor Patchem were well-suited for desk jobs. ‘But he’s a regular MacGyver.’

  ‘Perhaps, then, whoever has the bomb should ask Harris to fix it?’

  ‘I’m glad you still have your sense of humour, Jack.’

  *

  Detention Centre, Location Classified

  Tariq readied himself for the woman to enter his cell. He’d watched her the last two times she’d brought him food and she’d made the same mistake. She would approach him and place the metal tray on the table, then turn away, and that would be when he would strike. He had heard but not seen the guard at the door; he knew there must be at least one.

  ‘Food.’ The door opened and the woman entered. ‘Stand facing the wall, with your legs apart and your palms against it.’

  ‘Of course.’ Tariq still found it hard to speak after the hammer blow the fat Russian had delivered to his jaw.

  ‘Lamb.’ The woman placed the food on the table and turned away, as predicted.

  Now was Tariq’s chance. He pivoted, took two quick steps, collected the tray, and brought it down over her head. The woman dropped with a faint murmur. He grabbed the sidearm attached to her waist and hit her again on the back of the head. She made no sound. He checked the clip: full. Switching off the safety, he moved stealthily for the open door. Then he took a deep breath and mouthed ‘Allahu Akbar!’ before springing into the corridor. He looked left, nothing but a dead end. Right, one sentry, and then a door to daylight. Tariq charged at the man, bare feet slapping against the concrete floor, Makarov 9mm trained at the target’s unprotected head. The man turned, a cigarette fell from his open mouth, and his arms moved for the short-stock AK hanging across his body. Too late. Tariq fired; the retort reverberated like thunder in the confined space. Not stopping to assess his victim, he ran towards the exit. A door burst open in front of him and to the left. Tariq sent two rounds at a figure that had started to move. The glass shattered and the figure stumbled backwards. Tariq hurtled past the door and sent a further round into the gloom within. He reached the exit and exploded into the daylight. His bare feet hit gravel. Eyes darting frantically, assessing his options and ignoring the pain of the rough stones underfoot, he darted towards the nearest vehicle. He tried the door. Locked. Rounds erupted around him. He ducked and, using the car for cover, sprinted immediately left and towards the treeline. Crashing into the wood, he kept running as undergrowth tore at his ankles. His breathing had become laboured, not due to his lack of cardiovascular fitness but because of the drugs that still circulated in his system. His limbs felt heavy and his lungs burnt, but he refused to give up, refused to let the Russians stop him again.