Absorbed as she was, she had not noticed that as she walked through the foyer to leave the Savoy, a woman in a long dark coat, who had been packing away a laptop into her leather shoulder bag as Liz passed, got up and followed her out.
Liz was thinking how quickly one’s attitude to someone could change. Fane was known to those in Thames House who had worked with him as the Prince of Darkness, for his dark aquiline looks and the air of sinister menace he exuded. He was generally thought to be ruthless in pursuit of his objectives and not at all careful about whose toes he trod on in achieving them. In the last hour he had shown her a very different side—was it real concern about his son or was it just guilt? Whatever it was, Liz was intrigued to find his guard had slipped, and she wondered how this letting down of his guard would affect their future relationship.
As Liz sat down on the bus, the woman from the Savoy was several rows behind her. Liz was reflecting on how complicated her life was becoming, living and working undercover not a mile away from her office in Thames House. She didn’t think she could sustain it for much longer. She had decided to go back to Battersea tonight, though pure tradecraft would have dictated that, having just had a meeting with Geoffrey Fane as Liz Carlyle, she should go back to her own flat in Kentish Town. However, she had agreed to be at Brunovsky’s house in Belgravia early the following morning, and she did not want to have to leave Kentish Town at the crack of dawn so that she could dry-clean herself before arriving at Brunovsky’s house. Her mind moved on to the forthcoming weekend and further complications.
Dimitri had phoned that afternoon, suggesting dinner. He was coming down from Cambridge two days from now, on Saturday afternoon. It occurred to her that the only garment she had with her in Battersea suitable for an evening out was the dress she had worn to the post-auction dinner at the Windows on the World restaurant. It would probably be well over the top for whatever eating place Dimitri had in mind. When she’d last been at her own flat in Kentish Town, she had meant to bring more of her wardrobe over to Battersea, but she’d been distracted by—what was it? Oh yes, her mother had rung just as she was collecting more clothes. Hearing more about Edward had put Liz in such a foul mood that she had just scooped up a few things and left.
Now she was briefly tempted to change buses and go north instead of south, pick up something suitable from her flat and then go on to Battersea. But she didn’t have the energy or the patience for all the kerfuffle that would involve. It would take the rest of the evening just to collect a few clothes. I’ll make do with what I’ve got, she decided. She could dress up a work skirt with a silk blouse and wear her grandmother’s garnet earrings or the glass bead necklace her mother had given her on her birthday. That would surely do for whatever Dimitri came up with.
Traffic was light and as she was wrapped up in her own thoughts, the bus was moving quickly down towards the river, then along the Embankment and across Albert Bridge. She was one of just three people who got off at the stop in the quiet street one away from the mansion block. As the other two turned left and began walking off, Liz suddenly felt how eerie it was on this street at this time of night, when most people were already at home and dusk threatened to turn to dark. The tall branching plane trees cut off much of the remaining light in the sky and the widely spaced street lights created pools of darkness. She walked quickly to the street door of her block, checking behind her as she put her key in the lock. The only people in the street were a man, walking quickly away from her, and another woman in the distance. She couldn’t see her very well.
Once in the flat, she turned on Radio 3, then, unattracted by the atonal music it was playing, moved the dial to Classic FM. She had had nothing to eat since the morning and the Savoy’s delicious Chablis on an empty stomach was beginning to make her feel quite weak. Her inspection of the small food cupboard revealed tins of soup but not much else you could actually eat. The thought of one of the gastropubs in this gentrified neighbourhood didn’t appeal. They were noisy and she needed some peace to collect her thoughts and reposition herself mentally after her rather confusing day. Then she remembered the sedate old-fashioned pub a couple of streets away, where a single woman could sit alone, unmolested, and read a book over a simple plate of cold roast beef and salad. As she left the building, she wondered if Dimitri would fit in there.
28
A4 was very stretched. An urgent counter-terrorism operation had absorbed all their free resources. Brian Ackers had been putting as much pressure as he could on the head of A4 to make at least one team available for the Rykov link with Jerry Simmons, but even he had had to concede that the possible kidnapping of a soldier home on leave by a gang of Al Qaeda–influenced militants took precedence. But at the last minute, one of the extremists had been arrested by the local uniformed police for shoplifting, and was in custody, so the team that had been allocated to him was free. Luckily, this was Wally Wood’s team and they knew Rykov well.
This evening had seemed easy enough, just like others on which they had watched Rykov. He had been in the embassy for most of the afternoon, then had drinks with an unidentified blonde in the penthouse bar of the Kensington Gardens Hotel. He’d left at six-thirty and taken a taxi into the West End, where he’d had early supper with another woman—identified as Mrs. Rykov—at Chez Gérard on Dover Street. When they’d come out at eight-thirty, Wally Woods, sitting in his car at the corner of Piccadilly, watched as the Russian walked past him and held his arm out to hail a cab. It was still light, and the lowering sun turned the clouds into pink puffballs over Green Park.
It seemed straightforward: the Russian couple would head north to Highgate and their flat at the Trade Delegation. But when a taxi pulled over, to Wally’s surprise Rykov bundled his wife into it, slammed the door, crossed the road and walked off west on Piccadilly towards Hyde Park Corner. By the time Wally had negotiated the small Mayfair streets and re-emerged on the correct side of Piccadilly, his colleague Maureen was calling in over the radio that Rykov was flagging down another taxi. Wally was in time to join his colleagues, now intently following this second taxi.
Fifteen minutes later the taxi turned off Cheyne Walk and crossed Albert Bridge. On the south bank it turned into Parkgate Road, then stopped in a smaller tree-shaded side street of brick mansion blocks. Wally pulled over just around the corner. Bernie Rudge had turned off Albert Bridge Road further south and was now circling back. “Target coming your way,” said Wally. He named the street Rykov’s cab had gone down, then pulled out and drove around in a slow circle to the other end of it.
“I have eyeball,” Bernie announced. “Chelsea 1 is getting out. Going into a building. I’ll take him.”
Wally wondered what the hell was going on. He knew there was an operational flat in a block on this road. He’d dry-cleaned a contact attending a meeting here for the Counter-Terrorist Branch a few months ago. Surely they’d have been briefed if Chelsea 1 was one of theirs and was going to a meeting. But it beggared belief that he had picked this obscure street in Battersea coincidentally.
“Target’s on the move,” said Bernie. “Walking fast. He’s seen something. Heading back to you, Maureen. Can you take him?”
“Affirmative,” came back from Maureen. “I have eyeball.”
“There’s a female coming from the opposite direction. She’s crossed the street. She’s gone into the same block of flats the target went up to. She must have been what spooked him.”
Odd, thought Wally. If Chelsea 1 was meeting someone in the safe flat, why had he turned tail and run away? What was going on?
“Confirming. A female has entered the same building. She’s one of ours. There’s an unknown female approaching. Passing the block now and coming your way.”
From A4 control in Thames House came the instruction for one car to stay on the street long enough to confirm the address Rykov had approached and for the others to keep with Rykov and ignore the unknown female. Control confirmed that there had been no briefing about any meeting with R
ykov.
Wally sat in his car in the pool of darkness between two street lamps, watching the door of the mansion block. After a minute or two the door opened and Liz Carlyle emerged, crossed the road and walked off down a side street. Wally was dumbfounded. Possibilities spread like wildfire in his mind, some of them ones he didn’t want to contemplate. He could hear from the radio traffic of his colleagues that Chelsea 1 seemed to be making his way back to Highgate by cab. The second woman had disappeared, so having checked the address, he radioed in that he was standing down.
Battersea Mansions. Yes, that was certainly where he’d helped dry-clean that meeting three months before. Well, there’d be an interesting wash-up tomorrow about all this. Either they hadn’t been properly briefed or something very strange was going on. He just hoped Liz Carlyle knew what she was doing.
29
The last message from Moscow had not come as a total surprise. It warned her that the operation might have been compromised. The British authorities could have information to endanger the plan. It was not known at this stage precisely what the British knew. A suspect was in custody in Moscow and was being questioned. More information would be forthcoming.
She needed to find out where this Jane Falconer woman lived. Asking the chauffeur was out of the question, though she had overheard him telling Brunovsky that she lived in Battersea. There was nothing under her name in directory enquiries; nothing on the electoral roll. But it had proved easy enough to follow her this evening to the Savoy. She’d met some man for drinks, then down here to Battersea, within a long stone’s throw of Albert Bridge Road.
She was sure she hadn’t been spotted on the bus and she had turned the opposite way when she got off at the same stop. She had made it back to the corner before her target had disappeared from sight into a large block of flats further down this narrow street. Though she had looked back before she went in, Jane couldn’t possibly have recognised her as the same person who’d got off the bus with her. Night was drawing in now, and she walked slowly down the pavement, ready at any moment to cross over to avoid suspicion. Outside the Victorian block, built like an armoury out of orange brick with black ironwork, she cast a casual look and registered the name—Battersea Mansions.
As she continued down the road, she wondered how to find out which was the right flat. There were probably at least two dozen in the building. She could ask another resident, but would the flat be in the name of Jane Falconer? Almost certainly not. And getting in would be risky. It would be more dangerous outside, but there seemed to be no real choice.
She was about to turn and head back when she saw a man with a blue overcoat on the far side of the street. He was standing in the shadow; he seemed nervy, peering around, turning his head from side to side, walking a few steps forward then back into the shadow, manifestly ill at ease. She kept her own head down to avoid attracting his attention and as she passed him on her side of the road, he seemed to make up his mind and he walked off quickly towards the lights of Parkgate Road.
She waited until he had reached the corner of the larger road before turning around herself. Then she noticed the beat-up Ford parked across the road. Its lights and engine were both off, but there was a man sitting behind the steering wheel. He looked as if he were dozing.
Odd. Normally, you’d sit with the lights on if you weren’t going to be there very long and were waiting to pick someone up. So why were his lights off?
She reached the end of the road and walked around the corner. She passed another parked car with its lights off. This time two people were in the car, a man and a woman behind the wheel. She wondered if they were watching the same house she was. Hard to tell—they might just be minicabs waiting for fares, or a glum couple waiting for tempers to subside after a row. But two cars? No, this was a surveillance team. But who were they watching?
She turned again and went back round the corner, torn between leaving and her curiosity about these other watchers. Then out of Battersea Mansions she saw a woman emerge, in a raincoat. It was Jane Falconer.
Time to leave the area, the woman decided, and as she walked on, the car from round the corner came past her, briefly flashing its lights as it passed the parked Ford. Her suspicions were correct, then—they had been waiting for Jane. And the man on foot, was he with them too? Then why had he gone away?
She struggled to make sense of the Chinese boxes of watchers watching watchers. If Jane was just a low-level agent, placed in Brunovsky’s household to help protect him, then what were all these other men doing here tonight? Why would they be watching Jane? It didn’t make sense, unless for some reason they thought she needed protecting.
They were right.
The message she sent later that night was unambiguous, as was the reply she received six hours later:
Permission granted.
30
Hello, Liz. Long time no see. I hear you’re in the arms of the Prince of Darkness. Why do you get all the best jobs?”
Dave Armstrong, Liz’s old friend from Counter-Terrorism, got into the lift as it opened on the fifth floor.
“Whatever you’ve heard, it’s disinformation,” said Liz with a grin. “And as for best jobs, you know you’d run a mile rather than work with Dracula. Believe me, you’re in the best place, Dave, and I’d stick your feet firmly under the desk, if I were you. By the way, is there any news of Charles coming back?” she enquired with a casual air that did not fool Dave for a moment.
“Sorry. Nothing firm on that front yet.” He grinned. “Are you coming to drink out old Slater?”
“I’d forgotten all about it,” replied Liz, “but I’ll come along if you’re going. I’ve always had rather a soft spot for the old boy.”
Colin Slater had spent almost thirty years in MI5, rising to assistant director. Most of his time had been spent in Protective Security, and until the last few years he must have thought he was on the last leg of a peaceful voyage towards his pension. His work, though not without its challenges, had never been especially stressful.
Then, like virtually everyone else in the room tonight, he had been drawn into the post-9/11 maelstrom. Shifted, with the whole Protective Security Branch, into Counter-Terrorism, he had spent the last two years doing what so many of Liz’s colleagues spent all their waking hours doing—working to stop the unthinkable from happening. Now, at his retirement party, there was an enervated air to the man as he stood, in the bright central atrium of Thames House, wine glass in hand, accepting the congratulations and goodbyes of his colleagues. He looks more like seventy-five than sixty, thought Liz. Is that how we’ll all end up?
There were rules in Thames House about retirement parties, as about everything else. When a director retired, DG made the speech. When it was an assistant director retiring, the speech was made by the director. So it was Michael Binding, acting director of Counter-Terrorism in Charles’s absence, who called for silence and began the ritual trawl through Colin’s career. Liz found herself joined at the back of the semicircle of listeners by Geoffrey Fane. He’d already spoken to her that evening, showing no embarrassment over their awkward conversation at the Savoy. If anything, he seemed to feel it had broken through some barrier and his manner was noticeably warm.
Slater’s reply to Michael Binding’s remarks was mercifully short and Liz was just preparing to slip quietly away when she heard someone say, “Good evening, Liz.”
The voice was so low that at first she didn’t recognise it. Turning, she found Charles Wetherby just behind her. He was dressed in a tweed jacket and flannels, and looked quite different from his usual formal self. Impulsively, she kissed him on the cheek, then stood back as he smiled at her.
“You look very well,” she announced. Which was only partly true—he looked fit, with a ruddy bloom to his cheeks that must have come from lots of long walks, but his face was drawn, his eyes colour-less and tired.
“So do you, Liz. New job suiting you?” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s not what
I expected.” He raised an eyebrow, and she seized the unexpected opportunity to unburden herself. Once she had started, she found she couldn’t stop, even though she knew she was going on too long. She described her odd status in the Brunovsky household and the machinations of Henry Pennington of the FCO that had put her there. She couldn’t altogether disguise her frustration, though she tried to sound lighthearted—“I never thought when I was hunting the mole last year, that I’d end up as a mole myself.”
But Charles didn’t smile at this. “I hope you’re being very careful,” he said grimly.
She was a little taken aback. “Of course,” she said. “Though I don’t feel in any danger.”
He was staring at her intently, with the fixed gaze she had come to recognise. It was the “X-ray stare,” as Dave Armstrong had labelled it. When she first worked for Charles she had found this look unnerving but over the years she had grown to understand that it was a sign of concentration, a sign that he was taking something very seriously and thinking about it.
“You’re at risk, Liz. You’re there for a reason. Brunovsky knows what you really are; for all you know others in the household know too. If this plot exists, you are very exposed if anyone suspects you.”
“It’s a big ‘if,’ Charles, but I understand.” He seemed so serious that she wanted to change the subject. But the one thing she most wanted to ask—when he would be back at work—was the one topic she didn’t feel she could bring up. Dave Armstrong had told her that Joanne Wetherby was no better.
“Good,” he said. He smiled, as if aware of his own gravity. “You said you’d keep in touch. I’m holding you to that.”
“All right, Charles,” she said.
“Feel free to ring me at home until I’m back,” he said.
As she stood in line to shake Colin Slater’s hand before leaving, she saw Charles in earnest conversation with DG, who was frowning and looking worried.
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