by Mark Dawson
“This is Bravo. He’s going over the bridge. Handing off.” There was surprise in the agent’s voice.
“This is Foxtrot. Picking up.”
“Is that unusual?” Pope asked the female agent driving the car.
“Yes,” she said, putting the car into gear and pulling out. “First time over the river since we’ve been on him. We need to change position.”
They drove down Fulham High Street and swung onto Putney Bridge. Pope looked out to the left as they started across the river. Beck was walking on his own, passing beneath one of the outsized lanterns that threw out its warm glow over the water below. He was a big man, solid and healthy despite his years, and he walked with purpose. He was wearing a light jacket and pulling a wheeled suitcase along behind him. There were a handful of other people on the bridge. Pope had no idea which of them were engaged in the operation, but guessed there would be at least three, with one going in the opposite direction in the event that Beck reversed course in an attempt to reveal possible surveillants.
“This is Blackjack. We’ve checked the origin of the call. There’s no call centre. It was a flare. Assume he’s running.”
The car reached the other side and swung off onto Waterman’s Green. The driver continued around the curve until they were out of sight of the bridge and then performed a U-turn, bringing the car to a halt next to a bus shelter.
“This is Foxtrot. He’s heading straight on. Handing off.”
“This is Golf. Picking up.”
Pope had conferred with Control an hour previously and had been brought up to speed on the events in Southwold. The death of the dissident Russian was being attributed to Russian actors, and, as a suspected agent runner, Beck had become of even greater interest. The hope was that Beck’s agents might be responsible and that he might inadvertently betray them. And now, on the evening of the murder, Beck was on the move. He had received a warning and he was acting on it. Pope found it hard to believe that that could be a coincidence.
They waited next to the shelter, listening to the chatter over the radio as Beck changed course in what was an obvious attempt to smoke out surveillance. They had enough assets to adapt the coverage so that he didn’t see the same follower more than once. Pope listened as Beck was reported as returning onto the main road and continuing to the south.
“This is Golf. I think he’s going to the station.”
The driver put the car into gear and rolled away from the kerb.
“This is Blackjack to Number Five. Get to the station, please.”
“On our way,” the driver reported, bullying her way into the traffic and then waiting for the lights opposite the medieval church to change.
Pope felt the tingle of adrenaline. This was not the sort of operation where it was possible to furnish him with clean rules of engagement. There had been no need for him, or any of the other Group Fifteen agents who had been involved in the surveillance, to do anything other than wait for an order to move. But PAPERCLIP’s uncharacteristic activity this evening, especially given what had happened on the Suffolk coast, suggested that the operation was approaching a climax. Pope reached down to the service pistol that he had holstered beneath his left shoulder. His fingertips brushed the stippled grip of the Sig and then slid away from it, zipping up his jacket to obscure the weapon.
“This is Foxtrot. He’s crossing for the station. Handing off.”
“This is Golf, picking up. He’s buying a ticket.”
“This is Blackjack to Five. You’re up. Get after him.”
The driver pulled over on the opposite side of the road to the station entrance.
“Go,” the driver urged.
Pope got out, waited for a chance to cross and then jogged out between two slow-moving buses.
“Golf to Five. Paperclip is on platform one. Repeat, platform one.”
Pope pressed his pre-paid card on the reader, passed through the barriers and made his way to the platform. He saw Beck at once. The old man was sitting on one of the benches, looking up and down the platform. Pope walked on without giving him a second glance. His earpiece was tiny and in the opposite ear; Beck wouldn’t be able to see it. He checked the departures board; the first train, due into the station in a minute, was going to Winchester.
Pope was five paces beyond Beck when he heard the rumble of the approaching engine. He kept walking, all the way down to the front of the platform, and waited for the train to arrive. He turned back to see Beck board the third carriage of five. Pope helped a mother to wheel her pram down from the carriage and onto the platform and then boarded himself. The doors closed and the train pulled out.
Moscow
21
Primakov told his driver to take him to the Fourth District. He had him pull up half a mile short of his ultimate destination, told him to take the night off and then waited for him to merge into the traffic and drive away. He walked the rest of the way himself, following the Moskva River through a pleasant park that was lit with reproduction antique lanterns that cast a warm glow out over the water.
They had chosen the usual location for their tryst, the Directorate S safe house that was occasionally occupied by agents who were returning to Moscow from abroad. It was almost always empty; Primakov had confirmed that that was the case today, and that they would have privacy for as long as they wanted it. The apartment was in one of the new blocks that had been constructed here during the last twenty years, funded by ambitious developers who took advantage of the more relaxed rules on the movement of capital to invest in accommodation for the city’s burgeoning middle class. These buildings were alike, each thirty stories tall and sleeker than the Soviet-era architecture that blighted so much of the rest of the city.
Primakov opened the door to the lobby, walked past the reception desk without acknowledging the porter, and took the lift up to the fourteenth floor. He knocked on the door and waited until he heard the sound of bare feet slapping against the wood of the hall. The door opened and his lover greeted him with a smile.
“I thought you would never get here,” she said.
“The council meeting ran a little late,” he said, happy to mention that he had been to the Kremlin because he knew that she would be impressed.
“And?” she said, her eyes wide.
“I think we might have got to the end of the problem.”
Her face dissolved into a wide smile and, without even waiting to draw him into the apartment, she placed both hands around his head so that she could draw him down to her level. She kissed him full on the lips.
“Thank you,” she said. “You don’t know how grateful I am. What would I do without you?”
Primakov had met Captain Natasha Kryuchkov during a conference that had taken place in the Kremlin six years earlier. He had been there to listen to his boss, the Director of the SVR, speak about the intelligence challenges that had arisen thanks to Russia’s increasingly active role in world affairs. The first hour of the symposium had been deathly dull, and Primakov had decided that he would manufacture an excuse to leave as soon as the Director had finished. He had gone to get a cup of strong black coffee to help him stay awake for the second hour when he had bumped into a young, attractive brunette dressed in the green uniform of the Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, or the GRU’s Main Intelligence Directorate.
Primakov’s wife had died of cancer five years earlier, and, since then, he had resigned himself to a bachelor’s life. It had been a bleak way to live. Natasha was attractive and attentive and the two of them had enjoyed an easy rapport. Primakov was not naïve enough to think that she was drawn to him because of his looks; he was thirty years older than she was, and, although he took care with his appearance, he still looked his age. He guessed that she recognised him and was flattered that he took the time to speak to her. He was encouraged by her evident interest and had invited her for a tour of Yasenevo. That had gone well and, ignoring the slight sense of ridiculousness that he was contemplating dating a woman so m
uch younger than himself, he had invited her to dinner the next week.
They had enjoyed a pleasant evening together. She told him all about her career, and what she hoped to achieve. She worked in the Counterintelligence Service (Department), specifically within the Directorate for the Counterintelligence Support of Strategic Facilities. She had enjoyed a rapid rise through the ranks thanks to a tenacious approach, hard work and a fierce loyalty to her country. For his part, he explained how he had come to achieve a position of authority within the SVR, and how things had changed over the years. He admitted that he was disenchanted with how the service had been altered since the death of the KGB, and that he was looking forward to his retirement in five years’ time. That he felt able to be so indiscreet with her was, he concluded, a sign that there was more to their putative relationship than might otherwise have been the case. She had invited him to her apartment the week after their first dinner, and they had started seeing each other more frequently after that. They both agreed that their assignations should be clandestine, given that the relationship would be frowned upon by the Kremlin. His colleagues would deride him for an affair which was, they would say, inappropriate and embarrassing; her superiors would conclude that she was sleeping with him because she wanted to advance her career.
Their affair had developed into something different. Primakov could have lived with the suspicion that she was with him for her own career; it was a compromise he could make in return for being with her. But, as time went by, he came to accept that that was not the case. He had done her a few favours, put in a good word here and there, but nothing that would be enough to keep her around. She told him that she loved him and he came to believe that.
And then, a month ago, Natasha had finally turned to him for help. She had been in a blind panic as she explained that a senior engineer working in the Sukhoi factory had disappeared. Her investigation had revealed that the engineer had stolen several terabytes worth of data related to the new Su-58 that was being developed at the factory. The engineer was a woman: Anastasiya Romanova.
The chief of Natasha’s Department in the GRU was a man named Klimashin; Primakov knew him by reputation and knew that Natasha’s fears were well founded. Klimashin was an ambitious and devious man and would do everything he could to protect his own standing. He would absolve himself of responsibility for the intelligence failure and would sacrifice Natasha and anyone else if it meant that his own career could be saved.
Primakov reviewed the case himself. Natasha had started an investigation to find Romanova but had drawn a blank. The woman had simply disappeared. Her friends had been rounded up and questioned, but none of them had any idea where she might have gone. Primakov put two of his analysts on the case, warning them that it was sensitive and their findings were not to be shared outside of his office. They quickly made progress, revealing a motive for the disappearance. Her husband, Viktor Romanov, had built up a successful business in the oil and gas sector. He had come into conflict with an oligarch who was close to the president and, rather than be prudent and back down, Romanov had brought legal proceedings alleging fraud and embezzlement. It wasn’t difficult to join the dots and work out what had happened next. The oligarch made a call, and, within days of the filing of the proceedings, Romanov had been arrested. He was tried and convicted and sent to Penal Colony No. 14 on the banks of the Partsa River in Mordovia. He died six months later. The official account was that he had suffered a heart attack, but Primakov knew that the truth would have been more brutal. Romanov’s money found its way to the oligarch, a fraction was funnelled to one of the Stalinist romanticisers who ran the colony, and the Romanov problem was made to go away. His wife had been interviewed after his death and had responded badly. The agents responsible had reported that she blamed the state, and had recommended that she be removed from the factory until her loyalty could be confirmed. But she had vanished before that could happen, and a forensic investigation of her network activity suggested that she had illegally downloaded hundreds of terabytes of restricted information.
Primakov instructed his researchers to delve deeper. Anastasiya Romanova’s father was Pyotr Aleksandrov, who had been convicted of treason and then swapped for the illegals who had been captured by the CIA. It appeared that treachery ran in the family and, his instincts aroused, Primakov used EUREKA, the Directorate S agent that they had placed within MI6, to provide him with the father’s location. He then directed Vincent Beck to deploy two illegals to put Aleksandrov under surveillance.
It was a gamble, and Primakov had no reason to think that it would pay out. The file said that Aleksandrov and his daughter were estranged, but he still felt it worth the attempt. Romanova was alone, hunted by the state and with secrets to sell; why would she not go to her father? After all, he had experience in selling stolen intelligence and a direct line to decision-makers at Vauxhall Cross.
The fishing expedition was successful. They had intercepted the call that Anastasiya had placed to her father and learned of their plan to bring her out of Russia so that the two of them might be reunited and reconciled. But now Primakov had a dilemma: he couldn’t very well go to the Director and tell him that Anastasiya was offering the secrets of the new fighter because that would end up damning Natasha. But doing nothing would lead to the same result. He decided that a creative approach was necessary and, instead of the Su-58, he simply invented something else for Aleksandrov to sell. The phone call between Aleksandrov and his former handler, Geggel, was fortunate in its timing. Primakov amended the transcript and took it to the Director. Primakov’s version of the conversation suggested that Aleksandrov had acquired a list of active agents and their legends, source unknown, and that he had contacted Geggel in order to discuss their sale. Urgent action needed to be taken to prevent the information from falling into the hands of the enemy. Anastasiya was not mentioned at all.
The Director had approved the operation with the caveat that Aleksandrov’s death must also serve as a warning to anyone else who would be foolish enough to cross the Rodina in this way. They hadn’t tried to hide it. It was obvious to anyone with even the slightest passing interest that Aleksandrov had been killed because he had tried to cross the motherland. His death would prevent the spread of the information he was trying to sell while serving as a warning to others on the consequences of greed.
22
Primakov and Natasha lay together in bed, the blinds open so that they could drink in the night-time view of the city. The lights atop towers and cranes sparkled across the horizon, and buildings were crushed together in the oxbow curve of the river. The view always reminded Primakov of how much Moscow had changed in the years since he had first arrived here. The last decade had seen an especially rapid transformation as capital flooded in from newly liberated markets, the president’s cronies first in line to shove their snouts into the trough. Primakov had no problem with that. He was a pragmatist. He understood how the system worked and knew that he stood to benefit by demonstrating his fealty and effectiveness to those above him. His policy had been successful so far, and he was keen to ensure that it continued to be so.
Natasha had taken him straight to bed, and it was only now that she asked him about the events that he had set in train for her.
“How did it—” she began.
“It’s done,” he said, gently talking over her anxiety.
“The father?”
“Dead. The message will be unambiguous.”
“But there’s nothing on the news.”
“I doubt the British are ready to go public yet. They will. And when they do, she will know that it was her fault. She’ll stay quiet and, in the meantime, we’ll track her down. She can’t hide forever.”
Natasha rolled onto her back, stared up to the ceiling and exhaled. “I wish this was finished. Worrying all the time—it’s exhausting.”
He stroked her hair. “It’s nearly done,” he said. “There’s something I didn’t tell you: Directorate X traced the IP add
ress for the email she sent to her father. She used an internet café in Komsomolsk. They have CCTV. We have a picture of her paying her bill.”
“She’s still there?”
“She’s changed her hair, but it looks like she is too frightened to travel. I have two men I trust in situations like this. They will find her.”
Primakov had been thinking of sending Stepanov and Mitrokhin. He could have spoken to Nikolaevich at the FSB, but he would have needed a pretext to ask for help that would still hide the real reason for the request. Nikolaevich was a wily old fox, and he could make things uncomfortable for Primakov if he joined the dots between Romanova and Aleksandrov. Far better to send his best men. Stepanov had an excellent nose, and people tended to give Mitrokhin what he wanted to know. They made an effective team.
Natasha rolled over again and draped her arm across his chest. “Can you stay tonight?”
“Perhaps. Let me check.”
He realised that he hadn’t turned his cell phone back on again after deactivating it for the council meeting. He got up and went to the chair where he had left his clothes. He took it out of his jacket pocket, pressed the button and waited for it to boot up. It buzzed in his hand with a series of incoming messages. One of them was marked urgent, and, with a feeling of unease, he scrolled down and tapped his finger on it.
“What is it?” Natasha said.
His face must have given him away. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just information on the operation. But I need to go back to the office.”
“What information? Something is wrong?”
“Please, Natasha, don’t worry. Everything is as it should be. But there are some things that I need to do. Perhaps I will be able to return later.”
