Presence of Mine Enemies

by Stephen England

  “He’s a good man,” the acting director-general repeated, the unnecessary emphasis sounding somehow even more damning. “Good at his job—which is finding threats against this country, rooting out enemies from within. We both know where that can lead, Julian. To seeing enemies in every shadow—to finding threats even where none exist.”

  Ah, yes. Spycatcher. The grim specter of Peter Wright, still menacing them all, even all these decades later. He somehow wasn’t surprised that Ashworth had chosen this tack. But Greer was no Peter Wright.

  “But what if they do exist?” he asked quietly, draining the remnants of the Lagavulin in a single draught. “What then?”

  Ashworth just stared at him, incredulously. “You’re asking me to believe that Russia financed the man who orchestrated a terrorist attack on Her Majesty, Julian. Do you have any idea of just how absurd that sounds? Any idea at all?”

  Marsh shrugged. “It would fit into the recognized Russian modus operandi of funneling money to fringe groups across Europe and the United States, both right and left. That’s not to say they knew what Arthur Colville was planning, but I don’t believe we can dismiss this out of hand.”

  “You don’t believe. . .” Ashworth looked at him helplessly. “This whole business with Russia, it’s an obsession with people like you and Greer. You still want to see the world as you always saw it, back in the old days. Black and white. Spy versus spy, East versus West, the Warsaw Pact facing off against NATO. Face reality, Julian—that world is dead.”

  Marsh shook his head, smiling ever so faintly. "No, you're wrong. So very wrong. That world was dying. . .so it faked its own death. Because no one ever bothers to kill that which is already dead, now do they?"

  7:30 P.M.

  The terraced house

  Hounslow, West London

  Every man’s sins caught up with him, in the end. The choices of that dark spring so long ago, returned to haunt him at the last.

  Inescapable. Litvinov just sat there, gazing across the table into the eyes of Alexei Mikhailovich Vasiliev—a thousand voices within screaming for him to move, to run, to get away.

  But he lacked the will to do so, somehow—something gluing him to his seat. Resignation, perhaps. The knowledge that this had been the inevitable end, all along.

  “I’m not going to ask you why you did it,” Vasiliev went on, after a moment, the mocking glint still there in his cold blue eyes. “I really don’t care. I’ve listened to so many men justify their treason over the years, they all just seem to run together after a while. All of them, so. . .unimaginative.”

  The older man paused, smiling.

  “Valera would probably want me to ask how long you’ve been an asset of British intelligence,” he said, using the diminutive of the rezident’s name with palpable contempt, “but I’m content for you to take that to your grave, just to spite him. As long as we’re agreed that that’s where this ends—with your death.”

  That brought Litvinov to his feet finally, the chair scraping backward across the kitchen floor, his body trembling with fear and anger as he stared at Vasiliev. “You aren’t just going to kill me.”

  It was an assurance he didn’t feel, a desperate grasping in the torrent for some scrap of wreckage that could bear his weight.

  “No, I’m not,” the older man conceded, the smile never wavering. “You’re going to do that, Dmitri Pavlovich.”

  He felt a cold sweat break out on his palms, something terrifying in the man’s calm assurance. The inescapable feeling that Vasiliev was toying with him, like a cat would play with its victims. “N-n-no, I won’t do that, and you can’t force me to. I’m going to walk out of here, right now, and if you want to stop me, you’re going to have to kill me. Yourself.”

  The older man spread his hands. “Be my guest. I’m not going to stop you. I don’t even have a gun.”

  Come on. Move, Litvinov’s mind screamed at him, taking the first of several faltering steps to the door. Almost there. Just a few more feet and he’d be in the hall, headed for the door. And then—

  Vasiliev’s voice arrested him where he stood. “Just understand, Dmitri Pavlovich, that someone will pay the price for your betrayal of the Rodina. If not you, someone else. A substitute will be found. And don’t forget that your family remains in Russia. Where we can reach them, so very easily.”

  But that wasn’t true—not as of tonight. They were safe, or at least as safe as he was. He just needed to find a way to warn Natalia. . .

  “No, you can’t,” he replied, feeling the first burst of genuine confidence he’d felt since he’d turned to find Alexei Mikhailovich standing in his kitchen.

  A puzzled look flickered briefly across Vasiliev’s countenance, and then he laughed, a harsh sound that chilled Litvinov to the very bone. Something almost akin to pity in his voice when he spoke again.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. . .you believed that, didn’t you, Dmitri Pavlovich? That your daughter and grandchild were come for a visit? Our way of getting your wife out of the house for the evening, I’m afraid. Irina and her husband—little Katya—remain at their home in Smolensk Oblast. Irina herself arrived home from work,” he made a show of checking his watch, “two hours ago, according to the officers assigned to her surveillance.”

  NO. Something snapped inside Litvinov and he hurled himself against Vasiliev, a red mist seeming to descend across his vision, his hands reaching out for the man’s throat—his mind consumed by a single imperative: Kill.

  He never made it—the older man reacting with unexpected speed—catching him off-balance and pivoting, slamming him hard into the wooden floor. His knee, grinding into Litvinov’s chest. Cold, expressionless eyes, staring down from above.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he whispered. “Kill me, and you only delay the inevitable. Kill yourself. . .and the debt is paid.”

  He held Litvinov’s gaze for a long moment more before releasing him—an audible sigh escaping from the older Russian’s lips as he rose to his feet. He turned away, leaving Litvinov laying there on the floor, still struggling to recover his wind—pulling a chair out from the table.

  “Get up,” he instructed, gesturing to the chair, “and have a seat. We don’t have much time.”

  7:36 P.M.

  The Rag

  Pall Mall, London

  “No.” Ashworth’s tone was utterly uncompromising, his eyes betraying exasperation as he leaned toward Marsh, the remains of his drink long-since forgotten at his feet. “That’s absolutely out of the question, Julian. I’ll talk to C, find out what information he can provide about the possibility of this, this. . .mole, but the other is totally out of the question. We’re not going to be making provisions for the ‘defection’ of the SVR’s No. 2 in London, for God’s sake!”

  “Why not?”

  The acting director-general swore softly, tapping the ends of his fingers together. An angry, insistent gesture. “That you have to ask, Julian. . .illustrates just why you’re no longer behind that desk at Thames House. And I am. It is not in our national interest to antagonize Moscow at this moment in history, for a myriad reasons. The Russians are our principal source of intelligence on Chechen militants as the Syrian diaspora continues—if they close their doors to us, we lose our ability to screen those fighters out before they get here. And they are coming, make no mistake. And those considerations don’t even begin to factor in our increasing reliance on Russian natural gas. We take the wrong step, and the British winter grows very cold indeed.”

  “It was not in our ‘national interest’ for England to respond when the Germans violated the neutrality of Belgium in 1914,” Julian Marsh responded quietly, eyeing the man who had replaced him. Out with the old, in with the new. Perhaps he had been the wrong messenger for this, all along. “But this nation understood more than mere interest, back then. It understood the principle of the thing—understood that to yield in that hour would only encourage further aggression in the months and years to come, once we had been revealed as faithles
s. Weak. And so, England went to war.”

  “And an entire generation didn’t come home from that war,” Ashworth responded, shaking his head, “all because some old men were afraid that they might be perceived as ‘weak.’ Is that what you want, Julian? Is that what you want to see happen again? Because that’s where your schoolboy ethics would take us.”

  Schoolboy ethics, Marsh thought ironically. His own hands, far more soiled through the years, than he expected those of the man before him would ever be. But you had to maintain some kind of hold on your self if you were to come out the other side. If anything was to survive.

  “You’ve seen the rhetoric coming out of the administration in Washington,” the acting DG continued, rising to his feet as if to signal that their meeting was at an end, “you know how Norton feels about the NATO alliance. This isn’t 1914. If Britain stands this time, she will stand alone.”

  He started to speak, but Ashworth cut him off, holding up a hand. “We’re done here, Julian. You and I wouldn’t even be having this discussion if Phillip Greer hadn’t gone far outside his remit—in probable violation of the Official Secrets Act—to read you in on matters you no longer have any legitimate reason to be privy to.”

  Marsh cleared his throat, suppressing his own mounting anger with an effort. “Greer did what he felt was appropriate.”

  “That wasn’t his decision to make, Julian—you know that. Anymore than it’s yours, any longer.” He shook his head. “We may have a Shadow Cabinet, but we don’t have a Shadow Security Service. Nor will we, as long as I’m DG.”

  9:07 P.M.

  The terraced house

  Hounslow, West London

  There was no explaining it, Natalia Nikolayevna Litvinov thought, closing the door of her Nissan with a shove as she stepped out onto the kerb. Her daughter had been nowhere to be found—no record of her or Katya on any of the inbound flights from Russia. As if they had never existed.

  Yet there were the messages she had exchanged with Irina earlier, right there before her in black and white. She’d showed them to security officials there at the airport, but there had been nothing they could do.

  And for some reason, she hadn’t seemed to be able to reach Irina since. Dmitri would know what to do, she assured herself, fumbling in her purse for her key as she reached the door. He was SVR, after all—the deputy rezident of one of the most important foreign postings in the world. A powerful man.

  And of what use was power if you couldn’t use it to help your family?

  The door gave beneath her hand, letting her into the dark entry hall, a strange smell pervading her nostrils.

  “Dima,” she called out, reaching for the light as she moved toward the kitchen, “I’m home. There was no one at the airport, and I haven’t—”

  Her voice broke off suddenly, the light revealing a pair of trouser-clad legs, hanging down from the stairs above her. A macabre sight, swaying ever so slightly in the draft from the door.

  She looked up, her eyes catching sight of the familiar face, twisted grotesquely to one side, and began to scream, helplessly. Incoherently.

  Again and again. And again. . .

  Chapter 20

  7:30 A.M. British Summer Time, July 13th

  Thames House

  Millbank, London

  Roth was already there by the time Phillip Greer arrived, poring diligently over a mass of folders and files in the conference room that Greer had finally appropriated for their purpose late the previous afternoon.

  They needed more manpower on this, but the circle had to be kept so small—at least until they could narrow down more precisely what they were looking at. Perhaps Litvinov could yet help in that regard.

  And still nothing from Six.

  He knew it was far too early to reasonably expect any such fruit. . .and yet, something deep within warned him that they were running out of time. That they needed results. Now.

  Before it was forever too late.

  “I think I have something,” Roth announced as Greer entered the conference room, closing the door behind him to wall off the world without. “Have a look at this.”

  Greer took the Registry jacket from his hands, opening it to find a pale, youthful face staring back at him. Simon Norris.

  “An analyst from G Branch?”

  A nod. “MacCallum’s right hand during his time there—one of his best analysts, focused on the homegrown jihadist threat. And two years ago. . .he was seconded to Six for nine months. It was barely mentioned in his file—as you can see, the whole thing is rather thin—and I missed it in my initial search yesterday. But he was there, and could potentially have had the access.”

  “Yes, but. . .” Greer flipped through the loose pages of the file, scanning for anything of note. “We’ve flagged any number of officers who could have had access—never mind that if mere access to Six means access to their assets in Russia, something is badly broken—what did you find to cause you to single out this Norris fellow?”

  Roth nodded, shuffling through the mass of papers spread out before him. “I did some digging. Went through the archive of his social media postings from before he joined the Service—found pictures. From a BDC rally he attended back in ‘09.”

  The British Defence Coalition, Greer thought, the realization dawning upon him. The connection Roth was making. But it wasn’t enough. “By itself, that’s not—”

  The former Royal Marine held up a hand. “Delivering the keynote of the rally, was Arthur Colville. His praise for the publisher, both in the initial post and subsequent comments to friends was. . .effusive.”

  It all made sense. The pieces, falling into place. “Mr. Norris is working today?”

  “Should be.”

  “Have me notified as soon as he enters the building. You’ve done good work here, Darren. We’ll need to make sure that we can—”

  Greer’s voice broke off suddenly as the phone on the conference table began to ring—reaching over to bring the receiver up to his ear.

  “Greer.” He went silent, an ashen look creeping over his weathered countenance the longer he listened. Shock and horror, mixing with a profound resignation.

  Then, “Thank you, Rhona. Please keep me apprised of any further developments.”

  He replaced the phone, his shoulders sagging. Leaning with both hands on the table—whitened knuckles pressed into the wood. All the life seeming to have gone out of him in that moment.

  “What is it?”

  The old counter-intel spook raised his head to look Roth in the eye, his every movement weary—suddenly old beyond his years.

  “The Met received a 999 call last night from a residence in Hounslow. A woman, incoherent—raving, crying, distraught. Responding officers arrived on the scene to find her clasping the lifeless body of her husband. He’d hung himself.”

  “The woman?” And Roth knew, the haunting realization of their mistake—of the consequences of their mistake—slamming into him even before Greer spoke the words.

  “Natalia Nikolayevna Litvinov. . .”

  7:45 A.M.

  A flat

  Edgware, London

  He should have gone to work, Simon Norris told himself, peering through the curtains of his small studio flat out at the street—as if he suddenly expected to see Met police cars coming swarming down upon him. Kept everything routine—normal.

  But he’d called in sick instead, unable to face them on this last of all days. Certain that his guilt would betray itself on his very face.

  He wasn’t even sure it was a lie—the pallor of his own face matching his dress shirt. Frightening him when he caught side of his reflection in the mirror, a desperate, bloodless white relieved only by the dark circles under his eyes. The detritus of nights without sleep.

  He hadn’t been eating or sleeping regularly since that night. . .ten days ago, was it? It felt like a lifetime.

  That fateful moment when the Russian had slid into the booth opposite from him at the restaurant in Chinato
wn. Everything changing, in that heartbeat.

  But that wasn’t true, was it? The restaurant wasn’t where everything had changed—so far past that fateful point of decision that one couldn’t even see it from there.

  His course, irrevocably set, long before. Years, even. Back to that first time he’d ever laid eyes on Arthur Colville—heard the charismatic publisher speak, in person.

  Everything else, a consequence of that moment—a long line of dominoes, cascading into one another, down through the years. Until they all fell down.

  He couldn’t stay here, Norris thought, gripped by sudden resolution. His meeting with the Royal Bank of Scotland at their Fleet Street branch wasn’t scheduled until four o’clock in the afternoon, but he couldn’t wait here, in this flat, where someone might know to find him.

  And there was so little to take, he realized, looking around his flat for the last time. An entirety of a life, left behind him.

  Even his phone—abandoned here to keep his employers from tracking him.

  He palmed the final burner the Russian had given him, sliding it into the pocket of his dress slacks—moving into the kitchen and taking down a box of dry cereal from on top of the refrigerator. Opening it up and shaking it until the flakes parted to reveal the USB thumb drive he’d concealed there days before, ever since securing the files from Six. A list he never should have been able to access, even with his clearances—the list of Britain’s assets in Moscow. Current and former.

  He’d expected to be arrested every single minute he’d spent there at the SIS Headquarters in Vauxhall Cross. Every hour since, waiting for the knock on the door—the uniformed security officers, making their way through the sea of cubicles toward his desk.

  But nothing.

  No one was going to intervene—to restrain him from doing what he had set out to do. To pull him back from the brink.