‘So you didn’t discover a secondary beef with her?’
‘You mean other than her having knocked off an MI6 deputy director just down the river? No. In view of what you described, we did as you asked and dropped all charges. I gave you my word, although God help you, I hope that’s not about to come back and bite me on the arse.’
Harry sat back, confused. Ballatyne sounded sincere. Clare Jardine, like Harry and several other security service personnel, had been on a hit list when their presence in a shared outstation code-named Red Station in Georgia had been threatened with being overrun by Russian forces. Without official sanction or knowledge, Harry’s boss, Paulton, and Sir Anthony Bellingham, Deputy Director (Operations) of MI6, had issued a termination order on them. Only Harry, Clare and an MI5 IT wizard named Rik Ferris had returned unscathed. Since then, Harry and Rik had worked together in the private sector as security consultants and tracers, tracking down missing persons of significance, often for Ballatyne.
Clare Jardine, in disgrace after being caught on the wrong end of an MI6 honey-trap, had dropped out of sight, resentful and full of anger, but only after disposing of Bellingham with a knife blade concealed inside a powder compact. Since then, Harry hadn’t seen her until shortly before she was shot.
‘You know why I asked you to arrange the treatment.’
‘I know — she saved your life and Ferris’s.’
‘And Jean’s.’
‘Of course. How is Jean?’
‘She’s fine.’ Jean Fleming, a tall, willowy redhead, widow of an army officer and owner of an upmarket flower shop in Fulham. Very nearly a victim of a Bosnian kidnap attempt, she had been saved by Clare’s intervention.
‘And the Boy Wonder — Ferris? Not hacking into our networks, I hope.’
‘He’s not. Is there anyone else you’d like to ask after?’
Ballatyne grinned. ‘No, that’s my lot. Just showing corporate concern, that’s all. We’ve had training in staff relations. It brings out our feminine side, apparently.’
‘Poor sod. So you really know nothing about Clare?’
‘No. But I’ll ask around. Why are you still bothered? I didn’t think you two were buddies.’
‘We’re not. But I owe her.’
Ballatyne grunted. ‘You thought we’d wait for the dust to settle, then lift her and bang her up in a maximum security cell, is that it?’
‘It had crossed my mind. It’s what you wanted to do originally.’
‘True enough, at first. But believe it or not, I do like to keep my word, once I’ve given it.’ He smiled without humour. ‘Although I can’t speak for others in this business.’ He got to his feet, shaking out his cuffs. ‘Leave it with me, Harry. I’ll call you.’
Harry watched him walk away, shadowed by his two minders. He turned as Rik Ferris ambled up and stood beside him drinking a smoothie through a straw. Dressed in jeans and a loose shirt, his noticeably spiky hair covered with a beanie hat, he looked like an escapee from an all-night rave.
‘What did he have to say for himself?’ Rik asked around a hollow sucking noise.
‘He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.’
‘Serious?’
‘Serious. Either that or he’s taken acting lessons since we last met.’ Harry shook his head and stood up.
‘You think something spooked her?’
‘Or somebody. Maybe she thought they were still coming for her, in spite of Ballatyne’s promise. She’s pretty messed up. She took the compact, by the way.’
‘Really? Christ, she must be in a bad way.’ He sounded dismissive, but had a wry grin on his face.
They walked in silence for a while, Harry chewing over what Ballatyne had said. Or not said. Something serious had been going on at the hospital yesterday. He’d been involved in enough security operations himself to recognise the atmosphere of tension. But if Ballatyne knew anything, he was playing his cards close to his chest. He sighed. It was probably nothing to do with Clare, but he felt concerned. The least he could do was find out where she’d gone.
‘I never thought I’d say this, but I want you to do something totally illegal,’ he told Rik, and started walking towards the underground station.
‘Would this have anything to do with getting into official prison records and seeing if one Jardine C. has been transferred to a secure medical unit somewhere? Only I’m not sure in all conscience that I could do that.’
‘You’d better. If you don’t, I’ll ring your mother and tell her what a bad boy you’ve been.’
‘Gotcha.’ Rik slam-dunked the empty bottle into a rubbish bin. His mother, with whom he was close, believed he was an ordinary office worker, the most dangerous aspect of his work being the occasional paper cut. He didn’t like to give her cause for concern by telling her what he really did for a living.
SIX
British Airways flight 779 from Stockholm touched down at Heathrow’s terminal five under a cloudy sky with a puff of tyre smoke and a gentle lurch to starboard. After two hours and ten minutes in the air, some through an uncomfortable stretch of turbulence, the landing received a scattered round of applause from some thirty relieved business delegates returning from a three-day IT conference in Sweden. Most of them had been drinking liberally since leaving Arlanda, taking advantage of the drinks on offer after the eye-watering prices they had encountered in the Swedish capital.
As the seat belt sign went off, the occupant of seat 33A undid his buckle and allowed himself to be hustled off the aircraft, shoulder to shoulder with two corporate managers somewhat the worse for wear and loudly genial as they leaned on him for support. He had introduced himself as Peter Collins, owner of a small computer consultancy in Birmingham, and they had pressed their business cards on him before engaging eagerly in a solid bout of drinking and exchanging anecdotes about the parlous state of the industry.
Collins wasn’t interested in their backgrounds or opinions, and they were soon in no state to remember what little he had revealed to them of himself. And although he appeared to be matching them drink for drink, and his manner becoming just as unfocussed, in reality he spent most of the flight slipping the contents of his miniatures into their glasses, which accounted for their rapid state of intoxication.
Inside the terminal building, faced with this noisy but good-natured group of travellers, all holding British passports, the over-stretched immigration desk personnel gave scant attention to all but the most obvious queries. Peter Collins looked very much like his companions: a middle-aged businessman on the tail end of a business trip and a 30,000-feet bender. What wasn’t apparent was that the recent addition of a slim-line beard had altered his face just sufficiently to make it appear rounder than it really was, and a pair of heavy framed glasses reduced the amount of detail on offer, something he had worked hard to achieve with minimum effort.
With a nod from the immigration officer, he was through and away, slipping through the baggage hall and neatly shedding his two companions as they went hurriedly in search of the toilets.
Had they been watching him rather than focussing on their bladders, they might have noticed that he had also shed the unsteady gait he’d adopted while leaving the aircraft.
Collins timed his entry into the arrivals area among another group of travellers, this time in close conversation with a middle-aged florist from Oslo. She understood very little of what he was saying, but he seemed pleasant enough, adding an early frisson of excitement to her holiday.
The usual meeters and greeters were there in twin lines, studying faces and holding aloft the customary pieces of paper or name cards as he walked out onto the concourse. Collins didn’t bother checking for security watchers; he knew they’d be there somewhere. Probably junior staffers gaining valuable on-the-spot ‘training’, with no real idea of what they were supposed to be looking for. When he saw his name on a small hand-held whiteboard, he veered off from the florist with a brief smile and followed the greeter across the concourse to
a waiting car outside.
Once in the back seat, he took off the glasses, which were pinching the bridge of his nose, and scratched vigorously at his beard. It wasn’t the first time he’d grown one in the course of his lengthy career, or worn the heavy frames. In a career which had often taken him into dangerous situations, subtle changes of appearance were all that had stood between success and failure, freedom or captivity. Facial hair was something to which he’d never become accustomed, but right now, back in the UK, where being spotted would mean his chances of surviving longer than a few days would be unlikely, it was a discomfort worth enduring.
‘Take me to the Rivoli at the Ritz,’ he told the driver expansively.
It had been too long since his last visit, and he was about ready to kill for a decent cocktail. Besides, this evening was likely to be the only quiet time he was going to get for a while, if experience told him anything. Following a call out of the blue from a person he thought he’d heard the last of, he now had a job to do. It was a reminder from his past that he could have done without, but there were some people you simply could not turn down. He didn’t yet know precisely what the man wanted — he had been very cagey on the phone — but the fact that the man had called him was reason enough to risk everything by coming back to London, somewhere he hadn’t expected to be for a long time.
Whatever the job, he sensed that it would mean calling in a big favour or two of old acquaintances. He still had one or two here, people he could rely on. . or put pressure on. Either way, first he’d need to brush the dust off his old trade craft and make contact with a man who owed him.
He put it to the back of his mind. First, a drink or two, followed by a decent dinner. He couldn’t accomplish anything until tomorrow, anyway. By early morning he would know more about the job. Then he could get to work.
SEVEN
In a room on the second-floor of the SIS Headquarters building, a hastily-convened meeting was underway. Darkness had blanketed the river outside, producing a glittering row of lights from the embankment on the far side and the occasional running lights of a craft on the water. But nobody in the room had eyes for the scenery; they had seen the view from this floor too often in the past to be intrigued anymore. Most wanted the business over and done with so that they could go home. It had already been a long day.
‘It has been confirmed,’ Richard Ballatyne announced, at a nod from a man chairing the meeting, ‘that Roman Tobinskiy was found dead in his room at King’s College Hospital the night before last.’
The five men and one woman around the conference table with him were silent. Most looked surprised by the news. There had been no need to explain who Tobinskiy was, since they were all well-acquainted with his history.
Roman Vladimirovich Tobinskiy was a former FSB officer who, like his friend and former colleague Alexander Litvinenko, had grown disenchanted with the Russian security agency and the government’s alleged involvement in violence against its own people for political gain. After following Litvinenko’s move out of the FSB and into exile abroad, Tobinskiy had dropped out of sight, fearing reprisals against him by his former masters. His concerns had not been ill-founded; in November 2006, Litvinenko, who had become an open critic of the Russian government and President Putin in books and the media, had fallen ill in London and later died. The cause was diagnosed as severe radiation poisoning by an isotope, Polonium 210, administered, it was reported, in a cup of tea. It had caused a worldwide scandal and once more highlighted the deadly reputation the Russian specialist security agencies had of following their enemies and dissidents abroad and silencing them.
Nothing had been heard of Tobinskiy other than a brief report that he had allegedly voiced his suspicions through a media mouthpiece that the FSB had acted on orders from the Kremlin to silence critics such as Litvinenko and himself. His precise whereabouts had been unknown for some years, although many suspected he had been in hiding in the United States.
The first to venture a question was the man at the head of the table. Deputy Director of MI6, Sir Callum Fitzgerald, waved a slim mobile phone in the air. ‘What was the cause of death?’
‘We’re awaiting the results of tests. Early indications suggest it was a heart attack brought on by complications from gunshot injuries received several days ago.’
‘You called this meeting, Richard,’ Fitzgerald said, ‘as you have every right to do. For that reason and by your tone, are we to assume that you don’t believe it was a heart attack?’
‘In view of the dead man’s history, sir, no. I don’t.’
It wasn’t the main reason Ballatyne had called for the meeting; Tobinskiy dying anywhere in the world would have been suspicious enough for anyone. But the fact that he was in London and clearly under official protection of some kind at the time of his death was something that needed airing. And Fitzgerald had just done what he’d been hoping, which was to ask the right question.
‘How is it we didn’t hear about Tobinskiy’s presence here until now?’
‘Deliberate cut-outs,’ Ballatyne responded simply. ‘Left hand knowing he was there, forgot to tell right hand when and why.’ He kept his face neutral, but his tone was clearly angry. ‘His gunshot injuries weren’t considered life-threatening, but he was placed in the Major Trauma Centre at King’s by the Russian desk, something they hadn’t got round to telling the rest of us.’ He turned his attention on the one person who hadn’t seemed surprised by the news of Tobinskiy’s death, a woman at the far end of the table.
A blonde with large, frameless glasses and an intense, studied air about her, Candida Deane was deputy director of the Russian Desk, standing in for the director who was recovering from a lengthy illness.
If Ballatyne felt any reservations about turning on a colleague, he didn’t show it. Like everyone else, he’d been caught on the hop by this development, revealed only when he enquired into the disappearance of Clare Jardine with the hospital authorities. The idea that she had been lying in a room next to a staunch Russian opponent of Vladimir Putin — an opponent known to have been on a search-and-kill list by the Russian FSB for some years — had come as a shock. Now he wanted some answers and he was going to push until he got them.
Not that it would help Tobinskiy any.
‘There was no need to copy other sections on the detail, that’s why,’ Deane replied crisply, her glasses flashing. Her voice carried a distinctly south London edge, considered by detractors to be a sign of the new tide of ‘talent’ being flushed through the Service as the reliance on the old Oxbridge source of recruiting was losing ground. She didn’t believe in making friends and was known to have her eye on one of the top jobs in the Service. Her uncompromising demeanour showed her intentions for all to see, and she didn’t care who knew it. ‘He had to be kept safe while he recovered. We took the decision to keep it strictly in-section only.’ She stared coolly at Ballatyne, daring him to challenge her.
‘Safe from what?’ Fitzgerald’s voice was calm, almost bored, but there was no mistaking the look in his eye; given the high-profile nature of the dead man and the potential repercussions, he too, wanted answers.
Deane shifted in her seat. ‘Tobinskiy was caught up in a shooting in a Brighton nightclub a week ago. According to witnesses the shooter walked straight up to him and shouted something in an east-European language before opening fire. It wasn’t the first time there had been trouble with Lithuanians or Albanians in the local drugs trade, so it was written up by the police as another gang-related hit.’
‘What happened to the shooter?’
‘He got away. The injured man was taken to the Royal Sussex. He had no ID on him, but one of my officers heard about it and recognised him. We got him out of there immediately.’
‘And hid him among wounded military personnel?’ Fitzgerald looked puzzled, although whether it was at Tobinskiy’s final refuge or what an officer of MI6 was doing in the Royal Sussex Hospital at the time wasn’t clear. ‘Was that wise?’
; Deane flushed. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time and I stand by it.’
‘He wasn’t that well concealed, was he?’ commented a man with a bushy head of hair. His name was Andrews and headed up the internal security section. ‘Somebody found him. If you’d let us know, we could have looked after him properly.’
‘There wasn’t time. We had one extra man on duty. Placing too much security on that unit would have attracted media attention. They already keep a watch to see who goes in there, hoping for some Special Forces personnel to put under the microscope. The duty guard must have wandered off.’ She looked at Ballatyne. ‘In any case, there has already been a precedent for stowing non-military patients in that unit by members of this Service. Isn’t that right?’
All eyes swivelled like spectators at a tennis match towards this new focus of attention, and Ballatyne silently cursed the woman to hell and back for her indiscretion. But it was too late now; in defending herself, she had effectively swung the spotlight his way.
‘You had better explain,’ said Fitzgerald with a sigh, flicking a finger towards the red light on the digital unit in the ceiling. ‘For the record.’
Ballatyne did so with reluctance. Words uttered here without great care could sometimes prove fatal for a career, often long after the event. ‘It’s correct that another patient in the unit was a former Six officer named Clare Jardine. She was shot and wounded during an operation against the organisation known as the Protectory. The man responsible was a Bosnian named Milan Zubac, one of their enforcers. As you may recall, they were preying on deserters from the army, looking for information to sell to the highest bidder, before killing off the people concerned.’
‘Yes, we know who they were,’ said Deane aggressively. ‘But if memory serves me well, hadn’t Jardine already been dismissed from the Service after murdering one of our own officers?’ She frowned dramatically at the ceiling. ‘Let me see. . Sir Anthony Bellingham, wasn’t it? Stabbed just along the embankment from here, if memory serves me right. How the hell she wasn’t locked up in a maximum security cell for a hundred years is beyond me.’
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