‘Because I’m with Five, you mean?’
She didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Forget it. If you’re not tapping my shoulder about my behaviour, why are you concerned about Clare?’
Harry decided to go with the truth. He’d been hedging enough and it wasn’t getting anywhere. ‘First off,’ he said, ‘I’m no longer with Five. But I am working with Ballatyne’s approval. He’s the one person you can ring if you need verification.’
‘I might do that.’ It was a sign that she recognised the name.
‘I was one of the “others” you mentioned, along with Clare. The place was code-named Red Station in Georgia and Clare and I came out together, along with the scruff outside, whose name is Rik Ferris. He’s also former MI5. We were all let go out of official embarrassment. When Clare got shot it was by a Bosnian called Milan Zubac, working for a group of deserters called the Protectory. She managed to disable Zubac with a compact knife and was lucky to get to hospital in time. She spent the last few weeks in King’s College, at the Major Trauma Unit.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it. How come?’
‘I was with her at the time.’
TWENTY
Candida Deane, Deputy Director of the Russian Desk in SIS, stepped into the Donovan Bar in Brown’s Hotel in London’s Mayfair, and scanned the tables.
George Paulton waited as her gaze passed over him, paused, then came back. He raised a hand, at the same time checking his watch. Right on time.
Beyond her the doorway was empty. No obvious heavies lurking — a point he’d insisted on, although he knew they wouldn’t be far away. Deane wouldn’t have been able to dump her personal protection altogether without questions being raised by internal security. But the one person she wouldn’t like to be seen meeting in public was a former Operations Director of MI5 who was now on a watch-and-detain list at all ports, accused of offences against. . he still wasn’t entirely certain what the legalities were of what he’d done, but no doubt government lawyers had done all the necessary paperwork.
He stood up as she approached, and saw her frown as she took in his appearance. It reminded him that although they had met before, it had been a while ago and on different levels. And she had never seen him in this guise before.
‘Thank you for coming, Miss Deane,’ he said politely, and sat down again. ‘I thought you might appreciate the ambiance here.’
She glanced around, in spite of herself. The walls were lined with Terence Donovan photographs, while behind the bar, with its high stools, was a startling stained glass window depicting St George of dragon-slaying fame. He wasn’t particularly bothered whether she liked it or not, but if he had made a serious error of judgement in coming back to London and arranging to meet her, he at least wanted to have a pleasant memory to take away with him.
They ordered; she took a vodka and tonic, no ice, while he asked for a second Donovan Martini, their signature drink. He figured he could afford the slight fuzziness it would bring and he had a lot of catching up to do.
‘I’m not a traitor,’ she said calmly, as soon as they were alone. ‘And I won’t do anything that makes me into one. Get used to it.’
Paulton lifted an eyebrow. ‘Ouch. So defensive.’ He picked up his drink and raised it in an ironic gesture towards her. ‘Salut.’
‘Just so we’re clear on that point, that’s all.’
‘Oh, I’m clear on it, don’t worry. It’s why I contacted you in the first place. I’m already out in the cold as it is; why tie my future to someone who might just get found out for some other offence further down the line?’
Deane said nothing.
‘Thing is,’ he continued, ‘I know how ambitious you are. You’ll use me, the service and anyone else you come across to get what you want.’ She looked ready to protest, but he waved a conciliatory hand. ‘Not that I blame you; a top job in Six is worth having. And we all do what we think is right to get to the top of our respective dog piles, don’t we?’
She stiffened. ‘Well, you stuffed that up for yourself, didn’t you?’
‘Now, now. Don’t play nasty. We’re supposed to be friends.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Friends? We’ll never be friends as long as we live, George, so don’t give me that crap.’ Her south London accent became more noticeable as emotion took over. ‘You contacted me for one thing and one thing only: you want to come in out of the cold without being marched straight into Wandsworth at the start of a long sentence in solitary. You said you’d bring me something worthwhile to help you do that. Well, I’m waiting.’ She took a slurp of her drink, her face flushed.
Straight for the throat, thought Paulton. Like an attack dog. It was a reminder not to push her too far. In her position she would know people she could call on if she wanted someone taken care of quietly.
‘And I keep my promises,’ he assured her smoothly. ‘For example, I know of at least five agents-in-place in the UK, still active, still gathering intel, still reporting back to Moscow, Langley and Beijing. At least one of them is turnable.’ He smiled. ‘That’s what you’re really after, isn’t it? Someone you can add to your credit list of achievements.’
He saw by her expression that he had struck a nerve. Look at any SIS officer, and you would see what you’d expect to see — a spy in plain clothing. But peel back the skin, the carefully crafted outer layer, of the ambitious ones, and you’d find a bureaucrat with an eye to the main chance — the gold chalice of spy-running: having their own double-agent on tap. And one with a potential line right into Moscow Central was still the purest gold of all.
‘I’ll need more than that.’
‘Of course you will. And I have something better. A lot better.’
‘Paulton, if you’re stringing me-’
‘I’m not. And before you tell me what nasty, despicable things you can have done to me, remember that I know things you and some of your friends in high places would rather I didn’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Some of it is, shall we say, less than current. Old hat. Passe, even. But still embarrassing to those in power. However, let’s not fall out over that. No, I have what dear old Gordon Brown used to refer to rather boringly as “a package of measures”. Only my package comes with a lot more meaning.’
Deane waited, eyes dull.
‘Clare Jardine.’
Deane frowned. ‘What about her? We had her, then she ran. I told you.’ She pulled a face. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. But there are people above me who agreed to leave her be, as you know. She’s untouchable.’
‘But you didn’t agree, did you?’ Paulton resisted the temptation to grin, knowing her secret. This wasn’t the moment for triumphalism. ‘You want her to pay for what she did to Bellingham. Quite right, too. I sympathise. And she will pay, I can assure you.’ He uttered the words, feeling the weight of the mobile phone in his pocket, which held the data Maine had sent him. It had been very last minute, and not as helpful as he’d hoped. But the intelligence analyst had done his best.
What Paulton now knew was that there was little chance of tracing Jardine in the normal way. She appeared to have gone off the grid after returning from Red Station and killing Sir Anthony Bellingham, and had no home address, no family and no close friends. But he had a good facial photo of her, which should help Gorelkin’s gorillas in their search.
A pulse was beating in Deane’s throat. Paulton recognised the signs of anger beating beneath the surface. Deane had worked under Bellingham in MI6. She had been one of his protegees, one of a posse of SIS recruits loyal to him and hanging on to his coat-tails. Ironically, had Bellingham survived, Deane’s advance in the service would not have been quite so rapid. But sudden gaps in any organisation created opportunity for the ambitious. He doubted Deane had ever considered it, but with his death, there had been a vacuum and she had moved on up ahead of her colleagues. The fact that he considered her totally unsuited to the job was beside the point. Played right, she could still be useful to him.
‘Do you know where she
is?’
‘I have an idea, yes. But that’s not the only part of the package.’
‘Really? Who else have you got — Lord Lucan?’ Deane didn’t bother hiding her scepticism. ‘Not interested.’
‘Not even close. I know who put an end to poor old Roman Vladimirovich Tobinskiy in King’s College.’
Deane’s eyes showed a spark of interest, quickly supressed. ‘How can you know that?’
He grinned. What she meant was, even she doesn’t know that. ‘I know how they found Tobinskiy, I know about the guard leaving his post the night he was killed. . and I even know the name of the man who came over especially from Moscow’s Special Purpose Centre to run the kill team who carried out the assignment.’
The thought processes as Deane ran through the permutations were almost painful to watch. Paulton let them run without interrupting. He knew what was happening. Boxes were being ticked, targets lined up, scores being calculated for the final personal triumph.
Finally, she said, ‘Are you saying Jardine wasn’t involved?’
It was a minor point, but one he knew she would consider. Vengeance is a hard goal to let go.
‘She knew nothing about it.’ As her face fell, registering disappointment, he added smoothly, ‘But in the final analysis, who will be able to tell? She was right there when it happened, she knows the Russians, she was already a bad apple in the barrel.’ He shrugged meaningfully. ‘You can do with that what you will. I presume you have people looking for her?’
She gave a hint of a nod, but no more. She would have to be careful committing resources to look for a person of no official interest purely for her own ends; but he had no doubts that she already had a team working on it. Outsiders, probably, a bunch of contractors from one of the many shadowy private security companies with offices in Mayfair.
He watched while she worked out the prizes this could bring her: the team responsible for the murder of a Russian dissident in a London hospital, including their senior Moscow chief; the woman who had murdered her boss, Bellingham. A shot at the top job.
Game, set and match.
TWENTY-ONE
Alice Alanya stared at Harry. ‘I didn’t realise. How did it happen?’
Harry didn’t want to go through the shooting again; he’d done that enough already. But he owed Clare some recognition with her friend. ‘She was helping Rik and me track down Zubac. We found him but he got the jump on us and shot Clare. He was going to finish her off, then me, when she used a knife on him. She saved my life.’
‘That’s why you want to help her.’
He nodded. ‘And she helped someone else. I owe her for that, too.’
‘I don’t know what I can tell you,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘I haven’t heard from her, if that’s what you’re asking. Not since. . well, ages.’ She stopped speaking.
‘But you used to, before she was shot.’
She shook her head, but it didn’t amount to a denial. He decided not to push it.
‘You’ve heard of Roman Tobinskiy?’
‘Of course. What about him?’
He told her about Tobinskiy’s death in King’s College Hospital. She looked shocked, even stunned; with her position in MI6, working on the Russian side, she would be well aware of the gravity it would bring to international relations if the death was proven to be suspicious.
‘Clare was recovering in an adjacent room,’ he added. ‘She may have heard something that made her run. If she did, then the killers will be after her.’
‘Killers?’
‘Two men raided the security control centre at the hospital earlier today and took the CCTV hard drive. It would have held footage of the night Tobinskiy died and of Clare leaving the hospital minutes later.’
Alice touched a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. The implications were clear and she knew what it meant for Clare. ‘My God. How awful.’
‘Yes. I’m surprised you haven’t been told.’ He was more surprised that she hadn’t been hauled in and questioned by internal security. Maybe, with stunning lack of efficiency, they were working through Clare’s past list of contacts in reverse alphabetical order.
‘I didn’t know — honest. How bad was she hurt?’
‘She was out of the woods and recovering well, but not enough to have a couple of killers on her trail.’ Or a vindictive bunch of MI6 heavies, he wanted to add, but didn’t. That might colour her judgement. ‘Last seen, she was heading towards Waterloo Station and central London. Best guess is she’ll go to ground and find someone she can trust. But she has no ready access to money or ID, unless she had a stash somewhere.’
‘You mean with a friend. Like me.’ She gave him a flat look. ‘You think I’m hiding her?’ She swept a hand out. ‘Do you want to search the place? Go through my things, check my phone log and laptop to see if we’ve been having cosy chats? Go ahead.’
Harry shook his head, about to deny it, but was interrupted by his mobile ringing. He excused himself and took it out.
It was Rik. ‘Don’t want to cause panic, boss, but two blokes in a blue Focus just did a couple of slow drive-bys, eyeballing the flats. Might be coincidence but I don’t think so. I got their number.’
‘Did they see you?’
‘No.’
‘Meet us round the back. We’re heading out.’ He shut off the phone and looked at Alice. ‘I’m sorry to do this to you, but we have to leave. Now.’
‘Why?’ She blinked like a startled doe. But she stood up and reached for her bag, her security training taking over.
‘Two men in a car showing an interest. They could be from Six, but it would be best not to risk it. They’re probably looking for Clare. Do you have somewhere you could go until you hit work tomorrow? Ballatyne will fill you in then.’
‘I have an aunt in Uxbridge.’
‘Good. Show me the back way out and we’ll see you safely to a taxi.’
Alice turned left out of her flat and led Harry through a narrow door leading onto some back stairs, concrete and unfinished. The air was cool and musty. At the bottom, she turned right at a glass-panelled security door leading out to a small enclosed area with parking spaces and garages.
Rik was standing with his back to the door, watching the entrance off a feeder road from the street. If the men were the Russians, they would come in the back way through the feeder road. They hadn’t got much time.
Harry opened the door and Rik nodded before heading off at a brisk walk.
Alice stared at Rik’s right hand, held close down by his side. ‘He’s armed.’
‘I know. I keep telling him about it but he’s addicted.’
‘You’re carded, then?’
‘Yes. Is there a footpath away from here?’
She nodded. ‘Turn right and through a style at the end. We can double back towards the station. My God, what kind of work do you two do?’
‘Most of it’s boring and repetitive. But every now and then we get to shoot people. Come on.’ He hustled her along, and she gave directions, showing the entrance to a narrow alleyway between rear gardens. Bordered by trees and wooden slat fencing, it was concealed from the road, and Harry called a halt long enough to send a text to Ballatyne.
Did you put watchers on Alanya?
No. Why?
He got the car registration number from Rik and texted back to Ballatyne: Two men in blue Focus followed by the number.
Four minutes later, as they left the path and entered another residential street, a reply came through.
Not mine. Suggest avoiding action. Talk later.
Harry put the phone away. Ballatyne was going operational. The time to talk would come once they had got clear and lost the watchers. For now they had to focus on staying out of sight.
Alice led them back towards the station by a roundabout route, with Rik and Harry alert and ready to duck into cover if the car with the two men should return. As they entered Station Road from the north, Harry spotted a passing cab and dialled the num
ber on the roof panel. The despatcher told him two minutes and asked for the passenger’s name.
Harry led Alice to the doorway of a closed store to wait, while Rik wandered along the pavement to keep watch.
‘Go to your aunt’s and don’t contact anybody,’ he told her. ‘In the morning, go to the office as usual, but keep with the crowd. When you’re out, stay on the move and go straight to see Ballatyne. He’ll brief you.’
Her eyes looked huge with worry, but she remained calm. ‘OK. What are you going to do?’
‘Try to find Clare before anybody else does.’
She nodded and shivered, her first real sign of nerves. Then she said quickly, ‘Do you know why she was posted to that place in Georgia — why they sent her there?’
‘The basics, yes. Why?’
‘It wasn’t just a mad fling in the middle of an operation, you know. It was serious — on both sides.’
‘Are you sure?’ According to Mace, the station chief in Georgia, Clare had become the victim of a reverse sting. It had cost her her job and nearly her life.
‘Yes. She told me all about it. I know, she shouldn’t have, but she had to talk to somebody. She was gutted when they found out. She’d managed to control it at first, hoping she could find a way of breaking off the assignment as unworkable. But they realised what had happened and pulled her out of the field. She was marked as unreliable. I suppose they had no choice. You know the rest.’
A cab approached and pulled into the kerb. Rik checked the passenger name and gave Harry a nod.
As Alice ducked into the car, she turned and gave them both a wan smile. Seconds later, she was gone.
‘She’s clear,’ said Rik, coming to join him. He blew out a puff of air. ‘Now what?’
Harry was thinking about what Alice had said, wondering if he wasn’t grasping at straws. It wasn’t just a mad fling in the middle of an operation. It was serious.
But the words were bouncing around in front of him, loaded with meaning. Bloody hell. It was obvious. If Clare couldn’t go to friends, there was possibly only one person she could go to.
Execution ht-5 Page 10
