by Alex Dryden
Now Logan entered the room. She watched him walk across it, avoiding her eyes—the sloping walk she remembered, as if one foot slightly dragged behind the other. It was a laziness rather than any injury that his walk originated from. She thought Logan cultivated an attitude and a physical presence that betrayed a sort of concealed narcissism, one that he hid behind his sloppiness, tangled hair, distressed clothes, and dragging feet. She could think of nothing about him that didn’t distance her from him and it surprised her normally steady consciousness.
He nodded to her. “Anna,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
“Logan,” she replied.
Then he nodded to the others in the room without speaking.
“Please sit down, Logan,” Burt said.
Logan took a chair next to Anna.
“Seen Theo?” Burt asked.
“Yes. And he sends news.”
“What’s he got for us? More news of the terror ship? Do you call it the ‘terror ship’ too, Logan? Have you fallen into Theo’s ways?”
Logan looked completely relaxed. “You know I have access to Theo,” he said. “It was you who sent me under his auspices to the embassy in Kiev.”
Burt looked away and left his question and Logan’s answer hanging in the air.
Then Burt’s face changed from its usual soft amiability. “I don’t think the so-called terror ship is worth a twopenny fuck,” he said in an unmistakably aggressive tone of voice.
“But we have to know,” Logan said levelly.
“We do, we do,” Burt replied. “So what have you brought us from Theo?”
“News from Ukraine. According to our embassy in Kiev, President Yanukovich has just signed a deal with Moscow. The Russians get to keep Sevastopol as a base until 2042. It’s been extended from 2017 for another twenty-five years. In return the Russians are giving Ukraine cut-price gas. In addition to the lease’s extension, there will be no expulsion of Russian intelligence officers from the area. The cause has been removed, Burt. The Russians are getting what they want in Ukraine without having to lift a finger.”
There was a breathless pause in the room. “So,” Burt said. “Ukraine is saved,” he added sarcastically. He turned the sound on for one of the television screens on the wall. They all listened to the Ukrainian announcer relaying the news live.
“There were violent scenes in Kiev’s parliament, but the deal’s gone through, yes,” Logan replied, ignoring Burt’s sarcasm. “Street demonstrations are expected, but they don’t anticipate much trouble.”
“So Russia has gotten what it wants,” Burt said, turning the sound off again. “And why would they ask for more now? Why would they exacerbate a situation further, since they have what they want—Sevastopol?” He looked around the room, taking in those present one by one. Larry first, to his right, then Bob Dupont, Logan, Anna next to Logan, and finally Mikhail. “The Ukrainian president has given the Kremlin a gift.” He looked back at Anna. “You said once, dear Anna, that when someone rejects a part, it’s because they want the whole.” He refrained from looking at Logan, who was the context of her remark. “But what if someone—in this case a spy elite in Moscow driven by an overriding desire to recapture its old empire—what if they do get a part of what they want? Does that mean they’re satisfied? Does that mean the game’s off?”
Anna didn’t respond.
“No,” Mikhail answered for her.
“So are the CIA going to stand down in Ukraine?” Dupont said.
“Yes. But there’s more,” Logan said.
“Tell us,” Burt commanded.
“Theo says there’s evidence that the Pride of Corsica—the terror ship—is under the command of Qubaq in the Crimea. Also evidence that the bomb that blew up the Odessa nightclub is their work.”
“Evidence from where?” Burt asked.
“From Moscow. The CIA and the Russians are going to work together. Once we’ve had a close look at the ship, assessed its potential, we, the Russians, and the British are going to make an assault on it.”
“Evidence from Moscow, you say,” Burt said. “And you call the ship a ‘terror ship’ now, too, Logan?”
“That’s what she’s being called.”
“By the CIA and the Kremlin.”
Logan didn’t respond.
“Ah,” Burt continued. “So it’s all very neat, isn’t it? All the focus now from the White House is on your terror ship, Logan,” he said, and looked hard at Logan. “Theo says that the terror ship is under the control of Qubaq,” he intoned, making Theo’s voice appear like an oracular prophesy. “Theo says that the bomb that went off at the Golden Fleece nightclub in Odessa the night before the elections was also a terror attack by Qubaq.”
“A man has been arrested,” Logan said.
“Then a conviction will be certain,” Burt replied. “The Russians are being very clever indeed,” he said.
Logan cleared his throat and sat forward in his seat. “Burt,” he said and stared into the big man’s eyes, “Theo said that Cougar also needs to stand down in the area. After we do the recce of the ship, Cougar needs to stand down. Those were his words.”
“And he sent you to tell me, rather than tell me himself.”
“He knew I was coming here,” Logan replied amicably. “It’s just convenient.”
“Everything about this is a little too convenient, wouldn’t you say, Logan? Evidence from the Kremlin. Islamic terrorists. Sevastopol handed over on a plate. Double agents with their heads removed. And all the rest. It’s all convenient. And now the CIA and the KGB are linking up to fight this new manifestation of the people we fear the most, the people who have inspired our war on terror. The CIA and the KGB are buddies again, just like in the nineties.” He looked at Mikhail now. “All very convenient, wouldn’t you say, Mikhail?” Then he looked back at Logan. “Everything is convenient here, isn’t it? Everything except Cougar. Cougar is inconvenient.”
“Why the sarcasm, Burt?” Logan interjected. “Look at the evidence. Then say the evidence is not good enough for you.”
“What evidence, Logan?” Burt replied, and everyone around the table saw the hard vein of granite beneath the regular bonhomie. “Evidence from the spies in the Kremlin? Okay, so I’ve agreed with Theo’s request to second you, Logan, to a CIA team working with the British. You’ll shadow and assess this so-called terror ship. I hope that’s fine by you.”
“And then Cougar’s finished in Ukraine?” Logan asked. “Theo wants to hear it from you.”
“Thank you for relaying that,” Burt said. “There’s a boat waiting at the port of Burgas in Bulgaria. You’ll be on it, in command, as will some boys from the CIA and a British special forces team.”
“And the Russians, too,” Logan said implacably. “Theo’s agreed to have them come along.”
“Well, I think that’s a good idea,” Burt replied. “As many of you onboard Cougar’s spy ship the better. Let’s have the Russians on my ship.”
Logan sat back in his chair and looked at Burt. There was a new fearlessness in him, an idea that it was he who was making the play, not the great Burt Miller anymore.
“While you trash the idea of Qubaq being a terrorist organisation, Burt, don’t forget that it was you who sent me to Kiev in the first place. The whole point of the meeting with Sam MacLeod was that I float Qubaq with the CIA station there. That was your plan, not mine, not Theo’s, not the Russians.” So why is it you who’s now pouring cold water on it?”
Logan sat forward in his chair and leaned on his elbows. He recalled that in the report he had delivered to Sam MacLeod, the name of Qubaq had been explicitly left out. That had bothered him then, and it bothered him now. Burt had made the reference to the organisation only verbal.
“I wanted to see where everyone would jump,” Burt replied. “And you’ve all jumped the same way, haven’t you, Logan? You, Theo—and consequently our own president—and, of course, the Russians, too. All of you have seized on what you call the terror
ship and all of you have seized on Qubaq. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. It’s exactly what the Russians wanted us to do.” He looked around the table. “We’re being led by the Kremlin,” he said. “I wanted to see how easily the CIA would fall in with their lead. Nobody wants to help Ukraine, that’s the truth of it. And now the CIA will actually help the Russians get what they want there.”
Logan looked down at his hands. All he could think was that it was him Burt had assigned to encourage such disinformation—if that’s what it was. He would never have asked that from Anna.
20
TARAS WALKED DOWN a long airless corridor on the third floor of Sevastopol’s naval military hospital, turned left past more armed guards, and continued along another identical stretch that traversed the front of the building. Neither the occasional view through barred and sealed windows of the port on a sunny morning in spring, nor the antiseptic cream of the hospital floors and pale yellow of the walls did anything to soothe the confusion in his mind.
As his chief evidently suspected, Taras knew that his cousin Masha was involved in some subterfuge and it was now he, as her relation, who had been despatched to find out what it was she had been doing at the barn. His confusion seemed to be without a solution. If he succeeded, then Masha would undoubtedly be in worse trouble than she was in already. But if he failed, they would send in the proper interrogators again, this time to force it out of her.
There was the unanswered question he had turned up in his investigations so far. Was there a connection between his cousin Masha’s predicament and the murders of two KGB agents on the very same day that she’d been wounded and then arrested three months before? His chief clearly thought so and Taras had to admit that the coincidence seemed too great to ignore. The Russians were angry at the loss of two men on Ukrainian soil but were angrier, apparently, at Ukraine’s refusal to hand Masha back to them. But still the SBU was jumping to fulfill all their other demands. It was a tightrope—to please Russia and to retain some semblance of independence. And then there was the question of the gun she was carrying and why she had used it if she was merely on a vacation.
Two nurses walked past him without looking at him. He stepped aside as a trolley with tubes attached to it was wheeled past by an orderly. Everything in this area had the appearance of a normal hospital, but this was an illusion. He was now in the prison wing. There were guards in the corridors and at every junction, as well as outside the elevators and on the stairs, and there were bars on all of the windows. He’d had to show his pass five times already. Security was tight and despite his security clearance to enter, the guards were nervous and imperious at the same time.
He reached the final, prison door to the ward and hospital cells. There was an officer here, as well as two more regular soldiers from the Ukrainian army. The officer checked Taras’s identity papers, took a scan, and shone a thin torch into his eyes. He studied the special pass that had allowed him into the prison wing with a deliberate slowness that made Taras’s face twitch with irritation, and then he made a call to Kiev. Eventually satisfied, he handed Taras’s papers back to him and a guard opened the locks on the door and let him and the officer inside.
Were the guards there to prevent escape, Taras wondered, or to guard against the intrusion of outsiders? What was Masha most in danger from—kidnapping? assassination? or both? The security in the hospital was on red, his chief had told him, but he hadn’t explained why. The only certainty was that his little cousin—an innocent, as far as he was concerned, whatever she was involved in—was currently its most precious inmate.
The officer had personally been waiting for him to arrive and accompanied him through a ward as he heard the door slammed and locked behind them. There was no one in any of the six beds in the ward and they passed through to another locked door and on down another corridor that was distinctively a prison now, not a hospital. Bare concrete floors, one solitary high window at twice the height of a man, with more bars. Cells lined this corridor on either side, and were equipped with minimal comforts, judging from the open door into one of them that was empty. Three others had their peepholes shut and he didn’t know if anyone occupied them. There were two guards on the inside of the final door, sitting slumped in hard wooden chairs with the varnish peeled away. Like all guards, they were evidently bored, until they sprang to attention at the sight of the officer. Then Taras and the officer proceeded to the last cell on the right.
One of the guards who’d followed them jangled keys until he found the right one and opened the cell.
Taras looked inside into a harshly lit cell that had no window. Against a wall, Masha lay on a bare cot, a grey blanket pulled over her. Taras stopped in shock before he could enter. He hardly recognised her. She looked terribly thin and pale. The wires had been removed from her jaw but one side of her face was heavily bandaged. Her eyes were filled with fear.
He turned to the officer. “That’ll be fine,” he said.
Grudgingly, the officer closed the door behind him and locked it. Where did they think this terrified, wounded twenty-four-year-old girl was going to flee? Taras wondered. There were three locked doors behind them already.
Alone with her now, he looked again. They’d weakened her beyond her wound, he could see that, once he was closer to her. She was being deliberately underfed, he thought. The bare lightbulb with its high-watt power glared down from the ceiling at her and he knew they would leave it on round the clock. He knew, too, that she’d been interrogated by others in the past fifteen days, ever since she’d been able to speak for the first time.
He tore his eyes away from her and looked around the cell. Eight feet by six, there was a concrete toilet in a corner that stank. Otherwise just the cot. No table or chair, no window, airless. At least it wasn’t a concrete bench she had to sleep on, he thought. He looked up at the ceiling and saw behind him above the door a camera that covered the whole cell. The cell would be wired, too. Did they think he could get something out of her that others couldn’t, when both he and Masha knew that other ears would be listening anyway? But his chief had said that she was more likely to talk openly with him. Whatever coercion they’d used so far clearly hadn’t worked. Before they tried anything stronger, his chief had told him—as if to threaten him with the fact that he held the fate of his cousin in his hands—they would try this softer approach. So Taras knew he had to make some progress with her in order to make this meeting worth another one. And he felt the burden crushing his hopes of being able to help her.
“Hello, Masha,” he said.
She was silent, staring up at him, the fear in her eyes the same as when he’d entered.
“It’s Taras,” he said.
She stared back. Then he saw her eyes flicker a little and tears forming. Her desperately thin body shook spasmodically and then quieted.
“Taras,” she said finally.
“We’ll soon get you out of here,” he said breezily, but heard that the encouragement in his voice had a hollow ring to it. He looked down, embarrassed now by his inability to really help her. “How are you feeling?” he said, and didn’t need an answer. None of the soothing phrases you heard in a normal hospital was any good in here.
Carefully, he sat down on the cot very close to her head so that his back was between her upper body and the camera. He judged that his body would obscure her from the lens. But she flinched at his closeness and a noise came from her mouth that sounded like inarticulate terror.
“It’s okay,” he said. He bent down slowly and kissed her forehead, feeling the bandage on her face brush his cheek. Then he sat up slowly again. Her right arm was by her side, he saw, and the left one she’d moved slightly, so that it crossed over her stomach and had made room for him when he had sat on the narrow cot. He gently picked up her right hand in his and moved it away from her side, in front of his body and out of sight of the camera. It was a simple gesture of affection, a straightforward holding of hands. But he didn’t know if this was going to
work, even if she complied. At least she’d let him move her hand.
“It’s spring,” he said. “The flowers are all out along the mountains. The trees are their wonderful new green. You remember?”
She seemed to nod slightly.
“At the farm this was our favourite time of year,” he said lightly. “New life, the end of winter, warmth. My mother would start to cook properly again after all that tinned food we used to eat over the winter. I remember the first spring you came to the farm. You’d never seen so many flowers, never seen a southern spring.”
The farm. The barn at the farm where she’d been ambushed by Russian intelligence and tried to kill herself.
“It wasn’t a good time to visit in January, darling Masha,” he said. “What on earth were you doing?”
He’d read the transcripts of their interrogations so far. All she’d said, repeatedly, was that she was visiting an old place from her childhood, where her cousin Taras’s family spent their summers. He thought back to her one statement, which he knew in his heart was the only place any hope for her lay. It was a statement from the Russian officer who’d led the ambush party. “It’s not her,” the Russian officer had shouted that night in January at the barn. “It’s not her.”
In her interrogations at the hospital in the past fifteen days, all she’d been able to say, apart from repeating the nostalgic reasons for her visit, was this phrase of the Russian officer. “They must have been waiting for someone else,” she’d told her interrogators so far. “Or why would he have said it? I just happened to be in the way.” Was it really a chance in a million, her visit? Taras wondered. Was it a case of mistaken identity? Not necessarily the same answer applied to both questions. Her reason for entering the barn was thin, at most. And if the Russians had been waiting for someone else, who was it? In his own mind—though thankfully his chief didn’t seem to have considered the possibility so far—another person could only be the person making a pickup. The barn was a dead-letter box, chosen because…why? Because Masha had a reason, an alibi, to visit it. And that put his cousin right in the frame for making the drop. A surveillance team had found a strip of tape on the inside wooden frame of the only door to the barn. They were treating it as a signal sight.
