“And war crimes? Why the hell would he get involved in this, then?”
“He was brought in for the planned debriefing of Yezhov because there was some information he apparently had relating to bomb attacks in Berlin in the ’80s where a lot of Americans were killed or injured. The idea was that Johnson would tackle that aspect. It’s his specialty. Then after Yezhov was removed from the equation, they seem to have somehow pressed him to investigate the leak. I don’t know. Hopefully it won’t come to anything, but you need to know.”
ANTELOPE held out a phone and showed Shevchenko two photographs. The first was of Johnson, the second was of Vic Walter. “These are the two men.”
Shevchenko recognized Walter, whom she had bumped into a couple of times at diplomatic functions, but not Johnson. She scrutinized the photograph, memorizing his features, and handed the phone back.
“Thank you, that is helpful. Now, what else have you got for me? Are there any more military secrets coming through?”
Since ANTELOPE had begun working for Shevchenko, a whole stream of military intelligence had been handed over. Most recently, this had included incredibly valuable advance information about the planned naval responses by NATO generally, and the US in particular to Russia’s politically and militarily bold move to take over the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukraine.
ANTELOPE reached into a small black backpack and removed a micro SD, placing it on the table in front of Shevchenko. “Here. There’s more details there of American and British plans to build up their military presence in the Black Sea. The documents show that the US may send in a destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, which has guided missiles, and at least one other, maybe more.”
“When?”
“Very soon. It doesn’t say precisely when. I will notify you if I find out.”
Shevchenko leaned forward. Dermo, she thought. Shit. “Destroyers, or carriers?” She knew that one carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, was in the Mediterranean. Since Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, completed only a few weeks earlier, there had been talk of the US sending it from there through the Bosporus Strait past Istanbul and into the Black Sea within reach of the Crimea. The prospect of a military conflict there seemed very real.
“Carriers are highly unlikely at this stage,” ANTELOPE said. “It would not be the most sensible move, and I do not think the Pentagon is at that point. The Bosporus is narrow. The carrier is nuclear-powered. It could get trapped; it could get attacked. Very dangerous. I don’t think so. Read the documents. They spell it out. But the destroyers . . . that’s another question. They could go through to the Black Sea. It would be a tough military statement by the US. Putin would be furious.”
“What weapons does the Donald Cook carry?” Shevchenko asked.
“Like I said, guided missiles. There’s Tomahawk cruise missiles. Dozens of them—with a 1,500-mile range. Also Harpoon antiship missiles.”
Shevchenko nodded. “It’s gold, this naval intelligence. The president will be highly delighted with it. If you hear any more about precise timings of moves by this destroyer, please inform me immediately.”
She knew the material would be on Putin’s desk within hours of her getting it to Moscow and would earn her another major step in her climb up the promotional ladder. She didn’t need to spell out that the intelligence would enable Russia’s air force and navy to prepare a response should US destroyers sail through the Bosporus. The city of Istanbul had been built on both the east and west shores of the narrow straits, which were only between a third of a mile and two miles across. It was an international waterway of great strategic importance and only about 320 miles from the Crimea.
ANTELOPE shrugged. “There’s other material on the drive too. I won’t go through it now. You can read it for yourself.”
Normally Shevchenko sent her leaked documents to only two people at Yasenevo: to Yevgeny Kutsik, the first deputy director in charge of Directorate KR, responsible for foreign counterintelligence, to whom she reported officially, and also to the overall SVR director, Maksim Kruglov, whose job she ultimately coveted and to whom she was close, much to Kutsik’s annoyance.
However, these documents, plus some of the other information she had just gleaned from ANTELOPE, would go to one other person, too, who she knew for certain would be more than interested in the Black Sea military details and the information about the investigation into Yezhov’s death.
Shevchenko glanced at her watch. “We should go. We’ve had long enough. There is one other thing I would like to discuss, and that is how we will handle you in the future.”
ANTELOPE raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“It is too dangerous for both of us to continue meeting in person like this for much longer. This investigation that is underway, the hostile atmosphere on the street, constant surveillance. It makes it difficult to operate. I want to put an illegal in charge of collecting this intelligence from you, and we can do some of it electronically too.”
Shevchenko went on to outline in some detail what her plans were, how the illegal would operate, and how the information would be deposited by ANTELOPE and how it would be collected.
“When do you want to do this?” ANTELOPE asked.
“I should get the SRAC kit within the next few days or so from Moscow Center, and I will give it to you as soon as I get it. We will then have a short handover period before I withdraw to Moscow on April 14. That way you can get accustomed to using it.”
“That sounds safer, I agree.”
Shevchenko reached into her black backpack and removed a slim circular steel device with a USB port, an SD memory card port, and a couple of LED lights on the top. She showed it to ANTELOPE. “This is what you will get, one of these. I’ll show you how to operate it.”
She flicked a small black switch on the side of the SRAC device, then took the SD memory card that ANTELOPE had given her and pushed it into the port. Immediately, a red LED flashed twice, then held a steady red for about ten seconds. Then the green LED came on, flashed three times, and remained on.
“That’s it. All loaded,” Shevchenko said as she turned the device off. “Your files are on there now. All I need to do now is upload them wirelessly to the master device, and my illegal will pick them up once I give a signal. She’ll put them on another encrypted SD card and leave it in a dead drop where a courier will collect it to take to Moscow.”
It was a safe system. The idea of Shevchenko herself loading a dead drop site, given the surveillance she was under, was unthinkable. If an MI6 team spotted her, they would keep the site under twenty-four-hour watch, and then whoever unloaded the material would be a dead duck. The use of an anonymous illegal to do it instead was an excellent safeguard.
“So once I have an SRAC, I can upload wirelessly directly to the master,” ANTELOPE said. “That streamlines the process, doesn’t involve you, and is more secure.”
“Correct,” Shevchenko said. “I’d like you to do a couple of practice runs at some point, once we have the kit, to ensure it is all working properly. I will let you know when I have your SRAC. At present, we have only one base station, in Regent’s Park, plus a backup there as well.”
ANTELOPE nodded. “Anything else I need to know?”
“I am arranging for a second base station to be set up, also not too far from your apartment,” Shevchenko said. “Somewhere where you might reasonably go for an evening stroll or drive past on a routine shopping trip. Another park, perhaps, or maybe near to the Regent’s Canal towpath.”
She knew that ANTELOPE’s apartment was only a short distance from the Regent’s Canal that wound its way through the Paddington and Maida Vale areas, and its towpath was helpfully secluded in certain places yet also very close to nearby streets. That would be an ideal location to bury a base station because it gave the option of uploading material either from the car or on foot.
Shevchenko leaned back in her chair. “When we’ve completed all that, you will be sewn up tight. MI
6 and the CIA will never be able to trace you after that—and they won’t trace me either. I will be back to Moscow.”
Thursday, April 3, 2014
London
After leaving the safe house, Shevchenko walked back to Regent’s Park, past the London Central Mosque, with its golden dome glinting in the afternoon sunshine, and along Hanover Gate with its statuesque plane trees and black iron railings. She made her way toward the park’s boating lake, with its green-painted Boathouse Café and outdoor tables, but before she reached it, she turned sharply right along a footpath.
She continued along the footpath, which ran parallel to the lake to her left and the Outer Circle street to her right, for about four hundred meters until she came to a bench.
There she sat, took a pack of cigarettes from her bag, lit one, and leaned back to smoke and to observe. There was the usual crowd of mothers with strollers, dog walkers, and schoolchildren joking with each other and teasing.
But she was certain she remained black.
Shevchenko felt in her backpack and, without removing the SRAC device, found the switch with her fingertips and clicked it on. She counted silently to twenty, then opened the backpack and glanced inside, just to be certain.
The green LED light on top of the SRAC was glowing steadily. The transfer, which was encrypted and lasted no more than a couple of seconds, had taken place.
She waited a few more seconds, then pressed a button and the light went off.
The two-way base station that was buried in some evergreen bushes near a hedge ten meters behind her had collected the files wirelessly—the green light confirmed that the transfer had taken place.
Shevchenko’s illegal, Natalia, would collect the files using a similar device.
The device had been buried six inches underground by a fellow SVR officer from the Russian embassy several months earlier. He had used a special hand tool to lift out a plug of soil, creating a cavity into which the base station could be placed. The soil plug was then deposited on top of the device. The job, carried out under the cover of night, was completed in about thirty seconds.
Once in place, it was virtually undetectable, and its range meant that either Shevchenko or Natalia could sit on the bench and deposit or collect the messages if they wanted.
Or they could simply drive past along Outer Circle, which was on the other side of the hedge. The base stations and SRACs operated at such a speed that they would work quite effectively from a car. The driver might need to slow down a little at the precise spot, but that would be the only requirement apart from the ability to steer steadily with one hand and operate the SRAC with the other, probably by reaching inside a handbag or supermarket bag. A motorbike was another option, although that was not Shevchenko’s style.
Sometimes, if Shevchenko wasn’t certain that she had no surveillance, if she suspected that one of the casual passersby wasn’t actually a casual passerby, she would abort by either not entering the park at all or just sitting on her bench and smoking her cigarette, as if it was part of her relaxation routines, without activating the SRAC. But that was simply her innate cautiousness.
Another identical base station had been buried at a different location on the far side of Regent’s Park, near the children’s playground at Gloucester Gate. But that was purely for use as a backup in case the primary device failed.
The base station was capable of transmitting messages left by Natalia to Shevchenko’s SRAC device too. If such a message had been left a blue LED on her SRAC would have lit up. But today it did not.
Now Shevchenko needed to give her usual signal to her illegal to pick up the files, and she did that using a much more old-fashioned method
There were two table lamps on the window ledge in Shevchenko’s second-floor apartment in nearby Dorset Square, next to Marylebone station.
When she got home she would turn both of them on, knowing that Natalia would check later in the evening by walking or driving past the apartment building.
One lamp meant it was fine to proceed at the normal pace—there was no need to rush. Two lamps was the signal for an urgent job. The files needed to be in Moscow as quickly as possible.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday, April 4, 2014
Moscow
It was the first day of the year when the temperature was actually warm enough for Severinov to sit outside on his terrace, even if he did have to wear a jacket. Thirteen degrees Celsius, according to the enormous decorative thermometer that hung on the balcony of his $30 million residence in the Gorki-8 district.
The house, about eight miles west of the Russian capital, had uninterrupted views out over landscaped gardens that stretched down to the Moscow River, complete with a multilevel heated swimming pool, although Severinov was not an enthusiastic swimmer and rarely used it. But the views, along with the seventeen luxurious bedrooms, had been a major draw when he had bought the property in 2006.
As was his habit, particularly during the summer months, Severinov clutched a glass of his favorite Madeira wine from the Koktebel winery in the Crimea that his staff had left for him. It was usually either that or an ice-cold Beluga vodka.
He had only arrived back in Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport the previous night, after a flight in his private Cessna Citation from the Krasnodar refinery at Tuapse. Until the previous year, he had leased a larger $50 million Bombardier Global Express, but that had been shot down by a Stinger missile in Kabul—thankfully not while he was on board—during his disastrous attempt to buy into Afghanistan’s oil and gas fields. The Cessna was kept on standby at Vnukovo, about eleven miles from his residence.
Severinov’s phone vibrated twice in his pocket. He took it out and entered a key in order to read the encrypted messages that had just arrived.
They were both from his occasional lover, in her native Russian. But neither of them were love notes. They were short and to the point. He clicked on the first message.
I have been told there is a CIA/MI6 investigation into Redtail. To be expected. But the man running the investigation will be of interest—a CIA freelancer, not staff, called Joe Johnson, ex-CIA war crimes investigator. I am certain he is the same man who caused you big problems last year in Afghanistan. He was brought in by Vic Walter, new head of CIA’s operations directorate. Of course we know the first person he will try to speak to—Varvara. I suggest to negate that, take action against her first and urgently. A task for Balagula? Your decision.
Severinov swore out loud, his mind swirling with questions. Johnson again? But how and why had he been brought in to investigate the Redtail operation? And hadn’t Vic Walter also been part of the Afghanistan debacle? He was certain he had.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the blue skies overhead. Anastasia was right about Varvara, for sure. And if she was suggesting deploying Vasily Balagula, his former Spetsnaz special forces friend, she must think it was serious.
Balagula was a so-called wet work specialist, to be called in when lethal solutions were required. These days he worked as a freelancer for whoever needed him—whether the Russian government, the FSB, the SVR, or even occasionally the president’s office.
He was one of a few good friends Severinov still had in key roles in both the FSB and the SVR, all of them long-standing colleagues from his time in the KGB with whom he had kept in touch and trusted, more or less. Most of them were in Moscow, with a couple based in St. Petersburg and other cities. They all called in favors from each other as required.
Balagula’s last job had been an unmitigated success—it was he and a colleague who had delivered the coup de grâce on Redtail in Berlin, using a Spetsnaz special-issue suppressed sniper rifle, the VSS Vintorez, from a hotel window.
The weapon, in which Balagula had used a subsonic 9x39 mm SP5 cartridge, was specifically designed for covert operations. It could be stripped down very quickly and carried in an adapted briefcase, which was exactly how Balagula had transported it around Berlin.
A pity he wa
sn’t just as successful with Johnson in Afghanistan last year, Severinov couldn’t help thinking.
He clicked onto the second message.
Urgent military intelligence out of London tells me that US is about to escalate its presence in Black Sea for obvious reasons. I am told at least one destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, will be sent in, maybe next week, from Mediterranean. It could affect shipping to/from your refinery operations. See attached document—read but then delete. This is of course going to Yasenevo, and the president may want to take action.
Severinov tapped his foot repeatedly on the glistening granite terrace, and his hand tightened around his wine glass, spilling some of the contents. This was the last thing he needed. He read the attachment, which was a photographed copy of a intel report from the United States Secretary of Defense, Anthony Everson, to a list of senior military and CIA officers in Washington and London.
It briefly outlined the strategy behind the decision to send in destroyers—to dissuade the Russian navy from taking hostile action against foreign shipping—and stated that the Donald Cook was now primed for action.
Severinov deleted the attachment, as requested, and drank the rest of his wine. He then stood and walked to the edge of the terrace, gazing out over his expansive seventy-five-hectare estate. Behind the magnificent house, tucked away beyond a thick screen of pines, were two helipads. The property also had a garage complex able to take up to sixteen cars, tennis courts, and a golf driving range.
For the past year, he had felt that all of it was at risk. Now it seemed those risks were mounting further.
All of his wealth had been built up since he had left the KGB when it was replaced by the SVR at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Following high-profile KGB postings in Berlin and Afghanistan during the 1980s, he had made a name for himself and was able to capitalize on that once he started working as a private adviser to corporate clients on security matters.
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