by Henry Porter
‘The local police understand the importance of all this because Robert Harland was well connected, had advised on the setting up of the foreign intelligence operation and had many friends in the KaPo – the Kaitsepolitseiamet. So there’s been no lack of urgency and, after examining his phone, they found a photograph of the man in a series of rapidly taken landscape studies. Enhanced and enlarged, the photographs enabled them to track down the suspect in Tallinn, where he was being treated in hospital for burns to his stomach and thighs and, as it happens, a developing case of pneumonia. He’s a Ukrainian national who was hired for the job – not your average international hit man, by any means; a thug who was paid €30,000. He’s told the police everything but appears to know little about the people who hired him, and he certainly didn’t ask them about the target. If Robert Harland hadn’t managed to inflict those injuries on the killer in the last minutes of his life, he would never have been caught. Even in death, our former colleague and, if I may say so, the hero of our service, was as effective as ever.’ He looked around and his eyes came to rest on Macy. ‘Does anyone want to say anything about him now?’
Macy shook his head; Samson didn’t lift his eyes from the table.
‘The Foreign Secretary,’ continued Ott, ‘is anxious that Robert Harland is accorded all the honour our country has to offer. He has sent his condolences to the widow. There will be an announcement later today and I gather an obituary is underway for The Times.’
‘Who’s writing that?’ asked Macy.
‘I’m drafting notes,’ said Nyman. ‘Their security correspondent will knock them into shape.’
‘Peter, what the fuck do you know about Bobby?’ Macy said.
Nyman was unfazed. ‘A lot of his career is in the archive – the main operations, and so forth. And I did know him, of course, Macy. I worked with him. I respected him greatly.’ He pursed his lips in a tiny, round hole, which the French describe as the cul de canard – the duck’s arse.
‘Bollocks, you did! You didn’t know him. You weren’t in Berlin in ’89. Were you there with him in Czechoslovakia? Bosnia? New York? No, of course you weren’t. You don’t have the first bloody clue what he did for our country, Peter.’
Ott intervened. ‘Can I suggest you run your notes past Macy before sending them to the paper, Peter? That all right with you, Macy?’
Macy nodded, but the outrage hadn’t left his expression. ‘And on the funeral, make sure you go along with whatever Ulrike wants. It’s likely to be modest.’
‘What about a memorial service in London, then? Grosvenor Chapel is a marvellous space. There are a lot of people who would want to attend, you know.’
‘Ask Ulrike before you start thinking about arranging that. It’s the bloody last thing Bobby would have wanted. Anyway, this is all beside the point. You haven’t asked us here to talk about the obituary and the funeral.’ Macy wiped a handkerchief around his chin and neck. He looked ill, but then Samson had seen him sink a lot of booze the night before. ‘You’ve got something to say to us, so you might as well get on with it.’
‘Thank you, Macy!’ Ott bowed to his senior status, which of course was an entirely sarcastic gesture. ‘Naturally, we’ve linked yesterday’s two incidents and have concluded that this is blowback from events at Narva, at which Denis Hisami and Robert Harland were key participants, as indeed you were, Paul. And we believe it would be helpful to the Americans if they viewed the events in Congress in that context, rather than as an attack on the American state. We think it’s best to downplay things at the moment. The phrase “nerve agent” is not helpful in this regard and in fact the substance used was much less potent than Novichok.’
‘Yet it was a nerve agent,’ said Samson. ‘The symptoms were all there – sweating, loss of body control, muscle paralysis, salivation. The lawyer Steen died within half an hour or so of coming into contact with it.’
‘It seems that after he handled the papers he must have touched his lips. He probably ingested quite a large amount,’ said Ott. ‘But moving on, what interests us are the common denominators, which is why we have asked you in, Paul.’
He signalled to Caroline. She spun a laptop that was primed to show a short video and hit ‘play’. It was the film from the Junction. Samson saw himself block the attacker to the left, go to the right, grab his upper arm, start to punch his Adam’s apple and chin and aim a kick at his groin. Even when the police officer shouted and Samson turned there was never a clear shot of his face.
‘Impressive self-defence,’ said Ott. He waited for a reaction but got none. ‘We know it was you, Samson, because Shriti here was part of an operation at that intersection and she saw you. But we needed her to see you again in the flesh, which is why I’m so pleased you could make it this morning.’
Samson still didn’t react.
‘I suppose the immediate interest for us is this character who attacked you. Since we have had the film, our friends at the Security Service have been beavering away to identify him, and they have come up with an ID. He is a famous gangster from Montenegro. He is named Miroslav Rajavic but goes by the name Matador, which you no doubt know also means “killer” or “assassin” in Spanish, and this fellow lives up to his name by using a long knife or even a sword – his espada, I suppose. But the interesting part, and this is where I must offer congratulations to the security services team, is that we have tied him to the attack in Congress.’
Caroline brought up more video footage. Macy and Samson, sitting next to each other, had to lean forward to see clearly. It lasted no more than a few seconds. Denis Hisami, seen from the side, was moving through a crowd in a corridor that was patchily lit by TV lights. A man stepped forward, handed him papers and immediately backed away. Hisami looked down, looked up and passed the papers to Steen on his right. The film ended but was followed by two freeze frames, which showed the man’s face.
‘Caroline, would you take over?’
Caroline was a familiar intelligence services type – late thirties, intense and with a no-nonsense attitude to clothes and make-up. She had a fringe and short, fair hair, which she nervously hooked behind each ear before looking down at an iPad. ‘This turns out to be a man named Vladan Drasko,’ she said. ‘One of our people had the idea of putting his photograph through a program that allows us to search for known associates on a database using facial recognition, and we came up with this.’ She turned the iPad and there was Drasko, with longer hair and less weight, sitting next to the Matador with a pair of Balkan beauties and a row of shot glasses.
‘This was Belgrade three years ago,’ said Caroline. ‘It comes from the Facebook page of one of the women in the photograph.’
‘Facebook is such a really terrific resource,’ said Ott. ‘The point that will not escape you, Paul, is that you and Denis Hisami were targeted on the same day by two killers who know each other. We’re now using photographs of the Ukrainian assassin, taken in hospital overnight, to see if we can match him with these two; it would be something like a royal flush if we did. In short, we’d be able to tell the FBI and CIA why this attack happened and ID the main suspect. Not bad in less than twenty-four hours.’
‘And Russia?’ said Samson.
‘No need to blame Russia – that’s the beauty of it. None of the perpetrators is Russian.’
‘But the entire plot to kidnap Anastasia two years ago was designed to suppress information about a Russian operation to wash money through the States to disrupt democracy in Europe.’
‘You say Russian operation, but that was never clearly established, was it?’ said Ott. ‘Adam Crane – aka Aleksis Chumak – started out life as Ukrainian. And Nikita Bukov? Well, who’s to say he was ever involved? And there were certainly never any direct ties to a Russian agency. They were deniable crooks and, as it turned out, quite expendable.’
Nyman nodded sagely throughout this.
‘Then who gave the
order to kill Hisami, Harland and me?’
‘That doesn’t concern us at the moment. This is the settling of some old scores by persons unknown who were undoubtedly annoyed about the disappearance of all those laundered millions. It’s all water under the bridge at Narva.’ Ott was pleased with that line.
Macy gave Samson a look to say that there wasn’t any point – the intelligence services had the solution they wanted. He made a move to leave.
‘There are a couple of outstanding matters,’ said Ott. ‘We’re anxious to catch the Matador and, of course, we wish to protect you, Samson.’
Samson gave an audible groan. ‘When Peter mentioned this I made it clear that I didn’t want any kind of surveillance or protection.’
‘He very nearly succeeded in killing you yesterday. You do need some help looking after yourself.’
Samson got up and turned to face Nyman and Sonia Fell, who had barely moved in the last half-hour. ‘These two will tell you that I am perfectly capable of looking after myself and, at the same time, clearing up their mess in Macedonia and bungling ineptitude in Estonia. That kind of protection I can do without.’
Macy patted the table and rose. ‘I think we have contributed all we can here.’
‘There is one other thing,’ said Ott. ‘We would rather like to know what you were doing at that intersection in north London yesterday.’
‘Would you?’ said Samson.
‘The area is of interest to Caroline and Shriti’s colleagues in the Security Service. And they wondered how you came to be in that particular spot.’
‘I was hoping to meet someone.’
‘Did you meet them?’
‘No, things fell apart, as you’ve just seen in that video.’
‘Name of person?’
‘That has absolutely nothing to do with your operation, and it is a private matter.’
‘So you don’t know why the Security Service and the police were there? We are to believe your presence was a coincidence?’
‘Yes, I have no interest in the area.’
Shriti looked unconvinced but gave a resigned shrug.
‘Then we thank you both for your time,’ said Ott.
Outside, Samson found himself groping for a cigarette, although he’d quit many months ago now. ‘That,’ he said as he and Macy started walking, ‘is exactly why I don’t work with those people any longer – all that wheels-within-wheels shit and turning tricks for our American friends.’
‘Didn’t use to be like that. We knew who the enemy was in my day. Now you wonder . . .’
As they walked towards Pall Mall, Macy stopped to admire some almond blossom near the Athenaeum Club, an oddly intense expression on his face. ‘You do know that was all cock and bull,’ he said. ‘The whole purpose was to put us off the scent. However, being rather foolish, they underlined at least one area of interest.’
‘The Edgar Building,’ said Samson.
‘Indeed, but also the fact that they are determined not to blame the Russians. By the way, Ott is not as ahead of the game as he thinks. Vladan Drasko was found dead in a motel room in Virginia. Poisoned himself handling the nerve agent, no doubt.’ He stopped to hail a cab. ‘What’re you going to do now?’
‘Talk to Zoe Freemantle.’
‘Denis put £20k behind the bar, as it were. So you have no worries about money.’
‘There’s something else that interested me. Peter Nyman let slip yesterday that Bobby had been working on something. They didn’t mention that today – why? That must mean they have an idea what it was, but they didn’t want us to pursue it. It would be nice to know how much Denis and Bobby saw each other.’
‘Then you may have to talk to Anastasia. Or Ulrike. One of them must know.’ He glanced at Samson. ‘And by the way, don’t think those bastards are going to look after you. If my hunch is right, they’d rather we didn’t find out what they’re trying to protect, and that means hanging you out to dry won’t be a problem. They’ll keep tabs on you, but they won’t lift a finger to save you.’
‘Yes,’ said Samson. ‘That was precisely my interpretation.’
Macy opened the cab door. ‘Can I give you a lift to Cedar?’
‘Thanks, but I need some exercise.’
‘Okay. Go and find the people who ordered my old friend’s death, Samson.’
Samson walked briskly to Jermyn Street and turned right into one of the arcades that led to Piccadilly. As he looked absently into a store selling expensive shaving brushes and creams, thinking of his father’s reverence for the finer things of what he supposed to be the English gentleman’s life, the call came in from a more recent immigrant. It was from Naji Touma, the Syrian kid who, over five years before, had darted through Greece and Macedonia like the lively bug that supplied his codename – FIREFLY. He was now in London, on a six-month secondment at Imperial College, where, to Samson’s mild astonishment, he was thought to have original things to say about dark matter and dark energy.
‘Naj, we need to talk.’
‘About Mr Harland? I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Mrs Harland. She emailed me.’
‘I see. I’m sorry. It’s very bad news.’ Naji and Harland had formed an unlikely relationship during the days before and after Anastasia’s release. While Samson and Anastasia were debriefed by Estonian intelligence, the pair of them sat at Harland’s kitchen table in his seaside cottage, talking for hours. Harland was fascinated by the speed and range of Naji’s mind and murmured to Samson that he sometimes felt he was in the presence of one of the great intellects of the day. Samson remembered looking over at Naji’s vacant expression and doubting that, but a year later Naji had won a prize for early career astrophysicists with an essay written in English. Harland went to Norway to watch him receive it. It was plain that he had become a substitute for Naji’s father, for whom the boy still grieved. ‘You okay?’ Samson asked after a long silence.
‘I am very sad. Mr Harland was a good man to me. A very, very nice man. A very clever man.’
‘Yes.’
‘I will attend his funeral.’
‘Err, yes, so will I. It’s going to be next week, we think. But I just wanted to stress something that you and I should both be aware of, Naj. There’s a theory that all of us involved in getting Anastasia off that bridge are being targeted by the Russians and, of course, you were crucial to the operation. In fact, we wouldn’t have pulled it off without you. Bobby was shot, Denis Hisami was poisoned, and Naj, I have to tell you that someone attacked me in the street on the same day, so the revenge theory could be right, and you need to be extra careful.’
‘You are okay, Samson?’
‘Yes, but I was lucky and I don’t want you exposed to the same risk.’
Naji absorbed this. ‘No one knows I was at Narva.’
‘That’s true, unless there was a leak from the Estonian intelligence service, which is highly unlikely.’
‘I will be okay, Samson.’
‘Well, just be careful. Do you want to meet up?’
‘I cannot. I am busy with my project.’ He stopped. Samson could hear him fidgeting. ‘How is Anastasia?’ Naji asked.
‘She wasn’t hurt in Washington but she must have been very shocked by what happened. Denis is still in a coma.’ He was playing it straight, though he knew exactly what Naji was asking – had he talked to her?
‘She will be at Mr Harland’s funeral?’
‘I can’t say. I guess she’ll stay in Washington to look after Denis.’
‘I must go now. Goodbye, Samson. I will meet you at the funeral.’
‘Yes. Naji. Stay safe.’
Samson looked across Piccadilly to the line of exhibition posters on the Royal Academy railings, thinking about Naji. A memory of his time with Anastasia came to him. A late Saturday breakfast before goi
ng to the show of American art at the academy, where they stood for twenty minutes in awe of an enormous painting of a glacier. It seemed a long time ago: the scrawny Syrian kid had grown into a man in those years. He was now over six feet and good-looking with it, but he could be remote and also a little eccentric, jumping wildly from subject to subject in his increasingly impressive English. Even taking into account Naji’s idiosyncrasies and his obvious sadness at Harland’s death, the conversation had definitely been off. It was as though he didn’t want to connect at all.
Chapter 8
Anastasia
Anastasia was allowed no physical contact with her husband, who lay isolated in a room on the hospital’s top floor, surrounded by more medical equipment than she had ever seen concentrated around one person. She peered through an observation window and saw his chest rise and fall and watched the heart and blood pressure monitors. A nurse in protective clothing and wearing a mask and fume hood sat beside him, checking the drips and monitors. Sometimes she held his hand and nodded to Anastasia, as though she were her proxy. He showed no signs of coming out of his coma, which his doctors suggested was maybe a good thing, because he was being saved the pain and distress of incontinence, vomiting and mental disorientation. Denis was fastidious and he would have found it all mortifying.
Unlike the lawyer Stewart Steen, he’d survived the onslaught of the nerve agent, and that was due to relatively low exposure, rapid diagnosis and the speedy application of a drug called atropine, used to counter the sudden decline in the heart rate, the restriction of muscles in the chest and the production of a lot of watery sputum. He was over the worst. She hoped one day to be able to tell him that he had quickly exhausted the hospital’s stocks of atropine and was only saved by a trainee nurse who thought of phoning her brother in a veterinarian clinic, where the drug was routinely used in operations on large dogs, and arranged for all the practice’s supplies of the drug to be biked across DC. They arrived just in time.
