‘Now you’re all organised. When will you go back?’
He returned the car to Andrei and kissed him on the forehead. ‘I’ll wait for an hour or two. If I’m ill I can’t recover too soon. You’re trembling, Anna.’
‘It’s because there’s so much to do.’
He set Andrei down and the child began playing at his feet.
‘We’ve rehearsed it, Anna. You helped me and I know just what I have to do. There’s nothing to worry about.’ He stood up and put his arms about her. ‘On the contrary, there’s everything to look forward to. For Andrei most of all.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘He has nothing to forget, my love, nothing to leave behind. Freedom to think and speak as he wants, Anna, to grow into a free man – that’s what lies ahead for Andrei.’
‘I know, I do know. I’m just a little tense. Until it’s all over.’
‘And it will be – within just a few days. You’ll see.’
He hugged her close, hoping that what he said was true. Andrei looked up and, laughing, pushed his way between their legs. Viktor picked him up and included him in the embrace.
‘Just a few days, Anna.’
He hugged his little family all the closer in case Anna might read the doubt in his eyes.
*
The Soviet embassy sat halfway along Kensington Palace Gardens, only a few minutes’ walk from the flat. It was a road that, even in daylight, was made dark in all seasons by the large trees and the oppressive bulk of the block-like buildings that lined it.
The rear section of the embassy, the part that had the forest of strange aerials on the roof, housed the secure and electronically screened warren of rooms where the KGB personnel, the rezidenti, conducted their business.
Viktor was cleared by the watch officer through to the rezidentura section. Here he mounted a short staircase, not as imposing as the main staircase at the front of the building, but with a set of maroon velvet curtains that covered its side wall as if to make up for what it lacked in design grace.
He pressed the concealed button underneath the banister rail and went up to the first half-landing. He drew back the curtain to reveal a steel door, and waited in sight of the viewing glass set two-thirds of the way up it. After a moment the door swung open and an armed guard beckoned him into a room about the size of a small bathroom. Although they were on first-name terms, the guard still made him produce his rezident pass and fed it through the scanner built into the metal desk.
Viktor looked around the room at the security systems that he was about to violate. In a top corner a camera shielded by bulletproof glass clicked a photograph every fifteen seconds for as long as anyone was in the room with the guard. Behind the desk six television monitor screens covered the area of the embassy from which he had come, as well as the corridors and certain offices of the rezidentura annex that he would shortly enter. Happily, because of the confidentiality of the cipher section, his own office couldn’t be monitored.
The guard turned to a door on the opposite side of the room. It was also steel and had two combination locks and a card-key system. He set one of the combination locks, inserted Viktor’s pass into a slot in the door, and set the other lock. With some effort he pulled the door open for him to pass through.
It closed with a sigh of expelled air and Viktor set off down the familiar corridor. For the last time. More steel doors led off to various offices on either side. Two doors of white-painted wood led to the incinerator rooms where he and the other clerks disposed of the routine material that was generated daily. Nearby, another door led to a much larger and more powerful incinerator. Only the chief of the rezidentura could enter this room. Its incinerator was designed to his own specifications for the destruction of whole files, cipher books, agent dossiers and other bulky material.
Behind one of the steel doors on the left was the cipher room and next to it the historical files vault. Opposite was a conference room.
Near the end of the corridor was Viktor’s own tiny office. Once inside, he locked its door behind him before sliding open a drawer of his desk and unlocking the safe.
There were sixteen files that he planned to go through. He removed them from the safe and stacked them on the desk. A number of the documents in the first file had their top right-hand corners folded down. This was a marking process that he had begun from the day he got back after his father’s funeral. Every day he had set aside a few minutes to identify the material that he was planning to extract.
Now he ripped each of these documents out, not wanting to waste time undoing the fastening to get at each one, and began making a pile of them in the open drawer. When he finished he swept up the little shreds of paper that had fallen out and dropped them into the bin.
He went through each of the other fifteen files in the same methodical way.
The stack of papers with which he ended up was about ten centimetres high. He ran his thumb along its edge. It was about as much as he’d calculated.
Now came what he knew was the most dangerous part. If anyone came to his door it would be difficult to clear away quickly the signs of what he was up to. And he knew from the rehearsals with Anna that it would take another fifteen minutes or so.
He pulled his duffel coat off and threw it over the chair, and got out the adhesive bandage, scissors and handkerchief. He cut the bandage into thirty strips about twenty centimetres long, which he tacked by their corners along the edge of the desk.
Then he stood up, undid his belt and dropped his trousers, the loosest-fitting pair he owned. Sitting down again he raised his feet, ludicrously tethered by the trousers about his ankles, onto the desk, took a wad of documents, rolled it around his calf and fastened it tightly to itself with strips of the adhesive bandage. He used the handkerchief to wipe his calf dry of the perspiration that was starting to cover it and the rest of his body in a slippery film, and taped the top of the wad in position against his leg.
Finally, he rolled his sock up over the papers and repeated the process with the other leg, then taped another wad to the inside of each thigh and pulled the trousers up, zipping his fly but leaving the top clasp and the belt undone.
Next he pulled up his jumper and shirt and lined his belly and sides in the same way, slipping each handful of documents inside his underpants for additional support and taping them in position as before.
When he’d finished the whole job he tucked his shirt back in, fastened the trouser clasp and drew the belt as tight as he could bear. There seemed no possibility of the papers slipping.
He tidied up as quickly as possible and relocked the desk and safe. The roll of adhesive bandage was finished but he returned its cardboard former and the scissors to his duffel pocket. Then he put the coat on and forced himself to stand absolutely still, watching as the second hand of his watch made two complete revolutions. While he waited, he breathed deeply and evenly to calm himself.
Taking a final look around the room, he ran his hands quickly over his clothes to smooth them and check for bulges, and stepped outside. The clock in the corridor said that he’d been in the office thirty-five minutes.
The process of leaving the rezidentura annex was the reverse of entering.
‘You weren’t long,’ the guard grunted at him.
‘I don’t feel well.’
The man seemed to be taking far longer with his pass than before, but Viktor knew that was only an illusion induced by his nervousness. He tried not to look at the camera in the corner, then wondered why it mattered; by the time the photographs were seen by anyone he would be beyond their reach.
He hoped.
The guard contented himself with only a cursory glance inside his briefcase and wished him goodnight.
He was as lucky in the front lobby, where the watch officer was too absorbed with the paperback he was trying to read under his desk to do more than wave a hand lazily at him as he passed. Similarly, the guard who stood by the front door hardly looked at him.
Outside, he drew up
his duffel hood against the heavy drizzle that was setting in. The wrought-iron gate at the foot of the short drive swung open to let him through, remotely controlled by the guard at the front door.
There were still risks to calculate. The embassy stood on what the British called Crown land. If he had been found out already and someone followed him, would they wait until he got to a public road before trying to grab him? On the other hand, what difference could that make? A kidnap was a kidnap, wherever it happened.
Twenty metres along from the embassy was a wooden and glass sentinel hut used by the British policemen who guarded the road. One of them was sheltering in it from the rain. Surely no one would try anything within sight of him or the others at the end of the road?
The policemen were armed. They claimed not to be; the British disliked policemen with guns. But one summer day when the policemen outside the embassy were in shirtsleeves, Viktor had glimpsed a handgun in a holster fitted with a specially lengthened strap so that it rested inside an officer’s trouser pocket, theoretically out of sight. Would they be prepared to use their guns in defence of a Soviet citizen? He doubted it.
The policeman nodded a courteous greeting as he passed, but Viktor was walking with the concentration of a man crossing a minefield, his mind on every step and slight shift of papers about his body, real or imagined.
It was a blessed relief when he reached the main road, good just to be away from the claustrophobia and stillness of the embassy’s road and among the reassuring bustle of traffic and people. He turned right and began walking along Bayswater Road. The traffic on the eastbound carriageway was still jammed solid because of the rerouting and detour signs around Lancaster Gate. The drivers looked short-tempered and irritable. The rain, turning into a downpour now, would add to their problems.
One part of Viktor wanted to follow the quiet streets home. He felt like a walking parcel, one that might fall apart at any moment. But a stronger instinct told him to stay where there were crowds. He’d taken enough chances for one night.
So he picked his way between the jammed cars to the other side of the road and stuck resolutely to the broad, busy pavement. As he passed the underground entrance and turned into Queensway, he noticed the headline on the news stand. It was the same story that William Clarke had read earlier: ‘OPEC conference – more bomb threats’.
When he finally got home he was so relieved that he hardly felt a thing as Anna tore the strips of adhesive bandage from his body. The papers closest to his skin were soft with sweat. She hung them over radiators and pegged them out on the clothes horse. He saw the funny side but she couldn’t.
Then they switched on the washing machine and talked in whispers about what they had to do in the morning.
17
Buckinghamshire
Midnight. Moonlight broke through the clouds above Brook Cottage and gleamed on the old vixen’s coarse coat as she moved from the hedgerow into the field. She picked her way between the rows of young conifers and pot-growing shrubs where the field mice scurried. They made easy pickings for her. She snapped one up and continued her progress along the rows.
When she reached the greenhouses at the end she followed her customary line around them, veering south towards the lane. She paused by the verge, her nostrils twitching at the alien stench of engine oil and metal that suddenly reached them. She padded softly along to investigate, keeping to the cover of the hedge.
The car was stationary, its width blocking the lane. Its fat tyres flattened the grass. A man sat inside it in darkness.
The vixen kept very still, her belly to the wet earth, her senses sharp and calculating. They gradually told her that the man in the car was asleep, that there had been no movement from him or the car for a long time, and that all was quiet at the cottage. But she waited to be sure. That was why she was an old vixen.
When she was certain, she left cover and continued down the lane. She didn’t meander aimlessly as a dog might but loped confidently straight ahead.
She had vanished under the holly hedge on the other side and was halfway across the next field by the time the white Sherpa van approached, its wheels slicing through the puddles.
The driver slowed to not much more than walking pace and glanced in his rear-view mirror. Instinctively his passenger shifted position slightly to watch the road behind them in the wing mirror. The driver satisfied himself that no cars were approaching from either direction and switched his headlights off. He wanted to allow time for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight before he turned into the lane. His instructions warned him that it was narrow and he didn’t want any noisy mishaps.
At that moment the moon slipped behind a bank of cloud and they overshot the lane anyway. The passenger saw it go past and clicked his fingers, pointing back. The driver braked. As the Sherpa stopped, the passenger produced two pairs of clear surgical gloves. Both men put them on.
They reversed back along the road, very slowly so that the engine noise was kept to a minimum, turned into the lane and drove up it at tick-over speed. When William Clarke’s black Jaguar came into view the driver turned his engine off and let the Sherpa roll to a halt fifteen or twenty yards from it. He left the vehicle in gear to avoid the ratcheting of the handbrake.
The clouds parted and a shaft of moonlight fell on them as they stepped out into the lane. The driver was thickset and bald; his passenger was taller and thin faced. Both wore black trousers, black sweaters and dark jackets.
They didn’t close the Sherpa’s doors but just eased them back until they felt the locks touch the striker bars. Then, like the old vixen, they stood motionless and silent for a full two minutes, waiting while their senses absorbed all the information that the damp night air brought them. They heard an owl’s distant hoot, small rustles in the undergrowth. But no clicks of a cooling engine from the Jaguar nor anything else to alarm them.
The bald man reached inside his jacket and withdrew a silenced automatic pistol. His companion already had his gun out. They walked carefully to the Jaguar, never taking their eyes off it.
The bald man took up position by the driver’s door and waited until his companion was beside the other. Pointing his pistol at the driver’s head, he took a pen torch from his pocket and shone it for a second on the inside of the car door, just long enough to verify that the lock button was raised. He nodded to his companion, who put his hand ready on the door handle.
George started awake, still muddled with sleep, as his door was wrenched open and a hand clamped his mouth. He winced as his knee collided with the steering wheel. By the time he reached for the gun beneath his jacket the holster was empty. Instead he became aware that something cold was pressing against his forehead. The muzzle of a gun. He looked up. Silhouetted against the night sky was the man whose hand was over his mouth. The dim glow of the car’s interior courtesy lamp reflected off his bald head. He was watching George with great seriousness.
A movement to the left caught George’s attention and, unable to move his head under the bald man’s grip, he swivelled his eyes to their limit. A man with skeletal features was leaning across from the passenger seat, levelling two pistols at him. One of them, he saw, was his own. He smelt a faint whiff of latex and realised that it was coming from the gloved hand over his mouth.
‘Out. Not a sound, friend.’
George felt sick; he did as he was told. There was no sound but the wind in the trees as they shepherded him across the lane to the cottage.
‘Open the gate.’
In the cottage only the downstairs light was now burning.
‘Over there.’ The bald man pushed him towards the light and followed him along the path. He peered into the window for a few seconds before pushing George up to it and putting his lips to his ear.
‘Knock when I tell you. Then signal towards the door – let him know you want to be let in.’ The pistol jabbed into George’s ribs, angling up towards his heart. ‘Don’t be a hero.’
Out of the corner of his ey
e George noticed that the other man had taken up position beside the front door.
He looked in through the window. In the scullery sat the man who had opened the door to Clarke. He was watching television, his back to the window. The volume was very low and no sound reached George.
‘Now, friend. Knock!’
In the distance George heard a vixen howl for her mate, a high, short scream that split the night and made him jump. At any other time he would have heard it as a sound of loneliness. Tonight it was the sound of freedom.
He shivered in the damp air and rapped on the pane.
*
No one saw the dusty Volvo station wagon, its lights doused, that had drawn up at the foot of the lane. Nor the two women who stepped out of it. One of them crouched on the car’s bonnet, raising herself above hedge level, and trained a pair of night-vision binoculars on the cottage. She was as soberly dressed as the bald man and his companion. She was fine featured and pretty, and her jet-black hair had been cropped so that it was virtually a crew cut. Her movements suggested an athlete’s physical strength and control.
When the door of Brook Cottage opened and the man inside was overpowered, she whispered something to her companion and passed her the binoculars. Crouching low, she hurried along the lane, drawing a camera from inside her corduroy blouson. In the pale moonlight the Sherpa and Jaguar were clearly visible, though not their registrations. But the woman with the crew cut knew that the infrared film would see and record all.
By the time the screaming started she had returned to the Volvo. She and her companion sat listening, their faces void of all expression. When the screaming finally stopped, the Volvo drew quietly away.
18
Moscow
No snow had fallen all day; the blizzards that had lashed the city for a fortnight had eased off at last. The contrast made the weather feel almost mild, although temperatures were still well below zero.
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