Perry chuckled. ‘Oops. Got yourself in a tangle there, haven’t you?’ He raised his voice. ‘Come out, Ferris, or your friends are all dead. I’m not kidding!’
But the wind was the only response, raising a rattle from some cladding over their heads and a flurry of snow falling from the roof.
‘I mean it! Five seconds and I start shooting!’
Nothing.
‘Five.’
Harry wondered where Rik was.
‘Four.’
If he had any sense he’d be somewhere safe because the moment he showed up Perry would make sure he was the first to be killed.
‘Three.’
Perry’s gun swung round to point at Harry.
‘Two.’
‘Rik.’ Clare shouted, and moved her arm.
There was a crackle of electricity and Garth Perry went rigid as Clare jammed her hand into his groin. She was holding a taser.
Perry lost his hold on his gun and followed it to the ground, unable to stop himself falling.
At the same time, Rik Ferris stepped out from the side of the building and shot Kraush in the throat, dropping him to the snow-covered yard.
Stepping up alongside Harry, Irina snarled and lifted her gun. Unable to get a line on Rik she aimed instead at Clare, an easy target.
Then Katya moved. Pulling her hand from Harry’s coat pocket, she lifted out the gun he’d taken from the sports bag she’d brought with her, and in a fluid movement pressed the barrel into Irina’s side and squeezed the trigger.
‘Damn,’ said Rik Ferris, looking down at Perry, who was still trembling with shock. ‘I wanted to do that.’
Clare smiled and handed him the taser. ‘If he tries to get up be my guest.’ Then she hurried over to Katya and wrapped her in her arms.
Forty minutes later they had finished clearing the building. Rik had made sure the computers and servers were connected before feeding out loaded emails to every address he could find on the laptops left by the hackers. When that was done he disconnected everything, then left the building, returning two minutes later with the backpack containing the transmitter and bracelet and a fuel can from the generator next door.
‘What are you doing?’ Harry asked.
‘We can’t leave the bracelet here,’ Rik replied. ‘The locals are like jackdaws. The moment we leave they’ll be in here seeing what they can get.’ He took the cap off the fuel can and began splashing the contents over the servers and laptops, then placed the bracelet in the middle. ‘I’ve set it so I can just press a button once we’re clear. The signal will do the rest.’
Harry’s phone had rung several times but he’d ignored it. Cramer, probably, chasing news. There would be time enough to answer it when he was certain they were all going to get out of here in one piece without being arrested or shot. He hadn’t figured that bit out yet.
It was Katya who came up with a solution to explaining away the scenario. She had made calls to check local police and anti-terrorist activity, and found that snow on the approach roads to the industrial zone had caused multiple pile-ups, meaning there would be no sudden arrival of more guns to add to the chaos of the night.
‘I’ll stay here and wait for the police,’ she said. ‘I can say my car broke down near the road and I heard gunfire, so I came to investigate and found that a fight had gone on between opposing gangs.’
‘Gangs?’ Rik asked.
‘Well, I can’t say they are GRU or contractors for the British Intelligence agencies. How would I know that? I checked the bodies and they are all carrying false documentation. I will say I heard Russian so I assumed they were Mafyia. It would be reasonable to suspect them, since they are everywhere.’
‘What about Perry?’ He wasn’t sure how his presence here would pan out, and he was likely to talk if faced with a lengthy prison sentence.
‘He’s dead,’ said Katya. ‘His heart, I think.’
Harry felt a rush of relief. ‘And the guard Irina brought in?’
‘I let him go. He won’t want to stay here anyway. There are too many questions he cannot answer. I’ll say others escaped in the confusion, too.’
‘Will they believe you?’
She nodded. ‘Sure. The government here won’t want the truth to come out – that their territory was being used for a hacking drive against a foreign sovereign state. You’ll see, in forty-eight hours it will be as if nothing happened here.’
They left the building and made their way to their vehicles. Just before leaving, Rik flicked open the control panel on the transmitter and pressed a button. For a moment there was utter silence, then the crump of a small explosion followed by a flicker of bright light coming through the trees as the diesel fumes in the hackers’ room ignited.
‘Kismet,’ said Rik with a smile.
Harry flopped onto his hotel bed near the airport and stared at the ceiling. He was bone tired and had a phone call to make which he wasn’t relishing. There would be questions and objections, most of which would be unanswerable, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was to make sure Rik wasn’t going to end up in the pokey.
Earlier he’d said a grateful goodbye to Katya and Clare, promising never to call them again, and hoping they would be safe. Katya had been confident that they would be. But in an aside to Harry she’d assured him that if they needed to move on at short notice, they would.
‘You’d do that?’
‘Coming here after Moscow,’ she said, ‘means I already have. Another country, another job … we’ll be fine, Clare and me. We’re a team.’ She smiled. ‘I hear New Zealand is nice most times of the year.’
When Harry dialled Cramer he answered as if his feet were on fire. ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’
‘Sorry,’ Harry replied. ‘Got a little bogged down here. There was a sharp exchange of views and the man from Despicable Me.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s a film. His name is Gru. GRU – geddit? You should take some time out and see it – you’d like it.’
There was a strangled sound from Cramer. ‘What happened, dammit?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it right now. Walls have ears and all that.’
‘But everything went well?’ Cramer, desperately trying for calmer while equally desperate to know what had gone down.
‘I’ll ring you when I get back to London.’
‘Christ, Harry, give me something. I’m being leaned on here.’
‘Tell ’em there’ll be no come-backs. Everything’s been taken care of.’
‘Really? What about Perry?’
‘His heart wasn’t in it.’ He cut the call with Cramer’s voice echoing in his ear. He really was very tired.
FORTY-NINE
Two days later.
This time Cramer had left his minder behind. He looked as if he was desperate to break into a sprint as he crossed the floor of the restaurant but was holding himself in. He sat down after scoping the room and stared at Harry in expectation.
‘The coffee and chocolate cake here are excellent,’ Harry said lightly, deliberately drawing out the news. ‘I’ve already ordered for you.’ He gave a nod to the waitress, who smiled and disappeared into the kitchen.
Cramer ground a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Enough with the games, Harry. Give. What the fuck happened over there? It’s like there’s a total news blackout. We haven’t heard a whisper and our sources in Belarus are wondering what we’re talking about. Aside from a gun battle at a hospital they—’ He stopped, eyes wide. ‘Bugger. Was that you? The embassy said it was gang-related.’
‘So it was. Just not the usual gangs. What did you expect – a media briefing on Sky News?’
‘All right … fine.’ He raised both hands. ‘So tell. I promise, no recording. But it would help if you could come in for a debrief.’
Harry shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen. Your man Perry was going to knock Rik off – and me if I’d got in the way – so I
don’t owe your bosses anything, least of all a little get-together over tea and biscuits.’ He tapped the table. ‘This is as much of a debrief as you get.’
Cramer relented but added forcefully, ‘Perry wasn’t my man.’
‘I believe you. He had a bunch of friends with him, by the way. Local recruits.’
‘What happened?’
‘We dealt with them, too.’
Cramer listened while Harry gave him a summary of what had gone on in the hospital and the industrial zone, and who were the key players. It would be enough for Cramer to make a connection with the events in London and Nathalie’s murder, so that the pen-pushers and file holders wouldn’t be able to find holes in the story. He made no mention of Clare or Katya, but admitted only to some local help. One mention of Clare and someone higher up the totem pole of MI6 might be tempted to send a team over to hunt her down.
‘What about Ferris?’
‘He’s fine, thanks for asking. He didn’t spill any beans because he couldn’t remember any worth spilling.’
‘I meant is he all right?’ Cramer sounded faintly embarrassed. ‘But, since you mention it, no loss of … information?’
‘I know what you meant. He’s all good, as da kids say. And the information is in safe hands. So don’t go looking.’
The waitress appeared with a loaded tray, interrupting Cramer’s next question, and departed with a flutter of her eyebrows at Harry.
‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that,’ Cramer said. ‘What do you mean, safe hands?’
Harry kept his voice casual while helping himself to cake. ‘Cicada. Before Kraush and his friends departed, they confirmed the name.’ They hadn’t, on grounds of being dead, but Cramer and his bosses would never know that. As bluffs went, Harry was taking a huge risk, but the bigger the lie the more likely it was to be believed.
‘Jesus.’ Cramer sounded impressed. ‘You know who it is, then?’
‘Yep.’ The cake really was excellent and Harry had some more, nodding at Cramer to eat. ‘But don’t worry – he’s your problem to deal with. My lips are sealed.’
‘That sounds … ominous.’
Harry didn’t answer, and Cramer sat back, a crumb of cake on his lip. ‘Don’t tell me: you’ve left full details with a third party in case anything should happen.’ He looked as if he was trying not to smile. ‘Bit of a cliché, isn’t it?’
‘Second, third and fourth, actually.’ Harry drank some coffee, wishing it was Jean sitting across from him. Maybe tomorrow. His treat. He couldn’t wait.
Cramer shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Makes me wish I’d been there.’
‘You’d have liked it. Will the problem be dealt with?’ He stared hard at him.
‘Already done. Heads have rolled. Talking of which, will there be any local fall-out from Minsk?’
‘No. It’s being handled.’
‘How? Who by?’
‘By whom. None of your business. Interested parties. And it’s a group of hackers out of action.’ He didn’t want to go into how Katya was going to work things out, but she had suggested her Belarus contacts would be grateful to find a way to use the situation for their own ends while keeping it firmly under wraps.
‘Good. Anything else? Only I can’t believe this is all we’re here for. You want reimbursing with expenses, maybe even a fee, that’s fine. Agreed.’
Harry smiled. ‘Oh, I definitely want that … and more.’
‘Dear God, I knew it. I’m listening.’
‘I want written guarantees, signed by the Attorney General or the PM or whoever handles these things, that Rik’s in the clear.’
‘Wait, I—’
‘No argument. Clear and free.’
‘Of course, but—’
‘And no dropping him into some black hole the moment he comes back.’
‘We don’t do that kind of thing.’ Cramer’s reply was automatic. Then he remembered who he was talking to. ‘Sorry … I’m talking bollocks. He’ll have to go through a debriefing, of course. Where are you hiding him, by the way?’
‘I put him on a flight from Minsk to foreign parts, just in case your bosses came up with the kind of duplicitous response for which they’re renowned. He won’t come back until he has those guarantees. Oh, and remind the gatekeepers that he did save the country from an all-out cyber attack.’ He forked up more cake.
‘I’d give you the guarantees here and now,’ Cramer replied. ‘But they’re not mine to give. But I know somebody who’ll get it moving. He’s retiring soon and knows where all the skeletons are, so he won’t give a rat’s arse about upsetting anyone.’ He put his fork down and stood up. ‘Will that do for now?’
‘I’ll take it,’ Harry said. Sometimes you had to negotiate in good faith. And he had a good feeling about Cramer.
Cramer nodded and held out a hand. ‘Good work, Harry. And please thank your … friends, for their help.’ He smiled knowingly, then turned and walked away.
Harry watched him disappear through the door, and wondered how much he could be trusted. Had he spoken to Sally Mitchell and got a description of Clare and Katya? If so, it wouldn’t take much to put together a team and go looking in Minsk. It would take one name off the bulletin board and earn someone some brownie points.
He put it out of his mind. Cramer was solid, he was certain. Not like some of the schemers and movers who’d turn someone in for a step up the ladder. He was more concerned that the person who had started all this would be signed off and would quietly disappear into the background, no doubt using friends of friends to diminish the risk of a public scandal.
He scraped up a last smear of chocolate cream, images in his mind of grey faces in grey suits in the grey buildings along the Thames, doing their best to be seen to be doing something while ushering some innocent sucker to the stocks and claiming they’d made the world a safer place.
They didn’t deserve chocolate cake.
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