The Geneva Trap

Chapter 55

It was 6.30 in the evening in London, an hour earlier than Marseilles, and Andy Bokus’s expression said I told you so. Geoffrey Fane suppressed a sigh. It was difficult enough trying to make sense of this business – Liz Carlyle was missing, ten Koreans were dead in an office in Marseilles – without having to deal with his American colleague’s ego. He said curtly, ‘I don’t know why you’re looking so pleased with yourself, Andy. We’ve got a crisis on our hands.’

‘I appreciate that, Geoffrey. It’s just that I was thinking, this is a scenario you and I have seen before. The bloody Russians are at it again. One of our drones went out of control and blew itself up. Fortunately no one got hurt – believe me, we’d be retaliating if they had.’

‘Steady on—’ Fane began.

Bokus was having none of it. ‘I know you’re all excited about this supposed North Korean connection, but I think this guy Park Woo-jin has been working for our friends in Moscow, not Pyongyang. I know Carlyle thinks she got the truth out of him, but it may be that he himself didn’t even know who he was working for.’

‘Well, unfortunately she’s not here to tell us her reasoning. For all I know she’s—’ And Fane stopped, suddenly aghast at how close he’d come to saying what he feared most. People died, agents got killed; he was used to mortality. But the thought that Liz Carlyle had been abducted and might have been murdered suddenly seemed too much to bear. What’s wrong with me? he thought, trying to pull himself together, which only made it worse. He had an aching sense of unfinished business; he’d never told Liz how much he admired her, and that somehow made the possibility of her death even worse.

Bokus for once was sympathetic. ‘I know this is a tough one, Geoffrey,’ he said. ‘I just thought it best to focus on the larger picture.’

‘Of course,’ said Fane, regaining control of his emotions. He couldn’t bear the thought of Andy Bokus – clever in his way and a representative of Britain’s closest ally, but still essentially an oaf – pitying him. ‘Anyway, I agree with you that we need to lay our cards on the table and see what they have to say.’

Bokus looked surprised. ‘Who? You mean the Russians?’

‘I do. If you’re right, and they’re behind all this, then I want to make it clear that they’ve greatly overstepped the line. And that if they’ve touched a single hair on Liz Carlyle’s head, they’ll never hear the end of it. I’ll make it my personal mission to hound them all over the world. But I need you shoulder to shoulder with me on this one.’ Fane gave what he considered to be his most persuasive smile, gritted his teeth and said, ‘After all, you carry a lot more weight with them than we do.’

Summoned urgently, Viktor Kirov left the annual dinner of the British Manufacturing Association readily enough. It was nine o’clock when Bokus and Fane entered the Russian Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. They were escorted to a downstairs conference room by two smartly suited young men with holsters visible beneath their jackets. There they found Kirov, formal in dinner jacket and black tie, sitting at a table, sipping a cup of black coffee and smoking a small cheroot. He stood up when they came in, shaking hands before motioning them to seats across the table from him.

They had all met before, but not frequently. Since the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in a London hotel a few years previously, relations between their Services had cooled. Fane knew a lot about Kirov, who had been in London for three years as Head of Station. He was a long-term KGB man, nearing retirement (this would be his last posting), who had been posted in East Berlin during the height of the Cold War, and then in Poland where he had helped hound Lech Wałęsa and his followers. But he was a subtle clever man, not a thug, and had successfully made the transition in the post-1991 years to the leaner, still powerful SVR. A family man, whose grown-up children frequently visited London to see him and his wife Anya – an ex-dancer with the Bolshoi, if the Vauxhall Cross file were to be believed. Like Vladimir Putin, whom he was thought to resemble, Kirov was a diminutive man with receding hair, but like the Russian leader, he was known for his vigour.

All of this would be familiar to Bokus as well, and equally Kirov would know a lot about both of them. Which gave this meeting its oddly surreal element.

Kirov offered them coffee, which they declined. He sipped his slowly, then, addressing Fane, said with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Naturally it comes as a great disappointment to leave a dinner at the Guildhall and forgo the company of your eminent manufacturers. So I assume this must be urgent.’ He took a long drag on his cheroot and said, ‘How can I be of service?’

They had agreed that Fane should kick off. He steepled both hands, like a contemplative don, but when he spoke it was at a rapid pace. ‘We recently discovered that a foreign agent had been placed in our Ministry of Defence. His goal was to disrupt a defence project we are working on with Andy’s people. It was a cyber-attack.

‘At first we did not know who was behind this infiltration. Everything suggested the Chinese, who as we all know are busy waging cyber-warfare against all three of our countries, and many others as well. But by investigation we managed to catch this intruder, and it turned out that he was, of all things, North Korean.’

Kirov’s brows lifted momentarily in surprise. The North Koreans were nobody’s friends – not even the Chinese whose proximity meant they inevitably had some contact with their neighbour. But the North Korean Intelligence Services had always seemed more intent on defence than attack, and they rarely ventured into the West.

Fane went on, ‘We learned a few other things during our investigation. One was that information from our project was being sent to an office in Marseilles. We believe they used this information to sabotage some trials we were running on…’ he hesitated, again not wanting to say too much ‘… some innovations in aeronautics. We discovered this office was leased and manned by Koreans who were thought to be South Koreans – or that’s what they said they were. That was puzzling enough, but we’ve just learned they were in fact North Koreans.’

‘Interesting,’ said Kirov, with a note of professional appreciation. ‘No one would think of Marseilles as a likely place to find North Korean agents.’

‘Agreed. But we know that these activities are known to your own Service.’

‘Surely not,’ said Kirov, looking alert for the first time.

‘Not only are they known to your Service, but we believe your Service is actively involved with these North Koreans. Possibly even running the operation.’

‘That is a highly unfriendly accusation. I don’t believe you can substantiate it.’

‘One of your senior officers was seen entering the office in Marseilles from which the operation is being run.’

‘That sounds most unlikely. It must have been a mistaken identification.’

‘Not at all. He was followed from Geneva to Marseilles. There isn’t any question of a mistake.’

The Russian’s eyebrows went up a second time. ‘Geneva?’

‘He is your Head of Security there.’

There was a pause. Then Kirov said, ‘I take it you learned this from Herr Bech. The Swiss Service is not one I greatly admire.’

Bokus spoke for the first time. ‘Anatole Kubiak.’

There was a long silence in the room. Finally, Kirov stubbed out his cheroot and said, ‘Let’s accept for the moment that you’re right – a Russian intelligence officer has been seen entering an office you believe is occupied by North Korean intelligence agents. So?’

Fane said, ‘It would link you to efforts to undermine the US–UK project. As I said, it has already suffered one, possibly two, acts of sabotage. If your country were involved with that in any way, we would take it as a highly provocative act.’

Bokus interjected, ‘We sure would. My own government would see it as an act of outright aggression. We are provisionally considering reprisals already.’

Kirov’s face was expressionless as he composed his response. Finally, he held up both palms. ‘Gentlemen, my wife would tell you it rarely happens, but I am at a loss for words. I have never heard of a North Korean infiltrator in the British Ministry of Defence. Frankly, it sounds preposterous to me. I am happy to relay your concern to Moscow, and tell you their reply in due course. But otherwise, I don’t see what I can do, since I don’t have any knowledge of what you are talking about.’

‘That’s not good enough,’ said Bokus. ‘I notice you didn’t say you knew nothing about the project.’

Kirov shrugged. ‘One hears a lot of things in our job,’ he said blandly.

Fane spoke urgently. ‘Events have rather overtaken us. This morning a senior British intelligence officer went to Marseilles to liaise with the French about this Korean operation. They met this morning and were scheduled to meet again at lunchtime. My colleague did not reappear – she’s still missing. Something has clearly happened to her.’

‘Could the Koreans have spotted her?’

Fane shook his head. ‘They had no way of knowing who she was. But there’s more: the French raided this office in Marseilles several hours ago; inside they found the Koreans who’d been working there, as well as the North Korean intelligence officer who had been liaising with their covert agent in Britain. All of them were dead.’

‘Murdered?’ ?When Bokus nodded, Kirov asked, ‘By whom?’

Bokus said, ‘We think it was your Head of Security in Geneva.’ When Kirov looked astonished at this, Bokus raised his voice: ‘He was seen entering the building at the time of the murder and leaving afterwards.’

Fane wished Bokus would calm down. Even though he shared his anger, you got nowhere shouting at the Russians.

Kirov sat quietly, then shook his head finally, as if to rid himself of a bad dream. ‘None of this makes any sense to me.’

‘Sure,’ said Bokus sarcastically.

Kirov ignored him and looked at Fane. There was concern in his eyes for the first time. ‘I will make enquiries as a matter of urgency.’

‘Please do,’ said Fane, trying not to show his own feelings. The Russians were quick to exploit any sign of weakness. He went on firmly, ‘If the same person who killed the Koreans is holding our officer, then she’s obviously in danger. I want assurances that if indeed an officer of your Service is holding her, then you will ensure that she is not harmed. You can tell your Head Office that if anything does happen to her there will be the most serious repercussions.’

Kirov momentarily bristled, but there was nothing menacing about Fane’s threat – it was stated calmly, as fact, and Bokus for once had the good sense not to butt in – so the Russian finally nodded, asking, ‘Is it absolutely certain that it was Kubiak who was seen in Marseilles?’

‘Without a doubt. The identification was made by the French and the Swiss. ‘

Kirov shook his head in bafflement. Then he stood up; the meeting was over. Though Fane and Bokus were both six inches taller than the Russian, he had an air of authority which at that moment made him seem the largest person in the room. ‘I’ll say goodnight now – my aides will show you out. I will be talking with Moscow before you reach the street.’

When they left the Embassy, it was dark outside. Walking towards the guard post at the High Street Kensington end, Bokus turned to Fane. ‘So what do you think?’

Fane shrugged and Bokus said crossly, ‘My people are going to want to make direct representations to Moscow – we’ll be calling in the Ambassador again.’

‘Hold them off,’ said Fane sharply. Escalation at this point wasn’t going to help get Liz back; in fact, it might make it even harder.

‘Why?’ Bokus demanded. ‘I don’t trust this guy Kirov an inch; don’t tell me you do.’

‘Trust isn’t the issue now. It’s credibility I’m concerned about.’

‘You mean you believed him – you think he wouldn’t know if the SVR were running an agent in the MOD?’

‘Of course he would – if they had been doing that. The problem I have is that he may be telling the truth: he has almost certainly heard of Clarity, but I don’t think he’s heard any of this information about Kubiak before. That’s what’s worrying me. I’d be less anxious if I thought he had been lying to us about that. At least it would mean he knows where Kubiak is. But I don’t think he has any more of a clue than we do.’