Breaking Cover

33

Liz went back to the main church and stood by the rood screen, searching frantically for the man she’d glimpsed. There was no one in the nave’s pews remotely like the figure she’d seen in the doorway. Then in a side aisle she saw a man standing by one of the church’s massive columns, examining a stained-glass window. He wore an olive-coloured military-style sweater and dark canvas trousers.

Without glancing around him, the man lowered his head and started walking slowly towards the church’s entrance. It was as if he were in two minds about leaving. Liz strode rapidly down the centre aisle, fast enough to reach the door first. Then she turned down the side aisle and walked straight towards the man in the olive sweater. Looking straight at him, she caught his eye as she stopped several feet in front of him. ‘The chapel is free now,’ she said, then walked past him and down the far aisle of the nave.

Alone again in the private chapel, she sat down feeling confident that at least Curtis would not reappear – whatever the phone call had been about, it had got rid of him. She was less certain that Mischa would come to the chapel again, and groaned inwardly at the thought that she had come all this way only to miss her meet by sheer bad luck.

She sat alone for what seemed an eternity. She wondered if she should go looking for Mischa, though his failure to show up suggested that even were she to find him, it might merely spook him for good.

Then the door creaked slowly behind her. Someone took a step, then one more, then stood stock still. Liz waited tensely, not daring to look behind her.

‘They say the altar is very old.’ The words came out easily, only slightly accented.

Like a clergyman intoning a response, Liz said, ‘How old?’

There was a long pause. ‘Old enough.’ Then he walked forward and sat down in the pew directly behind her.

‘Hello, Mischa,’ said Liz.

‘Who was that man with you before?’ he demanded.

‘He’s the leader of the tour group I am with.’

‘Why was he here?’

‘It was just bad luck. He was looking round the church. He knows this chapel and recognised me and wanted to chat. He’s got nothing to do with this and he doesn’t know why I’m here.’

‘Who was the phone call from? What was it about?’

Good question, thought Liz. She had been wondering herself whether that phone call had been divine intervention or whether one of her minders was looking after her. But she said, ‘It was the hotel. Something has happened to one of our party and he had to go back to sort it out.’

‘What has happened?’

‘I don’t know but I’m sure it doesn’t affect us. It’s probably a small accident. The other members of my group are fairly old.’

She couldn’t see Mischa’s face as he was sitting behind her but she sensed he was reassured. Then he said, ‘I did not expect to be meeting a woman today.’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Of course it’s a problem. Especially when the woman is young and attractive. If a man had been here this tour leader would not have been following him.’

‘I don’t know about that. He might have found him attractive too.’

She heard a small sigh that suggested Mischa was amused.

Liz said, ‘Anyway, here I am, for better or worse. Shall we get down to business? You said you had some urgent information.’

‘I do. And it’s very valuable. What can I expect in return?’

Miles Brookhaven had warned her to expect this. She said firmly, ‘I am not going to pay you now. I’ve come to hear what you have to tell us. Your contract is with the Americans and if I tell them that your information is of value, they will pay you.’

‘You must think it will be of value. You’ve come a long way to hear it.’

‘Of course I am interested to hear anything you have to say about Russian activity in my country. But so far what we’ve learned is too vague to help us. I need something we can act on.’

She could sense that Mischa didn’t like her tone. But she needed to get the whole story, whatever he knew, not just a few snippets at a time, doled out, confident that in return he would receive a nice fat packet of dollars.

He said quietly, ‘You understand where my information comes from?’

Liz nodded.

‘Then you know it is not always consistent. My source,’ and he paused, unwilling still to say it was his brother in the FSB, ‘is not aware of our discussions.’

‘He doesn’t share your view of the regime?’

There was a pause. ‘No,’ said Mischa at last. ‘But then he did not see the bodies from the airliner shot down in Ukraine. I did.’

Liz could hear the emotion in his voice but sensed a conflict between his loathing of a regime that could kill so many harmless people and his unwillingness to criticise his own brother. She said nothing. Mischa went on, ‘My point is that what I learn from him is not always thorough or complete. He is not aware that I tell anyone else what he tells me, and it is not a report he is giving me. I am not in a position to ask him too many questions because that might seem suspicious. And there are no documents – that is simply not possible. You understand?’

She did. Mischa could raise topics, ask general questions, and at the end of a vodka-fuelled evening try to get his brother to boast and tell him what was really going on, unaware of course that Mischa would promptly take what he told him and sell it to Western intelligence. She said, ‘Yes. I do understand. And just as you must take on faith that you will be rewarded for your help, so we take on faith that what you tell us is exactly what you have learned from your source.’

‘Very well,’ he replied. ‘We have an understanding.’ And he started to talk, quickly but clearly, while Liz listened carefully.

When he returned to Russia from Ukraine, Mischa saw his brother at a family reunion, but there had been little chance to talk to him. It hadn’t seemed to matter, since there would be plenty of time for them to meet now that Mischa was back home. But then out of the blue Mischa was told he was being sent to Estonia. He wanted the chance for a good talk with his brother before he went so suggested they rent a small dacha for a few days and do some fishing.

On the first night they had a drinking session. ‘I did not try to match my brother,’ Mischa said, as if acknowledging a handicap. ‘He drinks more than me on any given day, and I needed to be able to report back with a clear memory of what he said.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Liz mildly, wishing there could be a little less partying and a little more hard information.

Mischa may have sensed her impatience. He explained that before his brother became too incapacitated, he’d asked him how things were going at work. Splendidly, his brother had replied, which could normally be discounted as his standard response (he never admitted to difficulties, either at work or at home), but then he’d added that he had recently scored something of a coup. Oh, said Mischa, what was that? And his brother said, you remember how I told you we had placed someone in the UK – an Illegal? Well, they have targeted someone who is now very important in their intelligence services.

Mischa pointed out that his brother had told him more or less the same thing the last time they had met. For a second he thought his brother would get cross, but instead he broke into a grin and said, Yes, but I didn’t tell you we had two Illegals there.

Surprised by this, Liz asked, ‘Two Illegals, are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. My brother repeated it because I must have looked surprised.’

‘Are the two Illegals aware of each other?’

‘Absolutely,’ Mischa said again. ‘They could not help but know of each other’s presence in your country. You see, they are partners.’

‘Do you mean, they’re married?’ Liz was astonished. ‘Or do you mean they’re working partners?’

‘It is hard to say. I think they have worked together somewhere else, perhaps as a married couple. But whether they are in fact married, I do not know. I doubt even my brother knows. Remember, they have no “real” identities any more.’

Yes, thought Liz, their lives are all bound up in the roles they are playing.

‘Okay,’ she said, her mind starting to race with possibilities. Somehow she felt confident it would be easier to find a couple than it would a lone wolf. Then again, two needles in a haystack weren’t that much easier to find than one. ‘Did he say anything else about this couple?’

‘Yes. He told me that their purpose originally was subversive – trying to weaken the country by encouraging disruptive activities. It was left to them initially to find the best way of doing that. At first they had focused their attention on the intelligence agencies and trying to weaken them by helping and encouraging their opponents.’

‘And?’ said Liz. This was more precise than anything he’d told them before. But she could hear a note of triumph in Mischa’s voice. ‘Something’s changed though, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes. My brother said the first Illegal was working on a woman, who had become tied in to the intelligence services in some way. I told him that was a stroke of luck, and he said that luck is what failures call the success of their betters. He was annoyed with me, and that was when he told me the second Illegal had also managed something extraordinary.’

‘Did he say what that was?’

Mischa nodded. ‘I must go soon. They will open this chapel shortly.’

‘Tell me first. What was extraordinary?’

Mischa hesitated, and Liz could sense him weighing the benefits of telling her against the rewards he might reap by leaving this disclosure for a later meet. She said, ‘There will be something for you if you tell me now. If you don’t, I cannot promise to meet you again. That is not meant as a threat, but as a fact.’

This seemed to tip the balance for Mischa. He stood up. ‘My brother said the operation has changed. It has been renamed. It is now called Pincer.’

‘As in a trap?’

‘Something of the sort. He said the other Illegal is targeting a man, and that through him a second of your secret services might be infiltrated.’

Liz saw that he was preparing to leave and said quickly, ‘So they’re mounting a dual attack?’

‘Not yet, I think,’ he said. ‘But I do know for sure that they are getting close to it.’

Liz was stunned by this revelation that not one, but two of the UK’s intelligence services were under attack. Operation Pincer seemed the right name for such an ambitious plot. But before she could ask anything else, Mischa was gone.