From Russia Without Love

10

Still unable to shake his unease, Chris discreetly inspected his surroundings. Because their actual destination was southwest, he had the driver take them in the opposite direction, northeast to Nags Head Towne Centre. Chris paid the driver, and then he and his teammates hopped out and melted into the crowd, exited the other side of the shopping center, found another taxi, and told him the route they wanted to take to their hotel. An added benefit of using a second taxi was that the first driver didn’t know their final destination, and the second driver wouldn’t know where they started.

The driver took them past the London Zoo, Regent’s Park, and the Sherlock Holmes Museum before riding along Park Lane, where they entered through black wrought iron gates and stopped in front of the Grosvenor House, which stood seven stories tall, one of the sky-kissing hotels in London.

They went through the revolving doors and entered the lobby. “See anyone?” Chris asked.

Hannah shook her head. “We’re still clean.”

“Saw some dudes in need of serious dental work,” Sonny said.

They checked in at the front desk and went up to their rooms — Chris and Sonny in one and Hannah next door, both their windows overlooking Hyde Park. Chris drew his pistol and press-checked it, finding a cartridge ready in the chamber. He looked in the closet and behind the shower curtain, but no one was there waiting for him. The room was clear.

He ejected the magazine from his pistol and pressed on the top round. It hardly moved, indicating that the cartridges were packed in tight and the magazine was full. After reinserting the magazine into his pistol, he examined the extra magazines on his belt, and they were maxed out, too. Unable to figure out the source of his paranoia, he dismissed it.

An hour later, they entered the US embassy. Sonny stayed in the reception area while Chris and Hannah entered the Agency chief of station’s office. It was a spacious room for a London office, and the station chief sat in a high-backed leather chair behind a grand wooden desk.

“Leave the talking to me,” Hannah whispered to Chris. “I just need you with me for moral support.”

“Do you know the chief?” Chris asked.

“Afraid so,” she said with a slight tremble in her voice.

The station chief looked up from his desk. “What do you want?” he snapped.

Chris and Hannah approached his desk. “We tracked a Russian spy,” Hannah said, “Xander Metaxas, code-named Lullaby, here to London, and we could use some support in finding him, sir. Help from both the Agency and the local British authorities.”

He didn’t offer them a seat. “If you tracked a Russian spy here, then you should already know where he is. You do not need my help finding him.”

“We lost him as we were entering the country. We think he might be targeting the headquarters of United Kingdom Petroleum,” she said.

“You have a lot of nerve setting foot back here in London. After all that happened last time.” He lowered his head and examined the paperwork on his desk.

Hannah stared at him.

The chief raised his head from his paperwork. “Why are you still here?”

“We’ve spent days working this case, and I’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to discuss supporting us,” Hannah blurted in frustration.

“Yes. I have taken a moment to discuss this with you.” He lowered his gaze back to his paperwork.

Chris didn’t like the way he was treating Hannah, but he held his tongue to give her space to do her job. If suffering this bureaucratic fool led to support for the mission, Chris was willing to forego expressing his displeasure.

“We have to get Lullaby,” she said.

The chief looked up from his desk again, and his brow furrowed. “The last time you were in London, were you not told to cease and desist? More than once?”

“Yes, sir. But I’m here because this man killed the son-in-law of the White House Chief of Staff. I’m here to stop him before he does more damage.”

“How do you know the man who killed the White House Chief of Staff’s son-in-law is Lullaby?”

“We have a voice-recognition match between the killer and Lullaby,” Hannah said.

“And what is the reliability of your voice recognition match?” he asked.

“About seventy-five percent. You and I both know nothing is ever one hundred percent.”

“Last time you were here, you pissed off Scotland Yard, MI6, and a whole host of other alphabet soup agencies. Now you are persona non grata. I do not need drama around here. Not your kind of drama. You can make out a report for the police.”

Hannah’s jaw dropped slightly, but then it tightened. “Are you serious?”

“The receptionist can give you directions to the police station.” His eyes returned to the papers on his desk.

“Your job is to gather intelligence,” Hannah said.

The chief’s eyes rose before his head did, and his tone became heavier. “Be careful, Officer Andrade. Do not say something you will regret.”

Chris had had enough of this guy and his attitude. “How can you gather intelligence while you’re sitting on your ass?”

The chief turned his gaze to Chris and picked up a stack of papers on his desk. “This is intelligence, officially provided to me by my MI6 liaison at Vauxhall Cross, and I will not have either of you disrupt the relationships I have cultivated here.”

“These relationships were cultivated years before you took your post,” Hannah said, raising her voice. “That intelligence in your hand is carefully filtered horse piss.”

“We have an official agreement in place not to conduct espionage in the UK, and the UK does not conduct espionage in the US,” the chief said.

“When it’s convenient for the British,” she said. “We may have similar interests, but we are not identical. They spy on our country just like we spy on theirs.”

“Are you going to leave here on your own, or do I need to call the RSO to escort you out?” the chief asked.

“You’re nearing retirement, right?” Hannah asked, narrowing her eyes. “I know you spent most of your time in Langley, but you get paid more for working overseas, and your retirement pay is based off your last three years of service. So you thought you’d come over here to London to coast through those last three years.”

“So?” the chief asked.

Chris took a step forward. “I think what she’s trying to say is that for most of your career you’ve been hiding in Langley where it’s safe, riding on the coattails of officers like Hannah, who have been out in the field risking their lives doing the real work. Now that you’re nearing the end of your career, you come out to one of the safer stations like London to boost your final retirement pay. The shitty irony of it all is that when a real officer like Hannah asks a desk jockey like you to do your job for once in your lifetime, you can’t be bothered to help her!”

The chief sat open-mouthed for a moment before he closed his lips. “Are either of you carrying weapons? Because you’re not authorized to be carrying weapons here. And Andrade, I have already told you that your London privileges expired. A long time ago. You have twenty-four hours to leave London.”

Hannah pulled out a piece of paper and thrust it in front of the chief. “This is a Flash Precedence message from Langley, directing my team to kill or capture Xander Metaxas. Either you are in support of this mission or you are against it.”

The chief’s expression went blank, as if he’d been on the receiving end of a stun grenade. He held out his hand. “Let me look at that.”

Hannah gave him the paper, and the chief carefully read it. “This better not be a forgery.”

“It isn’t a forgery,” Hannah snapped.

The chief stared at the paper before he let out a long sigh. “The British authorities are not going to allow you to operate here, not even in an advisory capacity. The best I can do is to report to MI6 that I have received reliable information that this Xander Metaxas, code-named Lullaby, is preparing an attack on UKP. I will look the other way while you conduct your operation here in London, but I cannot provide you support. If you are caught, I will deny any knowledge of this conversation and I will tell the British authorities you are a rogue officer.”

“You do that,” Hannah said. She turned to Chris. “Come on. This is going nowhere. He’s more useless than the chair he clings to.” She marched out of the chief’s office with Chris at her side.