Games Traitors Play

66

Even Marcus Fielding, working late, was surprised by the swiftness of Moscow Centre’s response. GCHQ’s sub-station at Bude in Cornwall had intercepted a call from Primakov to Vasilli Grushko, the London Rezident, within half an hour of Lakshmi Meena’s departure from a remote airfield outside Madurai. Fielding played the recording again. Primakov spoke first, then Grushko.

‘He has been humiliated, which is always a good moment to strike.’

‘And by his own side. Fielding is more heartless than I gave him credit for.’

‘I can only assume that he wanted to win favour with Langley. By giving them Salim Dhar’s mother, MI6 has gone some way to restoring a relationship they cannot live without for ever.’

‘Where is Marchant now?’

‘I dropped him off at a village. There was a wedding. He wanted some time on his own.’

‘And has he agreed to help us?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then there is no time to waste. He must meet Dhar.’

Fielding sat back, poured himself a glass of Lebanese wine and turned on a Bach cantata. It was a rare moment of triumph. Oleg, asleep in the corner, looked up briefly, sensing the change in mood. There was no longer any talk of dangles, no equivocation in Grushko’s voice. Fielding’s only headache was Marchant. It hadn’t been an easy decision to call on Spiro’s services, let alone Lakshmi Meena’s, but it was the only way to provoke Marchant. He wouldn’t want to talk to his Chief, not for a while, which was why he had sent Prentice to pick him up from the airport, take him out for a meal in town, suck some venom from his wounded pride.

Fielding had told Prentice only the bare essentials of the operation to lift Dhar’s mother. He wouldn’t have expected to be given any detail. Need-to-know was a way of life for both of them. Prentice was unaware of Marchant’s ongoing attempt to be recruited by Primakov, given that it was linked to the Russian’s highly classified past. All he knew was that there had been a change of plan in Madurai, and that Marchant would be upset.

‘We had to screw him,’ Fielding had explained. ‘You know how it is.’

Marchant would be astute enough to work out what had happened, why Fielding had been forced to intervene, pull the strings, but he would still be angry. He could let off steam with Prentice, have a moan about means and ends and Machiavellian bosses.

After he had calmed down, Fielding would have one last talk with him. Then he would be on his own, free to go off the rails, not turn up for work, drink too much. Marchant had form when it came to falling apart. In the months before he had left for Marrakech he had been a mess. And the Russians would lap it up, reassured that he was ready to be turned. Only then would it be time for him to meet Dhar. He owed it to Marchant to prepare him properly, let him genuinely feel what it was like to hate the West. Dhar would detect a false note at a thousand yards.

It was as he poured himself a second glass of wine that another encrypted audio file from GCHQ dropped into his inbox.