Illegal Action

11

Wally Woods of A4 had been proud of his discovery of Rykov, apparently having a covert meeting on Hampstead Heath, but the wind was quite taken out of his sails when Liz told him that the Germans thought Rykov’s tradecraft was pathetic. Now, this Wednesday morning, out with his surveillance team following Rykov, Wally found himself having to agree with the Germans.

Liz had decided that to try to identify Rykov’s contact A4 should follow him exactly two weeks after the meeting that Wally had observed. If Rykov was as incompetent as the Germans judged, he would stick to a predictable meeting pattern and two weeks was a typical interval. On the first occasion nothing had happened. So, a week later, when she found that a couple of A4 teams were unexpectedly available, she decided to have another go. Now one team was staking out the bench on Hampstead Heath, while Wally and his team followed Rykov, code name Chelsea 1, through his morning agenda.

Peggy Kinsolving had been doing some research into Rykov’s activities and had discovered that whatever actual intelligence work he was doing seemed to come second to a voracious appetite for food and drink. All his meetings, and there were many, were in ritzy bars and expensive restaurants. He made no effort to conceal any of this and there was no sign that he either knew or cared that MI5 might be aware of his activities.

So, thought Liz, as she looked in on the A4 Operations Room in the early afternoon, what did that say about the man on the bench? Why had their meeting been so different from the usual pattern? She hoped to find out today.

Reggie Purvis, in charge in the Ops Room, brought Liz up to date. After a long lunch at Kensington Place with a journalist from the International Herald Tribune, Rykov was walking slowly up Kensington Church Street, stopping to examine the windows of the antiques shops, with Wally and two A4 colleagues on either side of the road behind and in front of him. Others in cars were nearby. Suddenly, with a crackle of static, Liz heard Wally announce, “Chelsea 1 has hailed a cab. Heading north.” Liz sat down on the worn leather sofa that was provided for visiting case officers to the Operations Room.

On Notting Hill Gate, Maureen Hayes, parked at a meter outside an estate agent’s, put down the Evening Standard and turned the ignition of her grey ten-year-old BMW 318i estate. “Ready and waiting,” she said.

As the taxi emerged from the top of Kensington Church Street and turned right, Maureen gave it five seconds, then sidled out into the traffic and took up a position two cars behind. Various other anonymous vehicles pulled out from their parking places and slotted into the traffic. Rykov, sitting in the back of the taxi, was reading a newspaper, giving no sign at all that he was alert to possible surveillance.

He must just be going home to the Trade Delegation in Highgate, mused Liz to herself, as the taxi proceeded up Albany Street, through Camden Town and Kentish Town to the bottom of Highgate West Hill.

“Bravo team alert,” called Reggie Purvis over the microphone, “Chelsea 1 is coming your way.”

Nothing obvious changed on Hampstead Heath, but a scruffy young man sitting beside the boating pond shifted position imperceptibly and higher up the hill, from a small plantation of trees, a couple strolled out towards the open ground.

At the foot of Highgate West Hill, where the buses turn round, Rykov’s taxi stopped and he emerged and walked slowly on to the heath and up the hill towards the bench, under close scrutiny from the A4 team. At almost the same time, a tall, powerfully built young man in a windcheater emerged from the trees and started walking down the hill.

“Chelsea 2 is here and about to make contact,” came over the loudspeaker in the Ops Room.

“Tell them to stick with him and leave Rykov alone,” said Liz to Reggie Purvis.

The instruction was radioed out. “Roger that,” came back from the heath.

For fifteen minutes there was silence in the Ops Room, then the radio crackled. “Targets are moving. We’re taking on Chelsea 2.”

And for the next ten minutes radio messages went back and forth as the unknown man repeated his movements of two weeks before, leaving the heath on the south side. Again he waited at the bus stop, until a C2 bus appeared. As he got on and walked towards the stairs leading to the upper deck, he passed A4’s Dennis Rudge, already on the bus, sitting downstairs by the window at the front. The bus itself was followed patiently by Maureen and her A4 colleagues in their nondescript cars, as it worked its way south, down into London’s West End.

When Chelsea 2 got off the bus outside Liberty on Regent Street, along with half a dozen other passengers, Dennis Rudge stayed on board, watching as the young man crossed Regent Street and cut down a side street, followed by three A4 colleagues who had emerged from nearby cars. By the time the procession entered Berkeley Square, Maureen in the BMW was parked at yet another meter, and she had a clear view as their target walked to the southern end of the square, entered a large office block and disappeared.

“Can they find out which floor he goes to?” asked Liz, by now warming to the chase.

Purvis relayed the request. “I’ll have a go,” said Maureen.

Liz and Reggie waited tensely, sitting silently, for almost five minutes until Maureen’s voice came through the speaker on the table.

“Fifth or sixth,” she declared. “Multiple occupants and a security guard on the desk.”

“Okay. Leave it now,” said Liz. “We’ll sort it from there. Please say thanks to everyone.”

“Stand down all teams. Well done,” said Purvis.

“Roger. Out,” came back from the heath and Berkeley Square.