Illegal Action

28

A4 was very stretched. An urgent counter-terrorism operation had absorbed all their free resources. Brian Ackers had been putting as much pressure as he could on the head of A4 to make at least one team available for the Rykov link with Jerry Simmons, but even he had had to concede that the possible kidnapping of a soldier home on leave by a gang of Al Qaeda–influenced militants took precedence. But at the last minute, one of the extremists had been arrested by the local uniformed police for shoplifting, and was in custody, so the team that had been allocated to him was free. Luckily, this was Wally Wood’s team and they knew Rykov well.

This evening had seemed easy enough, just like others on which they had watched Rykov. He had been in the embassy for most of the afternoon, then had drinks with an unidentified blonde in the penthouse bar of the Kensington Gardens Hotel. He’d left at six-thirty and taken a taxi into the West End, where he’d had early supper with another woman—identified as Mrs. Rykov—at Chez Gérard on Dover Street. When they’d come out at eight-thirty, Wally Woods, sitting in his car at the corner of Piccadilly, watched as the Russian walked past him and held his arm out to hail a cab. It was still light, and the lowering sun turned the clouds into pink puffballs over Green Park.

It seemed straightforward: the Russian couple would head north to Highgate and their flat at the Trade Delegation. But when a taxi pulled over, to Wally’s surprise Rykov bundled his wife into it, slammed the door, crossed the road and walked off west on Piccadilly towards Hyde Park Corner. By the time Wally had negotiated the small Mayfair streets and re-emerged on the correct side of Piccadilly, his colleague Maureen was calling in over the radio that Rykov was flagging down another taxi. Wally was in time to join his colleagues, now intently following this second taxi.

Fifteen minutes later the taxi turned off Cheyne Walk and crossed Albert Bridge. On the south bank it turned into Parkgate Road, then stopped in a smaller tree-shaded side street of brick mansion blocks. Wally pulled over just around the corner. Bernie Rudge had turned off Albert Bridge Road further south and was now circling back. “Target coming your way,” said Wally. He named the street Rykov’s cab had gone down, then pulled out and drove around in a slow circle to the other end of it.

“I have eyeball,” Bernie announced. “Chelsea 1 is getting out. Going into a building. I’ll take him.”

Wally wondered what the hell was going on. He knew there was an operational flat in a block on this road. He’d dry-cleaned a contact attending a meeting here for the Counter-Terrorist Branch a few months ago. Surely they’d have been briefed if Chelsea 1 was one of theirs and was going to a meeting. But it beggared belief that he had picked this obscure street in Battersea coincidentally.

“Target’s on the move,” said Bernie. “Walking fast. He’s seen something. Heading back to you, Maureen. Can you take him?”

“Affirmative,” came back from Maureen. “I have eyeball.”

“There’s a female coming from the opposite direction. She’s crossed the street. She’s gone into the same block of flats the target went up to. She must have been what spooked him.”

Odd, thought Wally. If Chelsea 1 was meeting someone in the safe flat, why had he turned tail and run away? What was going on?

“Confirming. A female has entered the same building. She’s one of ours. There’s an unknown female approaching. Passing the block now and coming your way.”

From A4 control in Thames House came the instruction for one car to stay on the street long enough to confirm the address Rykov had approached and for the others to keep with Rykov and ignore the unknown female. Control confirmed that there had been no briefing about any meeting with Rykov.

Wally sat in his car in the pool of darkness between two street lamps, watching the door of the mansion block. After a minute or two the door opened and Liz Carlyle emerged, crossed the road and walked off down a side street. Wally was dumbfounded. Possibilities spread like wildfire in his mind, some of them ones he didn’t want to contemplate. He could hear from the radio traffic of his colleagues that Chelsea 1 seemed to be making his way back to Highgate by cab. The second woman had disappeared, so having checked the address, he radioed in that he was standing down.

Battersea Mansions. Yes, that was certainly where he’d helped dry-clean that meeting three months before. Well, there’d be an interesting wash-up tomorrow about all this. Either they hadn’t been properly briefed or something very strange was going on. He just hoped Liz Carlyle knew what she was doing.