Illegal Action

54

Charles Wetherby was sitting in Brian Ackers’ office. What an uncomfortable, soulless kind of room, he reflected, with its Cold War library, the war-room map and the desk with its back to the window. The situation was even worse than he’d feared, which made him feel less guilty about leaving Joanne and coming back to work. “They need you,” she’d said firmly after DG’s first phone call.

“So do you,” he’d said.

“Not just at the moment, Charles,” and he knew she was thinking of the doctor’s candid assessment after the latest round of treatment. I can’t promise you more than a year but you should be stable now for at least a month or two.

She looked him in the eye then. “A little time by myself is what I need. Don’t worry—when I want you back with me, I’ll tell you.”

And so he’d returned, into this odd position—another man’s desk, another man’s job—trying to focus for the first time in many months on something other than his wife’s slow dying.

Brian’s secretary stuck her head round the door. She looked flustered, upset that her boss had gone off so suddenly. Charles wished she could explain why, having pressured Liz to remain in such a dangerous position, Brian had compounded his folly by sending Michael Fane to join her. From the little Charles knew of him, young Fane was inexperienced and headstrong—not the sort of officer to send into an unassessed situation on a rescue mission. Charles suspected it was this second mis-judgement that had led DG to remove Brian Ackers from his post and send him on gardening leave.

“Geoffrey Fane’s here,” the secretary announced flatly.

“Ask him to come in please.” He sighed inwardly at the prospect. He knew Geoffrey Fane; their paths had crossed over recent years in several counter-terrorist operations. Charles respected Fane for his intelligence and his skill at getting things done but he did not entirely trust him. The two men were products of the different cultures of their services. Fane came from a culture developed to train officers to be self-reliant, to work alone or in small groups, sometimes in hostile conditions, where the emphasis was on initiative and getting things done. Wetherby’s style came from working on complex investigations, in interdependent teams, where everything that was done might ultimately face scrutiny by parliamentary committee, official inquiry, the courts or even the press. To Charles’s mind Geoffrey Fane was devious and cut corners; to Fane’s, Charles was overcautious. Charles hoped Fane would be straightforward now; the last thing he needed in this situation was a game of cat and mouse.

“Charles,” said Fane coming into the room. He wore a dark pinstripe suit and a pale yellow shirt and spotted tie. They shook hands and sat down. “It’s good to see you back. I hope all is well at home?” said Fane. “Pity about the situation here.”

Charles ignored this; he wasn’t going to discuss Brian Ackers’ sudden departure with Fane, though he had no doubt it was all over Thames House and Vauxhall Cross by now. Instead he said, “I gather Liz Carlyle’s gone to Ireland with this man Brunovsky. Apparently they’re after some painting, but there seems good reason to believe something quite different is going on.” He paused. “You should know that your son Michael’s over there, too.”

“I did know that, actually. I was here to see Brian when Michael left.”

“I gather you know the background to why Liz was involved with this Brunovsky character. To save time I’ve asked Peggy Kinsolving to come in and brief us both on what she thinks the situation is, and you can fill me in on the background as we go along. The priority seems to me to get Liz and Michael out of there unharmed.”

Fane hesitated, then asked, “Is the situation dangerous?”

“It shouldn’t be for Michael. He’s with the Garda.”

Fane nodded, but his relief was momentary. “How about Liz?”

Charles shrugged. “I very much hope not.” He looked at Fane; it suddenly struck him that they were both equally worried about Liz. He’s fond of her too, thought Charles with a twinge of jealousy.

While they waited for Peggy, Fane got up and went to the window while Wetherby sat slowly tapping the end of a pencil on the desktop. Fane said, “I could never understand why Brian put the desk there. You’d think that having earned a river view, he’d want to enjoy it.”

The door opened and Peggy came in carrying a folder. She seemed surprised to find Fane there, and sat down carefully, looking apprehensive, as if she was walking into a trap. I sympathise, thought Wetherby.

Fane remained standing as Wetherby said, “Why don’t you give us an overview of where things stand, Peggy? Geoffrey probably knows most of it, but I don’t.”

She nodded and opened the folder, though she didn’t look at her notes. “Two months ago, we heard from MI6 that a trusted source had learnt about a possible plot against a dissident oligarch in London.”

Wetherby asked, “What was this plot supposed to consist of?”

“It was thought an assassination might take place here in London.”

“Pour décourager les autres,” said Fane lightly, still looking out the window.

“Really?” Wetherby could not conceal his scepticism. Surely after Litvinenko, the last thing the Russian authorities would want was blame for another murder of a disaffected expatriate.

Peggy went on. “At roughly the same time, A4 saw a Russian intelligence officer, a man named Vladimir Rykov from the Trade Delegation, conducting a covert meeting on Hampstead Heath. When they followed his contact, they discovered he was an ex-SAS soldier now working as driver for Nikita Brunovsky. It was then decided to put Liz undercover into Brunovsky’s household.”

“I do not really understand that decision,” interrupted Wetherby.

Peggy said nothing. Fane took a step back and shrugged. “One of Henry Pennington’s dafter ideas, Charles,” he said.

Charles looked at him sceptically. “Brian didn’t have to agree, Geoffrey. It’s not the FCO’s call.” But Fane just shrugged again.

Wetherby, knowing Fane, thought it likely that he had played more of a part in the decision than he was admitting. “What evidence was there to link this supposed plot with Brunovsky?”

“None,” said Fane easily, glancing over before looking out the window again. “But the coincidence of hearing about a plot and Rykov’s pass at the bodyguard seemed… too much of a coincidence. In any case, even if there wasn’t a link, the fact that Rykov was suborning a Brunovsky retainer suggested Moscow had an interest in the man that couldn’t be entirely healthy.”

“That’s precisely my point: surely it was a job for Special Branch, not us.”

Fane kept his gaze firmly on the river, making it clear he wasn’t prepared to argue. Wetherby shook his head, then gestured for Peggy to continue.

“Liz entered the Brunovsky household, posing as a history of art student—she spent a week in Cambridge being intensively tutored on Russian modernists, including a painter called Pashko whom Brunovsky was especially interested in. Brunovsky recently bought a Pashko that had long been thought lost.” She looked studiedly at Wetherby. “It was rediscovered in Ireland, where Brunovsky is now, searching for another long-lost Pashko.”

“This is starting to sound preposterous,” said Wetherby acidly.

Fane laughed sharply enough for Peggy to look startled. Wetherby could see she too was worried about Liz. How differently we are each showing our concern, he thought: Peggy grows even more serious, Fane laughs and I get impatient with the mess I’ve inherited.

Peggy described what she and Liz had discovered about the people in Brunovsky’s circle—his girlfriend had been an upmarket prostitute, his decorator and his personal banker had been in cahoots smuggling antiquities out of Italy. Pretty squalid, thought Wetherby, but hardly surprising, and almost certainly unconnected to Moscow. He said as much, and for once Fane turned around. “I agree,” he said.

“Whatever you think,” said Peggy fiercely, and both Wetherby and Fane looked at her with surprise, “Tutti was found dead in his flat. It looked like suicide, but Liz has her doubts.”

“Well…,” said Fane, not without a note of condescension.

“And I agree with her,” said Peggy quickly. Good for her, thought Wetherby. She’s got nerve. “Tutti’s wrists were slit with a Stanley knife. Liz was mugged, outside the safe flat, and her attacker threatened her with a Stanley knife as well.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Fane sharply. He pulled over a chair and sat down next to Peggy, all languor gone.

“And then just to complicate things further, we were told that there might be an Illegal operating in the UK.”

“Is that relevant to all this?” asked Wetherby.

“We didn’t think so at first,” said Peggy. “But I do now. There’s a Danish woman who calls herself Greta Darnshof—she’s editor of a new art magazine and she knows Brunovsky well. We’ve just learnt from PET in Copenhagen that the real Greta Darnshof died nearly forty years ago.”

“Is this Darnshof in Ireland?” asked Fane.

“I don’t know for sure, but she may well be. Her office said she was ‘travelling.’”

“What’s her role in all this?”

“I don’t know exactly but I think she was the woman who tried to harm Liz. I can’t prove it, but it certainly looks that way.”

Fane broke the momentary silence: “I can’t believe they’d want to harm Brunovsky: killing him in Ireland wouldn’t be any better in PR terms than killing him here.”

“So why do they want him in Ireland?” asked Wetherby.

“Because I think they’ll abduct him and take him back to Russia. That’s a lot easier to do in Kilkenny than Eaton Square.”

“Killarney,” said Peggy pedantically.

“But couldn’t Brunovsky see the danger?” Wetherby broke in. “Why on earth did he agree to go to Ireland?”

Peggy spoke up. “Liz says he’s desperate to get this other painting. Apparently another oligarch, a man called Morozov, also wants the picture. He and Brunovsky have got some sort of long-standing rivalry. Liz said that once Brunovsky learnt that Morozov was also on the trail, there was no stopping him.”

“Morozov?” said Fane.

“Who is he?” asked Wetherby, almost resignedly. To him these people were like characters in a play. He wondered how many acts there were to be in this drama.

“He made his fortune in industrial diamonds,” said Peggy. “Before that he was KGB, postings in New York and East Germany. We thought he might be planning something against Brunovsky on personal grounds—there’s history between them. But we just don’t know.”

Wetherby turned to Fane, who was looking as if there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t quite get out. I’ll wait, thought Wetherby, and said nothing until the silence became strained. At last Fane broke it. “Liz asked us to find out about Morozov and I gave her a fairly detailed report from our station in Moscow. I told her he was posted in East Germany where he had a heart attack in 1989 and was sent home. But there was something else I didn’t tell her. I didn’t think it was relevant and the information wasn’t mine to give. But I think I should tell you now.”

He paused, weighing his words with care. “During his last few years in the KGB, Morozov was recruited by the West Germans. He was an agent-in-place for the BND all the time he was in East Germany. He was in the KGB station in Dresden. One of his KGB colleagues there was Vladimir Putin.”

Wetherby lifted both arms in disbelief. “I would have said the plot thickens, if it weren’t like treacle already. So where does that put Morozov in all this?”

“Not in Ireland, I hope,” said Fane. “But it may be relevant that he’s not altogether what he seems.”

“I’m not sure Brunovsky is either,” said Peggy quietly.

None of these people are, thought Wetherby. I just hope Liz realises that. It would have been nice if Fane had let us know this earlier. As if reading his thoughts Fane said quietly, “Sorry about that, Charles. Third-party information, you know, and it didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

Wetherby sighed. He was thinking that things had to be dire indeed when Geoffrey Fane apologised.