Sleepers

1

Leonard Geggel spent the drive to Southwold thinking about CHERRY. It had been a year since Geggel’s retirement from MI6 and he hadn’t spoken to his old agent since then. Indeed, they had not parted on the best of terms. Pyotr Ilyich Aleksandrov had always been a cantankerous man, but, as the Russian grew older and more resigned to the fact that he would never be able to return home, he had become more and more frustrated. The two of them had argued during their last meeting. Aleksandrov had said that he needed an increase in his stipend so that he could move to a different house. Upon investigation, Geggel had found that Aleksandrov and his neighbour had fallen out over the folk music that Aleksandrov liked to play late at night as he drank himself into a stupor on the Moskovskaya Osobaya vodka that he had imported from Poland. Geggel had not even taken Aleksandrov’s request up the chain; he knew that it would be rejected and agreed that rejection would have been the right response. He had told Aleksandrov that there was to be no more money, and that he should make it up with his neighbour. The suggestion had provoked a foul-mouthed tirade against him, MI6 and the British state, followed by the angry suggestion that his work was not valued and that he should never have defected in the first place.

That had been the last time that they had met. It had come as a surprise, then, that Aleksandrov had made contact. He had called Geggel on his personal number and insisted that he must come to Southwold at once. Geggel had asked the reason for the urgency, but Aleksandrov would not be drawn on it. Instead, he had reiterated that it was of critical importance and that it simply could not wait. Geggel had reminded Aleksandrov that he was retired, and that it would be more appropriate to contact the woman who had replaced him as his handler. Aleksandrov had dismissed the suggestion, saying that Ross was young and incompetent. There was sexism there, too: Geggel knew that Aleksandrov did not hold truck with the idea that women could run male assets, and that he thought their value in intelligence-gathering was to ‘open their legs and listen carefully.’ Aleksandrov had added that he would only deal with someone that he knew and trusted. That, in the Russian’s world, was as close to a compliment as one would ever likely get, and, after considering the request for a moment, Geggel said that he would come.

In truth, Geggel had been looking for something interesting to take his mind off the mundanities of his forced retirement. He hadn’t wanted to leave the Service, but there had been an unfortunate incident where one of the agents he had been running in Tirana had been blown, and the shit had rolled downhill to him. Geggel still did not understand how the agent had been revealed to the SVR; he had always been scrupulously careful, and the agent—a secretary in the prime minister’s office—had been so cautious that it had been almost impossible to arrange face-to-face meetings. Geggel’s conclusion was that the source had been blown by way of a leak from inside MI6. He had suggested it to his line manager but, after a week of lip service about an investigation that Geggel knew had never got started, it was suggested that the error was down to him and that, perhaps, it was time for him to think about calling it a day.

He had dabbled with lecturing, but teaching others about geopolitical events just reminded him that he no longer had any role in shaping them. He had retreated to his garden, clearing out a messy bed and replacing it with a polytunnel where he could grow vegetables all year long. He had found some peace there, but when he lay awake at night, his le Carrés and Ludlums finally laid down on the bedside table next to him, he would close his eyes and imagine the life that he had once led. There was no point in pretending otherwise: he missed it.

Geggel had been on the A12 for almost all of the journey. It was a poor road, and, as soon as he was beyond Ipswich, it became a single carriageway prone to delays as cars queued behind the tractors that rumbled between the mirror-flat fields that made up the East Anglian landscape.

He looked down at the phone that he had dropped into the cupholder and wondered, again, whether he should call the River House and tell them about Aleksandrov’s contact. He had wrestled with that choice ever since they had spoken and, ultimately, had decided against it. He knew what would happen. The details of the call would be passed to his replacement and it would be she who went to speak to Aleksandrov. Geggel and the old agent disagreed on many things, but they did share some common ground. Chief among them was a disdain for the woman—Geggel remembered her name, Ross—and, more to the point, the things that she represented.

It wasn’t that she was a woman, at least not for Geggel. It was that she was part of the new influx of SIS staff, those who responded to the vulgar advertisements in the newspapers that promised a fulfilling life as a ‘spy.’ Geggel and his old colleagues had shared a laugh over one particular advert that they had seen in the Times. ‘If the qualities that made a good spy were obvious, they wouldn’t make a very good spy.’ The whole thing was preposterous. These bright young graduates, fresh out of university, were selected with psychometrics and then fast-tracked. It was to the detriment of the old sweats who had been there for years and knew how things really worked. The change in culture was the reason Geggel had not fought against his enforced retirement. Aleksandrov had chuckled at Geggel’s annoyance, but had then suggested that he had heard through the grapevine that Yasenevo was not so different, either. The old warhorses, like them, were being put out to pasture in the Center just as they were in Vauxhall Cross. This was a brave new world, moving too fast for them to keep up. Aleksandrov had poured two tumblers of Moskovskaya and they had toasted their obsolescence together.

He continued north, passing the turn for Walberswick, and then approached the road that led to Southwold.

2

Pyotr Aleksandrov glanced out of the front window and looked up at the sky. It was clear, suggesting that the forecast for sunny and warm weather was going to be accurate. He went through to the hallway, collected his jacket, and picked up the briefcase with the documents that he had printed out last night. Anastasiya had emailed him the sample schematics and he was confident that he would be able to parlay them into everything that they needed to bring her safely back to him.

He opened the briefcase and withdrew one of the pages, looking at the technical drawing and daydreaming for a moment. He had long since given up the possibility that he might be reconciled with his daughter. They had parted on such bad terms. He had been in the gulag for four years, and his ex-wife had spent that time dripping her poison into Anastasiya’s ear: he was a traitor, he was selfish, he was greedy, he cared only for himself. He had seen her once after his unexpected release and had offered to bring her with him to the west, but she had refused and, at the culmination of the argument that followed, had told him that she never wanted to see him again. Her recent email had come out of the blue, and had allowed him to dream of a reconciliation.

He just had to persuade Geggel to help him.

He slid the schematic back into the case and closed the clasps. He zipped up his jacket, opened the door, and stepped out onto the street. He was surprised to find that he was nervous. This was not the first time that he had met with Geggel to sell intelligence. They had done it for ten years, and it had made him several hundred thousand pounds and had secured this life, shabby and tedious though it might be. He was well acquainted with Geggel; his old runner was the nearest thing that he had to a friend. But times had changed. Aleksandrov was no longer operational and Geggel was retired. They had argued, too. He didn’t know how the meet would play out, and that made him feel unsettled. He reminded himself that he hadn’t arranged this rendezvous for his own benefit. He was doing it for Anastasiya. She was in hiding, somewhere between Lake Baikal and the Pacific, and Aleksandrov knew that the FSB’s bloodhounds were out looking for her.

He needed Geggel’s help to save his daughter’s life. That was why he was anxious. He didn’t know what his old handler would say, and the stakes had never been higher.

3

Nataliya Kuznetsov watched through the front window. Aleksandrov’s cottage was at number one Wymering Road. The cottage that they had rented was diagonally across the street at number five. The place had been a fortunate find. Southwold was a popular destination for tourists who wished to enjoy its quaint 1950s atmosphere, and while many of the houses and cottages were available for tourists to rent, demand was high. Someone at the Center had found this one on Airbnb and, after sending someone from the embassy to check that it was suitable for their purposes, they had booked it for a month using the credit card in the name of Nataliya’s legend, Amelia Ryan.

An advance team had been sent from Moscow to equip the property. The two technicians were from Line OT, the Directorate responsible for operational and technical support for agents in the field. They had installed tiny cameras in the ground- and first-floor bay windows that provided continuous coverage of the house across the street. They had set up an IMSI-catcher, a complicated piece of equipment that mimicked a wireless carrier cell tower in order to force all nearby cellular devices to connect to it; the catcher allowed them to monitor Aleksandrov’s cellphone. They had located the telecoms junction box and, under cover of darkness, installed devices that routed all voice calls and broadband data to a server that they had set up in the front room.

They had been here for two weeks as the Ryans, here for a break and the fresh sea air. Their marriage was real, but their identities were not. Thomas Ryan’s name was Mikhail and he was from Almetyevsk. Mikhail and Nataliya had met at School No. 101 outside Chilobityevo; the school had previously been known as the Red Banner Institute before it had been renamed the Academy of Foreign Intelligence. They had studied together, had been recruited into Directorate S together, and had been placed in the United Kingdom together as operupolnomochenny, or operations officers. This was just the latest in a long line of operations that the couple had undertaken for the motherland over the course of their decade’s worth of service. It was also, according to their handler, the most important.

There had been plenty of time while they had watched and waited, and Nataliya had used it to become familiar with the old man and his daughter. MI6 had disappeared the spy after his exchange ten years earlier. The SVR had been unable to find him and, given his lack of importance at the time, had decided it was not worth the investment that would have been required to track him down.

But that was before his daughter had gone missing with a terabyte of data on the new Su-58. Anastasiya Romanova, née Aleksandrova, had disappeared and the Center wanted to find her again. It seemed reasonable that she might reach out to her exiled father. Aleksandrov had been located by an SVR mole in MI6 and the two of them had been sent to put him under twenty-four-hour surveillance. They had sat on his phone calls and internet traffic. They had followed him on his daily walks into town and established his routine. They had put a beacon on his car and broken into his house to place miniature listening devices in the front room, kitchen and study. The first week had been a bust, and then the second was the same; it had taken fifteen days before they had lucked out with the interception of an email sent from daughter to father.

They had reported back to Yasenevo and waited for instruction. And then, the following day, they had eavesdropped the conversation between Aleksandrov and his old handler. A rendezvous had been agreed and, after reporting the development to the Center, they had received their orders. They were to observe the meet and then eliminate them both. In the meantime, another sleeper had visited the handler, a man named Geggel, and had pressed a beacon underneath the right-rear wheel arch of his car. Nataliya and Mikhail were able to follow the tracker on an app on their phones. Geggel had set off two hours earlier. Traffic looked clear and he hadn’t stopped en route; they estimated his arrival in Southwold within the next ten minutes.

Nataliya saw movement on one of the two monitors. Aleksandrov had opened the front door and had stepped out onto the street. He paused outside the door, looking left and right, the old spy’s instincts still firing after all these years of inactivity.

Nataliya clipped her microphone to her collar and opened a channel to her husband.

“Aleksandrov is on the move,” she said.

Mikhail’s voice sounded in her earpiece. “Acknowledged.”

Nataliya watched the screen. Aleksandrov had moved away from the house; she stood and parted the slats of the blind just a little, enough so that she could see him as he walked by the house on the same side of the street.

“Dark jacket, carrying a briefcase. Heading east, into the town.”

Mikhail acknowledged the information. Nataliya collected her jacket from the back of the chair and took her handbag from the table. She unzipped it and checked inside: she saw the dark glint of the pistol with its long, tubular suppressor. She zipped the bag, slung it over her shoulder and made her way to the door.

She stepped outside and looked to the left. Aleksandrov was near the end of the road, just before it took a sharp ninety-degree turn to the left. She let him turn the corner and pass out of view. She would follow as backup, out of sight and able to take up the surveillance when Mikhail called for the switch.

Aleksandrov was an old field agent with experience, but he had lived here—in boredom and safety—for ten years. He didn’t take the proper precautions. He wasn’t especially careful. His tradecraft was lacking. It would cost him.

4

Mikhail Timoshev was sitting on a bench on the promenade overlooking the sea. A Styrofoam cup of coffee rested on the arm of the bench and he had a copy of the Times on his lap. He looked down at the name that had been scrawled across the top of the front page: RYAN, 5 WYMERING. He had been to the newsagent at the end of the road and requested that a copy be delivered every day during their stay, and the paper always arrived with his name and address on it to help the paperboy remember. He had been Thomas Ryan for so long that he often had to remind himself that that was not his real name.

Aleksandrov’s pattern was usually to go into town at around midday. He would collect a newspaper from the shop on the High Street and then take it to the pier where he would buy a cup of coffee and a cheese scone and find a seat where he could gaze out to sea. Mikhail or his wife would observe him, at a distance, never close enough for him to notice them. Today, though, had been different. Nataliya had reported his route as she tailed him.

He took out his phone and watched the glowing dot that represented the beacon on the bottom of Leonard Geggel’s car. It had followed the High Street and then Queen Street before arriving at the Common. There was a place to park cars there—a line of bays that had been painted onto a wider than usual stretch of the road—and it looked as if Geggel was going to leave his car there.

Mikhail looked down at his paper as an elderly couple walked by, arm in arm. This was what he lived for. The jolt of adrenaline. The anticipation of action. The sudden release after days of careful surveillance. This was his purpose in life. It was what they had been trained to do. He was better at it than at anything else.

“Aleksandrov has gone into the Lord Nelson,” Nataliya said. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Geggel is here,” he reported. “If they’re meeting there, he’ll come this way. Stand by.”

Mikhail took a sip of his lukewarm coffee and replaced it on the bench next to him. He held the paper up, flipping the pages, and, as he did, he saw Geggel. Mikhail looked down, glancing up just as the man went by. It would have been possible for Mikhail to reach out and take the sleeve of his overcoat if he had so chosen. It was definitely him. They had been given a photograph of the old SIS spook and there was no question that it was the same man: six feet tall, mousey hair, old acne scars on his cheeks, heavy black spectacles.

Mikhail took another sip of his coffee, shuffling around in his seat just a little so that he could observe Geggel as he proceeded to the north. He waited until he was at the junction with East Street before he collected the coffee and stood up. He dumped the cup in the bin, folded the newspaper and stooped to pick up the plain leather bag that he had placed next to the bench.

“I’m on the move,” he said into the microphone.

He followed Geggel northwest as he climbed East Street. He reached a pub—the Lord Nelson—and stopped outside the entrance. Mikhail paused alongside a van with two kayaks strapped to its roof, conscious that he wouldn’t be able to wait for long if he wanted to avoid being made as a potential tail. Mikhail and Nataliya had not lasted as denied area agents for as long as they had without being careful. Their normal operating procedure would call for them to abandon a mission if they received even the slightest hint that they might have been compromised, but the orders that Vincent Beck had passed on from the Center had been different. They had authorisation to take greater risks than would otherwise have been the case.

Dealing with Aleksandrov was important enough to justify risking their exposure.

Geggel opened the door to the pub and went inside.

Mikhail updated Nataliya and followed.

5

Geggel made his way into the pub. It was an old building, with plenty of character. The bar was to his left, complete with rows of pumps carrying the idiosyncratic badges of the ales from the local Adnams brewery: Ghost Ship and Old Ale. Metal tankards and glass pint pots were hung from hooks on the ceiling, and the two members of staff—a man and a woman—passed around each other with difficulty in the cramped space. There was a door to the kitchen and the day’s menu was written out on blackboards that were screwed to the wall. Drinkers conversed at the bar and diners had taken all of the chairs around the pub’s few tables.

Aleksandrov was waiting at the bar. He acknowledged Geggel and waited for him to come over.

“Pyotr,” Geggel said.

“Leonard. Thank you for coming.”

“It’s been a while.”

“You still like ale?

“Of course.”

“Go and get a table. I’ll bring one over and we can talk.”

Geggel slid between the clutch of drinkers waiting to be served at the bar and crossed the saloon to a table that had just been vacated. He took a seat against the wall so that he could look into the room—old habits died hard—and waited for Aleksandrov to come over with their beers. The Russian set the glasses down on the table and dropped into the other chair.

They touched glasses and then drank. The ale was hoppy and not unpleasant.

“How are you?” Aleksandrov said once they had finished their first sips.

“Can’t complain. You?”

Aleksandrov sat down. “I am very well, thank you. How is retirement?”

“Truthfully? A little boring. I miss our work.”

Aleksandrov laughed. “As do I,” he said. “I miss my country, too. But I will never be able to return.”

Geggel’s heart sank; had he come all this way to suffer one of Aleksandrov’s rants? The Russian had been prone to black moods and had made it his habit to regale Geggel with wistful tales of the glory days of the Rodina and what he had sacrificed for British intelligence whenever they met. Geggel had eventually concluded that Aleksandrov believed MI6 were obliged to provide him with a sympathetic ear to listen to his complaints. Their meetings had quickly become tiresome and Geggel had not looked forward to them. But he had blanked out those memories after he had received Aleksandrov’s cryptic telephone call. He had been too excited to allow the past to dampen his enthusiasm.

“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” he said, trying to move the conversation along.

“I was not expecting that I would have to call.” Aleksandrov took another long swig of his beer. “You are wondering why I did not speak to your replacement?”

“Not really,” Geggel said. “I know you didn’t get on with her.”

“She is a baby,” he grumbled. “She does not take me seriously. She does not know the work that we did together.”

“How could she? She was still in school.”

“Precisely,” the Russian said, slapping both hands on the table. “That is precisely it. How old is she? Thirty?”

“I don’t know.”

“She has no experience. She does not value the intelligence that I provided. The risks I took, the price I paid—she has no idea. All I am to her is an old spook. Washed up and irrelevant, sent to this place to be forgotten until I die.”

Geggel knew he needed to wrestle Aleksandrov back to whatever it was that he wanted to talk about, or he would lose half an hour to a sullen tirade.

“Well, Pyotr,” he said, “I’m here. I came when you asked and I’m listening. What can I help you with?”

The Russian’s mood changed as at the flick of a switch. “No, Leonard, it is the other way around.” His lips turned up in a self-satisfied smirk. “It is I who can help you.”

The pub was busy. Mikhail had found a space at the bar where he could watch Aleksandrov and Geggel. He had hoped he might be able to hear them, but the noise in the room—the sound of conversations competing with the commentary from the football that was showing on the room’s single television—made that impossible. The two men leaned across the table, their faces just a few inches from each other, Aleksandrov punctuating the conversation with excited stabs of his hand. He reached into the briefcase that he had brought with him, took out a piece of paper, laid it on the table and then drilled his finger against it. Mikhail clenched his jaw with frustration. He had orders to find out what they might discuss, and now they were going to have to find that out with a much less elegant solution.

“You want a drink?”

He turned around. The publican was looking at him.

“I’m sorry,” Mikhail said with a smile.

“You want to watch, you’ll need to buy something.”

It took Mikhail a moment to realise that the man meant the television and not the clandestine discussion that was taking place at the table.

“Pint of bitter,” he said.

“Which one?”

There were half a dozen pumps, each advertising a different beer. Mikhail picked one at random, gave the man a ten-pound note, collected his change and then sipped at the warm, flat beer. It was not to his taste at all. He kept watching, observing, looking for anything that might be helpful, but it was no use.

He took out his phone and put it to his ear, pretending to make a call. He spoke into the microphone instead.

“It’s too busy. I can’t get close enough.”

“What do you want to do?”

He took a moment, watching as Geggel said something and Aleksandrov reached across the table to take his hand.

“The orders are clear. One each, then meet at home once it’s done.”

“Copy that.”

6

Aleksandrov reached down for a briefcase that had been resting against the chair legs. He entered the combination on the locks that secured the two clasps and popped the lid open. He reached inside and took out a single sheet of paper. He handed it across the table and Geggel looked at it. It was some sort of schematic.

“What is this?”

“You’ve heard of the Su-58?”

“The aircraft? I know the Su-57. The new fighter Sukhoi was working on—they shelved it.”

“The Fargo,” Aleksandrov said with a nod. “No. That was a distraction. All the while, they were working on the 58. NATO doesn’t even have a designation and now they have completed a successful design.” He laid a finger on the paper. “That is a schematic of the underside missile port. The Su-58 can be equipped with the new variant of the Ovod cruise missile. Sukhoi were given the task of producing a plane that could shoot down the Americans’ F-22s and F-35s. They have succeeded.”

Geggel looked down at the page and then back up to Aleksandrov. “Where did you get this, Pyotr?”

“Do you remember my daughter?”

Geggel found the information was surprisingly easy to recall. “Oh,” he said. “I see. She worked for Sukhoi.”

The recollection triggered a little spill of excitement. The possibility of using the father to turn the daughter had been tantalising back then, but, as Geggel recalled, Aleksandrov had shut down the possibility as soon as he sensed SIS’s motives. Anastasiya was a patriot, a dedicated servant of the motherland, and she had seen her father’s defection as the most heinous of betrayals. She had disavowed Aleksandrov in disgust. Geggel and Aleksandrov had had many late-night conversations about it; Aleksandrov had been crushed by her reaction.

“She was assigned to the research division in Komsomolsk,” he said. “They are developing the Su-58 there. There is a treasure trove of intelligence waiting to be taken. Anastasiya had access to everything.”

“I also remember that the two of you were not exactly on speaking terms.”

“We were not.”

Geggel noted the use of the past tense and tapped his finger on the schematic. “But she sent you this.”

“Things change. My defection was bad for her career, as you would expect. But her reaction to it—her hatred of me—persuaded the GRU that she is trustworthy. They always knew that she was smart and hard-working, and, once they were satisfied that she was patriotic, that she hated me, she was given responsibility again.”

Geggel sat a little straighter. He might have been retired, but his instincts were still sharp and he knew, immediately, that this conversation had the potential to be one of the most important of his life. “That’s not enough,” he said. “Something else must have changed.”

Aleksandrov nodded. “She was married five years ago. His name was Vitali Romanov and he was a nice man, from what I understand. An oil and gas trader—very successful, rich. I do not know the details, but he was convicted of financial improprieties and sent to Sevvostlag. Anastasiya says he was innocent, but that the state would not listen to her. He died in the gulag. They said it was a heart attack, but Anastasiya said he was well before he was sentenced. She says that they murdered him for his money.” He sipped his beer. “Oligarchs with connections to the Kremlin. It happens often. Anastasiya sees this as the second betrayal of her life, but this one is worse than the first. What happened to him has given her the opportunity to consider what I did in a different light. She sees that perhaps the Rodina is not the utopia that she once thought.”

Geggel glanced around the room. The pub was busy, but he couldn’t see anyone who looked as if he or she might be paying them any special attention. The hubbub around them was welcome; if he was wrong, and someone was watching them, it would be too noisy for them to eavesdrop.

“What does she want?”

“To defect,” Aleksandrov said. “She wants to come here with me.”

“And she knows she’ll have to give us something to make that happen?”

Aleksandrov nodded, his expression a little bitter. “She knows that she cannot rely on your kindness, yes. I have taught her that much. She knows that she will have to buy her passage, but that is fine—she has something valuable to sell.” Now it was Aleksandrov’s turn to lean forward. He rested his elbows on the table and spoke quietly. “This schematic is just the start. She can provide you with everything: blueprints, timelines, Gantt charts, evaluation criteria, production schedules, subcontractors, tender information. Data on airborne radar and weapons control systems. Everything.”

“I’m listening, Pyotr.”

Aleksandrov grinned. “Your aerospace industry will see it as a goldmine. It is unprecedented. The value in this intelligence… it is incalculable.”

Geggel tapped a finger on the piece of paper. “Do you have the rest?”

Aleksandrov shook his head. “Pass that to your old friends on the river and ask them to investigate. My daughter wants you to respect her—this is how she proves that she is worthy of that respect. SIS should confirm that this information is good. When they have done that, we can discuss how she can be exfiltrated.”

“Where is she now? Is she safe?”

“She is in hiding. The FSB questioned her after Vitali’s death. She told them how she felt—she is hot-blooded.”

“Like her father,” Geggel suggested.

Aleksandrov smiled. “She knew that she went too far, and disappeared before they could come back to bring her in. They are looking for her now. She is frightened. Exfiltration will not be a simple thing. She knows that—but she also knows that what she will bring with her is worth the effort.”

“So how do we contact her?”

“It must be through me. She will not speak to anyone else.” Aleksandrov reached across the table and grasped Geggel’s hand in both of his. “Will you help?”

Geggel knew that he had no choice: the information that Aleksandrov was offering was so valuable that it would be tantamount to treason to pass up the opportunity of acquiring it, but even more than that it was a chance for him to remind his old superiors that they had erred by treating him the way they had. He could bring the opportunity to them as a demonstration that the old ways were still better than the new, that an old hand like him was still worth something even when held up against the up-and-comers like Jessie Ross and the other youngsters who had replaced him.

Aleksandrov squeezed his hand. “Leonard?”

“Yes,” Geggel said. He disengaged himself from Aleksandrov’s grip and glanced down at the piece of paper that lay on the table between them; it had been stained by a splash of spilled ale. “I’ll need this.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll show it to them. They’ll have questions.”

“I am sure they will. But they must work through you, Leonard. I trust you. I do not trust anyone else.”

Geggel stood. He took the paper from the table, folded it neatly, and slipped it into his pocket. Aleksandrov stood, too, and Geggel took his hand and shook it.

“I’ll contact you as soon as I have word from London. Don’t contact her again unless you have to.”

Aleksandrov kept hold of his hand, clasping it in both of his. “Thank you. This is a very good thing that you do. My daughter will be grateful. As am I.”

Geggel smiled, and Aleksandrov released his hand.

“Be careful, Pyotr.”

“And you.”

7

Nataliya had taken up a position on the promenade. She could look north toward the pub where Aleksandrov and Geggel had met, or, by turning to the west, she could see the street where Geggel had parked his car. There was nothing out of place, and nothing that gave Nataliya any cause for concern.

She heard Mikhail’s voice in her ear. “They’re both coming out.”

She gazed up the street. Aleksandrov came out first, pausing beneath the pub’s sign until Geggel joined him. The handler extended a hand and Aleksandrov took it, drawing Geggel into a hug. They exchanged words—Nataliya was much too far away to be able to hear what was said—and then they parted. Aleksandrov turned right and Geggel turned left.

“They’ve split up,” Nataliya said, turning her head away from an approaching couple. “Aleksandrov has gone north. Geggel is heading to me.”

She saw Mikhail exit the pub. “Take Geggel,” he said. “I’ll take Aleksandrov.”

Nataliya pushed herself away from the railings and turned toward the car park. She followed the promenade as it traced its way along the top of the cliff. She glanced down at the row of beach huts, the lower promenade, the stony beach and then the sea, the high tide breaking over a set of wooden groynes. She walked quickly, but not so fast as to draw attention to herself, and, as she walked, she opened her handbag and reached her fingers inside until she could feel her lock pick.

She arrived at the common, an area of grass that had been yellowed by the hot summer’s sun. She crossed it and saw the line of painted parking spaces on Park Lane. She had been sent a picture of Geggel’s Citroën, and confirmed that the registration was the same. It was the large seven-seat Grand C4 SpaceTourer, with plenty of space in the back. She reached the vehicle, took out her pick and, after checking around her, knelt down by the lock. The pick had already been coded, and she slid it into the keyhole, unlocked the door, and slipped inside. The seats were arranged in a two-three-two pattern. She closed the door and dropped down into the footwell between the rear and middle rows.

She waited for Geggel to arrive.

Geggel hardly noticed his surroundings as he made his way back to his car. He had a spring in his step. Aleksandrov’s reason for the meeting had been unexpected, and Geggel found that he was more excited than he had been for years. He reached up and slid his fingers into the inside pocket of his jacket; he felt the sharp edge of the folded square of paper and thought of the schematic that was printed on it. He took the piece of paper out and unfolded it on the bonnet of the Citroën. He took out his phone and snapped it, taking two pictures to be sure, and then emailed both to himself. Better safe than sorry.

He knew what he would have to do: contact Raj Shah, get the intelligence checked out, and then work out how he could involve himself in the operation to exfiltrate Anastasiya Romanova. He was confident that he could do it. Aleksandrov had made it plain that he would only deal with him; he would make that very clear when he made contact. He knew that his replacement, Jessie Ross, would protest, and he had some sympathy for her, not that that would make any difference. This was his achievement. He would bring it in, and he would take the plaudits. It was remarkable. He was on the cusp of landing the biggest intelligence coup for years. It didn’t matter that he was retired; this would be the crowning moment of his career.

He opened the door and lowered himself onto the seat. He started the car, reversed out of the bay and set off, following Godyll Road as it sliced between the green space of the town common. He picked up the A1095 and followed it toward the main trunk road that would lead back to London.

He took out his phone, plugged it into the USB port and then took out his wallet. He removed the credit cards and tossed them onto the seat next to him until he found what he was looking for: a plastic card, like the credit cards he had just filleted, with a government logo on the back and a phone number beneath it. He typed the number into the phone three digits at a time, switching his attention between the screen and the road ahead. He finished, but didn’t dial the number. His finger hovered over the screen; he didn’t even know whether it was still current. He pressed dial.

“Vauxhall Cross,” the woman at the other end said over the speaker. “How can I help you?”

Geggel felt something hard pressed up flush against the side of his head. He looked up into the mirror and saw a woman behind him; the hard point he could feel against his temple was the muzzle of a handgun.

“End the call,” she said in a quiet, firm voice.

Geggel gripped the wheel a little tighter.

“Hello? This is Vauxhall Cross. How can I help you?”

The woman pushed the gun, hard enough that he had to put his head against his shoulder. “Now,” she said.

Geggel reached forward and pressed the screen, killing the call.

“Thank you,” she said.

Geggel looked back in the mirror. The woman was dark haired. She wore glasses, had earrings in both ears, and wore a Led Zeppelin t-shirt.

“Who are you?”

“Keep driving,” she said. “I want to ask you some questions.”

8

Aleksandrov made his way home, stopping in a delicatessen on the High Street to buy olives and cheese and then continuing on his way. Mikhail followed, leaving a sizeable distance between them. He knew where Aleksandrov was going; he didn’t need to see him every step of the way, and so he drifted into and out of shops, looking for all the world like an idling tourist enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon. Aleksandrov turned onto Wymering Road and Mikhail turned, too; by the time Mikhail reached Aleksandrov’s house he was already inside. Mikhail saw movement through the sitting room window.

There was no reason to wait. Mikhail’s orders were clear. He checked that the road was empty and crossed the short path to the front door. It was set back in an arch that would hide him from the other houses on the street; he would only have been visible to those directly behind him, and the only thing there was the garden of a bungalow that was being refurbished. The builders were not there today; no one could see him.

He reached into his jacket and pulled the Beretta from its holster, hiding it against his hip as he knocked on the door with the knuckles of his left hand. He heard the sound of footsteps and then the sound of a key being turned. Mikhail took a step back, still within the shelter of the arch. The door opened enough for Aleksandrov to look outside.

“Hello?” he said.

Mikhail kicked the door, hard, and then followed immediately with his shoulder. Aleksandrov was caught off balance; the edge of the door slammed into his face and he stumbled back into the hall. Mikhail followed in quickly, the gun pointed ahead. Aleksandrov had tripped and fallen, and was on his backside, scrabbling to get away. Mikhail closed the door with his foot and then closed on Aleksandrov, the gun pointing down at him.

“Get up,” he said.

Aleksandrov held a hand up before his face.

“Up,” Mikhail said, reaching down with his left hand and hauling Aleksandrov up so that he was on his knees. He pressed the muzzle against his forehead, smearing the blood from the cut the door had made. “Up—now.”

Aleksandrov reached a hand out for a console table and used it to help him to get to his feet. He was unsteady. Mikhail knew the layout of the house and knew that the kitchen could not be seen from outside the house. He turned Aleksandrov around, put the gun against the back of his head, and impelled him to the back of the house. The kitchen was neat and tidy: white goods down one side, a breakfast bar with stools, and a small two-person settee. There was a kettle on the hob, just starting to whistle, and Russian folk music played from a speaker on the work surface.

“Turn around,” Mikhail said.

Aleksandrov did. He stared at the gun.

“Don’t,” Mikhail said, shaking his head.

“Who are you?”

Mikhail pushed the muzzle of the gun against Aleksandrov’s forehead again and, eyeing him, switched to Russian. “Do you have to ask?”

Aleksandrov didn’t respond; instead, Mikhail saw his larynx bob up and down as he tried to swallow down his fear.

“We need to have a talk, Pyotr,” he said. “Do you mind if I call you Pyotr?”

Aleksandrov shook his head and reached up to wipe the blood that was running into his eyes.

“Sit down.”

Mikhail took the pistol away and flicked the barrel in the direction of the settee. Aleksandrov backed away, his eyes on the muzzle, and sat. The kettle started to whistle loudly, and Mikhail, still training the gun on Aleksandrov, reached over, took it from the hob and put it on a metal trivet.

Aleksandrov gawped at him, as if confounded by the contradiction of the gun and this gesture of domesticity. “Why are you here?” he asked, taking a seat on the settee.

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t understand. I have been retired for ten years. I served my time—I paid for my crimes. I’m still paying for them.”

“Really? How is that?”

“Because I cannot return home. They would kill me if I tried, so I have to stay here.”

“I’m not here because of what you did before. There would have been no reason for me to come if you had stayed retired, as you should have. But you haven’t stayed retired, have you, Pyotr? You want to get back into the game. Now—try again. Tell me—why do you think I am here?”

Aleksandrov swallowed again. “Because of my daughter.”

“That’s right. Your daughter—Anastasiya. It would appear that the apple has not fallen far from the tree.”

“What do you mean—”

“Like father, like daughter. Treachery. Treason. Do you need me to explain?”

Aleksandrov stared at the gun; a single bead of sweat formed on his brow and Mikhail watched as it rolled down into the thick white hair of his eyebrow. “I can’t help you.”

“Can’t, Pyotr, or won’t?”

“You want to know where she is. Yes? But I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.”

Mikhail had seen the emails between father and daughter, and Anastasiya had not revealed her location.

“Where do you think she might be, Pyotr?”

“Please—I’m not fooling with you. I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

He swallowed again. “Komsomolsk, perhaps. But she could be in Khurba, Amursk, Malmyzh. She could have gone as far south as Vladivostok. She could be in Moscow for all I know. She didn’t tell me, I swear.”

“Let me ask you another question, then. What did you say to Leonard Geggel this afternoon?” Aleksandrov’s mouth gaped open. “I was there, Pyotr. I was in the pub with you—I saw it all. What did you say to him?”

“Anastasiya wants to leave Russia. She wants to offer information to MI6 so they can get her out and make her safe. I told Geggel—what she had, what she wanted for it.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he would contact MI6 for me. He would try and arrange it.”

“The information—what does she have?”

“The new Sukhoi fighter. She has been working on it.” He looked almost apologetic. “She has everything.”

“What did Geggel say? Did he think they would be interested?”

Aleksandrov closed his eyes, swallowed again, and nodded. “Yes,” he said.

Mikhail leaned forward. “Where is she, Pyotr? Tell me how to find her. She is not at her home. Where would she go? Does she have a friend she would trust?”

“I don’t know,” he said again, desperation straining his voice. “I haven’t spoken to her for years. I know nothing about her life—nothing.”

Mikhail had been in these situations before and trusted his judgment. He could tell when someone was lying; a gun pointed at the head had the useful consequence of eliciting the truth, and, when it did not, there were other ways. He watched Aleksandrov’s performance now—pitiful, begging—and doubted that he was lying. They had intercepted the emails. They had monitored his phone calls. There was nothing to suggest that he was holding anything back, but he had to ask the questions. Now, though—now that he had the answers, and believed them—there was nowhere left to go.

“You should have said no,” he said, standing. “You should have told her to hand herself in. It would have made things much easier for you both.”

He raised the pistol, aimed it, and fired a single round. The suppressor muffled the report, the shot punching into Aleksandrov’s head flush between the eyes. He jerked back and then fell to the side, his face pointed up at the ceiling, one leg on the floor, one arm draped over the side of the settee. Blood pulsed out of the hole and dripped down onto the carpet.

Mikhail raised his arm so that he could look at his watch. He had been inside the house for five minutes. He set the timer for an additional five minutes and then, without sparing a second look at the dead man on the settee, he started to search the house.

9

They passed over Buss Creek, through Blackwater and then across the fields, the wide-open spaces, flat for as far as Nataliya could see. She was in the middle of the three seats behind the two seats in the front. She had lowered the pistol, reaching ahead so that she could press it into Geggel’s ribs. The old spy drove carefully, a steady fifty, both hands on the wheel just as Nataliya had instructed.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking back in the mirror. Nataliya saw the fear in his eyes. He was an agent runner, not an agent. He might never have had a gun pointed at him before; he might never have seen a gun.

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” she said.

His voice was tight with tension. “So what is this to do with?”

“Why did you come here, Mr. Geggel?”

He glanced back again. He could have tried to deflect, to say that he had visited for the sea air, but, to his credit, he didn’t. He must have known who she was and who she represented. It wouldn’t be difficult to join the dots from there.

“To see my friend,” he said. “It’s about him, isn’t it? Aleksandrov?”

“We know why he wanted to see you, Mr. Geggel. We’ve been watching him for several days. We heard his telephone call to you. We’ve been reading his emails.”

“So what do you need me to say?”

“Did he tell you about his daughter?”

“He did.”

“And?”

“He said she wanted to defect.”

“In return for what?”

“She has schematics for a new Sukhoi fighter that she said she was prepared to sell in exchange for our help. He wanted me to speak to Vauxhall Cross.”

“And you said?”

“I said that I would.” He looked up at her in the mirror. “But I don’t have to do that.”

“Do you have the schematic?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Give it to me.”

She gave the pistol a little shove to remind him that it was there and waited as he took his left hand from the wheel so that he could reach into his jacket. He took out a piece of paper and held it up so that Nataliya could take it. She kept the gun where it was and took the paper in her left hand, unfolding it and taking a quick glimpse. She didn’t know anything about aviation, but she recognised that it was a cross-section of a piece of aeronautical equipment.

Geggel put his hand back on the wheel. They had reached the junction. He indicated, turned right and then joined the A12.

“What did he say about his daughter?”

“Not much.” He left it at that until she poked him with the gun again. “She used to love Russia and hate her father. Now she hates Russia and hopes he might be able to save her. He said something about her husband being murdered. Sounds like your people fucked up.”

The attitude was unexpected, and she saw that he was watching in the mirror as he delivered it. She didn’t know what he hoped it might achieve.

“You want to know where she is?” he suggested, still watching in the mirror.

“Did he say?”

“He did. What do I get if I tell you?”

“Perhaps you don’t get shot—”

Geggel took his left hand off the wheel and stabbed down for the gun. Nataliya had been distracted for a moment by the suggestion that Geggel might offer Anastasiya Romanova’s location, and what she could offer him to divulge it, and wasn’t able to move the gun away before he was able to grab her wrist. The gun jerked down, the sudden movement forcing her finger back on the trigger, and the weapon discharged. The Citroën swerved right and then left, narrowly missing oncoming traffic. There was a lay-by next to the road, a barbed wire fence marking its boundary along the lip of a slope that descended into the field below. The Citroën raced over the lay-by, crashed through the fence, continued over the lip and then bounced down the slope. Nataliya wasn’t wearing a belt, and braced herself against the seat, all thoughts of covering Geggel with the gun temporarily suspended. She caught a glimpse of the land ahead of them: a wide margin of scrubland, a fringe of trees and then an expanse of mudflats.

The car was still moving fast. It reached the bottom of the slope and now it was racing through a gap in the trees. It continued on, bumping and bouncing over the uneven ground until it reached the mudflats. Nataliya braced for a sudden stop. The back end jerked up as the bonnet plunged into the mud. Nataliya was thrown forward, her head cracking into Geggel’s headrest.

10

Mikhail returned to the house across the street, unlocked the front door of the house that they had been using and went inside. There was a mirror over the occasional table, and he turned to look into it. The disguise was one that he had used before: the unruly beard, wild hair and thin metal-framed spectacles had always reminded him of Molodtsov, the garrulous teacher who had taught both him and Nataliya English at the KGB Academy in Michurinsky Prospekt. The likeness was so similar that Mikhail referred to the disguise as ‘The Professor,’ and it had become something of a standing joke between him and his wife. The Professor had always been reliable, and it was with some regret that he had decided that he would have to retire him from now on.

He went into the downstairs bathroom and stood in front of the mirror above the sink. He reached up to behind his ear and found a loose edge where the beard had not adhered perfectly to his skin. He slid his fingers beneath the backing and pulled until the beard came away. He dropped it into the bin, removed the pins that held the wig in place and then put them and the wig into the bin, too. He took off the glasses and rinsed his face in the cold water, removing all traces of the adhesive. He took the bag out of the bin and carried it back to the kitchen. There was an open refuse sack on the counter; Nataliya had already emptied the fridge. He put the bag inside the sack, knotted it, and took it to the front door. They would take their rubbish with them.

He looked at his watch and set another timer, this one for ten minutes. He needed to move fast. He went into the front room and disconnected the cameras and computers. He unplugged the hard drives and slid them into a sports bag so that they were ready to be removed. He collected all the paper that he could find, dumped it in the grate and lit it. He hurried upstairs. They had unpacked only what they needed, and so he stuffed the used clothes back into the bags, bagged up and added their toiletries, zipped the bags up and slid them down the stairs. He checked each room, one by one, moving quickly but methodically, and satisfied himself that they were leaving nothing behind that might compromise them. He made his way back downstairs and, after checking that the road was quiet, he transferred all the bags into the back of his car. He locked up, got into the car, and checked his watch.

Eight minutes.

Time to go. He started the engine, pulled out, and left Wymering Road—with the dead traitor still undisturbed in the kitchen across the street—and headed north.

Nataliya touched her fingers to her forehead and looked at them: they were stained with blood. She must have cut herself on the edge of the headrest when she banged into it. Her neck felt sore and her back was stiff. She wiped the blood away and looked around: the car had come to rest at the edge of the estuary, left at an angle as the front had ploughed into the start of the mudflats. The back end was off the ground and the wheels were still spinning. The road was behind them, elevated above the flats, but it looked as if the car would be partially hidden by the line of trees.

She took out her phone and called Mikhail.

“Yes?”

“Where are you?”

She heard the sound of a car. “On my way,” he said. “Are you all right? You sound—”

“He crashed the car,” she said. The words were slurred, as if they were too large for her mouth.

“Are you hurt?”

“Banged my head.”

“I’ll come back. Where are you?”

“Just after the turn-off to the town.”

“I’ve got you,” he said. Nataliya knew that he would be able to find her with the GPS tracker on her phone. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Nataliya put the phone in her pocket and pushed herself upright. A bolt of pain radiated out from her neck. Whiplash. She found the piece of paper that Geggel had given her and stuffed it into her pocket. She slid across the cabin, opened the door and lowered herself down. The ground was boggy, her feet squelching as she went ahead and opened the passenger door. She climbed back inside and looked at Geggel. He was slumped against the deflating airbags, his breath wheezing in and out, shallow and faint. There was blood on his thigh; she pulled his jacket back and saw a wide patch of blood on his shirt. The shot that Nataliya had fired had hit him below the ribs and behind his belly, in the area of his left kidney. He was bleeding out.

“Help me.”

Geggel’s voice was weak, barely audible. He had turned his head to look at her; he mouthed the words again.

She reached down for his leg and yanked it, dragging his foot off the accelerator so that the engine’s hopeless whining ended. She reached inside his jacket pocket and found his wallet and phone, put them on the dash and, covering her fingers with her sleeve, opened the glovebox. It was full of junk: a box from an old satnav, a collection of phone charging cables, and the litter of crumpled-up receipts and empty crisp packets. She filtered through the mess but found nothing of interest.

She took the pistol and pressed the muzzle of the suppressor against his head.

“Where is Anastasiya Romanova?”

He tried to speak, but all she could hear was the wheezing of his breath.

Her head pounded and she felt blood running down into her brow. “Where is Anastasiya Romanova?”

“I…”

She shoved the pistol, bending Geggel’s neck away, forcing his head over onto his shoulder. “Where is she?”

“I… don’t… know.”

Nataliya pushed the door open with her foot and stepped out again. Geggel turned his head, resting it against the wheel. He looked back at her with desperation in his eyes; it looked as if he didn’t have the strength to speak again.

Nataliya aimed into the cabin and shot him again. The report, although muffled by the suppressor, still rang out over the estuary; a flock of black-headed gulls clattered out of the reeds and took to the air. Geggel’s head jerked to the side, jerked back again and finally slumped forward against the wheel.

Nataliya followed the track that the car had left through the damp ground and clambered up the slope. Purchase was difficult and she was unsteady on her feet; she drove the heels of her boots into the scree to stop herself from slipping back down again. She reached the top. A car sped away to the north. It didn’t stop; there was no reason why it would. Even if the driver had noticed her as she struggled over the lip of the slope, he or she would have concluded that she had just been caught short and had gone to relieve herself.

A car approached from the south. Nataliya recognised it, and as it drew nearer, she saw Mikhail. He went by, braked, indicated right, and then used the Southwold turning to loop around. He drew up in the lay-by and reached across to open the passenger door. Nataliya dropped inside.

“Your head,” he said.

Her thoughts were cloudy. “Banged it. Might be concussed.”

“Geggel?” he asked her.

“Dead.”

“Anything?”

“He doesn’t know,” she said.

Mikhail put the car into first, checked the mirror, and pulled out onto the road. Nataliya opened the glovebox and took out a bottle of painkillers. She shook out two, put them in her mouth and then washed them down with water from the bottle that Mikhail had left in the cupholder. If it was a concussion, it was a mild one, but it wouldn’t have made a difference; a doctor was out of the question. She reclined the seat and leaned back against it. She knew the drill: Mikhail would conduct a careful dry-cleaning run to shake out any tails. She had a few hours to relax before they got home.

Mikhail took out his phone and made a call to Vincent to report the outcome of their afternoon’s work. Nataliya closed her eyes and let the sound of the tyres on the rough tarmac lull her to sleep.

11

Vincent Beck had a flat on the twelfth floor of the Lannoy Point tower block in Fulham. He had lived here for fifteen years, ever since his wife had passed away. He had made it his own in that time: it was comfortably furnished, nothing too expensive, with his one extravagance being his Rega turntable. He loved classical music, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than to put a record on, sit at his small dining table and look out and enjoy the view over west London.

The flat was pleasant and there was a strong sense of community in the building, but neither of those benefits had influenced Beck’s decision to purchase it. His one requirement, when he had been looking at the sixties tower blocks that dominated this part of the city, had been that the flat that he settled on be on the top floor. The reason was simple: his burst transmitter had a clear line of sight to the satellite right out of the windows.

He went into his bedroom and dropped down to his hands and knees. He kept his encoder hidden in the false bottom of a suitcase that was, in turn, hidden away beneath his bed. He opened the case, prised back the panel, and took out the encoder. It was the DKM-S model; twenty years old, but it had always been reliable and—even though he generally had no time for superstition—Beck was loath to ask for a replacement. The DKM-S was a compact device that was about the size of a small paperback book, its electronics housed within a lightweight grey Hammerite aluminium case. There was a sixteen-button keypad on the front panel; Beck composed his classified zapiska and checked the output via the LED display. The burst transmission allowed for only a limited amount of characters, and so he had to be brief.

Both neutralised. House closed down. Assets left area safely. Meeting assets tonight. Will report.

The encoder would compress the message and then broadcast it at a high data signalling rate, reducing the chances of it being intercepted. He pressed the button to send the message, waited until it had gone and then imagined Nikolai Primakov’s reaction. The message would be translated and delivered to him at his desk in his expansive office overlooking the forest at Yasenevo. Beck knew that Primakov would be pleased. This assignment, more than any of the others that he had overseen for the deputy director, had clearly been weighing on his mind. Its flawless execution would be a relief.

Beck switched off the encoder and replaced it in its hiding place. He stood up, stretching out the kinks in his back, and went through to the sitting room. He had a journey to make later tonight, and he needed to start the preparations.

12

John Milton sat on a wooden bench in the gardens outside the hospital building. He was too afraid to go inside. It was more than just fear, though: there was guilt and shame, too. The numbing hangover didn’t help, either.

Milton had taken the Tube to Mile End station, and then walked the rest of the way. It was just before seven on a sunny Sunday evening, and the Mile End Road had been quieter than would have been the case during the rest of the week. Milton had followed the details he had written down on the back of his hand, turning onto Bancroft Road and then making his way through the grounds of the hospital to the Burdett Centre. It was a new building, single storey and surrounded by a pleasant and well-tended garden. There was a lawn and a fountain and a row of tall elms that swayed in the gentle breeze. Milton had found the bench and sat down; it offered a vantage point to watch the other men and women as they arrived and made their way inside. He had counted a dozen, three of whom had returned outside to smoke. He didn’t know how many people would attend a meeting. He had never been to one before, and, save what he had been able to read on the internet that morning, he had no idea what to expect.

Milton wanted to join them. He had made his way here because he knew now, beyond any doubt, that he needed help. But that was all well and good; knowing that something was wrong was one thing, but admitting to himself that he was out of control and helpless to his compulsion was something else entirely. He didn’t know if he would be able to do that.

There was another reason for his reticence. Control would not look kindly on him if he knew that he was here. It would speak of weakness, for one thing, a feebleness that would have him suspended and fast-tracked to an appointment with the Group psychiatrists who would prod and poke him until they had diagnosed the cause of his mental ailment. More than that, Control would know—as Milton knew—that the meetings that Milton was considering encouraged a frank and open sharing of the reasons why the attendees resorted to the bottle. Milton’s particular profession required the utmost discretion, and even a hint of negligence in that regard would have him placed under house arrest, at best.

He was taking a risk.

He had just come off a job. Control had assigned a file to him: an MI6 analyst called Callaghan had been found poking through files that had no connection to his work. He had accessed the SIS network from his home computer and had been traced by his IP address. He had been put under surveillance and had been followed to Brick Lane in East London where he had been observed removing a small object from a cleft in the wall of an alleyway behind an Indian restaurant. It was a dead drop, and when agents investigated it they discovered that he had left behind a USB drive that, upon analysis, was found to contain intelligence on an active SIS operation in Eastern Europe. The follow-up investigation attributed more than two dozen disappearances of local sources to Callaghan’s perfidy.

The traitor’s flat was searched and the details of a hidden bank account containing fifty thousand pounds were recovered. The dead drop was put under surveillance but no one ever returned to it. The SVR agent, thought to be a Directorate S agent, either had a preternatural sense for self-preservation or he or she had been tipped off. The decision was made that they would not arrest Callaghan for fear of what might come out during a trial; instead, Milton was given the green light to interrogate him and then make him vanish.

The memories rushed over him and, even though he closed his eyes, he couldn’t stop them. He had broken into the man’s flat and waited for him to return from work. He had found a bottle of gin in a kitchen cupboard and had had his first drink then, two fingers to silence the spectres in his head, the wails and shrieks of the phantoms who were hungry for another to join their number. Callaghan had arrived. Milton had hidden behind the door and met him with his Sig pressed to the back of his head. Callaghan had confessed to everything, had answered Milton’s questions and then gone beyond them. He had volunteered information on his recruitment, on the intelligence that he had supplied, on the intelligence the SVR had requested of him. There was no need for what the CIA euphemistically described as ‘enhanced’ techniques; Callaghan had spilled his guts as soon as Milton had sat him down and told him how it was going to play out. Milton had recorded his mea culpa on a digital recorder and then, with the wailing pounding in his head, he had pressed the suppressor against the back of Callaghan’s crown and put a 9mm round into his brain. He had called it in, requested clean-up, and left.

After that? He could remember fragments, and then nothing: he had taken a taxi to Chelsea and had started drinking properly. He remembered The Crown, The Pig’s Ear and Riley’s. He remembered the dream, vivid and real: Callaghan visiting him while he was on his hands and knees in a filthy toilet cubicle. Milton saw the hole in his head and the blood still dripping down onto his face. After that, though, there was nothing. Milton had woken up with a black eye, a vicious bruise all the way down his ribcage, scraped and bruised knuckles and someone else’s blood on his shirt. He couldn’t remember how it had got there.

“Hello?”

Milton looked up. It was one of the men who had been smoking outside the building. The man was in his forties, dressed in clothes that suggested a reasonable income and a care for his appearance, with skin that bore all the hallmarks of a fake tan.

“Hello,” Milton said.

“Are you here for the meeting?” The man’s teeth were a little jagged, and Milton could smell stale smoke on his breath when he spoke.

“I’m fine,” Milton said, suddenly wanting to be left alone again.

“Is it your first?” The man had an effeminate quality. He didn’t wait for Milton to answer his question and, instead, he sat down next to him on the bench. “I remember my first, too. Nervous as hell. My throat was so dry I could barely speak. I still get nervous now, so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and volunteered to be secretary here. My name’s Michael.”

He put out his hand for Milton to shake, but, instead of taking it, Milton stood up. “I’m just enjoying the sunshine,” he said. “I’m not here for a meeting.”

“Of course,” the man said gently. “But if you were, and if you changed your mind, you could just come and sit at the back and listen. You might find that’s what you need.”

Milton found himself conflicted: his head was shouting that he should walk away and never come back, while his heart told him that Michael was right, that this was what he needed, that he had come here for a reason, that he could take a seat at the back of the room and just soak it all in, get a feel for the meeting so that he could decide whether it was for him. He was caught there, pinned by wariness and indecision, but, just as Michael was about to speak again, Milton’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

He turned away from the bench, took out the phone and looked down at the screen. The caller was Global Logistics.

Milton tapped to accept the call and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Smith?” The caller was using Milton’s usual legend for when he was in the United Kingdom: John Smith, a sales rep for the company.

“Yes,” he said. “Tanner?”

Tanner was Control’s private secretary: ex-army, infantry, like Control and all of the other operatives in the Group. He sounded nonplussed and a little annoyed.

“Where are you?” Tanner asked.

“In the city,” Milton said.

“Something’s happened. We need you.”

Milton gritted his teeth.

“I’m sending a car to pick you up now. Where are you?”

Milton reached a brick wall and sat down on it. “Mile End.”

“What are you doing in Mile End?”

Milton had no interest in answering that. “I can be at the Tube station in fifteen minutes.”

“Very good. The car is on its way.”

There was no point in arguing. Milton looked back at the building. Michael was just going inside, with the other two smokers following him. A wedge was removed from underneath the door and it swung closed.

“And Smith?” Tanner was still on the line.

“What?”

“You’re going to need to be sharp. We have a situation. You’ll be briefed en route.”

13

Jessie Ross woke up to the sound of her phone buzzing in her handbag.

She had been out in Camden last night. It had been a typical Saturday: they had started in the Good Mixer, staggered up Parkway to the Dublin Castle, watched a terrible band and then danced to the same music they always danced to until the late lock-in finally came to an end at three. She had told herself that she wouldn’t stay out all night but, already half cut, her resistance had been pathetic. They had picked up a greasy kebab from Woody’s Grill and taken it back to Fuzz’s house to eat it.

The phone.

She sat up and found that she wasn’t alone in bed. She remembered. There was a man next to her. He was lying on his front, his head angled away so that she couldn’t see his face. The sheets had been dragged all the way down to his knees and she could see that he was naked. She knew who he was: his name was Peter and he was one of Izzy’s friends from Fort Monckton, the facility that served as the SIS field operations training centre.

She got out of bed, took her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door and put it on. She found her handbag beneath the piled clothes on the floor and took out her phone. She looked at the display and saw that the call was from Raj Shah and that, much worse, she had already missed four calls from him. She groaned. He was calling on a Sunday? It must be serious.

She took the call and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she said quietly as she stepped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen diner of her flat.

“I’ve been calling you for the last thirty minutes,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The phone was on silent.”

“Where are you?”

“At home. What’s happening?”

“I need you to get to Southwold as quickly as you can.”

“Southwold?” She wrinkled her brow as she tried to remember where that was. “Norfolk?”

“Suffolk. I’m sending a car to pick you up. There’ll be a briefing in the back—you need to be up to speed by the time you get there.”

She looked down at the dirty dressing gown and then at her reflection in the window. Her hair was a disaster and she was still wearing last night’s make-up. She was a mess. “Give me half an hour,” she said.

“Can’t do that. The car will be with you in five minutes. Don’t fuck about, Jessie. This has the potential to be very serious.”

Jessie thought about her son; Lucas was with her parents, and she was supposed to be going over to pick him up later. She was going to have to call them to see if they could keep him for a little longer. She went back into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe, hoping against hope that she had something suitable to wear.

“Jessie?” Shah said curtly.

“Yes, sir,” she said, taking down a skirt that would just about do the trick. “It’s fine. Can you give me an idea what this is about?”

“Pyotr Aleksandrov is dead. He’s been shot. I don’t need to tell you what that means.”

“Hey,” said the man on the bed.

“Shot?” Jessie hissed. “By who?”

“Get in the car. I’ll see you there.”

Shah ended the call.

“Hey,” the man on the bed repeated.

Jessie turned around. She could see his face now. He was blandly handsome, in the sort of emaciated indie musician fashion that she found annoyingly attractive. Last night was the first time that they had met; Izzy had set it up as a blind date and Jessie had decided that he was someone it might be useful to know.

“Hey,” he said for the third time. “Come back to bed.”

“You have to go,” she said, taking off the dressing gown and pulling on the only clean underwear that she could find.

“Don’t be mean,” he said.

She found his jeans and t-shirt on the floor and tossed them at him. “I’m serious. Get dressed. I have to go to work.”

He must have heard the determination in her voice and, grunting, he sat up and started to work his legs into his trousers. Jessie picked up her blouse, saw it was dirty, found a clean white shirt and teamed it with the skirt.

“I had fun,” the man said.

“Great,” she said, going through into the bathroom and quickly sorting out her hair and make-up.

“So can I see you again?”

She wanted to say no, but she was ambitious and you never could tell how people might prove to be helpful down the road. No point in burning bridges when they didn’t need to be burned.

“I’ll call you,” she said. She reapplied her make-up, then took a bottle of aspirin out of the cabinet and swallowed down two tablets with a double-handful of water.

“You’re not just saying that?”

Jesus. Why were men all so insecure these days?

“Maybe we can get lunch next week. When are you in the River House again?”

“Thursday.”

“So give me a call.”

She was just checking herself in the mirror—better, not great, just about presentable—when she heard two short blasts of a car horn from outside. She couldn’t wait around any longer.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “Let yourself out.”

She grabbed her jacket, keys and phone and left the flat.

A black BMW was idling at the side of the road. She hurried over to it, opened the back door, and slid inside. There was a man sitting there already. He looked to be of average height—five eleven or six foot—and looked as if he might be muscular without it being obvious. His eyes were on the grey side of blue, his mouth had a cruel kink to it and, as he turned to look at her, she saw that he had a faint scar that ran from his cheek to the start of his nose. His hair was long and unkempt, with an unruly frond that curled across his forehead like a comma.

“Hello,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Jessie replied. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

The man put out his hand. “John Smith,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

14

They raced south under blue lights, the Sunday evening traffic parting before them. Smith was wearing a pair of jeans, a black polo-neck shirt and a scuffed leather jacket. Jessie looked down at her own clothes—the skirt was creased and she spotted, to her horror, a small red wine stain on her shirt—and felt a fresh surge of irritation.

She took out her phone and typed a quick message to her mother, telling her that she had been called away on urgent business and asking whether she would be able to look after Lucas for another couple of days. Her parents lived in Southampton, and ever since Lucas’ father had betrayed her, they had taken her son on alternate weekends so that he could maintain something of a life. They were besotted with the boy, as Lucas was with them, and the arrangement had proven to be invaluable. Jessie argued with her parents often, usually prompted by their unsubtle suggestions that she had been single for too long and shouldn’t a young and attractive woman like her have found someone suitable to settle down with rather than going out with her friends… but, despite their disagreements, Jessie knew that they worried about her for all the right reasons and that, without them, her life would be so much more difficult.

She fidgeted, unable to settle. She looked over at Smith: he was skimming through a sheaf of papers and, perhaps aware that she was looking at him, gestured to the seat back in front of her.

“One for you, too,” he said, pointing to a bundle of papers in the seat back pocket.

“Thank you,” she said.

Smith looked back down at his papers.

“How long will it take to drive there?” Jessie asked.

Smith looked up again and smiled at her with forced patience. “Where?”

“Southwold.”

“Who told you we were driving?”

“We’re not?”

“The plan changed.”

Jessie looked out of the window and noticed, for the first time, that they were heading south.

“Southwold’s east.”

“It is,” Smith said as the driver carved through a gap on the Old Street roundabout.

“But—”

“We’re flying there. Helicopter.”

“Oh.”

“You flown before?”

“Not in a helicopter.”

“We’ll be there in forty minutes. It’ll take two hours if we drive. Apparently, this”—he tapped a finger on the dossier—“is fast moving and they need everyone there yesterday.”

He looked down at the papers again.

“I’m sorry,” Jessie said. “I don’t think you told me what you have to do with this.”

“I didn’t,” Smith said. And then, when he realised that she was still staring at him, he added, “I’m your military liaison.”

“Why on earth do I need that?”

“You might not,” he said. “But it’s better to have something and find you don’t need it, than not have something and find that you do. Read the briefing.”

Smith looked back down at his own briefing document. She had exhausted his patience; it was clear that he had no wish to continue the conversation. She looked at him a little more carefully. He looked a little rough around the edges: his face was stubbled with five o’clock shadow and there were dark pouches beneath his eyes. He looked like she felt.

Jessie fished her briefing pack out of the seat back and started to leaf through it. It began with an MI6 summary of CHERRY’s case file. It had been signed off by ‘LG’; Jessie knew that was Leonard Geggel, her predecessor. CHERRY had a reputation for surliness, and, as she flicked through the reports that had been filed by Geggel—a man famed within the River House for a similar level of crabbiness—she saw repeated references to how unhappy the retired spy was.

CHERRY’s given name was Pyotr Ilyich Aleksandrov, although they had resettled him as Vladimir Kovalev. He was born in St. Petersburg in 1950, had served in the Soviet Airborne Troops and had then been co-opted into military intelligence. An impressive career had followed, and he had been a prize catch when he had been turned by Geggel while he was operating out of Athens Station. Aleksandrov had allowed them to mine a rich and valuable seam of information; he had reached the rank of colonel in the GRU and provided MI6 with lists of active Russian operatives and other organisational information. He was venal, as was often the case, and jealous of the perceived lifestyles of his counterparts in London and Langley. More than that, though, was a feeling of underappreciation that had quite clearly been with him all his life, a feeling that had not been assuaged since his defection.

Aleksandrov had had a good run. He had lasted nine years before he was blown and would have lasted longer if it were not for the unwise extravagance of spending some of the £100,000 a year he earned from MI6 on a brand-new BMW. The FSB had investigated him, then arrested him, and after a two-week spell in the bleak dungeons of the Lubyanka, they had broken him and extracted a confession. He was convicted under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code for high treason in the form of espionage and sentenced to thirteen years in a high-security detention facility, whilst also being stripped of his military rank and decorations.

His liberation had come with the capture of a cadre of Russian spies in New York. An offer had been made to exchange the Russians for five double agents who had been working for MI6 and the CIA. The offer had been accepted and, on a snowy bridge in Prague in a scene reminiscent of exchanges in the depths of the Cold War, the swap was made. Aleksandrov had asked for asylum in the United Kingdom and MI6 had acceded to his request.

But his useful years were long past. Aleksandrov had been out of the game for years and hadn’t been able to offer them anything useful since he had been exchanged. He was old and washed up, homesick and embittered by every slight and grievance that demonstrated, he argued, that MI6 was ungrateful and had forgotten the service that he had provided.

And now he was dead.

15

Milton flicked through the briefing pack, but, after a moment, he found that his attention drifted back to the woman whom they had picked up. She looked frazzled, as if she had only very recently been woken up, and he got the distinct impression that she—like him—was only really pretending to study the notes. She bore the very faint smell of alcohol and sweat, and that reminded Milton of his previous lost night, his memories sunk somewhere within his blackout, the evidence of his misdeeds in the aching of his ribs.

“Here we are,” the driver said.

They were in Battersea, the curve of the river ahead of them. The heliport was a commercial operation, but SIS occasionally chartered flights that took off from here. HQ was just up the road, after all, and they had no facilities of their own. A wire mesh gate was rolled out of the way and the driver took them all the way out to the landing pad. There was a helicopter waiting for them. It was an AS365 Dauphin, one of the Airbus line that was typically used as a medium-distance executive shuttle. Another car was waiting alongside the AS365. It was similar to their own, one of the MI6 pool cars that ferried staff around the country on occasions like this. Milton opened the door and stepped out, the wind from the river tousling his hair.

The rear door of the second car opened and two men stepped out. Milton recognised the first: it was Tanner. He had never seen the second man before. He was middle-aged and Asian, slightly overweight and dressed in a tatty suit that was beginning to look a little shiny at the elbows and knees.

Milton left Ross in the car and went across to Tanner.

“Evening, Milton,” Tanner said.

“Evening.”

“We need to get going,” Tanner said. “We have a major situation. Did you read the file?”

“Yes,” Milton said. “It’s just background. I’ll need more than that.”

“You’ll be read into it properly in the air.”

Milton turned and gestured back toward the car. Jessie Ross was making her way across to the second man. She called out to him; it was evident that they knew each other. “You know her?” he asked.

“She’s MI6,” Tanner said. “An agent runner.”

“The other guy?”

“That’s Raj Shah. Runs counter-intelligence.”

Milton nodded over to where Ross and Shah were talking. “Do you know anything about the girl?”

“Probably not much more than you,” he said. “She’s young. File says she’s ambitious. She’s been overseeing Aleksandrov and the other ex-pat Russians who’ve ended up here.”

Milton was going to say something else when Tanner glanced over his shoulder; Ross and Shah were on their way over to them.

She strode ahead of her boss and went to Tanner. “Hello,” she said.

Tanner put out his hand. “David Tanner,” he said.

“Jessie Ross. SIS. You work with Mr. Smith?”

“I do.”

“Military liaison?”

“That’s right. Better to have something and find you don’t need it—

“—than not have something and find that you do. I know. He said the same thing.”

Shah took Milton’s hand. “I’m Raj Shah. Good to meet you.”

“And you, sir,” Milton said.

The pilot jogged out from the ready room and indicated that they should get into the cabin. “We’ve got clearance,” he said.

Tanner opened the door and held it for Ross, Shah and Milton to embark. The interior was plush: four leather seats faced each other in opposing rows, with small tables separating each pair. There was fake wood panelling, overhead reading lights and wide windows on both sides of the cabin. Tanner climbed in awkwardly—he had lost half of his leg to an IED outside Kabul—and then pulled the door shut. They put on the headsets that rested above the seats.

“Strapped in?” the pilot radioed back.

“Good to go,” Tanner said.

“Flight time is thirty-five minutes,” he said. “I’m going to push it.”

16

Raj Shah spoke loudly, having to compete with the sound of the engine despite the headphones that they were all wearing.

“All right, then. I’ll assume you’ve read into the file. This is a very fast-moving situation, and it’s evolving all the time. What we know now will likely be out of date by the time we land, but I’ll do my best.”

The helicopter banked sharply as the pilot curved around onto a new vector, racing low across the city.

Shah waited until the helicopter had straightened out again and then continued. “Pyotr Aleksandrov has been living in Southwold for ten years, for almost as long as he’s been in the country. We gave him a new legend: Vladimir Kovalev, retired businessman, came here to marry an English woman now deceased. All fairly standard. He’s not been operational since he’s been here. He’s consulted for us now and again, and he’s done some work for OpSec and Intelligence companies in the city, but nothing of particular importance. His knowledge of the SVR is historic. He’s been spending his time writing a history of Soviet military intelligence, from what I’ve been led to believe.” He turned to Ross. “That, and moaning about how badly he’s been treated since we brought him over.”

“Only met him a couple of times, sir,” Ross said. “But that’s my understanding from reading into the file. I believe my predecessor found him difficult.”

“That he did,” Shah said with a smile. “They were quite a pair.” Shah paused as he looked down at his notes. “This is what we have. At approximately five o’clock this evening one of Aleksandrov’s neighbours reported seeing him on the floor of his kitchen. The neighbour’s kids were playing football and the ball went over the fence. The neighbour went and got it and saw him. They called an ambulance which attended at 5.12 pm. The crew broke into the house and found him. He was pronounced dead at 5.16 pm.”

Ross had taken out a pen and was scribbling notes on the back of the briefing document from the car.

“Cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head,” Shah said.

“Fuck,” Ross breathed to herself, and then, aware that everyone had heard her, she added, “Sorry.”

Shah ignored her and carried on. “The first police officer was on the scene at 5.30 pm. He requested a PNC check on Kovalev. We have an alert on his name, just like we do for all the other defectors we’ve got here, and, in the event that anything happens to any of them, SIS gets pinged.”

“What’s the working assumption?” Milton asked.

“He had no real enemies over here that we could ascertain. He was living a quiet life. We’re assuming that he was assassinated. That’s the only conclusion to be drawn.”

The helicopter raced over the M25 and kept going. Milton glanced around the cabin. Shah was finished, looking at the others just as he was. Tanner was pensive, his hands clasped in his lap. Ross looked both excited and anxious.

“Questions?” Shah said.

“What about Geggel?” Ross asked.

“Who?” Milton asked.

“Leonard Geggel,” Shah said. “He was Aleksandrov’s handler before Jessie.”

“They were friends,” Ross said.

“That might be exaggerating it,” Shah said. “Aleksandrov didn’t have friends. Geggel doesn’t either, to be fair.”

“But it might be worth speaking to him.”

“I agree,” Shah said. “I’ll make sure he’s called.”

“What about the situation on the ground?” Tanner asked.

“The street is locked down. Police are holding it for us.”

“The intelligence assessment?”

“Do you mean who do we think might have done this?”

Milton nodded.

“We don’t have anything concrete yet, but common sense points to Moscow. We don’t know why they’d go after an old hand like Aleksandrov, but it seems most likely.”

“Moscow has form for similar attacks in the past,” Tanner added.

“They do,” Shah said, “and whatever the motive turns out to be, it’s most likely something from Aleksandrov’s past with them.”

“You said we didn’t have anything concrete,” Ross said. “What do we have?”

Shah looked as if he was weighing up whether to say more. “This is classified,” he began, “but it’s relevant and so I’m going to read you in. We think the Russians are operating illegals in London. Have you heard of Directorate S?”

“Sleepers?”

Shah nodded. “SIS has intelligence that suggests we might be looking at multiple enemy assets who may have been in place for years. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if it was them. We have one man under heavy surveillance—we think he might be a runner for the others. He’s been careful so far, nothing to give us anything to go on, but they’ll know that what’s happened to Aleksandrov will make a lot of noise.”

“Who?” Jessie asked.

“Details are on a need-to-know basis, and it might not be relevant. He’s in London. We have a team on him. We’ll see if he makes a mistake. We see some unusual activity, something out of his ordinary routine—if we see that, maybe we get a break. Maybe.”

Ross was quiet and Milton had nothing else to ask. He had been involved in situations like this before, although never in this country. The facts were essentially fluid in the hours following an incident. Fresh evidence would emerge to disprove previous hypotheses and new witnesses would be found to open up different avenues of investigation. Shah was right; they were better dealing with the incontrovertible basics rather than indulging in speculation that would already be out of date by the time they landed. But Milton agreed with much of the assessment. The Russians had the best motive for taking out a defector whom they would see as a traitor. The Kremlin was most likely.

Milton closed his eyes and tried to blank out the muffled roar of the engine. His hangover ached and he could taste the old vomit in the back of his throat. He didn’t want to be here, but he knew he had no choice. This was already a big deal, and, if they could track down the people responsible, he knew that there was a good chance he would be deployed to bring them in or take them out. The thought of it brought back flickers from the previous night, of Callaghan on his knees begging for his life. It nauseated him, and reminded him that he needed a drink. He would find peace at the bottom of a glass, a means to forget.

17

It was eight thirty in the evening when Deputy Director Nikolai Primakov was chauffeured through the Borovitskaya Gate in the western corner of the Kremlin. It had been drizzling intermittently all afternoon, and the wipers of his official BMW scraped as they sluiced the run-off from the windshield. Primakov gazed out of the wet windows as the driver took him past the Grand Palace and the Cathedral of the Archangel, and then turned into the vast open space of Ivanovskaya Square. The chauffeur slowed the car so that he was able to slip it between the narrow walls that offered access to the courtyard of the Senate building. Primakov gazed thoughtfully out of the window as the car drew to a stop. The driver opened his door, collected an umbrella from the trunk, and opened it to offer shelter as Primakov stepped out.

“Thank you,” Primakov said.

He took the umbrella and made his way across the slick cobblestones until he reached the entrance to the building. Primakov was anxious; there was no point in pretending otherwise; the Security Council was one of the most powerful bodies in Russia, and, more than that, today’s meeting would be chaired by the president himself. Primakov intended to present the meeting with a subtly amended version of what had just taken place in the United Kingdom. He knew that there was a chance that the president might see through the tissue of lies that he would weave in order to direct attention away from the real reason for the operation. They all knew it: the president’s intuition bordered on the clairvoyant, and Primakov had seen many men, in situations like this, crumble under the most seemingly benign of questions. He had to guard against that as best he could.

The meeting was held in a vast room that was dominated by a long table that ran down the centre. It was large enough to accommodate forty people, with their aides and secretaries seated at additional tables that were spaced around the walls. The room was opulent, with a magnificent chandelier suspended from the barrel ceiling, and with a series of decorative marble columns spaced around the room. Primakov took his usual seat. He was one of the last to arrive. The president would be last of all, summoned when everyone else was in place, and Primakov looked at his empty chair at the head of the table and felt the usual knot of fear at the prospect of reporting to him. He turned away, looking at the others who had gathered. The attendees were the knyaz’ki, the Kremlin power brokers who exercised total control over the Russian state. There was the Chairman of the Government, the Manager of the Presidential Administration, the Chairwoman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly, together with the ministers for defence, foreign affairs, and internal affairs and the directors of the external and internal intelligence agencies.

The agenda for the meeting had been distributed in advance, and copies were set out on blotters around the table. Primakov picked up the sheet of paper on his own blotter and glanced over it. His report had been scheduled as the first item; he would be expected to leave as soon as that point of business had been concluded.

The doors at the end of the room were opened by uniformed officers, and the president stepped inside. His chair was flanked by the flags of the Russian Federation and, as he stepped forward, his aide drew back the chair for him to sit down.

The president opened the meeting. He was curt, avoiding pleasantries, and moved straight to the top of the agenda. Primakov started to speak but found that his throat was dry; he reached for a glass and filled it with water from a carafe. He was painfully aware that everyone was watching him. He swallowed the water, ignoring the clammy sensation beneath his arms and in the small of his back, and cleared his throat.

“Thank you, Mr. President. I realise that not everyone has been briefed, so I will summarise what has happened today. Ten years ago, a former GRU colonel who was convicted of spying for the British was exchanged for several Directorate S agents who were arrested by the Americans. This man—Pyotr Ilyich Aleksandrov—was relocated in the United Kingdom. We recently received intelligence that Aleksandrov was seeking to sell classified information to MI6. The president authorised Directorate S to mount an operation against Aleksandrov and that operation was successfully concluded today.”

“I’ve received a briefing,” said major-general Alexei Nikolaevich, the First Deputy Director of the Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, or FSB, the internal security service. “The means deployed were unusually… flagrant.”

“That is correct,” Primakov said. “We didn’t see the point of disposing of him stealthily.”

“Even though this will bring attention to us?”

“The decision was taken that we should make a point. We want our involvement to be deniable, of course, and my colleagues in Line PR are already seeking to cast doubt on our involvement, but it will be obvious to those who need to know. The British, for one. The other Western governments who need to be reminded that we are not a country to be pushed around. And, most importantly, the other dissidents and defectors who have settled in the west. We want them to know that the SVR has a long reach, and that there will be no forgiveness for continued treachery. We believe that this will have a sobering effect on anyone who might otherwise have sought to follow Aleksandrov’s example. Our course of action was agreed to in advance, of course.”

He glanced at the president; his face was as impassive as a Sphinx. His pale blue eyes were locked onto him and, once again, Primakov felt that his lies were being stripped away like the skin of an onion, layer by layer by layer.

“This intelligence,” the Minister for Internal Affairs said. “What was Aleksandrov trying to sell?”

Primakov swallowed and fought the urge to look back at the president. He needed to be convincing.

“Aleksandrov told his old handler at MI6 that he was in possession of a list of all of the SVR’s active agents in Western Europe.”

“And did we believe him? Where could he have come across such a document?”

“We do not know,” he said. “It is possible that he made contact with a source within the Center.” The president was watching him with those limpid eyes, seeing everything. “Line KR has initiated an operation looking into that as a matter of the utmost importance.”

“Thank you, Deputy Director Primakov,” the president said, his voice as smooth as silk. “There will be political repercussions from this operation, but I am satisfied that the benefit outweighs the cost.” He smiled, just a little, his mask shifting.

“Who carried out the operation?” Nikolaevich asked.

“Directorate S agents,” Primakov said. “They remain in place. We will monitor the investigation. If we feel that there is a risk that their involvement has been detected, we will recall them to Moscow at once.”

“Where I shall be delighted to meet them,” the president said. “They have performed a great service for the Rodina today. They are to be commended. Thank you, Deputy Director.”

The president said no more, and, instead, looked down at his agenda. Primakov knew that the ordeal was at an end. He slid his chair away from the table and stood, noting, to his alarm, that his legs were weak. He nodded his acknowledgements to the colleagues around the table; Nikolaevich smiled and gave him a wink. Primakov buttoned up his jacket and made his way to the exit. He held onto the balustrade as he descended the staircase and hurried to where his chauffeur was waiting for him. He had forgotten his umbrella and was quickly soaked in the growing downpour that hammered against his car and on the cobbles of the courtyard. His chauffeur opened the back door and Primakov collapsed inside. He closed his eyes and scrubbed the rain away from his face. The driver swung the car around and they passed through the Borovitskaya Gate once more. Primakov looked back at the tower, layered like the sections of a cake with a spire topped with a single red star. They had plotted to kill Brezhnev here. Assassinations. Death. Primakov couldn’t keep such thoughts from his mind.

He wondered what the council was discussing now that he was gone. Primakov thought that he had done enough, but there was no way to be sure. The president sometimes appeared omniscient, and, despite his compliments, Primakov could not help but harbour doubts.

He thought of Natasha. He had taken a grievous risk for her. He had risked his career. His life. He had done it because he loved her, because he was old and she made him feel young. And now he wanted to see her and tell her that her problems were at an end, and to enjoy the gratitude that he knew she would feel.

18

They arrived over Southwold. Milton saw the black expanse of the sea, the twinkling lights of big oil tankers laid up a mile offshore, and then the brighter lights of the town itself that glowed up at them through the deepening dusk. The lighthouse stood over the town, casting a golden finger of light that flicked out over the frothing waves. The pilot told them to hold tight as he brought them down on The Paddock, a grassy area that formed the inner part of Southwold Common on the town’s southern boundary. The wheels bumped once and then settled.

Tanner opened the cabin door, slid it back and hopped down onto the grass. Shah followed, then Ross, then Milton. The downdraft was strong, disturbing rubbish from a nearby bin and forcing them to duck their heads as they scurried away. Milton stayed close to Ross as they followed Shah to the man who was waiting for them just outside the stone wall that marked the boundary of the United Reformed Church. The two men shook hands and exchanged words before Shah turned back to them.

“They’ve set up base in there,” he said, pointing to the church. “The police are briefing everyone in five minutes.”

They followed Shah through a gate and into the church grounds.

The church had been taken over as a central control point for the police and intelligence operation. It was close to the house where Aleksandrov had been found. The church hall was busy. There was a collection of men and women, some of them in suits, others in clothes that suggested that they might have been called to the town at short notice. Milton guessed that the crowd would include detectives and intelligence operatives. Milton, Shah and Ross stood together. There was a tangible buzz in the room, the crackle and pop of electricity, the expectation that something extraordinary was going on.

There was a folding table at the front of the room with two chairs behind it. A second table bore a large television screen. A man and a woman emerged from a room at the back of the hall and made their way through the crowd to the front. The man sat down but the woman remained on her feet.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. “My name is Francesca Kennedy. I’m the Deputy Assistant Commissioner and the senior national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism policing in the Metropolitan Police. Suffolk Constabulary has now handed over this incident to us. The Assistant Commissioner is here”—she indicated the man sitting next to her, who responded with a nod of his head—“but I’m going to brief you. As you all already know, the victim was a former Russian spy who had been working for SIS for many years before he was exposed and prosecuted. He’s been living here in Southwold under a new identity since his request for asylum was granted. Given that background, his murder raised numerous red flags.”

She took out her notebook and flipped through the pages, setting out the timeline. A few additional facts had been added, but it was largely the same situation as the one that Shah had briefed them on in the helicopter.

“Aleksandrov was found at home, as you know. Single gunshot to the head. We’ve been piecing together his activities this afternoon. He was seen in the Old Nelson public house just after lunch. The publican knew him and said that it wasn’t unusual for him to go there for a drink around that time. He normally drank alone, but the publican said that he was with another man today. He didn’t get a look at the man and hasn’t been able to provide a description or any additional details.”

Shah raised his hand, and Kennedy nodded to him. “Raj Shah, SIS,” he said. “We have no idea at all who the other man was?”

“No. Not yet. But he’s obviously of significant interest. Finding him is the main priority. You got any ideas?”

“Not yet,” Shah said. “If we think of anything, we’ll share it at once.”

Milton noticed Ross lean closer to Shah so that she could whisper something into his ear.

“CCTV?” one of the detectives asked.

“Nothing in the pub—the publican says he can’t afford it. There’s not a great deal of coverage in the town, either, but local uniform is securing everything they can. We’re going through it now—if there’s anything useful, they’ll find it. We don’t know that much at the moment, but we’re working as fast as we can to build it up. I’m grateful for the extra help.”

Milton doubted that the help would make any difference. They might be able to put together Aleksandrov’s last few hours, and they might—eventually—be able to put a name to the men or women who had killed him. It wouldn’t matter. Milton knew that if this was a professional job, then the assassins would already be miles away from here. They would be heading for the nearest airport and a flight out of the country. He doubted that they would have the information they needed in time to stop them from leaving. They might already have gone.

Kennedy went on. “Aleksandrov lived on Wymering Road—that’s five minutes northwest of here. We’ve secured the property and moved the neighbours out. We’d rather limit access to the property until the SOCOs are finished gathering evidence and are out of the way. I’m told we’re looking at another hour for that. After that, I don’t have a problem with small teams going in to look for themselves, but for obvious reasons I’d like it to be under police supervision.”

Kennedy brought the meeting to a close. Tanner, Milton, Shah and Ross moved to the side of the room.

“This is all going to be too little, too late,” Tanner said quietly.

“I agree,” Milton said.

“Where do you think they are now?”

“If they’re not on a plane already, it won’t be long. We’re already five hours behind them.”

“A little optimism?” Ross said. “You’re not giving up already?”

“It’s realism,” Milton said. “This sounds like a professional job, probably a state-sponsored one. Men and women like that don’t wait around to be caught. They do their job and then they leave. And they have a big head start.”

“I’m going to update HQ,” Tanner said, taking his phone out of his pocket and turning away.

Milton waited in the church hall and then followed the departing officers out into the alley. The night was cooling fast, and he zipped up his jacket. The high street at the end of the alley was quiet. Milton wondered how long it would stay like this. How long would it take for the news to leak? A Russian spy had been assassinated on the streets of a sleepy English coastal town. It would be a big story. A scandal. They probably had the town to themselves for the night, and maybe for some of tomorrow if they were lucky. After that, it would be pandemonium. They needed to get a lead before then or they never would.

19

Vincent Beck was listening to Brahms when his landline rang on the table next to his record player. He picked it up and saw, with a quickening of his pulse, that the caller ID was a number that he recognised.

“Is this Vincent Beck?”

“Yes,” Beck said. “Who is this?”

“We believe that you were sold an insurance policy with a mortgage you took out ten years ago. It’s sometimes known as PPI. Does that sound like it might be right?”

Beck’s throat was arid. “How many years ago did you say?”

“Ten,” the man said.

“No,” Beck replied. “Not me. I’m afraid your records are mistaken. Goodbye.”

Beck ended the call and stared at the phone. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. He had known that a moment like this would come—it always did, eventually—but he had been here so long without issue that it was difficult to accept it. But the moment had come and, now that it was here, he had to make sure that he reacted appropriately. He went to his bedroom, took the small suitcase from underneath the bed and packed a change of clothes. He took his keys from his pocket, lowered himself to the floor and slid beneath the bed far enough so that he could reach the loose floorboard. He used a key to prise up the end and removed the board so that he could reach into the void beneath. He took out his go-bag, scrambled out from underneath the bed and opened it up. The bag contained a burner phone, a passport and driver’s licence in a false name, £5000 and a small Glock 26 handgun, together with two spare magazines. The Glock was designed for concealed carry, with a small frame and abbreviated barrel that meant that it was easy to hide anywhere on the body. It was chambered in 9mm, with ten rounds in the magazine and one in the spout. Beck zipped up the bag and put it into the suitcase. He confirmed that the burst encoder was hidden in the suitcase and closed it up.

He took the suitcase to the hall and then quickly passed through the rooms to make sure that he hadn’t left anything that might later prove to be incriminating. Satisfied, he went back to the suitcase, extended the handle and wheeled it out of the flat’s front door. One of his neighbours was just stepping out of the lift. She was an old woman who spent her days in a pub down by the river. Beck bid her good evening and she did the same, her words a little slurred as usual. Beck put his arm between the doors to stop them from closing and pulled the suitcase into the lift. He hit the button for the ground floor and waited for the doors to close.

He took a moment to compose himself. It had taken him five minutes to clear the flat. That was good. Fast enough. There was no time to spare, and no way of knowing how serious the threat against him was. If anyone had been listening to the call that he had received, they would have concluded that it was from a call centre. It would have sounded authentic, and that was the intention. However, the precise wording had been agreed to in advance and the answer to his question—“ten”—served as the trigger signal. Each number, from one to ten, bore a separate meaning. “Ten” meant that Beck and his agents had been, or were at imminent risk of being, blown.

The lift reached the ground floor and the doors opened. Beck stepped outside. There was a group of young boys smoking weed on the scrubby patch of grass outside the building, but nothing else that made him nervous. Beck was always careful, but tonight required even more caution than usual.

It was nine in the evening when he set off and wheeled his case down to the river, following the route that he took every day. He followed the gentle curve for a mile, maintaining the same leisurely pace as yesterday, the day before that, and all the days before that. Beck was an old man, in his seventies, and, to any normal observer it would look as if he was just off to catch a bus or a train. The main purpose of the walk was to help him to identify surveilling parties and, if necessary, lose them. It was an SDR—a surveillance detection route—and Beck had learned it from a retired KGB colonel who had taught a class at the Dzershinsky Higher School in Michurinsky Prospekt. Beck had been in his twenties when he had attended the KGB school, but the lessons were just as relevant today as they had been then. The fundamental art of espionage was unchanged, despite the advances in technology that had added so many opportunities and perils to the work. In this case, Beck needed to be sure that he was black before he met with his agents. The utmost caution was required.

He usually stayed on this side of the river until he reached the Hurlingham Club, but today he carried his case up the steps from the footpath and crossed the water into Putney. He headed south and then continued along Putney High Street until he reached the overland train station. It was a couple of miles from his apartment, and he used all the tricks designed to flush out surveillance: he paused to tie a lace, crossed over the road to look in the window of the Franco Manca restaurant, turned onto Disraeli Road and then quickly turned back on himself. He waited on the platform for a train, scanning the other men and women to see whether any of them were repeats. He had never spotted anything that made him suspect he was under surveillance, but that did not mean that today might not be different. He looked for clothes that he might have seen before, and, when nothing registered, he checked shoes. Clothes were easy to change, but, in his long experience, Western agents never remembered to change their shoes. It was sloppy tradecraft and an easy giveaway but he saw nothing tonight that gave him cause for concern. There were no signs of pursuit: no suggestion of agents leapfrogging each other, no obvious handovers, no one following him along his erratic route.

The train rolled into the station. He climbed aboard and took a seat at the end of the carriage where he would be able to watch anyone else who got on with him.

Beck was too wily to relax. He had years of experience playing this particular game and had deployed the same tactics in any number of denied areas around the world: he had operated in San Francisco, Madrid, Paris, Berlin—on both sides of the Wall—and Washington. His posting to London had been the longest of his career, and it would be his last. His real name was Vladimir Rabtsevich but he had used this particular legend for so long that now he thought of himself as Beck. He was a retired language teacher at the Znaniye School in Chelsea. He had worked there for ten years to provide the ballast for the legend. A wife had been invented for him; they had used the usual trick, finding a candidate by working their way around Highgate Cemetery until a deceased child of suitable age had been located and then building a persona with the benefit of their birth certificate. Mrs Beck was said to have died, but the fact that she had been British allowed him to stay in the country without a visa. He lived alone with a cat called Lenin, ate microwave meals for one, and occasionally visited the Curzon for the foreign arthouse films that they showed there. He didn’t own a mobile phone because, as he said whenever anyone asked him, he didn’t like their intrusiveness. The real reason, of course, was because he had no wish for the spooks at GCHQ to be able to track him between the phone masts that prickled across London’s streets. He used burner phones and telephone boxes to arrange his business, different ones each time.

Beck got off at Clapham Junction and changed onto the train to Winchester. He looked around at the quiet Sunday night carriage. He was comfortable, still confident that he was black. He looked at his watch. He had an hour until he arrived.

20

“All units, this is Blackjack. PAPERCLIP is on the move. Minimal comms unless operationally necessary. Out.”

The earbud was loose, and Michael Pope pushed it in until it was snug. He was sitting in the back of one of the Group Three backup cars; a surveillance expert occupied the driver’s seat. They were parked on Fulham Palace Road, waiting for PAPERCLIP’s route to be relayed.

PAPERCLIP was the cryptonym of Vincent Beck, an ex-pat Russian who had been living in the United Kingdom for ten years. He was ostensibly a retired teacher of foreign languages, but, as a result of intelligence received from BLUEBIRD, the Secret Intelligence Service had confirmed that he was a senior agent runner working for Directorate S. BLUEBIRD was MI6’s pride and joy, an active source buried within the SVR, and the tip about Beck had been just the latest in a long line of valuable intelligence scoops.

Beck had been subjected to round-the-clock surveillance ever since he had been uncovered. His landline had been tapped, his apartment bugged, and he had been followed every time he stepped out of the front door of his house. So far, though, he had revealed nothing except a predilection for long riverside walks, arthouse cinema and the borscht served at Zima Russian Street Food and Bar on Frith Street in Soho.

“This is Alpha. He’s going down to the river.”

This operation was sensitive and complex enough to warrant the involvement of several of the Groups that comprised the Firm. Group Three was responsible for human surveillance, the teams of agents who coalesced around a target so that it was practically impossible for that person to go anywhere without being observed. In the way that the agents of Group Five—responsible for ensuring the smooth transmission of intelligence among the Groups—were informally referred to as ‘postmen’ and the cryptanalysts of Group Six were ‘hackers,’ the agents of Group Three were dubbed ‘bloodhounds.’ They had earned the sobriquet through the diligence and discretion of their surveillance and tracking and the reputation, hard won, that, once a target was put under their surveillance, it was impossible for them to be shaken off.

The agents of Group Fifteen were referred to as ‘cleaners’ or ‘headhunters.’ Pope, as Number Five, was one of its most senior operatives. Pope was emplaced in the event that a decision was taken to interdict PAPERCLIP, or anyone else that he might meet. Control was rotating his agents to keep them fresh; this was the second day that Pope had been on the team, and tomorrow he would be rotated off in favour of Number Six.

“This is Alpha, handing off.”

“This is Bravo. Picking up. PAPERCLIP is heading toward the bridge.”

The team was extensive. There were ten agents assigned, with none of them staying with him for longer than necessary. Beck was good, and they were assuming that he had been operational for the entirety of the ten years that he had been in the country. He had never been caught, and that suggested a certain expertise. The sophistication of the surveillance had been ratcheted up in accordance with that.

“This is Bravo. He’s going over the bridge. Handing off.” There was surprise in the agent’s voice.

“This is Foxtrot. Picking up.”

“Is that unusual?” Pope asked the female agent driving the car.

“Yes,” she said, putting the car into gear and pulling out. “First time over the river since we’ve been on him. We need to change position.”

They drove down Fulham High Street and swung onto Putney Bridge. Pope looked out to the left as they started across the river. Beck was walking on his own, passing beneath one of the outsized lanterns that threw out its warm glow over the water below. He was a big man, solid and healthy despite his years, and he walked with purpose. He was wearing a light jacket and pulling a wheeled suitcase along behind him. There were a handful of other people on the bridge. Pope had no idea which of them were engaged in the operation, but guessed there would be at least three, with one going in the opposite direction in the event that Beck reversed course in an attempt to reveal possible surveillants.

“This is Blackjack. We’ve checked the origin of the call. There’s no call centre. It was a flare. Assume he’s running.”

The car reached the other side and swung off onto Waterman’s Green. The driver continued around the curve until they were out of sight of the bridge and then performed a U-turn, bringing the car to a halt next to a bus shelter.

“This is Foxtrot. He’s heading straight on. Handing off.”

“This is Golf. Picking up.”

Pope had conferred with Control an hour previously and had been brought up to speed on the events in Southwold. The death of the dissident Russian was being attributed to Russian actors, and, as a suspected agent runner, Beck had become of even greater interest. The hope was that Beck’s agents might be responsible and that he might inadvertently betray them. And now, on the evening of the murder, Beck was on the move. He had received a warning and he was acting on it. Pope found it hard to believe that that could be a coincidence.

They waited next to the shelter, listening to the chatter over the radio as Beck changed course in what was an obvious attempt to smoke out surveillance. They had enough assets to adapt the coverage so that he didn’t see the same follower more than once. Pope listened as Beck was reported as returning onto the main road and continuing to the south.

“This is Golf. I think he’s going to the station.”

The driver put the car into gear and rolled away from the kerb.

“This is Blackjack to Number Five. Get to the station, please.”

“On our way,” the driver reported, bullying her way into the traffic and then waiting for the lights opposite the medieval church to change.

Pope felt the tingle of adrenaline. This was not the sort of operation where it was possible to furnish him with clean rules of engagement. There had been no need for him, or any of the other Group Fifteen agents who had been involved in the surveillance, to do anything other than wait for an order to move. But PAPERCLIP’s uncharacteristic activity this evening, especially given what had happened on the Suffolk coast, suggested that the operation was approaching a climax. Pope reached down to the service pistol that he had holstered beneath his left shoulder. His fingertips brushed the stippled grip of the Sig and then slid away from it, zipping up his jacket to obscure the weapon.

“This is Foxtrot. He’s crossing for the station. Handing off.”

“This is Golf, picking up. He’s buying a ticket.”

“This is Blackjack to Five. You’re up. Get after him.”

The driver pulled over on the opposite side of the road to the station entrance.

“Go,” the driver urged.

Pope got out, waited for a chance to cross and then jogged out between two slow-moving buses.

“Golf to Five. Paperclip is on platform one. Repeat, platform one.”

Pope pressed his pre-paid card on the reader, passed through the barriers and made his way to the platform. He saw Beck at once. The old man was sitting on one of the benches, looking up and down the platform. Pope walked on without giving him a second glance. His earpiece was tiny and in the opposite ear; Beck wouldn’t be able to see it. He checked the departures board; the first train, due into the station in a minute, was going to Winchester.

Pope was five paces beyond Beck when he heard the rumble of the approaching engine. He kept walking, all the way down to the front of the platform, and waited for the train to arrive. He turned back to see Beck board the third carriage of five. Pope helped a mother to wheel her pram down from the carriage and onto the platform and then boarded himself. The doors closed and the train pulled out.

21

Primakov told his driver to take him to the Fourth District. He had him pull up half a mile short of his ultimate destination, told him to take the night off and then waited for him to merge into the traffic and drive away. He walked the rest of the way himself, following the Moskva River through a pleasant park that was lit with reproduction antique lanterns that cast a warm glow out over the water.

They had chosen the usual location for their tryst, the Directorate S safe house that was occasionally occupied by agents who were returning to Moscow from abroad. It was almost always empty; Primakov had confirmed that that was the case today, and that they would have privacy for as long as they wanted it. The apartment was in one of the new blocks that had been constructed here during the last twenty years, funded by ambitious developers who took advantage of the more relaxed rules on the movement of capital to invest in accommodation for the city’s burgeoning middle class. These buildings were alike, each thirty stories tall and sleeker than the Soviet-era architecture that blighted so much of the rest of the city.

Primakov opened the door to the lobby, walked past the reception desk without acknowledging the porter, and took the lift up to the fourteenth floor. He knocked on the door and waited until he heard the sound of bare feet slapping against the wood of the hall. The door opened and his lover greeted him with a smile.

“I thought you would never get here,” she said.

“The council meeting ran a little late,” he said, happy to mention that he had been to the Kremlin because he knew that she would be impressed.

“And?” she said, her eyes wide.

“I think we might have got to the end of the problem.”

Her face dissolved into a wide smile and, without even waiting to draw him into the apartment, she placed both hands around his head so that she could draw him down to her level. She kissed him full on the lips.

“Thank you,” she said. “You don’t know how grateful I am. What would I do without you?”

Primakov had met Captain Natasha Kryuchkov during a conference that had taken place in the Kremlin six years earlier. He had been there to listen to his boss, the Director of the SVR, speak about the intelligence challenges that had arisen thanks to Russia’s increasingly active role in world affairs. The first hour of the symposium had been deathly dull, and Primakov had decided that he would manufacture an excuse to leave as soon as the Director had finished. He had gone to get a cup of strong black coffee to help him stay awake for the second hour when he had bumped into a young, attractive brunette dressed in the green uniform of the Glavnoye razvedyvatel’noye upravleniye, or the GRU’s Main Intelligence Directorate.

Primakov’s wife had died of cancer five years earlier, and, since then, he had resigned himself to a bachelor’s life. It had been a bleak way to live. Natasha was attractive and attentive and the two of them had enjoyed an easy rapport. Primakov was not naïve enough to think that she was drawn to him because of his looks; he was thirty years older than she was, and, although he took care with his appearance, he still looked his age. He guessed that she recognised him and was flattered that he took the time to speak to her. He was encouraged by her evident interest and had invited her for a tour of Yasenevo. That had gone well and, ignoring the slight sense of ridiculousness that he was contemplating dating a woman so much younger than himself, he had invited her to dinner the next week.

They had enjoyed a pleasant evening together. She told him all about her career, and what she hoped to achieve. She worked in the Counterintelligence Service (Department), specifically within the Directorate for the Counterintelligence Support of Strategic Facilities. She had enjoyed a rapid rise through the ranks thanks to a tenacious approach, hard work and a fierce loyalty to her country. For his part, he explained how he had come to achieve a position of authority within the SVR, and how things had changed over the years. He admitted that he was disenchanted with how the service had been altered since the death of the KGB, and that he was looking forward to his retirement in five years’ time. That he felt able to be so indiscreet with her was, he concluded, a sign that there was more to their putative relationship than might otherwise have been the case. She had invited him to her apartment the week after their first dinner, and they had started seeing each other more frequently after that. They both agreed that their assignations should be clandestine, given that the relationship would be frowned upon by the Kremlin. His colleagues would deride him for an affair which was, they would say, inappropriate and embarrassing; her superiors would conclude that she was sleeping with him because she wanted to advance her career.

Their affair had developed into something different. Primakov could have lived with the suspicion that she was with him for her own career; it was a compromise he could make in return for being with her. But, as time went by, he came to accept that that was not the case. He had done her a few favours, put in a good word here and there, but nothing that would be enough to keep her around. She told him that she loved him and he came to believe that.

And then, a month ago, Natasha had finally turned to him for help. She had been in a blind panic as she explained that a senior engineer working in the Sukhoi factory had disappeared. Her investigation had revealed that the engineer had stolen several terabytes worth of data related to the new Su-58 that was being developed at the factory. The engineer was a woman: Anastasiya Romanova.

The chief of Natasha’s Department in the GRU was a man named Klimashin; Primakov knew him by reputation and knew that Natasha’s fears were well founded. Klimashin was an ambitious and devious man and would do everything he could to protect his own standing. He would absolve himself of responsibility for the intelligence failure and would sacrifice Natasha and anyone else if it meant that his own career could be saved.

Primakov reviewed the case himself. Natasha had started an investigation to find Romanova but had drawn a blank. The woman had simply disappeared. Her friends had been rounded up and questioned, but none of them had any idea where she might have gone. Primakov put two of his analysts on the case, warning them that it was sensitive and their findings were not to be shared outside of his office. They quickly made progress, revealing a motive for the disappearance. Her husband, Viktor Romanov, had built up a successful business in the oil and gas sector. He had come into conflict with an oligarch who was close to the president and, rather than be prudent and back down, Romanov had brought legal proceedings alleging fraud and embezzlement. It wasn’t difficult to join the dots and work out what had happened next. The oligarch made a call, and, within days of the filing of the proceedings, Romanov had been arrested. He was tried and convicted and sent to Penal Colony No. 14 on the banks of the Partsa River in Mordovia. He died six months later. The official account was that he had suffered a heart attack, but Primakov knew that the truth would have been more brutal. Romanov’s money found its way to the oligarch, a fraction was funnelled to one of the Stalinist romanticisers who ran the colony, and the Romanov problem was made to go away. His wife had been interviewed after his death and had responded badly. The agents responsible had reported that she blamed the state, and had recommended that she be removed from the factory until her loyalty could be confirmed. But she had vanished before that could happen, and a forensic investigation of her network activity suggested that she had illegally downloaded hundreds of terabytes of restricted information.

Primakov instructed his researchers to delve deeper. Anastasiya Romanova’s father was Pyotr Aleksandrov, who had been convicted of treason and then swapped for the illegals who had been captured by the CIA. It appeared that treachery ran in the family and, his instincts aroused, Primakov used EUREKA, the Directorate S agent that they had placed within MI6, to provide him with the father’s location. He then directed Vincent Beck to deploy two illegals to put Aleksandrov under surveillance.

It was a gamble, and Primakov had no reason to think that it would pay out. The file said that Aleksandrov and his daughter were estranged, but he still felt it worth the attempt. Romanova was alone, hunted by the state and with secrets to sell; why would she not go to her father? After all, he had experience in selling stolen intelligence and a direct line to decision-makers at Vauxhall Cross.

The fishing expedition was successful. They had intercepted the call that Anastasiya had placed to her father and learned of their plan to bring her out of Russia so that the two of them might be reunited and reconciled. But now Primakov had a dilemma: he couldn’t very well go to the Director and tell him that Anastasiya was offering the secrets of the new fighter because that would end up damning Natasha. But doing nothing would lead to the same result. He decided that a creative approach was necessary and, instead of the Su-58, he simply invented something else for Aleksandrov to sell. The phone call between Aleksandrov and his former handler, Geggel, was fortunate in its timing. Primakov amended the transcript and took it to the Director. Primakov’s version of the conversation suggested that Aleksandrov had acquired a list of active agents and their legends, source unknown, and that he had contacted Geggel in order to discuss their sale. Urgent action needed to be taken to prevent the information from falling into the hands of the enemy. Anastasiya was not mentioned at all.

The Director had approved the operation with the caveat that Aleksandrov’s death must also serve as a warning to anyone else who would be foolish enough to cross the Rodina in this way. They hadn’t tried to hide it. It was obvious to anyone with even the slightest passing interest that Aleksandrov had been killed because he had tried to cross the motherland. His death would prevent the spread of the information he was trying to sell while serving as a warning to others on the consequences of greed.

22

Primakov and Natasha lay together in bed, the blinds open so that they could drink in the night-time view of the city. The lights atop towers and cranes sparkled across the horizon, and buildings were crushed together in the oxbow curve of the river. The view always reminded Primakov of how much Moscow had changed in the years since he had first arrived here. The last decade had seen an especially rapid transformation as capital flooded in from newly liberated markets, the president’s cronies first in line to shove their snouts into the trough. Primakov had no problem with that. He was a pragmatist. He understood how the system worked and knew that he stood to benefit by demonstrating his fealty and effectiveness to those above him. His policy had been successful so far, and he was keen to ensure that it continued to be so.

Natasha had taken him straight to bed, and it was only now that she asked him about the events that he had set in train for her.

“How did it—” she began.

“It’s done,” he said, gently talking over her anxiety.

“The father?”

“Dead. The message will be unambiguous.”

“But there’s nothing on the news.”

“I doubt the British are ready to go public yet. They will. And when they do, she will know that it was her fault. She’ll stay quiet and, in the meantime, we’ll track her down. She can’t hide forever.”

Natasha rolled onto her back, stared up to the ceiling and exhaled. “I wish this was finished. Worrying all the time—it’s exhausting.”

He stroked her hair. “It’s nearly done,” he said. “There’s something I didn’t tell you: Directorate X traced the IP address for the email she sent to her father. She used an internet café in Komsomolsk. They have CCTV. We have a picture of her paying her bill.”

“She’s still there?”

“She’s changed her hair, but it looks like she is too frightened to travel. I have two men I trust in situations like this. They will find her.”

Primakov had been thinking of sending Stepanov and Mitrokhin. He could have spoken to Nikolaevich at the FSB, but he would have needed a pretext to ask for help that would still hide the real reason for the request. Nikolaevich was a wily old fox, and he could make things uncomfortable for Primakov if he joined the dots between Romanova and Aleksandrov. Far better to send his best men. Stepanov had an excellent nose, and people tended to give Mitrokhin what he wanted to know. They made an effective team.

Natasha rolled over again and draped her arm across his chest. “Can you stay tonight?”

“Perhaps. Let me check.”

He realised that he hadn’t turned his cell phone back on again after deactivating it for the council meeting. He got up and went to the chair where he had left his clothes. He took it out of his jacket pocket, pressed the button and waited for it to boot up. It buzzed in his hand with a series of incoming messages. One of them was marked urgent, and, with a feeling of unease, he scrolled down and tapped his finger on it.

“What is it?” Natasha said.

His face must have given him away. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just information on the operation. But I need to go back to the office.”

“What information? Something is wrong?”

“Please, Natasha, don’t worry. Everything is as it should be. But there are some things that I need to do. Perhaps I will be able to return later.”

He dressed quickly, then excused himself and went down onto the street. He wished that he had his car, but he didn’t, and he did not want to call his driver to pick him up from the park. Instead, he followed the street to Strogino Metro station. He took out his phone as he waited for a train to arrive and read the message for a second and then a third time. It was from the Center. EUREKA had filed an urgent report to the London rezidentura earlier that evening. Vincent Beck, the agent runner responsible for the sleepers in the United Kingdom, was reported as being compromised. EUREKA’s order had been passed to Directorate S and, in his absence, his deputy had given the order to exfiltrate both Beck and the illegals who had mounted the operation against Aleksandrov. Beck was on his way to the agents now and the process to bring them out had been initiated.

Primakov put his phone away and tapped his foot impatiently. There was no knowing what the British would find if they were able to capture and interrogate Beck or his agents. He had read Beck’s zapista confirming that the operation had been successful, but the message was cursory and no substitute for the more detailed report that would follow in due course. It left him with questions: had the assassins spoken to Aleksandrov before they killed him? Had they been able to eavesdrop on any conversations between Aleksandrov and Geggel? If they had, what had they heard? Had they reported anything else to Beck? What would the British discover if they captured the old man and interrogated him? Perhaps they would find out that Aleksandrov was not selling the identities of SVR agents. Perhaps they would know that Aleksandrov was working with his daughter, and that it was the schematic of the Su-58 that Aleksandrov was dangling in order to persuade them to get her out. If the truth was ever uncovered, it would eventually make its way back to the council and the president. His lies would be revealed.

That could not be allowed to happen. There was a gust of wind as the train rumbled out of the mouth of the tunnel. Primakov waited for the doors to open and then stepped aboard.

The agents couldn’t be captured. That would herald disaster. He had to bring them home.

23

Vincent Beck hoisted his case onto the seat next to him and gazed out at the landscape as it raced by the windows on either side of the train.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the call. The source of the information that had led to the warning was not clear. Beck had known that Mikhail and Nataliya would be compromised at some point—it was inevitable, given the nature of the work—but the call had still come as a shock. Still, he thought as he headed out of London, they had had a good run. They had been operational for ten years and they had done good work in that time. There had been a number of impressive coups for which they—and, he supposed, he—could claim credit. They had nurtured relationships with men and women inside the intelligence community; they had seduced or blackmailed senior figures within British and American corporations that had led to a flow of top-secret patents and designs; and they had been able to remove troublesome individuals who would have been better advised not to work against the Rodina. One oligarch had been funding opposition parties; he had ended up dead of a suspected heart attack. Another had opened proceedings against an oil company tied to the interests of the president; he had been killed in a fiery wreck after his supercar’s brakes had failed on the M25. Still others had been silenced after they had been blackmailed with evidence of their sexual peccadilloes and perversions, that evidence collected during honeytraps filmed in hotel rooms equipped with a barrage of secret cameras.

The assassination of Pyotr Aleksandrov had been carried out in the same exemplary manner as all of their other work. If it was to be their final operation, they could hardly have ended on a more satisfactory note. They had done what they had been asked to do and, once more, had demonstrated to anyone else foolish enough to consider working against the motherland that the reach of the SVR was long, and that nowhere was safe.

“The next stop on this service will be Winchester. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge.”

Beck got up, lowered his case to the floor, and made his way to the vestibule where he waited for the train to pull into the station. It had been a straightforward journey. There had been only a handful of passengers in the carriage with him, and none of them had given him any cause for alarm.

The train rolled through into the station and he saw the time on the glowing departure board that was suspended halfway down the platform: it was eleven. The train stopped, the doors opened and Beck disembarked. He went over to an empty bench and sat down, taking advantage of his age so that it might appear that he needed to take a breath. He counted ten other passengers who disembarked, but none of them had been in his carriage. None of them were repeats from earlier. He waited until they had made their way through the barriers, waited another minute, and then followed them. It was impossible to be sure, but he was as confident as he could be; he had been thorough and careful, and he had seen no indication that he was being followed.

He was black. It was safe to proceed.

There was a taxi rank outside the station, with three cars waiting to pick up passengers. Beck opened the rear door of the first car in line and lowered himself inside.

“Where to?”

“King’s Worthy, please.”

“Right you are.”

The car pulled away and Beck allowed himself to relax a little. He had been doing this for years and yet, despite his experience, it never got easier. Nervousness and anxiety were part and parcel of the work, but that was good. It was as he always reminded his agents: nerves kept you sharp. Relaxation was a symptom of complacency, and succumbing to complacency was often the final mistake an agent would make.

It was a little after eleven when the taxi arrived at the house. Beck paid the driver and waited until he had pulled away before he used his fob to open the gates. He walked up the gravelled drive to the front door, thinking about how quintessentially English this all was: the village, the ancient church, the wisteria and roses climbing up the wall of the house, the owl hooting in a nearby tree.

He knocked on the door and waited.

Nothing.

He looked through the letterbox. The hall light was lit, but, save that, there was no other sign that anyone was home. They would be conducting a thorough dry-cleaning run. They were careful, and that, usually, would have been good. Tonight was different. They needed to get out of the country as quickly as they could.

He took out his key, unlocked the door and went inside to wait.

24

The SOCOs had finished their work at Aleksandrov’s property and Kennedy said that a small intelligence team could now go inside. Tanner stayed behind, but Milton, Ross and Shah were driven in two unmarked police cars to Wymering Road. It was a residential street, entirely unremarkable except for the fact that it had been closed, with two police cars parked nose-to-nose at one end and another two at the other. There was a tighter cordon around the Aleksandrov property and its neighbours, and the only people allowed inside were police, military and security service personnel. The crime scene technicians were gathered outside, next to a plain white van, removing their anti-contamination suits and storing the evidence that they had collected. A team of officers were removing the parts of an evidence tent from the back of a police van. It would be erected around the front door, a temporary measure until the property could be professionally secured to prevent unauthorised access.

The driver of the car told them to wait. “Let me check that they’re clear.”

Shah’s phone buzzed and he stepped aside to take the call.

Milton took out a packet of cigarettes, put one to his lips and lit it.

Ross turned to him. “Can I bum one?”

Milton gave Ross the packet. She cupped the end of the cigarette and Milton lit it for her.

“This has got to be one of the weirdest evenings I’ve ever had,” she said, blowing smoke.

“It’s up there,” Milton replied.

“I mean, seriously—this is the last thing that you would expect to find in a place like this. I know they’ve hit people in London, but here? It’s nuts.”

“I doubt it makes much difference to them.”

She gestured over toward the house. “You think they did it? The Russians?”

“I don’t know,” Milton said, blowing smoke. “But Aleksandrov was one of theirs for a long time, and he did a lot of damage. The SVR has a long memory.”

“Have you dealt with them before?”

“The SVR?”

She nodded.

“Once or twice,” Milton said.

“And?”

“And I wouldn’t be surprised if we find their fingerprints all over this.”

Ross looked like she was going to probe him for more, but the driver said that they could go in. They went inside the front door and were led along the corridor and into the kitchen. Milton took it all in with a practiced, professional eye: it was an unremarkable room, without much in the way of personality, and distinguished only by the fact that a dead body was laid out across the floor. Milton saw the gunshot wound and concluded, from the scorch marks around the entry wound, that the weapon had been fired at close range. There was blood on the floor, already congealing across it and over the grouted lines between the tiles.

Milton looked over at Ross. She was pale and had put her hand down on the counter to steady herself.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“First time you’ve seen a dead body?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said.

“I’m not sure I want to.”

The police had taken the necessary photographs, but a technician was still in the room with a video camera. He focused on the body and then backed up to take in the rest of the room. Milton took Ross by the wrist and guided her back out into the corridor so that they would be out of his way.

“There’s not much for us to do here,” he said. “Best to leave it to the professionals.”

They went outside. Shah had finished his call and was waiting for them.

“Change of plan,” he said.

Ross turned to him. “What is it?”

“Leonard Geggel,” he said. “We have a lead.”

25

Ross and Milton were driven out of town in the back of an unmarked police car. The cordon was opened to allow them to pass through. A crowd of locals had gathered there to look down the High Street and they gawped into the car as the driver slowly accelerated away.

Shah had explained to them both what had happened. Geggel hadn’t answered his phone, and so a junior officer had been sent to visit his house. It was empty; Geggel was a bachelor, and there was no one inside the property that they could speak to. Shah had asked GCHQ to run a trace on Geggel’s phone and, to his surprise, they had reported that he had been in Southwold that afternoon, arriving at around two-thirty. They couldn’t be precise as to his movements, but his signal was received from a telephone mast close to the Lord Nelson pub. The signal was then detected leaving the town and was last seen transmitting from somewhere near to the junction of the A12 and the A1095.

Ross took out her phone and held it out so that Milton could see it too. She had some sort of custom mapping application and Milton recognised the topography of the area surrounding the town. A circle had been drawn around the junction of the two roads. Milton tried to work out the scale and guessed that the circle had a diameter of around three hundred feet.

“That’s where it was transmitting before it went dark,” Ross said, laying her finger over a pulsing blue light. “It stopped an hour ago. Either it ran out of battery or it was switched off.”

The officer drove them out of town and into the arable fields that surrounded it. Milton watched Ross: she was gazing out of the window, her reflection faint against the glass. She must have sensed that he was looking at her and turned to him. “This is going to be a long night.”

“Probably.”

“Jesus,” she sighed. “I’m going to need something to keep me upright. I’m done in.”

“Big night last night?”

“Drinks with friends,” she said. “Then I might have stayed out a little too late afterwards.” She smiled ruefully. “I might have a small hangover.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve felt better, too.”

Milton could see that she was assessing him. She was attractive. The way she wore her hair, the tattoo that he had seen on her neck when her collar had ridden down low—she was fashionable and hip, all the things that he was not. She was younger than him, too, but that was irrelevant. There was no way that she could be interested in him and, even if she were, he was too professional to allow his thoughts to run away with him.

“What?” he said.

“I wondered,” she said with a wry smile. “You have the look of someone who likes a drink.”

“I do?” he said.

“Takes one to know one,” she said.

Ross’s smile widened. She was sharp and prickly and indiscreet and Milton found that he liked her more than he’d thought that he would.

The driver interrupted their conversation. “We’re just coming up to the junction,” he called back to them.

The driver indicated left and they joined the A12. There were trees on both sides of them, with thick darkness between the tightly packed trunks. Milton looked down at the map on the phone. The land to the north ran down to a wide tidal estuary where the River Blyth meandered out to sea.

“Slow down,” Milton said.

The road was quiet at this hour; the driver flicked on his hazard lights and crawled along at ten miles an hour. Milton and Ross stared out of the windows.

“Where is he?” Ross muttered.

Milton looked down at the phone. The blue dot had almost travelled across the whole diameter of the overlaid circle and there was no sign of the car. Milton looked back to the window again. They were a hundred yards from the junction when Milton saw it.

“There,” he said.

“I don’t see any—”

“Stop the car,” Milton said.

They were adjacent to a lay-by on the southbound lane. The officer pulled over into the bay. It was separated from the road by a dotted white line, and then, on its left, by a barbed wire fence that prevented access to a stretch of scrubland fringed with trees. Temporary signs had been planted in the verge: one for production staff attending the nearby Latitude weekend, and the other advertising the Aldeburgh Festival. Milton got out of the car. He had noticed that one of the fence poles supporting the barbed wire fence had collapsed. It was lying on the ground with the barbed wire loose around it. Now that he was closer, Milton could see that tyre tracks had been left in the dusty median, continuing down the slope and into the wooded area below. He stepped over the barbed wire until he was at the top of the gentle slope. It was too dark to see anything beyond the trees. Ross joined him and looked down as he pointed.

“I think he’s down there,” Milton said.

“I can’t see anything,” she said.

Milton turned to the police officer. “Got a torch?”

The man went to the car and returned with a Maglite. Milton lit it and turned its glow onto the trees.

“Shouldn’t we wait?” Ross said.

“Call it in,” Milton said. “I’m going to check.”

“Smith—we’ve been talking about a state-sponsored assassination.”

“I’ll be fine.” Milton drew his pistol. “Just stay here and call it in,” he said. “I’ll go down and check it out.”

He stepped carefully. A vehicle had definitely been down here. Its passage had dislodged a wide swath of dried earth, and footing was treacherous. Milton planted each foot deliberately, little avalanches of grit and dirt skittering down every time he lifted his boots. He was concentrating on getting down safely when he heard steps above him. He turned his head to see Ross following him.

“I told you to stay up there,” he said.

“Fuck that. If that’s Geggel, I want to know.”

Milton put his foot down without checking, and almost fell as loose gravel scattered. “Fine,” he said. “Just stay behind me. And don’t touch anything.”

Milton reached level ground. He brought up the torch and shone it into the trees. They were sparse here, with more than enough space between the trunks for a car to pass through. He shone the light on the ground and saw the tyre tracks again; they ran ahead, passing between two trees. He followed them, made his way beneath the canopy of leaves, and crossed a stretch of bracken that had been flattened to the ground. He walked for a minute, crossed a clearing with trees dotted around, and then saw the moonlight glittering across the surface of a body of water. It was the estuary that he had seen on the satellite map. The terrain became soft and sticky, and his boots were sucked down as he crossed the start of a wide mudflat. He swung the torch from left to right and saw the light glitter off a pane of glass. He tracked back until the beam was fixed on the object; it was the back of a car, tilted so that it was pointing up at a gentle angle.

Milton closed the distance to the car with Ross following a few feet behind him. The terrain grew boggier as he neared the water. It was obvious what had happened. The car had turned into the lay-by but hadn’t stopped; instead, it had crashed through the fence and continued down the slope and through the trees until it had come to a rest here, in the mudflats.

Milton held the Maglite against his pistol and approached the car. He maintained a safe distance as he drew alongside. The front of the car had ploughed into soft mud that fringed the water. The engine was silent; the car must have stalled when it came to a halt. Milton shone the light back so that he could look into the cabin.

Milton stepped closer and looked into the cabin. The torch burned bright, picking out the trash on the floor, the scuff marks that had been left on the carpet by muddy shoes, a can of Diet Coke that had been pushed into the cupholder in the central console. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat. He was old—Milton guessed that he must have been in his mid-sixties—and wearing a suit that looked shiny and cheap in the unforgiving glare from the Maglite. He was leaning forward, his head resting on the wheel and a deflated airbag. Milton tracked the beam up to his face and saw that his eyes were permanently open, glassy and unresponsive, and that a gunshot had mangled his head.

“Shit,” Ross muttered.

“Is that him?” Milton asked.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s Geggel.”

26

There had been no time to get a team to Winchester in time to pick up Beck as he left the station, and so Pope was left with no choice but to risk a single-handed tail. He hoped that Beck’s suspicions would have been allayed by the time that he had been travelling without—Pope had to assume—having seen anything that might have given him cause for concern.

Beck had stepped into a taxi and Pope had taken the next in line, telling the driver to follow after thirty seconds had passed.

The village of Kings Worthy was two miles northeast of the city. Beck’s taxi stopped and the cabin light came on; Pope saw Beck and the driver settling up. He told his driver to continue on until they were around the corner from the house that Beck had stopped outside. He handed over a twenty and then walked back again.

Church Lane was opposite St Mary’s Church and was full of expensive-looking properties. Beck’s taxi was pulling away as Pope turned the corner. The old man was wheeling his suitcase along a drive, the wheels crunching against the gravel. The house was accessed by way of a set of white wrought-iron gates that were, in turn, reached by the drive. The perimeter of the property was enclosed by a stone wall with a wooden fence atop it. Pope walked by the closed gates and glanced quickly down the drive to the house, taking in as much detail as he could. The building was constructed of whitened brick elevations with shuttered windows visible on two sides. It had a tiled roof with a single-storey slate-roofed extension to the side. Nothing unusual. A normal property, similar to the others around it. There was a plant pot sitting next to the gate pillar; there was nothing incongruous about it, but it was the kind of item that could be moved to signal danger.

Pope couldn’t see the door, but, as he paused by the gate, he heard it open and close. He had no way of knowing how many other people were inside the house with Beck. He would have liked the luxury of more time to assess the property, but his orders were clear. He had to move quickly.

He took out his phone and called the Group. He was connected to the night desk and then patched through to Tanner. He reported the situation, that PAPERCLIP was inside the property and that it would be impossible to continue the surveillance were the target to move on. Pope asked for his orders. He was told to hold his position. Backup was on the way.

27

Milton and Ross made their way back to the road. Ross took out her phone and reported the news of the discovery. The story had just taken an unexpected turn, and, even as she spoke to Shah, Milton knew that they were nowhere near the boundaries of how far it would expand and what it would eventually encompass. That an ex-spy had been murdered had already alerted the police, the intelligence community, and various Firm agencies including Group Fifteen. The fact that the spy’s former handler had also been shot to death, just a short drive from the town in which the spy had been killed, meant that they were dealing with something much more serious. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Aleksandrov and Geggel had met in Southwold and, soon afterwards, both men had been killed. A double murder was certain; the hunt would now focus on finding the perpetrator—or perpetrators—and discovering their motive.

They clambered up the loose bank and returned to the lay-by. The officer who had driven them was waiting for them.

“Find anything?”

“He’s down there,” Milton said. “Down in the marsh.”

Ross finished her call and slipped the phone into her pocket.

“What’s happening?” Milton asked her.

“They’re sending a team here now.” She nodded to the officer. “Close the road. Both directions.”

The man went to the boot of the car and took out warning signs and flashing beacons. He set off back down the road and started to arrange them.

Ross breathed out. “This is a fucking mess,” she muttered.

Milton gestured back down to the marsh. “How well did you know Geggel?”

“Hardly at all. He was an old-timer. Retired a year ago. I was given some of the agents off his book.”

“Including Aleksandrov?”

She nodded. “Including him.”

“So why did Aleksandrov reach out to Geggel and not you?”

“I don’t know,” she said tersely. Milton regretted the question; he wasn’t surprised that she was so agitated. Why would one of the agents that she was running ignore her and contact her predecessor? It was far from a ringing endorsement.

“I met him a few times,” she said after a pause. “We didn’t get on. He was old fashioned. I think he thought I was too young. And possibly too female.”

Milton’s phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and saw that it was from Global Logistics. He turned away from Ross, took the call and put the phone to his ear. “Yes?” he said.

“This is Tanner.”

“Hello, Tanner.”

“Report, please.”

“We’ve found the handler.”

“Leave it to the police and get back here. We’re flying out.”

“Why?”

“I’ll brief you when we’re in the air. The helicopter is waiting. Same place.”

He put the phone away and turned back. Ross was waiting for him.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“I need to get back to the town.”

Local officers relieved Milton and Ross from their makeshift cordon to establish something more enforceable, and the two of them were driven back into town.

Milton leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Could you take me to the Common?”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said.

“Where are you going?” Ross asked.

“That call,” Milton said. “I have to leave.”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Smith?”

The driver brought the car to a stop and Milton stepped out. Ross opened her door and got out, too. There was blood in her cheeks and her eyes flashed angrily.

“Come on, Smith,” she complained. “What’s going on?”

Tanner was standing by the helicopter. He saw Milton and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. Tanner twirled his finger in the air, the signal that the pilot could start the engine. He stepped over the raised sill of the chopper’s door so that he could get inside.

Ross grabbed Milton’s arm. He let her, stopped, and turned back. The pilot of the helicopter chose that moment to start the engine and the rotors slowly began to spin.

“Don’t ignore me,” she yelled over the growing roar of the turbines. “We’re on the same side. What the fuck is going on?”

“I’m sorry, Jessie. It’s classified.”

“Where are you going?”

Milton put out his hand. “I really can’t say. But it was nice to meet you.”

She left him hanging. “Fuck you, then.” She spun on her heel and started to walk toward the church.

Milton turned away from her and ducked his head as he passed through the backwash. He clambered aboard and pulled the door shut behind him.

Tanner was strapping himself into one of the seats. “Everything okay?” he called out.

“Fine,” Milton said. He pulled on the headphones and arranged the microphone so that it was over his throat. “I don’t think MI6 likes being kept in the dark.”

“Control’s orders,” Tanner said, his voice crackling through the headphones. “We’re keeping this one in house.”

Milton sat down and buckled himself into the seat. “Where are we going?”

“Winchester.”

“For what?”

“We think we know who did this,” Tanner said. “We know where they live. You’re going to pay them a little visit.”

Raj Shah was in the churchyard, his phone pressed to his ear. Ross strode across the Common toward him; by the time she had opened the gate he had finished his call and was walking across to meet her. The helicopter’s engine whined and the rotors whipped up another fine cloud of dust and debris from the dry ground.

Ross had to shout to make herself heard. “Do you know what that’s all about?”

“Who’s inside?”

“Smith and the other guy… Tanner.”

“Where are they going?”

“Wouldn’t tell me. You don’t know?”

“I have no idea.” Shah was a dreadful liar—it was the reason he had never worked in the field—and Ross had never had any trouble reading him. She was sure of her read now: he was telling the truth. He really did have no idea.

Shah put his hand on her shoulder and guided her toward the church.

“I don’t know how we’re expected to work this case when the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”

“It happens,” Shah said. “I know it’s frustrating. What did you find?”

“Geggel,” she said. “He was here. They got him, too.”

“Feels like we’re stumbling through the dark at the moment, doesn’t it? No idea where we’ve come from or where we need to go.”

She nodded her agreement. “The context’s missing. We’ve got a dead spy, a dead agent runner and no explanation for anything.”

28

“How long until we get there?” Milton said over the clamour of the turbine.

Tanner looked at his watch. “The pilot said forty minutes.”

“Time’s an issue?”

“I don’t know whether we’ve found our killers or not, but, if we have, we’ve got lucky. They should already have been on their way out of the country by now, but if they are still here, we have to assume that they won’t be for long. We think that steps might already have been taken. We’d like to get to them before that can happen.”

“So send in counter-terrorism.”

“It has to be us,” Tanner said. “This comes from the very top. Officially acknowledged governmental departments are not to have anything to do with this. Officially, the PM wants to make sure that we behave in accordance with the rule of law. We take the high road when the Russians go low.”

“Unofficially?”

“He doesn’t want to be hamstrung by protocol or propriety. You have carte blanche on this, Number One. We’d like to bring the bad guys in, but if that’s not possible, you’re cleared to take them out. Them and anyone else you decide might be connected.”

Milton nodded his understanding and hoped his nausea wasn’t obvious.

“I can tell you a little more,” Tanner said. “We think this is Directorate S.”

“Sleepers?”

“It looks that way.”

Milton had to agree. They had never been able to trace the agent for whom Callaghan had left the data stick at the dead drop. Milton had grilled Callaghan, but it was obvious that he knew very little. There was a description, but it had been dismissed as worthless given that Russian agents were well known for their aptitude in disguising themselves when they had to meet sources on a face-to-face basis. He had said it was a man, that his name was Tom, that he spoke in unaccented English, and that he had seduced him at a nightclub in Brighton after Pride last year. But that was it. Nothing more that they could work on.

“One of them was working Callaghan,” Milton said. “You think it could be the same team?”

“I think it’s possible,” Tanner said. “We’re still waiting for the full assessment, but we’ve already got a decent amount to go on. We’ve been following a man who goes by the name of Vincent Beck. He’s retired—used to work as a teacher. He’s been under suspicion for a while; we’ve had full spectrum surveillance on him—a big team, all the talents. He’s always been careful. We haven’t seen anything that made us think that he was involved. Until today, that is. We might have got lucky today.”

The helicopter settled at cruising altitude and the whine of the turbines dipped a little.

“Beck went out tonight and we followed him. He ended up in a house near Winchester. We pulled Land Registry records—the house belongs to Thomas and Amelia Ryan. Here—this is them.”

Tanner took out his phone and showed Milton two photographs. Two pictures were displayed, side by side: they were passport snaps of a man and a woman, both in their late thirties or early forties. Nothing about them stood out on Milton’s first inspection.

“These came from the Border Force,” Tanner said. He reached across and swiped the screen. The pictures were replaced by a second set of two, these looking as if they had been taken at an airport immigration desk. “These were taken at Heathrow last year. The two of them had just come back from Talinn. They made it look like a working holiday to Estonia but we have reason to believe it was cover for a hop across the border to Russia.”

“So they’re SVR?”

“We think they might be,” Tanner said. “Immigration reports that the two of them came to London from Belfast twenty years ago as students and stayed here. We think the woman’s real name is Nataliya Kuznetsov. She was born in Volgograd. Her mother was a party organiser and her father was a senior KGB agent runner based in the Nigerian embassy. She came to London to study at UCL. That’s where she met Thomas—at least that’s the story they’ve sold.”

“And him?”

“Real name Mikhail Timoshev. We don’t know as much about him as we do about his wife. At some point they adopted new legends as the Ryans and set up an online property brokerage. It’s a very good front. Property transactions give the SVR a simple line into them. A Russian oligarch sells his Chelsea townhouse; the Ryans act as go-betweens between him and his buyers; the buyers are given funds in Russia to buy at above market value; the Ryans pocket an inflated commission. Neat and tidy.”

“And Callaghan?”

“He said that his runner was six foot tall and reasonably well built. Timoshev fits that. Everything else is unreliable given that he would’ve been in disguise every time he met him. But how many sleepers could they have? There can’t be that many.”

“You’d hope not,” Milton said.

“Maybe we’ll find out tonight,” Tanner said.

Milton grimaced. “This is all circumstantial. A man we think might be an SVR agent handler goes to a house in Winchester on the same day Aleksandrov is assassinated. We think the couple he’s going to meet are Directorate S sleepers. None of that counts as evidence. I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we had a little more to go on.”

“We do have more,” Tanner said. He swiped on the screen again to bring up another photograph. “This was taken from a camera inside the Barclays on Southwold High Street. Look.”

Milton examined the image. The camera was pointing out of a lobby so that pedestrians passing on the street outside were in view. There was a man in shot. He had a heavy beard and wild, untamed hair. Tanner swiped left and right and then repeated it again, swapping between the still from the CCTV and the images of Mikhail Timoshev from the Border Force.

Milton squinted. “You saying that’s the same man?”

“Heavily disguised, of course. The hair, the beard, the glasses. We’ve run the biometrics. The techs are confident.”

“How confident?”

“Confident.”

“I only ask because sending me into their home might mean that they die tonight. I’d like a little more than ‘confident’ before I do that, Tanner.”

“This is the best we can do. MI6 has a source in the Center. He’s been asked to confirm that Kuznetsov and Timoshev are the Ryans, but that’s not going to happen tonight and we don’t have time to wait. They’ll be gone and it’ll be too late.”

“Jesus,” Milton swore.

“It’s as good as we’re going to be able to do,” Tanner offered with a shrug. “If that’s not good enough, you’ll have to take it up with Control.”

Milton stared at the screen and the image of a bearded man walking by the camera. He felt a clamminess, sweat beading on his brow, and turned away to look out of the window.

He saw Callaghan’s reflection in the glass, mocking him.

He turned back. “What does Control want me to do?”

“Bring them in. Find out why the SVR would take such a big risk to assassinate an old spy who hasn’t been operational for over a decade.”

“And if I can’t bring them in?”

Tanner drew his finger across his throat. “You know.”

Milton felt the nascent throb of a headache. “Who else?”

“Five’s on the surveillance. He’s there now.”

Milton was pleased with that, at least. Number Five was Michael Pope, and he was the nearest that Milton had to a friend in the Group. They had known each other for twenty years, ever since they were in the Royal Green Jackets. They had been in the Gulf together, although in different battalions, but, upon returning to the United Kingdom, Pope had transferred into the same battalion and had then been assigned to B Company, the same as Milton. They had been sent to South Armagh and Crossmaglen, bandit country that was very much in the pocket of the Provos. They had both joined the SAS and then Pope had followed Milton as he was selected for the Group.

“Anyone else?”

“Ten is on her way—we’ll meet her when we land. And Ziggy Penn is in charge of intel. I know, before you moan, that he’s annoying. But he’s also brilliant.”

“Yes,” Milton groused. “He is. Right on both counts.”

“We’re investigating the house and the area as subtly as we can. There’ll be three of you, fully armed, and we don’t think they know they’ve been blown. They don’t know that you’re coming. You go in, grab them or put them down, then get out.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“I have unshakeable confidence in you, Milton,” Tanner replied, a wry smile bending his lips.