The Geneva Trap

Chapter 9

At six o’clock the café in the small square known as Place du Bourg-de-Four was half-empty. It was too early for dinner, and there were just a few people enjoying an after-work apéritif before heading home. Liz sat at a table under the outside awning, with a glass of Campari and soda and a copy of Paris Match. She hadn’t touched her drink: she wanted to be completely clear-headed. She had taken a taxi from the Embassy along the shore of Lake Geneva, then walked the half-mile inland, stopping from time to time to look in shops with wide windows which she could use as mirrors to check her back. She went into one or two of these, and at one stage retraced her steps back to a place she had been in before, as if she had left something behind. By the time she’d sat down at this small café, she was pretty sure that she wasn’t being followed.

Unless… there had been a man in a dark winter overcoat and hat who’d been walking ahead of her as she’d turned away from the lake. It wasn’t particularly his clothes that she’d noticed so much as his build – squarely broad-shouldered, almost grotesquely so, as if he had once spent many years as a weightlifter.

She’d spent the afternoon with Russell White at the Embassy, going over every detail of the two contacts with Sorsky: how he’d looked, exactly what he’d said. Liz had looked at the mug shots of the Russian intelligence contingent in Geneva and listened to White’s debating with Terry Castle whether Sorsky was SVR or FSB. ‘The Swiss think he’s part of the Security Department,’ said Terry Castle.

Castle had produced a collection of large-scale maps of the area of Parc des Bastions as well as a laptop computer on which he had brought up Google Street View so Liz could rehearse the route she would take for the meet. At their second contact, Sorsky had given White an envelope which contained detailed instructions as to how to approach the rendezvous. He clearly had some plan of his own for checking that she was not under surveillance.

Over the top of her Paris Match, Liz saw a man walking across the square towards the café. He didn’t look in her direction, and he wasn’t wearing an overcoat or a hat. But his build looked familiar – he was broad and square. He stopped at the edge of the pavement and gestured for service. A white-aproned waiter went over to him and the man began speaking – loudly in bad French. It appeared that he wasn’t asking for a table but for directions. The waiter pointed up the street, the man nodded and set off in the direction indicated. Liz noted with relief that he was heading away from the park.

She waited until he had disappeared from sight, then gestured to the waiter for the bill. She paid, stood up and crossed the square.

The route she’d been given took her through a medieval stone arch on to Rue St-Léger, a narrow twisting street with a long stone wall on one side– the ‘Reformation Wall’ she’d learned that afternoon at the Embassy, built to commemorate the city’s die-hard Protestantism. As she neared the park gates, she glanced around and was relieved to see that there was no one else on the little street.

Once inside the park, she strolled along the wide tree-lined avenue which divided the park into two halves. She was carefully controlling her pace now, forcing herself to resist the urge to hurry. Ahead of her on the left was a complex of buildings which she recognised from the maps. They were built in what looked like a light-coloured marble to a classical design. These, according to the maps, had formerly been the headquarters of the botanical society, and now housed the administrative offices of the university.

It took her ten minutes to walk the length of the park. As she neared the wide gates at the far end, facing Place Neuve, she saw an array of life-sized chess pieces. A group of tourists were standing watching as several young people slowly moved the pieces at the direction of two older men – clearly the players. Liz scanned the small crowd gathered around the chess board, looking for anyone whose attention was not focused on the game. Nothing.

Going through the gates, she waited on the edge of Place Neuve. Traffic swirled around the square, horns blaring and brakes squealing; a smaller version of Place de la Concorde in Paris, and equally terrifying. She waited for the nearest lights to turn red, then dashed for the sanctuary of a small island in the middle of the square. Here she paused as if to read the inscription on the immense statue of a local general, but all the while her eyes were looking for signs of surveillance.

A woman emerged from the park. Would she wait to see where Liz was going? No. She walked off and disappeared down a side street. A tall man in a yellow sweater was buying a paper at the kiosk over by the park gates; he looked across in her direction, then quickly looked away again. This made her feel uneasy, but he took his change and walked away from the square.

Following Sorsky’s instructions, Liz took her life in her hands and dashed back across the street to the park gates, drawing only one blast of the horn from an irate driver. She retraced her steps along the avenue, but halfway down she turned right, on to a broad path leading to the university’s marble buildings. After fifty yards she stopped, as instructed, and sat down on a solitary, unoccupied bench under a tall tulip tree.

She sat there for almost ten minutes, pretending to read her Paris Match. She was debating how long she should wait when out of the corner of her eye she saw a man come out of the shadow of a copse of trees to one side of her, at one corner of the university buildings. He was walking quickly, looking straight ahead towards her, and as he drew closer, she recognised him. Not from their meetings almost two decades before – he looked quite different, thinner, older, balder – but from the photograph she’d seen in the MI6 Station Mug Book.

His face was expressionless as he came up to the bench and sat down at the far end from Liz, taking a folded newspaper out of his raincoat pocket. She continued to stare at a page of Paris Match as he unfolded the paper on his lap and fixed his eyes on the front page. After a moment he said quietly, ‘I am sorry for the complicated instructions but they were necessary. I am confident you were not followed.’

She hoped he was right and that he was as confident about himself.

‘Do you remember me, Liz Carlyle?’

‘Of course I do, Alexander. It’s good to see you again. I’ve never forgotten your talk at that seminar.’

‘Thank you. I also remember the other time we met. You were about to take your final examinations, and I gave you some advice. Which you seem to have taken.’ He smiled wryly. ‘You have not perhaps chosen the career I expected, but it has certainly kept you out of academic life.’

She smiled, wondering how much he knew. Presumably quite a lot, otherwise why would he have asked for her? But though she was very curious to know how he had kept abreast of her career, this meeting was for him to talk to her, so she said nothing and waited.

‘You know I am in the same business as yourself?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘I have information that should be of interest to your government. Of great interest, in fact. I asked to see you because I knew nothing of those I’d be dealing with here – perhaps someone low-level who might not understand the significance of what I have to say. Then it could all go nowhere and I would have taken the risk for no benefit at all.’

‘Well, I can guarantee you that whatever you tell me will be heard at the highest level.’ She felt this sounded rather pompous, but it appeared to reassure Sorsky, who nodded and seemed satisfied. Then he began to talk.

‘About three months ago my Station learned about a project that is being developed jointly by the United States and your country. Its object is to create a new military communications system for drones that will be used by the armed forces of both countries. The project is not being shared with other NATO members. It will work via a special satellite system, which will be concealed behind complex encryption. I do not know the details, which I suspect neither you nor I would understand. The Pentagon and your Defence Ministry are driving the project but the development work on the encryption systems is being done in England. The project is called Operation Clarity.’

Liz was not surprised that she had never heard of it – there was no reason for her to know about top-secret defence programmes – but how did Sorsky know? Russell White had told her that Sorsky was thought to be on the security side of the intelligence component in the Russian Embassy, so not part of the scientific and technical group.

She could not resist asking, ‘How did you learn this?’

‘Well, not from the British or the Americans, be assured.’ He laughed, but then his expression sobered. ‘I am not telling you this to boast that we know about your secrets. In fact, we don’t know much more about Clarity than I’ve just told you. My Station and a few key others were tasked with finding out more about the programme – difficult since it is so hush-hush even in the US and UK. The most effective way would be to recruit one of the computer scientists working on the project, but that has proved easier said than done.’

‘That’s a relief.’

Sorsky shook his head. ‘Not so fast. We have discovered that another country – not one of your NATO allies – has managed to infiltrate the development. They are acquiring enough technical information about this system to sabotage it once it’s in operation. It will be a cyber-attack. Before you ask me, I do not know what country it is that is doing this. But my Government and those higher in my Service do, and they have decided not to inform your Government. Or the Americans. They are holding on to the information for whatever use they can make of it.’

‘I see,’ said Liz, though she was beginning to feel rather confused. ‘Let me just be clear what you are saying. A third country – you do not know which – has mounted an operation to infiltrate a US/UK top-secret development programme called Operation Clarity. Have I got that right?’

‘Yes. Those are the bones of it.’

‘My Government will be interested to hear this, Alexander, and very grateful to you. But I’m sure you’ll understand that they will also want to know why you are telling us this. Particularly as you say that the authorities in your country have decided not to pass on the information. You are taking a big risk. Why are you doing that?’

‘I am not a traitor.’ He was looking straight at her now and she could see his face clearly for the first time. Age lines were etched deeply into the pallid skin; his eyes were intense and beneath them dark pouches of skin sagged. ‘I disagree with the hard-line elements in my Service who are advising our Government. To these people the potential disruption of Western military communications would be a positive thing. But they have not thought it through. If the kind of cyber-attack that is intended took place, Russia might well be suspected. We could have another Cold War, or even worse – some kind of cyber-war, where each country is trying to disable the infrastructure of the others. That would not be in Russia’s or anyone’s interest.’

Liz had heard versions of this statement before. It was the classic rationale of the spy, the double agent, as he justified his actions to himself. She knew that her role was to listen while he worked out his sense of betrayal to his own satisfaction. So she merely nodded and stayed silent. He went on.

‘I love my country. But I love the world even more and I cannot see any value in keeping this information from you. On the contrary, I think it could cause very real harm and possibly bring about conflict between our countries. And if anyone could survive such a conflict, it would not be Russia. That is why I am here. Not as a traitor, but a patriot.’

He stopped talking and slumped back on the bench as though he had exhausted himself. Sweat was standing out on his forehead and he brushed his hand back over his balding crown.

‘Yes,’ said Liz. ‘Now I understand.’ She paused. She had to go carefully here. She must get more out of him, but it was quite clear he was in a fragile state and it would be easy to say the wrong thing and send him away dissatisfied. ‘You are right about the importance of preventing this plot, Alexander. Is there anything more you can tell me that might help us do that? Do you know how they are acquiring the information? You said they have infiltrated the team. Have you any more information about that?’

‘All I know is that there is an agent based in the Ministry of Defence in London who is relaying critical information about the software that will control the satellite.’

‘Do you know what nationality he is?’

‘No. But I do know he is not British or American.’

That would help track down this infiltrator – Liz couldn’t believe many foreigners could be working in the MOD, but surely none would have access to such sensitive information.

Sorsky was looking at his watch nervously. ‘Have you got to go soon?’ she asked.

‘I am due at the theatre in twenty minutes – it’s an evening with other colleagues and their wives, so I could not avoid it. And I must not draw any attention to myself.’

‘Of course not. But we’ll want to meet you again. In the meantime…’

He finished her sentence. ‘In the meantime, I will try and find out which country this threat is coming from. That is what you need to know.’

Liz nodded. She saw that Sorsky had his hands clasped tightly together now, perhaps to keep them from shaking. ‘How can we contact you?’ she asked.

‘You can’t.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Tell your colleague Mr Russell White to continue to play tennis on Mondays and Wednesdays; I will make the arrangements through him when I am ready. But I will not deal with his partner Terry Castle. He is too young to be reliable.’

So Sorsky knew Castle’s name; clearly, Russian intelligence in Geneva was on the ball. In an effort to reduce the tension, she said, ‘Russell White told me he’s getting fitter from playing so much tennis.’ She paused a moment, then added, ‘You know, he is a senior member of his Service and it might make sense for you to meet him next time. He is based here.’

‘No!’ Sorsky’s voice was sharp. ‘The information I give you needs to be investigated in the UK. It would be coming to your Service in any case. So better to deal direct with an officer of MI5 – and one I have known for a long time.’ He smiled at her briefly.

Liz said nothing. Sorsky sighed. ‘You have not escaped my attention since we met so many years ago in Bristol. I have followed your career with interest. I heard that your work with Brunovsky was noteworthy.’

Liz was amazed that he knew about that operation. Several years ago she had joined the household of a Russian oligarch in London, who had asked for protection. But it had turned out that he was very far from needing protection, and it was Liz herself who was in danger.

Recovering her cool, she said, ‘Noteworthy is one way of putting it.’ As far as she was concerned that case had ended in a debacle. She had done her best, but it hadn’t been good enough.

Sorsky sat up, pushing his back against the bench and stretching as though throwing off a burden. ‘I will leave first. You wait a few minutes and then go out through the gates to Place Neuve.’

‘Okay.’

‘I will say goodbye for now.’ He stood up, without looking at her.

‘Goodbye, Alexander, à bientôt,’ she said, and she watched him as he strode off towards the university buildings.

Liz gave him three minutes, then rose to her feet and walked towards Place Neuve. Dusk was falling, and the oversized chessmen had been returned to the board’s back rows – the game was over. Cars in the Place had their lights on, and the pavements around the square were full of couples bustling off to restaurants or the theatre.

How, among the flurry of movement, Liz managed to spot the man who half an hour before had been buying a newspaper at the kiosk across the crazy confluence of streets, she didn’t know. But she was certain it was the same man – he still wore a yellow sweater – and she was troubled by what she didn’t believe was a coincidence. She was even more troubled when she saw another man on the steps of the Grand Théâtre across the street. The overcoat was missing, and so was the jacket he’d worn in the Place du Bourg-de-Four. But the width of his shoulders and the stocky build were still the same.