Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (34 page)

After
over fifty years of war the Soviet Empire was on the verge of
collapse. As wars went there hadn’t exactly been a hell of a lot of army
on army fighting; at least
not
directly. But as wars went the stakes
for humanity
had never been higher. Jack had been dropped into the
middle of that cold war back in the 1970s when he was a young man,
and although his working life was to change focus quite quickly thereafter to concentrate on the war in Ireland, he had always maintained a
professional interest in what was taking place in the Soviet Union. He
often spent many hours chatting with agents fresh in from the Soviet
cold about how the superpower was evolving. It was that passing interest which pushed him to the fore when the men in charge ordered a
mission to Moscow to observe how the Kremlin was dealing with the
growing unrest in the country.

In the sixties and seventies the Cold War was always teetering on
the brink
of turning
hot as
America and Russia squared up to
one
another time and again, but with the dawn of the greedy
eighties the
war experienced a change in terrain as economics, technology and the

terms
America had won the war and as a bankrupt Soviet Union en

tered into an internal debate over how best to issue its surrender, the
West suddenly realised something highly alarming—over fifty years
trying to beat the Russians in the quiet war
of the superpowers had
led to
one
massive
omission—what would take the place
of the
old
Soviet Empire and how
much
of a
danger would this new
entity
or
entities be to the West?
As the realisation quickly turned to fear, secret
services all over the world clambered to find out what the state of play
in the dying empire truly was. In that frenetic climate Jack was pressed
in urgent service and sent to East Germany in the guise of a Western
arms
dealer wanting to acquire
old Russian weapons—a trade that
had mushroomed as the checks and balances of government structures
drifted into chaos.

The mission was relatively
simple and the
men back in London
hoped that it would
quickly reveal just what state the Soviet Union
was in without taking too many risks. They reasoned that if the country was in a complete state of chaos then it shouldn’t be that hard for
Jack to lay his hands on some weapons. The easier it was for him to do
that, and the more deadly the weapons he could secure, then the more
chaos was afoot. It was an exercise in pure deductive reasoning and for
that reason alone Jack was quickly enthused by it.

In West Berlin Jack met up with a
driver. Much to Jack’s surprise
the man was a West German police officer, but that wasn’t as much
of a shock as the surprise Jack got when the man showed up wearing
his uniform and driving a
marked police car. Jack assumed that the
police
officer was going to escort him to some remote region
of East
Germany where he would be transferred to another less conspicuous
vehicle for the journey to Russia.
As it
happened, that was not the
case. The police Skoda spluttered and choked all the way to Moscow
and for the entire journey the police officer talked to Jack as if they
were the oldest and dearest of friends. They drove through every roadblock and border crossing without being stopped once, and very soon
all
of Jack’s legitimate apprehensions
melted away. Those apprehensions came back to the fore
once the grand
old buildings
of
greater
Moscow came into view. The policeman left Jack off at a small guest
house two city
blocks from the Kremlin and almost as
quickly as he
had arrived into Jack’s life the policeman was gone. The cop did have
one last conversation with Jackas Jack stood on a damp Moscow street

“If you meet that bastard friend of yours, tell him he owes me for
two meals,” said the cop.
“Who?” Jack asked.
“You know? The guy who came before you. English. Upper class. A
bit
of a big prick, if you ask me.
And like you my friend, he too was a
spy.”
Jack quickly looked around when the cop mentioned the word spy.
No one was within earshot. That the cop could have been so reckless
annoyed Jack and he
quickly
closed the door to the car and headed
into the guesthouse.
Once in his room he soon calmed down. He rebuked himself for being so foolish—the cop, like anyone else in Russia
with even the slightest hint
of common sense would have immediately
identified Jack as a spy; or at the very least a foreigner up to no good.
The only kind of people other than international politicians who ever
visited Russia in those troubled times were people who were up to no
good. Once he had calmed down Jack’s mind turned to the other part
of
the
policeman’s
parting
comment.
Who was
the
Englishman?
He
certainly sounded like someone from the service. But if he was from
the service then why
hadn’t anyone back in London told Jack about
him being in Russia too? Had he arrived in the last few
days
or was
he someone who the policeman had met many
months
or even many
years before? So many
questions. It was too late. His chance had now
gone. The mystery
of the Englishman would have to remain until he
got a chance to make contact with London, and as that wouldn’t happen until he returned to West Germany in a few days’ time, then it was
a mystery he would have to put to one side.
The next
morning when Jack went
down to the dining room for
an early breakfast he got talking to the manager
of the guesthouse. It
was
quite
clear
from the tone
of
the
man’s voice and the
barely
guarded comments that he was making that he too knew that Jack was
a spy. With Western agents clearly so easily identified Jack wondered
why they
even bothered with all the cloak and dagger nonsense any
longer. Perhaps it would have made everyone’s life a hell of a lot easier
if someone from the KGB met with them at the border before taking
them on a guided tour of Moscow? The manager also mentioned the
Englishman. This timeJack was ready. Heasked when the Englishman
had arrived at the guesthouse and he was surprised to learn that it
had only
been two days before Jack landed in Moscow. That information was more than a little odd. There was definitely something very
strange going on. He should have been told about a colleague who was
to be working in the same place as him, and even staying in the same
guesthouse. It was an oversight or level of secrecy that displayed more
competence than he knew his own side capable of.
For the next three days Jack waited at the guesthouse, as he had
been instructed.
His
mood changed from
moment to
moment from
annoyance that he had not been told about the other agent, to worry
as he wondered why they felt the need to send two agents in the first
place. If anything, Moscow was now one of the best cities in the world
to
be caught
spying. In the sixties foreign spies were tortured and
then
quickly
executed, but as the decades rolled on that policy slowly
changed. First they were used as part
of prisoner exchanges and then
in the eighties comradeship gave way to capitalism as Westerners were
exchanged for cold hard cash. Jack felt certain that Her Majesty’s government would have stumped up the
one hundred thousand pounds
to have him returned to the UK should the worst come to the worst;
though at the same time, knowing just how ruthless the PM could be
when it came to money, he really
didn’t want to put that assumption
to the test.
His Moscow
contact introduced
himself to Jack at three in the
morning
on the fourth night at the guesthouse. Jack awoke to find a
short, stout Russian sitting on the edge of Jack’s bed pointing a pistol at
him.
“Do not
be alarmed,” the Russian began. “I am the
one who you
have been waiting for.”
When the Russian was certain that Jack was not going to put up a
fight, he lowered his weapon, and then he stood up.
“You must get
dressed
quickly,” instructed the Russian.
“We have
people to meet and they will not want to wait around all night for you.
Now
hurry. Up
out
of
bed.
And
put something warm
on you.
Your
British balls are not used to the Russian night air.”
Jack had thought about saying that he had no intention of introducing his British balls to the Russian night air, but he had a feeling
that the comment would have led to the need for a protracted explanation, and given the earnest tone of the
man’s voice, Jack
didn’t feel
that he had enough time to do such an explanation justice. The man
kept his gun on display the entire time Jack was getting dressed. Jack
appreciated that the man needed to watch him carefully in case he hid
a weapon to take to the
meeting,
or a listening
device,
but that
did
not help him feel any more comfortable as he slipped into some warm
clothes—this was
how it
must
have felt to get
showered in
prison,
thought Jack.
The Russian cut a far from impressive figure; a mid-level foot soldier in Jack’s opinion, or hired muscle that could be discarded by his
employer just as soon as he had brought Jack tothe meeting. The black
BMW was definitely not the man’s own car. The car was brand new
and it screamed new
money. Jack wondered how the statues of Lennon and Stalin felt as their socialist dream crumbled before them, and
the grandchildren and great grandchildren
of the revolution turned
to German made cars to fill the hole in their souls left by decades of
austerity and government persecution. The imposing grey buildings
of the Soviet government machine were a million miles away from the
neon signs and new wealth of the social districts of Moscow, and it
was to one of those social districts that Jack was driven on that night.
When the car
pulled up in front
of a nightclub Jack rolled his
eyes.
He imagined being led to an upper level where he would be introduced to a bare chested, medallion wearing gangster surrounded
by
scantily clad women. Jack sighed with mild relief when the
Russian walked past the entrance to the nightclub and on down the
street to a bookshop. Jack followed the Russian into the shop. Once
they were inside the Russian locked the door behind them. He then
led Jack through to a room at the back
a desk, adopting the most common
of
of the shop. Sitting behind
poses, was an
officer from
the Red
Army. Jack quickly scanned the uniform for insignia and
within seconds he pegged the man as a general. The man’s rank and
age did not
marry—he was much too young in Jack’s opinion. The
general gestured with his left hand that Jack should take a seat, which
he did, on an austere wooden chair on the opposite side of the desk to
the military man.
Another wave of the hand indicated to the Russian
driver
that he should leave Jack and the General to conduct their business in
private. The driver hesitated momentarily before leaving the room. He
flashed a look at Jack which spoke of how he would return to the room
in an instant should Jack try anything untoward.
“Let me save us both a lot of unnecessary talk,” the General began.
“I do not care if you are here on behalf
of your government. I do not
care if you are really a businessman who is genuinely here to make a
quick buck. The only thing that I care about is cold, hard, cash. That is
where my interest in who you really are begins and ends. If you can
bring me money then I can get you whatever weapons you want from
the vast arsenal
of the Red
Army. From assault weapons to nuclear
weapons. Everything is on the table. If the price is right. So my friend,
what do you want from me?”
“Let me be equally frank in return,” said Jack. “I am here on behalf
of the IRA. I
have five million pounds to spend
on weapons. A nuke
would end the war in
one fell swoop, to be sure,
but I would doubt
very much if the leadership would go for a solution that radical.”
Jack smiled.
“That’s funny,” said the General. “But your colleague was almost
completely certain that the IRA would be prepared to pay top dollar
for a tactical nuke.”
“I’m sorry,
but I
do not
have a
colleague in Moscow at the
moment,” Jack explained. “I do not know who you were speaking to,
but
I
can assure you,
he
has
nothing to
do with
me. Though I
must
admit, I am more than a little curious to find out more about him.”
“Like I said. He said that he was your colleague. He said that you
would conclude what he started. He said that he was here on behalf
of the IRA. Though an Englishman acting on behalf of Irish terrorists
did not somehow ring true. Though a Scot acting
on behalf
of Irish
terrorists doesn’t make much more sense to me.”
“Things in my part of the world are complicated,” Jack explained.
“Relax
my friend. I am not interested in an explanation. To be
honest, I am not going to believe whatever explanation you offer
me.
That is the world that I live in; much more complicated, don’t you think?
As long as you can provide me with the money then you can do
whatever the hell you like with the weapons. Wipe an English city