Authors: James Barrington
‘You’re in Ax?’
‘Yes. What do you want me to do now?’
‘Nothing else today, and it’s still not clear exactly what’s going on. There’s been no further contact with the man we were expecting you to meet, so, while we’re
waiting, we’ve decided you can assist us in a training exercise. Tomorrow you’ll be contacted by two officers from our Paris embassy. I’ll call you again in the morning and give
you a verbal briefing.’
‘A training exercise? I could have
flown
down here if that’s all that’s going to be happening. And what about afterwards? Do you still want me to carry on driving round
Europe like some hopeless tourist?’
‘Just do what I tell you, Richter,’ Simpson snapped. ‘You’re not exactly flavour of the month right now, based on your performance to date. Don’t do anything else
to piss me off.’
Saturday
Pas-de-Calais, France
A little after one in the morning, in French time, Gerald Stanway drove his hired Ford Mondeo off the Eurotunnel train at the terminal just outside Calais. Within a few
minutes he was heading for Paris on the A26 autoroute, driving at a few kilometres per hour above the legal speed limit.
In the boot of the car was a small suitcase containing enough clothes for the weekend, his washing kit and a couple of books. Nobody on either side of the Channel had bothered looking inside the
case, or even in the boot. But it wouldn’t have mattered if they had, for Stanway’s Browning Hi-Power 9-millimetre semi-automatic pistol – which Lomas provided almost five years
ago, only after repeated requests – wasn’t in the suitcase. Instead, it was wrapped in an old towel, together with two spare and fully loaded magazines, and hidden under the rear-seat
squab.
Stanway knew all about documentation and the kinds of tracing action that the British intelligence establishment could and would employ, and had decided that the simplest option was just to be
as open as possible about what he was doing, and where he was going.
So when he got home the previous evening, he’d used his landline phone to call the closest branch of Hertz, quoted his Gold membership number, and told the booking clerk exactly what he
wanted. Ninety minutes later, the Mondeo had been delivered to his home address with a full tank of fuel, and valid Green Card insurance cover for continental travel. Stanway had chosen the
unlimited mileage option, explaining that he was going off to enjoy a weekend in France, visiting some of the Loire chateaux and also stocking up on wine.
And to substantiate his cover story he would stop somewhere near the Loire later that morning, and use his credit card to buy a dozen or so cases. Once he was actually on the continent, he would
simply drop off the British radar screen, because France operated barely a fraction of the surveillance cameras that infest the British Isles, and those they do possess are mainly found on the
autoroutes or in major cities. Once he was near Orléans, he’d leave the autoroute and stay off it for the rest of his journey. Then, unless he was unlucky or unobservant enough to be
caught speeding, his masters at Vauxhall Cross wouldn’t have the slightest idea where he had actually been.
There was virtually no traffic on the autoroute, and probably wouldn’t be, at least until he got closer to Paris. Stanway had estimated that he should reach Toulouse after about ten to
twelve hours’ driving – say about fourteen hours maximum including stops – which would see him in the vicinity of Toulouse by mid afternoon, even after stopping to buy the wine.
Then, of course, he had something else to do before he could continue south to Ax-les-Thermes, but he hoped that wouldn’t take too long.
He didn’t know when the two SIS officers were scheduled to interview the Russian clerk, but they would have to be briefed in Paris before leaving for Toulouse, and so he guessed they
wouldn’t reach Ax-les-Thermes until Saturday afternoon, at the earliest, which should give him at least an hour or so to find where the clerk was staying. But even if he didn’t manage
it in that time, Stanway wasn’t overly concerned. In fact, it was quite possible that the quickest way to find the Russian was to wait for the two Six officers to pitch up, since they might
well be easier to identify, and then follow them. The only downside to that option was that if the clerk handed over the incriminating documents to the SIS men, he might have to take them out as
well.
But Stanway wasn’t too bothered by the possibility of collateral damage. He was determined not to leave France until he’d resolved the situation, to his personal satisfaction, and if
that meant killing three men rather than one, well, so be it.
Moscow
Raya Kosov woke early – in fact, she’d barely slept, or that’s what it felt like – and walked out of her tiny flat well before eight, clutching a
bulky, black, leather-look overnight case and her handbag. She’d packed the case the previous evening, selecting a few of her favourite clothes as well as the usual toiletries and underwear,
and including her precious CD player and a few music discs. She’d debated about taking her laptop computer, but had decided it simply wasn’t worth the risk. The customs or police or
perhaps even FSB officers at the airport would be certain to want to inspect it, and not even her SVR credentials would be enough to deter them. And, anyway, she didn’t need it, because she
already had another storage medium containing everything she wanted to take with her.
So, with regret, she’d left the laptop behind in her flat, after first carefully wiping the contents of one particular directory on the hard drive. She couldn’t rely on a simple
deletion, though, and used a commercial utility program to perform multiple overwrites of the data, using random characters to ensure that nothing could ever be recovered, even by using a low-level
disk sector editor. Then she’d finally switched off the computer and closed the lid, leaving it on the tiny desk in one corner of her living room.
The first part of her long journey that day was also the shortest. Raya simply walked out of the front door of her building and headed towards a bus stop, just as she did every day of her
working week. The only difference was that this time she crossed the street to the stop on the other side of the road. For today, her destination lay to the north, at Sheremetievo Airport, rather
than southeast of Moscow, at Yasenevo.
Ax-les-Thermes, France
Richter had spent a somewhat disturbed night, despite being tired after his journey. His fundamental problem was not knowing what the hell was going on, and he was acutely
conscious that, for the first time since he’d stepped off the aircraft in Vienna, his location was fixed, and therefore known to Simpson and to anyone else he chose to tell. Before he climbed
into bed, he’d jammed the back of a chair under the door handle, wondering if he was just being ridiculously paranoid.
The hotel had creaked and groaned as its timbers settled in the cool of the night, with sounds like the occasional pistol shot echoing around the old building. Richter seemed to have woken up
almost every time it happened, his eyes wide open and staring into the darkness.
Breakfast, typically French, consisted of a couple of croissants, bread, butter and preserves, with either coffee or hot chocolate. After he’d finished, Richter went back up to his room,
picked up the keys of his hired Ford, then headed to the car park. He started up the car, drove through the gateway, and pulled out on to the main road, heading south.
He continued through the town, carefully noting its layout, and followed the road that led eventually upwards to the Principality of Andorra. A mile or so beyond Ax, he turned back and retraced
his route, driving up each side street in turn, but this time left the car on a street about a hundred yards from the hotel. The car park at the Hostellerie was certainly convenient but, having a
single restricted entrance, Richter had realized immediately that it was also a potential trap. Parked out on the street, at least he couldn’t easily be boxed in.
He walked back to the hotel, went up to his room, checked that the unsealed packet of alleged ‘Secret’ papers was still locked inside his briefcase, then picked up the novel he was
ploughing his way through. He left the hotel, waited for a gap in the traffic, crossed the road and walked some seventy yards down the street to the Auberge du Lac. This establishment was somewhat
curiously named, as there seemed to be no substantial body of water anywhere nearby. He chose an outside table that offered a clear view of the Hostellerie de la Poste, and sat down. When the
waiter appeared, he ordered a
café alongé
and a bottle of still water, laid his mobile phone on the table, and opened the novel. He adjusted the chair slightly to give himself
an uninterrupted view along the road and settled down for what he expected would be a long and very boring wait.
Toulouse, France
Gerald Stanway reached Toulouse late that afternoon, feeling surprisingly alert despite having driven through the night. He had stopped for fuel and drinks at regular
intervals, twice for snack meals, and once for almost an hour, fairly early that morning, at a vineyard outside Blois, where he had bought his stock of wine.
Toulouse is bordered by two ring roads – known as the interior and exterior
périphériques
– but Stanway ignored both and instead headed towards the centre of the
city, looking for two things. He found the first, a small car-hire firm, within about fifteen minutes, but drove on past. Less than a hundred yards down the road, a blue ‘P’ sign
beckoned, and moments later Stanway parked the Ford Mondeo on the third floor of the multi-storey car park. He locked the car and tucked the ticket into his wallet.
Then he removed his overnight bag and a small toolkit from the boot, and took the lift up to the fifth floor, where he investigated the rows of parked cars. Within a couple of minutes,
he’d found what he was looking for: an elderly Renault with a thick layer of dust on it. He checked that nobody else was on that floor, and no security cameras either, then bent down behind
the chosen vehicle.
Just as he’d expected, the number plates were attached with rivets. From his toolkit he took a small battery drill, a brand-new countersink bit already inserted in the chuck, then pressed
the bit against the first rivet and squeezed the trigger. The noise was fairly loud, but it lasted only two or three seconds before the bit cut the rivet away. The second rivet took no longer, and
less than two minutes later Stanway was heading back to the lift with both number plates and the toolkit hidden away inside his bag.
The car-hire firm was small, and the cars far from new, which suited him fine. Stanway had no trouble in explaining what he wanted. He needed a car, he said, for only twenty-four hours, and he
would be paying the hire charge in cash, although he was happy to leave his credit-card details with the company as security. About half an hour after he’d entered the place, Stanway was
driving away in a small five-year-old Peugeot hatchback.
That, he reckoned, should have sanitized his operation well enough. The only obvious link between him and what was about to happen at Ax-les-Thermes was his British-registered hire car, and that
was now safely hidden in an anonymous car park in the middle of Toulouse. Even with all the resources available to it, Stanway doubted if MI5 or SIS would have any way of linking him to the
French-plated Peugeot, especially once he’d changed the number plates, which he’d do as soon as he got clear of Toulouse and could find a quiet parking area.
Sheremetievo Airport, Moscow
It had gone better, and been easier, than Raya had expected. Her forged travel voucher had been accepted without question by the Aeroflot booking staff, once she’d
shown her SVR identity card, and although the customs officers looked inside her case, as anticipated, they didn’t fully search it and barely even glanced at her CD player.
One of the Border Guards Directorate officers was rather more thorough, however.
‘Why are you flying to Rome?’ he asked, as she reached the head of the queue.
‘I have been ordered to report to our embassy there.’
‘For what reason?’
‘That is classified information. You’ve seen my identification and my travel voucher. If you’re not satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to contact my superiors at
Yasenevo.’
That was one reason Raya had wanted to travel at a weekend, for the chances of there being anyone at SVR headquarters who could authenticate her travel orders were slim in the extreme, but the
duty staff would certainly be able to confirm her identity from their personnel lists. She’d toyed with the idea of flying somewhere a little closer, like the Czech Republic or Poland, but
those states were still subject to influence from Moscow. Although getting to Prague or Warsaw might be easier for her, getting out of those countries would likely prove a lot more difficult, so
she’d taken the gamble of choosing Italy as her destination.
The officer looked less than convinced, and Raya wondered if he might even try to contact Yasenevo. That shouldn’t create a problem, but she would rather he didn’t. The fact that an
SVR officer was travelling outside the CIS would certainly raise a flag, official travel voucher or not. She decided to up the ante.
‘What’s your rank and name?’ she demanded, taking out a small notebook and pen.
‘Why?’
‘So that if I’m delayed here, I can include your name along with the reason I was late reaching Rome, in the report I will have to make to my superiors.’
Stalemate. They stared at each other across the scarred wooden desk, Raya looking cool and confident, her pen poised expectantly, the Border Guards officer openly hostile.
But it was he who dropped his eyes first, and he handed back her voucher and identity card. ‘Proceed,’ he snapped, and turned his attention to the next passenger waiting in line.
In the departure lounge she settled down in a corner with her book, though she doubted she’d be able to read a single word. The flight didn’t leave for another two hours and, despite
her outwardly relaxed posture, she was going to be watching every single second for any sign of problems. This was her end-game and, if she was detained in Russia her gamble would fail – and
then she had no illusions about the likely outcome. Once her flight landed in Italy, and she was safely outside the airport, then she could start to relax – but not before.