Authors: James Barrington
‘Monsieur Giraud,’ Lacomte continued, ‘understands English, but because of the technical nature of this matter he has asked that I translate what you say into French, to avoid
any possible misunderstandings.’
And also, Richter thought, to emphasize that they were in France and should therefore, by any Gallic definition, be speaking French.
‘Before we begin,’ said Lacomte, ‘I have one or two questions I would like to ask.’ Richter nodded. ‘We understand that much of the information about this matter
has reached you by indirect channels, shall we say, and some of it could be construed as circumstantial. What is the source and grade of your information about the devices on French
soil?’
Richter bet that question had come straight from Monsieur Giraud. ‘That information came directly to us from the SVR London
rezident
, Vladimir Orlov,’ Richter said. ‘The
information is assessed in our system as Grade One – that is, one hundred per cent reliable without any possibility of error.’
Lacomte looked at Monsieur Giraud, who nodded. ‘Are you aware that the Russians do not have any diplomatic representation in some of the cities you mentioned? In Nice, for example? Where
would they position a weapon?’
‘With respect,’ Richter said, ‘this is just detail. Orlov didn’t know and so couldn’t tell us exactly where any of the devices were positioned, only that they were
in place. I imagine that the Russians have set up a front company which has leased a warehouse or an office somewhere, and the weapon will be located in that.’
Lacomte loaded that into French and rapid-fired it at Giraud. Giraud nodded, and replied quietly. Lacomte asked another question. ‘Have you any independent evidence that what Orlov told
you is the truth?’
Richter shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘we have no independent evidence that directly corroborates what Orlov told us, but I cannot imagine him telling lies in the
circumstances of his interrogation.’ Giraud grimaced slightly. ‘What I can say is that most of what Orlov told us has been indirectly corroborated by the other data we have been able to
collect. I’ve already mentioned the Blackbird over-flight, the snatching of our Moscow Head of Station and so on.’
‘Can I add something here?’ John Westwood asked.
‘Of course,’ Lacomte waved a hand.
‘The one thing nobody in this room knows, except for Miles Turner here,’ Westwood said, ‘is that the Company – the CIA – received advance warning of the Russian
plan, some time before the Blackbird overflight.’
There was a short and somewhat hostile silence.
‘Did you now?’ Richter said, quietly. ‘But you didn’t think of telling us, did you?’
Westwood shook his head. ‘Not my decision,’ he said. ‘It was Company policy.’
‘What was the source of this information?’ Lacomte asked.
‘I can’t tell you,’ Westwood said, and held up a hand towards Richter, who had opened his mouth to speak, ‘simply because we don’t know. Our Moscow Station Chief
was contacted by a walk-in who slipped a film into his jacket pocket. We’ve had further drops from this source, but we still don’t know who he is. What we do know, because of what was
on the first film, is that this source is very near the top of either the GRU or the SVR.’
‘OK,’ Richter said. ‘We haven’t time to go into that now. What was the warning this source passed to you?’
Westwood shook his head. ‘That was the problem,’ he replied. ‘That’s why we’ve been running round like headless chickens looking for help. The warning was
non-specific. It simply said that a covert assault on the West was in progress, but gave no useful details. What it does do, though,’ he added, looking at Lacomte, ‘is corroborate what
Mr Beatty has been saying.’
Lacomte looked at Giraud, and then both of them looked at Richter. ‘The one piece of hard evidence that is available,’ Richter said, ‘is the one that I do not have at
present.’
‘The lorry?’ Lacomte prompted.
‘Exactly,’ Richter said, ‘the lorry. When that is stopped, if the back only contains the collected works of Lenin, or whatever the Russians have put on the manifest, then I
will apologize humbly and take my delusions home to bed. But I’m quite certain we’ll find a nasty little nuclear weapon in a steel box, with a delivery address of Harrington House, 13
Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8.’
‘Which is?’ asked Lacomte.
‘The official residence of the Russian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Court of St James.’
There was a short silence, broken by Giraud, speaking English for the first time. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you have to stop the lorry?’
‘Yes,’ Richter replied, ‘we have to stop the lorry.’
Anton Kirov
Zavorin pushed open the steel door leading to the engine room and walked in ahead of Bondarev. He slid quickly down the steel ladder to the deck below, and strode across
to the starboard side. Three of his men were assembled close to the starboard fuel pump, around which had been packed a selection of oil-soaked rags and paper.
‘Is this really necessary?’ Bondarev asked, his voice almost plaintive.
‘Yes, Captain, it is,’ Zavorin replied. ‘We do not know whether or not the staff at Gibraltar will insist on helping us. If the engine room shows no sign of damage, we would
not be able to allow them on board, which would look suspicious.’
Zavorin looked at the troopers. ‘Ten minutes, no more,’ he said, ‘then douse the flames. Make sure you leave fire-extinguisher foam around the pump, and snap the input
pipe.’ He nodded to the second trooper, who was holding a gas lighter. The man snapped the lighter open, kindled the flame and ignited the paper. ‘Now,’ Zavorin said, looking with
satisfaction at the growing flames, then turning back and glancing up at Bondarev, ‘we have some real damage we can show them.’
Ansbach, Germany
The convoy had picked up the autobahn just beyond Hartmannshof and taken the route to the south-east of Nürnberg. Just south of Ansbach, Modin called a halt in a rest
area for refreshments and a driver change. Again, he and Bykov consulted the map.
‘I think we will make one small change, Viktor,’ Modin said. ‘We were to route through Stuttgart, which is the most direct route, but I think that will take longer than staying
on the autobahn.’
‘Yes, I agree,’ Bykov said, tracing the route on the map with his finger.
‘So,’ Modin continued, ‘we will continue heading west, through Heilbronn and up to Walldorf, and then south past Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden to Strasbourg. Brief the
drivers.’
French Ministry of the Interior, rue des Saussaies, Paris
Giraud turned to one of his aides and spoke rapidly in French, then after listening to the reply he turned back to Richter.
‘This, Mr Beatty, is the situation as I understand it. You have what you believe to be compelling evidence that a section or sections of the Russian security forces are attempting to
blackmail America and then force Europe to submit to what amounts to a non-military invasion from the east?’ There was nothing wrong with Giraud’s English, or with his grasp of the
situation.
‘Correct,’ Richter said.
‘But neither you nor the American CIA can offer any independent support for this interesting theory, other than what amounts to some circumstantial evidence which is possibly indicative of
something going on?’ Richter nodded. ‘And the only hard evidence that can possibly be provided is in the back of a lorry which is about to make its way through France?’
‘Yes,’ Richter said.
‘A lorry which will, unless I’m very much mistaken, be travelling under the legal protection of diplomatic status and, probably, with the physical protection of armed couriers, who
will also be carrying diplomatic passports? Is that a fair summary?’
‘Yes,’ Richter said, ‘but—’
Giraud ploughed on relentlessly. ‘You are doubtless also aware that any interference with such a vehicle is tantamount to a severance of diplomatic relations with the originating country?
And that there would be most severe – I say again, most severe – international repercussions if your theory turned out to be a fiction?’
‘Yes.’ There wasn’t anything else Richter could say.
Giraud fixed him with a penetrating look, then turned to Lacomte and spoke briefly in French. Richter glanced over at Tony Herron and shrugged his shoulders. Giraud turned his attention back to
Richter. ‘I suppose your Special Air Service personnel are already en route?’
‘Er, yes,’ Richter said. ‘Actually, they are, or should be.’
‘We expected that,’ Lacomte said, nodding. ‘With the time-scale you have outlined they would have to be about to leave, or have already left, Hereford.’
‘I had to make some assumptions,’ Richter said. ‘I had to assume that you would give permission. They can be stopped, of course, probably before they reach Calais.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, Mr Beatty,’ said Giraud. ‘I think that you probably will need their help to stop that lorry.’ He favoured the group with a wintry smile,
gestured to his aides and stood up. When the four men had left the room, Lacomte relaxed visibly.
‘What made him agree?’ Westwood asked.
‘The possible diplomatic repercussions, I think,’ said Lacomte. ‘If he had refused permission for the lorry to be stopped, and it later turned out that you had been right, his
career would be at an end.’
‘Everyone else’s career would probably also be at an end,’ Tony Herron interjected.
‘Quite,’ said Lacomte. ‘But by allowing your SAS to participate, if it all goes wrong he can claim that it was some sort of a British cowboy action that he knew nothing about.
In fact,’ he continued, ‘he has instructed me to ensure that the SAS personnel take charge of the assault on the convoy, and that French involvement is to be kept to a
minimum.’
‘To make it more deniable, of course?’
Lacomte smiled. ‘Of course.’
‘Machiavellian old devil,’ Richter said.
‘Yes. That is his reputation.’ Lacomte rubbed his hands briskly and gave instructions to one of his colleagues, who left the room. ‘To business,’ he said.
‘Let’s start with the convoy.’
‘Right,’ Richter agreed, and opened up the file again. ‘First, the route. Orlov wasn’t completely certain about it, but the point of departure was almost certainly going
to be Minsk. It will have travelled through Poland, probably Czechoslovakia, and then into Germany and should enter – or have entered – France at Strasbourg.’
Lacomte glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t think it has entered France yet,’ he said. ‘I gave instructions this morning for a total watch operation to be put in place on all
French overland borders apart from that with Spain, for obvious reasons, and for any vehicles demanding diplomatic immunity to be delayed as much as possible without making it obvious.’
‘Thank you,’ Richter said, nodding approval.
‘We have heard nothing, so I think we can be sure that the convoy is still in Germany. What time-scale did Comrade Orlov give you?’
Richter referred back to the file. ‘He said that the London weapon was scheduled for positioning the day after tomorrow.’
‘Right, and with point of entry Strasbourg. I think the roadworks at Strasbourg are going to cause the convoy some delays in getting on to the autoroute. I think we can guarantee that it
won’t reach Reims until tomorrow mid-afternoon at the earliest.’
‘And are there roadworks at Strasbourg?’ Westwood asked.
‘There will be in less than an hour,’ Lacomte replied, and gave instructions in French to the remaining DST officer. As he left, the other DST man returned, arms laden with maps of
northern France, which he spread out on the conference table.
‘And after Strasbourg?’ Lacomte asked. ‘What route then?’
‘Orlov believed the convoy would stay on the autoroutes as much as possible, so it will probably route from Strasbourg either to Metz or possibly Châlons-sur-Marne and then on to
Reims. After that there’s not much scope for diversions. It will almost certainly pick up the A26 autoroute to St Quentin, and then route past Cambrai to Calais for the Channel crossing to
Dover. The crossing will certainly be from Calais, and they’re probably aiming for a night sailing, tomorrow.’
Lacomte had been tracing the possible routes on the map while Richter had been speaking. When he stopped Lacomte smoothed out the central section and looked at it with interest. ‘So where
do we stop them?’ he asked.
‘To be perfectly honest,’ Richter said, ‘I haven’t got that far yet. I was thinking about faking a diversion off the autoroute, and hitting the truck on some quiet road
somewhere. I thought maybe the assault team could pose as French truck thieves.’
Lacomte looked at him. ‘I won’t pretend that we don’t have gangs who specialize in stealing entire lorries, but it would, I think, be a very optimistic or very stupid gang
which took on a diplomatic-plated lorry and two or three cars full of armed couriers. No, I think we apply a bit of cunning here.’ He thought for a few moments. ‘I like the idea of the
diversion,’ he said, ‘but let’s do it backwards.’
‘Backwards?’ Richter asked.
‘Instead of diverting the convoy off the autoroute, we divert everything else off it, except the convoy.’
‘That’s sneaky,’ said Tony.
‘It’s brilliant,’ Richter said. ‘That gives us plenty of room to work and a complete absence of eyewitnesses. Can you fix it?’
‘Of course,’ said Lacomte. ‘We’ve done it before.’ He took a pencil and paper and drew a rapid sketch. ‘First,’ he said, ‘we choose a section of
autoroute without service areas, and we flush all vehicles out of the parking areas on both carriageways. Then, we wait for the convoy to pass here,’ he said, drawing a parking area to the
south of the section he had marked, ‘where we will position one of our vehicles with a radioman. As soon as he signals confirmation of the convoy’s position, we prepare for
action.’ He pointed at the drawing of an intersection. ‘As soon as the convoy passes this junction, we block the inbound access and erect barriers across the carriageway to divert all
the following traffic on to the national roads. The convoy will be slow, and they should soon be the last vehicles on the northbound section. If any other vehicles do lag behind it, we will have
them stopped and detained by gendarmes.’