Overkill (12 page)

‘Correct,’ the Minister replied. ‘The difference now is that with
Podstava
about to be implemented, any disclosure, of any sort, to anyone, will be regarded as treason.
There will be no trial, and the penalty will be death.’ Trushenko paused, and smiled bleakly. ‘Death may not be immediate. I may take the opportunity to add to my video
collection.’ Despite the warmth of the office, Modin felt a chill creep over him. ‘Finally, General,’ Trushenko said, ‘I want you to accompany the last weapon to London and
oversee its placement.’

‘May I ask why?’ Modin asked, surprise evident in his voice.

‘Yes. You are the most senior SVR officer involved in
Podstava
, and you have my complete trust. The London weapon is in many ways the lynchpin of the European phase of the
operation, and I want there to be no mistakes in its delivery or positioning. You have the rank and the ability to ensure that nothing goes wrong.’

‘I thank you, Minister, for your confidence.’

‘Just ensure that my confidence is not misplaced, General,’ Trushenko said, and opened his briefcase.

Hammersmith, London

‘Why did we get involved in this?’ Richter asked. ‘Why didn’t SIS get one of their men to investigate it?’

‘Simple. Vauxhall Cross didn’t want a known “face” poking around over there if this turned out to be anything other than a simple road accident, which – thanks to
you – we now know that it wasn’t.’ Simpson looked down at the file again, then back at Richter. ‘Why are you so sure he’s dead?’

Richter sighed. Simpson seemed particularly obtuse that morning. That, however, was nothing new. He often appeared slow to grasp what seemed patently obvious to everyone else, but from bitter
experience Richter knew that this was just his naturally devious nature manifesting itself. He always wanted to be absolutely certain that an operative making a proposition had considered every
aspect of the matter.

‘He’s got to be, hasn’t he?’ Richter said. ‘They’ve presented us with a dead body that almost everyone accepts as being the remains of Graham Newman. If they
were going to ignore his diplomatic immunity and put him on show, they certainly wouldn’t have done that. It would have been a mysterious disappearance, followed a few days later by a
cautious leak from TASS, then the usual diplomatic charge and denial that we all know and love. That would have been followed by a trial at which Newman would make a “voluntary”
confession to whatever the Russians had in mind. And if it had been a defection, they’d be shouting about it in the world’s press, and there wouldn’t be a mangled stiff in a
Moscow basement.

‘No, the only possible reason for giving us a body called Newman is that Newman is dead somewhere, and the only reason for giving us a body that looks like Newman but isn’t, is that
Graham Newman’s remains are not fit for public consumption.’ Richter stopped and looked over at Simpson. ‘If you want my guess, Newman’s in the Lubyanka, and he won’t
be coming out. They’ve snatched him for terminal questioning.’

Simpson nodded in a preoccupied fashion a couple of times, then stood up and walked back to the window and fiddled with the cacti on the sill.

‘And there’s something else,’ Richter said.

‘What?’

‘I picked up tails everywhere I went in Moscow, and I had an exchange of views with one of them at the airport.’

‘Who was he?’

‘I didn’t bother getting his name, but he was carrying an SVR identity card and waving a PSM pistol in my face. The SVR had obviously issued a kill order against me.’

Simpson nodded, returned to his desk, and depressed a button. ‘Coffee,’ he said.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door, and Richter got up and opened it. Simpson’s secretary was standing outside, a metal tray in her hands. On it were two cups of black
coffee, a small jug of milk, a plate with three digestive biscuits, and a bowl of sugar.

‘Thank you, Sheila.’

She put the tray down on Simpson’s desk and left the office. Simpson reached across, added milk to his coffee and watched Richter take two of the three biscuits. ‘It may interest you
to know that your appreciation of the situation tallies almost exactly with the Intelligence Director’s assessment, given that the body is not Newman.’

‘That’s why he’s the ID, I suppose,’ Richter said.

‘Don’t be frivolous.’ Simpson put his coffee cup down and reached for the remaining biscuit. Richter remembered the things he had selected from Graham Newman’s
possessions in Moscow, opened his briefcase again and piled them up on Simpson’s desk.

‘What’s this rubbish?’

‘This rubbish, as you so charmingly put it, is a small selection of the things Newman held near and dear.’

‘I realize that,’ said Simpson. ‘More to the point, why are they on my desk?’

‘Because I don’t want them,’ Richter replied. ‘I had to think of a reason for having a quick look round Newman’s office and apartment – as instructed by you
– and collecting items of sentimental value for his family seemed to be the easiest. I thought you might like to send them off to the SIS or even to Newman’s family, if he had
one.’

Simpson looked at him. ‘There is a next of kin address in the file, as I’ve no doubt you noted, but Newman wasn’t married.’

‘I know he wasn’t married,’ Richter said sharply.

Simpson looked at him quizzically. ‘He was the SIS Head of Station. Nobody was stopping him getting married. It’s different with us – I never employ field operatives saddled
with wives. It’s far too hampering.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ Richter said.

‘How I employ my operatives is nothing whatever to do with you.’

‘It is as long as I’m one.’

‘You’re more than a field operative. I recruited you into this organization in order to make use of your unique talents. You, Richter, are one of my secret weapons.’ Simpson
smiled the way a crocodile does, showing lots of teeth and ill intent. ‘I like to think I can aim you at a problem, light the blue touch paper and stand well clear.’

Richter grunted. Simpson showed more teeth, drained the last of his coffee and stood up. ‘Leave them with me – the bits you brought back from Moscow. I’ll take care of
them.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Well? Anything else?’ Simpson said and looked rather pointedly at the door.

‘Yes, of course there’s something else,’ said Richter. ‘Having established that the body in Moscow isn’t Newman, the big question is why.’

Simpson sat down again. ‘You mean why did they snatch Newman?’

‘I mean why did they snatch Newman, and why did they snatch anyone?’

Simpson smoothed back his fair hair with a small and scrupulously clean pink hand. ‘I asked the Intelligence Director the same question.’

‘And what, pray, was the Intelligence Director’s assessment of the situation?’

‘He was puzzled,’ Simpson said. ‘There would appear to be no reason why Newman was snatched, rather than any other SIS officer at Moscow Station except, of course, that he was
Head of Station. He had had no access to any files of particular interest to the Russians recently, and as far as we are aware he was not involved in any especially sensitive project. Which is to
say that he hadn’t been tasked by London with anything of that nature. It’s pretty quiet at the moment in Moscow, apart from the depredations of the Mafia.’

‘Basically, you don’t know?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Simpson snapped. ‘We came to the conclusion that it might simply have been a precautionary check. The KGB did occasionally snatch a foreign service
operative and pump them dry just to see if they knew anything of interest – although it wasn’t common – and it was rare for them not to return the operative afterwards, more or
less in one piece. Perhaps the SVR has a more aggressive attitude.’

‘So that’s it, is it? “Goodbye, Newman. It’s been nice knowing you.”’

‘There’ll be a funeral, of course.’

‘Delightful. I meant, more specifically, what follow-up action will you be taking?’

‘Follow-up action? None. As far as Vauxhall Cross is concerned, officially the body at the Embassy is Newman, and will be buried here as Newman. The Russians couldn’t have got
anything of major significance out of him because he didn’t know anything. Therefore, as SIS has not been compromised in any way, we are doing nothing.’

‘That will be a great comfort to Newman’s shade,’ Richter said, and walked out.

Office of the Director of Operations (Clandestine Services), Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

The outer office door was open, and as Richard Muldoon led the way down the long carpeted corridor he could see straight into the room. Jayne Taylor, the Director’s
personal assistant – very personal, if some of the rumours circulating in the supergrades’ private dining room were to be believed – was talking softly into a telephone while she
flicked briskly through a large leather-bound desk diary.

‘Yes,’ she murmured quietly, as Muldoon paused at the door, ‘it looks as if Friday week is about the earliest the Director can see you. Of course, if you could limit your
presentation to fifteen minutes or less we could possibly fit you in before that.’

She looked up as Muldoon knocked, and her eyes widened slightly as she nodded and watched him and the other two men walk in and stand by the window. Muldoon was tall and lanky, and bore an
uncanny resemblance to James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s notorious former spy-catcher, but today his normally cheerful face was clouded. Jayne Taylor turned away, and resumed her telephone
conversation. ‘Look, Mike, I have some visitors right now. Could you give it some thought and call me back? Thanks, and you.’

She put the telephone handset down and looked appraisingly at Muldoon, the head of the Directorate of Science and Technology – the CIA division responsible for satellite surveillance and
technical intelligence analysis.

Jayne Taylor was undeniably easy on the eye, Muldoon thought, and not for the first time. Dark hair cut fashionably short, wide-spaced brown eyes and perfect lips – an almost elfin face
behind which, Muldoon knew, resided an excellent brain. Unlike most of the secretaries and assistants employed by the CIA, who were usually trawled from the high schools of Maryland, West Virginia
and Pennsylvania, Jayne Taylor was a B.A. graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. It was popularly believed that she was only using the CIA as a stepping-stone – just one item
on her own hidden agenda.

‘Good morning, Richard,’ she said with a smile. ‘What’s this – a mutiny?’

Despite himself, Muldoon grinned. ‘Not yet, Jayne,’ he said, ‘but we have to see Walter, and we have to see him now.’

‘That,’ she replied, frowning, ‘could be difficult. He’s involved in a conference call with the National Security Agency right now that should wind up in another ten
minutes or so, but he’s got appointments booked solidly all morning. How long do you want with him?’

Muldoon shook his head. ‘I don’t know. At least an hour.’

Jayne Taylor looked at him, and then at the men behind him. She knew them both. Ronald Hughes was Deputy Director of the Intelligence Division, a nondescript figure with a lined face and
prematurely grey hair, who looked much older than his fifty-eight years. He had always maintained that the perfect spy was the man nobody noticed, and he seemed proof of his own maxim. Jayne
assumed, correctly, that he was with Muldoon because his Director, Cliff Masters, was in Vienna until the following week.

The third man was John Westwood, head of the Foreign Intelligence (Espionage) Staff. Short, red-faced and softly spoken, he looked more like a shopkeeper than an Agency professional. All three
men were unusually quiet, not even talking amongst themselves, which Jayne found disturbing. ‘You really need this, don’t you?’ she asked, and Muldoon nodded.

‘OK,’ she said, and opened the desk diary again. She scanned the page, then nodded. ‘He won’t like it,’ she murmured, ‘but William Rush will have to
wait.’ She picked up the telephone and made two brief calls, then looked up at Muldoon. ‘I’ll probably catch a lot of flak for that later today – this had better be worth
it.’

‘It is, Jayne, and thanks. I owe you.’

The three men sat down, waiting in apprehensive silence. None of them was looking forward to the forthcoming meeting. Eight minutes later the light extinguished on the switchboard display and
the status light above the mahogany door changed from red to green. Jayne called the Director on the intercom, then looked at Muldoon and nodded. The men got up and entered the inner office.

‘Walter,’ Muldoon began, as he approached the man at the desk, ‘we have a problem, and it’s something you need to know about.’

Walter Hicks, Director of Operations (Clandestine Services) of the Central Intelligence Agency, gazed across his desk at the delegation in front of him. He was a big and bulky man, pushing six
feet three, and broad across the shoulders. His craggy face, under a thatch of thinning fair hair, carried a tan all year round, due to his passion for sailing, and most weekends he spent at least
one day on his forty-five-foot catamaran, occasionally inviting colleagues to join him. It was, he claimed, one of the few places outside the Langley classified briefing rooms where he could say
what he wanted.

‘I have a feeling,’ he said, after a few moments, ‘that I’m not going to like this. The CIS went ballistic with signal traffic yesterday. Some major shit’s been
hitting the fan over there, and the NSA is kinda hoping we can help find out what it is. So I need whatever problem you’ve got like Custer needed more Indians.’

The office was large and airy, with a conference table positioned in front of the triple-glazed, bullet-proof picture window. Hicks pressed a button on his intercom, asked Jayne to order coffee
for four, then walked over to the table and eased his body into the chair at its head, motioning the others to join him. ‘OK, Richard,’ he said, ‘let’s hear it.’

Muldoon sat down, glanced over the papers he had taken from his briefcase, and started talking. ‘This involves all of us,’ he said, gesturing at his companions, ‘but it’s
probably quicker if I act as spokesman. Ronald and John will no doubt correct me if I stray.’ Muldoon took a deep breath and began. ‘About five months ago the Moscow Station Chief
advised Langley that he had developed a high-level source in Moscow.’