Overkill (26 page)

‘What about an above-ground test?’

Kemp shook his head. ‘The Russians almost always conduct underground tests. The few above-ground tests they have done have always followed the same pattern – they build a tower
around a hundred feet high and detonate the weapon at the top of it. There was no evidence of a tower in any of the Keyhole pictures.’

He looked over at Penny, who shook her head decisively. ‘Definitely not,’ she said. ‘The towers are quite unmistakable.’

‘Plus,’ Kemp went on, ‘above-ground tests show distinctive after-traces, and we haven’t seen anything like that in the Blackbird films.’

‘What about a surface detonation?’ Richter asked.

‘Sorry? What do you mean?’ Kemp looked puzzled.

‘Suppose the Russians didn’t bother erecting a tower, but just stuck a weapon on the ground or maybe just below the surface, lit the blue touch-paper and walked away?’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Richter replied. ‘I’m just offering a suggestion. Suppose that’s what they did. What evidence would you expect to see on the ground
afterwards?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kemp said slowly. ‘If the hill was at the centre of the detonation it would presumably be vaporized, but I would still expect to see other traces, like
disturbed earth further out.’ He shook his head. ‘I may be wrong, but I don’t think a nuclear device did this. It would be worth checking the seismic records, though, just to make
sure.’ Kemp paused, and then made another suggestion. ‘I suppose we are looking at this from the right angle?’

‘What do you mean?’ Simpson asked, looking puzzled.

‘Well, we have two photographs here, one showing a fairly substantial hill, and the second one, taken two months later, showing no hill and no indication as to how it was removed. We are
assuming – or at least I’ve been assuming – that the hill has been levelled for some sort of installation which will be built in the future. But suppose we’ve got it
backwards, and that what we are seeing is not the site of a future installation, but the site of a past one.

‘Suppose the hill wasn’t a hill. Suppose it was simply a camouflaged structure housing some sort of installation that the Russians have had up there for years. That could have been
removed without the use of the heavy equipment needed for earth moving, couldn’t it? And it would also provide the answer to the question I asked earlier, about where they put the
earth.’

Simpson looked interested, glanced again at the pictures, then over at Richter, who shook his head. ‘My informant stressed the fact that the artefact removed was completely worthless and
old – very old. He said it was pre-Christian, and I don’t think he was joking. I don’t believe he just meant something like a pre-war bunker. I think he did mean something
hundreds or thousands of years old – I think the hill was just a hill.

‘And,’ Richter continued, ‘if it was artificial, what sort of installation could it have been? Bear in mind that if it was manned the people there would need food, changes of
personnel, replacement equipment and spare parts. Even if it was purely some sort of monitoring station it would still need periodic checking and, presumably, repairs at odd intervals. There would
have to be some evidence of transport to and from the area, even if it was only an occasional helicopter, and if there has been, I presume you haven’t seen it.’ He paused. ‘I
suppose you would have seen it?’

‘I would say yes,’ Kemp replied. ‘We get a regular sighting of KH–12 and other surveillance satellite films, courtesy of the NSA and CIA, and even if there’s too
much cloud cover for normal films to show much, the infra-red detectors would easily pick up anything the size of a man in the area. A helicopter would stand out like – if you’ll pardon
the expression, Penny – a dog’s balls.’

Richter had a thought. ‘Are there any UK surveillance satellites covering that area?’

Kemp laughed. ‘There wasn’t any need to add the last three words. Apart from communications satellites and the geo-stationary type used by Rupert Murdoch to beam Sky television at
us, the only stuff we’ve got going round this planet is scientific, and I mean really scientific, not Russian scientific. We measure cosmic radiation, take pictures of stars and listen for
the extraterrestrial babblings of bug-eyed monsters, from what I can gather. What we don’t do is take pictures of Mother Russia, or anywhere else.’

‘I see. So we are totally dependent on the Americans for pictures of this area?’

‘In a word, yes.’

Richter beat Simpson to the obvious question by about half a second. ‘Have there been any significant gaps in the supply of films? I mean, any break of more than, say, a week?’

Kemp thought for a moment, then stood up. ‘Lights, please. I can’t recall any breaks, but I’ll just go and make sure. Excuse me.’

He left and Richter put his coffee mug down. Penny walked over and sat down beside him. Simpson looked at him disapprovingly. ‘What are you driving at, sir?’

‘I’m not sure I know at the moment,’ Richter replied. ‘We’re definitely missing something, and I don’t know what it is. What is obvious is that the Americans
had to have had some indication of something going on in north-west Russia to make them fly the Blackbird. And, as we’re in the dark about what it is, it seems logical that they may have
spotted something via satellite that they don’t want to tell us about. If that’s the case, they might therefore have simply omitted to let us see the relevant films. They might have
pleaded some kind of mechanical malfunction for the critical period when whatever happened was going on.’

‘Yes, that makes sense. But what is it that they don’t want us to see, and why?’

Richter shook his head. ‘At this moment, I’ve absolutely no idea.’

Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi
Headquarters, Yazenevo, Tëplyystan, Moscow

‘When will you leave, Nicolai?’ Sokolov asked.

‘I will join the convoy at Minsk, on Sunday morning,’ Modin replied. ‘My old bones ache if I have to spend more than an hour in the back of a car. Minister Trushenko has
instructed me to accompany the convoy, but he did not say from where. So, I will join it at Minsk – I can fly there on Saturday and get a good night’s sleep before the
journey.’

Sokolov nodded agreement, then opened the first of the folders he had brought with him. Modin looked expectantly at his old friend and comrade, but Sokolov shook his head. ‘No, I
haven’t found the traitor, Nicolai, and I am still not really sure that there is one. We have no hard evidence, none at all. The wiretaps, intercepts and surveillance have revealed nothing,
so even if one of the people indoctrinated into this project has betrayed it, he has not been in contact since the start of this investigation.’

‘So what is in the folders?’ Modin asked.

Sokolov held them up in front of him. ‘As well as trying to find out who could have been in contact with the Americans, I also looked at the problem from the other side. I have been able
to identify some officers who could not have been in contact, because of their postings to areas where no Westerner is allowed, for example. I had to assume that no traitor would be stupid enough
to send evidence of his crime to the American Embassy by mail.’

Modin smiled thinly. ‘Particularly not Russian mail,’ he said.

‘Exactly. And the same applies to telephone calls. Most long-distance calls still have to be connected by an operator, and the called numbers are always recorded. It would be too much of a
risk.’

‘And the result was?’ Modin prompted.

‘I could eliminate eight officers only,’ Sokolov replied. ‘Including the two of us and Minister Trushenko, that still leaves sixteen people.’

Modin sat in silence for a few moments. ‘Grigori,’ he said finally, ‘forget about the physical evidence. You have reviewed the personal files of all the officers?’

Sokolov nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘And you know most of them personally?’ Sokolov nodded again. ‘I have relied upon your intuition before,’ Modin continued. ‘Do you not have a feeling –
however slight or irrational – about any of the officers? Let’s assume that you had to pick just one of them.’

Sokolov smiled. ‘You mean, if somebody told me that so-and-so was the traitor, which name would surprise me least?’

‘More or less, yes.’

‘I admit that I have never liked the man,’ Sokolov admitted, ‘and I am trying not to let that cloud my judgement, but if I had to pick just one, I would choose Viktor
Bykov.’

Modin nodded and smiled bleakly. ‘We always thought the same way, Grigori,’ he said. ‘I have already had Bykov seconded to my staff here, and he will be accompanying me to
London with the weapon. If he is the traitor, he will have no chance to communicate with the Americans until the plan is implemented. I will see to that.’ Sokolov nodded, his relief evident.
‘However,’ Modin continued, ‘Bykov may be absolutely innocent, so continue your researches, old friend.’

‘Of course. Now, what is the next step?’

‘Apart from the placing of this weapon, all that remains is to indoctrinate the
rezidents
in the target cities into the plan and instruct them on the procedures they are to follow.
That is being done as we speak.’

Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, RAF Brampton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

‘You’re right,’ Kemp said. ‘There was one short period of about eight days, just after the last set of KH–12 pictures that this frame came
from. There was a “command failure” which took a week to rectify, during which time no pictures were received from the satellite.’

Penny smiled at Richter. ‘I didn’t realize you were psychic,’ she said.

‘I’m not,’ he replied, ‘I’m just a real good guesser, and I’m prepared to lay money that whatever alerted the Americans took place during that period when
they are claiming that the satellite was out of action. Probably they detected more evidence of vehicular movement in the area, and that sparked their interest. Then when the hill vanished from the
KH–12 pictures, they flew the Blackbird to get a closer look at the site.’

‘There’s another point as well,’ Kemp added. ‘Although we’ve been getting KH–12 pictures since the command failure, we’ve received none showing this
location, or anything within about a hundred miles of it.’

‘I’m not entirely surprised,’ Richter said.

‘So now what?’ Kemp fired the question at Richter, but Simpson fielded it.

‘From JARIC’s point of view, I think that’s it. I don’t think there’s anything more to be gained from analysis of these films. We’ve identified the fact that
the hill has vanished. What we now have to do is find out how the Russians managed it, and why the Americans don’t want to tell us about it. And that’s our job.’

Babushka Restaurant, Central Moscow

John Rigby had been an agency professional for a long time, and had easily spotted the tail as he left the American Embassy on Novinskij bulvar, but he had made no attempt
to shake it. A golden rule for any covert operative is never to shake a tail, because doing that identifies the person being followed as a professional, which immediately blows his cover as a
covert agent. A professional who believes he is being followed will simply proceed about his lawful business or, if he was actually en route for some kind of nefarious activity, abandon his plans
and do something completely innocent and legal. John Rigby was just going out for lunch, so he ignored the man in the dark blue VAZ as he looked for a parking space.

The Babushka Restaurant just off Nikitskaja ulitsa was small and intimate, and a popular lunchtime venue for foreign diplomats and newsmen. Rigby was a regular there, and nodded to several
acquaintances as he hung his overcoat on the end peg just inside the restaurant doorway. Rather than join any of the people he knew, Rigby selected a small table for two in the far corner. He sat
with his back to the wall, facing the restaurant entrance, ordered his meal and then buried himself in a two-day-old copy of the
Wall Street Journal
.

Despite his apparent absorption in his paper, Rigby was paying close attention to the comings and goings at the restaurant, and particularly to the area near the coat rack. Ever since the last
message from RAVEN he had been making himself even more visible than before, eating three meals a day in various Moscow restaurants, taking walks in Gorky Park, shopping in GUM or just wandering
the Moscow streets. His duodenal ulcer had been complaining ever since this routine had started, and he was beginning to lose sleep as well.

As he ate the rather plain meal and drank the glass of milk that was all he could tolerate without reaching for his bottle of pills, Rigby wondered if Langley was right. Initially he had been
instructed to make absolutely no attempt to identify RAVEN, for fear of alarming him, but since finding the message in his car, Langley had been frantic to get any indication of the identity of the
disaffected Russian. Rigby had spent hours memorizing the faces of the most senior officers in the GRU and the SVR plus, where photographs existed, those of their principal assistants, friends and
associates. That hadn’t helped identify RAVEN, although Rigby had detected certain liaisons of which CIA Moscow had not previously been aware.

At every meal, and every time he went out anywhere, Rigby had tried, as surreptitiously as possible, to be aware of anyone who approached him, his overcoat – which he invariably took off
in every bar and restaurant he visited – or his car. To date, his vigilance had yielded absolutely nothing, because RAVEN had simply failed to make contact.

Rigby drank the last of his milk, and then went into the toilet at the back of the restaurant. When he returned to his table, he called for the bill, paid it, and collected his coat. He glanced
carefully around the restaurant before he left, but paid no particular attention to the grey-haired man sitting alone at the far corner of the bar, head buried in his newspaper, which was perhaps
unfortunate. The man’s face would have been almost as familiar to Rigby as his own, and if he had identified him, the CIA’s search for source RAVEN would have been over.