Sentinel (6 page)

Sentinel.

He came to within ten feet, stopped, and barked in a well-spoken English accent, “The service had better have a damn good reason for calling this meeting.” He kept his gun pointed at Will’s head. “You’ve got ten seconds to persuade me not to pull the trigger.”

Chapter Six

T
he first minutes of daylight showed woodland dotted with red berries, snow-covered ground, and snowflakes falling serenely from the sky. Traces of the fog were still there and gave the place an eerie presence. Turning from the view, Will glanced around the large room. Six large windows surrounded what looked like a well-used spacious family kitchen. That was as it should be, for Sentinel’s safe houses would all have been outfitted to look like genuine homes.

Sentinel was standing in the center of the room speaking rapid Slovene into his cell phone. He finished the call, poured black coffee into a mug, and sat down at the kitchen table.

Will joined him.

Sentinel withdrew three handgun magazines from his trouser pocket and carefully removed the bullets, resting each on its percussion cap on the table, until ten of them were lined up vertically. He took out another magazine, reached behind his back, withdrew a Sig Sauer P229 handgun, and slammed the fresh magazine into the weapon. Placing the muzzle of the gun against one of the bullets, he tapped the projectile over, then did the same with three more. He looked at Will with icy blue eyes. “I’ve now got two hundred and seventy-six assets. One hundred and eighty of them are Russians who operate inside their country, seventy are Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Estonian, and Finnish men, like those who grabbed you from the base of the Potemkin Stairs, and twenty of them are Western European support agents—mostly wealthy individuals, arms dealers, and forgers—who I use to finance and supply my operations when MI6 is unable to help me. But at the forefront of them all”—he looked back at the bullets—“are my Russian agents, my tier-one intelligence producers. There were ten of them, and now I have six. They all risk their lives for me so that the West can benefit from their intelligence about Russia. Do you know why they do that?”

Will said nothing.

Sentinel smoothed his fingers over the four prone cartridges and closed his eyes before opening them again. For the briefest moment his face was filled with sadness. His expression became cold. “They do it because they love Russia and hate the people that run it.”

Will nodded.

Sentinel looked at the bullets. He pulled back the workings of the Sig Sauer, chambered a round, put the gun onto the table, and muttered to himself, “Bastard.”

“You didn’t suspect him?”

“I had no reason to. I’ve been investigating the deaths, but so far found nothing. I’d concluded the killers were SVR or FSB.”

“How does Khmelnytsky know the identity of your agents?”

Sentinel stared at him.

“Did you make tradecraft mistakes? Perhaps you were followed by Razin to your agent meetings.”

Sentinel remained motionless.

“You can trust me.”

“Trust?” The room reverberated with the volume of Sentinel’s voice. “I don’t trust anyone, and I’m not about to start doing so with someone I’ve only known for a few hours.” He spun the gun so that its nozzle was facing Will. “Do you work in the service’s Russia team?”

“No.”

“Security Department?”

“No.”

“Then what’s your fucking interest in my business?”

Will ignored the question. “You need to set up a meeting with Razin so that I can kill him.”

Sentinel laughed. “Have you read his file?”

“Of course.”

Sentinel’s expression changed. “Then you’ll know that it’s more likely he’ll kill us.”

“I’m prepared to take that risk. Are you?”

Sentinel placed a hand over the gun. “How long have you been in the service?”

“Long enough not to have to prove my worth by answering questions like that.”

“We’ll see.” Sentinel spoke fast. “I’ve no idea how Razin knows the identity of my other agents, nor do I know how Svelte found out he was a traitor.” He raised his voice. “I made
no
tradecraft mistakes.”

Will held his gaze. “Razin’s command of Alpha gives him a very powerful weapon, but he’s going to need more than that to try to spark a war. Any ideas what he might do?”

“Yes.”

“I’m listening.”

Silence.

Will put a finger against the tip of Sentinel’s gun and yanked it sideways so that the gun was pointing away from him.

But Sentinel’s hand remained over the weapon. “You shouldn’t have come here. And you need to leave right now because there’s nothing more I’m going to say to you.”

Will pulled out his cell phone. “We thought you might say that.” He punched some buttons, pressed
SPEAKERPHONE
, and placed the phone on the table between them.

A man answered. “Hold while we route the call.”

Thirty seconds later, the same man said, “Okay, you’re through to the chief.”

The chief of MI6.

Sentinel’s expression remained hostile as he glanced at Will, then the cell. “Your messenger boy’s asking too many questions. I’ve ordered him to leave.”

The chief answered, his voice measured and deep. “He has my authority to stay.”

Sentinel shook his head. “You have no authority over me.”

“You can’t speak to me like that.”

“I can. Since I’ve been in the field, I’ve worked with six chiefs. They all come and go. But I’ve stayed.”

“You’ll do what you’re told!”

Sentinel leaned closer to the phone. “I’ll do what I damn well like. And if I
like,
I’ll go above your head and speak directly to the prime minister. I’ll tell him that you’re interfering in my business and I don’t like it. Our premiers have always done what I’ve told them to do.” He leaned back. “You
know
that I have that power. Tell your messenger boy to leave, or things will get unpleasant for you.”

The chief was silent for five seconds before saying, “I’m not interfering. I’m giving you help.”

“Help that I didn’t request. You don’t make decisions like that without consulting with me first.”

More silence. Then, “The man I sent is run by a controller who was on your intake when you joined MI6.”

Sentinel’s eyes narrowed. “Name?”

“Alistair McCulloch.”

A thin smile emerged on Sentinel’s face. “I’d heard he got promoted. I’d also heard that he’d been put in charge of a trivial administrative department.”

“That’s what you and everyone else were supposed to have heard.”

The smile vanished. “The service doesn’t withhold information from people like me.”

“When did you last see Alistair?”

Sentinel answered through gritted teeth, “Nine years ago.”

“It must have been an awkward meeting. After all, that’s when you were stripped of your Spartan code name.”

The mention of the code name clearly surprised Sentinel. “They were closing down the Spartan Section.”

“Why?”

“Read the files.”

“I wonder why my predecessor sent Alistair to break the news to you.”

“Probably because the former chief was too scared to do it in person.”

“I’ve read the files. You were stripped of your title because events had moved on since your imprisonment. Russia was no longer the only major threat. For the Spartan Section to have any relevance, its officer had to be globally deployable. They couldn’t do that with you because you were too vital to the Russian operations.”

Sentinel slid the gun close to his body, away from Will’s reach.

“You’d become too . . . specialized.”

“Their loss.”

“Their gain. MI6 couldn’t afford to underestimate your im-
portance.”

“You’d damn well better have a reason to be talking about this.”

“Oh, I do. Alistair was sent to you for a very specific reason. It had to be him, because he’d just been given command of the revamped Spartan Section.”

Sentinel stared at the phone, and his expression changed. He seemed to be deep in thought. Eventually, he brought his gaze up to Will and asked, “Is this him?”

“It is.”

Sentinel nodded slowly, looked away, and muttered, “They kept it going.”

“It wasn’t easy. Eight recruits before him . . . failed. The future of the section was entirely reliant on someone passing the Program. I sent him to you out of respect for who you are.” He paused. “I’d like you to work with him. But I concede that I can’t order you to make that happen.”

The room was silent. Will kept his eyes locked on Sentinel.

Sentinel picked the phone up. “Okay, I’ll do it. But no more surprises. Understood?”

“I understand very well.”

Sentinel ended the call and tossed the phone at Will. He spoke in a quiet, measured voice. “Razin and his men have been instructed by Russian high command to covertly train with twenty prototype weapons. These devices are about the size of small suitcases and are highly sophisticated. There’s a view that the devices can be used in conventional battlefields and unconventional theaters of war and peace. Alpha’s task is to prove this view correct and to also prove that the weapons can be smuggled into heavily defended areas. Over the last few months, Razin and his men have been secretly entering Russian air bases, navy installations, army depots, and government buildings to plant these devices. Every infiltration so far has been successful. The devices have since been removed by Razin’s men and kept by them. The training exercise is due to be complete in the next few weeks, at which point the devices will be handed back to the army.”

“This is how he’ll spark a war?”

“It must be.” Sentinel looked at the prone cartridges again and shook his head. “I’ll send an urgent message to Razin that we need to meet in a safe house on the Russian border. We’ve used it before, so it shouldn’t seem suspicious. The message will also say that people are being killed, I’m concerned for his safety, and I need to brief him on new security protocols.”

Will’s stomach muscles tightened. “The devices?”

Gun in hand, Sentinel rose and walked to the window. Outside, snow was falling faster and was being whipped up by a strong wind. Their surroundings no longer looked eerily serene; instead they appeared harsh and violent. Sentinel slowly turned to face Will. When he spoke, his voice was deep, and somber.

“The devices are nuclear bombs.”

Chapter Seven

W
ill stood naked in his room in the Hotel Otrada, staring at his belongings laid out on the bed. He selected some clothes, carefully checked each item to ensure that none of them contained any compromising items such as receipts, and dressed. He examined himself in a mirror and decided that he looked as though he were about to embark on a winter hike. Stuffing cash into a jacket pocket, he repacked all of the remaining items, including his wallet and passport, into his case. The case he would leave with the concierge. He could see lunchtime traffic from the window, moving slowly below him through thick snow. There was no fog now. In the distance the Black Sea was easily visible.

He flicked on a kettle, tore open three tea bags, and emptied their contents into a mug. He poured boiling water slowly over the loose tea, carefully stirring the brew. Grabbing the mug and looking at the sumptuous sofa and two armchairs in the room, he ignored them and sat instead on the floor with his back leaning against a wall. After waiting a few minutes for the tea leaves to settle to the base of the mug, he took a delicate sip of his drink and closed his eyes in appreciation. Though the drink was not up to the standard of his favorite Scottish breakfast tea blend, it was still good. He’d always known that even the coarsest of teas could be coaxed into tasting nice if one prepared its leaves properly and added nothing but hot water to them.

He thought about Sentinel, wondering if he would become the same as him by middle age unless something drastically changed the path of his life. There was so much about the man that Will not only understood but also saw in himself: mistrust of others, a life lived in extremes, a life lived with unrelenting focus, a life lived alone. But Sentinel had something that he did not yet have: an acceptance of that way of life, a realization that there would never be an alternative to his mode of existence.

Will recalled words spoken to him nine years before when an anonymous MI6 officer had asked if he was prepared to go into the Spartan Program.

Before you agree, understand this. There’s no going back. If you survive the Program, everything will be different for you. Your body, your mind, your life. Everything.

He remembered being dragged to the edge of a forest in Scotland after two weeks of imprisonment, sleep deprivation, and torture by MI6 and special forces instructors, prior to which he had been chased by armed trackers and attack dogs over a hundred miles of frozen mountainous terrain. As he was dumped on the ground, an instructor walked quickly up to him, yanked his head up, pointed at the woods, and gave him his next task: “The forest is two miles long and one mile wide. Inside are four very skilled SBS soldiers. They’re armed. You won’t be. You’ve got to find them and render them immobile, but alive. If you exit the forest before doing so, you fail the program. And remember, this is not an artificial test. The men in there have authority to hurt you badly.”

He took another sip of his tea and opened his eyes. Many years before Will had done so, Sentinel would have gone into that forest. He would have moved through the place exhausted, disoriented, desperate to find the men before they found him, but all the while doubting that he had the speed, strength, and skills to beat them. He would have wondered if that day was his last day on Earth, just as he had wondered every other day during the twelve-month Spartan Program.

Like Sentinel, Will had succeeded in that forest. But there was one thing he’d never been able to conquer: a fantasy about a different, normal life. Nine years before, he’d briefly had the opportunity to take that path. He was about to graduate from Cambridge University when one of his professors took him aside and offered him a full scholarship to do a Ph.D. and the chance to become an academic.