Manhunt (20 page)

Both the stock, its green polymer side panels already attached, and the barrel were a tight fit in the case, each lying diagonally across its interior. He pulled them both out, fitted and
secured the barrel, and lowered the bipod legs mounted at the fore-end of the machined-aluminium chassis to support it, while he completed the assembly. Then he took a five-round magazine out of
the recess in the briefcase, along with an oblong cardboard box containing twenty rounds of 7.62 x 51-millimetre rifle ammunition. Before leaving Hammersmith, Dekker and Simpson had discussed what
type of bullet should be used.

‘It all depends,’ Dekker had said, ‘on whether you want me to stop this guy
dead
, literally, or just stop him. If I use a hollow-point or a dumdum bullet, at the ranges
you’re talking about, a hit anywhere on the torso is going to kill him pretty much instantly.’

Simpson had shaken his head. ‘If we need him dead, you can put a bullet through his head, right? No, just use standard copper-jacketed rounds, and hopefully there’ll be enough left
of him to talk to us afterwards.’

Dekker took five rounds out of the box and loaded the magazine, then pressed it into the slot in front of the trigger guard.

The last item was the scope. The normal sight used on the AW rifle was from the Schmidt and Bender PMII range, but Dekker preferred something slightly different. He’d chosen a huge Zeiss
telescopic sight that offered variable magnification, and incorporated a laser sighting attachment which would project a spot of red laser light directly onto the target, but he probably
wouldn’t need to use that, not at this range. Once he’d clipped that to the Picatinny rails mounted on top of the receiver, Dekker removed one last piece of equipment, a two-way radio
comprising an earpiece and clip-on microphone which were attached to a flat black battery-cum-transceiver. He clipped the microphone to the lapel of his jacket, slid the earphone into his right
ear, then attached the battery pack to his waist belt and switched it on. Finally, he closed the briefcase and slid it to one side, and out of sight.

Dekker laid himself full-length beside and under the bush, settled the butt of the rifle into his right shoulder, drew back the bolt, and then slid it forward to load the first round. Only then
did he peer through the sight at the target building, which was some one hundred and fifty yards away.

Dekker was a captain in the SAS and a sniper-team commander, and had been ‘borrowed’ from Hereford for this particular mission. He was a professional sniper who was competent enough,
behind a good rifle, to guarantee accurate shot placement on a man-sized target at anything up to a thousand yards’ range. At only one hundred and fifty, he would barely need the telescopic
sight at all.

In his earpiece he heard a series of clicks and bursts of static, then Adamson’s voice.

‘Sierra, this is Whisky. Radio check.’

The code was simple enough, and they’d devised it before they left their hotel in Cahors that morning. Sierra was the ‘sniper’, namely Dekker, and Whisky was the
‘watcher’, or Adamson. The radio system they were using included a scrambler circuit so that if any of their transmissions were detected they would sound like meaningless static. The
units were, in any case, deliberately very short-range, and the FOE techies had estimated that none of their transmissions would reach more than about two miles.

‘Roger,’ Dekker replied, a military response normally meaning ‘received and understood’ or, as in this case, ‘loud and clear’. Only amateurs resorted to hack
phrases like ‘wall to wall’ or ‘five by five’.

‘Sitrep,’ Adamson continued. ‘I’m now in front of the building, with a clear view of the entrance. No activity. Confirm your position and status.’

‘Position as briefed,’ Dekker muttered. There was nobody behind him in the copse of trees as far as he knew, but a loud voice apparently emanating from a bush was the kind of thing
that could attract attention. ‘I’m locked and loaded. Clear view of the target.’

In the centre of Ax-les-Thermes, Richard Simpson consulted his watch, and opened his mobile phone again.

‘Richter, this is Simpson. Get yourself back to the hotel now.’

‘I’m on my way. Oh, one last question. Are these two pointy-heads from Paris carrying weapons?’

‘Of course not,’ Simpson snapped. ‘For them, this is just a routine initial debriefing of a potential source. Neither of them will be armed. Why do you ask?’

‘The usual, Simpson. You know, a matter of mutual trust, spitting a rat, that kind of thing. I just like to know what I’m up against. If they
are
carrying, I might feel the
need to borrow whatever it is. Just in case.’

‘They’re not carrying pistols or anything else, Richter. You have my word on that. But, even if they were, remember there are two of them, both highly trained professionals, and only
one of you. So how, exactly, would you “borrow” one of their weapons?’

‘I’m a professional too, Simpson, just in a different field. And don’t worry – I’d find a way.’

Simpson lowered the phone from his ear and looked at it thoughtfully. Not for the first time since this operation began, he wondered if he was underestimating Richter, and he wished the
timescale had permitted a thorough background check on this man on whom the success or failure of his plan now very largely depended.

Richter picked up his book, paid the bill for the drinks, and headed away from the Auberge du Lac, along the road leading to his own hotel. He then glanced both ways, checking
for oncoming traffic, but the road was fairly quiet and he was able to cross immediately.

He strode through the front entrance of the Hostellerie de la Poste, took the stairs two at a time to his room, and tossed the book on the bed. He rinsed his face in cold water at the sink, and
for a few moments just looked at his reflection in the mirror.

‘You’re a fucking idiot, Richter,’ he muttered. ‘You just know this is all going to end in tears.’

‘Sierra, this is Whisky.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Target Romeo has just entered the hotel. No other movement.’

‘Roger.’

In the copse, Dekker altered the position of the sniper rifle slightly, and scanned the bedroom windows at the rear of the hotel. He saw movement in one of the windows on the
first floor, above the car park, and increased the magnification on the scope a couple of clicks. Through the high-quality Zeiss optics, the face of the fair-haired man in the hotel room sprang
into view.

‘Contact,’ Dekker radioed. ‘First floor, second window from the left. Identity confirmed.’

Inside the Hostellerie de la Poste, Richter picked up the packet of ‘Secret’ papers, tucked the faked SVR pass into his jacket pocket, locked the room door and
headed along the landing and down the stairs. He crossed the hall and entered the empty lounge, sitting down at a round table in one corner, which offered a clear view of the room. He ordered a
Coke in halting and guttural French from the barman, since he seemed to have been drinking coffee all day and thought he could do with a change.

As the Coke arrived, so did two other men, and Richter immediately knew who they were. They were similar in appearance – about six feet tall, dark hair, solidly built, and wearing black
shoes and grey suits – and ordered drinks at the bar before turning round to face Richter.

Then they walked over to stand side by side in front of his table.

‘Are you Mr Markov?’ one asked, in English.

Richter inclined his head slightly. ‘Markov, da. Anatoli Markov.’

‘Do you speak any English?’ the same man continued, very slowly and clearly.

Richter shook his head. ‘No English, no,’ he said. Let the buggers work for it, he thought.

‘No problem,’ the man said, switching smoothly into Russian with, Richter thought, just a hint of a Georgian accent. ‘My name is Richard Hughes and my colleague here is David
Wallis. Do you have any identification on you? A passport, perhaps?’

Richter shook his head. ‘I was stationed in Moscow,’ he said. ‘So I had only my internal passport, and I left that in Russia.’

‘So how did you get out of the country?’ Wallis asked.

‘Friends,’ Richter said. ‘Few borders present a problem if you have friends.’

‘You worked at Yasenevo,’ Hughes said, ‘so do you still have your building pass?’

‘Yes.’ Richter reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and held up the buff-coloured plastic card. ‘You can look,’ he said, ‘but not touch.’

‘Can we take a picture of it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ The two men sat down at the table, and Hughes gestured to Wallis, who produced a small digital camera from his pocket. Richter obligingly placed the card on the table and
waited while Wallis took two pictures of it, the camera flashing each time. Then Richter turned it over to allow the SIS officer to photograph the reverse side.

‘Right,’ said Hughes, pointing at the envelope on the seat beside Richter. ‘We understand you have some papers with you. Are they in that envelope, perhaps?’

‘Some are, but some I have elsewhere, in safe keeping.’

‘May we see them?’ Wallis asked.

‘No, not yet. I was expecting to be contacted here by somebody from British intelligence. I have shown you my identification, but I still do not know exactly who you two are. I will offer
you nothing else until I am satisfied with your credentials.’

Wallis glanced at Hughes, then shrugged his shoulders.

‘Very well.’ Both men produced small leather wallets and placed them on the table in front of Richter, who studied them with genuine interest, never having seen an SIS
officer’s identification before. He took out a pen and notebook and carefully copied down the two names. Then he slid the wallets back towards their owners, and sat back in his chair.

‘So,
Gospodin
Wallis and
Gospodin
Hughes, that tells me your names and who you work for, but I still do not know what authority you have. If you are satisfied with who I am,
is either of you senior enough to offer me asylum?’

Again Wallis and Hughes exchanged glances.

‘That’s not the way it works, Anatoli,’ Hughes said. ‘I think we’re satisfied with your identity, but there’s a long way to go before we even start talking
about asylum. We need to be certain that the information you have brought out with you is important enough to make it worth our while sending you to Britain, then setting up a new identity for you,
teaching you English, providing enough money for you to live on – and all the rest of it. And that means we have to see the product, in order to assess it.’

‘The product?’ Richter asked, a puzzled frown appearing.

‘The papers you brought with you from Yasenevo.’

Richter looked from one to the other, then nodded in understanding.

‘I will show you the first page only,’ he said, ‘and that is all. No touching, no pictures, OK?’

The two SIS officers signified their agreement, and Richter slowly slid the first page of the Victor manual out of the envelope, and held it up.

‘This is secret information,’ Richter continued, ‘about one of our submarines.’ He pointed to the
Sekretno
stamps, at the top and bottom of the page, then quickly
replaced the sheet in the envelope.

‘We’re not very interested in submarines these days, Anatoli. What else have you got for us?’

Richter smiled. ‘I have a lot of good hard data, including the name of the man who sent us copies of some files from your Vauxhall Cross.’

Both Wallis and Hughes leant forward. ‘That’s more like it, Anatoli,’ Hughes said eagerly. ‘Tell us about that.’

Rome, Italy

Raya Kosov cleared passport control without any problems and headed into the baggage-reclaim hall at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. She stood for a moment and watched the
couple of hundred people surrounding two of the luggage carousels, which had just started moving, and above which the incoming flight numbers were displayed. Beyond this mass of jostling humanity,
three other carousels were also rotating, each carrying a few pieces of orphaned luggage on endless and pointless journeys into and then out of the terminal building.

If the SVR had sent anyone to intercept her, she was reasonably certain they wouldn’t have involved any of the Italian agencies, at least not at this stage. That was partly because it
would be embarrassing to admit one of their own officers had flown the coop, but mainly because, if she was picked up by the Italian police or customs officers, she could try to claim political
asylum, and the resulting media storm would do nothing to help Russia’s new international image as an emerging democracy.

But Raya had no intention of being caught, and she’d already planned to do something about it. Her two most distinctive features were probably her short blonde hair – she’d had
it cut in this new style the previous week – and her light blue eyes. That gave her an almost Nordic appearance, and she hoped this was what any watchers now positioned on the other side of
the customs’ channels or outside the airport building would be looking for.

Raya looked around, till she spotted a ladies’ lavatory, and walked quickly across to it. She had to wait a couple of minutes for a vacant cubicle, the airport being very busy, then she
stepped inside and locked the door. She took off her jacket and blouse, hung them on the hook behind the door, then sat on the toilet bowl and opened her carry-on bag, taking out a small folding
compact, a make-up kit, and a tiny plastic case. Resting the bag on her knees, she opened the compact and positioned the mirror so she could see her face, before she snapped open the case and took
out a coloured contact lens. Swiftly, she slipped the lens into her left eye, and repeated the process with her right eye. She then smiled at the result: her blue eyes had vanished behind the
dark-brown plastic lenses.

They were completely at odds with her very fair skin, however, so she set about doing something about that as well. From her make-up case she took a tube of instant tan, squeezed some into her
palm and began massaging it into the skin of her face and neck. Within a few minutes, she’d achieved an even colour, making sure she’d covered her hands and wrists, and the back of her
neck, as well. She wasn’t so worried about her legs, as she’d deliberately chosen dark-coloured tights. Now, when she put her blouse back on, she was satisfied that her appearance would
seem Mediterranean.