Overkill (20 page)

‘We sailed from Odessa, here,’ he said, pointing, ‘and we were programmed to route through the Black Sea to Istanbul, then cross the Aegean to Piraeus, and route west through
the Mediterranean to Tangier and then south to Casablanca. We have cargo in the holds for Piraeus, Durrës and Tunis, and we have scheduled cargo collections at Tunis, Marseille and Tangier for
delivery to Rabat and Casablanca. The return voyage is much the same, with cargo to be collected in the western Mediterranean for delivery to Sicily, Greece and Crete.’

Zavorin nodded and studied the chart for a few minutes. ‘Well, Captain,’ he said at last, ‘there will have to be some changes.’

Bondarev grunted. ‘I expected that.’

‘The first change,’ Zavorin went on, ‘will be an additional stop to collect cargo – actually special equipment for my men – before we reach Istanbul.’

‘Which port?’ Bondarev asked.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Zavorin replied. ‘This mission was undertaken at short notice, and the equipment will take time to assemble. My guess is Constanta, but it could be
Varna or Burgas.’ He tapped the names of the three ports, on the Black Sea’s west coast, with a pencil.

‘No problem,’ Bondarev said. ‘And after Istanbul and the Bosphorus?’

Zavorin looked thoughtful, and used a pair of dividers to measure distances on the chart. ‘I want to keep to the ship’s programmed route as much as possible, to avoid attracting
attention. Piraeus should not be a problem, but we will not be able to make Durrës or Marseille if we are to keep on schedule. Yes,’ he said. ‘Have your navigator prepare a new
course from Istanbul to Piraeus, then Tunis and Tangier, and signal the authorities in Durrës and Marseille that the
Anton Kirov
will not be calling at those ports on this
voyage.’

Bondarev was in no doubt that this was an order. ‘And after Tangier?’ he asked, jotting a note on a pad.

Zavorin smiled. ‘I don’t think we will make Tangier,’ he said. ‘The ship will develop engine trouble and will be forced to put in to Gibraltar.’

Bondarev bristled slightly. ‘My ship has never had engine trouble.’

Zavorin nodded. ‘I know. That is one reason why this vessel was selected. But on this voyage, it will develop engine trouble and we will put in to port to get it rectified.’

‘Why Gibraltar?’ Bondarev asked.

Zavorin shook his head. ‘You do not need to know that, Captain. Let me just say that we will be collecting another item of cargo there – an item of crucial importance to
Russia.’

There was a knock on the door. Bondarev slid it open and took the signal from the radioman – one of Zavorin’s men – who stood there. He read it and then passed it to Zavorin.
‘Good,’ Zavorin murmured. ‘The equipment will be ready for us at Varna in four hours.’

Bondarev bent over the chart. ‘We are now about six hours out of Varna,’ he said.

‘Excellent, Captain,’ Zavorin replied. ‘I will go and brief my men.’

American Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

John Westwood leaned back in his chair, poured himself another cup of coffee and rubbed his tired eyes. The jet lag was starting to catch up with him, he thought, stifling
a yawn. Abrahams sat silently, digesting what he had been told. ‘You see the problem?’ Westwood asked.

Abrahams nodded. ‘Yeah. One, your top-level source in Moscow tells you that a covert assault by the CIS on the West is in progress. Two, you can’t find any trace of preparations for
any kind of assault, anywhere. Three, an attack by the CIS makes no sense in the current political climate. Four, the Russians might have developed a kind of super neutron bomb. Five, if they have,
and they deploy it, the weapon will actually favour the Western alliance in any future conflict.’ He looked across at his former chief. ‘Is that about it?’

‘Pretty much,’ Westwood nodded.

‘That’s complete nonsense, so we must be missing something. Somewhere there’s a key that will lock that lot, and tie everything together. Right. I understand the background,
but what exactly do you want me – or rather CIA London Station – to do about it?’

Westwood looked across the table. ‘Nothing much. We’ve talked the tail off this, and we’ve got exactly nowhere. What we really need is more data, more information about
whatever the hell is going on in the Kremlin or the SVR or GRU or wherever. In short, we need a lead. Do you,’ he asked, ‘have any contacts with the British Secret Intelligence Service,
or MI6 or whatever they’re calling themselves these days?’

Abrahams nodded. ‘Of course we have. That’s one reason why we’re here.’

Westwood shook his head. ‘Sorry, I’m not explaining myself. I know about the official contacts and information exchange. What I meant was unofficial contacts. Someone who is
sufficiently well placed to find out if SIS has any agents-in-place in Russia who could find out what the hell is going on.’ As Roger Abrahams looked at him quizzically, Westwood continued.
‘Look, at the moment I don’t want this on an official level. It could all be some disinformation scheme by the SVR to get us chasing our tails, running round all the Western
intelligence agencies, and generally looking like klutzes. That’s what I hope. Or it could be real, and RAVEN could be genuine, in which case we have to try to protect him as well as stop
this assault. In either case, the last thing we want to do is to start officially involving allied intelligence services. They’re still leaky, and if the threat is real and word gets back to
the Kremlin that we’re on to it, this could turn from a covert assault to an overt one real fast.’

‘OK, we might be able to help. I know a guy called Piers Taylor – we meet socially as well as professionally. He’s deputy head of Section Nine of SIS.’

‘Which is?’ Westwood interrupted.

‘Responsible for Russian affairs,’ Abrahams concluded. ‘I’ll try and set up a meet.’

Cambridgeshire and London

The Jaguar driver tried to steer to the left, which was the way his car was heading anyway, then realized that was what Richter wanted, so he turned the wheel right. He
was too late, much too late. The Jaguar hit the verge, metal screamed against metal, and Richter pulled away, spinning the wheel hard right. The XJ6 bounced off the verge and on to the road, but
the tail of the Granada caught its offside front wing and slammed it back to the left.

Richter braked the Granada to a stop fifty yards in front, twisted round in the seat and stared back at the Jaguar. Then he slowly reversed back, ready to take off at the first sign of any
hostile movement. The Jaguar wasn’t going to move under its own power for a long time. A concrete plinth housing a manhole cover had done most of the damage, and Richter could see that the
radiator had gone, steam pouring from the crumpled bonnet.

The driver was unconscious, lolling forward in his seat and still belted in securely, but with blood pouring from a bad head wound. Richter guessed he’d probably hit the door pillar. There
was no sign of movement from the back seat, so Richter got quietly out of the Granada, leaving the engine running and the door open, and walked cautiously towards the Jaguar. About halfway there,
he picked up a good-sized rock, about six or seven pounds in weight, and took a careful grip of it with his right hand. Then he walked to the Jaguar and peered cautiously through what was left of
the rear side window.

The passenger was lying on the floor, moaning softly and shaking his head. His pistol – a Colt .45 automatic – lay on the floor beside him, within easy reach of his right hand.
Richter knew he’d have to act fast, before the man cleared his head and started shooting. He took a deep breath and pulled open the nearside rear door with his left hand.

As the door opened, the man inside looked up, then grabbed for the Colt, moving much faster than Richter had anticipated. He twisted round, brought up his gun hand and squeezed the trigger. But
Richter had been expecting it, and the gunman hadn’t been expecting the rock.

Richter parried, the shot tore through the roof of the Jaguar, and with all the force of his right arm Richter brought the rock down on the side of the gunman’s head. He dropped, and the
gun dropped too. For good measure Richter picked up the rock again and brought it down on the back of the driver’s head.

Richter backed out of the car, deafened by the noise of the shot, and shook his head slowly, then took the rock over to the Granada, where he wrapped it in a road map and put it on the floor mat
in front of the passenger seat. He reached into the glove box and pulled out a pair of thin leather driving gloves and put them on. Then he took the demisting cloth, walked back to the Jaguar and
wiped the door handle where he’d touched it.

Richter picked up the Colt, set the safety catch, and put the pistol in the waistband of his trousers. The man in the back seat had about thirty shells in his jacket pocket, and two spare
magazines, both fully charged. From the looks of him, he wouldn’t be needing them any more, so Richter took them as well. He checked his pockets, but there was no indication of who he was. No
wallet, no credit cards, no nothing. Just around fifty pounds in cash. A pro, but then Richter had guessed that already. The Colt is a weapon for a pro.

The driver was carrying a Mauser HSc in a shoulder holster, which Richter got off him with some difficulty. He had a full spare magazine in a natty pouch on the holster strap, and a dozen or so
loose rounds in his jacket pocket, all of which went into Richter’s pocket. He, too, was carrying no ID. They were Russian agents, of that Richter was sure, not least because they
weren’t carrying Stechkins or Makarovs or any other eastern-bloc weapons. The Russians almost never use homegrown weapons in foreign operations. This is because, with the exception of the
Kalashnikov assault rifle and its variants, Russian small arms are not sufficiently good to be a weapon of choice for any assassin, so anyone found carrying one is virtually certain to be
identified as a CIS agent, even if he’s not.

Richter checked the rear of the car. He found three .45 shell cases on the floor, which was probably all there were to find. Richter knew they’d fired at least five shots at him, one which
broke the front and rear screens of the Granada, three when he’d reversed direction at the end of the dual carriageway and one when he’d opened the Jaguar’s rear door. The Colt
was no help – the magazine in the pistol was full, apart from the single shot just fired – another indication that its former owner was a pro. Only amateurs run out of ammunition, and
he’d obviously reloaded as they chased the Ford. The fourth and fifth shell cases were somewhere on the road, maybe miles back, and there was no way he was going to start looking for
them.

A squawk from the front seat made Richter jump, and he saw a radio transceiver screwed to the dashboard. That suggested he’d been right about the second car, which was probably on its way
towards him right then. It was time he was somewhere else. Quite apart from another carload of opposition, Richter didn’t want some officious citizen – or, even worse, a brace of
woodentops in a Panda car – spotting him there and asking all sorts of questions that he really hadn’t got any answers for, so he climbed back into the Ford, put it into gear and took
off.

Richter took the first side road he came to and followed it until he found a river. He stopped next to the bridge, checked that he was unobserved and then heaved the rock into the water. Richter
knew that forensic experts could pull fingerprints off almost anything, and he wasn’t taking any chances. Then he got back in the Granada and drove on. Five minutes and three miles later he
pulled the Ford off the road and into a wood. He sat for a few minutes in the car, breathing deeply. From the start of the chase adrenalin had kept him going, kept him concentrating on what he was
doing. Now reaction was setting in. His hands were shaking slightly, and a check showed Richter that his pulse rate was significantly higher than normal.

Richter was no stranger to violence. Within days of his first meeting with Simpson, and even before he had been recruited into FOE, he had been sent deep into France with a cover story so thin
that it was virtually transparent, and he had been forced to kill just to stay alive. But never before had Richter killed with his bare hands, one-to-one.

The men in the Jaguar were dead, of that he was certain. He had heard, and felt, their skulls shatter under the blows of the rock, and this time there had been no termination order, no official
approval. He didn’t even know who they were. They had died because they had tried to kill him, nothing more – not much of an epitaph and possibly, Richter realized, not even much of a
justification. He knew he was going to have to be careful.

Richter put the guns on the seat beside him, then had a look at the car. It was a mess, at best. The windscreen was laminated, so there was little he could do about the bullet hole, but he
knocked out the shattered rear screen, keeping the glass in the car, as he didn’t want to advertise that he’d stopped there, for any reason. The driver’s door window had shattered
as well, and the bits were all over the floor, which was the best place for them.

He looked at the offside of the car and found a bullet hole just below the top of the front wing, and the exit hole near the centre of the bonnet. Richter smeared some mud over the holes –
a barely adequate disguise – then threw more at the side of the car. The bullet which had taken out the side window had left the car through the roof, just above the passenger door, and
Richter guessed that the third shot had gone above, or perhaps in front of, the windscreen. Under the circumstances, he thought, it had been bloody good shooting.

The left side of the car was very badly bent and twisted, front and rear wings buckled beyond repair. All the lights that side had gone; headlight, sidelights and indicators. The bonnet was
jammed shut, so Richter couldn’t tell whether the bullet had done any damage in the engine compartment, but as everything seemed to be working he wasn’t bothered.

After about twenty minutes Richter was satisfied that he had done all he could to hide the fact that he’d been involved in a running battle. He studied the map for a few minutes, and
worked out a route that would get him back to Hammersmith without going anywhere near any major built-up areas until he reached the outskirts of London.