Overkill (33 page)

‘A precaution against what, Mr President?’ Karasin asked sharply.

The President waited a few moments before replying. ‘I was hoping,’ he said finally, ‘that you might be able to tell me.’

Battersea, London

When Richter had finished, Simpson got up and poured himself another Scotch. ‘Are you sure? It sounds bloody unlikely to me.’

‘I’m as sure as I can be,’ Richter said. ‘In any case, as far as I can see, it’s the only explanation that covers all the facts we have. If you’ve any better
theories, let’s hear them. All I’m saying is that the explanation I’ve just advanced seems to me to be the simplest and most likely, and until a simpler and more likely one comes
along, I’m going to work on the assumption that it’s correct.’

Simpson paced up and down in front of the coal-effect electric fire. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Assuming that your hypothesis is right, why are the Russians trying to hit you, and what
are they going to do next?’

Richter took a mouthful of coffee. ‘I don’t know for certain, but I can guess. Follow the sequence of events. They snatch and torture to death the Head of Moscow Station. I turn up
to investigate, ostensibly as an insurance company representative. Either somebody in Moscow recognized me or they guessed I wasn’t an insurance rep, hence the attack at Sheremetievo. Then my
picture is relayed to London, to the Russian Embassy, with watch orders. Perhaps I was tailed from Heathrow when I landed. Perhaps they’ve even tapped my telephone – I wouldn’t
put it past them to have someone at Tinkerbell.’

Tinkerbell is an anonymous grey building in Ebury Bridge Road, opposite Chelsea Barracks, which is responsible for tapping telephones in Britain. It was the subject of controversy in January
1980 when it was alleged on excellent authority (in fact by the people employed there to carry out the work) that illegal tapping of telephone lines was common. Tinkerbell’s equipment can
monitor and record well over a million lines at any one time. The building is officially used by the Post Office for equipment development, which is true, but tells only half the story.

‘What I am sure,’ Richter continued, ‘is that they found out where I lived and worked. The next thing I did was turn up at JARIC, which is a place that very few insurance
company investigators have ever heard of, far less been to. The Russians know – obviously – about the Blackbird flight, and having seen that I’ve been involved both with
Newman’s death and the photographic intelligence centre, they must have assumed I was getting too close.’

Richter swallowed the last of his coffee and put the cup down. ‘Now I’m guessing. The kill directive must have been included in the Moscow Centre orders, because they tried to hit me
as soon as I came out of JARIC, and presumably intended me not to have the opportunity to pass on anything I’d learned to you or whoever they think I work for. That attempt failed, and the
two low-lifes they sent after me when I went to Cambridge didn’t do any better. I guess they’ve been waiting for another opportunity, but it’s not all that easy to carry out a hit
in London, with the traffic and the crowds. And they don’t know which route I’d be taking to and from Hammersmith, or how I’d be travelling – I’ve been constantly
altering my timing, method and route as a precaution, and there are three separate exits from my apartment block to confuse them as well.’

Simpson interrupted. ‘But they must know – or at least assume – that by now you have passed on what you know to me or to SIS, so why are they still trying to eliminate
you?’

‘The oldest reason in the world,’ Richter said. ‘Revenge. Two Cultural Attachés, or whatever they were calling themselves, came back in boxes from East Anglia, and I
can’t believe that the Russians don’t think it was my fault.’

‘OK,’ Simpson said, after a moment. ‘That does make sense, but it still doesn’t answer the question. Why was there a kill directive? What is so desperately important to
them that they’re prepared to break all the rules and risk the consequences?’

‘I don’t know for certain,’ Richter replied, ‘but I believe that they’ve got something really big building and they can’t, under any circumstances, allow any
word of it to reach government level.’

‘I don’t buy all this covert assault crap that the CIA is banging on about,’ Simpson said. ‘So what could be that big?’

‘I don’t know, but I think I can find out.’

‘How?’

‘I’m going to go and have a talk with Orlov,’ Richter said.

Simpson just stared at him. ‘You’re joking, of course.’

‘I was never more serious in my life. I’m fed up with sitting around and letting them take pot shots at me, and I’ve got Brian Jackson’s blood on my hands.
Someone’s going to pay for that, and Orlov looks to me like the prime candidate.’

Simpson stood up. ‘For God’s sake, man, think of the consequences! You snatch – I presume that’s what you mean – Orlov, and as soon as the Russians realize
he’s gone they’ll start yelling the place down. And think what’ll happen when he goes back to them. Think of the repercussions then.’

Richter sat back in the chair and looked up at him. ‘You misunderstand me, Simpson. Orlov isn’t going to go back to anyone. Once I’ve got him, that’s it.’

Oval Office, White House,
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Karasin sat silent for a moment, his face pale in the light from the desk lamp. ‘How do you expect me to be able to tell you that, Mr President?’ he asked.

‘Because, Mr Ambassador, we have received definite information – and I regret that I cannot disclose the source – which suggests that an imminent assault is planned by your
country upon mine.’

Karasin turned white. ‘What?’ he almost shouted, and stood up, protocol forgotten. ‘What? What do you mean – assault?’

‘I cannot be any more specific, Mr Ambassador,’ the President said smoothly, motioning Karasin back to his seat, ‘but we do have the information.’

The Russian sat down, slowly, his eyes never leaving the American’s face. ‘Mr President,’ he said, ‘I have no knowledge, no knowledge at all, of any such operation. The
suggestion is –’ he searched for a word ‘– is simply monstrous. Relations with your country have, I believe, never been better. Why would we risk any conflict
now?’

‘Why indeed, Mr Ambassador?’ the President said. ‘Nevertheless, that is the information we have.’

Karasin looked stunned. He shook his head and got to his feet. ‘I must take advice,’ he said. ‘Urgent advice. In the meantime, Mr President, I must urge you, in the strongest
possible terms, to do nothing which would exacerbate this situation.’

The President looked at him. ‘We will do nothing that we do not need to do,’ he replied, ‘but this situation is, we believe, entirely of your country’s own
making.’

Karasin shook his head. ‘I know nothing of this,’ he repeated. ‘Nothing. Thank you, Mr President. I will contact you as soon as possible.’ The Russian shook hands
briefly, and walked briskly out of the room.

‘Well?’ the President asked.

Walter Hicks, who had been sitting silently at the back of the room facing the long windows throughout the meeting, rose and walked slowly towards the President’s desk. ‘You know him
much better than I do, sir,’ he said. ‘What’s your impression?’

The President sat down again, this time behind the desk. ‘I’ve known Karasin for three years,’ he said. ‘Normally, he’s the model of diplomacy, never a word out of
place. I’ve never seen him like this before. If I didn’t know better,’ he finished, the words coming slowly, ‘I’d say he doesn’t know anything about
it.’

Orpington, Kent

Vladimir Illych Orlov was the possessor of a diplomatic passport and was officially Third Secretary at the London Embassy of the Confederation of Independent States, with
special responsibilities for Cultural Exchange and Industrial Development. Third Secretaries, generally, are pretty low on the pecking order at most embassies, but Orlov lived in a large house with
a bodyguard and chauffeur, and was regularly to be seen at important Embassy functions, where he was treated with marked deference by everyone from the Ambassador downwards. The reason was simple
enough – Orlov was a full colonel in the SVR, and was head of the large staff of SVR officers employed in the Embassy. He also ran at least three separate and distinct spy rings –
mostly comprising low-grade sources in industry and the fringes of the military – that SIS knew about, and probably others as well.

He was quite literally the most powerful Russian in Britain, and FOE had a dossier an inch and a half thick on him at Hammersmith. Richter knew that talking with him wasn’t going to be
easy. There was a clip of photographs of the house in the file. It was detached, surrounded by thick hedges and a brick wall on the side of the property adjoining the road, with double gates,
electrically operated with remote control switching both from Orlov’s official car and from the house itself. All the downstairs windows were barred, and the doors front and rear were lined
with steel. It was not, Richter knew, a tempting place to crack.

He pulled the Honda into the side of the road a hundred yards or so from the house and switched off the engine. He pulled the bike on to its stand, removed the ignition key, secured his helmet
to the lock below the seat, switched off his mobile phone and started walking. It was a fairly bright night, the moon only occasionally vanishing behind clouds, which was more or less what he
wanted. Richter didn’t anticipate that anyone in the house would be awake, and the moonlight would certainly help him avoid falling into any ditches or other obstacles Orlov might have
strategically or accidentally positioned in the grounds.

He felt the brickwork on the top of the wall, but could find no trace of glass, barbed wire or, more importantly, any indication of an alarm system. He checked the road carefully in both
directions, then pulled himself up and dropped down on to the lawn on the other side. He removed the haversack, opened it and transferred the glasscutter, torch and adhesive tape to pockets on his
leather jacket. Then he pulled down the jacket’s zip so that he could reach the Smith and Wesson easily, pulled on the rubber gloves and moved off.

Richter kept to the edge, near the hedge, all the way, keeping his eyes on the house and looking and listening for any sound of movement. There was a light burning downstairs in the hall, which
he could see through the narrow vertical windows either side of the front door, and another upstairs, but no lights were visible in any of the bedrooms. Richter made three complete circuits of the
house before he was satisfied.

It was a substantial red-brick property, as an estate agent would have described it, and the bars on the ground-floor windows would certainly have given Richter peace of mind if he’d been
thinking of buying it. With his present intentions in mind they were, at best, a nuisance. The first floor looked a good deal more promising, with no bars as far as he could see, and a balcony area
at the rear of the house, above a bay window.

Richter thought briefly about the best entry point, and decided that the balcony was it, as long as he could get up on to the top of the bay. There were no convenient creepers or ivy –
Richter would have been surprised if there had been – so he looked around behind the garage and the shed at the rear of the house for a ladder or anything similar. He didn’t find a
ladder, but he did find a warped twelve-foot scaffold plank, presumably discarded after some work on the property. Richter examined it carefully, but apart from the twist in it there were no other
obvious signs of weakness, so he carried it out from behind the garage to the house. He rested one end on the top of the bay and jammed the other into the soil of a flowerbed adjacent to the
wall.

Then he started his ascent. The plank had looked steady enough when he had put it in place, but with Richter’s weight on it, it wobbled enough for him to be very glad of the wall on his
left-hand side. He hoped he would be able to leave by the front door.

On top of the bay, he looked cautiously through the window with the aid of the torch. There was a large double bed against one wall with blankets neatly folded at one end. Richter could see a
wardrobe, three chairs and a dressing table, but nothing that suggested that the room was anything other than what it seemed – an unoccupied spare bedroom. The window was double-glazed and
the catches closed, but that was what he had expected.

Richter took the roll of sticky tape and pulled a length of about a foot off it. This he stuck on to the window pane next to the catch, after doubling the centre four inches of the tape, so that
he ended up with eight inches of tape stuck to the glass with a ‘handle’ about two inches long in the centre of it. Then he took the glass-cutter and described a circle around the tape,
big enough to get his hand and arm through. He ran the cutter round twice in the groove, then replaced it in his pocket. Holding the tape firmly in his left hand, Richter gave the glass a sharp rap
with his right fist. There was a splintering sound, and the circle slid inwards. Carefully he brought the circle of glass outside, and placed it flat on the top of the bay.

Richter repeated the operation on the inner pane and placed the second circle of glass on top of the first. Then he slid his right arm inside, and felt all the way round the opening section. If
there were any wires, he didn’t feel them, so he slowly released the catch and gently pulled the window open.

No alarm bells rang or lights flashed. Richter climbed through the window and into the room. He pulled the window closed behind him and secured the catch – the last thing he wanted was for
it to bang shut in a gust of wind and scatter glass all over the floor. Richter worked his way carefully round the room, and found absolutely nothing of interest.

He walked to the door and listened for a minute or so. The house was silent. Richter turned the handle and pulled the door towards him. He peered through the widening crack out onto the landing
area. All was silent. Just the light burning and closed doors.