Red Star Burning (31 page)

Radtsic increased his time gain by a further three minutes leaving the Lubyanka headquarters through the arranged side exit. He was on foot and now carried only the weekend bag to qualify as cabin baggage on the aircraft. The collar of his raincoat was still pulled up to the wide-brimmed hat, and Jacobson’s distracting, nerve-twitched imagery was of a badly cast B-movie spy. It was instantly swept away by the awkwardness with which the Russian was making his way from the square, a seemingly uncertain meander instead of following a quick, direct line. That concern was set aside when Jacobson coordinated the man’s odd movements with the CCTV bank and realized Radtsic was avoiding camera observation. Once upon the outside road, Radtsic went in the opposite direction from Red Square, letting two available taxis pass before hailing the third. It took the man directly past the side road in which the escorts were parked. He let Jacobson follow first in line. Moscow’s stop-start rush-hour traffic was heavier than Jacobson had estimated and they’d not only lost their time gain but fallen fifteen minutes behind schedule before reaching the airport highway. Jacobson’s concern jumped again, fixed now upon another highway police shakedown that could wreck the operation. His apprehension started to subside only at the sight of landing and departing aircraft in the far distance and didn’t go completely until he made out the Sheremetyevo buildings, with no obvious road blocks. Success was fingertip close now, he told himself.

“It’s eight ten!”

So absolute was James Straughan’s concentration that he was physically startled by Monsford’s voice, irritated that it might have been visible on camera. “Yes?”

“Your staged progress puts their airport arrival at eight. What’s gone wrong!”

“
Estimated
arrival,” heavily qualified Straughan. “That estimate also builds in a fifteen-minute latitude for delay, for…” He stopped as his permanent Moscow link sounded. He listened, said: “Thank you,” and as he replaced the receiver went back to the microphone. “They’ve arrived, with no problems.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” responded Jonathan Miller to the same assurance from Straughan, four minutes later. “I’ve checked the traffic conditions. They’re light, no roadworks or diversions to factor in.”

“Don’t forget, limited cell-phone chatter on the next call unless they don’t show.”

“I will have spoken to Elana by then: gotten a steer.”

“Fingers crossed it’s the right one.”

“Do something for us, will you? Have a car at Northolt, to get us into London?”

“Already fixed. Enjoy your one night home.”

“We plan to.”

Predictably, the first café in which Charlie Muffin found a working television was showing a soccer game on a sports channel, but in the second there was a radio tuned to a Moscow news channel that Charlie judged more likely to broadcast a breaking media event. He drank his way through three cups of close-to-undrinkable coffee and forced himself to eat a second serving of black bread and sour cheese, listening to repeated accounts of government success opposing NATO’s eastern expansion, its negotiating substantial price increases for natural gas exports to the European Union, and vetoing an American-sponsored resolution condemning state atrocities in the Congo.

Jacobson dumped his rental car for automatic collection, avoiding a parking delay, and entered the departure hall just five minutes after Maxim Radtsic. Jacobson noted his London-destination gate as he hurried across the concourse, already booked in online and with only a carry-on bag, unworried at not relocating the Russian, knowing the other anonymous escorts would have been ready for Radtsic’s arrival. Jacobson saw the hat before the man, glad the raincoat collar was finally down, but still tensed as Radtsic approached the first passport scrutiny. Radtsic turned as he offered the MI6-created documentation. Able to see the man properly in good light, Jacobson acknowledged the practicality of the man’s dress. It didn’t qualify as a disguise but the hat and its sloped brim completely concealed the graying hair and much of Radtsic’s upper face, substantially reducing the Stalin similarity, most important from the wall-mounted CCTV. There appeared no conversation and little comparison between Radtsic and the passport photograph. It was no more stringent at the second, dedicated ticket-and-passport examination. Jacobson went through just as smoothly and they were less than five meters apart going into the duty-free area. Radtsic hesitated at the liquor counter, turning to establish Jacobson’s presence without showing any recognition, then continuing on toward the London-designated gate. Jacobson maneuvered himself to have just one intervening passenger at the final ticket-and-passport confirmation but distanced himself once they went through, again unchallenged, into the final embarkation lobby. He waited for Radtsic to enter the aircraft-connected jetway before dialing the MI6
rezidentura.
He told Halliday: “Janus is go,” disconnected without acknowledgment, and hurried after the Russian.

“Radtsic’s on the plane,” Straughan announced into the Director’s voice link as he dialed the security-cleared Northolt airfield number. In response to the extraction code he was told the executive jet would be cleared for takeoff in thirty minutes with an estimated Orly arrival one hour, thirty minutes after that. Straughan ignored two intervention attempts from Monsford, instead dialing Miller’s cell phone. To the Paris station chief he said: “Janus is go.”

Miller said: “Everyone’s safely with me here. We’re moving.”

“Transport ETA is two hours.”

“Speak to you before boarding.”

“I’m trying to talk to you,” complained Monsford, as Straughan finished. “I don’t think you’ve allowed sufficient time to get from Paris to Orly.”

“It was to activate Paris that I ignored you,” said Straughan. “Both Elana and Andrei turned up. They’re on their way.”

“What about their timing?”

“We’ve done trial runs. We’re well within our margins and there are escort cars to warn of difficulties.”

There was momentary silence from the floor above, before Monsford said: “I’ve decided to personally greet Radtsic at Heathrow.”

“There is no waiting time built into the Heathrow schedule,” objected Straughan. “Radtsic will be taken directly off the plane to the car taking him to Hertfordshire. His being escorted off the plane will attract attention from other passengers, the large proportion of whom will be Russian. I strongly advise against any delay, even of only minutes, at Heathrow: there’s a permanent media contingent there. Your personal greeting will be better at the safe house. And more fitting, executive to executive, than in the back of a car. Camera light can penetrate smoked glass.”

“I undertook to meet him personally,” argued Monsford.

“Without stipulating that it would be at the airport.”

“I’ve got time to work it out.”

Which was what Charlie was trying to do in his frustrating isolation, with nothing more than instinct and guesswork from which to operate, having already acknowledged he’d made far too many mistakes relying on both. Had it been another of those mistakes to accept Halliday’s story of being sidelined until the last minute? What if Halliday had instead been one of the deputed search-and-find groups at the Rossiya unable to risk losing him to summon backup to the panorama bar? Halliday had certainly tried to follow him afterward and constantly complained since at not knowing his whereabouts. But if he was part of a London search, would Halliday have disclosed the Janus operational code for the separate extraction? Yes, Charlie answered himself, if it lured him out of hiding. Again too much guesswork. There was an obvious way to test Halliday. From his independent airport inquiry, Charlie knew the first direct British Airways flight from Moscow to London had left at 9:30 that morning. Now it was 10:20.

Halliday responded on the initial ring.

“How’d it go?” asked Charlie.

“Like clockwork,” replied Halliday. “And you know what Straughan told me, after I gave him the signal and asked what he wanted me to do now? He said he didn’t want me to do anything—that it was all over—and put the phone down without so much as a fucking thank-you. It isn’t right!”

“No,” agreed Charlie, talking more to himself than the other man. “It isn’t right.”

“‘To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy,’” intoned Monsford from above in a voice Straughan genuinely thought the man had lowered to sound godlike. “I’m going up to Hertfordshire to meet Radtsic there.”

“I think that’s a better idea,” Straughan replied.

“Hertfordshire was always my intention. Keep in touch if there’s anything I need to hear before I get there. There can’t be anything immediate, can there?”

“No,” agreed Straughan. “We’re in the interim period now.”

The mezzanine-level communications control was the most secure of an already totally secure area within the MI6 building, its daily-changed entry combination restricted to the Director and his deputy, Straughan, and a rota of six duty officers. They did not receive the combination until arriving for their shift, which was why Straughan, in the middle of a conversation with Orly checking the aircraft arrival, was startled for the second time that day by peremptory knocking from outside. Rebecca’s visible annoyance through the observation window matched the irritation of her door hammering.

“Why didn’t I get today’s entry code?” she demanded, as she flounced past Straughan.

“I didn’t imagine it would be necessary today: you had permanent visual and audio access from upstairs,” said Straughan, warning the woman with a look to the studiously oblivious duty officer on the far side of the room. “Has he gone?”

“Ten minutes ago,” she said, also lowering her voice. “He thinks he’ll get there in time to greet Elana and Andrei, before Radtsic. And he was pissed off at your attitude, on the voice link.”

“And?” prompted Straughan, ignoring the warning.

Rebecca smiled for the first time. “He never bothered to turn on the equipment.”

“Why aren’t I surprised?” said Straughan, in resigned cynicism.

“Well?” prompted the woman, in return.

“Doubly backed up,” assured Straughan, gesturing to the paraphernalia on his desk. “Every word’s recorded and there’s a tandem line to our own system.”

Rebecca looked at the wall behind the regular duty officer, upon which was a five-deep battery of clocks set to the local time of every global capital. “How much longer until the French evacuation?”

“Forty-five minutes,” said Straughan, without consulting the wall clock. “I was talking to Orly when you arrived. Our plane will be cleared for takeoff by the time Elana and Andrei get there. They’ll get here ahead of schedule.”

Now it was Rebecca who gestured to the electronic litter on Straughan’s desk. “Seems as if our precautions weren’t necessary after all. Everything’s gone according to plan, so there won’t be any buck-passing.”

Straughan shook his head, doubtfully. “There’ll be a lot of internal uproar, between us and our brothers across the river. And maybe a lot of internal government examination, too. I don’t think we should stop doing it.”

“Neither do I,” agreed Rebecca.

Straughan didn’t jump this time, even though the telephone’s shrill was unexpected.

Rebecca said: “It’ll be Gerald, from the car.”

It wasn’t. Straughan listened for more than a full minute before saying: “You did the right thing. It’s got to be a cleanup: everything that’s possible to do. I want you as my permanent liaison. This is a catastrophe.”

“What is?” demanded Rebecca, when Straughan stopped although keeping the telephone in his hand.

“There was an ambush at a
peage
outside Orly. They’ve all been seized. Miller and Abrahams as well as Elana and Andrei.”

“Russian?” groped Rebecca.

“Painter thinks it was French,” said Straughan, emptily.

23

“We have to tell the Director,” insisted Straughan.

“Not yet!” refused Rebecca. What personal benefit was there? There had to be something!

“He’ll be at the safe house in less than an hour.”

“All we can tell him now is that there’s a difficulty. We need to know more. And get Monsford’s reaction recorded.” They now had a disaster of incalculable proportions and she wasn’t going to be hit by a single particle of the shit Monsford would spray in every direction except his own.

“We know Radtsic’s wife and son won’t be there to greet him: the promise we’ve given him.”

“What’s Painter and the rest of them doing?”

“Keeping as far away as possible,” guaranteed Straughan, urgently. “That was their instructions. We don’t want to lose any more people. Painter’s heading them back to Paris.”

“Why’s Painter think it’s a French seizure?”

“All the vehicles were French. There were some uniforms, the sort the French use in terrorist arrests, although they didn’t have any identifying insignia.”

“Are we talking Service de Documentation Extérieur et de Contre Espionnage or French police?”

“I don’t know.” Straughan shrugged, emptily.

“What’s our relationship if it is French?”

“I don’t understand the question,” protested the operations director.

“What’s the chances of the SDECE backing off when they learn it’s us?”

Straughan stared at Rebecca, not trying to disguise his astonishment. “Let me ask you a question back. What would the chances be of us backing off if we seized two French intelligence officers in a car with the wife and son of the deputy director of the FSB?”

Rebecca visibly colored. “So what do you think they’ll do?”

“Take the maximum possible advantage, of course.”

“They’ve got the wife and son: we’ve got the husband and father,” Rebecca tried again. “What about a trade, reuniting the family for joint, completely shared access?”

Straughan again looked at Rebecca in disbelief. “Physically reunite the family where: here in the Hertfordshire house or hand Radtsic over to the French?”

Rebecca’s color, which had begun to subside, flooded her face again. “It’ll have been that little shit Andrei, won’t it?”