The Oktober Projekt (18 page)

Slow moving traffic snaked grudgingly round a Transit van
hauled onto the kerb, steam weaving from under its dented bonnet. A genuine
breakdown? wondered Nick, following Hayles inside. Across a workshop cold and
dank, Hayles pushed a way through workbenches stained by glue and frames that
had gone out of fashion suspended from the ceiling.

‘It’s all seen its prime like me,’ he said climbing four stairs
to a platform with a band saw and a curtained off corner for an office. ‘I
should get someone in to make it work or clear the hell out,’ he added,
throwing trade journals on the floor so Nick could sit down at a dining chair
opposite a large counterweighted drawing board.

‘Faking maps, Jamie?’ Nick asked, glimpsing a half completed
hand drawn First World War trench system on the board.

‘Faithful, accurate copies which I frame and flog,’ Hayles
explained without much enthusiasm. ‘Plus the historical account to go with
them.’

‘As long as you’re busy.’

‘Well this is a surprise,’ he gushed, ignoring Nick’s point.

‘I thought it might be.’

‘Wasn’t sure when or if you’d call,’ Hayles said, stowing away
his plastic shopping bag. Pulling back a length of red and white gingham
fabric, its edges badly frayed, it was threaded on a plastic wire he used it to
curtain off a small grey safe under a workbench. Stooping low, grunting as he
searched, Hayles brought out a large Jiffy Bag, handing it to Nick. ‘This what
you came for?’ he asked, closing up the safe, sliding back the gingham.

 
Ripping open the
bag Nick reminded himself of its contents; two more passports bearing different
worknames, with credit cards to match and Angie’s Nokia phone. Part of the
jigsaw of when he was missing Nick remembered, involving three drunken attempts
to write Jamie’s name and address; making a complete arse of himself into the
bargain when he despatched them at a post office somewhere during his travels.

‘Heard I was on the run by any chance? What’s the word Jamie?’

‘Anyone who claps eyes on you has to turn you in, you’re a
danger to anyone who gets in your way.’

Jamie folded his arms, studying Nick. ‘Personally, I don’t
believe a word of what they’re putting out,’ he admitted at last, perching
himself on an old high bar stool. ‘None of the old hands I spoke to thought you
were a cold blooded savage, though a few did think that you’re blood would be
up after your wife’s death. But that wouldn’t have you despatching a Latvian
for no apparent reason,’ he said, folding an elastic band around his fingers. ‘You
didn’t er… kill the Latvian did you?’ he asked, a timely afterthought.

‘No Jamie, I didn’t. It’s linked to a collection in Moscow, you
heard about that too?’

‘I may have heard it mentioned.’
 

‘I need background Jamie.’

‘You need help, Nick. The top floor has already pronounced you
guilty. I may have been off the books for a year, but I still keep my ear to
the ground. And I don’t hold out much hope now that Hawick and saint Jane are
really running the show because the new Chief is not a Service man, he is
Downing Street’s man.’

‘You’re well informed, Jamie, you must have a good source.’

Whether he had or not, Hayles wasn’t prepared to disclose his
methods of collecting his raw material. ‘Forget all about Moscow, get yourself
off somewhere quiet and grieve for Angela.’

‘Later. Right now Jamie, I need some answers, starting with
Lubov’s recruitment in Moscow.’

Scratching his neck, Hayles picked up a pencil and started
wrapping the rubber band around it. ‘You’re asking the wrong chap, Nick. Your
old partner Gavin was the one who pulled Lubov in, all I did was bait the
line.’

‘We all know it’s the baiting that’s the tricky bit,’ said
Nick, with a smile. ‘What about the Oktober Projekt, that a reason you went
after Lubov?’ Nick asked, taking an unexpected direction, this time without a
smile.

Blowing out his cheeks, Jamie shook his head in the sort of
declaration that the wise reserve for foolish questions. ‘Ancient history,
nothing more,’ he declared as though Nick really should have known better.

‘Ancient history didn’t kill Lubov, Foula, Angie or one of my
officers someone had sent on a private adventure,’ said Nick his temper rising.
‘I’ve had it from the horse’s mouth, Jamie, from Lubov’s last inadequate
handler. The Oktober Projekt was Lubov’s treasure, ours for the right price.’

‘All right, Nicholas, if it’s the Oktober Projekt according to
Jamie you desire, that’s what you shall have,’ said Hayles tossing the pencil
and band aside. ‘Started as a myth in the Fifties, way before your time.
Supposedly a joint venture, but a big secret apparently. Went by the name of
OKT/NC/673 Projekt, a strategic facility in north Ossetia.’

‘GRU, KGB?’
 

‘And the rest,’ said Hayles. ‘The myth started to get some
clothes in the Eighties when Aubrey-Spencer was head of station in Moscow
running his own ruthless war against the KGB, the GRU, anything that moved.
Roly was his number two. I was head of station in Czechoslovakia, due to take
over from Aubrey-Spencer in Moscow, which is when he briefed me about something
Langley had paid top dollar for, a whiff of this new training facility in north
Ossetia. Big secret, apparently real hush hush even by Moscow’s standards. What
made the Americans sit up was a rumour that the agents to be recruited were to
work in cells, three to a cell. Remote and isolated no one could get close to
confirm its existence and even when we had the benefit of satellite
intelligence they could come up with nothing conclusive, something technical,
to do with the satellite... they never explained. Roly checked it out during
his Moscow days, pressed his sources, worked his agents to the bone and even
they came up empty handed. Given the way Roly’s agents always provided a decent
cut of meat for the top table, that just seemed to prove that the Yanks had
been sold a myth.’

‘But it wasn’t a myth, Jamie, was it?’ queried Nick, noting not
for the first time that Hayles the experienced fieldman that he was, was
closing down the hatches, sealing himself in.

‘During Gavin’s turn as our resident in Latvia, we got a glimpse.
I was his cut-out going for’ard and back between Gav and saint Jane who was
earning her Moscow stripes. Gavin was chasing a very pretty Latvian, probably
for personal gratification, when one of his Lat talent spotters puts him onto a
lead. Gavin follows it up, gets himself into the path of a Lat computer
development engineer of some kind who happened to be very sozzled at the time.
Gavin assisted him into an alcoholic stupor, admiring his resolve in working
for his sworn enemy, having to toil away at the cutting edge of technology for
barely any reward. If he worked in the West he would be appreciated, Gavin had
explained. In fact, he could earn a decent top-up salary by working for the
West without leaving home, Gavin told him. To our utter amazement, he neither
called the local thugs or reported it to his Russian masters.’

‘What did this Lat have, Jamie?’ Nick sensed that Hayles was
playing for time, attempting to take Nick down an unconnected side road.

‘He told Gavin that he’s just returned from north Ossetia where
all the best scientific and technical brains were being funnelled by Moscow for
rotating secondments. The place had actually been there since the Forties,
maybe even used for rocket development, not a training facility for spies, but
a technical f
acility, a centre of excellence
with secure compounds. Gav
made arrangements for a second meeting, we
asked London for permission to proceed via Moscow on what Gav called Operation
Windfall. You know what happened next.’ Hayles unwilling to continue had
reached the final hatch, which he wasn’t prepared to open for anyone, including
Nicholas Torr.

‘At least you had proof that the place existed,’ put in Nick,
wisely electing not to dwell on Operation Windfall.

‘Yes,’ admitted Hayles, his voice distant as though he was
reviewing events from their contemporary setting, slowly returning to the
disquieting awkward present. ‘It became myth again, nothing.’

Nick then delivered a direct question; one from the way Hayles
all too quickly yawned and stretched, had hoped was not coming.

‘Has Aubrey-Spencer approached you recently? You and Gavin been
put back on the beat, unofficially?
 
Come on, Jamie, you can tell me?’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘That’s what you need to tell me, Jamie, get it off your chest,
help me out.’

‘There are some things you shouldn’t ask, Nicholas,’ Hayles
said his mood darkening.

‘Not when it involves Angie.’

 
For a moment or
two Hayles made no commitment, weighing up his options, then with a shake of
his head, he began. ‘You never heard this from me.’

‘Heard what?’

‘He was the best Chief I can remember serving,’ Jamie admitted
with considerable pride. ‘Thought it was disgraceful how he was levered out,
forced to chair the JIC or slink off into the wilderness.’

‘What did he want, Jamie?’

Unable to derail Nick, Jamie threw up his hands in submission.
‘A favour for old time’s sake.’

‘That it?’

Suddenly finding an urgent desire to rearrange his drawing
pens, Hayles mumbled something.

‘He wanted me to run an errand for him,’ Hayles admitted, ‘wanted
me to drop off something in Hamburg.’ He shrugged, reliving the trip, his slack
face the brunt of an inner anxiety, pulled one way then another.

‘Now who would that have been to see?’ Nick challenged him.
‘Bump into Jack while you were there, did you Jamie?’

‘I had to keep Jack out of it,’ he said in a low forlorn voice,
‘Aubrey-Spencer had something for Harry.’

‘Harry Bransk? The last time I worked with Harry he tried to
rip me off,’ said Nick, ‘Harry’s a snake. Anything else Jamie, while we’re on
the subject of making Nick happy.’

‘Aubrey-Spencer wanted something picking up from Benny’s.’

‘Did he?’ replied Nick, getting to his feet. ‘Thanks for the
background, but make sure it doesn’t go beyond these walls.’

Relieved his interrogation was over Hayles sprang to his feet,
shook Nick by the hand. ‘Course I will, you know me.’

And Nick did, all too well. Within half an hour if Nick was
unlucky, Hayles would be with all his retired Service chums making them pry out
his story of who he’d just had a war conference with. Then it would be a couple
of hours before Jamie’s tale of his meeting with Nicholas Torr began to filter
back to Hawick, Rossan, Blackmore and Jane. Outside the Transit had gone, but
Nick once more had the impression that he wasn’t alone.

• • •

The small private discreet library in
Pimlico dedicated to erotic literature was housed in a narrow Victorian
building at the bottom of a cobbled mews. A former piano factory, its exterior
displayed the same antiquarian dusty appearance as a good deal of its stock.
Admitted to a ground floor that always seemed to be semi-lit, Nick asked for
Benny at the ‘Member’s Desk’.

‘Mr. Hudson is in our French section,’ the librarian explained,
as though directing a visitor to a diplomatic mission. He had a cloud of white
hair and a glass eye that twinkled in the stiff artificial glare of the strip
lights.

A spiral staircase ran up to a mezzanine deck of bookcases
where Nick found Benny, adding his latest acquisitions.

‘More filth, Benny?’ said Nick as a greeting.

‘A paradise of erotica, Nick,’ he said, not ceasing his shelf
filling. ‘A collection of sexual peccadilloes and perversions which are doing
very nicely on our online catalogue, thanks very much. Twenty per cent up on
last year’s sales if you must know.’

Small, barely reaching five feet, Benny had lost his hair in
his forties and attempted to disguise the fact with a toupee in a highly
improbable hue of jet black. Deafened in some mysterious overseas jaunt for the
Service, he wore a hearing aid in his right ear. As is the habit of men
reaching a certain age, his clothes were chosen for practicality rather than
conformity, consisting of a loose white shirt, large waistcoat and baggy
trousers. Benny, an SIS irregular when occasionally called to serve his country
in the past, was a highly skilled and competent forger. The library belonged to
Benny and his twin sister, a crusty woman in her sixties who unlike Benny had
been an official servant of the Service, a senior secretary for at least two of
its Chiefs.

‘I’ve just been talking to Jamie Hayles.’

‘That’s good, how is he?’ Benny replied, not interested.

‘Probably no different from when you saw him recently.’

A well dressed browser turned the corner of the stack, saw Nick
with Benny and retreated.

‘One of our more casual readers, especially interested in
bondage,’ Benny said, and he could have been describing a connoisseur of jazz.
Stooping over, moving books down to a different shelf, Benny continued, ‘a High
Court judge,’ he disclosed in a respectful whisper. ‘You’d never credit the
sort of members we have, they would turn the head of an angel.’ He reached up
and began filling a different section, his sturdy little fingers moving deftly
between boxes and shelves.

‘Jamie said you’d been doing some work for Aubrey-Spencer.’
Nick grabbed the book from Benny’s hands. ‘What would that be about?’

‘A personal matter,’ said Benny making an unsuccessful snatch
for the book.

‘Valuable is it Benny?’ Nick wondered, opening the book, taking
a handful of pages, ready to rip them out.

‘Papers,’ said Benny.

Not releasing his hold on the pages, Nick waited. ‘For?’

‘One set for Hamburg, papers and ID.’

‘Is that it?’ Nick looked along the shelves, as though picking
out his next hostage.

Benny, his fluid eyes closely following Nick, took a moment to
summon up his answer. ‘Transfer papers from the Mad House to Aspley, for the
same officer, signed by the Deputy Chief, for the duration of a month.’