Execution (A Harry Tate Thriller) (25 page)

‘Big deal. Once turned, a man can be turned again in my opinion. Paulton now knows our faces, full descriptions – even our mobile phone numbers. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.’

Votrukhin said nothing. He was supposed to be above such rebellious considerations. And as an officer in the Special Purpose Centre, he should by rights be reporting Serkhov for his words and having him shipped home on the next flight out to face an unpleasant investigation and a period of retraining. Yet much of what the sergeant had said was correct. Something in the way Gorelkin had been acting was like a man waging his own private war, not trusting his men to know any of the background details. All they knew was that after dealing with Tobinskiy, the situation had been going steadily to hell, as Serkhov had phrased it so acidly, in a bucket. And now they were in pursuit of not only a former female member of MI6, but two former members of the Security Services, MI5, who were guarding her.

‘So what are you suggesting?’ Votrukhin said finally. ‘That we tell Gorelkin that we’re withholding our labour? That we don’t want to play anymore? He’d have our balls on a stick inside the hour.’

Serkhov looked depressed. ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m just saying. It doesn’t feel right.’ He pushed his mug and plate away and stared out into the street through the condensation on the window. ‘Give me a gun and a bunch of terrorists and I’d be happy. Not this game of round-the-houses.’

G
eorge Paulton watched from the cab of a battered builders’ van as the tall figure of Keith Maine appeared at the junction of Lambeth Road and Kennington Road. The analyst was dressed in his usual suit and carrying what looked like a plastic Tupperware box. The pavement behind him was clear, with no obvious signs of pursuit or surveillance. Indications of either would have meant Maine was already being watched, or had panicked and sold Paulton out to the heavy treaders of MI5.

Paulton put the Ford Transit in gear and drove slowly along the street as if looking for an address. Half the skill in appearing normal was to do normal things. Nobody noticed the mundane and everyday activities, the background clutter of people going about their lives and jobs. And builders’ vans were ten-a-penny, not worth a second look, especially when aged and scuffed to anonymity. Not unless the builder he had liberated this van from happened to have made the trip all the way from across the river in Blackfriars in search of his beloved vehicle and saw him.

He timed his arrival just as Maine was beginning to betray signs of nerves. The analyst was looking around and evidently already feeling out of his comfort zone, his face creased with concern.

Maine did a double-take as the van stopped and he saw Paulton beckoning from the driver’s seat. For a second he didn’t recognise who was under the baseball cap and wearing a set of paint-spattered overalls, then he gave a weak smile and climbed in. The smile faded as Paulton set off south and took the first left down a side street.

‘Where are we going?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve got the information. Have you got the cash?’

‘Calm down,’ Paulton replied, taking a right turn, then another left. ‘We need to get off the main street, that’s all.’ He grinned, showing his teeth. ‘We don’t want everybody and his brother seeing our little transaction, do we?’

‘No. I suppose not.’ Maine sat back, careful not to brush against anything dirty, and held onto the door handle.

Paulton pulled into the kerb behind an old VW Golf, and cut the engine. They were situated between two tall buildings here, with no windows immediately overlooking them, a point Paulton had carefully scouted out earlier. There were no street cameras just here either, and he felt as secure as he could be.

He reached down by the seat and produced a heavy brown envelope. He opened it to show packs of cut paper, and peeled them back to show the edges of twenties and fifties. ‘Sorry I couldn’t get small denominations,’ he said, ‘but I figured the smaller the package the better you would like it.’

Maine’s eyes opened wide at the proximity of so much cash. He smiled nervously and opened the lid of the Tupperware box. Inside was a pack of sandwiches and a banana. He lifted the sandwiches and took out a memory stick with a plastic lid. He unsnapped the lid. ‘It’s all on there. I copied the file for you. There’s not much on it . . . just a bunch of surveillance logs and the subject’s movements over the past six months, and some historical annotations and comments.’

‘What sort of comments?’

‘Who the subject is, her background, how she first came to be a person of interest.’

Paulton smiled like a tiger. ‘How interesting. That should save me a lot of chit-chat.’ He didn’t bother to explain what that meant.

‘It runs up to five p.m. yesterday. There’s a small delay for overseas traffic from our watchers, so we don’t know if she has moved since then.’

‘Excellent, Keith. Excellent. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? We’ll make a field man out of you yet.’ He took the memory stick before Maine could stop him and handed over the brown envelope. He was counting on Maine being too scared of being outed to his bosses and losing his pension, to have double-crossed him. ‘How did you manage it, by the way?’ He wasn’t really interested in the detail, but allowing Maine to preen was a useful way of deflecting his attention.

Maine almost smirked as he slid his fingers inside the envelope and ran them over the notes. ‘Easy enough, as it happened. There’s a common surveillance log on targets open to all agencies so we don’t trip over each other. Any one agency wishing to move on an individual or organisation merely checks the log to make sure there’s no on-going operation against them, and signs off the details as going “live”. Everyone else steps back until given the all-clear.’

‘The wonders of organisation. Are you certain you left no trail?’

‘Of course. I’m not an amateur, you know.’

Paulton smiled. ‘Of course. Aren’t you going to count it?’ He glanced in the wing mirrors on either side, and felt his blood beginning to race. The street was clear. No pedestrians or vehicle traffic, nobody watching. It was now or never.

Maine bent his head to check the money, the pull too much to resist. As he did so, Paulton reached down again and picked up a steel meat skewer from the floor. The curved end was wrapped with a pad of rag and gaffer tape which he’d arranged earlier, to protect his hand.

‘Wait a minute.’ Maine had noticed something wrong. ‘This isn’t right—’

His protest was cut off sharply as Paulton brought his right hand round and up in a vicious jab, aiming at a point just above the analyst’s belly. With his full shoulder weight behind it, he drove the point of the skewer into Maine’s body, punching through his suit, then his skin, and into his heart.

Maine grunted and turned his head to look at him, his jaw dropping open in shock. His eyes went wide for an instant in accusation, and he mumbled something unintelligible, and tried to shake his head. It wouldn’t work. A bubble of spit appeared at the corner of his mouth, and popped.

Paulton checked his pulse. Nothing. He glanced in the mirrors. Still clear. And no shouts of alarm. He sat back, breathing heavily, and flexed his right hand. In spite of the padding, his palm was going to be bruised to buggery. A pack of ice should sort that out, along with a stiff drink. He figured he owed himself that, at least. Then he needed to check the contents of the memory stick, to see what Maine had come up with.

He reached across and gave the skewer a sharp tug. It took a sharp twist before it slid free of the body with a faint pop, the cloth of Maine’s suit cleaning the metal of most of the blood as it came away.

He smiled and patted the dead man’s jacket back into place. Some things were just so simple. All it took was the brass neck to plan it and carry it through. And neck was something he’d never lacked.

He wrapped the skewer in a rag and put that in his pocket for disposal the moment he saw a rubbish bin, then picked up the brown envelope and tucked it inside his jacket.

As he climbed out of the van, he gave Maine’s shoulder a tug and allowed the body to slump sideways across the seats, so that it was below the level of the windows.

Locking the van carefully, he walked along the pavement to the VW Golf, another borrowed vehicle he’d acquired near Victoria Station. Seconds later, he climbed in and drove away.

V
ienna. The old spies’ playground between the wars.

Harry wondered where all the old spies were now. Blown away, probably, by the winds of change that swept off many of the old-style espionage methods of backstreet meetings, dead-letter drops and shadowy confrontations on railway platforms and in smoky bars, to be replaced by electronic eavesdropping, satellite surveillance and computer hacking.

Clare had been silent all the way from the airport, as if nearing proximity to Katya Balenkova was making her shrink in on herself. She had been staring moodily through the window when Rik had spotted the city’s famous Ferris wheel. Clare had immediately asked the taxi to stop along Ausstellungstrasse, a main boulevard running east-west and within sight of the iconic landmark.

The three of them climbed out and stood on the wide pavement, breathing in the fresh air as the taxi took off in search of another fare. They were close to the hotel Harry had booked from the information desk at the airport, and carrying overnight bags only, and Clare had insisted that she was capable of walking.

‘I fancy a go on that,’ said Rik, staring at the wheel, with its clunky-looking but quaint cabins, like small railway coaches, inching their way round into the cool air.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ Clare muttered. But she followed his gaze, lifting her head and standing up straighter than she had in a while.

‘No time, children,’ said Harry. ‘We have grown-up stuff to do. According to Ballatyne, Balenkova and her party are not here for long. We have to make contact with her this afternoon, try to set up a meeting.’

‘What if she freaks out and calls the heavy mob?’

Clare made a sound of disgust. ‘Christ, Ferris, where have you been? She
is
the heavy mob. She doesn’t need help. She’s the best there is.’ Her tone was one of open admiration for the woman.

Harry nodded. ‘She’s right. But if Balenkova does react badly, then better we know sooner rather than leave it too late and lose her.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ Rik still had his eyes on the wheel.

‘They’re staying at the Imperial Hotel, near the embassy. But so are some bigger Russian wheels along with their security teams.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Quite. Any approach there would be too risky.’ He looked at Clare. ‘Especially for Katya.’

She nodded. ‘So where, then?’

‘Somewhere open, where she can see you coming. That way she gets to choose whether to stay or go.’ He forestalled her speaking by adding, ‘This is all about her. We need her help, but she has to know who she’s doing it for. Rik and I would stand no chance of a direct approach. She’ll think it’s entrapment.’

‘Cheers.’ Clare looked glum. ‘So I’m the gay stalking horse, am I?’

‘More like a tethered goat, but that’s just my opinion.’ Rik smiled as he said it. ‘Nobody’s getting at you – you know it’s the only way to play it. We’re just there to see fair play, right, Aitch?’ He glanced at Harry.

‘Correct. And if you call me that again, I’ll put you on the wheel and lock you in for the night.’ He lifted his chin towards the area of park where the wheel was revolving at a majestically steady pace. ‘My guess is, they’ll come here sooner or later, because everybody does. But to be certain we need to lock onto her and her group and see where they go.’ He glanced at Rik. ‘You’d best do that. You know what she looks like?’

Rik patted a small, slim leather case. It held his iPad. ‘Sure do. Ballatyne’s man here just emailed it over. I just hope she hasn’t had her hair styled since it was taken, though.’

‘I haven’t seen that.’ Clare scowled at him as if she felt left out.

Rik shrugged and took out the iPad. He switched it on and called up a full-screen photo. It showed a slim woman with short, fair hair and a confident stance. She was frowning slightly, and standing on a city pavement next to a man in a suit. A car number plate at the edge of the scene showed it to be somewhere in Moscow. The man in the suit had the bearing and stolid lumpiness of a bureaucrat, and appeared to be waiting for permission to move. Balenkova was looking off to one side, her jawline determined. She had a curly wire tucked down into her collar and was carrying a small comms device in one hand. She looked every bit the steady bodyguard, in spite of her slim build.

‘She hasn’t changed much,’ Clare remarked. ‘A bit thinner, maybe.’ She turned away from Rik and the photo, anxious to be on the move. ‘Can we do this sooner rather than later?’

Harry looked at Rik. ‘Suits me. Did Ballatyne’s man say where they are now?’

‘Yes.’ He consulted the iPad messenger. ‘They’ve just arrived back at the hotel. They’ve probably got some free time before the dinner at the embassy.’

‘Right. You get over to the Imperial and make contact with him, then let us know where they go. We’ll drop your bag at the hotel and catch up with you.’

Rik handed over his overnight bag and turned as a cab crawled by, the driver eyeing them as potential fares. Seconds later he was gone.

‘You love all this stuff, don’t you?’ Clare said, pulling her coat around her. ‘The intrigue, the chase.’

‘It’s part of the job.’

‘Really? What about catching Paulton? Isn’t that part of the job, too?’

‘What’s Paulton got to do with this?’

‘Nothing. But he hasn’t rated a mention yet. Have you forgotten what he did, with Bellingham?’

‘Of course not.’ Paulton and what he’d done was never far from his thoughts, but life had to go on. He had a feeling Clare didn’t share that view. ‘His time will come.’

Clare leaned closer to him, her face intense. ‘Damn right, Tate. Because if you don’t get him, I will.’

Back in London, Paulton was staring at his laptop, checking the details of the MI6 surveillance log on Katya Balenkova, former captain in the FSO, now a humble lieutenant. He didn’t waste time reading the commentary about her suspension and punishment following her secret assignations with Jardine; he knew most of it anyway, and was much more interested in the here and now.