Manhunt (23 page)

He could hear the soft murmur of voices from behind the half-closed door, too faint for him to decide what language was being used, much less decipher what was actually being said.

Stanway pushed open the bar door and walked in. The sound of the voices immediately ceased. Seated at a circular table in one corner were three men: one was the fair-haired man he’d seen
crossing the road from the Auberge du Lac about three-quarters of an hour earlier, but the other two were unfamiliar to him. All three had turned to look as he entered the room.

He nodded in their direction, murmuring a polite ‘
Bonjour
’, then carried on over towards the bar. He pulled up a stool, opened up
Le Monde
, and started reading an
article. A few seconds later, one of the hotel staff appeared from a back room and asked what he wanted to drink. Stanway ordered a small beer, and for a couple of minutes he and the barman chatted
about one of the stories in the newspaper.

They’d barely begun this exchange of views before the three men at the corner table started talking again. And, within ten seconds, Stanway knew his guess had been right. For although
their murmured conversation was too quiet for him to catch more than the odd word, the language spoken was definitely Russian.

Wallis and Hughes had exchanged glances as the newcomer walked into the room but, after he continued across to the bar and started a conversation in French with the barman,
they’d more or less dismissed him. Richter watched him for a few seconds longer, then turned his attention back to the lies he was busy telling the two SIS officers.

As the barman retreated into the back room again, Stanway bent his head over the newspaper and appeared to completely ignore the other three occupants of the bar, but actually
he was straining his ears, to pick up any recognizable snippet of their conversation. Though his spoken Russian was poor, he did have a reasonable vocabulary, but unfortunately those few words and
phrases he managed to overhear didn’t help him much. Twice the blond-haired man mentioned ‘papers’, and once each ‘Moscow’ and ‘Yasenevo’, the latter word
confirming to Stanway that he’d identified his quarry correctly. Because they had their backs to the bar, the voices of the other two men were much less clear and from them he could gather
nothing useful.

The question now, Stanway mused, was not
what
he should do about it but
when
.

He had no idea if the men wearing grey suits were armed – he presumed they were SIS officers, probably from the Paris station – but he knew he would have the element of surprise on
his side if he just pulled out the Browning and started blasting away, right now.

But there were two obvious problems attending that course of action. Quite apart from the fact that it would involve shooting three men in cold blood, the barman who’d served him might
remember Stanway’s face well enough to provide an accurate photofit picture, and by now the watcher in the Renault Laguna might have taken down the number of the Peugeot. Not that it would
help him or anyone else, of course, because they were stolen plates. But, after a triple murder, the French police would obviously be keen to follow up every lead, and Stanway didn’t want a
photofit image of his face in circulation after the event.

Nor did he think he’d be able to get across the road and take out the man in the Renault as well, for good measure. He’d just have to wait and bide his time, but at least he now felt
certain of his target.

Five minutes later, Stanway drained the last of his beer, tucked the newspaper under his arm and walked out of the bar, wishing the three other men
bonne journée
as he passed them.
None of them replied to him, or even looked up as he left.

On his way past the empty reception desk, Stanway reached over to grab one of the room keys, then continued on his way.

Rome, Italy

Raya kept hoping the odds were in her favour. As far as she knew, none of the SVR personnel stationed in Italy had ever seen her in person, so all they could be using in
their search were whatever photograph and description Yasenevo would have sent electronically to the embassy in Rome. And she knew perfectly well that she now looked nothing like the person
appearing in any of those pictures.

She pushed her way through the crowds, and back into the terminal, her glance flicking left and right as she searched urgently for the three men who’d already entered the building.

She spotted them almost immediately. They’d positioned themselves widely apart, so as to cover the maximum area and number of passengers. And, no doubt, once the three men outside had
satisfied themselves that Raya wasn’t waiting for a taxi or a hotel bus, two or maybe all three of them would join their companions inside the terminal. She knew she had to move quickly.

But Raya didn’t want to risk just heading straight for the train station because no matter how effective her rudimentary disguise, she knew that the SVR men would be looking out for a
single woman.

Several Italians were heading in the same direction. Raya checked them out as she walked along, looking for a suitable cover. She really needed to make herself part of a group, or at least one
half of a couple, and quickly.

An elderly lady, carrying a heavy suitcase as well as a carry-on bag, was making her way slowly towards the train station. Raya crossed swiftly towards her and tried out a little of the Italian
she’d tried to learn in Moscow.

‘
Mi scusi, Signora, posso aiutarla?
’ she said, pointing to the obviously heavy suitcase.

The old woman turned and looked her up and down carefully, but apparently approved of what she saw.

‘
Grazie molto
,
Signorita
,’ she replied, and waited while Raya seized the handle of the suitcase and began heading steadily on towards the railway station.

‘
Quale è il suo nome?
’

‘
Mi chiamo Maria,
’ Raya replied, giving the woman the first name that popped into her head.

‘
Di dove è?
’

‘
Sono Americana, Signora, e imparo l’italiano da un mese.
’

Claiming to be American seemed safe enough, because she doubted the woman spoke a word of English, though Raya was fluent in it.

‘
Bene
.’

They continued swapping pleasantries all the way to the platform, and actually passed within fifteen feet of one of the men who’d climbed out of the three black Alfas. He looked at the
elderly Italian lady chattering away to a young dark-haired woman who could be her granddaughter, then shifted his glance to inspect the mass of people approaching behind them.

Raya helped her new-found friend to a seat on the platform, bought for herself the cheapest ticket she could from a machine, had it validated and then sat down next to her to wait. Within a
couple of minutes a train arrived, and with a smile she helped the elderly Italian lady on board and then followed her, lugging the heavy suitcase. She had not the slightest idea where the train
was going and cared less. All she was interested in was getting away from the airport as quickly as possible.

Raya glanced out of the window, back towards the terminal itself, and what she saw made her realize she was still a long way from safety.

Ax-les-Thermes, France

Outside the Hostellerie de la Poste, Stanway climbed back into the Peugeot, started the engine and drove away, heading north and away from the town. This manoeuvre allowed
him a second opportunity to take a look at the Renault Laguna, still parked in the lay-by.

The fact that the car was still there was confirmation of his suspicions that the man sitting inside it was a surveillance officer. Stanway decided to drive a few miles up the road, find
somewhere for an early dinner or just buy a snack, and then return to the town in a couple of hours. Then he’d have to find a suitable vantage point from which he could see the Hostellerie de
la Poste clearly. Ideally, he hoped he’d be able to spot the fair-haired man leaving the hotel, because then he could follow him and take him down. But, realistically, he knew he’d
probably have to tackle him in his hotel room.

‘Sierra, Whisky. The unidentified male who arrived in the Peugeot has just left, going north.’

‘Copied. No change at the rear of the building. No sightings of anyone.’

In the driving seat of the Renault Laguna, Adamson stretched his cramped limbs and shuffled the papers on the seat beside him. Whatever was going on inside the target hotel, he hoped
somebody
would appear soon, because he was getting extremely bored, and God knows what Dekker felt like, lying motionless under some bush up in the copse, staring at an unchanging scene
through the telescopic sight attached to his rifle.

‘We will have to talk again, and soon,’ Hughes said, as the three men stood up. ‘Later this evening, perhaps? Or over dinner here?’

‘No.’ Richter shook his head. ‘Tomorrow, please.’

‘Very well, then. We’ll see you here, in this room, at ten tomorrow morning, agreed?’

‘Agreed.’ Richter shook hands with the two men and walked out of the bar and up to his bedroom.

The discussion had been quite draining, partly because he hadn’t spoken Russian very much over the last couple of years, and had found it quite hard work just to keep up with Hughes. But
the more difficult task – despite the SVR crib sheet Simpson had supplied, and Richter had memorized – was that the SIS man’s questioning had forced him to invent more and more
detailed stories about his work in Moscow. He’d been approaching the point where he was likely to trip himself up because he’d forgotten the answer he’d given to an earlier
question. And Wallis and Hughes would certainly pick up any errors he made, because both had been making copious notes throughout the interview.

He just hoped Simpson would be satisfied with what he’d done and now call a halt to the whole pointless charade.

‘What do you think?’ Wallis asked, as he and Hughes ordered drinks from the bar.

‘I’m not convinced. He looks the part – I’ve met quite a few blond-haired blue-eyed Russian men – but there’s something about that man that doesn’t
quite ring true. A couple of times he gave slightly different answers to the questions I asked him, but that could be just a minor misinterpretation.’

‘He also refused to give us any information at all about this mole he claims to know about in London.’

‘Yes,’ Hughes agreed, ‘but that didn’t really surprise me. He’d know that data would be the clincher, so I wouldn’t expect him to even talk about it until
we’d lifted him. No, it’s more his whole manner. I’ve debriefed half a dozen defectors over the years, and every one of them spent most of his time looking over his shoulder,
metaphorically speaking. Markov just sat there, looking perfectly comfortable with the situation, and quite calm. That’s what bothers me: his whole demeanour is wrong.’

‘And that’s what you’ll tell Simpson?’

‘That’s my assessment, so that’s what I’m going to tell him,’ Hughes confirmed, taking his mobile out of his pocket.

‘Not over the phone,’ Simpson warned, as soon as he answered the call. ‘Meet me outside the casino in ten.’

‘I think he’s a plant,’ Hughes said, once he and Wallis sat down opposite Simpson at a table outside a cafe situated on the west side of the main road that
ran through the centre of the town.

‘Why, precisely? Justify that.’

‘He’s giving the right answers, but he seems too comfortable. He’s not worried enough. The data he’s supplying is superficial, and just sufficiently detailed to be
believable. So I think he could be part of a deception operation being run by the SVR. I recommend we either assume he’s SVR and sweat him, subject him to some hostile interrogation, or just
throw him back.’

‘Good deduction,’ Simpson observed. ‘In fact, Anatoli Markov is as English as you are. His real name’s Paul Richter, he’s ex-Royal Navy, and he’s never even
been to Russia.’

Hughes stared at him. ‘Then what the hell are we doing wasting our time like this?’

‘This is important, so shut up and listen. There’s a hell of a lot you’re not aware of. You’re right, this
is
a deception operation, but we’re running it,
not the Russians.’ In brief sentences he then explained how Richter was just a decoy playing the part of a defecting Russian cipher clerk.

‘Why choose us?’ Wallis asked.

‘Because neither of you has the level of access needed to obtain the kind of data Gecko is trying to sell to the Russians. Also you’re based in Paris, not London, so for both reasons
I’m satisfied you’re clean.’

Hughes nodded. ‘So what happens now?’

‘Richter has a packet of papers with him, which you probably saw – and that’s the real bait.’

‘What’s in it?’ Wallis asked.

‘Most of the sheets in the packet are blank, but the first few pages are copies of an extract from a Russian maintenance manual for the Victor III submarine. Technically, they’re
classified Secret, but in fact there’s nothing in them that we haven’t known for years. The papers are just a decoy, something we could safely give Richter to carry, and something that
the target, Gecko, can focus on. I hope Gecko will believe that those documents contain enough evidence to identify him, because that’s the story we’ve disseminated. I told you not to
take the packet, because that would mean Gecko would come after you, and not Richter. In fact, he’d probably come after you
and
Richter.’

‘So all we’ve really been doing here is fingering Richter.’

‘Exactly. That’s why you’ve been speaking Russian. I want Gecko to be certain that Richter is the defecting clerk, so that he’ll act.’

‘And if he decides to do that while we’re with Richter tomorrow?’

‘Trust me, he won’t. He’ll want to eliminate Richter sometime when he’s alone.’

‘Do we know who this target is?’ Wallis asked.

Simpson stopped and stared at him. ‘Of course we don’t know who the fucking target is,’ he snapped. ‘If we did, none of this charade would be necessary. We’d just
have picked him up and shoved him in the slammer.’