Manhunt (46 page)

The executive jet followed the ground controller’s instructions and taxied across to a hardstanding beside a small terminal building, well away from any other aircraft. As the twin jet
engines spooled down, their roar dying away to a diminishing whine, the three of them unbuckled their seat belts and stood up. They followed John Westwood to the exterior door and waited while one
of the flight crew emerged from the cockpit to unlatch it.

It had been hot and sunny in southern France and northern Italy, but Richter was unsurprised to discover that it was raining in London. The tarmac around the aircraft glistened in the early
evening gloom, reflecting the sheen of lights that illuminated the hardstanding or shone from the windows of the terminal building.

‘That’s just bloody typical,’ he muttered, as he splashed through a succession of shallow puddles between the Lear and the terminal itself. He had an umbrella in one hand with
which he was trying to protect Raya’s hair from the rain, while in the other he was carrying her bag.

‘Yeah,’ Dekker agreed. ‘Say what you like about the bloody Frogs, but they do have better weather than us.’

John Westwood followed behind the small group, because there were things he needed to do inside the terminal, including paying landing fees for the Lear and arranging for a bowser to refuel it.
The pilots were out of flying hours, so he wasn’t going to make it back to the States until the following day. He needed to find accommodation, either somewhere on the base itself or in a
local hotel, for himself and the two pilots.

Richter pushed open the door and walked inside the building. To his right was a waiting area sporting a few low tables and easy chairs, and on his left a reception desk behind which stood two
uniformed senior RAF non-commissioned officers. He turned towards them and reached into his pocket for the diplomatic passport, which he hoped would be enough to avoid complications with the duty
customs and immigration officers who might already be on their way over. He still didn’t know exactly what they would make of Raya, or whether her Russian passport would even allow her out of
the airport. And the Browning pistol in his shoulder holster was almost certainly going to raise eyebrows.

His plan, such as it was, was to try to talk his way through the ranks of officials he expected to meet and, if that didn’t work, to call Simpson and let him sort it out. It was, after
all, ultimately not Richter’s problem.

But, before he reached the desk, he heard an unpleasantly familiar voice calling out to him from behind. ‘And about bloody time, too.’

Richter turned immediately, and was rewarded by the unwelcome sight of Richard Simpson, as immaculately groomed as ever, rising from one of the easy chairs and walking over towards him. His
complexion appeared slightly pinker than before, possibly an indication of the irritation he was doubtless feeling.

‘Simpson,’ Richter greeted him. ‘And it’s nice to see you, too.’

‘You can cut the crap, Richter. Your bloody phone’s been switched off ever since you last called me, when you told me a pack of lies about what you were doing and where you were
going. As a result I’m seriously thinking about throwing you and Dekker straight back to the Italian authorities. And when they’ve finished with both of you, there are some highly
placed officials in France who’d like a bit of a chat as well.’

There was a silence that seemed to last for minutes, while Richter tried to decide if it was worth shooting Simpson there and then, or if he should just settle for beating the crap out of
him.

Then a cultured American voice broke in. ‘Hi, I’m John Westwood. You must be Richard Simpson.’ Westwood stepped forward, his hand extended.

Almost reluctantly, Simpson shook it. ‘How did you recognize me?’ he asked.

‘Word gets around,’ Westwood said somewhat enigmatically. Then he turned to face Richter. ‘It doesn’t look to me as if your talents are fully appreciated here, my friend.
If ever you feel like a change of scene, you know where to find me. The Company can always use people like you.’

Richter nodded, then shifted his glance back to Simpson. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but for the moment I’ll stick with the devil I know – and right now that isn’t
just a figure of speech. Let me ask you a question, Simpson. Have you any idea at all
why
my phone’s been switched off while we tried to get out of Italy without having our heads blown
off?’

Simpson shook his head. ‘No, I just assumed you were disobeying every instruction I gave you, as usual.’

‘My phone was switched off because somebody was using it to track us.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘Bollocks!’

Richter explained what had happened in Nervi, after following Raya’s instructions about the rendezvous.

‘This, by the way, is Raya Kosov,’ he finished, ‘who’s probably just as sick of hearing your whinging as I am. The point is that she
wasn’t
followed to
Nervi.’

‘When you called me, you told me she
had
been followed,’ Simpson pointed out.

‘I told you a porkie, just to see what happened. And, right then, I wasn’t absolutely sure but now I’m quite certain that she wasn’t being followed. Apart from anything
else, if the bad guys had been behind her, why didn’t they snatch her before she even got to the town? After all,
she
was the target, not me.’

Simpson didn’t respond.

‘The only other person who knew the location of the rendezvous,’ Richter continued, ‘was Colin Dekker, and we discussed that face to face, not over a telephone link. So the
only way the bad guys could have known where we were was to track my phone.’

‘They could have been tracking Kosov’s mobile, or even Dekker’s.’

‘No, because Raya kept her unit switched off almost all the time, precisely so she couldn’t be tracked. And the bad guys were already waiting in the square at Nervi, but Colin
wasn’t there. He was on a rooftop nearby, with his phone switched off and watching what was going on through the telescopic sight of his rifle. Just as well he was, otherwise I’d
probably be lying on a slab in some Italian morgue, and I really don’t like to even think about what might have happened to Raya.’

‘That’s not the point, Richter. You could still have used a public phone, just to let me know what was happening. I don’t like being kept in the dark. And then there’s
the matter of the private jet I sent out to Innsbruck to pick you up. The one which is still waiting there for you, as a matter of fact. You’ll be paying off the cost of that abortive mission
for the rest of your life.’

‘I don’t think we’d have got anywhere near that airport,’ Richter argued, ‘because I think your organization leaks like a sieve.’

Simpson’s eyes blazed. ‘You’ll retract that remark or bloody well justify it, Richter, and right now.’

‘That’s easy enough. When I called you, after we’d got out of Nervi, I told you which town we were heading for, and even gave you the name of the hotel we were going to stay
at. Exactly four people were privy to that information, Simpson – you, me, Raya and Colin.’

‘So?’

‘So we went somewhere else, but Colin found a perch where he could cover the hotel. Late that evening, a bunch of professional thugs arrived and checked everyone in the building. I
hadn’t told anyone else we’d be there, and nor did Raya or Colin. So that means you must have done or somebody you talked to did, because we were set up.’

Simpson went white. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure those people were looking for you?’

‘As near certain as makes no difference,’ Dekker intervened. ‘They definitely weren’t Italian security people, because they made sure they got the hell away from the
hotel well before the
carabinieri
arrived. And they even beat up a couple of the residents who objected to being dragged out into the street.’

‘Right,’ Simpson said, ‘that puts a different complexion on things. Assuming, of course, what you say is correct, Richter – and I will be running a check to make sure
you’re not just trying to cover your back. But you’re still wrong about one thing. If there was a leak, it didn’t come from my section, because I’ve not discussed this
operation with anyone there. Somebody else is involved in this, and you can be certain I’m going to find out who.’

‘Raya here might be able to help with that,’ Richter suggested. ‘She knows that the SVR had at least two SIS officers in its stable. Gerald Stanway was presumably one of them,
but her information might help identify the other.’

Simpson shook his head. ‘That probably won’t be necessary. ‘I know exactly who I told about your route through Italy. It must either be him, or somebody he discussed it with at
SIS. You can leave that to me.’

Simpson turned to the other two. ‘Welcome to Britain, Miss Kosov,’ he said shortly. ‘And thank you, Dekker, for your support in this operation.’

‘How did you know we’d be on that aircraft?’ Richter asked.

‘I know almost everything, Richter, almost all of the time. In this case, it wasn’t particularly difficult to deduce. First, you shot up a couple of Italian police cars then stole an
aircraft from some poor sod of a farmer. Next you nearly crashed it in the middle of the Alps, by pulling off some hare-brained manoeuvre. To cap that, you sent a transmission on a distress
frequency, in which you used a false call sign and accused an Italian air force pilot of attacking you. And all that, of course, was a mere bagatelle compared to what you achieved in France. Do you
have any idea how much those helicopters cost?’

‘Oddly enough, I do,’ Richter said, ‘because I used to fly the things. When you were busy talking to your chums on the east side of the Channel, did they mention that their
helicopter crew opened fire on us with a heavy machine gun, before Dekker here gave them something else to think about?’

‘According to my contacts,’ Simpson said, ‘they just fired some warning shots to attract your attention.’

‘They certainly did that, but it all still comes down to the basic rule of engagement. If you fire at me, you shouldn’t be too surprised if I decide to shoot back.’

‘Yeah, well the French don’t see it that way. They’d like reparation for the loss of their very expensive helicopter, not to mention some clean trousers for the flight crew.
Then there was the sudden appearance at a nearby French airfield of a North American-registered executive jet owned by a certain organization based at Langley in Virginia. The same jet then took
off, in defiance of air traffic control instructions and the orders of the French police, and which was escorted all the way across France by two American fighters. Put all that stuff together and
a conclusion wasn’t particularly difficult to reach.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Richter asked.

‘Nothing at the moment. The Frogs and the Eyeties can simply wait until we’re sure of exactly what happened, and what Miss Kosov here has brought with her out of Moscow. If your data
is valuable enough, we’ll tell them to sod off, and deny any suggestion that a British subject was involved. If we don’t like your dowry, then we might just throw you back.’

For a few moments Raya just stared at him. ‘I don’t think I’m going to like you,’ she said.

‘I don’t give a toss whether you like me or not. All I’m interested in is what you can give us, now you’re finally here. In view of the pile of shot-up cars and wrecked
aircraft Richter and Dekker managed to leave across Italy and France, I hope you haven’t just brought us a few ordinary old files, from whatever section of Yasenevo you worked in.’

Raya smiled slightly. ‘I’ve done a little better than that,’ she said. ‘I was employed as the Deputy Computer Network Manager for the SVR, and in my bag here I have a CD
player that’s been modified quite a lot. I took out most of the existing works and replaced them with a half-terabyte-sized hard disk. It’s full of files that I copied from the Yasenevo
database, and I think you’ll find that what I can offer is essentially a snapshot of virtually all of the SVR’s current operations. And if you’re not interested, Mr Westwood here
has already made me a counter-offer.’

‘That,’ Simpson muttered, unconsciously echoing Westwood’s remark earlier, ‘is the holy grail. You’re most welcome, Miss Kosov.’

Raya favoured him with a sharp look. ‘And just so you don’t get any sneaky ideas – because you look like that kind of person – the hard drive is password protected, and
the gateway program includes an auto-destruct routine that will wipe the entire drive if an incorrect password is entered more than three times.’

Simpson didn’t look particularly impressed by this warning. ‘We have computer experts who would be able to crack that.’

‘I doubt it,’ Richter interrupted. ‘In case you hadn’t realized it, Raya is an expert too. But aren’t we all supposed to be on the same side here?’

Simpson rubbed his hands over his face. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s been a very long day. Right, let’s get Ms Kosov settled in one of our safe houses, and
we’ll start analysing the data in the morning.’ He turned to her with a slight smile. ‘I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot, but I’ve spent most of today fielding
angry calls from senior officials from both the French and Italian intelligence services. In fact, it hasn’t been the best day of my life so far, not least because I was worried that Richter
wouldn’t get you out of Italy in one piece.’

‘I’m sorry, Simpson,’ Richter again intervened, ‘but we’ve no intention of going to a safe house. Until we’re certain that the leak’s been plugged,
we’re doing our own thing. That means Raya and I will find a hotel somewhere and check in as Mr and Mrs Smith. I’ll call you at Hammersmith in the morning.’

Simpson glanced from Richter to Raya, and then back again. ‘Have you two become what the modern idiom refers to as an item?’

Richter shook his head. ‘That’s none of your fucking business.’

‘It might be, if it clouds your judgement.’

‘It won’t,’ Richter said sharply. ‘You just tell me where and when, and I’ll make sure we’re there for the debriefing. And, just so you know, I’m
hanging on to the Browning in case your little mole hunt takes you longer than you think. So I recommend you don’t send anybody to follow us, because I’d hate to end up shooting one of
your lot by mistake.’