Manhunt (47 page)

West London

Evening traffic in West London is almost always heavy, and that night was no exception. Despite the rain, when their taxi emerged from the gates of RAF Northolt it joined
a long stream of vehicles heading west. In those conditions it was almost impossible to tell whether anything might be following them. Richter did his best to check, turning to look behind at
regular intervals, but all he could see was a forest of headlights following and of red tail lights preceding them.

He instructed the driver to just head west first, then told him to take the turning towards Uxbridge. As the taxi left the main road, Richter again checked behind, but failed to spot any sign of
surveillance. With no specific destination in mind, he finally decided that one of the hotels near Heathrow would be suitably anonymous. Under half an hour after leaving Northolt, he and Raya found
themselves standing in the lobby of a multi-storey airport hotel, as Richter booked them a double room.

Before taking a lift to the fifth floor, Richter peered out through the plate-glass windows lining one side of the lobby. Outside the massive building, cars, minibuses and motorcycles kept
arriving and departing. In the end, he shook his head. Trying to look out for surveillance here was completely pointless.

‘Are we safe now?’ Raya asked, as he finally double-locked the hotel room door behind them.

‘I bloody hope so,’ he replied, walking across to a window that afforded him an excellent view of one section of the car park, and of Heathrow Airport itself. ‘I don’t
fancy sitting in full view in some restaurant tonight,’ he added, pulling the curtains across and turning away from the window, ‘so would you be happy if we just ordered something from
the room-service menu?’

‘As long as I have something to eat, I don’t care,’ Raya replied.

Richter smiled at her, studied the menu, and then picked up the phone.

Five floors below, on the far side of the car park, two men sat in an anonymous dark-blue Ford saloon. One of them was watching the illuminated windows of occupied rooms
through a pair of powerful binoculars fitted with a digital camera able to record an image of whatever the user was focusing on. He had just been watching as the light in a fifth-floor room came on
and a male figure had walked across to peer out of the window. In that brief period, he had taken half a dozen pictures.

‘Is that them?’ the other man asked, hearing the rapid clicks of digital images being recorded.

‘I didn’t see the girl,’ replied the man with the binoculars, ‘but I’m pretty certain that’s the guy who was with her.’

‘Sounds good enough. You stay here and I’ll go and find a floor plan, so we know exactly which room they’re in.’

He pulled up the collar of his coat as protection against the rain, took a compact umbrella from his pocket, opened the car door and walked swiftly towards the hotel entrance. Five minutes later
he was back.

‘You get it?’

‘No problem. They’re in number five one two, and I checked it twice. Getting inside the room isn’t going to be easy, though. The room doors are thick and solid, and
they’re fitted with entry card readers that will be difficult to crack. And they’ll have closed the deadlock on the inside, as well.’

‘Not our problem. We picked them up, we followed them, and we know where they’re staying for the night. Now we can hand over to somebody else.’ He pulled a mobile phone out of
his pocket and dialled a number. ‘I’ll call it in now.’

His companion nodded, pulling on his seat belt, started the engine and drove away from the hotel.

Tuesday

Hammersmith, West London

At Simpson’s insistence, Raya Kosov’s initial debriefing was held at the FOE building in the backstreets of Hammersmith. The reason, as he explained when
Richter phoned in that morning, was because he wanted the location to be both totally secure and completely under his control. Although FOE had access to safe houses in several different parts of
London, nowhere else would offer the same level of security and, until the second traitor working for the Russians within the SIS was identified, and apprehended, he was unwilling to place Raya at
risk by meeting anywhere else.

Actually, that suited Richter just as well. Despite Simpson’s abrasive manner, sarcasm and frequent rudeness, he still believed his short-term boss was straight – or at least as
straight as anybody else in the murky business he had become involved with. Richter would rather Simpson controlled the situation from his Hammersmith offices than take the risk of involving
officers or facilities from any other branch of the British intelligence machine.

They arrived just after nine-thirty by taxi, and were ushered through the main entrance by two bulky security guards. Richter’s Browning semi-automatic created a Christmas tree of lights
as he walked through the metal detector situated a short distance inside the building.

‘I’ll take that,’ one of the guards announced, stepping forward.

‘In your dreams,’ Richter snapped. ‘I’m hanging on to this pistol. If you don’t like it, call Simpson and get his approval.’

While his companion watched the two new arrivals carefully, the guard picked up an internal phone and held a short conversation. Then he nodded and turned back to Richter.

‘Right,’ he snarled, clearly irritated. ‘Follow me, both of you.’

He led the way to an inner hallway, and across to a pair of lifts with silver grey doors. The right-hand lift was already at their level, with the doors open, and the guard immediately stepped
inside, Richter and Raya following close behind. He pressed the button for the third floor, and a few moments later they stepped out of the lift again and he escorted them down a narrow,
cream-painted corridor towards a set of double doors at the far end.

He knocked twice and opened the door. Inside the room was a long table, around which were arranged about a dozen chairs. Two of them were occupied by men Richter had never seen before, both of
whom stood up as he and Raya entered. On the table were sheets of writing paper and pencils, and a high-quality digital recorder to which were connected two microphones on table stands. There were
also several cups and mugs, three insulated coffee pots, and a couple of plates displaying a somewhat limited selection of biscuits.

‘You must be Raya Kosov, right?’ one of the men said, extending his hand, and Raya nodded. ‘My name’s David Walters. We were really glad that you managed to get out of
Italy.’

‘I had some help,’ Raya explained, glancing at Richter.

‘And you’re Richter, obviously,’ the other man said. ‘You’re the guy who’s been causing our boss such grief, not to mention leaving a trail of devastation
halfway across Europe. I’m Masterson, by the way, Jeff Masterson. We’re the debriefing officers, at least for the first phase of this operation, because both of us speak and read
Russian.’

‘I think “trail of devastation” is putting it a bit strongly,’ Richter protested, shaking hands with both men. ‘About all we did was blow a few tyres off a handful
of police cars, though in fairness we did wreck an expensive chopper.’

‘How did you do that?’ Masterson asked.

‘We had an SAS sniper with us, watching our backs, who popped a bullet down one of the engine intakes. That was all it took, so I think maybe the French need to take another look at the
design of the Eurocopter, if they’re ever expecting it to survive a real live firefight.’

‘OK,’ Walters said briefly, ‘why don’t you both grab a seat, pour yourselves a cup of coffee, and then we’ll get started.’

A few minutes later, he started the recorder going, and made an opening statement.

‘My name is David Walters and my colleague is Jeff Masterson. This is the debriefing of Raya Kosov, formerly in the employment of the Russian SVR, who has voluntarily sought asylum in the
United Kingdom. Also present is Paul Richter, who is currently on attachment to this unit.’

He paused and glanced at his notes but, before he could say anything else, the door of the conference room swung open. Richard Simpson marched in, nodded to the four people already seated there,
and took a seat at the far end of the table.

‘Carry on, Walters,’ he urged. ‘I’m just here as an observer.’

Walters leaned towards to the microphone again, and added: ‘Also now present is Richard Simpson, Director of Foreign Operations.’

He checked his notes once more, then gazed across at Raya. ‘Let me just explain the way this is going to work,’ he said. ‘This is just an initial interview, the first of many,
so today all we’re going to do is cover the basics. There will be in-depth interviews later, to discuss specific aspects of whatever you tell us. Basically, we have to do three things.

‘First, we need to establish that you are who you claim to be. To do that, we’ll ask you a number of questions about the SVR and about Yasenevo in particular. We’ll also
discuss your career and your precise employment in Moscow.

‘Second, we have to satisfy ourselves that you are a genuine defector. As I’m sure you’re aware, in the past the GRU and the KGB, and latterly the SVR, have occasionally sent
one of their employees to the West as a purveyor of disinformation. Obviously, we have to be sure that this is not the case here. Only when we have satisfied ourselves on these first two points can
we then look confidently at the information you’ve brought out with you, and analyse its worth to us. Do you understand all that?’

Raya nodded.

‘And, thirdly, would you be prepared to submit to a polygraph examination – a lie detector check?’

Raya nodded again. ‘I have no problem with that.’

‘Good. Now, are there any questions you’d like to ask me or my colleague before we begin?’

‘No, I’m happy to start right away.’

For the next ninety minutes or so, Walters and Masterson alternated in firing questions at Raya, and took copious notes of her answers to supplement the recording. Two things quickly became
obvious to Richter: the level of British knowledge of the internal workings of the SVR was quite extensive, but Raya Kosov very clearly knew an awful lot more than either of them.

‘Now, Raya, obviously we’ll need to run some further checks on your statements over the next couple of days, but personally I’m satisfied with your knowledge of
Yasenevo,’ Walters conceded. He looked towards the far end of the table, where Richard Simpson was still sitting in silence. ‘Have you any questions, sir?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Simpson shook his head. ‘You two are the experts and if you’re now convinced she’s the real deal, then I’m happy with that assessment.’

‘Fine,’ Walters said. ‘Let’s take a short break and then start on phase two.’

He ordered fresh coffee and, as soon as it had arrived, the questioning started again.

‘So far so good, Raya,’ Masterson began. ‘I think we’re agreed so far that you were the Deputy Computer Network Manager at Yasenevo. What we have to do now is find out
why you’re sitting here in West London instead of working at your desk on the outskirts of Moscow. This is a very simple question, but I suspect the answer might be quite complex. Why,
exactly, did you defect?’

‘Actually,’ Raya replied, ‘the answer is just as simple as the question. I did it for revenge.’

Walters looked up with interest. ‘Revenge for what – and against what? Do you mean you were rebelling against the state itself, or just against the SVR?’

Raya shook her head. ‘A bit of everything, really. I was trying to hit Mother Russia, I suppose, because of the totalitarian system there. To use the SVR as a tool seemed almost poetic,
because that organization essentially applies the system. But, most of all, I was seeking revenge against one man – one who to me represented an instrument of that system.

‘I wanted that man to suffer for what he once did to my family, and the weapon I decided to use against him was the SVR itself. Let me explain. In 1989 the KGB burst into our apartment to
arrest my father. He wasn’t a criminal, a terrorist or even an anti-Communist. All he had done was to voice mild criticism of a local Party official. Unfortunately, somebody overheard him,
and registered an official complaint. They sent six men to make the arrest, in the middle of the night.

‘They broke down the door, pulled my father from his bed, then beat him so severely that he died within hours – apparently even before he reached their headquarters. My mother and I
were forced to watch, and I think both of us then realized it would be the last time we would ever see him alive. I was a mere child at the time, but in my memory I can still replay everything that
happened that terrible night. My mother remembered the name of the officer in charge, who had directed the beating, and we vowed there and then that someday, somehow, we would make him pay for what
he did that night.’

Raya paused and looked at the faces of the four men sitting around the conference table. They stared back at her, none of them making any comment.

‘I deliberately chose to study languages and computer science, because I believed those skills would make me a more attractive prospect for recruitment into the SVR. By the time I’d
finished my education, I had already been offered employment by the SVR. I’ve worked at the Lubyanka and Yasenevo ever since.’

‘There are two obvious questions that need asking,’ Masterson began. ‘First, does this man who killed your father still work for the SVR? And, second, how come their entrance
security checks didn’t reveal the fact that your father had died as a suspected dissident? If that information had been available, I doubt if the SVR would have taken you on. Tainted blood
and all that.’

Raya nodded. ‘Yes, that vicious little Georgian bastard is now a colonel in the SVR. The second question is more complicated to answer. When my father died at the KGB headquarters or in
the back of the car on his way there, the squad which had arrested him must have realized they were in trouble. They’d been sent out to bring in a middle-aged man for questioning about a
minor offence, and they’d returned with a bloody corpse. I don’t know exactly how that Georgian bastard, then a captain, managed it, but we were told a few days later that my father had
died in a traffic accident, and the arrest record simply vanished. And in those days, nobody questioned anything that the KGB told them.’