The Oktober Projekt (41 page)

‘Do we know who’s going to be in bag?’ wondered Blackmore,
already dressed it seemed for a brisk evening stroll. ‘Thought the exchange was
low key?’

‘I think Nick may have other plans,’ said Jane remotely. For
Nick, intently staring from the window an immediate answer didn’t seem
pressing.
 

‘Positive ID from Ernst on the Citroën and no one moves until I
say,’ said Nick into the radio.

‘I wouldn’t think anyone’s in a hurry,’ said Rossan,
comfortable on a chair at the back of the room.

By the church bare branches waved and cavorted in quick rhythm
set by the wind, but it wasn’t their dancing Nick noticed, but a plain clothes
GRU officer climb out of the Citroën and take up station as he surveyed the
square.

‘Time to go?’ Hawick and
Blackmore asked in unison, and without waiting for a reply they were already on
their way down to the square.

Sliding back the camper’s door Erika and Liesel signalled their
pledge, their token of good faith by illuminating Perekop’s face with a
flashlight. Nosing forward the Mercedes made a pass, its headlights yellow
plumes showing up the spreading snow. Reversing past the camper, the driver of
the Mercedes craned to look inside. Uncertain, one final decision, this the big
one thought Nick. You make your mind up if everything’s legitimate, if I have
kept my end of the bargain reasoned Nick, then you jump one way or the other.

‘He’s not sure,’ breathed Jane.

‘You okay?’ Rossan asked her.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ she curtly demanded.

‘Twenty, thirty seconds and we are going to make the exchange,’
said Nick into the radio’s mouthpiece. ‘Everyone ready to go? Is that a yes,
Ernst? Did I hear you confirm?’ Ernst approved and Nick swallowed. ‘Dominik,
you confirm?’ And Dominik did.

Coming full circle the Mercedes drew up a good forty metres
short of the camper. Out of the house crossing the square slowly, Blackmore
following Hawick. Nick had a stomach cramp as he watched for any signs of a
problem, his thoughts running so fast they smeared and caught hold of each
other. Snow blanking out the windscreens of cars parked in the square. Idling,
its exhaust billowing in the icy air, the Mercedes stood ready in position so
its rear seat passengers would have a grandstand view as their disgraced
officers made an undignified run for home.
 

‘Let’s go everyone,’ said Nick, ushering Jane and Rossan out of
the door.

In the square an agreed routine saw Perekop escorted from the
camper by Markus, Freja, Liesel and Erika, their warm breaths punching holes in
the minus air. None of them carrying bags and suitcases bearing gifts, but a
hope that they would be received warmly on what was after all, Christmas Eve.
Then out of the Jeep climbed Mitch Harney, holding open the rear door as
Colonel Evgeni Kasimov stepped neatly out into the snow, the ‘main man’ as Tolz
described him.

With Nick’s chips clearly piled high on the table, it became as
Rossan would later describe a tense second and a half as the Moscow contingent
made their minds up if they were going to play or cry broke. To Rossan’s sheer
relief as well as Ernst and his team, the rear door of the Citroën swung open
and Irina Kralovic, better known to them by her workname of Elsa De-Beyer
levered herself out.

‘Nick what have you done?’ said Jane, her voice alarmed, her
hand touching his, her skin freezing as they took a slow diagonal route across
the square.

Striding into position Mitch took the front with Kasimov dutifully
at his side, a one man American delegation. A metre remaining to be covered
between the two opposing teams as Irina walked forwards by herself, perhaps out
of disgrace, and she seemed to be searching about her for a familiar face.
Kasimov on the other hand had a tough spring to his steps, his eyes level and
set, never varying his gaze from straight ahead as though off to war. On their
walk from the camper Markus and Erika flanked Perekop, and as they neared the
Mercedes, a rear door was flung open. A large thin figure in the rear of the
car twisted to gain a better look, maximising his position to add his own form
of humiliation and displeasure to the returning GRU officers.

Snowflakes stuck to Nick’s face, clung to his hair as he
scanned the square a sense of fulfilment slowly rising.

‘It’s a trap,’ screamed Jane in Russian, darting towards the
Mercedes.

Nick on her heels dived in a rugby tackle bringing her down.
Screaming Jane’s name, Irina Kralovic’s face disappeared as a high velocity
round struck her. Dropping in a heap her knees hit the hard snow, splaying out
and buckling as the rest of her bounced, unfolded in a bundle.

Noise from a dream seemed trapped in Nick’s head; slow,
slurred, a high-pitched scream, a record played on the wrong speed. A second
shot cracked, then a third as Nick lost his grip on Jane. The severe kick in
his back jerked him forwards. Nick locked in a capsule of pain and sound
containing the Mercedes engine racing, more yells and screams all at a volume
he couldn’t control. He tried lifting himself and did. He crouched and saw the
Mercedes door slam closed as it sped off without Kasimov, Perekop or their
London asset.

A serious bruise was growing in Nick’s back from a vengeful
kick, delivered by Jane as she viciously set about him. Punches and desperate
slaps delivered as she screamed and spat at him for being a bastard. ‘Why?’ she
yelled her fists aimed in tight swings at Nick’s head. It took Rossan a good
half a minute to haul Stratton off and he had to accept the help of Erika,
Liesel and Ernst to restrain her.

‘Why Nick, why Irina?’ Jane demanded the snow clinging to her
hair.

‘A means to an end,’ Nick said staring straight into her eyes.
‘The same as Angie was.’

‘I had no say in it,’ she screamed.

‘But you knew about Lister and Parfrey,’ Nick retorted angrily.
‘You exploited Parfrey and she unwittingly gave you Lubov. Parfrey even
sacrificed herself because she thought you loved her.’

‘I had no choice, Nick, believe me, no choice,’ she shouted.

‘Everyone has a choice,’ Nick raged. ‘You let them murder Angie
and you let them murder Juris Valgos, you even planted his phone in my house
for them. Everything you did was to save your own skin,’ he shouted turning his
back.

When they’d led Stratton away with her hands tightly cuffed,
Nick kicked out at a pile of heaped snow. Forgive me Angie, but I had to make
sure that you did not die in vain. Around him blue lights appearing as Harney,
Rossan and Döbeln supervised the packing away of the Russian dead; Stratton’s
lover and handler Irina, Kasimov and Sabine’s hated Perekop. In the melee and
confusion no one paid much attention to two figures working their way through
the trees by the church, walking quite calmly towards a reserve car where Erika
waited to spirit Danny and Ignaz away, their weapons broken down, carried in
neat blue holdalls.

• • •

Nick spent the days after Jane
Stratton’s arrest at his Devon sanctuary slowly healing his mind and body in
his beloved retreat. As part of Nick’s slow recovery he completely gutted the
cottage, removing all traces of Angie and Stratton. Everything that held
memories went into a skip, as Nick merciless in his own final act of cleansing
undertook a redesign of the interior, his personal suture; books, rugs,
furniture and paintings discarded without a second look. Replacing them with a
style he could honestly call his own; furniture and fittings, all antiques to
go with renovated bare floorboards and simple rugs, a sofa and chairs to curl
up on and forget you’re alone. To lessen what Angie’s interior designer friends
would have called the chromic diffusion between tint and shade, what Nick knew
to be bare emulsion walls, he hung original photographs and paintings themed on
the sea. He added a modest oak kitchen while he was in the mood for change,
with upstairs treated to a bathroom half panelled and tiled, and his bedroom
refreshed with a double bed that he did not intend to share with anyone ever
again.

Nick knew that he would never be allowed anything so close to
total closure from the events that he had set in motion, beginning with the
attempted extraction of Lubov from Moscow. He realised that eventually there
would be something to shatter the spell of normality and return him to the
world of dirty work, which occurred one midweek afternoon. Nick had fallen
asleep stretched on the sofa, a copy of Joyce’s
Dubliners
slipped and creased on the floor, in the corner the
television silently played some inane repeat. Stumbling awake at the car’s
crunching on the gravel, Nick reached the door before Blackmore could knock.

‘Hey ho, the bloody hermit is in,’ declared Blackmore his voice
wound high, demanding that Nick get his coat right away for Roly had an urgent
desire to take in the sea air, repeating the demand as though to a child. So
off they set into a splendid crisp afternoon, enjoying the lazy sun until the
long-off dusk came in its place.

‘Can’t hide away down here for ruddy ever, you know,’ Blackmore
said, admiring the view over the Channel from a headland path.

‘I’m not hiding, I’m suspended pending an official review and
inquiry.’

‘Bloody Teddy, everyone including C has tried to persuade him
that demanding your retirement is not on, but he’s adamant. You assaulted him
and he’s determined to have his revenge.’

‘He also has it on record that I sanctioned deadly force to
settle a personal vendetta. Hawick won’t let up until I’m out of the Service.’

‘With what you’ve achieved, that’s not going to ruddy happen.
Danny sends his regards by the way, he’s back on duty, returned to the fold,
Paul and I made sure of it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘At least we haven’t had to rip the fabric of the buildings
apart, not like the old days, now it’s just the systems. Millions so I’m told,
just to ruddy purge all our IT, Whitehall’s, Uncle Tom Cobley and his
brother’s, and then start all over again. Downing Street will whinge and
complain but they won’t even receive the actual figure, just something to keep
them happy. Galgate’s been quite helpful on the system side of things, put his
talents to use for us for a change, might even get him a couple of years
knocked off his sentence for good behaviour. More than can be said for our
beloved darling Jane.’

‘They broken her yet?’

‘Not a ruddy chance. Jane Francis Stratton’s playing games, a
piece here a piece there.’

‘How’s she taken it?’

‘Wonderful, how do you think? She’s full of bravado, spite and
malevolence of course.
 
Keeps telling us that we can
lock her up and throw away the key now that she’s lost her one true lover
Irina. Other than making us wait for a titbit here, a morsel there, not a
meaningful tweet,’ confirmed Blackmore, striding off.

‘So what have you got?’

‘We know thanks to your fine work, that she met and fell for
Irina when she was posted to Johannesburg, identifying and analysing the Soviet
threat in Africa. But our Jane Francis Stratton became disillusioned and had
her head and heart turned by Irina passing herself off as a South African
freelance journalist and photographer. Irina has been her lover, mentor and
handler ever since,’ said Blackmore, refusing to look at Nick, his eyes fixed
remotely down.

‘She gave them the Minotaur Network in Latvia, didn’t she?’
said Nick walking on, aware that she’d more or less destroyed years of work and
the lives that went with it.

‘That, she said, was part of her strict ideological phase,’
Roly explained, standing back out of range for he feared Nick was ready to
express his rage.

‘What phase was Angie, ask her that?’

‘Of course you’re bound to
feel bloody angry Nick, it’s natural.’

‘I should have seen through her act.’

‘You should be satisfied with what you’ve achieved, feel good
for a change,’ said Blackmore trying to sound upbeat himself. ‘We’re just the
ruddy travellers in this life who sometimes find ourselves going in the wrong
soddin’ direction, that’s all. We all should have spotted her rotten core.’

‘That it, Roly, we all just get back into our normal routine?’

‘World’s not a safe place any more, Nicholas, don’t believe any
sod who tells you otherwise.’

‘She wasn’t the only one, you know that.’

‘Oh, I reckon that Moscow must have planted others, maybe
probably some who are far more important than our Jane Francis Stratton. The
Chief’s had a new broom to all floors, your little outpost too, found nothing
but officers long past their sell by date. Everyone’s been treble-checked, so
we can claim to all concerned that we’ve had a bloody thorough spring clean,
humans and systems.’

‘It’s come at a price though hasn’t it Roly?’ retorted Nick,
turning for home.

‘And you’ve ruddy paid in full,’ declared Blackmore, slapping
Nick on the shoulder.

Yes I have, decided Nick, I’m the silly bastard who’s walking
home to a life without Angie. Bringing up his collar, he shoved his hands into
his pockets and trudged off at Blackmore’s side.