‘You’ll find out later. In the meantime, just check in to that hotel at Ax and wait for instructions. While you’re there, read the briefing paper. I need you to be reasonably conversant with the structure and functions of the SVR by tomorrow morning, just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
‘As I said, Richter, you’ll find out later. Somebody might contact you at the hotel tomorrow, or perhaps Sunday. Any other questions?’
Richter had several, but none that couldn’t wait. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You want me to call you when I get there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. I’d better get moving, then.’
Finishing the call, he took another sip of coffee and opened the briefcase again. He extracted a route-planning map of France and studied it for a few minutes. It looked like an easy drive, most of it on autoroutes. Richter finished his coffee, picked up the briefcase and walked back into the hotel.
Twenty minutes later, he’d packed his bag, paid the bill and was nosing the Ford out of the hotel car park.
Raya glanced at her watch before knocking on the office door.
She’d been studying the routine followed by this particular colonel for several months, simply by looking carefully at his workstation usage records. Every Friday morning that he was in the building, he logged off the network at around ten-thirty, and logged on again about an hour later. This, she knew, was because the Head of the Section convened a weekly meeting in his office. If canteen gossip was to be believed, this meeting first featured briefings from all his subordinates regarding their current projects, followed by the consumption by all concerned of a considerable amount of alcohol, as a kind of a liquid finale to the rigours of the working week.
It was just before ten-forty. So, unless the colonel’s routine had changed, there should be no reply. A few seconds later she knocked again, with the same lack of response. Raya glanced up and down the corridor, just in case he was anywhere in sight, perhaps returning to his office to collect something he’d forgotten, but it remained deserted. She took a deep breath, pulled the pass-key out of her pocket, opened the door and stepped inside.
She walked straight over to his desk and looked down at the computer. The screensaver was displayed, and Raya knew this machine would be password-protected. She could of course have accessed her master password list before she left her office, but she had no interest in what was on the hard drive: all she needed to do was shut the computer down. She bent down, eased the computer system unit out of its slot beside the desk, then reached behind it to pull out the power lead.
Immediately the screen went blank, and the fans inside the system unit stopped whirring. Raya opened her briefcase, pulled out the toolkit and selected a cross-head screwdriver. She swiftly removed the six screws that secured the unit’s cover, and lifted it off. The next logical step was to insert the new RAM chips, but there were a couple of things Raya needed to do first. The removal of the cover would provide her with an unarguable reason for being in the man’s office.
Standing upright again, she gazed down at the desk. There were no papers or files on it, but Raya would have been amazed if there had been. Two telephones flanked a simple desk set comprising vertical pen and pencil holders as well as shallow trays holding paper clips, staples, erasers and other oddments. The only other thing on the desk was a water glass, half full. She looked carefully at the pens and pencils, and smiled in satisfaction.
Raya selected two pencils and a single ballpoint pen from their holders and placed them in a pocket in her briefcase, taking care to only touch them with her plaster-covered finger and thumb. She carefully opened the new packets she’d brought with her, and replaced the two pencils and ballpoint with new ones.
Then she turned her attention to the water glass. She took the rubber bulb, puffed some fine grey powder on to the glass, brushed it gently and looked at it carefully. Three or four slightly smudged fingerprints were revealed. She pulled a length of sticky tape off the roll, taking care to only touch the very ends of it, and carefully applied it to the glass, before lifting off three of the prints.
Raya reached into her pocket and pulled out the two keys contained in tissue paper, unwrapped them and dropped them on the desk. She pushed the keys into position with the plaster-covered tip of her right forefinger, then laid the tape over the keys, sticking them firmly to it. Still holding the tape by the ends, she knelt down beside the desk, rolled over on to her back, and slid underneath. She reached up and stuck the tape at the back of the lowest desk drawer. She wriggled out, reached into her briefcase for the scissors and carefully cut off both ends of the tape where she had touched it.
Only then did she remove the plasters from her finger and thumb and put them in her pocket, and use a tissue to clean the powder off the water glass. She next looked inside the computer system unit, to check the type of RAM chips fitted there. She slipped on the earthing wristband, opened the box of memory chips, selected the correct type and expertly slotted it into place. In less than three minutes, she’d replaced the cover and packed everything she’d brought with her back into the briefcase. She then reconnected the power lead and switched on the computer. As usual, the operating system began a scan of the hard drive, because the computer hadn’t been shut down properly. Raya checked to ensure that it had started up, then took a pencil and scribbled a note to advise the colonel that she had upgraded his computer. She left the paper prominently in the middle of the desk, and took a last glance around to ensure she’d left nothing else in the office. Finally she let herself out into the corridor, locked the door behind her and walked away.
The computer on Gerald Stanway’s desk emitted a soft double-chime, to indicate receipt of an email message. Normally he ignored such alerts, preferring to check his messages every half-hour or so but, since news of the defecting Russian had reached London, he’d started reading each email as soon as it arrived, just in case it contained any new information.
Opening his email client, he scanned the latest arrival in his in-box. The message was internal, its origin Holbeche’s office at Vauxhall Cross, and it was the first communication Stanway had seen that gave him any additional information about the clerk. The email was classified Secret, had a limited distribution — Heads and Deputy Heads of Departments only — and for the most part didn’t provide a great deal more information than had already been disseminated. But what it did contain was more or less what Stanway had been expecting, and fearing.
LIMDIST — HODs and DHODs only
Subject: Defecting Russian cipher clerk — code name ‘Roadrunner’. Update 1.
Summary
Latest intelligence from Moscow Station, confirmed by technical support services, is that Roadrunner has left Austria and is now in southern France.
Narrative
Roadrunner established telephone contact with Moscow embassy before leaving Vienna and requested a meeting near Toulouse with SIS officers no later than Sunday. If we fail to comply, Roadrunner has stated verbally that he will approach the CIA.
Two Russian-speaking officers will leave Paris Station tomorrow to travel to Toulouse by air with authority to offer Roadrunner asylum in the UK provided they are satisfied with his bona fides. Assuming the defection is sanctioned, Roadrunner will be flown from Toulouse by UKMILAIR (HS-146 on four-hour notice to depart Northolt) to UK, accompanied by SIS handlers, for extended debriefing.