‘Richter’s good,’ Hughes said grudgingly. ‘I thought he was a plant, but it never occurred to me that he wasn’t Russian. No, there was nobody in the lounge apart from the barman — and I presume you’d exclude him — and the only other person who turned up was some French guy who walked in and ordered a beer. He was there for about five minutes.’
‘You’re quite certain he was French?’
‘Yes, he chatted to the barman for a few minutes, about some story in the newspaper. He was a local, I’m sure.’
‘Right,’ Simpson said, nodding, ‘so it looks like Gecko hasn’t shown yet. Richter will be staying at the hotel tonight, and you’ll be seeing him again tomorrow. Carry on exactly as you’d do if this was for real. I’ll brief him tonight so that he, too, knows what he’s supposed to do.’
‘And then?’
‘And then you pack your bags and head for the hills. If Gecko doesn’t appear here tomorrow either, we’ll know he hasn’t taken the bait. And if he does, I’ve got people waiting ready to take him down.’
‘Take him down as in kill him?’
‘If it comes to that, yes, but I’d rather keep the bastard alive so we can sweat him for a while. We need to identify his case officer or handler, and he’ll have some other useful information, no doubt. We’ll kill him only if we’ve got no other options.’
‘And if your decoy, this man Richter, is threatened?’
‘Different rules apply. Richter’s expendable.’
Chapter Twelve
As she stared through the window of the train, trying to avoid eye contact with the two men she could see searching for her in the crowds, Raya realized that something had changed.
Another man had approached one of the watchers, and was now speaking to him urgently, grasping a couple of sheets of paper in his hand. Raya possessed no lip-reading skills, but felt sure that the new arrival uttered the name ‘Kosov’ at least twice. That didn’t bother her so much, as she already knew these men were searching for her, but what was on those sheets of paper was a matter of increased concern. They had to contain some kind of new information, some extra details they could use to try to track her down.
Then the second man turned round, and Raya caught a brief glimpse of the pages he was holding. Both were clearly photographs, but not merely copies taken from the personnel files at Yasenevo. One looked more like a surveillance shot of a group of people, and the other showed a dark oblong shape, that was apparently a magnified section of a larger image.
But that didn’t make sense. Why would they need a photograph showing her among other people, instead of just a full-face image that would be much more detailed?
And then it dawned on her. They already had obvious pictures of her, but somebody must have guessed she might attempt to change her appearance after arriving in Rome. She’d attended to her hair and eyes, and her jacket was now a different colour, but there’d been nothing she could do about her bag. She had thought about ditching it and buying another one on arrival in Italy, but had decided not to bother. That decision now looked as if it might have been a dangerously false economy.
The images the man held had almost certainly been taken by one of the surveillance cameras back at Sheremetievo. One would show how she was dressed before she boarded the aircraft for Rome, and the other showed a close-up of the bag she’d then been carrying.
Even as that unpleasant thought surfaced, Raya saw one of the men point at the train she was sitting in, and for the briefest of instants their eyes met. She glanced away immediately, then quickly she looked back.
But it was too late. Already two of the men were moving, heading swiftly towards the carriage doors.
Raya stood up and grabbed the back of her seat. She knew she’d never be able to tackle the two of them, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. And, if she made enough fuss, perhaps some of the other passengers would come to her aid.
At that moment the train lurched and, a second or two later, it began to move, gathering speed quickly. Her last sight of her pursuers was of the furious expressions on their faces as they ran along the platform, impotently trying to climb on board.
Raya sat down again quickly and smiled for the first time since she’d left Moscow that morning.
Thirty minutes after the Peugeot hatchback had driven away from the hotel, and ten minutes after a silver Renault Megane with two men inside it had left the car park and headed towards the centre of town, Adamson tensed suddenly in his seat. Then he depressed the transmit button on his two-way radio.
‘This is Whisky. Target Richter has just come out of the front door of the hotel. It looks like he intends walking into the town, or maybe he’s just going off to get his hire car. I’ll follow him. Are you OK there?’
‘Affirmative,’ Dekker replied. ‘I’ll stay here covering the building. Keep in touch.’
‘Roger that.’
Richter crossed the road, climbed into the Ford Focus, did a U-turn and drove north, through the adjacent town of Savignac-les-Ormeaux. He checked his mirror as he cleared the northern edge of the town, saw only a Renault Laguna following some distance behind him, spotted a piece of waste ground, pulled off the road and parked. He stayed inside the car, fetched the mobile from his pocket and dialled Simpson’s phone number.
‘It’s Richter. I finished a few minutes ago,’ he said, ‘and that wasn’t the most entertaining afternoon I’ve ever spent. Ninety minutes talking Russian and thinking up convincing lies to tell the Chuckle Brothers.’
‘Do you think they bought it?’
‘I don’t know. My Russian’s a little rusty, though I don’t know if Hughes noticed it. The biggest problem was remembering what I’d already told them whenever we went over the same ground again. They were both taking notes, but obviously I couldn’t do the same, so I was relying only on my memory.’
‘OK. Did you arrange a second meeting?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow morning at ten — but, before you dream up some cunning plan for it, I’ve not the slightest intention of being there. Wallis and Hughes are both pretty sharp, and I can’t keep this up any longer.’
‘No, you will be there, but there’s no need to worry. I’ve just briefed the two SIS men that this is just a training exercise. In fact, Hughes did suss you out, but it wasn’t your Russian that let you down.’
‘What was it?’
‘A combination of things, but mainly the fact that you didn’t look hunted enough. Hughes reckoned you were just too calm and comfortable, so he guessed you were probably a plant sent over by the SVR.’ Simpson finished, ‘And that’s good.’
‘So now what?’ Richter demanded.
‘Go back to the hotel, have a coffee, take a bath, get drunk, read a book. Do whatever you want, I don’t care. But make sure you stay in the building this evening, and I’ll call you tomorrow morning.’
‘Right.’ Richter glanced up and down the road. ‘How many people have you got in the surveillance team?’ he asked.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This guy in the Renault Laguna, on Paris plates, he was parked on the other side of the N20 when I came out of the hotel. Then he followed me up this road, and I’ve just seen him stop about a hundred yards behind me. If he isn’t one of your men, you’d better tell me right now.’