‘Exactly. Now, a short time ago, evidence was found that confirmed there had been a penetration of the British security establishment, most likely in the SIS or possibly GCHQ, and I was tasked with coming up with a plan to unmask the source. FOE was trusted because we have no access to at least one of the computer databases known to have been compromised, so that proved that we had to be clean. If we couldn’t ourselves access the information, we obviously couldn’t have leaked it. The result, as you now know, was this deception operation you’ve got involved in. We needed you because the identities of a lot of the FOE staff are already known to SIS officers, for obvious reasons, so whoever got to impersonate the mythical defecting Russian clerk had to be a complete outsider, and not somebody the traitor could possibly recognize.
‘That worked out quite well, I think, but we now have the bizarre scenario of life imitating art. There’s a real Russian clerk on the run, and he has access to the SIS personnel files, so he, too, might be able to recognize any SIS officer we send to bring him in. And the reason he doesn’t trust us over this is that he knows the identity of the traitor who’s been leaking data to the SVR. If that traitor — obviously that was Stanway — happened to be assigned to the operation, Yuri — which is the name the clerk is using — knows that he’d never make it to first base. Stanway would simply contact Yasenevo, and a hit team would be waiting at the rendezvous to pick Yuri up.’
‘That sounds bloody far-fetched to me.’
Simpson looked over at Richter. ‘How’s your history?’ he asked.
‘Average to poor, I suppose. Why?’
‘Let me take you back to the years just after the end of the last war, and tell you a story about a man named Constantin Volkhov. He was a low-level Russian diplomat, stationed in Turkey, who wanted out of the Soviet Union and assembled a dowry he thought we’d be interested in. He talked to the British vice-consul in Istanbul, and requested asylum in the West. In return for this, he would give us information about a couple of deep-penetration Soviet agents working at the Foreign Office, and another who was a senior officer in MI5.
‘We now know, of course, that the MI5 officer was Kim Philby. What beggars belief is that, despite Volkhov’s claim that there was a traitor in MI5, it was MI5 that was given the file to investigate. That would have been bad enough, but the officer tasked with handling and interviewing Volkhov was Philby himself. It was agreed that he’d fly out to Istanbul and interrogate the Russian there. Philby took as long as he possibly could before heading out to Turkey, but of course he informed Moscow Centre immediately.
‘A KGB snatch squad was sent to Istanbul and had grabbed Volkhov before Philby even arrived there. The Russian was never seen alive again. And there’s a rumour, never confirmed, that, after Volkhov had been questioned in the cellars of the Lubyanka, his body was cremated. In stages. While he was still alive.’
Richter grimaced.
‘These are not nice people we’re dealing with here,’ Simpson said. ‘The KGB was vicious, brutal and very efficient, and nothing we’ve learnt so far about the SVR suggests that it’s any different.’
‘So you need me,’ Richter said, ‘because this Russian clerk — this real Russian clerk — who’s on the run from Moscow will only deal with somebody not included on that list of SIS personnel?’
‘Exactly,’ Simpson agreed. ‘I’ve no doubt that Yuri will be thoroughly checking out the rendezvous before he shows himself, making absolutely sure he doesn’t recognize you from the SIS personnel files. We daren’t risk trying to use any of the SIS staff because if Yuri even suspects we’re doing that, he’ll run straight to the Americans.’
‘And that would be a bad thing?’ Richter suggested.
‘Of course it would be a bad thing. It’d be fucking disastrous. If Yuri checks out — and the mere fact he can supply that personnel listing means he’s had pretty much unrestricted access to the SVR’s computer system — this could be the biggest intelligence coup of the decade. The last thing we want is to have the Yanks blundering in and buggering everything up, or Yuri handing them everything he knows about SIS.’
‘No last name, then? He’s just calling himself “Yuri”?’
Simpson nodded. ‘It’s obviously not his real name, but that doesn’t matter. It’s what he knows that we’re interested in, nothing else.’ He paused and stared at Richter for a few seconds. ‘Look, I know we’ve pulled you in off the streets, as it were, and you probably haven’t much enjoyed the last few days, but this is really important. You’re literally the only person I can use to bring this clerk in. I’m devious, yes — as I have to be, in my job — but right here, right now, I’m being completely honest with you. I’ll answer any questions you ask as fully as I can, and you’ll also have whatever resources you need to complete this tasking. Will you do it? Will you go and meet this clerk and bring him back to London?’
Richter took another sip of his cooling coffee. ‘Bring him in from the cold, you mean?’
‘Don’t go all le Carré on me, Richter. It’s the wrong style and it doesn’t suit you.’
Richter grinned at him. ‘You’re wrong about one thing, Simpson,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Oddly enough, I have enjoyed the last few days — driving round Europe, trying to figure out what the hell was really going on. I just wish you’d been straight with me from the start.’
‘I couldn’t, and I’ve explained why. So will you do it?’
‘Yes,’ Richter nodded, ‘or I’ll try to, anyway. Where am I supposed to meet him? In Italy?’
‘Probably, but we don’t know yet. The email only stated that Yuri wanted to be escorted to London by somebody with no connection with SIS. He even suggested we send out a policeman — as if we’d trust some bloody woodentop with something like this. You’re here, you don’t work for SIS and, apart from Adamson here and the two guys from Paris, nobody at SIS has any idea you even exist. Plus, you speak Russian.’
‘You told me the email was written in English?’
‘It was, but we don’t know for sure how fluent Yuri is in the language, so your linguistic ability might be a big help. Anyway, hopefully we’ll hear sometime today when and where this Russian wants to meet.’
As if on cue, Simpson’s phone rang.
Raya Kosov walked back to the hotel from the cyber cafe that Mario had driven past the previous evening. She strolled into the bar, ordered a Coke, and took it to a window seat overlooking the bay. That last email she’d sent would have set the wheels in motion, she was sure, and although she was certain the SVR snatch-teams couldn’t possibly have traced her to Piombino yet, she knew she had to get as far north as she could, because every kilometre she put between herself and Rome would increase her chances of survival.
As soon as Mario surfaced, they needed to get back on the road. And, she realized, with sudden clarity, that there was one way she could wake him and more or less keep her side of their bargain, because she doubted that she’d still be with him that night.
She put down the half-drunk Coke and headed for the stairs, with a slight smile on her lips.
Major Yuri Abramov stared at the monitor screen for a few seconds, then sat back and rubbed his eyes. He’d attempted unscrambling the text of the encrypted email using every decryption code that he and Raya had used together, but none of them had worked. Each attempt had simply changed one flavour of gobbledegook into a different type of gobbledegook.