‘Pretty much, yes.’ Richter nodded. ‘All Simpson’s interested in is getting Yuri off the streets and safely over to the UK. He’s prepared to lay on an RAF jet or just about anything else that I ask for, just to make sure that happens.’
‘He must want Yuri very badly, so really this whole thing should be pretty simple. Yuri isn’t going to show at all unless he’s managed to avoid the Russian wet brigade. On the other hand, nobody can be following you or me, because nobody knows who the hell we are. So once Yuri’s happy that you’re not a spook, and that you’re on your own — I’ll be out of sight, of course — he should just identify himself to you, and then we’re out of there.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Richter agreed.
Five minutes later, his phone emitted a muted double-tone, then repeated it.
‘Yuri?’ Dekker asked.
‘Probably.’ Richter took the phone from his jacket pocket and peered at the screen. ‘No, actually, it’s Simpson.’ He scanned the few lines of text. ‘He wants to know where we are, and what’s happening.’
‘You can let him wait. You’ve got nothing to tell him anyway.’
Richter put the phone on the table, but almost immediately its message tone sounded again.
This time, it was indeed Yuri. Richter read the message, then slid the phone across the table to Dekker. The text was fairly short and very much to the point.
Nervi. 1823. Cafe Belvedere. Piazza Centrale. Outside. Red umbrella.1839. Fallback +60. C: Is there a good hotel in this town? R: You could try the Consul. I’m staying there.
‘This guy sounds good,’ Dekker remarked. ‘Professional, too. He’s telling you all the right things, and he’s not making silly mistakes like arranging a meet on the hour or the half hour. You probably know what he means anyway, but let me just talk you through it. The rendezvous will be in a town or village called Nervi, which I guess is somewhere near Genoa. The meet will take place at the Café Belvedere, and you’re to sit down at a table outside at exactly twenty-three minutes past six. If for any reason you don’t make the RV by the first time suggested, the fallback time will be exactly one hour later. The exact timing is so that Yuri will be able to recognize you. Your confirming ident feature will be that you’ll be carrying a red umbrella. There are some in the motorists’ shop over there: I noticed them on the way in. At twenty-one minutes to seven, Yuri will sit down at your table, or maybe at the one next to it. That will obviously depend on how busy the cafe is. He may well say a few words to you: “Is this seat taken?” or something like that, but the challenge phrase will be “Is there a good hotel in this town?” so that’s what you have to listen for. And once he says that, you reply “You could try the Consul. I’m staying there”. That completes the challenge and response. If all that works, you get up, put Yuri in your car, and drive away.
‘Now this bit’s important, so listen carefully. As long as you’re satisfied that Yuri’s the real deal, and that it’s all clear and nobody’s watching you, take the umbrella with you when you stand up. If not, just leave it on the table, and I’ll take out anyone I see following you. I won’t try to follow you myself, because it might spook him if he spots my car, but I’ll be on the end of my mobile if you need help. It’s probably best, though, if you don’t call me or Simpson until Yuri’s sitting in a Hercules or something en route to Northolt — just in case he thinks you’re trying to set up an ambush somewhere. Are you clear on all that?’
‘Pretty much.’ Richter nodded, and glanced at his watch. ‘Now we need to get moving, find out where the hell this place Nervi is. And I’ve got a red umbrella to buy.’
‘I’ll head off.’ Dekker stood up and thrust out his hand. ‘It’ll take me a while to scope out the place, check the angles, and set up my perch. Good luck, Paul.’
Five minutes later, Richter tossed a red compact umbrella onto the passenger seat of his hired Ford, and pulled out the road atlas. He opened it at the page that showed Genoa, and quickly scanned the area around the city. He spotted Nervi almost immediately, a small town or maybe just a village situated on the coast just to the south-east of Genoa itself. He’d have to get through Genoa first, and he’d probably be reaching the city at about the time of the evening rush hour, but he guessed it would still only take him just over an hour to get to the destination Yuri had specified. And there was always a fallback rendezvous time, if he didn’t manage it quickly enough.
‘There’ve been no other sightings of this woman?’ John Westwood asked.
Clayton Richards shook his head. ‘None that we’re aware of. The last time anyone saw her for sure is when someone, presumably Kosov, boosted that scooter from the Italian girl.’
‘So what are the Russians doing?’
‘They still have teams covering the airports and railway stations, but with a much reduced presence now. I think they know she’s slipped through the net, and they’re just covering their asses in case she surfaces again in Rome. But I’m pretty sure she’s long gone. She probably took a coach out of Rome that first day, before the Russkies could deploy the extra manpower Moscow sent over here.’
‘Have your watchers been able to identify any of the new faces?’
‘A couple,’ Richards said. ‘The two we made positively were middle seniority SVR officers, and one of them is believed to be a part of Spetsgruppa Zaslon, though we have no way of confirming that without access to the personnel files at Yasenevo.’
‘And maybe not even then,’ Westwood remarked. ‘We’re not even sure that the officers seconded to Zaslon have that fact recorded anywhere, because it’s a real covert operation, even within the SVR. But your analysis is that they’re kill teams?’
Richards nodded. ‘If they can’t find her and take her alive, they’ll just kill her, yes. There’s not much doubt about that. Our watchers suggest that almost a hundred men have now been sent out from Moscow, and they sure haven’t come here for the coffee or the ice cream.’
‘Agreed.’
Westwood got up and walked over to the large map of Italy that dominated one wall of Richards’s office. For a few moments he just stared at it, his fingers tracing the northern borders of the country.
‘She won’t try to get out at any seaport or airport,’ he mused. ‘That’d be real stupid, especially after the Brits passed on our warning.’
‘You told them what we found out?’ Richards sounded surprised.
‘Yes. They probably still don’t know her name, because I didn’t tell them, but I passed on what we discovered about the Russians’ search tactics.’
‘And they’ve told Kosov? How?’
‘I don’t know but, if we’ve guessed this right, they have to be in contact with her somehow. A mobile, maybe, or emails — something like that. The point is, I told them what we knew, and if there’s anybody competent at SIS — and there will be — they’ll have got the information to her somehow. So the real question is: how’s she going to get out of Italy? It’s got to be in a car or on a motorbike and I don’t think she’d risk public transport, so I guess she’s either stolen or hired something.’
Westwood turned back to the map and again studied the northern border. Then he tapped the area to the west of Ljubljana, the capital of Croatia.
‘I’m pretty sure she won’t run that way, and I also doubt if she’ll try crossing the Swiss border, because there she’d have to produce her passport, and the Russians will have notified the Swiss that she’s a wanted fugitive.’
‘So it must be France or Austria,’ said Richards, walking over to stand beside him and examine the map. ‘Those are the only two countries left, so which one do you reckon she’ll choose?’