‘Simpson,’ Richter greeted him. ‘And it’s nice to see you, too.’
‘You can cut the crap, Richter. Your bloody phone’s been switched off ever since you last called me, when you told me a pack of lies about what you were doing and where you were going. As a result I’m seriously thinking about throwing you and Dekker straight back to the Italian authorities. And when they’ve finished with both of you, there are some highly placed officials in France who’d like a bit of a chat as well.’
There was a silence that seemed to last for minutes, while Richter tried to decide if it was worth shooting Simpson there and then, or if he should just settle for beating the crap out of him.
Then a cultured American voice broke in. ‘Hi, I’m John Westwood. You must be Richard Simpson.’ Westwood stepped forward, his hand extended.
Almost reluctantly, Simpson shook it. ‘How did you recognize me?’ he asked.
‘Word gets around,’ Westwood said somewhat enigmatically. Then he turned to face Richter. ‘It doesn’t look to me as if your talents are fully appreciated here, my friend. If ever you feel like a change of scene, you know where to find me. The Company can always use people like you.’
Richter nodded, then shifted his glance back to Simpson. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but for the moment I’ll stick with the devil I know — and right now that isn’t just a figure of speech. Let me ask you a question, Simpson. Have you any idea at all why my phone’s been switched off while we tried to get out of Italy without having our heads blown off?’
Simpson shook his head. ‘No, I just assumed you were disobeying every instruction I gave you, as usual.’
‘My phone was switched off because somebody was using it to track us.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Bollocks!’
Richter explained what had happened in Nervi, after following Raya’s instructions about the rendezvous.
‘This, by the way, is Raya Kosov,’ he finished, ‘who’s probably just as sick of hearing your whinging as I am. The point is that she wasn’t followed to Nervi.’
‘When you called me, you told me she had been followed,’ Simpson pointed out.
‘I told you a porkie, just to see what happened. And, right then, I wasn’t absolutely sure but now I’m quite certain that she wasn’t being followed. Apart from anything else, if the bad guys had been behind her, why didn’t they snatch her before she even got to the town? After all, she was the target, not me.’
Simpson didn’t respond.
‘The only other person who knew the location of the rendezvous,’ Richter continued, ‘was Colin Dekker, and we discussed that face to face, not over a telephone link. So the only way the bad guys could have known where we were was to track my phone.’
‘They could have been tracking Kosov’s mobile, or even Dekker’s.’
‘No, because Raya kept her unit switched off almost all the time, precisely so she couldn’t be tracked. And the bad guys were already waiting in the square at Nervi, but Colin wasn’t there. He was on a rooftop nearby, with his phone switched off and watching what was going on through the telescopic sight of his rifle. Just as well he was, otherwise I’d probably be lying on a slab in some Italian morgue, and I really don’t like to even think about what might have happened to Raya.’
‘That’s not the point, Richter. You could still have used a public phone, just to let me know what was happening. I don’t like being kept in the dark. And then there’s the matter of the private jet I sent out to Innsbruck to pick you up. The one which is still waiting there for you, as a matter of fact. You’ll be paying off the cost of that abortive mission for the rest of your life.’
‘I don’t think we’d have got anywhere near that airport,’ Richter argued, ‘because I think your organization leaks like a sieve.’
Simpson’s eyes blazed. ‘You’ll retract that remark or bloody well justify it, Richter, and right now.’
‘That’s easy enough. When I called you, after we’d got out of Nervi, I told you which town we were heading for, and even gave you the name of the hotel we were going to stay at. Exactly four people were privy to that information, Simpson — you, me, Raya and Colin.’
‘So?’
‘So we went somewhere else, but Colin found a perch where he could cover the hotel. Late that evening, a bunch of professional thugs arrived and checked everyone in the building. I hadn’t told anyone else we’d be there, and nor did Raya or Colin. So that means you must have done or somebody you talked to did, because we were set up.’
Simpson went white. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure those people were looking for you?’
‘As near certain as makes no difference,’ Dekker intervened. ‘They definitely weren’t Italian security people, because they made sure they got the hell away from the hotel well before the carabinieri arrived. And they even beat up a couple of the residents who objected to being dragged out into the street.’
‘Right,’ Simpson said, ‘that puts a different complexion on things. Assuming, of course, what you say is correct, Richter — and I will be running a check to make sure you’re not just trying to cover your back. But you’re still wrong about one thing. If there was a leak, it didn’t come from my section, because I’ve not discussed this operation with anyone there. Somebody else is involved in this, and you can be certain I’m going to find out who.’
‘Raya here might be able to help with that,’ Richter suggested. ‘She knows that the SVR had at least two SIS officers in its stable. Gerald Stanway was presumably one of them, but her information might help identify the other.’
Simpson shook his head. ‘That probably won’t be necessary. ‘I know exactly who I told about your route through Italy. It must either be him, or somebody he discussed it with at SIS. You can leave that to me.’
Simpson turned to the other two. ‘Welcome to Britain, Miss Kosov,’ he said shortly. ‘And thank you, Dekker, for your support in this operation.’
‘How did you know we’d be on that aircraft?’ Richter asked.
‘I know almost everything, Richter, almost all of the time. In this case, it wasn’t particularly difficult to deduce. First, you shot up a couple of Italian police cars then stole an aircraft from some poor sod of a farmer. Next you nearly crashed it in the middle of the Alps, by pulling off some hare-brained manoeuvre. To cap that, you sent a transmission on a distress frequency, in which you used a false call sign and accused an Italian air force pilot of attacking you. And all that, of course, was a mere bagatelle compared to what you achieved in France. Do you have any idea how much those helicopters cost?’
‘Oddly enough, I do,’ Richter said, ‘because I used to fly the things. When you were busy talking to your chums on the east side of the Channel, did they mention that their helicopter crew opened fire on us with a heavy machine gun, before Dekker here gave them something else to think about?’
‘According to my contacts,’ Simpson said, ‘they just fired some warning shots to attract your attention.’
‘They certainly did that, but it all still comes down to the basic rule of engagement. If you fire at me, you shouldn’t be too surprised if I decide to shoot back.’
‘Yeah, well the French don’t see it that way. They’d like reparation for the loss of their very expensive helicopter, not to mention some clean trousers for the flight crew. Then there was the sudden appearance at a nearby French airfield of a North American-registered executive jet owned by a certain organization based at Langley in Virginia. The same jet then took off, in defiance of air traffic control instructions and the orders of the French police, and which was escorted all the way across France by two American fighters. Put all that stuff together and a conclusion wasn’t particularly difficult to reach.’