He relayed the details into the silence at the other end.
When he’d finished, after the briefest of pauses, the voice came quietly, ‘You’ve taken further action?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course.’ Further action meant putting immediate surveillance in place. Every airport in Britain had FSB personnel on constant, round-the-clock standby. The greatest numbers were at Heathrow and Gatwick, the two biggest sites. But the Director had four of his staff at London City.
On his monitor, the update had already arrived. Target identified entering vehicle. Licence plate captured.
The Director thought to himself: Excellent work. The noting of a car licence plate opened up all sorts of possibilities. The FSB had access to Britain’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency databases.
He said, ‘Your instructions, sir.’
Usually, the request for further orders tended to trigger annoyance. The President expected his most senior intelligence officer to come up with ideas, not pleas for guidance.
But this was different.
The voice on the other end of the line said, as quietly as before, ‘The closest surveillance. But he is not to be lost. You understand? If there’s the remotest chance that he is about to evade us, we close in. And apprehend.’
‘Understood, sir.’
The Director waited. You never hung up first in a circumstance like this.
‘Karl Borisovich.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The President seldom used the Director’s patronymic.
‘Make this work.’
It was said gently. But it wasn’t a request.
‘Sir.’
The click was followed by a hum.
Krupyev allowed himself a second interval of inactivity.
He relished the excitement. The adrenaline crest of the incipient chase.
And, he acknowledged, there was the thrill of fear in his blood, too.
He picked up the phone once more.
Ten
Rossiter had always been intrigued by Friesland.
Of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands, it was the one with the most distinctive character. Its people were legendarily tall. It had its own language, West Frisian, which was closer to English than almost any other in the world.
And — the feature that suited Rossiter’s purposes most immediately — it included a chain of fourteen islands in the North Sea, none of which featured to any significant degree on any Western intelligence radar.
The Eurocopter had landed into a moderate headwind an hour earlier. Lars Dokkuma met Rossiter on the runway, his shoulders stooped against the currents thrown up by the beating of the rotor blades. At four in the morning, the wind scouring the fields from the sea was raw and punishing, and Rossiter felt the sharp bite of the cold against his neck once again as he stepped out of the cabin.
Dokkuma reinforced the Frisian stereotype. At six feet six, and lanky with it, he towered over Rossiter despite his hunch. His thin lips and nose were thrown into prominence between the bulky layers of his wool hat and scarf.
‘Lars,’ Rossiter said, raising his voice over the helicopter’s clatter while managing not to shout.
‘Jacobin.’ The Frisian shook hands. Once, back in Tallinn, two and a half years ago, Rossiter had been labelled the Jacobin by somebody who’d been hunting him. It amused him to keep the moniker, and that was the only name he’d given Dokkuma.
Beyond Dokkuma, a large, ugly lorry squatted like a prehistoric creature. Rossiter raised his hand without looking behind him. He heard his men climbing off the chopper.
Rossiter didn’t make small talk, as a rule, but even he was struck by the taciturnity of the tall man as they made their way towards the truck. He appreciated it. There were no queries about how things had gone so far, whether there’d been any setbacks, or anything of that kind. The helicopter had arrived at the appointed time, and that meant the plan was following its course.
Dokkuma’s car was parked a short distance away from the lorry. He took the wheel himself rather than using a driver. In the wing mirror, Rossiter saw the truck lumbering after them. Four of his men had climbed on board, the suitcase they’d picked up in Åland handcuffed to the wrists of two of them.
Rossiter didn’t think Dokkuma would pull a trick, but it never hurt to be cautious.
Dokkuma didn’t say anything until they’d travelled perhaps a mile. The island was shrouded in blackness, with no streetlights to be seen, and no sign of human habitation either. The building loomed ahead of them with a startling suddenness. It was flat and broad, and resembled nothing so much as a wartime artillery shelter.
‘The Lab,’ Dokkuma said. He pronounced the th as d. There was something slightly humorous, Britishly ironic, in the way he seemed to capitalise the word lab. Altogether rather Dutch, Rossiter thought.
Rossiter and Dokkuma stood aside while the men brought the suitcase off the truck and headed into the building. The Frisian gestured for Rossiter to precede him and he went in.
It was, indeed, a laboratory, despite its forbidding, functional outside appearance. The interior was given over to a floorspace covered with benches, work surfaces and electronic equipment. Harsh overhead panel lights provided blue-white illumination.
‘A coffee,’ said Dokkuma.
Rossiter accepted. He watched as his men uncuffed themselves from the case and four of Dokkuma’s people, mild-looking men and women who didn’t wear white coats as might be expected, took possession of it.
‘Half an hour,’ said Dokkuma.
He and Rossiter sat on stools along one side of the laboratory, sipping their coffee in a silence that was almost companionable. Rossiter watched the technicians working on the suitcase while his men stood to either side.
After ten minutes, a mobile phone rang.
Dokkuma raised it to his ear. Listened. Put it away.
Rossiter watched his profile.
A small smile played about the Frisian’s mouth.
Rossiter said, ‘Care to tell me?’
Dokkuma glanced at him, still smiling. He poured more coffee into Rossiter’s mug.
He said, ‘My people have established that your helicopter carries no missiles. Nothing that might be used to blast this lab into dust the moment you leave here.’ He raised his own mug. ‘Let’s toast.’
Rossiter didn’t follow suit. He shook his head.
‘It’s a sensible security measure,’ he said, ‘and I’d probably have done the same. But really, Lars. A man of your skills is valuable to me. I might need your services in the future. You know the expression, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?’
Dokkuma raised his head, gazed over towards the laboratory personnel working on the contents of the suitcase. He was no longer smiling.
‘Your analogy is crap, Jacobin. I’m a one-off, for your purposes. If my staff establish what you wish them to establish, you’ll have no more use for me.’
Rossiter sighed. ‘Your cynicism is troubling. But I suppose it has survival value.’
The grin was back on the man’s face, though he said nothing.
It took twenty-three minutes, according to Rossiter’s wristwatch.
One of the lab techs stood upright, at last, and turned towards Rossiter and Dokkuma at the far end of the room.
He raised his gloved hand. Made a circle with his thumb and forefinger in the gesture universally recognised as the sign that everything was as it should be. Except, Rossiter had heard, in Brazil, where it meant arsehole.
Rossiter put down his empty mug. Extended a hand to Dokkuma.
‘Thank you,’ he said.