Mazen nodded again. ‘That’s true, but here we’ve always had much closer ties with Britain than with the United States, and I was worried about how the Americans would react. They so often seem to have a somewhat arrogant and macho attitude to senstive situations. I don’t include you, of course, Carole: I regard you as an honorary Englishwoman.’ Jackson inclined her head but didn’t respond. ‘I guessed the Americans would probably want to surround the entire hospital with tanks and troops, and maybe even send in a SWAT team. On balance, I thought the British would react in a more discreet manner.’
‘Yes, we’re big on discreet,’ Richter agreed, ‘and the reality is that, after the latest defence cuts, we probably don’t have enough tanks and troops left to surround anything quite as big as a hospital.’
‘Yes,’ Mazen smiled. ‘There’s that, too.’
Once they’d been served their meals, Richter again asked the question he’d posed earlier. ‘As we have to confirm this man’s identity, how do I get to see him if his ward is securely guarded?’
‘Perhaps “guarded” is the wrong word,’ Mazen suggested. ‘Entry to his ward is controlled, certainly, but my informant tells me that medical personnel are able to enter and leave quite freely. I believe that the measures are mainly intended to protect this man’s privacy.’
‘That’s another reason why your informant’s probably mistaken.’
‘Exactly.’ Mazen shrugged. ‘We can probably get you inside fairly easily, just by giving you a white coat and a stethoscope.’ As a plan, Richter thought, that left something to be desired. ‘What might prove more difficult is actually taking a photograph of the target. Will London insist on a picture, or would your eyewitness testimony be enough?’
All three of them looked at Richter. ‘We’ll definitely need a picture,’ he decided.
‘And you can’t just wander on to the ward waving an Instamatic, in case it really is our Saudi friend,’ Jackson suggested.
‘Absolutely right. Do you have a technical intelligence section here? Or just a Minox or something I could use?’
‘I think we can get you a buttonhole camera with a remote shutter release, something like that,’ Evans said.
‘That should work.’ Richter turned back to Mazen. ‘As well as the white coat I’ll need to be carrying some kind of identification. I won’t be able to march straight in — I presume the bodyguards will be checking names at the very least.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem. My informant has already obtained the identification card of a doctor who won’t be back at the hospital for a week. He’s currently at a medical conference in Kuwait.’
‘Your hospital cleaner knows that for a fact?’ Rich-ter’s voice was openly sceptical.
Mazen smiled patiently. ‘No, Paul. He’s a simple man who just obtained what I asked him to find. I have a separate contact on the hospital’s administration staff who made the travel arrangements for the doctor. Unfortunately he doesn’t have access to medical records or admissions information, otherwise all this might not be necessary.’
‘Right,’ Richter said, ‘that sounds like it should work. Let’s meet here again for breakfast tomorrow morning, to finalize details for the entry.’
Vaslav Litvinoff had endured a somewhat fraught evening because he was now effectively out of the loop. He’d abdicated his responsibility to the staff at the FSB headquarters in Moscow, and they in turn were relying on the Air Army of North Caucasus to stop the Cessna.
He called Moscow three times, but on each occasion he was told there was no news. Finally, he went out to eat a solitary meal in a restaurant close to the FSB office, his mobile phone on the table beside him, while he anxiously waited for the call that would signal the conclusion of the incident. But when FSB headquarters finally contacted him, the news wasn’t what he’d expected.
‘We’ve let it go.’
‘You’ve done what?’ Litvinoff could hardly believe what he was hearing.
‘We had no option. The Cessna had almost reached the Turkish border before the fighter got to it, and by then the Turks had launched two interceptors of their own. The air-defence staff decided it was safest to order the pilot not to engage the Cessna. If he had done, the Turks would probably have shot him down.’
‘But the nuclear weapon. That—’
‘That,’ the FSB officer interrupted firmly, ‘is no longer our problem. Whatever those Americans are planning, we’re reasonably certain it won’t involve any of our own territories. We’ll advise the SVR and the GRU, so they can take appropriate steps, but our initial analysis suggests that these Americans may have been working for the CIA, so they may have stolen the weapon simply to study its design and construction.’
‘I am not feeling so confident,’ Litvinoff growled.
‘Your views are noted. I must also inform you that an internal inquiry has been ordered. The loss of this weapon is a very serious matter and the investigation will be reviewed at the highest level. You are instructed to travel to Moscow forthwith, under escort.’
Litvinoff ended the call without another word, and for a few moments sat with his head in his hands. The delay in the FSB headquarters calling him suddenly made perfect sense. He crumpled his napkin and threw it on the table, stood up and turned towards the door of the restaurant, where two men in heavy overcoats already stood waiting for him.
‘Romeo Charlie Three Six is clear to land runway two three right. Wind light and variable. Altimeter one zero one seven. After landing, call Ground on one two zero decimal one.’
The pilot acknowledged, then glanced over at Wilson, sitting in the right-hand seat. ‘Your colleague?’
Wilson turned and called out. ‘Strap yourself in back there. We’re long final.’
‘OK.’ Dawson reached down to tighten the straps that he’d already positioned in readiness over his legs, then attached another over his chest.
After landing, the Cessna taxied across to a hard-standing where a white Mercedes was parked, the rear section grossly enlarged to permit people to stand up in it, and with red crosses painted prominently on the side.
Vassily applied the parking brake and switched off the engines. Then he turned to look nervously at Wilson. The American grinned at him. ‘Don’t worry, my friend, we’ve no quarrel with you. Keep your mouth shut, and we’ll never meet again. But breathe a word of this to anyone at all and be assured one of us will come back to Russia and find you, and you really don’t want that to happen.’
Studying the expression on the American’s face, Vassily believed him — absolutely.
‘OK, our ride’s moving this way, so let’s get the patient ready.’
Just under two hours later the Mercedes ambulance arrived at Ain Shams Hospital where Dawson, still apparently semi-conscious, was admitted for overnight observation. Wilson booked himself a room in a nearby hotel, and went to bed almost immediately. He would have a lot to do the next day, and a very early start, and now he needed his sleep.
The Potomac Consolidated TRACON was created to rationalize the Air Traffic Control procedures that had previously applied in the twenty-three thousand square miles surrounding Washington D.C. This is one of the busiest aviation sectors in the world with around two million movements annually, and is arguably the most sensitive piece of airspace in America because of the buildings that stand on the ground beneath it.
Before the Potomac facility opened, five separate TRACONs had controlled traffic within the area. The controllers were based in different locations, using separate radar systems and communications which had necessitated continuous coordination between the various units. The Potomac facility had resolved the problems by consolidating the airspace into a single entity, controlled from the new building at Vint Hill in Virginia.