“Let’s hope it stays that way,” responded Jonathan Miller to the same assurance from Straughan, four minutes later. “I’ve checked the traffic conditions. They’re light, no roadworks or diversions to factor in.”
“Don’t forget, limited cell-phone chatter on the next call unless they don’t show.”
“I will have spoken to Elana by then: gotten a steer.”
“Fingers crossed it’s the right one.”
“Do something for us, will you? Have a car at Northolt, to get us into London?”
“Already fixed. Enjoy your one night home.”
“We plan to.”
Predictably, the first cafe in which Charlie Muffin found a working television was showing a soccer game on a sports channel, but in the second there was a radio tuned to a Moscow news channel that Charlie judged more likely to broadcast a breaking media event. He drank his way through three cups of close-to-undrinkable coffee and forced himself to eat a second serving of black bread and sour cheese, listening to repeated accounts of government success opposing NATO’s eastern expansion, its negotiating substantial price increases for natural gas exports to the European Union, and vetoing an American-sponsored resolution condemning state atrocities in the Congo.
Jacobson dumped his rental car for automatic collection, avoiding a parking delay, and entered the departure hall just five minutes after Maxim Radtsic. Jacobson noted his London-destination gate as he hurried across the concourse, already booked in online and with only a carry-on bag, unworried at not relocating the Russian, knowing the other anonymous escorts would have been ready for Radtsic’s arrival. Jacobson saw the hat before the man, glad the raincoat collar was finally down, but still tensed as Radtsic approached the first passport scrutiny. Radtsic turned as he offered the MI6-created documentation. Able to see the man properly in good light, Jacobson acknowledged the practicality of the man’s dress. It didn’t qualify as a disguise but the hat and its sloped brim completely concealed the graying hair and much of Radtsic’s upper face, substantially reducing the Stalin similarity, most important from the wall-mounted CCTV. There appeared no conversation and little comparison between Radtsic and the passport photograph. It was no more stringent at the second, dedicated ticket-and-passport examination. Jacobson went through just as smoothly and they were less than five meters apart going into the duty-free area. Radtsic hesitated at the liquor counter, turning to establish Jacobson’s presence without showing any recognition, then continuing on toward the London-designated gate. Jacobson maneuvered himself to have just one intervening passenger at the final ticket-and-passport confirmation but distanced himself once they went through, again unchallenged, into the final embarkation lobby. He waited for Radtsic to enter the aircraft-connected jetway before dialing the MI6 rezidentura. He told Halliday: “Janus is go,” disconnected without acknowledgment, and hurried after the Russian.
“Radtsic’s on the plane,” Straughan announced into the Director’s voice link as he dialed the security-cleared Northolt airfield number. In response to the extraction code he was told the executive jet would be cleared for takeoff in thirty minutes with an estimated Orly arrival one hour, thirty minutes after that. Straughan ignored two intervention attempts from Monsford, instead dialing Miller’s cell phone. To the Paris station chief he said: “Janus is go.”
Miller said: “Everyone’s safely with me here. We’re moving.”
“Transport ETA is two hours.”
“Speak to you before boarding.”
“I’m trying to talk to you,” complained Monsford, as Straughan finished. “I don’t think you’ve allowed sufficient time to get from Paris to Orly.”
“It was to activate Paris that I ignored you,” said Straughan. “Both Elana and Andrei turned up. They’re on their way.”
“What about their timing?”
“We’ve done trial runs. We’re well within our margins and there are escort cars to warn of difficulties.”
There was momentary silence from the floor above, before Monsford said: “I’ve decided to personally greet Radtsic at Heathrow.”
“There is no waiting time built into the Heathrow schedule,” objected Straughan. “Radtsic will be taken directly off the plane to the car taking him to Hertfordshire. His being escorted off the plane will attract attention from other passengers, the large proportion of whom will be Russian. I strongly advise against any delay, even of only minutes, at Heathrow: there’s a permanent media contingent there. Your personal greeting will be better at the safe house. And more fitting, executive to executive, than in the back of a car. Camera light can penetrate smoked glass.”
“I undertook to meet him personally,” argued Monsford.
“Without stipulating that it would be at the airport.”
“I’ve got time to work it out.”
Which was what Charlie was trying to do in his frustrating isolation, with nothing more than instinct and guesswork from which to operate, having already acknowledged he’d made far too many mistakes relying on both. Had it been another of those mistakes to accept Halliday’s story of being sidelined until the last minute? What if Halliday had instead been one of the deputed search-and-find groups at the Rossiya unable to risk losing him to summon backup to the panorama bar? Halliday had certainly tried to follow him afterward and constantly complained since at not knowing his whereabouts. But if he was part of a London search, would Halliday have disclosed the Janus operational code for the separate extraction? Yes, Charlie answered himself, if it lured him out of hiding. Again too much guesswork. There was an obvious way to test Halliday. From his independent airport inquiry, Charlie knew the first direct British Airways flight from Moscow to London had left at 9:30 that morning. Now it was 10:20.
Halliday responded on the initial ring.
“How’d it go?” asked Charlie.
“Like clockwork,” replied Halliday. “And you know what Straughan told me, after I gave him the signal and asked what he wanted me to do now? He said he didn’t want me to do anything-that it was all over-and put the phone down without so much as a fucking thank-you. It isn’t right!”
“No,” agreed Charlie, talking more to himself than the other man. “It isn’t right.”
“‘To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy,’” intoned Monsford from above in a voice Straughan genuinely thought the man had lowered to sound godlike. “I’m going up to Hertfordshire to meet Radtsic there.”
“I think that’s a better idea,” Straughan replied.
“Hertfordshire was always my intention. Keep in touch if there’s anything I need to hear before I get there. There can’t be anything immediate, can there?”
“No,” agreed Straughan. “We’re in the interim period now.”
The mezzanine-level communications control was the most secure of an already totally secure area within the MI6 building, its daily-changed entry combination restricted to the Director and his deputy, Straughan, and a rota of six duty officers. They did not receive the combination until arriving for their shift, which was why Straughan, in the middle of a conversation with Orly checking the aircraft arrival, was startled for the second time that day by peremptory knocking from outside. Rebecca’s visible annoyance through the observation window matched the irritation of her door hammering.
“Why didn’t I get today’s entry code?” she demanded, as she flounced past Straughan.
“I didn’t imagine it would be necessary today: you had permanent visual and audio access from upstairs,” said Straughan, warning the woman with a look to the studiously oblivious duty officer on the far side of the room. “Has he gone?”
“Ten minutes ago,” she said, also lowering her voice. “He thinks he’ll get there in time to greet Elana and Andrei, before Radtsic. And he was pissed off at your attitude, on the voice link.”