My darling! We must be very careful! You are being folowed.
Take the lift alone to the fifth floor. Make sure you are alone in the lift. On the fifth go strait to the fire stairs. Down to the basement — the garage. Be sure no one follows! In bay 16 is a Black VW. The door is open, the keys inside. KEEP THE WINDOWS SHUT.
Drive out on the Exeter road. After 3 miles take the left to Stumpton. On the edge of the village is the Red Crown pub. Stop in the car park and wait for me. If I’m not there after twenty minutes, go inside and ask for the phonebox. I’ll ring you there.
I love you, rember.
G.
There was something endearing about Gunnar’s spelling mistakes.
The lift came; the doors closed behind her. From the lobby, the man who had driven the red Ford Escort watched the lift indicator stop at number five.
They’d told him to protect her, but not to compromise her rendezvous with the target. Stupid bloody instructions! He couldn’t do both.
He hurried to the payphone at the other end of the lobby and punched in a number. It answered instantly; he spoke for no more than five seconds and replaced the receiver.
Sara’s heels clattered on the stone stairs. On every other flight she stopped to listen, but hers were the only feet she could hear.
The basement garage stank of petrol. It was dimly lit. At first she couldn’t see the bay numbers, but recognized the car, a VW like her own but black.
The engine fired at the first turn of the key. She slipped it into first and drove up the ramp into daylight, realizing then that the windows were of dark-tinted glass. The Electricity Board van was parked opposite.
The watcher wasn’t sure. It could’ve been her. Sod those blackened side windows! Better report it, just in case.
Sara found the pub with ease. It was lunchtime and the car park was already half-full. She swung the VW round to face the road. There was little traffic; just a green Vauxhall cruising past and up the hill to her left.
She re-read both his notes. She could almost hear him speaking the words in the fake Scandinavian accent he’d cultivated. She ought to hate him, yet she didn’t. Evil? Dangerous? But he wanted her help to defect…
Doubts set in. Sara closed her eyes and prayed it wasn’t a trick.
Behind the Red Crown a wooded hill rose steeply. From the car park a path led diagonally up it through beech and oak trees. A wooden railing lined the path.
Concealed amongst the beeches stood a man, himself built like a tree, training binoculars on the black VW below. This was Viktor Kovalenko, known to most of those he’d met in recent months as ‘Gunnar’.
Kovalenko stood over six feet tall, his frame broad with muscle. His hair had been almost blond, but today it was dyed a dark chestnut. As a ‘Swede’ he’d let it grow long, but now it was neatly trimmed.
He worked for the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. His role was to establish an identity in Britain, to build an information network, and to identify targets to be assassinated if the Soviet Union went to war with the West.
Until a few weeks ago his mission had gone according to plan. He had lived with his ‘wife’ Elena in a London suburb; they’d blended well into the background. Now their cover had been broken, and he was to blame.
Elena had been picked to work with him by the First Chief Directorate, without thought to their personal compatibility. They’d experimented with a physical relationship, but it had only heightened their dislike for one another. The problem was a serious one for Viktor Kovalenko, a man with an inexhaustible sexual appetite.
He searched the road below for signs of watchers, but saw none; he’d give it another ten minutes to be sure.
He brought the binoculars to bear on the VW and cursed the black glass which prevented him from seeing Sara, the woman whose welcoming body and child-like hunger to be loved had given such a pleasurable edge to his duties. He and Elena had been activated in the summer. A naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy in London had learned the name of the commander of the trials boat for the new Moray mines. KGB headquarters in Moscow had then made the stunning discovery that a man with the same surname was a prisoner in a labour camp on the Kola. Checks at Somerset House confirmed they were father and son.
Keeping watch on Sara Hitchens’ activities for a couple of weeks had been enough for Viktor to know she was a natural target. It had been easy.
At their second date, she’d talked of her unhappy marriage and, mentioned the plan for a family holiday in Guernsey.
It was Elena who’d targeted Philip on the Channel Island clifftops. She’d handled it well, Viktor had to admit.
He knew he’d been careless. He’d made the unforgiveable mistake of letting a woman mean more to him than easy sex. A week ago, when Sara had told him Philip knew about their affair, and that she’d guessed he was a spy, it had shaken him. Years of training and preparation thrown away for allowing personal involvement to cloud his brain!
He’d told Elena by phone they’d have to leave the house before dawn, and driven fast back to London that night.
They’d moved to Bristol, a contingency plan ready prepared. The London house had been raided — they knew that — but how much of their scheme had been uncovered? Were their identities known? Had he been photographed? And above all, did the security services know what Hitchens had agreed to do for the KGB?
That was why he was here today; he had to find out even if it meant risking his neck.
She’d been waiting fifteen minutes. Time to say hello.
Sara glanced at the dashboard clock every minute while she sat there. Alone in the car, she felt conspicuous and vulnerable.
The sharp tap on the window made her jump in her seat. She didn’t recognize him at first with his short, dark hair, but then came the familiar smile. Trembling, she unlocked the passenger door.
‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come,’ he breathed, slipping into the seat beside her, and tossing his small rucksack into the back.
‘I… I don’t know why I did…,’ she stuttered. ‘You look so different with that hair.’
‘The change is superficial, my darling,’ he grinned, putting his arm round her. ‘Underneath I’m the same!’
‘Don’t touch me!’
He pulled a face like a scolded child.
‘Nothing’s changed since last week,’ she warned him.
‘Except that you said you’d never see me again, and you’re here now.’ There was a twinkle of triumph in his eyes. ‘But we can’t talk here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Someone might come. Were you followed?’
‘Not that I noticed. But then, I’m not trained to spot these things,’ she goaded.
‘One mile up the road. There’s a parking place at the top of a hill. It’ll be more private. Drive there please, my darling.’
She noticed his accent had changed. He’d dropped the Swedish lilt.
‘All right.’
At the edge of the road she paused to allow a red Escort into the car park, then she sped off up the hill. Kovalenko kept his eye on the wing mirror, but there was no one following. The lay-by was signposted, and she pulled in behind a clump of bushes. The car park boasted public toilets.
‘This isn’t very nice,’ Sara complained.
He was silent and didn’t look at her.
‘I want to know your real name,’ she demanded.
‘Don’t you know it already? Haven’t they told you?’
She realized he meant the security men.
‘I don’t think they know it.’
He smiled inwardly. She’d told him some good news.
‘You can call me Viktor.’
It was okay to tell her now.