“And we believe the intel?”
Control shrugged. “Aleksandrov was a nobody. He gave us decent intelligence when he was operational, but that was years ago. Something changed that made him a target. Offering us a list of active agents would be enough to put him in the crosshairs.”
Control took another match and lit the pipe again.
“Where are Timoshev and Kuznetsov now?” Pope asked.
“On their way back to Russia. They were exfiltrated out of a private airfield after you lost them. They had a pilot fly them over the channel to France. ATC confirmed the vector—they took off from Popham and landed at Calais-Dunkerque at just after six. We’ve contacted the DSGE, but the odds of finding them now are slim. They will have picked up new legends as soon as they arrived. If it were me, I’d get them into the Netherlands and fly them out of Schiphol, but it could be anything. They’re gone. We can’t stop them getting home.”
Pope crossed his legs. “So what do we do now?”
“We go after them. BLUEBIRD thinks he might be able to help us find them again. The two of you are going to go to Moscow and set up there. As soon as we know where they are, you are going to take them out.” He got up again and walked to the window that overlooked the grey river. “They killed those two men to make a point. The Center is sending a message: they want any other dissident, inside or outside the motherland, to know that the SVR has a long memory and a long arm. And they were making a point to us, too. To the security services. To the country. It was an insult. They don’t care because they don’t see us as a threat. They are thumbing their noses at us, and we cannot allow that to stand. So that’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go to Moscow, you’ll find the sleepers, and you’ll kill them both. And then you’ll find whoever it was who ordered the operation and you’ll kill them, too. We’re going to show our Russian friends that there are consequences to their actions. We won’t be anyone’s punchbag.”
Milton sat quietly. An operation in Moscow would be difficult, to say the least. An operation in Moscow against two high-profile SVR agents would be something else entirely.
“There’s an Aeroflot flight out of Heathrow at ten forty-five tonight. Pick up your legend from Tanner. You’ll be briefed at Moscow Station at seven tomorrow morning. I want this taken care of as quickly as possible. No mistakes this time. Absolutely no mistakes. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Pope said.
Control didn’t take his eyes off Milton. “Number One?”
“Sir?”
“See that it gets done. Take them both out. Dismissed.”
PART III
Moscow
46
Aeroflot flight SU 2585 was delayed on its departure from Heathrow, finally taking off at five minutes past midnight. The captain apologised, but said that he was confident that they would be able to make up the lost time en route. It was a standard flight for the carrier. The cabin crew were efficient but not particularly attentive and the late snack that was brought around was cold and unpleasant. Milton passed up the food, asking instead for a vodka and tonic. He drank it as he studied the legend that Tanner had supplied.
The name was his usual one—John Smith—but this time he was a diplomat in the British Embassy reporting to work in the Economic Section. He had been educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had obtained a BA and then a PhD. He had joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was then posted to Bucharest where he had worked as Second Secretary for three years. Following that, he had been transferred to Ankara and then Rome and then, bringing the file up to date, he was moved to Moscow. He was single, had a flat in Highgate, enjoyed cooking and supported Arsenal. He went over the details again, committing it to memory. He had done the same thing many times before, and he knew it would stick.
Pope was several rows ahead of Milton in the cabin; he could see the back of his head. They would maintain a discreet distance until they met at the embassy for their briefing in the morning. They both knew that there was a good chance that there would be SVR agents on the flight with them, and they did not want to give them any reason to increase the surveillance that they would be subjected to upon landing. Milton didn’t even know Pope’s legend; he might be a diplomat, like him, but he could equally be a trade delegate or a cultural attaché. It made little difference.
The vodka slid down easily and Milton ordered another. He downed that, too, and then put his chair back as far as it would go, strapped himself in and allowed the drone of the engines to lull him to sleep.
They landed at Sheremetyevo at four in the morning. The terminal was quiet and they were able to disembark and make their way to immigration quickly. Milton made his way across the lines until he was in the diplomatic channel, and then breezed through the checks and into the arrivals lounge. The embassy had sent a car for him and the driver was waiting, holding a sign with his name on it.
“Hello,” Milton said.
“Mr. Smith?” He was English.
“That’s right.”
“Come with me, please.”
The man offered to take Milton’s suitcase, but he shook his head and said that he had it covered. Milton followed the driver through the airport to the parking garage.
“Pleasant flight, sir?”
“It was fine.”
Milton looked around at the other travellers who were making their way to the garage. He saw a few whom he recognised from the aircraft, and others whom he had not seen before. He glanced at the ones following behind them—a young man with tattoos who was carrying a guitar in a case, an elderly couple, a middle-aged woman—and wondered which of them worked for the FSB, the domestic intelligence service. He saw the CCTV cameras positioned overhead. Those feeds would all end up in the Lubyanka and would, he knew, have already been examined by the clerks who were paid to scrutinise new arrivals and cross-check them with known intelligence agents. It was a long time since Milton had been to Russia, and the identities and likenesses of Group Fifteen agents were known to a vanishingly small cohort of senior staff. Milton did not believe that there was a file on him, but he knew not to take anything for granted.
They reached the garage, took the elevator to the second floor and reached a Mercedes with blacked-out windows. The driver opened the rear door for Milton and slid into the front.
“We’ve booked you into the Lotte,” the man said as he pulled out.
It had been raining, with a fine drizzle still hanging in the air. A large municipal building faced them as they drove away, and, with its pink and yellow tiers, it reminded Milton of a Battenberg cake. An illuminated sign on the roof announced MOCKBA, the glow reflecting off rain-slicked asphalt. Milton stared out of the window. It felt real now. He was in Moscow, in enemy territory. He was naked, too, an agent operating without backup. He was always reminded of the espionage films and novels that had enthralled him during his youth, and the malign influence of the all-powerful KGB. That body might have been disbanded, but the change was little more than window dressing. The FSB was its successor, with a reach and malignancy that was every bit its equal. Milton and Pope were alone against it now, and if they were compromised, there would be little support.