“Smith?”
Callaghan was in the shadows at the edge of the room. Don’t think that you’re getting away with it. This is just a reprieve. There’s still more killing to do.
“Smith?”
Milton blinked the phantom away. McCartney was asking him a question.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I missed that.”
“I need to know whether you think we can still go ahead with the operation.”
“With just one man?”
“No. They’re sending another to make up the team. He’ll be here later this afternoon.”
“Do we know who?”
“We don’t,” McCartney said.
Milton could guess: it would be one of the others from the Group.
“That doesn’t matter,” Pope said. “I’ll meet the cut-out this afternoon as planned and then I can nail down the plan with.” Pope turned to Milton for approval. “Agreed?”
“It can still be done,” Milton said.
“What about us?” Ross said, glancing over at Milton.
“You need to be on your way,” McCartney said. “London wants you to make contact with Romanova at the first available opportunity. That’s tomorrow. And Komsomolsk is a long trip. We’re going to need to work on new legends and get the travel documentation arranged. You’re flying out tonight.”
52
Primakov had been working on his plan all morning. He felt as if this sordid business was finally entering its end game. There were just a few loose ends to snip and then it would be done. He had to hold his nerve for just a little longer.
His intercom buzzed.
He turned back to his desk and pressed the button to speak. “Yes?”
“Major Stepanov and Captain Mitrokhin are here, sir.”
Primakov looked at the clock on the walclass="underline" they were on time, punctual as ever. “Send them in.”
Primakov sat down as Major Yuri Stepanov and Captain Boris Mitrokhin opened the door and came into the office.
“Good afternoon, Comrade General,” Stepanov said with the usual combination of respect and deference.
“Good afternoon, comrades,” Primakov said. “Please—sit.”
The two men unbuttoned their jackets and sat down opposite him.
Stepanov tugged down on both cuffs until an inch of creamy shirt showed beneath the sleeves of his jacket. He was a fastidious dresser, although, when the situation demanded it, adept at disguising himself so adroitly that he could melt into his surroundings. He was in his early forties, with an army buzzcut and thick, heavy features. Mitrokhin was younger, mid-thirties, and a little rougher around the edges. Both were more informally described as chistilshchiks, or ‘mechanics.’ Stepanov had first come to the attention of Primakov during the siege of School Number One in Beslan. Stepanov had been assigned to Vympel, the Spetsnaz unit that had been sent into the school to end the siege. He had eliminated more than a dozen of the Chechen terrorists who had been responsible for the atrocity, and had then chased down the leaders of the conspiracy as they fled into the hills and mountains of Ossetia.
Stepanov had then been reassigned to Department V of the SVR, bringing his enthusiastic junior officer with him. The Department’s role was described as ‘Executive Action,’ but that was a bland euphemism for the work that its agents concerned themselves with: they were deployed by the other Directorates when circumstances demanded a more rigorous solution to problems. Of course, Primakov knew of Group Fifteen, and Stepanov and the other men and women who comprised the Department fulfilled a similar function for the Rodina. The Department had existed in the same form during the reign of the KGB and had stubbornly resisted change during the KGB’s metamorphosis into the SVR. It seemed that there would always be a need for men like Stepanov and Mitrokhin, regardless of the window dressing and public relations nonsense that its mother organisation might now be subjected to.
Primakov had recruited them both six months ago. He wanted someone to whom he could turn when his illegals needed a specialist to close out their operations. There had been operations in the Crimea and the Ukraine, and all of them had been carried out flawlessly. Stepanov was something of a throwback to the purer days of the Soviet state, and his dissatisfaction with what he saw as the excesses of modern Russia had been noted in his file. That might have impeded his upward trajectory if he had stayed where he was, but Primakov was a pragmatist; Stepanov was an expert, a consummate professional who could be relied upon to deliver excellent results, and, as such, Primakov was prepared to accommodate his opinions. Indeed, Primakov too was opposed to much of what he saw at the Kremlin; he would have been a hypocrite to have penalised him.
Mitrokhin was easier to handle: he did everything that Stepanov told him.
“How are you both?”
“We are well, Comrade General,” Stepanov said, speaking for them both. “You have need of us?”
Stepanov was all business, just as ever. “I do.” Primakov stood up and went around to the other side of the desk. “The British have sent agents to Moscow to assassinate two SVR officers. I would like you to stop them from doing that.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Who are the agents?”
“Two men from Group Fifteen.”
If Stepanov was concerned about the pedigree of their targets, he did not show it. “When?”
“They will make an attempt on the lives of our agents this evening,” he said. “We have a source within their organisation—they will be told where the SVR officers are staying. We believe that the attempt will be made there.”
“Where?”
“The Four Seasons.”
“Do the SVR officers know that they are at risk?”
“They do not. It’s unnecessary. You will intervene before any action can be taken against them.”
“What action would you like us to take, sir?”
“Follow them—I’ll make a surveillance team available to you. They will be meeting a cut-out, and that might lead us to the traitor within the Center.”
“And then?”
“Kill them both when they make their attempt and then disappear them. This is something that must stay between us. No one else is to know what we have done.”
Primakov swivelled and reached down for the file on his desk, a manila folder with three sheets of paper clipped inside. It contained everything that Stepanov and Mitrokhin would need to know. Primakov handed it to the major.
Stepanov flipped through the pages, then closed the folder and stood. Mitrokhin did the same.
“Very good, sir. I’ll see that it is done. Is there anything else?”
“No.” Primakov looked at the silent Mitrokhin. “Captain? Anything to add?”
“No, Comrade General,” Mitrokhin said.
Stepanov gave a sharp nod. “We will report tomorrow.”
Both men saluted, turned on their heels and made their way out of the office. Primakov exhaled. Stepanov was a peerless operator, efficient and utterly ruthless, and Mitrokhin was the same. He had lost count of the number of files that he had passed to Stepanov for action—thirty, maybe more—and none of the men and women put in the chistilshchiks’ way was still breathing. It was strange: they both made Primakov nervous, and yet there was a calming sense of finality that came with handing the assassins a file and knowing that the work would be done without any further need for him to be involved.
He thought of Natasha. It would all soon be finished. The only loose end was Anastasiya Romanova, but PROZHEKTOR would find her eventually, and when that happened, the whole sorry mess would come to an end. He would prepare another file and hand it to Stepanov and then, finally, he would be able to relax.