It wouldn’t mean the end of the operation, of course; the targets could always just be picked up and interrogated, or held as bait for Cole, but such methods were crude and unpleasant, and would not guarantee results. As back-up plans, however, they were better than nothing.
57
Was it him? She had only a brief look, but Sarah was positive. He had decided to take a stroll through the train just after it set off, just to double-check that they were safe, and in the very next carriage his attention had been immediately captured. A blond-haired man sitting and staring out of the window. Tanned, blond, with what looked like recent facial injuries. It was the agent from the yacht, the one who had followed them to Miami, she was sure.
We’ve been found.
Albright spotted Sarah straight away, of course. Indeed, he had taken a seat in this carriage on purpose, to invite just such a situation. It wasn’t that he was making anything happen. Rather, it all depended upon whether Sarah remained in her own seat, in her own carriage, or whether she went roaming. The way Albright saw it, it was entirely up to fate. And in this instance, fate had been kind.
Sarah was back in her own carriage soon after, scanning the faces as casually — but as thoroughly — as she could. She didn’t feel that she was being watched., but that didn’t mean anything. The agents were definitely here on the train, and although she had no idea how they had found her, it was now a problem that she would have to deal with.
She decided quickly what to do, and whispered to her children. Moments later they were on the move.
Once she had Ben and Amy secreted in a toilet cubicle at the far end of the train, Sarah made her way back through to her original carriage. All that mattered now was her children. If she drew the attention of the agents, maybe they would forget all about Ben and Amy.
She thought of Mark, wondering where he was. Thinking of her husband reminded her of what they were doing on the train in the first place. She wasn’t angry with him; she had always accepted that something like this might happen one day, and he had made it clear to her when he had proposed. But she had accepted him as he was, risk and all.
Her children, however, had never asked for the risk, had never asked for their lives to be put in danger. And suddenly she felt shamefully guilty, horrified at the adult selfishness that had resulted in their current predicament.
Mark had told her she was strong enough to protect them herself, and her husband obviously thought that she was capable as. But do I believe it?, she wondered. At the end of the day though, she realized, her belief didn’t matter; she had to be strong enough, it was as simple as that. Until she reached Mark, she couldn’t rely on anyone else.
58
Hansard heard the phone ringing and picked up the receiver immediately, said his name, and then listened intently.
The news was decidedly bad. Apparently Albright had been spotted on board the train by Sarah, which now raised all sorts of issues. Would she still try and make the RV with her husband, or would she abort? Had she warned him? Arranged another meeting point? Or cancelled the meet entirely, and was now all set to lead them on a merry old goose chase? It was impossible to say with any degree of certainty.
He mulled the situation over as he turned in his chair to stare out of the large window onto the parking lot below, suburban sprawl beyond. He knew there was only one answer. Thinking further would only delay the inevitable.
‘Go to plan B,’ he said coldly. ‘Make her talk.’ With that simple command he replaced the telephone receiver and sat there quietly, staring out towards the river.
59
Albright replaced the mobile phone in his pocket and smiled to himself. At last, he thought. At last.
He had advised this approach right from the start; rather than waste valuable time and resources following the Coles, why not just send in a team, pick them up and interrogate them? Albright himself was well versed in the art, and knew that some of the more recent techniques were practically guaranteed to get accurate information from the subject. But no, Hansard had wanted to play it safe, an order that surprised Albright. Hansard normally preferred the direct approach.
Still, he thought happily, better late than never. He knew he wouldn’t be able to use the sophisticated methods that were available back at ‘Block C’, the DIA’s secure interrogation facility outside Virginia, but he would not let this deter him. He was certainly no stranger to the ‘old school’, more hands-on approach. In fact, from a strictly personal perspective, he actually preferred it. He told his colleagues that he felt it gave him a better ‘contact’ with ‘the client’, but they knew the real reason; he just enjoyed it, plain and simple.
He had just gone through the first carriage when he saw her, staring straight at him. Hi Sarah. She looked away quickly, but Albright knew he’d been recognized. Probably the damn scabs on his face, he realized. He couldn’t help but admire her calmness as she casually sat down and turned to stare out of the window.
Where are you going?, he wondered. You’ve got nowhere to go.
60
Cole parked up the stolen Audi in a multi-storey lot in the centre of Stuttgart. He had crossed the border into Germany at Strasbourg earlier that day, having stolen the big estate car from Montreuil, a suburb of Paris, the night before.
His escape from Paris had been easier than he had feared, aided as he was by the darkness of the night and the depth of the snow, which meant searching for him had been extremely taxing for the limited resources available. Hansard probably had nobody else in the city, and the French emergency services were already overstretched with road traffic accidents all over Paris and its outlying areas.
He had gone far enough in the same car though, he had decided, and did not want to tempt fate by driving for too long in the same vehicle.
The radio had been on all the way, but the local news around Paris had yet to pick up on the story of his escape and chase through the city. As he was reaching for the ignition key though, his hand stopped dead.
It was the news headline that caught him, a second or two late as he translated it from German into English in his head. America Said To Have Been Behind Attack on the Russian President. He sat back in his seat to listen, eyes wide.
‘The People’s Republic of China has been completely exonerated of any involvement in the recent attack on the Swedish parliament house,’ the reporter began. ‘Instead, it seems that the attack was launched by the United States of America. Reports have come in that it was a CIA paramilitary operation, designed to lay the blame on China’s doorstep. Whether or not this was an officially authorized operation is now the subject of much debate within the international community. Ellen Abrams, the President of the United States, recently issued this statement:
‘My fellow Americans,’ Cole heard her begin in her faint Southern drawl, ‘I come before you today with some sad news. It has come to my attention that there may have been American citizens involved in the recent tragedy in Stockholm.
‘Details are sketchy at the present time, but it appears that the operation may have been carried out with the help or prior knowledge of an unknown number of our own people. Because information at this time is necessarily very limited, I would at least like to take this opportunity to spell out the position of the United States government.