‘Meaning what exactly?’ asked Bokus. He was surprised by the news about Park Woo-jin. The Korean intelligence people were usually very good. They might have made a mistake the first time round, but if they’d had another look, when Ujin Wong asked for it, they should have spotted anything wrong with Park. What was going on?
‘Meaning Park Woo-jin is reporting back to Korean intelligence. That’s the only thing that makes sense.’
‘But why would he do that?’ asked Fane. He had picked up a pencil and was rocking it fast between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I mean, we all know our allies like to know what’s going on, even the genuinely friendly ones. But honestly, would the KCIA really go to the trouble of planting an agent in the project of two close allies? Think of the risk. And the information they might get couldn’t do them an iota of conceivable good, while,’ he continued, warming to his theme, ‘risking God knows what ructions with their largest benefactor if it were discovered.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense, I agree,’ said Bokus. ‘Unless,’ and he paused until he felt their eyes upon him, ‘Park is working for someone else. Like the Russians. Langley’s view is that this is a sabotage operation, and increasingly they feel Moscow is behind it. The people at State are talking about calling in the Russian Ambassador and making a formal protest.’
‘That would be ridiculous,’ said Liz. ‘What do they expect the Russians to say?’
‘Of course they’d just deny it,’ Fane chipped in. ‘So all that would do is raise the level of international tension quite unnecessarily.’
‘And anyway, how does Langley explain Bravado’s information, if the Russians are behind this?’ asked Liz.
‘They think it was some kind of double bluff. The theory back home is that Bravado didn’t want to go the whole road to betraying his country, so he wrapped the information up by saying the attack was being carried out by a third country.’
‘But what about Kubiak? Where does he fit in according to your theory? Did you do a trace with Langley?’
‘Yes. There’s a big file. They did have him in their sights in Delhi, same as your lot did. They did a background study then and apparently his father was a senior General in the Defence Department. So he had brilliant access, as well as the prospect of rising high in the KGB. Our Station had him surrounded with access agents, including the madam at the whorehouse. They were planning to offer a big salary but keep him in place. He’d be able to indulge his passions, knowing a golden handshake and easy retirement awaited him in the States.
‘But in the end they didn’t go ahead. Langley didn’t like his profile; our shrinks assessed him as borderline psychopathic. I think the feeling was he’d be too difficult to control. The madam told us a lot about his personal habits – one of them was that he was violent, almost casually so. Apparently he’d nearly killed one of her girls when she did something he didn’t like, or maybe she wouldn’t do something he did like. There was also an incident when we had him under surveillance, and he assaulted a taxi driver – beat him up really badly, then walked off as though nothing had happened. He was drunk at the time. It had to be hushed up by his Embassy – they paid off the driver before he could complain to the police.’
‘From what Bravado said, it sounds as though he hasn’t changed a lot,’ said Carlyle.
‘No, though his career doesn’t seem to have taken off as expected,’ Fane chipped in. ‘Head of Security in Switzerland isn’t where he would have hoped to end up. But at least he survived the changes at the end of the Cold War, probably with the help of his father. ‘
‘Well, that’s all very interesting.’ Liz was looking impatient. ‘But I still can’t believe there’s any Russian connection to Park Woo-jin. He’s obviously up to something, and I’m not at all sure Korean intelligence is telling us all they know. I think our best bet is to concentrate on the man who picked up Park Woo-jin’s drop. According to the hotel where he stays when he’s in London, his name is Dong Shin-soo, but so far we have no trace of him entering the country under that name. We don’t know where he is the rest of the time; we don’t even know for sure that he’s Korean.’
‘Okay,’ said Bokus, thinking that he was the one getting the worst news. He knew Fane and Carlyle weren’t happy to find out that the MOD leak was real – Bokus himself was dismayed by the discovery. But from what he was hearing now, the situation was even more complicated than he’d thought. He’d still put his money on the Russians being involved, though the evidence was going Korea’s way. Which not only meant that one of America’s staunchest allies was doing the dirty, it also meant his old pal Ujin Wong hadn’t been telling him the truth.
‘But don’t take your eye off Kubiak,’ he said, as a parting shot. ‘Take my word for it. The Russians are in this somewhere.’
Chapter 42
At first it seemed like just another routine surveillance job. Follow target codename Tonto from the MOD to his residence in Ealing. Same every night, thought Duff Wells. Leaves MOD dead on five, walks across St James’s Park, through Queen Anne’s Gate to the tube station, and takes the District line to Ealing Broadway. A short walk home. Job done.
This evening Duff Wells was covering the tube journey. Stephen Sachs had come in on the tube from Ealing with the target this morning, so this evening he’d just kept a weather eye on him from a distance as he crossed the park. He was probably still there, waiting for the ‘stand down’ from Wally Woods in the control room. Maureen Hayes had watched Tonto leave the MOD building in Whitehall and would get on the train at Westminster Station, in case Wells needed back-up. Not likely, he thought. This was one of the most predictable targets he’d had for a long time.
Meanwhile, out in Ealing, Marcus Washington was waiting in a white builder’s van a hundred yards down the street from the MOD house where Tonto was staying, just to make sure that he went home and stayed there. Unusually, Washington was on his own tonight, as an urgent operation in Tottenham had come in late in the afternoon, and Wally Woods had taken the risk that solo cover would be enough – it seemed more than likely Tonto would conform to his usual pattern and stay put for the evening.
Wells was standing at the front end of the carriage behind Tonto’s. He could see him, sitting comfortably reading the Evening Standard, ignoring a white-haired lady with a large bag who was standing in front of him. Wells had heard through his headphones that Hayes was safely on board the train, two carriages further back. Wells was thinking about his daughter’s birthday in two weeks’ time and whether they could afford to buy her the Smartphone she wanted. It wasn’t the cost of the phone itself that was the worry but the two-year contract you had to take out with the phone company. Then there was the problem of monitoring who she was texting and emailing, to say nothing of the wider world of the internet. And she was only thirteen.
Tonto stood up and Wells’s daughter was forgotten. Was Tonto offering his seat to the old lady? No, he was getting off at the next stop, Chiswick Park, three stops before his usual one. Wells sent a quick alert to Maureen Hayes and the control room and prepared to get off too. This was a bit more like it.
He stood on the platform watching Hayes walking briskly up the steps to the exit, in the midst of a few dozen commuters, followed a few yards behind by Tonto. Wells waited till they’d both gone through the exit barriers then followed on behind.