‘Better this way,’ he said.
The last of the three disks was complete. He retrieved it from the laptop and gave it to Holly. The other two, as well as Wilkinson’s original, were in the inside pocket of his coat.
‘Why have you given me this?’
‘Hide it in Mrs Connelly’s flat. Hide it somewhere that nobody would think to look. And tell nobody that you’ve been to see her. If something happens to me, but only if something happens to me, get the disk to the BBC, to ITN, to Sky. Get it out on YouTube. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’ She reached out and touched his face. ‘I’m worried about you.’
‘Don’t be. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.’
‘You didn’t,’ she said. ‘Bob should never have sent Mum the disk without telling her what was on it.’
Gaddis hesitated. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Where are you going now?’
He took two envelopes, a biro and a book of stamps from her desk. ‘I need these. I have to talk to Tanya. I need her to get a message to Brennan and the FSB. But please don’t worry. You’re safe now. Just make sure you go to Mrs Connelly. If she’s not there, try any of your neighbours, even if you’ve never spoken to them. But don’t leave the building unless you have to. I’ll come back here as soon as it’s done.’
Chapter 56
‘Des’, the veteran of Tanya Acocella’s Berlin surveillance operation against POLARBEAR, had been watching Holly Levette’s apartment — at Tanya’s request — for almost six hours. As luck would have it, he was parked no more than fifty metres from Alexander Grek’s blue C–Class Mercedes, which had pulled up on the corner of Tite Street and Royal Hospital Road a little after half-past four. About twenty minutes later, a Slav in his late twenties had opened the passenger door of the Mercedes and stepped inside. Des had noticed that the Slav had followed Holly down Tite Street, so he was keeping a close eye on the vehicle as the sun set over Chelsea. The two men seemed unusually preoccupied by activities in the third-floor window of Miss Levette’s apartment.
Des had started his shift before midday, so he had also noticed Dr Samuel Gaddis getting out of a taxi at about four o’clock. Recognizing his old mark from Berlin, he had immediately telephoned Tanya.
‘Strange thing just happened,’ he said. ‘You remember POLARBEAR?’
‘I remember POLARBEAR.’
‘Well, he just walked into Tite Street. I thought you said you had him under lock and key in a safe house?’
Tanya, who was in the middle of a four-hour meeting with Sir John Brennan at Vauxhall Cross, had sworn silently into the telephone and reassured Des that she would ‘cut off Sam’s balls’ when she saw him.
‘That might hurt,’ he replied. An hour later, he rang back with an update.
‘POLARBEAR’s been in there for a long time. Curtains are closed now, radio on, doubtless he’s making sweet love to sweet Holly Levette.’
‘Holly’s there as well?’
‘Yeah. Showed up about quarter of an hour ago.’
Des wondered if Tanya had developed feelings for the redoubtable POLARBEAR. Did he detect an undertow of jealousy in her voice? ‘One other thing…’ he said.
‘Tell me.’
‘Holly was being followed down Tite Street. Foot surveil-lance. Caucasian male, late twenties, winner of the Dolph Lundgren lookalike contest. We’ve also got a Mercedes parked across the street with a view of Holly’s sitting room. Dolph and another man sitting inside.’
‘FSB?’ said Tanya.
‘FSB,’ said Des. ‘I ran the numberplate. Vehicle is registered to the Russian Embassy.’
Chapter 57
Tanya had been led to believe that her meeting with Brennan would be a private affair. When Des rang the first time, she had just finished informing her boss that she was shielding Gaddis at her house in Earl’s Court ‘until we can work out how to protect him’. Brennan had reacted calmly to the news, just as he had seemed almost indifferent to the revelation that Acocella had activated two separate networks in Austria and Budapest in order to finesse Gaddis’s exfiltration from Vienna.
But the appearance of Maxim Kepitsa, shortly after Des had telephoned a second time, had taken Tanya by surprise. Up until that point, she had been prepared to give Brennan the benefit of the doubt. After all, Wilkinson’s assassination at the Kleines Cafe could have been a coincidence; she had no evidence that her boss had tipped off the FSB about Wilkinson’s movements. But Kepitsa’s demeanour, and his seedy bear-hug with Brennan shortly after he strode into the room, stank of a stitch-up.
‘Mr Kepitsa has come here today to help us try to piece together what may have happened in Vienna,’ Brennan began.
‘Is that right?’
Tanya remembered what she had said to Gaddis on the way back from Gatwick. I didn’t apply for this job so that my boss could toady up to the Kremlin and put innocent lives at risk. It was straightforward, really. She didn’t want to be answerable to a man who was prepared to overlook the cold-blooded murder of at least two British citizens in order to preserve the status quo of Westminster’s relationship with Moscow.
‘Here’s where we are on this thing,’ Brennan continued. ‘Our government has civilian and state contracts with Russia worth many billions of roubles. These would be severely compromised by any change of leadership in the Kremlin.’
‘You think?’ It was one of the least credible theories Tanya had heard during her entire career at Vauxhall Cross.
‘You know, Tanya, as well as I do, that the man most likely to succeed Sergei Platov in the event of any Russian election is in every way antagonistic towards Great Britain, the United States and to the entire European project. It would hardly be in our best interests to encourage such a man into power.’
That was the second least credible theory that Tanya had heard during her career at Vauxhall Cross. Nevertheless, Kepitsa was nodding vigorously in agreement. Tanya suddenly became aware of what Brennan was up to. It was obvious. Why hadn’t she realized it before? Platov knew that Brennan had the master tape of his defection. SIS had been using it as leverage against him for years. Whenever Moscow became too heavy-handed, Brennan would simply apply the thumb-screws of 1988. Stay away from our natural gas. Have a quiet word with the Iranians. Why get rid of a Russian president over whom SIS exercised such immense control?
‘What we propose to offer Doctor Gaddis is the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, which is more or less what he requires to extract himself from a mountain of personal debt.’ Brennan was pacing the room now, occasionally touching the spine of a volume by Sir Winston Churchill. ‘In return for this, he will agree to cease all enquiries into, and academic publications on, Edward Crane and the agent known as ATTILA. He will also choose to forget, of course, that Mr Platov, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, offered his talents to SIS during what was, after all, a very difficult time in the history of his country.’ Kepitsa coughed. Brennan caught his eye and offered the Second Secretary a reassuring smile. ‘Maxim, for his part, will ensure that rogue elements within the Russian state apparatus, who may have believed, however misguidedly, that they were operating on the wishes of Mr Platov, will be brought under the formal control of the FSB. In short, they will be ordered to cease all activities against Doctor Gaddis, who is, after all, a British citizen and an academic of not inconsiderable reputation. What we want, after all this hoo-hah, is a little peace and quiet.’
Tanya looked across at Kepitsa. He was a small thug of a man, not unlike Platov, she concluded. He was wearing an expensively tailored suit which still managed to make him look shifty and cheap.
‘So Mr Kepitsa knows about the tape?’ she asked.
‘What tape?’ Brennan was looking worried.
‘Platov’s interview with MI6 in Dresden. It was recorded. It was filmed by Wilkinson. He sent a copy to Katya Levette. Gaddis is in Tite Street as we speak trying to retrieve it from Holly’s basement.’