“It might calm Radtsic down,” said Jacobson, uncomfortably. “I’m surprised every time he turns up for a meeting.”
With no knowledge of the Director’s earlier encounter with Stephen Briddle, the operations director wondered what Jacobson’s personal feelings must be, sitting as Jacobson was sitting, discussing an assassination, a murder, that he had to commit. Straughan had always hoped never to be personally associated with a sanctioned killing, particularly one predicated upon such tenuous reasoning as this. He wished he had the courage officially to object, for which there was provision in the statutory regulations. “Natalia’s under surveillance by the FSB. If we told Radtsic, he could guarantee Natalia-and therefore Charlie-being precisely where we want them to be for the distraction operation.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” reflected Monsford. “Everything would be gift wrapped.”
“So we’ll do it?” pressed Straughan, determined against being sacrificed as Jane Ambersom had been. He’d liked the woman, refusing the sniping of others at her sexual uncertainty, and felt guilty that his own asexuality had prevented his doing more to protect her, although knowing that if she’d survived, he would have been the victim instead.
“Not in precise detail,” qualified Monsford. “Tell Radtsic we’re setting up a failsafe extraction: that he’s got no reason to worry about anything going wrong. And tell him I’m looking forward personally to welcoming him here, in London.” It was a good feeling, knowing everything was perfectly arranged, with no possibility of error.
Charlie held back in the departure lounge, waiting to let the other passengers not just board ahead of him but actually get into their seats, giving him the opportunity to study the faces of those traveling with him, which he prolonged while finding a space in the already stuffed overhead lockers for his minimally packed suit carrier before finally sitting in his personally selected aisle seat just two rows back from the business-class separation.
Only when Charlie completely settled did Jacobson properly look up from the in-flight shopping brochure. For additional concealment as well as for his assigned purpose, Jacobson had secured a window seat only three rows behind Charlie’s but on the opposite side of the cabin to give him an uninterrupted view of his intended target. Which prompted the immediate reflection of how ideal it would also be to get this close when the moment came to pull the trigger of the already skipped Russian Makarov in his embassy safe. Away from the MI6 building, Jacobson’s concern at having said nothing about Radtsic’s failed meeting had lessened. No one in London or Moscow, apart from Radtsic, had known of the appointment, so he couldn’t be caught out on that omission. Jacobson’s hope was that the Russian wouldn’t appear at the failsafe meeting, sparing him from the assassination order.
As the flight crew began their acrobatics of emergency flight evacuation, Charlie was mentally evaluating the potential success against the possible failure of what he had to achieve. He was encouraged by the briefing assertion of no expenditure limit. Realistically there was no way he could have got back to Jersey to retrieve what was left of the already committed money, which was why, at the final departure session with Straughan and Passmore, he’d argued up the initially proposed, personally carried working float to ten thousand pounds by quoting the irrefutable statistics that Moscow had become the most expensive city in the world. But potentially he’d need considerably more. The fine line he had to follow was obtaining sufficient additional money without arousing suspicion that he wasn’t going to utilize any more bullshit backup than was minimally necessary, which anyway might be difficult after what he planned so soon to do.
Charlie halted the instinctive half turn behind him practically as it began at the expectation of there being one if not more puppet-watchers monitoring his every movement, curious if his intended actions would be accepted as proving his professional caution. Which was more than Passmore and Straughan had illustrated with their insistence that he was being allowed operational autonomy. Charlie was glad he’d managed the brief, private conversation with John Passmore before he’d left the MI6 meeting, impressed with the man’s reaction.
Jacobson had been prepared for Charlie’s backward look, the face-concealing in-flight magazine ready at the first indication, which turned out to be unnecessary when Charlie didn’t continue, easing his seat back as the plane attained its cruising height. He would, Jacobson decided, deserve recognition, positive promotion, after this if Radtsic did turn up at the emergency rendezvous: he’d been disappointed at the Director’s vagueness at the hints he’d risked, every innuendo hedged with a caveat.
Charlie put his hand to his jacket pocket, feeling the hardness of the Russian cell phone, one of the dozen air-freighted from Moscow to be technically tweaked before being returned for distribution to the backup squad upon their arrival. He’d retain it as an insurance, but always turned off as it was now, and buy himself another when he got to Moscow. What other personal adaptations did he need? He’d covered the passport changes during that brief, private meeting with Passmore, hoping Wilkinson had been properly briefed just as privately afterward. And he was carrying sufficient money for his immediate needs. Too early to think about anything more, he decided, at the copilot’s announcement of the impending en route landing at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport.
Charlie stood out into the aisle for his window-seated companion to get out, resuming his seat at once for other disembarking passengers behind him to follow, flicking through his own seat pocket sales magazine, his concentration entirely upon the departing line. He timed his move as the last figure disappeared from the plane, standing, stretching, and setting off unhurriedly toward the restrooms, relieved the indicator showed the farthest cubicle to be unoccupied. He started to hurry only when he reached it, partially opening the door but releasing it to continue on to the disembarkation pier, his feet at once protesting as he bustled past those ahead of him.
Still in his seat, Jacobson had craned around the business-class-curtain separation to see Charlie approach the toilet door just before his view was blocked again by a steward moving to greet arriving Dutch passengers who filled the aisle for several minutes, locating their seats and stowing their baggage. By the time they had finished, Jacobson was standing awkwardly between the seats, looking to the toilets. The occupancy indicator showed the farthest to be the only one in use. Several more minutes passed before the door opened for a woman to emerge.
At that moment, the aircraft doors thumped closed.
Hampered as they were by not knowing precisely what time of day or night they would be making the journey, Jonathan Miller stretched the reconnaissance-car journeys from Paris to Orly airport over a forty-eight-hour time frame into which he fitted six trips to establish an average, driving himself back to the city on their final run.
Albert Abrahams, hunched over his clipboard in the passenger seat, said without looking up: “Never exceeding the speed limit to ensure against traffic violations and building in an additional thirty minutes for unanticipated problems, it gives us two and a half hours during the day, two at night.”
“We’ll include a backup car, against engine breakdown,” decided Miller.
“When’s Straughan going to give us Andrei’s pickup schedule? From all the guidance we’re getting from London, they’re expecting us to snatch the guy off the street.”
“Straughan told me we’ll get it all in good time.”
“Including personal contact with the kid himself? He’ll need to meet us, know us, in advance, won’t he?”
“I’ve made the point. Straughan says it’s all in hand.”
“You been involved in an extraction before?”
“Once, ten years ago in Rome. His cover was third secretary at the Russian embassy. Turned out he was abandoning his wife for his mistress. He backed off confronting embassy diplomats at a consular-access negotiation and went back to his wife without telling us anything whatsoever of value.”
“Let’s hope this one goes better.”
“That’s all we can ever do, hope it all works out,” said the MI6 station chief. “You fancy the Brassiere Lipp for lunch?”
“After two days and nights of sandwiches we deserve nothing less,” agreed Abrahams. “Apart, that is, from a hell of a lot more information.”
12
“
There was close to physical pain as well as disbelief in Gerald Monsford’s voice, and Straughan hoped the
