wood and ply, and the padlock on the door dangled open. He must have already been there before he sat down on the bench. He’d said the hut was unused at present, but if not, there was another fallback position farther along the river walk.
She slipped the padlock out of the catch and went inside. It was hardly less cold inside the hut, but she knew he was right. Nobody would stand around chatting outside at dawn on a January morning at the Seventieth Street pier, not without attracting attention.
She sat on an upturned bucket and looked at the tools that hung on the walls, a jacket with fluorescent yellow shoulders, and a couple of orange plastic helmets. He joined her a moment later.
He wasted no time. “What is it you want, Anna?”
It was two years since they’d met, for the only time, and then they’d been delivering Finn’s corpse to the British embassy.
“The Americans want to know about Icarus,” she said. “A British source in Russia has given them information that there’s an agent code-named Icarus in a leading U.S. defence establishment and passing secrets to Russia. They don’t know if Icarus is an individual, or if it’s a collective code name for more than one individual. They’re giving it the highest priority. That’s all I know.”
He didn’t reply at once.
She looked at him. Now he’d removed his hat, she saw that he had aged since the only other time they’d met. She remembered the thick black hair, and saw now that it was greying and thinned.
“That’s it?” he said.
“They want you reactivated, as they call it.”
He grunted. “You and me? Like with Finn? Is that what they think?”
“I know that’s the most you’d consider,” she answered him. “I told them that.”
“You’re right. But do you really think they’d trust you to be the sole intermediary? The Americans are great meddlers.”
“Mikhail, I don’t know.” She looked at him directly. “The only promise I made either to them or myself was to ask you.”
“My position is precarious. Even more precarious than it was when Finn and I worked together. I may be close to Putin, but these days such familiarity is a cause more for suspicion than for innocence. Putin is become like all dictators or men of power. Those closest to him are the most watched, the most fragile. The certain is what’s most uncertain, the close most distant, the friend the most likely enemy. They will not rest until they find Mikhail.”
“What shall I tell them?”
He didn’t answer her directly, but put his hand on hers.
“You too are on moving ground. I see it behind your face, Anna. What is your fragility?”
“They have my son. Finn’s son.”
“A hostage?”
“No. Not explicitly. But perhaps I can buy his freedom at least.”
“I see.”
They sat in silence. Then he broke the silence.
“What is he like?” Mikhail said.
“I think you would see Finn in him.”
“Ah, Finn. He was a beautiful man.”
“Yes,” she said. “He was.”
He looked at her, but didn’t touch her this time.
“As you know, Anna, you are the only person in the world who knows my identity.”
She nearly choked as she spoke. “There’s another now. An American. Burt Miller.”
He looked at her sharply, but she saw no hostility or even alarm in his eyes.
“The head of Cougar.”
“Yes.”
“They must have great pressure exerted on you for you to have told him that,” he said. “Is it just him? Him alone?”
“I believe that.”
“I see,” he said again. “The knot tightens.”
“He’s acting outside the CIA, according to him. Just his own intelligence company. He wants Cougar to have you, and Cougar alone.”
“Very wise of him. I don’t want the CIA.”
She was surprised. He was echoing Burt’s own position.
“I believe Miller has at least a chance of controlling a source,” Mikhail said. “But for how long?”
“I told him the deal, as far as I was concerned, was that all information should go to the CIA from now on.”
“Not a good idea. Including my name?”
“No. Excluding that.”
“What makes you think the CIA will go along with that? The failure in the Iraq War was due to secondary sources. That’s where the false information came from. Secondary sources of the British and Americans who had been reliable up to that point, but were wrong in their assessment of Iraq’s capabilities. The current directive at MI6 and, I believe, also at the CIA is that no more decisive information will be accepted from secondary sources.” He looked at her. “In this, you would be the secondary source, as far they’re concerned. They’ll want direct access to me.”
She didn’t answer.
“So no CIA,” he said.
“They’ll try to blackmail you if you don’t agree to work with them,” she said. “If they ever find your identity.”
“Maybe Burt Miller too. They will threaten
He sighed.
“One day I would like to see your son, Anna,” he said.
“I hope so,” she replied.
“So.” He clapped his hands on his knees and stood up from the pile of tarpaulins he’d been sitting on. He dusted the back of his coat with his hands.
“I’ll look for Icarus,” he said. “We’ll see how we do. The future will take care of itself.” He withdrew a piece of paper from the pocket of his coat, wrote something down, and gave it to her.
“Our next meeting,” he said.
They kissed each other on the cheeks in the Russian way. She was taken aback.
“Unlike me, you are ageing quite well.” He smiled at her. Then he held out an arm towards the door. “Until the next time,” he said.
She looked through two small grilles at either end of the hut, and when she was assured there was nobody to see her, she left too. She jogged for a few hundred yards, memorising the details he had given her. Then she screwed the paper into a ball and hurled it into the river.
Chapter 31
SHE DECIDED TO JOG. She was dressed for it; the hat and earmuffs covered enough of her face to make her sufficiently anonymous, and she guessed they would not be looking for a jogger, even if they should happen to be aware of her passing figure. And it was only fifty blocks.
