military vehicles on the Russian side of the border in the Kursk sector seem to be connected to smuggling activities into Ukraine. Third, there is an obvious flashpoint for Russian anger to spill over into violence inside Ukraine, or result in direct military action. That flashpoint is on May twentieth. On that day, the Ukrainian government is expelling all Russian intelligence officers from the Crimea. Up to now, the port of Sevastopol has played host to the Russian Black Sea fleet and its Ukrainian counterpart. That arrangement is set to continue until 2017. But by constant provocations on the ground, in and around Sevastopol, the Russians have finally forced the Ukrainian government to take a strong line. Hence the forthcoming expulsions. Again, provocation and a replay of the Georgian war. In my opinion, we in this room should be looking at offering our services to Ukraine’s government, whoever becomes president. And Europe and America should be ready to draw a line in the sand. That line should be to prevent Ukraine from becoming another Georgia, or worse. In other words, to stand up to Russia.”
She paused, knowing that questions would come.
“But that’s a political point,” Kruger, the head of Germany’s BND, objected eventually. “Our remit is to look at intelligence matters only.”
Everyone looked at Burt, expecting him to come to his protegee’s aid. But he just sat back, apparently enjoying the show.
“The role of intelligence is principally to prevent conflict by knowing what our enemies are doing. It is also to provide our governments with the necessary ammunition to expose our enemies’ intentions. Third, it is to help our allies. Ukraine is an ally of Europe and of America.”
“Are you saying Russia is our enemy?” Thomas Plismy said. “We import half of our energy resources from Russia.”
“We buy oil from Iran, too,” Anna replied. “But Ukraine is closer to home. If Russia were to invade or effectively annex Ukraine in some other way, it would cause a split inside the European Union. East versus West. With good reason, the Eastern nations view Russia’s intentions with greater concern than the Western nations do. They have a history of Russian domination and they note Russia’s threatening stance towards them today with increasing alarm. In 2005 Putin stated that the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The nations to the east don’t take such remarks lightly. But any Russian move against Ukraine can be preempted, perhaps—certainly disrupted—by pooling our intelligence resources to expose whatever it is the Kremlin is planning to do. Revealing its hand will go a long way toward preempting any plans it may have to destabilise Ukraine.”
As ever with questions of Russia, there was a deep division between Eastern and Western Europe, as Anna herself had expressed. There were twelve Eastern members of NATO, all formerly subjugated to the Soviet Union, and fourteen Western members, including the United States and Canada. Standing united, the Western members would always outvote those from the East. But Burt had successfully persuaded the CIA head to put America behind the Eastern vote, levelling the score, and now everything rested on Adrian. Despite Cougar’s power, Burt did not have a vote at this international level.
Evidence was passed around the table, including the satellite pictures that Anna knew—and knew they all knew—were inconclusive. Russia could move its own military vehicles—unmarked or not—wherever it wanted to on its own territory. Evidence of Russian ministry officials naturalising citizens of Ukraine with Russian passports was provided, but this, too, provided a glimpse only. As the intelligence chiefs looked at the pictures and written evidence, Anna further explained the developing crisis in Ukraine.
“The situation in Sevastopol has been spinning out of control for some time. There are the small things, like the street fights between Russian and Ukrainian sailors whose fleets share the same port. But full-scale Russian intelligence activity there has been increasing enormously in the past two years. Their agents and intelligence officers are everywhere. The policy from the Kremlin seems to be one of provocation. And the Ukrainians, provoked, predictably react. Their military personnel hold up Russian convoys that use the port for refuelling and rearming. In turn, the Russians react angrily. The heat is raised, the ratchet is tightened. That is why Ukraine has made the momentous decision to expel all known Russian intelligence personnel. What will the Russians do when that happens?”
Anna reached down to the floor and picked up a metal case. She placed it carefully on the table and opened the locks. From inside, she lifted out a small aluminium flask and placed it on the table.
“This was picked up just over the border from Russia, inside Ukraine. It was part of a smuggled consignment of a dozen flasks like this one. Their origin is the KGB laboratories in Moscow’s Leontevsky Pereulok.”
“That’s the actual canister?” Lish said.
“No. This is a dummy. The actual canisters are contaminated.”
“With what?”
“That’s what we’re finding out. But it’s some kind of poison, type unknown.”
When it came to the vote, the Eastern nations didn’t, as Burt had hoped, vote as one. The Czechs, Poles, and Romanians voted for sharing intelligence where it concerned Russia’s borders with Ukraine, and the Crimea in its entirety. Others dithered and finally came down on their side. Hungary voted against.
The deciding vote was left to Britain. For a moment, Adrian considered upsetting Burt’s plans. Later it would be said that this was the key decision Adrian made in his entire career, from his younger days as an SAS officer to becoming head of British Intelligence. Burt looked on calmly. Adrian fiddled with the new sheet of paper dealing with the Ukraine issue and weighed his power over Burt’s. It wasn’t often that he found himself in a position to overturn Burt’s aims—or in a position to extract a quid pro quo in return for Burt’s gratitude, for that matter. He cast his mind over what he would demand from Burt in return for his support and then, finally, he cast his vote in favour of the East—and of Burt—who beamed proudly at him as if he’d just won a race.
There were those in London who would whisper later that Adrian had crossed the Rubicon, finally putting his own interests—a foot in the door at Cougar and the wealth which that promised—ahead of his country’s.
And although the meeting of intelligence chiefs was a consultative one only, it was accepted that each service would report back the views of the committee to their respective governments with a strong recommendation.
15
FEBRUARY 9
ANNA ASKED LARRY TO DROP HER at the foot of the farm’s dirt driveway. There was some old bare and knotted wood rail fencing that stretched on either side of a sagging gate and disappeared to the right over a rise in the land. She would walk up from there, she told him, and then arranged for him to return in three hours’ time.
“Enjoy him,” Larry said.
She watched him go. Larry liked her son, had looked after him in the safe house in New Mexico two years before, and would have liked to see him. But the time was too precious and she wanted him all to herself.
She turned and looked towards the farm. To the right of her was a paddock with around a dozen horses bunched up together with the car’s arrival. A small circular pen was attached to the paddock for separating them out. Bales of hay were split and scattered near the fence and she saw a horse trough in which ice had been broken and was now floating in thick wedges on the surface. It was cold up here and recent snow still lay in patches on the fields. The horses stood and watched her, heads up, eyes wild, huffing big breaths from flared nostrils in the cold morning air. Then they tossed their heads and began to canter around the paddock in a group, kicking up their back legs in celebration of a new morning.
There was a pond in the paddock to the left of the gate. Ice had formed there, too, thick enough to walk on, she thought. The driveway ahead climbed a hill between the two fields to a wooden house a quarter of a mile in the distance and, behind that, woodland surrounded the top of the farm on two sides and ascended a high hill to the north. A stream flowed out of the wood down through the field to the pond and then on below to a river they’d crossed in the car.
As she always did when she visited her son in his new home, Anna thought it was a good place for him to grow up, to begin a new life. She’d seen many times now how much he loved the place and how he had fit so easily
