The Blind Spy

misgivings quickly when he couldn’t find a reason. It’s a CIA-run trip, Burt told Lish, carefully acknowledging the CIA boss’s position and stroking Lish’s sense of priorities but, as Logan knew, Cougar was paying for the whole operation. We like to help our friends in the CIA, Burt had told him. Another diversion from Burt’s usual line.

Logan looked back and up at the bridge. The Brit, Philip Holyoake, Special Boat Service, was standing next to the wheel and talking to the skipper. He was one of those seemingly quiet, retiring types who said little and Logan found him uninteresting and difficult to take seriously. He was something of a naval historian, it turned out, and had already pointed out to the skipper the formation of the British and French fleets when they’d steamed up the Kerch Straits between Russia and Crimea in 1855 in preparation for war.

Then Logan checked on a couple of the Agency’s operatives who were standing around the nets, one of whom was one of the terriers he’d met at the Kiev embassy in January. Logan looked around the decks for the Frenchman, Laszlo, but he couldn’t find him. He needed to talk to Laszlo later, in private, and that would have to happen once they’d returned to port in Burgas. Finally there were two Russians who were keeping to themselves so far. One of them watched him from the stern of the Mira.

As Logan looked out ahead of the trawler again, he weighed a situation that was unfolding, as he saw it, in favour of anyone but Burt. Despite Burt’s doubts about the significance of the Pride of Corsica to any plans Russia might have, Logan thought that Burt Miller had blown it this time. With Burt’s increasing obsession with Ukraine over the previous months, Logan felt that his boss and Cougar had become blinded by this one-track policy that saw Russia as simply the enemy. Perhaps, after all, he thought, Burt was just another Cold War hero who couldn’t see the way the world had changed in the past twenty years, someone whose life’s work had been pulled from under him and who couldn’t accept it. Laszlo knew the world had moved on—and his French masters, too. Lish was rightly interested in the ship, however. And Logan supposed the CIA needed to cover all the bases. Their fear of leaving any stone unturned was paramount when the word “terrorism” rose above the shit that accumulated from their stations across the world. Either Lish believed the ship was a danger, or he was just covering his ass with Washington. Burt’s dogged refusal to do business with the Kremlin didn’t necessarily fit with Lish’s worldview, Logan knew that.

In fact, now that Logan thought about it, it was people like Burt who were becoming the chief danger to peace in the modern world, not the old enemies from the Cold War. He held on to the guardrail, then leaned his elbows on it and watched the water gush past the trawler’s bow. If he could further win Laszlo’s trust, then it might be that he could parlay a deal over Ukraine among Lish and the CIA and Russia. Then he could do without Burt and become a star with the agency as he’d been before.

His mind turned finally to Anna. Was it Burt’s obsession with her, too, that drove his anti-Russian position? It seemed she wouldn’t rest until she’d taken her dying breath striking against her old country. She had all Burt’s attention. To Logan, it was almost embarrassing. He was like some senile, rich man who’d fallen for a pretty woman half his age. Then Logan thought back, as he had so many times before, to the night he and Anna had spent in New York, before she’d cut him out of her life for good. “Maybe in another life, Logan”—those had been her exact words at the ranch to end a relationship that had only just begun. One night with her, for Christ’s sake! Well, if Burt fucked up over Ukraine, maybe she wouldn’t enjoy Burt’s protection for much longer, and Logan wouldn’t be sorry to see her star fall. She’d become an irritant under his skin.

He buttoned the oilskin up higher to his neck and walked to the stern of the boat. Then he climbed some steps up onto the bridge.

“We should have her in sight soon,” he said to the skipper, an ex–navy Seal, and then he nodded to the Brit, Holyoake.

“We have her on radar.” The skipper showed him the radar map. The Pride of Corsica was the only other vessel in the area apart from them.

“Has she moved at all?” Logan enquired.

“Been there for two days. Same spot, near enough.”

“Any supplies brought in?”

“Nothing. No physical contact according to the satellites.”

Logan looked across at Philip Holyoake. He’d provided no analysis so far, made no contribution of any kind, in fact. He guessed he was there just to keep Adrian Carew, his MI6 chief, in close touch with Burt. It was a known fact that Adrian was looking for a soft, well-paid job once he stood down from the British intelligence service, and Cougar could provide that if anyone could.

A half hour later, they could see the Pride of Corsica appearing from the horizon through powerful binoculars and, shortly after that, her outlines appeared to the naked eye.

“She’ll have been following us for as long as we’ve seen her,” the skipper said. “How close do you want to go?”

“Head for her,” Logan replied. “We want to see what she points at us.”

At a distance of just more than a mile, the techs below the deck in the fish hold began to pick up a missile guidance system from the Pride of Corsica that was trained directly at the Mira. They relayed it to the bridge, with some guesswork attached as to the type and firepower.

“Bit over the top for a merchant ship, wouldn’t you say?” the skipper said quietly.

“They’ve got a Russian Helix helicopter on the deck,” Holyoake said, looking through a telescope. “You can see its coaxial rotors. No markings. Probably bought on the open market. Armed with Aphid missiles. That’s what the sensors are picking up. They’re fixed.” He turned away from the telescope as Logan moved beside him and put his eye to it.

“Are they locked on?” Logan asked, and the skipper relayed the message belowdecks, receiving a reply in the negative.

At that moment, a ship-to-ship communication crackled over the radio. “To fishing vessel Mira. To fishing vessel Mira. This is the commercial freighter Pride of Corsica. This is the commercial freighter Pride of Corsica. Over.”

“Reading you, Pride of Corsica. This is Mira. Over.”

“We request you alter your course immediately. We are carrying toxic materials. Over.”

Logan put his hand on the skipper’s arm. “Don’t reply,” he said. “Not yet.”

There was a silence that seemed like an age, but it probably lasted no more than a minute. Then the communication crackled again over the Mira’s radio. They were just over half a mile from the Pride of Corsica now.

“This is Pride of Corsica calling Mira. Alter your course immediately. Immediately. Over.”

“Take her a couple of degrees off,” Logan ordered the skipper. “No more.”

The Mira didn’t seem to alter course unless you looked closely at the bow. They would now miss the Pride of Corsica by a hundred yards or so.

“This is Mira to Pride of Corsica. This is Mira to Pride of Corsica. We have altered course and will be passing on your port side. Have a good day. Over.”

There was a short pause, then the radio crackled back at them. “Pride of Corsica to Mira. This is the final request. Repeat. This is the final request. Alter your course by at least ten degrees. Over.”

They were six hundred yards from the Pride of Corsica now and Logan, Philip Holyoake, and the skipper saw men on the stern of the vessel that the Mira was approaching. One of the Russians and one of the Americans joined them on the bridge.

“They’re wearing balaclavas,” Logan observed.

“Against identification from satellites,” Holyoake said. “Nothing to do with us.”

Logan picked up the radio that connected the bridge with the hold below. “Are they locked on?”

“No…no…Wait. They’re locked on now. Something on the deck.”

“The Aphid missiles on the chopper,” Holyoake said.

Logan looked at him. He seemed completely calm, as if they were enjoying a day out game fishing.

“How long have we got?” Logan said, and felt a sweat break out on his forehead.