headed for the Bayswater Road.
The only American air bases in England he could think of were Mildenhall, Lakenheath and Fairford. There were a few others the Yanks shared with the RAF in some way or other and Gabriel had given no clues the bases were not dual nationality. But Mildenhall and Lakenheath were the biggest US bases outside of the States and both were close to Thetford Forest, which had a large Brit army training area.That was north east of London, two hours or so. It was a start, and if it was a negative, he would have to make a few calls to get information on other locations.
M1, M11 or A1, he wondered? The M11 sounded good from what he could remember of trips into Norfolk.
Stratton suddenly felt hungry. He had not eaten supper and only a sandwich for lunch. ‘You hungry?’
‘No.’
Stratton decided to get out of the city first and then stop somewhere, on the motorway perhaps, and grab a bite. He looked in his rear-view mirror. Gabriel had his eyes closed but did not look asleep.
‘Is it some kind of mental gift?’
‘What?’
‘Remote viewing.’
‘I’m told most people can be taught to view.’
‘You can be taught to look inside people’s heads?’ That sounded even more far-fetched.
‘It’s all about clearing one’s mind and getting into a pure alpha state.’
Gabriel did not elaborate further and Stratton was beginning to find his attitude irritating. ‘Gabriel, I’d like to know more about it . . . Yes, I’m sceptical, but you can understand that.’
Gabriel opened his eyes slightly to look at Stratton. He remained silent for a moment deciding whether or not to bother trying to explain any further. ‘The brain basically operates in four mental states: alpha, beta, theta and delta. Delta is deep sleep and the best place to receive viewings, but you can’t interpret them if you are asleep. Theta is light sleep and also a good place to view, but you can quickly drift into delta. Beta is normal consciousness, such as where you are now, but it is almost impossible to view because the mind is too crammed. Alpha is the mind state between theta and beta where you can clear your mind but remain awake. It’s a form of meditation. The rest is practice and being able to interpret what you see. It’s really that simple. If you want to know more about it, you’ll have to get a book. I do it, I don’t teach it.’
Stratton rolled his eyes. He had got what he asked for but was none the wiser.
‘Do you believe in God?’ Gabriel asked him.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because you haven’t seen him.’
‘Because I’ve never needed him,’ Stratton said, then wondered how true that was. He was reminded of something he had thought of that afternoon on the train while reading his book about the Templars and the crusades, which was how many men went to war and fought for God or in search of him.
‘Interpreting . . . That’s where it always falls apart,’ Gabriel said. ‘Like those cards psychiatrists hold up with nothing but black blobs on them and they ask you what you see. One person sees a butterfly, another sees Abraham Lincoln. Eventually someone has to make a choice, and then all the other choices have to hang off that one. You start wrong, then everything else is usually wrong.’
Gabriel closed his eyes.
‘You make much money as a viewer?’ Stratton asked, trying not to sound flippant, although he was being a little. Gabriel didn’t answer. Stratton glanced in the mirror. He was either asleep or didn’t want to talk any more.
A sign indicated the M11 was a few miles ahead. Stratton checked his watch. They could be in the area in an hour and a half.
An all-too-familiar feeling suddenly enveloped him, a deep sense of pointlessness, as if he should be doing something more useful with his life. What that was he had no idea but the frequency of the feeling seemed to increase the older he got. He often wondered if he would get more out of life doing something like diving instruction on some Caribbean island, living in a palm-covered lean-to on the beach and wearing flip-flops, shorts and brightly coloured shirts. But then, who was he kidding? A week of that and he would start turning crazy. He suspected the answer to his idea of a meaningful life was close by but he had always been skirting around it, not brave enough to make the leap. For the moment Sumners dictated his life for him until he could find one of his own. And fate, of course.
Zhilev stood in the darkness of a forest surrounded by a dense, brittle army of black slender pines, their heads shuffling in the breeze. He was completely still, listening to the sounds of the night. It was some thirteen years since he had last stood in this wood, on the same spot, also in darkness, but that time he was not alone. He had been with three other members of Spetsnaz, all Combat Swimmers, all from the unit on Mayskiy Island. They had been dropped off the night before by a Russian ‘fishing boat’ in the Norwegian Channel, ten miles off the coast of East Anglia, where they then motored the rest of the way to the coast in a small rubber inflatable. The relatively quiet beaches west of Cromer had been chosen as the point to come ashore where it was also easier to carry the boat up the gently sloping sand and into the hinterland at high tide, deflate it and bury it with the engine and fuel bags in a sand dune. They then made their way across country and just before dawn arrived at a small wood a mile in from the coast where they laid up for the rest of the day. One of them remained on watch at all times in case of farmers or children while the others slept, ate, or serviced their gear, then the following evening they crossed several fields to an agent contact point in a quiet country lane. The agent was a Sandringham game warden who had done this many times in the past ten years. He drove them across country in his Land Rover to the other side of Thetford Forest and from there they walked through the wood to the point where Zhilev now stood.
He remembered how the pines were younger and thinner then but still dense enough to give cover from view from the light, night-time traffic that cruised the A1065, 75 metres away, where it cut through this part of the forest. During his military service he had imagined returning to this place, but never as a civilian.
Zhilev had been standing still for almost an hour, the recommended minimum amount of time to watch and listen before proceeding to the next phase. Throughout his career, Zhilev had been a perfectionist and stickler for protocol. His reconnaissance and target survey reports were always detailed and supported by sketches, photographs, charts or maps, with samples of local soil and flora where possible, and Zhilev kept a copy of everything except the samples. It was an offence to do so but wise and worth the risk if your chosen career in the military happened to be with an arm of the KGB, which Special Forces ultimately were even though Zhilev’s unit came under the direct command of the Navy. One never knew where one’s career might lead and a detailed record of one’s past exploits was essential, even though it could be a double-edged weapon. The tide of power in Russia was a turbulent one and long before the wall came down those in privileged places knew a storm was brewing from within. Zhilev decided early on in his career that keeping such information and never needing it was better than the reverse.
There was a chill in the moist air, still not as cold as Riga at this time of year, but his well-built Russian boots protected his feet from the damp ground and his shaggy old sheepskin coat, a present from his brother to use on camping trips, kept his body warm. The only activity he had detected while standing in the wood was a handful of foraging muntjaks, the short-legged, plump little Asiatic deer that roamed these woods. Zhilev had not taken his original route across the forest from the old agent drop-off point but had walked through the wood, keeping parallel with the road, from the garage on the roundabout three-quarters of a mile away where he had left his car parked among many others so it would not be noticed.
It had been a tiring journey from Riga to Ostende but he had managed to snatch a solid hour’s sleep during the short ferry crossing to England. Apart from his usual aching neck, he felt quite good. Perhaps it was the rush of being on an operation once again, even though it was not an official mission sanctioned by his government. But it would be the biggest operation he had ever undertaken, by far; much bigger than ferrying agents into Europe through Swedish locks using mini-subs, or a bodyguard to Gorbachev in Reykjavik and Malta, or ferrying weapons
