working vessel before?’
The tall man nodded. ‘Of course, captain. They are all experienced seamen – that’s why they were chosen for this mission. You will not have any crew problems on this voyage.’
‘I hope not,’ Bondarev snapped. ‘This will not be a pleasure cruise. I expect to be able to sail within the hour, so I suggest you get your men aboard as quickly as possible.’
Seven minutes later, the engine of the grey coach started and a few seconds afterwards the vehicle began moving slowly away from the
Thirty-eight minutes after the coach had departed, the
Genady Arkenko was sitting at the dining table eating a simple evening meal of black bread and sausage when the alarm sounded on the short-wave radio receiver. He put down the bread, hurried into the small back room, turned off the alarm and put on the headphones.
Two minutes later he removed the headphones, re-set the alarm and walked back into the living room. He walked over to the telephone, consulted a typed list, pressed a speed-dial key combination and waited for the telephone to be answered.
‘Phase One is under way,’ Arkenko said simply, and then replaced the receiver.
In his apartment a little under a mile away, Dmitri Trushenko put down his telephone handset with a smile of satisfaction. Operation
Half an hour later he pressed the ‘Send’ button on his email client software, and despatched one line of encrypted text embedded in a three-page advertising message with an addressee list of almost one hundred. The message would apparently originate in Germany, and because of the six redirection sites it was programmed to visit would take several minutes to reach the only address that actually mattered – Hassan Abbas’ mailbox at ‘wanadoo.fr’.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday
RAF Brampton is near Huntingdon and usually about an hour and a half from London. It took Richter over two and a half, due to the three sets of traffic-light-controlled roadworks he had to negotiate, and a major accident which had blocked the A1 completely and forced him to take a diversion. At least the time passed pleasantly enough in the Ford Granada Ghia that was all that had been left in the Pool when Richter had appeared at the Transport Officer’s door clutching his authorization chit. He had been expecting one of the usual small – and invariably old – Fords and Rovers which made up the bulk of the Pool vehicles, and which were used by the department because, as Simpson explained to anyone who would listen, they were cheap, reliable and invisible.
The Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre is a long, low building of one and occasionally two storeys, designed with that singular lack of aesthetic appreciation that characterizes the work of the architects employed by the armed forces. At the main gate Richter was stopped by an armed sentry at the counter-weighted barrier, but a brief enquiry and a perusal of the Royal Navy officer’s identity card supplied by the Documents Section produced directions to the Number 2 Officers’ Mess Car Park.
Richter parked the Granada in the only vacant slot he could see, put the pass he had been given by the Main Guardroom on the dashboard, locked the car and walked through the picket gate set in the rusty black barbed-wire fence and into the JARIC Guardroom. Inside, a number of elderly and battered chairs were lined up against the left- and right-hand walls, with a small and equally decrepit coffee table covered in old magazines in the middle of the room. In the centre of the wall opposite the outside door was what looked like a steel door without a handle, and to the left of that was a board bearing the word ‘Reception’.
Under the sign was an armoured-glass panel fitted with speak slots and a small opening at the base. Behind the glass sat a bulky man wearing sergeant’s stripes and the distinctive shoulder flashes of the RAF Regiment. Richter walked over to the panel. The sergeant gave him a neutral stare, and eyed his civilian clothes with a certain amount of dissatisfaction. ‘Can I help you? Sir.’ The last word was an obvious afterthought.
Richter passed the ID card through the opening. ‘Lieutenant Commander Richter. I believe I’m expected.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The sergeant looked carefully at the card, and slightly disbelievingly at the photograph. ‘What’s your Service Number, sir?’
‘C021426K,’ Richter said.
‘Thank you. Please take a seat.’ The sergeant passed the card back through the slot and indicated the ancient chairs. Richter picked the cleanest looking and sat down, as the sergeant picked up a telephone. Richter found an antique copy of
The man who entered was a squadron leader, wearing a working-dress pullover. Dark haired and stocky, and with a cheerful and slightly chubby face which suggested a constant diet to keep his waistline under control, he was about Richter’s height.
‘Commander Richter? I’m Squadron Leader Kemp. Follow me, please.’ The steel door swung open, and Richter followed Kemp across an open compound and into the main JARIC building. On the wall inside the door was a notice in bleak official terminology: ‘This is a restricted area. All visitors must be accompanied at all times.’ They walked down a long corridor before Kemp stopped and opened a grey-painted door bearing the cryptic message ‘SSyO’ above the slightly more informative statement ‘Squadron Leader J D Kemp’.
Richter preceded him into the office. It was about fifteen feet square with pale blue walls, an assortment of filing cabinets in contrasting shades of brown and grey, and a large grey metal desk behind which was a wood and black vinyl chair, showing signs of age.
‘Right,’ Kemp said. ‘The telephone call I received from a Mr, er…’ He paused and glanced at a notebook on his desk. ‘Here we are. From Mr Simpson yesterday said that you wanted to see the films taken by the American SR–71A that landed at Lossiemouth last week.’ Richter nodded. ‘May I ask what your interest is in these films?’ Kemp asked.
‘Certainly,’ Richter replied. ‘Curiosity.’ Kemp looked at him expectantly, so Richter elaborated. ‘I’m curious to know why the Americans risked a major diplomatic row, not to mention a very expensive and highly classified aircraft and crew which was, incidentally, supposed to have been withdrawn from active service some years ago, to get detailed photographs of seven hundred miles of Russian tundra, and why they’re so damn coy about whatever it is they think is up there.’
Kemp nodded. ‘Yes, that puzzled us too. As far as we can tell from the initial analysis, there’s no evidence of any new buildings or other structures that might be of any military significance. In fact, it’s an extremely boring bit of Mother Russia all round.’
‘I’m running a little late,’ Richter said, glancing at his watch and then rising to his feet, ‘so could I see the films now?’
‘Of course. Come with me.’
John Westwood walked out into the Arrivals Hall at Heathrow Airport and looked around. After a few moments, a large black man wearing a dark suit detached himself from the wall and walked across to him. ‘John
