it. I wasn’t prepared to take a chance.’ That didn’t sound too bad. It could have happened.
‘Who do you think they were? With reasons.’
‘I think the Russian Embassy is short two Cultural Attaches,’ Richter said. ‘Cultural Attaches who just happened to be trained assassins, who were following me in a stolen car.’
Simpson digested this in silence for a few moments, then spoke again. ‘One thing I don’t buy – why did they try a mobile hit?’
‘I don’t think they did – it was simply Russian mentality. I drove up to Brampton on the A1 – a hell of a journey, with long queues at three sets of roadworks and a major accident. So I had decided to come back a different route. I was going to cut across country and pick up the A10. But because I’d driven up on the A1, they probably presumed that I would drive back on the A1, queues notwithstanding. After all, queuing is pretty much endemic in Russia.
‘I think that somewhere on the A1 between Brampton and London,’ Richter continued, ‘there was a man with a Mannlicher or a Mauser, waiting for me to drive into the viewfinder of his telescopic sight. No professional assassin would ever try a hit from a moving car against a target also in a moving car – it’s virtually impossible to get a clean kill. He would always go for a static hit. So the mobile would have been the last-resort back-up, and they only used it because I turned left instead of right out of Brampton’s main gates.’
Simpson nodded. ‘What weapons were they carrying?’
‘The guy in the back seat had a Colt. The driver I don’t know about.’
‘Why not something heavier?’
‘Probably just prudence. Diplomatic passports or not, the plods take a dim view of foreign hoods wandering about the Home Counties carrying assault rifles or sub-machineguns. Pistols you can hide.’
Simpson nodded, apparently satisfied. He stood up and walked over to his favourite window and looked out. He fondled his cacti for a minute or so, then turned round. ‘OK, assuming for the moment that it was a Russian operation, why?’
‘I think Newman’s death must be tied in with the Blackbird flight,’ Richter said. ‘Follow the sequence. I go to Moscow, I investigate the death of an Embassy official, and a Russian hood tries to take me out before I even leave Sheremetievo. I come back here and immediately visit JARIC, where any pictures from the Blackbird over- flight would be bound to end up if we had anything to do with it. Then someone else tries to take me out. I gave up believing in coincidence when I stopped believing in Father Christmas. Those events are linked, and the sum added up, from the Russian point of view, to the elimination of Richter.
‘I was photographed on arrival at Sheremetievo, as all foreign nationals are, and my guess is that that picture matched a record in the SVR database, hence the kill attempt at the airport. There’ll be a pile of mug shots of me at the Russian Embassy here, and no doubt a directive from the Lubyanka or Yazenevo to watch and report, and obviously a kill order on me if I did certain things or visited certain places. JARIC, presumably, was one of them. The other thing you ought to be aware of,’ Richter added, ‘is that, if they have been following me, it’s quite likely Hammersmith Commercial Packers is now on their watch-list.’
Hammersmith Commercial Packers provided FOE with a thin veneer of cover. The company actually existed, and even employed a small staff to conduct a legitimate business on the ground floor of the building located just north of the Hammersmith Flyover.
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Simpson said. ‘I can confirm some aspects. The car was stolen three days ago, in London. The Embassy Watch people have confirmed that the two in it were Russians, and from our records they arrived here only the day before yesterday, together with two other new staff for the Russian Embassy, so they could be a professional hit-team. Or, rather, they could have been a professional hit-team. They’re both dead.’
‘Oh,’ Richter said.
‘Yes,’ said Simpson. ‘I suppose they were both alive and well when you left them?’
‘I don’t know,’ Richter replied. ‘They were both unconscious, certainly.’
Simpson looked at him doubtfully. ‘According to the initial report from the local police, both had suffered fractured skulls, the damage being caused by something like a large hammer or mallet. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’
Richter looked straight at him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you check the toolkit in the Granada and see if you can find any blood-stained tyre levers or anything?’
‘I already have. There was also no sign of the gun you say they fired at you.’
‘Really?’ Richter said. ‘Well, perhaps there was a back-up team in a second car, then, and they shifted the evidence, as it were.’
‘Perhaps. And perhaps there’s a hammer in a river somewhere with your prints slowly washing off it, and a bag with a gun in it buried in a wood.’ Richter looked at him, but said nothing. ‘What’s the tie-up between Newman and the Blackbird?’ Simpson asked. ‘Do you know?’
‘No,’ Richter replied, standing up to leave, ‘but I’m going to find out. One thing – I want to draw a weapon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if anyone else shoots at me, I want to be able to shoot back.’
Simpson was silent for a few seconds, then he nodded. ‘Yes, you can have a pistol.’ He shook a warning finger. ‘Just try to remember you’re not James Bond. Make sure you fire second, if you fire at all, and try to avoid ventilating some innocent member of the public when you do so. I’ll ring the Armoury.’
Roger Abrahams knocked twice on the bedroom door and walked in, carrying a tray of coffee and a plate of doughnuts. He flicked on the main light and glanced across at the bed, where John Westwood was just opening his eyes. ‘Feeling better?’ Abrahams asked.
‘Not so you’d notice,’ Westwood grunted. ‘Flying across the pond always screws me up – you’d think I’d be used to it by now.’ He looked at the tray Abrahams had placed on the bedside table. ‘Some news?’
‘Yes,’ Abrahams replied, pouring a coffee. ‘We have a meet with Piers Taylor in just over an hour, hence the wake-up call.’
Westwood nodded and reached for the cup. ‘Good. Where is it – here?’
Abrahams shook his head and smiled. ‘No way. Taylor would want a very good reason – probably in writing – to visit the Embassy. We’re all going off to feed the ducks in Regents Park, just like characters in a John le Carre novel.’
Westwood grimaced. ‘And I suppose we have to indulge in the usual double-speak and then work out afterwards what the hell we were really talking about?’
‘Yup. Anyway, eat, drink and get your pants on – the car will be here in thirty minutes.’
The armourer greeted Richter with a smile and two cardboard boxes. ‘Here you are, Mr Richter. One nine- millimetre Browning, with shoulder holster and fifty rounds of ammunitions. as per Mr Simpson’s orders.’
‘I don’t want it,’ Richter said, shaking his head.
The armourer looked puzzled. ‘But Mr Simpson said that—’
‘Yes,’ Richter said. ‘I do want a gun, but I don’t want that bloody thing. The only good thing about a Browning is that it’s got a good-sized magazine and doesn’t jam as often as other automatics. But at anything over about fifty feet you might as well throw the bloody gun at someone as soon as fire it. I want a pistol that’s accurate. I’m not interested in magazine size, and I’m not interested in speed of fire. I want a revolver.’
The armourer looked a little taken aback. ‘But Mr Simpson said—’
‘I know what Mr Simpson said,’ Richter interrupted. ‘Ring him up and tell him I want to draw a revolver.’
The armourer picked up the two cardboard boxes and retreated into his office in the corner of the Armoury. Richter was standing on one side of the three-feet-high counter, on the other side of which the department’s devices of death and destruction were kept, lovingly cleaned and polished and ready for immediate issue. Richter knew from past experience on the range that FOE held a variety of revolvers, and he knew exactly which one he wanted. The armourer stuck his head out of the office.
