what it is. What is obvious is that the Americans had to have had some indication of something going on in north- west Russia to make them fly the Blackbird. And, as we’re in the dark about what it is, it seems logical that they may have spotted something via satellite that they don’t want to tell us about. If that’s the case, they might therefore have simply omitted to let us see the relevant films. They might have pleaded some kind of mechanical malfunction for the critical period when whatever happened was going on.’
‘Yes, that makes sense. But what is it that they don’t want us to see, and why?’
Richter shook his head. ‘At this moment, I’ve absolutely no idea.’
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi
‘When will you leave, Nicolai?’ Sokolov asked.
‘I will join the convoy at Minsk, on Sunday morning,’ Modin replied. ‘My old bones ache if I have to spend more than an hour in the back of a car. Minister Trushenko has instructed me to accompany the convoy, but he did not say from where. So, I will join it at Minsk – I can fly there on Saturday and get a good night’s sleep before the journey.’
Sokolov nodded agreement, then opened the first of the folders he had brought with him. Modin looked expectantly at his old friend and comrade, but Sokolov shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t found the traitor, Nicolai, and I am still not really sure that there is one. We have no hard evidence, none at all. The wiretaps, intercepts and surveillance have revealed nothing, so even if one of the people indoctrinated into this project has betrayed it, he has not been in contact since the start of this investigation.’
‘So what is in the folders?’ Modin asked.
Sokolov held them up in front of him. ‘As well as trying to find out who could have been in contact with the Americans, I also looked at the problem from the other side. I have been able to identify some officers who could not have been in contact, because of their postings to areas where no Westerner is allowed, for example. I had to assume that no traitor would be stupid enough to send evidence of his crime to the American Embassy by mail.’
Modin smiled thinly. ‘Particularly not Russian mail,’ he said.
‘Exactly. And the same applies to telephone calls. Most long-distance calls still have to be connected by an operator, and the called numbers are always recorded. It would be too much of a risk.’
‘And the result was?’ Modin prompted.
‘I could eliminate eight officers only,’ Sokolov replied. ‘Including the two of us and Minister Trushenko, that still leaves sixteen people.’
Modin sat in silence for a few moments. ‘Grigori,’ he said finally, ‘forget about the physical evidence. You have reviewed the personal files of all the officers?’
Sokolov nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘And you know most of them personally?’ Sokolov nodded again. ‘I have relied upon your intuition before,’ Modin continued. ‘Do you not have a feeling – however slight or irrational – about any of the officers? Let’s assume that you had to pick just one of them.’
Sokolov smiled. ‘You mean, if somebody told me that so-and-so was the traitor, which name would surprise me least?’
‘More or less, yes.’
‘I admit that I have never liked the man,’ Sokolov admitted, ‘and I am trying not to let that cloud my judgement, but if I had to pick just one, I would choose Viktor Bykov.’
Modin nodded and smiled bleakly. ‘We always thought the same way, Grigori,’ he said. ‘I have already had Bykov seconded to my staff here, and he will be accompanying me to London with the weapon. If he is the traitor, he will have no chance to communicate with the Americans until the plan is implemented. I will see to that.’ Sokolov nodded, his relief evident. ‘However,’ Modin continued, ‘Bykov may be absolutely innocent, so continue your researches, old friend.’
‘Of course. Now, what is the next step?’
‘Apart from the placing of this weapon, all that remains is to indoctrinate the
‘You’re right,’ Kemp said. ‘There was one short period of about eight days, just after the last set of KH–12 pictures that this frame came from. There was a “command failure” which took a week to rectify, during which time no pictures were received from the satellite.’
Penny smiled at Richter. ‘I didn’t realize you were psychic,’ she said.
‘I’m not,’ he replied, ‘I’m just a real good guesser, and I’m prepared to lay money that whatever alerted the Americans took place during that period when they are claiming that the satellite was out of action. Probably they detected more evidence of vehicular movement in the area, and that sparked their interest. Then when the hill vanished from the KH–12 pictures, they flew the Blackbird to get a closer look at the site.’
‘There’s another point as well,’ Kemp added. ‘Although we’ve been getting KH–12 pictures since the command failure, we’ve received none showing this location, or anything within about a hundred miles of it.’
‘I’m not entirely surprised,’ Richter said.
‘So now what?’ Kemp fired the question at Richter, but Simpson fielded it.
‘From JARIC’s point of view, I think that’s it. I don’t think there’s anything more to be gained from analysis of these films. We’ve identified the fact that the hill has vanished. What we now have to do is find out how the Russians managed it, and why the Americans don’t want to tell us about it. And that’s our job.’
John Rigby had been an agency professional for a long time, and had easily spotted the tail as he left the American Embassy on Novinskij bulvar, but he had made no attempt to shake it. A golden rule for any covert operative is never to shake a tail, because doing that identifies the person being followed as a professional, which immediately blows his cover as a covert agent. A professional who believes he is being followed will simply proceed about his lawful business or, if he was actually en route for some kind of nefarious activity, abandon his plans and do something completely innocent and legal. John Rigby was just going out for lunch, so he ignored the man in the dark blue VAZ as he looked for a parking space.
The Babushka Restaurant just off Nikitskaja ulitsa was small and intimate, and a popular lunchtime venue for foreign diplomats and newsmen. Rigby was a regular there, and nodded to several acquaintances as he hung his overcoat on the end peg just inside the restaurant doorway. Rather than join any of the people he knew, Rigby selected a small table for two in the far corner. He sat with his back to the wall, facing the restaurant entrance, ordered his meal and then buried himself in a two-day-old copy of the
Despite his apparent absorption in his paper, Rigby was paying close attention to the comings and goings at the restaurant, and particularly to the area near the coat rack. Ever since the last message from RAVEN he had been making himself even more visible than before, eating three meals a day in various Moscow restaurants, taking walks in Gorky Park, shopping in GUM or just wandering the Moscow streets. His duodenal ulcer had been complaining ever since this routine had started, and he was beginning to lose sleep as well.
As he ate the rather plain meal and drank the glass of milk that was all he could tolerate without reaching for his bottle of pills, Rigby wondered if Langley was right. Initially he had been instructed to make absolutely no attempt to identify RAVEN, for fear of alarming him, but since finding the message in his car, Langley had been frantic to get any indication of the identity of the disaffected Russian. Rigby had spent hours memorizing the faces of the most senior officers in the GRU and the SVR plus, where photographs existed, those of their principal assistants, friends and associates. That hadn’t helped identify RAVEN, although Rigby had detected certain liaisons of which CIA Moscow had not previously been aware.
At every meal, and every time he went out anywhere, Rigby had tried, as surreptitiously as possible, to be aware of anyone who approached him, his overcoat – which he invariably took off in every bar and restaurant he
