Chapter Twelve
Friday
Richter received a brief call at home just before eight in the morning from Sheila, Simpson’s PA. ‘Committee Room Two at nine, please.’
When Richter reached the third floor, it was clear that he hadn’t been the only operative to receive a summons. The Committee Room seated twenty-four, and there were only five seats spare once he’d sat down. Simpson was at the head of the table, the Intelligence Director on his right. Simpson looked round the table, checking that everyone was present and correct, nodded to himself and then began. ‘We have a problem,’ he said, without preamble. ‘To date the only people who have been aware of this matter have been Richter and myself, although the ID has been consulted about certain aspects of it. Some of you will have heard about the death of Graham Newman, the SIS Head of Station Moscow.’
There were murmurs of sympathy from around the table. ‘What you will not know is that Graham Newman did not die in a car crash. That was, and will remain, the official version. Richter’s researches indicate that Newman was almost certainly snatched by the SVR, and we have concluded that he died under interrogation in Moscow.’ The murmurs turned to angry whispering. ‘That is unusual enough, especially in the current climate of better east–west relations, but there is more. Last week a Lockheed SR–71A Blackbird spy-plane was pulled out of retirement to make a covert flight over north-western Russia. The aircraft was slightly damaged during the flight and was very short of fuel when it cleared Russian airspace. It was unable to rendezvous with any of its support tankers or to reach its airfield of departure – Mildenhall – and it was forced to land at RAF Lossiemouth.’
The room was entirely silent, everyone hanging on Simpson’s words. ‘The photographic intelligence experts at JARIC analysed copies of the Blackbird films that were supplied – under a certain amount of duress – by the Americans. They also ran comparisons between KH–12 satellite pictures they had on file and the SR–71A films, but their initial report was inconclusive. No new installations were detected, and there seemed no adequate reason why the Americans had wanted pictures of the terrain over which the aircraft flew.’ Incomprehension was showing on a number of faces. ‘Richter visited JARIC to examine the films, and on leaving was attacked by an assassination team, later and posthumously identified as Russian.’ Simpson looked straight at him, as did everybody else round the table.
‘I was lucky,’ Richter said. ‘They ran out of road.’
‘Quite,’ Simpson said dryly, and continued. ‘Richter is well known for his wide and somewhat eccentric contact list, and he was able to persuade a CIA analyst to give us some pointers about the Blackbird films, despite their NOFORN caveat. His source stated that it wasn’t what was showing on the films that was important, but what wasn’t. Further study by JARIC staff showed that a hill deep in the Bolshezemel’skaya Tundra had vanished.
‘We considered the possibility that the hill hadn’t been a hill at all – that it had been some sort of camouflaged installation – but we have concluded that this was not the case. Richter’s informant was quite specific in stating that the object removed was both completely worthless and very old, and none of the satellite photographs on file at JARIC showed any sign of activity at the location. So, we have to conclude that the hill was just a hill.’
Simpson poured himself a glass of water. ‘Yesterday Richter checked the seismic recordings. These showed that on the second of last month seismic activity of an unusual sort was detected in the vicinity of the hill. I don’t pretend to understand the technicalities of it, but the boffins here got quite excited. The hill was apparently destroyed by a nuclear weapon, but one without a known signature. In other words, a new type of bomb.’
He changed tack. Simpson had always given good briefings – short, concise and precisely to the point. Nobody ever fell asleep when he was talking. ‘Last night I attended an extraordinary meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was extraordinary in more than one sense of the word. First, it was called by the CIA Chief of Station – Roger Abrahams – who was accompanied by a man called John Westwood. He’s the Head of the CIA Foreign Intelligence Staff – a Langley big wheel. Secondly, it was a meeting without minutes. All secretarial staff were excluded, and restrictions were placed on all attendees.
‘Roger Abrahams and John Westwood took the chair, as it were, and told us a very interesting story. It’s a story at the moment without an ending, which is why you’re all here now. The CIA needs our help, for reasons which will become clear later.
‘First, a history lesson, which I’ll keep as brief as possible. Following the accession to power of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the entire fabric of Russian society changed. The nation opened up to the West and to Western ideas, but this actually created more problems than it solved with, for example, member states of the former USSR breaking away to try to do their own thing. Names like Chechnya, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan entered the languages of the world, usually associated with violent protests against Moscow and Russia.
‘Obviously nobody anticipated the Westernization of Russia would proceed without difficulties, but there were actually far more obstacles than anyone expected. Instead of the optimism that might have been expected, a significant proportion of the peoples of the Confederation of Independent States began protesting against the new regime. Their argument, reduced to its simplest form, was that although things had been bad under Communist rule, at least everybody knew where they were and what was going on. Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the situation was entirely new, and they felt cut adrift, their normal points of reference removed. This mood led to the attempted
‘That,’ Simpson said, ‘is the history. The CIA has maintained intense surveillance of Russia throughout this period, and has come up with some interesting data. First, overt defence spending in the former USSR has slowed considerably. The CIA and all other Western intelligence services have noted a reduction in the build rate of combat aircraft, submarines and ships, and a lot of building has stopped entirely. This should have freed significant amounts of capital into the general economy, but neither the CIA nor anyone else has been able to detect any evidence of this. The queues outside the shops in Moscow are just as long – in fact, most of them are a lot longer – and the food shortages are just as apparent. What the CIA has been trying to find out is where the “spare” money has been going.’
Simpson glanced round the table again. ‘The CIA has come up with a controversial hypothesis. If it is assumed that actual defence spending is the same as previously, then the secret development of a new weapon is a real probability. Further, if this hypothetical new weapon is sufficiently unusual that it makes existing weapons obsolete or nearly so, then it is possible that
‘We’ve heard from SIS,’ Roger Abrahams said, closing the briefing room door behind him.
‘And?’ John Westwood looked up from the file open in front of him.
‘And nothing. Officially, the Secret Intelligence Service regrets that it is unable to assist, but requests that we keep Piers Taylor fully informed.’
Westwood considered this. ‘“Unable to assist” – does that mean that they can’t, or that they just won’t?’
Abrahams shrugged. ‘Whatever. It could be either, but my guess is that they can’t. Either way, we’re going nowhere here. Do you want me to keep Taylor in the loop?’
Westwood nodded his head. ‘Yes. The directive from Langley was clear enough about that,’ he said. He slapped the file closed and looked at his watch. ‘I’d better talk to Langley, and now I’ll have to go see the French. Signal the Paris Chief of Station that I’m coming, and then get me on a flight to Paris tomorrow morning.’
There were sharp intakes of breath around the table and two people started to ask questions. Simpson stopped them. ‘Questions later. I should say that I don’t personally subscribe to this first-strike theory, and I would normally assume that it’s just the usual CIA paranoia. However, the killing of Newman, the attempted assassination of Richter, and the vaporization of a hill in the tundra have to be considered. We can ignore none of
