‘He’s spotted us, but I don’t think he’s seen any other possible tails.’
The Jaguar’s left-hand indicator came on as it approached the Heston service area, and Richter watched the two cars he had been watching drive on towards London. ‘Right, David,’ he said. ‘I think we’re clear. Pull in and park where we can see the Jaguar, but where you have a clear run to the exit, just in case the opposition have been cleverer than I thought.’
They pulled up on the end of a rank of cars and Richter saw Simpson walk away from the Jaguar and head towards the cafeteria area, feeling in his pocket, presumably for some change. That was a good sign, as it indicated that he hadn’t spotted any chase cars either, apart from the red Saab he knew Richter had been using.
Richter and Bentley sat in the Saab, watching for any sign of cars that he had previously seen, but by the time Simpson emerged, Richter had still no indication of any possible watchers. At eighteen minutes past, he reached for the door handle, then turned to Bentley. ‘If there’s any sign of trouble, any sign at all, don’t hang around, just take off and get back home. And if when I get out of the Jaguar I walk towards the cafeteria, go, because that will mean I’ve spotted someone. OK?’
‘OK, Paul. Just be careful.’
‘I will,’ Richter promised. ‘I’ve got a pension I’m determined to collect, if only to piss off my boss.’
Bentley smiled and nodded, and Richter opened the door and stepped out.
Modin was pleased. The convoy had encountered no significant hold-ups on the road to Brest, and the crossing into Poland had taken less than fifteen minutes. The Poles knew better than to delay vehicles bearing diplomatic plates, especially Russian diplomatic plates.
Warsaw was about one hundred and twenty miles ahead, and they were actually ahead of Nilov’s schedule. Modin instructed the
‘Thirty minutes,’ the
Modin nodded his approval, and he and Bykov got out of the limousine and walked towards the double doors of the cafe.
Richter opened the nearside rear door of the Jaguar and climbed in. There was an audible clunk as Simpson used central locking to secure all the doors. He turned to face Richter. ‘I’d like some answers, Richter. I’ve had the Met on my back all morning, wanting to know if I knew anything about the late Mr Orlov and two of his associates who were found dead by their cook this morning. The Met Super said he’d never seen such carnage. He said Orlov had twelve bullet wounds, just as if someone had shot bits off him.’ Richter nodded. ‘What happened to your face?’ Simpson asked.
‘I walked into a door. Why did the Met contact you?’
‘Because Orlov was an alien, and a Russian alien at that. They said the Foreign and Commonwealth Office thought that SIS might know something, and the idiot SIS Duty Officer gave the plods my phone number. I’ll be sorting him out later.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘I told them I’d look into it,’ Simpson said. ‘And unless you’ve got some pretty fancy answers, I’m going to point the finger straight at you. I told you last night not to touch Orlov.’
‘I thought you said you couldn’t afford to do without me?’ Richter asked.
‘I’ll give it a go, Richter,’ Simpson snarled. ‘Now tell me a tale, and it had better be a good one to justify all this bloody cloak and dagger crap and TESTAMENT.’
‘It may be cloak and dagger crap to you, Simpson, but it means my life, so if it’s all right with you, we’ll just keep on with it, OK?’
Richter leaned forward in the seat and told him what Orlov had told him or, rather, what he had started to tell him after Richter had shot off both his kneecaps, and what had then been forced out of him with further 9mm encouragement. When Richter finished, he leaned back and waited. Simpson looked ashen. ‘You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?’
Richter nodded. ‘I am sure that Orlov believed what he was telling me. I do not believe that anyone in his position would have been able to invent such complicated lies which would tie in so well with what we already know.’
Simpson sighed. ‘Dear God. Dear God help us all. What are we going to do?’
Richter shrugged. ‘That’s not up to me. We have to tell the French, obviously, because they’re already involved. We should tell the CIA officially – I know they’ve been aware that the Russians have been up to something for some time, but if we tell them what we know it might get us a bit of co-operation. As for retrieving the situation, I suppose we could make strong diplomatic noises at Moscow, not that it would do much good if the Kremlin knows as little about this as we did. The only thing Orlov couldn’t tell me, because he didn’t know, was when the final phase is going to happen, but I think we have very little time left.’
‘How long?’
‘Four days, at a guess, perhaps five. No longer.’
‘That hardly leaves enough time to go through diplomatic channels, does it?’
‘No,’ Richter said, ‘but what other course of action is open to us?’
‘Only one,’ said Simpson, ‘just as you suggested. First, now that we know what we’re up against I’ll get everything sorted at FOE. Second, I’ll brief Vauxhall Cross so that they can tell the CIA here in London, and everyone else who needs to know. Third, we stop the last device, and that means we send you to France.’
‘Me? Why me?’ Richter asked. ‘You haven’t forgotten I’m at the top of the SVR’s kill list, have you?’
‘No, Richter, I haven’t forgotten, but it has to be you. You know more about this than anybody else in the department, because you’ve been involved right from the start, but the real reason is that you’re the best man I’ve got for this kind of work. I’ll get you a diplomatic passport, for what it’s worth, and give you a couple of bodyguards, but you’ve got to go.’
Richter grunted. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said.
‘I’m not asking you to like it,’ Simpson snapped. ‘I’m just telling you what you’re going to do. Can you see any alternative?’
‘No,’ Richter conceded, ‘I can’t. Don’t bother about the bodyguards; they’d only draw attention to me. If I’ve got a diplomatic passport I can carry a weapon anyway, and there’s no need to risk anyone else.’
‘If that’s the way you want it,’ Simpson said.
Richter got out of the Jaguar and waited until Simpson had driven away. Then he walked over to the Saab, climbed back in and told Bentley they could go.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Richter replied. ‘I’ve got to go away for a few days.’
‘Where to?’
‘Home, James,’ Richter said.
‘No. I meant, where are you going?’
‘I can’t tell you that, either, but it’s between here and Spain.’
‘I see,’ Bentley said, then paused. ‘No, I don’t,’ he added. ‘Why France?’
‘I have to look in the back of a lorry.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s all I can tell you,’ Richter said. ‘You shouldn’t really even know that much – for your own sake.’
Dmitri Trushenko closed his email client software, initiated the shut-down routine for his laptop computer and leaned back in his chair. The message he had just sent, concealed within a typical piece of junk email and
