Pandemic

Operation CAIP. But he wasn’t listed as one of the senior agents, all now dead, so it had probably been one of his first assignments. The other thing Westwood deduced was that he was either still employed by the CIA or had a very close associate who was. And because Mr X seemed determined to eliminate anyone who knew anything at all about CAIP, the ‘associate’ idea didn’t really fly. Finally, he knew the man must be based at Langley or somewhere very close, because that area was where he was doing his killing.

The numbers bothered him. The Central Intelligence Agency employs just over twenty thousand full-time non-clerical staff, plus a virtually unlimited number of part-time specialists and consultants, as well as contract agents – normally just hired for one specific assignment because of their specialist knowledge or abilities – and regular support staff. With that large an organization, finding just one man was going to prove extremely difficult, but as far as Westwood could see it was the only avenue still open to him.

He nodded to himself at the realization, then rang the Personnel Department. ‘I need the names and departments of all CIA agents who joined the Agency in or before 1969, and who are still employed by us, but who are not currently on overseas assignments.’

There was a slightly stunned silence. ‘Do you have any idea how much work that’s going to take? I’m not even sure we can manage it.’

‘I’m sure you’ll find a way,’ Westwood replied firmly. ‘Just imagine I’m the head of a department, and that it’s real urgent.’

‘You are the head of a department.’

‘So I am,’ Westwood said. ‘That should make it easier for you. And it is real urgent.’

Rethymno, Crete

About an hour after Stein had sent off his email message to McCready, Mike Murphy was back in his hotel room, sitting at the desk and logging on to the same classified server, requesting a SITREP on the activities of the First Team.

He didn’t have long to wait. Thirty minutes later he logged on again, downloaded, decrypted and then read the brief reply from America: ‘Phase two complete. Elias dead. Krywald critically ill in Chania hospital. Stein has steel case. Recovery of case now Priority One task. Elimination of Krywald and Stein is Priority Two. Immediate executive action approved at your discretion.’

‘OK,’ Murphy muttered, and smiled as he shut down the laptop. ‘Time to get this show on the road.’

Chania, Crete

Richter’s mobile rang as he was leaving the hospital. ‘Hullo.’

‘This is Mickey Mouse,’ the quietly cultured voice said into his ear, and Richter immediately identified the first part of the recognition signal he himself had specified to Simpson.

‘Summer Lightning,’ Richter replied, giving the correct but completely unpredictable response.

‘Charles Ross. I’m your friendly local representative. How can we help you?’

‘Paul Richter. What phone are you using?’ Richter moved off the pavement and well out of the way of any passers-by.

‘Regular Nokia, I’m afraid,’ Ross replied. ‘We don’t have all the facilities here we’d like, if you see what I mean.’

That was an irritation, nothing more. Encrypted phones only work if both parties are using them: as Ross only had a regular GSM mobile, Richter knew he would have to be circumspect in what he said and how he said it.

‘First, I need to trace two Americans who have been staying here on the island. Their names are Roger Curtis and Richard Watson, and they’ve probably been here for a week or so.’

‘Hotel or apartment?’

‘Most likely a hotel,’ Richter replied. ‘They’ve probably also hired a car somewhere, and maybe a boat as well. They were planning to do some diving.’

‘Deep diving with a somewhat explosive aviation connection, you mean?’ Obviously Ross had been well briefed by SIS London, or perhaps had even heard direct from Simpson.

‘Exactly. I’ve just heard that Curtis is hospitalized at Chania, and he’s not going to be coming out for a while, maybe not ever, so I really do need to trace Watson.’

‘OK,’ Ross drawled, ‘I’ll get my people to look into it. Anything else you need?’

‘Yes, as soon as you have a location for Watson, we need to meet so that we can pay him a visit. There are some things I need to discuss with him urgently.’

Rethymno, Crete

Richard Stein had read more classified operation files than he could remember, but this CAIP business was a first for him.

It wasn’t actually the file’s contents that had alarmed him, because he frankly understood almost none of it. The whole file was full of detailed notes about medical procedures and inoculations, and the reactions from patients to those procedures. That part looked reassuringly harmless.

But at the very back of the file was an ‘Executive Summary’ of CAIP which pre-dated by about nine months all the other material contained in the file. This six-page summary explained in some detail exactly what CAIP involved and what it was intended to achieve. That bit was obviously what Krywald had read, and when Stein finished reading the last page, he knew exactly what his partner had meant – and he hadn’t been exaggerating. If anybody outside the Central Intelligence Agency found out what CAIP was meant to achieve, Stein really could see a backlash of public opinion forcing the closure of the Agency. The fact that CAIP had been wound up over thirty years earlier meant nothing at all. Even if CAIP were to be made public in a hundred years from now, the result could well be the same.

Almost without conscious thought Stein took a pocket knife and sliced through the corner of the summary, removing it from the tag that had secured it to the file. Those six pages were dynamite, and he wondered if he could use them somehow to buy his safety and his freedom. After a moment, he folded them twice and shoved them to the bottom of the very back document pocket of his briefcase.

The actual mechanics of CAIP had been technically simple, barely even meriting the description of ‘operation’. There had been no enemy, no resistance and no danger, in the conventional sense of the words. But the casualty figures made very impressive – or very distressing – reading, depending entirely upon the point of view of the reader.

At last Stein understood exactly why McCready had been so insistent that the aircraft must be completely destroyed, and why recovery of the case containing the file and remaining flasks was so vital.

He also realized there were two reasons why McCready had expressly instructed that the case be passed to him unopened. First, anyone who opened the case was clearly exposing himself to the deadly agent that lurked inside it. Roger Krywald knew that now, but it was far too late for him. The second reason was the file. Anyone reading the file and finding out what CAIP stood for, what the operation had comprised, became an immediate threat to the CIA itself.

Stein could guess exactly what kind of action McCready might take to eliminate that threat. And as Stein’s last message had already confirmed that Krywald had opened the steel case, there could be little doubt that either Krywald or Stein, or maybe both of them, had read at least some of the incriminating file. Stein wished, briefly, that he’d taken a look at the file before he’d sent that message to McCready. But it was too late for that now.

No doubt there was already an assassination squad located somewhere on Crete, ready and waiting for an executive instruction to eliminate him. Since they had arrived on the island, neither he nor Krywald had bothered taking the usual precautions, simply because their task had seemed to be nothing more than a simple clean-up operation.

His knowledge of CAIP changed all that. He was going to have to start watching his back, remain aware of everything and everyone, otherwise he was likely to become just another statistic. Stein reached for the pistol in the waistband of his trousers, extracted the magazine and checked that it was fully loaded, slid it back into the butt of the SIG and worked the slide to chamber a round.