however light, they would never let Marchant meet Dhar. And that remained the most important thing. Fielding was convinced that only Marchant could stop the
He had wanted to talk to Myers more, discover what he had been asked to do, just as he had wanted to ask Marchant about the test that Primakov had set him. But he couldn’t. He didn’t trust himself. If Marchant or Myers had told him, he feared a part of him would have demanded action: a visceral response honed over thirty-five years of public duty. That was what he did, why he had signed up. There was also the very real possibility that there might be other Hugo Prentices in the Service, listening in, reporting back to Moscow.
Instead, he had put his faith in Marchant, trusted him to defect responsibly and in isolation. He wasn’t sure why he trusted anyone any more. He had relied on Prentice too much since Stephen Marchant’s departure and death. In some ways, his old friend had been a hopeless choice of ally. Prentice had never been interested in fighting Foreign Office battles or playing Legoland politics. But it was what he represented that had appealed to Fielding: an old-fashioned field man who had repeatedly turned down promotion in favour of gathering intelligence. Prentice had been immune to legal guidelines on human rights, tedious departmental circulars on personal-development needs, blue-sky meetings and resource planning. Mistresses had appealed more than marriage, rented digs more than mortgages. He had just wanted to get on with his job. Nothing more, nothing less. Except that it hadn’t been as simple as that.
‘Ian for you,’ Ann Norman said over the intercom.
The next moment, Ian Denton was standing in the middle of Fielding’s office, looking a new man.
‘Good news and bad news,’ his deputy said, louder than usual. ‘All our old SovBloc networks appear to be intact. Out of some perverse sense of loyalty, Prentice only seems to have burned Polish agents.’
Everyone knew that Denton had never liked Prentice.
‘He did it for the money, Ian, not to skewer us,’ he said, unsure why he was defending Prentice. But Denton’s triumphant tone was irritating. He preferred his deputy when he was bitter and quiet.
‘Does that make it any better?’
‘Less personal. The bad news?’ Fielding knew it would be Marchant. His line manager had filed a formal complaint about him earlier in the day, citing poor hours and a disruptive attitude. HR had added a note on his file asking if Marchant was drinking again. All was going to plan.
‘We’re getting word of a major security incident in the Outer Hebrides. The JIC is being convened, and we’re being blamed. Oh yes, and Spiro’s back.’
81
‘Your brother has excelled himself,’ Primakov said, walking around the bare hangar at Kotlas that had been Dhar’s home for the past month. ‘Do you not want for any more comforts?’
‘I have all that I need,’ Dhar said dispassionately. He was sitting at a bare wooden table, a copy of the Koran open in front of him. The austerity made Primakov crave a drink, a nip of whisky, but he had learned not to offend Dhar on the few occasions they had been alone together.
‘He has proved that it is too easy to penetrate British airspace. You will have no problems.’
‘Won’t they be more alert now?’
‘If Marchant can knock out the system once, it can be done again.’
‘When is he arriving?’
‘We will lift him tonight. The Americans are closing in on him.’
‘And you are sure?’
‘Sure?’
‘About Daniel Marchant.’
Sometimes, Primakov found Dhar’s stare too chilling. He looked away, out of the window, steeling himself, then turned back to face him, hands clutched tightly behind his back.
‘Your brother is ready.’
82
In normal circumstances, Fielding would have objected to the presence of James Spiro at the Joint Intelligence Committee table, but their relationship was now one of delicate expedience. Spiro had been useful in Madurai, unknowingly helping to build up Marchant’s credentials for defection. In return, Fielding had agreed with the DCIA to drop British opposition to Spiro’s rehabilitation. He had been suspended from his position as head of Clandestine, Europe, but was now back at his desk at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Everyone knew Spiro had messed up over the drone strike, but the truth was that the CIA needed people like him, and they didn’t have anyone to replace him with. What Spiro didn’t know, as he addressed the meeting in tones of barely disguised vindication, was that he was still dancing to Fielding’s tune.
‘I’m sorry to do this to you again, Marcus, but Daniel Marchant has got a lot of questions to answer.’ Fielding had to admire Spiro’s resilience. A few weeks earlier, he had been sitting at the same spot at the table, his career in tatters, listening to Paul Myers humiliate him.
‘Are you saying that Marchant in some way facilitated the breach of airspace?’ the chairman of the JIC, Sir David Chadwick, said, looking across at Fielding.
‘“Facilitated” is one way of putting it,’ said Spiro. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he was standing on the shores of Stornoway with a couple of paddles and a fluorescent jacket, instructing the MiGs where to taxi.’
A chuckle rippled through Sir David’s jowls, then he checked himself when he realised that no one else was laughing. He was an odious chairman, Fielding thought, obsequious in the extreme, always looking to see where the real power lay. Not so long ago, Spiro had been trying to frame him in a child-porn sting. Now he was cosying up to the Americans again.
‘These are serious allegations,’ Fielding said. ‘Sorry to sound so old-school, but do we have any evidence?’
‘I appreciate that this is the last thing you need, after the Prentice affair,’ Spiro said, hoping to pile on the public embarrassment. Although he owed his own rehabilitation to Fielding, he couldn’t resist the moment. There was too much history between the two of them, their respective organisations. ‘One Soviet mole could be construed as careless. But two…’
‘The evidence, please,’ Sir David said, convincing no one with his attempt at neutrality.
‘Where do we start?’ Spiro asked, shuffling some papers and photos in front of him. ‘The covert meeting with Nikolai Primakov in central London?’ He waved a couple of photos in the air, one of Marchant entering Goodman’s restaurant, the other of Primakov.
‘“Covert” might be pushing it,’ Fielding said. ‘I seem to remember the dinner — sanctioned by me — took place at a well-known Russian restaurant in the middle of Mayfair. We were listening.’
‘So were we,’ said Spiro, ‘until the Russians jammed the entire area. Must have been quite an important meeting. Then we have Madurai, south India. After we took Dhar’s mother off your hands, Marchant hitched a ride back into town with — guess who? — one Nikolai Primakov.’
He waved another surveillance photo in the air. ‘I’m not sure I want to ask why Marchant’s meetings with Primakov, former director of K Branch, KGB and now high-ranking member of the SVR, were sanctioned by MI6, so let’s not go into that here. It kind of brings back bad memories when you discover Primakov had been good friends with Marchant’s father. Of more interest to today’s meeting is what Marchant was doing in an Internet café yesterday — after knocking off work early and dropping in for a warm beer or three at his favourite pub — forwarding photos of the MIG-35s to various national newspapers.’
Another sheaf of documents was waved in the air, this time press cuttings, as a murmur went around the room. Fielding was conscious that all eyes were on him now, but he had read the cuts in the car into work, smiled at the quotes from the twitchers. He was a bit of a birder himself, when he had the time, although these days he
