Games Traitors Play

Marchant thought again about Primakov, the sharp intake of breath just before he fired, as if the Russian was bracing himself. After the shooting, Dhar had not wanted to talk, preferring instead to spend time on his own behind the curtain. Marchant assumed that he was praying, not for the Russian’s soul but for a successful jihad. As far as Marchant could tell, no one else seemed to be running the show or telling Dhar what to do. He was very much his own man, ignoring the guards and talking only with Sergei before climbing into the cockpit. There was a quiet confidence about Dhar, a self-assurance that gave him an air of authority.

‘Comrade Marchant?’ It was Sergei’s voice on the r/t.

‘Yes?’ Marchant said, taken by surprise.

‘Talk to comrade Dhar about collateral. He will understand.’

Marchant was about to ask for an explanation, but Sergei had already signed off.

‘Did you get any of that?’ he asked Dhar over the intercom.

‘We can talk more later. Our flying time is more than three hours. Now we must prepare for take-off.’

94

Paul Myers had given up trying to make conversation with the Russians. They had sat motionless in his room throughout the night, waking him with a prod at first light. He had stumbled out of bed, forgetting that his hands were still tied, and they had accompanied him to the bathroom, where he managed his ablutions with difficulty.

It was only when they sat him down in front of the computers that he persuaded them to untie his wrists. If it had been a working day, he would have been missed by now, as he liked to work the early shifts at GCHQ in the summer, getting in at 7 a.m., sometimes earlier. It gave him longer in the park afterwards to fly his model planes. But today was a Saturday, and no one would miss him. He had made a loose arrangement to meet a couple of colleagues in the pub in the evening, but otherwise his diary was free, as it was most of the time.

The Russians wanted him to do exactly what he had done for Marchant: delay High Wycombe’s real-time Recognised Air Picture feed. He had already told them that it would be hard to repeat the trick, but the Ministry of Defence’s IT experts, many of whom he knew, had yet to trace the source or cause of the Link 1 breach.

Of more concern to Myers was what Marchant and Fielding would want him to do. Marchant was clearly party to the planned second violation of UK airspace. Would he want Myers to help him, or to stop him? His instinct told him to let the Russians run with it, whatever they were planning.

Nursing a hangover, he logged in to his GCHQ account and prepared once again to tamper with the Tactical Data Links that were meant to keep the skies above Britain safe.

‘All I need is a start time,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I can’t delay the RAP for long. A few minutes at most.’

‘This time we need a little longer,’ Grushko said.

95

The morning had dawned bright and clear in the Cotswolds, and the ground staff at RAF Fairford were already busy laying out the tables and chairs in the private enclosure towards the eastern end of the runway. It was a big day for the base, and General Glen Rogers, head of the United States Air Forces in Europe, was taking his run around the airfield early, before the VIPs began to arrive. The USAF would shortly be pulling out of Fairford, leaving it as a standby facility that could be reactivated at short notice for the use of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and U2s.

All the usual merchandise stands were present. Jogging at a steady pace, Rogers passed the Breitling Owners’ Club, a dogtag stamping stall for wannabe GIs, and a stand that would later be selling Vulcan memorabilia. Now that was a plane he wished he had flown. This weekend, though, was all about modern military hardware, and in particular the global export market for the F-16 Fighting Falcon, one of America’s finest fourth- generation jet fighters, otherwise known as the Viper.

The delegation from Georgia had spent the night on the base, drinking too much of their own Kakhetian wine in the officers’ mess, but he couldn’t blame them. Today marked the official beginning of a new era for the Georgian air force. Six F-16Ds had already been delivered to Alekseevka Military Airbase, but the deal between Washington and Tbilisi would be formally signed off in the private enclosure. To mark the occasion, the F-22 Raptor, a plane that was strictly not for export, would make its debut at Fairford with a breathtaking display of fifth-generation manoeuvrability.

Rogers used to fly jets himself in the mid-1980s, briefly serving with the Thunderbirds F-16 display team, and he was particularly looking forward to the Raptor show. Today’s pilot, Major Max Brandon, would demonstrate its vast air superiority over an old Russian SU-25 ‘Frogfoot’, the current mainstay of Georgia’s air force, in a mock-up of a Cold War dogfight that promised to be one of the highlights of the weekend.

The only blot on the Gloucestershire landscape was the arrival of Jim Spiro, the CIA’s Head of Clandestine Europe. He had turned up in the middle of the dinner with the Georgians, wanting an urgent talk about a perceived security threat that was making the Brits jumpy. (Fairford always made the Brits nervous. A few years earlier, a B52 had flown in low over the runway as part of the display, only for the pilot to be told by ATC that he had got the wrong airfield. So much for precision bombing.) Rogers had not met Spiro before, and he hoped their paths would never cross again. Marines had that sort of effect on him, particularly ex ones who had featured in the infamous CIA torture memos.

If the Agency had its way, the contract with the Georgians would be signed in a reinforced bunker five hundred feet underground, and there would be no Royal International Air Tattoo at all. He had told Spiro to relax and enjoy the day, reminding him that it did much to reinforce the special relationship between Britain and America. That was the problem with the spooks — they saw threats everywhere.

96

Fielding had agreed with Armstrong that it was too much of a security risk for both of them to travel to Fairford, so she had stayed behind in London to liaise with COBRA, which was now sitting around the clock. The air show remained the most likely target, and Fielding needed to be there, even though he knew it could be dangerous. He also wanted to get out of London, away from the endless meetings, and clear his head. Ian Denton had offered to mind the shop in his absence — a little too keenly, Fielding thought afterwards.

Just outside the airfield’s perimeter fence, he asked his Special Branch driver to pull into a lay-by, where several plane-spotters had parked up in camper vans, ready to watch the display without paying. Marchant had Fielding’s personal number, and he still hoped that he might call him, give him some warning, however late, of Dhar’s murderous intentions.

If the threat was airborne, it would involve a repeat of the earlier breach of British airspace. Had Marchant asked Myers to help him out a second time? So far, Fielding had resisted talking to him about Marchant’s earlier request. The risk of being monitored by the Russians was too high. He assumed Myers must have hacked into Britain’s early-warning radar network, allowing the MiG-35s to fly over Scotland unchallenged. Now he needed to know for sure if Myers was involved again. He dialled his mobile number.

Twenty miles away in Cheltenham, Myers watched his handset vibrate on the desk next to the keyboard. He looked at his Russian minders.

‘Answer it,’ Grushko said, waving his gun at him. ‘And let us listen.’

Myers picked up the handset and switched it to speaker phone. The number was unknown, and he assumed it was someone from GCHQ. Colleagues often called him at the weekend with technical queries. He would remind