Tim Glister - Red Corona

‘I’m not a secretary,’ Bennett replied. ‘I’m a file clerk.’

‘You’re a little firecracker, I’ll give you that.’ He turned to Manning. ‘I’m not sure if I should laugh or apologise.’

‘No need for you to do either,’ replied Manning. ‘The only person who should be apologising is Knox.’

‘I’m not the one who ordered the abduction of a foreign national and the killing of a KGB directorate chief,’ Knox replied, trying to land another couple of blows on Manning. ‘Have your masters in the Lubyanka realised that was you yet? Or were you following their orders?’

Manning looked stunned. ‘You’ve actually gone mad, haven’t you?’ he said.

‘I was there. We were in Stockholm. We saw your men put a bullet through his head and kidnap Valera.’

Manning was silent for a long moment. He dropped his gaze down onto the model of the Barbican, but he wasn’t really seeing it. He was thinking about what Knox had just said. His hands reached into his pockets, then he looked back up at Knox. ‘What were you doing in another country?’

‘I was taking a leaf out of your book,’ he said.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Manning asked, his restraint wearing thin.

‘Remember Singapore? Don’t pretend Kuznetsov wasn’t killed because of you,’ Knox said. ‘When did Russia turn you, anyway? Was that your big initiation, or were you already a good little mole by then?’

Now it was Manning who couldn’t contain his anger. ‘My mission to Singapore was a sanctioned operation within British sovereign territory. I have no idea what you’ve got yourself into, but if you were involved in the death of a KGB agent on foreign soil then you’ll have dragged MI5 into an international incident that could have disastrous consequences for the whole country.’

There was more emotion in this single outburst than Knox had ever seen from Manning. He was sure he was close to cracking.

‘Christ, man,’ Manning continued, ‘we’ve got leaders from eighteen countries in the city. The Russians are begging for a reason to launch an ICBM at us.’

‘And you’d probably tell them exactly where to aim the missile, wouldn’t you?’ Knox fired back immediately.

‘This is insanity. Spouting wild accusations, running around with some mad secretary chasing conspiracies—’

‘A secretary,’ Finney cut in, ‘who will be on the next plane back to the States.’

‘I’m not a secretary,’ Bennett snapped again. ‘And will I be on the same plane back as the scientist you’ve got coming to question Valera?’ She saw a flicker in Finney’s eyes – she’d hit a nerve. ‘There’s no other reason for someone from NASA to be flown over here.’

‘The whole of NATO is meeting in one place, Khrushchev’s boasting he can take out any of our capitals with the push of a button, and you think there’s no reason for one of our top scientists to fly in?’ Finney asked. ‘Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are,’ he added.

‘That still doesn’t explain why you took Valera’s photo from the archive,’ Bennett said, suddenly on the defensive.

‘I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ Finney said, his voice starting to rise. ‘And I won’t stand here and be called a traitor.’

Manning pulled one of his long, bony hands out of his pocket and held it up, a sign for everyone to calm down.

‘I was happy for you to come back to Leconfield House, Richard,’ he said to Knox. His voice was quiet. The only emotion in it now was disappointment. ‘After an appropriate length of time. Or for you to leave if you decided you didn’t want to stay without Holland. I even gave you something to do to stop yourself festering while you were suspended. But all this is unforgivable. There’s no way you can come back in now. And I can’t let you walk out of this room alone.’

‘You can’t stop me,’ Knox sneered at him.

‘I already have,’ Manning replied.

He walked over to the big wooden doors and opened them. Three stony-faced Watchers stepped into the room. ‘I told you you had five minutes to explain everything,’ Manning continued. ‘You chose to spend them damning yourself with insane fantasies.’

Knox suddenly realised he’d let himself be outmanoeuvred again. He should have known he was on borrowed time as soon as he left the ballroom. He had no idea who the Watchers were loyal to – Manning or the Service. For all he knew, they were the men who had attacked Valera, set fire to his apartment, and tried to take out Bennett in the middle of Hyde Park in broad daylight.

For a brief moment he thought about fighting his way out, but his body ached from everything he’d put it through and his energy was completely spent.

‘You know,’ he said, matching Manning’s sombre tone, ‘I thought I was paranoid too. Nothing made sense. None of what was happening seemed connected. Until I put you at the heart of all of it.’ He started to move around the Barbican model, closing the distance between him and Manning. ‘You were so keen to send me off to investigate Bianchi and Moretti, because you already knew exactly what had happened to them. You used them, then you killed them. But what does that have to do with a Russian scientist trying to defect? Nothing, except the amazing coincidence that she was working in exactly the same field as our dead Italians. And, of course, you.’

He glanced over at the Watchers. Now they didn’t look like foot soldiers, ready to obey any order Manning might give them. They looked like they had no idea what they’d walked into the middle of.

‘You’ve been the perfect asset,’ Knox continued. ‘Ready to sacrifice your men and leave them dead and disavowed just to prove how loyal you are.’

Manning’s face still hadn’t changed, but the Watchers’ had. And they weren’t looking at Knox like he might be crazy. They were looking at Manning like they weren’t completely sure if he was their leader or their enemy.

‘Tell me one thing,’ he said, launching his final attack. ‘Was getting rid of Holland the KGB’s idea, or yours?’

Knox hoped Manning’s mask would finally slip and he’d give himself away. But he just sighed, gave the Watchers a nod, and walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the hall, both hands back in his jacket pockets.

With a reassuring look to Bennett, Knox let himself be led out of the room. When the door closed again behind Knox and the Watchers, she turned to Finney and steeled herself for her own battle.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ she asked. She was ready to lay out everything for anyone who would listen, here, in Grosvenor Square, or even Langley, to prove that she’d spotted what everyone else had missed – that the CIA had been compromised just as badly as MI5.

‘Nothing,’ Finney replied.

‘What?’ Bennett had expected a tirade to match Manning’s, but there was no fire in Finney’s eyes, no sign he was going to snatch at any of the bait she’d dangled in front of him.

‘I don’t deal with the clerical staff,’ he said.

Valera sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. She’d spent the last however many hours watching the colour of the sky slowly start to deepen. In Povenets B or Leningrad in July it would be as light as it was outside now until long into the night. Sunset in Stockholm would be late and brief too. But she suspected she wasn’t in Sweden any more.

Five minutes ago she’d heard the heavy click of a lock and the deep groan of the large metal door being opened and closed. Then there were footsteps on the stairs and a prolonged sequence of shuffles and sounds from the other end of the house.

Now she heard more footsteps approaching the bedroom. She stood up. She wanted to face whoever had come to visit her on her feet. The steps stopped briefly outside the door, then with a gentle nudge it swung open to reveal a man in a grey suit carrying a tray with a teapot and two teacups.