Tim Glister - Red Corona

This time Peterson couldn’t think of an answer.

‘I build another room,’ Valera said. ‘One that only I have access to, but that has doors that open up all around the world.’

Peterson started to understand what Valera was describing. A secure, global communications network. Something like that really could change the world. Every spy agency on the planet would want to get their hands on it, and every major corporation as well. He could sell it to all of them, and finally escape his life spent serving two masters.

Like every branch of the civil service, MI5 offered its mid-ranking members job security and a reasonable salary. There was also excitement, power, and some discretionary riches to be had if you became a field agent or eventually rose to the very top of the Service. Peterson had wanted all three, but it had been made clear to him early on in his career that they weren’t in his cards. He’d become tethered to Manning almost as soon as he’d joined MI5, and it was his lot to help Manning rise through the ranks, clinging to his coat-tails as he did.

Peterson might have let his resentment at the unsatisfying destiny he’d been handed lead him away from the Service, if a member of the MGB hadn’t approached him in Brighton one day ten years ago.

Peterson had decided to spend a rare weekend off outside London, and had taken the train down to the south coast. He was sitting in a deckchair on the bluff of the pebble beach near the Palace Pier, struggling to eat an ice cream before the sun melted it or the wind off the Channel splattered it across his front, when a man pulled a chair over to his, sat down, and introduced himself.

It was a bold, blunt approach, but it worked. The MGB had guessed that Peterson would respond to being flattered and having his ego stroked, and they were right. They offered him the excitement, power, and money he wanted in exchange for becoming their asset inside MI5. And he leaped at the chance.

For almost as long as he’d served as Manning’s sycophantic minion he’d also provided his Russian handlers with any information they’d requested from him. He’d even taken on the occasional mission for them, making or collecting the odd dead drop in and around London.

However, when he’d made the point that as he was becoming privy to more valuable information as Manning continued his unending ascent – and his risk of being caught was increasing – he should be paid more for what he was passing to Moscow, he was rebuffed. He pressed the point until he was told in very clear terms that it wasn’t only MI5 that he needed to worry about exposing him. He stopped asking for more money. But he also began putting plans in place that would let him escape both Russian and British intelligence.

As soon as he found out about Operation Pipistrelle, he knew he’d found his way out. He’d tried for years to get his hands on one of the bugs, but White guarded them zealously. So he’d kept his ears and eyes open in case something similar came along, which was how he ended up meeting Bianchi and Moretti.

He knew he could sell the Italians’ eavesdropping technology, and the OECD conference had given him the perfect market of paranoid governments and businesses. But now, with what Valera was offering, he could end up even richer than he’d hoped and, depending on what deals were done over the next couple of days, immeasurably powerful as well.

He’d briefly considered selling Valera’s discovery – and Valera – back to the Russians. But he decided he didn’t owe them such preferential treatment. Yes, his handler had asked him to look out for information about a defector passing through Finland, but it was he who found out who Valera really was, arranged for her to be extracted from Stockholm, and finally got her to confess just how valuable she could be.

Valera and Peterson had spent another hour going over her enhanced spread-spectrum code-division technology. By the time they were done Peterson had grasped enough of the basic principles to convincingly parrot them back to Valera.

As he left, he told her that someone would come by shortly with more provisions for her for the evening and a change of clothes for the morning. Half an hour later a man had delivered a fresh selection of bland sandwiches and a suit carrier, and she was now sitting in the living room, in a white shirt and plain black skirt and jacket, waiting for Peterson to return.

Bennett reached over to the passenger side of the car, opened the glovebox, rattled the tin of travel sweets inside, and shut the compartment again. She went through this little routine whenever one of the residents of Methley Street walked past the Anglia as they began their morning commute, because it made her look less conspicuous than if she was just sitting behind the wheel not going anywhere.

She’d managed to stay awake most of the night, only dropping off for a few minutes around 3 a.m. and again at five. After finishing her crackers an hour into her stake-out, she’d staved off hunger thanks to the travel sweets, which she’d found shortly after midnight and had dipped into every couple of hours. Despite her brief lapses, she was sure she hadn’t missed anyone coming or going from the address White had given her.

Just as Bennett was starting to wonder if it might be time to try some more direct surveillance, like pulling a couple of wires out of the Anglia’s engine and knocking on the safe house’s front door for help, a large black Jaguar sedan shot down the street. She assumed it was someone running late for work, until it pulled to a sudden stop outside the safe house.

A man in a grey suit got out of the rear door nearest the pavement and Bennett instinctively sank down into the well of her seat as he walked up the steps, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside.

A minute later he re-emerged with Valera by his side in a dark suit. Bennett sank even lower as Valera paused at the top of the steps and scanned the street. She couldn’t read the expression on her face – she didn’t look exactly happy about following the man down into the waiting car, but she didn’t look scared either.

Bennett let the sedan pull away, counted to ten, put the Anglia in gear, and started to follow them.

The Jaguar turned out of Methley Street and headed north. The driver had no idea who either of his passengers were. He’d been hired, along with the car, anonymously by Peterson and paid in cash. Peterson was always careful with the people who did his dirty work for him. He paid well, but never told them more than was absolutely necessary. And he never used the same person twice. The only time he’d broken this rule was when he’d sent the man who’d been guarding the Italians’ flat to Stockholm because he hadn’t had time to find anyone else to complete the strike team. But he’d ended up getting himself killed, so couldn’t betray Peterson even if he’d wanted to.

Valera sat across from Peterson in the back of the sedan. She tried her best to look relaxed, but her body was rigid and her suit itched.

Peterson had an open briefcase perched on his knees. He held a manila folder in one hand while the other kept a vice-like grip on the handle of the case.

‘We’ll be at the Richmond in twenty minutes,’ he said, without looking up from the documents he was studying. ‘We’ll get you settled in my suite for an hour, then we have two meetings this morning. After that, the car will take you back to the hotel, where you’ll have lunch in the suite. I have another engagement I have to attend, but I’ll be back around three in time for our afternoon appointments.’

Valera had already memorised their schedule, and knew what was expected of her. She was to dazzle Peterson’s contacts with her genius, while he worked on extracting the best deal from them. She didn’t know who she would be meeting, and Peterson had made it clear that she wouldn’t find out until she was in the room with them. He may have been doing his best to exude an air of confidence, down to organising the ostentatious car and moving Valera to an expensive hotel, but his paranoia still showed through. Valera tried to sneak a look at the contents of his folder, but all she could see was the handle of a pistol resting under it in the briefcase.