Jon Stock - Games Traitors Play

‘You must be tired after your flight,’ Primakov suggested, filling the awkward silence. ‘If it’s any consolation, my Aeroflot flight was no more comfortable. Your brother is out flying at the moment. Sleep now, and you will be ready to meet him.’

‘Just one thing,’ Marchant said. ‘Was the American woman hurt? In the restaurant?’

‘I am surprised by your concern,’ Primakov said, glancing at Grushko, his superior, who remained impassive.

‘She will shortly be leaving the Agency,’ Marchant added. ‘Disillusioned, like me.’

‘She is in hospital, a gunshot wound to the arm,’ Grushko said. ‘Our men were authorised to kill her if necessary, but she did not resist, and for some reason you asked for her to be spared.’

‘But she’ll be OK?’ Marchant asked, thinking back to the chaotic scene, his shout to protect Meena.

‘She’s fine,’ Primakov said. ‘She should be grateful for the injury. Her superiors are already a little surprised that she did not do more to stop you being taken. We will leave you now. You did well with the MiGs. Your brother was impressed. We all were.’

Primakov turned to Grushko, hoping for some supportive words, but none came.

‘Do not step outside,’ Grushko warned. ‘The guards have orders to shoot.’

Marchant had passed two armed guards standing by the side entrance to the hangar when he had arrived. After Grushko and Primakov had gone, he looked around the empty space. Some camouflage nets had been hung on one wall, otherwise there was little to soften the oppressive concrete surfaces. So this was where the world’s most wanted terrorist had been hiding, in a draughty hangar, surrounded by rain-soaked woodlands in a remote corner of a Russian military airfield in the Arkhangelsk oblast.

He turned away from the large doors, and saw a curtained-off area at the far end of the building. He assumed it was where Dhar lived. A mattress and some bedding had been put in the opposite corner for Marchant, along with a towel, a bar of unwrapped soap and a change of clothes. It wasn’t exactly a defecting hero’s welcome.

After washing in a bucket of lukewarm water that had been left by the side entrance, Marchant looked again at Dhar’s corner. Checking the door, he walked over and pulled back the curtain. There was a mattress and bedding on the floor, with a small wooden cargo crate beside it for a bedside table. A copy of the Koran lay shut, a letter inside it acting as a bookmark.

He recognised the handwriting at once. Glancing at the door again, he picked up the Koran and slid the letter out. The paper was creased, and looked well read. It was from his father, written in the same hand and in exactly the same words as the one Primakov had given to him. For a moment, he wondered if it was a forgery, but he was sure it was his father’s hand.

To Salim, the son I never knew

If you are reading this, it must mean that you have finally met Nikolai Ivanovich Primakov. I will not try to guess at what path led you to him, only to offer reassurance that I have trodden a similar one before you. You are old enough, of course, to make your own judgements in life, but in the case of Nikolai, I merely wish to assist you, because other influences will be in play. He is, first and foremost, a friend, and you can trust him as if he was a member of our family .

He put the letter back in the Koran, which he placed back on the crate. In front of him, pinned to an old pilots’ briefing board on the wall, were several photos. One was of a group of jihadis at a training camp, possibly in Kashmir. Another was of a young Salim Dhar sitting in what looked like the cockpit of a crashed Russian jet. The background scenery suggested it was in Afghanistan. Then he saw a photo of himself, taken with a long lens. He was outside Legoland, on the street opposite the main entrance, peering into the window of the motorbike showroom that he used to frequent in his lunch breaks.

‘I used to ride an old Honda in Afghanistan,’ a voice said behind him. Marchant spun round to see a man standing by the curtain, wearing a flying suit and holding a helmet in one hand. It was Salim Dhar.

Myers had drunk one too many Battledown Premiums at the Beehive and was struggling to slot the key into the lock of his Montepelier flat in Cheltenham. It was sometimes stiff, but tonight he wondered if he had got the wrong door. He looked up at the front windows to reassure himself, and then tried again. The door opened and he fell into the hall, gathering up the post that was on the doormat: the latest issue of Fly RC , a magazine for remote-control plane enthusiasts, and a takeaway pizza flier.

At the back of his addled mind he wondered if the lock was stiff because it had been tampered with, but he dismissed the thought. He had become paranoid since carrying out Daniel Marchant’s request, seeing people on street corners, lurking behind curtains. As far as he could tell, no one had managed to establish a cause for the temporary delay in the Recognised Air Picture data at RAF Boulmer, let alone follow it out of the Tactical Data networks to Cheltenham. He had covered his tracks carefully, and he couldn’t deny that the result had been spectacular. Whatever Marchant was up to, he was doing it with style. A pair of MiG-35s over bloody Scotland!

He tore open the magazine as he stumbled into the kitchen, idly flicking through the pages. A sport-scale park flyer of the Russian jet would be entertaining down at the recreation ground, but he couldn’t find one listed. It might also attract unnecessary attention to himself, given the furore over the breach of airspace. Relations had plummeted between London and the Kremlin in the twenty-four hours since the incident. They weren’t helped by the subsequent kidnapping of an MI6 officer on the streets of Soho.

For a moment, when he first heard the news at work, Myers had thought it might be Marchant, but his old friend was too streetwise to be picked up by the SVR in central London. He didn’t dare ring him to check. Myers was nervous about making any calls after his brief chat with Fielding. Besides, Marchant was clearly up to something big, and he didn’t want to be further implicated. He had already done too much.

After taking a leak that seemed to last for ever — he almost fell asleep as he stood swaying at the bowl — Myers headed for his bedroom. He knew he should drink some water, but he wanted to check his emails, maybe surf a few porn sites before crashing. He always kept the door to his bedroom locked because of the computers inside, but as he fumbled for the key fob in his pocket, he saw that the door was ajar. The sobering effect was instant. His brain cleared as an adrenaline rush ripped through his body, making his legs feel so heavy that they almost buckled.

He stood there for a few seconds, listening for a noise, pressing his heels into the carpet to stop his legs shaking, but there was only silence, broken by the noise of a solitary car passing outside. He took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and walked in.

‘Don’t say a word,’ a voice said from the darkness. A moment later, Myers felt the cold metal of a barrel against the racing pulse in his temple.

‘I became too fond of this in Morocco,’ Dhar said, pouring out two glasses of mint tea. ‘It is my one other luxury.’ He had already offered Marchant some dried apricots from a paper bag on the floor between them. He was sitting cross-legged, his posture upright. He had changed out of his flying suit and was now wearing a long white dishdasha of the sort that Marchant had seen in Marrakech and a matching kufi skullcap. His austere appearance was reflected in the formality of their conversation. There was a stiffness to proceedings that was making Marchant tense. He was also struggling to sit comfortably on the ground. His crossed legs were cramping up, forcing him to rock forwards. He knew it made him look nervous.