Adrian Magson - Execution

She felt almost naked without her service weapon, which they were not permitted to carry on flights for obvious reasons. But it wouldn’t be for long; as soon as they reached the city, she and Bronyev would be issued with side-arms from the embassy’s armoury. It would not be a fact made known to the Austrian authorities who, like most countries, would take a dim view of the carrying of guns on their sovereign soil. But the Russian government’s view was that bodyguards without weapons were like bulldogs without teeth.

She stepped back to avoid the senior of the three men, a particularly loathsome bureaucrat named Dobrev, who had been eyeing her openly ever since they had met the previous day. Overweight and pasty, with gelled hair and a heavy gut like excess baggage, he had made no secret of his intentions on this trip, suggesting that a drink at the earliest opportunity once they reached the convention hotel in Vienna would be an excellent way to show his appreciation for her security services. He had ignored Bronyev’s disapproving stare, resting his pudgy hand on Katya’s arm just a shade too long, snuffling pig-like with pleasure and pressing himself against her.

She had resisted the desire to knee him in the balls, and instead feigned a quick move to check out a nearby cab driver loitering for a fare. Having already been demoted from captain to her present rank of lieutenant after getting caught in a foreign espionage sting — although she had been cleared of any deliberate intent by an enquiry panel — dropping a fat banker to the floor with a Grozny handshake would only make things worse. And she had no wish to see what the job felt like at an even lower rank. Probably shepherding local dignitaries in some God-awful backwater in the Urals, just to make them feel valued and important, a small but vital cog in the machine that was the new Russia.

The official driver from the embassy was waiting by his car, a black Mercedes, as arranged. Katya watched from the side as Bronyev ushered the three men out of the main entrance and across the pavement, under the eye of two policemen who knew an official car when they saw one, even though it carried no pennant on its nose to smooth the way. It was all done with much petty fussing by the bankers, keen to have onlookers notice them and wonder at their importance, even if nobody quite knew what they represented.

So different, she thought, to the charges she had once worked with and guarded so assiduously. Diplomats, ministers and military men of the highest ranks, they knew the game and played it correctly. Grandstanding in public was for special days, parades and national celebrations; every other day out in the open, wherever they were, demanded rigorous adherence to protection rules. That meant no wandering off, continuous movement unless told to stop by their guards, and no ostentation likely to attract the attention of political extremist or terrorists.

And at all times, following the advice of their minders.

It was mostly bullshit now, she realised that. In the main, the men — always men — wore civilian clothes, unless on parade or at a function, and were as faceless as the next man, albeit far better dressed. But wearing a fancy imported suit merely made them envied or resented, rarely if ever a target.

Even so, their lofty positions and crucial jobs had made them valued assets and therefore to be protected at all times and by the best in the business. And Katya Balenkova had been one of the finest to graduate from the FSO academy and training centre.

But that had all ended when the British had decided she was a worthy target of a sting — a honey trap, as it had turned out. A visit to London had resulted in a chance encounter with a young woman. The encounter had moved to drinks, to friendship, to meetings. . and eventually, in Brussels, where the other woman had been visiting on business at the same time as Katya herself had been working, something more.

Later, in Frankfurt, the ground had fallen away beneath her feet when the other woman, Clare, had disappeared, hustled away from outside the hotel where they were staying by two men in suits, obviously guards of another kind.

It was when Katya herself had been called in for discussions on her return to Moscow that she had discovered who and what Clare Jardine was.

An MI6 operative.

Now she found herself bored and resentful. Unexcited by the lowly, tedious routine of safeguarding self-important drones like Dobrev, whose biggest threat, apart from her knee, was the copious amounts of drink he consumed; angry at her fall down the career ladder. And emotions like these, in this job, were dangerous. They led to lack of attention and a lowering of one’s guard.

‘You coming?’ Bronyev was standing by the rear of the car, a faint frown on his face.

She nodded and joined him, climbing in the front passenger seat as her position required, and buckling in for the journey.

Bronyev sat in the back, close to the kerb. Younger than Katya and allegedly fresh out of the academy on his first posting, he was cautious and wary. And ambitious, too. But pleasant enough to work with. And he had more conversation than most male FSO members, whose main topics were limited to Spartak or Dynamo Moscow football teams.

She wondered not for the first time if Bronyev had been slotted into the team to keep an eye on her. Unlike many newcomers to the guards, who were usually full of themselves, he was likeable and considerate, and had confessed to wanting to progress in the FSO ranks by getting some solid experience behind him. But right from the start she had noticed signs about him that gave her cause for concern; there were times when his movements were just too practised, like an operative who had gone through the motions too many times before to be a simple newbie. Inexperienced guards betrayed their lack of skill in small ways: moving in a stop-start motion, as if unsure about who was in control of the speed of progress from car to building; standing in the wrong position and becoming a hindrance to their more experienced colleagues’ line of sight; failing to scope the area in a 360? fashion and allowing large gaps to appear in the screen around their charges.

Bronyev, however, made none of these mistakes, and that worried her. She had also caught him watching her, as he had been just now. It wasn’t in a sexual way, which she would have understood; hell, she might have her preferences which left men out of the equation altogether, but he wasn’t to know that. No, she felt he was watching her for other reasons.

She breathed deeply and watched the neat and ordered countryside slip by outside, trying to relax. Three days here, unless there was a change of programme, and she’d be on her way back home. If he had been put in to check on her, she had better not give him anything to report back on.

It was nearer fifteen minutes before Ballatyne rang again. His voice sounded oddly dead, free of any natural echo, and Harry guessed the MI6 man was in a sanitized chamber with a secure outside line where not even God would hear a word he said.

‘Sorry about that. More information coming in all the time, some of it you need to hear. First things first, though. I hope I never live to regret this, but I happen to think you might be right about Jardine’s original target. But understand this: this conversation is so far off the record, it’s inaudible except to dogs in Outer Mongolia.’

‘I get it.’

‘Balenkova’s job is the equivalent of our own Diplomatic Protection Squad, only her unit’s got much bigger muscles. Their mandate is vast, with some estimates giving them over twenty thousand members, all military trained. Some are formed into regiments, the best being special forces or Spetsnaz equivalents, with others working in outwardly civilian roles. They cover the president and other government officials as well as important installations such as IT centres, public utilities, nuclear sites and weapons storage and production units. They also travel abroad when needed, and there are reckoned to be anywhere between ten to twenty assigned to any major city with a Russian presence. But they’re not just armed guards with attitude; they’re state security by nature and breeding, going back decades.’