Adrian Magson - Execution

He got the driver to drop them off not far from the exit from the A23, which ran north-south through the district, near a collection of large apartment blocks. They waited for the Mercedes to disappear before turning and following Harry along the street to one block of five set among parkland.

‘We should check it out first,’ cautioned Rik, as they surveyed the building from the shadows beneath a belt of trees. It was neat, bland and four storeys high, with bedding and washing blowing out from verandas along its length. Nearly every window showed a light, testament to the working day being over and a sign of normality. But entering this place without care was asking for trouble, especially with Richoux having gone silent.

Harry agreed. ‘I’ll go with Katya. You stay here with Clare.’

He and Katya set off, walking close and slowly, like a couple returning home, their bags and the briefcase close enough to resemble shopping to throw anyone off-guard. Once off the street they followed a neat pathway to the main entrance, and inside, used the stairs. Both had their hands on their guns, aware that if trouble was waiting for them, they would have split seconds to react and fight their way out.

The apartment that was their safe house was on the first floor. They walked past it once, studying the lock for signs of a forced entry. It looked good, and after reaching the end of the corridor, they turned and went back.

Harry knocked while Katya stood to one side.

No answer.

He inserted the key and pushed the door. It stuck for a second, then opened, releasing a gust of warm, stale air. Harry stepped inside, dropping his bag and moving swiftly forward along a short hallway into an open living room. Katya slid past him and checked out a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.

‘Clear,’ she said, and returned to join him.

Harry dialled Rik’s number and gave the all-clear to come in.

‘We need food,’ said Katya. ‘I saw a store along the next street where we were dropped off.’

Harry nodded. It made sense. Going out in a group to eat would attract attention. They were clearly not Turkish, and their clothes in a well-lit restaurant would mark them out immediately as foreigners, and therefore a subject of interest. ‘Good idea. Cold meats, preferably, and bread. Coffee, too.’ He held up his mobile. ‘I need to make a couple of calls.’

Katya nodded and went out.

As soon as Rik and Clare arrived, Harry dialled Ballatyne’s number. It rang without answer. He tried again in case he’d misdialled. Still no response.

‘Problem?’ Rik was standing by the kitchen door, watching him. Clare had gone into the bathroom.

‘Could be, but I don’t know what. Ballatyne isn’t picking up.’

Rik delved into his bag and opened his iPad, waiting for a connection. Seconds later, he was tapping away one-handed on the screen’s virtual keyboard.

‘What are you doing?’ Harry queried.

‘Just checking something. Won’t be a minute.’

Harry left him to it and took a walk round the apartment. He wondered how many people had used this place before. It was minimally furnished, with two single beds, chairs, table, small sofa and cupboards. No carpet but a simple tiled floor. It reminded him of British army accommodation around the world: basic, unfussy, plain and cheerless. There was probably a specialist department somewhere in Whitehall, with an order book full of details about such furniture very similar to this.

He turned off the room lights before approaching the windows, and checked the view of the parkland and street outside as carefully as he could. There was too much shadow and darkness to be certain of anything, however. He considered that ironic seeing as how he had been relying on that very thing to survey the apartment building before coming in.

Rik appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, waving his iPad. ‘Six have had a system shut-down. They issued an inter-agency security statement two hours ago saying all non-essential comms channels have been suspended for security checks. It includes a short-term interruption to most call networks.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Sounds like they’ve been hacked. But it could be they’re tracking down the insider. It would explain why Ballatyne’s been out of touch.’

‘How did you get this?’ He knew Rik wouldn’t have had time to get into any of the security agency systems, and nor would Six have gone public with the situation. The one thing you don’t do is alert your enemies to the fact that you’ve suffered a system meltdown.

Rik smiled. ‘Friend of a friend. Don’t worry, I didn’t hack into Six.’

Harry said he was going downstairs to check the outside more closely, and left the apartment, scanning the corridor carefully before stepping out. He passed the doors to other apartments, where for many, life was going on as usual; an argument in one, music from another, a child crying, a football match commentary.

He left the building and walked along one of the paths, passing two Muslim women with a baby buggy and shopping bags, their heads covered in hijabs. Once they had gone, he stepped off the path and melted into the trees. Then he stood and breathed in the atmosphere, using his senses to tune in to the night.

Cars passed along the street nearby, and there was a steady roar from the A23 dual carriageway which they had joined to bring them down from the city centre. But there was nothing that suggested there was anybody here who shouldn’t be — except maybe himself and the others.

He wondered what Katya was doing.

Katya was standing outside a small Turkish-run general store, studying the street. She was clutching a plastic bag of groceries in one hand, while the other was inside her jacket, resting on the butt of her gun.

The weapon, a slim-line PSM 6.35mm pistol, issued on arrival by the embassy’s security armourer, was designed to sit snugly beneath the jackets of personnel of both genders. It felt uncomfortably small compared with her usual service weapon, a heavier Viking MP-446 9mm. She had used the PSM before, but never in a hot action, and never out on the street. Right now, it left her feeling vulnerable and exposed. If anyone decided to launch an attack on her out here, she would have felt better prepared with a heavier weapon carrying more punch.

She walked away from the store towards a darker area at the end of the building, and took out her mobile. What she was about to do was crazy, and she knew Tate, the Englishman, would advise her against it. But she had no choice. If she could find out who was ranged against them, and what they knew, it gave her a better chance of getting out of this city with her life, or locked up in a cell awaiting a trial back in Moscow. In aligning herself with Clare and her colleagues, she had already gone too far to turn back now.

The truth was, she didn’t want to go back. Whatever her life had been was over. From here on in, the future would be whatever she could make of it, with Clare, hopefully.

But to do that, she had to live. They all did.

She sent a text message to Bronyev consisting of a single dot. Her number would not show up on his mobile, but he would know it was her. They had once discussed a colleague using it to get a friend to call her back when needing backup or an escape from a clingy or boring companion — a dating SOS. If anyone with Bronyev should see the dot, it would look like an incomplete or blank call from an unknown number.

She waited for him to call back, sinking into the shadows of a doorway and watching the street. There was no way they could trace the call, but she didn’t know how clean of telltale signals Clare and her two friends were. If either one of them used their mobile and the local FSB unit somehow got a trace on it, they would be here within twenty minutes.