Matthew Dunn - Slingshot

“We’re listening.”

The officer paused for thought. “I have the field officer’s name and home address.”

“From the golden source?”

“Of course.”

They sat in silence for a while. Lawrence was the first to speak. “We can’t do anything with that information. It’s too risky.”

Tibor disagreed. “The information can be used without us getting our hands dirty.”

Lawrence narrowed his eyes. “Give the name and address to someone who’ll do the work for us?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Damien clapped his hands. “We give it to Yevtushenko. .”

“Who relays this data to whoever masterminded his exit from Russia. .”

“A man who’s not going to sit around and wait for MI6’s finest to come knocking on his door.”

Lawrence said, “Yevtushenko will have destroyed his cell phone. We’ve got no way of sending him a message.”

Tibor grinned. “You’re forgetting about his squeeze. I reckon that if we send the message to her, she’ll find a way to get in touch with him: another cell number that no one knows about, a safe-deposit box, a third party. Who knows how she’ll do it, but we do know that Yevtushenko’s biggest weakness is his devotion to her. He’ll have cut all other ties, but I suspect he’ll have kept lines open with his woman. We gotta hope they have some private communication system in place.”

“It’s a long shot.”

“We’ve got nothing to lose by trying it. Trouble is, Rubner must have told him we’re Agency.” Tibor drummed his fingers on the table. “Though, does that matter? He’ll be confused about our motives, but he can’t ignore the message. We tell him that we’re sorry we misled him a year ago, that we still care about him, are looking out for him, have learned that he’s got himself caught up in something big, that the Brit is coming after him.” He smiled. “This should bury the Yevtushenko issue once and for all. We encourage the private contractors to take the MI6 officer out of the equation. Are we all in agreement?”

The others nodded.

“Excellent.” Tibor glanced at the door. Beyond it, thousands of CIA officers would be hard at work. Few of them knew about the existence of the four-man team in the room.

A team that carried the code name Flintlock.

And the CIA director’s nickname, The Chosen Ones.

“Then let’s set things in motion.” Tibor nodded toward the exit. “But, as ever, not a word to the children.”

Will Cochrane pulled up the collar of his overcoat, thrust his hands into pockets, and walked through London’s Pimlico district. Rain lashed his face as he moved along quiet residential streets, apparently unaware of the white Regency houses, expensive parked automobiles, and the occasional umbrella-carrying pedestrian.

Turning a corner, he stopped for a moment and looked around, more out of habit than concern. He could perceive no security threat to the safe house. He saw nothing unusual, so he crossed the street and moved farther down the route before ringing a doorbell.

An elderly lady, immaculately dressed and with a streak of blonde in her otherwise silver hair, opened the door, barely glanced at Will, and beckoned him to enter. Stamping his feet on the doormat, he removed his overcoat and chucked it onto a side table before striding along the corridor toward a large living room.

Three men were in the room.

One of them was Delta 1.

One was Delta 9.

They’d both arrived back in the United Kingdom yesterday.

The third man was Will’s MI6 Controller, Alistair, the Cohead of the Spartan Section, a joint MI6/CIA task force that was top secret and reported directly to the British prime minister and the U.S. president.

The tall, athletic Q operatives, dressed in jeans and sweaters, were sitting in sumptuous armchairs, their heads bowed over steaming mugs of tea. Alistair was standing with his back to Will, staring out of the window.

“Morning, all.” Will rubbed his hands to aid circulation.

Alistair turned to face him, withdrawing a pocket watch from the waistcoat of his Royal Navy three-piece suit. He sighed. “It’s nearer to afternoon. Did you get. . delayed ?”

Will shook his head. “I had to route via three different airports to get back. It took some time.”

“ My time.” Alistair replaced the timepiece into his pocket. The slender, blond-haired, middle-aged man looked uncharacteristically weary.

Will slumped into a sofa and looked around. The safe house was like many others he’d been to in London-tastefully furnished, immaculate, homely yet unlived-in. The woman he’d met at the door would have been the housekeeper, on MI6’s payroll and only visiting the property to clean it, forward mail, and ensure the kitchen was stocked with food and drink for meetings like these. “I could do with a cup of tea.”

Alistair nodded toward the teapot and mugs, and asked sarcastically, “Would you like me to make you one?”

“No. You’ll put milk and all sorts of other nonsense in it.” Will sprung up to make it himself.

“Tell me”-Alistair’s tone was once again sharp-“what went wrong in Poland.”

Will removed the lid to the teapot, shaking his head as he saw that the brew had stewed. “The unexpected happened.”

“Resulting in ten dead Q operatives.”

Will raised a jar of fresh tea to his nose, recognized the leaves as Assam breakfast tea, and carefully placed two spoonfuls into a cup.

“And all but one man from the AW and one man from the SVR teams killed.”

Will poured boiling water over the leaves.

“A bloody massacre. The Polish government wants answers.”

“Our men were deniable. No links to HMG.” Will placed a tea strainer over another mug and slowly poured the tea into it. “Sure, they’ll be asking around-other European countries, the Americans-and we’ll all plead ignorance.”

“Not all of your men were deniable.”

Alistair was referring to Luke. Despite his alias documentation, it would only be a matter of time before the Polish police matched Luke’s dead body to the fully declared post of Head of Warsaw Station.

“Your mission was an utter failure!”

Will took a sip of the tea and momentarily closed his eyes in appreciation. Turning, he stared at Alistair. “It was a failure.” He looked at Delta 1. “I’m truly sorry for what happened to your men.”

The Q operative stared at him and asked with a deep south London accent, “Did you know the Russians were coming?”

“That’s none of your-”

Will held a hand up to interrupt Alistair. “Yes, but I didn’t know about the private contractor team. That was the unexpected part.”

Delta 1 considered this. “Then you’ve got nothing to be sorry about. If the contractors hadn’t turned up, together with the Poles we’d have held the Russians off.”

“Aye.” Delta 9 spoke with a strong Scottish lilt. “But even so, we were underequipped.”

“You were.” Will gave a slight shake of his head to Alistair to indicate that he wasn’t going to mention Luke’s treachery. “That was due to a breakdown in communication. We’re looking into it right now.”

Delta 1 carefully placed his mug down before looking up at Will. “Whoever’s responsible for the breakdown in communication needs to be strung up. I’ve lost most of my team.”

Will recalled the frozen look of terror on Luke’s face as he’d dumped his dead body in the trunk of the Head of Warsaw Station’s car. “What are your names and backgrounds?”

Delta 1 answered first. “Mark Oates. Nine years in the Qs, two as team leader. Prior to that, twelve years in the Royal Marines, eight of which SBS.”