James Barrington - Pandemic

His priority obviously was to find out what had happened. Nicholson was methodical, so first he checked his secure email inbox, hoping for a message from Murphy, but found nothing there. Then he took a risk: he used his office telephone to call Murphy’s mobile, but just heard a recorded message stating that the phone was switched off. Without much hope, he then tried Stein’s mobile, but got the same response – or rather lack of it.

The only option was to email Murphy and find out what had happened. It took Nicholson less than three minutes to compose and send a message to the classified server. He marked it High Priority and incorporated a request for a read receipt: that way he’d know when the email got displayed on Murphy’s laptop.

After a moment’s thought, he sent an almost identical message to Richard Stein. Then all he could do was sit back and wait.

South of Zounáki, western Crete

Inspector Lavat stood by the boot of the blue Seat Cordoba and stared at the two bodies lying on the ground. Then he examined the bullet holes in the metal of the Seat, shook his head and glanced towards the higher ground lying to the north of the crime scene. To Lavat, the damage to the car looked as if it had been caused by a rifle, not a pistol – a rifle that he was certain had been fired from somewhere in those hillocks some three or four hundred yards away. But that, he had already decided, was not going to be the official version.

He’d been telephoned an hour earlier by a man he’d never heard of, called Fitzpatrick, and given brief details of the incident occurring near Zounáki. The moment Fitzpatrick mentioned Richter’s name, Lavat had been sure that there would be more to these killings than met the eye. And, after a brief initial inspection, he knew that he was right.

The police in Máleme had received an almost hysterical phone call from a female British tourist who had stumbled on the grisly scene whilst out walking, and they had reacted immediately. Half a dozen police officers had been dispatched to the location, and now stood around, making sure that the small but growing crowd of eager sightseers all kept their distance and didn’t contaminate the crime scene. They were waiting for their forensic people to arrive, and Lavat knew that then his real work would begin.

No experienced forensic scientist could accept the scenario that Fitzpatrick had suggested to Lavat. The chances of two people inflicting virtually identical bullet wounds on each other, and then simultaneously shooting each other in the head, were less than zero. Lavat realized that and so too would the men in white suits when they finally arrived.

But Lavat also knew that that scenario made perfect sense from the point of view of convenience and even justice. Fitzpatrick had informed him exactly who the two dead men were, and Lavat knew that one of them – the one clutching a SIG P226 automatic pistol – was almost certainly the man who had killed his police officer in Kandíra. Fitzpatrick was a little more vague about the identity of the second corpse, but Lavat didn’t feel inclined to probe too deeply.

He shook his head again, wondering how best to approach the problem. Perhaps conjuring up an anonymous eyewitness might be the best option: somebody who had actually observed the two men shooting at each other. That might be the best way of persuading a suspicious forensic scientist to doubt the evidence of his own eyes.

Failing that, he guessed he would just have to accept whatever the forensic team decreed, but ignore the conflicting evidence when he came to write the report. After all, the one thing certain was that there would be no court case: this double shooting was a dead end, and was also going to close four open files.

On balance, he was glad Richter had been around, and he was certain he could detect the hand of the Englishman in many of the events following the death of Spiros Aristides. But he was also pleased that Richter was leaving Crete: life there had been both quieter and simpler before he arrived.

NAS Soúda Bay, Akrotíri, Crete

The armed sentry posted at the counter-weighted barrier guarding the main entrance to the Soúda Bay base took one look at Richter’s Royal Navy identity card and raised the barrier.

‘You’re expected, sir,’ he said. ‘They’re warming up one of the RC-135s for you. Do you know where the flight line is?’

‘No,’ Richter said, ‘I’ve never been here before.’

The sentry handed him a printed map annotated with directions and supplemented it with a string of verbal instructions. Richter drove on into the base, trying to shift a feeling of unreality engendered by the sentry’s casual phrase: ‘They’re warming up one of the RC-135s for you.’

The RC-135 is a highly specialized and very expensive electronic surveillance aircraft based on the ubiquitous and reliable Boeing 707 platform. It was an RC-135 on a regular patrol out of the States that stood off the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1983 and recorded all the transmissions from Soviet ground stations and fighter aircraft, as Korean Airlines flight KAL007 flew increasingly further off-course into Soviet territory and was finally shot down by a Russian Flagon interceptor. That incident resulted in the loss of two hundred and sixty-nine lives but produced for the West arguably the greatest intelligence coup of the decade, comprising Russian radar signatures, radio frequencies, intercept procedures and all the rest. Appallingly, many Western intelligence analysts considered the sacrifice of so many lives to be entirely justified.

The RC-135 is not only an extremely complex and expensive aircraft, but is also highly classified. The Americans are very reluctant to let anyone anywhere near one unless they have a demonstrable and essential need to know what goes on inside the fuselage. So why, suddenly, was Richter being allowed aboard one as a passenger? And as a passenger to where, exactly?

As he hauled the Renault round a corner and headed towards the complex of hangars, he suddenly noticed the unmistakable shape of a Royal Navy ASW Merlin standing over to his right. He checked the mirrors, braked the car to a halt, then reversed back until he could turn onto the dispersal where the helicopter was parked.

He stopped about fifty yards from the Merlin, switched off the engine and climbed out of the vehicle. The chopper’s engines were running and the rotors turning, so he knew that at least some of the crew had to be on board. A ground marshaller was standing in front of the Merlin, wands crossed below his waist in the ‘park’ position. Richter moved across to him and spoke into his ear.

‘Are all the crew still on board the chopper?’

The marshaller glanced at him. ‘No, sir. One of the guys from the back got out a few minutes ago. He’s over in that building to your right.’

‘Thanks.’

The building indicated was about seventy metres away, and as Richter approached the door it opened and a man wearing flying overalls stepped out. Richter recognized him immediately as one of the 814 Squadron aircrewmen.

‘Is that for me?’ Richter asked, gesturing at the buff envelope the man held in his hand.

‘Oh – hullo, sir. Yes, it’s for you.’ He took a crumpled sheet of paper out of one of the pockets of his overalls and proffered it. ‘It’s classified Secret, sir, so you’ll have to sign for it.’

Richter scribbled something approximating his signature in the space the aircrewman indicated, then took the buff envelope from him. He ripped it open and pulled out the message form. The text was brief and specific:

RICHTER, INVINCIBLE. PROCEED NAS SOUDA BAY IMMEDIATE. JOIN FIRST AVAILABLE FLIGHT NORFOLK VIRGINIA. ON ARRIVAL AWAIT CONTACT COMPANY REP WESTWOOD REFERENCE CAIP. SIMPSON, FOE.