James Barrington - Overkill

Trushenko had parked the car as close as he could to the jetty, but it was still ten minutes before he unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. The engine fired at the first turn of the key; he slid the car into gear and headed towards the centre of Port-Khorly.

On the jetty, the elderly man put down the fishing rod, sat upright and looked round cautiously as soon as he heard the sound of Trushenko’s receding footsteps. Then he climbed to his feet and walked towards the centre of the port, feeling in his pocket for some kopecks to make a local phone call. Like the KGB which preceded it, the SVR had eyes everywhere.

Hammersmith, London

‘Good afternoon. American Embassy. How may I help you?’

‘Roger Abrahams, please,’ Richter said.

There was a brief pause, then the switchboard operator replied. ‘I’m not sure we have anyone here of that name.’ Standard procedure. None of the names of the CIA officers were a matter of public record, and the switchboard had standing orders to reject any caller who asked for a CIA officer by name.

‘Lady,’ Richter said slowly, ‘this is an open line, which I know you’re recording. I know Roger Abrahams personally. He’s your Agency Chief of Station, and I need to speak to him immediately. If he’s available, I would also like to speak to John Westwood, and you certainly don’t want me to tell you who he is on this line.’

There was a short silence, and then a male voice spoke. ‘Who is this?’

‘Richter. Is that you, Roger?’

‘Yup. What gives?’

Richter paused, choosing his words with some care. ‘It’s about that matter in France that John and I were involved in,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to bring it to a final conclusion, and we need some help, right now. Our colleague from the east said something that we think might be important. He said,’ Richter continued, ‘that your Company and mine had to work very closely together, so I’m wondering if you’ve received something that we haven’t.’

‘Like what?’ Abrahams asked.

‘A word, a number, a name. Anything like that. We need it for access to the project we’ve been working on, if you see what I mean.’

‘Stand by,’ the American replied. ‘I’ll check.’

Port-Khorly, Prichernomorskaya Nizmennost’ District, Ukraine

The other reason Trushenko had chosen Port-Khorly was because there were several small hotels and guesthouses there, catering to the crews of the ships which docked in the harbour. Trushenko parked the car in a side street and walked the final few hundred yards to his destination. As a government minister, Trushenko had no need of travel passes or any other documentation, and he checked into the principal hotel without problems. He specified the largest room available, and insisted on a direct telephone line being provided through the hotel’s switchboard.

Twenty minutes after he had walked away from his boat, he was ready to log on again.

Hammersmith, London

‘You still there?’

‘Yes,’ said Richter.

‘The only thing that we’ve received that might fit is a single word,’ Abrahams said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to us, but it might to you.’

‘What is it?’ Richter asked, picking up a pencil.

‘The word is Pripiska ,’ Abrahams said, and spelt it.

‘Thanks. Can you tell me where it came from?’ Richter asked.

‘From our source in the east. It came in a message, but without any explanation.’

‘That’s pretty much what I hoped you’d say. I’ll get back to you, Roger,’ Richter said, and put down the phone. Richter looked across at Baker. ‘Here,’ he said, sliding the paper across the desk. ‘Try “Modin” again, then this.’

Prichernomorskaya Nizmennost’ District, Ukraine

Valentin Kabanov knew Port-Khorly well. As a young man he had enjoyed sitting in the port, watching the ships arriving and departing and wondering to what exotic destinations they were bound. He also knew the local chief of police as a personal friend, and had telephoned him as soon as he had ended the call to Odessa. ‘Any stranger – that means anyone not known personally to one of your officers or to a prominent local citizen – who has arrived in the town today by boat or car is to be apprehended,’ Kabanov instructed.

‘Why are you so sure he’s here?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Kabanov replied. ‘But I’m assuming this man is not so stupid as to allow himself to be bottled up in the Crimea. That means he had to have an escape route planned, and the only sensible escape method would be by boat. We know he was staying on the north-west side of the Crimea – somewhere in the vicinity of Razdolnoye or Krasnoperekopsk – so if he had a boat, Port-Khorly would be his most likely destination.’

‘That makes sense,’ the police chief responded, ‘but finding him could take hours.’

‘We don’t have hours,’ Kabanov said. The alert message had stressed the urgency of the situation. ‘Use all available resources. Pull in all your off-duty officers, and call all your informers and agents. Call all the hotels and check all new registrations. Finding this man has the highest possible priority, and that instruction comes straight from Moscow.’ The leading car made the right turn off the main road at Kalanchak as Kabanov terminated the call.

Hammersmith, London

Baker typed in ‘Modin’ at the prompt, and then ‘ Pripiska ’, and immediately accessed the system. As with Karelin’s log on, a welcome message was displayed at the top, but with a much larger options menu below it.

‘That’s different,’ Richter said.

‘Damn right it is,’ Baker replied. He pointed at the screen. ‘What’s that say?’

Richter looked at the welcome message. ‘It says “Welcome, General Modin”,’ he said. ‘And the line below that translates as “Status – Principal User”.’

Baker actually clapped his hands. ‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘This General Modin has high-level access – he’s a principal user. We’ve really got them now.’

‘I know I’ll regret asking this,’ Richter said, ‘but what exactly is a principal user?’

Baker’s fingers were flying over the keyboard as he accessed the menu system. ‘It depends on what the administrator defined in his user categories, but it should mean he can do pretty much whatever he likes on the system. He can change settings and specifications, maybe even detonate the weapons. He can make almost any changes he wants without reference to anybody else. The only higher levels would be a super-user, the system designer and the administrator. I wonder,’ he said, ‘how the Americans got hold of his password?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Richter said, and looked at the screen. Immediately he could see the differences in the displayed menu. There were five headings, not two, and he translated the new ones for Baker. ‘That’s Weapon Control,’ he said, ‘then there’s Network Control and the last is System Utilities.’

Baker rubbed his hands. ‘We’ll start with the network, I think,’ he said, and pressed a key. Richter always enjoyed watching an expert at work. His role was confined to that of translator, as Baker set about trying to disable the entire system. ‘There are two stages,’ he said, almost talking to himself. ‘First we lock out the other users, then we sort out the bombs.’ He turned to Richter. ‘Could you feed me the right words when I ask for them? It doesn’t matter much if we make mistakes now because we’re actually in the system.’

Baker chose the Network Control menu item, looked down the list of choices and selected Current Log Ins, and watched as the screen changed. ‘Two users on the system,’ Baker said. ‘We’ll leave them until last. Now we’ll try User Records.’ That wasn’t what he was looking for, but Username Table was. Baker printed a copy of all the usernames, plus the passwords for each one, then started to run down the list, changing each password as he went. He had barely started when a message appeared at the bottom of the screen.