James Barrington - Overkill

Sokolov whistled softly. ‘That’s tight, Nicolai, very tight. There is little time to overcome any unforeseen problems.’

Modin shook his head. ‘You’re wrong, Grigori. There is no time to overcome any problems. Everything must go right, first time. The only insurance policy,’ he added, ‘is me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I will be accompanying the convoy, to oversee the placement of the weapon. It is not a task I relish, but Minister Trushenko was quite specific.’

Hammersmith, London

The courier knocked on Richter’s door at ten minutes to four, and placed an armful of files on the desk. Of the twenty-three files, there were seventeen classified Confidential and above which had to be signed for individually in the Classified Documents Register before the courier left. Then Richter took a ruler from his desk drawer and measured the height of the pile of files before ringing Simpson. He answered at once.

‘I hope you’re not hoping for an answer today on the Newman case,’ Richter said, ‘because the heap of bumf from SIS sits seventeen and a half inches high on my desk.’

‘That’s more or less what I expected,’ Simpson said. ‘Newman would have had some input into virtually every matter that Moscow Station was dealing with. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, so make the Newman stuff your priority. If you need to shunt your other work around, let me know.’

‘OK,’ Richter said, and put the phone down. He spread the files out on his desk and started work. Thankfully, a good deal of the information could be discarded after a cursory glance, but that still left a substantial amount of reading matter in the Station files, and he was going to have to cover all that Newman had personally been involved in from his reports. By five thirty in the afternoon he had done little more than sort the stuff out, and decide what he had to read and what he could ignore or just scan through. Then he put the whole lot in the safe, span the combination, signed out of the building and went home. He would start again on Monday morning.

Office of the Director of Operations (Clandestine Services), Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

Richard Muldoon stopped talking. There was a moment’s silence, and then, as if by common consent, everyone looked towards the head of the table.

‘So what the hell are they doing?’ Hicks asked.

‘At the moment, nothing,’ Muldoon replied. ‘The ’bird is sitting on the ground in a hangar in Scotland. We can’t get near it, and we can’t talk to the crew except on an open phone line that’s almost certainly being monitored.’

Hicks ground out his cigar in an ashtray, then looked up. ‘When did the ’bird land?’

‘Yesterday morning,’ Muldoon replied

‘OK, Richard. What have you done since then to get the aircraft back?’

Muldoon coloured slightly. ‘Once we knew there was a problem, we tried through the USAFE to persuade the British to co-operate and release the aircraft, but we got nowhere.’

‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’ Hicks asked.

‘You’re acting DCI at the moment,’ Muldoon said. ‘We have assessed that we’ll probably need strong diplomatic pressure to get the ’bird released without telling the Brits what they want to know. We’d like you to request the President, through the National Security Council, to try to get the aircraft back.’

Walter Hicks picked up the cigar packet and looked inside. Then he pushed his chair back and walked over to his desk, picked up a fresh pack of cigars and sat down again. ‘Kind of “please can we have our ball back, mister”?’ he said. Muldoon nodded. Hicks leaned back in his chair. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let me summarize the situation as I understand it. We’ve had a whisper from a source in Moscow—’

‘A reliable source, Director,’ Hughes interrupted.

Hicks just glanced at him, then continued. ‘We’ve got a whisper from a usually reliable source – I won’t put it any higher than that – in Moscow that some kind of covert offensive is being implemented, although we can’t detect any signs of it whatsoever. We’ve got seismograph recordings of a weapon test high in the tundra. And finally, we’ve possibly got film records of the possible weapon test site stuck in the surveillance cameras of a Blackbird at—’ he checked his notes ‘—at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland that the Brits won’t let us look at until we tell them what the hell the aircraft was doing over-flying north-west Russia, threatening détente and all.’ He looked round the table. ‘Is that it?’

Three heads nodded.

‘It’s a crock of shit,’ Hicks said flatly. ‘It’s rumour and unfounded speculation – you’ve no hard evidence at all. In fact, all the evidence you have says that the RAVEN message is disinformation. You can’t start a covert assault without some signs of military activity. I can’t take that and try to get NSC or Presidential approval for any further action. Christ, it’s going to be difficult enough getting the Blackbird back to Mildenhall without answering a lot of real awkward questions.’

He pulled out another cigar and took his time lighting it. ‘Did it ever occur to any of you that RAVEN might be a plant?’ he went on. ‘That this supposed agent might just be part of a deception operation intended to force us into doing something stupid – which it has? The KGB planners were experts at that kind of thing, and bearing in mind that they all now work for the SVR, do you really think they’ve lost their touch? Hell, the fucking source probably even works for the SVR!’ He looked round the table. ‘Well, did you? Any of you?’

Ronald Hughes replied quietly. ‘Yes, Director, we did. We did consider it, but the quality of the data we received was so good that we don’t believe the SVR would have released it as part of any deception campaign. We’ve been able to cross-check quite a lot of it, and there are no indications whatever that the source is anything other than what he appears to be – a disaffected officer right at the very top of the SVR or GRU.’

‘Good. I’m pleased to see somebody’s been thinking. Have we had anything from RAVEN since this note?’

‘Nothing,’ Hughes said. ‘Either the SVR tumbled to him, in which case we’ve lost the best high-level source we’ve ever had – in my opinion – or he’s having to lie low for the moment. Obviously,’ he added, ‘we hope he’s still in place.’

‘OK,’ said Hicks. ‘In my view, this is probably the SVR twisting our tail, just letting us know that they’re still there and still in business. I’ll spell it out. First, RAVEN was a walk-in. We don’t know who he is or why he’s doing it. I hear what you say about the data, Ron, but it is possible that we’re being fed disinformation which is being supported by related leaked data that you’re using to cross-check it. Kind of like a circular argument.’

‘That’s not the way I read it,’ Hughes said, ‘but I’ll concede that it is just possible.’

‘Second,’ Hicks continued, ‘the note was handwritten, which is suspicious for two reasons. If RAVEN was caught with the note in his pocket, his handwriting would be identifiable to another SVR or GRU officer at his level. If he is genuine, that would be too dangerous, too much of a risk. And why handwrite it? Why not just photograph the document, the same way he photographed all the other documents? And finally, your checks, Ron, showed no evidence whatsoever of military preparations for any kind of assault.’

There was silence round the table for a minute or so, then Hughes spoke. ‘There could be other explanations for the note, Director. It could be that RAVEN has only just been indoctrinated into the operation, that he’s only just been told about it. He may have been briefed verbally, and not seen any documents at all. If the project is classified highly enough, no documents describing the entire concept may exist, or there may be just one copy held in a two-key safe which can only be opened by two officers simultaneously; we know the KGB used that technique for added security. So there are several possible reasons why he may have had no option but to scribble brief details down, just to alert us to what’s going on. If that is the case, then he will be relying on our ability to pick up the trail and find out what’s happening. I wouldn’t like to think that we’re just going to drop it.’