James Barrington - Overkill

He rolled once, then came up into a crouch. In a single fluid motion Richter hauled the Smith and Wesson out of the shoulder holster and sighted down the barrel. The heavy recoil from the whippet had forced the thug’s arm upwards and back, and as Richter stopped moving he swung the weapon down again. But before he could squeeze the trigger Richter had completed his move. The pistol boomed once, the recoil kicking Richter’s arm up, and the .357 magnum round took the thug squarely in the chest, knocking him backwards. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The noise of the shots echoed and faded and Richter knew that within seconds the occupants of the pub would be pouring out into the car park to find out what was going on. But he only needed seconds. He stepped across to the first attacker, who was trying to sit up, moaning over the pain of his dislocated shoulder. Richter kicked his good arm from under him and the man slumped back on the ground. For a brief moment time seemed frozen, then Richter pointed the pistol straight at the man’s stomach and pulled back the hammer, the sudden click unnaturally loud.

‘Who sent you?’ Richter asked, his voice quiet and level as he spoke for the first time since the encounter had begun.

For a moment it looked as if the man would refuse to answer, then he shook his head. ‘The people you owe money to,’ he said sullenly. It was pretty much as Richter had guessed. The old story – a man running up gambling debts which he can’t or won’t repay, and a couple of bruisers sent to straighten him out. The only thing that surprised him was that the Russians had stooped so low.

‘I hope they paid you in advance,’ Richter said, holstering the Smith and Wesson, ‘because if it’s by results you’re not going to make much of a living doing this. Sorry about your boyfriend,’ he added as he walked away towards his car.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

‘Walter, isn’t it?’ the grey-haired man asked, rising to his feet and advancing from behind the massive mahogany desk as Hicks entered the room.

‘Yes, Mr President.’

‘You know the Secretary of Defense?’

Hicks turned and nodded towards the man sitting in one of the Oval Office’s comfortable armchairs. ‘Yes, I do. Good day, Mr Secretary,’ he said.

‘Right, Walter, let’s hear what you have to say.’

Hicks sat down and opened his briefcase. ‘This will sound unbelievable, Mr President, but we have information which suggests that an assault is about to be launched upon the United States by Russia.’

The Secretary of Defense rose abruptly to his feet. ‘What in hell! Is this some kind of a sick joke?’ he demanded.

Hicks shook his head wearily. ‘No, Mr Secretary, it isn’t any kind of a joke,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t be here now if it was.’

The President was still standing, looking appraisingly at Hicks. ‘Go on, Walter,’ he said quietly. ‘What kind of assault, and what is your evidence?’

Hicks pulled out a file bearing the title ‘Ravensong’ and began to speak.

Cambridge

Richter spent a busy ten minutes on his mobile explaining to Simpson what had happened on the A10, and Simpson agreed to let the Metropolitan Police lean on the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. The story they worked out between them was that the incident was a shoot-out between gang members, which wouldn’t be that difficult for even a policeman to believe. When he got to Cambridge – late – Richter parked near the railway station, then took a cab to the Department of Theoretical Physics.

Expert assistance from the academic world is surprisingly often required by a variety of government departments, including what is usually called the Illegal Section. As a result, following a covert security check known as Negative Vetting, certain leading authorities in numerous and diverse fields are approached and asked to act as consultants to the government as required, in return for a predictably small annual retainer.

Since the Second World War, and increasingly through the sixties and early seventies, with the embarrassment caused by Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt and others of their ilk, the security forces of the Western world have greatly increased their emphasis on checking and screening people who will have access to sensitive material.

This was something that the British had never been very good at. The system’s failings could largely be laid at the door of the old school tie, and to the peculiar belief that, even if it was perfectly obvious to anyone with half an eye that a particular individual was an habitual drunk, a raging queen with a boyfriend called Boris or Ivan and, in some cases, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, the fact that he had been to Winchester and Cambridge somehow outweighed all this evidence. Indeed, for some years about the only consistent qualifications for membership of the security establishment appeared to be unusual sexual proclivities and a general sympathy with Stalin’s long-term aims.

Eventually and despite, rather than because of, the system, vetting was improved and a new breed of security man evolved – the Screener, as he is colloquially known. Screeners are usually ex-service officers of a fairly senior rank who have shown some aptitude for what one might call ferreting, and they spend their working lives checking, cross-checking and then checking again, all relevant details of the personnel whose files appear on their desks.

There are two types of security checking procedure which may be undertaken, and the one used depends almost entirely on the intended employment of the individual in question. The more usual procedure is Negative Vetting, which is a covert operation. Virtually all the Screener does is to confirm that stated details are correct, by checking birth and marriage certificates, details of the individual’s immediate family, school records and so on, and weeding out any obvious insanities like an uncle who’s the Secretary of the local Communist Party. Negative Vetting is the normal procedure for people entering the armed forces in an officer rank, and is generally considered to provide clearance up to Secret.

Positive Vetting is required for anyone needing access to Top Secret, Atomic Secret, Cosmic Top Secret or any of the other thirty or so grades and classifications above Secret, and starts more or less where Negative Vetting finishes. The co-operation of the subject is essential, and the process ensures that the entire life history of the individual is scrutinized, starting from conception and ending the day before the screening started. Family and friends are interviewed in depth. Past employers are contacted and receive a visit, and even the sex life of the subject is placed under the microscope. The process is thorough, lengthy and moderately distasteful, but it does work, which is the intention.

However, despite the fact that some of the civilian consultants used by the government work on projects which are technically of a much higher security classification than Secret, usually only Negative Vetting is applied. The rationale behind this is that as these consultants would only have a limited view of one aspect of a project, rather than an overview of the whole thing, they do not need to be investigated thoroughly. The truth is that it was felt that the uproar and predictable howls about civil rights which would accompany the Positive Vetting of scientists would be more trouble than the resulting clearance would be worth, and so it is only applied in situations where there really is no other option.

Richter turned in through the open double doors, walked across to a glass-fronted booth labelled ‘Porter’, but found it deserted. On the wall beside the staircase was a list of the building’s inhabitants, and Richter scanned rapidly down it until he found ‘Professor Hillsworth’ listed as having a laboratory on the third floor. The building consisted of a central stairwell, with a long corridor of rooms on each side of the stairs. On the third floor Richter flipped a mental coin and chose the left-hand corridor. It would have been quicker if he’d gone right, but he finally found the door he was looking for by dint of looking at about twenty others that didn’t have ‘Professor Hillsworth’ written on them. Richter knocked, heard a muffled call from inside, and entered.