James Barrington - Overkill

The President nodded. His Vice-President was no fan of the CIA, or any of the other intelligence organizations. ‘I hear what you say, John, but I disagree. As long as there is even the slightest possibility of any threat to the security of the United States, I’m going to take whatever steps I think are justified. Right now, that’s DEFCON FOUR, and a meeting of the National Security Council here at the White House in thirty minutes.’

Orpington, Kent

Richter told Orlov about Newman, and the suspicions SIS had entertained about his death. He went slowly through his time in Moscow, telling him about the few inconsistencies he had found on the body – the injuries that weren’t there but should have been.

Orlov interrupted. ‘That’s not enough, Richter. I grant you that one of his legs would have been likely to break, but there is no certainty in the matter.’

‘Quite right, Vladimir,’ Richter said. ‘Perhaps I should have pointed out that by then I was just looking for indications as to how the man had been killed. I knew as soon as I looked at the corpse that it wasn’t Newman.’

‘How?’ Orlov’s voice was a soft, silky purr.

‘Attention to detail, Vladimir. That’s where a lot of high-powered schemes fall down; attention to detail. Your SVR colleagues picked some poor sucker who was unfortunate enough to be about Newman’s height, weight and colouring, and I’ve no doubt they checked to see if Newman had any distinguishing marks. Because none were obvious – no scars, tattoos and so on – they assumed that he hadn’t got any. If they had bothered to look, they would have found that he had had an ingrowing toenail removed years ago. The corpse your people thoughtfully provided for the Embassy had all ten toenails.’

‘I see,’ Orlov said. ‘I take your point. The whole scheme, of course, was not of my doing but I was kept informed of the operation. I will see to it that the appropriate steps are taken in Moscow to reprimand the operatives responsible for this.’

Richter nodded. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy that, Vladimir.’ The Russian made an impatient gesture. ‘Continue.’ Richter asked for more water, more as a delaying tactic than because he actually wanted any, then finished off Moscow and told him what SIS knew about the overflight of north-west Russia by the Blackbird. Richter sang the praises of the SR–71A fairly loudly, partly because he wanted to annoy Orlov just a little, to try to make him slightly less critical of the lies he was soon going to start telling, and partly because dragging the story out bought him just a little more time, and time was something he needed a lot of.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Orlov, impatiently. ‘The American spy-plane can fly high and fast, we know that. It was fortunate for the Americans that we were not prepared for such an intrusion. It would have been a different matter if they had met any of our MiG–31 interceptors.’

‘No doubt, Vladimir, no doubt,’ Richter said. Orlov looked at him sharply, but Richter wasn’t smiling. He couldn’t smile. He didn’t think, the way his face felt, that he would ever smile again.

He covered the diversion of the Blackbird to Lossiemouth, and dealt with the insistence of the Ministry of Defence on seeing the films shot by the aircraft cameras. Up to that point, he hadn’t really told Orlov anything of importance, or anything he hadn’t already known or hadn’t guessed. The difficult bit was just about to start.

‘So,’ Orlov said, ‘what did your so-called experts think of the films?’

‘They were puzzled,’ Richter replied, which was true. ‘And they still are.’ Which wasn’t quite true. ‘The only significant feature on the films shot by the Blackbird was the removal of a small hill which had been on previous satellite films of the area.’

Richter saw Orlov stiffen almost imperceptibly. ‘So?’

Richter tried to inject a little puzzlement into his voice. ‘The Americans believe the hill was the test site for a new type of nuclear weapon, but that’s not our take. Our experts’ reading of the seismograph records suggests that the weapon test was just a blind, using a conventional medium-yield weapon to conceal what you’ve really been up to.’

‘Which is what?’

‘We still aren’t sure, but we believe that the hill wasn’t a hill at all. We think that it was a camouflaged site, covering some sort of covert installation, which you have since decided to remove. Then you detonated a surplus nuclear device to cover up the fact that the hill – or rather the installation – had vanished.’

Richter could see Orlov start to relax, so he spun him the rest of the yarn that he had been working on ever since the lights had come on in the bedroom. He told him that SIS suspected that the installation had been a test site for a portable phased array radar unit, designed for early warning of either orbital or sub-orbital missiles or intruders. He expounded on the potential of such a device to avoid detection by reconnaissance vehicles, its value to Russia and the possible illegality of such a radar under the terms of the SALT agreements.

Orlov started nodding before he got halfway through the tale, and Richter hoped it was to convince him that he was right rather than an expression of his appreciation for Richter’s ingenuity.

‘We obviously don’t know any more than that at the moment, but we’ll find out, I promise you,’ Richter concluded.

‘I don’t think you will, Richter,’ said Orlov, speaking the absolute truth. ‘You, personally, certainly won’t.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why are you so certain that the hill was a camouflaged site?’

‘We aren’t, but we applied simple logic,’ Richter said. ‘You’ve very rarely carried out above-ground nuclear weapon tests, and only then after a lot of preparation and work. We saw no signs of such preparations near the site. No, what happened in the tundra had all the hallmarks of a hasty cover-up, using a bomb blast to remove the evidence of what you were doing up there previously. It’s the only scenario that makes sense.’

Orlov nodded slowly. ‘Very good, Richter, very good. Your logic is impeccable, but the premises upon which you based your argument are wholly invalid. But, you are almost right, and you may take that comfort with you to your grave. What I will say is that it wasn’t a phased array radar, but something much more interesting.’ A careful man, Orlov, giving nothing away even though he knew that within minutes Richter was going to be in no state to ever tell anyone anything. The Russian glanced behind Richter. ‘Yuri, he’s all yours,’ he said.

Richter looked round and Yuri smiled at him. Richter didn’t need any prompting to know why he was smiling. He turned back to Orlov. ‘I’ve told you what you wanted. If you’re going to kill me can’t you just shoot me?’

Orlov shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Richter,’ he said in a tone which made it quite clear that he wasn’t, ‘but I promised you to Yuri, and he’s been looking forward to tonight ever since the day you visited JARIC. And anyway,’ he added, ‘we don’t want gunshots echoing out over the Home Counties, do we? Lowers the tone of the area.’

Richter tried again, leaning forward in the chair as far as his roped arms would allow. ‘Orlov, please. Hasn’t he hurt me enough?’

Orlov’s smile turned to a sneer of contempt. ‘Our conversation, and your life, is at an end. Yuri, take him away. Try not to make too much of a mess downstairs.’

As a sentence of death it left a good deal to be desired, Richter thought.

Moscow

Dmitri Trushenko glanced around the apartment for what he knew would probably be the last time. He had packed enough clothes and toiletries for a couple of weeks into a lightweight suitcase which was standing by the apartment door, and he had just made a final check of the contents of his briefcase. As well as the portable computer with its built-in modem, he had his mobile telephone with a spare battery and charger, plus the Ultra Secret classified Podstava file. He knew that simple possession of the file would be enough to justify his immediate arrest, and he was relying upon his credentials as a government minister to avoid problems.