Gordon Stevens - Moscow USA

The cab stopped outside the restaurant. Middle of the street, because of the cars parked either side. Too soon, Kincaid knew, and looked away from the window. Thank God for the security boys – those he could see but especially those he couldn’t.

Erickson saw the couple step out. Man and woman, mid-twenties, the man paying the driver and the woman walking between the parked cars and waiting on the pavement for him, then the two of them going into the restaurant. His line of vision had remained unimpaired as the woman stepped between the parked cars. Significant, or just chance that a couple arrived just before Caesar was due?

Six minutes now, five, and counting down. Another cab slowed then moved away without stopping. A man walked up 54th and entered the restaurant. Wrong age, wrong description.

One minute. Kincaid ran the Jack Daniels around the glass and told himself to relax.

The cab stopped and Joshua stepped out.

On time, Kincaid thought.

Right age, Daniel Erickson thought, right description. Dark-blue suit, early fifties, brown leather attaché case.

Joshua paid the driver, stepped between the parked cars and stood on the pavement.

Kincaid placed the glass on the table and moved slightly so that he could view the door without appearing to do so.

In the building opposite Erickson reached to his right.

Daniel Michael Erickson did not exist. As a driving licence and a social security number, as a name on a credit card and an entry on the passenger list from Boston to La Guardia. As a cover.

But not as a person.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Sherenko did.

The target’s more important than you could ever imagine, Vorkov his controller had told him; make sure you take him out.

Sherenko held his breath gently, so that his body and mind were still and controlled, and squeezed the trigger.

The last shuttle of the evening touched down at Boston thirty seconds early. Sherenko hurried through the emptying terminal, took a cab to the city centre, then a second to the North End. By midnight he was in the two-room safe house between the wine bar and the boutique.

The Black Label was in the drinks cabinet. Sherenko would have preferred Stolichnaya, but vodka might have threatened his cover. He threw a handful of ice into a glass, topped it up, and switched on the television. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he really was too old for this game; perhaps he was thinking of his family too much. At least Vorkov had talked about going home soon.

The local stations were all running news reports on the progress of Hurricane Bob up the eastern seaboard and the threat to Boston and the surrounding area the following day. He flicked to CNN, went through to the bathroom, began to strip, and heard the sudden change in tone of the newscaster.

‘This is a news flash. We are just getting reports from Moscow that there has been a coup in Russia. President Gorbachev has been placed under house arrest in his holiday dacha in the Crimea. First reports say that hard-liners from the KGB and the Red Army have taken over.’

The morgue was white-tiled and silent, an echo somewhere down a corridor and the smell of disinfectant in his nostrils. There were no staff present, no pathologists or attendants, no clerks to note down the details and ask for a signature against release of a corpse. Kincaid stood alone and stared at the body bag on the slab in the centre of the floor.

I was point man for you – for the past hours he had tried to push the confessional from his mind. I was babysitting you, Joshua; I was the one who was supposed to bring you through. I was the one in whose hands you put your faith and your trust and your life. And I let you down.

He ran his fingers along the body bag.

So what game were you playing, Joshua? Was whatever you were doing connected to the events in the Soviet Union? Langley was going ape-shit, of course: Langley and State and the White House and Christ only knew who else. Tanks on the streets of Moscow. Swan Lake being run non-stop on Soviet television, and the new order, the new Russia, which Gorbachev was promising, suddenly under threat and the image of a return to the bad old days looming large.

He unzipped the body bag and looked at the face.

The Agency had covered itself, of course. Pulled everything and everybody out of East 54th, so that even in the handful of seconds before the first blue and whites of the NYPD arrived there was no link. Just a businessman with an attaché case shot through the back. No ID, no name or plastic or driving licence.

Plus Langley had made certain arrangements. The Club took care of its own, even though they were from different sides. So not even Langley, in a way especially not Soviet Division, wanted Joshua to spend the statutory two weeks in a freezer in the county morgue at Belle Vue, then be consigned to a city burial along with the other John Does. Therefore Langley had made the call – discreet, person to person, the same way that Joshua had sought to contact Leo Panelli.

No autopsy, though, no incision in the chest, no rib cage cut open. Partly because Joshua had only been of use alive, partly to say to the opposition: he’s yours, we had nothing to do with it, so take him home and lay him to rest where his wife and his daughter can mourn over him. Whatever lies you tell them about where and how he died, because lie you will. As we would.

In forty seconds the footsteps would come down the corridor.

‘Sorry, my friend …’

He zipped up the bag and left.

Sherenko stood at the window and looked across the street at the first winds and the first black rain.

The epicentre of Hurricane Bob was scheduled to hit Boston shortly after four. Now it was 3.45 and the sky was black. Down the coast torrential rain and winds were whipping off roofs and throwing trees in the air as if they were the devil’s playthings. In Boston the streets were deserted and the city waited, emergency services on full alert.

On the television set in the corner of the room CNN was running updates from Moscow, retired military and intelligence specialists being wheeled in to comment, and politicians renting their opinions about what might or might not happen.

Sherenko turned from the window and flicked back to one of the local channels.

‘The epicentre of Hurricane Bob is five minutes from Boston.’ The newscaster was tense. ‘Do not go outside. Repeat, do not go outside.’

Sherenko went to the bedroom, stripped, and put on shorts and Nikes.

‘The epicentre of Hurricane Bob is one minute from Boston.’ The newscaster’s voice was almost shrill. The rain outside was horizontal and the trees bent in the wind.

‘Hurricane Bob is one minute, repeat, one minute, from Boston city centre.’

Sherenko stepped outside, locked the door behind him, and began to run.

Kincaid left Langley and drove to the bar on the edge of McLean which the old-timers used as one of their watering holes. O’Bramsky was waiting for him. The evening was closing in and the bottle of Black Label was on the table. Kincaid settled in a chair and nodded as O’Bramsky filled his glass. ‘So what’s new from Moscow station?’

‘A handful of politicians are standing up and being counted.’ O’Bramsky ran his fingers through his white hair. ‘Yeltsin’s in Moscow and on his way to the White House. The first crowds are gathering outside to defend the building against the army and the KGB, but there are reports that KGB Alpha teams are already in the building with orders to assassinate him.’

‘What about Joshua? How does he relate to what’s going down in Moscow?’

‘At this stage nobody’s sure. One theory is that he knew of the plans for the putsch but didn’t know who was behind it, therefore didn’t know who to alert in order to stop it, so he contacted us.’