A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell Spy Thriller, Book 3) (24 page)

For the second time in their brief acquaintance, Kell wondered where the hell Minasian was getting his information. How did he know that he had been turfed out of SIS on false accusations of torture and given the codename Witness X? Had Kleckner told him?

‘Whatever you think you know about Witness X, you know nothing,’ he said. ‘It was political pressure. I’m back in the fold.’

‘
Are
you?’

The question was laced with suspicion. Had Minasian intuited that Kell was running him behind Amelia’s back?

‘I don’t understand,’ Kell replied, playing dumb.

‘Never mind.’ Minasian allowed the moment to linger. ‘You know what I am talking about.’

‘Not sure I do,’ Kell replied, trying his best to look confused by what Minasian was saying. ‘My offer to you was a sincere one. If you want to start again, if you want to escape from the trap in which you have found yourself, we are here to help you.’

‘How
kind
.’ Minasian summoned as much contempt as he could find and packed it into his voice. ‘You blackmail me, you set this trap and throw me into it, then you offer to get me out. How very noble. How very British.’

‘Just goes to show that England is not an irrelevance.’ Kell hoped that some bone-dry humour would rescue the conversation and he was pleased to see Minasian acknowledge it with a weary shake of the head.

‘So you want me to give it all up and start again? That was your purpose all along?’ Minasian reached down to the bag at his feet. ‘Like Gordievsky, like so many others. Start a new life in quiet suburban England, the land of
The
Whitsun Weddings
.’

‘I think it’s your best bet.’ Kell was distracted by an elderly woman who had emerged from a house in the cul-de-sac. She was carrying a dead pot plant that she threw into a dustbin. ‘Nobody can go through their entire life living a lie,’ he said. ‘Deceit catches up with you. There is a reckoning.’

‘Do
you
find that?’ Again Minasian tried to switch the direction of the conversation. ‘Do
you
find that lying is a sickness? Perhaps in a long career, a spy’s constant exposure to deception leaves him feeling …’ – Minasian searched for the correct term – ‘worn out.’

‘I don’t think spying is a particularly healthy way of making a living, if that’s what you’re trying to say.’ Minasian seemed pleased by this response. The outlines of a vulpine smile cracked within his beard. Kell had not intended to make such a candid reply, but he enjoyed jousting with Minasian. ‘I don’t think that I will do it forever,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘Sure. But right now I’d rather be doing this job than any other. And I’d rather be working for my service than for yours.’

Minasian looked disappointed. ‘We all feel that way about our own country, of course,’ he said. A car drove past them, leaving the cul-de-sac and heading out towards the main road. ‘I wonder if you have used spying as many people in our business tend to. As a replacement for the family. As a substitute structure for life.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your own marriage was unhappy. You had few friends from school or university. Your mother died when you were relatively young.’

Kell again experienced the unsettling sense that Minasian knew far more about him than was normal. He said: ‘Not sure about your sources, Alexander. Some of Ryan Kleckner’s information was faulty,’ but he was unsettled to see that the Russian did not react to the mention of Kleckner’s name.

‘Like me,’ Minasian continued, his knee knocking the gear stick, ‘you have not had any children. Like me, you suffered with an unsatisfactory marriage. You went to one of your English boarding schools, which are known to produce broken characters ideal for the life in MI6. A young man cannot grow up in an environment without girls, his parents and siblings far away, living for eight or nine months of the year in an institution that oppresses his spirit with rules and traditions …’

Kell knew what Minasian was trying to do and felt the discomfort of being picked apart.

‘What is this?’ he said. ‘Freud for beginners?’

‘I do not mean to probe too deeply, Thomas. We all have our reasons for what we have done. I believe that you replaced one institution, one false and unhealthy structure, with another: the institution of secrecy and deception. I grew up in a country and a system that was hopeless and bankrupt, humiliated by the West, cornered and betrayed. So I joined the secret world for very different reasons to yours. I joined in order to make a difference.’

‘And you think I didn’t?’

‘I think you have no understanding of the Russian temperament. I think you imagine that we are all monsters, determined to taunt and punish the West, to make war, to make trouble, because we are suffering from a kind of collective psychosis.’

‘Can you blame us?’

‘I
lived
through the humiliation.’ Minasian was as angry as Kell had ever seen him. ‘I lived through years of watching the West try to grind us into the dust. I joined the Service in order to improve the standing of my country. I wanted to help restore to Russia both a sense of national pride and a correct evaluation of my country’s strength in international affairs.’

‘Well good for you,’ Kell replied, amazed that Minasian expected him to swallow his self-delusion. ‘Most of your colleagues were just in it for the cash. Ex-KGB, in league with organized crime, laundering money offshore, money that belonged to the Russian people, then using it to buy up state assets. I’m sure you’re aware of what happened. Just as I’m sure that you and your closest colleagues had nothing to do with it.’

Minasian was so incensed by what Kell had said that, for a moment, it looked as if he was going to get out of the car. Kell tried to calm him down.

‘Look, I’m only winding you up,’ he said. ‘A few bad apples in the FSB doesn’t mean you’re all contaminated.’ Kell was aware that they were wasting time. Minasian needed to get back to Claridge’s. ‘All I was trying to say is that if you can imagine a life without five-star hotels, without designer clothes, without lunch at The Wolseley every time you come to London, we can make anything happen for you. We can set you free. It’s probably too late to save Russia, but it’s not too late to save yourself. Believe me, Alexander, a clear conscience and a restored sense of self-esteem is worth a great deal more than a life of lies lived in luxury. But if you want to stay in the Service, if you want to have a kid with Svetlana, if you want to work for your father-in-law in four or five years’ time, get hold of his mining interests, have his ice hockey stadium in Helsinki transferred into your name, then I can’t let you go. You’re too valuable to us. Right now, I own you.’

It was the wrong thing to say, the one lazy slip of Kell’s tongue. He had spoken against his own best interests and provoked Minasian, feeding the rage inside him. Kell thought back to the notes he had scribbled in the wake of the dinner with Riedle, advice that he had now ignored.
Power and control central to M’s personality. Must retain a position of dominance.
Yet he had not wanted to pander to Minasian’s self-importance, to be distracted by his moods and volatility. He thought of him as a fraud and a bully; surely there was only one way to treat such people, and that was with a show of strength.

‘You do not own me,’ Minasian replied, predictably enough.

‘Of course not. But I demand results from you. If the product is good’ – Kell took out the flash drive and waved it in the air – ‘and you help to save lives, we can talk about a deal further down the road.’

‘The product is good. The product
will
save lives. But it is the last thing I will give you. In Warsaw, we say goodbye.’

What did Minasian have up his sleeve that he could afford to call Kell’s bluff with such audacity? Kell took out a packet of Winston Lights and offered one to the Russian. Minasian shook his head, watching Kell carefully as he lit the cigarette.

‘Let me ask you one thing,’ he said. ‘Have you ever recruited someone who can bring you information like this?’

‘Frequently,’ Kell replied, blowing a column of smoke across the passenger seat.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Why is it so important for you to be the hero, Alexander?’

‘Why is it so important for
you
?’

Kell smoked in silence, deciding on his reply. ‘To me belongeth vengeance,’ he said eventually. ‘And recompense.’

Minasian looked baffled. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You don’t know your Bible?’

‘I don’t know
your
Bible.’

‘Vengeance is mine,’ Kell explained. ‘And payback.’

Minasian frowned. ‘That is what this is for you? Revenge for the death of your girlfriend?’ He leaned towards Kell, grabbing his arm at the upper part of the bicep. ‘I have told you that I had nothing to do with this. I have told you that I thought it was a terrible thing to do, beneath our Service.’

‘I want revenge,’ Kell repeated, and it was suddenly very clear to him how to proceed. He knew how to get what he wanted, how to set both of them free. ‘Let’s make a deal,’ he said, removing Minasian’s hand. ‘I want the names of the men who ordered Rachel’s murder. I want to meet them in Warsaw. You bring them to me, you bring me their heads, you can go. Put me in a room with them and it will be the last thing I ask of you. After that, you can have your clemency, Alexander. After that, we say goodbye.’

Rosie had been the first woman to provoke feelings in Shahid since his relationship with Vicky three years earlier. That part of himself – his ability to desire and to be desired – had been buried by Vicky’s betrayal. It was as though Rosie had cleared away the earth from his heart and freed him to love again. Shahid had been unable to control his attraction towards her. He had felt both great shame and great happiness inside the mystery of this obsession.

After the restaurant they had gone back to his room in Rottingdean. Rosie had given herself to him. Shahid had been unable to resist. He had been inside her. He had drowned in her. Afterwards, lying side by side in his narrow bed, she had told him that she loved him. Shahid had started to cry, his body shaking as Rosie held him in her arms.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she whispered. ‘What’s the matter? Why you crying?’

The moment was so overwhelming that it had made Shahid question everything. For the next few hours, with Rosie asleep beside him, and the morning sun slowly bringing light to his bedroom, he had sat with the shaming realization that he had allowed his love for Rosie to corrupt his faith. Satan had come into his heart in the form of lust and had polluted the purity of his mission. That lust was now sated, but he knew that it would return. God would continue to test him.

So Shahid prayed as the girl slept beside him. He asked God to show Rosie that she could accept Allah into her heart and become a Muslim. Only then could he marry her. Only then would he be able to lie with her again, without bringing shame and dishonour upon himself.

Yet a marriage between Shahid Khan and Rosie Maguire was surely not the will of Allah. God’s will had already been made clear to Shahid by Jalal. It was the destiny of Shahid Khan to avenge the Prophet. A woman could not change that, especially a woman who was infidel. Shahid knew that his act of martyrdom would take him from Rosie, but that he would be rewarded in paradise with pleasures far greater than those he had known on this earth.

In that moment, pulling back the curtains so that the sunlight poured into the bedroom, Shahid realized what was obvious. His prayer had been answered. Rosie had been given to him by God to use for his pleasure. The love he felt for her was incomparable to the radiance of Islam that shone through him. She was simply a vessel through which God had shown him the strength of His love.

Understanding this, Shahid woke Rosie and told her that it was time for her to leave.

‘What, now?’ she said, still half asleep. The pillow had left a crease in her face and the make-up around her eyes was smudged.

‘Now,’ he said.

‘But you don’t have work today.’

‘Going to the gym. You have to go.’

He explained that she could get a bus back into Brighton from the stop at the end of the Close. Rosie sat up in bed, confused and tired. Shahid passed her the clothes that she had left on the floor. Then he went into the bathroom to wash himself.

Kell dropped Minasian outside Northolt underground station and watched him vanish into the late afternoon crowds. It was half past five. With decent traffic he would be home before six to run the contents of the flash drive through a laptop.

But he had made a simple, infuriating oversight. With his iPhone at the repair shop, Kell had no means of communicating with Amelia. He had made no record of her mobile or email address, nor had he memorized the contact details of any mutual friends or colleagues who could put them in touch. It was an embarrassing mistake of the sort that would not have occurred had he been working in a larger team.

The shop was due to close at seven. Kell diverted south towards Earl’s Court and was there in forty-five minutes. He collected the phone and drove back through rush-hour traffic to Sinclair Road, wondering if he should have taken the flash drive direct to Vauxhall Cross. But Kell could not be sure of its contents. He had to check the product for himself before exposing it to Amelia. If the SVR had implanted the flash drive with second-rate intelligence or – worse – some kind of malware or virus, he would look like a fool.

As soon as he was home, Kell unplugged the wi-fi in his flat and took out an old Vaio laptop that had been gathering dust in a cupboard. It started up first time. Kell disabled the laptop’s internet access, then unscrewed the flash drive and inserted the USB connector into the port. A flash drive icon immediately appeared on the desktop. He clicked on it and waited for the screen to populate.

Nothing happened.

Kell clicked on the icon a second time, with the same result. The flash drive failed to open. He wondered if it was a fault with the laptop and searched his desk for another device that he could use to test it. He picked up a portable hard drive containing back-ups of his photographs, as well as information relating to his finances and divorce. He inserted this into the Vaio. A new icon appeared on the screen. When Kell clicked on it, the contents of the hard drive opened up. It was not a fault with his computer. There was a fault with Minasian’s device.

Kell swore at the screen. He texted Mowbray to ask if he was free to come over. Perhaps he would know a technical trick, a way of opening it up and getting the information. But Harold did not respond. Kell tried phoning him, three times, but each time the call went to voicemail.

Kell hated this feeling. To be at the mercy of technology, of a piece of impregnable kit that refused to give up its secrets. In his long career he had known everything from the floppy disk to the fax machine, the short-burst radio to satellite phones the size of microwave ovens. In the presence of technology of any kind, Kell possessed what had once been described by a colleague as ‘sub-optimal karma’: photocopiers jammed if he went near them; computers crashed; phones dropped their signal. It was happening again.

He took out the BlackBerry. He was sure that there was a technical fault with the flash drive and that Minasian was not deliberately stalling. Finding his number, he tapped out a message for encryption and sent it.

The battery does not work. It needs to be replaced ASAP.

Kell did not know how long it would be before Minasian replied. He was certain that the Russian did not carry the BlackBerry around with him; he could not even be sure that he had access to it at Claridge’s. If Minasian was engaged on other SVR business, or having dinner with Svetlana in central London, it could be many hours before he replied – time in which STRIPE could be making the final preparations for an attack.

It was not yet eight o’clock. Kell decided that if Minasian had not responded by nine, he would breach all protocol and cold-call the Eremenko suite at Claridge’s from a public telephone. He had no other choice.

Ten minutes later he was preparing some food in the kitchen when the BlackBerry chimed.

Very embarrassed to hear this. I apologize. It was not my intention. I can replace it with a new one tomorrow.

Kell sent back a terse reply.

Tomorrow is too late. You know that. I need it now.

Minasian’s response was immediate.

Not possible. I cannot get the battery from my office until the morning. Do not worry.

Kell could understand Minasian’s position. The intelligence had most likely come from a file that was kept under lock and key by the SVR. Minasian could not risk a late-night visit to the Embassy without raising suspicion. Nevertheless, he pushed for answers.

Anything is possible. Tomorrow could be too late.

Still Minasian refused to act.

Tomorrow will not be too late. Trust me.

It was the last thing Kell was prepared to do. Yet he had no choice. He knew that Svetlana was scheduled to meet her doctor at the fertility clinic at nine o’clock the next day.

You have an appointment, yes?

There was a two-minute delay before Minasian replied.

Yes. At nine.

Kell was taking a risk, but he felt squeezed by time. The plan was lazy and he was certain that Minasian would not go for it. It was bad tradecraft. The Russian would be passing sensitive information to a third party over which neither side had operational control. Nevertheless, he tapped out his reply.

Leave it for collection. Our friend who wrote the poem will pick it up.

Kell waited. Pasta was boiling on the stove. He put a metal spoon into the water and stirred it, freeing a clump of spaghetti that had stuck to the base. He opened a bottle of wine and poured himself a glass, staring at the BlackBerry, willing Minasian to understand what he was being asked to do.

The screen lit up.

The envelope will be there for collection from 9 a.m. Have a good evening.