Based on the concept that the simplest, most basic plans work the best, I just walked from my hotel to the Academy of Sciences. I was in disguise – a dark wig and
moustache, a walking stick and appropriate limp. Cleared through the security check at the main entrance using a carefully faked ID, within a few minutes I was at the door to Grenyov’s
office.
He reacted with admirable calm, but I got the sense that the man was only just managing to hold together his sanity. He felt bored in his current position, frustrated, angry.
When I told him of the plan to get him and his work out and halfway across the world to New Jersey, his eyes came alive as though he had been in a coma for months.
The next morning, Dimitri Grenyov walked out of his office, through the main doors as though en route to a regular monthly meeting at the Institute of Soviet Sciences. Instead
of turning right at the junction of Nitali and Stolski Highways he walked quickly to the closest Metro station, travelled three stops, changed lines and slipped down a side street to where a car
was waiting for him. This car took the scientist overnight to the border with Finland. Aided by Finnish military personnel, he was smuggled over the border a few miles south of the crossing at
Niirala where the forest is dense and only a minute fraction of the natural barrier between the two nations can be manned.
From just inside Finland, Grenyov was taken to a safe house overnight. The next day, he was driven across the country avoiding Helsinki, passing close to Tampere and on to the
port of Rauma on the west coast. There, a US Navy submarine, USS
Phoenix
, was waiting.
By the time Grenyov reached neutral territory, I was tying up the loose ends of a contrived meeting that had been my cover in Moscow. Twenty-four hours later, I was on a
mid-morning flight to Copenhagen. It was not until I reached London the evening of the following day that I learned the
Phoenix
had been lost.
There was an immediate communication blackout over the matter, but I could not simply let things go. I was at least partly responsible for Grenyov’s death. Escaping to
America had certainly been his idea but I had been instrumental in organizing the route, the method. Now both the Yanks and my own people had shut down. Something about it stank.
It took months of effort and calling in every favour I had from old friends and colleagues but I did eventually unearth the truth . . . the sub had been sunk by the Royal
Navy. This alone, I realized, was a fair enough reason for going silent on the operation.
Phoenix
had been in the North Sea heading west, very close to the Norwegian coast when it was attacked and sunk by HMS
Swordfish.
Upon returning to port, the
British vessel reported the engagement and logged the precise position as 59° 58’ 03”N 4° 05’ 26”E. The submarine commander, a Captain John Henry, was questioned and
gave a perfectly clear account of the circumstances.
According to his report,
Phoenix
failed three times to identify itself. Captain Henry attempted a direct comms link with the American sub; it was ignored. It was only
after the unidentified vessel launched a torpedo that
Swordfish
engaged, launching a battery of torpedoes that sank
Phoenix.
When questioned as to why the Royal Navy vessel was in Norwegian waters in the first place, the commander refused to explain and the matter was swiftly dropped. After some
further digging, I learned that the sinking of
Phoenix
boiled down to a horrible confluence of unrelated actions. The American commander had inadvertently entered a clandestine British
experimental site. The Royal Navy was testing a new submarine design. The experimental vessel had suffered catastrophic engine failure, lost its way and drifted into Norwegian waters. HMS
Swordfish
had been mobilized to rescue it before the Soviets could get wind of the incident. Captain John Henry had his crew on high alert and responded the only way he could when fired
upon by a vessel that would not identify itself.
Phoenix
was lost in the deepest part of the North Sea, the Norwegian Trench, which can reach depths of over two thousand feet. There was no chance of rescue of
course, and all evidence of the incident was lost for ever.
I hate to think of how Grenyov died. I like to think he was killed in the attack by the Royal Navy submarine, caught perhaps in the explosion, or knocked unconscious somehow.
But sometimes, in the dead of night, most especially in this godforsaken hellhole in which I will die, I see the poor man’s face contorted with pain as he descends into the abyss.
And so I draw close to the end of my story and the circumstances that led directly to my new identity, prisoner X-R34, and this, the venue for my imminent death, Camp 16,
Kemerovo, Siberia.
I still do not know how my secrets were exposed. I can only conclude that I had pushed too hard, dug too deep to find out what had happened to
Phoenix
and my friend
Dimitri Grenyov; but exposed they were.
I was called in to a debriefing to give my side of what the brass were already calling the ‘Grenyov Affair’. I gave a good account of myself and left the meeting
feeling positive. After all, I concluded, I was their golden boy, was I not?
I had no idea what was actually going on. The night of my interview with my superiors at MI6 HQ I was visited at home by a man I had never seen before. He turned up on my
doorstep at 11 p.m. just as I was preparing for bed and more or less invited himself in. He told me his name was Ernest Wainwright.
Please don’t consider me a fool, Wainwright had sound enough credentials. He was a friend of an acquaintance of mine and claimed to know my sister, who had gone to St
Swithun’s in Winchester, the same school as his younger sibling. I offered him a drink and pushed him to get to the reason for his visit – I was tired, you see.
After a bit of prodding, he came to the point. He knew I had been turned and that I was a double agent. He convinced me he was on my side and shared my political views, that
he was also a man with unconventional allegiances. He related facts only another such as I could have known and he shared information only someone with the same handler as I could have been privy
to. He produced dates, times, places, people. He had photographs of me speaking with KGB operatives, and he could cite which valuable documents I had passed on to the Soviets.
Thanks to Wainwright, I had a few hours of wriggle time and I was able to get out of London just as my erstwhile colleagues and superiors began to close the net.
Having an escape route was all part of the job in my line of work and I had been diligent enough to keep fake passports up to date, carefully hidden cash, a sophisticated
miniature radio and scrambler, along with several sets of ID including a driving licence and ration book in the name of Graham Frayne, a lawyer from Manchester.
I shall not bore you with the details of how I slipped out of the country into France. Suffice it to say, in Lyon I made contact with my Soviet boss and explained what had
happened. I told him that I had valuable information concerning Grenyov and the experiments he had conducted at Movlovyl. I could tell by the man’s reaction that I had taken him by surprise
with my suggestion and I accepted that I would have to wait to hear back from him while he contacted his superiors to see what could be arranged.
I spent a week kicking my heels in Lyon until I was given the green light. Three days later, I was crossing the border into the Soviet Union. That night, I was debriefed
again, giving the KGB officers at the meeting everything I knew about Grenyov, the force shield and the fate of
Phoenix.
In particular, I emphasized that the authorities need no longer
worry about the Americans or anyone else having all the pieces of the jigsaw required to build Einstein’s dream. I was expecting this to segue into a formal discussion about what could be
offered to me in Russia.
And indeed, that was exactly what did happen, but it did not take anything like the form I expected. I was told that the matter of my future employment and usefulness to the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was still under discussion and that a decision would be made very soon. I rose to leave the meeting, walked to the door and felt the barrel of a rifle between my
shoulder blades.
So, now we come to the end of this sorry tale. Well, to me it is sorry, perhaps to you it is not. I freely admit my foolishness, what I have called my litany of errors. I
would be lying if I said I had no regrets; that given my time again, I would change nothing. Of course I would change things if I could.
I have had plenty of time to think, to ponder my fate, my role, my purpose. I understand that we only have a small degree of control over our lives. We are not truly free, nor
are we in any sense able to command the tides of fate.
At least I was involved in something of significance. That is a rare thing, and perhaps you will allow me this boast, for my life has been cut very short by such involvement.
In the dark hours before the dawn, I often become morose, but one thought that always helps me overcome the existential shadow is the realization that, yes . . . I will die shamefully young, but
perhaps it is better to die in one’s prime having already made a mark upon the world than to wither and wilt and crumble to dust at the end of a long life in which nothing of value is
accomplished; a life that is a mere blip in time, a life that changed nothing, neither for the better nor for the worse.
‘I’ll need to check this with London,’ Fleming said, closing the file after they had all finished reading Caithness’s account.
‘How’re you going to do that?’ Lou said.
‘I’ll make sure my people dig deep to find out if the facts about
Phoenix
tally; whether a Michael Caithness ever existed and worked for us at the times he claims he
did.’
‘Then what?’ Kate asked.
‘Then, if this is authentic . . .’ He waved the file in the air between them. ‘I can do business with Sergei.’
They started back towards the huge door. ‘Just out of interest,’ Fleming said. ‘Check your phones again.’
Lou and Kate tapped at the screens.
‘No outside line for phone. Internet’s gone,’ Kate said.
Fleming looked to Lou.
‘Same.’
Fleming was nodding. ‘No flies on Sergei.’
They were close to the doors when a wall-phone started to ring. Fleming picked it up.
‘Yes. Yes, OK. I understand.’ He put the receiver back. ‘The man himself,’ he told Lou and Kate. ‘He must have been watching us in here.’ He glanced up to see
if he could find a camera. ‘He said it’s fine for me to talk to London, but he has to be there every moment of the call.’
*
Kate and Lou returned to their room and slept. There was nothing for them to do but hope Fleming’s staff in London were as good as he seemed to think they were. Later, a
soldier in fatigues brought them lunch – bread, a selection of cheeses and ham, good strong coffee. Lou was about to watch a Lakers game on ESPN when there was a tap at the door and Adam was
there holding the file.
‘Come in,’ Kate said.
‘No, we’ve got work to do.’
‘I take it it’s genuine,’ Lou said, flicking off the TV with a remote and coming over to the door.
‘Looks very much like it.’
*
‘So, you wanted us to know the full story behind the Kessler Document,’ Kate said.
They were sitting in Sergei’s sumptuous quarters. The Russian was seated opposite her, his big arms folded across his chest. To his left Fleming was perched on the edge of a large leather
armchair.
Sergei nodded. ‘I did, yes . . . purely for personal reasons. That’s why I didn’t just give you the coordinates. Dimitri Grenyov was my great uncle on my mother’s side.
My father, Igor, was fascinated by the whole affair and spent years researching what had happened to his wife’s uncle. It was he who unearthed the Caithness document, made a copy and filed it
in the government archives. If you succeed in rescuing the Kessler Document I would like the whole story told. I wish to see my great uncle’s honour reinstated and his genius
recognized.’
‘And you learned we were after the document, how?’
‘I’ve already told you, Adam. My intelligence is one of the best. You and your superiors might be surprised by our abilities.’
‘So, what is your price?’
‘I’m not a greedy man.’ Sergei held Fleming’s eyes then glanced at Lou and Kate. ‘And I imagine you have been authorized to bid to a certain very definite limit. If
thirty-five million dollars is within your range that is what I would like.’
Fleming said nothing for a moment, looked down at his fingers intertwined in his lap and then back up at their host. ‘A high price for a set of coordinates.’
‘No ordinary coordinates.’
Fleming nodded. ‘And what is to stop us simply returning to the surface or sending an email with the information?’
‘Oh, about five hundred armed men,’ Sergei replied. ‘Now, I would like half the money upfront, the second payment when the wreck of
Phoenix
is located.’ He
withdrew a mobile phone from the top pocket of his jacket. Rising from his chair, he walked over and handed it to Fleming. ‘It’s hooked into our Wi-Fi and it’s secure. You arrange
the first payment to be made while you are on the phone. If you give them even one digit of the coordinates for
Phoenix
. . .’
Fleming punched in a number. ‘Access code beta, nine, seven . . . This is Winter Fox. Who am I through to? Thank you,’ he said. ‘Reference four, one w, f . . . Yes, I am. We
have an agreement . . . thirty-five million dollars . . . No, that will not be possible. Yes, OK. Good. Half paid now to . . .’ Fleming looked up as Lou passed him a sliver of paper from
Sergei.