Jason sat across from Stratton, in the corner, staring out of the opposite window. He had kept to himself since they’d caught the plane at Heathrow. Stratton assumed it was a reaction to being ignored since they’d left Poole. But then halfway through the flight he had leaned over and quietly apologised for his stand-offishness and explained why he’d been aloof. Jason had done some kind of one-day MI6 course on travel security as preparation. He had learned how best to act when travelling in potentially hostile environments. Stratton knew what such courses consisted of. They were pretty much advice for beginners - comprehensive but common sense and rather obvious to someone at Stratton’s level. He had on occasion been asked to instruct MI6 and MI5, teaching various operational procedure lessons. Jason would have done the usual hotel, office and home security course. He might have sat through a presentation on anti-surveillance techniques by foot and by vehicle: how to detect if he was being being followed, how to prove it, and what to do and what not to do about it. The man had clearly absorbed it all and was living the role. All he needed now was the experience.
When they’d landed in Moscow his arrogance had extended to taking over the travel procedures by suggesting they move separately. It was as if Stratton had never done it before and Jason had become his mentor. They kept apart the whole time after that, except when Stratton had climbed into a taxi at the airport. Jason began some kind of pantomime for the sake of the taxi driver, asking Stratton if he minded sharing the cab. Jason said he’d overheard that Stratton was going to the railway station, which also happened to be his own destination. Stratton found himself shaking his head - mentally, at least - on more than one occasion.
After that they had separated again. Stratton didn’t say a negative word about it. The separation procedures suited him perfectly. He had been wondering how he was going to ignore the other man as much as possible throughout the operation and to his relief Mansfield had come up with the solution himself. Sitting opposite each other in silence on the day-long train journey across a big stretch of Russia was apparently acceptable.
Stratton felt curious about one thing that Jason probably knew about: Rowena. Considering that she was technically a member of the British military and was now more than likely being held captive in Russia, it seemed to him that very little action was being taken to resolve the issue. Then perhaps there wasn’t much that could be done about it. The Russians couldn’t admit to having her without admitting their involvement in everything else. And then coming up with a sound enough reason for keeping her was equally complicated. Stratton had found her to be a most irritating, cold and obnoxious bitch, but by the time they had climbed the platform he had developed a degree of admiration for her. She’d had no doubts about the dangers but she’d gone anyway. But if she hadn’t done it because of Jason and her relationship with him, why had she gone along? It niggled him. He did not sense the same level of loyalty in Jason. He wanted to understand some things a little deeper and perhaps Jason had answers.
‘You’ve not mentioned Rowena,’ Stratton said. They were the first words he had spoken to Jason in half a day.
Jason looked at him as if his mind had been on another planet and was scrambling to come back down to earth. ‘I think of her all the time,’ he replied eventually, looking away. ‘I was thinking of her just then. Between you and me, we were quite close. Personal relationships in MI16 are frowned upon. But I knew Rowena long before I came to the organisation.
‘We first met in Oxford.You think she was strong-headed when you met her. She was even worse then. And I gather that was an improvement on how she’d been as a teenager . . . Rowena was adopted. I don’t know anything about her natural parents. She walked out of the house when she was fourteen to join some kind of intellectual commune in Canada. She told me she was bored, not stimulated. In short, her adoptive parents were too thick.’ Jason chuckled at the thought.
‘We didn’t see each other in college, not in any kind of carnal way. She didn’t like me very much then. She said she did but I didn’t believe her. She was - is - a brilliant physicist. Being beautiful and brilliant she needed to be headstrong. No one ignored her, that’s for sure. She got her doctorate at Princeton and then flitted around a few places. An audio-electronics company in Japan for a few months. Then NASA for a year. Got bored there, too. Then she did something completely radical and joined MI5 - a fast track to some undercover surveillance unit that operates in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. She completed the selection and training course but didn’t join the ranks. Someone up top recognised her potential and had her transferred to MI16. I suspect it was Jervis. She’s never talked about that to me. I read it in her file. I think she wanted to join that unit because she had something to prove, not to anyone else but to herself. But she never got the chance. I think that’s why she came on the platform operation even though she didn’t approve. I have a strong feeling she’s fine and well and will return safely home.’
‘Based on what?’
‘Intuition. I’m rather keen on mine.’
Stratton could have guessed as much. ‘I need a wee,’ he said, getting to his feet. The uncomfortable seats felt cold and he wanted to stretch his legs to warm up a little - the icy air had a way of finding his joints. He was well dressed against the cold, a good thing too since the carriage was an icebox. He also saw it as an opportunity to take a look at the characters on board. Paranoia was a healthy attitude, particularly in Russia. The two men had entered the country as engineers: Stratton a pipe welder and Jason a designer, naturally. A British pipe-welding company did actually operate on a gas pipeline a few hundred miles north of Moscow - not where the two men were ultimately heading but the company’s books had been amended to support the cover story. However, the FSB were, by profession, a suspicious lot. Stratton would not have been surprised if they’d been tagged from the airport. The plan had taken such a probability into account, of course. But the more prepared they were, the better.
He walked along the coach, surreptitiously checking out every individual as he passed them. The unconscious drunk had vomited down his clothes. In the next row a couple sat with three remarkably quiet young children. The low temperature might have had something to do with their silence. An old couple next, sitting huddled together against the cold, woollen scarves wrapped around their heads. A couple of families in another row, eating a communal meal of bread, meat and cheese. And vodka.
The rest of the carriage was empty except for the second row from the end. Two men sat on opposite sides, one young, the other mature, both dishevelled, shifty-looking. They eyed Stratton, no doubt taking in his comparatively expensive clothing. They didn’t appear to be together but Stratton sensed a common attitude between them. He pegged them more as thugs than secret service.
At the end of the carriage he could find no toilet. The door at the end had a glass panel in it but he could see nothing through the thick coating of ice. Stratton wondered if he could get into the following carriage. If that had no toilet either, well, he’d have to urinate into the freezing cold outside. He grabbed hold of the door handle and applied some pressure to push it down. Eventually the handle moved but the door wouldn’t open. It was stuck solid.
He pulled on a pair of gloves and, gripping the handle with both hands, put his weight into it. He leaned back, raised a foot up onto the frame and gave it a powerful shove. The door cracked open and the freezing air ripped inside. Stratton looked back but no one had leaned into the aisle to investigate. It was something they were no doubt used to.
Stratton tugged at the door’s frosty hinges a little more, opening it enough for him to squeeze through. He knocked away a sheet of ice that had formed down one side of the door frame and stepped out onto a ledge above the linkage, the wind zipping in and out of the gap between the carriages. He felt the wind chill sharply mask his face. The ground tore along below, the shiny rails dividing the frozen gravel between the sleepers. He grabbed hold of a long horizontal bar fixed to the carriage near the door for that purpose and stepped across the coupling to plant a foot on the small platform outside the connecting carriage’s door. He pulled the door to in order to give himself some privacy, at the same time wondering how on earth the ladies managed it.
It was a pleasant enough moment - the relief of emptying his bladder combined with the circumstances and a spectacular view.
When he was finished Stratton nudged the door to open it again. But it wouldn’t budge. A firmer push moved it in a few inches but it immediately slid back as if it had become springloaded.
Stratton gave it a harder shove and this time it wedged open but a man suddenly moved into the gap. It was the older of the thuggish-looking pair.
He shouted something in Russian but Stratton didn’t know the language well enough to understand him. The man repeated himself, this time gesticulating with a hand. He wanted money. But there were no guarantees that he would let Stratton back in once the exchange had been made. In fact, that was the ideal strategy.
Stratton inspected the door to the other carriage and tried to pull down the handle but it was stuck fast. The Russian said something else in a slightly louder tone, sounding angry and frustrated. He shook his open hand and held it out further in order to emphasise his demand.
Stratton would have gone a long way to avoid any kind of conflict, even paying the man had he believed he would let him return to his seat. A low profile was an obvious essential to the task. But in the middle of this freezing wilderness he couldn’t risk getting stuck outside. Mansfield was unlikely to investigate before it was far too late. He had to do something decisive.
Stuff it, he decided. He reached into a pocket, pulled out a few notes and put the flapping money into the man’s hand. As the Russian took the cash, Stratton twisted his wrist, at the same time kicking the door open as he yanked the man out.
The Russian thug landed on the coupling, immediately lost his balance, and with a look of terror on his face fell back and disappeared into the slipstream.
Stratton surprised himself by the ease with which he’d launched the man. It hadn’t been his intention. He looked inside the carriage in preparation for an assault from the accomplice. But the younger man stood stock-still in the doorway, eyes wide at the speed with which his comrade had been dispatched. He backed away, turned around sharply and returned to his seat.
Stratton pulled himself back into the carriage and closed the door, immediately shutting out the howling, freezing wind and the noisier clattering of metal wheels on rails.
He walked back along the carriage, eyeing the young man who was now sitting tightly against the end of the bench and looking intently out of the window. He looked like he was trying to make himself invisible.
Stratton ignored him. Several people gave the operative sober glances this time, as if they knew that something had just happened. There was no judgement in their expressions - or anything, in fact, other than simple curiosity.
Jason seemed to be lost in another daydream and barely acknowledged Stratton’s return. Stratton checked his watch. They had been travelling for just over five hours. A couple more to go. He put his head back and closed his eyes.
It was the smell of woodsmoke that brought Stratton out of his chilly slumber. The couple with the children had lit a fire in a bucket and were huddled around it. The carriage had filled with smoke but no one appeared to have complained. At least smoke meant warmth.
He checked his watch again. The train had stopped several times at small village stations far off the beaten track and had occasionally slowed to a crawl. The seven-hour journey had turned into a ten-hour slog and Stratton was feeling hungry now as well as cold. He dug a survival bar out of a pocket and took a bite out of it. His thoughts quickly shifted to the task. But he reminded himself once again that it wasn’t worth thinking about. The information he needed to progress any planning was waiting for him on the ground. Stratton had long since learned to compartmentalise such things in order to take as much advantage as possible of any down time. Rest when you can for you don’t know when your next chance will come.
The train reached their destination eventually. Both men got to their feet. They each carried small backpacks containing washing gear, a change of clothes and nothing else. They kept their passports, money and return air tickets in their pockets. Stratton pulled the collar of his thick coat tight around his neck, shoved a woollen hat onto his head, rolling down the sides to cover his ears, and stepped down the carriage steps after Jason onto the snow-covered gravel. No platform. Just a couple of low brick buildings one side of the track, smoke issuing from a chimney, the only evidence of life. No one to greet the train or get aboard it. A family climbed out of the next carriage and after gathering their things huddled together and headed back along the track. The rest was tundra.
Mansfield had already set off at a brisk pace along the single road that cut the station in two: north led across the railway track into a barren steppe and south to a wooded wilderness. Jason was heading towards the trees.
Stratton marched a few metres behind, wondering when Jason was going to give up this ‘We’re not really together’ act. The road’s surface appeared to be tarmac beneath a crust of compressed snow and didn’t look as if it saw much vehicular traffic. When they reached the wood it turned out to be a thick, impenetrable army of pines.
Jason left the road, turning along a footpath that traced the edge of the trees. He was following the navigational instructions to the letter, having memorised every detail from maps and satellite photographs. The rest of the journey was just as uncomplicated. At the end of the track they would come to another road where their contact should be waiting for them - the man who had taken the surveillance photographs of Binning. From there they would go to a safe house on the edge of Plesetsky and get the latest information on Binning’s movements. Then it would be a case of planning his abduction. Apparently the contact would provide all they would need, including a pistol. He wouldn’t get involved in anything violently physical, although he was willing to drive for them.