Книга - Dirty Little Secret

Dirty Little Secret
Jon Stock


For fans of Bond and Bourne, the third instalment of the pulse-pounding Daniel Marchant spy series.The special relationship between London and Washington is in tatters. Salim Dhar, the world’s most wanted terrorist, has disappeared after an audacious attack on an American target in the UK. The CIA believes Daniel Marchant, renegade MI6 officer, was involved. But Marchant has a bigger secret: Dhar has agreed to work for MI6, promising to protect the UK from future terrorist atrocities.He has also asked for something in return: Marchant must help him with a final strike against America. Should Britain sign up to this Faustian pact or hunt them both down? Intelligence chiefs are divided – and one of them is working for Moscow.In a high octane thriller set in Britain, France, Russia and Morocco, Marchant wrestles with his conscience and his love for Lakshmi Meena, a beautiful CIA officer with her own secret. Does loyalty to one’s country come above all else, whatever the price? Or are some relationships too special to ignore?









JON STOCK

Dirty Little Secret








For Stewart and Dinah


Table of Contents

Title Page (#u12603df6-50a6-57a6-8959-4ea39c704590)

Dedication (#u2b92819a-3f61-58c5-8723-75ba51182aef)

Chapter 1 (#u6d86e582-2def-54f0-9538-0c9e0c83f9e7)

Chapter 2 (#uaa5172e0-64cc-5357-93a8-df366f55c021)

Chapter 3 (#u75f670d9-e259-5e16-aad8-4401be96ac02)

Chapter 4 (#u6d09c393-8eea-55c5-8e6b-f8452d7a92b8)

Chapter 5 (#u28687169-8650-5506-90c9-cfafd30f34d1)

Chapter 6 (#u93cb5d15-4c1b-57d2-a744-ada6acc8cc6a)

Chapter 7 (#u687eefe8-3107-5f39-a1a4-16535ada2a3a)

Chapter 8 (#u386547d3-31d8-5e7a-8eb7-42d12540a992)

Chapter 9 (#u4abe1c7e-7b36-5dc5-b5aa-22eadd5d689f)

Chapter 10 (#u678e30a3-d5e7-5d17-95e2-38d2a75394de)

Chapter 11 (#u1b888f97-e46b-5560-a60c-f2af6bef756c)

Chapter 12 (#ub155fcf5-7d55-5d10-a734-767764565248)

Chapter 13 (#uf1f19897-f238-5e29-861a-2d974700c0b4)

Chapter 14 (#u8e0ac75d-edbc-5b6d-b08b-7beb7df300cd)

Chapter 15 (#u6a211184-8c3c-533e-800c-e74fca7105b0)

Chapter 16 (#uc3be89e6-9b85-56db-86e4-24de8ff34e9a)

Chapter 17 (#u1aa82fd7-caec-5904-a6e1-0c7ebd6abb30)

Chapter 18 (#uad1e29ed-d9ba-5f07-8301-045d9b006f03)

Chapter 19 (#ubacd1180-da54-5e63-8633-232eb6876b8c)

Chapter 20 (#u176c91ce-8137-5e25-9709-3c03b393d84a)

Chapter 21 (#u1fd8fe68-26bb-5cf7-8a4d-8684637b4598)

Chapter 22 (#u53260729-a2f7-5c18-87c0-eac17c473a4f)

Chapter 23 (#uafbe02d6-4397-5d75-8997-c34e0ffbf5a2)

Chapter 24 (#uff3ec58b-823d-531e-9cbf-65b867172bd9)

Chapter 25 (#uaf707235-b8be-513c-ad7e-126d8a3857ae)

Chapter 26 (#u5e15efe6-d183-52b6-b7c8-afd627575e96)

Chapter 27 (#u37e15c55-2978-5115-a89b-8750995c78c1)

Chapter 28 (#u55914ae7-0c17-53d7-8581-71b4e975c8b9)

Chapter 29 (#u37411f9f-1ebb-52c1-9ff7-f066d2b23fe8)

Chapter 30 (#u75ee251b-621e-58a9-8cd1-4caf6f6dbdab)

Chapter 31 (#u3b69b073-9c53-5fda-a3b5-821d253728d6)

Chapter 32 (#u44f46615-dfe6-5906-8d31-636b277e924d)

Chapter 33 (#u16cc8f13-e69a-5a6d-9ad8-3eb775af66f8)

Chapter 34 (#u79040999-92ef-5c35-b10d-1d729a567c8a)

Chapter 35 (#u614876e2-d50d-55b4-b344-81224ac38b9f)

Chapter 36 (#u5b35dee3-7aa9-525d-bd26-d01ad19d4235)

Chapter 37 (#u348df3ee-d274-5610-8994-d72d4d154dad)

Chapter 38 (#u5fc7ec9c-bcad-5cf8-ae2d-da4f2a543918)

Chapter 39 (#u225a13e1-47a8-5b82-a635-dcf6de837d57)

Chapter 40 (#u475eea3c-9732-523f-89bf-48c2b5b5e507)

Chapter 41 (#ud9272ebf-c3df-5ac4-b5ca-94bc8dab0ddb)

Chapter 42 (#uf94af729-c560-5a2c-a041-d40a48eb89a6)

Chapter 43 (#u5800ce22-74fa-5537-bd14-b019e1319dd9)

Chapter 44 (#u2ba4b2d8-cbd2-5586-b345-8538c9228c89)

Chapter 45 (#ud80e217a-2fdf-548c-93f5-c7bff3ce432d)

Chapter 46 (#u39c49a76-55e6-5022-b039-7d0deda70dec)

Chapter 47 (#u3ca2d681-d377-55b3-9053-68769d90b362)

Chapter 48 (#u9c4a092d-f6e4-53e3-91f5-aa2dcb8978dc)

Chapter 49 (#ue2181d26-21f9-5e23-bac2-f173f8480e5c)

Chapter 50 (#u2e250513-b3d5-53ec-ab48-75e288614c95)

Chapter 51 (#u0d5aa082-7876-524f-ad55-22e83520b973)

Chapter 52 (#uc8887b53-0189-57cf-8777-8842445aae7a)

Chapter 53 (#uabbd74cc-6138-5fae-b08c-e2099fb21d2a)

Chapter 54 (#u1d9dcd42-82e8-5b3e-8f21-4a054ffafc1a)

Chapter 55 (#u2e404e4f-81fe-5144-b293-ec8231a4b87c)

Chapter 56 (#u67ee5b93-b5a9-56d2-b38b-b983d7f0e427)

Chapter 57 (#u00bcc143-3f6f-5e49-80bc-5878620b9145)

Chapter 58 (#ub92a83e3-ac40-5f82-98b7-58ddf053fe77)

Chapter 59 (#u68a25a1a-6540-5bc0-9c63-26222da3a508)

Chapter 60 (#u5083f6a1-a89e-5e51-86c8-3ca62132ead1)

Chapter 61 (#ucdfd50d0-a540-56a3-a52e-1f98911408e1)

Chapter 62 (#u9f5d705c-87b8-5571-bc8d-a351ce55b301)

Chapter 63 (#uf873a192-e752-51e3-9722-6c93e2b32304)

Chapter 64 (#u01a07661-df8d-5e0b-b5e1-fe5dce52e92b)

Chapter 65 (#u8bef9b57-0a05-5de6-a007-ae6001dab93f)

Chapter 66 (#ucfc79bc1-f36b-551f-82a7-c21ade9c7ead)

Chapter 67 (#u415e1ca7-ce54-5ba8-bb20-b77c311f2a7f)

Chapter 68 (#u83585c25-ce00-508c-882f-516a452b9303)

Chapter 69 (#u92b92438-1bc6-5d2b-8681-b006edb8839e)

Chapter 70 (#u16799959-0e91-52b2-88e2-7bc1fa95c618)

Chapter 71 (#ucdb2beff-b041-57ff-8798-ce4a941b1fb2)

Chapter 72 (#u45500547-d531-5d25-87c0-18eab0fa2d96)

Chapter 73 (#u50232b1a-bcea-5b79-809a-a93a790d47bd)

Chapter 74 (#u60663323-d39b-5665-ba26-09ab3ed7d3bf)

Chapter 75 (#ua974e097-17c2-5935-a656-7b02d552cbea)

Chapter 76 (#u95c7afbe-e11d-51e7-b856-cce875d8c058)

Chapter 77 (#ub6e26bf1-5021-5db2-b43c-9b25dd40d231)

Chapter 78 (#u89c80000-4416-5873-9285-8b37953548ed)

Chapter 79 (#u719cb72b-f91c-5ad9-a028-50fd04ad7b1d)

Chapter 80 (#uf2b6bab3-18b5-50fe-a8f8-452fabe49494)

Chapter 81 (#u7486bf5f-b7de-5939-b4df-409a90c02c79)

Chapter 82 (#u9244d97a-a06c-5da2-9b0f-b3ee43bb6f04)

Chapter 83 (#uaf2f9fbf-d56a-546f-9f85-2bf5e2467708)

Chapter 84 (#u1a3f95a8-6bd3-5245-88a1-6a3c86740289)

Chapter 85 (#ud42c6cac-b844-5ff8-a4c1-3d69793364ee)

Chapter 86 (#u5f6a5756-dee6-5beb-aeeb-02942cb73f38)

Chapter 87 (#u55a5085a-05c2-5e12-a08e-a26870f7c950)

Chapter 88 (#u58cc9e94-47f7-53c0-ac59-25dc1bf0227b)

Chapter 89 (#u926dc71f-97f5-5e7f-9b35-e38398540e24)

Chapter 90 (#u81a11d00-3ef8-52eb-90ae-062e1ed03d07)

Chapter 91 (#ud136189b-3f1a-5fab-bd74-e0b99af7de4a)

Chapter 92 (#u542005f0-1e2f-5bcf-b9d7-e92def8ca1d5)

Chapter 93 (#u4f25b26b-44dd-5b67-8751-ab3620e63cda)

Chapter 94 (#uffb0b79c-848d-576e-8236-6b1e2ed29293)

Chapter 95 (#ufc4e957e-99fd-53a5-84ef-64020939cc97)

Chapter 96 (#u0bf9eeee-7277-506d-8f18-b1b75ec089e6)

Chapter 97 (#ue12701ca-b3b4-5ab8-a63f-c1104b33ffb8)

Chapter 98 (#u05337d35-11cb-5849-b654-ed72ad5f34b6)

Chapter 99 (#ua84e25bb-0f3a-5867-a99d-3b459b0dee94)

Chapter 100 (#u775082a5-3c8b-5b18-9143-2d77bcc57cbb)

Chapter 101 (#u56099524-5d77-54e3-87ac-37969d29c9e1)

Chapter 102 (#uf816e2da-35c4-50b7-97f6-e04e779c52b5)

Chapter 103 (#u4aabda95-cc9b-56bf-868a-fa8b459ae73e)

Chapter 104 (#uf7569791-e18d-527c-948e-862189b3e0ed)

Chapter 105 (#u4064c0ce-26a4-5891-96c4-02b9fac7b621)

Chapter 106 (#u649e41fc-3483-5640-803e-e8b84983278f)

Chapter 107 (#u04bf1463-094e-5128-ba99-9188c1d38e6c)

Chapter 108 (#u7703d460-45ba-5afa-87b9-535f7cf7fb11)

Chapter 109 (#u79057194-f46f-5bfc-aa58-eedb098dfe02)

Chapter 110 (#u8c51bb8a-0d98-5e8a-8026-feade5135d30)

Chapter 111 (#ud573a0d3-69f2-526c-9108-c6ff89686e47)

Chapter 112 (#uc7afe450-bb25-595f-a076-26b7e84f50d3)

Chapter 113 (#u79965cfc-11fb-58ef-801c-4159e16c4584)

Chapter 114 (#u2e3bb958-3877-5bcd-b579-bedb98415fc0)

Chapter 115 (#ufa626be8-8ea9-5c0c-bd7b-5a1e1ab58897)

Chapter 116 (#ud30367df-65b6-50a5-a315-6834c335b970)

Chapter 117 (#u11b9902c-a1ce-5208-a576-5a77f479f285)

Chapter 118 (#ua4d32f08-91e4-58c4-96f0-1cad3f9c8719)

Chapter 119 (#u63b7c319-1796-5858-8cf9-f725d084bb92)

Chapter 120 (#u2cf62a58-0a4a-5666-ab2e-8e970cc9eda2)

Chapter 121 (#u4a6786ab-79b7-5f9a-8cd4-ada8c083c653)

Chapter 122 (#ub2cd98ec-605d-5a27-b911-345054452da4)

Chapter 123 (#u22934285-446d-5c7e-99e0-f3d488c4b968)

Chapter 124 (#u3e99a107-e585-5f02-ba91-11be16113e70)

Author’s Note (#uf6e01f02-6dac-59f7-9479-a71eed392742)

Acknowledgements (#ue81aa989-0172-5287-aaee-679374bcc2a9)

By the same author (#u54ddb3c4-3d11-57bf-8c5f-d03bf5171287)

Copyright (#u313f02f9-3f61-5b7d-b416-0919499a53b4)

About the Publisher (#u96b4c544-8233-52d2-be00-1f24f431e002)




1


Salim Dhar looked over the limestone cliff and tried to imagine where he would fall. For a moment, he saw himself laid out on the flat rocks eighty feet below, the incoming sea lapping at his broken body. He stepped back, recoiling, as if he had caught the stench of his own death on the breeze blowing up from the foreshore.

He glanced around him and then out to sea. The moon was full, illuminating the fluorescence in the crests of the waves. Far to the west, the lights of reconnaissance planes winked as they criss-crossed the night sky, searching in vain for him. Somewhere out there a solitary trawler was drifting on the tide, crewed by men who would never see the dawn.

Dhar limped along the cliff edge to the point where he had climbed up. His flying suit was waterlogged, his left leg searing with pain. He knew he shouldn’t be here, standing on Britain’s Jurassic coastline, but the pull had proved too much. And he knew it was his only chance. After what had happened, the West would be hunting him down with renewed intensity. The American kuffar would increase their reward for him. $30 million? How about $155 million – the price of the US jet he had shot down a few hours earlier?

But would anyone think to search for him so close to home? In another life, Britain could have been his home. He pressed a foot against the rocky ground. Tonight was the first time he had stepped on British soil, and he was surprised by how good it felt: ancient, reassuring. The air was pure, too, caressing his tired limbs with its gentle sea gusts.

He looked down at the foreshore again, rocks latticed like paving stones, and imagined his body somersaulting towards it. Would he survive? His descent might be broken by one of the ledges – if he was lucky. In the training camps of Kashmir and Kandahar, luck had been a forbidden fruit, on a par with alcohol. You who believe, intoxicants and games of chance are repugnant acts – Satan’s doing. Instead, Dhar had been instilled with the discipline of planning. ‘Trust in Allah, but tie your camel to a tree,’ as his explosives instructor had joked (he was mixing hair bleach with chapatti flour at the time).

Now Dhar was rolling the dice. His plan was uncharacteristically reckless, possibly suicidal, but there was no choice. At least, that’s how it felt. He needed to see where his late father, Stephen Marchant, had lived, where his half-brother, Daniel, had grown up. Tarlton, the family home, was not so far from here. He had seen it on the aeronautical charts. If he was to follow in his father’s footsteps, he had to be sure, root himself deep within the English turf.

Dhar stumbled as he picked his way down the steep path, pain shooting through his leg. His knee had been cut when he had ejected. Instinctively he checked for the mobile phone in his pocket. It was still there, sealed in a watertight bag with the handgun. He had taken both from the trawler that had rescued him earlier in the Bristol Channel. If everything had gone to plan, he would now be being debriefed by jubilant Russians back in the Archangel Oblansk. But everything hadn’t gone to plan. Dhar had blinked, and listened to the other man in his cockpit: Daniel Marchant.

He thought again about the trawler. First the captain’s phone had rung, then he had drawn his gun, but Dhar had been ready. Thinking quickly, he had disarmed him before turning on the remaining crew members. It was after nightfall when he had finally abandoned the trawler, making his way ashore in its tender with the captain. He was below him now, propped up against a rock beside the tender, hands tied, drunk on vodka.

After reaching the bottom of the path, Dhar checked on the Russian. It was important that he was sober enough to speak. He dragged the tender further up into the shadows of the cliff and tore at some long grass to use as crude camouflage. The blades cut into his soft hands and a thin line of blood blossomed across his finger joints. He cursed, sucking at a hand, and went back to the Russian. He couldn’t afford to be careless.

‘Walk,’ Dhar said. After the captain had risen unsteadily to his feet, Dhar pushed him in the direction of the cliffs. He meandered across the flat, stratified rocks, head bowed like a man approaching the gallows. There was no need for Dhar to threaten him with the gun. He had seen what had happened to his crew.

Dhar looked up at the cliffs ahead: layer upon layer of limestone and shale, crushed over millions of years. The compressed stripes reminded him of the creamy millefeuille his Indian mother used to smuggle out of the French Embassy in Delhi when she was working there as an ayah. She was here somewhere, too, he hoped. In Britain, the land of the man she had once loved. Daniel Marchant had promised he would look after her.

When they reached the foot of the cliff, Dhar signalled for the Russian to sit. He circled like an exhausted dog before slumping onto the rocks, trying in vain to break his fall with his tied hands. Dhar stood over him and pulled out a bottle of Stolichnaya, his actions tracked by the man’s aqueous, frightened eyes. Squatting down beside him, he unscrewed the lid and poured vodka into the Russian’s mouth, watching it trickle in rivulets through the stubble of his unshaven chin. His swollen lips were dry and cracked. Small flecks of white, sea salt perhaps, had collected in the corners of his mouth.

Dhar had thought about what lay ahead many times in the last few hours, trying to banish the notion that he had nothing to lose. He could have stayed on the trawler, made his way south to France and on past Portugal to Africa, Morocco and the Atlas Mountains, where he had hidden once before. But he knew he was deluding himself. Without Russia’s protection he would have been caught by now, picked up by one of the search planes. So here he was, in Britain, a country he had never quite been able to wage jihad against.

‘You’ve been to the pub, a nice English pub,’ Dhar said, his face close to the Russian’s. He could smell the vodka on his breath, mixed with what might have been stale fish. ‘And you fell down the cliffs on your walk home. Too much to drink.’

He waved the Stolichnaya in front of the man’s eyes like a censorious parent.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ the man asked. Dhar had chosen him because his English was good, better than his crew’s. He had heard him talk to the coastguard on the ship-to-shore radio.

‘Not if you do as I say,’ Dhar lied. He was certain that the man was an officer with the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service. It would make his killing more straightforward, despite the company he had provided during the long row ashore, the talk of his young family, twin sons.

Dhar tucked the bottle in his flying suit and pulled out the sealed bag containing the mobile phone and the gun. Don’t rush, he told himself. There was no hurry. According to a map he had found on the trawler, the stretch of shoreline they were on was near a place called East Quantoxhead. The signpost at the top of the cliff, on the West Somerset Coastal Path, had said they were one mile from Kilve, where there was a public house. They would find him easily enough. The Quantocks were not exactly the Waziristan hills.

Taking the phone out of the bag, Dhar dialled 999 and held the receiver up to the Russian’s mouth. With his other hand, he pressed the barrel of the gun hard against the man’s temple. Afterwards, he would drag his body back to the boat and hide it in the shadows.

‘Talk,’ he ordered, cocking the gun. Dhar’s head was clear, purged of twins. ‘You’ve had a fall, hurt your left leg.’ He pointed the gun at the man’s thigh and fired. ‘And now you need help.’




2


Daniel Marchant sat on the rock, throwing stones into Southampton Water. It was past midnight, and he still didn’t have a strategy. Lakshmi Meena was asleep in the room behind him. To his left and right, a high green steel fence, topped with barbed wire, marked the perimeter of Fort Monckton, MI6’s training centre at the tip of the Gosport peninsula.

Marchant was on a small private beach in front of the Fort’s accommodation block. Two old cannon and a row of dark inlets in the sea-facing wall were a reminder of the Fort’s role in the Napoleonic Wars, while an MoD sign saying NO LANDING ON THE FORESHORE hinted at its current purpose. The accommodation was usually occupied by MI6’s most recent recruits, fresh-faced graduates on the Intelligence Officers’ New Entry Course, but the latest batch had left for a two-week stint in Helmand station, and the rooms were empty.

He glanced up at the row of white sash windows, checking that there wasn’t a light on in his room. It was a warm night, and he had tried to sleep with the window open, but sleep had never come. How could it, after what he’d just been through? A few hours earlier he had nearly died in a plane with Salim Dhar, and he knew he wouldn’t be thanked for it. Never mind that he had thwarted one of the most audacious terrorist attacks ever mounted against mainland Britain.

And now this. He had already woken Lakshmi once to talk to her about the letter in his hands, but he hadn’t been able to share its contents. Perhaps it was training. A genuine trust had built up between them over the past few weeks, a rapport that was edging towards something stronger, but she was still a CIA officer, although he suspected not for much longer. She was too honest, too nuanced for Langley. And she had become too closely associated with him.

But he knew it was more than training. As long as the contents of the letter remained known only to him, he could discount them, imagine they weren’t real. He read them again, holding the paper up in the moonlight.

… Moscow Centre has an MI6 asset who helped the SVR expose and eliminate a network of agents in Poland. His codename was Argo, a nostalgic name in the SVR, as it was once used for Ernest Hemingway.

The Polish thought that Argo was Hugo Prentice, a very good friend of your father, and I believe a close confidant of yours. He was shot dead on the orders of the AW, or at least of one of its agents. Hugo Prentice was not Argo.

That mistake was a tragedy, destroying his reputation and damaging your father’s. The real Argo is Ian Denton, deputy Chief of MI6.

An hour earlier, while Lakshmi was sleeping, he had tried to call his Chief, Marcus Fielding, but the line was busy. He never liked leaving messages. He would call again when he had gathered his thoughts. Not for the first time, Marchant was struck by the solitude of his trade. He threw another stone towards the sea, harder this time. It missed the water and ricocheted between rocks like a maverick pinball.

Ian Denton had been good to him over the years, shared his distrust of America. And he was different from the smooth set at MI6, an outsider: a quiet northerner from Hull. But his awkward stabs at camaraderie at the terrace bar, the whispered words of encouragement in the corridor – they had all been a pack of lies.

‘Are you OK down there?’ It was Lakshmi, who had appeared at the bottom of the stone steps down to the beach, wearing an oversized dressing gown. Her left wrist was in plaster. Marchant knew as soon as he saw her that this time he would reveal what was in the letter. He understood that look in her eyes, the weariness of isolation. The CIA was about to throw the book at her for failing to bring him in. She had crossed the divide, reached out to a fellow traveller. Fielding had promised Marchant that his own job was safe, but the Americans were after Lakshmi’s head, too. And they would get what they wanted, sooner or later. They always did.

He held Lakshmi’s gaze and then looked at the stone in his hands, rubbing it between finger and thumb. If only he could break free, leave the distrust behind.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said.

‘You were going to share something earlier,’ Lakshmi said, walking over to him. Her feet were bare except for ankle chains, which tinkled like tiny bells as she crossed the stony beach. The sound brought back childhood memories of India, Marchant’s ayah approaching across the marble floor with sweet jalebi from Chandni Chowk.

‘Maybe if you told me, you might get some rest,’ she continued, standing beside him now, tightening the cord on her dressing gown as she shivered in a gust of wind. She rested her hand on Marchant’s neck and began to work the tight muscles.

Marchant breathed in deeply. There was no point being enigmatic. If he was going to tell her, he would be blunt about it. ‘The Russians have got an asset high up in MI6,’ he began, raising a hand up to hers. ‘Very high.’ He needed to feel her warmth. Or was it to stop her slipping him thirty pieces of silver? It was the first time he had told tales out of school.

‘I thought he’d been killed.’ Lakshmi’s tone sounded casual, which annoyed Marchant, even though he knew it was unintentional. She was referring to Hugo Prentice, his close friend, fellow field officer and mentor in MI6. Prentice had been accused by the Poles of working for Moscow, and was gunned down in front of Marchant on the streets of London. The Americans had been only too ready to believe that he was a traitor. For Fielding and Marchant, it had been harder to dismiss him so quickly.

‘It wasn’t Hugo. None of us wanted to believe it was him, but we did. We forced ourselves, recalibrated our pasts. Now it turns out it wasn’t him after all.’

‘And that makes you mad.’

‘It makes me feel cheap, sordid. Hugo was a family friend. Close to my father. He looked out for me.’

‘Perhaps now you can remember him as he was, without the guilt.’

Marchant let his hand drop, and picked up another stone. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me who the traitor is?’

‘I can’t do that, Dan,’ she said, ignoring his flippant tone. ‘You’ve got a career to return to. You’re a hero, remember? The man who talked Salim Dhar out of killing thousands.’

Marchant laughed. Sometimes Americans saw things in such black and white: heroes and villains, good and evil. His world wasn’t like that. ‘Try telling that to Langley. To James Spiro. I was in the plane that shot down a US jet.’

‘Spiro won’t listen to me.’

‘Are you definitely leaving the Agency?’

‘I’ve got no choice.’

‘Then there’s no harm telling you who the traitor is.’

This time Lakshmi returned his smile and sat down on the rocks next to him, close, her injured wrist slung playfully over his knees. ‘Let me guess, now. Marcus Fielding?’

They laughed together, the tension gone for a moment, a sudden brightness in her tired eyes that gave him hope: for them, the lives they had chosen. The thought of Fielding, Chief of MI6, being anything other than loyal was risible, they both knew that. Known as the Vicar, Fielding was the one constant in Marchant’s life. Lakshmi liked him, too. She had met him a couple of times, once at the Chelsea Physic Garden, and had warmed to his professorial ways. He had even visited her in hospital, brought her honey mangoes from Pakistan and Ecuadorian roses.

‘It’s true,’ Marchant said. ‘He’s defected to the Royal Horticultural Society – to head up their fight against moles.’

Lakshmi smiled again and fell silent, running her front teeth over her lower lip. They both knew better than to fall under Fielding’s avuncular spell. A few weeks earlier in Madurai he had turned Lakshmi and Marchant against each other for his own cold purposes, and he would gladly do so again if circumstances required it.

‘Spiro once told me that he thought you were a traitor,’ she said, her good hand sliding up Marchant’s leg, working the thigh muscles.

‘Sounds like Spiro – the guy thinks he’s James Jesus Angleton. Spiro also suspected my father for years, particularly when he was tipped for the top. I don’t think the CIA ever really got over Kim Philby.’

‘Don’t tell me who it is, Dan.’ Lakshmi was serious now, almost whispering, her sweet breath warm on his neck, her hand squeezing the top of his thigh. ‘You’ve got to go on, continue the fight. No one can stop Salim Dhar except you.’

But Marchant was no longer listening. His phone was vibrating, and there was only one person who rang him at this time of night: Fielding. He stood up to take the call, instinctively turning away from Lakshmi as if to shake off their intimacy, worried he had been caught.

‘It’s Paul here,’ the voice said. ‘Paul Myers.’

‘Paul? How are you doing?’ Marchant asked, relieved, walking down the beach. He turned and waved a hand of reassurance at Lakshmi, but he could already feel the shutters coming down, protocol kicking in. Myers had been injured when Dhar had bombed GCHQ’s headquarters in Cheltenham after downing the US jet. The bomb was meant to have been dirty, but Marchant had talked Dhar out of it.

‘Bit of a headache. Ears still ringing. But I’m back at my desk. Well, working from home. Spent the afternoon at A&E. The doc told me to stay away from GCHQ for a while.’

‘It could have been worse, trust me.’ Marchant felt bad that he hadn’t been to visit Myers, but Fielding had insisted on him staying at the Fort in the aftermath of the attack.

‘So I gather. I suppose I should be thanking you.’

‘Any time. What’s up?’

‘I couldn’t help listening in on the crash zone. I should have been resting, but you know how it is.’

Marchant knew exactly how it was. Myers lived and breathed for chatter, drawing it down from the ether with the dedication of a drug addict. Intercepts, voice-recognition, black-bag cryptanalysis, wiretaps, asymmetric key algorithms: he was a privacy kleptomaniac. The more measures people took to ensure their communications were private, the more Myers wanted to listen in. If Myers hadn’t been working for GCHQ, he would still have found a way to eavesdrop.

‘I picked up something just now that I thought you should know about,’ he continued.

‘About the crash?’ Marchant asked, glancing back at Lakshmi, who was heading up the steps to their room. Once again she had got under his skin, come too close when he should have been focusing elsewhere.

‘Maybe.’

According to Fielding, a trawler had been found with its autopilot on, drifting west in the Bristol Channel with three dead Russians on board. There had been no sign of Dhar, which troubled Marchant. He also remembered counting four crew when he had been in the sea with Dhar.

‘A Search and Rescue Sea King from RAF Chivenor was called out a few minutes ago. A man rang in from the coast, near Quantoxhead. Said he’d fallen down a cliff on the way home from the pub at Kilve. I was listening in on the call. He sounded in a lot of pain. And drunk.’

‘It’s the weekend, isn’t it?’ Marchant knew Myers was one of the best analysts at GCHQ, but this time he wondered if he had been on the beer too. Marchant didn’t blame him. He had been lucky to survive the bomb blast.

‘He also sounded Russian.’




3


Marcus Fielding was surprised to see the lean figure of Ian Denton already in position at the long coffin-shaped table, talking quietly with the Foreign Secretary. Less surprising was the sight of Harriet Armstrong, his opposite number at MI5, chatting with the Prime Minister at the far end of the airless conference room. She had always been good at the politics. As he watched them, silhouetted against a flickering mosaic of flat TV screens, the thought crossed Fielding’s mind that this might be his last COBRA meeting.

A part of him flinched at the idea. He wasn’t ready to step back from the fray. There was still so much to do, battles to be won, not just in the war on terror but in Whitehall. He knew he should be more like Armstrong and Denton, sweet-talking the politicians, but he had always preferred dealing with field agents rather than Foreign Secretaries. He was a Chief who liked to stay south of the river.

If this was to be his final COBRA, he wouldn’t miss the dimly lit Cabinet Office room with its low ceiling and brown curtains along one wall. It was past 1 a.m., but time was meaningless here. Night didn’t follow day. Instead, the room was trapped in a penumbral stasis. The air conditioning was too warm, the coffee cold. As for the meetings, they had become increasingly ineffective, a forum for political posturing rather than swift operational responses. That was why he liked to meet privately beforehand with the heads of MI5, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the Defence Intelligence Staff, away from ambitious ministers with their own agendas. Only this time, they had quietly demurred.

Fielding took his seat, nodding at the Director of GCHQ. It wasn’t reciprocated. Dhar’s bomb might not have been dirty, but it had still knocked some sugar off ‘the doughnut’, as GCHQ’s Cheltenham premises were known. Fielding felt a knot begin to tighten in his lower lumbar. Tonight wasn’t the moment for lying supine on the floor, as he was prone to do when his back played up. He was prepared for the meeting to be tense. For many of those gathered around the table, MI6 was in the dock. He also knew that he could never reveal the one piece of intelligence that might save his career.

‘Welcome, everyone,’ the Prime Minister began, looking down the room. His jacket was off, his tone businesslike. No small talk. ‘Marcus, I think it’s best if we start with you?’ In other words, Fielding thought, you got us into this Christawful mess, you can get us out of it.

‘The UK threat level remains at critical,’ Fielding began, glancing at Armstrong, who cast her eyes down at the printed agenda. ‘And in our opinion it should remain so. As we know, yesterday’s attacks on the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford, where an F-22 Raptor was destroyed, and on GCHQ at Cheltenham, were carried out by Salim Dhar in a Russian SU-25 fighter jet. Although we think it was partly an act of proxy terrorism on behalf of the Russians, Dhar was essentially operating on his own.’

A dissenting shuffle of papers. ‘And with more than a little help from one of your officers,’ the director of GCHQ said. ‘Daniel Marchant was in the cockpit with Dhar?’

The gloves were coming off quicker than Fielding had expected.

‘As I outlined to the Americans in our earlier JIC meeting,’ he replied, trying to ignore the knots tightening like serpents, ‘Daniel Marchant succeeded in talking Dhar out of a far worse attack. Two points I’d like noted, please.’ A glance at the COBRA secretary. God help him, he thought: he was starting to sound like a politician, covering his arse at every opportunity. ‘First, the Russians wanted Dhar to wipe out a delegation of Georgian generals who were at the air show to sign a deal with the US. Dhar pulled out of the attack at the last moment – thanks to Marchant. It should also be noted that the attack would have killed the US Defense Secretary, a point that seems to have been overlooked in Washington.

‘Secondly, Dhar’s plane was armed with a thousand-pound radioactive dirty bomb. Caesium-137 – nasty stuff, particularly in a conurbation the size of Cheltenham. It was always his intention to fly on to GCHQ, twenty miles to the north-west, and drop this bomb on the building. In the event, he pulled out of that plan too, again thanks to the bravery of my officer, Daniel Marchant. Instead, Dhar opted for a conventional explosive that I gather caused only minor structural damage.’

‘And killed one of my colleagues,’ the Director of GCHQ added.

A pause. Fielding thought about offering his condolences, but it seemed trite in the circumstances.

‘Thank you, Marcus,’ the Prime Minister said, after waiting in vain for Fielding to commiserate. ‘I think it would be fair to say that while those gathered here understand the role of MI6 in all this’ – a dry cough from the sidelines. Was it really Denton, Fielding wondered – ‘the Americans don’t. I’ve just come off the phone to the President, who is demanding to know why an MI6 agent was in a plane that destroyed $155 million-worth of USAF aircraft.’

‘It’s no exaggeration to say that our relationship with Washington is in tatters,’ the Foreign Secretary said. ‘Trade meetings cancelled, diplomatic initiatives dropped.’

‘I’ve just been informed that the proposed new Joint National Security Board has been put on ice,’ added the government’s National Security Adviser, glancing up at Fielding.

‘And the NSA’s Echelon cooperation thresholds on SIGINT have significantly risen across the grid in the past few hours,’ the director of GCHQ said. ‘It’s as if the UKUSA Agreement didn’t exist.’

‘I also understand France has now been asked to head up NATO’s joint sea exercise off Cape Wrath next week,’ said the Joint Chief of Staff. ‘It’s normally our shout.’

Things must be serious if the Americans were cosying up to the French. For the first time, Fielding wondered if he would be forced to reveal his ace in the hole, but he knew he couldn’t. It was a secret that only he and Marchant were privy to.

‘It’s with all this in mind,’ the Prime Minister continued, ‘that I’ve asked the Foreign Secretary to head up a Cabinet working group that will focus solely on rebuilding all aspects of our relationship with America. Ian Denton will oversee intelligence sharing, which of course lies at the heart of the partnership.’

Credit where credit was due, thought Fielding. Denton had played a blinder, distancing himself from a discredited Chief of MI6, and climbing into bed with the Foreign Secretary. Another knot tightened.

‘At the heart of our strategy is doing all we can to help the US find Salim Dhar,’ the Foreign Secretary said. ‘It’s the only thing that will pacify Washington, and it’s the least we can do, given Dhar’s unfortunate connection with Britain.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘As of thirty minutes ago, when Fox News broke the story against our wishes, I’m afraid it’s now common knowledge that Salim Dhar’s father was Stephen Marchant, the late Chief of MI6, and his half-brother is Daniel Marchant, a serving MI6 officer. Ian here will be working closely with JTAC, GCHQ, Five and of course Six over the coming weeks.’

‘And we still don’t know any more about Dhar’s last movements in UK waters?’ the PM asked.

‘We’ve got Sentinel and Sentry cover, they’re combing the entire area,’ said the Joint Chief of Staff. ‘So far, just the one abandoned trawler and three dead crew. A few minutes ago we picked up the acoustic profile of a Russian Akula-class submarine off the coast of Ireland, south-east of Cork, heading out to sea. It might have been part of Dhar’s original exit strategy, but I’m not sure how keen the Russians would be to help him, given he failed to attack the Georgian generals. I’m afraid Salim Dhar seems to have vanished into thin air.’




4


Dhar sat against the rocks, watching through narrowed eyes as the man descended towards him. The noise of the yellow Sea King helicopter was deafening, the downcurrent from its blades instilling a sudden panic in him. It took all of his self-control to stay where he was, pinned to the ground like quarry beneath a hovering hawk. His instinct was to run, along the foreshore, into the sea, anywhere. The helicopter brought back too many memories: his hasty departure from the Atlas Mountains, the unnecessary killing of the Berber messenger.

The winch man was almost with him now, spinning on the rope like a dangling spider. He had a luminous orange stretcher under one arm and his feet were out to the side, to protect himself from the cliff face. Dhar checked for the handgun in his pocket. Earlier, he had dragged the Russian back to the boat and ordered him to remove his outer clothing. Then he had shot him, a double tap to the forehead and a prayer for the thousands of Muslim brothers slain by the SVR in the Caucasus. Struggling with his injured leg, he had climbed out of his flying suit and put on the Russian’s jacket and bloodied trousers, watched by his hollow stare.

If the dead Russian had seemed to disapprove of Dhar’s new outfit, his distorted features had formed a smirk when he had reached for the vodka bottle and, for the first time in his life, tasted alcohol. He had closed his eyes as the liquid burnt against the back of his throat. You who believe, intoxicants and games of chance are repugnant acts – Satan’s doing. Allah would forgive him, would understand how important it was that his rescuers thought he was drunk. It was only drinking from the grape that was haraam, wasn’t it? And hadn’t the caliph Haroun Al-Rashid occasionally indulged?

Dhar sat perfectly still now as the winch man touched down beside him, unhooked the stretcher and leant in close to his face. The alcohol’s alien effects made Dhar’s head spin when he closed his eyes. He hoped that his breath carried its sinful traces. Why hadn’t he thrown the half-empty bottle away, instead of slipping it into his inside pocket?

‘Can you hear me?’ the winch man asked, checking for vital signs. Dhar had decided that unconsciousness was the most credible state after a drunken cliff fall. The winch man had seen the bloodstains on his leg, the ripped trousers and the dark bruising below, and was now checking the wound. Tentatively he pulled back the material and spoke into his helmet mike.

Dhar couldn’t catch the exact words, but he heard something about an incoming tide. Five minutes later his head was whirling like a dervish as the stretcher lifted into the sky. It was a relief when he was finally eased in through the side door of the Sea King. Then, after slipping his arms free of the stretcher straps, he was on his feet and pointing the gun at the winch man and his colleague.

‘Remove your helmets,’ Dhar said, glancing up towards the cockpit. He had intended to shoot them both, but something made him change his mind. He hoped it wasn’t the vodka. The two men exchanged nervous glances and looked back at Dhar. Did they doubt him? Dhar felt another wave of panic, and raised the gun to their heads.

‘Remove your helmets!’ he barked.

It would be so much easier if they were dead, he thought. Without hesitating, the men unfastened their helmets and dropped them to the deck. Dhar motioned at the open door and they edged towards it. Had they realised who he was?

He watched as the winch man stood with his legs bent, head down, like a nervous child on a high diving board. The helicopter had arced out across the sea after picking up Dhar, and was heading towards the shore again. They would be over land in a few minutes. The winch man held onto the side, bent his legs further, and this time he was gone, dropping away in the darkness with a fading scream. The second man glanced at Dhar, at his gun, then he jumped too.




5


Lakshmi stood in the window, looking out across the Solent. It was well past midnight, and Marchant was still on his phone, pacing about at the far end of the beach, close to where a line of perimeter fenceposts waded into the water like determined bathers. A solitary yacht was heading into Portsmouth under engine, sails down, navigation lights on. Her body was beginning to ache, a cramplike pain tightening her limbs. She told herself it was her wrist, but she knew it wasn’t.

Her imminent departure from the CIA was timely. She and Marchant would have more chance of making a go of things if one of them was in the real world, where people were straightforward and honest, and used the regular mail rather than brush passes to communicate. A year earlier, they had circled each other like wild animals in Rabat, where she had been sent to keep an eye on him. Everyone had thought Marchant was crazy to believe that Dhar would show up in Morocco, but the renegade MI6 officer had been proved right.

She still didn’t fully understand why he had ended up in a Russian fighter jet with Dhar, but she believed him when he said a far worse disaster had been averted. And she had assisted him, in her own small way. She was glad she had done that, even if it had triggered something she hoped was behind her.

She went over to the bed and wrapped herself in a blanket, trying to stop the shiver that had set in. She thought again about the Soho restaurant where she had helped the Russians lift Marchant in a firefight. One of them, dead eyes beneath a black balaclava, had raised a machine gun to her head. She would have been killed if it hadn’t been for Marchant, who had screamed at him not to shoot. A stray bullet had already shattered her wrist.

She closed her eyes, trying to put out of her mind the paramedic who had turned up within minutes of the shooting. He had just been doing his job, a routine medical injection for trauma as she had slumped on the floor of the restaurant in agony.

The pain had dissipated within seconds, replaced by a surge of liquid pleasure that had spread out from her body like nectar. Time had begun to slip, too, taking her back three years to when she had been a medical student at Georgetown University. Her life had moved on since then.

She stared at the old wall of the Fort, tracing the lumps and cracks in its whitewashed surface. It would be only a matter of hours before she would be taken from here and flown back to Langley to be dismissed. Spiro would know that she could have done more to stop the Russians, that she had disobeyed orders. Her father would be disappointed, her mother relieved. They had always wanted her to be a doctor, but her father had recently begun to take pride in her work – not that he could boast about it to his Indian friends in Reston. ‘Government business’ was all he was allowed to say.

Wiping her nose, she noticed a voicemail message on her phone. It was Spiro, and he wasn’t ringing to fire her. After the message had finished, she got up from the bed, walked over to the deep-set window and called Spiro back. The blanket was still around her shoulders.

‘Do I have a choice?’ she asked, watching Marchant on the beach below, trying to ignore a rising nausea.

‘You’re an American, of course you have a choice. This isn’t India, for Christ’s sake.’

‘In that case, it’s a no.’

‘Listen, if it’s not you, we’ll get someone else. It’s as simple as that. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about another woman getting up close and personal with Marchant.’

‘What makes you think he’ll drop his guard so easily?’

‘He’s done it before. You never knew Leila, did you?’

Not personally, she thought, but she felt as if she did know her. Marchant had talked often about Leila, the MI6 officer who had betrayed him.

‘And by all accounts, it’s not just his guard that he’s dropped with you.’

Lakshmi ignored the innuendo. ‘He’s told me nothing. He’s a professional.’

‘All the more reason we need someone like you. Can you believe it? The Brits are defending him. Fielding thinks Marchant’s a frickin’ hero. Try telling that to the head of the USAF. It’s a total clusterfuck. If Marchant’s helped Dhar once, he’ll help him again. It’s in the blood. Only this time we need to stop him. I’m just sorry you got hurt.’

Lakshmi wasn’t falling for Spiro’s sudden concern, not for one minute. She had taken up Fielding’s offer to stay in the sanctuary of the Fort in order to keep away from him.

‘I’m not interested.’

There was a pause, as if Spiro was idly looking around for something, a cigarette perhaps. Her reaction didn’t seem to surprise him.

‘Have you spoken to your folks recently?’

She didn’t like his change of tone: small talk concealing something more sinister. Her arm began to shake. ‘Give them a call some time. They’d appreciate it.’

Before Lakshmi could say anything, Spiro had hung up.




6


‘Primakov wrote me a letter,’ Marchant began, sitting on the rocks. He would return to Lakshmi in a minute. The wind coming in off the Solent was cold, and he was exhausted.

‘Go on.’ Marcus Fielding sounded tired too, more tired than Marchant could ever remember him sounding. Marchant felt guilty about his news.

‘He says that there’s a Russian asset high up in MI6. The letter was written after Hugo died. Primakov thinks the mole framed Hugo to protect himself.’

‘And does he give a name?’ Fielding asked.

Marchant paused. ‘Your deputy.’

There was a long silence. Marchant wondered if the news surprised Fielding, or if it confirmed a previous suspicion. Fielding was inscrutable face to face, even more so at the end of a phone line.

‘You know Primakov never liked Denton,’ Fielding said eventually. ‘There was history between them.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘I’ll look into it.’

‘You think it might be Primakov’s revenge? From beyond the grave?’

‘We owe it to Hugo to find out. I know someone in Warsaw who might be able to help.’




7


Dhar stumbled as he approached the two pilots in the cockpit of the Sea King. He wasn’t sure if it was his leg or the vodka. The noise was deafening, disorientating. The co-pilot clocked him first, his eyes widening in panic. As Dhar raised the gun, a finger to his lips, the pilot turned and saw him too. He seemed calmer, glancing at Dhar and then past him, down the helicopter, to see what had happened to his crew.

Dhar was familiar with the cockpit of an SU-25, but the Sea King’s controls were alien to him. He knew, though, that he would have to move fast to disable its communication systems and prevent the pilots from raising the alarm. It would be equipped with U/VHF and HF radios, as well as intercom, but Dhar didn’t have time to familiarise himself with the panel of dials. Instead he grabbed the flex coming out of the back of the pilot’s helmet and ripped it from its socket. Then he did the same with the co-pilot, jerking his head back as if he had pulled his hair.

‘Take them off!’ Dhar shouted above the noise, waving his gun. After they had removed their helmets, he tossed them into the back of the helicopter, where one clattered and rolled out of the open door. The sight of it plunging into the night like a severed head seemed to shock the co-pilot. One of his knees began to bounce uncontrollably.

The helicopter was approaching land. ‘If you want your frightened friend to live, fly back out to sea,’ Dhar said, leaning in towards the pilot. The pilot hesitated for a moment, as if thinking through his options, and then moved the stick. The Sea King altered course. ‘And if you try anything – calling for help, attempting to land – I will kill you. I know how to fly.’

Dhar couldn’t be sure, but both men seemed to believe him.

‘What do you want from us?’ the co-pilot asked, unable to hide the fear in his voice. ‘We’re just SAR pilots.’

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ Dhar said, pressing the gun against the man’s temple. A few seconds later, the co-pilot was standing at the open door, looking back down the helicopter at Dhar in disbelief, and then he was gone.

‘Now we head for Kemble,’ Dhar said, slumping into the co-pilot’s empty seat and picking up a chart. It was good to be airborne again.




8


Lakshmi lay in the darkness, thinking about Spiro’s offer. Marchant was still outside on the rocks. She had considered joining him again, but the call from her father a few minutes earlier had changed everything.

‘He explained he was from the IRS,’ her father had said, sounding like a broken man. ‘Said the company’s books were not in order, and accused us of all manner of damn things: tax evasion, money laundering.’

‘Slow down, Dad,’ Lakshmi had replied, already detecting Spiro’s hand at work. ‘Did he give you a name, a number?’

The caller had left enough details for Lakshmi to be certain it was a sting. Somewhere on the Langley campus a junior officer would be sitting by a phone in an empty office, ready to field any calls to the Internal Revenue Service.

‘You know it’s all lies,’ her father had continued. ‘I trained as an accountant in Madurai, best results in my year. How dare he accuse me of these things?’

‘I’m sure it’s just a mistake,’ Lakshmi had said. The last time she had heard him this agitated was on the day after 9/11, when he had been stopped by police officers in a shopping mall and detained for eight hours. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll make some enquiries.’

‘I’m sorry to have bothered you with this, Lakshmi,’ he had said, almost in tears. ‘Twenty-five years it’s taken me to build the business, isn’t it. I came to this country with nothing, just –’

‘Dad, leave it with me. Everything will be fine.’

She walked back over to the window. Below her was the man she thought she loved. If she quit the Agency, Spiro would still follow through on his threat. He was that kind of man. The only way she could protect her father was if she agreed to his terms. She had no choice. For a moment, she understood how Leila must have felt when the Iranians threatened to kill her mother if she didn’t spy for them. Whenever Marchant had spoken of Leila, she had hoped she was different, not the sort to betray those closest to her. Now she was about to join the club.

She looked again at Marchant, his tall rower’s frame silhouetted in the moonlight, then dialled Spiro’s number.

‘I’ve made my decision,’ she said.

‘And?’

‘I’ll do it.’

‘You’re smarter than I thought.’

‘I need to know my cover story. Marchant thinks I’m about to quit the Agency.’

‘Actually, we were going to fire you, then put you on trial. Let’s stick with that, shall we? You’re on the run, you got too close to Marchant. Disobeyed orders. Grossly violated your duties. A warrant’s been issued for your arrest – it will give you some credibility. We just won’t bring you in.’

‘What’s Marchant’s current status?’

‘Fielding’s defending him, but he won’t be around for much longer. I’m seeing to it personally. As soon as Fielding’s out of the way, we’ll pick Marchant up from the Fort. Until then, I want you to stay close to him. Find out what the hell he was doing in that plane with Dhar, why he didn’t take the guy down. I won’t expect you to make contact. It’s essential you don’t arouse Marchant’s suspicion – unless you’ve got important intel. Even then, be careful. It pains me to say it, but Marchant’s good.’

‘There’s one thing you should know.’

‘Go on.’

‘Marchant says there’s a Soviet mole, high up in MI6.’

The information was a down payment, something to reassure Spiro that more would follow. He seemed unimpressed.

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

Five minutes later, Marchant crept back into the room. Lakshmi was in bed, eyes closed, dreading his return.

‘Are you OK?’ she whispered in the darkness. She had hoped her voice would sound stronger.

‘I’ve just come off the phone to Fielding.’

‘How was he?’

‘Tired, defeated. He’s been in a difficult COBRA meeting.’

‘And?’

‘I’d say his days are numbered.’

Marchant slid off his jeans and climbed into bed. His body was cold. She couldn’t bring herself to hug him.

‘I know how he feels,’ she said.

‘Have you heard from Langley?’

‘Not officially. One of my colleagues rang. A friend.’ She closed her eyes again, bit her lip.

Your legs are sweating. Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘I caught a chill on the beach.’ But she knew she hadn’t.

‘And what did this friend say?’

‘The Agency want to throw the book at me.’

‘For not stopping the Russians?’

Lakshmi hesitated, doubting whether she could go through with this. She wanted to cradle Marchant in her arms, feel his warmth. Then she thought again of her father.

‘Disobeying orders, gross violation of duties,’ she said, repeating Spiro’s words. ‘A warrant’s been issued for my arrest.’

‘They won’t be able to touch you here. That’s why Fielding sent you. He saw this coming.’

They lay in silence, listening to the water lapping at the rocks beneath the window. Already she could feel them drifting apart on the tide of professionalism swelling back into their lives. And she hated herself for it, for the games they were forced to play.

‘I helped you in the restaurant because I believe we won’t win by force alone,’ she eventually said, for her own benefit as much as his. She turned towards him, resting her broken wrist on his chest. The cast trembled against his skin. ‘There are other ways of winning the war on terror. I despise Spiro, his brutal approach to intelligence-gathering.’ She paused. ‘And I did it because I wanted to be with you. You do know that?’

Marchant turned towards her. ‘I’m very grateful.’

‘What’s going to happen to us? To you?’

‘It doesn’t look good. An MI6 officer apparently defects to Moscow only to show up in a hostile Russian plane with Salim Dhar. Without Fielding to protect me, I’m buggered.’

She thought again of Spiro, his instructions to find out more, and swallowed hard.

‘Why didn’t you kill him?’ she asked, as if it was the most natural question in the world. But she knew it sounded forced. She was no good at this any more, not with someone she loved.

‘Dhar? You haven’t asked me that before.’

‘I know you can’t tell me everything, Dan, but you never talk about him, the whole half-brother thing. Is that why you wanted the Russians to take you? And why you didn’t kill him?’

But Marchant didn’t answer.




9


Dhar knew it was a risk taking the pilot with him, but he might be useful in the hours ahead. For a few brief seconds, watching the blades spin down in a remote corner of Cotswold Airport in Kemble, he had considered shooting him, but again a calm voice in his head had urged restraint. Instead he had bound his wrists with a bandage, taped his mouth with a roll of plaster and told him he was dead if he tried anything.

They were now walking in the darkness towards the perimeter fence in the north-east corner of the airfield, the pilot leading, Dhar limping behind. In his left hand he held a set of bolt cutters he had found on the helicopter, stored with other safety equipment. He had ordered the pilot to head for Kemble because it was less than two miles from Tarlton. When he was being trained to fly in Russia, he had often studied this area on a map, wondering if, one day, he would ever get to see the home where his father had lived. That moment was now approaching.

Dhar glanced at his watch as they reached the fence. Time was not on his side. Air Traffic Control had twice tried in vain to contact their helicopter during their approach to Kemble. A wider alarm might not have been raised by their failure to respond, but it was a risk. A more worrying call had come in from Search and Rescue’s regional headquarters at RAF Valley in Anglesey, which they had also ignored. The only good news was that the control tower at Kemble was deserted, just as Dhar had hoped. Kemble had no licence for night use.

Dhar told the pilot to stand with his face to the fence. Again, he wondered if it would be easier to shoot him. He pulled out his gun and pressed it against the back of the man’s head, suddenly impatient. What was he doing, dragging this kafir with him? For a few long seconds he thought about squeezing the trigger. The pilot looked down, preparing himself for death. He was composed, Dhar had to hand it to him. He hadn’t panicked when Dhar had first appeared behind him in the cockpit, hadn’t flinched with a gun to his head, unlike his craven co-pilot. Dhar loosened the bandage around his wrists and handed him the bolt cutters.

The pilot knelt in the wet grass and cut away at the bottom of the wire mesh, watched by Dhar. Once he had finished, Dhar tossed the cutters into the undergrowth and pushed the pilot through the gap with his gun, following after him. For a while the vodka had numbed the pain, but it was excruciating as he crouched down. When the pilot was a few feet ahead of him, Dhar took a swig from the Stolichnaya and slid the bottle back into his jacket. It was medicinal, he told himself, but he knew it was more than that. His life, so ordered up until now, was slipping out of control.

Two minutes later they were standing beside a main road, hidden in the shadows of a dirty lay-by. The road was empty, but Dhar could hear the distant sound of a car. If the pilot was going to try anything, now was the time. Dhar pressed the gun into his back and waited as the vehicle’s headlights swept round the corner. It was a solitary police car, driving fast, blue light flashing, but no siren. Instinctively he grabbed the pilot’s arm and pressed the gun harder into his back as it drove past them. He told himself to relax.

Once the road had cleared and the night was quiet again, Dhar pushed the pilot forward. Somewhere in the dark woods up ahead, an owl hooted. It was only one mile to Tarlton.




10


‘I need to know why Marchant was in the cockpit with Dhar,’ Ian Denton said, sitting back in Marcus Fielding’s official Range Rover. ‘At least, I need to know what I can tell the Americans.’

Although Fielding lived in Dolphin Square, he had offered to give his deputy a lift to his home in Battersea after the COBRA meeting. It was out of his way, but he owed him an explanation, and this was their first proper opportunity to talk. There was no anger in Denton’s voice – quiet, with a drop of Hull – no indication of any resentment at having been excluded. As far as Fielding knew, Denton had never objected to MI6’s tradition of need-to-know, its culture of compartmentalised knowledge. Even as deputy, he wouldn’t expect to be informed of every operational detail. But there was a new-found confidence in his manner, a lack of deference that made Fielding wonder if the Foreign Secretary had already offered him his job.

‘We knew the Russians were shielding Dhar,’ Fielding said as his Special Branch driver, separated from them by a soundproof glass divide, turned right onto the Embankment. ‘The only way to get to him – and to stop whatever atrocity he was planning – was to persuade the Russians that Marchant wanted to defect. You’ll understand why I could tell no one at the time. Nikolai Primakov, Moscow’s cultural attaché in London, had agreed to work for us again. He had access to Dhar, and acted as our middle man.’

‘Just like old times, then.’

‘Quite. Primakov likes working with Marchants.’

For the first time, Fielding detected a trace of bitterness in his deputy, the Hull accent less suppressed. Marchant’s father, Stephen, had recruited Primakov in Delhi in the 1980s. It had been a game-changing signing in the Cold War, as good as Oleg Gordievsky, and had fast-tracked Stephen to the top of MI6. Denton, then a young officer in the SovBloc Controllerate, was the contact man, clearing the dead-letter drops and trying – in vain – to keep Primakov sweet. The two men had not warmed to each other.

‘As far as I can recall, we never got round to telling the Americans about Primakov,’ Denton said.

‘No, and I would ask you, in your new role, that it should stay that way.’

The last thing Fielding needed was some CIA goon going over the Primakov files.

‘That could be a problem. As part of our efforts to rebuild trust with Washington, we’ve agreed to an independent investigation into the events at Fairford and Cheltenham. It’s no secret that the Americans want to throw the book at Marchant and Lakshmi Meena.’

‘Then it’s up to us to protect them, isn’t it?’

Fielding had expected a witch hunt. Top-down, no stone left unturned, the usual Whitehall hysteria: craven civil servants running around doing the Americans’ bidding. It was why he had sent Marchant and Lakshmi to Fort Monckton. They would be safe there, at least for the time being.

‘What the Americans are struggling to understand – and I see their point – is why Marchant didn’t eliminate Dhar.’ Fielding thought Denton looked increasingly at home in the Range Rover, sitting back, at ease, elbows out, his sinewy body expanding with new authority. In the past, he had never relaxed when Fielding had given him a lift, perching on the buttermilk leather like a watchful lizard. ‘Once he’d won his trust by defecting,’ Denton continued, ‘there must have been opportunities to kill him. In Russia. On board the plane.’

Fielding could never tell him the real reason why Marchant hadn’t killed Dhar. He could never tell anyone. He tried to change the focus.

‘I think we’re forgetting who we’re dealing with here,’ he said. ‘When Marchant reached Russia, Dhar forced him to shoot Primakov, a family friend, for being a Western spy. The bigger question is why Dhar didn’t kill Marchant. He could have done so at any time. Marchant was exceptionally brave.’

‘So why didn’t Dhar kill him?’

Fielding turned away, looking down the Thames as they drove over Battersea Bridge. It was almost 3 a.m. He always felt depressed when he saw Albert Bridge at night, lit up like a gaudy old whore in pearls. ‘Perhaps he was curious. They’re half-brothers, after all. And Dhar only met his father once, when he was in jail in India. Maybe Marchant reminded him of his father, I don’t know.’

‘The Americans want answers, Marcus, not cod bloody psychology.’

‘I don’t remember you always being so ready to oblige them.’

Fielding was struggling to remain civil as the Range Rover drew up outside a nondescript terrace house on Battersea Bridge Road. Denton’s anti-US views had been well known in the Service, causing Fielding enough problems in the past. It appeared that he had put them to one side with the promise of promotion.

‘They also want to find Dhar. Marchant was the last person to see him alive. I assume we can circulate his Fort debriefing?’

‘It will be on desks in the morning,’ Fielding said.

Denton got out of the car and leant in through the open door.

‘Thanks.’ He tapped the roof, as if he’d just chosen the vehicle in a showroom. ‘For the lift.’

‘There’s one thing I can tell you,’ Fielding said. ‘Daniel Marchant’s one of the good guys. Trust me. Let’s not throw him to the lions. Not yet.’




11


Marchant lay staring at the vibrating phone. It was still dark outside, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even know if he was awake. His dreams had been about dead sailors and Dhar. The phone display said that ‘Dad – Home’ was calling. He hadn’t been called from that number since his father had died seventeen months before.

The call was from the family home at Tarlton, outside Cirencester in the Cotswolds. Nobody lived there any more. The house was closed up, and would remain that way until Marchant decided what to do with the place. As the only surviving member of the family, he had inherited his father’s flat in Pimlico, where he now lived, and the large family house in Tarlton. He could never envisage living there, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to sell it.

Marchant slid out of bed, checking that Lakshmi was asleep. Her eyes were closed, her breathing uneven. He would call a doctor in the morning, get her wrist checked out. Careful not to wake her, he stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He was glad the phone was on vibrate, as he could tell himself it was the phone and not his hand that was shaking. Who would call from his home? And at 4 a.m.? Once a month, his father’s cleaning lady dropped by to check on the place, but she would only ring if there was a problem. Perhaps there had been a fire?

‘Who is this?’ Marchant said quietly.

‘Your pilot.’





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