Games Traitors Play Read online

  ‘Comrade Grushko will find whatever he wants to find in the archive to support his case,’ Primakov said, treading carefully. ‘The files are endless, and so is his jealousy. Your father was a priceless signing. At the time, I was fêted by the Director of the KGB, hailed as a hero. Within months, I was awarded the Order of Lenin. I could do no wrong. I admit that on some occasions the intelligence was gold, at others it was dust. But I knew your father better than many – and all I can say is that he detested America to the day he died. Whether that makes him or me guilty of treason, I leave to others.’

  Marchant looked down at Primakov. His chest was heaving, his voice beginning to crack under the strain. One wrong word and Marchant’s cover would be blown, but he still needed something.

  ‘Salim, Daniel’ – a cock of the head towards Marchant – ‘I don’t know why you have suddenly decided to listen to Comrade Grushko, but before you give him too much time, there is something you should both know.’ A pause as he gathered himself. More rasping. ‘My instructions were quite clear: I was asked to bring you two together. A rising jihadi and an ambitious MI6 officer. Now that I have done my job, I may rest peacefully.’

  ‘And whose instructions were they?’ Dhar asked, walking up to Primakov. Marchant could hear his suspicion, his mounting anger. Primakov was wobbling on the wire. This was the moment, the sign Marchant had been waiting for.

  Primakov paused. ‘Your father’s. He had witnessed the birth of Islamic terror, watched it grow in strength, knew that one day it would pose the greatest threat of all – to everyone: Britain, America, Russia.’

  With no warning, Dhar whipped the pistol across Primakov’s face.

  ‘You are lying!’ he shouted. Marchant had never heard him raise his voice before. ‘It was Moscow Centre that asked you to bring us together.’

  A trickle of blood was dripping from Primakov’s mouth.

  ‘So it was Moscow Centre,’ he said finally, with the air of a condemned man. ‘But at my suggestion, and your father’s wish.’

  ‘A lying kuffar,’ Dhar muttered, walking over to the window.

  ‘Salim, your father had always followed your progress from the other side of the world, but when there was a chance to meet you in person, he took it, knowing there might be some common ground between you.’ Primakov was talking with difficulty, his cut lips bleeding, distorting his words. ‘And of course he had another son, Daniel, carving out a career in intelligence in the West, despite the best efforts of the CIA. There was some common ground there, too, between all three of you. On the last occasion I saw him, your father made me promise to bring the two of you together when the time was right. He said you would both know what to do. That time has now come.’

  Dhar walked past Primakov and stood with his face inches from Marchant’s. The smell of apricots was strong and sour now.

  ‘Do you want to, or shall I?’ he asked, holding out the gun. ‘We cannot let him continue to insult our father in this way.’

  Marchant’s heart was racing. He knew it was a test, one final challenge. If Dhar suspected Primakov, he suspected him too, but for the moment it appeared that Dhar wanted to believe in his father, his half-brother – his family.

  ‘I saw something in our father’s eye when I met him,’ Dhar continued, now looking down at Primakov. ‘And do you know what it was? Approval. Anything to stop the American crusade: MI6 officers passing US secrets to Moscow, jihadists shooting the President in the name of Allah. And now that he has gone, it is left to you and me.’

  He turned back to Marchant, who hesitated for a moment, looking at the gun that was still in Dhar’s outstretched hand. Suddenly he saw Dhar as a child, desperately seeking a father’s endorsement, something he had never been given in his childhood. If his real father hadn’t been a traitor to the West, Dhar would be left with nothing. Dhar had to believe in his father’s treachery, dismiss Primakov’s talk of another agenda. In his mind, Moscow Centre had brought Dhar and Marchant together for one simple reason: they were both their father’s sons.

  Marchant listened to the sound of Primakov’s wheezing, the loudest noise in the hangar. The Russian had finally told him the truth, knowing that he would pay for it with his life. He had avoided any admission that he was working for the British – that would have implicated Marchant, too. Instead, he had told Marchant that his father had wanted him to meet Dhar, explore their common ground. That was enough. And Marchant knew now exactly what he had to do.

  ‘Let me,’ he said, taking the gun.

  90

  ‘I shouldn’t be here, but I wanted to thank you in person,’ Fielding said, standing at the foot of Lakshmi Meena’s hospital bed. One arm was heavily bandaged and she had bruising below her left eye, but she seemed in reasonable spirits.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For letting them take Daniel. It must have gone against everything you were taught at the Farm. I brought you these.’

  He waved the bunch of full-headed Ecuadorian roses he was holding, and put them on the windowsill. He had also brought a box of honey mangoes from Pakistan.

  ‘Thank you. I wasn’t armed. There were at least four of them. In the circumstances, I had no choice but to protect myself. Have a seat.’

  She gestured at a chair, but Fielding remained standing.

  ‘Is that what you told Spiro?’ he asked.

  ‘It took a while for him to accept that they weren’t your people.’

  ‘We haven’t had to resort to kidnapping our own officers on the streets of London. Not yet.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what Dan’s up to.’

  He hesitated. ‘All I can say is that you were right to trust him. I’m sorry about your arm.’

  ‘You’re asking a lot of him. To stop Salim Dhar on his own.’

  Fielding glanced towards the door at the mention of Dhar’s name. Through the frosted glass panel, he could see the profile of an armed policeman standing guard outside. He wanted to tell Meena that Marchant’s orders weren’t just to stop Dhar, but to turn him as well, but he couldn’t. The stakes were too high. If Marchant could persuade Dhar to work for the West, it was not something Britain would ever be able to share with any of its allies, least of all America, whose President Dhar had come so close to killing.

  ‘No one else can,’ Fielding said, moving towards the door. ‘It’s family business.’

  91

  ‘Please place a flower on my daughter’s grave,’ Primakov whispered, leaning forward, his whole body shaking now. ‘And may your father forgive you.’

  Marchant wanted to look away as he fired. It took all his strength to pull the trigger, leaving him with no will to watch. But he knew Dhar was scrutinising his every move. Primakov’s head lurched forward as if in a final drunken bow, and then he fell to the floor.

  As the sound of the single shot faded in the echoing spaces of the hangar, Marchant prayed for the first time in years. He tried to tell himself that Primakov would have been executed by Grushko or Dhar if it hadn’t been by him, but it didn’t make it any easier. He had never killed anyone in cold blood before. Primakov deserved better. He had been one of his father’s oldest friends, a courageous man who had carried out his wishes to the last. He hoped to God his death was worth it.

  Dhar looked on impassively, then took the gun from Marchant without a word and walked over to his living area.

  ‘Our father told us to trust him as if he was family,’ Marchant called after him, feeling the need to explain himself as he tried not to stare at Primakov’s slumped figure. A pool of blood had formed around his disfigured head, dust floating on its surface like a fine skein of flotsam.

  ‘He made an error of judgement,’ Dhar said. ‘Primakov had other interests.’

  ‘Like stopping the global jihad?’ Marchant asked, regaining some of his composure. He needed to reassure himself that Dhar had moved on, no longer suspected him. ‘He must have known you wouldn’t like what he said.’

  ‘Pri
makov was working to his own agenda. There are many within the SVR who are at war with Islam. He was trying to turn you against me, suggesting that our father had somehow sent you here from beyond the grave to halt my work.’

  ‘Was he anti-Russian, too?’ Marchant asked, thinking that was exactly what their father had done. His question was a risk, but he needed to know what Dhar thought.

  Dhar fixed Marchant with his eyes, now shining blacker than ever. ‘No. I do not believe Primakov was a British agent, if that’s what you are asking. Grushko was simply trying to frame him. As Primakov said, there were people in Moscow Centre who were jealous of him when he recruited our father. His signing was quite a coup.’

  Marchant couldn’t ask for more. Dhar not only still believed that Primakov was working for Moscow, he was also sure that their father had been too. Primakov had chosen his words carefully. Thanks to him, Marchant was now safe, free from suspicion. He looked again at Primakov’s body, remembering his final wish.

  It was the first time Marchant had heard that Primakov had a daughter. He would make enquiries when all of this was over, find out where she was buried and put flowers on her grave. It was the least he could do. And may your father forgive you.

  ‘Now I must prepare to fly,’ Dhar said.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Marchant asked as casually as he could, glancing at the aircraft at the end of the hangar. From the moment Primakov had requested him to help with the MiG-35s’ incursion, Marchant had assumed that Dhar’s plans involved an airborne attack of some sort. All he had to do now was persuade him to take him along.

  ‘To the land of our father,’ Dhar said, patting him on his shoulder.

  ‘Then let me come with you,’ Marchant said instinctively. It was the only chance he had of stopping Dhar. ‘We still have so much to discuss. And I know the country well.’ He managed a light laugh. ‘I could show you the sights.’

  Dhar paused for a moment, smiling to himself as he seemed to consider Marchant’s offer. There was something Dhar wasn’t telling him that made Marchant think that he had a chance. ‘That is true. And it is a long flight. Have you flown in a jet before?’

  ‘Only a Provost. But I have a strong stomach.’ Marchant was thinking fast now, improvising. The last time they had met, Dhar had abandoned him on a hillside in south India when he left to shoot the US President. Marchant wasn’t going to let him get away again. He had to be in the cockpit with him, find out what the target was, get a message to Fielding.

  ‘You know they won’t allow another Russian jet to enter UK airspace,’ Marchant continued. ‘I might be able to help, talk to traffic control. It could buy us a crucial few minutes before we’re shot down.’

  ‘Grushko has already taken care of that. He’s with your friend Myers in Cheltenham now.’

  92

  ‘As far as we know, the facts are these,’ Harriet Armstrong said, addressing a meeting of COBRA in the government’s underground Crisis Management Centre. MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the Joint Intelligence Group, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the Defence Intelligence Staff and Special Branch were all represented by their heads, a measure of the gathering’s importance (number twos or threes were usually sent). The Prime Minister was chairing the meeting, flanked by the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. The Chief of Defence Staff was also in attendance, along with the Chief of the Air Staff.

  ‘There are a number of possible domestic targets over the coming forty-eight hours, which we’ll come to in a moment. In the meantime, Cheltenham’ – a nod to GCHQ’s director, sitting on Armstrong’s left – ‘has picked up a raised level of chatter, but I think Marcus will be able to enlighten us further on Dhar’s possible intentions.’

  The handover was brusque rather than warm. At an earlier meeting in Armstrong’s office, Fielding had persuaded her not to go into any details about Marchant’s attempt to recruit Nikolai Primakov. She had agreed, but it was clear she still resented Fielding for excluding her from other operational details.

  ‘Thank you, Harriet,’ Fielding said. ‘I’ll keep this short. We believe Dhar was taken from Morocco last month by the Russians, who have offered him protection in return for a shared stake in a state-sponsored act of proxy terrorism. What that act is, we’re not sure, but it appears that Dhar has put aside a previous reluctance to strike against UK targets.’

  ‘What about Daniel Marchant’s kidnapping by the SVR?’ asked the head of JTAC, looking across at Armstrong for support. ‘I assume there’s a connection.’

  ‘We’re not certain it was the SVR,’ Fielding interjected.

  All eyes turned to Armstrong, who paused before answering, keeping her own eyes down as she shuffled some papers. A Russian operation on the streets of London was her beat. ‘Preliminary reports have established that the kidnappers were Russian, but we can’t be sure they were SVR. D Branch is still working on it.’

  Surprised by her support, Fielding tried to acknowledge Armstrong, but she didn’t look up. He had expected her to confirm the SVR’s involvement, make life more difficult for him.

  ‘In answer to your question,’ Fielding said, ‘Marchant, one of our most gifted field officers, has been on Salim Dhar’s trail for a number of months. After the terrorist attack on the London Marathon, he wanted to travel to Morocco, where he had good reason to believe that Dhar was in hiding, possibly being shielded by the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group in the Atlas Mountains. Unfortunately, the Americans insisted that he stayed in Britain. It was a deeply frustrating time for all of us. After a year, we got our way and dispatched him to Marrakech. He was closing in on Dhar when he was exfiltrated by the Russians in an unmarked Mi-8 helicopter. He returned to London and was establishing Dhar’s location through an SVR contact when he himself was seized.’

  ‘What are the Russians saying?’ the director of GCHQ asked.

  ‘They’re denying everything,’ the Foreign Secretary replied, glancing at the Prime Minister. ‘But it seems that Dhar had become too hot for Tehran, and Moscow took him on. We’ve protested formally about Marchant’s disappearance and enquired through back channels about Dhar.’

  ‘Just as the Russians denied that two of their MiG-35s were over Scotland,’ the Prime Minister said. The incursion had made his coalition and its armed forces the laughing stock of NATO, giving him no option but to accept his Defence Secretary’s resignation. The MiGs had turned around and were halfway across the North Sea before the Typhoons were even airborne.

  ‘We’re working on the assumption that the violation of UK airspace is in some way connected with Dhar,’ Fielding continued. He knew it for a fact, of course, but he could never reveal that Marchant, one of his own agents, had facilitated the incursion in order to meet Dhar. Or that Paul Myers at GCHQ had also been involved. The breach had been put down to a cyber attack by Moscow, one of many in recent months.

  ‘Which is why this weekend’s RIAT, the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford, is top of our list,’ Armstrong said. ‘We’ve also got a Test match at Lord’s against Pakistan, which could be a target, given Dhar’s connections, and WOMAD, the world music festival in Wiltshire, which is less of a security worry, although I gather there was a bit of a disturbance in the Qawwali tent last year.’

  The faint murmur of laughter released some of the tension in the room. Armstrong enjoyed being centre stage, Fielding thought. Not everyone appreciated her stabs at humour, or her Johnsonian memos on poor grammar. In another life, she would have been headmistress of a public school. The subcontinent had knocked some of the pomposity out of her manner, but not quite enough.

  ‘The good news is that Fairford is already a secure site,’ she continued, ‘with a perimeter fence protected by the Americans.’

  ‘The bad news?’ the Prime Minister asked. Armstrong looked across at the director of the Defence Intelligence Staff.

  ‘Washington is using the air show to showboat a big arms deal with Tbilisi,’ he said, taking over from Armstrong. ‘They’re currently equippi
ng the Georgian air force with C130 cargo planes to replace their ageing fleet of Antonovs. The US has also agreed to lease them F-16 fighter jets to replace their SU-25s, most of which were shot down by the Russians in the 2008 South Ossetia war.’

  ‘An arms deal that Moscow is obviously far from happy about,’ the Foreign Secretary said.

  ‘Given the MiG débâcle, shouldn’t we have our Typhoons and Tornados airborne all weekend?’ the Prime Minister asked. ‘Over Lord’s, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire?’

  ‘If only that were possible,’ the Chief of the Defence Staff said.

  ‘How long’s the show?’ the PM continued, ignoring the jibe. The RAF was locked in acrimonious discussions with the coalition about cuts to Britain’s fighter-jet capability.

  ‘Seven and a half hours of flying time.’

  ‘Do what you can,’ the PM said, looking at his watch.

  ‘The US base commander at Fairford is an old friend,’ the Chief of the Defence Staff said. ‘I’ll speak to him. Personally, I think it’s highly unlikely the Russians would try anything, particularly on a weekend when there’s so much hardware on the runway. The F-22 Raptor will be in town. The violation of our airspace, while deeply regrettable, was a one-off, a distraction. A Test match against Pakistan at the home of cricket is a far more probable target.’

  ‘I agree,’ Ian Denton said. There was a newfound confidence in his voice that surprised Fielding, who was sitting next to him. ‘RIAT’s the largest military air show in Europe. It’s an American-run base, and security is always very tight. The Test at Lord’s strikes me as a more likely target.’