‘Open it,’ Graham replied.
‘May I, sir, before we start?’ she asked girlishly.
The telephone rang. Philpott waved absently to the cardboard box as he picked up the receiver.
She opened the lid and peered inside, then recoiled in terror, shifting backwards on the couch until she was pressed against Whitlock.
‘What is it?’ Whitlock asked, trying to peer over her shoulder.
Graham removed the cage from inside the cardboard box and she shrunk back even further against Whitlock.
‘Please, Mike, take it away,’ she pleaded.
‘It’s only a hamster,’ Whitlock said, puzzled.
She turned her face away and put her hands up in front of her. ‘Mike, take it away. Please.’
Graham put the cage back into the cardboard box, then squatted down in front of her. He glanced up at Whitlock. ‘She had a bad experience with rats as a kid which has subsequently left her with a deep-rooted fear of all rodents.’
‘You never mentioned this before,’ Whitlock said to her.
She stared guiltily at her hands.
‘I don’t think she realized just how far this phobia’s actually developed until we spoke about it on the plane coming home. It nearly got her killed in Yugoslavia. She’ll tell you what happened in her own time but I don’t see why we should involve anyone else, including the boss.’ He turned to her. ‘Next time your phobia could be instrumental in getting one of us killed. As I said to you on the plane, it’s all in the mind and you’ll never overcome it by continually dodging it, hoping it’ll go away on its own. Confront it, it’s the only way.
‘Rats are hardly the most domesticated of pets so I settled for a hamster, mainly because we used to have one. Well, Mikey did. Know what he called it? “Quarterback”. We tried to tell him that it wasn’t quite the name for a hamster but he was adamant, so “Quarterback” it stayed. He loved the little guy. Many a night we’d go to tuck him in only to find the hamster out of its cage and rustling against the bedclothes. We went to a restaurant once only to have “Quarterback” pop out of Mikey’s pocket halfway through the meal.’
‘Oh no,’ Whitlock said chuckling.
‘I’ve never paid a check so quickly in my life. All I’m asking, Sabrina, is that you give the little guy a chance. Watch him, understand him, I promise you he’ll help you overcome your fear. Deal?’
‘Deal,’ she said softly.
A sudden silence followed and they turned to Philpott, who had finished on the telephone and was browsing through one of their reports. Whitlock cleared his throat.
Philpott looked up and reached for his pipe. ‘I won’t keep you long but seeing you’re all here I thought you’d like to be brought up to date on the case. C.W., you first. The local police have made a number of arrests at the plant after Leitzig’s detailed confession so I think we can safely say that network’s been successfully closed down. The West German Government has promised a full enquiry into security at the plant and I’ve been assured that a number of heads are going to roll before it’s through.’
‘What about my cover story, sir? Being exposed so early on could have had a damaging effect on the rest of the operation.’
‘Granted, but I don’t see any reason to review the backstopping process. It was a million to one chance that she could have caught you out as she did. It’s never happened before and I doubt it’ll ever happen again. It’s imperative that your cover stories are as authentic and credible as possible. I’ll certainly raise the matter with the Secretary-General but as far as I’m concerned I’m happy with things the way they are.’ Philpott tapped the newspaper on his desk.
‘You wrote a good article about the plant but I never knew you were that opposed to nuclear power.’
‘Windscale, Denver, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl. They said it could never happen. How many have to die to prove them wrong?’
‘That’s the last paragraph of your article, isn’t it?’ Philpott asked, glancing at the newspaper.
‘Yes, sir. It sums up my feelings perfectly.’
Philpott consulted his notes. ‘Mike, Sabrina, I received the doctor’s report on the two of you today. It’s as we thought. The amount of radiation you’ve been exposed to was negligible. Your reading was slightly higher, Mike, mainly because you were in the wagon with Milchan for a short time. Even so, it’s absolutely nothing to worry about.’
‘What about Milchan?’ Graham asked.
‘His report came through yesterday. He’s got about six weeks at the most. There’s nothing they can do for him.’ Philpott paused to light his pipe. ‘Anyway, back to the case. I’ve been pressing the KGB to find out all they can on Stefan Werner. A telex finally came through from Moscow this morning. I’ll give you the gist of its contents. Stefan Werner wasn’t his real name.
‘He was born Aleksei Lubanov in Minsk, 1941. He was recruited by the KGB at the age of seventeen to undergo the customary ten-year training programme to prepare an agent for work abroad. He was trained at Gacznya and Prakhovka spy schools and first surfaced as Stefan Werner in Brazil, 1967. He spoke fluent Portuguese so he had no trouble in securing himself a job as a salesman at a freight company in Rio. Within a year he was running the company. He then left Brazil and bought a share in a struggling German shipping line. He bought the company out six months later and it turned out to be the foundation upon which he subsequently built his shipping and freight empire. A brilliant businessman, but a dedicated KGB agent all the same.’
‘What happened about the detonator, sir?’ Sabrina asked.
‘I was coming to that. All six kegs were exactly the same weight and it took our bomb-disposal team four and a half hours under vacuum conditions to find the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Five of the kegs contained the Plutonium-IV compound. The sixth, supposedly rigged out with the explosive device, actually contained nothing more lethal than sand. It was all the work of Konstatin Benin.’
‘Benin?’ Graham muttered. ‘He was a co-founder of Balashikha, wasn’t he?’
‘Correct. He was also Stefan Werner’s – or Aleksei Lubanov, if you prefer – and Karen Schendel’s handler. We’ve proved that beyond any doubt. Sergei’s on his way to Moscow right now to confront him with the evidence.’
‘What about the plutonium, sir?’ Whitlock asked.
‘It’s already been returned to Mainz. Unfortunately the grain aboard the Napoli had to be destroyed but UNICEF have already sent out a replacement load. It should reach Ethiopia by the end of the week.’
The telephone rang again.
‘Excuse me,’ Philpott said, then lifted the receiver to his ear. He smiled as he listened to the caller on the other end. ‘Well, well, well, now that is interesting. Thanks for calling, Matt, I appreciate it.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘That was the Pentagon. News has just reached them that an industrial laboratory outside Benghazi was razed to the ground by a mysterious fire in the early hours of the morning.’
‘It wouldn’t happen to be the same one the plutonium was bound for, sir?’ Sabrina asked.
‘The very same.’
‘Did we have a unit in Benghazi at the time?’ Graham asked.
‘We haven’t had a unit in Libya for the past five months. The only foreign vessel in the area at the time was a Russian submarine. It would seem Sergei’s hint to the Kremlin paid off after all. That’s the cherry on the top as far as I’m concerned.’ Philpott pulled a foolscap pad towards him. ‘Unlike you three I do have work to do.’
‘Does that mean we can go, sir?’ Graham asked, glancing at his wristwatch.
‘For someone who arrived fifteen minutes late you’re certainly in a hurry to get away. What’s the rush?’
‘There’s a game on at the Yankee Stadium, it starts in an hour’s time.’