About an hour later, one of Simpson’s men entered the conference room, carrying several sheets of paper. Walters broke off his study of the Appreciation file, and he and Masterson joined Simpson at the end of the table to study the data they had so far obtained. Richter peered over Walters’s shoulder as the three men examined the phone records.
‘That’s the mobile that Stanway claims Lomas uses,’ explained Simpson, pointing at one page.
‘Is there any correlation?’ Richter asked.
‘Not that my people have been able to spot.’
Richter nodded, his eyes never leaving the pages spread out on the end of the table. The data had already been scanned, in an attempt to identify any of the senior SIS officers who might have been called by Lomas, but nothing had been found.
‘One thing I notice from this,’ Richter said, pointing at the same sheet, ‘is that Lomas hardly ever made or received a call using this mobile, but he did so yesterday. Somebody called him during the afternoon. But what number is that?’
‘Not one of our suspects,’ Walters said. ‘That letter “P” besides the entry means the calling number was a public phone, so it could have been absolutely anybody.’
‘Can you get the records for that public phone as well?’ Richter asked.
‘Yes, of course.’ Simpson nodded. ‘If you can give me a good reason, that is.’
‘Just a hunch right now,’ Richter said. ‘And can you also get the location of the mobile at the time when the call was received, the numbers and call records of any public landline phones near that location, and also the location of the public phone the call came from? And find me a decent-sized London A — Z, please.’
Ten minutes later, the same man reappeared with another half-dozen sheets and the map book.
Richter took them from him, and ran his eyes down the list of numbers. Then he compared the position of the public phone from which the call to Lomas’s mobile had been made with one of the pages in the A — Z, and checked some of the other data on the lists. Then he sat back with a slight smile.
‘What is it?’ Simpson demanded.
‘Three things,’ Richter said. ‘First, the public phone box is just around the corner from the Russian Embassy. Second, when Lomas received the call, he was standing here.’ He pointed to a spot in the Shepherd’s Bush area. ‘He was then right beside a public phone box and, if you look at the records, about fifteen minutes before that, somebody had used that public phone to call the Russian Embassy. I’ve never been a big fan of coincidence, and I realize I’m quite new at this game, but I’ll bet Lomas made that first call, and then whoever he spoke to at the embassy trotted outside the building to find a public phone, and called Lomas’s mobile.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Simpson said, ‘but I’m not sure how that helps.’
‘That’s the third thing. It was raining yesterday afternoon, as I recall.’
‘So?’
‘When Moscow found that Raya had done a runner, I’m sure Lomas was given a whole list of instructions and orders to follow. He’s too experienced a professional to use a phone that could be traced to him, which is why he used a public phone box to contact the Russian Embassy. I’m wondering if he could also have contacted his — what do you call it? — his agent-in-place from the same phone box, simply because it was raining and it would have saved him having to walk around looking for another one to use. I think it might be worth checking these phone records against the numbers you have for the SIS officers.’
Simpson rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then nodded. ‘Do it,’ he instructed Masterson.
Within a couple of minutes Masterson muttered an exclamation, and ran a green highlighter along a line on one of the mobile-phone records.
‘Somebody called this mobile from that phone box just after Lomas finished his call. The call was probably innocuous in nature, just in case anybody was listening in, but my guess is it was Lomas, as the case officer, telling his asset to either lie low or maybe get the hell out of town.’
Simpson looked down at what his officer had found, and nodded. ‘That was good work, Richter. I’ll get the wheels in motion.’
‘Who is it?’ Richter asked.
‘Holbeche,’ Simpson replied shortly, and walked out of the room.
A grey-haired middle-aged man clutching a briefcase and a carry-on bag joined a short queue at the Business Class section of the Air France check-in desk. He was still waiting in line when two other men appeared beside him.
‘Not flying the flag today, Malcolm?’ Richard Simpson asked.
‘Hello, Richard,’ Holbeche replied. ‘No, I couldn’t get a seat on BA. The bloody flight’s full, so I’m having to go with the French. I’ve a bit of business to take care of over in Paris. I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘Is there a problem?’
‘Yes, there is,’ Simpson replied. ‘We know that Andrew Lomas called you yesterday afternoon, and I guess he told you to run.’
‘Andrew Lomas?’ Holbeche paled slightly. ‘I don’t think I know him.’
Simpson shook his head regretfully. ‘Oh, I think you do, Malcolm. After all, he’s been your case officer for probably twenty years. We know that now, because of the information Raya Kosov brought out of Moscow. And I also know that you’re not really going to Paris. Or at least that’s not your final destination. I guess there’s an Aeroflot out of Charles de Gaulle later today, heading for Sheremetievo, and you’re already booked onto it.’
Holbeche said nothing, and Simpson nodded.
‘Now, we can do this the hard way or the easy way,’ he said. ‘The easy way is for you to simply turn around and walk out of the terminal with the two of us.’
Holbeche lowered his head, then reached inside his jacket and pulled out a 9-millimetre Glock 26 subcompact pistol. He aimed the weapon directly at Simpson’s stomach and smiled bitterly.
‘Did you really think you could get onto an aircraft carrying that?’ Simpson asked, apparently unfazed by the threat.
‘With my diplomatic passport and a carry permit issued by the Metropolitan Police, it wouldn’t have been difficult,’ Holbeche said. ‘Now get the hell out of my way, Simpson.’
‘I’m sorry, Holbeche, but you’re going nowhere.’
Two other men appeared behind Simpson, each holding a semi-automatic pistol aimed at the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. A couple of passengers standing nearby suddenly noticed the drawn weapons, and a woman began screaming. Instantly, it seemed, chaos erupted in that particular section of the terminal. People were running and shouting, desperate to get away from these armed men standing near the Air France desk. But Holbeche, Simpson and the two other men remained stationary, seemingly oblivious to what was going on all around them.
Holbeche ignored the two armed men confronting him, and stared only at Simpson. ‘I’ve had a good run, Richard,’ he said. ‘Twenty-odd years — nearly a quarter of a century — working my way up through the ranks in the service, and at the same time cementing my position as the most important single asset the SVR has ever had. Did you know that they’ve already made me an honorary general at Yasenevo?’
‘But now it’s all over,’ Simpson snapped. ‘You’ve nowhere to go.’
‘I suppose you’re planning a trial to be held, in camera, so that no one will ever know just how thoroughly compromised British intelligence has been. And I’d be pensioned off, stripped of my knighthood, questioned for months by one of those slimy reptiles that you employ. And then I’d end my days in contented obscurity somewhere. Not a bad deal really.’