Simpson shook his head. ‘As I said to Richter only last week, the days when traitors to Britain could get just a slap on the wrist are over, at least as far as I’m concerned. After we’ve questioned you and we’ve milked you dry, I’ll make sure that you die, and preferably painfully. You’re a dead man walking, Holbeche. You just don’t know how long you’ve got left.’
Holbeche shook his head. ‘That’s never going to happen, Simpson. You know it and I know it.’
Quite deliberately, he raised the Glock to point it at Simpson’s head, and the beginnings of a smile appeared on his face.
The two men behind Simpson fired instantly, the two shots so close together that they sounded almost like a single report.
Holbeche was knocked backwards by the double impact of two 9-millimetre bullets smashing into his chest. He staggered backwards, the Glock tumbling from his hand.
Simpson stepped forward, picked up the weapon, and then knelt down beside the fallen man to feel for a pulse in his neck. Then he stood up and turned to face the men who’d just fired the fatal shots.
‘Good shooting,’ he said. ‘I’m going back to the office now. I’ll have a D Notice issued within the hour to cover this, so if the Met plods give you any trouble, refer them to me.’
Then Simpson turned on his heel and strode away.
The questioning continued through the afternoon, as Raya answered queries about various aspects of the SVR files she had copied from the Yasenevo database.
She was now sufficiently comfortable talking to Walters and Masterson that, when she left the conference room with Richter late that afternoon, she allowed the two men to retain her CD player and transfer all of her files onto the laptop for further analysis.
They met Simpson out in the corridor, heading back towards the conference room.
‘Any news?’ Richter asked.
Simpson nodded. ‘Holbeche has resigned, permanently. We caught him trying to board a flight to Paris, and he admitted to me that he was a Russian mole.’
‘And he resigned?’ Richter asked.
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. He pulled a gun on me and a couple of my men took him down. He was dead before he even hit the ground.’
‘So that’s it? We can all relax?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Holbeche is dead and Stanway’s busy telling us everything he knows. We’ve now found and eliminated two very costly and dangerous penetration agents inside the SIS and, thanks to Raya here, we’ve obtained enough high-quality data about the SVR to keep our analysts busy for years to come. All in all, it’s a good result.’
They all continued down the hallway towards the building’s main doors, where they paused. Simpson shook hands with both of them.
‘Don’t worry about gaining asylum, Raya,’ he said. ‘As soon as we’ve finished this debriefing, I’ll ensure that we find you a new identity and somewhere decent to live. In the meantime, are you still happy hanging around with Richter?’
Raya nodded. ‘Perfectly, thank you. Tonight, we’re going out for a traditional English meal.’
‘Good. Just make sure he takes you to a reasonable restaurant, and doesn’t try to make you pay half the bill.’
It was a reasonable restaurant. In fact, it was the oldest privately owned restaurant in London, Rules in Covent Garden. Richter had been lucky to find a table, because usually there was a waiting list. It served classic English food: no fancy bits, no nouvelle cuisine thankfully, just good solid food perfectly cooked. Raya opted for the fish and chips served, of course, in a copy of the Financial Times, while Richter chose one of his favourites, steak and kidney pudding — not pie.
Afterwards, they found a taxi in Bedford Street and, about half an hour after they’d left the restaurant, they walked into the lobby of their hotel near Heathrow and went straight up to their room.
They’d only been there about ten minutes when the phone rang, and Richter answered it.
‘Mr Wilson?’ Richter had chosen a fairly simple alias. ‘This is the reception desk downstairs. I have a Mr Simpson here to see you. Can you come down?’
‘What’s it about?’ Richter asked.
There was a pause and a muttered conversation in the background, then the female receptionist returned to the phone.
‘He says something’s come up about today’s briefing, and he needs to see you. It will only take a few minutes.’
‘OK, I’ll come down.’
‘How did he know we were staying here?’ Raya asked.
Richter smiled at her. ‘I haven’t known Richard Simpson very long, but I do know that he’s always very well informed. We could have been followed by one of his men that first night, when we drove here from Hammersmith. Anyway, I won’t be long. Just keep the door locked until I get back.’
Richter checked the Browning was loaded, just in case, replaced it in his shoulder holster, then let himself out of the room.
As he emerged from the room and started walking down the corridor, a door further along opened and a man with black hair and almost black eyes stepped out. The door was marked ‘Chambermaid — Staff Only’ and in the small room behind it, a blonde-haired Polish girl lay helpless on the floor, her wrists and ankles secured with wrapping tape and a rough gag covering her mouth. She was still unconscious from the blow she’d received to the back of her head about five minutes earlier.
The man pulled the door closed, checked that it was locked, and then walked unhurriedly along the corridor to Richter’s room. He paused at the door and glanced in both directions. A few seconds later, a second man, similar in appearance, strode briskly down the corridor towards him. The first man nodded, then used the master key card he’d taken off the chambermaid to open the door in front of him. They both stepped inside the room and closed the door behind them.
‘Where’s Mr Simpson?’ demanded Richter, who had arrived at the reception desk to find no sign of the man he had come down to see.
The receptionist looked slightly flustered. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Wilson. He received a call immediately after I finished talking to you, and I think he stepped into the coffee shop to take it.’ The receptionist pointed towards the open double doors to one side. ‘He should still be in there, I think.’
Richter nodded his thanks, and walked through into the coffee shop. There were perhaps a dozen people in there, sitting at tables, but no sign of Richard Simpson.
He felt the first faint prickle of unease, and strode back out to the reception desk. The receptionist was talking to a middle-aged American couple. Richter simply and unceremoniously elbowed them aside.
‘This man Simpson,’ he demanded, ‘was he about five-eight, slim build, pink complexion?’
‘No, sir,’ the girl replied. ‘He was about six feet tall with dark hair and he—’
But Richter was already moving, running across the lobby to the bank of lifts. The doors of one were just closing, but Richter thrust his arm through the gap and forced them open again.
On the fifth floor he sprinted down the corridor, the Browning already in his hand, safety catch off and his finger on the trigger.
The room door was closed, he could see that as he approached. He pulled the key card out of his pocket with his left hand, thrust it into the slot, pushed open the door and stepped into the room, holding the pistol out in front of him.
But, before he could locate a target or pull the trigger, he felt a sudden stabbing pain in his right side as the twin darts from a Taser penetrated his skin. He shot a glance to his right, straight into a pair of dark, almost black, eyes set in a face that was memorable chiefly because of its ordinariness. He tried to swing the Browning around, but he was a lifetime too late.