‘Problems are caused by mistakes,’ Medev continued. ‘Wars if we let them. The way you’ve been treated was an unforgivable mistake. I don’t want it to turn into something even worse.’
Valera thought of Ledjo. Was Medev calling him a little problem, a mistake? Something that could never be fixed? She was about to tell him she would never go back, but before she could he turned to face the big, thatched hall across from the bench and said, ‘Would you care to join us?’ loudly, and in English.
Knox, whose hand was still resting on Bennett’s shoulder, gestured at her to stay put, but she shrugged him off and stepped out into the open. After swearing under his breath to himself, Knox followed.
‘It only seems fair that everyone gets to make their offer to Miss Valera,’ Medev said, smiling at Bennett and Knox. ‘Now, neither of you look like members of the Swedish security service, so may I ask who you represent? My name is General Medev and I, as you have probably guessed, am Russian.’
It was an obvious ploy, and Knox refused to fall for it. But Bennett was too caught up in what was happening to realise she was being tricked.
‘You need to leave the lady alone,’ she said.
‘Ah, American,’ Medev replied. ‘I must have our records updated. We didn’t think the CIA had any female agents in Europe.’
‘Maybe Soviet intelligence isn’t as smart as it thinks it is,’ Bennett said.
‘Maybe.’ Medev smiled at her. ‘The world is full of surprises.’ He turned to Knox. ‘And you? Do you work for the CIA also?’
Knox couldn’t avoid a direct question. But he also didn’t want to give Medev any more ammunition. So he just said, ‘No.’
‘British? Then, my friend, I think you do,’ Medev said with a chuckle. ‘But who we are really is not so important. This is about Miss Valera, and what she wants.’
He stood up, gesturing for Bennett to take his place on the bench. But before she could sit down next to Valera and recite the speech she’d prepared about everything America had to offer her, about how important her research was, and how she and the CIA could work together to create a safer, better world, a crimson plume erupted from Medev’s forehead.
Blood splattered Valera as his lifeless body slumped back down onto the bench. She screamed, but it was drowned out by the sound of more shots being fired at them and Knox shouting for all of them to get down.
Three men wearing balaclavas and dressed completely in black ran towards them. Two of them had their guns raised at Knox and Bennett, covering the third, who lunged for Valera, still sitting on the bench, motionless from the shock of seeing Medev die in front of her. But as soon as his gloved hand touched her arm she burst back into life, much to her attacker’s surprise, shaking off his grip and launching herself off the bench.
Knox and Bennett seized the momentary distraction and both rushed their attackers, grabbing the guns pointed at them and trying to wrestle them away. Bennett was much smaller than her assailant, but she was faster. She weaved around him, twisting and pulling on his wrist so he couldn’t grab hold of her or get off another shot.
Knox’s opponent was a tougher customer. Every move he made against him was instantly countered. Knox took multiple hits to his head, and his side, which was still tender from the kicking he’d taken in Strand station.
Valera made it almost twenty feet from the bench before a gloved hand grabbed her again and slammed her down into the ground, stunning her for a moment before she started kicking and screaming at the man standing over her.
Bennett bent the wrist of her attacker so far back that he let out a growl of pain. But he still didn’t drop his gun. She tried to pull it back even further, but she was concentrating so hard on the man’s wrist that she’d stopped ducking and diving, or paying attention to his other hand. He finally caught her and held her against him as he drove her into the wall of the longhouse, winding her and pinning her against it.
The man fighting Knox did drop his gun, but not because Knox made him. He took a step back, let it fall to the ground, and goaded Knox to come at him with both hands. Knox couldn’t see the man’s face under the balaclava but he was sure he was sneering at him. Knox wanted to throw himself at him and wipe the invisible smile off his face, but he knew that was just what the other man wanted. So he tried his own trick on him, backing away and forcing the man in black to keep moving forward until his patience ran out and he sprang at Knox. Knox ducked down. He’d planned to drive his shoulder up into the man’s abdomen, but instead the man tripped over Knox’s curled-up body, lost his balance, and crashed full speed and head first into the edge of the bench Medev’s body was still slumped limply on.
The sound of the man’s skull cracking against the metal corner of the bench stopped everyone else. For a moment no one moved. Then the two other masked men gave each other a look. The one holding Bennett against the wall drove her into it one more time, winding her again, then let her drop to the ground. He ran over to the man who had managed to pin Valera down and sedate her somehow. Then he turned the gun on Knox, who was separated from them by the bench and the two dead bodies. The other man slung Valera’s body over his shoulder, and they both started to back away.
As soon as the men disappeared behind the longhouse, Knox ran over to Bennett, who was already pulling herself up off the ground.
‘What just happened?’ she asked, rhetorically.
The whole encounter, from Medev first sitting down on the bench to the masked men carrying Valera off, had lasted less than five minutes.
Bennett walked over to the dead attacker. She nudged him with her foot to make sure he wasn’t just dazed, then reached down and pulled the balaclava off his head. It was already sticky with blood from the deep gash across the top of his skull.
‘Anyone you know?’ she said to Knox.
It was another rhetorical question, but as Knox looked down at the man, he recognised his heavy, almost Neanderthal brow, and the sneer that was still on his face, even in death. It was the policeman who had been guarding Bianchi and Moretti’s building.
CHAPTER 41
The SAS flight to Amsterdam left Stockholm just before six o’clock. It was a popular route, and the two-hour flight time meant that the early-evening flight was always busy with business travellers keen to leave Sweden after their afternoon meetings and reach Holland in time for more business, or pleasure, or both. This evening’s plane was almost full, but the SAS desk agent managed to find two seats together for the English gentleman and American lady who had arrived at Bromma shortly after 5 p.m.
Knox sat in silence for almost the whole flight. The only time he opened his mouth was to order two double whiskies in quick succession. The rest of the time he spent brooding. For once, he didn’t like being right. He also didn’t like how he’d been proved right. He’d been blindsided by events unfolding around him yet again. And he’d wilfully walked into a situation almost identical to the one at the centre of his suspicions of Manning. There was even the death of a Russian agent to complete the parallel. But there was also a significant difference between them – Manning’s mission to Singapore had been sanctioned, and Knox’s trip to Stockholm had not. If it hadn’t been for the dead man from Deptford, Knox’s anxiety at breaking one of MI5’s most basic operational rules would have outweighed his anger at finding and then losing Valera. As it was there wasn’t much between them.
At Schiphol, Knox and Bennett were lucky again. There was a KLM flight to London leaving at nine thirty, and it had plenty of seats available. They had an hour to kill before boarding, and tacitly agreed not to spend it together.