Moscow
74
Primakov was close to panic. The rendezvous had been an hour ago and he had heard nothing from Stepanov. He had tried to call him, but his phone rang through to voicemail every time. Stepanov was usually so punctilious and now, in the aftermath of a particularly sensitive operation, to have heard nothing? It was out of character. He tried Mitrokhin’s number with the same results.
He had tried to distract himself with a new operation that he had been planning. Yehya al Moussa and Sameera Najeeb were scientists who had, until recently, been employed by the Iraq Atomic Energy Agency. They had been swept up by the Iranians following the fall of Saddam and had contributed to the recent progress that the Ahmadinejad regime had made toward the production of the first Islamic bomb. The Center had been directed by the Kremlin to provide assistance to the Iranians, and, as a part of that, a meeting had been arranged with a corporation that would be able to provide them with the zirconium they needed for their reactors. The meeting was to be in the French Alps and Primakov had activated a local sleeper to provide security. He had a pile of papers on his desk that he needed to review and he was already late.
His intercom buzzed. He reached back to the credenza and took the office phone.
“What?”
“Sir,” she said. “Major-General Nikolaevich is calling.”
He swallowed. His throat was suddenly dry.
“Sir?”
“Put him through, please.”
There was a pause and then a fizz of static as the call was connected.
“Alexei?” he said, trying to keep the uncertainty from his voice. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve just had a report from my chief in the Amur oblast,” he said. “There’s been an attack there—four men and a woman have been shot and killed at the railway station at Komsomolsk.”
Primakov felt sick. “Really?”
“Nikolai—please. Are you telling me you don’t know?”
“No,” he said. He put his hand on the desk to steady himself.
“The dead haven’t been identified yet. No papers on them. One man was still alive—Boris Mitrokhin. He’s been shot in the leg. I remembered his name. Didn’t he transfer from Vympel to work for you?”
“Yes,” Primakov said. There was no point in lying about it.
“He’s in hospital—not life threatening. I’m waiting to speak to him. But I don’t understand. What was one of your men doing in Komsomolsk?”
Primakov’s breath caught, as if a metal band had been slipped around his chest and then cranked tight. “I cannot say,” he replied, unable to think of anything that he could do other than to stonewall.
“The others? Were they yours, too?”
“There was an operation, but it is sensitive.”
“What kind of operation—”
“I have to go, Alexei,” Primakov said, interrupting him. “Thank you for bringing me the news. I need to find out what has happened. I’ll speak to you when I know more.”
“Nikolai. The president is—”
“You’ll get a full report. Goodbye.”
Primakov slammed the phone down, grabbed his jacket and put it on. He swept the al Moussa and Najeeb papers into his briefcase, stepped out of the office, told his secretary that he was going out and that he would be back later in the day, and hurried down to the garage.
He didn’t know what to do. All of his meticulously constructed plans were collapsing. His mind started to race: there would be an enquiry into whatever had happened in Komsomolsk, why Stepanov and Mitrokhin and the others had been sent there, and he was going to have to work hard to keep ahead of it. What could he say? Honesty was impossible; it would expose his lies and his attempts to cover up the consequences of Natasha’s mistakes. That would bring them both down. He would have to think of another reason for the operation, and an explanation as to why it had so evidently been bungled. And Mitrokhin… he didn’t know him as well as Stepanov, didn’t know how well he could be trusted when the investigators of Line KR got their hands on him. What would he say? He knew a lot. Too much.
Primakov took a deep breath. He could do it. It wasn’t too late. He just had to keep it together until he could get on top of the facts. He needed to speak to Mitrokhin, find out what had happened.
He saw the man as he walked toward his car. He didn’t recognise him. He was slender, in his mid-thirties, with tight curls of blond hair. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a leather jacket and he had a rucksack over his shoulder. He came out from between two parked cars and turned into his path.
“Excuse me,” the man said in lightly accented Russian.
“Yes?”
“You are Deputy Director Primakov?”
Primakov took a step back, a sickly bloom of fear welling up in his bowels. The man followed and, as he did, he took out an aerosol. Primakov noticed the smaller details: the branding on the aerosol looked like it was a deodorant and the man was wearing flesh-coloured latex gloves. He aimed the aerosol and pressed down on the dispenser, sending a jet of liquid into Primakov’s face. It was cold and wet and oily and it got into his mouth and eyes and nose. It had a metallic taste, not overpowering but distinctive: the taste of copper pennies.
Primakov bumped back against the hood of the car behind him, setting off the alarm. He tried to wipe the liquid away, but there was too much of it and he only succeeded in smearing it about.
“Proshchay,” said the man.
“What?” Primakov grunted.
“Control says goodbye.”
The man put the aerosol into his bag and zipped it up.
Primakov suddenly felt unwell. He could feel his heart beating faster, and then faster still, quickly racing out of control. He started to sweat and, as he leaned back against the car, his muscles began to tremble. He reached into his pocket for his phone, thinking that he could call his secretary to send someone down to help him, but his hand was shaking so badly that he lost his grip on the phone and it dropped down onto the concrete. The man stamped on it, breaking it into three pieces. Primakov’s heart raced faster still and he felt warm drool as it gathered in his mouth and then ran down his chin and onto his shirt. He tried to stand, lost his balance, and toppled down onto his front, scraping his face. His arms and legs spasmed helplessly.
The last thing Primakov remembered was watching the man with the pale skin and blond curls crouch down to pick up his briefcase. The man raised himself up and crossed the garage to the service exit that led out onto the street beyond. The door opened, the man passed through it, and the door swung closed once more.
EPILOGUE
Moscow
1
Boris Mitrokhin got out of the taxi, collected his crutch and leaned on it as he hobbled into the restaurant. Mesopotamia was an up-and-coming establishment that served Turkish food. It was busy, with most of the tables taken. Mitrokhin made his way inside, passing through the restaurant until he reached the private dining room at the back. There was a single table there; they could close the door and ensure their privacy against prying eyes.
There was a man waiting for him.
“Hello, Boris,” First Deputy Director Alexei Nikolaevich said.
“Hello, sir.”
“How are you?”
“I’m well.”
“And your leg?”
“It’s healing. Thank you.”
“Please. Sit.”
Mitrokhin pulled a chair back and lowered himself into it. His leg was more painful than he liked to admit; the bullet had been well aimed, slicing through the fleshy part of the thigh, but that did not mean that it hadn’t been excruciating and debilitating. It had been a necessary inconvenience, though. The wound had bought him credibility with the FSB investigators who had questioned him following the botched operation in Komsomolsk.