Gerry Tate was thoroughly bored. The evening in the bar in the United Kingdom’s embassy in Kuwait had started off with a heated debate about the developing Iraq situation which appeared to be escalating towards a crisis point, but as the hour had approached midnight, the alcohol consumed by her fellow drinkers had slowly dragged the conversation down to a convivial but frivolous level in keeping with a New Year celebration. She gazed at the clock mounted on the wall above the rows of bottles behind the bar and when it reached 3.00am she and her few remaining fellow drinkers, mostly young and exclusively male, raised their glasses and called out ‘Happy New Year!’
Along with a much larger group she had made the same greeting three hours previously, but that had been at midnight local time. A few staff with no family or little regard for their exhausted spouses had decided that it could not properly be New Year until the time reached midnight in London, three hours later than Kuwait. Not, they assured one another, because they yearned for their home country but merely because that was the location of the prime meridian through Greenwich, and any right thinking person would know that this must be the correct time to celebrate the New Year even if they lived in New Zealand or Los Angeles or any place in between.
Gerry’s opinion was that this was a load of bollocks, but she was in the executive operations department of the British intelligence service and accustomed to guarding her thoughts. She had stayed on in the embassy bar because it was her task to determine the loyalty of a middle-aged diplomat named Laurence Baxter who now stood four feet to her left and who was draining his seventh beer of the evening. A neutral observer might think that Gerry was as inebriated as Baxter, having been plied with free drinks by the men who had been eager to make at least the acquaintance of the tall, attractive young woman who had appeared amongst them a few days ago. In fact a quiet word with the barman had ensured that whenever someone bought her another gin and lemonade he had only poured lemonade into her glass. He had been very surprised when she had made the request, but when she suggested that he should pocket the difference in price he had been happy enough to agree.
Gerry watched Baxter stagger off towards the gentlemen’s toilets and concluded that if he was going to pass any information to his Russian girlfriend tonight then it was unlikely to be coherent. She actually felt sorry for the woman who had to endure his attentions, and imagined that she would be relieved when she found out that he had been recalled to London. Gerry’s remaining task was to establish whether Baxter genuinely believed his girlfriend to be a Canadian citizen or if he knew that she was Russian.
‘Excuse me gentlemen,’ she said and walked off towards the doorway.
‘Oh you’re not leaving us are you Emily?’ said a drunken commercial secretary, a handsome twenty-five year old Oxford graduate who had decided that now was the moment to make a serious pass and he grabbed her by the arm.
A moment later, without understanding how, he had lost his footing and now he was sprawled on the floor with the remains of his beer spilt over him and acclaimed with raucous laughter by his fellow drinkers. Gerry walked casually on and disappeared inside the ladies’ cloakroom. Peeping out through the cracked open doorway she watched Baxter stagger out the gents’ and towards the security post at the main entrance. She followed a few paces behind as they approached the one remaining guard manning the entrance. Rather than waving them through the security gate he carefully checked their IDs and insisted that they walk through the archway scanner that until recently had only been used to search people entering the embassy. With the continuing build-up of American and Allied troops along the Iraqi border as the crisis escalated towards a probable invasion, the guards were taking no chances, although Gerry could not imagine what she might take out of the embassy that would cause any security problem. She watched Baxter collide with the side of the archway as he staggered through and saw the security man shake his head in disgust. She walked through herself, said a quick ‘good night’ and then followed him outside.
In the car park she watched Baxter walk unsteadily to his car and fumble in his pocket, and then she heard a metallic clink as his keys fell to the ground and heard him grunt as he bent down to find them. ‘Hi Laurence, are you ok?’ she called out.
He looked around and gave her a bleary grin. ‘Oh, hi Emily. Just dropped m’keys; they’re round here somewhere.’ He stared vaguely about, then leant against the car and groaned.
‘You’re in no state to drive,’ Gerry declared. ‘Look I’ll take you home.’ She bent down and found his keys under the adjacent car.
‘Thass great; give’m me; m’ok really.’
‘I’ll give them back to you when we get to your place. Now get in my car.’ After a couple of minute’s effort she had the drunken man slumped in the passenger seat of her borrowed car. ‘So where do you live?’ Gerry asked.
‘Take the First Ring Road’, he mumbled.
‘Ok,’ Gerry replied and set off towards his apartment. She was fully aware of its location having already spent several hours searching through it when Baxter was at work. Years ago her service would be worried about an individual such as Baxter revealing military secrets to the communist bloc, but now Gerry was merely ensuring that her country’s exports of military equipment to the Gulf States were not being jeopardised.
‘Maybe you’d better call Sandy, tell her you’ll be home soon,’ she suggested.
‘Still be at Canadian… Canadian embassy party I’spect.’
Through her contact in the Canadian embassy, Gerry knew that Lyudmila Yakutina also known as Sandy Dempster had left two hours ago.
‘She’s a lovely girl, Sandy. Have you known her long?’ she asked.
‘Bout six months.’ That was accurate. From the selection of women’s clothing in Baxter’s apartment Gerry also knew that Yakutina often spent the night there.
‘I wonder how many generations of her family have been in Canada. She looks sort of Ukrainian I reckon. Long blonde hair. She looks like one of those tennis players. You know the Russian ones. Maybe her family’s from Russia… originally.’
‘Er… I d’know. She’s from Toronto,’ Baxter mumbled. He looked around and recognised where they were. ‘S’next right.’
Gerry pulled up beside the small apartment block. Baxter climbed out and fumbled for his keys.
‘I’ve got them, remember?’ said Gerry rattling them in front of his face. He grinned at her and then took them.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said, ‘I’ll be alright now.’
‘I need to use your bathroom, if you don’t mind,’ said Gerry.
‘Oh! Well come on in then.’
She followed him up the stairs to the large, three bedroomed first floor apartment provided at the UK taxpayers’ expense.
‘You’re late!’ snapped a woman’s voice in a Canadian accent, and as she followed him through the door Gerry recognised the blonde haired attractive woman, aged about thirty who had jumped up from her seat. ‘Oh!’ she added when she saw Gerry just behind Baxter.
‘Hello, Happy New Year! Delighted to meet you,’ Gerry called out and noted the woman’s mouth about to form some words but then her expression changed from a curious frown, to a forced smile and she said ‘Happy New Year!’ in return.
‘I’m Emily Stevens, a colleague of Laurence’s,’ Gerry continued. ‘He’s a bit pissed so I brought him home. You must be Sandy.’
‘Yuh I’m Sandy,’ she replied. ‘Thanks for bringing him back.’ She had recovered her poise but still Gerry saw the suspicion on her face. Laurence staggered towards her and Gerry noted her recoiling from his clumsy embrace.
‘I need to use your bathroom please,’ said Gerry.