Adrian Cowderoy

PROLOGUE

Ursula Franklin hung by one arm from the horizontal roof beam of the warehouse. Even with her gangly legs it was too high to drop to the floor. It’s for Ukraine. The words had come from a faceless analyst in SIS headquarters – someone who’d never danced with a devil. But this was not Ukraine. It was Lebanon, close to the Syrian border.

Ursula stretched out with her other hand, gripped the beam, and swung along it as if she was a circus acrobat above a safety net. From here she could see through the entrance, past the builder’s rubbish to a concrete apron. In the dimming light of sunset, her black tactical fatigues stood out against the grey roof. Her face – the little that showed beyond her balaclava – had a bone structure as angular as the beams, and her skin was as dark as her clothes. On one arm she had a series of square sections of duct tape. The silvery tape stood out against her fatigues.

The man you’ll be observing is a colonel in Russian SVR intelligence, the analyst had written. He does specials.

That crazy analyst had better be right. Ursula had a vision of spending the night in freezing conditions, waiting for something that never happened because the analyst had a theory she wanted to test.

Ursula had two cameras to position. The tasking was to ensure they covered the likely spots where the men would stand. The cameras were small and built into an irregular half-shell that looked like a wasp nest. She turned it upside down, checked the electronics and then used the magnets to fasten it to the beam. Then she edged back, playing out a wire along the top of the beam. Periodically she paused and secured the wire with the duct tape. It was a wires job, because a broadcast signal might be detected.

At the far end there was the ladder Ursula had used to reach the beam. She rested on it and massaged her wrists. Then she fed the wire through the gap between the corrugated roof and the walls. She obscured the cable using a roll of duct tape. It was a silver tape on a red beam. Ursula reached into a different pocket and removed a can of spray paint. The colour match was close, but not perfect – the recon photos had shown the beams as darker. Now it was too late to change. She slipped down the ladder with her hands and feet resting on the sides.

Ursula separated the ladder from its extensions, and took all three pieces to the irrigation ditch. Her wait-spot was outside, at the top of a scaffolding tower that was being used to repair the roof. Next to it was a skewing jib. It looked like a gallows fastened high on the wall. The top of the tower was planked and covered with boxes. Ursula rearranged them to give her space to hide. She let wires hang from the boxes, and used builders tools to create a mess that was visible from the ground. Then she hid behind it, with her kit and descent rope. The cover was the best of a bad choice because the area around the warehouse had nothing but hard packed ground up to the irrigation ditch. The analyst had suggested leaving the recorder hidden and to retrieve it later – safety first. It was the kind of crap thing that analysts said. In the field it was secrecy first, mission second and safety third.

Ursula checked the signals from the camera then wrapped tin foil around the monitor until all that was visible was the small screen, and even that could be shielded from sensors. She waited as the sun set. Cold crept through her clothes. Periodically she flexed to restore her blood circulation. She estimated how long until the conditions became a problem.

Night came. A partial moon shone through the clouds, creating ghostly outlines of the trees and a distant farmhouse. From here, behind the warehouse, she could see nothing of the line of hills that marked the Syrian border.

Three hours after sunset a vehicle approached from the direction of Deir El Ghazai. It had the purr of an electric engine. On the monitor Ursula saw a black Mercedes drive into the warehouse and turn, ready for a rapid exit. The occupants were two men. Through her ear buds she could hear them talking. It was in Russian. The older man was recognisable immediately. Colonel Ruslan Antipov was a bundle of hair and pock-marked skin, with a bulbous nose and a neck like a tree-trunk. He was aged fifty-four, according to the brief. He brought out a folding chair for himself, and a portable floodlight to reduce the shadows from the car’s headlights. There was no sign of a pistol. Ursula had seen men like this before. They gave the work of killing to other people. At least he had the guts to give the order. The analysts just passed the decision upwards to people who had danced with too many devils.

The younger man’s face was hidden by a beanie hat, an oversized face mask from the Covid-19 period and tinted glasses that would be an obstacle in the dark. He was skinny, with black jeans and a leather jacket, and he carried his AK-74M with pride. The assault rifle had been fitted with a UltiMAK rail, SLx 3x32mm scope and a torch. American kit. Ursula sussed him. He was the kind who’d sold their souls to their jobs and the equipment, and cared for no-one. He did a recce of the warehouse. He saw the wasp nest and studied it for signs of wasps, but it was mid-March. Then he moved outside. He tilted his shades onto his head as he entered the darkness, and began a circuit of the outside of the building. His light paused on the builder’s scaffold. Ursula waited to see if he would climb it. She tensed, preparing herself.

The Russian shifted the grip on his rifle and retrieved something from his pocket. It looked like an EMF meter for detecting the signs of electrical equipment. He pointed it in her direction and studied the readings. Then he moved away. She could hear him checking the pile of builder’s rubbish outside the door.

Twenty minutes later a Nissan SUV arrived. It rattled over the potholes where the Mercedes had merely bumped, then entered the warehouse. There was now a pool of light from the car headlights and the portable floodlight. Four men descended from the SUV. The analyst’s brief said they’d be directors from ZAA. It said ZAA were racketeers without scruples about killing. The first two of the men wore fitted suits, with no obvious signs of weapons and they walked with the staged confidence that Ursula associated with administrators and accountants. Behind them were two men in jeans and jackets, with the same Makarov PM pistols that were used by the Syrian Army. Their movements were posed like cowboys.

The Russian SVR commander sat on his folding chair. Everyone else stood. They talked in Arabic. The Russian’s Arabic was slow and badly pronounced, and the ZAA directors talked fast. Ursula could make out occasional words. It was enough to hear the ZAA directors congratulate the Russians on the invasion of Ukraine. There were wishes for a speedy capture of Kiev. That ain’t happening, Ursula figured. Then the men switched to discussing trade and finance. There was repetition, frowns and finally an embarrassed silence. Then they switched to French.

Now Ursula could understand them.

Colonel Ruslan Antipov spoke. ‘There is bad blood in Moscow right now. Some have left their posts unexpectedly. My own commander fell down the stairs of his house with a broken neck.’

‘A terrible accident.’

‘It was a surprise, because he was already dead. For my part, I believe in accident insurance. This is why I turn to my friends in the Middle East.’

‘Yes?’ The word was accompanied by open palms towards Ruslan Antipov.

The younger of the two Russians shifted his attention. He turned to a wall and studied it left to right, from bottom to top. His focus shifted from one wall to the next.

‘Of all the NATO countries,’ Colonel Antipov continued, ‘Britain is the most evil. My superiors want to hit London with the same devastation as when our missiles hit Kyiv. We need a special incident. Naturally, no-one must know we were involved.’

Is this what the analyst is after? Ursula could see the analyst and her friends pouring over the words. Too much thinking and talking. With all that thinking, it was amazing anything happened.

‘We understand secrecy,’ the ZAA director said. ‘What is it you want from us?’

‘We need your help in the operation against Britain.’

There was another whispered consultation. ‘There’s the matter of British intelligence. They know everything.’

‘That is the Great MI6 Lie. They have weaknesses. We know how to exploit these.’

‘What is it you want?’

‘We need your operative in Britain to execute a mission for us.’

‘We’re sorry, but we don’t have an operative in Britain. We only have contractors, and they are loyal only to money.’

‘This is not true. One of your affiliates is operating an agent in deep cover.’ He stopped talking and looked at his colleague. The younger Russian was studying the wasp nest. He raised his AK and switched on the torch. The scope was looking directly at the camera and the light from the torch caused the picture to go white, then black, before readjusting.

Ursula could hear a rifle being cocked. She didn’t wait for more. She unplugged the recorder and slipped it into her jacket pocket. She moved to the edge of the scaffolding, hooked her rope on to the skewing jib, and abseiled down the wall using the faint moonlight.

There was shouting from inside the warehouse building. A car door slammed.

Ursula sprinted across the uneven ground towards the irrigation ditch. She jumped the ditch and headed into the orchard of olive trees. Beyond it she could make out the line of hills against the starry sky. The men hadn’t spotted her yet. She reached her dirt bike, lifted it and kicked the engine into life.

CHAPTER 1

AKILA

This is Putin’s Revenge for our support for Ukraine. That was the conclusion of Akila Sinclair’s friends from Research. ‘So why are you frowning?’ their lead asked.

A glimmer of sunlight caught a corner of the window but it barely penetrated the grey glass. The research team in SIS Overseas Stabilisation had chosen a meeting room without a central table. They’d arranged their chairs so close that their elbows touched. Two sat upright, two leant forward, and nobody slouched. Akila’s chair was by the write-on boards, as if she was a teacher. She moved her chair close to them, swivelled it a quarter turn and leant sideways on its back. ‘I’m frowning because it feels wrong.’

‘It feels wrong? Akila, for an analyst you sometimes say very unscientific things.’ It was their research lead talking again. Torolf Christofferson had his dainty hands on his knees. His intonation reminded Akila of Danish people. It would have come from his father.

‘Science helps,’ she said, ‘but we have to achieve things science can’t handle.’

They stared back, speechless.

Akila tilted her head to one side. ‘You don’t get it. The counter terrorism people heard the words “hitting London with the devastation of a missile” and they immediately figured it’s a terrorist threat. They’re making the assumption that the Russians play cricket. They don’t. They play chess, and they cheat. So I want to test the hypotheses that they’re up to something else.’

They were all watching her. She’d once overheard what they said about her. Her face was too expressive for an intelligence worker, her eyebrows were too heavy to be pretty, her nose looked like it had been stolen from an Egyptian statue, her hair was too short, and she chose business clothes to make her look like she was over thirty.

‘Akila, that is a hunch based on nothing. You are about to meet the High and the Mighty. If you talk like that they will question your professionalism.’

‘It’s not based on nothing. Colonel Ruslan Antipov is senior in Russian SVR. He should have subbed the meeting to a cut-out – someone expendable. He didn’t. Instead he made a personal appearance. And Antipov isn’t like most of the SVR. He doesn’t just do classic intel collection, he also does effects – specials.’

###

The High and the Mighty included representatives from across the intelligence community, police and diplomatic core. They met in a conference room with glistening chandeliers and tall windows that looked out over Downing Street. Akila sat on a small chair against the wall, a step behind her department head. Winthrop Estall had a high-backed seat at the table. He said nothing to her. She tried a ‘good morning’ and he frowned at her as if she’d mentioned a state secret. Then at the end of the meeting, he signalled to her. It was a single finger curled inwards.

Akila followed Winthrop down a long corridor of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Portraits of men from a bygone age stared down at her. What secrets and suspicions did they hide? she wondered. Clip, clip. The marble in the corridor was creating an echo from her shoes and for a moment she wished she’d been wearing her dancing shoes.

She mimicked Winthrop’s posture, but she couldn’t match his step. Her legs were too short for that, and he had a habit of placing each foot firmly as if he was on a sailing boat on choppy water. Winthrop Estall reminded Akila of a barn owl, with an almost round face of pale skin, a narrow nose and small dark eyes. His considered movements made him look like he was in his late fifties, but his career record in the Service indicated he was almost ten years younger.

Akila had moved to Winthrop’s department three years ago. She wanted Overseas Stabilisation because it had the highest analytic standards of all the SIS departments, and the SIS’s analysis is the best in the world. Her new job started badly when she made a joke during one of his meetings. He stared at her without a word, and others around the table lowered their gaze. A week later she was asked to volunteer for a four-month stint in Sierra Leone. Medical teams were fighting an Ebola outbreak, and they needed intelligence support. Nothing in Vauxhall Cross had prepared her for the smell of the hospital tents, or the sight of children dying in slow agony. On the first night, she cried incessantly. The work was technically simple compared to Vauxhall Cross. She used her training to ensure the supplies arrived and the decision-making was improved. Perhaps forty more people had survived because of her. Good work. But she’d spent the time living in a caravan, guarded by two ex paratroopers. Every time she met people, she was watched. And when she returned to London, there was a single thank-you from Winthrop, and then he ignored her.

Now she was following him for a one-on-one.

Winthrop led her to a small room with a high-up window pointing to the heavens. In the corner there was a single chair with red fabric. On the walls there were pictures of slavery, colonial wars, oppression and plunder. The Guilt Room.

He closed the door and turned to her. ‘You’re our expert on ZAA. Are they candidate terrorists?’ he asked.

Brief him in the same way as the senior analysts. ‘No, sir. The Zimalat Altujjar Almuslimin are what their name says, a Federation of Muslim Businessmen. They’re highly immoral by our standards, and they have an enforcement wing. They’ve killed to enforce discipline and remove opponents, and they do it dramatically, but they’re interested in money, not politics.’

‘Are you prepared to stake your reputation on that assessment?’ Winthrop asked. He gestured to one of the pictures. India, 1919. It was the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by British troops. The picture was of the panic, the people hit by bullets, and others crushed to death.

Stake my reputation? Akila winced. ‘Russian SVR intelligence is not my speciality,’ she said. ‘But ZAA I know. ZAA are not terrorists, and they don’t have the network to support an overseas operation. To work alone would require someone extraordinary. And I absolutely don’t get why Colonel Antipov is directly involved.’

‘For your ears only, Colonel Antipov and I have a long history of disagreement.’

I can’t tell my colleagues? ‘Noted,’ she said.

Winthrop stared at her with barely a flicker. ‘There’s a lead you might want to explore,’ he said. ‘His name is René DuPoitier. He’s a small-time refugee smuggler active in Lebanon and Syria. It must have brought him into contact with ZAA.’

More human tragedies. Akila nodded.

‘If ZAA intends to move against us, I want a way of taking them down rapidly. Look at their weaknesses and find an option I can offer the Foreign Secretary.’

He wants an entire network brought down, and just gives the name of one smuggler. Absurd! ‘I’ll look for a non-lethal method,’ she said.

Winthrop paused. ‘Non-lethal is good, provided it works.’

‘Should I ask Global Counter Terrorism for help?’ The SIS’s counter-terrorism department vastly outnumbered Winthrop’s.

‘Inform, don’t consult. For this matter, you’ll be reporting to me, not to your team lead.’

He’s bypassing the chain of command. Akila’s jaw moved up and down.

‘Where do you intend to start?’

‘I’ll look to see who René DuPoitier knows here, in the UK.’

Winthrop nodded slowly. ‘Akila, if by some chance, Counter Terrorism are pointing in the wrong direction, it’s going to be up to you to protect us. Don’t flinch.’