other rule, Richter. Why should I expect you to obey this one?’ Simpson rang off. Richter grinned, snapped the phone shut, and glanced over at the
passenger seat, where the brown paper wrapping of the package still gaped open. He started the engine, checked his mirrors and accelerated away, heading for the Italian border.
Chapter Six
Wednesday
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi Headquarters, Yasenevo, Tëplyystan, Moscow
The call reached Raya Kosov a little after four in the afternoon. Normally calls originating through the civilian telephone system were rejected by the Yasenevo
switchboard, but this caller had not only known Raya Kosov’s name but her extension number, so it was put through after the operator had checked with the internal security section and
switched on the tape-recorder. Raya had been expecting it, expecting it for a long time, but it still gave her quite a shock.
The caller identified herself unnecessarily because Raya had known her since childhood, and her message contained all the code phrases they had arranged between them nearly five years
earlier.
‘Hello, Raya, it’s Valentina. I’ve got some very bad news, I’m afraid. Your mother’s very sick again, and she’ll have to go back into hospital, perhaps for
the last time. I know you’re very busy, but if you could possibly get away for just a few days and come and visit her it would mean the world to her. You know how much she misses
you.’
‘Oh, Valentina,’ Raya replied, her voice suddenly choking with emotion, and it was some seconds before she could form another sentence. She swallowed and tried again.
‘Valentina, I’m so sorry to hear that. Look, tell Mama I will try to get some time off. I’ll call you about it tonight.’
‘Thank you, Raya. It would mean so much to her.’
‘Goodbye, Valentina.’ Raya waited until she’d put the phone down before she gave way to tears.
A perfectly innocuous, if sad, exchange which the internal-security section played back almost immediately. After confirming that the call had originated in Minsk, where officer Kosov’s
elderly mother was known to live, the duty security officer transcribed the call, logging its date and time and the originating number, but took no further action.
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Headquarters, Vauxhall Cross, London
Gerald Stanway sat at his desk, staring at his computer screen, but his mind was miles away. The briefing that Holbeche had given the previous afternoon had stunned and
worried him. Worse, it had frightened him, and he’d suffered a sleepless night because of it.
What was worrying him most was the story about the clerk. It sounded too pat, too convenient, that this unnamed man should have reappeared in Vienna – the town itself was almost a
spy-fiction cliché, for God’s sake – with some kind of information that might directly implicate him. For Stanway had no doubt at all that, if this clerk really did exist, he
– Stanway – was the ‘leak that could be identified’, as that bumbling old fool Holbeche had put it.
Gerald Stanway had been guilty of passing classified information to anyone who was prepared to pay for it – the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Iranians and, even for one brief period, the IRA;
though his principal customer had always been Russia – and he had been doing so for the past dozen years. He regarded himself as a businessman selling a commodity – in this case
information – that was in high demand. He had neither morals nor scruples about what he was doing, regarding his employment by the SIS as nothing more than a convenient and unrivalled source
of information.
Two months earlier, he’d managed to gain access to the London Data Centre’s System-Three computer system, which had greatly increased the scope and reach, and potential profit, of
his activities. He’d already provided his Russian controller with numerous files that he’d managed to copy from the system, and had finally
passenger seat, where the brown paper wrapping of the package still gaped open. He started the engine, checked his mirrors and accelerated away, heading for the Italian border.
Chapter Six
Wednesday
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi Headquarters, Yasenevo, Tëplyystan, Moscow
The call reached Raya Kosov a little after four in the afternoon. Normally calls originating through the civilian telephone system were rejected by the Yasenevo
switchboard, but this caller had not only known Raya Kosov’s name but her extension number, so it was put through after the operator had checked with the internal security section and
switched on the tape-recorder. Raya had been expecting it, expecting it for a long time, but it still gave her quite a shock.
The caller identified herself unnecessarily because Raya had known her since childhood, and her message contained all the code phrases they had arranged between them nearly five years
earlier.
‘Hello, Raya, it’s Valentina. I’ve got some very bad news, I’m afraid. Your mother’s very sick again, and she’ll have to go back into hospital, perhaps for
the last time. I know you’re very busy, but if you could possibly get away for just a few days and come and visit her it would mean the world to her. You know how much she misses
you.’
‘Oh, Valentina,’ Raya replied, her voice suddenly choking with emotion, and it was some seconds before she could form another sentence. She swallowed and tried again.
‘Valentina, I’m so sorry to hear that. Look, tell Mama I will try to get some time off. I’ll call you about it tonight.’
‘Thank you, Raya. It would mean so much to her.’
‘Goodbye, Valentina.’ Raya waited until she’d put the phone down before she gave way to tears.
A perfectly innocuous, if sad, exchange which the internal-security section played back almost immediately. After confirming that the call had originated in Minsk, where officer Kosov’s
elderly mother was known to live, the duty security officer transcribed the call, logging its date and time and the originating number, but took no further action.
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Headquarters, Vauxhall Cross, London
Gerald Stanway sat at his desk, staring at his computer screen, but his mind was miles away. The briefing that Holbeche had given the previous afternoon had stunned and
worried him. Worse, it had frightened him, and he’d suffered a sleepless night because of it.
What was worrying him most was the story about the clerk. It sounded too pat, too convenient, that this unnamed man should have reappeared in Vienna – the town itself was almost a
spy-fiction cliché, for God’s sake – with some kind of information that might directly implicate him. For Stanway had no doubt at all that, if this clerk really did exist, he
– Stanway – was the ‘leak that could be identified’, as that bumbling old fool Holbeche had put it.
Gerald Stanway had been guilty of passing classified information to anyone who was prepared to pay for it – the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Iranians and, even for one brief period, the IRA;
though his principal customer had always been Russia – and he had been doing so for the past dozen years. He regarded himself as a businessman selling a commodity – in this case
information – that was in high demand. He had neither morals nor scruples about what he was doing, regarding his employment by the SIS as nothing more than a convenient and unrivalled source
of information.
Two months earlier, he’d managed to gain access to the London Data Centre’s System-Three computer system, which had greatly increased the scope and reach, and potential profit, of
his activities. He’d already provided his Russian controller with numerous files that he’d managed to copy from the system, and had finally
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