Assassin (John Stratton) (12 page)

And the messenger asked for a proof-of-life question to which only Chandos would know the answer and who had supposedly told them. Stratton asked himself why he would actually want to get involved in any of this. Much as he had admired Chandos, he didn’t want to risk his own life for something that was of great importance to his former boss but not him.

He looked out across the Thames. The river had turned dark-grey, reflecting the clouds that were gathering. To walk away and show no interest in the cause of Chandos’s death was not something he could easily do. He wondered if there was anyone he could confide in. Hand it over to. There would be an investigation into Chandos’s death. Stratton was not an investigator. Furthermore, if the assassin was real, then Stratton would be well out of his depth. As indeed Chandos had been.

He couldn’t think of anyone he personally knew and could trust who was qualified enough to investigate the incident. And even if he could have, he’d precious little to hand over to them anyway. He wondered who this Bullfrog
character was. If Chandos died as a result of what he knew, why was Bullfrog still alive? He apparently knew the same things. Whoever killed Chandos possibly didn’t know about Bullfrog. Despite himself, Stratton was intrigued by it all.

But not quite enough to get involved. He deleted the emails and the Z-Crypt file and password and ensured there were no further traces of them. He opened the saved addresses file. In it was Bullfrog’s. It was the only way he could reply to the curious individual. His finger hovered over the
DELETE
key.

He couldn’t push down the key.

He started to close the laptop but was unable to do that either. He couldn’t turn his back on Chandos. Not as coldly as that. He had to find out more at least. Once he had all the available information he could decide what to do. He owed Chandos that much. Meeting with this Bullfrog character wouldn’t commit him to anything. If Bullfrog wasn’t a target of those who had killed Chandos, Stratton could expect a meeting between them to be safe. There were holes in the logic. But then he could hypothesise all day.

He initiated an email addressed to Bullfrog.
CHANDOS COMPLAINED I WAS A SCRUFFY BASTARD ON THE PARADE GROUND.

He sent it, got to his feet and walked to the window. He tried to remember what it was he had been thinking about prior to the email. It came to him. His vacation. An idyllic Mediterranean fishing village. A pretty girl beside him. The image was becoming blurred, though. Interference from his sudden sense of obligation.

His laptop beeped again.

He walked over and looked at the screen. Another encrypted attachment. The message said, same password. He sat down and opened the file through his secure memory stick.

THE CHESTERFIELD HOTEL. MAYFAIR. 1400. AT RECEPTION YOU WILL USE THE NAME MR BOUYANC AND ASK FOR A KEY TO YOUR ROOM
.

There was no date. That meant today. Stratton looked at his watch. It was almost midday. This Bullfrog was keen. That suited him – he was due to return to Poole that evening. He could get the meeting out of the way and be home for the evening. With luck he could be packing a bag that night and heading for an airport to somewhere the following day.

Think positively, he told himself. He couldn’t get involved in anything to do with whatever Chandos was into. That was pretty obvious. But he still couldn’t accurately recall the image he’d had of the idyllic Mediterranean village.

Stratton took the Underground into the centre of the city and got off at Hyde Park Corner. He walked past Wellington’s old house and along Park Lane in the direction of the Dorchester Hotel. Before he reached it, he turned into the backstreets of Mayfair. A few blocks later he arrived at the Chesterfield Hotel. It was a tastefully appointed Victorian structure with an attractive frontage.

He walked into the lobby and to the reception desk. A portly lady in a smart uniform jacket looked up at him from her paperwork. Her professional expression hinted at a smile – she asked how she could be of help.

‘Mr Buoyanc,’ he said. ‘I’d like a key to my room, please.’

She checked her register and then took a key card from a box, programmed it in a machine and handed it to him. He looked at it. There was no indication of the room number. He looked at her.

She seemed unsure why. ‘Room twenty-seven,’ she said, hoping that was the answer to his look.

‘Yes,’ he replied, as if it hadn’t been the reason he’d glanced at her. ‘Thanks.’

He made his way through a sitting room towards the elevators. Before he reached them he stopped, turned around and looked back at the entrance. He had instinctively carried out a fundamental anti-surveillance procedure intended to reveal if anyone was behind him.

There were four people in his immediate view. He discounted three quickly as potential monitors: one was sitting in a chair sipping a cup of tea, a pot and several sandwiches on a small table in front of her – she would have had to know he was coming. Another was a doorman entering the hotel with a suitcase – that would have to have been planned too, and way ahead of his visit. The other was a waiter passing through the sitting room – as before, implausible. The fourth person was a man who had just walked into the hotel – a possibility. The man was walking directly to the reception desk without as much as a glance in Stratton’s direction. He spoke briefly to the receptionist, who handed him an envelope. At that moment the man looked towards a lady coming out of the restaurant, beamed a smile. They embraced lovingly and went into the restaurant together.

Stratton wasn’t sure why he had carried out the drill. It was the sort of thing he did automatically on operations, but in his head he was practically in rest mode. Or at least trying to be. It was evidence, if he needed it, that he was starting to get edgy about the whole thing.

He walked into an open elevator and pushed the button. The doors closed and a few moments later opened on the second floor and he stepped into a plush corridor, which
was quiet and empty. The thick-pile carpeting silenced his footsteps as he walked along it.

He arrived at room twenty-seven and placed the key card in the slot. A small green light flickered and he pushed down the handle, opening the door.

He remained in the doorway at first, half-expecting someone to be in the room. The instructions had been brief. Then he stepped inside, closed the door and remained where he was as he surveyed the room. It was expensively furnished in an antique style. A bed, desk, armchair, television. But no person. No Bullfrog.

Everything had been so precise. The coding, the timings, the key waiting for him. He told himself to be patient, the meeting would happen. He walked into the room and sat in the armchair, waiting in silence. The place was really quiet, the passing vehicles outside near silent.

He checked his watch. Bullfrog was six minutes late. He asked himself how long he would give it before leaving. Ten more minutes would be good enough, he decided. A sound came from the far corner of the room. A click. His eyes shot to a door near the window. It must lead to an adjoining room. Another click. It was being unlocked from the other side.

The handle turned and the door began to open. A figure stepped into the room – a woman wearing a formal business jacket and matching skirt. She looked to be in her fifties, hair short and red. She wore a little too much make-up. Stratton suspected she would have been attractive in her younger days.

She smiled slightly. It broadened her narrow face. Her mouth was big. She looked intelligent but tired.

‘John Stratton,’ she said, taking a step into the room and remaining there, keeping the adjoining door open.

He got to his feet and crossed over to her, offering his hand. ‘That’s right,’ he said. She didn’t appear remotely threatening. In fact she had a pleasant, welcoming look about her.

‘I’ve heard a lot about you for many years,’ she said, taking his hand. She held his fingers lightly for a few seconds without shaking them. ‘It’s a pleasure finally to meet you.’

She had a strong Russian accent, but otherwise her English sounded perfect. Stratton said nothing else. He was waiting for a name, her codename in particular, or proof that she had sent the email.

‘I’m Bullfrog,’ she said. ‘A nickname. A private codename from Berry.’ She pronounced his name softly. As if the taste of the word invoked fond memories.

‘You knew him? I mean, personally?’ Stratton asked.

‘Yes. Will you come next door please?’

She walked back through the adjoining door and Stratton followed, closing the door behind him. The room smelled of fresh cigarette smoke. She waited for him to move out of the way before locking the door.

‘These rooms are used for private meetings,’ she said. ‘The room you were in is for examination. Once the attendees have been swept and examined for any kind of recording or monitoring device, they come in here. There
are no monitoring devices of any kind in this room. The sensors indicated you have a phone on you.’

‘Yes,’ he said, taking it out of his pocket.

‘Remove the battery please.’

Stratton did so and placed it on the dresser.

‘You have no transmitting devices on you, but it’s very difficult to detect electronic passive recording devices that can be downloaded afterwards. You have three coins in your breast pocket.’

He removed his wallet from inside his jacket and opened it to reveal the money.

She took the coins and dropped them into a glass of water.

‘It’s not you I don’t trust, Mr Stratton. Someone could have placed them on you to retrieve them later. Your watch please.’

He removed his watch. She took it and held it over the glass. ‘I take it your watch is waterproof,’ she said with a thin smile.

He nodded. She put it in the glass, which she then covered with what appeared to be a tea cosy. A sound-proofer.

‘Please sit down,’ she said.

He sat in the armchair, taking a quick look around. The room was just like the other one.

‘Would you like a drink? Some water?’

‘No thanks.’

She remained standing, took a cigarette from a pack and a lighter off the table. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘No.’

She lit the cigarette and stood at the window as if contemplating what she was going to say. ‘I work for the FSB,’ she began. ‘Berry suggested I tell you a little of my past and how he and I met. Is that of interest to you?’

‘Very much,’ Stratton said. He wondered if she might shine some light on Chandos’s lost years after he left the Service.

‘I started my service life in the Army and a few years later I joined the Spetsnaz. You’ve worked with them, I understand.’

‘I wouldn’t exactly say
with
them,’ Stratton said.

‘Of course.’ She smiled. ‘I was one of the handful of female operatives in my division at that time. I did a lot of surveillance work. Mostly in Moscow. Have you been there?’

‘Once or twice,’ he said.

‘It was interesting in those days,’ she said. ‘In particular the relationships we had with the Americans. Some of those relationships among the senior members of both countries were truly special. Many people remained close after the Berlin wall came down. When that happened, a number of powerful KGB men moved into the private sector. It wasn’t that they didn’t approve of the new capitalist order. Or of the FSB. On the contrary. Most of them thoroughly embraced all of the changes. Why shouldn’t they? With Russia turning to capitalism, there was much more wealth – and power – to be had in the private sector.

‘I first met Berry Chandos in a hotel bar in the city
not long after the wall came down,’ she went on. ‘By then I was an apprentice handler in the FSB.’ She paused as if waiting for Stratton to contradict her, but he didn’t move. ‘It wasn’t a set-up. It was natural. We didn’t know anything about each other. I allowed myself to be consumed by him.

‘But I had to report the relationship. The usual investigations were made. When I read his profile I was not too surprised to discover he was MI6. The next time we met I confronted him. I told him I was a member of the FSB. He had not known. He had not yet reported me as he was supposed to. He was still much more of a soldier than he was an agent. A risk-taker. To my surprise my boss allowed me to continue seeing him. Perhaps he thought I might recruit Berry.

‘You must wonder why I am telling you this. Well, the beginning of the end came unexpectedly for us. And only a short time ago. I stumbled on a conspiracy. Quite by accident. It involved two men, one of them American, the other Russian. The American was a former member of the National Security Agency. He had been an advisor to three US presidents. The Russian had been a general in the KGB. They were both wealthy, powerful men who wanted even more wealth and more power.’

Stratton sat still, listening carefully.

‘When you find a conspiracy of such magnitude,’ she went on, ‘among people like that, it is not a simple thing to expose. Something terrible will certainly happen to you within a short time of revealing your knowledge to the
wrong person. But I trusted Berry. Strange perhaps that the only person I could tell was from the other side.’

She paused a moment, as if to collect her thoughts accurately. Stratton did nothing to distract her.

‘I was servicing a meeting room in Paris,’ she said. ‘A small hotel in Concorde. Two rooms together just like these. A cleansing room with an adjoining meeting room. As I was leaving the cleansing room by the connecting door, I heard the front door unlock. I quickly closed the adjoining door behind me. I was not seen. I thought it was the hotel cleaner perhaps or some other member of staff. The meeting room had not been booked and so no one was officially expected.

‘I turned on the monitoring system to see who it was. To my surprise, it was not hotel staff but two men in suits. I knew them both by reputation only. My immediate thought, before anything else, was that I had not logged into the room prior to servicing it. An oversight on my part. I should have done so. The men would have checked the log. They thought the room was empty. It was the safest place in Paris for them to talk. Because they had something extremely serious to talk about.