The Oktober Projekt (22 page)

‘Don’t be silly,’ she scolded, grinding the beans with a
no-nonsense routine that Nick guessed must have served her well with Gav. A
fire had been lit in a small grate and she made a fuss of adding logs while the
coffee filtered.

‘He shouldn’t be long now,’ she said, keeping her back away
from Nick. ‘Gavin’s problem is that he does get so absorbed in whatever he’s
doing.’

‘I know,’ Nick agreed, and Tessa glared at him as though he had
spoken out of turn.

‘Oh, known him long?’ She was standing by the fireplace arms
folded fully, on guard. ‘Except I don’t think he’s mentioned you?’

‘He wouldn’t.’

How much Tessa shared Nick’s reading of her husband was hard to
say. She gave a little trite smile not quite prepared to engage him any
further. So Nick drank his coffee in silence; a full ten minutes before a heavy
door slammed signalling the arrival of Gavin Rafford, one time friend and
officer in the Service.

‘How did you and Gavin meet?’ Tessa felt able to ask now,
certain that her husband was coming to the rescue.

‘We worked together, he saved my life,’ Gav answered, entering
the kitchen. ‘In the bad old days.’

Short of six foot and muscular he carried his weight forward as
though he’d need it in a hurry. His dark hair fastened in a ponytail knocked a
couple of years off his age; forty-two, and he dressed with no intention of
maturing, clad in jeans, boots and a heavy leather jacket. He hadn’t shaved for
two days and the dark growth deepened his heavy jaw, a roadie home from a
gruelling tour. Only the sluggishness in his right leg was never going to get
better and he dragged it after him as though it didn’t belong, giving him a
rolling gait. Nodding at Nick he helped himself to coffee, pouring without
finesse, his heavy hands too clumsy for Tessa’s precious cups.

‘Hello Gav.’

‘Can’t say I’m pleased to see you,’ said Gav, sipping his
coffee, the steam rising into his face. ‘I don’t know what you want, but say
your piece and leave.’

‘Angie’s dead, she was murdered.’
 

Tessa’s fingers plucked consolingly at a chain round her neck,
unsure who or where to look at. An ‘Oh God’ mouthed, an empty comic strip
bubble that floated up and away over her head.

‘Let’s talk,’ he said to Nick, then turning to Tessa, ‘Won’t be
long.’

‘Fine,’ she said, watching them go.

With Gav pounding ahead at a fast hobble, Nick followed him
into hallowed corridors stripped of their treasure; a chandelier by the great
staircase, a tapestry from the panelled hall, and a suite of armour from
outside his father’s study. They are selling the place piece by piece thought Nick,
the possessions of one generation becoming the salvation for the next, he
decided, as Gav directed him sharply into the study. His fingers to his lips,
Gav locked the door, stood a radio on the floor the volume turned three
quarters up; a throwback to the days when they improvised against the stealers
of sound.

‘Angie… that’s hard.’

‘I thought you might have heard, Gav, a team from Moscow
looking for me, but they found Angie instead.’

‘No… Christ.’

A deep scowl clouding his face, Gavin threw himself into a
broker’s chair its cushions knotted by tape to its spindles. Now Gavin’s
office, the room carried mementos of the school like lingering debts. A robust
chair for visitors, a bookcase gathering unopened letters and in one long group
photograph after another, the tiered ranks of boarders, their faces bleached by
passing summers joined by cobwebs into a forgotten strand of scattered
generations.

‘Whisky’s in the old man’s cabinet, use the malt, the other
stuff I save for prospective clients, the few that I get. If I’d have known,
I’d have sent flowers, a wreath,’ he said, his eyes watching Nick locate the
whisky.

‘I haven’t arranged the funeral yet.’

‘Course, just let me know.’

On top of the cabinet Nick came face to face with Gav’s father,
Josh Rafford in a Bakelite frame. A new man, one of C. P. Snow’s troubled
breed, a very civil servant. He poured for them both nothing extra, just neat
and long.

‘No one been in touch then?’ Nick asked, handing Gav a glass.

‘No…wouldn’t expect it after all these years, bit remote, not
on the District Line, are we. Cheers,’ he said toasting Nick.

‘Cheers. Suppose you are a bit cut-off,’ said Nick, taking a
seat in front of a solid wooden desk the whisky warming his throat.

‘How’s business?’ Nick started off gently, not wanting Gav to
bolt.

‘Terrible, health and safety, risk assessments and injury
lawyers almost wiped out adventure training,’ said Gavin, the old fieldman in
him avoiding playing straight into Nick’s hands.

‘Tessa seems nice.’

‘Tessa is good.’ Gavin had drained his glass and was up and
refilling. ‘Want another?’

‘I’ll pass.’

He poured a second glass for himself, neat again, nothing
allowed to impede the numbing effect. ‘A toast. Here’s to the bastards of this
world and the next.’

‘Sod them all.’

His glass seriously recharged for the third time, Gavin took
cover behind his desk. ‘Want to tell me the real reason for dragging yourself
all the way up here?’

‘A collection in Moscow was fouled up. I was a guest of the GRU
for a bit. Don’t suppose you heard about that either?’

‘Not a whisper,’ said Gavin, drinking too quickly.

‘I was tasked to make a collection from Lubov, remember him, do
you Gav?’

‘Vaguely,’ said Gavin, tapping his temple, ‘the old memory bank
is pretty low.’

‘They were waiting for us, Lubov and Foula were killed,’ said
Nick, pursuing the thread, ‘but Lubov had sent his material on ahead and the
tricky thing is that I need to locate it.’

‘Come on Nick, this is Gav you’re talking to, don’t insult me
with all this bullshit. You were never any good at waffle.’

Accepting Gav’s invitation Nick went straight to the point. ‘A
laptop,’ Nick began, ‘you wouldn’t know where I could find it?’
 

Gavin shrugged not committing himself one way or another.

‘You ran Lubov for several years, how was he?’

‘Bloody lifetime ago,’ added Gav.

Pressing on with his opening thrust, Nick continued: ‘Lubov
couldn’t have contacted you to arrange for a collection, so who did?’

Refusing to be drawn Gav stared into space making his mind up
which way he’d jump. Finally, draining his glass, he asked, ‘Is this official?’

‘Unofficial all the way,’ Nick admitted. ‘I’m in a spot of
bother actually, been accused of murdering a Lat.’

With a deep sigh, Gav signalled his decision to talk.

‘I heard, Jamie gave me a call,’ Gavin confessed.

‘And the laptop?’ asked Nick, wondering what else Gav had been
told.

‘Well I’ll keep it simple,’ promised Gavin. ‘Lubov was a proper
pain in the arse…’ he confessed, before suddenly breaking off. ‘Tessa… what do
you think of her, really, different to Grace eh?’

‘Totally,’ said Nick, ‘she know about Lithuania?’

 
‘Just that I got a
bullet in my leg working for Her Majesty a long time ago.’
  

Vilnius, Lithuania, a back street café Nick recalled; Gav and
Nick working without official cover, Gav laying out and baiting lines to
recruit new agents while Nick did the close handling and finalising deals. They
left in a hurry after Gav, waiting for Nick, got himself cornered by the local
security police, and if Nick hadn’t acted promptly, Gav would have bled to death.
‘Lubov and the laptop,’ Nick prompted him.

 
‘Jamie called up,
out of the blue, said our Chief wanted a favour. What Chief, I asked. I’m off
the payroll, or hadn’t he heard. Aubrey-Spencer, Jamie tells me, he’s got Jamie
back in harness and wants me buckled up beside him.’

‘How did Jamie sell it?’

Laughing, Gav said, ‘If I accepted, it might offer some closure
to Operation Windfall,’ Gavin winced at the name. ‘Jamie said it would be
nothing strenuous, a brush contact because we couldn’t use a dead drop as this
contact was flaky, couldn’t be relied on.’

‘But you accepted?’ asked Nick, sensing Gav’s unease, but he
pushed him along by adding, ‘and everything went to plan?’

‘She was scared totally out of her boots,’ Gav disclosed. ‘But
she held her nerve and I made the collection.’

‘Where’s the laptop now, Gav?’

‘Aubrey-Spencer has it,’ he sighed. ‘There, you’ve got the
lot,’ he smiled wanly.

But Nick had only just begun. ‘Operation Windfall, Gav, what
did you think Jamie meant by closure?’

‘My six weeks board and lodging care of the Latvian KGB goons.
Jamie got out by the skin of his teeth and Jane got to watch it all go down the
pan from Moscow didn’t she, poor sod. How is she, by the way, still delicious?’

‘Much the same,’ answered Nick.

‘I could never understand why she and…’

‘We weren’t really suited,’ said Nick, ‘I was an episode and
she moved on, different tastes. You were telling me about Latvia?’

‘Course I was,’ said Gavin, thinking he’d poured water on
Nick’s fire. ‘Jamie said he’d given you the background, so I’ll concentrate on
the fine stuff,’ Gav suggested, with an extensive sigh. ‘Teodors was some sort
of computer wizard who I’d plied with booze, softening him up. I praised his
genius to heaven and back, which is when he gives me a speck of gold dust
concerning this mythical facility in north Ossetia, some sort of fantastic
R&D place designed for technical espionage. He wasn’t a stooge, Nick, I
made sure before arranging our next meeting. He was well connected with some of
the Lat dissidents I knew, Andrejs Valgos and his little brother Juris for two,
so I knew there was a seventy-thirty chance he was for real.’

‘So Jamie cleared the way with London through Jane in Moscow,
did he?’

‘Why?’ Gav asked defensively.

‘Just getting some background facts in order,’ Nick replied.

‘Jane was on the up and up, even then,’ Gav admitted. ‘Jane had
taken over earlier than anticipated which I didn’t mind, she is a good deal
softer on the eyes than Roly.’

‘She is,’ Nick agreed. And there was one question that he
couldn’t avoid putting to Gavin. ‘When they picked you up in Latvia, Gav, how
did that seem?’

Gavin stared at Nick for a long time as though he’d never
considered the question before. ‘I’d barely got my toes in the water with
Teodors when they collared me in Riga,’ Gav disclosed, ‘Bang, I was busted,’ he
recalled, his eyes narrowing. ‘All too damn easily if you must know and I was
carted two-hundred kilometres off to Liepaja, on the west coast, to the cosy
little naval prison of Karosta.’ Gavin shuddered, not wanting to think about
it.

But Nick couldn’t have the luxury of ignorance nor denial. ‘You
were also working the Minotaur network at that time, weren’t you, when it was
blown along with the American’s Driftwood network? I need it all, Gav, I really
do.’

 
‘Knew I was in a
port by the smell, sea and smoked fish. And then inside the gates they took off
the blindfold and bundled me out. Know the first thing they showed me?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

‘Three wooden upright posts for the poor sods they executed by
firing squad and they let me know they’d be using them pretty soon. The place
had a red brick exterior but everything in it was covered in thick black paint,
walls, ceilings, the hearts and minds of the guards, the lot, all daubed in
black.’

‘Is that where they took the Minotaur and Driftwood agents and
your prospective agent, Teodors?’ Nick asked. ‘Talk to any of them at any
time?’

‘Sure I did,’ retorted Gav with contempt. ‘Used to swap yarns
all the time between the screams, just like an 18-30 Club trip to Faliraki,’ he
snapped.

Backing off, Nick offered Gav a less painful route to follow.
‘Did they expect to pick you up, Gav, or were you the bonus?’

‘Bloody hell, Nick, never seen anything like it, number one
guest wasn’t I. They had a file all ready and waiting for me. Not the local
goons either, special detachment from Moscow had come in just for us.’

‘You certain?’ Nick asked, realising that his own interrogation
had followed the very same pattern.

‘Of course I’m certain,’ countered Gavin, ‘they were KGB and
GRU from Moscow, the pros. After I’d done my fairy tale for the day they’d get
straight onto the questioning, well, that was something else. Had a neat old
dentists chair they strapped you in, big lights overhead… and…,’ but Gavin
shied away from completing his sentence.

‘What did they want to know?’

‘What didn’t they,’ snorted Gav. ‘Tell us what you know about
north Ossetia? Tell us what you know about the Driftwood network, the Minotaur
network?’

‘Did you give them anything?’

Gav shrugged. ‘Bullshit to begin with, least I could, getting
names and places mixed up. But they just laughed, told me to stop being silly,
I was only making things worse for myself. Then they started on the executions,
two a day, regular as clockwork. Then I got my trial, all for show, lasted a
good five minutes before they packed me off to the camp.’

‘And the camp was…’

‘Hard bloody labour, Nick, but boy, was I glad to get away from
that place and those screams.’

‘And they questioned you after the move from the prison?’

‘Once a week, snow, rain or shine. Who did I report to, did I
know this name, that name, who ran this, are you sure this was the postman, the
cut-out, the handler? Then they’d always come back to north Ossetia, how much
did London actually know, did any material go there direct?’

‘They knew their stuff,’ said Nick, speculating, though it is
never a guaranteed formula, just why Moscow were so concerned that anything
relating to the Oktober Projekt might have gone direct to London?

‘Too bloody much of it,’ retorted Gavin, looking at Nick as
though he’d just made his own connection, a long lost discovery. A shotgun
retorted in the woods and Gavin flinched. Through the window Nick saw starlings
dotted on a telephone wire like beads on a rosary lift off together in a swirl
as the shotgun blasted away again.