Betrayal (41 page)

The flight from Chechnya to the Russian capital had lasted scarcely more than four hours – a short hop compared to the transatlantic flight from DC. For him it had felt like a lifetime, not helped by the tense, brooding silence between himself and Mason. Miranova had been quick to pick up on it, but wise enough not to press either man on the source of their disagreement.

‘What’s the set-up?’ Drake asked as they strode through the arrivals area, doing his best to get his head back in the game.

There was no messing around with passports or immigration control here. This was the FSB’s home turf, and Miranova had seen to it that they passed straight through airport security with little more than a wave of her badge. Tourists and stressed-out businessmen waiting in long lines watched them with a mixture of suspicion and envy.

‘We report to FSB headquarters at Lubyanka for our final briefing, then deploy at the rendezvous site and wait for Kalyuyev,’ she explained. ‘Our field teams have him under surveillance. The moment he makes a move, we will know.’

‘How long do we have?’

She glanced at her watch. ‘Just over three hours.’

Three hours, Drake thought. He couldn’t help wondering what Anya was doing at that moment, how she was preparing herself for the rendezvous. He didn’t imagine she was nervous or frightened. He couldn’t envisage her ever feeling such emotions.

But then, she didn’t know what was waiting for her.

No sooner had they reached the main concourse than a man in a suit and heavy overcoat strode over from a nearby seating area. Straight away Drake knew two things – he was FSB, and he was here to deliver bad news.

He was a thoroughly average man, neither tall nor short, neither slender nor overweight. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with greying brown hair of medium length, side parted, and a neatly trimmed grey beard that somehow made him look like a living propaganda picture of the Revolution. His face, craggy and gaunt, was lined and hardened in the way that comes from living life that’s neither short nor easy.

He shook hands with Miranova, ignoring her two companions for now.

‘Agent Miranova,’ he began, his voice deep but smooth, in stark contrast to his rugged appearance. He spoke English, probably for Drake’s benefit. ‘My name is Alexei Kamarov, Internal Security Directorate.’

That was enough to grab the attention of both Drake and Miranova. The Internal Security Directorate was an elite subunit of the FSB, effectively acting as a special police force within the vast organisation. Each applicant had to be personally approved by the director himself, and they were only deployed in the most critical of situations.

‘I’m here to take over operational command of this investigation.’

Miranova’s face paled visibly at this. She had requested an assault team to help with the takedown, not a new agent to head up the entire operation.

‘There must be some mistake, Kamarov,’ she protested. ‘This is my operation.’

‘Not any more.’ Reaching into his overcoat, he handed her a printed document. ‘Orders from Director Surovsky. He’s no longer confident you have the necessary … expertise for this. My team is taking over, effective immediately.’

Drake met Miranova’s gaze, seeing the disbelief at this sudden switch in command structure. She was being sidelined, brushed aside and replaced with someone more reliable. Why this change had happened mere hours before a crucial operation, he had no idea.

‘So why did we fly all this way?’ Drake asked, making no effort to hide his frustration. ‘What do you expect us to do now?’

Kamarov’s piercing gaze switched to him. ‘You must be—’

‘Tired and in no mood for power plays,’ Drake said before he could stop himself. ‘We had a deal with Surovsky. This was a joint investigation.’

‘And so it is. You will remain part of the investigation until this matter is concluded, Agent Drake,’ Kamarov said. It might have been seen as a conciliatory gesture, but his eyes told a different story. ‘But make no mistake, we’re in command here. The woman from Grozny is responsible for the deaths of two of our senior commanders – she will answer for this.’

Neither Drake nor Miranova said anything.

‘Will this be a problem, Agent Miranova?’

‘No, of course not.’ Her expression, however, told a different story.

The older man nodded, the matter apparently decided. Not that there had been much to decide, Drake thought.

‘Good. Then I suggest we get moving.’

The automatic doors opened ahead of them. Emerging into a world of blue skies and crisp white snow, they found themselves confronted by a pair of big silver BMW 3-Series saloons, gleaming and immaculate in the winter sun. The vehicles were a stark contrast to the yellow Lada taxis that littered the road.

‘Get in,’ Kamarov said, gesturing to the lead vehicle. ‘Time is short.’

More than any other city on earth, the changing social and political winds of the past few centuries had left their mark on Moscow. Medieval churches and castles sat side by side with industrial factories, wide boulevards flanked by towering buildings of Stalinist architecture, blocks of high-rise concrete flats from the sixties and seventies, and ultra-modern steel-and-glass office and hotel complexes.

And everywhere there was evidence of Russia’s new-found economic resurgence.

Bentleys, Mercs, Aston Martins … everywhere Drake looked there were expensive luxury cars being driven by thick-necked bodyguards, ferrying rich men and beautiful young women to the Bolshoi or wherever the well-to-do hung out in Moscow.

New skyscrapers, hotels, shopping centres and office blocks were flying up everywhere. Construction cranes, gantries and steel frames were visible from almost every street. Whoever had been smart enough to buy up property in Moscow after the Soviet Union fell apart must have been laughing all the way to the bank now.

The city’s road system was designed like the spokes of a wheel, with motorways radiating outwards in all directions and a concentric series of ring roads circling the Kremlin – the spiritual and literal heart of the city. Their course south-east from the airport took them more or less right past the walls of the ancient fortress.

When they stopped for a moment at the intersection of Tverskaya and Okhotny, Drake was just able to make out the vast sweep of Red Square backed by the Kremlin’s towering outer walls. The place was packed with tourists, most of them in big coach groups with guides busy spouting off about the history of the place. Others were milling around Lenin’s Mausoleum, probably annoyed that they had missed the brief period each day when it opened its doors to the public.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Miranova remarked.

Drake didn’t reply. Thirty years ago this would have been considered the enemy’s back yard, and here he was about to walk through their front door.

After fighting its way through traffic for another fifteen minutes, the big BMW at last rumbled to a halt at Lubyanka Square, the headquarters of the Federal Security Bureau.

One thing Drake had to commend the Russians on – when it came to government offices, they really knew how to do things with flair. A massive, rectangular, yellow-bricked building fashioned in the neo-baroque style, it dominated a vast cobbled square the size of several football pitches.

Now more than a century old, it had started life as the headquarters of an insurance company of all things. After the Revolution, the Bolsheviks had taken a liking to it and requisitioned it as the headquarters of the Cheka, the secret police back in the day. Since then it had been occupied by the NKVD, the KGB and most recently the FSB.

The name of its owners might have changed over the years, but its basic purpose hadn’t. Countless political dissidents, criminals and plain unlucky civilians had disappeared into its warren of underground cells and interrogation rooms, most of them ending up dead or deported to a gulag, never to return. There was even an old joke, told with typically grim Russian humour, about Lubyanka being the tallest building in Russia because you could see Siberia from its basement.

Drake, however, soon found himself in a far more welcoming part of the building as he exited the official car and made his way in through the main entrance. The decor was lavish and sophisticated, reminding him more of a museum or art gallery than a working office complex. He was particularly impressed by the gigantic mural stretching across the tiled floor, depicting the FSB’s emblem of a two-headed eagle backed by a sword and shield.

Another agent was waiting to receive them, and exchanged a few hushed words with Miranova as they hurried over to a bank of elevators at the rear of the lobby. Stony-faced security guards with automatic weapons watched them every step of the way.

Arriving at the nearest elevator, Kamarov hit the call button, and a few seconds later the doors slid open with barely a sound.

‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ Mason remarked as they whirred their way up. Beyond the elevator’s glass walls, the inner courtyard of the building stretched out beneath them.

These days it held nothing more interesting than storage warehouses and a couple of delivery trucks, but back in Stalin’s day it had been the site of almost daily executions. To cover up the sound of gunshots, car engines had been run and allowed to backfire.

The female FSB agent nodded agreement. ‘Lubyanka has a long history, a long memory. Like Russia herself.’

Kamarov said nothing to this, and it was hard to tell what was going on behind the craggy, impassive mask of his face.

A few minutes later all four of them, along with several other FSB field agents who would be on site during the operation, were gathered in one of the building’s richly furnished meeting rooms.

In appearance, it was a strange combination of nineteenth-century grandeur and twenty-first-century high technology. Lofty ceilings and elaborately carved cornices stood in marked contrast to the sleek computers and telephone units set up on the long antique wooden table running down the centre of the room.

The view from the third-floor windows was spectacular, with what looked like the whole of Moscow stretching out before him like a model, afternoon sun glinting on glass and concrete. About a mile away, he could make out the towering spires of St Basil’s Cathedral and the ancient red-brick walls of the Kremlin.

Kamarov kicked the briefing off without preamble.

‘Kalyuyev’s rendezvous is scheduled to happen here, on Poklonnaya Hill,’ he began, indicating a map of the monument complex pinned to the whiteboard behind him. ‘According to our phone intercepts, his contact has requested to meet at the base of the obelisk in the centre of the complex. We will deploy to intercept once they make contact with him.’

He paused a moment to survey the agents gathered around the table. ‘Our on-site task force will be divided into two teams – Anna and Boris.’

Drake nodded understanding. The Russians used a different writing system and therefore a different phonetic alphabet from that of their Western counterparts. It took a little getting used to, but the principle was the same. In any case, Drake had heard all sorts of weird and wonderful radio call signs over the years.

‘We will also have an armed tactical team on standby in the parking lot to the north. They will move in only on my orders. Is this clear?’

On the whiteboard beside the map was a printed image of Anya, lifted from the surveillance footage of the Grozny attack.

‘Our primary target is this woman,’ Kamarov went on. ‘She is likely to be armed and should be considered extremely dangerous. Take a good look at her because you will see many faces on the hill this morning, and I don’t want any false positives. She may have altered her appearances so don’t rely on any one aspect to identify her. We have one chance to take her down – if we fail, we may lose her for ever.’

Despite its dramatic backdrop, Drake was beginning to understand the very practical basis for choosing Poklonnaya Hill as a meeting point. It was a popular tourist destination, with lots of people coming and going and therefore many potential targets to keep track of. And of course, any hill naturally favoured the defender if the meeting turned into a shooting match. Always the soldier, Anya had chosen her field of battle well.

None of it was likely to help her, though. Not against the forces arrayed in this room.

Kamarov turned his attention back to the map and gestured to a group of buildings to the south-west of the hill. ‘Our spotter team, call sign Olga, will set up here. There is a telecommunications mast here that should provide a perfect field of fire over most of the hill.’

‘Nobody said anything about snipers,’ Drake interrupted, rising from his seat. ‘I thought our objective was to capture the target alive?’

Kamarov was smart enough to keep his expression carefully neutral. ‘And so it is, Agent Drake. But as your friends at Langley are fond of saying, I prefer to keep my bases covered. We don’t know what kind of force she may bring with her. She may even have snipers of her own in the area.’

Drake glanced at the map again, seeking a counter-argument. ‘That tower’s got to be almost a mile from the hill,’ he said, making a rough estimate based on the scale. ‘You’d be lucky to hit a barn door from that range. And you said yourself there’ll be civilians everywhere.’

‘My men are good shots,’ Kamarov assured him tersely.

I bet they are, Drake thought. Kamarov’s sudden arrival at such a crucial stage in the investigation, his seemingly unlimited authority that came straight from Surovsky himself, and his fixation on taking down Anya, made it obvious he hadn’t been sent here just to assume control of a failing investigation.

Kamarov was part of a kill team.

‘I think Agent Drake has a point,’ Miranova said, jumping into the discussion before it turned into something more serious. ‘Even the best sniper in the world would struggle to make an accurate kill from that range. The risk of collateral damage would be high.’

‘Then let’s hope we don’t have to use it,’ Kamarov remarked, before turning his attention to the wider gathering. ‘With so many eyes on the hill, there is no way she can approach Kalyuyev unseen. Once we have a confirmed sighting, Anna and Boris will move in to surround her and take her down. All other actions are at my discretion. Questions?’