The Blind Spy (25 page)

‘And who’s she registered to now?’ Burt asked.

‘She was originally registered – when she left Novorossiysk – to a shell company in the British Virgin Islands. We traced the account numbers of this company’s bank to the BVI and then beyond. We think we have a match to a brass plate company in Omsk, Russia. Now, however, she’s registered to another company in the BVI which we’ve traced to another, brass plate company, this time in Cyprus.’

‘Who are the beneficiaries?’

‘We’re pretty certain they’re also Russian,’ Archie chipped in for the first time – as if they were nearing the kill. It filled the dramatic pause Theo had left while gearing himself up to reply and the CIA chief looked momentarily peeved. ‘It would certainly make sense,’ Archie added.

‘Ah. Yes, Archie, it would certainly make sense,’ Burt said.

‘The name of the new, Cyprus company is Fennerman International,’ Theo said. ‘Telephone number, box address. Nothing there. But behind this shadow company in Cyprus there’s yet another company, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and behind
that
company there’s a further company in Cyprus.’

‘The mother ship,’ Burt says. ‘So who’s behind that?’

‘Work in progress,’ Archie said eagerly.

‘But you’re satisfied that this company in Cyprus – the second one – is the end of the line?’ Burt asked.

‘Most likely. Ultimate beneficiary is, again, a company registered in Omsk, Russia.’

‘Same one as before, or different?’ Burt said.

‘Different, but at the same address in a run-down warehouse building on the edge of town. We’ve had people take a look at it. It’s empty but for a few hundred boxes of cigarettes.’

Omsk, Russia. Burt wished Theo wouldn’t keep insisting on giving them a geography class. More of the same kind of reportfiller, he thought, rather than useful information.

‘Beneficiaries,’ Adrian said. ‘What are the names behind the company?’

‘Don’t know that yet, Adrian,’ Theo replied.

‘So. She docks in Tripoli – Libya,’ Burt added in deliberate imitation of Theo’s style, ‘and then picks up another cargo there,’ he said.

‘Right, Burt. But this is the important thing,’ Theo replied. ‘She isn’t what you’d call laden coming out of Tripoli, if you know what I mean. Whatever she picks up there has no effect on her waterline.’

‘So how do you know she took anything on?’ Burt said.

‘Our teams have pictures,’ Adrian said, and Archie brought them to the surface of the paperwork on the table. ‘Wooden boxes, three in all,’ Archie said. There were pictures of large wooden crates, big enough to hold two men, and well insulated by the look of them. They were being lifted on to the deck and then dropped down into a hold out of sight.

‘Something small and valuable, then,’ Burt said.

‘We think so.’

‘And then there are the bodyguards,’ Adrian chipped in. ‘What are they there for?’

‘What indeed?’ Burt said. ‘So, Theo, what then?’

‘She returns by a roundabout route back eastwards again, across the Med. Docks in Piraeus first of all, then at Tartous on the Syrian coast. Then she turns north to the Bosphorus again, enters the straits …’

‘And is now?’ Burt interrupted.

‘Our teams have her pinpointed at Lat 44.53 Long 32.65,’ Adrian replied crossly.

‘Around fifty miles off the coast of the Crimea,’ Burt said, to both Theo’s and Adrian’s astonishment.

‘I didn’t know you were so familiar with the Black Sea,’ Theo said. ‘Or with the exact co-ordinates in the area, for that matter. You didn’t know all this all along, did you, Burt? I haven’t been wasting my time?’

‘No, Theo. Just what you and Adrian have told me.’

It didn’t look like either of them believed him.

‘So what’s the thesis?’ he pressed on.

‘That’s what we now need to pursue,’ Theo replied.

Burt thought for some moments. Then he walked away from the table so he could get the maps and pictures and names and numbers out of his head, and think. Finally he turned around.

‘Kind of an obvious trail, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Not at all, Burt,’ Theo replied primly. ‘It’s just that we have the capabilities to follow it. Simple as that. We’ve got every smart device known to man trained on this ship. Plus the British teams,’ he nodded in Adrian’s direction. ‘Celebrate our ingenuity, Burt, don’t cast suspicion on it.’

So that was it. We’re cleverer than they are, Burt thought. We’re smarter than the Russians. Somehow he doubted that. Nevertheless, what the
Forburg
or
Yekaterinburg
– or now the
Pride of Corsica
– was actually doing was as obscure to him as to the other two men.

‘What’s your take, Adrian?’ he asked.

‘The ship picked up something in Libya. Something small, something valuable and, most likely, something deadly,’ Adrian replied. ‘Now she’s standing well off the coast of the Crimea. We can perhaps assume the two are connected.’

‘What are we doing to discover what her cargo is?’ Burt asked Theo.

‘It’s difficult,’ Theo admitted. ‘We have agents on the ground in Libya, of course. They’re doing the best they can, but it’s not exactly easy. The whole loading operation took place in a wellguarded and separate part of the port. Plus the fact that we think there was a special army loading team on the case, not the usual dock-workers. And it’s not exactly a friendly environment in which to be asking sensitive questions.’

‘But they are,’ Burt said. ‘Asking sensitive questions, I mean.’

‘As best they can,’ Theo replied, awkwardly, Burt thought. Even Theo Lish, the CIA chief, found human intelligence difficult to factor in these days.

‘Well, good luck to them,’ Burt replied.

Outside in the unusually warm spring air of Harper’s Crossing, Burt took Adrian aside and invited him to lunch. They took a limousine that had been waiting for Burt and travelled in towards Langley and a restaurant named Rocco’s where Burt seemed to be well-known enough to be given a prime table by the window and receive the attention of half a dozen waiters. When they had sat down, Burt didn’t wait.

‘What do you make of it, Adrian?’ he asked.

‘I think it fits in with other intelligence,’ Adrian replied. ‘Dangerous stuff coming over the border from Russia into Ukraine that you’ve detected. The only difference is that this is aimed from the sea.’

‘If only we knew what “this” was,’ Burt said.

‘We’re treating it as high priority,’ Adrian replied. ‘The highest. Just as the CIA is.’

‘Then it must be important,’ Burt replied drily.

B
URT AND ANNA were to take a Cougar executive jet from Washington Dulles Airport for the flight south. Larry was at the wheel of a Porsche four-by-four as they drew up outside a hangar at the private end of the airport and she saw the plane gleaming in the early spring sunshine.

She saw that, like all Burt’s fleet of planes, it had been highly polished. It looked like an outsize model ornament destined for a giant mantlepiece, or a sculpture belonging to a proud collector and which only needed a pedestal to mount it on. The jet had the cleanliness of an anaesthetised surgeon’s knife, nothing like the dirty, oiled, mechanised tool that was a commercial plane. And that was how Cougar liked to present itself to the world, she thought: as a clean, pure white and beautiful instrument. Like Cougar – like Burt – the plane was a thing of ideological and even moral certainty.

Larry unloaded the bags from the car and carried them on to the plane. Burt turned to her before they stepped out: ‘How was your boy?’ he said.

She had just returned from her monthly visit to see him.

‘How is Little Finn? Enjoying life, I trust.’

‘Very much so,’ she said. ‘He misses seeing Larry and the boys, I think, more than he misses me.’

Burt looked at her. ‘But he’s in the right place, you’re sure of that? Anything more we can do?’

‘Oh yes, he’s in the right place,’ she replied easily, but she betrayed none of the hollowness that her visits to him always left her with. And Burt didn’t press her, as he never did, about anything. ‘He’s very well,’ she added unnecessarily, more to convince herself than him, and then she looked away, out of the window across the tarmac.

‘He’ll always be your son, Anna,’ was all he said.

They boarded the plane, Larry chatted to the pilot, and then they took off into a startling blue sky that seemed as if it had been designed by Burt to receive his pristine jet.

Burt was relaxed as ever on the journey. Never a care in the world, a world which to him, anyway, it seemed to her, was like a Roman circus prepared for his own carefully planned shows and games, rather than the dangerous and inconsistent place it was to others and which forced its constantly changing flux on them. Burt, the ruler of the world; a plump caesar who this morning wore bright yellow slacks, a blue blazer and expensive suede loafers. And as always puffing on a half-smoked cigar.

When they were settled at their cruising height and food had been served, Anna turned to him. ‘What will you do when you’re too old?’ she asked him. ‘Who’s going to run Cougar then?’

‘We train youth teams.’ He beamed. ‘Just like the football clubs.’

‘But there’ll never be anyone like you,’ she said. ‘You are Cougar, aren’t you?’

‘And Cougar will therefore change,’ he replied. ‘It’ll become a bureaucracy like the CIA, perhaps, with all the dead hand that implies.’ He smiled broadly at her. ‘A company can only be as good as its leader. And it can only be a dictatorship like Cougar when you have a benevolent dictator,’ he said, and laughed his rolling laugh. ‘And that’s true. There’ll never be another Burt Miller.’

It was an honest assessment, she saw, rather than simply smug self-satisfaction.

He looked at her seriously for a moment. ‘Anna, I’ve offered Logan the Russian and East European Desk. What do you think?’

Anna felt a chill of bewilderment, then astonishment. Logan wasn’t management material at all, in her opinion, let alone the right person to be put in charge of Cougar’s second largest division. Over and over again, he’d shown himself to be unreliable, not even completely loyal. Burt knew this and she didn’t understand. Burt continued to give Logan chances which he always saw that Logan wasted. She found she couldn’t reply.

‘It’s OK. He turned it down,’ Burt said.

‘Why?’

‘No reason. What do you think, Anna? What do you really think?’ Burt asked again.

It was unusual for Burt to ask for advice about something outside another person’s area of expertise. It was out of character and Anna’s interest was always piqued when someone – particularly someone in Burt’s all-powerful position – behaved out of character. She wondered whether to tell him what she thought, but knew that Burt only and always wanted honesty, no matter how difficult it was to hear.

‘If someone rejects a part of something, it often means they want the whole,’ she said. ‘Logan fits that model. To me anyway, Burt.’

He didn’t reply, but grinned at her, just to show he didn’t take offence. But she saw he’d filed away her remark and that it conflicted with something in him outside the logic of usually clear thoughts.

On a wide circular table in the centre of the plane, Burt unfolded an old copy of the
Wall Street Journal
at the page which detailed the results of the final round of the Ukrainian elections. There was the Russian-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovich with his arms raised in victory. He had beaten Yulia Timoshenko by three percentage points for the presidency. There were pictures of him with a grim face even in victory – just like the Politburo used to look, Anna thought. And underneath were pictures of Timoshenko with her corn-braided hair wrapped tightly like an ornamental towel around her head. Her face was set in defeat but she said she would contest the results. Yanukovich had received a warm welcome from the Kremlin, however, and was already forming a cabinet, with an Economics Minister who spoke only Russian and had no Ukrainian.

‘Theo says we can take our eyes off Ukraine now,’ Burt said. ‘It’s almost a relief to the CIA that the Kremlin stooge has won. They’d rather have a Russian proxy president than a democrat who might raise Russia’s ire.’

She didn’t reply, but read the report and saw that most of eastern Ukraine nearest Russia had voted for Yanukovich while most of the western part of the country had voted for Timoshenko.

‘Theo reckons that this result will lower tensions between Ukraine and Russia,’ Burt said. ‘Their man got in, so that’s it, Theo says. And – wonder of wonders – they were declared free and fair elections, according to international electoral monitors. Timoshenko protests but doesn’t have a leg to stand on.’ He looked across at her. ‘What do you think, Anna?’

She looked away and out of the window at the endless, intense blue of a sky that seemed to share nothing with events in Eastern Europe. Then she turned to him. ‘Why does the CIA think that?’ she asked.

‘Theo reckons the Russians have got what they want in Ukraine now. The Kremlin can relax. And therefore so can we.’

‘For now, maybe. But it’s just the beginning,’ she said. ‘A temporary respite at most, in my opinion. But what then? When the dust settles, Yanukovich may prove to be not just their ally in the Kremlin but also their Trojan Horse in Kiev.’

He looked at her questioningly.

‘I don’t agree with Lish and the CIA,’ she said simply.

‘Neither do I,’ Burt replied. ‘I agree with you, Anna. A Trojan horse – I like it. But we’ll discuss it – the three of us – when we see Mikhail,’ he said.

They were flying south-west and Anna slept for the rest of the journey. She was used to taking sleep when there was any window of opportunity. In just over three hours after they’d set out they landed on the long runway at the edge of Burt’s vast ranch in northern New Mexico.