The Blind Spy (30 page)

Nobody replied.

‘I think we can assume that,’ Burt said. ‘Which is what makes Sevastopol and the Crimea all the more relevant. The Crimea is where any action the Russians are planning will take place. That’s where the tipping point is.’

‘What about the terror ship?’ Dupont said. ‘That’s off the Crimean coast. They’d know we could see it from satellites too.’

Burt looked up at him and studied him for a long time. ‘The so-called terror ship,’ he said, emphasising his distrust of identifying the
Pride of Corsica
as such, ‘that’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Yes. Where did we learn to call it a terror ship? From the man with the severed head. Who was this source? The CIA didn’t know. Yet the CIA have always believed what he told them. The CIA now talk of this “terror ship” as if they’d discovered it themselves. It is now a fully fledged terror ship, simply because it’s
called
a terror ship. Not for any other reason. No other reason exists.’

‘We need to know what’s on board,’ Larry interjected. ‘We can’t assume anything until we know.’

‘I agree,’ Burt said. ‘And I’m arranging a little trip to view it. Logan, as it happens, will be in charge.’

He looked at Anna.

‘Tell us about the CIA’s source, Anna,’ he said. ‘The severed head.’

‘He’s an occasional the KGB sometimes uses,’ she replied. ‘An ex-convict, drug addict and sometime assassin.’

‘Whom the KGB used to plant this terror ship information,’ Burt completed for her. ‘And then they got rid of him. A criminal. An occasional. One job only – but one vital job. After that he’s surplus to requirements. They kill him and they make his death look like a Chechen killing. Yes?’

‘Maybe, Burt,’ Anna answered.

‘The ship may be a double bluff,’ Mikhail said. ‘They may actually intend for us to find out the identity of the source. That he was KGB. When we know who the dead man is, we see the CIA’s source is likely to be a fraud. And then we don’t take the ship seriously. But perhaps the ship is a real threat.’

‘That is true,’ Burt said. ‘The ship could be a double-bluff. It might indeed contain dangerous substances, weapons ... God knows what. And we need to know, as Larry says, what’s on board before we write it off.’

At this point, a telephone by Burt’s elbow rang. He picked it up.

‘Send him up,’ he said. ‘Logan has arrived,’ he announced to the room.

Through the windows in front of where she was sitting, Anna could see Logan talking into a phone in the driveway. It was the first time she’d seen him for two years. But there he was, exactly the same: the cream suit, the long, lanky gait and, though she could only see him briefly, the shoulder-length hair. The hair was the only difference. It was a lot longer than it had been the last time she’d seen him.

Earlier in the day, Burt had taken her aside to tell her that Logan was coming here – and that he’d been doing some ‘special work’, as he called it, also in Ukraine.

‘You want us to work together,’ she’d asked him. ‘I can’t do that, Burt.’

‘He’s been in Ukraine for three months already.’

‘I don’t trust him,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him anywhere near what I’m doing.’

‘That’s OK,’ Burt had said. ‘You’ll be working in parallel, both of you in Ukraine. Different assignments. You’ll only meet by your arrangement, or not at all.’

‘You know he’s not to be trusted, Burt. Why do you give him so much rope? He’s a danger. Larry knows, you know, Bob ... we all know. Why do you trust him?’

But Burt hadn’t given her an explanation.

As she watched him now, Anna recalled the last time she had seen Logan. It had been at the ranch in New Mexico where they’d last met, two years before. She had discovered that Logan, the disgraced ex-CIA officer and now Burt’s man, was the snake who had almost got her kidnapped by the Russians. Logan had been working as a freelance before Burt had hired him, selling secrets to the highest bidder. He’d sold her location in France to the British, the Americans and the Russians. And then she’d discovered what he’d done. She’d vowed to kill Logan then. But he’d disappeared and, it later turned out, had gone to Russia and killed the man who’d murdered her husband, Finn. It was his attempt to atone for what he’d done.

That was an incredible feat – even she had to admit it – to kill a KGB-trained crime boss in Moscow and get back alive. But if he’d thought it was an atonement, he’d been wrong. At the ranch after his return, he’d told her he loved her, and she’d told him to get out of her sight. Two years ago – it was their last conversation and back then she’d watched his tail lights disappearing across the mesa. She’d hoped never to see him again.

Now Logan entered the room. She watched him walk across it, avoiding her eyes – the sloping walk she remembered, as if one foot slightly dragged behind the other. It was a laziness rather than any injury that his walk originated from. She thought Logan cultivated an attitude and a physical presence that betrayed a sort of concealed narcissism, one that he hid behind his sloppiness, tangled hair, distressed clothes and dragging feet. She could think of nothing about him that didn’t distance her from him and it surprised her normally steady consciousness.

He nodded to her. ‘Anna,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘Logan,’ she replied.

Then he nodded to the others in the room without speaking.

‘Please sit down, Logan,’ Burt said.

Logan took a chair next to Anna.

‘Seen Theo?’ Burt asked.

‘Yes. And he sends news.’

‘What’s he got for us? More news of the terror ship? Do you call it the “terror ship” too, Logan? Have you fallen into Theo’s ways?’

Logan looked completely relaxed. ‘You know I have access to Theo,’ he said. ‘It was you who sent me under his auspices to the embassy in Kiev.’

Burt looked away and left his question and Logan’s answer hanging in the air.

Then his face changed from its usual soft amiability. ‘I don’t think the so-called terror ship is worth a twopenny fuck,’ he said in an unmistakably aggressive tone of voice.

‘But we have to know,’ Logan said levelly.

‘We do, we do,’ Burt replied. ‘So what have you brought us from Theo?’

‘News from Ukraine. According to our embassy in Kiev, President Yanukovich has just signed a deal with Moscow. The Russians get to keep Sevastopol as a base until 2042. It’s been extended from 2017 for another twenty-five years. In return the Russians are giving Ukraine cut-price gas. In addition to the lease’s extension, there will be no expulsion of Russian intelligence officers from the area. The cause has been removed, Burt. The Russians are getting what they want in Ukraine without having to lift a finger.’

There was a breathless pause in the room. ‘So,’ Burt said. ‘Ukraine is saved,’ he added sarcastically. He turned the sound on for one of the television screens on the wall. They all listened to the Ukrainian announcer relaying the news live.

‘There were violent scenes in Kiev’s parliament, but the deal’s gone through, yes,’ Logan replied, ignoring Burt’s sarcasm. ‘Street demonstrations are expected, but they don’t anticipate much trouble.’

‘So Russia has got what it wants,’ Burt said, turning the sound off again. ‘And why would they ask for more now? Why would they exacerbate a situation further, since they have what they want – Sevastopol?’ He looked around the room, taking in those present one by one. Larry first, to his right, then Bob Dupont, Logan, Anna next to Logan, and finally Mikhail. ‘The Ukrainian president has given the Kremlin a gift.’ He looked back at Anna. ‘You said once, dear Anna, that when someone rejects a part, it’s because they want the whole.’ He refrained from looking at Logan, who was the context of her remark. ‘But what if someone – in this case a spy elite in Moscow driven by an overriding desire to recapture its old empire – what if they
do
get a part of what they want? Does that mean they’re satisfied? Does that mean the game’s off?’

Anna didn’t respond.

‘No,’ Mikhail answered for her.

‘So are the CIA going to stand down in Ukraine?’ Dupont said.

‘Yes. But there’s more,’ Logan said.

‘Tell us,’ Burt commanded.

‘Theo says there’s evidence that the
Pride of Corsica
– the terror ship – is under the command of Qubaq in the Crimea. Also evidence that the bomb that blew up the Odessa nightclub is their work.’

‘Evidence from where?’ Burt asked.

‘From Moscow. The CIA and the Russians are going to work together. Once we’ve had a close look at the ship, assessed its potential, we, the Russians and the British are going to make an assault on the ship.’

‘Evidence from Moscow, you say,’ Burt said. ‘And you call the ship a “terror ship” now too, Logan?’

‘That’s what she’s being called.’

‘By the CIA and the Kremlin.’

Logan didn’t respond.

‘Ah,’ Burt continued. ‘So it’s all very neat, isn’t it? All the focus now from the White House is on your terror ship, Logan,’ he said, and looked hard at Logan. ‘Theo says that the terror ship is under the control of Qubaq,’ he intoned, making Theo’s voice appear like an oracular prophesy. ‘Theo says that the bomb that went off at the Golden Fleece nightclub in Odessa the night before the elections was also a terror attack by Qubaq.’

‘A man has been arrested,’ Logan said.

‘Then a conviction will be certain,’ Burt replied. ‘The Russians are being very clever indeed,’ he said.

Logan cleared his throat and sat forward in his seat. ‘Burt,’ he said and stared into the big man’s eyes, ‘Theo said that Cougar also needs to stand down in the area. After we do the recce of the ship, Cougar needs to stand down. Those were his words.’

‘And he sent you to tell me, rather than tell me himself.’

‘He knew I was coming here,’ Logan replied amicably. ‘It’s just convenient.’

‘Everything about this is a little too convenient, wouldn’t you say, Logan? Evidence from the Kremlin. Islamic terrorists. Sevastopol handed over on a plate. Double agents with their heads removed. And all the rest. It’s all convenient. And now the CIA and the KGB are linking up to fight this new manifestation of the people we fear the most, the people who have inspired our war on terror. The CIA and the KGB are buddies again, just like in the nineties.’ He looked at Mikhail now. ‘All very convenient, wouldn’t you say, Mikhail?’ Then he looked back at Logan. ‘Everything is convenient here, isn’t it? Everything except Cougar. Cougar is inconvenient.’

‘Why the sarcasm, Burt?’ Logan interjected. ‘Look at the evidence. Then say the evidence is not good enough for you.’

‘What evidence, Logan?’ Burt replied, and everyone around the table saw the hard vein of granite beneath the regular bonhomie. ‘Evidence from the spies in the Kremlin? OK, so I’ve agreed with Theo’s request to second you, Logan, to a CIA team working with the British. You’ll shadow and assess this so-called terror ship. I hope that’s fine by you.’

‘And then Cougar’s finished in Ukraine?’ Logan asked. ‘Theo wants to hear it from you.’

‘Thank you for relaying that,’ Burt said. ‘There’s a boat waiting at the port of Burgas in Bulgaria. You’ll be on it, in command, as will some boys from the CIA and a British special forces team.’

‘And the Russians too,’ Logan said implacably. ‘Theo’s agreed to have them come along.’

‘Well, I think that’s a good idea,’ Burt replied. ‘As many of you on board Cougar’s spy ship the better. Let’s have the Russians on my ship.’

Logan sat back in his chair and looked back at Burt. There was a new fearlessness in him; an idea that it was he who was making the play, not the great Burt Miller any more.

‘While you trash the idea of Qubaq being a terrorist organisation, Burt, don’t forget that it was you who sent me to Kiev in the first place. The whole point of the meeting with Sam MacLeod was that I float Qubaq with the CIA station there. That was your plan, not mine, not Theo’s, not the Russians’. So why is it you who’s now pouring cold water on it?’

Logan sat forward in his chair and leaned on his elbows. He recalled that in the report he had delivered to Sam MacLeod, the name of Qubaq had been explicitly left out. That had bothered him then, and it bothered him now. Burt had made the reference to the organisation only verbal.

‘I wanted to see where everyone would jump,’ Burt replied. ‘And you’ve all jumped the same way, haven’t you, Logan? You, Theo – and consequently our own president – and, of course, the Russians too. All of you have seized on what you call the terror ship and all of you have seized on Qubaq. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. It’s exactly what the Russians wanted us to do.’ He looked around the table. ‘We’re being led by the Kremlin,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see how easily the CIA would fall in with their lead. Nobody wants to help Ukraine, that’s the truth of it. And now the CIA will actually help the Russians get what they want there.’

Logan looked down at his hands. All he could think was that it was him Burt had assigned to encourage such disinformation – if that’s what it was. He would never have asked that from Anna.

T
ARAS WALKED DOWN a long airless corridor on the third floor of Sevastopol’s naval military hospital, turned left past more armed guards, and continued along another identical stretch that traversed the front of the building. Neither the occasional view through barred and sealed windows of the port on a sunny morning in spring, nor the antiseptic cream of the hospital floors and pale yellows of the walls did anything to soothe the confusion in his mind.

As his chief evidently suspected, Taras knew that his cousin Masha was involved in some subterfuge and it was now he, as her relation, who had been despatched to find out what it was she had been doing at the barn. His confusion seemed to be without a solution. If he succeeded, then Masha would undoubtedly be in worse trouble than she was in already. But if he failed, they would send in the proper interrogators again, this time to force it out of her.