A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

events I might have to spend days, maybe weeks looking over my shoulder, all the time wondering when the next strike would take place.

I told Callahan I was taking a flight to Paris and would send a locator on arrival in the capital. Then I switched off my phone and removed the SIM. Right now I couldn’t trust anyone, but maybe I could force whoever was pinpointing me to make a mistake. I focussed instead on the two cellphones I’d acquired from my attackers at the airport and opened them up.

Neither device had a security code, which told me a lot about what I could expect to find inside: no code meant nothing worth hiding. They were burners, acquired for this operation only and to be disposed of afterwards. In the event of anything going wrong and falling into the wrong hands, there would be nothing to show who the men were or what they were doing.

I deleted the photos of me and took out the Sim cards and batteries, and dropped them down a storm drain.

Then I got on board the bus and headed for the rear where I put my head down.

TWENTY-THREE

Moscow

A monitor mounted on a side table in the ‘dead room’ was flickering, but lacked sound and image. A new meeting had been convened, but the chairman, Konstantin Basalayev, was not yet there. It was a common enough tactic used by senior officials to unsettle those beneath them, to promote anxiety and compliance. Most feigned indifference to it, even if inwardly they were not.

As the minutes ticked away, each individual battled with wondering why the meeting had been called and why the chair previously used by Anatoly Dolmatov, remained empty. All they knew was that Basalayev must have received reports from the field, which he had so far kept to himself, and Dolmatov was no longer in play.

The clues were self-evident to those who knew what to look for.

‘Shot for being ugly or shot for fucking up?’ murmured Sergey Grishin, the former general, eyeing the empty chair in a false attempt at bravado. ‘He should have remained a chopper of wood.’

Nobody else spoke, too anxious to distance themselves from the same fate, whatever that was. Instead their attention was glued to the active monitor in the corner, itself a worrying departure from the norm in this room.

When Basalayev appeared, he did so in a rush and without a greeting, leaving one of the guards outside to pull the door firmly closed behind him. He picked up a television remote from the table and pressed a button.

The screen blossomed into life, showing a slightly grainy image but clear enough for everyone to see. It showed what appeared to be a long-range image of an airfield, with several buildings in the background bathed in sunlight. A number of emergency vehicles were moving at speed across the grass and tarmac towards a small, single-storey structure off to one side. Other transport, including an armoured vehicle, were disgorging troops around it and taking up positions.

Basalayev froze the picture and said, ‘That was an attempt by Dolmatov’s new team to complete the mission against Portman. They failed. I have relieved him of his duties with immediate effect.’

Nobody spoke, nobody exchanged glances, their suspicions unnervingly correct.

Basalayev pressed the remote again and the images fast-forwarded to another scene. This one had been taken inside what was clearly a busy airport terminal building. It showed two men threading their way through a crowd and approaching a corridor with signs displaying washroom facilities. A cleaner’s trolley was parked across the corridor. One of the men stayed at the front of the corridor behind the trolley while the other skirted it and disappeared inside. There was no soundtrack, which lent the scene an extra sense of impending drama.

A flurry of movement came from the man near the trolley. He stepped away from it and raised one arm in a defensive stance as another figure raced towards him. It was difficult to see the detail but it was clear that he’d been attacked. He fell, clutching his face. Then the other figure stepped past him and walked away, rubbing his eyes with his hand and effectively blanketing his features from the watchful eye of the camera.

‘Another failure,’ Basalayev emphasized. He switched off the monitor and dropped the remote on the table with a clatter. He looked around at the faces, all of whom looked stunned by what they’d seen. He took a few more seconds to study each person, his cold gaze making them shift uncomfortably in their seats before he finally took his own seat.

‘As of now,’ he said, his voice barely above a whisper, ‘Voronin will be running the operation.’ He glanced at the former Spetsgruppa special forces officer. ‘Our latest information is that Portman is flying to Paris, his location to be confirmed later. We already have a team there in readiness, do we not?’

Voronin nodded. That he didn’t look too happy at being singled out for this dubious assignment was no surprise, given Dolmatov’s abrupt fall from grace. But that was the risk you took when you rose to a position where risk ran alongside honour, the former always shuffling just ahead until you took the prize … or did not. ‘Correct. They are ready to move at a moment’s notice.’ He spoke with a clear voice, confidence in every word.

‘Good. This time, finish it. Finish him. Do it now.’

Voronin nodded and rose from his chair.

When the door closed behind Voronin, Irina Kolodka rested both hands on the table’s surface, the move capturing everyone’s attention.

She said, ‘You know, don’t you, that another failure will end this assignment for everyone?’

‘Everyone?’ Basalayev stared at her. His face gave no clue to his thinking, but it was clear what he meant: everyone including who? That she spoke for someone far above them was now clear, if it hadn’t been before. She who had the ear of the president now also had his voice. And the message