D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

Erika nodded, looking toward the door. “I’ll talk to him.”

Lillian wiped a stray tear from her eye and smiled. “You’re a dear. I do hope we shall get to know one another better.”

Erika reached out and gave the older woman’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I hope so, too. Good night, Mrs. Thorley.

Erika turned to go, and Lillian stopped her, her grip surprisingly strong. “Be careful, my dear, history is such a restless beast.”

Puzzled, Erika nodded, then walked out and joined Michael. A moment later the bright red car tore out of the driveway and headed back toward London.

It had been a long time since Pavel Kolenkovich Hedeon had felt his career teetering on the precipice. And it was a feeling he hated. After all he’d been through in the last forty-five years: Stalin’s purges, Beria’s aborted coup attempt, Khrushchev’s bullying, Brezhnev’s pig-headedness, he was now about to be undone by a phantom.

Under any other circumstances, he would have welcomed Sir William Atwater’s death, would have itched to do the deed himself, yet someone else—someone outside his network—had killed the old goat and made it so the finger pointed straight at him.

Why?

And why now?

Atwater was no longer a threat to anyone, save his own country, though he wouldn’t put something like this past those bastards at MI6.

The phone rang, and Hedeon moved his stocky frame toward it with surprising grace. Still well-muscled for a man in his late sixties, he also boasted a mane of shocking white hair, a vanity of which he proudly proclaimed. His face, though lined with a thousand wrinkles like a fine old painting, showed strength and determination in the firm set of his mouth and the feral gleam in his ice-blue eyes.

The phone sat atop an exquisite and very original Louis XV table at the far end of the suite. It never ceased to amaze him that the Dorchester Hotel, one of the best in London, refused to put more than one phone in a suite, and in the wrong room, no less. Still, Hedeon counted himself lucky. As the senior KGB man in Britain, he had the choice of living either in the embassy compound, or in any residence of his choice. He liked the Dorchester for its sense of history and because the Penthouse floor he rented could be secured without becoming obtrusive to the rest of the hotel’s guests. He also liked it because it tweaked Moscow’s proletarian nose. And if they ever complained, he could always point out the fact it helped to bolster his image as the Chief Russian Cultural Attaché.

He snatched up the receiver on the fifth ring, already annoyed at the lateness of the call.

“Yes...?” He listened, his eyes softening. “Speak English, you know better.... Yes, I know all about the girl. My operatives picked her up when she boarded the ferry at Ostend.... I won’t make any promises. If she can be separated from young Michael, then any unpleasantness can be avoided.... Yes, I will keep you apprised. Do not worry. Good night.”

Hedeon hung up the phone and walked to the large picture window overlooking Hyde Park, his gait less graceful, almost lumbering, as if a large weight had deposited itself on his wide shoulders. The fierce expression on his face moments before had changed to one of deep sadness, the blazing light in his eyes dull and flickering low. This business was a dirty one when it concerned ones you cared about. It was a weakness for which Moscow would be ruthless and unforgiving, and one against which he’d fought his whole life. Sentiment had no place in the craft.

Reaching a decision, he returned to the phone and picked it up, dialing a special series of numbers from memory. He waited until the person on the other end picked up, and then said, “It’s Hedeon.... Da, I know.... I want everyone on his toes. This Atwater business was directed at us. I want answers....”

He hung up a moment later and returned to the picture window, easing himself into a comfortable overstuffed chair, a tiny bitter smile creasing his lips. He would find whoever was responsible for this mess, and when he did, Pavel Kolenkovich Hedeon would take great pleasure in wringing his fucking neck.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The young girl moaned and bucked beneath him, her normally placid face now twisted into a grimace of ecstasy, sweat gleaming off the stud in her nose.

“Oh, God, Fergie!” she screamed, digging her rather generous claws into his back. “Fuck me harder!”

Biting back the pain, Ferguson thrust into her harder in retaliation, his wolfish grin widening. This one was a real tart. He’d seen her round the pub often enough, squawking and giggling with her girlfriends, always giving him the “sly eye.” And she was a real treat for the jaundiced eye: sort of Punker meets Sloan Ranger with a touch of leather. She had style, all right, but she couldn’t resist the odd touch, like the stud in her nose and garish makeup that made her look like something out of Madame Tussaud’s. It was like a mustache on the Mona Lisa, or mooning the Queen, a rebelliousness that appealed to Ferguson’s contrary nature. Unfortunately, he’d always managed to be with someone else, either another woman, or his drinking buddies.

He’d hit the pub right after work and gotten lucky.

Absorbed in his pint of MacEwan’s, he’d been thinking of Mike and how much of a screw-up the poor sod was with women, when he chanced to glance up and found her staring at him from the other end of the bar.

Neither her friends, nor his buddies, were anywhere in sight. Bloody perfect.

He smiled back