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

Brady remained silent, knowing the old sonofabitch was right.

“All right, you win. But I want your assurance that this is it. Once this job is over and all the loose ends tidied up, I’ll want a letter exonerating me of that IRA nonsense. You and I both know I was never with that bunch. Is that clear?”

“You’ll have it.”

And though he watched the man’s every facial nuance, Brady was sure, as God was in His heaven, that Roger MacKinnon was lying, and that he’d have to go on killing for Queen and country until they decided his services were “no longer required.” And it didn’t take a bloody genius to figure out the lay of the land on that one.

If it weren’t so bloody tragic, Brady would have laughed—right in the pompous old bastard’s face.

Inside his embassy office, Pavel Hedeon hung up the phone and sighed. The Premier was getting nervous, and that meant trouble for everyone. The man had all but ordered him to end the Thorley business. “What they start, Pavel Kolenkovich, we will finish,” he’d said, “This can still embarrass us.” And this from the man who’d invented Perestroika.

Openness, hah! What a fat lie that was.

The man was just like everyone else with their dirty little secrets...and their fear. And yet, Hedeon was sworn to obey them, to defend the Motherland—the Rodina—no matter what.

If the order came, he would have to kill the girl...and the boy....

Scowling, he reached across his desk, pulled out a Cuban cigar, snipped off the end with his solid silver cutter and lighted it, puffing it until the end glowed like a tiny red sun. The heavy aroma filled his nostrils and he leaned back in the chair, watching the smoke drift upward toward the ceiling.

He thought of his counterparts across Hyde Park in Grosvenor Square, nestled in their block-long building and smiled. No doubt those decadent American bastards would love to know what was going on. And maybe they did. After all, they were always trying to listen in, just as his people tried to listen in on them.

Chuckling at the absurdity of it all, he checked his watch, and saw it was after seven. He would have the car brought around in fifteen minutes to take him back to the Dorchester for an early dinner. He was getting too old for these twelve-hour days. For now, there was time enough to enjoy a fine cigar and try to figure a way out of this mess, one that would satisfy both the Kremlin and the yearnings of his own heart.

A knock sounded on the door. “Da, come in.”

The door swung open and a young KGB man entered. Hedeon smiled. “Ah, Feliks, sit down, have a cigar.”

The young man looked nervous. “I beg to report, Comrade Colonel....”

Hedeon frowned. The formality could only mean bad news. “What is it, Lieutenant Danya?”

Danya cleared his throat. “I have just received a report from Fifth Directorate. Another of the Hitlerite conspirators has been eliminated.”

So, perhaps the news was not all bad. “Which one?” Hedeon asked, not really caring.

“Manfred Valdemarr.”

“Then the only ones left are Jarmann, and von Arnwolf.”

Danya’s nervousness increased, irritating the older man. “Out with it, Lieutenant, I cannot abide waiting for bad news.”

“Comrade Colonel, von Arnwolf has disappeared. His detail lost him during a visit to the cinema.”

Hedeon nodded, remaining calm. “They must be aware they are being hunted by now. Tell Malkovich to notify all informants that the usual reward shall be doubled for any information regarding von Arnwolf’s whereabouts.”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel.”

“What about Michael Thorley?”

Danya hesitated again. Now, Hedeon grew alarmed.

“What, what is it?”

“I—I beg to report that someone tried to kill him early this morning.”

Hedeon bolted to his feet, cigar ash tumbling to the carpet. “What!”

“He had been arrested by the British Secret Service. Two men in a silver-gray Jaguar chased them down and killed everyone in the vehicle except for Thorley and his female companion.”

“Fools! Idiots! Who authorized this?”

Danya shifted from one foot to the other. “Thorley’s tail did not recognize the men but heard them speaking in German.”

Hedeon slumped into his chair, the news rocking him. “Mueller....”

The phone rang, shattering the momentary silence.

“I want Thorley watched around the clock,” Hedeon ordered. “Do you understand? I want him alive!”

Danya turned on his heels and marched from the room. When the door closed, Hedeon snatched up the phone and brought it to his ear. “Yes.” He listened a moment, his expression softening. “Svetlana. I am so glad you called. Yes, I just heard.... I know it was not supposed to happen. It was not our doing. Someone else has interfered, someone I know very well.... I have not forgotten my promise, my love. I will let no harm come to them. This I swear.”

Dover Harbor stretched out before them, overshadowed by the famous white cliffs, a maze of piers, warehouses, and freighters all crammed together on a spit of land that appeared far too small to accommodate the massive structures. Loading cranes on tracks stood quayside like silent sentinels, their spiderlike arms reaching silently skyward, red lights blinking a warning to passing aircraft. They reminded Michael of the giant insects from the monster movies he’d loved as a child, and that thought offered a moment of amusement in an otherwise strained atmosphere. He watched Erika staring out across the inky-black water toward their destination: Ostend, Belgium. She appeared outwardly cool, yet there was something underneath that studied calm, something he could not put his finger on. It unsettled him. Except for that wild horrific ride through Whitechapel, she’d been the epitome of cool under fire.

“I can’t be here,” she’d said.

Why had