Fit For Purpose by Julian Parrott (novels for students .TXT) 📕

a Pret A Manger, ordered a red eye, fired up his new pay-as-you-go phone and called Tom.

On the Periwinkle, Tom chatted with Gagnon but didn’t put the phone down at the call’s end. He called Rachel and asked her to look after Jack as he had business in London. Rachel asked whether it was Nia related and Tom said it was a meeting with an editor. Tom didn’t like lying, so he called his editor and arranged to meet to discuss the narrowboat book idea.

The next morning, Tom dropped off Jack with Rachel and drove south in his Land Rover. He stopped at a big-box store and bought his own pay-as-you-go burner phone. He called Gagnon with it to let him know his ETA in London. As Tom drove, he felt that he was cheating on Nia. This drive had been part of their romance, a rendezvous in the city had become a special part of his, and Nia’s, life. But now he was driving to London to meet his old Canadian comrade in arms to discuss the life and death of a Russian military intelligence officer. Gagnon, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He was looking forward to meeting with Tom and to the possibility of enacting some revenge. He had slept well and had taken a run through the early morning emptiness of a slumbering city.

Kensington, Russian Embassy

In the same still greyness in the same city, Kamenev looked through the previous day’s SVR, FSB and GRU reports. It was a quiet day and so the report of Gagnon’s arrival at Heathrow had grabbed Kamenev’s attention. He felt it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. He ran some quick background checks of the life and career of Jacques Gagnon. Kamenev scanned the text on Gagnon’s military service and his deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

“So, another old hand from Afghanistan eh?” he noted softly to himself.

He cross-referred his own records and his own after-action reports. He searched through publicly accessible UK and Canadian records, and through hacked Western military and intelligence service records. “Thank you, WikiLeaks,” he thought. He re-checked the timeframes and knew instantly that they cross-referenced with his last missions in Afghanistan. He sat back in his chair and took a long draw on a cup of coffee. So, he thought, I’m guessing it was this Gagnon and Price who were in the field the night my helicopter went down. Instinctively, his hands went to his face, touching the scars and skin grafts. He pulled up pictures of the two men on his computer screen, both appeared younger, both fresh faced wearing slight smiles. “You bastards,” he said softly. “You ruined my face, set back my career. Now you show up to ruin the mission that will make my career. That’s not going to happen chaps. It’s going to be time for a little payback.”

It was time to move the official reaction up a notch, Kamenev thought. Two retired Western military officers who had once crossed his path are now in and around London. Kamenev decided to circumvent the Rezident. He picked up a phone and called Moscow Centre on a secure line. Ten minutes later, he replaced the phone in its cradle and smiled to himself. He now had two operations to manage. He was confident both would run smoothly to his and the Kremlin’s satisfaction.

***

Thames House, Home of MI5, London. January 12th

The harried deputy director was looking forward to grabbing a quiet five minutes with a cup of coffee and a chocolate digestive. Maybe even a quick online peep at the football result even though she knew it would ruin the excitement of watching the game’s evening rebroadcast. An officer, female, young, pretty, ambitious, a graduate from a red brick university, knocked on her door.

“Do you have a quick second, ma’am?” the officer, an intelligence communications analyst, asked.

“Sure,” the DD said, with an inaudible sigh while subtly switching her screen from BBC Sport to a spreadsheet.

The analyst spread out three large grainy photos on the DD’s desk.

“We just got these in from Holyhead, off of the ferry from Dublin.” She pointed at what looked like three men in a car; a driver and the other two in the rear seat. All were clearly trying to avoid having their pictures taken.

“These two,” she pointed to the men in the rear seat, “Have come up hot.” She paused for effect and looked to the DD for some affirmation.

“Go on,” the DD encouraged indulgently. The DD tried to remember the analyst’s name.

“Low level FSB heavies,” the analyst continued. “The kind of thugs they bring in for dirty business. Not wet jobs but enforcing compliance through beatings and so forth.”

The DD was now alert. It was not uncommon for the SVR, FSB or GRU to mete out punishment and retribution to those Russians living abroad who had displeased the Motherland. Even when those émigré Russians were supposed to be under the protection of their adoptive countries. The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal had happened on her predecessor’s watch.

“Any other chatter to suggest why they’re here and how did the Garda miss them in Dublin?” Patel, her name is Patel the DD remembered.

“No chatter yet, ma’am, but we’re monitoring. As for the Garda, it looks like the Russians came in on a private flight and then went straight on to the ferry terminal. Still, they should have been flagged at least by airport passport control.”

“I’ll have a word with our Irish friends later as they clearly dropped the ball on this one. Let’s not do the same here,” continued the DD. “Private jet. I don’t like the sound of that. Suggests speed which suggests something is up, Ms Patel. Let’s find out what.”

Patel nodded.

“The bloody Kremlin is always sensitive to criticism,” continued the DD. “They’re jailing and beating their domestic critics and even assassinating a few.