The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [102]
EYES ONLY / ALERT C / AUS6HAW
. . . Wilkinson referred to the incident which, in his view, necessitated his exile to New Zealand. Plainly he still holds the Office responsible for the attempt on his life and suggested – without corroborating evidence – that SIS either arranged the assassination attempt or, at best, could have done more to protect him in its aftermath. I must record that Mr Wilkinson was behaving throughout in a manner which I can only describe as aggressive and paranoid.
. . . Wilkinson brought our brief exchange to an end by threatening to pass Doctor Gaddis what he described as ‘chapter and verse on ATTILA’. Digital recording of the conversation states: ‘It’s time the whole story came out anyway. Christ, the British government would probably benefit [emphasis] if it did. Wouldn’t you like to see the back of that maniac [Platov]?’
Brennan felt that he had no choice; he had surely exhausted every other available option. Picking up the phone, he instructed his secretary to put him through to Maxim Kepitsa, Second Secretary at the Embassy of the Russian Federation and one of three declared FSB officers operating in London.
The call went through to Kepitsa’s private line.
‘Maxim? It’s John Brennan.’
‘Sir John! How delightful to hear from you.’
‘I wondered if you fancied joining me for a quiet lunch? Wanted to have a word with you about a man your government has been looking for since ’92. One of ours, in fact. Fellow by the name of Ulvert . . .’
Chapter 38
It took Gaddis almost two days to travel from Barcelona to Vienna. The first leg of the journey involved catching an overnight sleeper to Fribourg in Switzerland. He then made a short commuter connection to Zurich before catching a third, nine-hour train across the north face of the Alps. On the first night, in a bunk which he could ill afford, he had slept as deeply as he had done for many weeks; on the final leg of the journey, he had read Archangel from cover-to-cover, surviving on processed cheese sandwiches from the dining car and cups of increasingly vile black coffee. Every hour or so, he would move position on the train in an effort to ascertain whether or not he was being followed; on the rare occasions that the train stopped, he would shoulder his overnight bag, step down on to the platform, make his way towards the ticket inspectors, then climb back on board at the last minute.
As far as he was aware, his departure from Spain had gone unnoticed. He had taken three hours to get to the Estacio Sants in Barcelona, leaving Natasha’s apartment at dusk and taking a series of taxis, trains and buses in eccentric loops in the hope of shaking off any watchers. At the same time, he had left his regular mobile, fully charged and set to ‘Silent’, hidden underneath a filing cabinet in the sitting room of Natasha’s flat. He hoped that the signal given off by the phone would give the impression to GCHQ that he was still in Barcelona. He had then bought a new mobile at a Corte Inglés department store and placed the Tottenham Court Road SIM into the slot at the back.
If he was honest with himself, there had been something tawdry in all this, a sense of betraying Min by visiting her in Spain and then involving her, however indirectly, in the grisly business of deception. She was five now, still captivatingly innocent, yet when he had played with her on the swings near Natasha’s apartment or held her tiny hand in the flickering gloom of a deserted matinée cinema, he had felt the awful conflicting stain of his ambition, a sense that his determination to avenge Charlotte and to solve the riddle of Dresden was more powerful even than the security and wellbeing of his own child. Was that the case? Was he so stubborn, so desperate to succeed, that he would rob Min of her own father?