Chapter Twenty-One
THE TWO RUSSIAN sleeper agents did not need to meet. One was the meeter and greeter and host at the safe house, a rented flat in the suburban town of Staines. The other was the scout and guide.
Misha flew in from Poland on a Polish passport, perfect in every detail. Speaking with a Slavic accent and hailing from a fellow member of the European Union, there was no hold-up at Heathrow. At customs, his valise was not even examined.
If it had been opened, the customs officer would hardly have been alerted. A tourist and keen birdwatcher would have brought with him rustic clothing in camouflage design, scrim netting, hiking boots and a water canteen. Several bird books and binoculars completed the disguise of a harmless twitcher. But it all went through untouched.
Outside the custom hall, in the concourse, the greeter was waiting in the right jacket and tie, with the right meaningless exchange of phrases. And his car was in the short-stay car park. The greeter was, to all intents and purposes, a British citizen with flawless English. Only in the moving car with the windows closed did the two speak Russian. Misha was installed in his Staines apartment within two hours of landing.
An hour later the greeter had phoned the headquarters of Russian TV, the English-language broadcaster of pro-Russian propaganda, spoken to the right technician and used the right sentence. At the embassy, Stepan Kukushkin was informed the shooter was in place, waiting for his rifle. Using the usual diplomatic codes, he in turn informed Yevgeni Krilov of the safe arrival of the killer. Misha had been told not to leave his flat, which he had no intention of doing, as he was watching football on TV.
The scout did not have such a frictionless routine. He motored out to Chandler’s Court to see how best he might infiltrate the sniper into the forest. Cruising past the barred entrance, he saw the barrier rise to permit the entry of a pantechnicon bearing the livery of a well-known removals company. This intrigued him. Who was moving? One of the chemists in the government laboratories, or someone from the manor house?
He spent the night at his own home two counties away, but was back at sunrise, on foot with car parked out of sight. Another huge removals van, same company but different number plate, was easing out of the estate on to the road through the village. He ran for his car and caught up with the lorry as it turned on to the M40 motorway, heading north. He followed it through Oxford, then broke off, drove back south and reported to his handler.
The following day, the Russians got lucky. A third pantechnicon came out of the estate and also headed north. This time, it was followed. At the first pitstop for the truck drivers, at a motorway service station, a radio-tracker device was attached under a rear mudguard, undetected.
It led them on an exhausting 450-mile haul to the wilds of Inverness-shire in the Scottish Highlands, and to the sprawling estate of Castle Craigleven. Through the usual cut-outs, the Moscow agents reported back to Stepan Kukushkin. He realized that, by the grace of a deity in whom he did not believe, the Kremlin’s operation had been saved by the skin of its teeth. The birds had flown, but at least he knew where they had gone.
With some relief, he was able to tell his superior, Krilov, that he had caused his agent to scout the Chandler’s Court site just in time to spot the departure of the target, and he was happy to claim credit for having ascertained where the boy and his entourage had gone. Far from being cancelled, Misha’s operation would be only slightly delayed.
Kukushkin’s territory was the entire United Kingdom but his only permanent operation in Scotland was centred on the Royal Navy nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the river Clyde, but that was nowhere near Inverness. However, tourists from the south visited the Highlands and the sleeper he was using as his scout would have to join them. The man was authorized immediately to purchase a camper van sufficient for two. That at least would avoid sudden hotel bookings in a landscape where strangers might be noticed.
Two days later, the Rezident of the SVR had the package containing the sniper rifle delivered to Misha. The scout had introduced himself at the Staines rented flat and both scout and sniper set off for Inverness.
For safety, Misha did not do any driving. He had no British licence. The scout, whose British name was Brian Simmons, ostensibly a freelance taxi driver based in London, had impeccable paperwork and drove all the way. He clocked just over 500 miles and took thirty hours, including a night in a roadside lay-by.
It was on a bright mid-October morning that the harmless-seeming camper van entered the Craigleven estate and they saw the roofs of the castle. Now, Misha took over. He was concerned only with distances and angles. Two public roads traversed the estate and they motored down them both, examining the castle from all angles. It was clear the south wing was inhabited by guests.
There were living rooms on the ground floor and on the south face picture windows offering access to a spread of lawns. These ended with a near-precipice where the ground fell away to a deep glen with a stream at the bottom. Beyond the burn the ground rose again to towering, forest-clad hills. The valley was, at a point opposite the lawns, a thousand yards wide.
Misha knew already where he would have to establish his invisible sniper nest: on the face of the mountain opposite the lawns and the bedroom windows three floors above them. Sooner or later, a gangling blond boy would appear at one of the windows … and die. Or he would join others on the lawns to take a coffee in the sun … and die.
The Orsis T-5000 is a remarkable weapon, capable of blowing away a human skull at 2,000 yards with its .338 Lapua Magnum rounds. In the calm conditions of the glen, with almost no windage, a mere 1,000 yards offered a no-miss guarantee.
Misha ordered his fellow Russian to drive on, round the curves and out of sight of the castle. In a lay-by he stepped out of the camper van with his equipment and literally disappeared into the forest across the valley.
The sniper had no intention that anyone would see him from that point. He would live in the forest for as long as it took, something to which he was wholly accustomed. In the van he had changed into his streaked camouflage one-piece coveralls. In a sack at the small of his back were iron rations, a canteen of water and multitool cutters. A combat knife in camouflaged sheath was strapped to one thigh.
His rifle was shrouded in camouflaged sackcloth and his pockets held spare ammunition, though he had no doubt he would need no more than a single shot, and that was in the breech already. He had not washed, nor cleaned his teeth, for two days. In his calling, soap and dentifrice can kill you. They stink.
The surface of his uniform was covered in small cloth loops. These would be studded with sprigs of surrounding foliage when he had chosen his LUP – the lying-up position from which a sniper fires. He began to move silently through the forest towards the face of the mountain he knew overlooked the ravine facing the south wing of Castle Craigleven.
The agent who had driven the motorhome up from the south watched his charge disappear into the forest and could do no more. The phone once more cutting out intermittently, he informed Kukushkin in London and the chief of the SVR in Yasenevo. From then on, both senior spymasters were helpless.
Neither could know exactly where the sniper was, what he had seen in the forest nor what he was doing. They knew only that he was a skilled and experienced wilderness dweller, wily as a wild animal in his own environment and the best marksman in the Spetsnaz.
When he had finished his mission Misha would abandon his rifle, revert to being a harmless birdwatcher, emerge from the Scottish forest and call using a few coded wor
ds for transport. Until then, it was a waiting game.
Captain Harry Williams of the Special Air Service Regiment was not a sniper, but he had been in combat and well trained on the Regiment’s preferred long-shot rifle, the Accuracy International AX50 with its Schmidt and Bender scope. That same morning, he was installing himself and his men in their quarters above the computer team in the south wing of the castle.
His close-protection team had been reduced to him plus three – one sergeant and two troopers. Sir Adrian had assessed the risk to his teenage charge after the move north as minimal. No one had any idea they had been seen moving out of Warwickshire. In their isolated Highland castle, it appeared that peace reigned supreme. So, on the second evening, Captain Williams borrowed the unit’s jeep and motored down to the only village on the estate. This was the hamlet of Ainslie, two miles away.
There were no more than fifty houses, but at least there was a kirk, a small corner shop and a pub. The social life of the village was clearly dependent on the third. Harry Williams was in jeans and a plaid shirt. No uniform – no need. The locals knew the laird had guests, although he and her ladyship were not present. The drinkers at their tables had lapsed into silence. Strangers were rare. Williams nodded in greeting.
‘Evening, all.’ He sounded like a policeman on TV. There were a dozen nods. If he was one of the laird’s invited, he was acceptable.