The Oktober Projekt Read online

  The Oktober Projekt

  R.J. Dillon

  R. J. Dillon has written in one form or another for most of his professional life, firstly as a copywriter, then as an academic and latterly as a full-time writer of fiction. Born in the North West of England, he obtained a first class honours degree in English and History from Manchester Polytechnic, an MA in Visual Culture from Lancaster University where he also successfully completed a Ph.D in History. He is married with two children and lives on the Lancashire coast, where he devotes his time to writing, walking and reading.

  www.rjdillon.com

  The Oktober Projekt is the first in a series of novels based around the British Secret Intelligence Service’s (SIS), Covert Operations Directorate, CO8.

  By the same author

  The Fanatic

  Non-fiction

  History on British television: Constructing nation, nationality and collective memory (Manchester University Press)

  Copyright © R. J. Dillon 2010

  The right of R. J. Dillon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  First published 2010

  For Halina, Charlotte, Oliver

  Acknowledgements

  As is always the case, there are far too many people to thank for their help, generosity and advice during my research and writing of this novel. For obvious reasons, some of those people who assisted me in understanding the very real world of covert intelligence gathering that provided the environment for CO8 to operate within, cannot be named, but deserve my sincere gratitude nonetheless.

  For helping me turn a concept, extensive research and several drafts into a manageable typescript, I would like to especially thank Donna Bowen for pointing out omissions, correcting errors and providing feedback. I am equally indebted to Peter and Suzanne Nissen for their wonderful German hospitality, and their enduring patience for never tiring of my endless questions.

  My family have provided tremendous support, and my son Oliver has not only been my fiercest critic suggesting revision where revision was due, but diligently sacrificing too many hours ensuring that my imagination did not get the better of me. Throughout the novel I have drawn on real and imagined people and places, judiciously mixing fact with fiction, so the landscape of The Oktober Projekt is entirely of my own design and making.

  One

  Protecting an Asset

  Altstadt, Hamburg, October

  Sally Wynn was in a hurry. Three minutes and fourteen seconds remained for her to reach the public phone outside the Peace & Love Hostel and take the call. Her collar length auburn hair flicked against her neck as she pounded up Katharinenstraße walking fast, and she was blowing hard when she reached the booth on what was already turning into an unseasonably warm day. Sweeping back her hair she inhaled, exhaled, telling herself that she was doing fine, recalling Aubrey-Spencer’s instructions as she worked through her shoulder bag, engaging in a little piece of theatre in order to claim the booth for as long as required.

  Bait the hook, nothing more, nothing less, Aubrey-Spencer had instructed her. Exactly why a former distinguished Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service wanted a hook baiting he never came close to fully sharing with her. Wynn, an experienced officer in the Service’s Covert Operations Directorate, CO8; only just recently returned to soft duties after maternity leave, was also, until anyone could disprove it, meant to be attending a residential refresher and reassessment course at the Service’s training facility at Aspley Grange. These were the very reasons Aubrey-Spencer confided to her, why she had been personally chosen. But despite having been back in the field for less than three days, Wynn had successfully baited the hook and got herself a bite.

  On the street the midday traffic was heavy as a motorcycle wove in and out of cars, vans and trucks crossing the Holzbrücke towards the booth. When the phone gave its first shrill notes she snatched it off its cradle.

  ‘Yes, this is Christa,’ she answered, her breathing still a touch hard.

  A heavy hand slapped the booth’s glass, startling Wynn so badly she almost jumped clean out of her skin. Resting his head against the glass, smearing it with his long greasy hair, a bearded beggar demanded money.

  ‘I have no change,’ Wynn shouted through the glass, her back to the road.

  Drawing alongside the booth, the motorcycle idled. The pillion passenger flicked back his visor, steadied himself, both feet planted on the tarmac. Then he fired.

  • • •

  Polizeirat Straelen of Hamburg’s Kriminalpolizei wearily longed for spring, an opportunity to escape Hamburg; its noise, its climate, its ability to constantly surprise a detective, even one with over twenty-years of experience.

  ‘So you saw the motorcycle stop?’ he gently asked a young woman, the tears down her cheeks dried into black stream beds from her mascara.

  ‘And there was a beggar, sitting right over there,’ the woman told him, pointing to a tattered sleeping bag by the Peace & Love Hostel. ‘He came to the booth, banging on the glass, scrounging for change.’

  ‘So where did he go?’

  ‘He ran,’ the witness explained, adding that the beggar had seemed too drunk to stand one minute, but suddenly when he’d got the attention of the woman in the booth he sprinted away, as fast as an athlete on the track.

  ‘Then what did you see?’ Straelen asked, though he knew this last question superfluous. Over the witnesses’ shoulder he watched as a forensic team stepped warily over fine shards of glass mixed with fragments from Sally Wynn’s skull. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make a point with a sawn-off shotgun he decided, returning his gaze to the witness though not before he spotted the Range Rover with its tinted windows and diplomatic plates, which he instinctively understood would bring trouble of an altogether different kind.

  • • •

  If Polizeirat Straelen was already preoccupied with the murder of Sally Wynn, Nick Torr, the Director of CO8 knew nothing concerning the loss of one his officers as he entered Latvia for a hastily conceived operation christened Salvage. At forty-five, Nick was used to raw deals and his face had all the maturity he needed for the rest of his life; fair skin ribbed by clawed lines around his blue eyes, a strong mouth and a pronounced line down his right cheek as proof he smiled. Dark hair dropped raggedly over his forehead in a jagged line and a broken nose set badly gave him an aggressive arrangement that Angela, his wife, compared to a tormented Caravaggio figure. On this run into Russia to check out the claims made by one very jittery agent codenamed Viper, Nick would be tormented for an entirely new set of reasons.

  Of course, hindsight is a wonderful commodity for cynics. And in the SIS there was an abundance of them, a good portion of them high-ranking men and women, seasoned officers all, who after the event claimed they knew that Operation Salvage was doomed from the outset. The operation had, or so it seemed to them, possessed a self-fulfilling mandate for disaster. To Nick Torr none of this retrospective soothsaying mattered. What concerned Nick was the indecent haste in which the operation had been cobbled together, that and the fact that his CO8 Directorate was so desperately stretched that he had no option but to take command of the operation himself, with barely a full briefing provided. There was also Alistair Foula.

  At fifty-two and an agent handling expert, Foula was more accustomed to training new officers in the psychological dexterity of ensuring their agents did not self-destruct or wilt at the first signs of pres
sure. This had been Foula’s main duty for over eighteen months, during which time he had become quite attached to turning his seminar theory into practice in the training facilities at Aspley. Nick had worked with Foula on previous operations, so when Nick met up with him at the small provincial Latvian city of Rēzekne, he was shocked at the transformation. For Foula bore the physique of a man too fond of his desk, of which he had indeed become.

  A dour Scot originally from Fife, Foula’s sandy hair had retreated as much as his paunch had advanced which seemed to have crept into his arms as well as thickening his legs; while his thick flabby neck was topped by a square fleshy face set in a permanent anxious scowl. Their cover, or lack of it, amounted to false passports and visas declaring them tourists.

  ‘Is it reliable?’ Nick asked, going over the sturdy dark blue Gaz-3110 saloon fitted with false plates parked close to the Kolonna Hotel overlooking the river.

  ‘It’s the best our representative in Riga could do at short notice,’ replied Foula, chewing a fingernail, a poor substitute for the thirty cigarettes that had at one time eased him through the day. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No problem,’ answered Nick, lighting a cigarette. ‘You do have all the documents?’

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, Foula nodded. ‘They’re in the glove box.’

  ‘And the extra plates?’

  Foula simply cocked his head towards the boot, setting his jaw as firm as it would go to prove that he wasn’t in awe of a CO8 roughneck, regardless of his rank.

  ‘We need to leave,’ decided Nick, walking to the driver’s door, taking a casual glance up and down the road and pavements on Brīvības iela, checking for unwanted company.

  They crossed without incident from Grebnova on the Latvian side of the border, heading northeast along the A-116 to Gavry, before turning south to pick up the A-117 at Opochka.

  ‘What’s Viper got that’s so precious?’ Nick wondered as he drove towards Dubrovka where they would hit the M-9, taking them all the way to Moscow.

  ‘He’s struck gold apparently and RUS/OPS wants a taster. Viper also reckons his handler is still wet behind the ears,’ Foula drawled, a hint of his Scottish roots lurking in his vowels. ‘It’s a straight in and out, so I hardly think there’s much to go wrong?’

  ‘Isn’t there?’ queried Nick as they travelled through featureless countryside, a frozen wasteland dreaming of spring. Beside him, Foula chewed a fresh nail. ‘Did Parfrey brief you?’ Nick threw the question casually, but for some reason it caused Foula to tense.

  ‘Ruth… Yes, well I mean, not fully, it was sort of vague.’

  Nick heard Parfrey’s quiet voice echo again at his own briefing. Ruth Parfrey Head of Russian Operations, RUS/OPS, assured him it was a straightforward case of babysitting Foula for the operation. The operation had come at a bad time she observed, they were in the midst of yet another terrorist alert as Nick knew only too well, and the only CO8 people available at such short notice amounted to Nick, who with his exhausted team had just flown in from Helmand Province in Afghanistan.

  The task as it presented itself to Nick’s weary mind, his logic sluggish, appeared simple; ensuring Foula got in and out without encountering problems. There’d be minimal resources available, which meant it would be a solo run with no support and no backup, Parfrey had disclosed; so Nick deciding that his team deserved a rest, volunteered himself for the operation. As he waited for Parfrey to give her usual in-depth assessment, he sat there in vain. Parfrey for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, was somehow subdued, citing the speed of events for the paucity of her briefing. He turned on Foula in the passenger seat.

  ‘What do we know about Viper?’ Nick lit another cigarette, and Foula started on the nail on his little finger.

  ‘I received Miss Parfrey’s redacted summary,’ Foula sniffed, spitting a piece of nail into the footwell. ‘Our man goes by the workname of Razdory, a civil servant of some description in a ministry that may or may not have military connections.’

  ‘That it?’

  ‘As I said, he has apparently struck gold and I am to collect a sample for assessment, open negotiations, conduct terms for his treasure.’

  …four for silver, five for gold, six for a secret never to be told Nick thought, flicking his cigarette out of a gap in the window, watching it curl away in a red trail as Foula sought out a fresh nail.

  ‘Just got back from exotic parts, haven’t you?’ Foula ventured, changing the topic, hiding his nerves behind small talk.

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Exotic.’

  After that exchange, Foula abandoned any attempt at building a dialogue with Nick as they took it in turns to coax the Gaz down the M-9. Three kilometres outside Moscow Nick pulled up and changed the plates again, then let Foula take the wheel. Nick who had barely managed seven hours sleep out of forty-eight after Helmand, wasn’t in the mood for city driving. On their way into Moscow they’d skirted the city twice against Nick’s vehement protests, only for Foula to observe sourly that he was getting his bearings.

  The final compass point consisted of Foula turning left and right through high-rise concrete apartment blocks and Stalin’s eight-storey brick experiments to social housing. A brick water tower rooted to a roof on Upper Zolotorozhsky was plastered white by the snow, and beside it Nick thought he glimpsed a figure duck down out of sight. Only London knows we’re here he assured himself, not for one moment convinced by his logic. Turning a corner they passed a T-34 tank, a war relic fixed to a slab of concrete, its barrel pointing menacingly at an apartment block. Slumped against its tracks a drunk held on for comfort or support, eyeing them warily as they drove on.

  This is the real Moscow, Nick reasoned. Drink, drugs, prostitution, rape, murder, all the hidden buds of communism had blossomed out here where no one gave a damn. Even in the districts you felt the tension, the next explosion waiting to happen; as if the city had held its breath for decades and suddenly it was going to let it all go. On Zolotorozhsky Avenue light spilled from dozens of uncurtained apartment windows, pockets of life in a communal block glowing green from the street lamps. Boom and bust, loss and gain, Moscow promised all the delights of a frontier town during a gold rush. Bright lights, bars, clubs, dancing girls, hustlers, thieves and pimps flourishing after capitalism had rolled into town.

  ‘This is it,’ Foula announced and clipped the kerb as he parked the Gaz.

  Nick rubbed his eyes and took stock. ‘Impressive.’ He watched as a gang of drunken youths slewed their way through a kid’s play area, setting the swings going as they passed through.

  Slowly the night crept around them, a veil for lovers and a mask for thieves. Shallow pools of light shimmered on snow-capped pavements off Krasnokazarmennaya Prospekt. A late evening tram passed them, groaning and squealing in its haste to get home; then nothing. Silence as deep as a scream. Snow pounded the windscreen and tiny curls of steam rose into the cool night air off the bonnet. Across the prospekt Nick took in the scene; a Georgian bakers selling lavash bread shared an island plot with a clearance centre and a fortified store offering mobile phones, DVD players and cameras at knockdown prices. No wonder some Muscovites believed they were living in a wonderland, their own personal strane chudes, he reasoned.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ decided Nick.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This place, this address.’ Nick swung his gaze round to rows of communal apartment blocks, their concrete shining thinly to a lost cause; stacked without hope in dismal canyons for a future none of the inmates would ever be able to afford. Behind the kid’s play area a row of old khrushchyovka housing stood boarded and empty, waiting for demolition. Even the shadows fell in subdued heaps with a touch of rage about them, as though this heady scent of freedom in the air had no right to be there. Starved trees planted in shallow clusters stood in splintered stumps, the remains of a forest ravaged by urban battles. Democracy always thrived on hard cash Nick decided, only here
no one had bothered to turn on the tap.

  ‘It’s your call whether you make the collection,’ Nick reminded Foula. ‘I’m not here to make that decision.’

  Glaring straight ahead Foula didn’t respond. A slight dry cough they both knew to be nerves racked his whole body. A couple in their thirties dragged a sullen child and a pair of suitcases through the snow. At a communal foyer the man read from a scrap of paper in his massive hand. Opposite Foula’s door the child pulled towards the car, forcing Nick to slip his hand inside his jacket pocket to rest on the 9mm Yarygin PYa he’d illicitly collected in Latvia. Nick stared at their blank faces as they passed the car, the mother’s small round brittle eyes as hard as beads.

  Meeting Nick’s stare she turned quickly away. Welcome to wonderland, he thought. Welcome to a world gone mad. In another ten years a different team would be waiting for a kid like that to pull a stunt, trying to get a trainer on life’s up-ramp. All you needed was the right start and guidance, he remembered. Sometimes, depending on the country, they even gave kids a helping hand with a grenade, maybe an improvised explosive device or automatic weapon.

  ‘Any reason for this address?’ Nick asked abruptly.

  ‘A halfway house, for safety,’ snapped Foula, his nerves frayed. ‘And no I don’t know who she is either. His sister, mother, lover… Parfrey didn’t say.’

  Rolling back his sleeve Nick checked the time. ‘You ready to make the collection?’

  Something happened to Foula at that precise moment; stiffening in his seat as though he’d been caught by a painful spasm, his shoulders sank, his whole body sagged. ‘You do it,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t go in… I can’t handle it… I…,’ Foula stumbled over his excuses, unable to look at Nick.