Kirk Poison Factory

Operation Kamera
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-0983-0549-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 296 Seiten

Decktora Raines is on leave from the CIA, trying to escape memories of the agent she lost and the disappearance of her life partner, Alex. But when a Russian defector she once handled unexpectedly reaches out to her, urging her to come to London, her instincts take over. She arrives to find that another Russian defector has been murdered, and the only clues are claw marks and an unidentified white powder.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kirk, Lucy

Leseproben

CHAPTER 3

London, May 28–June 1

Sergei Devlin was sitting at his desk in the small but elegant office he rented in Knightsbridge. Perfect for his fledgling business, Russian Antiquarian, whose market was old Russians seeking lost family wealth. It gave him a chance to speak Russian, to meet some like-minded souls, and to make a small but unneeded return on his investment.

He’d been on holiday with his family for more than a week and had a massive amount of mail to plow through, including his daily copies of The London Hour, which he always read from cover to cover. Reading the media was a habit he’d developed when he’d been sent to London after his escape to the West. But that was over now, and whatever dreams he may have had of returning to his homeland, there would be no going back, not with the latest managers of the Kremlin, who had begun to track down old defectors. Why now? Sergei didn’t know for sure, but he was convinced the crackdown was due to the emergence to power of a former KGB chief who held these “traitors” in high contempt.

He didn’t enjoy reading the obits, but he did as part of his discipline. One day far in the future, he hoped, he would see the names of people his own age, maybe some he would even know. He did not expect that to happen today. But it did—as his eyes fell upon the name Robert Johnston. Robert Casca Johnston. He knew that name. And he knew the man.

Sergei felt his throat constrict as he read through the column. He hadn’t seen Federov in several months and hadn’t bothered to consider why until this moment. The brief obit said the man was murdered while jogging along the river Thames. The police had no suspect.

Ivan Federov had been a defector who, like Sergei, lived in a new identity somewhere on the outskirts of London. They had met at an art exhibit in Kensington several years earlier, an exhibit by a Russian artist living openly in the UK in those still warm post–Cold War days. Sergei attended such events not to meet anyone from his past, but to gain potential clients for his new business in a genteel environment. The minute he met Johnston he knew—the ordinary English name, the strong Russian accent. This man, like him, had a dark past. Their eyes met, and call it a sixth sense, or clandestine training, they understood that they shared something. They also understood that they should not get together. MI5 had strict—and sensible—rules once they had given a defector a new life and a new identity. Maintaining their security, and thus their separation, was essential to their safety. Still, the temptation was there and they agreed to meet. Once alone together, they shared the basic secret of their past—Russian intelligence officers who had spied against their own, then escaped to the West. Over time, Federov introduced Sergei to those other few souls who lived secret lives like them.

As he reread the obit, a chill crept over him.

It had been over fifteen years since Sergei Dumanovskiy had become the Englishman Sergei Devlin. MI5 had given him the odd middle name of Ligurius, for reasons he didn’t understand but never questioned. He rarely used it anyway.

In his soul, he still carried the pain of those early days in the United States, after the Soviets swapped him for a spy of their own. The death in Moscow of his beloved Katya from cancer the Russians wouldn’t treat, the “reassignment” of his two young daughters to other Russian families, his imprisonment, had put him into a deep depression, and even though he was now a free man, his melancholy continued.

It was an insightful young CIA defector handler, Decktora Raines, who took over his case and ultimately arranged Sergei’s transfer to London. For that, he would always be grateful to Raines. She’d agreed with him that it would help him psychologically, by removing him from the memories of his early years in Washington, those heady days back in the early 1990s when he was a Soviet diplomat assigned to DC with Katya and the girls. All before he began spying for the Americans in order to get medical treatment for Katya, and before he was rightly accused of treason by his own masters, sent back to Moscow and arrested.

They were both right. Everything changed for the better in London. There he met Johanna, and with the birth of their son, found his way into a new life. Johanna had no objections when several years after they were married, Sergei told her he wanted to start a small business. She knew it would be a distraction for him more than a moneymaker. He didn’t really need the money. He’d received a large sum from the American government once his relationship with them had run its course. The intelligence he’d provided had been priceless, they’d said. The medal they’d awarded him for his contribution sat in a small office in Langley, where all the Soviet defector materials were held, and which, of course, Sergei would never see again. The US government had rewarded him well, but he was more than ready for London, and yet another new life after the Agency had finished their exhaustive debriefs.

With “Russian Antiquarian,” Sergei had intentionally selected a name that would draw little attention; he’d also chosen a neighborhood where a smattering of other Russian antiquities experts and iconastas had their shops. There he could speak Russian and be among some of his own, whether old Soviets or descendants of the czarist world. In those early post–Cold War days, a few daring, perhaps unwise, souls became less secretive about their Soviet pasts. Information was not held as tightly as it had once been, but by the turn of the century, things had cooled once again between East and West, and the handful of old defectors would go silent.

Sergei worked alone in his office in Knightsbridge, with the occasional help of a techie and a legal consultant. He had no intention of handling any issues related to the actual recouping of lost money or art objects. Those he sent on to the lawyer. But because he worked alone and away from home, Johanna had insisted he install a security system in his office, which he reluctantly agreed to do. He bought a simple, inexpensive setup that was tied to a discreet service, one he had researched thoroughly. Once installed, he needed only to pay his monthly fee, and if there was ever a security problem, one tap on a small button within the kneehole of his desk would alert the service of an emergency. He told Johanna he thought it was a waste of money, but there was no arguing.

A call he received on Wednesday afternoon, on the third anniversary of his business, would prove Johanna right.

“Mr. Devlin,” said the soft Russian-accented voice Sergei heard when he picked up the receiver. “I would like to make an appointment with you, kind sir, if you can so arrange.”

“And to whom am I speaking?” said Sergei, detecting the formality of the language but not able to place the exact origin of her accent.

“My name is Yulia Semenyova. I understand through friends in London and Paris that you might be able to help me find some lost art objects that once belonged to my family. I’m the only one left now, and it would bring me great joy to learn more about my elders and to find anything left of them.”

Ah, that was the accent—northern Russia.

“I have few records, but my people were originally from St. Petersburg. After 1917, they lost everything. My mother told me so many stories about them, especially about my great-grandfather, who was an adviser to Czar Nicholas. I believe he was what they call a White Russian. I was a fool not to make a journal of my mother’s stories, but youth never appreciates such things.”

“Miss Semenyova, would you be able to come to my office?”

“Yes, I would like that. I do hope that you can help me. Oh, those awful people. How lucky we are that they are gone. Ah, well, not to bother you with my thoughts.”

“You are not alone in those thoughts, and I look forward to meeting you,” Sergei said, feeling the small sense of pleasure he got from helping other Russians find their way back to a happier past. “Will you be able to meet me Friday at two in the afternoon? I will even serve you tea from a beautiful old samovar that recently came to me.”

“Yes, of course, I shall take a late lunch from work. Thank you, dear sir, thank you. I am so grateful.”

“I have a small office in Trevor Place in Knightsbridge.” He gave her the address and told her to buzz apartment number 3B. “You need to bring nothing but your memory.”

A sad soul, Sergei thought. She sounded as if she was on the verge of tears.

Yes, he would help her.

But Sergei was unable to find anything on Yulia’s great-grandfather, a few names with similar spelling and derivation, but no one who appeared to have been connected to the Czar or any other of the old royals. It was not unusual, he reminded himself, as records were sparse at best. He collected the few bits he had and put them in a folder for her. Perhaps when they met she could add some additional details, related names on the matronymic side that could help him find something more.

The rain pelted down on the day of the appointment, and Sergei half expected Miss Semenyova to cancel the meeting. When she telephoned him in the morning to reconfirm, he offered her another date, but she turned it down. She was excited to meet him, she said, and had long ago learned to navigate London’s downpours.

Sergei had just prepared the samovar and had hot tea ready, along with the Marks and Spencer...