Dirty Little Secret. Jon Stock

her. Marchant had talked often about Leila, the MI6 officer who had betrayed him.

      ‘And by all accounts, it’s not just his guard that he’s dropped with you.’

      Lakshmi ignored the innuendo. ‘He’s told me nothing. He’s a professional.’

      ‘All the more reason we need someone like you. Can you believe it? The Brits are defending him. Fielding thinks Marchant’s a frickin’ hero. Try telling that to the head of the USAF. It’s a total clusterfuck. If Marchant’s helped Dhar once, he’ll help him again. It’s in the blood. Only this time we need to stop him. I’m just sorry you got hurt.’

      Lakshmi wasn’t falling for Spiro’s sudden concern, not for one minute. She had taken up Fielding’s offer to stay in the sanctuary of the Fort in order to keep away from him.

      ‘I’m not interested.’

      There was a pause, as if Spiro was idly looking around for something, a cigarette perhaps. Her reaction didn’t seem to surprise him.

      ‘Have you spoken to your folks recently?’

      She didn’t like his change of tone: small talk concealing something more sinister. Her arm began to shake. ‘Give them a call some time. They’d appreciate it.’

      Before Lakshmi could say anything, Spiro had hung up.

      6

      ‘Primakov wrote me a letter,’ Marchant began, sitting on the rocks. He would return to Lakshmi in a minute. The wind coming in off the Solent was cold, and he was exhausted.

      ‘Go on.’ Marcus Fielding sounded tired too, more tired than Marchant could ever remember him sounding. Marchant felt guilty about his news.

      ‘He says that there’s a Russian asset high up in MI6. The letter was written after Hugo died. Primakov thinks the mole framed Hugo to protect himself.’

      ‘And does he give a name?’ Fielding asked.

      Marchant paused. ‘Your deputy.’

      There was a long silence. Marchant wondered if the news surprised Fielding, or if it confirmed a previous suspicion. Fielding was inscrutable face to face, even more so at the end of a phone line.

      ‘You know Primakov never liked Denton,’ Fielding said eventually. ‘There was history between them.’

      ‘I didn’t know.’

      ‘I’ll look into it.’

      ‘You think it might be Primakov’s revenge? From beyond the grave?’

      ‘We owe it to Hugo to find out. I know someone in Warsaw who might be able to help.’

      7

      Dhar stumbled as he approached the two pilots in the cockpit of the Sea King. He wasn’t sure if it was his leg or the vodka. The noise was deafening, disorientating. The co-pilot clocked him first, his eyes widening in panic. As Dhar raised the gun, a finger to his lips, the pilot turned and saw him too. He seemed calmer, glancing at Dhar and then past him, down the helicopter, to see what had happened to his crew.

      Dhar was familiar with the cockpit of an SU-25, but the Sea King’s controls were alien to him. He knew, though, that he would have to move fast to disable its communication systems and prevent the pilots from raising the alarm. It would be equipped with U/VHF and HF radios, as well as intercom, but Dhar didn’t have time to familiarise himself with the panel of dials. Instead he grabbed the flex coming out of the back of the pilot’s helmet and ripped it from its socket. Then he did the same with the co-pilot, jerking his head back as if he had pulled his hair.

      ‘Take them off!’ Dhar shouted above the noise, waving his gun. After they had removed their helmets, he tossed them into the back of the helicopter, where one clattered and rolled out of the open door. The sight of it plunging into the night like a severed head seemed to shock the co-pilot. One of his knees began to bounce uncontrollably.

      The helicopter was approaching land. ‘If you want your frightened friend to live, fly back out to sea,’ Dhar said, leaning in towards the pilot. The pilot hesitated for a moment, as if thinking through his options, and then moved the stick. The Sea King altered course. ‘And if you try anything – calling for help, attempting to land – I will kill you. I know how to fly.’

      Dhar couldn’t be sure, but both men seemed to believe him.

      ‘What do you want from us?’ the co-pilot asked, unable to hide the fear in his voice. ‘We’re just SAR pilots.’

      ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ Dhar said, pressing the gun against the man’s temple. A few seconds later, the co-pilot was standing at the open door, looking back down the helicopter at Dhar in disbelief, and then he was gone.

      ‘Now we head for Kemble,’ Dhar said, slumping into the co-pilot’s empty seat and picking up a chart. It was good to be airborne again.

      8

      Lakshmi lay in the darkness, thinking about Spiro’s offer. Marchant was still outside on the rocks. She had considered joining him again, but the call from her father a few minutes earlier had changed everything.

      ‘He explained he was from the IRS,’ her father had said, sounding like a broken man. ‘Said the company’s books were not in order, and accused us of all manner of damn things: tax evasion, money laundering.’

      ‘Slow down, Dad,’ Lakshmi had replied, already detecting Spiro’s hand at work. ‘Did he give you a name, a number?’

      The caller had left enough details for Lakshmi to be certain it was a sting. Somewhere on the Langley campus a junior officer would be sitting by a phone in an empty office, ready to field any calls to the Internal Revenue Service.

      ‘You know it’s all lies,’ her father had continued. ‘I trained as an accountant in Madurai, best results in my year. How dare he accuse me of these things?’

      ‘I’m sure it’s just a mistake,’ Lakshmi had said. The last time she had heard him this agitated was on the day after 9/11, when he had been stopped by police officers in a shopping mall and detained for eight hours. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll make some enquiries.’

      ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you with this, Lakshmi,’ he had said, almost in tears. ‘Twenty-five years it’s taken me to build the business, isn’t it. I came to this country with nothing, just –’

      ‘Dad, leave it with me. Everything will be fine.’

      She walked back over to the window. Below her was the man she thought she loved. If she quit the Agency, Spiro would still follow through on his threat. He was that kind of man. The only way she could protect her father was if she agreed to his terms. She had no choice. For a moment, she understood how Leila must have felt when the Iranians threatened to kill her mother if she didn’t spy for them. Whenever Marchant had spoken of Leila, she had hoped she was different, not the sort to betray those closest to her. Now she was about to join the club.

      She looked again at Marchant, his tall rower’s frame silhouetted in the moonlight, then dialled Spiro’s number.

      ‘I’ve made my decision,’ she said.

      ‘And?’

      ‘I’ll do it.’

      ‘You’re smarter than I thought.’

      ‘I need to know my cover story. Marchant thinks I’m about to quit the Agency.’

      ‘Actually, we were going to fire you, then put you on trial. Let’s stick with that, shall we? You’re on the run, you got too close to Marchant. Disobeyed orders. Grossly violated your duties. A warrant’s been issued for your arrest – it will give you some credibility.