Cold East. Alex Shaw

held out his hand. ‘He was carrying this.’

      Webster narrowed his eyes. Puzzled, he studied the sheet of paper. It seemed to be some type of technical diagram. It was handwritten and contained words in Cyrillic. ‘OK, lead on, Macduff.’

      ‘McAdam, sir.’

      Webster sighed. ‘I know.’

      McAdam led the way out of the dark seclusion of Webster’s office into the dusty, blinding Afghan daylight and to an area designated for ‘interviews’. Both buildings reminded Webster of a Star Wars set. Two armed squaddies had been placed, as a precaution, on sentry at the entrance. They saluted; Webster returned it and entered the room.

      His guest was sitting with his arms folded and a hardness in his eyes. He was not to be intimidated. When the man spoke there was a recognisable Russian accent. ‘You are Military Intelligence?’

      ‘You can talk to me, Mr…’

      ‘Then that is a “yes”? My name is Mikhail. I have valuable intelligence that you must pass on to your superiors in London.’

      Webster kept his game face on. ‘What would that be?’

      Mikhail had no time for small talk. ‘Al-Qaeda has an atomic weapon.’

      ‘What?’ Had Webster heard him correctly?

      ‘Al-Qaeda has an atomic weapon. I brought it into this country in 1989. It is an RA-115A and is the size of a suitcase. The paper I have given you details the technical schematics of the device.’

      Webster tried not to smile. It was best to humour the loonies, not make fun of them. He’d let ‘Mikhail’ talk and pretend to take notes. ‘So you’re saying that the Red Army brought nuclear material into Afghanistan in the Eighties?’

      ‘That is correct. I was a lieutenant in the Spetsnaz. I was assigned a classified order to bring certain weapons into theatre. I was to maintain them until they were needed.’

      ‘How many?’

      ‘How many nuclear devices?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I personally had one such device. There may have been more in other bases that I was unaware of.’

      Webster stared at the paper. He neither spoke nor read Russian, if that was indeed what he was looking at, but the more he studied the diagram, the more something started to niggle him; the more he started to feel that perhaps, just perhaps, Mikhail wasn’t mental. What if this was real? ‘How did you come across this document?’

      ‘I created it myself.’

      ‘From what?’

      ‘From memory. I have perfect recall. What do you call it, “photograph memory”?’

      ‘Photographic memory.’

      ‘Yes. I was trained in how to use the device, how to maintain, and also, if necessary, adjust it. As such I saw the inner workings. If you have a basic technical knowledge it is really not complicated.’

      Webster remained silent and studied the paper again. It meant nothing to him. He could see the shape of a case with a tube and several small boxes inside it, but that was as far as his technical understanding went. ‘Mr Mikhail…’

      ‘Just Mikhail.’

      ‘Mikhail, this is of course a very serious accusation and one I will have to check the validity of before I take it further.’

      ‘You do not believe me; you think I am a crazy man? Perhaps I am crazy to stay in Afghanistan, but I am not crazy enough to let terrorists detonate an atomic weapon.’

      Webster noted Mikhail’s unblinking eyes; there was still no reason to believe this was anything more than the imaginings of a heat-crazed Russian deserter. It wasn’t his area of interest, but surely the notion that such suitcase nukes existed was one of fiction? ‘Where exactly is the weapon?’

      ‘Exactly, I do not know. Roughly? It is on its way to Europe, via Iran.’

      ‘And what is the target?’

      Mikhail shrugged. ‘If I knew that I would have told you. I do not want a nuclear bomb to go off, anywhere.’

      ‘Then why did you give the bomb to Al-Qaeda?’

      ‘I did not give it to anyone. I had been hiding it away from the world. The terrorists took it and have decided to use it, and I have decided to tell you so you can stop them.’

      Webster was confused. ‘Why have you not informed ISAF before? Are you a member of the Taliban, Mr Mikhail, or perhaps Al-Qaeda?’

      ‘I am a Muslim. These people of Afghanistan are now my people. I had no reason to believe that the device would be discovered.’

      Webster pursed his lips. The idea that the bomb existed was wild enough, but the idea that, if it did, Mikhail could have at any time prevented its being taken or alerted ISAF but didn’t was beyond him. But he couldn’t waste any time on this now. What he had to do was report back to London just in case there was a shred of truth in what the Russian was telling him. ‘Tell me everything about this weapon.’

      ‘This of course I am happy to tell you, but in return I want safe passage out of Afghanistan.’

      ‘Back to Russia?’

      ‘No. I want to go to the UK.’

      So that was his angle, the real reason why the Russian was sitting opposite him. He wanted to escape Afghanistan? ‘I don’t know if that’s possible.’

      ‘Of course it is,’ Mikhail said slowly. ‘There is a bomb heading for Europe and I know who has it. What information do you need from me to confirm that I am telling you the truth?’

      Webster rattled off a stream of questions. ‘I need your full name, the location of where you say the device was stored, the names of the men who took it, the names of the men who now have it, the name of your unit and where it was based, the name of your commanding officer, the name that was given to your operation, your…’