LITMIR.BIZ

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simplicity a week later on a rainy morning in Kensington Gardens. Belov had timed it for him. Every morning at ten Ashimov walked in the gardens, whatever the weather. On that particular Thursday it was raining heavily. Rupert Lang sat enjoying a coffee in a café opposite Kensington Palace Gardens, not expecting Ashimov to appear. But the man carrying an umbrella over his head fitted the description Belov had given him. Ashimov turned into the Bayswater Road and entered the gardens. Lang got to his feet and went after him.

      He followed him along the path, keeping well back, his own umbrella raised. There was no one about. They reached a clump of trees at the centre of the gardens, and Lang quickened his pace.

      ‘Excuse me.’

      Ashimov turned. ‘What do you want?’

      ‘You, actually,’ Rupert Lang said, and shot him twice in the heart, the silenced Beretta making only a slight coughing sound. He leaned down and put another bullet between Ashimov’s eyes then put the Beretta in his raincoat pocket, moved rapidly across the gardens to Queen’s Gate, crossed to the Albert Hall and walked on for a good half mile before hailing a cab and telling the driver to take him to Westminster.

      He lit a cigarette and sat back, shaking with excitement. He had never felt like this in his life before, not even in the Paras in Ireland. Every sense felt keener, even the colours when he looked out at the passing streets seemed sharper. But the excitement, the damned excitement!

      He closed his eyes. ‘My God, old sport, what’s happening to you?’ he murmured.

      He arrived at the St Stephen’s entrance to the Commons, went through the Central Lobby to his office and got rid of his umbrella and raincoat and put the Beretta in his safe, then went down to the entrance to the House and passed the bar. There was a debate taking place on some social services issue. He took his usual seat on the end of one of the aisles. When he looked up he saw Tom Curry seated in the front row of the Strangers’ Gallery, his left arm in a sling. Lang nodded up to him, folded his arms and leaned back.

      Half an hour later the Times newsdesk received a brief message by telephone in which January 30 claimed credit for the assassination of Colonel Boris Ashimov.

      In the three years that followed, Curry maintained a steady flow of confidential information of every description, aided by Lang. They made only three hits during the period. Two of these took place at the same time – a couple of IRA bombers released from trial at the Old Bailey on a legal technicality. The two men proceeded on a drunken spree that lasted all day. It was Curry who charted their progress until midnight, then called in Lang, who killed them both as they sat, backs to the wall, in a drunken stupor in a Kilburn alley.

      The third was a CIA field officer attached to the American Embassy’s London Station. He had been giving Belov considerable aggravation and, after the Berlin Wall came down, appeared to be far too friendly with the Russian’s latest rival, Mikhail Shimko, who had replaced Ashimov as Colonel in Charge of London Station KGB.

      The CIA man was called Jackson, and by chance, his name came up at one of the joint intelligence working parties. News had come in that he was having a series of meetings at an address in Holland Park with members of a Ukrainian faction resident in London. Curry kept a watch at the appropriate times and noticed that Jackson always walked for a mile afterwards, following the same route through quiet streets to the main road where he would hail a taxi.

      After the next meeting, Lang was waiting in a small Ford van – provided by Belov, of course – at an appropriate point on the route. As Jackson passed, Lang, wearing a knitted ski mask in black, stepped out and shot him once in the back, penetrating the heart. He finished him with a head shot, got in the van and drove away. He left the van in a builders’ yard in Bayswater, as instructed by Belov, and walked away, whistling softly to himself.

      It was half an hour later that a young reporter on the newsdesk of the Times took the phone call claiming credit for the killing by January 30.

      The British Government allowed the Americans to flood London temporarily with CIA agents intent on hunting down Jackson’s killer. As usual, they drew a complete blank. That the killings claimed by January 30 from Ali Hamid onwards had been the work of the same Beretta 9-millimetre was known to everyone, as was the significance of January 30. The Bloody Sunday connection should have indicated an Irish revolutionary connection, but even the IRA got nowhere in their investigations. In the end, the CIA presence was withdrawn.

      British Army Intelligence, Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist department, MI5, all failed to make headway. Even the redoubtable Brigadier Charles Ferguson, head of the special intelligence unit responsible to the Prime Minister, could only report total failure to Downing Street.

      It was in January 1990, following the collapse of the Communist-dominated government of East Germany, that Lang and Curry attended a cultural evening at the American Embassy. There were at least a hundred and fifty people there, including Belov, whom they found at the champagne bar. They took their glasses into an anteroom and found a corner table.

      ‘So, everything is falling apart for you people, Yuri,’ Lang said. ‘First the Wall comes tumbling down, now East Germany folds and a little bird tells me there’s a strong possibility that your Congress of People’s Deputies might soon abolish the Communist Party’s monopoly of power in Russia.’

      Belov shrugged. ‘Disorder leads to strength. It’s inevitable. Take the German situation. West Germany is at present the most powerful country in Western Europe economically. The consequences of taking East Germany on board will be catastrophic in every way and particularly economically. The balance of power in Europe will once again be altered totally. Remember what I said a long time ago? Chaos is our business.’

      ‘I suppose you’re right when you come to think of it,’ Lang said.

      Curry nodded. ‘Of course he is.’

      ‘I invariably am.’ Belov raised his glass. ‘To a new world, my friends, and to us. One never knows what’s round the corner.’

      ‘I know,’ Rupert Lang said. ‘That’s what makes it all so damned exciting.’

      They touched glasses and drank.

       4

      Rupert Lang was more right than he knew. There was something round the corner, something profound and disturbing that was to affect all three of them, although it was not to take place until the Gulf War was over and done with. January, 1992 to be precise.

      Grace Browning was born in Washington in 1965. Her father was a journalist on the Washington Post, her mother was English. When she was twelve tragedy struck, devastating her life. On the way home from a concert one night, her parents’ car was rammed into the kerb by an old limousine. The men inside were obviously on drugs. Afterwards, she remembered the shouting, the demands for money, her father opening the door to get out and then the shots, one of which penetrated the side window at the rear and killed her mother instantly.

      Grace lay in the bottom of the car, frozen, terrified, glancing up only once to see the shape of a man, gun raised, shouting, ‘Go, go, go!’ and then the old limousine shot away.

      She wasn’t even able to give the police a useful description, couldn’t even say whether they were white or black. All that mattered was that her father died the following morning and she was left alone.

      Not quite alone, of course, for there was her mother’s sister, her Aunt Martha – Lady Hunt to be precise – a woman of considerable wealth, widowed young, who lived in some splendour in a fine town house in Cheyne Walk in London. She had received her niece with affection and firmness, for she was a tough, practical lady who believed you had to get on with it instead of sitting down and crying.

      Grace was admitted to St Paul’s Girls’ School, one of the finest in London, where she soon proved to have a sharp intelligence. She was popular with everyone, teachers and pupils alike, and yet for her, it was a sort of performance. Inside she was one thing, herself, detached,

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