Illegal Action by Stella Rimington Read Free Book Online Page A

had personal business in Bergen. Possibly even a mistress.” He allowed himself a fleeting smile. “But then why not fly direct to Bergen? Why take a slow train, unless you were trying to cover your tracks even more carefully than a straying husband? And why leave the hotel in Bergen? Is it not hotels where these sorts of assignments are conducted?” he asked rhetorically.
    He must have said “assignations,” thought Peggy, amused by the first slip in the translator’s otherwise flawless English.
    “Excuse me,” interjected Scusi, speaking in his heavily accented English and looking confused. “You say he
wasn’t
assigning anyone?”
    “On the contrary,” said Beckendorf, sticking to German. “I am certain he was. But not a lover. I think it was an altogether different type of person. An Illegal. As I have said, a support officer hardly ever actually meets with the Illegal—it’s far too risky because he himself will most likely be known to the security agencies. He may just have been leaving something the Illegal needed. But in my view they met; that would explain why Ivanov travelled so far and went to such trouble to be unobserved.”
    “We decided to mount full-scale surveillance on Ivanov if he returned to Bergen,” said Miss Karlsson. “With any luck, we would discover who he was meeting; then we would investigate this person.”
    Peggy and the others waited, caught up in the chase. Beckendorf gave a shrug, and said, “It never happened. He did not go to Norway again.” Peggy noticed with a start that Miss Karlsson and Herr Beckendorf seemed to be looking at her.
    “But,” said Beckendorf, “we have just learnt that he is intending to visit London. We believe that may mean the Illegal has moved to London.”

9
    J ust before three the same day, as Peggy was waiting impatiently at Charles de Gaulle airport, Geoffrey Fane was stalking confidently along the corridors of the Foreign Office on his way to see Henry Pennington, head of Eastern Department.
    Fane regarded Pennington with scorn. The two men had known each other for years and much earlier in their careers; when they were young men, they had served together in the British High Commission in New Delhi, Pennington as a second secretary and Fane undercover as a press attaché. They had never got on. Pennington thought Fane was deeply unreliable and Fane regarded Pennington as a panicker, with a tendency to paralysis in a crisis. Even if events hadn’t amply demonstrated this, it would, Fane secretly thought, have been evident enough from his peaked face with its large nose and his jerky hand movements. He would rather have been dealing with almost anyone else in the Foreign Office than Henry Pennington, but the man was responsible for relations with Russia, so it was with him Fane had to share what Victor Adler had related.
    The nose hasn’t got any smaller, thought Fane, as Pennington rose from behind a massive mahogany desk. The room had a high ceiling with an elaborate white cornice, a marble fireplace and windows overlooking St. James’s Park. Propped upright beside the fireplace was a violin, its presence proclaiming that this was the office of a highly cultured man. Fane thought the conceit pathetic.
    Without much more than the briefest of courtesies, Fane recounted his conversation with Victor Adler the night before. He watched as Pennington’s expression moved gradually from cautious curiosity to anxiety and his hands began to clutch each other jerkily, suggesting, to Fane’s experienced eye, the beginnings of panic.
    “Didn’t Adler have any idea
who
they might target?” asked Pennington plaintively.
    “No. He had the impression that there has been a decision, but who and how may not have been settled yet.”
    “Why should we think they’ll do it in the UK?”
    “Most of the oligarchs live here,” said Fane mildly, “so London seems rather more likely than, say, Peru.”
    “Christ!” Pennington exclaimed. “This is the