“And the full turnout of foreign press?”
The KGB chief shrugged. “These weasels get everywhere.”
Yes, if they are rung up and tipped off, thought Gorbachev. He wondered whether this might be the issue over which he could secure the ouster of Kryuchkov, and dismissed it. It would take the full Politburo to fire the Chairman of the KGB, and never for beating up a bunch of Jews. Still, he was angry and prepared to speak his mind. He did so for five minutes. Kryuchkov’s mouth tightened in silence. He did not appreciate being ticked off by the younger but senior man. Gorbachev had come around the desk; the two men were of the same height, short and stocky. Gorbachev’s eye contact was, as usual, unflinching. That was when Kryuchkov made a mistake.
He had in his pocket a report from the KGB’s man in Belgrade, amplified with some stunning information gleaned by Kirpichenko at the First Chief Directorate. It was certainly important enough to bring to the General Secretary himself. Screw it, thought the bitter KGB chief; he can wait. And so the Belgrade report was suppressed.
September
Irving Moss had established himself in London, but before leaving Houston he had agreed on a personal code with Cyrus Miller. He knew that the monitors of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade constantly scanned the ether, intercepting billions of words in foreign telephone calls, and that banks of computers sifted them for nuggets of interest. Not to mention the British GCHQ people, the Russians, and just about anyone else nowadays who could rustle up a listening post. But the volume of commercial traffic is so vast that unless something sticks out as suspicious, it will probably pass. Moss’s code was based on lists of salad produce prices, passing between sunny Texas and gloomy London. He took down the list of prices off the telephone, cut out the words, retained the numbers, and according to the date of the calendar, deciphered them from a one-time pad of which only he and Cyrus Miller had copies.
That month he learned three things: that the piece of Soviet technology he needed was in the last stages of preparation and would be delivered within a fortnight; that the source he had asked for in the White House was in place, bought and paid for; and that he should now go ahead with Plan Travis on schedule. He burned the sheets and grinned. His fee was based on planning, activation, and success. Now he could claim the second installment.
October
There are eight weeks in the autumn term at Oxford University, and since scholars seek to abide by the precepts of logic, they are called First Week, Second Week, Third Week, and so on. A number of activities take place after the end of term—mainly athletic, theatrical, and debating events—in Ninth Week. And quite a few students appear before the start of term, either to prepare their studies, get settled in, or start training, in the period called Nought Week.
On October 2, the first day of Nought Week, there was a scattering of early birds in Vincent’s Club, a bar and haunt of undergraduate athletes, among them the tall thin student called Simon, preparing for his third and last term at Oxford under the year-abroad program. He was hailed by a cheerful voice from behind.
“Hallo, young Simon. Back early?”
It was Air Commodore John De’Ath, Bursar of Jesus College and senior treasurer of the Athletics Club, which included the cross-country team.
Simon grinned. “Yes, sir.”
“Going to get the fat of the summer vacation off, are we?” The retired Air Force officer smiled. He tapped the student’s nonexistent stomach. “Good man. You’re our main hope to knock seven bells out of Cambridge in December in London.”
Everyone knew that Oxford’s great sporting rival was Cambridge University, the needle match in any sporting contest.
“I’m looking to start a series of morning runs and get back in shape, sir,” said Simon.
He did indeed begin a series of punishing early-morning runs, starting at five miles and pushing up to twelve as the week progressed. On the morning of Wednesday the 9th he set off as usual by bicycle from his house off the Woodstock Road in the southern part of Summertown in north Oxford, and pedaled for the town center. He skirted the Martyrs’ Memorial and Saint Mary Magdalen Church, turned left into Broad Street, past the doors of his own college, Balliol, and on down Holywell and Longwall to join the High Street. A final left turn brought him to the railings outside Magdalen College.
Here he dismounted, chained his bike to the railing for safety, and began to run. Over Magdalen Bridge across the Cherwell and down St. Clement’s at the Plain. Now he was heading due east. At six-thirty in the morning the sun would soon rise ahead of him and he had a straight four-mile run to get clear of the last suburbs of Oxford.
He pounded through New Headington to cross the dual-carriageway Ring Road on the steel bridge leading to Shotover Hill. There were no other runners to join him. He was almost alone. At the end of Old Road he hit the incline of the hill and felt the pain of the long-distance runner. His sinewy legs drove him on up the hill and out into Shotover Plain. Here the paved road ran out and he was on the track, deeply potholed and with water from the overnight rain lying in the ruts. He swerved to the grass verge, delighting in the springy comfort of the grass underfoot, through the pain barrier, exulting in the freedom of the run.
Behind him the unmarked sedan emerged from the trees of the hill, ran out of pavement, and began to jolt through the potholes. The men inside knew the route and were sick of it. Five hundred yards of track, lined with gray boulders, to the reservoir, then back to blacktop road for the downhill glide to Wheatley village via the hamlet of Littleworth.
A hundred yards short of the reservoir the track narrowed and a giant ash tree overhung the lane. It was here the van was parked, drawn well onto the verge. It was a well-used green Ford Transit bearing on its side the logo BARLOW’S ORCHARD PRODUCE. Nothing unusual about it. In early October, Barlow vans were all over the county delivering the sweet apples of Oxfordshire to the greengrocers. Anyone looking at the back of the van—invisible to the men in the car, for the van was facing them—would have seen stacked apple crates. That same person would not have realized the crates were really two cunning paintings stuck to the inside of the twin windows.
The van had had a puncture, front offside tire. A man crouched beside it with a wrench, seeking to free the wheel which was raised on a jack. He bowed over his work. The youth called Simon was on the verge across the rutted track from the van and he kept running.
As he passed the front end of the van two things happened with bewildering speed. The rear doors flew open and two men, identical in black track suits and ski masks, leaped out, hurled themselves on the startled runner, and bore him to the ground. The man with the wrench turned and straightened up. Beneath his slouch hat he, too, was masked, and the wrench was not a wrench but a Czech Skorpion submachine gun. Without a pause he opened fire and raked the windshield of the sedan sixty feet away.
The man behind the wheel died instantly, hit in the face. The car swerved and stalled as he died. The man in the backseat reacted like a cat, opening his door, bailing out, rolling twice, and coming up in the “fire” position. He got off two shots with his short-nosed Smith & Wesson 9mm. The first was wide by a foot, the second ten feet short, for as he fired it the continuing burst from the Skorpion hit him in the chest. He never stood a chance.
The man in the passenger seat got free of the car a second after the man in the back. The passenger door was wide open and he was trying to fire through the open window at the machine gunner when three slugs punched straight through the fabric and hit him in the stomach, bowling him backwards. In five more seconds the gunman was back beside the driver of the van; the other two had hurled the student into the rear of the Transit and slammed the doors, the van had rolled off its jack, done a fast-reverse into the entrance of the reservoir, hauled a three-point turn, and was headed back down the lane toward Wheatley.
The Secret Service agent was dying, b
ut he had a lot of courage. Inch by agonizing inch he pulled himself back to the open car door, scrabbled for the microphone beneath the dash, and croaked out his last message. He did not bother with call signs or codes or radio procedure; he was too far gone. By the time help came five minutes later, he was dead. What he said was: “Help ... we need help here. Someone has just kidnapped Simon Cormack.”
Chapter 4
In the wake of the dying American Secret Service man’s radio call many things began to happen exceedingly fast and at a rising tempo. The snatch of the President’s only son had taken place at 7:05 A.M. The radio call was logged at 7:07. Although the caller was using a dedicated waveband, he was speaking in clear. It was fortunate no unauthorized person was listening to police frequencies at that hour. The call was heard in three places.
At the rented house off the Woodstock Road were the other ten men of the Secret Service team tasked to guard the President’s son during his year at Oxford. Eight were still abed, but two were up, including the night-watch officer, who was listening on the dedicated frequency.