At this point, he turned and gestured to a table at the back of the room on which some object was covered by a green baize cloth. An underling swept the cloth away. On the table, on its twin legs, with scope-sight mounted, was an Orsis T-5000. The ambassador, who had been pink with anger and ready to deny all, went pale.
‘I am required to inform you, Your Excellency, that the man in question has decided to confess all in the greatest detail and has requested asylum. In short, he has defected. Offered the choice, he has elected to emigrate and seek a new life in the USA. This request has been granted. He left this morning. That is all, Sir.’
The Russian ambassador was escorted out. Though visibly in control, he was inwardly seething with rage, though not at the British. His anger was reserved for the fools back at home who had inflicted on him this humiliation. His report later that day mirrored his mood in every aspect. It did not go to Yasenevo, headquarters of the SVR. It went to the Foreign Ministry on Smolenskaya Square. And thence it went to the Kremlin.
When they came for him they were four and they were in full Kremlin Guard uniform. The Vozhd wished to make a point. They were led in silence up to the seventh floor but not impeded. Yevgeni Krilov did not protest; there would have been no point. Everyone knew whose orders were being carried out. Doors remained closed as he was escorted to the lobby and out through the main door. The ZiL limousine was not available. He was not seen in the silver birch forest again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
FOR MANY PEOPLE, walking the mountains and glens of the Highlands of Scotland is a pleasurable vacation. But it is also a challenge, demanding a high level of physical fitness.
Every mountain over 3,000 feet high is called a Munro, and there are 283 of them, including one on the estate of Lord Craigleven. That October, the weather had not yet broken; the sun still shone and there was still warmth on the wind, which was why the hill-walk was undertaken.
There had been much debate as to whether Luke was strong enough, fit enough, to join the group. He had been the keenest in assuring them all that he was. His mother had been dubious, but the weather was so fine, the air so bracing, that she conceded a five-mile march might do him good. She had long been concerned about the hours he spent in semi-darkness, tapping at his computer. So, it was agreed: he would go.
Perhaps it was being in the countryside, or it might have been the company of soldiers and computer men, but Luke was gaining in personal confidence. On occasion, he volunteered a personal remark rather than waiting shyly to be spoken to or remaining in silence. She prayed he might be developing an awareness of a world away from a computer screen and the blizzard of ciphers which for so long had been his whole universe.
There were six in the party. It was led by Stuart Mackie, who knew every inch of the hills and valleys, and Sergeant Eamonn Davis of the Regiment, who was accustomed to the Brecon Beacons of Wales, his native land. The other four were two of the remaining soldiers, one of the computer specialists and Luke Jennings.
For the ghillie and Sergeant Davis, the hike was no more than a stroll in the park; both men were ultra-fit. The same applied to the SAS troopers. They could all have marched, or ‘tabbed’, a lowlander off his legs, so they bracketed the technician and Luke Jennings in Indian file.
The soldiers were accustomed to huge ‘Bergen’ rucksacks but for this march they needed only light knapsacks containing energy bars, water canteens and spare socks. They even carried the needs of the two computer experts, who bore nothing but their marching clothes. It should all have been so uneventful.
After an hour they paused for a break, then started the climb up Ben Duill. The gradient became steeper, but the path was a yard wide and easily navigable. To one side was the flank of the Munro, towering upwards to its peak. On the other was a quite gentle slope down to the valley. There seemed no reason why Luke should lose his footing on a patch of loose gravel. It all happened so quickly.
If the man behind him had been a soldier, he might have grabbed him in time. But it was the computer engineer. He made a lunge for the falling boy but missed. Even then, Luke fell only a few feet, crashing through the heather until he stopped. But the single rock was unforgiving. It was concealed by the heather and the boy’s head hit it with a low crack. Sergeant Davis was beside him in two seconds.
Of course, he was first-aid trained. He examined the grazed dent on the left temple, swung the limp figure over his shoulder and scrambled up the ten-yard slope to the path. Hands reached down to haul them both over the edge. On the level, he was able to have a closer look.
The bruise was swelling and turning blue. Sergeant Davis swabbed it gently with water, but the boy was out cold. He could have put him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him back to the castle. The other two soldiers could have spelled him, but that would have taken time. He did not know if he had time. He looked up and caught Stuart Mackie’s eye.
‘Chopper,’ he said.
The ghillie nodded and pulled out his mobile phone. The nearest mountain rescue unit was at Glenmore, forty miles away, and they had a helicopter. In forty minutes the party on the mountainside heard the snarl of the engine of the Glenmore Coastguard’s S-92 coming down the glen.
A stretcher was lowered and the limp body of Luke Jennings lifted aboard. Within sixty minutes, still unconscious on a gurney, he was being wheeled into Accident and Emergency reception at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, the nearest major city.
They did a brain scan and the verdict was that the patient should be transferred to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, way down south. The ERI has an acute unit that includes a specialist brain wing. The journey south was by plane.
Luke was lucky. Just t
wo days back from his annual holiday was Professor Calum McAvoy, rated the best brain surgeon in Scotland. He did a second scan and did not like what he saw. External appearances, which had caused Sergeant Davis to underestimate the damage, were deceptive. The crack on the temple had caused a brain bleed. McAvoy decided to operate without delay.
He ensured his patient was in a deep induced coma before opening the skull, performing a hemicraniectomy in which a substantial section of the cranium is removed. What he discovered was what he had feared, and the only good news was that he was just in time.
It was an extradural haematoma – bleeding on the brain – and any further delay might well have led to permanent damage. McAvoy was able to stem the bleeding, quietly thanking Inverness for sending the lad to his ‘acute’ unit in Edinburgh, despite the time loss involved.
After suturing the bleed he kept Luke in the coma for three more days before bringing him back to consciousness. In all, the teenager spent two weeks in intensive care before, still swathed in bandages, he could be sent back to Castle Craigleven.
He was accompanied by his mother and Captain Harry Williams. Sue Jennings had been staying in a small hotel in Edinburgh so that she could visit every day and sit with him. Harry Williams had flown south to be with her and Luke.
Apart from the bandages, Luke seemed much as he had been before the fall. He still looked to his mother for support in social situations, but he was perfectly lucid. He seemed relieved, on his arrival, to be back in familiar surroundings where everything that belonged to him was still placed exactly where he insisted it must be.
For an hour he stayed in his room on the south face, overlooking the sweep of lawns and the spectacular view of the valley where, still unknown to him, he had nearly died for the second time. No one had told him there was now a Russian sniper buried deep in the forest across the valley.
Dr Hendricks fussed over him, eager to reintroduce him to the computer room, his preferred environment. Over their spring and summer together their relationship had developed to the point where the man from GCHQ was now almost a father figure, to such an extent that Luke’s memory of his real, late father seemed to be fading. Not that his real father had even shown a flicker of interest in Luke’s only interest – the mysterious world of cyberspace.
But Dr Hendricks noticed that even as the youth patrolled his room, checking over and over again on the position of all his possessions, he did not evince much interest in returning to the computer room. It will come, he thought, it will come. After the brain damage, he just needs time.