The Eleventh Commandment

Eventually he walked across to Gate 23. There wasn’t a long queue for the Aeroflot flight to St Petersburg. When the passengers were called a few minutes later, he made his way to the back of the aircraft. He began to think about what needed to be done the following morning, once the train had pulled in to Moscow’s Raveltay station. He went over the Deputy Director’s final briefing again, wondering why Gutenburg had repeated the words, ‘Don’t get caught. But if you are, deny absolutely that you have anything to do with the CIA. Don’t worry - the Company will always take care of you.’

Only raw recruits were ever reminded of the Eleventh Commandment.

‘The flight to St Petersburg has just taken off, and our package is on board.’

‘Good,’ said Gutenburg. Anything else to report?’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied the young CIA agent. He hesitated. ‘Except…’

‘Except what? Come on, spit it out.’

‘It’s just that I thought I recognised someone else who boarded the plane.’

‘Who was it?’ snapped Gutenburg.

‘I can’t remember his name, and I’m not that certain it was him. I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Fitzgerald for more than a few seconds.’

‘If you remember who it was, call me immediately.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The young man switched off his phone and made his way to Gate 9. In a few hours he would be back behind his desk in Berne, resuming his role as Cultural Attache at the American Embassy.

‘Good morning. This is Helen Dexter.’

‘Good morning, Director,’ replied the White House Chief of Staff stiffly.

‘I thought the President would want to know immediately that the man he asked us to track down in South Africa is on the move again.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ said Lloyd.

‘The head of our Johannesburg office has just informed me that Guzman’s killer boarded a South African Airways flight to London two days ago. He was carrying a passport in the name of Martin Perry. He only stayed in London overnight. The following morning he took a Swissair flight to Geneva, using a Swedish passport in the name of Theodore Lilystrand.’

Lloyd didn’t interrupt her this time. After all, he could play the tape back if the President wanted to hear exactly what she had said.

At Geneva he boarded an Aeroflot flight to St Petersburg. This time he was carrying a South African passport in the name of Piet de Villiers. From St Petersburg, he took the overnight train to Moscow.’

‘Moscow? Why Moscow?’ asked Lloyd.

‘If I recall correctly,’ said Dexter, ‘an election is about to take place in Russia.’

When the plane landed in St Petersburg, Connor’s watch claimed that it was five fifty. He yawned, stretched and waited for the aircraft to taxi to a halt before altering the hands to local time. He looked out of the window at an airport that was in semi-darkness because half the lightbulbs were missing. Light snow was falling, but didn’t settle. The hundred weary passengers had to wait another twenty minutes before a bus arrived to transport them to the terminal. Some things simply didn’t change, whether the KGB or organised criminals were in charge. Americans had come to refer to them as the Mafya, to avoid confusion with the Italian version.

Connor was the last to leave the aircraft, and the last to get off the bus.

A man who had travelled first class on the same flight rushed to the front of the queue to be sure of being the first through immigration and customs. He was grateful that Connor followed the textbook routine. Once the man had stepped off the bus, he never looked back. He knew Connor’s eyes would always be moving.

When Connor walked out of the airport onto the pot-holed road thirty minutes later, he hailed the first available taxi and asked to be taken to Protsky station.

The first-class traveller followed Connor into the booking hall, which looked more like an opera house than a railway station. He watched closely to see which train he would be boarding. But there was another man standing in the shadows who even knew the number of the sleeping compartment he would be occupying.

The American Cultural Attache in St Petersburg had passed up an invitation to the Kirov Ballet that evening so he could inform Gutenburg when Fitzgerald had boarded the overnight train to Moscow. It wouldn’t be necessary to accompany him on the journey, as Ashley Mitchell, his colleague in the capital, would be waiting on Platform 4 the following morning to confirm that Fitzgerald had reached his destination. It had been made clear to the Attache that this was Mitchell’s operation.

‘One first-class sleeper to Moscow,’ said Connor in English to the booking clerk.

The man pushed a ticket across the wooden counter, and was disappointed when the customer handed over a ten-thousand-rouble note. He had been hoping that this passenger would give him an opportunity to make a small turn on the exchange rate - his second that night.

Connor checked his ticket before making his way towards the Moscow express. He walked down the crowded platform, passing several old green carriages that looked as if they predated the 1917 Revolution, stopped at Coach K and presented his ticket to a woman standing by the open door. She clipped it and stood aside to allow him to climb aboard. Connor strolled down the corridor, looking for booth Number 8. Once he had found it, he switched on the light and locked himself in; not because he was afraid of being robbed by bandits, as was so often reported in the American press, but because he needed to change his identity once again.

He had seen the fresh-faced youth standing under the arrivals board at Geneva airport, and had wondered where they were recruiting them from these days. He didn’t bother trying to spot the agent in St Petersburg: he knew someone would be there to check on his arrival, and someone else would be waiting on the platform in Moscow. Gutenburg had already briefed him fully on Agent Mitchell, who he had described as fairly raw, and unaware of Fitzgerald’s status as an NOC.