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  “My darling, I thought I'd never see you again.” His words were liquid with tears. She had never seen him so emotionally distraught.

  Barely able to stand, he leaned heavily upon her as they ascended the steps and entered the house as though his feet were unable to bear his own weight. She could not imagine what calamity had overtaken her handsome, urbane husband, but he looked like he had been through a war. His skin was sallow, and he had definitely lost weight. He seemed barely able to put one foot in front of the other, and his right hand was swathed in bandages.

  Guiding him to a sofa she repeated, “Wafiq, what happened? Have you been in an accident? I’ve been so worried.”

  With a visible effort, her husband brought himself under control.

  “I think I could use a whiskey.” His voice was so low that Becky had to lean over him to understand what he was saying.

  “Of course.” She hurried to the drinks cabinet and poured a generous glass of scotch which Wafiq downed in a single swallow that brought on a fit of coughing.

  “It was Mohammed,” Wafiq’s voice was still low, his eyes haunted. “I still can’t believe it.”

  The despicable Mohammed Attar, of course.

  “What, darling? What is it you can’t believe?”

  “Mohammed …,” his voice faltered. “He is a Russian spy. All these years … ever since Warsaw. They thought I was involved, too.”

  None of this made sense to Becky. “Involved …? What are you talking about, Wafiq? Where have you been?”

  Again, he shuddered. “The mabahith,” he whispered, “the Saudi secret police.”

  He held out the empty glass, and Becky rushed to recharge it.

  It took hours for her to pull the story out of him, painful bit by painful bit, and there were parts she was certain he still was not telling.

  Chapter 29

  There were very few people whose request for an unscheduled meeting would be accepted by the British Prime Minister, and Wafiq al Salah was one of them. He was a personal friend, a generous campaign contributor, and a key link in the biggest arms sale in history. Curious about the reason for the Saudi’s unusual request, she swept into the reception room at No. 10 Downing St. to greet him. The handsome Arab stood as she entered, somewhat slowly and painfully, it seemed to her.

  “I apologize,” he said, displaying a bandaged hand, but I am unable to take your hand this morning.”

  She took in his appearance more carefully. He did not appear to be well.

  “Wafiq, whatever has happened to you. Please sit down.”

  The man had been teetering slightly on his feet, and she was suddenly fearful that he might collapse.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks, Prime Minister – a slight accident is all.”

  She quickly took a seat herself so the obstinately courteous man would finally sit in her presence.

  “Now sit here with me on the sofa, and tell me what brings you here – out of a sick-bed it would appear.”

  Wafiq essayed a smile, but she thought she detected sadness behind it. The man’s eyes were full of pain.

  He said, “My injuries are merely physical, Prime Minister, and they will heal quickly enough. But I have suffered a spiritual blow that I fear will not so easily be cured, and it is this that brings me to see you.”

  The Prime Minister knew this man well enough to realize instantly that whatever had brought him to Downing Street this morning must be of some direct concern to her. The reference to a “spiritual blow,” however, mystified her. She was unused to being involved in the emotional problems of others.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning,” she said. “I’ll have some tea brought in.”

  After the servant had deposited a silver tea service on the occasional table and retreated from the room, Wafiq began. “You will recall the story I told you a long time ago about my unfortunate encounter with the Polish authorities when I was a young man.”

  Al Salah’s tale of brutality at the hands of communist thugs had been one of the things that had led her to trust the man. There was nothing, she believed, like being mugged to turn a liberal into a conservative. “Of course, Wafiq, but I don’t see …”

  “I’ll explain,” uncharacteristically, Wafiq interrupted her.

  The Prime Minister blinked and sat back, waiting. This was a man with a story to tell, and she received the impression that it was not inconsequential.

  Before coming to Downing Street, Wafiq had tried to analyze his own motivations. What he would tell the Prime Minister could endanger the still fragile Al Sakir deal, but he calculated that things had progressed too far for the entire matter to collapse. The revelation of a Russian penetration at the heart of the negotiations, should it become public, would cause a public outcry, and could lead to further revelations of the corruption that greased the gears. The Saudis stood to lose, but Wafiq no longer cared about his homeland and the tribe that controlled it, the same people who controlled the brutal mabahith. They represented a regime and a belief system that still moldered in the Middle Ages. Sadly, his lifelong friend, Mohammed, had become entangled not only with the Russians, but also with a group of equally unappetizing fanatics that, although opposed to the Saudi ruling family, were even more retrograde than they. The anger Wafiq had felt upon his release had continued to wax towards incandescence.

  Wafiq had done nothing wrong. He knew this, but his anger was accompanied and fueled by borrowed guilt. Mohammed Attar was a traitor, yes; but his jailhouse confession had in some mysterious fashion shifted his traitor’s burden to Wafiq, a burden that could be lifted only by confession, a peculiarly western concept. Perhaps revealing what his friend had told him would in some way absolve Mohammed of his sins. Knowledge was, indeed, a dangerous commodity, and he wanted to be rid of it. He would transfer the weight to the shoulders of someone better equipped to deal with it.

  “That’s where it all started – in Warsaw. We were just two boys out to have some fun, but it didn’t turn out that way …”

  He told the story as Mohammed had told it to him in Riyadh: the recruitment by the KGB, the position with the Prince, the Sheik, and the tangled web that Al Sakir had become.

  And Mohammed had told him about James Abbott – not only that worthy’s pecuniary interest in the arms deal, but also the Russian interest in recruiting him.

  When he had finished, Wafiq sat back, exhausted not so much by the telling as by the fact that the inexplicable guilt was still with him. Sharing deadly knowledge did not decrease its weight, he decided, but rather only compounded it as it passed from one person to another, leaving each with an equal load to bear.

  The Prime Minister sat very still, her eyes never leaving her interlocutor as she considered what she had just heard. Finally, she asked, “Do you plan to share this information with anyone else, Wafiq?”

  He looked up at her then, with evident surprise. “The Saudis, at least the Prince, already have this information, Prime Minister. I don’t know what they intend to do about it, if anything. I believe his primary interest at this point is to keep Al Sakir on track. He will not want to lose his ‘commissions,’ of course. I don’t think he's likely to do anything rash.”

  “Of course not.” The Prime Minister knitted her brow as she turned over the various implications of what she had just learned.

  Wafiq continued, “I just thought I should even the playing field by making sure you were aware of all the facts. I will certainly not tell anyone else. It is too shameful.”

  “Thank you, my dear friend,” she said. “Your loyalty will not be forgotten. Are you still in any danger from the Prince or the Saudi government?”

  She was genuinely concerned. Behind her calm façade she was horrified by the brutality to which Wafiq had been subjected in Riyadh and not for the first time was reminded of the medieval mindset of the Saudis. Too bad they had all the money.

  “I’ll see to it that you and your family are protected until this has blown over.”


  “I don’t think that’s necessary, Prime Minister.”

  “Nonsense, we’ll set some very capable guard dogs around you.”

  “Thank you,” was all he could say.

  She walked him to the street door of No. 10, an unusual courtesy for anyone who was not a head of state, and then returned to her office where she sat for several minutes, thinking. At last, she asked her secretary to summon the Head of MI-5 to Downing Street.

  Wafiq al Salah pulled off his shoes and put his aching feet up on the leather ottoman. The bruises and scrapes received in Riyadh had healed, but he still suffered from the punishment the caning had inflicted on the soles of his feet. This was his quiet hour in his study when he read the papers and enjoyed the pre-dinner cocktail that Becky always prepared for him.

  He was on page two of the Times when his attention was arrested by a short article below the fold, edged in black. His pulse quickened as he read it: “Government Minister Dies in Crash.” The thought occurred to him that it was strange that such news should not be on page one.

  The short article detailed the tragic accident that had taken the life of Minister of State for Defense Procurement James Abbott whose automobile had been broadsided by a train after it inexplicably stalled on a country rail crossing. The Prime Minister had issued a statement of condolence to the family.

  Wafiq carefully laid the paper aside and leaned his head back to close his eyes. He had told the Prime Minister about Abbott’s relationship with Mohammed Attar as well as the interest Russian Intelligence had in him.

  Wafiq had divorced himself from further involvement in the corruption-filled deal that he himself had made possible, but he did not doubt that it would gain momentum and make fortunes. It had cost Mohammed Attar his life and robbed Wafiq of his equanimity. The underbelly of the Saudi regime was sordid and repugnant, and he was ashamed of the “royal” blood that flowed in his own veins.

  As for James Abbott, he would never know what really happened, and he didn’t want to.

  We watched it unfold from our perch in Paris. There were numerous articles in the British press about the unexplained disappearance of Mohammed Attar. It was rumored that he had been seen on several occasions in the company of deceased Minister of State for Defence Procurement James Abbot. The more conspiracy minded of British scribblers tried to link the two events, and this led to increased scrutiny of the Al Sakir deal.

  Picard and his colleagues followed all of this with undisguised glee, and I had no doubt that they were feeding tidbits of damning information to their contacts in the press. Le Figaro took the line that the entire arms deal was corrupt from top to bottom.

  The hostile press led London opposition politicians to open several inquiries that led eventually to serious discomfort in places like BAE and No. 10 Downing Street.

  Despite French satisfaction, we still had the problem of how to disseminate Barsikov's information to affected allies without compromising the source. We made a good start on this with the French, but unforeseen events soon relieved us of that particular concern.

  Chapter 30

  Headquarters of the KGB First Chief Directorate - Yasenevo

  The French refer to dusk, when it is impossible to discern shapes in the gathering gloom, as entre loup et chien 'between wolf and dog.'

  Stepan Barsikov normally waited for the evening exodus of workers from Yasenevo to thin out before leaving the office. Thousands of people toiled in the modern, multi-story complex to keep the mechanism of the First Chief Directorate in motion. Most of them did not own an automobile, and special buses waited at the exit to carry them to the city center.

  The sodium lights that illuminated the parking area were just coming on as Stepan exited the building. The compound, consisted of a central group of tall buildings, ancillary buildings, and a large section of special housing reserved for high-ranking officers. The heavily wooded surroundings had earned the compound the sobriquet "The Forest."

  His meeting with the man at the monastery had been simultaneously frightening and exhilarating. Now he waited patiently, smug in his certainty that Lebedev’s prize operation in London would soon unravel and with it the office chief’s career. Stepan's world was all anticipation now as he waited for the axe to fall. Perhaps, he thought, Elena might even come back to him. Yes, she was sure to do so when the entire world beheld Lebedev’s feet of clay.

  He walked out of the north exit and turned right toward the metal gates of the vehicular entrance. The employees’ parking lot was located just a few dozen meters north of the gates. Still, it was a bitch to walk even that short distance during the harsh Moscow winters. Summer was now well-established, however, and the air was redolent with the smell of pine from the surrounding woods. He was in a good mood.

  The parking lot was rapidly emptying, and he had just unlocked his car when something, a distant sound that was somehow familiar, caught his attention. He looked around, uncertain what it had been. Then, there it was again – voices, the high-pitched tinkle of a woman’s laughter. He scanned the lot and spotted Lebedev’s car, a late model Volga, parked at the edge nearest the trees in a spot where the yellow glare from the overhead lights did not quite penetrate.

  As he crept closer, circling around like a hunter so as to approach from the rear, the voices became more distinct as they escaped through a half open window. With a start, he recognized Elena’s giggle. They didn’t notice as he crept up behind them, and for good reason. Through the window Stepan could see that the girl’s blouse was off, and Lebedev had his face buried in her breasts. He was making little doggie sounds, “Woof, woof,” and Elena giggled more loudly with each woof.

  Noiselessly, Stepan retreated to his battered Lada. He sat behind the wheel breathing heavily, trying to regain some sort of control, but he failed. His entire body trembled. A blind rage was building inside him, a rage that demanded release. All the weeks and months of his suffering, the ridicule of his fellow analysts, the way the KGB had betrayed him, the helplessness he had felt – all of this coalesced at this moment of crisis into white hot conviction. He was a pressure cooker that had reached its maximum limit. With mesmerizing clarity, he suddenly knew what he had to do. He wouldn’t wait for the damned French to destroy his rival.

  Stepan opened the glove compartment and removed the large hunting knife he always kept there. He again stealthily approached the rear of Lebedev’s car, his face frozen now in a rictus of rage. Crouching below window level, he duck-walked to the passenger side door, his heart pounding. Elena’s giggles increased, becoming interspersed with little moans of pleasure, enraging him still further.

  Gripping the knife tightly he wrenched the door open. Elena yelped in surprise and Lebedev jerked up from between her legs, his head cracking painfully against the roof of the car.

  Later, Stepan could remember only that there had been a lot of blood.

  He lunged over the top of the girl and slashed savagely upward, catching the awkwardly positioned Lebedev in the neck with the sharp edge of the blade and then slashed again cutting into his arm. Lebedev instinctively recoiled from the knife.

  Completely out of control now, Stepan turned his attention to Elena and plunged the eight inch blade deep into the girl’s bare chest with such force that he buried it to the hilt. She stared at him with wild, surprised eyes and then her mouth gaped open with a soundless scream that forced the blood already gurgling in her throat out onto Barsikov. He continued stabbing frenziedly, repeatedly.

  Lebedev had somehow managed to open the driver’s side door and was on his hands and knees on the parking lot’s macadam surface. Blood coursed from his sliced neck and through his fingers as he tried to staunch the flow.

  Stepan was screaming now, an incoherent stream of epithets and gibberish as he continued to sink the blade into an already dead Elena. Lebedev somehow managed to get to his feet and half-ran, half-staggered towards the main gates. He was halfway there when Stepan finally looked up at spotted him.

  Wit
h a feral growl he bolted after his prey. Stepan’s hand and arm, indeed one whole side of his upper body was wet and dripping with gore. His face and hair were likewise soaked. His bulging eyes reflected madness in the yellow glare of the parking lot lights.

  Lebedev heard him coming and found adrenalin-inspired strength to increase his speed. He began screaming now, a high-pitched, keening sound torn from his lacerated throat.

  The gate guards looked up and were frozen for an instant by the macabre scene unfolding before them. Two men were rushing in their direction. Both covered in blood, one pursued by the other. The two guards, camouflage uniformed special troops, looked at one another in amazement and then reacted. The one nearest the guard shack pressed the alarm button and a klaxon sounded. This would put the security garrison on alert and bring reinforcements to the gate.

  Until reinforcements arrived one of them had to remain on post while the other rushed forward, machine pistol at the ready. It was clear that the first man was being pursued by the other, and the pursuer was waving a large, bloody knife. The guard allowed the first man to pass him and then took up position to intercept the pursuer.

  ”Stoi,” he shouted, “Halt! Halt or I’ll fire!”

  The man with the knife did not stop.

  The guard released the safety on his weapon and fired a short burst, catching the Stepan in the legs.

  He stumbled as his momentum carried him forward and down to the tarmac on his face. Gibberish continued to spew from his mouth as he tried to propel himself forward on his elbows, still clutching the knife, his shattered legs dragging behind. The guard assessed the danger as minimal and cautiously approached the fallen man, quickly kicking the knife from his bloody hand.

  Stepan continued screaming as other guards arrived to surround him. He didn't stop screaming for a long time.