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Caelan’s ears pricked up. He’d never known this. The coffee he drank earlier began to curdle inside his stomach. Maybe that explained Eric’s unique looks. Even Flora had fallen for the man and she didn’t fall easy.
“So he tell me that his father, Russian military advisor Lem Herasckow is waiting to hear from him.” Caelan had to sit down for this, taking the seat opposite Ogarkov to hear every single word. “I was, what you say? Shock. He tell me Lem should know intel he has and I should get it to him as soon as possible.”
Caelan was trying his hardest not to slide towards the edge of his chair but he couldn’t help it. Was any of this true? They’d never spoken of Eric’s family except for his brother living out in America, the sadness he still carried around at his dead sister, and the junkie mother who still lived in squalor in a cesspit in Bromley. Eric never, ever spoke of his father.
However, this name Herasckow rang a bell. Hewasa Russian military advisor.
“I believe every word he say, damn it,” Ogarkov exclaimed. “His Russian was so good, I thought he was one of us for sure.”
“And you don’t believe him now?” asked Caelan, rubbing a finger around his mouth.
“Net, I believe him. Still. Which shock me that I would believe a filthy, worm-ridden Englishman. So what I am about to say, I believe, is true.”
Caelan ignored the slight. It didn’t matter to him, anyhow. As a Scotsman, he could somewhat agree. “Go on,” he patiently encouraged.
“He tell me that we should use you to make example. Find Caelan Cameron, he said, who would enter the country soon to look for us. Then the West would bow and scrape to avoid international disaster and it would all be over. All Russian pride would be assuaged and Ukraine would have to submit… and it would all be arranged before end of month. He said you would enter Kiev at some point and that our spies should be waiting. He would require money to keep his mouth shut, he said. About the danger you’d be in.”
Caelan had to swallow hard and looked down at his lap. This was getting too close to the bone. And also, too much like a pantomime.
He gave Ogarkov a tight smile and asked, “Anything I can get you? I think I just need a water. A water, fella?”
“Yesh, a water, would be nice,” said Ogarkov.
Caelan left the room and entered the packed room next door. Everyone was silent, some chewing their pen lids, some gawping at the man before them. He ignored them all and began pouring two cups of water from the water cooler near the door.
“What about the bank account?” he asked, and one of the intelligence people showed him their phone.
It was a Swiss account number. A newish one, but Caelan should have known. The SAS used these for emergencies when something terrible had gone down. When one of them got caught in a tricky diplomatic situation and they needed money quick to get themselves out of it. This was a message. Eric wouldn’t have given Ogarkov this unless he’d been trying to help the effort, not hinder it. And Ogarkov could not possibly have known about the bank account without Eric having told him about it.
So, had Eric been playing the Russian for a fool? Buying time… or what?
“What about his father?” asked Caelan, feeling like a bloody ignorant pig for never having asked Eric about the man.
“True story,” said Phoebe, handing him her tablet.
Jesus, the man was a carbon copy of Eric. This was why Eric looked so different.
Plus this was why Eric was who he was. It had nothing to do with wanting to escape Bromley and get a better life for himself. The military was in his blood, like it was in Caelan’s. They were far more similar than Caelan had ever let himself dare understand.
Violent fathers and grandfathers, no doubt. The women they’d loved left broken. Their mothers.
This passion for the fight, this … unending need to crush.
Caelan quickly read the brief. Lem moved back to Russia in the early Noughties and rose through the ranks since he’d had no luck finding work in the UK and his marriage had disintegrated.
“This is the short and curlies of it?” asked Caelan.
One of the analysts came forward. “It’s in Eric’s file. He was questioned about his father a number of times. He hates him. There’s no love lost.”
“What the fuck does this all mean?” he demanded, and the walking brain that was Phoebe stepped forward.
“At the Polish border, Holmes could’ve told someone that you’d stepped into the country. As we know Russian spies have died by the dozens since the war began, but there are still plenty around.”
“How else did it become rumour that you were in Ukraine?” said one of the intelligence gatherers. “Ukraine itself sure as shit would not have let it out.”
Caelan hated this. Warfare. He could deal with the basics, but these politics? Manoeuvres, and such. He’d never enjoyed this aspect at all. These people and their twisted lies and deceit.
For a moment he closed his eyes and he was home, on the plain before the castle, breathing in the pine scent mixed with metallic rain and animal faeces. How he longed for that simple life. To be back there, safe.
