She’d believed Williams was a Line Z agent who had gone rogue then let himself get caught. And she’d dismissed the two apparent handovers in Regent’s Park and on the Kent coast as a sign that MI5 and the CIA didn’t know what to do with the gift they’d been given. But what if Knox and Bennett hadn’t been bungling prisoner exchanges? What if they’d been removing Rykov’s man from the British capital, and she’d had him taken straight back there? It would explain why they’d spent today racing all over the city—looking for him, or looking to stop him from doing something.

Churkin had told Yegerova to let Bennett and Williams go, and had made it clear how much more she’d suffer if she didn’t do it immediately. That suggested Williams might not be a rogue agent after all, that he was still working for Line Z, and under orders from the deputy head of the first chief directorate.

Yegerova had never sought favour from any of the troika that ruled over the Soviet Union. As far as she privately believed, even together Kosygin, Brezhnev, and Podgorny fell far short of what should be expected of them. But she, like the rest of the KGB, was an instrument of the state and so theirs to command. However, it was no secret that both Rykov and Churkin were favourites of Brezhnev, and that Kosygin was the only real force stopping him from reigning over Russia alone.

‘Come with me,’ she said to the messenger, squeezing past him and out into the corridor.

As she raced to the Lubyanka’s radio control room with the messenger in tow, the sinister realisation sank in: Churkin and Rykov were planning to assassinate Kosygin.

The communications room was empty when they arrived, and it occurred to Yegerova that the messenger must be both errand boy and radio operator. She quickly scribbled down a short sentence on the piece of paper he’d brought her just a few minutes ago.

‘Send this immediately,’ she said, holding out the new message.

The man took it, looked at what she’d written, and stared at her, eyes wide in shock. She met his gaze with a look that made it clear she was serious and that he should consider himself sworn to absolute secrecy about what he’d just read. Then he nodded, took the paper to a control desk, and encrypted it.

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

‘You’ll be glad to know I still don’t think you’re a Manchurian candidate,’ White said.

‘A what?’ Williams asked.

‘It’s a book, and a film, about a Soviet–Chinese plot to brainwash an American soldier. Whipped up plenty of fear when it was released, but rather overstated how close Moscow and Beijing are, and both parties’ ability to control minds.’