14. Istanbul Airport by Andrew Shephard

We craned our necks to see who would be the latest arrival at the party – all except Dmitri, who kept his gun pressed into my chest. It appeared he was the only one not to be surprised by the sudden appearance of the head of British Intelligence.

‘R’ wrinkled his nose. “My God, it smells worse in here than it does out there. Fear does that, doesn’t it? Never mind, we’ll be on our way soon. You can put your toy down, Dmitri. The games are over. Alan can either hand over the complete microfilm now or he can wait until we take him apart piece by piece in the Lubyanka.”

Dmitri moved away from me and I brushed my shirt to erase the impression of the muzzle. Perhaps it was the heat, but I was confused. I needed time to think. Why was ‘R’ speaking to Dmitri like he was an old friend? As if they were on the same side…

The penny dropped and a wave of disgust and nausea swept over me. I had spent most of my career working for a traitor. A second later, no more, and I realised that my retirement from the service had nothing to do with age, and everything to do with my nagging doubts about R. One second more, and I felt the rage of the wronged – the bastard was using me one last time. The whole charade, me included, was his ticket to safety, to the arms of his beloved comrades in Moscow.

The rage threatened to overwhelm me. I thought of grabbing Dmitri’s gun and shooting my way off the plane. I forced myself to take a deep breath and relax into my seat. I made a mental checklist of who I might be able to count on. Johnson? Yes, he was there under protest. The other American agent, Markman, obviously not. The Creightons? Unreliable amateurs.

Valerie? I caught her eye and she looked away, her nose in the air. But trained to look at the whole person, not just the expression, I saw one of her long painted nails pointing at herself. With Jean-Jacques just behind me, that meant four against three. They had guns, but they didn’t know I was not alone.

“Come on, Alan. Which is it to be? Here or the Lubyanka? I haven’t got all day. I have an appointment to keep. Hand over the microfilm and I’ll let these other good people off the plane. I may even let you go back to divorce cases and lost dogs. But I may not. I can see you as the villain of the piece, kidnapping me and dragging me off to Russia before your cover as a double agent was blown.” He sounded in complete control, but beads of sweat were running down his temples. He nodded towards Markman. “Enough time-wasting. Time to start the engines, Charlie.”

I took a cigarette from my slim gold case and lit up. “I never did like you, Roger. At least I understand…”

Valerie stuck out a foot and tripped Charlie Markman as he walked down the aisle towards the cockpit. Pretending to go to his aid, she kneed him in the kidneys and kept him pressed to the floor. Johnson stood up. Dmitri waved his gun, uncertain for a moment who to point at. I tossed my cigarette aside and rushed up the aisle towards ‘R’, inspired by rage and reconciled to death one way or another. Dmitri took aim at me, but Megan jumped from her seat and screamed.

“No, don’t kill him.” She took a bullet and slumped to the floor. I leapt over the bleeding woman and rugby tackled the head of MI6, knocking the wind from him with a head-butt to his stomach. Following close behind me, Johnson and Jean-Jacques shouted in unison, distracting and then disarming Dmitri.

The ordinary passengers at the back of the plane were screaming in panic at the sound of the gunshot, but a state of calm was soon restored in officer class as Johnson and Jean-Jacques quietly and efficiently bound the hands and feet of the three rogue agents.

***

None of this made the papers of course. It was all hushed up with a D-notice - in the national interest.