and within an hour had drunk it and fallen unconscious. He wasn’t the only heavy drinker on the train. Boozing seemed to be a national pastime.
Jason sat across from Stratton, in the corner, staring out of the opposite window. He had kept to himself since they’d caught the plane at Heathrow. Stratton assumed it was a reaction to being ignored since they’d left Poole. But then halfway through the flight he had leaned over and quietly apologised for his stand-offishness and explained why he’d been aloof. Jason had done some kind of one-day MI6 course on travel security as preparation. He had learned how best to act when travelling in potentially hostile environments. Stratton knew what such courses consisted of. They were pretty much advice for beginners - comprehensive but common sense and rather obvious to someone at Stratton’s level. He had on occasion been asked to instruct MI6 and MI5, teaching various operational procedure lessons. Jason would have done the usual hotel, office and home security course. He might have sat through a presentation on anti-surveillance techniques by foot and by vehicle: how to detect if he was being being followed, how to prove it, and what to do and what not to do about it. The man had clearly absorbed it all and was living the role. All he needed now was the experience.
When they’d landed in Moscow his arrogance had extended to taking over the travel procedures by suggesting they move separately. It was as if Stratton had never done it before and Jason had become his mentor. They kept apart the whole time after that, except when Stratton had climbed into a taxi at the airport. Jason began some kind of pantomime for the sake of the taxi driver, asking Stratton if he minded sharing the cab. Jason said he’d overheard that Stratton was going to the railway station, which also happened to be his own destination. Stratton found himself shaking his head - mentally, at least - on more than one occasion.
After that they had separated again. Stratton didn’t say a negative word about it. The separation procedures suited him perfectly. He had been wondering how he was going to ignore the other man as much as possible throughout the operation and to his relief Mansfield had come up with the solution himself. Sitting opposite each other in silence on the day-long train journey across a big stretch of Russia was apparently acceptable.
Stratton felt curious about one thing that Jason probably knew about: Rowena. Considering that she was technically a member of the British military and was now more than likely being held captive in Russia, it seemed to him that very little action was being taken to resolve the issue. Then perhaps there wasn’t much that could be done about it. The Russians couldn’t admit to having her without admitting their involvement in everything else. And then coming up with a sound enough reason for keeping her was equally complicated. Stratton had found her to be a most irritating, cold and obnoxious bitch, but by the time they had climbed the platform he had developed a degree of admiration for her. She’d had no doubts about the dangers but she’d gone anyway. But if she hadn’t done it because of Jason and her relationship with him, why had she gone along? It niggled him. He did not sense the same level of loyalty in Jason. He wanted to understand some things a little deeper and perhaps Jason had answers.
‘You’ve not mentioned Rowena,’ Stratton said. They were the first words he had spoken to Jason in half a day.
Jason looked at him as if his mind had been on another planet and was scrambling to come back down to earth. ‘I think of her all the time,’ he replied eventually, looking away. ‘I was thinking of her just then. Between you and me, we were quite close. Personal relationships in MI16 are frowned upon. But I knew Rowena long before I came to the organisation.
‘We first met in Oxford.You think she was strong-headed when you met her. She was even worse then. And I gather that was an improvement on how she’d been as a teenager . . . Rowena was adopted. I don’t know anything about her natural parents. She walked out of the house when she was fourteen to join some kind of intellectual commune in Canada. She told me she was bored, not stimulated. In short, her adoptive parents were too thick.’