‘We didn’t see each other in college, not in any kind of carnal way. She didn’t like me very much then. She said she did but I didn’t believe her. She was - is - a brilliant physicist. Being beautiful and brilliant she needed to be headstrong. No one ignored her, that’s for sure. She got her doctorate at Princeton and then flitted around a few places. An audio-electronics company in Japan for a few months. Then NASA for a year. Got bored there, too. Then she did something completely radical and joined MI5 - a fast track to some undercover surveillance unit that operates in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. She completed the selection and training course but didn’t join the ranks. Someone up top recognised her potential and had her transferred to MI16. I suspect it was Jervis. She’s never talked about that to me. I read it in her file. I think she wanted to join that unit because she had something to prove, not to anyone else but to herself. But she never got the chance. I think that’s why she came on the platform operation even though she didn’t approve. I have a strong feeling she’s fine and well and will return safely home.’
‘Based on what?’
‘Intuition. I’m rather keen on mine.’
Stratton could have guessed as much. ‘I need a wee,’ he said, getting to his feet. The uncomfortable seats felt cold and he wanted to stretch his legs to warm up a little - the icy air had a way of finding his joints. He was well dressed against the cold, a good thing too since the carriage was an icebox. He also saw it as an opportunity to take a look at the characters on board. Paranoia was a healthy attitude, particularly in Russia. The two men had entered the country as engineers: Stratton a pipe welder and Jason a designer, naturally. A British pipe-welding company did actually operate on a gas pipeline a few hundred miles north of Moscow - not where the two men were ultimately heading but the company’s books had been amended to support the cover story. However, the FSB were, by profession, a suspicious lot. Stratton would not have been surprised if they’d been tagged from the airport. The plan had taken such a probability into account, of course. But the more prepared they were, the better.
He walked along the coach, surreptitiously checking out every individual as he passed them. The unconscious drunk had vomited down his clothes. In the next row a couple sat with three remarkably quiet young children. The low temperature might have had something to do with their silence. An old couple next, sitting huddled together against the cold, woollen scarves wrapped around their heads. A couple of families in another row, eating a communal meal of bread, meat and cheese. And vodka.
The rest of the carriage was empty except for the second row from the end. Two men sat on opposite sides, one young, the other mature, both dishevelled, shifty-looking. They eyed Stratton, no doubt taking in his comparatively expensive clothing. They didn’t appear to be together but Stratton sensed a common attitude between them. He pegged them more as thugs than secret service.
At the end of the carriage he could find no toilet. The door at the end had a glass panel in it but he could see nothing through the thick coating of ice. Stratton wondered if he could get into the following carriage. If that had no toilet either, well, he’d have to urinate into the freezing cold outside. He grabbed hold of the door handle and applied some pressure to push it down. Eventually the handle moved but the door wouldn’t open. It was stuck solid.
He pulled on a pair of gloves and, gripping the handle with both hands, put his weight into it. He leaned back, raised a foot up onto the frame and gave it a powerful shove. The door cracked open and the freezing air ripped inside. Stratton looked back but no one had leaned into the aisle to investigate. It was something they were no doubt used to.
Stratton tugged at the door’s frosty hinges a little more, opening it enough for him to squeeze through. He knocked away a sheet of ice that had formed down one side of the door frame and stepped out onto a ledge above the linkage, the wind zipping in and out of the gap between the