ground. Stratton had long since learned to compartmentalise such things in order to take as much advantage as possible of any down time. Rest when you can for you don’t know when your next chance will come.
The train reached their destination eventually. Both men got to their feet. They each carried small backpacks containing washing gear, a change of clothes and nothing else. They kept their passports, money and return air tickets in their pockets. Stratton pulled the collar of his thick coat tight around his neck, shoved a woollen hat onto his head, rolling down the sides to cover his ears, and stepped down the carriage steps after Jason onto the snow-covered gravel. No platform. Just a couple of low brick buildings one side of the track, smoke issuing from a chimney, the only evidence of life. No one to greet the train or get aboard it. A family climbed out of the next carriage and after gathering their things huddled together and headed back along the track. The rest was tundra.
Mansfield had already set off at a brisk pace along the single road that cut the station in two: north led across the railway track into a barren steppe and south to a wooded wilderness. Jason was heading towards the trees.
Stratton marched a few metres behind, wondering when Jason was going to give up this ‘We’re not really together’ act. The road’s surface appeared to be tarmac beneath a crust of compressed snow and didn’t look as if it saw much vehicular traffic. When they reached the wood it turned out to be a thick, impenetrable army of pines.
Jason left the road, turning along a footpath that traced the edge of the trees. He was following the navigational instructions to the letter, having memorised every detail from maps and satellite photographs. The rest of the journey was just as uncomplicated. At the end of the track they would come to another road where their contact should be waiting for them - the man who had taken the surveillance photographs of Binning. From there they would go to a safe house on the edge of Plesetsky and get the latest information on Binning’s movements. Then it would be a case of planning his abduction. Apparently the contact would provide all they would need, including a pistol. He wouldn’t get involved in anything violently physical, although he was willing to drive for them.
Once Binning had been abducted they would secure him in the safe house that reportedly had a suitable basement in which to conduct a noisy interrogation. Jason and Stratton were to play the good cop, bad cop routine - Stratton would naturally be the thug. Jason was more than confident that Binning would tell him everything. He would appeal to Binning’s guilt, which he’d assured everyone the man would have in abundance, despite what he had done. Then, depending on what Binning revealed, they would come up with a plan to destroy the tile since they did not actually need the device itself - after all, MI16 had built it - the aim being to deny the technology to the other side. Ideally they would want it back but that would be impossible if it was in the mine laboratory - which was more than likely. It was the reason why Binning had to be terminated. Without him the Russians would take a lot longer, years perhaps, to figure out the other components.
Executing Binning was not going to be done in the old-fashioned way with a bullet to the head or a knotted rope around the scientist’s neck. Stratton had been given a shirt with a strip of material sewn into the collar. All he needed to do was dissolve it in liquid, such as a cup of coffee. Seconds after drinking it, Binning would be dead. He would be none the wiser when his time came. The poison apparently paralysed the respiratory system in seconds.
A few metres along the track, Jason slowed to allow Stratton to catch up. He had obviously decided they could now be together since they were out of sight of anyone travelling along the road. He grinned by way of a greeting as Stratton approached and they carried along together.
‘I love this kind of dry cold, don’t you?’ Jason said.
Stratton didn’t know how to answer him. It was a simple enough question. But coming from Jason, and the way the man asked it as if he was an old sweat in the job