Broken | Lucas North - Spooks/MI5 Story [Featured]

Chapter 20

"Every chess master was once a beginner."
- Irving Chernev

The tracking device was hidden beneath the dead man's coat lapel, sewn between the layers of muslim that served to give the expensive coat its elegant shape beneath the outer layers of the softest merino wool. Since arriving in London weeks earlier, the Russian had availed himself of the best tailoring Saville Row had to offer, following recommendations from the man he called Sergei Fenix, a man he had grown to admire, though begrudgingly, through the nine years he had known him.

But now the man lay cold and dead in a shallow grave in the middle of a deserted lot flanked by factory chimneys, shot in the heart by Harry Pearce, head of Section D. His coat was ruined now, all that money wasted.

How Arkady Kachimov had allowed himself to be fooled by a minor player such as Lucas North was beyond anything Sergei could comprehend. The ruse had been so trivial, so minor, yet as Sergei listened to the recording of Arkady's conversation with Lucas the previous day - recorded by the listening device the tailor had sewn into Arkady's coat - Lucas had appealed to Arkady's need for safety and security.

After all, Arkady had only recently earned the position as chief FSB resident in London just a few weeks earlier, and Lucas North had been his ticket, releasing the MI5 operative after eight years' imprisonment as part of a spy swap.

No one wants to be fed to the wolves during a fall-out, Sergei thought as his men dragged Arkady's body onto a plastic tarp. If Arkady hadn't fallen for Lucas' ruse, Russia would have made its first statement to the United Kingdom that it was a force to be reckoned with in the worldwide race for nuclear energy. The Alexei Leonov, a Russian submarine that yesterday had been lurking in British waters with the mission of tapping a major communications network cable and disabling it, would have been key to that bold move. It would have paralyzed the country.

Instead, Arkady had put all his bets on Lucas and foiled the cyber-attack that had taken months to plan by giving up the valuable codes that disabled the submarine, rendering it useless in the water. It was a major embarrassment for the Kremlin. All that work gone in a blink of an eye.

And now, Arkady was gone as well.

Sergei sighed. Just as well.

If Harry Pearce hadn't pulled that trigger, Sergei would have done it himself. He would have done it a long time ago, but it had not been the place nor the time then.

One of the men looked at him and Sergei nodded curtly, a signal that told him to continue with the task at hand. The man poured caustic acid over Arkady's face and hands, burning off every trace of Arkady's identity, that of being FSB's man in London, recently installed, and now, quite recently deceased.

"The cub must not teach the wolf," Sergei whispered under his breath, the words spoken in fluent Russian as he watched Arkady's face melt in front of him. It was a Russian saying that Arkady should have known by heart.

"You taught me that, Arkady. And now here you lie, dead and betrayed by your own little cub, Lucas."

He turned away, the smell of burning flesh wafting towards his nostrils. Lucas North taught you the lesson you should have taught him, old man.

Sergei Fenix had once been in Lucas' place a long time ago - the cub - though he was much older than Lucas, old enough to be Lucas' father. In his match against Arkady, Sergei had been the one on his knees, begging for another life to be spared so he could take its place, while Arkady was the man to stand over him and laugh at him, turning his back on him and his pleas.

Sergei's jaw tightened at the memory, though he knew that everything had happened for a reason. That had been nine years ago, the first time he'd met Arkady and known him to be one of the most ruthless men Sergei had ever met. Cruel, sadistic and utterly without morals behind the easy smile and friendly eyes, the man thought himself the wolf among the unsuspecting sheep.