Shadow Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

Phil Hitchens, aren’t you?’
    Tinker nodded.
    â€˜You know his wife Sara?’
    â€˜Well, yes. We’ve been friends a long time. Their boy’s my godson.’
    â€˜Of course. Well, she’s in a spot of trouble.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜In fact, I think we all are.’
    Andrew frowned, wishing Craig would get to the point.
    â€˜Yesterday evening, I had a visitor. Chap from London. Security. Actually wore a trenchcoat, would you believe! There’s someone they’ve been keeping an eye on, apparently. Claims to be Swedish, but they’ve discovered he’s about as Scandinavian as Josef Stalin!
    â€˜Anyway, this man lives in London but does business in the West Country. That’s
his
story, anyway. MI5 heard about him from the local Special Branch who’d been called in by our own security staff here at Devonport. They’d been tipped off by a young sailor, who met this so-called Swede in a pub and wasn’t too happy about the sort of questions he was asking. The sailor’s a marine engineer, on nuclear propulsion. He’s a good lad. Did the right thing in reporting it.
    â€˜The Branch boys started tailing the man. On Wednesday night, something happened which made them call in MI5. They showed the London men a photo, but they had nothing on him.
    â€˜Then, by pure chance, MI5 got a tip-off in London. A couple of foreigners had done a bunk from their home in the middle of Wednesday night. They showed our local boys’ picture to the neighbours and it all fell into place. They instantly reckoned the Swede was an illegal, a Russian undercover agent. Ten out of ten for sharp thinking!
    â€˜The fellow had quite a circle of naval friends in pubs around Plymouth, but it seems he was still building up confidence and hadn’t asked too many clever questions yet.
    â€˜Anyway . . . , to cut a long story short – that incident on Wednesday. The watchers saw the Swede meet a woman in a kebab house in Plymouth. They seemed to know each other
intimately
. Lots of holding hands and whispering. But the woman got upset, and left without finishing her meal. One of the watchers followed her home. Can you guess who she was?’
    Andrew’s frown deepened.
    â€˜You don’t mean Sara Hitchens?’
    â€˜The very same.’
    â€˜Bloody hell!’
    â€˜Exactly. And the reason MI5 decided to call on me yesterday is that when they raided the house in London they found the couple had left some bits and pieces behind. Including some of the little knick-knacks you get given free when you work for the KGB! The Swede
was
a Russian spy. Confirmed.’
    â€˜Shit!’
    â€˜Exactly. And we’re in it. Up to our necks!’
    â€˜So, you’re saying Sara was having an affair with a Soviet spy?’
    â€˜Correct. Not the first little dalliance, by all accounts. There’d been gossip about her among some of the wives, so I’m told.’
    Andrew felt the back of his neck prickle, uncomfortably aware that the gossip was well-founded.
    â€˜But Sara can’t know anything important,’ he stated briskly. ‘What would a KGB man hope to get from her?’
    â€˜Apart from a good time, you mean?’
    â€˜Yes, well . . . it doesn’t quite make sense, does it?’
    â€˜I put the same point to MI5. They seem to think the man had only just started spying. Still feeling his way around, as it were, seizing any opportunity that presented itself. And one day, there was Sara. Do you know what she used to do when her old man was off on patrol? She used to go on her own to restaurants and pubs, sit at a table all by herself, and see who she could pick up.’
    â€˜I don’t believe it!’
    Poor Sara. Still desperate for affection, Andrew thought.
    â€˜It’s true. She admitted it. Told MI5 that was the way she’d met the Russian. Said it usually worked a treat. Navy town – full of presentable young men, all