by Dan Latus
She stared at me as if she didn’t believe a word of it.
‘How did you get here, Johanne?’ I asked calmly. ‘We’ve been trying to find a way of freeing you.’
‘Where’s Harry?’ she countered.
‘I’ve got bad news for you, I’m afraid. We were both abducted by Petrov’s people a couple of hours ago. Harry was slung into one car, and me into another. A short distance down the road, the car I was in had to pull over because of a timber wagon. I managed to escape and hide in the forest until they gave up searching for me.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s why I’m in this state.’
If anything, she looked even more tense and angry now. I was getting really worried.
‘So you have no idea where Harry is?’ she demanded.
I shook my head. ‘The only thing I could think of doing was coming back here and calling for help. We should do that now. It really is urgent.’
She shook her head. ‘Not good enough.’
I didn’t know if she meant my explanation or my proposal.
‘Let me see your passport.’
I nodded at the breast pocket on the left side of my jacket. ‘It’s in there. I can’t get it out, I’m afraid.’
She stepped behind me and stuck the damned pistol in my ear. ‘My finger is on the trigger,’ she said. ‘Don’t move. If you try anything, guess what will happen.’
‘Just get on with it,’ I said, increasingly frustrated and annoyed.
She undid the zip at the top of the pocket and fished out my passport.
‘It could be a forgery,’ she said moments later.
‘It could,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s not.’
‘Name Harry’s place of birth,’ she snapped.
‘Redcar, the same as mine. Historically, part of North Yorkshire, but part of all sorts of local government areas in recent decades. Redcar and Cleveland District today.’
‘Shut up,’ she snapped. ‘Just answer my questions. What colour is Harry’s hair?’
‘I don’t really know what colour you would say it is now, what little he has, but it used to be red when we were boys.’
‘What was his first school?’
‘Redcar Zetland, the same as mine. That’s where I first met him. We were five years old.’
She flung the passport at me. ‘OK,’ she said wearily. ‘Yes, I’m Johanne. I was expecting to find Harry here.’
‘You would have done until a few hours ago. He’s been here a couple of months, waiting for you.’
‘It was difficult.’
‘So I understand. How did you manage to get here?’
‘On a timber wagon. I know the driver.’
‘Then you saved my life,’ I said with a small smile. ‘I wondered what a timber wagon was doing, coming this way. So thank you. But what I meant was, how did you escape?’
‘It’s a long story and we don’t have the time.’
I nodded and stared at her for a moment. She was unflinching.
‘Well, if you’ve accepted that I am who I say I am, I would appreciate some help getting my hands free.’ I smiled. ‘And perhaps you can tell me at least a little about how you got out of Kiev.’
She nodded and turned to pick up a knife.
‘Scissors might be better,’ I suggested.
She found some scissors and began cutting the tape away.
‘What a relief,’ I said, massaging my hands and wrists. ‘I managed to get the tape off my ankles, but I couldn’t do this myself. So, let’s talk about what to do about Harry. We’ve been dealing with a woman from the Canadian intelligence department — the CSIS — called Greta Campbell. She’s been very helpful, and she’s saved us a couple of times already. I’m going to call her now.’
‘No!’
‘No? Why not?’
‘We can’t involve the authorities.’
‘They’re involved already, Johanne. Harry’s boss in London has spoken to Greta. She’s been helping us.’
‘What could you tell her that would help free Harry?’
‘I’m not sure at the moment. Harry and I were thinking of abducting Petrov and exchanging him for you. You’re here now, but it’s still a good plan. If Petrov can be grabbed, we can trade him for Harry. I’d like to talk to Greta Campbell about that, as well as other things.’
‘Petrov? What are you talking about? The Canadians can’t operate in Ukraine.’
I shook my head. ‘They don’t have to. Petrov is right here, on Vancouver Island. I had discussions with him myself in Victoria just yesterday.’
She stared at me for a moment, bewildered, disbelieving.
‘Look, I want to ask Greta if she can pick him up. It would be simpler and quicker than us trying to abduct him. That way, maybe we can stop something bad happening to Harry.’
She stared hard at me. Then: ‘Do it.’
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Before I could do anything, swinging headlights announced the arrival of a vehicle. I glanced up with alarm. Johanne had already picked up the gun again and moved over to the window, switching off lights as she went.
Car doors slammed shut. Boots marched across the pebbles. The front door of the cottage crashed open. I jumped to my feet and seized a big kitchen knife. Johanne moved across the kitchen and trained her gun on the doorway.
‘Police!’ a female voice bawled along the corridor.
I exhaled and closed my eyes for a moment with relief. ‘We’re in the kitchen, Greta!’ I called back.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, turning to Johanne. ‘She’s here.’
The next moment Greta appeared in the doorway. She looked wild-eyed, and mad as hell about something.
‘What’s the idea?’ She demanded when she saw me, ‘running out on me without a word. What the hell were you and your buddy playing at?’
I held up a hand to try to stem the torrent of angry, but justified, complaints and criticism. ‘Sorry, sorry! Apologies! Things just got too heavy for us in Victoria.’
‘The hell with that! I’ve had more than enough of the pair of you.’
‘Petrov wouldn’t deal. He just laughed at us — at me, anyway. I’d kept Harry away from him. Then it got very threatening. We had to force our way out.’
‘So you just turned and ran for the hills? That it?’
I shook my head. ‘We decided to fall back on Plan B, which was to abduct Petrov and trade him for Johanne. We didn’t think you’d go along with that somehow.’
‘Damn right I wouldn’t!’
‘So we needed to give it some more thought before we put it to you. Coming back here to do that seemed a good idea at the time.’
I was too tired and in too much pain for much more of this. I slumped down onto a chair.
Greta wanted to go on, though. On and on, and on.
‘After everything I’ve done—’
‘OK,’ I interrupted. ‘We didn’t level with you, and I apologise. We should have. But you hadn’t levelled with us either, had you?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, I wondered how you found us so quickly the first day we were here. Damn smart police and intelligence work. But you weren’t here because of us, were you? You turned up here because you already had an operation running. You had a team focused on Coal Harbour.’
‘Crap!’
‘And Harry and I made ideal suspects for whatever you thought was going on. That how it was, Greta? What were you after? Illegal drugs?’
She shook her head, but her anger seemed to diminish. I knew I was right, in part at least. She and her team had already been in place when Harry and I arrived. I could tell from her near silence that I wasn’t far off with my claim.
‘Then, when reports came in of murders in a motel near Parksville, you put two and two together — and here we were! The ideal suspects. But you were wrong. Now, though, I could help you with your original case, if you can lay off me and Harry—’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she snappe
d. ‘Where’s Harry Stone?’
‘Ah. I was just coming to that.’
‘And who the hell are you, anyway?’ she demanded, turning to the other woman in the room.
‘I’m Johanne Erickson,’ Johanne said calmly.
‘Johanne . . . ?’ Greta swung back to me.
I nodded wearily. ‘That’s right. Harry’s colleague and partner from Ukraine.’
‘How . . . ?
‘I don’t know either,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘There hasn’t been time for her to tell me yet. But we have a new situation here now, and it’s urgent. We need your help, Greta. Harry has been abducted.’
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Johanne told us how she had managed to escape from captivity in Kiev. It had taken her a long time, but one day a chance had come, and she had taken it. After that, she had followed a long-planned escape route, without returning to the apartment outside of which she had been abducted.
From an emergency storage locker, she had collected clothes, money, bank cards and a passport. After that it had been straightforward. She had bought a few things she needed and booked into a hotel overnight to get cleaned up. The next day she had flown to Frankfurt, and then on to Vancouver. Along the way she had sent her office a text, telling them she had escaped from her abductors and was going into hiding. She would contact them again in due course.
‘Wow!’ Greta said, having paid rapt attention throughout the account. ‘All that. Well done, you.’
Then she turned to me and said, ‘What now? What are we going to do about Harry?’
‘Time is pressing, Greta, but nothing much will happen to Harry until Petrov gets here. He’ll remain alive until then.’
‘Well, we can’t abduct Petrov,’ Greta said firmly. ‘That is definitely out. It could result in the entire CSIS being wound up — believe me! The RCMP used to do stuff like that, and it led to an enquiry that resulted in them losing responsibility for national intelligence and us being set up.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘But we have to find a way of preventing Petrov getting to Harry. Once that happens . . .’ I stopped, unwilling to spell out the likely consequences in front of Johanne.
‘I could probably get him arrested,’ Greta said thoughtfully. ‘Would that do?’
I beamed at her. ‘That would be perfect. What would be the charge?’
‘That’s not a problem. The RCMP would be spoilt for choice. Travelling under a false identity. Suspicion of being involved in criminal activity. War crimes. Need I go on?’
I shook my head. I was in awe of Greta. She was a real can-do kind of person, the kind I like a lot.
‘Right. I’d better get on with it. I can’t do it from here. I need to get back to Victoria.’
‘Before you go, Greta, it would be helpful if you levelled with us and told us what you were doing in Coal Harbour when Harry and I arrived. I think we can drop the fiction that it was a coincidence.’
She didn’t spend long thinking about it. She needed us as much as we needed her, and she knew it.
‘OK, Frank. You’re right. I’ve had a team in place here for a while. Something has been going on in the area that we needed to know about. It started when a van stolen from Vancouver, over on the mainland, was found crashed and abandoned near Port Hardy. There was a load of ketamine inside.’
‘The van was just abandoned?’
She nodded. ‘A patrol car came upon it soon after the crash. The occupants fled. Ordinarily, we would have expected them to take the drugs with them and set fire to the van as well. On this occasion they didn’t have time. They just got out and ran. The officers didn’t find them. There were other indicators that something was going in this area, and importing illegal drugs seemed to be only part of it. So I was tasked with putting a team together to do some investigating. We came to think that whatever was going on involved Coal Harbour, as well as Port Hardy itself. It looks now like it’s all about importing drugs, but we still don’t know for sure. There we are,’ she finished with a shrug. ‘That’s it.’
Not quite, I thought. She had arrived at our door pretty quickly.
‘And we were we in the picture? Harry, at least?’
She nodded. ‘Of course. A guy fixing up this old property who wasn’t from the area and didn’t work around here. Who was he? What was he about? And then there were two of you.’
‘Natural suspects?’
She nodded.
‘Well, I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way, Greta.’
‘Don’t be too happy yet, Frank,’ she said with a grin. ‘You’re still on our radar.’
She turned then to Johanne. ‘I’m so glad to have met you, Johanne, and even more glad that you’re here and in one piece. These guys had me really worried about you.’
Johanne gave her a weak smile. ‘Thank you, Greta. I just hope you can help us save Harry.’
‘We will. I promise.’
I walked Greta to the door, where a couple of her men were waiting for her.
‘It is drugs,’ I told her. ‘You’re right about that. Harry and I watched them bringing the stuff in from the sea. It comes by submarine.’
‘Submarine?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘That confirms something we’ve heard but didn’t really believe. There have been one or two nocturnal sightings by First Nation people.’
‘Around the Quatsino Narrows, perhaps?’
‘That’s right. But how would you know that?’
I just shrugged.
She recovered her composure. ‘Now isn’t the time, Frank,’ she said crisply. ‘I have to get moving. But I do want to know what you know about what’s going on around here.’
‘You’ll be amazed,’ I said. ‘But let’s save Harry first!’
She nodded. And with that, she swung into her car. As always, it took off in a shower of grit and sand, her driver seeming to appreciate without being told that time was of the essence.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
I went back inside.
‘You’ve done really well to get here,’ I said to Johanne. ‘I still find it hard to believe you’ve made it.’
She shrugged.
‘You must be tired.’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Do you want to lie down and rest while we wait to hear from Greta Campbell?’
She shook her head. ‘I did plenty of resting in Kiev. I just want to find Harry.’
She didn’t seem to want to talk, or not to me at least. I left her to it and busied myself bringing stuff in from the car and tidying myself up while we waited for Greta to get back to us.
A shower and a change of clothes helped me feel a bit better, but I had to resort to painkillers to deal with my ribs and various other parts of me. Difficult as it was, I tried to keep moving. Once I sat down to rest, I suspected I wouldn’t be able to get back up again. Lactic acid would lock up my body altogether.
I thought about my new companion. What little I’d seen of Johanne suggested she was a good match for Harry. They’d both been through the same school of hard knocks, it seemed, and were both used to keeping their own counsel and getting on with things.
Her behaviour and experiences told me she was just as much an active agent as he was. They’d been in it together, despite what he’d told me. In that respect, as in so many others, Harry had been economical with the truth.
There wasn’t anything to be said about that now, though. We had to focus on saving Harry. Everything seemed to depend on Greta being able to arrest and hold Petrov. If she could do that, then Harry might survive a while longer, hopefully to be traded for Petrov. If Greta couldn’t manage that and Petrov got to Harry, all bets were off.
Right now, Harry was in a really bad place, and it could get much worse. No doubt about that. Greta was the key to his survival.
The only thing that had changed for the better was Johanne’s extraordinary, and hugely welcome, appearance on the scene. I was still trying to come to terms with it. I
f only there was some way of letting Harry know! It would mean the world to him.
An hour later my phone rang. It was Greta.
‘I’m in the air,’ she said without preamble, ‘and heading for Victoria. Unfortunately, we’re too late. When my colleagues went to the hotel, they found that Petrov had left. They have no idea yet where he’s gone. I’ll get down there and see what can be done. Don’t worry, though. We’ll find him.’
I thanked her and she ended the call. I pulled a face.
‘What is it?’ Johanne asked.
I told her.
‘It’s not looking good,’ she said thoughtfully.
I couldn’t bring myself to say I agreed with her, but I did.
Half an hour later another call came in from Greta.
‘Petrov has gone somewhere in a helicopter, apparently. We don’t know where yet, but we’re working on it.’
‘He’ll be coming up here,’ I said.
‘You think?’
‘No doubts at all. He’s coming for Harry, and for what Harry has.’
‘I’ll put out an alert.’
Johanne had heard all this. When I ended the call she said calmly, ‘I think I know where they have taken Harry.’
‘You do?’
‘To a building in Port Hardy, an old fish cannery.’
‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ I demanded, both agitated and frustrated. ‘I’d better call Greta back.’
I picked up my phone again.
‘No!’ Johanne snapped.
‘Why not?’
‘Let her catch Petrov. That’s very important. But we don’t need to stay here and just wait. There is something we can do. We can go to Port Hardy ourselves and look for Harry.’
I thought it through quickly. Could we do anything the forces of law and order couldn’t? In one sense, it was unlikely. We didn’t have the resources, or the firepower.
On the other hand, the firepower the police had was a potential danger. In hostage siege situations guns tend to be fired and innocent lives lost. Hostages can end up dead. Collateral damage, or whatever you like to call it. We had to avoid that scenario.