Stealing People

by Robert Wilson

  ‘Do you know him?’ asked Hines, missing nothing.

  ‘That was my ex-husband’s old regiment. He fought with the Staffords in the 1991 Gulf War.’

  ‘As did Ryder Forsyth until he quit the army in 1994 and went into … well, let’s call them “activities” in Africa. It also appears he never made it beyond captain in the Staffords, but calls himself Colonel.’

  ‘You’re making him sound a bit dodgy, sir,’

  ‘Well, he isn’t squeaky clean. How can you be if you’re a mercenary in Africa who then slipped off the radar and reappeared in strange places like Colombia and Central America, where he specialised in “planned operations for the release of kidnap hostages”?’

  ‘How did he get involved with Kinderman?’

  ‘He pulled off an extraordinary rescue operation of Kinderman oil employees who’d been kidnapped in Mexico, one of whom happened to be the son of the then CEO of Kinderman Services and Logistics in South and Central America. By all accounts it was a real Chuck Norris job. The boy was being held by a very nasty drug baron, and Forsyth went in there and not only killed the gang hierarchy but rescued the hostage unhurt. He was secretly given a medal by the Mexican president and God knows what by Kinderman. Right man, right connections, right time.’

  ‘And he’s involved in this job?’ asked Mercy.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Such is the reach of Kinderman into the British government that they have been able to force, or should I say coerce us into a joint operation. So in this particular case the kidnap consultancy will be run by Ryder Forsyth, the special investigation unit will be ours – i.e. you – and the CIA will be doing whatever they do and feeding us any relevant intelligence.’

  ‘Sounds like a nightmare,’ said Mercy.

  ‘At least they’ve recognised that they need our help on the ground, that London is our turf, but even that was touch and go,’ said Hines.

  ‘Do we, or the CIA, have any reason to believe that the kidnap has been undertaken by anyone other than a criminal gang seeking financial gain?’

  ‘Not in any obvious way, but when the Kinderman corporation is involved in anything, the US government sits up and takes notice. That means, given the sensitive nature of a number of their projects in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan, the CIA will at the very least be listening in, and more than likely extremely active.’

  ‘This being an organised kidnap with evident planning, can we assume that the gang would know what they’re taking on and be prepared for some intense heat?’

  ‘They’d be mad not to,’ said Hines.

  ‘You said “in this particular case”, sir. So there’ve been other kidnaps?’

  ‘Six in the space of thirty-two hours,’ said Hines. ‘Three in the early hours of the fifteenth, four hostages taken. We’re not entirely sure of the timings. Siena Casey, daughter of an Australian mining heiress, went missing from a party in Hackney. Karla Pfeiffer, daughter of Deal-O supermarket heir Hans Pfeiffer, was kidnapped along with Wú Gao, the son of Chinese real estate queen Wú Dao-ming, after attending a nightclub in the West End. And finally Rakesh Sarkar, the son of Uttam Sarkar, the head of commodities conglomerate Amit Sarkar Group, has disappeared but they’re not quite sure when … or how. The parents in all cases have received phone calls asking for the same demand for expenses, which in each case is the first they knew of their child’s disappearance. There was a further kidnap yesterday morning on the outskirts of the St George’s Hill Estate in Weybridge, when a car taking nine-year-old Yury Yermilov to Danes Hill School in Oxshott was held up. This time the driver and bodyguard were murdered. Driver shot four times in the head and chest, bodyguard once in the head and the boy kidnapped. Irina Yermilov, the boy’s mother, received a phone call this morning again asking for twenty-five million pounds, not for ransom, just for expenses. Time and location to be nominated.’

  ‘Is this where the SVR come in?’

  ‘Sergei Yermilov, the boy’s father, is, to put it bluntly, ex-mafia. I say ex, but I don’t think you ever leave the Russian mafia. I think your role is just redefined. He works very closely with Anatoly Zykov, who is the A to Z of the president’s personal finances. So we’re talking about someone who is well plugged in to the Kremlin and is a member of one of the largest and most brutal mafia groups, called Solntsevskaya. He started off working in Prague as a krysha, some kind of enforcer, and gradually worked his way up to brigadier, eventually becoming the sovietnik or adviser to the boss. The precise nature of his current activities is not well known. Research is going to have to be done, or we’re going to have to rely on information from the SVR.’

  ‘Have they nominated someone like Ryder Forsyth to run this kidnap?’

  ‘Not yet. I think they’re waiting to see what we’ll put in place, and because we haven’t got to the half of it yet, we’re still in the planning stage.’

  ‘So what’s going to be my role in all this?’

  ‘I want you to run and co-ordinate the special investigations teams for all the kidnaps and make sure that the relevant information is fed to the consultants handling the negotiations,’ said Hines. ‘We’re going to Thames House now. Apart from the Home Office, the Joint Intelligence Committee, MI5 and MI6, there will also be Peter Makepeace of the OCC and various bods from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre.’

  ‘What about the kidnap consultants?’

  ‘I will be co-ordinating them,’ said Hines, handing her a sheet of paper. ‘Here is your contact list. You know all our consultants, but I would suggest you and DS Papadopoulos introduce yourselves to Colonel Forsyth and let him know how you’re going to proceed with the investigation into the Kinderman girl. He’ll want to know.’

  ‘Does that mean you want me to run that investigation personally as well as co-ordinating the rest?’

  ‘With DS George Papadopoulos, yes. You will have a team collating all the intelligence from the other investigations and feeding it out,’ said Hines.

  ‘Do I have to take orders from Forsyth?’

  ‘You have to … accommodate him and report to both of us,’ said Hines. ‘You know how it is with the Americans when it’s one of theirs. I’ve managed to retain my position as director of operations overall, but I’m under no illusions as to when I might get carved out of the Kinderman process.’

  Silence while Mercy’s mind writhed.

  ‘Anything else, DI Danquah?’

  This was the moment to come clean. Now was the last possible time. Tell him and walk away from the biggest investigation of her career. No contest.

  ‘Only that DCS Makepeace always called me Mercy, sir.’

  It was a short walk from Tanya Birch’s flat to the Special Forces Club where Boxer had arranged to meet his old friend from MI6, Simon Deacon. He left his coat in the cloakroom, went upstairs to the bar, saw Deacon waiting for him by the window looking out into the street. The grey light glanced off his hard, lean, scraped face and prominent cheekbones. He turned, held up a hand. The small nick of a scar under his left eye was his only blemish apart from the two deep lines above the bridge of his nose, which gave him a permanent frown. It made him look perplexed at what was going through his own mind, while being curious about what was going through yours.

  ‘Been a while,’ said Deacon, standing, giving his old friend a hug. ‘Can’t stay for long, there’s a big pow-wow due at Thames House. How’s my god-daughter getting along? Haven’t seen her since last summer. Still on the straight and narrow?’

  ‘I’m not sure the straight and narrow is a path that Amy’s ever going to successfully tread,’ said Boxer. ‘You know she chucked in her course at Bristol University? Couldn’t justify the debt. But she’s happy working for me now at the LOST Foundation.’

  ‘She told me, and likes the work too. I can understand her not wanting to start life forty grand down and she’s a kid who likes to get her hands dirty. She said it’s not just finding the missing persons that she likes but persuading them to go back to their families. So thi
ngs must be working out well between Mercy, you and her.’

  ‘Yes, they are. Not easy, but we’re in a new era where we actually talk and everything seems possible.’

  ‘And Isabel?’

  ‘Great,’ said Boxer, swerving away from revealing the pregnancy, wanting to give Amy and Mercy the news first face to face with nothing else on their minds.

  ‘A man in love, I’d say.’

  ‘You could be right,’ said Boxer. ‘No, you are right … why be cagey about it? I’m crazy about her.’

  They looked at each other. Deacon smiled.

  ‘Good to see you happy, my friend,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

  Boxer nodded, sat back and asked after Deacon’s wife and children. The barman brought the coffee, left them in peace. They were alone in the long, dimly lit room lined with special ops team photographs. Boxer gave Deacon the Conrad Jensen story. The only reaction he got was a repetition of that extraordinary American name.

  ‘Walden Garfinkle?’

  ‘Mean anything to you?’

  ‘He’s a CIA troubleshooter. He doesn’t specialise in any particular geographical area so you’re as likely to see him in South Korea as you are in Argentina. He deals with personnel problems. Agents gone rogue, suspected doubles, people with mental problems: full breakdown, inability to differentiate their front from reality, total betrayal. That kind of stuff.’

  ‘And why would he go and see Conrad Jensen, who as far as I know is a contractor not an agent?’ said Boxer. ‘Then again, his girlfriend told me he was very active around the Edward Snowden debacle. Could he be operating on both sides of the fence?’

  ‘Conrad Jensen? That name does ring a bell somewhere. I know I’ve seen it before, or heard it, just can’t think where,’ said Deacon, tilting his head back, searching his mind. ‘Got it. Not surprised it didn’t jump out at me. One of those career episodes I’d rather forget. For your ears only, Charlie. He was on the list of interrogators in one of the black sites they used for extraordinary rendition.’

  ‘Sounds ugly.’

  ‘It’s not something I’m proud of. I had to go to the Temara interrogation centre, in a forest outside Rabat, after the London bombings in 2005 to oversee an interview with a terror suspect. We wanted the opportunity to put some questions to him and I was sent with a colleague from MI5.’

  ‘Not one of our finest moments,’ said Boxer.

  ‘When you’re interviewed for MI6, they ask you how you feel about interrogation techniques and in theory you find yourself able to accept that sort of thing for Queen and country, but the reality is very … sullying. When I flew back to London I bought a new set of clothes, dumped the old ones, didn’t want even the smell of that place in my own home.’

  ‘And Temara was where you met Conrad Jensen. Was he an interrogator?’

  ‘Yes, he was an active member of the interrogation team. We watched the process through an observation panel, wrote down our questions, which were handed to the guys doing the work, and listened to the answers they … extracted. Our CIA counterpart told us afterwards that the team we’d seen were not CIA. They’d been contracted to do the job, as if that might make us feel better about what we were doing.’

  ‘What did Jensen look like then?’

  ‘I didn’t see that much of him. He wore a surgical mask during the interrogation and only flipped it off when he came out for a breather,’ said Deacon, looking into his head, trying to recall. ‘He was in his sixties, but didn’t look it. Hair dyed dark. A good-looking man with a strong face, one that you would trust. His eyes … we both remarked on his eyes on the flight back because it was the only part of his face we saw properly in the harsh light of the interrogation room. They were intense, because they were so blue, but somehow not cruel; in fact rather sad, as if this ugly business was painful to him, but had to be done. The CIA guy told me he’d been working with him since the War on Terror kicked off in 2001. He spoke fluent Arabic.’

  ‘Had they known him before?’

  ‘He hadn’t, but the agency had. He didn’t say in what capacity.’

  ‘His daughter says he makes a lot of money from these military contracts. When I said tens of millions, she replied: “More.” It seemed like a lot for a guy working as a lone operator. No office, no partners. She also said he was doing illegal stuff, or rather, work that the US military wanted done below the radar.’

  ‘Don’t get involved, Charlie,’ said Deacon. ‘Call the police. Let them sort it.’

  ‘You know me. I find it difficult to walk away from this kind of thing.’

  ‘Just when you’ve reached a point of real happiness for the first time in your life?’ said Deacon. ‘I can see it. It’s written all over you. Why fuck it up?’

  ‘It’s in my nature. I mean … not to fuck it up, but to want to help people in distress.’

  ‘I’d agree if I was sure you were in touch with the truth, but you’re not,’ said Deacon. ‘There are private security companies with contracts worth hundreds of millions, but they’re big security operations with, for example, the US Embassy in Kabul, or creating massive IT systems for tracking terrorist networks. But that kind of money doesn’t get spread around to one-man bands for anything illegal or covert. Too difficult to hide.’

  ‘Unless he was subcontracted via a larger private security company,’ said Boxer. ‘Any ideas how I could get in touch with Walden Garfinkle?’

  ‘If you think you’re going to get any more truth from him than from this Siobhan character, think again. He’s a player. You’re not equipped to deal with the likes of Garfinkle.’

  ‘Who said I had to deal with him? I just want to talk.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as talking with these guys. Everything is a negotiation. It’s their currency.’

  ‘He’s the only other lead I’ve got who’s actually seen Jensen this year. You’re next, but nine years adrift,’ said Boxer. ‘Then, of course, there’s always Martin Fox.’

  ‘I thought you’d finished with him,’ said Deacon. ‘He thinks you’ve finished with him.’

  ‘I don’t want to work with him any more,’ said Boxer. ‘That job two years ago, he got too close to me, Mercy and Amy. He knows you too. I don’t like that mixture of private life and work.’

  ‘But you’ll tap me for intelligence.’

  ‘You’re my brother and not just in arms.’

  Boxer could see how pleased Deacon was to hear that.

  ‘I thought Martin Fox might have been behind this,’ said Boxer. ‘Thought he might be trying indirectly to tempt me back into the fold. So I saw him last night.’

  ‘Why did you think he’d have a hand in it?’

  ‘Instinct,’ said Boxer, quickly. ‘I don’t think it’s totally out of the question that someone like Conrad Jensen could have been working for the US military through Pavis, do you?’

  ‘But not below the radar,’ said Deacon. ‘That’s not Martin Fox’s modus operandi. He’s always been totally above board.’

  Silence. Boxer looked out of the window.

  ‘So how did it go with Fox?’ asked Deacon.

  ‘I didn’t change my mind about working for him, if that’s what you mean,’ said Boxer. ‘I’ve heard you’re very pally with him these days … he said.’

  ‘I’ve known him a long time and not just through you,’ said Deacon. ‘He’s always been a reliable source of quality information. I’ve put him forward for security jobs in Afghanistan by way of reward and he’s always performed better than expected. My relationship with him is as good now as it was fifteen years ago, which is why I’m surprised not only that you don’t trust him, but also that you could think him capable of, what shall we call them, dark acts?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Boxer. ‘Maybe I’ve let something get out of control in my own mind.’

  ‘But what? You must have had good reason to doubt him or to intuit his involvement. Did Siobhan say something that pointed you towards Martin?’

  ‘Yes, you�
��re right, the truth gets messy in Siobhan’s mind,’ said Boxer. ‘I shouldn’t have paid so much attention to her. Forget it.’

  ‘You’re holding something back,’ said Deacon. His phone rang, he checked the screen. ‘I’ve got to go now.’

  ‘Don’t forget about Garfinkle.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Deacon. ‘Remember who your friends are, Charlie.’

  11

  09.10, 16 January 2014

  Thames House, Millbank, London SW1

  The seriousness of the situation was immediately apparent, not only from the number of people in the boardroom but also the quality of the personnel. For a start, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice was present, flanked by two civil servants. Mercy was relieved to see some faces she knew. Simon Deacon immediately came over to say hello.

  ‘Just had a coffee with Charlie,’ he said, kissing her.

  ‘What are you and Charlie cooking up?’

  ‘Just the usual info exchange. He wants me to track down some CIA guy for him,’ said Deacon, surveying the room. ‘Looks like I’m in the right place.’

  ‘Are you the only rep from MI6?’

  ‘They’re not going to send five regional heads,’ he said, nodding. ‘I’ve got to go back and brief them all.’

  ‘Does anybody know what we’re talking about yet?’

  ‘No interest has been declared by the kidnappers. MI5 haven’t picked up anything. Must be a tight ship to get past them. So we wait and see,’ said Deacon.

  Peter Makepeace came over and they were interrupted by a call to the table. Mercy and Makepeace sat with Hines, while Deacon went over to the intelligence side. A senior officer from MI5, Mike Stanfield, chaired the meeting.

  ‘I think you’ve all had preliminary briefings about these five kidnaps, which were conducted over an estimated period of thirty-two hours between around midnight on the fifteenth to about 8.30 a.m. on the sixteenth of January. We’ve concluded from the time frame and the nature of the ransom demand – or should I say “expenses” demand – that all these kidnappings are connected. One of the reasons we have gathered this extraordinary meeting is that in every case the victim’s parents are in some way connected to the government of the country from which they come.