“Battersea” I replied, “not far from Chelsea Bridge.”
“Right” said Andy, “so she’s going to help us?”
“That’s the plan,” I said.
Andy’s specialities were murder, technical surveillance to facilitate murder and disguising those murders as accidents. He was the best I’d ever met at all three. A lanky Mancunian, he was easy-going and professional. I handed him Turov’s addresses on a post-it note. “Andy, could you plot up on these addresses ASAP please mate? The St. John’s Wood one is her office apparently.”
“Roger,” he nodded, tucking the note into the pocket of his black windproof jacket.
“What do you want me to do?” said Oz.
“Come with me to sort out some tools.”
Oz, on top of his other skills, acts as armourer for our team. He’s a small arms expert and marksman, used to teach Marines how to stalk. “That’s why I hate UK work” he grunted, “moving metalwork around London, when it’s crawling with Old Bill …”
“For fuck’s sake Oz” said Andy quietly, “I’ve just got back from the Pakistani border mate. I caught dysentery. There was an IED every fifty yards and no booze. This job’s fucking mustard, sitting in an obbo van in fucking Battersea drinking tea and eating fucking chocolate biscuits?”
“You’re an ex-Para” sniffed Oz, “you’d be happy if they gave you a sack of spuds to peel.” If there’s one thing Oz took away from his time in the Royal Marines and never lost, it’s geeing up Paras.
“I was in the Royal Engineers first” said Andy breezily, “last time I checked you had to be brainier to become a sapper than a boot-neck.”
I let them get on with their banter and checked my Blackberry for email. A confirmation email from my bank, Tete Noire, had dropped into my inbox. Belov’s people had paid in the fifty grand. “Right” I said, “you two get fifteen grand up front each for expenses and materiel. Don’t tell Harry.” I didn’t mention the ten for me and another ten for Sam and the kids. She must think I’m a drug dealer, although I tell her I’m still on the private military circuit.
Oz’s shrugged. “OK, this job just got slightly better.”
“What did I tell you?” said Andy, “I’ve got my season ticket to renew for City, that’s ‘urgent materiel’ as far as I’m concerned.”
“Do I look like an accountant?” I shrugged. I was paid a salary through the Adrian Clay legend. As far as the Inland Revenue was concerned, Cal Winter was non-domiciled and working abroad, via a moody address in Geneva. The rest of the time I lived a virtual cash existence.
“Right, I’d better get on with it” said Andy cheerily, slapping down a tenner for breakfast. We shook hands “I’ll ping you a text when I’m ground assigned.”
Oz smiled as Andy trudged away through the snow. “He genuinely loves sitting around for hours watching a front door.”
“You can’t teach it,” I said “it’s a gift.”
We drove through the traffic-choked London streets, headed east. Two hours later we were in Epping Forest. Snow flurries whipped through the trees, settling on the frozen slush carpeting the woods.
“What a winter wonderland,” said Oz glumly, pulling a shovel from the boot of the Volvo.
I followed him past a deserted snack van, and across the Earl’s Path, into the forest.
Oz stopped and looked around, sniffing the air like a dog figuring out where it had buried a bone. Finally he sank the blade of the shovel into the earth. “Keep an eye out,” he said conspiratorially.
I sat on a log and watched the return path as Oz dug. I was halfway through my cigar when I heard his shovel hit metal. Ankle deep in snow, I helped him drag an old metal dustbin from the earth. Inside was a parcel made of heavy duty rubber sheeting sealed with duct-tape.
Oz took the parcel, laying it on the ground. He threw me the shovel, “your turn.”
Pulling on my gloves I filled the hole in, brambles and frost-covered foliage catching at my clothes. Finally I was done.
Oz scattered leaves and kicked snow over the disturbed earth. He hefted the parcel on his shoulder. “How did you end up hiding guns in woods for a living Cal?”
We tried not to talk about life before The Firm, and when we gave away something about our past we usually expected something back. The more we knew about each other, the more vulnerable we were if we ever get caught. “If only it was just guns” I laughed, “that would be the least of my worries.”
“I heard a story about you, from a mate of mine” said Oz casually, like it was no big deal.
“Go on then” I said nervously, “my fame precedes me.”
“You got binned off SAS selection in week two for decking one of the instructors,” Oz wiped his nose with his free hand as he traipsed back towards the car.
“That’s a strange version of the tale” I sniffed, “because it’s more or less true. I’ve heard that I stabbed and shot the fucker too.”
“No, the way I heard it the other instructors kicked seven shades of shit out of you. You ended up getting RTU’d then cashiered.”
“That’s true Oz. It was the worst kicking I ever took in my life. The only reason I didn’t get court-martialled was on account on my gong.”
“I knew about the Military Cross. Good drills. Why did you hit the bloke?”
“I was mentally ill and had some full-on substance abuse issues” I said flatly, “plus, he was a big-timing twat and he deserved it.”
“Oh, the usual” he replied, “were you just slightly loony tunes or bat-shit crazy?”
“Bat-shit crazy,” I fumbled in my pocket for the car keys, “What about you then?”
“None of your business” he grinned, “Go and find someone who knows me and ask them yourself.” He put the plastic-wrapped bundle in the boot and threw the shovel in after it.
“I’ll ask Andy,” I said defensively.
“He thinks he knows about me, but most of it is stuff I made up,” shrugged the ex-SBS man.
My Blackberry rang. It was Andy.
“I’m ground assigned” he whispered from the back of his converted builder’s van, “it’s a townhouse, no movement and no lights on. No trace of her car.”
“Received” I said, “thanks for that, I’ll be in touch. Don’t stand down until she comes back.”
“Roger.”
We drove to Oz’s place, out on the coast near Harwich. He keeps a lonely cottage there, looking out over the North Sea. It was dusk. The world was white and grey as we parked, axle-deep in undisturbed snow. Inside Oz picked up a pile of mail and headed for the kettle. I left him and took the bundle we’d recovered into the workshop at the side of the house. Pulling on surgical gloves, I sliced it open with my Gerber.
Ninety per cent of our work is overseas, so we usually pick up our kit in-theatre. But in the UK we have to be ultra-careful: no heavy weapons, nothing traceable and nothing that’s ever been used before. Otherwise we’d give the ballistics experts who turn up to examine the aftermath of our handiwork proper hard-ons. How Oz procures the hardware is one of the many mysteries of The Firm, but he never lets us down. So I wasn’t surprised to see that the contents of the parcel weren’t too shabby.
There were two stubby HK 416 assault rifles with ten-inch barrels and Trijicon sights, a silenced MP5SD sub-machinegun, a compact Kel-Tec KSG twelve gauge combat shotgun and three pistols, SIG P250s. Another bag contained suppressors, peripherals and ammunition.
Where do you get these tools?” I said admiringly.
“Father Gun-mas leaves them in my stocking if I’ve been a good boy.” He passed me a mug of sugary tea as we field stripped and prepared the weapons.
“Right, now we’ve got enough tools for fifty years in Belmarsh,” I said, “let’s make a plan.”
Oz put the rifle with the other weapons and put another log on the wood-burner. “We need somewhere quiet for a chat with the Russian woman,” he said quietly.
“Agreed, any ideas?”
Oz looked in
to the fire and poked at the burning wood with a piece of metal. “Let’s try something different and take her for breakfast.”
“Let’s hope she’s not on a New Year diet,” I said, loading a P250 and making it ready.
CHAPTER FOUR
I checked my watch. It was just after 05:30.
“Contact” crackled Andy’s voice into my earpiece, “subject is out and towards her car, she’s slim, about five foot-seven, wearing grey coat, black boots.”
“Received,” I whispered into my mic. I walked around the corner towards Alisa Turov’s dark blue One Series BMW. Oz, driving my Volvo on cloned number plates, cruised behind me.
The street was dark and quiet, only a few commuters navigating the icy streets, eyes down and striding for their buses and trains.
“Alisa!” I called, “it’s me!”
Alisa Turov had short bobbed hair and dark, Slavic eyes. She bristled like a cat and went for her car keys. I jogged over with my arms open in front of me, a smile on my face.
“She’s in my sights” whispered Andy. He had one of the HK assault rifles with him in the back of his observation van, “say the word if you need to.”
“Who are you?” she said in faintly-accented English.
I pulled back my jacket and flashed the handgun on my belt. “Get in the car behind me, Alisa. We just need to talk. There’s a rifle trained on you, by the way.”
She was weighing up her options, glancing around the street.
“I know” I said, “no back-up. Ain’t working natural cover a bastard?”
Turov glowered and stepped towards me. I stepped back, hand hovering by my belt as I pointed at the rear door of the Volvo. She got in the car and pushed me aside, Oz looking up and down the road.
“Go” I said calmly, the suppressed pistol in my lap aimed at the SVR officer’s belly.
“Who are you?” she replied, opening her coat slowly to show me she was unarmed, “this isn’t the type of approach I’d expect from MI5 or MI6.”
“We’re the new lot, MI7” said Oz, “it’s the poor man’s agency. We get all the shit jobs.”
“He’s funny” she sneered, “where are you taking me?”
“For breakfast” I replied, “I hope you’re hungry.”
She swore in Russian. She called me a fat bastard and offered the view that my mother worked in a bordello, where she was routinely made airtight by syphilitic sailors.
“Such a sweet face, but such a dirty mouth,” I laughed in the same language.
She fixed me with her eyes, so brown they looked black “you don’t look smart enough to learn more than one language.” She’d switched back to English.
I nudged my pistol gently into her kneecap, “Colonel Turov, my understanding is that counter-interrogation training involves ingratiating yourself with your captors.”
“I must have missed that lesson” she shrugged, “there’ll be hell to pay at the Embassy.”
“The Embassy?” snorted Oz, “fucking hell, love, you haven’t got a clue have you?”
“Are you FSB?” she said quietly, her eyes darting around the car.
“If we were we’d have just shot you,” I said. Behind us I saw Andy’s van following us, as per our plan. We were taking Alisa to an industrial estate out in west London. Breakfast would be courtesy of a greasy sandwich van popular with builders.
Driving against the traffic, and in silence, we made it within the hour. We parked behind an empty workshop. I’d sat up here before on other jobs and knew that the CCTV was broken. Andy ambled off to get sandwiches and coffee.
“This is very, how do you say? Classy?” Said Turov.
“You’re welcome, Colonel. Tell me about the FSB plan to kill Sergei Belov,” I said.
“If you’d have told me that earlier we could have gone somewhere better for breakfast, and with no need for guns and thuggery,” she said.
“Sorry about that” said Oz, “force of habit.”
She relaxed in her seat a little, “You work for Belov?”
“Please, who we are doesn’t matter,” I said. Andy came back and passed us bacon sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. He nodded at Turov.
“Thank you” she replied, “my coffee is black, three sugars.” She sniffed the sandwich, shrugged, and began to eat.
“No worries darlin’” said Andy, retreating to his van with his breakfast and the newspaper.
Now she’d relaxed, I took a proper look at Alisa Turov.
She had a runner’s figure, wiry and slim. Her boots were black patent leather. Underneath her heavy grey woollen coat and scarf she wore a black business suit with a V-neck cashmere sweater. Her skin was sallow under a wisp of makeup. She looked to me like she was from southern Russia. “My information is that the FSB have sent a Major and five men from Spetzgruppa ‘A’ to eliminate Belov. There is to be no clever poisoning or subtlety, the intention is to send a brutal, unambiguous message to the rogue oligarchs.”
I sipped my coffee. “Why?”
“I assume Belov has done something above and beyond his usual role as prime irritant to the government. What that precisely entails, I do not know.”
If she was lying she was good. I had to assume that she didn’t know about Pieter Van Basten’s link to Belov.
“Six bad guys operating abroad?” said Oz, “not the worst odds. What’s their back-up and support like over here?”
“How do I know I can trust you?” she said “let us imagine that I believe you do not want to kill me. Why should I cooperate?”
I smiled, pulling a sock-shaped plastic package from my inside coat pocket “You’re correct, Alisa, I’d hate to kill you. But I’d happily knock you unconscious and dump you outside a police station with this nine-bar of cocaine planted on you. You can tell the nice policemen the tall story about the men who kidnapped you at gunpoint. You might even have to admit being a spy.”
Oz chuckled, “yeah, drugs and espionage. That’s got to be at least an eight-to-ten stretch on a guilty plea. No extradition treaties. No diplomatic immunity. What a nightmare.”
“We are on the same side” I said, “sort of.”
Turov sighed and rubbed her eyes, “the FSB have a deniable agent here, a man called Misha Baburin. I’ve been working against him, building up a profile. He is arranging for all the services and equipment the FSB team will need to complete their mission.”
“What’s the SVR interest?” said Oz, “why are you protecting Belov?”
“There are reasons why Belov is of more use alive” she said, “but we are more interested in protecting Russia from the activities of the FSB. They are gangsters. They put our efforts to reform our country back ten years every time they launch one of these idiotic actions.”
I raised my eyebrows, “so you’re the good guys?”
“Predictably simplistic, but if you wish to see it that way, yes” she replied “the FSB are an embarrassment. Every setback for them, as far as my superiors are concerned, is an achievement for us.”
I looked through the window. The car park was empty, “I thought the FSB and the government were deeply connected.”
Turov’s eyes creased as she smiled, “they are. Perhaps weakening one weakens both. Things are changing in Russia. SVR will be on the right side.”
“We intend to take out this Baburin guy and the FSB team” I said quietly, “will you help?”
“Take out?” said Turov suspiciously.
“We’re going to shoot them, blow them up and then incinerate whatever’s left” said Oz patiently, “I’m sure in your country you just tickle them until they promise not to misbehave again.”
“Da,” smiled Alisa Turov, offering me a small, cool hand, “your intentions are sympathetic to mine, and it saves SVR a job.”
I un-wrapped my sandwich and took a bite. “What will you tell your bosses?”
Turov thought about it a moment “the best lies have a core of truth. I tell them that I have met rogue UK intelligence agents prepared
to eliminate the FSB special action unit. They need a large sum of money, which we split fifty-fifty.”
“Naughty,” said Oz approvingly.
“I am a patriot” she said matter-of-factly, “but my salary is an insult to my abilities. Here, have this back.” Turov passed me my P-250, which she’d somehow taken from its holster.
I laughed.
“What do I call you?” She said.
“Call me Cal.”
“You can call me Colonel Turov.”
We drank our coffee and finished our sandwiches as Alisa Turov told us about Misha Baburin. The way she told it, Baburin was a career criminal who’d finally been arrested for extortion by the FSB serious crime unit. Facing twenty years hard labour in Butryka high security prison, he happily turned informant. Eventually given a new identity, generous funding and expunged of his criminal record, he was sent as an agent to the UK to set up a covert support network.
Now in his fifth year in London, he ran a successful security company in Hackney. Spartak Security, named after his favourite football team, provided everything from burglar alarms, security systems, static guarding, bodyguards and nightclub doormen. Turov also hinted that he had dodgy ex-cops on the payroll too.
“Baburin is ideally suited to support covert operations” said Turov, “equipment, vehicles, information are all available to him. We know he facilitated the killing of a Chechen in London two years ago.”
A prominent Chechen dissident had been murdered in Kensington two Christmases previously, which had been put down to a violent robbery. I remembered that the suspect, an illegal immigrant, was found dead in the Thames of an overdose. It felt dodgy because it was the type of stunt I’d look to pull if I’d have been given the mark.
“Baburin is also well known in criminal circles” continued Turov, “a leopard cannot change its spots.”
“Unless you peel it” said Oz, “with a knife.”
Baburin’s criminality made him vulnerable. Criminals always grass on each other eventually, even Russians. I pulled my notepad out of my pocket. “How long do you think the FSB team have been here?”
The Ninth Circle Page 4