The Hunt series Boxset 2

by Tim Heath

  “You’ve been testing the stuff?”

  “Yes, we’ve officially tested it on dogs. Agent five is the most lethal yet.”

  “And unofficially?” Nothing was official about this current meeting, and the Russian locked eyes with the Irishman, without offering a response. His answer was clear enough.

  “It works, that’s all you need to know.”

  “Fantastic. And transportation?” O’Doherty glanced up at the glass partition again, the chemists in their suits all too plain to see.

  “It’s perfectly transportable, believe me. This is all just a precaution. They are around these substances all the time, they are careful.”

  “And everything is in place?”

  “Yes, we have a shipment leaving for Berlin this week. It’ll arrive at the same pesticide factory you are registered to for this trip.” Both men knew his cover was just that. “From there, a small truck will carry the cargo over the border. I trust you’ll be able to manage the shipment from then on?” He’d asked about that once already, and the Irishman had given no details about that side of things. It was best that as few people knew his route back to Ireland as possible.

  “That’s all taken care of,” O’Doherty said. “There is no danger of being discovered moving this stuff around?”

  “No, absolutely not,” Kovalev said. He sat forward. “We use the pesticide factory because A-232 is disguised as a precursor to making simple pesticide. It doesn’t give off anything as radioactive substances do. Believe me, this is all just for precaution,” and he again waved at the suited researchers metres from them both, glass at least five inches thick shielding them from each other. To O’Doherty, it seemed nothing but dangerous, though that was precisely why he was in the market for the substance. A weapons-grade nerve agent that could stop a target cold before they realised they’d been poisoned, he could think of ways of putting that to destructive use. Coupled with his ability to burn things beyond recognition, he could obliterate any evidence and the trace of the substance having ever been used. The Russians called it A-232, though O’Doherty had learnt about it by its more common nickname––Novichok-5.

  “And death is assured?”

  “Most definitely. The victim certainly knows someone has poisoned them, but that knowledge will not save them. Used in the right way, and the victim either suffocates or dies from heart failure. It’s lethal.” O’Doherty just smiled. It was what he’d heard about it, but hearing it from the man responsible for heading up the research and development of the whole Novichok range of chemical agents, was something else entirely.

  “Make the shipment ready, and I’ll have the funds transferred to you.” The IRA were waiting for confirmation before they would send the funds via a few banks, but O’Doherty was sure that news of the money arriving would be faxed through to the Russians before the end of the day. The convoy towards Berlin would probably leave before O’Doherty was on his return trip to Ireland. He would then have to make his way to Germany to assist the shipment on its way across Europe. It would eventually arrive in Dublin by ship about two months from then.

  He could hardly wait. It would also be the first and only shipment that ever left the Chemical Research Institute that July. Less than one month after O’Doherty’s visit, the Soviet Union collapsed. Kovalev was never heard of again.

  5

  The Kremlin, Moscow––Russia

  Matvey had been chatting with Svetlana at his office within the Kremlin. He’d been in power for three days, and yet the place still didn’t feel like home. However, feeling in charge was something he had already known naturally for decades.

  There was a knock at the door. After a few seconds’ pause, Matvey called in the aide.

  “It’s confirmed, sir. He’s in Idokopas.” Cape Idokopas, dubbed Putin’s Palace in the media, was a vast new palace built on the Black Sea coast in Krasnodar, southern Russia. Constructed during the first years of Putin’s initial term––though officially denied by the then President––it served as a secret getaway for Putin and his inner core when being in Moscow was not required. Putin hadn’t been seen around the Russian capital since they announced the presidential election result. Filipov had searched for him ever since. He’d just had a long conversation with Svetlana about what they should do. They were not in agreement. She’d not changed his mind about what to do with the former President.

  “Take this,” Filipov said, holding out an arrest warrant he’d signed himself not sixty minutes before. Svetlana Volkov, for all her reservations, knew better than to show anything but total support to her President. She said nothing as the aide reached forward and took the piece of paper, himself unsure of what the instruction was ordering. He would soon find out. He turned on his heel, without the need of anything further, and was dismissed. He closed the door behind him.

  “I hope you know what you are doing, Matvey, that’s all.”

  “I would have thought of all the people in this beloved nation, you would have been one of the special few who understood it only too well,” is all Filipov retorted. She knew it, for sure. She’d significantly underestimated him. Had she not done so, he might never have got into power. Now she was working for him. It could well have been her involvement, her public endorsement, that had enabled Filipov to cross the finish line in the first place. And now he wanted to arrest the former President.

  “He will not be a threat to you, Matvey.” She’d been making that point but knew nothing about Putin. Filipov wasn’t at all as convinced as the former actress was.

  “I think the longer he is around, that’s precisely what he’ll become. How can I go about making reforms, with him out there, galvanising his own support, working behind the scenes to claw his way back into power any way he can?”

  “You won the election, Matvey, fairly.” She assumed it was fair. She really had no idea.

  “Given the country we are sitting in, you for one must know elections are far from the only way men have taken power before,” he said. She was more aware of her own nation’s past than even Filipov, a man who’d not been living in the country for the previous decades. She was loyal to the core.

  Outside the room, the aide was reading the instruction to a team. They were in shocked silence. Not that they were the same team who had served Putin in the past––these were Filipov’s own people, most having been a part of his campaign team––but they didn’t expect him to turn on his chief rival in such a fashion. They went about carrying out their president’s instructions. The man given the warrant in the first place put the call through to the FSB sub-section commander stationed at the Kremlin.

  “An arrest warrant has been issued for Putin. Get a team down to Idokopas immediately and have him brought here.” He put the phone down.

  Another man went to a nearby room––the call he was about to put in to the Russian Guards he wanted no one else to hear about––and picked up the handset.

  “It’s me. Listen, grab Putin and move him out of Russia. Filipov has just issued a warrant. He knows where he is, and he’s coming for him. Act immediately.” He replaced the handset. The Russian Guards had been a unit installed by Putin himself. Their loyalty remained with the man they’d worked with since he’d been in power. So far, Filipov had only connected with the FSB. That had got the Guards’ backs up even more. The new President apparently didn’t think much of an internal security division many saw simply as Putin’s private army.

  Dublin Harbour, Ireland

  September 1991

  Rain lashed down, the floodlights showing nothing but sheet rain while swaying somewhat in the strong winds. It was a typically stormy night in the Irish capital.

  Unloading of the only ship to have arrived in such weather had been happening for a few hours though most workers had left for the night––the weather appalling––and the boat was not due to sail on from there for another day. The unloading could happen in daylight. The forecast for the following morning was a lot more promising.
r />   Still, a group of three men were working the cranes, as a truck pulled up alongside the German-registered frigate. The van’s windscreen wipers were operating at full speed, though even that only marginally improved visibility. It was a lousy night to be outside though the rain gave them plenty of privacy.

  They had paid off the man from the customs hut for the night––something the IRA often did. Not that he was a supporter of the cause but he valued the life of his family and his own enough to know to take the money offered and walk away. This wasn’t the first time such a shipment had arrived in the middle of the night. It was, however, the first time that such a delivery wasn’t only weapons or drugs, not that those unloading the crates were any the wiser. They got paid to do a job and not to ask questions. They usually got a cut of the drugs, anyhow. They’d long since set up their own drugs ring and could sell the stuff before the week was out, making three times what they were being paid to unload the goods. It was to be a profitable night again; they assumed.

  O’Doherty sat in his vehicle watching the scene before him. He’d been there for an hour already. The truck was late, though he’d also spotted that the crate he’d helped to pack onto the ship before it left Germany, was still onboard. It would be one of the last to be unloaded. The truck had arrived in enough time to be there for when it was lifted from the deck.

  That happened ten minutes later. The crate was wrapped in German tape, the name of the factory clear for anyone who knew what it meant. The Irish dockworkers didn’t have a clue, and as they lowered the cargo to the ground, they were moving in for the spoils. The door to the truck opened.

  “Is this the stuff?” one man asked. The ship was now empty. They had ordered the men to drive the material to a warehouse on the edge of the city once they’d finished for the night. They expected their cut ahead of the task.

  “Yes,” shouted back the man from the truck, having opened the door, his hood up against the pounding rain. It soaked him within seconds of leaving the relative warmth of his vehicle. O’Doherty stayed in his car. He would not get involved. That was for lesser men. His time hadn’t yet come to intervene.

  “We’ll load it onto the truck now,” the first man said, turning to give instructions to the other two, his words lost in the weather, though the outworking of what he must have said was soon clear, as one man jumped onto a forklift and loaded the crate into the back of the truck. “And at the other end?”

  “You’ll get your cut,” the minder said. He had worked with these guys before, so he knew what they were after. Except, this time, despite there being bags of white powder in the crate, it wasn’t cocaine.

  Twenty minutes later the truck was driving away from the harbour, O’Doherty watching it pass him before switching on the engine of his own car and following. The three men were in the back of the truck.

  When they arrived at the warehouse, it was clear they’d wanted their payment early. During the trip, a crowbar had been used to lever open the wooden lid, and they had taken one bag out. It remained sealed––they knew enough not to help themselves before being formally invited––but it was their’s.

  On switching off the engine and getting out of the van, the minder spotted what had been done.

  “I see you’ve helped yourself already,” he said, his tone forceful if not overly angry.

  “Just preparing for the inevitable,” one of the three chirped back.

  “I’ll grab the forklift,” another said, hopping down onto the floor.

  “Why don’t you try some now?” O’Doherty said, appearing from the shadows at that moment, initially startling the two still in the back of the truck. The new man’s appearance had not alarmed the minder, however, so they soon knew he was with the man who’d driven the car. These men never worked alone. The man holding the bag of what he thought was cocaine smiled.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” and he opened the bag, taking a small amount and stuffing it up his nose. The man next to him did the same, as the forklift appeared, O’Doherty and the minder now out of the way, the crate being lifted down as both men still inside the truck felt the effects of the poison. By the time the forklift truck driver was back, the men in the back had passed out––they were most likely already dead, but the third man wasn’t to know that.

  “That good, ay?” he called up, taking a small amount of the powder now himself and tasting it. He turned in horror as his chest caved in, pressing down on his lungs, forcing air from his body. Soon he was gasping for air, but nothing was helping. As O’Doherty came into view, the third man was already on the ground. In less than three minutes he was dead.

  “I had to be sure,” he said, the minder speechless, though he would never question O’Doherty. “It seems the Soviets knew what they were doing.” Turning around, he walked away. “One more thing,” he called over his shoulder as he reached his car, “once you’ve locked up here, be sure to dump the truck with all three bodies in the back and make sure you burn up all the evidence. There are cans of petrol in the warehouse. Use them,” he said, getting into the driver’s seat. Moments later he was pulling away.

  He finally had the stuff, and there on Irish soil. The British wouldn’t know what hit them.

  6

  The Russian Guards had a unit close to the vast palace Putin was staying in. Some called it Putin’s Dacha, and while the Russian dacha included the full spectrum of country houses––from a shed to a mansion––even what existed in Idokopas pushed that term too much to be referred to as anything but a palace. It had reportedly cost one billion dollars to build. This was no dacha.

  Two trucks pulled out of the military base in the region, its location there to have soldiers nearby for whenever Putin was in residence. Someone put a call into the palace, the news of the arrest warrant greeted with shock and disappointment. Everyone prepared to scramble.

  Putin was in the grounds when a member of his household staff––as loyal a supporter of the former president as anyone living––came running over to him. Putin suspected the worst immediately.

  “Leave right away. Filipov has signed an arrest warrant.”

  Putin lowered his head slightly, taking in the news, but said nothing. He walked back towards the building. He had wondered what victory would do to Filipov. They’d both fought a good battle, both aggressively laying into the other rival candidate during the final three weeks of vote-grabbing before that second round run-off. Putin might well have done the same. Such a rival couldn’t be allowed to roam freely. He’d seen off many a challenger once the watching world had moved on to other things. He pondered at that moment as he reached the back door. Would the world even notice if someone arrested him? Would they celebrate? Putin knew he couldn’t allow them to find him.

  Inside his staff had already packed him a travel bag, as the trucks from the Russian Guards were confirmed to be on-site, and moving at speed up the driveway. Putin was to meet them downstairs in two minutes. He had ordered everyone out of his room as he needed to make two calls. The first was to Assad.

  “I have to flee. I’ll come to find you. I don’t have many other allies,” he said in a rushed conversation. The second call was to prepare a flight out from the airbase still loyal to him about sixty miles from the palace. He told them to expect his arrival within forty-five minutes. That was pushing it, but he would order the Guards to stop for no-one so he could make that flight. Once out of Russian airspace, Putin knew Filipov would have far less power to stop him. It was now a race against time.

  Putin came out through the front doors. He didn’t think he would ever see the day he would flee from such a house, and yet as the door to the first truck opened, the captain of the unit there to meet his President, there was no time for reminiscing. Putin’s car pulled up at that moment. The two Russians shook hands with each other, the captain returning to the passenger seat in the lead vehicle, as Putin got into the back of the Mercedes. Both trucks would escort Putin to the airbase, a unit of twelve men in the rear of each vehi
cle. Putin did not understand what force they might encounter. Would Filipov send soldiers with orders to engage in a firefight? Putin wouldn’t rule anything out. The more he was learning of the man who had defeated him, the more he was becoming concerned. The West was no doubt cheering at the news of his downfall, but Putin was sure they would soon fear the man who had taken his place within the Kremlin. Putin was seeing behind the mask now. This was a President who didn’t take opposition of any sort, especially from someone with power and influence within the nation.

  It was a little over fifty minutes later that the mini-convoy raced onto the airstrip and up towards the Antonov An-26 turboprop transport aircraft. The engines were already on, the steps down, as Putin’s car pulled up alongside, the former president himself opening the door before his driver could even get out to assist. Putin was across the tarmac in no time and climbing onboard. Within seconds, they moved away the steps and the door to the aircraft shut. Only a minute after he arrived, the plane was rolling away, heading towards the runway and was soon taking off on its two-hour flight south to Syria.

  The two trucks of Russian Guards waited until the plane was in the air, watching it as the sound of the propellors slowly died away, the aircraft finally out of sight, before they too pulled away. Their President was safe though their own fate was not so certain.

  Ireland & England