by Tim Heath
Alex looked a little put out that Sasha had so quickly agreed with Anissa, but he could understand where they were both coming from. Act too swiftly and they would lose the element of surprise. Alex just feared that not moving soon enough could also be equally dangerous. These people had to be stopped, and they’d missed their chance while Filipov was only an oligarch––wealthy and powerful, granted. Now he was all that and the President of Russia. That just added a whole extra layer of protection around the man who also owned Duke’s.
“Gordon, can you work on how Sanders communicates with Filipov?”
“I can scan his apartment for communication devices and try to gain access to his home network and see if I can get access to his emails.”
“Good, do that, just nothing that will raise his suspicion.”
Gordon left the room.
“You really don’t think just grabbing the guy and interrogating him until he talks is the way to go?” Alex said, now it was just the agents present. He was only half joking, as Anissa realised, having got to know her colleague who’d grown more reckless in the last few years.
“No, Alex, that would not be helpful right now. Don’t you think you’re in enough hot water to pull something like that when we aren’t even meant to be watching the man?” Alex smiled, releasing the slight tension there had been, Sasha just silent, still not entirely able to read his two British colleagues quite yet. He smiled too, sensing the joke, though Anissa eyed Alex sternly as if warning him against doing anything stupid. He got the message.
London
It took Filipov less than twenty-four hours to arrange for someone to deliver two documents to two different addresses in London.
The first, delivered by a courier firm selected at random, was a letter sent by special delivery to Dmitry Kaminski himself. It was from the Kremlin.
Kaminski opened the letter while still standing in his hallway, the courier having already left. The message was a single page, contained on less than one side of a sheet of writing paper, and in Filipov’s own handwriting. In no uncertain terms, it gave Kaminski the name of the British MI6 agent who was sleeping with his wife––Alex Tolbert.
Kaminski was raging inside, angry at the plain oneupmanship that Filipov was pulling on him once again. The President, during the election race, had been the one to imply she was having an affair, something Kaminski wanted to disbelieve with all of his strength, and yet something that was later proved to be true. Ever since the article, Kaminski could not get the name. The British newspapers, which had broken the story at the height of the campaign, had moved onto other things since––other targets––without having topped the story with the name. Kaminski had his men searching, but they had found nothing. And now suddenly, the President of Russia was apparently handing him the information on a plate. Personally addressed, privately delivered.
As much as he wanted to reject any help from Filipov, Kaminski knew it was the right name. It had to be.
And now he had that name. Now he knew for sure who the snake was who’d got to his dear wife and turned her against him. She couldn’t possibly love this man the same way she loved her husband, Kaminski was sure. This Alex was just trying to get dirt from her about him. They had conducted the affair before the election. It was a British ploy to find out information about the future President. Except, he’d lost. The scandal itself had probably cost him the election––that and his uncle, another piece of information of which Filipov was apparently aware.
Kaminski picked up his phone. “I want two men trailing a British MI6 agent named Alex Tolbert. When you find out where he’s hiding my wife, I want to know immediately. Do nothing to Tolbert until we know where she is.”
Twenty miles from there, ironically in the same building Alex was in, another courier was delivering the second package from Filipov to the main reception. There was no name on the letter, and after being scanned for dangerous substances, someone gave it to a junior officer who opened it and read the contents. She quickly passed it on upstairs to Anissa, someone she knew to be connected to the Russians.
“Read this,” Anissa said, having gone to collect the information and having devoured it entirely before returning to her office, which she shared with Alex and Sasha. Detailed in the report, which ran to five pages, was everything needed to implicate Lev Kaminski in the murder of his brother Pavel from many years before. They had never solved the case.
Alex swore under his breath as he finished reading the information first.
“Who sent us this?”
“Who do you think? It has to be Filipov.”
“Filipov?” Sasha said, having finished just at that moment and hearing the name of his country’s latest President. He’d not been eligible to vote. Sasha assumed the Russians didn’t know he existed. He intended to keep it that way.
“Why send us this now?” Alex was asking.
“Does it matter?”
“But why here? We aren’t holding the case. It’s Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction.” Anissa could see Alex had a point, but she’d also long since learnt that anything these oligarchs did, and Filipov was an extreme example, was done for a reason.
“I guess he wants to make a point. He knows this information will hurt someone he wants hurt, and he knows we have been looking into him. Filipov’s using it to once again remind everyone he knows all about us. That’s all.”
“And we should be happy about this? Might he know about me?” Sasha’s words made the other two go silent for a moment.
“Of course he doesn’t know about you, Sasha.” Anissa didn’t know what more to say. They couldn’t possibly guarantee Sasha’s safety if the Russians were to find out; they were assuming Russia would deem his defection as treacherous. The poisonings in Salisbury were fresh in the memory. Former Russian agents who came over to the UK were not safe, whatever they might otherwise feel.
“So what are we going to do with this?” Alex said. It was Anissa who replied.
“We’ll pass it to Scotland Yard. As you say, Alex, it’s not our case. They can deal with it.”
“And what does it tell us about these Russians?” Alex knew Sasha was in the room and was very much Russian, but they all understood the phrase meant the oligarchs, the names on the wall next to them whom they’d been chasing for the last four years.
“It tells us they all have a dark past, and now we have something to pursue. I’ll make a copy of this and then send it on to the police. They can issue the arrest warrant. They will liaise with Interpol. Unless the Kremlin complies, we don’t have many options in Russia itself.”
Alex tapped the information still in Anissa’s hand. “If Filipov is sending us this, you can bet on it that Moscow will comply.” She hadn’t thought of that point. It put a new light on the situation. Did Filipov’s elevation to President now mean they had a green light to go after the men behind the Games? They’d learnt through Andre, Matvey’s son, that his father was only involved in the Games to close it down. Did they now have the chance of actual criminal charges?
“I’ll get this copied,” Anissa said, still pondering Alex’s words as she left the office.
They followed Alex leaving Vauxhall House shortly before five. A two-man team was trailing the British agent, though they had help up ahead. Alex jumped into a taxi, so the team which Kaminski sent followed in their own car, both vehicles swallowed in the evening traffic, Alex none the wiser as to anyone tracking his movements.
Twenty minutes later they were pulling up outside a hotel, Alex being watched entering through the rear door, someone from the chef’s team seen to open and then close the fire escape for the British agent. The group following called it in.
“We’ve just followed Tolbert to a hotel.” They gave the name for the four-star establishment. “He entered via a rear door; someone on the inside knew of his arrival. She must stay here.” They ended the call.
Kaminski opened a map of London. He entered the name of the hotel. It was less than ten miles
from his home. He realised the same hotel was visible in the distance from their master bedroom upstairs. It must have been why she knew about it. Kaminski couldn’t bring himself to look at the building in the distance.
All he could think about was getting Anastasia as far away from that place as possible. After that was sorted, he could turn his focus onto Alex.
Alex tapped three times on the bedroom door and then twice, his signal to Anastasia that it was him. She opened the door moments later. They embraced in the hallway before both going inside the room and shutting the door behind them.
Alex knew he should have cut this off months ago, but he’d fallen for the girl long before he knew how complicated the situation was. She had made nothing of her situation known to him. She assumed he already knew. When he did finally realise, despite telling his closest colleagues at MI6, repeatedly, that he’d ended things, he hadn’t been able to let go completely.
He couldn’t think of her all by herself, locked away in a hotel room while she worked out what she wanted to do. All alone. He’d been to visit her often.
She was already undressing him as they walked over to the bed. It had been three days since she’d seen Alex, and she was getting worried about him. She knew her husband was back in London––Anastasia could see their house in the distance from the room, if she looked for it, though she’d stopped looking at her husband that way a long time ago.
Twenty minutes later they were lying side-by-side, Alex’s arm under and around the Belarusian’s shoulders, his fingers running gently through her long hair.
“The British police have now got the evidence they need against Lev Kaminski which pins him to the murder of his brother,” Alex said. He shouldn’t have been saying anything to her, about any of it, but he was past caring now. He shouldn’t have been sleeping with her for months already and hadn’t been able to manage not to do that, either.
“Really?” She sounded surprised. She’d seen the reports before the election––when the papers weren’t preoccupied with talking about Anastasia and her mystery British-spy lover. She’d taken the rumours about Lev as nothing but mud being thrown in what had turned into a vicious campaign. She’d got on well with Uncle Lev, as she’d always called him since marrying Dmitry. The realisation that there was proof behind the allegations was alarming.
“He did it. He killed his own brother to control the Kaminski empire.”
Anastasia swore at the revelation. She couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her husband, though that felt rich at that moment coming from her, since she was lying half-naked next to another man, a man with whom she was genuinely in love.
“If it’s true, I’m shocked. Lev always was so good to Dima.”
“He was screwing Dmitry’s mother, too, long before he killed Pavel.” Anastasia didn’t comment on that last part. She was hardly one to speak. At least, in her case, there were no children involved.
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“No, of course not,” Alex said, unsure why he had even mentioned it. He realised he wanted to keep painting Dmitry in a bad light, not that this really had anything to do with him. But Anastasia was only a Kaminski via marriage––a marriage now on the rocks because of Alex’s involvement––and if she could see the whole Kaminski clan was corrupt, there might be hope for him yet.
She got out of bed, taking the sheet with her, causing Alex to scamper for his top and jeans. She cut an attractive figure, regardless.
“I’m going crazy in here,” she exclaimed, sick and tired of the same four walls which only seemed to press in on her all the harder, the longer she was there.
“Then go.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Far away from here,” though as Alex was saying it, he realised he didn’t want her to do that. He wanted her safe, but close to him. He didn’t want to stop seeing her.
“What about your visits?”
“Well, not too far then.” Alex smiled.
“Will this ever all be over?” Alex had asked the same thing some weeks before, and Anastasia was adamant that her husband would never give up. She’d almost convinced him there was no future. And he believed her. As much as he wanted to answer her now, to say it would be over soon, he couldn’t. He’d asked her to spy on her husband, to get the evidence that would help them convict the man of a crime which carried a lengthy prison sentence, but she’d refused. She said she couldn’t do that to him.
“Maybe some distance is what you need, Anastasia. Not from me, but from this room. From him. Show him there isn’t anyone else. Tell him it’s all over. Leave it some time. Then we can start things up again. Maybe that’s the only way?” She didn’t like the thought of facing her husband, who would demand to know who the other man was. She knew she wouldn’t be able to convince him there was no one. He’d always been able to tell when she was lying. However, she knew she couldn’t stay in that hotel room forever.
“I have relatives in Germany. They would take me in. It always concerned them me mixing with a Russian oligarch, especially when he told them he would one day run for President. They’ll protect me.”
“What about us?”
“It’s as you say. I think we need to let the dust settle. But I’ll wait for you.”
Alex kissed her passionately on the lips again, unwilling to let go, the sheet dropping to the floor but neither of them cared at that moment.
“How will I contact you?” Alex asked.
“You mustn’t. I’ll get in touch with you when I’m there, only to let you know I’m safe. You can’t visit me, not for a while. I think your plan could work. I’ll manage the separation from Germany, get our lawyers to fight it all out. I’m not going back to him, Alex. I’m done with him. I want to spend my life with you.” They kissed again. Hope had risen for the first time in months inside Alex that there was light at the end of this dark tunnel he’d found himself trapped in with the woman he now loved deeply.
Ten minutes later Alex was dressed and leaving the room. He made his way back down in the staff lift, exited into the kitchens and was greeted by the same chef who’d opened the door for him. Checking the exit was clear, Alex headed back into the evening light, the traffic somewhat calmer from when he’d arrived an hour before, but far from quiet.
The man standing guard and seeing Alex leave called through to Dmitry at that moment.
“The agent has now left. She’s all yours.”
19
London
The knock at the door just a few minutes after Alex had left her room caused Anastasia no alarm. Had she taken in the different sound, the fact Alex wasn’t using the usual code, she might have stopped to wonder. Had she looked carefully through the peephole, she might have seen there were at least two men in the corridor.
She didn’t stop to think as she opened the door, her smile that had been planted on her face just seconds before vanishing at the sight of her husband.
“Anastasia,” Kaminski said, as he stepped in through the opened door, forcing his wife back a few paces. Two other men stepped into the room with Dmitry, which was ominous enough.
“What are you doing here?” she said, fear racing through her body at the presence of a man she’d walked out on and not seen in weeks. She did her best to keep her voice steady, her eyes focused on Dmitry despite taking in the two men with him.
“Surprised to see me, are you? Thinking I was the returning lover, the MI6 spy who’s been playing you the whole time only to get to me?”
Anastasia didn’t respond, sitting down instead on the edge of the bed that was still unmade. She was not fully dressed. That was far from her thoughts at that moment.
“Get dressed,” Kaminski said, his voice calm––too calm––as he threw the clothes that were lying on the floor at his wife, and the woman he loved, had always loved, despite her walking away from him. Despite her continued absence, hiding out in a hotel room and whoring herself to a British MI6 agent. Now he’d found her, and h
e would not let her escape again.
She pulled on the dress, the two men standing guard and averting their eyes, not that there was a lot to see. Dmitry didn’t once take his eyes from his wife, though it wasn’t a look of love that was planted on his handsome features, but a look of hurt at her sheer betrayal. He couldn’t think of what he’d done to deserve this from someone to whom he’d given everything in the years they’d been together. She’d come from nothing, and he’d given her the world. And this was how she repaid him?
Still, looking at her at that moment, he couldn’t take away those feelings he still had for her, despite wanting with everything inside him to hate her, to let her go. He knew he couldn’t.
“What are you going to do?” she said, now dressed and standing just a few feet in front of her husband. She was much calmer than she had thought she would be although her nightmare was now unfolding. Ever since she’d been staying there, she’d been fearful that he would find her. She was just happy Alex hadn’t still been there. She wondered for the first time if something had happened to Alex already.
“Do? What do you take me for? I’m here to take you home, Nastya,” he said, his words the same softness as when they’d first met, when she’d first fallen in love with the wealthy Russian who had picked her up at an expensive function, she part of the entertainment, yet they’d soon hit it off. They married within a year of first meeting. He was the only man who she’d ever allowed to call her Nastya, a special pet-name reserved for her husband. She’d never mentioned the name to Alex, who loved the full name, and she loved how the agent said it. But there was something primal about hearing Dmitry say it once again. He still loved her, she could tell.
“Home? You think we can just carry on as if nothing has happened.”
“No, I don’t think that, but I think we have something worth working for. I’m home, Nastya. I’m back. I lost the election, in case you didn’t know, and I will not lose you.”