by Tim Heath
“Yes, but I don’t have to be.”
“Why are you in a place like that, anyway?”
“A little drink before work.”
“Work, dressed like that?” Then he realised. She was a prostitute. She smiled at the penny dropping.
“Got somewhere quiet we can go? I haven’t had the chance to thank you properly for standing up for me in there.” Alex remained silent. Alex let her lead him off towards a waiting car, her pimp driving them to a by-the-hour establishment she used when on call.
An hour later, she was dressing.
“Look, he’ll want paying for my time, so I need to give him something. My cut is on me. I hope you understand.”
“Understand?” Alex was far from thinking clearly.
“Call it fifty. I normally charge one-thirty for what we did.”
Alex didn’t want to put her in an awkward position with the man he assumed was her pimp, but he’d also not agreed to pay for anything. He reached into his wallet and took out the money, anyway. He threw it onto the table.
“Here’s my card. You ever need me again, just call me, okay?” she said, handing Alex the card, though he took it only to be polite. He had no intention of ever calling her again but pocketed the card. “We have to be out the room in five minutes. They aren’t happy if we go over the time. You’ll get charged more.”
Alex grabbed his jacket and left the room, not even glancing at the pimp still sitting in the car only twenty metres from the front door of the motel room. Alex had never felt so cheap.
22
The news broke across all media formats two days after they had given MI6 Phelan’s real identity. As yet, no media outlet had given the name––presumably, they didn’t yet have it––but the sensation was the same. An IRA hitman, notorious and striking fear through the nation in his heyday, was back. He was the man behind the hit in Salisbury. A few papers were looking into any links the victims might have had to the Irish troubles.
There were calls for the Prime Minister to step down and other alarmist reactions based on the killer’s reemergence after years in the dark. Prime Minister May had pointed the finger for the Salisbury poisoning attack firmly towards Moscow, and followed that up with the expulsion of Russian diplomats, shortly before the Russian elections. Following the UK’s lead, many other nations had done the same.
The sudden suspicion that the attack was carried out by the IRA raised many questions over the government’s initial reaction to the Salisbury incident. They also published that the government had known about the connection to the IRA’s most notorious killer for weeks already. Their silence since was damning.
Anissa was furious when she found out the news. She’d not yet spoken to Phelan, who’d gone silent since his call to her from Oxford the other day.
Phelan had seen the news the morning it broke, his wife watching the television sitting next to him. Phelan was panic struck that they were about to announce his name on TV, naming him as the same Shaun O’Doherty who had been on the run for years, a man Phelan had laid to rest a long time ago, and someone he had no intention of resurrecting.
Now it was everywhere.
Debbie was taking it all in, a cup of tea in hand. Phelan made his escape and left her to it. She was none the wiser. The boys were playing football in the garden, the grass already long dead from their incessant knockabouts, though the lack of greenery in his Oxfordshire home garden was the last thing on Phelan’s mind.
They knew. It was undoubtedly only a matter of time before there would be a knock on the door, an armed unit of police storming the home, invading every room, coming for him.
He had to run.
Where could he go? Who could he turn to? He’d spoken with Anissa, reached out to her, but now MI6 was off the table. It was too risky. Phelan dwelt on the thought for a moment as he left his home. He didn’t know where he was going, but he couldn’t stay there. He needed to get far away, to take stock and work out his next move. What was dawning on him was the connection to the call. This had to have been Filipov. Nobody else knew, and whoever was working for the Russian, had known about his conversation with Anissa. If it wasn’t Anissa herself––and from what Phelan had picked up from Filipov about the MI6 agents looking into the Games, it was clear she wasn’t on the Russian’s long-listed payroll––then it proved there was someone else close who was helping Filipov.
Phelan jumped onto the first London-bound coach that came along. Thankfully Oxford had plenty of options. He paid the driver cash, a single ticket. He didn’t know when he would be back. As the bus pulled away, the thought of leaving behind his wife and kids hurt deeply. Over the last few years, he’d had several periods of enforced absence, not to mention the time on the run in the USA. Filipov had protected them all then––now he was the enemy. It had ultimately been his doing. Phelan knew the Russian had now played this final card to sever all ties Phelan might otherwise have with MI6.
The coach made a few local pickups before getting onto the motorway. Phelan used the time to scan the various news websites he could. Most had the story, the majority of them leading with it. The killer from the 90s is back and active.
Except, he wasn’t. Not yet, anyway, though like Bruce Banner trying to keep his temper––and the Hulk within––under control, Phelan was reaching the point where he knew he couldn’t hold back anymore. Filipov was baiting him. Filipov was now trying to destroy him. And the more Phelan read, the more he knew that the Russian probably already had succeeded.
Phelan closed the news pages. There was nothing new there, only reminders and relics of a previous life Phelan once lived. As if he could forget. Instead, he scrolled through his photos. His wife in Venice, his boys at a football tournament. The family at Disney Land. Silently, and with his face pressed against the window of the coach, the fields of Oxfordshire racing past, Phelan wept. Tears flowed from him as quickly as the coach moved away from his home city––his family; his life that could be no more. Not after all this. Not now they knew. Phelan was confident Anissa would know. Meeting her was off the cards, but he would call her from somewhere secluded when he got into London. He had to make her understand. She had to listen.
It was into the afternoon when Phelan finally reached a hotel he was happy about. He’d been paranoid since arriving in the capital, wondering why of all places he’d come there. Should he leave right away?
He’d spent two hours moving money around. His wife still had access to plenty, but Phelan feared they would come for their treasure. It might mean he and his wife would lose everything. He couldn’t allow that to happen, but also, he needed to use it himself. He needed access. He didn’t know what or why or how, but he would have to do something.
Satisfied that he didn’t have a tail, Phelan entered an expensive hotel in the West End. He paid with cash, taking a medium range room, though there were few options available. He had nothing with him. That was initially a problem, as it raised a question, but Phelan had quickly explained it away. They had lost his luggage on the flight over from Bangkok. He would have to sort that all out the following morning.
Now inside his room, he switched on the television. The same stories he’d seen earlier were being repeated. They had no further information about his real identity. That much was apparently being kept from them. It made travelling around somewhat easier. There had been ten calls from Phelan’s wife, which he had left unanswered. The phone was now switched off. Phelan would have to get a new one. They would be sure to trace him. He couldn’t help fear the terror his wife was going through. Phelan had disappeared before, but she’d always known a little about why. To have just taken off that morning made no sense. He hated himself all the more, and yet, he reminded himself, he’d done nothing wrong. Not recently, anyway. This was all Filipov’s doing. Phelan knew he had to speak to Anissa.
Twenty minutes later he was back out onto the streets. It would take him about the same amount of time to find a suitable location, and he did that not too
far from the tube station. He pulled out Anissa’s number and called her. She answered it after one ring.
“Hello?”
“Anissa, it’s me. Please hear me out.” Phelan could hear her swear under her breath, though she’d been expecting the call at some point. He could hear a door opening and then close in the background. “Can you speak?”
“Yes, I can now,” she said, confirmation she’d moved to a quiet spot.
“I take it you’ve heard from Filipov?”
“You have some nerve talking to me, Phelan, if that’s even your name.” She was angry, hurt even. They’d once shared lunch together not all that far away from where Phelan now was, not that he would let on he was in London.
“It wasn’t me. He’s setting me up. He must know I was trying to speak to you.” Phelan could hear Anissa exhaling. She swore again.
“What wasn’t you? I’ve seen the proof, Phelan. You were in Ireland.”
“Salisbury. I had nothing to do with it.” So he wasn’t denying being the same IRA terrorist the British had been looking for over many years.
“How can I believe anything you tell me? I don’t know who you are.”
“But you do! That’s the thing. I stopped being that other person many years ago. He’s done, has been for a long time. I’m Phelan now, have been nothing but myself the whole time you’ve known about me.”
“I’ve known very little about you. All I’ve known is you worked for Filipov, won millions because of him in St Petersburg, went on the run with his protection––oh, and caused Maggie Thompson to take her own life when you wormed your way back into her world, only to force her to do something she didn’t want to do. Something she wouldn’t do for Filipov until you showed up.” The mention of Maggie’s name hurt. Phelan knew the new man he’d become had much to regret, though even then, realised it was all tied to Filipov and what the Russian knew about him.
“I’ve told you about all that. He had me over a barrel. I had to; otherwise, he would expose me.”
“He just did, Phelan. We can’t be speaking now.”
“Please, hear me out. I haven’t been active since before the end of hostilities in Ireland. That was when I walked away.”
“You walked away when you got caught out, Phelan, using that Soviet-made nerve agent.”
“That’s not true. I was out before then. They used that to set me up. I don’t fail.”
“But I don’t know what I can believe anymore, especially coming from you. Don’t you see? It changes everything.”
“It wasn’t me!” Phelan said, anger building all the more, frustration that everything he’d built over the last decade, everything he now was, was being pulled apart in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it. “Did you leak it to the press?”
“No!” Anissa shot back, offended now herself that she was being suspected of something like that.
“Then who did?”
“We don’t know.” She’d not really thought too hard about that, but it had to have been Filipov, or at least someone from his team.
“He’s trying to scare me.”
“But there is truth in the account, Phelan. You were that man!”
“I’m not anymore!”
“It doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t change what you did, the lives you took. There is an international warrant for your arrest being drawn up as we speak.” She shouldn’t have been telling him any of this, but against her better judgement, she trusted him. She believed he had nothing to do with the Salisbury nerve agent attack. Regarding all that had happened before then, what Phelan had in fact done in his early years, she didn’t know what to make of it at all. It was before her time in the Service.
It was Phelan’s turn to swear, his outburst causing a few passersby to turn their head, but soon they moved on leaving the Irishman clutching a telephone.
“Why are you telling me this?” he said, his composure restored a little, and he realised Anissa shouldn’t be telling him anything.
“I don’t really know. I want to believe you, but-” Anissa didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Thank you,” Phelan said. “How long do I have?”
“Not long. I guess you aren’t calling me from home?” Phelan laughed.
“You guessed right. What happens to my family?” Anissa could hear the pain in every word of his last question.
“I don’t know, is the honest truth.” That part of things was primarily out of her hands. It was a police matter.
“It’ll ruin everything. Can’t you keep them out of this?”
“I’ll try,” she said, though she wasn’t going to––wasn’t able to––promise anything.
“Thank you,” he said again, his warm Irish lilt once more so pleasing on the ear.
“Where are you?” There was background noise, but it wasn’t enough to pick up any clues as to Phelan’s current location.
“I can’t say. I’m sure you understand.” She did. She hadn’t expected him to tell her.
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Anissa, I don’t want to lose them.”
She couldn’t think of what it would feel like to be without her husband and boys. It was probably the one thing that connected her to Phelan, the reason Alex could never understand. Phelan loved his family very much and was doing what he needed to do to keep them safe. Anissa understood that only too well.
“I don’t see how this ends well, Phelan.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“If there is any way of keeping them from knowing, I’d be grateful.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
“I know you can’t, but from one loving parent to another, please do your best.” He’d apparently done his homework in the past, though it was probably yet another piece of intel supplied to him by Filipov and his team.
“I’ll chat this with the team and share with them what you’ve told me. If you’ve lied, Phelan, this is over. The world will then know the truth. I’ll make sure they do!” She might connect to him as one parent looking out for their children, but she couldn’t stand a cheat lying their way out of a situation. The change of mood had surprised them both.
“I’ve told you the absolute truth. He knows we are speaking, someone on your side told him.” There Phelan went again, implying there was an insider at MI6, though coming from Phelan, and a man she now realised she didn’t correctly know herself, it felt rich.
The call ended. Anissa paused on the spot she’d been standing––she’d walked onto a smokers’ balcony at Vauxhall House, which was empty. She had a great view of London. After another minute, she turned and left, going to find Alex and Sasha, needing to relay the full account of the conversation she’d just had with Phelan.
23
The Bank, Zurich––Switzerland.
There were only two ways into the vault hidden deep beneath the Zurich city surface. One was by sheer force, but the bombs of World War Two never got close, and they had strengthened the walls even more over the previous decades. It would even survive a nuclear attack.
The second, and by far the most usual way, was through a long and impossibly complicated code sequence, the variations and combinations making it all but uncrackable unless you were in the know. And few people on the planet had that information.
Matvey Filipov did not have that information. He wondered if Foma had, though now the man was dead. There was no answering that thought.
Because of their involvement, Filipov had to assume the Leadership within the Machine––and therefore Mark Orlov, especially––knew the code. He had probably shared it with Lev Kaminski and Sergej Volkov if he could trust them. Thanks to the international arrest warrant, Lev was now stranded in Russia. The other two also hidden.
Filipov was certain that Foma’s killing in Zurich would be understood for what it was. He also realised that his lack of progress only told the Machine that their President didn’t know the code.
Filipov didn’t know of anyone else alive who could be forced to give up that information, but he also didn’t need to know. He had another plan. One man––a former war criminal––had known it. He’d been charged with war crimes, had been in custody awaiting trial, but the man had taken his own life before they could reach a conviction. Filipov, however, had heard the rumour. A plan was forming in his mind, like a grand master of chess such as his nation always seemed able to produce, he was thinking multiple moves ahead.
This one, however, couldn’t involve him. Svetlana, though, was expendable.
Edge of Moscow
Rad was back in Moscow after flying in from Switzerland. He was out at his dacha, by far his favourite place to be. Filipov had already contacted him about the third name on the list. With Foma now dead, and Mark Orlov secure in Siberia, Rad was to move his attention to the third name. He had a lot of research to do.
Rad had set the traps again for rabbits and fish soon after arriving though he had purchased some ready-made food on his drive to the dacha. He planned to be a few days. He might do a bit of hunting again though he would have to see what was around.
Rad reran the pump, filling up the water storage, as well starting the fire in the banya. He wanted to use it later, the recent travelling not yet entirely worked out of his system. There was nothing like hot steam in a Russian sauna to relieve some of his stresses.
He thought about the woman he’d seen up the river from him, his nearest neighbour at about four kilometres away. Did she know his hut was there? It wasn’t clear. She must have been about twenty, maybe older. He’d seen her before, and her parents––he assumed––who often stayed with her. She was a gorgeous woman. When he went to check his fishing line later, he might use the scope to see who else was about––wild game or Russian temptress––though he wasn’t sure what good it would do him. He was too busy to get involved with anyone, his life too risky to share with someone. He could explore that in the future, he told himself often, though when was it time to leave his present line of work? Did he know what that would feel like? Would he recognise it before it was too late? Only half the men he’d trained with in the army sniper school were still alive now. His line of work was a notoriously short career on average. The sensible ones got out before it was too late, and only the fools and specialists stayed in, both ending the same way. He was no fool, but he didn’t know what he would do if he weren’t a sniper. Was it inevitable that one day, someone would get lucky? He would catch a bullet himself, or maybe get hit in the crossfire, or have a bomb dropped on him. Would an enemy sniper outfox him at his own game at some future point?