by Tim Heath
Every time he went in for a kill, he knew he was rolling the dice. So far it had always fallen in his favour, but that couldn’t last forever, could it?
He didn’t know any more.
It was the only life he’d known for a long time now, however. This was what he did, and he was fantastic at it. Maybe he was born to kill? Perhaps it was in his DNA, some weird twist of fate that made him a cold-hearted killer?
But he wasn’t cold-hearted, he knew that. He didn’t cheat, didn’t steal. He was loyal, maybe too loyal, to his own detriment. It was why he kept following orders; why he kept shooting people. There was always someone new in charge, and people the new guy wanted dead.
Somehow he’d fallen onto Filipov’s radar, and that was causing Rad to push the line more than ever before. Spying on Mark Orlov, Rad knew there was danger in that hit. He would have to wait for another location to present itself, or at least go with a ground force of a few dozen men. There was no way he could take the building on his own and still escape.
And now Filipov wanted the third target on the list removed, a man Rad’s own President had described as probably the most dangerous of them all. More dangerous than the leadership of the Machine? Rad wasn’t so sure, but he had a lot of reading up to do on Phelan, and the more he read, the clearer Rad understood that there was much more to the Irishman than initially met the eye.
The British Prime Minister was in a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, Cobra. There had been multiple reasons for them to have to gather in the last few months. They expected results from Salisbury and the ongoing British response towards Russia. The Russian election result had taken them by surprise. It was their first meeting since Filipov had come to power, the new President, therefore, expected to feature heavily on the agenda.
Ten minutes into the meeting––formalities and small talk aside––the room was awash with speculation.
“Do we have any further intel from Zurich yet as to what precisely happened to Foma Polzin?” the Prime Minister asked, addressing the one person in the room who might have answers. They’d flown back from Switzerland the day before.
“I met with the person leading the investigation, and the Swiss assure me it was an international hit. The sniper was a pro, and I’ll get to that in a moment. Someone took the shot from the roof of a building under repair. There is a team on the roof searching for clues. The weapon was one most often used by our troops, but there isn’t a shred of evidence linking it to any of our guys.”
“Do we know who else uses such a weapon?” Getting the UK away from suspicion was paramount.
“We’ve drawn up a concise list. You have to understand, this information is scarce. But one name stands out. Radomir Pajari, thirty-five years of age, and apparently the sharpest shot in the Russian army.” It fitted that it would involve a Russian.
“That’s confirmed? It’s his weapon?”
“Reports are yet to come in, but we are sure it is his weapon of choice. There have been many high profile hits, especially in Syria recently, using a similar weapon. The greatest edge it offers is the range. As you’ll see from these specifications, it has a range of up to two kilometres,” she said, passing around the information on the gun for anyone interested. There were only a few takers. Most were more concerned about what it all meant. “British Special forces have been using the weapon for years.”
“Is it possible a weapon got into enemy hands?”
“No one has reported anything, and you need a hell of a lot of skill to use the thing. Someone shot Polzin while the vehicle was moving, then most probably the driver seconds later. It was a tough, but far from impossible, shot. If it’s the same shooter as in Syria, he’s capable of much more.”
“Was he in Zurich?” the Prime Minister asked, the room once more silent.
“Not officially, no, but we believe someone used a known alias to gain entry in the day before the shooting. He left just hours after.”
“There is no question about it then, it has to be Russia.”
“Yes, it would seem to be the case,” the PM added to the growing consensus in the room. Any way the British could rally against the new Russian leadership, they would. “What’s the reason for taking out Polzin in Zurich?” She turned to the person who’d been looking into that connection.
“As we all know, the two had a public falling out in the lead up to the election. Polzin backed Putin, yet Filipov won anyway.”
“Still, why carry it out so publicly in Zurich? Why not have it done in Russia where there would be less exposure?” asked Bethany May, the new Deputy Director General of MI6, sitting in on her first Cobra meeting since taking the job.
“I think it was for that very reason. Public, visual. A threat.”
“To whom?”
“To anyone thinking of going up against the new leader. Anyone inside Russia who doesn’t want to keep in line, for example. Anyone outside Russia who, like us, is wondering what type of leadership Filipov will offer his nation.”
It was clear not everyone in the room was so confident about that last part. Maybe Polzin had fled Russia? Was it Zurich or lose him entirely?
“And what about these findings from Porton Down?” the PM asked, moving things back onto British affairs, though the link to Russia, even if it had been under the previous administration, was obvious.
They had invited the head of research at the Defence Science and Technology to the meeting for this one purpose. “There is no question over the use of the agent most commonly known as Novichok-5. What is a little disturbing is the non-chemical accelerant found at the scene of the crime. We almost missed it. It was the hallmark of one of the most wanted men during the troubles in Ireland.”
“Ireland?” the PM gasped, a little surprised by the way he seemed to have gone off at a tangent.
“A killer known only by a calling card with the letters ID on it––which stood for Irish Devil––he was last known shortly before the end of Troubles. He was one of a few men still wanted when the Good Friday Agreement was brokered, one of the few not offered clemency as part of that process. They wanted him on multiple counts and believed someone had killed him in action as his campaign ended so suddenly. They accredited multiple murders to this bomber during his years of activity, but it was only the botched final double murder of an MP and a prostitute that revealed the Soviet-made weapons-grade nerve agent.”
“The IRA had this Novichok-5?” The Prime Minister was in disbelief. She’d nearly gone to war with Russia because she was convinced they were the only ones who had ever possessed the stuff. She was alarmed to hear Salisbury wasn’t the first time someone had used it on British soil. “And we’re only just learning now that it has happened before?”
“With all due respect, we didn’t know what to do. Salisbury was a Russian attack,” though even the most adamant believer of that line was doubting it now. “National Security Protocol covered the incident that killed the MP at the end of the Troubles.”
“And no one thought, in the light of Salisbury, at least I needed to know?” The PM sounded put out.
“You are being informed now, ma’am,” though that hardly seemed to help matters. Battle lines had been drawn with the Russians for weeks already, diplomats expelled from all around the world in tit-for-tat plays and counter-plays. In truth, the Prime Minister had jumped the gun in blaming the Russians so early, as everyone in the room already knew. These latest revelations from Porton Down were just another problematic chapter that would have to be navigated at a later point. The focus now had to be on what it all meant.
“So does it mean this Irish terrorist is back on the scene?” The connotations of that were alarming enough, especially with a deadly nerve agent now apparently in play. “I am correct in assuming this guy was Irish, right? Might it not have been the Soviets all along?”
“We don’t have a lot to go on. It’s possible two legends blurred into one. We know there was an Irishman who went by the ID calling
card. His victims were usually so well burnt that only the white card pinned to a fence post would ever tell someone that something had happened on that spot. The stories go back over a decade. At some point, this same person or persons came into ownership of the Soviet poison.”
“So there is a stockpile somewhere on either the mainland or across the sea in Ireland?” That was the most sinister connotation of the lot.
“I believe that is possible, yes,” the researcher said, a few senior MPs around the table letting out the odd swear word.
“So are we at risk of further attack?” the PM asked, turning to Bethany who was representing MI6, and her counterpart from MI5. It was Bethany who answered the PM.
“For now, the threat level stays where it is.” It was already on its highest alert, following Salisbury. There was little more they could do. “I don’t believe another attack is imminent, but we will remain as vigilant as ever, and will add in necessary measures to tackle the potential presence of Novichok.”
That brought relief to the room. The reentry of a potentially dormant––assumed expired––Irish threat was new to them, however. Had they been looking solely east for too long and been blindsided? Was this the Real IRA, or whatever they called themselves now, fighting for attention, wanting to put themselves back on the map, tired of threats to Britain as only coming from Russia?
24
The International Criminal Court, The Hague––The Netherlands
Pressure had been growing over recent weeks, the protests getting louder outside on the streets in the Hague, as the call increased for sanctions against Russia, and particularly the new regime.
Military action had increased at an alarming rate in Syria, so much so that it wasn’t clear anymore who the enemy was that the Russian jets were bombing. There had been dozens of casualties as a result, millions more fleeing the region in fear that an absolute collapse of the nation was finally about to happen.
Filipov had been hunting Putin, the West aware of a rumour about the former President being in Syria and still being alive. No body had been found, yet, anyway. So Filipov had kept bombing.
The ICC was in session to make a ruling. They had made a case against Filipov and his core team, following a call that what was happening now in Syria was a war crime against a battered and already suffering people. Evidence was piling up. Coupled with the assassination of Foma, which happened on European soil, and the mass reporting of arrests of outspoken oligarchs against the new President, and the case was gaining merit.
By the end of the second day, they indicted Matvey Filipov and his core team, which included the name of Svetlana Volkov second on the list, under international law for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
They made the announcement in front of a room of gathered reporters, all given a hint of what was to come, all eager to cover the story that Filipov, a sitting President, was being accused of such crimes.
Kaminski Residence––Central London
Summer was in full bloom. The World Cup was on in Russia, but neither Anastasia nor her husband had been particularly interested in football. Dmitry, however, had joined a few fellow Russians elsewhere in London to watch their country’s match that evening.
It had been a tough few months since she had first left the hotel. Seeing her husband arrive, knowing he knew all about Alex, had been a total shock. It terrified her what he might be about to do, what he might have just done. At that moment she’d seen a side to the man she didn’t know existed, someone Alex had insisted was a threat, but someone Anastasia had never known. Now she did. Now she knew the danger.
Playing her part had been hard. As long as Dmitry felt she was with him, the longer Alex and his identity within MI6 was safe. It took over a month before Kaminski would leave Anastasia on her own, and even then she knew he had men watching the property, ready to stop her from going should she try to make a run for it.
So she’d played it the other way.
She was more afraid of him than ever before––being with him was far harder than the thought of him discovering her in the hotel ever had been. Now he was close up, she understood the monster that lay beneath the surface.
The interviews had been her idea though talk of the family had been his. It had surprised her in the interview, but she’d gone along with it. The more he felt secure, the more she would have the freedom she was longing for.
From the moment he invaded her hotel room, taking away her chance to start a new life with Alex, Anastasia knew there was only one thing she could do to be free.
With the match on the television––she’d been clear to suggest the security guys were free to watch the game in their spacious lounge––Anastasia had the run of the house for the first time since re-entering the life of Dmitry Kaminski. He had been a husband whom she had once loved, now total fear had replaced that love.
His insistence that she had to confront Alex and tell him it was all over was yet another demonstration of how much he wanted to break the agent. Anastasia knew if she didn’t do it properly––really making Alex believe her––she wouldn’t get away with it at all. Her husband would know. He was listening, watching for any slip, but ultimately gloating in his own victory.
She was his, and no man could have her.
And yet she had found another, a man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and that man was Alex. It had hurt her to deliver the blow to Alex, but she hoped the agent in him could read her eyes, to see her desperate longing for him. She’d dropped in the line about Italy to give him a hint she wasn’t speaking the truth, given the fact she had told him she was heading to Germany. Anastasia hoped he understood now. Wished he would wait for her.
Anastasia dropped in a fresh crate of beers to the three men who worked for her husband and who were there to secure the house. They hardly seemed to notice her, the match well into the second half. It was now or never.
She went upstairs to their bedroom, and the bed he had forced her to once again share with her husband. In his bedside cabinet, he kept his key to the office. Dmitry rarely worked from home, but when he did, she knew it was because he couldn’t do what he was doing anywhere else.
Alex had been right in the past. Locked away in their house was the evidence the British would need to convict her husband for multiple crimes, those they knew about and most likely many they didn’t. And she would hand it to them.
She’d had the idea in the minutes Dmitry had confronted her in that hotel room. Alex had suggested the same thing weeks before in the same place, but she’d then insisted she couldn’t do it, wouldn’t turn on Dmitry. Now that had changed. Now she understood.
Anastasia took the key from the drawer and calmly walked back downstairs. The match was still on, some beers already being drunk, and she didn’t even glance into the lounge as she headed the other way. The door to the hidden office was located at the rear of the property, well away from watching eyes, and as secure as any part of the house. Probably more so. Sliding away the painting that covered the entrance, she turned the key; the door opened smoothly. There were no cameras in the room, no computer at all in fact. Dmitry didn’t use this room for digital material.
The material in there was housed in multiple filing cabinets. Anastasia went over to the first, three identical ones sitting next to it against the wall, and pulled open the top drawer. It was almost entirely full of files. She glanced through the various options but didn’t know what she was looking for. She was sure, however, that across the three drawers in each of the cabinets, there would be plenty to interest the British authorities.
She would have to be methodical, and patient.
Anastasia pulled out a new smartphone, something she’d purchased the day before, and something she was sure her husband knew nothing about. Its sole purpose was to enable her to photograph the files in Dmitry’s office. Anastasia started with the top drawer, taking one file out at a time, being sure to keep everything in the same order, everything placed back jus
t how it had been found. She couldn’t give her husband any reason to suspect a thing.
By nine thirty, she’d taken over two hundred photos, and was over halfway through the first cabinet, but there was a long way to go. She knew time was up for the day, the match soon to finish, and the men once more on patrol. They couldn’t find her in the office, not by herself, not that late.
She closed the drawer carefully, always watchful. She’d not touched anything else in the room, and wiped down the cabinet anyway, as a final precaution. She exited the room, her presence there unknown, and returned the key to the bedside cabinet on her husband’s side of the bed. If Russia progressed in the tournament, there might be a few more chances over the coming weeks for Anastasia to complete the job. She guessed she needed at least another three hours.
It was less than two weeks later, three additional visits required, that Anastasia had finished photographing every piece of documentation in her husband’s office. From the little she’d taken in herself, she knew it would prove damaging information if passed to the right people. There was details of money transfers, a lot connecting him to the British government, and various property deals, not all above board. There was also a lot of paperwork about Dmitry’s former Banking Union. But it was all the information about the Games that seemed most interesting, and something Anastasia had had little knowledge about in the past. It listed his teams, his contacts, his Contestants. It documented the research that went into finding the right people and the efforts made to secure the winning lottery tickets. There were various newspaper articles about deceased winners, people who’d suddenly come unstuck despite winning the lottery the year before. It had listed all these names among Dmitry’s Contestants.