by Tim Heath
By one in the afternoon, the final van pulled away for the last time. The equipment was all left in place. They didn’t mind it being found. The Bank would never report the crime, they weren’t meant to be there themselves. They didn’t exist. Well, now that everything had been taken, they really didn’t.
The second team of men watching the first group were reporting everything directly to the Kremlin. Filipov was listening in on the relay but remained silent himself. Everything was going to plan. The first two cargo aircraft had been filled and had since taken off. One was about to enter Russian airspace already. When the last van arrived at the airport, it would take about fifteen minutes to unload it, and another fifteen for the plane to get into position. A take-off slot had been provided ahead of time, ensuring that they remained on schedule.
With the cargo aircraft filled––the plane’s ordinary, well known logos making it seem like any other delivery company flight––the first team’s job was over. The men had already started to stand down, the vans returned to the security company they had been borrowed from and both teams were left behind in Zurich. It was now in the hands of the airforce and the three crews to get the cargo to Moscow.
“The first plane has touched down,” an aide said, Filipov standing next to Svetlana at this point, his body going tense, though only from pure excitement. He’d thought about this particular loot for a long time. It wasn’t so much the wealth it would bring him––though he was now the wealthiest man on the planet by a long shot––but the damage it would do to others. No one using the Bank did so openly. It was a crook's bank. A dictator's bank. A place to launder dirty money, a place to hide ill-gotten gains. Filipov had never used the site himself, but like many things, had come across it in his searching. Once he got wind of something––and he had a great knack of knowing what was suspicious or not––he pushed and prodded until he got a reaction. He’d done that with his first attempt on the Bank. They were never going to get away with it for long. He had used that attempt to cripple Mark Orlov and Sergej Volkov. Filipov had learned they had deposits there.
The team Filipov had initially sent in had forced the hand of the Machine, showing Filipov what he was up against. The second time, it had been so much easier.
As the cargo aircraft pulled into the cargo hub at Moscow’s main freight handling airport, Russian military personnel were already on the ground. The area was secure. None of the foot soldiers knew what was on board, of course. It might as well have been people along with the cargo. They wouldn’t have cared. They were just following orders.
The plane was emptied efficiently, the second aircraft already in Russian airspace when the first was cleared of its responsibility. It could be reused by the global courier firm from which it had been borrowed that morning. The firm, American owned as it happened, had no idea what they were being asked to move. They had been threatened with sanctions and removal of their licence to operate in Russia before the request came to borrow the three aircraft and their crews for a flight to Zurich. Money was paid for the rent, far more than the cost. The firm saw they had little choice. They would lose one day’s business from Russia but hoped no one would notice.
By that evening, all three planes were empty. The contents were divided between four different locations, each building secured, with armed soldiers on duty. There was a lot that had to be sorted and processed. Gold alone to the tune of billions had to be melted down and stamped with their new identification. It was estimated that it would take a week to have an accurate inventory.
Filipov asked to be kept up to date, but he left the room with a smile. They’d pulled it off. He had kicked the legs from under nearly everyone who might stand against him while making sure the oligarchs who were switching off the gas at that moment had the compensation they would demand and he had promised. Now he could deliver.
10
A week into the story first breaking about the British involvement in Russian politics, the media interest was only just starting to slow down. It would pick up before the day was out, as the effect of the first political casualties began to be felt.
Three senior members of the Prime Minister's cabinet were forced to resign. It was a massive blow to the PM, these were the people who had previously been seen as the barrier between her and the need for her own resignation. Now there were calls for the Prime Minister to step down as well. What had not helped her cause was the whole issue surrounding Brexit. Many had said she was on borrowed time already, had lasted longer than most thought healthy, and this latest scandal was very much the final straw.
The Prime Minister was speaking to one of her ministers who had resigned that day. They were alone at Number 10.
“You had no connection to what happened, so I don’t understand why you saw the need to take this step.”
“I know, but the pressure was doing damage to the party. I was getting letters daily from my constituency, demanding answers. It’s my whole career I’m thinking about.”
“And what about me?” the Prime Minister said, her own situation now left entirely exposed, her options severely limited by the loss of these three key members.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to weaken you, though I know I have. We all have by our announcements today.” Both were silent for a while. The Prime Minister had seen Westfield in front of the cameras more than anyone else. To the cameras he said he was supporting the Prime Minister, very much the voice of reason in a difficult period. She knew he was ready to stab her in the back and take over the running of the country.
“We did nothing wrong, though,” the PM said, going over old ground. She’d pointed this out repeatedly, always off camera, but frequently to those around her. To the same people who were now resigning, or otherwise stepping aside from specific roles. Their actions were making them all look guilty. The woman in front of her, however, took another line.
“In the eyes of the public, we are all the same. Someone does something wrong, those in power take the blame. It’s what we signed up for.” It wasn’t really what any of them signed up for, but the Prime Minister understood. She’d moved into office following the defeat in the referendum––she’d campaigned to remain in the EU. David Cameron had resigned, she’d stepped into his place, finally triggering the very policy she had fought against. How it had all come full circle.
“I’ll tender my resignation in the morning,” the PM conceded.
“No, don’t feel you have to,” her friend said, but they both realised it was a done deal. It had been all week. Opinion polls were clear. If an election was called––it wasn’t due for a few more years––they most probably wouldn’t remain in power. A change at the top and time for the new leader to put things right was the only hope the party had of coming through the next election in a winning position. Her resignation and the appointment of a new Prime Minister was the only way to get them into power without the need for a vote. They were all in agreement that new elections could not be considered.
“We both know I don’t have a choice. Just a shame you beat me to it.” Had the three not resigned that day, the Prime Minister might have stayed on for a little longer. The party was bleeding badly, but with the four still in position, it seemed she wasn’t about to jump ship and leave them in the lurch. At least the coordinated resignations had finally forced her hand. There might be hope for the future of the party after all.
“We’ll stand right behind you all the way,” the MP said, though given the position when Theresa May came to power, she knew how soon people got forgotten. The MP couldn’t remember the last time she saw Cameron, nor spoken to him. Same party, and a fellow MP, but resigned to the shadows, destined for a life on the edge from now on. Was that what awaited them all now?
“And who will take over?” the PM asked.
“A few names are being thrown around.” It always felt hard to hear, but no harder than now, when she was still in power. The press, like vultures, picked over the flesh and bodies while she was still
alive.
“Is Westfield one of them?” the PM asked. She looked accusingly towards her friend, as if she too were a co-conspirator, though it was missed by her resigning colleague.
“His name is in the mix. The bookies’ current favourite, actually,” she said matter-of-factly. It seemed Prime Ministers came and went recently as frequently as did some English clubs’ football managers. “Will you be backing him?” the MP asked, looking up at the Prime Minister, who had looked away by that point.
“No, I’ll let them work it out for themselves,” the PM said, giving no further indication of what she felt about him. Clearly, anyone being touted as the next PM was always going to be viewed with suspicion by the person they were about to replace. When she had come into power a few years before, there had been other names in the reckoning. The previous PM had not openly backed anyone, reeling from his own political mistake in calling the referendum, a nation using the vote to communicate their frustration as much as anything else.
Mrs May wondered for the first time in a decade whether politics was the life she wanted now, though she knew little else. Neither was she in the right place to start afresh anyway. The two women ended their meeting, the Prime Minister coming back to her computer and a letter she'd had typed up already, the letter addressed to the Queen. She started typing again.
It was the following morning when the Prime Minister sent her resignation letter to the Queen. The British monarch had dealt with more Prime Ministers than any previous kings or queens had done before, but that was partly due to the fact she’d reigned for so long.
The news was greeted with little surprise, but the papers once more went into overdrive. Spin and scandal sold newspapers. The former-PM was not answering questions, the news from Buckingham Palace was that the Queen had accepted the resignation. She had little choice, and the situation had become difficult. Every advisor had assured Elizabeth that this was the only suitable action.
Some papers led with the sensation of a British political meltdown. Most called for sweeping changes, following the revelations about links to Russia that had initiated the original scandal. The Security Service also came under scrutiny, only now questioned as to their role and involvement in everything, as the witch hunt moved on from the now-deposed peers and MPs to anyone else who could be found to be guilty.
With Price already dead––his name was the only MI6 name mentioned, links to the murder often referenced in the previous week––there was no one else they were really going after.
By that evening, Westfield was reported to have voiced his desire to take over as Prime Minister, the first person to do so, and coming from the most influential position. The team around him had been working wonders in the background ever since they had got involved. His early declaration of interest was made to ward off any would-be challengers.
Westfield sat in his north London home, in an area he’d always lived, and a constituency he’d represented for the last eight years since the incumbent MP had died in post forcing a local by-election. The seat was held with a narrow majority. If he became the Prime Minister, he would not only move house––the job came with a home, after all––but they might consider changing constituencies in the future. Such a valuable role within the party demanded a safe seat.
In the table in front of him stood the same unopened bottle of Georgian beer that had arrived weeks before. He’d not dared to touch it, waiting for the official appointment, which now seemed more possible than ever before. He reread the note, something that would mean nothing to anyone else if they were to stumble across it, but something that said everything to him.
Russia had been a massive issue for the previous Prime Minister. Could a nation under his leadership offer the chance for more encompassing talks, more inclusion than expulsion? Would it provide better trade routes in the light of the damage Brexit was about to do?
He didn’t know right now, and he wasn’t in office yet.
Argentina, Belgium, Sweden, UK and USA
2006-2019
Back in 2006 when Filipov was an oligarch living in Monaco he had a team of people––three men and four women––working for him in a specialised nuclear engineering lab near his home. They were well financed, and well looked after. Whatever they needed, they got. They were all Russian, recruited over the last couple of years from Russian nuclear firms. Filipov wanted a clear map of nuclear energy usage around the world.
The previous year had seen an increase in issues related to nuclear power plants. Filipov had sent his team to Argentina, where a worker in Atucha had been exposed to radiation levels well above what was expected in an entire year. That had followed on from a radiation leak at the US site at Braidwood.
Sellafield, happening later and in the same year, had been worse still, and Filipov knew the British government had done an excellent job in keeping the general public ignorant of how great the risk had been.
Nuclear power was meant to be the way forward.
Filipov’s team were then in the USA once again, after an accident in Erwin, Tennessee. Nobody was injured there, but the malfunction was noted. Filipov was looking for details, looking to see where the dangers lay. What he was about to find out, put his whole research into a new light.
As the year pressed on, things were about to move quickly. Two further incidents followed. A minor one in Forsmark, Sweden, and promptly the most severe of recent years in Belgium, where a worker had severe health issues in the Fleures plant.
His team realised that these incidents had been caused by a weakness in the system. The weakness was in the nuclear power plants themselves but could be accessed and triggered externally. At first, the team had wanted to highlight the issue for safety reasons. They’d urged Filipov to let them share their findings with others. Help them to make everything safer. Filipov had sanctioned them to do this in Russia. The rest of the world was to be kept in the dark for now.
At the same time as the situation in Belgium was being investigated, Filipov first became aware of Kaminski’s connection to the British government, and their joint plan to have him challenge Putin one day. Putin was six years in charge already, Russian laws limiting the President to a maximum eight-year term. Elections were two years away. Filipov was unclear at that moment if Kaminski would stand in the next election or a later one. The idea of also challenging for the Presidency, especially against a man like Kaminski, was an exciting prospect. It put his recent discovery about nuclear power plants and the possibility of hacking into them into a fresh perspective. Filipov’s experts might be able to threaten to manipulate them. If Filipov was to become President one day, he could get to his enemies via their nuclear power plants.
Five years of further study––and Putin was a shoo-in for the 2012 elections, the constitution changed allowing him to return to power for a much more extended period––and everything changed. The Fukushima disaster in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami was by far the worst nuclear incident in twenty-five years, since the Soviet Union’s own Chernobyl.
Suddenly the world, and particularly Europe, got nervous about nuclear power.
Belgium, Spain and Switzerland were phasing out their nuclear power plants. Italy was closing all their plants. Austria had built one but had never used it, voting at the end of the last millennium to remain nuclear-free. These incidents were doing nothing to change that now.
As Europe moved away from nuclear power, they turned back to the older way of doing things. Suddenly gas became popular again, and despite its ups and downs, Russian gas supplied by that point nearly forty per cent of Europe’s gas intake.
By the time Filipov would himself become President, as the world drew closer to the end of the second decade of the new millennium, Russia would supply over fifty per cent of the gas that Europe consumed, a continent reliant on the cheaper gas for producing all the energy they needed, having turned away from nuclear power, it seemed, following a bad run of incidents.
Filipov’s grand plan ha
d hit a snag. No nuclear reactors meant no threat of a meltdown. No risk meant there was no overt threat he could make to those opposing him and his country. His opportunity seemed to have run out of steam. That was until the gas got turned off completely, forcing Europe’s hand once more. They could either look to alternative options, though that required paying more for a supply that had further to travel or building new facilities to handle it. Or they could just reopen the nuclear plants that lay dormant. Switched off, yes, but ready to use and easy to get back up to speed.
Suddenly nuclear energy would be repackaged and sold to the people of Europe as the bright way forward. A way ahead that didn’t require gas from Russia, a country prepared to just switch off the supply without warning, a nation led by a man who didn’t share their values.
Nuclear power stations could get the lights back on, the homes heated once more. Atomic power was our friend. We’d learnt the dangers, we knew how to control it now.
All propaganda, of course, but Filipov smiled as he read the various press releases from around Europe. Countries were seemingly doing a one-eighty on the subject, and nobody seemed to worry, aside from a few environmental groups. As most people saw it, they had no choice. Winter was approaching. They needed heating, they needed lights.
By the end of the year, as the world headed into the last twelve months of the decade, and with Filipov now in power in Russia, there was even talk of new power plants being opened right across Europe. Austria was to have a third referendum on the subject. They were widely expected to break their anti-nuclear stance.
Filipov watched on with glee.
11
West Siberian Plain––Russia
Mark took the call in his bedroom. The Bank had been hit again, and this time nothing remained. He swore, looking to the ceiling, looking for help from somewhere. He didn’t believe in a god but could have done with divine intervention of some sort. With his wealth and power, he’d often felt like a god––self-sustaining, persuasive, people feared him. Now all that had gone. All those layers of protection, layers that separated him from mere mortals. He refused to accept that this now defined him as well. He still had assets in the companies he operated, but making them liquid would destroy everything he had built around him.