by W. Soliman
“And his other child?” I prompted when Monk fell silent.
“The eldest is a girl called Monika, who concerns us most of all. She’s thirty and a chip off the old block in all respects. She runs her father’s escort agency in the West End with a fist of iron and we’ve been unable to get anywhere near her.”
“Why should that bother you? The escort agency, I mean. It’s not exactly on the same scale as supplying contraband.”
“Well, yes, except we think a lot more goes on in that establishment than meets the eye and we’d love to be able to get through the doors.”
I felt a quickening of interest. “You think she handles some of her father’s other business activities?”
“Almost certainly.” Monk executed another of his elegant shoulder lifts. “It’s the perfect cover. All the girls in the agency are Eastern European and it’s natural enough for visiting businessmen from those countries to call there.”
“Can’t you raid the premises?”
“Certainly, if we could get a warrant.” Monk looked harassed for the first time. “But even if we managed to find a reason to apply for one and got there before Monika was tipped off, I’m willing to bet a year’s pay that we wouldn’t find anything to help us. This lot are too well organized to leave a paper trail.”
“I still don’t understand what you want with Kara and me. What can we do?”
“We’ve been looking for a weakness in Kalashov’s organisation for years.”
“But you said you had people infiltrated—”
“Neither of them has been heard from for months.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Your sister, Miss Webb, is Kalashov’s weakness,” Levine said. “His only weakness. He still worships the ground she walks on and, for her sake, is legitimising his business affairs. The development in Spain I mentioned is a major project. An hotel, golf course, upmarket houses overlooking the sea, shopping complex. A whole town being built from scratch on farmland north of the Costa del Sol. Even Kalashov doesn’t have sufficient funds to finance it outright, doesn’t want to take a partner and is doing one last major deal to raise the capital.”
“What sort of deal?” I asked. “It must be something heavyweight to attract the sort of money he’ll need.”
“Yes, you’re right about that and we think…no, we know, he’s behind a plan to supply Hamas with rocket launchers and bulk military equipment.” Monk’s eyes drilled into my face like lasers. “And his clients are the Iranians.”
Anton removed his hand from Nadia’s but she snatched it back.
“Do you care for me at all, Anton?”
“You know I do.” His expression was anguished. “When I think of you with him, when I hear you together, I can’t—”
“Then please, tell me what I need to know. I have to understand. Why was my husband talking about my sister?”
“Nadia, I can’t tell you these things. You know how he is about loyalty. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill us both if he even suspected.”
“Then why do you work for him? You’re not like Viktor and the others.” Nadia couldn’t bring herself to say he wasn’t like Igor. She’d been forced to see her husband in a very different light recently but still couldn’t think of him as a cold-blooded killer. “Why do you stay?”
Anton finally lifted his eyes to meet hers. “You know why I stay. And as for why I first agreed to work for Mr. Kalashov…” He looked away again. “It was an opportunity too good to pass up. There was nothing for me in Russia. You’ve seen for yourself how it is for the ordinary people there. I wanted more than I’d ever be able to achieve in my homeland. Your husband needed someone with my expertise in the field of computers, I was recommended to him and jumped at the opportunity to prove myself. Like you, I soon learned to pretend everything was all right and to keep my mouth closed.” He paused. “Then he asked me to accompany you sometimes, and by then it was too late. I could never walk away from you and the children.”
Nadia, moved by Anton’s straightforward sincerity, couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead she reflected upon the hopelessness of her situation, gradually becoming aware of Jasmine’s fighting spirit reemerging from where it had been crushed deep within her. The essence of the person who’d kept the mighty Igor Kalashov dangling for so long was clamouring to be heard, telling her to protect her baby sister and keep the children safe, regardless of the cost.
Jasmine’s determination gave her fresh hope. It was time to stand up for herself again.
“Tell me about Kara,” she said.
He sighed. “She’s trying to find you.”
Nadia gasped. “Why, after all this time?”
“She thinks you ought to know about Brett. And she wants to know why you disappeared all those years ago.”
In spite of the enormity of the situation, Nadia smiled. How alike she and her sister were in so many ways. “How does Igor know?”
“He has people everywhere who report to him. Charlie Hunter used to be a policeman and he was assigned to look into your disappearance. Your sister approached him and asked if he would help track you down.”
“They must be stopped. We must warn her.” Nadia jumped to her feet. “It’s too dangerous for her.” She pulled her mobile phone from her bag. “I know where she lives. Perhaps I can get her number from enquiries.”
“Don’t use that!” Anton snatched the phone from her hand. “You’ll leave a trace.”
Nadia shook her head. “No, it’s all right, it’s a pay-as-you-go. There are no bills.”
“You must still be cautious. If your husband were to click through the calls made, he’d realize what you were up to.”
“Yes.” Nadia was about to say Igor would never do something like that but quickly changed her mind. She no longer knew what her husband was capable of. “Then what?”
“If you insist upon doing this then we must find a public phone. But we must be quick. If we’re not back soon we’ll be missed. I caught your husband looking at me strangely the other day. I think he suspects something.”
“He can’t possibly.” Nadia spoke with more confidence than she felt. “There’s nothing to suspect.”
“Perhaps I’m not so good at hiding my feelings.” He took her arm. “Come now, we must hurry.”
They found a bank of pay phones at the railway station and Nadia obtained a number for her sister from enquiries. She dialled it with trembling hands, rehearsing what to say over and over in her head, only to be greeted by an answering machine. The sound of her sister’s cheerful voice asking her to leave a message temporarily deprived Nadia of the ability to think. Anton was indicating the time with his hands and gesturing for her to hurry, so she assembled her thoughts and cleared her throat.
“Kara,” she said, after two false starts, “this is Jasmine. Please, don’t look for me. You’ll be in terrible danger if you do. I know about Brett,” she added, her voice catching, “and I don’t wish for you to finish up the same way.”
Replacing the receiver, the courage that had galvanised her into making the call deserted her and she fell sobbing into Anton’s arms. His hands stroked her back, soothing her.
“There could be a way out of this,” she said, “but I need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Chapter Eleven
I rubbed my chin, procrastinating as I tried to conceal my reaction from Kara. This thing was way too big for me but I doubted whether she’d be deterred by anything as trivial as a spot of international terrorism.
“Iranian links to Hamas are no secret,” I said, jumping in before Kara could formulate a question.
“Impressionable youths with nothing to lose are prime targets for those with wider agendas.”
“We think the Iranians want to divert Israel’s attention away from their nuclear programme by keeping it focused on the Palestinian problem,” Levine said. “And what better way to do it than having the Palestinians lobbing rockets into their territory at
regular intervals.”
“If Iran achieves her nuclear ambitions it could be catastrophic for the rest of the world,” Monk pointed out. “Which is why Kalashov needs to be stopped.”
“So why come to me? This is way out of my league.” Why did I get the feeling that Kara and I were being manipulated? “I don’t think we can help, if that’s what you’ve come for.”
Kara opened her mouth again but I silenced her with a look. No way were the powers that be going to use us as sacrificial lambs.
“Like I just said, Jasmine, or Nadia as we think of her, is the only weakness Kalashov has and therefore our only way of getting to him.”
“So you want me to talk to her.” Kara ignored my warning glare. “See if there’s anything she can do to stop her husband.” She frowned. “Hang on, though. Even if she doesn’t know what he’s up to he is still her husband. The Jasmine I remember was pretty loyal.”
If Kara knew how her sister had played Ramsay—I still remembered the look on his face as he described their last afternoon together—she’d be forced to amend her fond recollections. Whatever, I wasn’t going to stand by and let Kara get mixed up in this mess. But I kept my mouth shut and waited to see what Monk and Levine had in mind.
“No, possibly not, but I doubt she’d be able to resist the opportunity to get one over on Monika. Kalashov’s daughter hates your sister, never speaks to her if she can avoid it, and does everything in her power to drive a wedge between Nadia and her father.” Monk’s expression underwent a subtle change, becoming speculative. “I think she has suspicions about her mother’s convenient death. She adores her father and wouldn’t blame him for it, even if common sense tells her he must have been involved. But she’d have no trouble placing the blame at your sister’s door.”
“But Jas wouldn’t know anything about it.”
“No, but if we could find out about her refusal to get involved with Kalashov whilst he was married to someone else, Monika must know about it too.”
“So you want Kara to feed her sister some disinformation about Monika.” I could hardly believe the gall of the two men. “Forget it!”
“Don’t I have any say in this?” Kara asked.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, you do, Miss Webb,” Monk said smoothly.
“Fine.” She returned my glare before asking Monk, “What do you want me to do?”
“Your sister never goes out alone. If she isn’t with her husband, then one of his minders always accompanies her.”
“God, poor Jas!”
“She seems to be used to it.”
“How can I get to her if she’s never alone?”
“Your niece and nephew attend Chapter House Preparatory School, one of the best fee-paying schools in Weymouth. It takes day children and boarders but the Kalashov children don’t board. That would make them too accessible to their father’s enemies.”
Kara shuddered and I placed a hand on her shoulder. I was unable to say quite why I was trying to reassure her, when I’d much rather she be too frightened to go through with whatever Monk had in mind.
“However, it’s their sports day next Wednesday, and we happen to know Kalashov won’t be in the country. He’s booked on a commercial flight to Moscow tomorrow and not due back until Friday.”
“But Jas won’t be there alone?”
“No, she’ll have one of her husband’s goons with her, but he won’t be too close. If you and Charlie were there posing as prospective parents checking the place out, there’s a chance you’d be able to have a few words with your sister without anyone noticing. It’s bound to be chaotic, and it’s only natural for the adults at these things to boast to one another about their offspring’s sporting prowess.”
“Yes, that would work, wouldn’t it, Charlie?”
“Have you forgotten what happened to your brother?” I asked with ruthless disregard for her finer feelings.
“That was an accident.”
“No, Miss Webb, I’m sorry but it wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Kara gasped and sank onto the end of the seating unit. I took her hand and felt it tremble in mine.
“Much as I need your help, I’m not prepared to send you in there blind. You need to know all we do before you make up your mind.”
I didn’t imagine for one moment that they’d reveal anything more than they had to in order to get Kara involved, but I didn’t see any point in saying so. At least not yet.
“But the postmortem, it said—”
“Your brother really did meet your sister by accident that first time. We always have someone watching the Kalashov family and so we knew about their encounter. We approached your brother after that and told him what we’ve just told you. He agreed to help immediately. We arranged for him to deliver that boat to Weymouth and kept him informed of your sister’s movements so he could accidentally bump into her again and set up communications with her.” Levine scowled. “We had a man in the same bar as your brother that night. I’m sorry, Miss Webb, but two men were waiting outside the bar for Brett, and there was nothing our man could do to help him. He reported the incident and that’s the last we heard from him.”
“Christ!” I handed Kara my handkerchief, ran a hand through my hair and glowered at Monk. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
“We suppressed the fact that your brother was murdered and issued a false postmortem report because we didn’t want to alert Kalashov.”
“But why? If he killed Brett—”
“We don’t think he ordered the killing. He was out of the country at the time and it was down to his right-hand man, Viktor Barayev, to handle your brother.”
“Charming!” I was having increasing trouble keeping my temper in check.
“Kalashov might not have liked his wife being in touch with her brother again,” Monk said, “but he loves her too much to order his murder. He probably just told Barayev to make sure they didn’t meet again.”
“Why did my sister’s husband not want her to have anything to do with her family?”
“We can only assume it’s because if the connection became known it would be another way for his enemies to get to him.” Monk smiled at Kara. “He’s an excessively cautious and private man. With good reason.”
“So,” I said, “let’s see if I understand what you’re saying. Brett Webb was killed by someone in Kalashov’s organisation, simply because he spoke to Jasmine, and you want Kara and me to go waltzing in there and do what exactly?”
“Try and make communication.” Monk was doing a sterling job of ignoring my sarcasm.
“The sports day is an ideal opportunity. Too good to pass up.”
“Even if I was tempted, which I’m not, don’t you think Kara might stand out a little?” I lifted a lock of her bright red hair and my eyebrows simultaneously.
“Well, that could be remedied. On a temporary basis, obviously.”
“And you’re forgetting something else. We’re pretty sure we were being watched in Brighton, which is why we came to Cowes instead of going directly to Weymouth. If the No Comment turns up in Weymouth, how long do you think it would take Kalashov to be aware of our presence?”
“Well, obviously, you couldn’t go in this boat but perhaps we could do a swap.” He nodded towards the Sealine S42 sports cruiser moored on the outside of the pontoon almost directly opposite us. “It has a top speed of over twenty knots, so it would help you out of any tight spots you might get yourselves into.”
“How comforting.”
“We’ll do it,” Kara said, not looking at me.
“We won’t do it,” I countered. “What we will do is talk about it and let you know what conclusions we’ve reached tomorrow.”
“That’s all I ask.” Monk stood up. “I know you’re anxious about your sister, Miss Webb, and I know Charlie’s furious with me for even suggesting you contact her. I can understand that. This is exceedingly dangerous, I won’t try to pretend otherwise, and if it were
n’t for the fact that we’re desperate to stop Kalashov, I wouldn’t even have suggested it.”
“Well, that’s all right then.” I ignored my ex-boss’s outstretched hand, opened the salon door and ushered the men off my boat.
“We’ll hear from you tomorrow then, Charlie,” Monk said.
“You will indeed, but don’t hold your breath.”
Once they’d gone neither Kara nor I seemed in any hurry to speak. I used the time to think how best to persuade her that this crazy scheme of Monk’s was a nonstarter.
“Well, at least we know now where Jas is,” she said.
“Yeah, we’ll send her a postcard.”
Kara paced the small salon, treating my flippant comment with the contempt it deserved by ignoring it. “I’m going to do this. I have to, you must see that. Will you help me?”
“No. Sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t stand by and watch you get killed, as well.”
“But Interpol will protect us.”
I snorted. “Like they protected your brother?”
She winced. “That was different. They’re better prepared this time. Charlie, please!” She turned, eyes brimming with tears, in my direction. “We’re so close and—”
“And what? Even supposing you get to talk to your sister, what are you going to say to her?”
“Well, I—”
“Do you really imagine she’s been with this man all these years and doesn’t know how he makes his money?” I spoke with deliberate scepticism, pretty sure Kara had images stored in her head of her big sister being manipulated against her will by a ruthless Russian Mafia boss. She needed to face facts. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s possible though. Perhaps he’s tried to protect her from it all. Mr. Monk did say he’s giving his old ways up for her sake.”
“Yeah, he did.” But I wasn’t sure I bought that. Something told me Monk was just saying that to persuade us to help him. I wouldn’t put anything past him. “All right, so you manage to tell her in a school full of people that she’s married to a murdering thug who was, directly or otherwise, responsible for your brother’s death. Then what?”