by A P Bateman
“He looks like a double-glazing salesman from the nineties,” Big Dave commented, adjusting the focus slightly.
“He’s pushing Bitcoin. How else was he going to look?” She watched as Noventa turned and watched a woman in tight leather trousers walk past. “Yep, you were right. A thin ponytail down his collar.”
“I think most Bitcoin dealers are arseholes, too.”
“That’s because you don’t understand it.”
Big Dave nodded. “And you do? I didn’t realise until this operation that Bitcoin was even a thing. I thought it was just a con.”
“I don’t have a PHD in computer software and mathematics, so no matter how many times I read about it, I’m still lost…” Thorpe agreed.
“It’s a decentralised digital currency without a central bank or single administrative body that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries. Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services.” Neil Ramsay paused. “What’s not to understand? Network nodes can validate transactions, add them to their copy of the ledger, and then broadcast these ledger additions to other nodes. To achieve independent verification of the chain of ownership each network node stores its own copy of the blockchain. At varying intervals of time averaging to every ten minutes, a new group of accepted transactions, called a block, is created, added to the blockchain, and quickly published to all nodes, without requiring central oversight. This allows Bitcoin software to determine when a particular Bitcoin has been spent, which is needed to prevent double spending. A conventional ledger records the transfers of actual bills or promissory notes that exist apart from it, but the blockchain is the only place that bitcoins can be said to exist in the form of unspent outputs of transactions.”
Big Dave glanced at Thorpe and smiled. “Thanks, Neil. Glad you could clear that up for me.”
“So, Neil, have you invested in Bitcoin?”
“Not likely,” Ramsay said mockingly. “I have a mortgage, teenage girls and a senior-leader salary. What little I have sits in a well-known bank. I don’t like any risk in my portfolio.” He paused, glancing over Thorpe’s shoulder at the screen. “My, he is a thoroughly unlikeable looking character, isn’t he?”
“He’s fishing for an assassin in the dark web, he was never going to be saint-like,” Thorpe replied.
Ramsay didn’t respond. Looking at Big Dave he said, “It looks as though he’s ordered another coffee. He’s not going anywhere soon, and there’s a seat free at the nearest table. Dave, go and have an espresso. Hide your earpiece and make sure your mic can pick up everything. He’s most likely waiting to meet somebody.” He paused. “And don’t blow it…”
***
“Big Dave is up,” Caroline said quietly inside the Mercedes hire car. She watched the man-mountain slide into the empty seat and sit with his back to Noventa. Although Dave Lomu was six-four and eighteen stone, he moved with a cat-like grace, agile on his toes and with good spatial awareness. Wearing cargoes and a body-hugging woollen sweater with a zipped neck, he looked fit and comfortable, and did not look like a typical tourist. Caroline watched as the man ordered, then sat back to watch the lake on his right, and the rest of the street straight ahead of him.
“He is a good man, no?” Gerrard Durand asked.
“Big Dave? The best,” she said. “Cool in a crisis, a good sense of humour and as tough as nails.” She glanced at the French counter-terrorist captain and saw him nodding approvingly.
“You have, what is the term, friction with Sally-Anne Thorpe?”
Caroline shook her head. “I don’t like to be policed. What we do is by its very nature, a bit of a grey area in a world of black and white.” She paused, looking back at Noventa. “Ramsay brought her in for her investigation skills. She was a top murder detective, apparently. While I appreciate her expertise, our remit differs from what the Security Service is both widely seen and believed to do.”
“A hammer to crack a walnut…” Durand interrupted. “I get it. I deal with ISIS and other Islamic extremists, endemic to France.” He shrugged. “My heavy-handed techniques got results, but put it this way, I did not volunteer for this posting. In France, too, there is seen by politicians the need to finesse when really, as I say, a hammer gets the job done.”
Caroline smiled. She thought Durand had much in common with her, and she thought King might agree as well. The thought of his absence saddened her, and she turned her attention back to Noventa and Big Dave at the Café du Lac. She hated not knowing where King was or if he was even safe. He was on his own and there was nobody to have his back.
“Are you carrying?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the subject.
Durand hesitated, then shrugged and said, “Yes.”
“What?”
“A Glock Nineteen.”
“Where did you get that?”
“I have contacts. Getting a pistol in Europe is easy.”
“Give it to me,” she said uncompromisingly.
“And if I say no?”
“Then I’ll take it from you.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Then just try saying, no…”
Durand shook his head in exasperation and pulled the weapon from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “It’s loaded…”
“Not much good to anyone empty,” she said, but taking nothing on face value she pressed the release button and ejected the magazine. She pulled back the slide, caught the ejected bullet and pressed the lever to hold the slide backwards while she inspected the breech and set about reloading the magazine with the loose round. “I’ll look after it,” she assured him, as she inserted the magazine and dropped the slide forward. The weapon was ready, and she tucked it into her shoulder bag and opened the door.
“What the hell?” Durand glared at her. “You are only here because you wore me down! I agreed to the Security Service taking part in the surveillance and moved the goal posts for you, and now you are moving them again! We are only meant to observe!”
“So, observe…” she replied, getting out stiffly. She had brought along just one crutch and had been pushing herself at that, but she looked at it on the back seat and decided to leave it. She shouldered the leather bag, checked the catch was open and there was easy access to the pistol, then bent down, looking back inside the vehicle as she said, “I’m not playing Neil Ramsay’s games and making this a tech-based, internet-heavy investigation. By the time we get to play this idiot, he could already have a contract in place.”
“He will have worked out a code word, something to alert Fortez. You could blow this completely…” Durand said earnestly, but his protests were drowned out when she slammed the door behind her.
Caroline limped across the road, wishing she had used the crutch by the time she was halfway across. When she reached the pavement, just a few steps from the café, she paused to regain her composure and take a breath. The pain in her right leg was excruciating, and ever since she had left her home in Dorset, she had been taking painkillers as if they were sweets. She had three pins in her leg and all of them told her she was pushing herself beyond her limits.
***
“What the hell is she doing!” Thorpe exclaimed as she saw Caroline come into her field of view on the laptop screen.
“Her job,” Ramsay replied.
“Her job was to observe!”
“Then I suppose she changed the parameters…”
“For god’s sake…” Thorpe shook her head and said in dismay, “She’s a loose cannon, just like that King character. No wonder you’re getting flack for this team…”
“You’re a damned good investigator, Sally-Anne. You got us here. You found out more about Milo Noventa and his whereabouts than anybody I know could have. And you did it in record time.
” He paused, but kept his eyes firmly on the laptop screen. “But Caroline Darby is good at this sort of thing. Yes, she’s a giant pain in the arse sometimes, but she can adapt and improvise like nobody else can. So, let’s just sit back and see where it takes us…”
***
Caroline caught the waiter’s eye as she approached, rather unsteadily, and asked for a double espresso, and another for her friend, pointing at Milo Noventa who was thoroughly immersed in an article in his paper.
She walked around the table and sat down opposite him, catching Big Dave’s look of surprise as the big man glanced her way. “I’d like to say you’re a difficult man to find, but I’d be lying,” she said.
“Who the hell are you?” Noventa asked bemused. He then looked at the waiter who placed two espressos on the linen tablecloth, along with more sugar and two cat’s tongue biscuits. “No, I…”
“Relax,” Caroline interrupted. “I ordered this.” She dropped a brown sugar cube into her double espresso and stirred deliberately with a tiny silver spoon. “I use the dark web a great deal and I peel the layers from the onion,” she said. “Just like you. But I also employ a technical genius who not only found this job for me but found the gatekeeper as well.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Noventa replied belligerently. He pushed out his chair. “I’ll be going now,” he said tersely.
“Dave…” Caroline said quietly.
Big Dave turned around and with a swift motion, pushed the chair back under the table with his size thirteen boot. Noventa was about to protest, but as if Dave Lomu’s size wasn’t enough, he caught sight of the pistol in Caroline’s hand. She had placed her bag on the table and tilted it for Noventa to see, and now she slipped the bag back into her lap. “If my colleague doesn’t grab you and force your chin backwards until your vertebrae pops, then I’ll just put three nine-millimetre bullets into your spine.”
“People will hear…”
“I’ll refer you to the first scenario. The two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle seated right behind you.” She paused. “Anyway, the gun is loaded with Russian-made cartridges from their PSS project. The cartridge contains a propelling charge which drives an internal piston in contact with the base of the bullet. Upon firing, the piston propels the bullet out of the barrel with enough energy to achieve an effective range of twenty-five metres. Hell, that’s about it for a pistol, in a firefight, anyway. At the end of its travel the piston seals the cartridge neck, preventing noise, smoke, or any blast from escaping. These cartridges are over a thousand euros a pop and quite silent, but I dare say I can part with three or four of them without worrying too much about the cost.”
“What is this?”
Caroline smiled. “Just a quiet drink between the middleman and a prospective client who is telling you to go to your paymaster and tell him you have a suitable person for the hit, and unbeknown to your client, you close the contract down.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I gave you two scenarios, I have a third, but didn’t want to have reason to give it to you. Two scenarios should have been enough.” She paused. “Oh, okay, I can see you’re the kind of guy who needs to see all of his options spread out in front of him. So, I’ll give you another. Let’s say, we take you someplace quiet where I’ll get my colleague here to hold you down while I flail the skin slowly from your back… Is that good enough for you? Or how about, I remove your testicles using two bricks and a whole lot of clapping…?” She sneered and said, “I promise if you test me, the worst scenario will be the one we use.”
“Okay, I get it!” Noventa shuddered. “Look, it’s not as easy as that. My client will want a résumé of previous… er, assignments…”
“Hits. You mean, hits.”
“Whatever.”
“Well, let’s just say this. The advertisement is pulled. I’ve shut you down. You will only get your finder’s fee once a person is hired for the contract. And that person, under whatever guise you chose, will be me. That’s it, job done. So, you bloody well sell me to your client, or you don’t get your fee, get your balls removed between two bricks, get your neck snapped, do not pass Go and do not collect two-hundred pounds. Got it?”
Noventa nodded pathetically. “Okay, I’ve got it…”
“Now, the job was a million euros. That’s not going to work for me. But two million? I can live with that,” she said. She reached into her bag and took out a small sheet of paper. “That’s my account number, forward it to your client when you inform them that you’ve found someone, but only when they agree. Not before,” she said curtly, putting it down between them. “Standard operating procedure is half before the contract commences and half when the contract is completed. Those will be the terms I work under.”
“My client requires a face-to-face meet.”
“Then they’ll have to pay half before we meet.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“Then, see that it does. I’ll kill whoever he wants for two million euros, but I’ll happily kill you for free.”
Noventa slipped the piece of paper into his pocket and took a sip of his espresso. “How can I contact you?”
Caroline smiled. “I’ll contact you. Be under no illusion, you won’t give me the slip, you won’t get out of this, and if you try to run, I’ll kill you. Or my friend here will. But look on the bright side, your finder’s fee has just gone up. Don’t sell yourself short, Noventa. This isn’t selling Bitcoin to people with more money than sense. This is dark stuff, and it commands a high price.”
Noventa nodded. “Am I free to go?”
Caroline shook her head. “No, but I am. I suggest you give it fifteen minutes. I have another friend with a sight on your back. We don’t want to let off a six-point-five Creedmoor in the city, but needs must…”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a rifle calibre. A relatively new one. Damned effective and with a wonderfully straight trajectory.” She paused. “It’s another scenario that I didn’t want to mention. A fail safe if you will.”
“Who the hell are you?” he asked belligerently.
Caroline smiled thinly. She wore a pair of large Gucci sunglasses and the lenses were dark brown, hiding her eyes. Even with her striking looks and her mousey hair cascading around her shoulders, she would be difficult to recognise. The sunglasses and her lack of expression were all the disguise she needed. “We are just a few people with specialist skills and the will to exploit them effectively.”
Noventa nodded. “How did you trace the dark webwork back to me?”
“As I said, specialist skills. And my man hacked you. Don’t worry, it happens.” She paused. “But be under no illusion, we can get to you whenever we want and wherever you are.”
“I get it,” he replied tersely.
“When you leave here you will start the ball rolling and contact your client. Whatever they want, whatever you have to do, you make sure I get hired.”
“I’ll need a résumé.”
“You’ll get some details. I’ll email them to you. Yes, I have your email address. Nobody admits to what they have done in this game, so there will have to an element of trust, as someone like myself has in getting the second payment. Your client wants anonymity, and that leaves me not knowing who they are, or where they are. Like I said, trust.”
“But you already know who my client is…” Noventa commented wryly. “Otherwise, why else do you want this?”
“You are a clever enough man to realise that some questions do not get answered without consequences. No, right now you are a middleman. Only, you now work for me…” She stood up, her leg giving her some pain, but she tried her best not to show it. “I’ll be in touch.”
Milo Noventa turned to watch her leave and Big Dave said, “Eyes front, greasy.” He paused. “See what she doesn’t want you to see, and you won’t live to regret it.”
Noventa picked up his espresso, his hand shaking. It was his third, but it wasn’t the
overload in caffeine that made him unsteady. The man was shaken to the core, and his options did not look good. After a few minutes he sighed and said, “How long do I have to stay here?” There was no reply, and he risked a glance, but Big Dave’s seat was empty, and the man hadn’t heard or sensed anything as the man-mountain had left.
Chapter Nineteen
“Jesus Christ! What the hell was that?”
“Improvisation,” Caroline replied tiresomely.
Sally-Anne Thorpe shook her head, glancing at Ramsay for support. “We were mounting a surveillance operation. You and Durand had barely got eyes and ears on at Noventa’s property. What did you think? You’d roll up at the stake-out and just wing it?” She watched Caroline move around the table and drop heavily into the chair. “You’re not even fit. You could have got into trouble facing off with the target like that.”
“I had Big Dave looking out for me.”
“Dave was caught unaware and had to improvise.” Thorpe paused. “And improvisation breeds mistakes.”
“I thought I was okay,” Big Dave chipped in. He had made a foot-long sub, and it was busting open with smoked meats, but he squeezed it closed and took an almighty bite. “Went well enough,” he added, speaking through a mouthful of coleslaw, salami, and salted roast beef.
Thorpe shook her head. “And where the hell did you get the gun?”
“That was me,” Durand interjected. “I have it back in my possession now…”
“We aren’t allowed to be armed,” she replied.
Durand shrugged. “I am an officer with my country’s counter-intelligence service, on secondment with Interpol. We are routinely armed and I can travel with my weapon under the Schengen Agreement.”
“And that’s your official weapon, is it? You wouldn’t have carried one in London and I seem to remember flying here with you direct from Gatwick Airport…”
Durand shrugged, took a sip of his coffee, and returned his attention to the laptop in front of him. Milo Noventa’s property had been put under electronic surveillance using pinhole cameras with audio throughout. Durand had intercepted the telephone line and an encrypted scanner would take care of the man’s mobile phone. The Active Financial Crime Unit of the Swiss police had handed over the IP address details and email trail logs to Interpol as part of their investigation, which Durand had used to great effect, and he was now logged into Noventa’s computer and capable of searching documents and emails without the man knowing.