Last Man Standing

by Stephen Leather

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ asked Hogan. ‘Are you with Redrock? Who sent you?’

  ‘You are to go with my men, Ms Hogan,’ said the man.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.

  A green dot appeared on Hogan’s chest. Then another. ‘Are you going to shoot me?’ she asked.

  ‘I hope not,’ said the man.

  The two men in suits walked up and stood either side of Hogan.

  ‘You need to go with them now,’ said the man.

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘Wherever they take you to,’ said the man. ‘You really don’t have a choice in the matter.’

  One of the men reached to grab her arm but she shrugged him away and swore at him.

  ‘Please, don’t make this any harder than it has to be,’ said the man with the tasselled shoes.

  Hogan gritted her teeth. She looked as if she was about to hurl a tirade of abuse at him, but then the fight went out of her and she walked over to the SUVs, escorted by the two men in suits.

  The man looked at his watch. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to move things along,’ he said. ‘Mr Standing and Mr Barnes need to come with me, you Navy SEALs need to get back to your base. We have another appointment and time’s a wasting.’

  Fenn stared at the man for several seconds and then slowly nodded. He tucked the gun into his belt but the three green dots continued to dance on his chest. ‘If anything happens to them …’ Fenn left the sentence unfinished.

  The man smiled. ‘Your threat is duly noted,’ he said.

  Fenn stared at the man, then nodded slowly and walked away. McNally and Farrant followed him.

  Hogan had climbed into the rear SUV with the men in suits and a few seconds later it drove off.

  The man waved at the remaining black SUV. ‘Let’s go, gentlemen,’ he said. He smiled at Kaitlyn. ‘And lady, of course.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Standing.

  The man smiled brightly. ‘The name’s Yokely,’ he said. ‘Richard Yokely.’

  49

  The SUV pulled up in front of the Four Seasons and Yokely climbed out. Standing, Kaitlyn and Bobby-Ray joined him and together they walked into the lobby. They rode up to the top floor in the lift. Yokely said nothing and although Standing and Bobby-Ray exchanged looks, neither of them broke the silence.

  When the lift doors opened they were met by a broad-shouldered man with close-cropped hair, a square jaw and a white scar on his upper lip. He was wearing a dark suit and there was a slight bulge under his left armpit.

  ‘Everything in hand, Gerry?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘All good,’ said the man. Yokely walked towards a set of double doors. They were opened by another man in a suit, this one bearded and wearing tinted glasses. He stepped aside to let the visitors in and then closed the doors and stood with his back to them, his hands clasped over his groin. The suite was enormous, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city, two long, low sofas and a dining area. Erik Markov was sitting on one of the sofas. There was a man standing behind him, tall with a broken nose and a military haircut, holding a Glock.

  ‘Everything all right, Peter?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘He’s been as good as gold,’ said the man.

  ‘His bodyguards?’

  The man nodded at one of two doors at the far end of the suite. ‘In the master bedroom. David’s watching them.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Yokely. He smiled down at Markov.

  Markov glared back at him. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he growled.

  ‘My name’s Richard,’ said Yokely.

  ‘Who do you work for? CIA? DIA? NSA?’

  ‘Let’s just say I work for the big guy.’

  ‘And you’re here to kill me?’

  Yokely shrugged. ‘That was my first thought. But what would that achieve?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I suppose killing you would stop you telling anyone how you interfered with the elections. And it would take the pressure off Bobby-Ray and Kaitlyn.’

  The Russian frowned. ‘Who the fuck is Kaitlyn?’

  Yokely reached inside his jacket, took out a Glock, and gestured with it. ‘Moderate your language when you’re talking about a lady, Erik, or I might teach you a lesson by putting a bullet in your manhood. Kaitlyn Barnes is the sister of Bobby-Ray here, and Bobby-Ray is the man you intended to frame for the death of your former business partner, Mikhail Koshkin. She’s also the girl that Oleg Ivchenko and his team of thugs tried to kill up in the Trinity Alps, though obviously that didn’t go as planned.’

  Kaitlyn glared at Markov. ‘You had my parents killed, you bastard,’ she hissed.

  Yokely raised a hand. ‘To be fair, it was Ivchenko who did that. I don’t think Erik here even knew that Ivchenko went to see your parents. But I’m sure he knew that Ivchenko wanted Bobby-Ray dead.’

  ‘Shoot him,’ said Bobby-Ray. ‘Or give me the fucking gun and let me do it.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ Markov asked Yokely.

  ‘What do I want? World peace and a wife as pretty as Taylor Swift whose father owns a distillery would be a start.’ Yokely chuckled. ‘But seriously, Erik, what I want is for you to leave Bobby-Ray and Kaitlyn and Matt alone. Now, I could achieve that by killing you here and now, but the problem with that is that your mafia friends might decide that revenge is a dish they want to cook up at any temperature, and then my friends will be spending the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.’ Yokely frowned. ‘You know, even as I say that, I can’t help but think that killing you is the best way forward.’ He pointed his gun at the Russian’s chest and the man flinched. Yokely grinned at his reaction. ‘Tell me this, Erik. Do you know why so few Russians get kidnapped by Muslim terrorists?’

  Markov didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s not a rhetorical question,’ said Yokely. ‘ISIS and the rest take hostages all around the world and more often than not they end up killing them. But very rarely do they take Russians, despite there being an extensive Russian presence throughout the Middle East. Why is that?’

  Markov shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Then let me enlighten you,’ said Yokely. ‘It goes back to the Eighties when we had what they call the Lebanon hostage crisis. More than a hundred foreigners were taken hostage, mainly Americans and Western Europeans. Then in 1985, Hezbollah kidnapped four Russian diplomats in Beirut. They wanted Moscow to stop pro-Syrian militiamen from firing on Muslim troops in Tripoli. Not the capital of Libya, obviously, there’s another Tripoli in the north of Lebanon. Anyway, the shelling of Tripoli continued and the Muslims killed one of the diplomats, Arkady Katkov. The Russians weren’t happy, obviously, but instead of just bleating about it, they took action. Decisive action. The KGB kidnapped and killed a relative of a Lebanese Shia Muslim leader. Before they killed him they castrated him and they sent the balls to the Hezbollah leader, along with the threat that if the remaining diplomats weren’t released they would do the same to the rest of the man’s relatives. The diplomats were released within days and ever since, the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda have tended not to take Russians hostage.’

  Yokely looked over at Bobby-Ray and Standing. ‘Did you guys know that?’ The two men shook their heads. He smiled. ‘There you go then, you live and learn.’

  Yokely looked back at Markov. ‘You’re probably wondering what the point is of that little history lesson.’ He used his left hand to fish a mobile phone out of his pocket and kept his weapon trained on the man’s chest as he switched it on and flicked through to a photograph. ‘You’ve got a nephew in Dubai. Young Alexei.’ He looked over at Bobby-Ray and Standing. ‘Nasty piece of work, Alexei is. Traffics in young girls and specialises in waterboarding them if they don’t earn enough. Clever, because of course waterboarding doesn’t damage the merchandise.’

  Yokely looked back at Markov. ‘Anyway, a few hours ago some of my colleagues castrated and killed Alexei. Or the other way around. I didn’t car
e which, to be honest. And we decided against couriering the body parts to you, I figured a selfie would do the trick. Well, not a selfie, obviously, because Alexei is dead.’ He held out the phone and showed Markov a photograph of a mutilated body on a blood-soaked bathroom floor. Markov winced and looked away.

  ‘I’ve got a close-up of the face, if you want to be sure,’ said Yokely, but the Russian shook his head and Yokely put the phone away. ‘The people I work with have a list of two dozen relatives of yours, starting with your wife and two sons and ending with seven or eight cousins back in Moscow. So here’s the threat, Erik. Listen and listen well. I need you to convince me that no harm will come to Bobby-Ray, Kaitlyn and Matt. I need to believe that you and your Solntsevskaya friends will forget all about them. If I’m not convinced that you are prepared to forgive and forget, then I’ll kill you now and bad things will happen to all your relatives over the next few days. But if you can assure me you will now let bygones be bygones, then I’ll walk away. With the proviso, of course, that if you renege on the deal, you and your relatives will …’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t need to finish that, do I? You don’t get to be a billionaire oligarch by being stupid, do you?’ He shrugged again. ‘So what is it, Erik? Deal or no deal?’

  The Russian stared at Yokely and then slowly nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We have a deal. They will not be harmed, not by me or by anyone in the Solntsevskaya.’

  ‘And just in case you’re thinking that this is all down to me, never forget that the list is with my organisation and has nothing to do with me personally. If ever you try to attack me, the same rules apply.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Markov.

  ‘Then I shall bid you a good evening,’ said Yokely, putting his gun away. He tilted his chin at Bobby-Ray and Standing. ‘Are you gentleman coming or staying?’ He grinned at Kaitlyn. ‘And lady, of course.’

  50

  Colonel Davies kept Standing waiting for fifteen minutes before seeing him. He looked up from his desk and smiled as the trooper walked into his office and stood to attention. ‘Good to have you back, Matt. Everything go okay?’

  Standing nodded. ‘Yes, boss. All good.’ He had arrived back in the UK early that afternoon and taken the train to Hereford. Bobby-Ray and Kaitlyn had seen him off at LAX. Bobby-Ray had quit Redrock and had already signed on with another security company. The mysterious Richard Yokely had assured him that the LAPD had closed their investigation into the killings in Bel Air, as they now knew that Nikolai Lipov was the killer and had himself been killed in London. The British police would be investigating Lipov’s murder, but Yokely had made it clear that wasn’t his problem.

  ‘You were able to help your friend?’ asked the Colonel.

  Standing nodded again. ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘That’s good. Friends are important. Sometimes I think they’re more important than family. As they say, you don’t choose your family, but you choose your friends. Are you ready to start the training sessions with the Met’s CTSFOs? They arrive tomorrow.’

  ‘Ready, willing, and able, boss.’

  ‘Good to hear it. And the anger management? You’re keeping that temper of yours under control?’

  ‘Doing my best, boss.’

  ‘Good man. Let’s keep it that way. If you can keep on the straight and narrow, we’ll get those sergeant’s stripes back on your arms before too long.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  51

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  Richard Yokely was sitting at the same table as the last time Shepherd had met him in Hyde Park, but this time Shepherd went inside the café to buy his own coffee. The American was smoking one of his small cigars. The weather was cooler than it had been on the previous occasion and Yokely was wearing a black cashmere overcoat that he had unbuttoned to reveal a pale-blue pinstripe suit. ‘Your call was unexpected,’ said Yokely as Shepherd sat down. ‘I thought everything was shipshape and Bristol fashion, as you guys say.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone has actually said that in a hundred years or so,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Maybe not, but I personally do love all the naval terms in your language. Loose cannon, a shot across the bows, cut and run, know the ropes. Wonderful that the terms are still used even though you’re no longer a naval power.’ He smiled and sipped his coffee, studying Shepherd over the top of his cup.

  ‘I just wanted to talk through a few things with you, and it’s always better to do it face to face.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Yokely. ‘So fire away.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not sure if that one is nautical or not.’

  ‘All shipshape, you said. No loose ends?’

  Yokely shrugged. ‘All’s well that ends well,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Your friend Matt Standing is back in Hereford, Bobby-Ray Barnes is off the hook and has signed up with a new security company, and Erik Markov has moved back to London for the foreseeable future. The cops now know that Nikolai Lipov killed Mikhail Koshkin and that case is closed, and we have identified half a dozen Russian mafia plants we didn’t know existed before.’

  ‘Faith Hogan is talking?’

  ‘We can’t shut her up,’ said Yokely. ‘She’ll be in witness protection for the rest of her life, but given the choice she had, I think she can count herself lucky. She’s given us the name of a judge, which is going to be very interesting if it pans out. I tell you, Spider, this is really going to hurt the Solntsevskaya organisation, big time.’

  ‘That’s good news.’

  ‘Damn right it is,’ said the American. He took a long pull on his cigar and blew smoke up at the sky.

  ‘How long have you been working on this, Richard?’ asked Shepherd quietly.

  Yokely held the cigar away from his lips. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just interested,’ said Shepherd. ‘That phone call where you asked me about Matt Standing and his family situation, you made it sound then as if that was the first you’d heard about him.’

  ‘It was,’ said Yokely.

  ‘But the fact that Mikhail Koshkin was in LA and preparing to talk to the authorities, that wasn’t new to you, was it?’

  Yokely’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything.

  ‘And the whole Erik Markov thing, his alleged involvement with the presidential election, that wasn’t new, was it? You knew about that?’

  ‘I heard about Koshkin, obviously,’ said Yokely. ‘Quite a few people were interested in talking to him.’

  ‘Talking to him about Erik Markov?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Because Erik Markov used his company’s expertise and finance to influence the election?’

  Yokely grinned. ‘Allegedly.’

  ‘So when you phoned me about Standing, it was because he had become involved in an operation of yours. An existing operation.’

  ‘I think operation is putting it a bit strong,’ said Yokely. ‘You popped up on my radar because you were asking questions about Mikhail Koshkin’s murder and that led you to the Solntsevskaya organisation.’

  ‘And you had an ongoing operation to expose what the Solntsevskaya were doing?’

  ‘See now, that’s a bit vague,’ said Yokely. ‘We’ve known for some time that the Russian mafia has been infiltrating various branches of government, law enforcement and the justice system.’

  ‘And you thought that Standing could help you, right? That’s why you were asking me about what he had in the way of family, because there would be repercussions to what he was doing.’

  ‘He was getting himself into a lot of trouble, that was for sure.’

  ‘He was helping a friend,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘A friend in need, as they say. Yes, he was.’

  ‘A friend who had been framed for the murder of Mikhail Koshkin. Tell me, Richard, had you been looking at Koshkin’s murder before I started asking questions in London?’

  ‘It was a high-profile killing.’

  He had avoided answering the question, Shepher
d noted. Yokely was very good at that. ‘Well, not according to what was in the papers. It was described as a home invasion. Why would you be interested in a home invasion?’

  ‘Koshkin’s name came up and he was obviously a person of interest.’

  ‘But you presumably knew that Markov was involved in the election?’

  ‘Allegedly,’ said Yokely.

  ‘Allegedly or not, your people knew that he was involved.’

  Yokely shrugged but didn’t say anything. Shepherd could tell that the American was a lot less confident than when he’d started the conversation.

  ‘So what was your interest, Richard? The fact that Koshkin was a wealthy oligarch or the fact that he was about to spill the beans on his former business partner.’

  ‘It was a package deal, I suppose.’

  ‘Really? You see, I get the impression that you were looking at Koshkin before he went to America. I think you knew that he was getting ready to hurt Markov by revealing what he knew about the election fixing.’

  Yokely smoked his cigar and watched Shepherd carefully.

  ‘There are a couple of things that are worrying me, Richard. The first involves the attempt to kill Koshkin in London, if that’s what it was. I mean, we’ve got a professional assassin or assassins using a very clever poison, and yet all said assassin or assassins can do is make him ill.’

  ‘People make mistakes.’

  ‘They do. Indeed they do. But if you go to all the trouble of poisoning a person, you might at least make sure they get enough of it in their system to kill them.’

  Yokely flicked ash onto the ground but didn’t say anything.

  ‘So that got me thinking that perhaps the plan wasn’t to kill Koshkin, but to make him think that Markov was trying to kill him. Why? Because someone wanted Koshkin to spill the beans about what Markov had done. That someone must have been very happy when Koshkin flew to the US and offered to talk. But a lot less pleased when he was murdered for real shortly afterwards.’