by Ian Miller
It was at 0345 hrs they almost stumbled onto the fence around the shed. They looked around, with the first priority to get an escape route, and to their surprise, there was one. The woods to their left were thicker, and again there was almost no snow on the ground. They crept towards the first fence and found a spot with little snow. The fence was electrified, so a side circuit was connected and the wire broken. What they did not know was that the security worked on resistance in the circuit, and within the shed the alarm was raised, and four Russian soldiers carrying torches burst out a door.
They turned and ran towards their escape route. There was a yell in Russian. The men kept running. The Russian guards were running towards the main gate, and that detour would cost them minutes. What the would-be intruders did not realize was that the minefield was buying them a substantial lead. Had the Russians waited, it would be the intruders trying to cross a minefield, but being unaware of it.
They continued running. In the distance, they heard a faint commotion and swearing. The Russians had followed the footsteps in the snow, but now realised they were going the wrong way. They had to hope the detour was big enough that they could get back to the car before the Russians, or the Russians would not realise where their vehicle was. One advantage they had was they knew exactly what direction to run in. Cross-country navigation was second nature to these men. After about ten minutes, they decided to lighten their load, and threw their packs into a depression. If the snow started again, they might remain hidden for weeks.
Eventually, they paused for breath. There was no sign of torchlight. While the Russians appeared to have given up, the exercise was a failure, and they had not even entered the grounds. Their next task was to make it back home. They made steady pace back towards their vehicle, slowing only when they reached within a hundred meters of it. This was the more dangerous part. If the Russians had searched the side roads and found the vehicle, they would be waiting for them. They crept as close to the vehicle as they dared while remaining under cover, but they had a problem in that if Russians had discovered the car, there might be soldiers hiding and waiting for them to show themselves. They tossed a coin to decide who would go back to the car and back it onto the road.
That man crept forward as far as he dared, then got up and ran towards the vehicle. He dropped down beside the near door. Silence. He peered around the front of the car. Nothing. He checked the rear. Again, nothing. He then went to the driver's door, unlocked it, and got in. Silence. He turned the ignition key and prayed. The car had been sitting in the cold all night, and at first it would not start, but on the fourth attempt with the clearly stressed battery it coughed into life. He backed out onto the road, and again, nothing happened other than the second man rushed out from the woods and piled into the passenger's seat.
They continued along the back road, avoiding going back to a main road on the assumption that roadblocks would be put up. The problem now was which way to go? They chose what they believed to be the least obvious way: away from any border. They would go east, then north to Yekaterinburg, where they had the address of a CIA agent. They would get some help, and then head west. They would try to get into Ukraine somewhere between Belgorod and Kharkiv. One of their emergency exit plans was to get help to go from Belgorod to Zhuravlevka then hoof it across the border somewhere, and be picked up on the other side.
They got to Yekaterinburg without incident and passed over their car to an agent who would return it to Ufa. They then boarded a train to head towards Belgorod. There was no attempt to stop them. They had forged papers, but nobody knew how good they were. It did not matter because nobody asked for them. After a rather long and tiring journey, having made the appropriate interchanges without difficulty, they slipped off the train at Belgorod and made their telephone call. This was brief and to the point, and they were given an address and a registration number. They began walking, following the instructions they had been given. Eventually they came to the State Art Museum, then walked into the park and came to a small car park, with about two dozen cars there. There was one rather beat-up old car with the required number, and a young man sitting in it, smoking a cigarette.
"I'll drive you within three kilometres of the border. The cost is five hundred dollars."
The first man handed over the money.
"Each."
"Extortion," the man muttered, but he handed it over, thus more or less admitting he was an American. Stealing the car would not be a good idea because there were too many people around for any action to go unnoticed or silenced. The driver started the car, and after some coughing, it started making noises as if it would go. The clutch was obviously in poor order from the sound of gears grating, but soon it got onto a highway. As it picked up speed, there was a clear whine from the differential. Still, one of the men noted, it should last for the relatively modest distance to the border.
"I presume you don't want to go through the usual border crossing?" the driver said as he turned his head towards them.
There had been some discussion on this. Had they not been seen by the soldiers near Ufa, the regular border crossing might be more straightforward than trying to go by foot over some unprotected part, where a random patrol would automatically chase them if they were seen, but now the borders would be seeking two suspicious people trying to leave, and Americans would automatically qualify as suspicious.
"We'll walk across at some unprotected place," one of the men said.
"Then we'll take this side road."
Road was a bit of an exaggeration as a description. It might have qualified for "track", but that would somewhat flatter it. The car bounced around through the troughs that once might have been described as potholes, and more than once it slid violently sideways, yet the ground itself was essentially flat. The engine whined, and when one of them looked behind he saw a good amount of blue smoke.
They approached a corner as they were now driving through a small stretch of woodland, and when they turned it, there in front was a roadblock. The car stopped, the motor stalled and the driver got out and fled. Four soldiers carrying Kalashnikovs approached the car. They ignored the driver, and two more with dogs on leads also approached. Whether they could outrun soldiers and whether the soldiers could hit them with automatic rifles from relatively close range might be debated, although it was unlikely any debater backing them would put their own money on it. Not that that mattered. It would be impossible to outrun these dogs. They sat in the car and watched as an officer approached.
"Good evening," the officer said.
"Good evening." It was definitely not, but there was no point in being rude.
"The person who brought you here gave us a fairly good idea of why you are heading for the border," the officer said. "You can be stupid, or you can make things better for yourself. What will it be?"
"I assume you have made up your mind about us?"
"What I think is irrelevant. You are hereby arrested, and you will be taken to Ufa to be questioned by Colonel Maslov."
"Where's Ufa?" one of the men tried innocently.
"That just about qualifies as stupid," the officer said. "I strongly advise you not to try that sort of thing with the Colonel." He paused, and added, "The good news from your point of view is that it will take a little while to get you there, and in the meantime we have been ordered not to damage you, unless you try to escape, in which case we shall shoot you in the legs, and, well, medical treatment might be hard to find for a while. Am I clear?"
"That's fairly clear," one of the men replied. Of course they would try to escape, but only if there were an opportunity that had a reasonable chance of success. At present there were none.
Chapter 19
Rutherford was unsure what to do next. He had given some "play money" from the previous coup to Lamont and Ellison, as much as anything to ensure they had something to do, and he was pleasantly surprised to see they had actually grown it by fifteen per cent, even after their fees. It was not a huge achi
evement, but equally it indicated that they knew what they were doing.
He was also starting to re-evaluate his strategy against Goldfinch. The problem was, he could not get any leverage because as far as he could see, Goldfinch was not extending himself. He was still making trades, but he was spreading them, and behaving more or less like any skilled trader. Of course his staff would be doing the work. The fact there was no focus probably indicated that Goldfinch had no special inside information either. His source within Goldfinch's organization had come back and said that Goldfinch was obsessed with some sort of environmental protest, seemingly about the property site he missed out on. As far as he knew, these efforts were solely to deal to Lamont and Ellison for once and for all. Apparently he believed they had bought the land and he was going to shaft them. Well, if they had bought it, they had lied to him, so they could get shafted.
He went to see them one morning, and asked them if they had heard anything about the land.
"No, sorry. I thought we'd lost interest in that."
"I just thought you might be curious, that's all."
"I've got no real interest in it at all. I suppose I'm curious to know who it was that shafted Goldfinch," Justin admitted, "and I suppose if I knew I'd send him a bottle of wine to show my admiration, but I haven't got the time to be worried about that."
Rutherford felt that he had to believe Justin. If he were wrong, Justin would pay, but besides the feeling that Justin was telling the truth, he was certain Justin could not find the money. Or could he? That in itself was an interesting question. Dennis was not doing very much these days. He would get Dennis to have a look at Lamont and Ellison's finances.
* * *
Burrowes was wondering what he should be doing today when Rutherford strode into the room.
"Dennis, I've got a job for you."
"Yes?" Dennis looked as if this were a minor irritation, having to actually do something, so Burrowes decided to watch. He also noticed Svetlana had moved slightly so she could see what was going on without seemingly staring.
"As you might know, I have two investment bankers working on my behalf. About three weeks ago, I sent one of them upstate to bid on some land that Irving Goldfinch was trying to get, to raise the price for Goldfinch."
Burrowes noticed that Dennis's expression was now one of concern.
"He claims he never bid," Rutherford continued. "He claims he saw a third party . . ."
Burrowes was convinced that Dennis had blanched at this.
" . . . and this third party bought up the land in question."
"I don't understand what you want," Dennis said.
"Because I haven't told you yet," Rutherford snapped. "My source tells me that Goldfinch is convinced Lamont was the one who bought it, because he was seen there."
"Well, maybe he did," Dennis offered. "At least he was there."
"Because I sent him," Rutherford said, "as you know fine well. Yes, he could have, but equally if he did not, it would be quite easy for him to be seen by Goldfinch's agent. After all, Lamont claims he saw the third party."
"If there was a third party."
"Which is why I need someone to go over there and check on their financial statements, and check there isn't some hidden source of money. I want to know if they're free-lancing."
"That'd be a good job for Charlie, here," Dennis said, after a pause. "He's the best we've got at finding hidden accounts."
"Why can't you do it?" Rutherford scowled. "You're not exactly overworked."
"But I'm not as good at finding secrets as he is," Dennis asserted. "I might miss something."
"You realize that strictly speaking, I'm not paying Burrowes?"
"I think you could persuade him, I mean –"
"Out of your next pay, then," Rutherford said. When Dennis started a protest, Rutherford turned towards him and said very quietly, but very firmly, "Get on with what you're supposed to be doing. One more squeak out of you and I think I might have to look a bit more closely at what you've been doing."
Dennis looked quite ashen-faced as Rutherford went to Burrowes. "I know you heard all that. Would you do me a favour?"
"OK," Burrowes said. "I assume this won't take very long if you permit me to ask those two to open up for me, but I'll have to tell them why. Alternatively –"
"Tell them, but watch their faces. Now, come to my office and get the details."
* * *
Burrowes knew the next few minutes would be embarrassing. Cameron was there, nominally to look after them, but almost certainly to look after Rutherford's interests.
"Mr Rutherford has asked me to clarify a question arising from that property he wanted you to bid for, and –"
"He doesn't believe me, does he? Look I didn't –"
"You said you saw a third party buy it?"
"I did."
Burrowes thought that either Lamont was an excellent actor, or he was telling the truth. "Anyway, Mr Rutherford wants me to check your financial records to see if there are any payments for this land."
"Be my guest." Lamont was terse as he said this and was clearly annoyed, but he did not appear to be hiding anything.
"Thanks. It'll be a lot easier all round if we do this, but before that, I have another thing I want you to do."
"What?" No enthusiasm here.
"I've got ten photos of different people. I want you to look through them, just in case you see your third party."
"You think you know who it is?" Janice intervened.
"We'll see," Burrowes smiled. He took out an envelope and placed the ten photographs, nine of whom were random people on the street, on the table.
Justin began looking.
"Take your time," Burrowes said. "I don't want someone innocent. I want the right one, if they're there, and there's no guarantee he is."
Justin thumbed through them, then suddenly stopped at photo number six. He picked it up, and said, "That's him."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, why?"
"Because that's the only one who isn't just a random person on the street," Burrowes smiled. "Look, I've got to check your financials, but I believe you, and more to the point, I think Mr Rutherford will too."
Lamont visibly breathed a sigh of relief.
"All the same, just to make sure I haven't been made a fool of, I need to see your computer, and –"
"The short answer is no, unless Mr Rutherford approves. I mean, for all I know –"
"I could be anyone," Burrowes agreed.
"That is fixable," Cameron said. He walked away while using his cell phone. When he started talking, he was leaving the room. Nothing happened for about three minutes, then Cameron returned, took a cell phone photograph of Burrowes, then went out again. After another couple of minutes he returned and handed the phone to Lamont, who put it to his ear and said, "Yes?"
After a minute he handed the phone back and said to Burrowes, "You're approved. I shall show you around it, you can decide whether there is anything else you need explained, then Janice and I shall go to lunch, and you can do what you like, other than deleting files. OK?"
"Don't worry," Cameron said. He rubbed his hands together, then added, "If he does anything too gross, I'll break his neck."
"Great!" Burrowes muttered.
The following morning a rather tired Burrowes greeted Rutherford as he parked on arriving at work.
"You've been up all night?" Rutherford frowned.
"No, but I did work late, much of it elsewhere." What he meant was the basement where he and Svetlana had hacked the CIA. "I am reasonably convinced that those two had nothing to do with the property deal, apart from what they told you. I am convinced there was a third person."
"Goldfinch is convinced they did it."
"Then Goldfinch is just plain wrong."
"Then if they didn't do it, who did?" Rutherford mused. He obviously did not expect an answer.
"Dennis."
Rutherford stared at him for a moment, then ask
ed, "Are you sure?"
"Justin picked him out of a pile of ten photos, and also he had a rather poor photo of the man, and it looks a bit like Dennis, although I concede the definition is not good enough to be sure. However, he also took a photo of that person's car. The car looks like Dennis's, and I did my best to enhance the image, and the number plate, when you can read it, is consistent with Dennis' car."
"I see." Rutherford nodded his head, almost as if this was no real surprise. "I guess that's why Dennis did not want to go and see those two. If Dennis walked into the room, Justin would recognize him at once."
"That could have been hazardous for Lamont," Burrowes said.
"Not very. Douggie would have had Dennis for breakfast." He paused, then said, "I need a favour from you."
This was exactly what Burrowes feared. The last thing he wanted to do was to be involved in Rutherford's schemes. "Which is?"
"Keep this to yourself. Say absolutely nothing about this to anyone, especially Dennis."
Burrowes was at first surprised, then disappointed. Rutherford was going to take Lamont apart, but Dennis was going to go home free. "OK. But you're not going after Dennis?"