The Silk Road

by Mark Leggatt

  “Transport?” asked Montrose.

  “No,” said Priti, “it will be quicker to walk to the hotel. Remember, Monaco is only three miles long and half a mile wide.” She opened a sea chest at the side of the cabin and handed them each a new cell phone. “Dial in you when you leave the boat and I’ll forward any messages from our man in MI6.”

  Kirsty leaned over the sea chest. “What else have you got? Do you have any exploding pens, or a wristwatch that makes a girl’s knickers fall off? Connor’s always wanted one.”

  “You know,” said Priti, “I’m right out of those. But you’ll need this.” She handed Kirsty a canvas bag. “This is your comms equipment. Connect it up outside the boat or the feedback will deafen us all.”

  “You got my penknife?” said Kirsty.

  “In the bag.”

  “Then I’m good to go.”

  “Not quite,” said Pilgrim, and pointed to a screen. “I think you will find this very interesting. You see, when you start tracking, one thing leads to another. Priti?” He maneuvered his wheelchair out of the way, and she sat down at the chart table.

  “Those cameras might keep all the rich folks safe,” she said, “but you cannot move without being monitored and recorded.” She brought up a video on each screen. “Monaco has over one thousand CCTV cameras in an area no bigger than Staten Island. Look here.” She pointed to the first screen. “This is the day before the attack in the village. Here are the two men walking into the car hire office to pick up the BMW to drive to Italy the next day. You see, they do not have suitcases. Then they drive to a hotel and park in an underground car park.”

  “Maybe the suitcases are in the hotel?” said Montrose.

  “No, the men arrived at the train station that morning. They had no luggage. They picked up the car and drove to the underground car park.”

  “There’s a lot of miles between here and Italy. They could have picked up the suitcases on the way.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Priti. “They were here for a reason. The European train network is pretty good. They could have taken a fast train to Italy in comfort. But they went to Monaco and hired a car. Then they go to a car park under the hotel where the cameras aren’t working. Tell me, Connor, you picked up the suitcases. Were they heavy?”

  “Yeah. At least thirty pounds each.”

  She pointed to another screen. “Now, look at the BMW when it leaves the car park the next day. According to my calculations the rear wheel arch is three centimeters lower than when it entered. I believe the suitcases with the missiles are in the trunk.”

  “Okay,” said Kirsty, “let’s run with that. So, who delivered the suitcases to the hotel?”

  “I can’t check the cars,” she said, “but I can check their license plates, and they were all valid. And I have checked every person that walked into that hotel for the two days before and none of them had that type of metal suitcase. It did not come through the front door.”

  “What about hotel delivery?” said Montrose.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she replied. “It would not be impossible to smuggle two suitcases into the hotel then into the car park, but I can find no evidence of it. So, I followed the men and noticed this.” She pointed to the screen and played a video. “You will see the two men leave the hotel after they have parked the car. They turn right, but do not go far. Look at the building next door.”

  “Looks pretty fancy. Is it a hotel?”

  “No, it is a private club. The two men enter via the front door and that is where I lose them. Then they return to their hotel ten minutes later. But with no suitcases.”

  “What is that place?” asked Kirsty. “Like a posh club?”

  “Yes, like a British gentlemen’s club. Though it has no website. No email address. Just a phone number and I had to dig deep to find that.”

  “What about a network?” said Kirsty. “Servers? Wifi?”

  “It has wifi, but with a very high level of security. Which makes me think, why? It’s only a gentlemen’s club.”

  “Well,” said Montrose, “if the front door is anything like the network we’re never gonna get in there.”

  “You read my mind,” said Priti. “But I did get in. And it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

  “What do you mean?” said Kirsty.

  “The wifi is being used almost exclusively to access particularly unpleasant internet pornography.”

  Kirsty leaned in. “How unpleasant are we talking about?”

  “I shall brief you later. You may find a target for a different day.”

  “You better believe it.”

  “But there was an admin server and I found a membership list. Basic details, but names, nevertheless. I gave it to Mr. Pilgrim.”

  “I recognized several names,” said Pilgrim, “mostly Russian oligarchs and various international money men, but one name stood out above them all.”

  Priti pressed a key and a man’s face appeared on the screen. “Sergei Blokhin.”

  “He’s an ugly bastard,” said Kirsty.

  “In many ways,” said Pilgrim. “He’s also a wanted man in Russia. He fell foul of the politics of Putin and the rest of the Russian cabinet, and was discovered to be backing right-wing extremists in Hungary and selling weapons to Nazi organizations in eastern Germany. His specialty was funding murderous hate groups right across Europe.”

  “The Russians have been doing that for years,” said Kirsty, “what makes him so special?”

  “He was right on the edge. Even for the Russians, he was extreme. Though that wasn’t his crime. Mr. Blokhin was a big name in Russian oil and banks. He was very well connected, especially to the old KGB, whom he used to make millions of dollars. And they were well rewarded. But if you want to play in Russia, you have to pay the piper. Vladimir Putin. And when Sergei was found to be selling Vlad short, he was sent a bill. He couldn’t or wouldn’t pay. So, he moved his billions to Switzerland and ran for Monaco.”

  “Tough life,” said Montrose. “You sure about this guy?”

  Pilgrim nodded. “I’ve been through all the names. Of course, Monaco is full of dubious characters, and this ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ especially, but Sergei stands out like Charles Manson in a church choir. He’s in another league. Now, let me show you…”

  “Wait,” said Kirsty. “Does he have a Twitter account?”

  “How did you know?” said Priti.

  “Because I’ve seen him before. I picked up the name in London. He was involved in finding Syrian refugees and getting them to safety.”

  “Doesn’t sounds like a crazy fascist to me,” said Montrose. “You sure?”

  Kirsty gave him a look. “Connor, you can’t be that gullible. He set up a charity for orphans. Even brought in some Russians celebrities to front it. He got children out of Syria to turn over to UNICEF. Not all of them reached safety. Some went missing. Then the UN sent in observers. And they were killed in an artillery strike. Fog of war, they called it. But he wasn’t rescuing orphans. He was trafficking children. And the only people who could prove it died that day. With the children.”

  Priti brought up a Twitter profile on the screen. “Is this him?”

  “That’s the piece of shit.”

  Pilgrim leaned forward and took Kirsty’s hand. “We need to find where the missiles came from. You know what’s at stake. Let him live for another day.”

  Kirsty nodded then stretched her neck and held her chin in the air for a moment. She breathed out slowly and lowered her head. “I’m cool.”

  “Thank you,” said Pilgrim. He pointed to the Twitter account on the screen. “Sergei Blokhin is by far our most likely candidate as the middleman for handing over the missiles. The question is, where did the handover take place?”

  “Where the cameras don’t work,” said Kirsty. “The underground car park.�
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  “Exactly,” said Priti. “You know how the French are obsessed with bureaucracy and paperwork? It turns out the Monaco civil service are the same. I hacked into City Hall and got the plans for both buildings.”

  “They share a car park?”

  “No, not quite.” She brought up an architect’s drawing on the screen. “The two buildings are connected. The hotel was originally the residence of some Italian duke, two hundred years ago. And next door he built a home for his mistress.”

  “Jeez,” said Kirsty, “he must have really liked her. Or didn’t trust her.”

  “Maybe both,” said Priti, “but there is still a connecting corridor between both buildings.”

  “The dirty old bugger,” said Kirsty.

  Priti pointed to the screen. “Here is the car park of the hotel, and here is the tunnel leading into the basement of the club.”

  Pilgrim edged his wheelchair forward. “Then I think we have our target. Sergei Blokhin.”

  “Yeah,” said Kirsty. “I’d like to have a word with him.”

  Pilgrim lifted a hand. “We need to know where the missiles came from. That comes first.”

  Kirsty grinned. “Understood, Mr. P. Don’t worry, I’ll be all sweetness and light.” She turned to Montrose. “Let’s go clubbing.”

  “You can’t just walk in,” said Priti. “Remember, this is a private club.” She pressed the keyboard and a Twitter account with Montrose’s face appeared on the screen.

  “What the hell is that?” he said.

  “Your cover,” replied Priti.

  “What about mine?” asked Kirsty.

  “You will be his secretary.”

  “Fuck that bollocks,” said Kirsty. “Why isn’t he my secretary?”

  “Next time, sister. This is the Twitter account of Robert Nohmark. He’s a shadowy right-wing billionaire from Long Island, and he has links to every shady deal in New York and Washington. He likes to think he’s a player, but he’s just another fly on the dung heap of American politics.”

  “What’s the connection?” asked Montrose.

  “He’s American and the right height,” said Priti, “but then all you white guys look the same, so who knows?”

  Kirsty laughed out loud. “That’s you, paleface!”

  “But the point is,” said Priti, “this guy is seriously rich and is connected to all the right-wing crazies in the USA. The ones who wear camouflage to the grocery store and stock up on enough peanuts and toilet roll to see them through the zombie apocalypse. The Russians have been trying to pull in Robert Nohmark for years, but he’s too smart. This time, I’ve planted rumors on the internet to make it look like he’s working for a special group of patriots in America.”

  “Special?” said Montrose.

  “Fantasists and fascists,” said Priti. “I’ve hacked into Nohmark’s Twitter account and he won’t get it back for a few hours, until he goes through the recovery process. And you’ve just sent Sergei Blokhin a direct message on Twitter.”

  “Twitter?”

  “Yes,” said Priti. “Sergei is a big Twitter fan. Remember, he likes to tell everyone about his humanitarian work.”

  “I’ll bet he does,” said Kirsty.

  “And Sergei knows that if he brings Robert Nohmark in for Moscow, he will earn big brownie points. I’ve set up a meeting. In the club. Because that’s where Sergei is right now.”

  “Are you sure I look like him? What if they’ve met?”

  “Nohmark stays in the shadows. He’s very reclusive. Likes to think of himself as the spider at the center of the alt-right web. But he’s almost exclusively despised in Washington, which is no mean feat, and any serious politician won’t meet him.”

  “And this Russian guy is going to believe me?”

  “Your references will be the best. Tell him you are a friend of Jonny Grieg.”

  “The guy that got put away for sex offenses with underage girls?”

  “Yes, the billionaire pedophile and former defense contractor. He’s just out from two years in a rather comfortable federal prison. The FBI turned him and he’s been fully cooperative, informing on all his rich and powerful friends. It’s the only thing keeping him out of a high security jail. Rich, white pedophiles don’t last long in that environment and he knows it.”

  “Okay, who else?”

  “Let me work on that. I have an idea, but I have to do some research into Blokhin. If asked, talk about Grieg. I’ll send his private number to your phone. If Blokhin tries it, it will be engaged.”

  Kirsty brought up a picture on her cell phone. “Robert Nohmark. I’ve got him here. Not too bad a resemblance. Apart from one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s got a really dark monobrow.”

  “A mono what?”

  “His eyebrows nearly meet in the middle.” She pulled a tube of black mascara from her bag. “Come here, I’ll make you look lovely.”

  Montrose leaned forward. “This better be worth it.”

  “Okay,” said Kirsty, and carefully penciled his eyebrows. “We walk into the place and meet Blokhin. What then?”

  “My concern,” said Pilgrim, “is not getting in, but getting out. Monaco is very secure and easily sealed off.”

  “Do we make a run for the boat?” said Montrose.

  “Only as a last resort. We will keep that in reserve.” He tapped his wheelchair. “From a purely selfish point of view, I am unable to make any other form of escape. If you are discovered, then running down to the harbor will only mean police speedboats and helicopters. The Mediterranean is too small to hide. I very much doubt if we could make it to the north coast of Africa in time, or whether we would want to. No, you need a less dramatic exit.”

  Priti tapped on the keyboard. “Once you have gone, I will follow you and leave a hire car in the underground car park. I will place the key behind the driver’s side front wheel.”

  “Good,” said Pilgrim. “Your documentation and passports are for Irish citizens, so you may move freely across Europe.”

  “And this guy is going to meet us?”

  Priti checked the screen. “He says he will find time today.”

  “We need to force the issue,” said Pilgrim. “Make a booking at the heliport for Robert Nohmark and his secretary for a helicopter flight in the next thirty minutes, then send another message to Sergei Blokhin. Say there is a very small window of opportunity and a very large budget.”

  “I’m on it,” replied Priti.

  Montrose nudged Kirsty, who was staring out the porthole towards the city. “You good to go?”

  She turned and fixed her gaze on Montrose. “Oh, yeah. I’m good to go.”

  “I’ve seen that look before.”

  “If I’m on your side, you got nothing to worry about.”

  Pilgrim backed his wheelchair against the bulkhead. “Keep the meeting as short as possible. You have three routes of escape. Use the car or the helicopter. Let me be clear. I want to know if Sergei Blokhin supplied the missiles. If he is the middleman then I want to know if there are more. I personally doubt that is the case, but I have to be sure. If he is, I can direct the CIA or the French DGSE to pick him up and extract the information. But primarily, find out if he is the source or middleman for the missiles. That is a tall order, yet it is our objective. Do you understand?”

  Kirsty smiled at Montrose, then faced Pilgrim. “I hear you, boss, loud and clear.”

  “I take it I’m posing as a buyer or a broker,” said Montrose. “So what if he wants to sell?”

  “I can offer things that the CIA cannot,” said Pilgrim. “If he is willing to deal, then move your flight and we will continue to talk a little longer. If necessary, call me and pretend I’m the client. If Blokhin is proving reticent and we think he is the middleman, or an agent provocateur, then I will d
irect the CIA to pick him up. There is too much to lose. I will alert them to make sure they are in the south of France, but omit to say that the target is Monaco. Let’s be clear. We have a great opportunity. I will give you a chance to escape before the CIA arrive. We’ll see if that is necessary.”

  “If you do, put in a good word for me,” said Montrose.

  “Of course.”

  “You never give up,” said Kirsty. “I like that.”

  “It’s my country,” mumbled Montrose. “Maybe one day they’ll know the truth.”

  A screen beeped. “He’s responded,” said Priti. “He says ‘Meet in his club, twenty minutes.’”

  Montrose patted the gun in his jeans. “Let’s go.” He followed Kirsty up onto the deck, then stepped onto the dock.

  She rummaged inside the canvas bag and handed him a baseball cap and sunglasses. “Put these on.” She pulled out a smaller canvas bag. “Comms equipment.”

  “Maybe not,” said Montrose, walking towards the line of palm trees along the road and the white ornate buildings behind them. “We can’t walk into a meeting wearing earpieces and looking like Secret Service goons.”

  “Oh, you Luddite. There are ways and means.” She held him by the elbow. “Stand still.” She took out a small pill box. It opened to reveal what looked like two tiny watch batteries. She lifted one up on the end of her finger. “Friends, Romans and Connors, lend me your ear.” She gently pulled down on his ear lobe with one hand, then dropped the metal cell into his ear with the other.

  He felt the metal fall into his ear canal. “What the hell is that?”

  “An earpiece. The smallest that money can buy.”

  “Is this some weird spy shit? That’s never going to work.”

  “I wouldn’t say that around Priti. She gets very touchy.”

  He pressed his palm against his ear and felt the metal cell as it dropped further into his ear. “How am I going to get it out?

  “KY Jelly and a crowbar. How the hell should I know? Stop being a wimp.”