The Silk Road

by Mark Leggatt

  Kirsty clapped her hands. “The UK motorways are covered in them. Priti are you accessing the database?”

  “I’m on it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Montrose looked out of the window and the snow-covered valleys of the Alps. “If Priti finds this vehicle, and tracks it, that’s where we’re going, right?”

  “Oh, yeah,” replied Kirsty. “And if we can read its license plate, we can discover a whole lot more.”

  “What about false plates?”

  Kirsty wagged a finger at him. “That’s why there are ANPR cameras. If they can’t read a plate, it alerts the cops. The computers read every plate that goes past and it’s checked against a database. If it has no insurance against that number, it alerts the cops. If it has no vehicle tax, it alerts the cops. You see where I’m going with this?”

  “Yeah. If you wanna hide, stay legit.”

  “You got it. Isn’t technology wonderful?”

  “I will let Priti deal with that conundrum,” said Pilgrim. “In the meantime, I have researched the contacts on Blokhin’s phone. It’s a rogue’s gallery of unsavory characters and gangsters in every country. Interestingly, the last call record activity was to a number of men who are fugitives of the government in Moscow.”

  “Politicians?” asked Montrose.

  “This is Russia,” said Pilgrim. “Oligarch, politician and corrupt gangster are much the same. I’m not giving you any news when I say that Russian organized crime and the government in Moscow are closely linked, because they both need each other. The same names keep popping up in both camps. The government lets the Mafia thrive, because the Mafia’s aims are aligned with the government. Control, enrichment and power.”

  “Just like America,” said Kirsty. “Except you call it freedom.”

  Montrose ignored her. “So, who he’s been talking to in Moscow? The CIA should know…”

  “No,” said Pilgrim. “If this is Moscow, they would be one step removed. The people Blokhin was talking to are black sheep. The ones who got too greedy and thought they could operate independently of Moscow. Nearly all of them are linked to a multibillion dollar raid of a US hedge fund operating in Russia. The Russian Mafia faked documents and stamps to gain complete control of hundreds of billions of dollars and then Moscow threw in some trumped-up charges against the company. The original directors fled back to the US and most of the Russian ones are in prison awaiting trial. So far, they’ve had a very short lifespan. The last lawyer who tried to investigate was beaten to death by burglars in his own home, despite million dollar security. In the meantime, the Russian judiciary keeps the entire investigation locked up in the courts and going around in circles while people drop dead and the money disappears. You can’t do that without the government being absolutely complicit. But some of them got a little greedy.”

  “Blokhin’s friends?”

  “Yes. They stole billions, then forgot to give Moscow their cut. But Moscow didn’t forget. Moscow never forgets. Then Blokhin’s friends start dying all over the world. And Blokhin knew he was top of the hit list. I suspect Blokhin and his remaining friends are trying to appease the beast and commute their death sentences.”

  “Yeah,” said Kirsty, “but what if Blokhin wasn’t working for Moscow? What if he was working for Washington?”

  Pilgrim paused before answering. “Let’s stick with what we…”

  “Dresden!” shouted Priti down the line.

  “Where the hell is that?” said Montrose.

  “North of Nuremberg, on the road to Berlin. I found a truck. There were only three trucks that turned around in a twenty-minute slot and went back the same way. One was a panel van from a sandwich company. The other was a delivery truck that stopped at another station, delivering ice cream. And only one other truck. I’m still tracking it down, but I know it took a turn off towards Dresden.”

  “Priti,” said Kirsty, “how long until we get there?”

  “About an hour. You can go straight to the airport. I’ll tell the helicopter pilot. I’m out.”

  Kirsty reached into her bag and pulled out a 9mm pistol and stuck it into the waistband of her jeans. “In the meantime, I’m going to get some shut-eye.” She took off her seatbelt, stretched out over the seats and looked over at Montrose. “Tip from an old sergeant major. If you’re a soldier, eat when you can and sleep when you can. You never know what’s around the corner.”

  Montrose gazed out of the window. The snow-covered peaks were gone, and green fields had opened up below. He reached into the bag and pulled out the pistol, glancing over at Kirsty as he sat back. Her eyes were closed, and her lips set slightly apart. Then he saw the specks of blood on her neck. Tiny, deep red dots. Blokhin’s blood.

  The helicopter swung to the north, and a ray of sunshine flooded the cabin. Her eyelids flickered, but she didn’t move. Her skin turned golden in the light and the red spots became darker.

  In his heart he knew it would not be the last blood spilled before the sun set.

  Faber closed the door behind him. “We have another message. Same source.”

  “You sure?”

  “Reckon so. Someone is being very helpful.” He placed a sheaf of papers on Napier’s desk. “We are keeping this off the system.”

  “Good. Campbell is going to be all over us. You trust the source?”

  “It has a high hit rate. And they were right about Monaco.”

  “They were right about the South of France,” said Napier with a wry smile. “We were right about Monaco. I get the feeling that this source knows more than they are telling us.” He looked down at a list of names and numbers. “What is this?”

  “Blokhin’s contact list from his phone.”

  “That phone was wiped when we found it,” said Napier.

  “Maybe, but someone got there before us.”

  “Montrose? He kills Blokhin then sends us the contacts from his phone?”

  “I’m not going to even try to work that one out. But we’re cross-checking the numbers and it’s bringing up a whole list of Russian Mafia figures. All of them on the wrong side of the government in Moscow.”

  Napier slammed a hand on the desk. “This is driving me crazy! If someone is trying to help us, I could do without cryptic clues. They must know what will happen if the missiles get into the wrong hands. The Middle East and the Balkans will go up like a tinderbox, and Moscow will sit back and point the finger.” He scanned the list of names. “Some of these might be customers. Can we bring down the Silk Road? Stop the sale of any more missiles?”

  “Maybe. But not for long. It would just pop up elsewhere. And if they can keep us out of the loop, we will have no idea if there are any more for sale or where they are going. The normal shit we can track – arms sales, drugs, but this little dark hole we have never been able to crack. The NSA has been searching for ten years. They have teams of people dedicated to it. It disappears overnight then comes up somewhere else. The IP address is changed by the minute and there are layers upon layers of security. Everything they work out in twenty-four hours becomes useless. One of the guys likened it to a shape shifter. You think you see it in the corner of your eye and when you look, it’s gone.”

  Napier read down the names on the list. “You said these guys are not in Moscow’s favor, right?”

  “Yeah, as far as we can see.”

  “What if this is a Moscow hit list? What if Moscow is using these guys to do the dirty work?”

  “Or Washington is using them to get back at Moscow?”

  “Shit, yeah, like that has never happened before.” He pushed the paper across the desk. “This tells me nothing. We are no nearer to finding to the missiles.”

  “But we should track them, right?”

  “Oh yeah, I want to know where they are. Someone sent us this list for a reason. Maybe it was Montrose. Maybe he wants us to d
o his dirty work for him, but whatever the reason, I want to know where each one of these assholes is, and what they had for breakfast.”

  “Campbell’s going to see that activity.”

  Napier sat back in his chair. “I don’t care. I’ll send the order. You stay in the background. Because if I see Campbell trying to suppress the monitoring, then I’ll know whose side he is on. And I will go back to Washington and shoot him myself. And I will enjoy it.”

  Dimitri Saitsev watched each man in turn, hunched over their laptops. He stepped over to one and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Where are they?”

  “We are close, but the wifi is too slow.”

  “I understand.” Restaurant noise drifted up the staircase and through the closed door. “And these are all Blokhin’s contacts?”

  “Yes. We are tracking their movements. And we tracked Blokhin’s phone along the autoroute to Germany. Then it stopped and returned.”

  “A pick-up point?”

  “I think so.”

  “Where does that road lead? The cities closest to the eastern border?”

  “Leipzig, Berlin and Dresden. We cross-referenced Blokhin’s phone history with the current location of all the contacts he called in the past two weeks. But it is strange. At first I thought that the tracking was not working.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in the past week, hardly any of them moved.” His screen beeped. “It is done.” He pointed at the screen. “Look, this is what I mean. We tracked the location of everyone he spoke to, and there’s a tight grouping somewhere near a dacha outside St Petersburg.”

  “Who owns the dacha?”

  “General Timoshenko. It is his second home. I have a picture of it here. It’s pretty big for a dacha.”

  “Timoshenko? The head of the Southern Tank Brigade? A man who has access to missile storage sites?”

  “Yes. They are all there, that’s why I thought the tracking wasn’t working. But there is one anomaly.”

  “Show me.”

  “Grigor Mikhailov. He left for Berlin airport in a private plane.”

  “Berlin?”

  “Yes, but the plane made an unscheduled detour to Dresden and then continued to Berlin.”

  “And Mikhailov?”

  The man leaned in closer to the screen. “He’s somewhere outside Dresden.”

  Saitsev stepped back. “Dresden. Blokhin is dead, so someone had to go to Dresden. Again.” He turned to one of the men. “Are the Special Forces in the air?”

  “Yes, they are circling near the border.”

  “Sir?” Another man pointed to his screen. “Moscow is panicking. If they get the blame for the attacks they will retaliate. I’m getting the news now.”

  Saitek squeezed his eyes shut. “We cannot fool ourselves. If we have worked out the significance of Dresden then the CIA may already have done so. And they will be there, on their own territory, much quicker than us, and in numbers. We will need more than a planeload of Special Forces. By the time we made it halfway across Poland, there would be an army waiting for them.” He looked at each of the men in turn. “I want the Special Forces directed to St. Petersburg.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll call them right now.”

  “And the cargo, plane, sir?”

  “I want that headed for Dresden. After all, accidents happen.”

  “Sir, it is done.”

  The Director clapped his hands and stood in front of the board table. “Gentlemen. All missiles have been sold and the money is being transferred at this moment. You see, as I predicted, we had no need to advertise. We will begin loading immediately. Once collection points have been agreed, then the birds will fly the nest. We have already determined where these collection points are and our customers will have to work out how they are going to get there. It will not be difficult, but I’m not having our transport hang around while some idiot works out how to use a satnav. Understood?”

  “And the video, Director. When are you going to…?”

  “That part of the plan is postponed. For the moment it is no longer relevant or necessary. I will save that for the coup de grace. I have evidence from several sources, with independent witnesses, that Mr. Montrose’s fingerprints can be found in the village in Tuscany, on a scooter found near the explosion on the Palatine Hill, at the scene of a brutal murder in Rome and in Monaco. He can say what he likes to anyone, he is a dead man, and everything points to the CIA.”

  “When will this information be released?”

  “I will present it to our new man from St. Petersburg who will be here shortly. He has excellent connections to the Russian intelligence community, as you would expect, and he knows where to leave the information so it can be easily found. Let the journalists do their job.”

  “What about Montrose?”

  “Dead man walking. He can live for today. He is no longer relevant.”

  The fat man leaned over the desk. “He has a habit of turning up in the wrong place.”

  “I don’t care if he walks through the front door.” The Director’s phone buzzed. “Ah, our new man from St Petersburg is here.”

  The fat man looked around at the others at the table. “Director? How can it be safe for one of the St. Petersburg men to know our location? Who knows who he could lead here? It is madness!”

  “It is also irrelevant. How can you be so naive, my friend? Of course this location will be discovered. The combined intelligence services of NATO won’t take long to work it out. But by the time they do, then you, I and the missiles will be long gone. I suggest we adjourn this meeting while you pack your bags and find the transport I have arranged for each one of you. Because I have laid enough explosives under your feet to wipe Rhiandorf from the map. And when the last missile leaves through the gates, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  Chapter 21

  Low clouds obscured the view as the helicopter descended. Montrose looked down at his bag then rummaged through the array of items and pulled out a tightly-wrapped waxed cotton jacket and shook it out.

  Across from him, Kirsty sat up just as the airport appeared in the distance. She pulled out an identical dark green jacket and began to fill its pockets with items from her bag.

  Montrose did the same, picking out a multi-tool and spare magazines for his pistol.

  “You okay?” said Kirsty.

  “Yeah.” He gazed out the window at the broad, green plains to the west of Dresden.

  Kirsty pulled on her jacket. “Priti’s normally a bit more generous. She must have been in a rush, or low on supplies.” She examined a plain cardboard box, then stuffed it in the bag. “Running about in a boat probably doesn’t help.”

  “Plastic explosive?”

  “In your dreams.”

  Montrose looked down. “Well, I’m grateful for anything.” He pulled a prismatic compass and a pair of sunglasses from the bag.

  “Do you know how to use that?” said Kirsty, grinning.

  “No.” He pushed the sunglasses on his head and dropped the compass back in the bag. “And I don’t want to be in a situation where I need a damn compass.”

  “Stick with me,” she said, “I know where I’m going. Even when I don’t.”

  Priti’s voice came down the line. “Kirsty? Connor?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “I think I’ve found the delivery truck.”

  “Where?”

  “A big truck depot,” replied Priti. “A few miles from the site of an old town called Rhiandorf.”

  “Priti,” said Montrose, “you sure? The truck’s at a depot?”

  “I can’t be absolutely certain, but there’s nothing else for miles around. When the truck left the autoroute I worked out where it could be by average speed on a radius, matched that to road locations and then checked every camera. I found the truck on
a back road, then it disappeared into a forest and never came out. But I could see the truck’s license plate and checked where it was registered. That’s where I found the truck depot in the forest. It’s registered to that address.”

  “Rhiandorf,” said Kirsty, “I swear I’ve heard that name before.”

  “And it’s just a truck depot?”

  “I checked it out on satellite images and on the internet,” said Priti. “Big warehouses. Trucks come and go, distributing all sorts of cargo. That’s all that happens. It could be that the missiles were transferred to the delivery truck and that they came from somewhere else. This could be a dead end.”

  “How far?” asked Montrose.

  “It’s about five miles from your location. But this is where it gets weird. It depends which map you look at. On some maps, the old town of Rhiandorf is right on top of the truck depot. But on modern maps, Rhiandorf seems to be in the middle of a forest, though there’s nothing there except trees.”

  “Maybe just a map error,” said Montrose.

  “No,” said Priti, “Rhiandorf exists. Or existed. I trawled the web and found some old photos. It shows wide streets and gothic buildings, a school, several churches and a big town square. If you use Google maps and zoom in on the forest, all you see is a small pile of stones. But it doesn’t make sense. Rhiandorf would have been a prosperous market town. All the roads would have led there. But all the roads lead to the transport depot. Then I found an old map from the 1930s. I had to hack into academic websites to do it, but I found them. Rhiandorf is exactly where the transport depot now sits. No question. Not two miles away in the middle of a forest. So why have so many modern maps got it wrong?”

  “And where did a whole town go?”

  The helicopter touched down, yet Kirsty didn’t seem to notice. “I think I know.”

  “Kirsty. Let’s go.” He grabbed his bag.

  A white Porsche pulled up alongside and a young man stepped out holding a clipboard.

  Kirsty jumped from the helicopter and hurried towards the driver’s door. “I like your style, Priti.” She stood beside the young man and held out her hand. “Keys.”