‘This is not the time to fall silent, Jeremy, my dear old friend,’ he said, his words laden with sarcasm. ‘Your educated tones were always pure joy to my mongrel ear. Let not your voice quieten now.’
Carter made no answer.
‘I don’t want to hurt you... but I will. And, if I’m honest, I’ll take some pleasure doing it.’ He pulled the pillowcase off the man’s bruised face. ‘The skills we learn, eh, Jeremy?’ He lit a cigarette and looked up at the gunman who stepped forward.
Carter was going to get hurt.
12
At Woodstock Road, the approach to Carter’s house was still cordoned off by armed police, much to the annoyance of some residents expecting dinner guests. The taxi inched slowly towards the intersection as the uniformed police officers flagged it down. Raglan saw two armed officers stationed at each corner. They would catch anyone attempting to break through the cordon in a crossfire. Raglan showed his genuine passport. Once the officer was satisfied with Raglan’s identity he contacted the house, and then signalled a fourth officer standing at the crossroads who withdrew the stinger from across the road. Raglan knew the investigation would have been downgraded from a serious terrorist threat. There was no sign of armed counter-terrorism officers and the stinger’s line of spikes was only a slowing device for cars and bore no comparison to the Talon road mesh that could stop a lorry from ramming a target.
Once Raglan and Steve were ushered past another uniformed officer at the front door, Amanda and her son embraced. She began to cry with relief.
‘Thank God. Thank God,’ she whispered through her tears, before quickly regaining control. She wiped a palm across her cheek and threw an arm around Raglan, burying her face into his neck. ‘Thank you.’ Her words carried more than gratitude. It was a greeting, a surge of hope that, now Raglan was involved, the world might soon be a less frightening place.
‘Let’s get you to bed,’ she told her son.
The boy was resilient, but his mother’s emotion had triggered his own tears. Like her he quickly dismissed them.
‘Mum, I couldn’t help Dad. He told me to run.’
‘Of course he did,’ she assured him. ‘Everything will be all right. How about a hot bath?’
‘I want to see Melissa first. Dad always reads to her. I’ll do it tonight.’
A look of uncertainty crossed her face. How much would the boy tell his young half-sister about what had happened?
‘Mandy, he’s right. Let him do what he wants,’ said Raglan. ‘He knows how to handle it.’
Amanda still looked uncertain but she kissed her son and told him, ‘She would like that. She’s very upset.’
‘I’ll sort it, Mum,’ Steve said. ‘Dan. Thanks. You know… for everything…’ The boy’s words faltered, wary of expressing too much in front of his mother. With a final hug from Raglan, Steve moved away.
The family liaison officer stepped into view from the sitting room where she had been discreetly waiting. She keyed a number into her phone. ‘I’ll have a doctor come and look at him, Mrs Carter, and then the investigating officer will want to question him.’
‘Not now, surely?’ said Amanda.
‘The sooner the better,’ the FLO said.
‘Forget it,’ said Raglan. ‘I’ve already done that.’
‘I don’t know who you are,’ said the woman.
‘That doesn’t matter. Your bosses will have the audio download tomorrow. There’s a government agency involved and they’ll clear everything.’
The FLO turned away, pressing her phone to her ear.
‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’re here,’ said Amanda.
‘Steve’s eaten. He’ll be OK, up to a point, but he’ll need professional counselling after what he experienced. Kids are tough but let’s make sure there are no hidden time bombs tucked away that’ll go off in ten or twenty years’ time.’
She nodded her understanding.
Raglan asked the question he had so far avoided. ‘Jeremy?’
‘Nothing, not yet.’ She wanted to believe that he would be returned home to them all safely. Hope was all she had. ‘My God, where have you been? You’ll stay with us? Sleep here?’
‘No, I’ve things to do. You go on up to the kids and see they’re OK. I picked up a new phone at the airport.’ He reached for a pad next to the house phone and wrote the number down. ‘You call me whenever you need to but they’ll be listening.’ He embraced the woman whose parents had taken him in at boarding school when he was orphaned. He and Amanda were as much brother and sister as were Steve and Melissa, their bond as strong as any blood tie.
She gave him a final embrace and kiss and stepped wearily upstairs.
Raglan pressed a speed dial on his phone. The voice that answered had the same deep timbre and no-nonsense tone he remembered.
‘Where do you want to meet?’ said Raglan.
‘The bank,’ said Maguire and killed the connection.
Raglan smiled. Maguire always had to be sure to have the last word.
*
The bank was a code name to throw anyone who might be listening in. It did not refer to where Carter worked but the old Midland Bank building whose magnificent edifice, designed in 1924 by Sir Edward ‘Ned’ Lutyens, had been stylishly converted into a hotel and was more commonly referred to as the Ned. Situated a ten-minute walk across London Bridge into the business district from the south side of the River Thames, the vast building became a watering hole and eatery for the young gods and goddesses of finance and trading. Raglan walked up the steps and into the entrance that separated the internal restaurants and lounges on both sides. The noise was deafening. A couple of thousand people were drinking and eating. It wasn’t that far removed from a vast railway station, Raglan thought. Bright young PR-greeter things welcomed him, hosts and hostesses, smiling warmly, chosen for their perfect teeth and youthful exuberance, twenty-something cherubs ushering him into hostelry heaven. You have arrived in Nirvana.
In front of him was a raised bandstand where a jazz quartet played. They were good, but from what Raglan could see not one of the multitude was listening, hunched as they were in conversation. It was a waste of fine music. One of Charlie Parker’s covers ‘Out of Nowhere’ drifted over him as he turned left for the bar. Its title seemed appropriate. Raglan looked left and right. Maguire would be somewhere he could be seen. Green upholstered booths nestled next to one of the bars. That would be a good place. Far enough away from the mainstream; near enough to catch a waiter’s eye. Raglan saw the back of Maguire’s head. There had been a time when he thought it made a tempting target. He didn’t know what section in MI6 Maguire ran these days. The last time Raglan had worked for them Maguire was C/CEE, which gave give him responsibility for Central and Eastern Europe. Who knew what Maguire was running nowadays? Odds were Raglan wouldn’t be told. He didn’t care. He slid on to the bench seat opposite him. A bottle of chilled Hitachino Nest Red Rice beer was already on the table. Maguire nursed a large whisky.
‘Where’s my girl, Abbie?’ said Maguire with a sour look.
‘I’m well, thanks,’ said Raglan and sipped the cold beer. It tasted sweet, like strawberries. Raglan raised a hand. The waiter was two strides away. He bowed down so he could hear the order. ‘A single malt, thanks.’
‘Any preference, sir?’
‘You choose,’ said Raglan. A place like this wasn’t going to serve anything that tasted like drain cleaner. ‘She’ll be on the morning flight,’ he told Maguire. ‘She’s unharmed, but you knew that. You sent an untrained woman into what could have been a dangerous situation, Maguire. That wasn’t very gentlemanly.’
‘I needed an innocent. Any of my operational people might have bristled at your lot. Preferable that she didn’t know better. She was no threat and your people would have known that.’
The waiter settled the malt whisky on the table. Maguire nodded. It was on his tab.
‘How did you find the boy?’
‘Did
you trace my call?’
‘You know we didn’t.’
‘I have a place.’
Maguire raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Jeremy did.’
‘And he sent the boy there. Naturally.’
Raglan nodded. ‘He holed up, which means Jerry knew you’d send for me.’
‘First choice. You know him. You’re family.’
Raglan watched Maguire. The man’s brain was racing but his eyes were as steady as the hand that took the drink to his lips. He was an unflinching man, was Maguire. Raglan had dug out some of his past from people he knew in their shared business. Maguire had been at the sharp end. Had bled. And caused others to bleed. But one thing came out of it all: he looked after his own people. He did not risk their lives needlessly. That determination went back further than his time in special forces and remained now that he was at MI6. That was one credo Raglan shared with Colonel Ralph Maguire.
‘Why Jeremy?’ Raglan asked.
‘I don’t know. Yet. What did you get out of the boy?’
‘The recording’s on my phone. There’s nothing much. A couple of names,’ said Raglan, not yet ready to divulge what he had learnt.
Maguire waited. Names were what he wanted.
Raglan let the intelligence man stew a moment and then gave him a titbit. More than. It was enough to chew on and digest. ‘Serval,’ said Raglan. ‘Remember Mali? The Ametettaï valley in the Adrar des Ifoghas. I know you had people there. When we went into the mountains the French HQ had British and American intelligence officers with SAS advisers in tow. The French played everything close to their chests but when the rumble started the British and Americans were nowhere in sight. So why did Jeremy give his stepson the name of the operation?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Maguire. But his tone had softened and Raglan knew that Maguire had information that might link to the anti-terrorist operation those years before: Operation Serval.
‘Was he there? Did you have Carter in place? If he was your man on the ground did something happen back then that’s come back to bite you?’ said Raglan, watching for any flicker of deceit in Maguire’s eyes. Yet the man was too much of a pro for that. Maguire could sell the nation’s nuclear codes on the back of a napkin and make the sales pitch thoroughly convincing.
‘What else?’ said Maguire, ignoring Raglan’s question.
Raglan finished the whisky. ‘Have the police shut down the crime scene?’ he said, playing the same game.
‘There’s nothing to see there.’
‘Humour me. I’d like to see it before forensics clean up.’ And then in answer to Maguire’s question he threw a bargaining chip on the table. ‘Then you get to hear the recording I made with the boy.’
Maguire suppressed a sigh and checked his watch. ‘Everything is already being cleared.’
‘Then there’s no time to lose,’ said Raglan, sliding out of the booth. He would be glad to escape the cacophony of the braying herd. Maguire shrugged and took a few banknotes out of his wallet, tucking them beneath the empty whisky glass. He pointed out the payment to the waiter and pulled on his overcoat.
They walked past the greeting committee, who nodded and smiled. Pearly whites. Expensive dental work. PR work was getting more costly. ‘Why send for me?’ said Raglan. ‘It wasn’t only because of my connection to the family.’
‘That’s part of it,’ said Maguire as they hovered on the Ned’s steps. Maguire raised a hand to signal his driver, who appeared as if by magic, given that parking was so heavily restricted.
‘What’s the rest of it?’
Maguire half turned so he could face Raglan. ‘You worked with Carter in the past. The woman you consider to be as much a sister as a blood relative is married to him. I wanted to see whether you would respond when I sent you the news.’
‘Like I said, why?’
‘Because you have a network of contacts. Some of them unsavoury. I wanted to convince myself that you were not involved in his kidnapping.’ He stepped to the kerb as the Ned’s doorman opened the car door. ‘If you were involved, then you wouldn’t have come.’ He smiled. ‘And here you are.’
13
Police lamps illuminating the crime scene created a flickering sheen of wavering droplets as the breeze swirled the fine rain. It made no impression on the white-suited forensic officers moving ghost-like as they lifted aside the tented shroud that still covered Carter’s gunshot car.
‘Everything is bagged,’ said Maguire, tugging his collar up around his neck. His breath billowed in the falling temperature. Raglan was impervious to the cold and rain. His waxed jacket was a second skin, and anyway the first was waterproof. A police transporter’s ramps were down, its chains attached to the car’s grab points, ready to haul the damaged car away for further scrutiny at the forensics garage. As the car was dragged up the ramps, the rear door swung open.
‘Hold it!’ Raglan shouted.
The operator stopped winching as Raglan stepped forward to close the door. Steve’s rugby ball lay half wedged on the floor beneath the driver’s seat. Raglan bent in, retrieved the ball and slammed shut the door.
‘All right!’ Maguire called, signalling the operator to continue.
As the winching restarted a scene-of-crime officer stepped forward and pointed at the rugby ball. ‘There’s blood on that. The forensic lab will need it.’
Raglan spat on the dried blood and wiped it clean. ‘There’s enough blood in the car, they don’t need this.’
The white-suited officer was about to object when Raglan turned his back and walked further along the ambush area. Maguire raised a hand, his authority absolute. ‘It’s been a tiring time for us all. I’ll cover for you if it comes to it.’
The SOC officer shrugged and turned away. The incident would go in his report. His pay grade did not give him authority to challenge the suits. Maguire joined Raglan, who studied the curve in the road. The perfect choke point.
‘You don’t need a PhD to see it was professional,’ Raglan said, seeing the ambush go down in his mind’s eye.
‘They drove on to the A4, and swung back once across the flyover. A traffic camera picked up the van. It never got as far as the next camera before the M4 so they must have turned off. A burnt-out van was found. After that, nothing.’
Raglan turned to Maguire. ‘All right. You sent for me. Now tell me about Carter’s involvement.’
‘An international jewellery manufacturer buys gold through a London merchant bank that has a branch in New York,’ said Maguire.
The first connection was easy to figure out. ‘Through Jeremy’s bank and Jeremy controlled the account,’ Raglan said.
‘Correct. And he’s the financial compliance officer. So he scrutinizes everything. Once that’s done the transactions are credited to the New York account of the bank which electronically transfers those funds to accounts all over the world. It’s more complex than that but in a nutshell, it’s a money-laundering operation. Gold into dollars, or vice versa, or bloody bitcoin for all I know, but one way or another the cartels are washing their money and Carter had the information,’ Maguire said as they walked towards the waiting car. ‘And by following up those bank accounts we and the American DEA have arrested and closed down drug manufacturers and dealers. Some of them at least.’
Raglan tucked the rugby ball under his arm. ‘So you had a pipeline straight into their operations. How much?’
‘More than a billion dollars over the past four years.’
‘That’s what I call winning the lottery.’
‘We had much the same feeling.’ Maguire wiped a hand across his wet face.
Raglan scuffed some broken glass. ‘Tell you one thing: it wasn’t South American cartels who did this.’
‘How do you know?’ said Maguire.
‘Not enough blood.’ For once in his life Maguire’s emotions betrayed him – Raglan could see the MI6 man was conflicted. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ said Raglan.
Maguire grimaced. What he said next obviously pained him to admit. ‘He had his fingers in the till.’
Raglan placed a restraining hand on the intelligence director, halting his walk to the car. ‘Not a chance. Jeremy Carter is a straight arrow. I’d bet my life on it.’
‘Everyone at the bank is under scrutiny. So far the only person who had access to anything connecting these elements was Carter. This is a complex operation – layers and layers of operatives, contacts, supergrasses... Carter has hidden vital information. He could expose us all and what we are doing. Blow the whole thing out the water.’
‘I’ve worked with him. You can’t toss a man’s life away.’
‘Men turn, Raglan.’
‘Not him.’
‘Anyone can be bought. He’s either staged this whole thing himself or someone in the drug cartel has traced the operation back to him. How, I don’t know.’
There was no doubt in Raglan’s mind about Jeremy Carter. Raglan’s instinct told him there was more to the killing and abduction than drug lords snatching a banker, no matter how much information he had on them. They would have killed him outright if he were blackmailing them and take their chances with the authorities penetrating their cartels. It was part and parcel of who they were. Risks were factored in. Despite his place of authority at the bank, Carter was still too small a fish in the eyes of the cartels. They had many people on their payroll. Perhaps they had tried to buy him and failed? None of it made any sense at the moment. What was important was finding him before he died. Raglan had information from debriefing Steve that showed a clear link to the war in Mali and the fight against terrorist insurgents funded by drug money. He needed another piece of the puzzle.
‘A former intelligence officer, now a respected banker, has been snatched. His driver murdered. This isn’t security service or foreign intelligence matter, it’s a police investigation,’ said Raglan.
They reached the car. ‘Is that what you think?’ Maguire said. ‘That Carter was retired? He was active. He’s still on the payroll.’ Maguire felt an instant of satisfaction to see that his comment had momentarily surprised Raglan, like showing a strong poker hand. But such small victories are easily vanquished by a player holding aces.
The Englishman - Raglan Series 01 (2020) Page 8