The Hunt series Books 1-3: The Hunt series Boxset

by Tim Heath

  It meant that just after nine as he pulled his Mercedes down the small dirt track, the snow mostly gone and the ground still hard enough to allow smooth passage, no one was around to see him or his guests. With winter not yet over, none of the other dachas would have any residents in, the ones nearest to his being quite poor, broken down dwellings.

  Opening the front door to his dacha, the three walked into what was one of two medium sized rooms downstairs, with a small sleeping area up a wooden ladder above them. The smell of cut wood, coupled with the mustiness of an empty property, clung to the fabric around them, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Sasha switched on the two electric heaters that were attached to the walls, before going over to prepare a fire, logs piled to one side of an open fireplace, the chimney going up through the centre of the building, allowing the fire to heat most of the dacha.

  Three minutes later there was a pot of water gently boiling above the now burning fire, five large logs placed carefully by the Russian, as he then went to prepare a few clean cups for tea.

  “I’ve got nothing in the way of food, I’m afraid, folks, just some tea,” he said, it being unheard of for any Russian to drink tea without a biscuit or slice of cake. The two Brits, still full from breakfast, hadn’t thought anything of it.

  When the tea was ready, with three cups set before them and a pot warming gently near to the now blazing fire, they sat around the small lounge, in three chairs. Anissa took in her surroundings, loving every minute, the place reminding her of various cabins she’d holidayed in with her husband and two children down the years. That thought showed her just how much she was missing them all right now, situated as she was in the middle of nowhere, in a country she still didn’t understand. Sasha was running through everything once more regarding his time with Twila, as Alex had been asking about her ever since they had arrived.

  “However they did it, there was no sign of anything on her. She denied any knowledge of anything like that, too, once I’d asked her outright about the lottery ticket––she didn’t even flinch. She’d just said she was travelling to Helsinki as she wanted to see the city for a day before coming back to St Petersburg. Not that she would have been able to do that, as her visa only allowed a single entry into Russia, which she had of course already used. I didn’t bother to the point that out to her, nor could we prove that what she was suggesting regarding visiting Helsinki for just a day wasn’t, in fact, the case. I had to let her go, what more could I do?”

  “Won’t it raise questions about why you went all that way to pick her up in the first place?”

  “Hardly, and besides, these things happen all the time. I don’t think the oligarchs involved in this thing you are investigating have any further interest in her now, anyway. What is it you say they call this event?”

  “We use the words the Games which if I’m not mistaken is Igrii in Russian,” Alex said.

  “Correct, though I’ll forgive your pronunciation,” Sasha laughed.

  “Well, we’ll now share the little we’ve managed to find out while you pour us some more tea,” Anissa said.

  Sasha stood up to get the teapot and remarked, “Sorry that I don’t have any milk to go with your tea, we don’t drink tea with milk in Russia.”

  “So we’ve gathered,” Alex smiled.

  “Annabel Herbertson, one of the four names on the list and recent visitor to St Petersburg, yesterday claimed a winning Euro Loto ticket in London worth €15 million.” Anissa let that statement sink in for a moment.

  “So she made it back in time,” Sasha acknowledged, tea now served to his two guests, and he went to top up the pot with some more boiling water, adding another log to the fire in the process. “What about the Spaniard?”

  “We traced him to a flight changing in Vienna. A delay of some sort meant he missed any connection that would have possibly got him to Spain before last night. Last we heard he had made a flight out of there in the early hours, too late for it to be of any value to him.”

  “He’s still worth a visit, no? Maybe he knows something the others don’t?”

  “It’s possible, though a little outside our jurisdiction.”

  “Says the two people sitting in my dacha in Russia, without the knowledge of either of our nations’ security services!”

  “Good point,” Anissa said, warming more and more to this unusual Russian they’d been getting to know these last two days.

  Just then an SMS notification came through on Sasha’s phone, which he picked up and read aloud in Russian, before repeating it in English, the confused looks on his guests’ faces reminding him they didn’t understand a word the first time around.

  “It’s a notification from the Mariinsky Hospital in the centre of the city. An Irishman, named Dubhán Maguire, was brought in late yesterday evening, dead. A report suggests he slipped and fell, hitting his head hard in the process.” He looked down from his handset, adding; “I got this because I’d put a flash alert out for his passport at all checkpoints. His passport must have been on him, so we can assume this wasn’t a robbery.”

  “Can we assume it was an accident?”

  “I guess we can’t rule anything out, though there is no report of anyone within the police or my lot taking this up as anything else. If there had been, I’d have found out before now.”

  They sat there in silence for a moment, aside from the sounds of the fire next to them that had warmed up the whole place rather nicely already. Anissa nursed her cup of tea, blowing the hot liquid a little each time before taking another small sip.

  “So we have four random people suddenly flying to St Petersburg to take part in something known as the Games. One gets detained at the border crossing with Finland, for no obvious reason. Another is delayed overnight travelling back days earlier than planned heading to Spain, and one now dead and lying in a morgue, not to mention the one that suddenly turns up in London, the winner of a Euro Loto draw made nearly six months ago, now €15 million richer for it.”

  “Sasha, maybe you can run through anything you’ve managed to find regarding FSB files held on any of the richest men in the country,” Alex said, looking up now at the Russian, who’d just gone to pour the boiling water into the empty teapot.

  Sasha pulled some information from his bag, before sitting down again, dropping photocopied lists of names and various details on the table in front of them, as he started speaking.

  “I started with men sharing the first name Dmitry, which is the name you said your contact mentioned. We have several rich people with that name, besides our previous president.” Alex and Anissa picked up a copy of what Sasha was referring to, several names jumping out at them as Sasha read from the same sheet.

  “Dmitry Petrov, probably the tenth richest Russian alive. Hugely influential in Moscow, has several people he funds in the State Duma. He made his money during the break up of the Soviet Union, mainly through oil. The next wealthiest man with that name is Sokoloff, about the twentieth richest man in Russia. He owns one of the state television companies, newspapers, online media and a bunch of similar stuff. Purchased one of the biggest internet providers last year, net worth around $2.2 billion, if you believe the hype. Next on the list is Dmitry Kaminski, worth about $2 billion and owner of most of the financial institutions in Moscow. Also has key connections with the Kremlin and is, understandably, seen as the rising star within certain circles. He has aspirations of a life in politics in the near future, or so the rumours go. Finally, the only other Dmitry of note I found would be Pavlov, who happens to be the great-grandson of the famous scientist Ivan Pavlov. His company got handed three nuclear plants that were deemed underperforming in the last years of Yeltsin, which Pavlov managed to turn around overnight, amassing a fortune estimated at just under $1.1 billion in the most recent Forbes rich list.”

  The information in front of them was further than Alex had managed himself, and for that, he was pleased. Listed next to each name, as well as a few other names detailed in this section, was
anyone linked to any criminal case that the FSB might have been involved with over the last decade or so. Only Dmitry Sokoloff, the media magnate and owner of the country’s fastest broadband provider, had any dealings with the FSB, and usually on the receiving end of various lawsuits filed over the years against his various media outlets.

  “There’s a shadow around Sokoloff, for sure. He has a lot of influence because of his main news channel. Putin himself is a weekly guest on one of his news shows there, and therefore we’ve been keeping a close eye on the involvement of its owner. Nothing has been proven so far, and these questions have largely been laid to rest. Still, he remains powerful and we, therefore, need to show caution around him.”

  “So there’s nothing linking these others to anything criminal?” Alex said.

  “None of the other Dmitrys, no.”

  “And these other names?” Anissa added, digesting as best she could the information and numbers displayed in front of her.

  “These are other rich and influential people that have crossed paths with my employers over the years, not always on good terms. Sergej Volkov, for example, spent five years in prison for crimes against the State before being released, all charges dropped following a presidential pardon.”

  “Putin?”

  “No, actually, his current predecessor, Medvedev, in the four years he was President between the Putin reigns. Still, Putin held great power during that time, and it was always known he would return to power, though we can’t say whether he had a hand in Volkov’s release, or not. The family name means wolf, and he has indeed seemed to live up to that image at times, though he’s recently been a lot quieter, especially since his release from prison.

  “Married to a popular Russian actress, Sergej and Svetlana Volkov now spend their time between Moscow and St Petersburg, though they travel extensively throughout the world as well. They own some travel firms, a bank, a car manufacturer, as well as being involved in shipping, oil and the nuclear industry. They say the day he married Svetlana, his net worth doubled––not really because of her wealth, though she wasn’t poor, but due to the positive image it gave to his empire, a personal endorsement of the highest order. And that coming two years after a full Presidential pardon. He’s certainly got someone watching out for him, that’s for sure.”

  The two British agents scanned the list of names, none of them meaning much to either of them. They’d come across the few high profile Russians that now lived and owned much of London, but these names were nowhere to be seen on the information Sasha had provided them. They would digest it all properly at another time, maybe once they were back in London.

  For now, they were content to talk more with Sasha, finding out what connections he knew, discussing what to do next and planning some joint action while keeping it all off the radar of either of their employers. Sasha had the most to lose, as they were all well aware. Sasha was a valuable asset, far too useful to them to risk losing him, which would be inevitable if anyone within the FSB were to know what their agent was doing.

  They spent the rest of the morning walking around the land surrounding the dacha, a pot of tea never too far away. Food was prepared for lunch over the fire, chunks of meat which Sasha had gone out to buy from the nearest shop. He had taken them from the plastic bucket they came in, skewered them onto metal spikes and left them to cook thoroughly over the burning logs. It had tasted good.

  They’d declined the suggestion of heating up the banya, Anissa not really into too much heat and besides, as the afternoon moved on, the need to start thinking about heading to the airport became more of an issue. They finally set out somewhat later than either Alex or Anissa were happy with, but they were unaware of how close the airport was to the dacha, and they still arrived at the airport in enough time. Sasha saw them through security, reentering the terminal through no doubt the same labyrinth of doors and rooms Sasha had used when they first arrived. Just as it had been then, no one was visible, Sasha’s FSB authority and rank apparently enough to make anyone who might have been there suddenly scarce. It worked, and the two MI6 agents were the last to board the British Airways flight to London’s Heathrow Airport, taking their seats in Business Class before the doors were locked, and the plane started to make its approach to the runway for takeoff.

  Lifting up through the sky five minutes later, Alex looked down at the trees and houses that made up the countryside around the airport, the edges of the city visible from there too, with their high rise blocks of flats. It was a three-hour flight to London, both agents taking the drinks when offered, and trying to catch a little rest, everything that they’d done that day now taking its toll on them both.

  14

  Dmitry Kaminski left his office in the centre of Moscow, just a three-minute drive from the Kremlin. The historic Red Square sat between the two places where he spent most of his time––and where most of his influence lay. He was due to meet with a group of politicians in twenty minutes, having left a business meeting with various of his company executives early to make a short stop off en route. A three-minute drive was near enough to walk, though few of Moscow’s elite ever did that, the streets not being as safe as maybe they once were. Besides, today he needed to meet with someone from his team, a man about whom few others knew.

  Pulling over at the agreed meeting point, away from any visible watching eyes––he’d been careful about checking that out years earlier when these meetings had first been necessary––he stepped out of his car. Moments later he was approached by the person he was waiting to meet. The man handed Dmitry a portfolio, leather bound as always, containing three individual pages on detailed information.

  “So, who do you have for me this time?” he asked his chief Spotter, flicking briefly through the sheets, but expecting to be told the key information right away.

  “Martín Torres, fifty-three and a Spanish national, currently residing in London. Fits the profile in every area you were after, scoring highly in the areas we’ve especially been seeking. The enclosed report will detail this for you.” Dmitry would look at that later, and closed the portfolio as his employee continued to brief him. “The documentation is being prepared; we’ll proceed to stage one within the next month and have him primed for whenever you deem necessary, sir.” Stage one was the first of two processes the Spotters went through, at the orders of their Host, to thoroughly entice a would-be Contestant into entering their world.

  It required the right type of incentive––for some, that was just money or the thought of getting more money. They could be blatant with these kinds of people. Others required a little more subtlety, the sense of greater power, connections or influence enough to edge these people into the trap. For others it was often another angle, never anything noble, still always some basic, primaeval greed that needed exposing––lust, envy, pride. If they had an edge to exploit, the Hosts would do so, as they were desperate to get a Contestant worthy of their Hunt, someone that would divide the room of oligarchs, making it hard to know which way to bet. In those rare situations, the wins could be huge, especially when you controlled the Hunt. Have enough people betting against you, and you could pull out all the stops and shut down the Hunt as quickly as possible. If enough people were betting with you, then it might be worth sabotaging your own Hunt to win a greater good, swallowing your pride in defeat, aiming to get it all back in what was nicknamed the after party. This was where any losing Host would do everything they could, usually within the law, to get back every ruble they had lost.

  “Very good. The stakes will be high for this one, so we have to be on our game. No mistakes,” Dmitry said, turning away from his man and returning to the car with the portfolio safely placed into his briefcase. He switched on the engine, pulling back out from the small, hidden side street, and five minutes later was cleared through the front gate into the Kremlin, an afternoon of meetings ahead of him.

  In Kiev, Ukraine, Rurik Sewick, known widely as Mr Grey, was relaxing at home. A member of the ne
wly formed Ukrainian parliament, he’d spent years in politics. A wealthy man through his life, he had funded his own failed run for President three elections ago, from his reserves. While failing to get enough backing in that election, finishing a very respectable second place in the final result, twelve per cent behind the eventual winner in the vote count, he had not bothered to run in the following two elections. His influence had grown hugely, though, and had he run for the Ukrainian Presidency the last time; he would surely have won it easily.

  Life had changed a lot in his country over the previous decade, and his connections with Russia, besides his business life, made it a hard position to be in for him at times. He’d opted out of running for President because of this, and while Ukrainian to the bone, he did move in circles that included many of the wealthiest men in Russia.

  Youthful for a man in his sixties, Mr Grey––a translation from Ukrainian of his surname––had nevertheless embraced his premature silvering by dying his hair twenty years prior. The nickname had become his image to both acquaintances and the media; only in political circles was his original name used. Elsewhere, he was this character of intrigue and influence.

  Sitting in his drawing room, dressing gown still on, his maid came in to inform him that his visitor had arrived, a man appearing behind her as she spoke. Mr Grey indicated to the man to come in, and the maid closed the door behind her as she left, leaving the two to discuss whatever they had to address. She always made a point of keeping her nose out of things when it involved her employer, sure that she wouldn’t like what she might otherwise find out, which would put her into a position she didn’t want to be. She needed the money more than a clear conscience.