by Tim Heath
“Who was with you?”
“No idea. She was female. Dark haired, maybe Southern European.”
Anissa slipped the photo she had of Ambra in front of him. “This her?”
Arnold glanced at the photo before shaking his head, “No, that wasn’t the girl in the van.”
“Then what happened?” Sasha said, taking back the questioning.
“We pulled up to the warehouse, and the doors of the van opened for us.”
“How long had the trip been?”
“I don’t know––thirty minutes?”
“And it picked you up from the centre?”
“Yes.”
“Where from exactly, your hotel?”
“Yes.”
“What hotel?”
Arnold paused for a moment, and it wasn’t him delaying, he was trying to recall the name. “The Arcadia,” and Anissa noted down the hotel.
“What happened at the warehouse?”
“We were told to walk in and wait. The contest started when the doors closed.”
“Who told you this?”
“It was in the information. All part of the package. I don’t know where it came from. The van had the same information inside it. We weren’t meant to speak to each other before we arrived.”
“And what happened when the doors closed?”
“It was pitch black, and I mean proper dark. I’d not moved anywhere when I was struck. I woke up on the ground. Heard a gunshot.”
“How did you get out?”
“I managed to find my way around.”
“In the dark?”
“Yes, in the dark. The higher floors had some light.”
“How many floors?”
“Three, four––God, I don’t know. Why so many questions?”
“Arnold, he’s just trying to figure out what happened,” Anissa said.
Sasha continued. “How long were you in there?”
“Hell if I know. It was light when I made it out. I was the ninth person to leave.”
“How do you know that you were the ninth out if it was dark and the warehouse so large?”
“Every time someone left, an automated voice announced the fact, adding the Contestant’s number. It had sounded eight times before and when I left it sounded again. I must have been number two.”
“And what was the area around you like once you were outside?”
“Industrial, run down. I don’t think any of the buildings are normally in use.”
“How did you get away from there?”
“I got the train into the centre.”
“You headed straight for the station?”
“Yes.”
“Did you change lines?”
“No.”
“How long were you on the train? How many stops before it was your station?”
“I don’t know how many. It was quite a trip. I think nearly half an hour.”
By Sasha’s reckoning that would place the warehouse near the top of the Red Line in the northern section of the city, where there were plenty of deserted industrial areas, most businesses relocating nearer to the airport over the years. He made a mental note to check it out later, see what––if anything––he could find from the warehouse if indeed he could locate it.
“You say you heard a gunshot. Was this in the warehouse?” Alex said, wanting to take up some of the questions now.
“Yes, I think so. It was some way away. Hard to know for sure.”
“So people were allowed weapons?”
“No, we couldn’t bring anything in with us. I’d been searched before entering the van. There were rooms within the warehouse that had various supplies.”
“Rooms?”
“Yes, spaces. Some had food, water, that type of thing. Some had weapons. Some explosives.”
That explained where the Irishman had managed to obtain the hand grenades.
“Did you take anything?”
“No, as I said, I’m not a violent person. I’m an engineer.”
Anissa chipped in now: “What happened when you walked out?”
“There was a table. One envelope remained. It gave me the information about the metro line, a photo, too, of where the ticket was located.”
“One envelope left? But there was still one more person to come out?”
“There were two exits. I guess the other envelope was still there.”
Just then, a young man poked his head into the room, indicating something to Sasha. Walther had arrived at the facility.
“That’ll be all, for now, Arnold,” Sasha said, as he helped Arnold to his feet, leading him over to the door. He was taken into another room. The three agents stood together for a moment.
“Well?” Anissa said, wanting to see what the others had gleaned from what had been said.
“It’s an outline, but still very little to indicate who or what is really behind it all, apart from building to the picture we have already.”
Their conversation cut off as Walther arrived into the room. He looked tired and drained. He’d already been in custody for longer than would typically be allowed.
Language became an issue, Walther speaking no English. Sasha had passable German, however. He asked him multiple questions. During the flow of interrogation, Anissa wrote down the word gun––he’d been arrested with a firearm in his possession, and Arnold had referred to having heard a gunshot in the warehouse. The questions continued.
After about twenty minutes, the conversation died down. Sasha had asked all he could, exhausting what German he knew in the process. Walther was led back out of the room. It was once again the three of them.
“We’re going to have to move these guys on, but I think Walther will only get a slap on the wrists and deported back to Germany. He won’t be allowed to re-enter Russia for five years, which is standard for such an incident.”
“What else did he have to say? Anything new?”
“He was in the first van to arrive. There had been a much younger woman in the van with him, same as with Arnold. They didn’t talk. He arrived at the warehouse and was led into the darkness. He said it was about twenty minutes before the last van pulled up, and the doors closed. He made a point of watching everyone who came in. And yes, it was him who had fired a shot. Someone made an explosion, and he fired at the flames in reflex. He thinks he hit the person. He used the gun to rob a man for metro money before heading straight to the centre. He was going to go to his hotel, but then he spotted a woman, someone he recognised from the warehouse. She was heading in the direction of his target––St Isaac's. He said he then jumped into a taxi but didn’t have any more money than a few coins change from the metro. He used the gun to threaten the driver and ran from the cab. The taxi driver then reported the incident. Another person had already given St Isaac's as a possible target, which is why the police were there waiting for him.”
“Did he say anything more on those behind it all?”
“No, once again he knew very little. He was on vacation from his job when he was approached. The money offered to him was huge, he thought he could retire early. Of course, now, he won’t ever see it––apart from some money they gave him up front, handed to him in cash, so it was untraceable.”
“Damn, they appear to work through multiple middlemen, never once getting involved too much themselves. Is that all that we’ll get from Walther?”
“I think so. We’ve held him long enough. He didn’t commit an act of terror, despite the tip-off. Having spoken to him now, I don’t think that was ever the intention, either. He’ll be on the first flight to Germany tomorrow. We’ll notify their judicial services, in case they want to press their own charges, but I suspect it’ll all be laid to rest by the weekend. Arnold, on the other hand, won’t be going anywhere, I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, I can see that his situation is a little more difficult.”
The three left the room. A flight had been booked for the two British MI6 agents to return to Lo
ndon that afternoon.
“I’ll drop you at the airport,” Sasha said after he’d given some instructions to the three FSB personnel on duty at the safe house.
Three hours later, Alex and Anissa were up in the air, their British Airways flight leaving on time, due to land at Heathrow in three hours time.
22
Over one week had passed since the two British agents had returned to London, arriving at Heathrow airport and travelling directly home from there. Anissa had seen out the remainder of her annual leave that she’d taken for the trip––three days––spending time with her husband and two children. She went to the shops with them, took the kids to the park, grabbed a coffee with one of the other mums from the school. Normal things. However, Anissa revelled in the basic routine of it all. She knew what to expect in each encounter. It was her closeted little world outside of work––a safe, somewhat predictable world. Nothing like what she’d left behind in St Petersburg. Those memories would forever live on.
Anissa had returned to the office before Alex––unofficially he was needing a little extra time, and had the accrued leave available for him to take. In reality, something they would keep between the two of them was that he needed extra time to recover. His wound was healing, but his limp was still pronounced. There would be no hiding that however much recovery time he got. It might be months before he would be walking freely again, many months before he could run the types of distances he allowed himself to do occasionally.
Before Alex showed up––the day before he was due back in fact––Anissa searched for any claimed lottery tickets across Europe from the previous week. Four wins were immediately noticeable because of their size. Portugal, the UK and two tickets in Spain, all exceeding the value of £25 million. Mega money. All claimed within a day or so of the cutoff. The UK lottery gave no details on their claimant––if winners chose to remain anonymous, nothing ever did get released. While the winners of the other three tickets had also kept their identity secret, nationalities were at least listed. Brits won the two tickets in Spain, and a Spaniard won the one in Portugal.
In itself, there was nothing overly unusual about this, much to her annoyance. Many Brits lived in Spain, especially the southern coastal towns. Many millions more took their holidays there. The chance two of these tourists might have been lucky enough to win was entirely possible. Nor was a Spaniard winning in Portugal. The two countries were neighbours.
But what if these four were the ones involved in the Games? What if she could, somehow, obtain details as to who these people were? Might they then be able to trace the murder of the janitor at the Fortress to one of the four people who had recently claimed a winning ticket? It was not an investigation she could start up––nor did she have the jurisdiction. The victim was a Russian, and the crime took place in St Petersburg––a nation she officially had never visited, a crime about which she couldn’t have known anything. That realisation annoyed her, but she jotted down some notes, regardless. Maybe Sasha would be able to pursue that avenue and with justification, too.
The wall in her office––which was mainly covered by a large cork board––revealed something entirely different when the board was lowered to the floor. Underneath, as big and visual as she could make it, she was mapping out what they had learnt so far, the death of the janitor another person added to a growingly connected series of crimes. The murder of two lottery employees towards the end of last year was still unsolved. It looked as if they had been killed by people who were trying to get information on Phelan McDermott. Phelan’s name was on her wall chart, too.
She would love to be able to connect that crime back to one of the Russian oligarchs. It had to have originated from such a person. She just didn’t know how to find that out.
Stafford Davison’s name––a photo taken from his Facebook profile attached––was another recent addition to the wall. He too was dead, and the Russians at least did have the culprit in custody for that crime. Arnold’s photo sat next to Stafford’s, a piece of string connecting the two.
All these pictures and related information, however, were around the edges of the wall chart behind the cork board. The centre was mostly empty. That was because she was reserving this area for those ultimately behind the Games, responsible for a growing number of crimes, including many murders.
All she had so far were the faces of ten Russian billionaires, their names next to each one and a small card which gave some of the highlights of their careers and achievements, as well as their wealth. Not one piece of string could yet link anything on the outer ring to any of the men in the middle. Over the previous year, it had become her obsession, and the same was true for Alex as well. It had been a side project, mostly conducted under the radar of their bosses within the Security Service for fear that someone higher up was leaking information back to the Russians but now it needed to be front and centre. The more she learnt about it all––the more she saw of it being played out on the streets of St Petersburg––the more she realised how much organisation must lie behind it all. This was a crime on a colossal scale. It was the sort of case MI6 should be investigating, especially with the crossover it had with the UK, not to mention the involvement of UK citizens, some of whom were now dead, others in prison or vanished into thin air.
Alex returned to work with his noticeable limp. Agents got injured during the course of their employment, some seriously, some fatally. MI6 prided itself on looking after the physical condition of each of their agents––an annual health check was part of that process. Highly trained medical staff were always available in a nearby hospital to assist any agent that might need it.
Alex’s challenge was explaining away the injury. If he called it a running injury, some muscle strain, before long, he would be made to see the doctor. The bullet wound would then be visible, the scarring still quite raw. There would be no hiding that from them.
Sometimes the best lies were ones hidden in plain sight. Before coming back to work, Alex had made sure they knew he was taking a few days in the countryside. It was while there––he said as he sat in front of his immediate superior once back inside the walls of Vauxhall Cross––that Alex was accidentally shot while hunting with some people he met. He’d been treated by a doctor in the village and told it was nothing too serious. He joked about being a lucky man.
It had worked. They seemed to buy Alex's story, his boss even then insisting Alex go and see the doctor to check everything was healing correctly. He also suggested Alex make use of a crutch if needed, though he declined the idea immediately. Alex didn’t intend the wound to hold him back any more than it already did. Moving around would surely help recovery, he told himself. He wanted to be as active as he always was.
Back in the office and alone with Anissa once again, they drank coffee together, and she smiled at their insider joke.
“Catch anything while hunting, beside a bullet in the thigh?”
“Don’t start.”
“How are you doing since you got back?”
“I’m okay. You? The family all well?”
“Yes, Alex, they are, and it was lovely being home again. I didn’t realise how much I missed them, how much I needed them around. Coming back from something like we saw and not having anyone…” she caught herself, before adding in a tone of admiration, “I don’t know how you do it.”
“You wonder how I do it? Anissa, I marvel at how you can do it, and that’s a fact.”
He was smiling. Anissa handed him the information she’d typed up regarding the details of the four most recent high-value winners across the various lotteries.
“This seems detailed,” he said, always impressed by how much effort his colleague put in.
“I’m certain these were the tickets in play. All claimed before the deadline.”
“But there are no details about who claimed them?”
“The usual anonymity, I’m afraid.”
“Still, it’s another piece.”
“Abso
lutely.”
“Going on the wall?”
“It’s already there,” she said, tapping the cork board on the wall.
As February kicked in, a severe cold spell was battering the UK, London getting levels of snow not often seen there. The Deputy Director General of MI6, Thomas Price, was a man accustomed to bitter weather, having served in his younger years––both in the army and within the Service––in many places, including central Russia and northern Canada. He was a keen skier, as well.
Pulling his coat tight around his neck––as the icy wind cut into his face––he pressed out onto the streets, leaving Vauxhall Cross behind him. The DDG was going to see someone, and it was not a meeting that could be conducted within the walls of his office. Too many listening ears.
His car was parked on a nearby street, something he’d decided on that morning with his meeting in mind so that the basement garage at MI6 wouldn’t have a record of his mid-morning exit. As he cleared a centimetre of snow from his windscreen, the glass still iced up with rock-like crystals, he wondered if it had been worth it. He was already running a little late for his arranged meeting time, which would have been a problem if he wasn’t meeting a Russian––and this particular Russian was notorious for being late, a trait most wealthy people of influence from his country tended to share.
Twenty minutes after reaching his car, Price was pulling away, cold to the bone, heating on full blast. Traffic was lighter in the city than normal––many having stayed away following two days of terrible weather. The city and country as a whole didn’t cope with extreme weather as quickly as most other countries did, a fact he’d often mockingly been told by various people he crossed paths with from more northern climates.
His destination that morning was an exclusive Gentleman’s Club located between Westminster and Soho, the type of place where conversations could take place without the nagging thought of who might be eavesdropping. The club in question––Duke’s––had been around for years, and was elegant and dignified. It offered high-quality food and comfortable rooms, and above all, discretion. During the week, it was cocktails and pots of tea, with classical musicians playing during the evenings. It was a haunt for politicians and executives, and membership was strictly limited and by invitation only.