by Tim Heath
“I’m sorry, I only speak English. Is that Josée Allard of Rue Ferdinand Duval?” She hated how bad her pronunciation must have sounded and wondered what Josée would make of it.
“Yes, it is. Who is this?” At least she spoke English, which was good, minimal accent even noticeable.
Over the next ten minutes they talked, Anissa a little hesitant to start before sharing a bit of what she knew about the Games. They agreed to meet, Josée suddenly not wanting to say much more over the telephone, but eager to talk some more in person, happy when Anissa confirmed she was in Paris at that moment, in the same neighbourhood in fact. They agreed to meet at the café Anissa was calling from in half an hour.
Showered and relatively presentable, Josée entered the café cautiously. Anissa didn’t spot her to start with until she saw her looking around.
She looked very different from the gym photograph Anissa had pulled from the company website, and her hair was mostly unkempt, her clothes loose and baggy, not giving any hint of what type of body there was underneath it all. Anissa stood to greet Josée, the Frenchwoman kissing her once on each cheek, before sitting down in the spare seat opposite the British MI6 agent.
“How did you find me?” she said, Anissa having said nothing about Andre giving them the tip-off when they’d spoken on the telephone earlier.
“From someone who knows what you have to share with us. A friend in Russia––someone who is helping us expose what is going on. You were in St Petersburg in January, right?” She had taken a leap of faith with that question, but it seemed to pay off.
“Yes.” Josée sounded sheepish as if even admitting that was putting herself in danger.
“You quit your job at the gym to go, even though you wouldn’t be in Russia for very long. Why haven’t you gone back to work since?”
“I was given money to go,” she said, Anissa drawing in breath, edging noticeably closer but coming back with an immediate follow-up question.
“By who?”
“Someone, someone connected to it all. It doesn’t matter right now. The money was a lot, more than I would make in months at the gym.” She didn’t want to say years, in case they would make her give the money back. She’d been living off it for some months already, spending wildly, indulging in the excesses she’d otherwise denied herself for so long. “When I came back, I couldn’t face returning to the gym. I’ve struggled to do anything––if I’m honest––since I arrived home.”
“You were in the Armoury at the Fortress. That was your ticket, right?” Again a massive leap of faith, but Alex had been sure it was her.
“Yes.” She looked sad, tears almost dropping from her moist eyes, it was as if she might break down at any moment. Anissa worked hard to stop that happening quite yet. It was sure to happen soon enough, though.
“Tell me what happened. We know you had nothing to do with that man's murder, Josée. That isn’t what this is about.”
The fact she mentioned the murder showed she knew all about what had happened. Josée could talk with this total stranger, and she could tell her everything. And deep down, she didn’t care anymore. She wanted it all to stop, the nightmares to end, her life to go on as it had done before. She wanted to feel clean again. She felt dirty. She hated herself.
“I was first out of the building––that warehouse. The information detailed exactly where the ticket was in the Armoury. I returned there the following day––it had been closed the day before, as it was a holiday. There was no obvious way in, and I knew someone else might be coming for the same thing. I sat watching the door from a café.” Anissa realised they’d been watching from the restaurant, the next building down from the café. “I saw the man with the keys come take his lunch in the café, on the next table to mine. I thought if I could just…if he would take a fancy to me…” but she couldn’t finish.
“He led you into the Armoury for some space, right?”
“Yes. He showed me around, showed me the vault in the floor. I had not located the ticket, but before I could, he wanted his payment.”
“You agreed to sleep with him if he would show you around?”
“Basically, yes.” She hung her head. Anissa could see this wasn’t easy for Josée. With her head still looking at her lap, she continued, almost in a whisper; “It was worth €30 million. Who wouldn’t have done what I did if it meant winning that amount of money? It felt clever at the time.”
“Then what happened?” Anissa wanted to hear it from her lips, though she primarily knew what had then taken place.
“That woman––that Leona Chase––came charging through the door.” The fact Josée knew the name meant something, maybe she’d known her before. “The first I realised what was happening was when the knife flashed across the neck of the…” but she went silent. Anissa let her compose herself. “There was blood everywhere––his body fell, hitting my legs as he went down. She then grabbed me by the throat, demanding where I’d put the ticket. I think she then spotted it. After grabbing it she spoke into a Bluetooth headset that she had on around her ear, and then gunfire started. I jumped down into the vault before she could get back to me. I hid. When I came out some minutes later––I don’t know how long it had been––the door had been locked. I climbed back into the vault, and it led me out through a gap in the wall.”
“What did you do then? Where did you go?”
“I went back to my hotel and showered constantly. I felt sick.”
“And you’d met Leona before that day? You knew her already?”
“No, not at all. Naturally, I followed up on the lottery ticket, saw it had been claimed and later caught the article where she had appeared in the paper. It made me feel sick looking at her all over again. I could tell she enjoyed the attack, standing there with that bloodied knife.”
Anissa had a witness. Someone at the scene of a murder, able to identify Leona.
“Would you be prepared to testify in court against her?”
“Is she even a suspect in the crime? It’s been two months already, more than that even. She’s out spending the money, living the good life. And here I am––in pieces.”
“Your testimony would make the difference,” Anissa said, clutching at straws. There was no crime file open that she had any access to, no court waiting for evidence.
“I don’t know. They would never allow it to happen.”
“Who?”
“Those behind it all. It’s big. Bigger than you realise, I think.”
“I have a fair idea how big it is. We can help you, Josée, we can protect you.”
“Can you? Can you really?” There was doubt in her voice. They sat in silence for a moment, finishing their coffees.
27
Several weeks had passed, the weather bringing the showers that went with April. Alex had been watching various World Economic Forum events taking place around the globe. Most of the names on the list of the T10 were recorded as having attended some of the previous events, the European meeting in Davos in January the usual kick starter for the year.
Similar events were happening in Asia, China and Africa over the coming months, and a small event for a very select few––including most, if not all of the Russian oligarchs they were focussing on––was happening in Qatar later that month.
Alex had been working for a few weeks on getting admittance to the Qatar event, all to no avail. It seemed a very tight, private affair, as you would expect when men and women of such wealth came together.
A call from Andre during the end of the first week of the month changed his focus, at least temporarily, onto something much closer to hand. Alex was sent detailed information––names, faces, addresses as well as bank records and snippets of internal emails––that connected men directly responsible for handling Sokoloff’s business security in London to the two killings from last year of the lottery personnel.
Two senior employees of the National Lottery, one the person that dealt with claimants personally, had been found dead––shot i
n the head––clearly the work of professionals. It was a contract killing style hit, and MI6 had the paperwork linking it directly to Sokoloff’s UK businesses, the man more than implicated in the knowledge of the attack. They had him.
Warrants for the arrests of all involved––including one for Sokoloff himself, though he was out of the country at the time––were issued. A team from MI5, the UK based Security Service, as well as SCO19, the armed response unit working under the Greater London Police service, accompanied Alex. He wasn’t going to let go of this one.
Raids across three locations were carried out the morning after the information was given to MI6, twelve arrests made in total, all of the men they were looking for––bar Sokoloff himself. He was reportedly holed up somewhere in Moscow. The Home Office had put a call to their counterparts in Moscow, putting forward the case they had against the Russian millionaire. They didn’t expect a reply anytime soon.
As the investigation intensified over the following days, company assets got seised across the three London based wings of the Sokoloff empire, a corporation of which he was rapidly losing control. Shares in the three companies, one a FTSE100 member, were immediately suspended, their share prices already in free fall following the news of the raids, millions stripped from the company’s value.
The paper trail was endless.
Formal charges were brought against the three men held responsible for either carrying out the execution or assisting in the getaway. Charges were being drawn up for others too, as quickly as they could match each man to any number of crimes. An international arrest warrant was issued for Sokoloff, already three of the men initially arrested prepared to give up information on the company––and ultimately its owner––in exchange for clemency for themselves. Scotland Yard, who handled the bulk of the case, took the deals. While they naturally didn’t expect Russia to comply with an arrest warrant issued by the UK, it would limit the man’s travel options, efficiently pinning him inside Russia.
The paper trail led even to America, where they discovered that Sokoloff had had a team sent to locate and kill Phelan and his family in Montana. The CIA was sending across what information they had about the case, which had been mainly under-reported because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing situation.
The final links came in the form of information on his entire scouting, purchasing and tracking network in Europe, those teams he still had control of forced to run and flee or risk arrest. It was like the unravelling of a terrorist system, years of planning and set up undone within a week. A dozen arrests occurred on the Continent, as even those carrying out menial tasks for the former Russian billionaire were also rounded up.
All this information had been possible because of the number of spies who had infiltrated the Sokoloff ranks throughout the years, making sure documents that might have otherwise been destroyed were accessible, words that should never have been written up easy to find. A total set up, and it had worked.
Outside of Russia, where his influence had taken a sharp nosedive already, he was out of business, locked out of any ongoing involvement, his entire management team suddenly out in the cold. Those that weren’t under arrest were still not allowed to get involved in anything until given the all clear. The companies themselves––huge businesses responsible for thousands of jobs––were allowed to stay open. Across the industries, entire new management teams were put in place, staff members within the firms who were unconnected to the widespread corruption given more significant responsibilities.
Outside advisors were provided by the government to help stabilise each business. They were to integrate and become entirely British run, their ongoing success now nothing to do with their founder and wanted international criminal Sokoloff.
Andre Philips, as he was to Alex––Andre Filipov as he really was––couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. Sokoloff had been carefully torn apart over the last eighteen months, his vast wealth, connections and reputation built over decades savagely destroyed in only a matter of months.
When these giants fell, they came crashing down.
Operation Vlast––as Andre, his father and Foma Polzin had first jokingly referred to it––was picking up momentum.
At the same time as everything was kicking off in London, Sokoloff, now under an international arrest warrant, was holed up in his home compound in Moscow. His audience of Mafia and general gangster personnel had remained around him, his money still good enough for them at the moment. He’d not told them about events unfolding in London, how those he’d used on the Continent he’d now given up on––abandoned. It was an occupational hazard that went with their kind of world.
It was a surprise, then, when Foma Polzin walked into the room, initially causing a frenzy of activity, the billionaire that Sokoloff had ordered dead some weeks before coming up to Sokoloff, stopping five feet in front of him.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Sokoloff sneered, the men around him raising their weapons, picking up the fact that this man wasn’t welcome in their boss’s home. A tense moment of silence ensued, broken by the sound of one of the goon’s mobile phones going off, before a second one and then others. Soon the room was filled with ringing phones.
“Answer them!” Polzin demanded, each man using their free hand to answer the call, their other hand keeping a firm grip on the weapon still aimed at Polzin.
He had found a way to get to them all. What each man was being told on their telephone was everything about those they cared for––the names of their kid’s schools, for those that had children, the names of wives, mistresses and girlfriends, siblings and parents. Each call ended with the offer of a million dollars cash, waiting for them the moment this was over, plus the assurance of employment in the future. They just had to lower their weapons; their loved ones would be safe and their futures prosperous. Lower their gun and walk away. The $20 million it cost to buy the loyalty of this room of men was nothing to Polzin and his team––a tiny investment in a much more significant project.
Slowly, much to Sokoloff’s horror as he read the face of each man standing there holding a phone to his ear, the men started to lower their weapons, putting them back into their jackets, or tucked behind their backs, until all twenty men had stood down.
“What are you doing you bunch of traitors? What lies has he fed you? Shoot the man, I tell you! Shoot the…” but Sokoloff didn’t get the chance to finish. Polzin pulled a weapon himself, his arm coming up in one swift movement, one bullet fired through the forehead of the Russian only feet in front of him, blood splashing the wall behind him, his body crashing to the floor in a heap.
“Collect your money on the way out,” he said to the group, before adding, “We’ll be in touch with you all when we need your help. My team will clean up the mess here. I would get going if I were you. It’s over.”
The room started to empty. In the next room, twenty identical cases were lined up, and each man collected one. A few of them opened their case to check the contents, but it was clear the money was real. With the prospect of much more to come with working for a man like Polzin––his reputation preceded him––he’d indeed bought their loyalty. Sokoloff could rot in hell for all they cared.
Polzin had the room cleaned, the body moved into Sokoloff’s study, a prepared note written in what appeared to be Sokoloff’s handwriting. The body was positioned on the chair behind the desk, murder weapon cleaned of prints and worked into Sokoloff’s right hand, fingerprints sure to be on the trigger so that when the body was found, it would be deemed to be a suicide. The note supported this, and while anyone doing a detailed study of the crime scene would have serious reservations should they look carefully enough, Polzin knew that would never happen.
Sokoloff was a fallen man, beaten even inside his own country. The events in London had pushed him over the edge. Besides, Polzin had excellent connections in the police force. He needed them to find the body and report the death––he would make sure no tremendous for
ensic work was done. It would be put down as a suicide straightaway.
He loved his country, how quickly you could dictate things if you knew the right people to squeeze.
News of the Sokoloff suicide made the papers in the UK two days later, his body discovered by household staff the day after he’d apparently taken his own life. Alex read through the articles carefully, all written by Russian journalists––no Western journalist had been allowed access to the crime scene––but there didn’t seem to be any more an outsider could have done. The article was detailed and thorough.
Sokoloff became the first of the Russian oligarchs that the two British agents had been tracking to have his face crossed off their wall, Anissa using a red marker to strike through the man who’d taken the coward’s exit.
By the time of his death, his net worth was reportedly as low as $200 million, less than a tenth of what it had been during the previous year, one of the greatest collapses in living memory. He’d lost control of his entire business world, not only in the UK but in Russia, too.
Still, it felt frustrating that they couldn’t have got their own hands on him. Maybe he would have offered them new clues they weren’t otherwise aware. A Sokoloff in custody––on the ropes––would have been an exciting proposition. They still needed someone on the inside. The events of the last week had exposed one man––whose world, and then life, had spectacularly come to a bitter end––but that was just one man. Somewhere, there must be someone who had more answers. Somehow, they would have to continue to find a way of cracking open that entire world––a world of power, influence and therefore danger. Maybe it would have to be one oligarch at a time.
28
By the end of April, the ripples from the Sokoloff suicide––as it had been widely accepted by then already––had long since subsided. A group of twenty Russians were in Qatar for a gathering that only happened once every three years.