Three Lives Down (A Dan Taylor thriller)

by Rachel Amphlett

  Sarah covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide. ‘Where did they take you? Where have you been?’

  He shook his head. ‘It was fucking awful,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘We travelled for miles. They put a hood over my head. I lost track of time, to be honest.’

  He rubbed his hands over his face, then stared up at the ceiling and crossed his arms across his chest. ‘Apparently, there are loads of these ex-CIA prisons dotted all over the country. No-one really knows how many there are – or who’s held in them. Private contractors run them now, and basically, anyone who needs to disappear, disappears.’ He shivered. ‘I wasn’t meant to be coming out of there alive.’

  Sarah tapped her pen on the table and stared at the sunshine now streaming through the blinds.

  Dan noticed how pale she’d turned but let her process what he’d told her. He knew from previous experience it was often the only way.

  ‘So what do you think went wrong?’ she finally asked.

  Dan stood, moved across the room, and leaned against the sink. ‘I think I was set up.’

  The pen rattled across the table before hitting the floor.

  Sarah looked at him, her mouth open. ‘What?’

  ‘Someone knew exactly where I was and what I was doing.’ He leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. ‘And whoever knew where I was being held was also, somehow, involved in my rescue.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘No-one else knew where I was, did they? It was all supposed to be hush-hush.’

  ‘Set up?’ she finally spluttered. ‘Who? Why?’ She held up her hands, closed her eyes, and then tried again. ‘Why would someone set you up?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Sarah pushed her chair back, stalked across the kitchen, and bent down to pick up the pen. When she straightened, Dan took a deep breath.

  ‘Look – it’s a gut feeling. Nothing more, okay?’ He leaned against the stainless steel sink, his fingers gripping the surface.

  Sarah put her hand on her hip, and her eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘If you think you’ve been set up, you’ve got more than just a gut feeling, Dan Taylor.’ She frowned. ‘Where is David, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know that either,’ said Dan. ‘I asked when they finished my debrief, but all they would tell me is that our group got disbanded when I was captured. Something about the PM wanting to avoid any embarrassment.’

  ‘What about Mitch?’

  Dan shook his head.

  ‘What, nothing?’ Sarah threw up her arms in exasperation. ‘You two are friends – team mates. Surely they can tell you where he is?’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t think it’s a case of them not wanting to tell me where David and Mitch are. I don’t think they know where they are.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think they’re missing, too.’

  CHAPTER 9

  Sarah strode across the kitchen, and Dan wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered. ‘You’ve been imprisoned, you’re being followed, David and Mitch are missing… What the hell is happening?’

  He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair. ‘I’ve got no idea,’ he murmured. ‘But I’ll find out.’ He snorted. ‘Let’s face it, I’ve got nothing else to do at the moment.’

  She drew back and lifted her chin, her eyes glossy with unshed tears. ‘Be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘Promise.’

  Sarah sniffed, gave him a last squeeze, and then moved across the room to where her bag lay on the table, discarded from the previous night, and pulled out a tissue.

  Dan caught sight of a padded envelope poking out from the depths of the bag. ‘Didn’t you have something to show me last night?’

  She raised her eyebrow. ‘I did. You got distracted.’

  He grinned. ‘So did you. Come on. Give us a top-up and pass that over here. What did you want to show me?’

  Relief flooded through his system as he watched her gather herself, before she slid the folder from her bag and across the table to him.

  ‘I’ll make more coffee. You read that first, then I’ll ask you some questions.’

  As Sarah busied herself with the coffee machine, Dan flipped open the envelope and pulled out its contents.

  First were copies of police reports about a freak accident that had killed three men. The reports soon became thin on any new information within twenty-four hours of the first reports.

  Dan skim-read through the documents and then pushed them to one side and began to thumb through a large sheaf of paper held together by a metal clip. On the front of it, a company logo had been stamped above the phrase ‘Environmental Impact Statement’. The document had been downloaded from the project website, a publicly available report that had received government review and approval prior to the site work commencing.

  ‘Have you got a highlighter pen?’

  ‘In my bag – help yourself.’

  Dan pulled the bag towards him and then shoved his hand inside, cursing as his fingers found everything except a highlighter pen.

  ‘What the hell have you got in here, woman?’ he grumbled.

  ‘All the necessities,’ Sarah replied. ‘Try the inside pocket.’

  Dan unzipped the inner pocket and grabbed the first highlighter he found and, relieved, pushed the bag away.

  He turned his attention back to the report and began skimming through its contents.

  In his former career as a geologist, he’d co-authored many reports like the one he held in his hands and figured it would follow a similar format.

  He quickly dismissed the start of the document, which comprised a history of the project and the site location, and began to read through the sections that described how the client and its contractor would manage the project and any environmental impact.

  He grunted a thanks as Sarah placed a refill on the table in front of him and then heard her footsteps pad away along the hallway to the bathroom. As the shower started up, he flicked another page, highlighting any phrases that caught his attention before moving on.

  After ten minutes, he pushed the report to one side and began sifting through the project’s processes and procedures that Sarah had been sent.

  He rubbed his hand across his chin, the stubble prickling his fingers.

  Why did someone send all the documents to her anonymously?

  He reached across for his coffee mug and gulped half of its contents before setting it to one side and turned a page.

  His heart skipped a beat.

  He thumbed back a few pages, scrubbed the highlighter pen over a whole section, and then resumed reading.

  Next, he picked up a copy of the early police report about the attack that Sarah had somehow wrangled from one of her contacts. As he read through the contents of their findings, one thing became clear to him. The people who had carried out the assault were professional. The ambush had been precise in nature, echoing military training rather than any rag-tag activist group.

  An idea began to form in his head. He pushed the chair back from the table and began sorting the documents into two piles. Once that was complete, he pushed the bigger pile to one side, and then laid out each of the documents in the smaller pile across the surface of the table.

  At some point, he was aware of movement behind him.

  ‘You’ve been busy.’ Sarah moved until she was standing next to him. ‘What do you think?’

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and gestured towards the documents in front of him. ‘I think you’ve worked out for yourself that this was a well-planned attack.’

  ‘It seemed too coordinated for an activist group,’ Sarah nodded. ‘And extreme. Almost clinical, the way it was carried out, right?’

  Dan nodded. ‘They’d have spent weeks, if not months monitoring that site.’

  ‘How?’

  He shrugged. ‘Either in situ – having men on the ground, s
pying on the progress and the project team’s routine, or by using a drone. They’re easy to get hold of these days. All they’d have to do is stay high enough to keep out of the line of sight and rig up a camera on it. The men on the ground wouldn’t hear it over the noise from the drilling equipment.’

  He searched through the other paperwork. ‘Were you sent a copy of the initial ballistics report?’

  Sarah moved around the table until she reached out and picked up three pages, a staple in the right hand corner, and handed it across. ‘This is all that was in there.’

  ‘One of the documents says that the usual engineer that Mark Harvey replaced went missing two weeks ago,’ said Dan. ‘Any ideas where he is?’

  ‘I made some enquiries before I met you for dinner,’ said Sarah. ‘His body was found under a railway bridge in Leeds. He’d been beaten to death.’ She pointed to a newspaper clipping that she’d printed off from an internet site. ‘The police are treating it as a robbery gone wrong.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  Dan skimmed through the information and cocked an eyebrow. ‘Two different weapons.’

  ‘I figured two men in the other vehicle, both shooting?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not the way the bodies were found. Got a pen?’

  ‘In my bag.’

  ‘I’m not going in there again.’

  Sarah sighed, pulled open her bag, and handed him a blue ballpoint pen.

  ‘Thanks.’ Dan flipped over a page and sketched out the murder scene. ‘This is what I mean.’ He pointed to the first body. ‘This guy was shot at point blank range, his body found right next to the drilling equipment, yes?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Then the second man tries to run away, and his body is found over here,’ he added, circling the stick figure he’d drawn.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘This guy, the third man. He’s closer to the project vehicle – the original one – than the guy next to the drilling rig.’ Dan glanced up at Sarah. ‘Do you see?’

  She shook her head. ’Show me.’

  ‘If he’d just seen one of his mates killed, and the other one running away, why isn’t he running as well?’

  Sarah’s mouth opened in a gasp. ‘He was the killer?’

  Dan nodded. ‘And then he was killed. Presumably by the people that turned up next.’

  ‘Why?’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Maybe that was their plan all along. Use him to get close to the project team and then eliminate him as well.’

  ‘Yes, but why?’ She frowned. ‘Why kill three men in cold blood next to a drilling rig? If it’s to stop the project, it’s incredibly extreme, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ve agreed this wasn’t done by activists,’ said Dan. He pulled one of the documents towards him and tapped the logo at the top of the page. ‘This is a government-funded project, right?’

  ‘Yes. They’re using it to demonstrate the viability of coal-seam gas as an energy source. If it works, they’re hoping to attract private investors and win over public opinion about fracking.’

  ‘And ease the UK’s dependence on imported oil and gas,’ added Dan. ‘So the government would have a vested interest in approving the project to go ahead.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Dan slid the Environmental Impact Statement towards her. ‘This EIS is a bit thin for the sort of project they’re doing, to be honest. It skims over some of the techniques they’re going to employ to test the viability of the test wells.’ He flipped through the pages until he was halfway through and pulled one of the other documents towards him. ‘This is the project’s Materials Statements and Data Sheets – they have to have one of these for every single liquid, gas, or other product that could cause harm to their workers or the environment, do you follow me?’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Okay. Usually, I’d expect the MSDS to reflect every item listed in the EIS. It’s a logical progression from one document to the other – if you list something in the EIS that could harm the environment in any way, then you should have an equivalent MSDS to explain what you’re going to do in the event of the unthinkable happening.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Dan tapped his finger on the paragraph he’d highlighted in the EIS. ‘This doesn’t have an MSDS entry.’

  Sarah leaned across and read the text above his finger. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think it’s what those three men were killed for,’ said Dan. ‘It’s why the police don’t want the press involved. It’s why you were sent all this information anonymously. This attack has nothing to do with the drilling project.’

  Sarah frowned, her expression perplexed. ’What do you mean?’

  Dan held up the EIS and tapped the highlighted section. ‘Those men were killed because they had access to this item listed here.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a radioactive isotope.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Vasili Malikov stared sightlessly through the tinted glass of his office, his hand turning a solid gold cigarette lighter, a soft tap the only sound in the room as it met the teak surface of his desk.

  The lighter had been a twenty-first birthday present from his father, taken from a German officer in the barren wastelands of the Eastern Front as the Second World War entered its final throes.

  Malikov had queried how a German officer had come by such a prized possession; his father’s answer had simply been to turn the glinting object in his son’s hand, revealing the embossed Jewish script on the reverse.

  No other explanation was needed. The Malikovs were adept at finding treasure though other people’s misfortune.

  Vasili’s father had foreseen the end of the vast Communist empire, using the wiles that had seen him survive the war and provide a comfortable existence for his family under years of repression to ensure a sizeable fortune was realised as soon as Yeltsin came to power.

  However, the last ten years had seen an unfortunate turn of events, and the younger Malikov was silently grateful his father had not lived to see his business flounder under the new leader’s rule.

  Vasili had found himself in a situation where he had to be both businessman and politician, ruthless and merciless.

  Now, the muscles in his jaw tightened, his teeth clenched as his mind worked through his options, which were diminishing at an alarming rate.

  He cast aside the cigarette lighter with a snarl and pushed himself from his leather chair. There was no time for pity or remorse.

  His eyes fell to the photograph on his desk.

  His wife had divorced him fourteen years ago upon their arrival in London, and he had let her go willingly rather than have her expensive lawyer enquire too closely about the fading bruises on her face.

  Within seven months of leaving him, she had been the subject of London society gossip, marrying a titled Englishman and bearing him a daughter two years later.

  He’d never met her, severing his former wife from his own life completely.

  And yet –

  He reached out and ran his finger down the cold protective glass, tracing the line of her cheek.

  He snatched the photo frame from the desk and hurled it at the wall, turning his back as the glass shattered against the surface, and walked towards the door.

  He wrenched it open.

  The thug of a bodyguard faced him, his thick eyebrows knitted together in consternation.

  ‘Get someone in there to clean up that mess,’ growled Malikov.

  ‘At once,’ the thug said and moved aside.

  Malikov’s eyes swept the room.

  The penthouse apartment boasted vaulted ceilings, a polished steel staircase winding up through the space to his private quarters. To his right, a wall of glass provided a panoramic view of the capital’s skyline, the early morning sky a hue of blues, yellows, and pinks above the metropolis.

  About the room, three more men draped themselves over black leather sofas, their attention drawn towards the football match on a wi
descreen television that hung on the wall to his right. One of the men caught Malikov’s stare and heaved himself from his seat before making his way to a corner bar.

  ‘You look like you could do with a coffee, Vasili,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It’s the wedding anniversary today, isn’t it?’

  Malikov shrugged.

  There were no secrets between him and Alexsei Krupin. They’d grown up together, coming to each other’s defence in the concrete apartment blocks north of Moscow where they’d bullied and fought over territory with the other kids.

  Krupin was a natural choice for Malikov’s head of security.

  Others would look at the large man with his neck bulging out of his collar and his lumbering gait and made the mistake of assuming he was simply a hired thug.

  Behind the façade, however, Malikov knew there was a shrewd man. Competent, resourceful, and loyal.

  Malikov ignored the two men that continued to watch the football game; Krupin ran the security detail on a twenty-four hour shift rotation. If these men were relaxing, it meant their work was done for the day. Proper rest meant they could be depended upon to protect him.

  His eyes flickered to the security monitors set below the television, the black and white images showing the two guards stationed outside the apartment elevator doors, two more patrolling the underground car park below the high rise building.

  ‘Here.’

  He turned at the sound of Krupin’s voice and took the bone china cup and saucer from him, noting from the aroma that a generous measure of brandy had been added.

  He took a sip and jerked his head towards the floor-to-ceiling windows and then moved across the room, the soles of his shoes silent on the plush carpet.

  He turned, his back to the glass as Krupin joined him.

  ‘You look troubled, Alexsei. What is it?’

  A sigh escaped the big man. ‘Vasili, it’s not too late to back away,’ he said, keeping his voice low under the bland television commentary that filled the room. ‘No-one will think any less of you.’

  Malikov placed his coffee on a glass table next to them and held up his hand. ‘Enough. We proceed as planned. You’ve made the necessary arrangements?’