The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2)

by David N Robinson

  Nearly a quarter of those who enlist in the Foreign Legion are French citizens; the rest come from all walks of life in whatever countries of the world they happened to be born in. People join for different reasons: for many it is to ground them in something useful that pays them a modest wage over a pre-determined period of time. For Virenque, part French, part Algerian, the discipline and camaraderie of army life had suited him perfectly. During the initial five-year term that all recruits had to sign up for, he had served in numerous countries across Africa and the Middle East. The legionnaire officers in charge of his unit had earmarked him as a possible candidate for commando selection.

  The French Army’s talent spotters aren’t the only people trawling the volunteer soldiers in the Legion, scouting for talent. It is a little known fact that the Russian Special Forces, often referred to as Spetsnaz, also recruit selected individuals from outside Russia to undergo their intensive training programme. Typically needing people with a fluency in at least two out of the three languages of English, Arabic and French – and thus able to operate across a wide spectrum of Middle Eastern countries – Virenque had been a logical person to come to the attention of Spetsnaz talent spotters. When they had put him through selection and he had passed the gruelling assessment with relative ease, they realised that they had made a good choice. What they hadn’t fully appreciated until a few years later was how ruthless Rafiq could be at killing people. Which was why, after only four years involved in various covert operations all over the world, he had very quietly been tapped on the shoulder. The KGB’s Spetsbureau 13 – the highly secretive unit that specialised in ‘wet work’ – wanted him to come and work for them.

  Since then, Oleg Panich had, on at least three occasions, worked with Virenque whilst the latter had been on attachment to Spetsbureau 13. Each time, Panich had found him to be independent minded, reliable, and thorough. Never once had he questioned the mission brief that Panich had given him. Which was why, before Panich had left Volkov’s dacha, he had asked his former boss one small favour: find Virenque and get him released from his other duties. Panich needed him working on the Nemikov assignment. Having someone of Arab extraction on the team would give further credence to the subterfuge that Islamic State, and not Russia, might be pulling the strings.

  There was one other person Panich wanted on his team: a man who knew Panich’s way of working and in whom he had complete trust; a safe pair of hands able to assist with surveillance and mission logistics. Alexei Polunin. A fellow patriot who, like himself, had recently found himself out of the service, pensioned off with injuries sustained in the field by none other than Ben Lewis. Someone who, like Panich, would relish the opportunity for some retribution, regardless of what Volkov may have advised.

  14

  Olena is flirtatious, charming, and every bit as beautiful as her mother. From the moment she skips down the maisonette staircase to see the man that her father has sent to look after her, Lewis senses a potential for matters to become complicated.

  “Ben Lewis,” he says offering her his hand. She looks momentarily surprised by Lewis’s formality.

  “Nice to meet you, Ben,” she says, finally shaking his hand. “My father speaks very highly of you. I’m not sure what you did to make that happen so quickly. It normally takes much longer.”

  She has long flowing blonde hair, just like her mother. It is slightly curly and gleams in the beam of a small LED down-lighter immediately above her head.

  “I managed to beat him at chess.”

  “Wow, that’s a first. Have you met my brother, Borys, yet?”

  Lewis shakes his head.

  “Not yet. He’s still at lectures. Are you all set to go?”

  Lewis has agreed to escort Olena down to London. She is on her way to a charity event later that evening with her father.

  “I will be shortly. I assume we are going by train?”

  “I did ask to borrow the Sikorsky but your father wouldn’t hear of it.”

  She looks at him to check whether he is being serious. When she senses that he is joking, she laughs.

  “Dad says that you are a former Marine. I guess that qualifies you for the yacht but not the helicopter.”

  This time Lewis smiles but says nothing.

  “Give me five minutes, okay?”

  They take a taxi to the station and find themselves in good time for the fast train to London. Olena buys them both a ticket and surprises Lewis by paying to travel second class. Once through the barrier, she strides out towards the platform to the southern end of the station where the fast train is waiting and is shortly to depart. Lewis walks briskly to catch her up, considering how alike Olena and her mother appear to be. The station is busy. It isn’t yet the end of the school day but children are nonetheless milling around the platform. Olena climbs aboard the rear carriage of the train and finds a seat and sits down. She chooses a rear-facing seat in the middle of the carriage. It is in an area designed for four people: two facing forward and two backwards. There is a thin, narrow, apology of a table that juts out from the side in between the two window seats. Lewis opts to stand rather than sit, positioning himself by the door-well. This is a good position to watch people getting on and off the train as well as being still able to maintain occasional eye contact with Olena. For one brief moment he looks at her, catching her eye and winking. She smiles back before burrowing within the depths of a small bag in search of a book to read.

  The train’s public address system chimes and the driver’s voice comes over the intercom. There is a problem with the train: one of the doors has become jammed. An engineer has been called but, for the moment, the fast train to London is going nowhere. The driver recommends that passengers take the slower, stopping, service to London leaving from the adjacent platform. It will add thirty minutes to their journey but Olena will still be in plenty of time for her evening appointment. A short time later, therefore, she finds herself sitting in exactly the same seat as she had on the previous train. Once again Lewis is content to remain standing on his own by the door.

  15

  The vaporetto inched its way into Venice’s Grand Canal, jostling for space with numerous water taxis and gondolas cutting in and out of its path. This particular Number 2 water bus was on a clockwise journey. It was fighting its way from in front of St. Mark’s Square into the mouth of the canal, close by the Gritti Palace hotel. From here it would head northwards in a gentle meander to Accademia and beyond to the Rialto Bridge. Batches of red and white, as well as blue and white, striped poles lay interspersed along the canal route, adding colour to an already picturesque scene of ancient buildings that were rapidly being bathed by the pink and crimson hues of the setting sun.

  Valentyna Nemikov had chosen to take the vaporetto precisely because it was such a public and anonymous form of transport. Ordinarily she would have used the private launch from her husband’s mega-yacht moored at the quayside beyond Arsenale to the east of the city. Unfortunately, that would have meant that Gregor, her tiresome security chaperone, would have had to be in on her secret tryst. That would never have done. Instead she had contrived to give Gregor the slip, purporting to have to respond to an urgent call of nature. As they had passed the Hotel Danieli, she had dashed inside leaving a surprised Gregor waiting for her in the foyer. She, in turn, had promptly slipped out of the side entrance and made her way back to the vaporetto pier at nearby San Zaccaria. Waiting inside the shelter was her current paramour, private tennis coach to the rich and famous, André Diday. On the vaporetto, the two of them had found vacant adjacent seats towards the front of the boat. With one arm draped casually around her shoulders as she had nestled close to him, they became like many others, two lovers enjoying a sunset boat trip together on the Venetian waterways. Diday had rented a private apartment overlooking the Grand Canal. It was situated beyond Rialto and it had been to there that they had both be
en heading.

  At Accademia, as with most stops along the route, a rush of people had clambered ashore as soon as the rope moorings with the floating pier had been secured. Then, with a flick of the wrist from the boatman, a second onslaught of different people fought their way back onto the ferry. Everybody jostled for space on the crowded decks before a resigned calm descended as the ferry began its onward journey.

  Immediately in front of the boatman’s wheelhouse, in the centre of the boat, was a small space reserved for large items of luggage, pushchairs and the occasional wheelchair. One of the passengers who had come aboard at Accademia had been pushing a black suitcase on wheels. The owner had been a man of medium height, wearing mirrored sunglasses and black leather gloves. No one had paid either him or his suitcase any special attention: tourists and their luggage were a common sight on the vaporetto. Many who departed Venice by train used the cheap ferries to make their way to Ferrovia at the north end of the island where the main railway terminus was situated. In any event, it had been approaching the hour for an aperitivo. People’s minds had begun to drift, decisions shortly to be made about where and what to eat that evening.

  The ferry had slid to a gentle halt at San Tomà, the stop just before Rialto. On the crowded deck there had been more jostling as departing passengers had fought to get off the ferry, pushing their way past others who were continuing towards Rialto and beyond. No one had taken much, if any, notice of who had disembarked the boat: even less so whether the man with the mirrored sunglasses and gloves, who had been part of the departing crowd, had with him his rolling black suitcase or not.

  Which had, in hindsight, been a missed opportunity.

  16

  Virenque had not been happy. Everything about the plan had reeked of risk and complication. If this had been a Spetsbureau 13 operation, it would have been much simpler. It would also have been better planned. Nothing would have been left to chance. Most importantly, there would have been only one person calling the shots: himself. When Virenque set out to kill someone it was quite simple: they ended up dead. No one else got in the way: there wasn’t collateral damage; and unexpected things didn’t make it necessary to implement a plan B. A good example had been the previous night. He had received an urgent call from Yasenevo: they had wanted a young Pakistani male eliminated – a night worker on London’s underground rail network. For some reason it had been deemed urgent. Virenque had been in sole control from start to finish, exactly the way he liked it. Three hours into the man’s night shift, he had suffered a fatal accident. The crushed body had later been recovered from underneath the wheels of a maintenance train. It had been deemed an unfortunate, workplace accident; no foul play had been suspected.

  Today’s operation had originally been Panich’s idea. There had been far too many moving parts for Virenque’s liking; too many unknowns; too many things that could go wrong; too many people – and thus potential witnesses – who were going to find themselves part of the mayhem that was being planned. To cap it all, Panich hadn’t been around to help. He’d had to disappear abroad at short notice, leaving Virenque with Panich’s former field agent, Alexei Polunin, to carry out the operation.

  In order for the smokescreen part of the operation to work, Panich had required Lewis and the girl both to take the slow London train together. This alone, in Virenque’s view, had been an unnecessary, complication. Then Polunin had had the idea to immobilise the fast train. The Russian had done his research: there was usually a slow train departing shortly after a fast one. Thankfully, it had all come together pretty much the way that they had hoped it might. Virenque had been in the ticket hall watching for the arrival of Lewis and the girl. Polunin had been standing at the far end of the station platform alongside the waiting fast train to London. As soon as Lewis and the girl arrived at the station, Virenque had called Polunin on his mobile. The former SVR agent had then stepped onto the second carriage from the front of the train. It had been relatively easy to slip the small, tapered, device into the slender gap between the open train door and the outer body of the train. Once in position, the doors on the train were going to remain jammed in the open position for some time to come. Sure enough, when the driver had tried to close them prior to departure, he had been unable to do so. Various railway employees in orange high visibility vest had descended on the scene to resolve the problem. They had failed. The driver had used the tannoy to advise passengers to take the slow train from the adjacent platform. Once everyone, Lewis and Olena included, had switched trains, all that remained was for Virenque to choose his moment to board the same train.

  That part, at least, he had supreme confidence in his abilities to get right.

  17

  The final passenger about to board Lewis’s train is carrying a black rucksack. He is tall and stocky in a powerful, muscular, way. Lewis is unable to get a good look at the man’s face: he is wearing a hooded sweatshirt, its hood raised, and mirrored sunglasses. Something about him catches Lewis’s attention. It is the way he carries himself. When you march for twenty-four hours across Dartmoor with an eighty-pound Bergen on your back, you develop a walking style that stays with you for life. It is a confident, ever so slightly forward-slanted, posture that, regardless of load, never varies. Usually it is accompanied by a steady, rhythmical, stride. Lewis still walks this way even though he handed back his Green Beret five years ago. The man about to board the train is either a past or present soldier. Most likely specialised infantry: either a Marine or Special Forces. Lewis would put money on it.

  An electronic warbling sound indicates that the doors are ready to close. The man with the rucksack times it to perfection. Effortlessly he steps on board without any noticeable change in pace. Passing directly in front of Lewis, he heads inside the carriage, momentarily looking up as the doors close behind him. Lewis can’t see much of the man’s face because of the sunglasses. What little he does see is deeply suntanned, the skin weatherworn. The same effect one gets from living rough in the desert for prolonged periods. Lewis can still recall those days all too vividly.

  The man heads into the carriage. He chooses a forward-facing seat, directly opposite Olena. He has to inch his large frame around the tiny table that juts out from the window: the other two seats nearest the aisle, in the same small cluster of four, are occupied. This slower train is almost full, with limited space for a rucksack in the overhead rack. In the course of sitting down, he is therefore compelled to place the rucksack on the floor in front of his empty seat. He then squashes his legs around either side of it as he sinks into the seat cushion.

  Thirty minutes into the journey and the train is packed. Similar to Lewis, many are standing: sardines in a can. Most of those travelling wear headphones, passing the time by listening to music or watching a video on a flat screen device. Lewis’s body is turned so that he is looking directly into the inner carriage. As the train pulls away from Knebworth station, the man in the hooded sweatshirt gets to his feet. Picking the rucksack from off the floor, he lifts it onto his seat. It is a precautionary measure, Lewis notes, preventing anyone from taking his place while he heads into the next carriage – presumably in search of the toilet. Lewis still can’t see the man’s face. There is a nagging feeling that he ought to know this person, however insane that might be. Especially given how many trained soldiers, past and present – whether Marines or Special Forces or not – there happen to be on the planet.

  It is an itch that Lewis feels the need to scratch. Despite there being no obvious signs of recognition from the other man when he boarded the train, Lewis still wants to make sure. He shuffles his way past several people, eventually squeezing into the interior of the carriage to a new position, about halfway down. It feels less crowded here. Lewis leans against the edge of two single seats that are set back to back. The other man will have no option but to pass directly in front of Lewis before returning to his seat. Noticing that Lewis has moved, Ol
ena turns around to see where he is. She raises her eyebrows in silent greeting when she spots him just behind her. They both smile: she then looks away, immersing herself in her book once more.

  The train slows to stop at another station: Welwyn North. Beyond this point, the line reduces to a single track in each direction. It is about to pass over the narrow Digswell viaduct, immediately to the south of the station platform. This is a Victorian brick construction over a mile in length, a strategic rail bottleneck: trains, fast or slow, to or from London to parts of Norfolk, East Anglia and the North East of England – they all have to wait their turn to cross it.

  Something is badly wrong. Lewis picks up on the warning signals almost immediately. It is only as the train starts pulling out of Welwyn North station that he works out what.

  It is the man, standing on the station platform, who is triggering alarm bells.

  Lewis feels the blood running cold in the pit of his stomach. Olena, himself – and indeed everyone in the carriage – are suddenly in grave danger.

  Lewis hardly knows the man; however, as of thirty minutes ago, he is no longer a complete stranger either. His posture – erect and slightly bent forward, with an air of the Military most definitely in evidence – is instantly familiar. So are the mirrored sunglasses and the hooded sweatshirt. This is someone who, by any rational measure, should be returning to this carriage following his bathroom break; about to pass close by Lewis; shortly to resume sitting in the seat directly opposite from Olena – the one which still has the rucksack on it.