The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2)

by David N Robinson

  There, in amongst various debit card PIN numbers, personal tax reference numbers, life policy references and such like, had been one note that had the simple title ‘Wohnung’. It was the German word for ‘apartment’. Faithfully recorded, month-by-month, were the door entry codes for Hildebrandt’s apartment block: evidently these were changed each month, the latest code having been dutifully typed in. More importantly, it had also showed the alarm code for his apartment. It had been hidden right at the bottom of the long list; Tian had had to scroll down several lines before she had found it. Against the word ‘Alarmanlagecode’, was an eight-digit number: it had been precisely what she had been searching for.

  65

  The next morning had seen Tian begin what she considered to be the cleverest phase of her operation. Developed over many months and field-tested several times, it was a unique protocol for capturing a particular target’s laptop: in effect, it allowed her to control both it and the information contained within it. All without the individual concerned being the slightest bit aware.

  She had taken up a position in a coffee shop directly opposite Hildebrandt’s apartment. She had waited a full hour after seeing him head to work at the usual time before deciding that it had been safe for her to leave. She had crossed the road from the café, her large handbag, fully laden and with the zipper closed, slung casually over a shoulder. Seconds later, she approached the apartment entry lobby. The time had come when she needed to key in the entry code that had been found on Hildebrandt’s iPhone. There had been only a moment’s slight hesitation. Some people, she had known, were more security conscious than others about their electronic records. Some wrote codes and numbers as they should be written: a few, usually the more security conscious, wrote them differently – often writing the numbers in reverse order; a small minority performed an even more complicated juggling of the sequence. The door entry code was to be a good test: if it didn’t work first time, she would try reversing the digits. If that didn’t work, she would be forced to try other permutations. She would worry about the alarm code in due course.

  She had taken a deep breath, before entering the code as it had been written. The door latch had clicked open immediately: she was free to enter the building.

  One down, one more to go.

  On the sixth floor, she had waited until the elevator doors had closed before she approached Hildebrandt’s front door. She was an expert at using skeleton keys to pick a lock. Within three minutes she had both the dead bolt unlocked and, shortly thereafter, had been ready to push open the front door, having first released the tumblers in the cylinder lock: it had only take her a few deft twists of her skeleton keys. She had, she knew, only a short window of time, seconds only, to key in the correct security code once the door was open.

  Taking a deep breath, she had taken the plunge. The alarm began bleeping its warning almost immediately. Closing the door behind her, the alarm panel had been easily to locate within a small cupboard to one side of the door. Inside, there had been a small keypad with an LED display on the alarm box. She had entered the eight digits, one by one, carefully.

  The words ‘Falsche Eingabe’ had instantly displayed on the panel, the beeping continuing.

  Incorrect code!

  Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she had tried once more, this time reversing the eight digits. As soon as the final number had been entered, the beeping miraculously ceased. Steadying herself, she exhaled with considerable relief.

  She had wanted to break into Hildebrandt’s apartment for one reason, and one reason only: to find his wireless router and the connection to the cabled broadband supply. It didn’t take her long to find both, located as they had been behind a television set on the floor of the main living room. They had both been tucked into a corner out of sight. Unzipping her handbag, she had withdrawn a rectangular-shaped device about the size of an airport edition paperback novel. This was battery powered, the battery life typically lasting more than one month. It would be more than sufficient for the job in hand. She had connected the device to one of the ports on the back of the wireless router and flipped a small rocker switch on the side of the device to turn it on. A tiny green light had illuminated on the front. She had finally placed it on the floor, underneath the router itself; to all intents and purposes it would be completely invisible.

  Her job done, all that had remained had been for her to reset the alarm, lock the door on her way out, and head back to sit in her hotel room and wait.

  66

  Arkady Nemikov was pacing anxiously around his study. The worry lines on his long, thin face had become prominent. As if the recent house call hadn’t spooked him enough, he had just ended yet another call with Gregor in Venice. There was still no word from Valentyna. No one seemed to have any knowledge at all of her whereabouts. The Italian police were going to take days, if not longer, before they had recovered most of the bodies from the canal. Perhaps no one would never truly know who had perished and who hadn’t? Would she really have been on a public vaporetto? Nemikov thought it possible, knowing his wife – the truth was, he simply had no way of telling.

  He stopped next to the chessboard and picked up one of the onyx pieces, examining it idly. His world was in danger of falling apart. He looked at his watch. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning. Ordinarily he might have expected to have heard from Lewis by now, telling him that Olena was safely on the plane. That would only leave Borys. He’d been about to call Pavel to check that his son was still safe, but he had caught himself moments before dialling the number. It was, after all, one o’clock in the morning. Fedorov had checked in with Pavel only two hours earlier.

  He replaced the chess piece on the board and decided he needed a drink. He was mid-way to the drinks cabinet in one corner of the room, about to pour himself a glass of white wine, when the sound of the house phone ringing stopped him in his tracks. People rarely called him on the house phone. Not many knew the number: especially not at that time of the morning. With some trepidation he reached for the cordless phone that was in its charging cradle on his desk and picked up the handset. The loud ringing instantly stopped.

  “Hello.” It wasn’t either the hour, or Nemikov’s usual style, to start with pleasantries.

  “Papa,” came the all too familiar sound of his daughter’s voice. Instantly, Nemikov knew something was wrong. He could hear the plaintive cry in her tone, the strain as she tried to remain calm, the tearfulness as she spoke.

  “You have to help. They’ve taken . . . ,” she pleaded before the phone went silent for several seconds.

  “Olena, Olena, can you hear me?” Nemikov found himself shouting into the mouthpiece. “Where are you? What’s happening?”

  He continued this persistent questioning for what seemed ages, hearing only silence on the other end. Then, there was a ‘clicking’ noise in the earpiece and another voice began talking to him. This one was male and, by the sound of it, very Russian.

  “Arkady Nemikov. Your daughter is safe. For the moment, that is. Her fate, and in time her brother’s, now lies in your hands, not mine. The price you will pay for her release is eight billion US dollars.”

  There was a slight pause before the same voice continued.

  “If this is not paid in twenty-four hours, the price increases to ten billion. If this still remains unpaid in forty-eight hours, then she will be killed. Just like her mother today. You will receive a text message shortly with the payment instructions.”

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this, you bastards?” Nemikov yelled into the mouthpiece but the line was dead. In a moment’s rage, he threw the handset against the hard wooden floor, watching as it smashed into pieces. His eyes were wet with tears. Distraught, he slumped into his favourite armchair, his head in his hands, quietly sobbing.

  It slowly began to dawn on him.

  The time had com
e: no other course made any sense. It was what he had been dreading, but it was the only way.

  Reluctant to admit it, he remained slumped in the chair, time and again testing to see if there was another way, always coming back to the same conclusion: he had to go through with it, if only to save his children.

  He composed himself before reaching for his mobile phone. Scrolling through his contacts, he eventually found the number he was looking for. His finger hovered over it for several seconds. Then, with a sudden finality, he pressed the entry on the screen and the number was dialled.

  A male voice answered on the second ring.

  “Hello, Arkady.”

  “It is time,” was all he said initially.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Certain. Please make the necessary arrangements. Two requests: one that the deed be done quickly; and secondly, that no one else gets hurt.”

  With that, he ended the call and sat back in his chair, the once great Arkady Nemikov a resigned and broken man.

  67

  By the time that a terrified, and shaken, Olena had emerged from the basement cellar, she would have considered doing virtually anything that Panich asked of her – if it was going to spare Borys any further pain. She had been shocked to see her brother’s swollen left eye, puffed up so large that he could barely see out of it. The cause had been what Vince had described to Polunin as a ‘playful tap’. In truth, they had both agreed that giving Borys a gentle work-over early on might be helpful – as a form of insurance; to help to encourage him to be as compliant as possible for the duration of his stay in their care.

  Panich had forced her to sit at the kitchen table whilst he scrolled for the number on his mobile phone. He was smoking a cigarette, and coughing badly as he searched his directory for the number.

  “We are going to call your father,” he said, struggling to say the words as his cough refused to clear. “I want him to hear your voice,” was what he went on to say, the words spoken in a dry-throated way, once the coughing had abated. Olena had merely nodded, watching in terror as Panich waited for the call to connect at the other end. After several rings, a male voice at the other end could be heard to say, “Hello.” Panich had then handed the phone to Olena.

  “Papa,” she cried out, fighting to keep her emotions in check. “You have to help. They’ve taken . . . , ,” and then the phone was snatched away from her hand by Panich. He pressed the ‘mute’ button, signalling to Vince that he wanted the girl taken back to the cellar. He waited until she had left the room before he unmuted the phone and began speaking

  “Arkady Nemikov. Your daughter is safe. For the moment, that is. Her fate, and in time her brother’s, now lies in your hands, not mine. The price you will pay for her release is eight billion US dollars.”

  He looked across at Alexei Polunin’s disbelieving face at hearing of such a large sum of money, and winked.

  “If this is not paid in twenty-four hours, the price increases to ten billion. If this still remains unpaid in forty-eight hours, then she will be killed. Just like her mother today. You will receive a text message shortly with the payment instructions.”

  With that, he ended the call.

  68

  It takes Lewis fifteen minutes to reach his rented apartment, located on a side street behind Earls Court. In no time at all after that, he is on his Honda CB750, heading north towards Luton airport. Bought several years ago when he was, by his own admission, in his ‘funny’ period – in reality grieving for the death of his young bride – he had lovingly restored the bike over a period of many months. As a result, the machine is tuned to perfection, providing ample competition for many of the more modern and more expensive models on the road.

  The traffic is light at this time of night: it takes Lewis less than an hour to cover the distance to the airport. He makes his way directly to the private jet terminal. There he finds no sign of Fedorov or the Range Rover anywhere. He parks his bike in the VIP parking area and goes in search of anyone who might be able to tell him whether the Nemikov jet had left yet or not. Inside the customer reception area, there is one lone employee dressed in a navy blue uniform, seated at a desk. The man looks up when he notices Lewis and smiles.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I am looking for the Nemikov party. Has their plane left for Venice yet?”

  The man peers into a small television monitor set within the table in front of him.

  “Not yet. The jet is still on the apron, waiting for one passenger. Are you that person, sir?”

  “No. It’s Olena Nemikov, the daughter, who they are waiting for. She hasn’t turned up yet, I suppose?”

  “Not that I’m aware, I’m sorry.”

  “How about a man, a bit older than me – a Ukrainian, by the name of Sergei Fedorov? He’s driving a Range Rover.”

  “Not since I’ve been on duty, sir. I came on at midnight. You’re the first person I’ve seen all evening.”

  Lewis thanks him and walks outside the building. He tries raising Fedorov on his mobile but the call rings through to voicemail. Next he tries Olena’s number. Hers too is turned off, routing to voicemail. He walks towards where his bike is parked. Standing in the shadows and about to switch his own phone off, it suddenly rings in his hand. It is Saul Zeltinger.

  “No sleep for the wicked, is there, Saul?”

  “You and me both, it would seem. I thought you should know something. A London cabbie’s been found unconscious, his cab stolen. It happened on the Edgware Road, about forty-five minutes ago. The cabbie told police that he’d picked up a single woman from the Ritz Hotel at just before midnight. He was taking her to Luton Airport when another taxi rammed him from behind. When he stopped to inspect the damage, the other driver whacked him from behind and stole his vehicle.”

  “Shit,” Lewis mutters, more to himself than to Zeltinger. “It has to have been Panich.”

  “Sounds ominously like it.”

  “Oh, bugger. Do we know where he went? Can ANPR records tell us anything?”

  The police’s automated number plate recognition camera system was a little-known tool in the UK police force’s arsenal of weaponry against criminals driving on the UK’s major road networks.

  “I have someone checking. I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  “If that bastard lays a finger on her,” Lewis begins before stopping himself.

  “This is a police matter now, Ben. Don’t get yourself any further into trouble than you already might be.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Saul. I was meant to be looking after her. And her brother.”

  “There’s something else you might be interested in. I’m probably not meant to tell you all this, but I am going to. It concerns your current employer, Arkady Nemikov. We’ve been watching his house, given everything that has been going on these last few hours. About ten minutes ago, he left the Kensington property in a tearing hurry. In his Lamborghini sports car. Apparently it’s bright yellow. Ring any bells?”

  Lewis starts wondering where on earth Nemikov would be going at this time of the night.

  “It is a very distinctive car. We should be able to track it down without too much difficulty.”

  “Yes,” Lewis says, still distracted. Might Nemikov have received a call from Panich? Was he en route to a rendezvous with the Russian?

  “One favour, Saul. If you do find out where he’s headed, can you let me know? I am going to try and call him.”

  Lewis hangs up. He searches for Nemikov’s mobile number in his address book and hits ‘dial’. He is not looking forward to the conversation. After five rings, the call, like everyone else’s that evening, is routed through to voicemail. Lewis decides not to leave a message.

  He is on the point of switching off his phone, lost in thought, when he feels the unmistakeable
cold, hard, shape of a gun barrel being pressed into his neck.

  “Hands behind your back. Where I can see them. Forget any fancy moves, Marine scum.”

  Sadly, for this particular aggressor, Lewis recognises the voice.

  69

  Lewis has been here before – and not only during his training at Lympstone. Hostile, attacking moves are nothing unusual. He closes his eyes, using his senses to tell him how much trouble he might be in. Judging by the pressure of the weapon on the back of his neck, not much: this feels like one confrontation that is going to be over quickly.

  People with a genuine cause – or intent – to use a gun don’t normally worry about fine-tuning their motor skills. If the aggression is genuine, their actions will be driven, if not by anger, then by revenge or some other powerful motive. In this state of mind, when pointing their gun, their focus will be binary. Things will be typically ‘on’ or ‘off’: ‘hard’ or ‘soft’; ‘black’ or ‘white’; ‘dead’ or ‘alive’. There will rarely be room for ‘medium’ in the range from any one end of a particular scale to the other. Someone with intent to use a weapon – when they sneak up behind and take their victim by surprise, for example – what do they do? They jab the barrel of their gun hard into the other person’s neck, or back. They are trying to compel the other party to do something. The person with the gun will be fired up; their heart will be pounding and the adrenalin will be flowing. In a public place, or if there are security cameras nearby, this might diminish the degree of outright aggression on display. However, at one-thirty in the morning, with poor light, with no one around and with no obvious cameras in the vicinity: these are ideal conditions.

  Especially for an aggressive assailant with an intent, literally, to get away with murder.