The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2)

by David N Robinson

  “Without attribution? Of course we’ll do our best, Viktor, we’re always happy to. As a matter of fact, we have been providing quite a lot of help in one or two areas already, you might be aware?”

  “I wasn’t for one moment suggesting that you hadn’t. We are all immensely grateful for everything you have been doing.”

  “Very good. I’ll see what additional things we might be able to do. No promises, but I’ll have a quiet talk with Panich and see what might be helpful.” With that, he ended the call. Volkov took a final gulp of coffee. A germ of an idea was forming.

  Whether it would be helpful to Panich’s operation or not, he couldn’t say. However, he still had to work out what he did about the significant pile of Russian made RDX that was currently sitting in a locked storeroom deep underground at a certain London tube station. Those explosives had the power to cause widespread havoc in London: fear, panic and severe disruption. The fact that, if they were ever detonated, they were unlikely to do any significant structural damage, would give it the look and feel of an amateurish operation. Not something sponsored by any state organisation. Especially not by people as intelligent and sophisticated as the Russians. Quite the opposite. In fact, it would display all the hallmarks of something that a small terrorist cell might indeed have planned.

  He recalled his conversation with Panich at the Dacha in Peredelkino:

  “ . . . we Russians have always been the masters of subterfuge. We practically invented the word. So, to plant a seed, how about this, Oleg? What if certain fanatics, planning hideous acts of revenge against the West, were to do our job for us? Certain religious fanatics, for example. Perhaps even the nutcases who call themselves Islamic State? It would be unfortunate, wouldn’t you agree, if one or two Nemikov family members happened to become innocent victims of such terrible crimes?”

  So, why didn’t Volkov mention this room and the presence of the explosives to Panich when they next spoke? Perhaps he could find a way to put them to good use. He was, after all, a hugely resourceful operator, as Plushenko had been only too keen to remind Volkov.

  It had a certain symmetry, like finding two pieces of a complex puzzle that surprisingly fitted together. It might also, at a stroke, remove another problem of his – how to get rid of the RDX. He reached for his cell phone, about to dial Panich’s number when he paused. It would be wise to have this call rooted through secure channels: it was a conversation he would make from his office at Yasenevo and not over the cellular network from home.

  85

  Oleg Panich finished speaking to Volkov and turned to stare at Virenque. He had just put the phone down. The Frenchman was sitting in the kitchen chair opposite, nursing a mug of black coffee similar to the one that Panich was drinking from. Panich was discovering that drinking whilst smoking – at the same time as holding a phone to his ear – was a precarious juggle, given that he had only one good hand. Even the function of that one had been impaired, courtesy of Ben Lewis. His other, his prosthetic, was not dextrous enough to hold a mug of coffee; nor was it fine-tuned sufficiently to be that helpful when smoking. Instead, Panich had developed a posture that allowed his prosthesis to rest on a table, with the hand, lightly gripping the cigarette in its motorised fingers, angled towards his face. This allowed him to lean forward and draw on a cigarette whilst holding a mug of coffee in his other hand. It wasn’t ideal; but at least it gave him the fuel – nicotine and caffeine – that his body craved.

  The time was shortly before four in the morning. Nearly six o’clock Moscow time. Virenque was the first to speak.

  “What was all that about?”

  “You had an assignment a couple of days ago. Before this Nemikov thing kicked in. A Pakistani male. He died late at night, apparently, crushed under an underground train. Ring any bells?”

  “I don’t usually discuss my case work with other people.” Virenque’s chiselled, square-set, jaw was a prominent facial feature. As he spoke, he rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, as if filing the jawbone down further. “Is it relevant to our current operation?”

  “I’m not interested in the details of what you may or may not have been up to. I have just been informed that the same Pakistani had apparently been building a terrorist bomb. Night after night, over a period of time, he’d been filling a secret storage room, deep underground in London’s tube network, with a stash of RDX. My former SVR colleagues were wondering whether we might be able to make any use of it.”

  “What, the room or the explosives?”

  “Both.”

  They didn’t speak for a while, each lost in their own contemplations. The only sound was the background hum of the electric fridge – that and the noise at one stage of Panich’s zippo lighter as he lit another cigarette.

  “So, lateral thinking time. What are we going to do to persuade Lewis to come to us and tell his codes?”

  “What, you mean if Alexei and Vince don’t deliver him to us in the back of the van in the next hour or so?”

  “Correct.”

  “Do you know something that I don’t?”

  Panich shook his head. “No, but I am making an intelligent guess. Lewis, by all accounts, should have made it from Luton to Cambridge over an hour ago. We have heard nothing from Alexei or Vince in that time. I view that as ominous.”

  “Let’s give them a call?” Virenque said, reaching for his mobile.

  “In a moment. Let’s just think things through. Never underestimate this man, Lewis. He is extremely irritating at times, annoyingly clever. Assuming that he is not about to arrive here, bound and gagged, what next? How do we persuade him to come and pay us a visit voluntarily?”

  “Well, obviously by letting him think he stands a chance of saving the boy and the girl.”

  “Correct. I am just not that sure that this place is the perfect hideout anymore: the risk of discovery here is quite high.”

  “I agree with you. Vans and bikes arriving at odd hours of the day and night get noticed. The police will be hyper-active looking for us. And this property is still on the market: an agent could drop in at any time with a prospective tenant.”

  “So, let’s assume that, like his sister, Borys is willing to part with his codes fairly easily. Recent evidence would suggest that our powers of persuasion continue to be effective. That would leave us only needing Lewis’s code before we had our hat-trick.” He paused for a puff at his cigarette, swirling the dregs of his coffee around the bottom of his empty mug as he did so.

  “Go on.”

  “What would have more impact? Us sending a ‘come and find us’ picture text to Lewis that shows a bound and gagged, slightly the worse for wear, shot of the two of them in our cellar downstairs? Or perhaps a similar shot but with both wearing explosive vests with timers on them, both sat in front of a pile of C-4 plastic piled from floor to ceiling, location unspecified?”

  “The latter has more of a photogenic appeal to it, I have to admit. Do we need the added complications of blowing up half of London as part of simply finding a way to get to Nemikov’s money?”

  “Just to remind ourselves. Our orders, coming directly from Russia’s richest and wealthiest are not only to get Nemikov’s billions: but also, as you will be aware from your near-miss bombing on the train yesterday, to cause as much misery and mayhem under the disguise of terrorism as possible. This whole operation is being bankrolled by some deeply unhappy oligarchs, highly resentful about what the West is trying to do with their money currently.”

  “Okay, I’m up for this if it can all be made to work – and if the risks to ourselves are manageable. But not at any price. Whereabouts is the bomb?”

  “Beneath Tottenham Court Road tube station apparently.”

  “Why there?”

  When Panich told him, Virenque raised an eyebrow.

  “Even if the Crossr
ail tunnels are unlikely to collapse, a bomb at that particular location is certainly going to produce chaos and mayhem.”

  “Precisely. Look, why don’t you call Alexei and see if you can find out what’s happening with Lewis?”

  Virenque nodded and picked up his mobile and dialled. He waited for over a minute, but got no answer. He next tried calling Vince, again with no reply. He put the phone back on the table and looked across at Panich.

  “That seems to confirm it,” was all he said. “Chances of Lewis having learnt about this location?” he asked.

  “Medium to high,” Panich replied. “It’s another reason why we probably need to bug out and move on.”

  “Should we use Fedorov? Is he reliable?”

  “That’s not a bad thought. We could certainly use his car. I am not sure about his loyalties. What do you think?”

  “I never trust double agents. I instinctively feel they make life much more complicated. You never really know whether you can depend on them when the chips are down.”

  “I agree. Let me call him. If he brings the Range Rover, that’s all we need.”

  “Okay. You ring him, and I’ll go downstairs and check on our guests. When do you want to be moving out?”

  “Assuming that Fedorov has wheels, as soon as he gets here.”

  “Okay. Let’s try and finish our interrogation before we leave. The logistics here are so much more amenable.”

  “I’ll be down to join you in a moment.”

  86

  Lewis is navigating his way out of the city centre, trying to find the best road that will take him south. He is unfamiliar with the area, in danger of getting lost. He certainly doesn’t know anything about a place called Newton. Locating a quiet layby just beyond an interchange with the M11 motorway, he pulls in and turns off the Honda’s engine. He needs to check the map: equally importantly, he has a call to make. Removing his mobile phone from his jacket pocket, he presses the small round button on the bottom to wake it from its sleep. Flicking upwards with his thumb, he locates the small ‘airplane’ symbol in its small, white circle. He taps it once. The colour turns from white to grey, reconnecting his phone to the mobile network. Lewis is paranoid about leaving his phone disconnected as much as possible. Especially with people like Oleg Panich trying to locate him.

  With the signal restored, he finds Zeltinger’s number and dials. Zeltinger answers the call on its second ring.

  “Saul, we need to talk.”

  “It’s four in the morning, Ben.”

  “This can’t wait. I’ve just been at the Nemikov flat in the centre of Cambridge. The boy is missing, and Nemikov’s security detail, Pavel, is dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Two other goons tried to ambush me whilst I was there. One’s a Russian, the other sounded like a Brit. They are not dead, but they won’t be doing any clear-headed thinking for a while.”

  “Bloody hell, Ben. This is madness. With every passing hour there seem to be yet more dead and injured turning up here, there and everywhere. They all have one thing in common. You. Do yourself a favour. Turn yourself in. I’ll do my best to help sort things out for you, but the longer you leave it, the more difficult it gets.”

  “I can’t, Saul. There’s too much at stake. This isn’t some gangland tit for tat. These people are out to kill, make no mistake.”

  “Then leave it to the security services and the police to sort it out. That’s our job.”

  “Saul, you and I both know that this thing is moving much too fast to start involving everybody now. Cranking the machinery that you’re talking about into action takes hours, if not days: they’d want to get everything properly planned, all the paperwork sorted, search warrants obtained and so on. Whilst all that bullshit is going on, it’ll be too late. One of the goons who tried to kill me at the Nemikov apartment in Cambridge volunteered that Olena and Borys are being held in a farmhouse to the south of the city.”

  “So, only a few thousand properties for us to go looking at then. Is there any other information to be going on?”

  “Apparently it’s close to a place called Newton. Do you know it?”

  “I’ll take a look whilst we talking.” The line goes silent for a few moments as Zeltinger puts the phone down.

  “Here it is,” he says eventually. “I’ve found it. Where are you at the moment?”

  “Not far from a place called Harston. Just by the M11 interchange.”

  “Then you’re virtually there. It’s only two or three miles away.”

  “Is it a big place?”

  “No, it looks tiny: lots of open farmland on all sides. I’m taking a look on Street View as we speak.”

  “I think I’ll go and have a nosey around.”

  “What are you hoping to find at four in the morning?”

  “I don’t know, Saul. I can’t sit around and do nothing. There are two innocent young people whose lives are on the line at the moment. I’d like to try and keep them alive. I’ll take my chances.”

  “Aren’t you in enough trouble already, Ben? Don’t go adding breaking and entering to the list that the police are going to be wanting to ask you questions about.”

  “I was thinking about that. Surely it would be easy to check whether any farmhouses in the Newton area are, or have been, on the market recently?”

  “At four in the morning?” Zeltinger chuckles, his tone one of disbelief.

  “It only needs someone to scan through a number of local estate agent’s websites, surely?”

  “Okay, point taken. I’ll ask someone to get on to it right away.”

  “Great. If you do that, I’ll call you back within the half hour.”

  87

  Virenque found them both exactly as he had left them: huddled together, leaning one against the other on the floor. Their wrists and elbows were still bound behind them. By now, Borys’s mangled hand was badly swollen and bloodshot.

  “My brother needs medical attention.” Olena spoke with contempt, the moment she saw Virenque returning. “It’s urgent.”

  “I don’t think you’re exactly in a position to issue demands, my dear.”

  “He’s going to need reconstructive surgery, otherwise he’ll lose his hand.” She glowered at him. “And I am not ‘your dear’: not now, nor will I ever be.”

  Virenque came and squatted down on his haunches next to where the two of them were resting. He held her chin in his right hand briefly before she twisted it away. He grabbed it back and twisted her face viciously towards him.

  “You, bitch, I shall call you what the fuck I want,” he said angrily and with emphasis. “For the record,” he continued, back to speaking softly and evenly, “I don’t actually give a damn about your brother’s hand. Anyway, my dear,” this time saying the words with deliberation exaggeration, “you saw for yourself how well my Russian colleague seems to manage with his new prosthetic. In time, and assuming we all get what we want, your brother will be able to have the same.”

  “Philistine,” was all that she muttered, causing Virenque to laugh.

  “Is that the best you can do?” he said. Then, completely unexpectedly and with rapid speed, he hit her hard with his right hand on her left cheek. He used the open flat of his palm to make contact, the impact sickeningly loud in the confined space of the cellar. It caused Olena to cry out in pain.

  “Leave my sister alone, you bastard,” Borys said, speaking for the first time.

  Which was the reaction that Virenque had wanted. He grabbed Borys by the hair and drew his face painfully close to his own.

  “If you ever, ever,” he said with vehemence, “speak to me like that again, I will personally stand on your broken hand until you pass out with the pain, do you understand me?”

  Borys nodded in silence. Tears were streaming down his sister’s fa
ce. Her left cheek was red: large welts were beginning to form where Virenque’s fingers had hit her.

  “Now then,” Virenque was back standing, pacing around the small space where they were huddled. “Soon we are going to have to have another discussion about those secret codes, yours especially, Borys. Your sister had the sense to be helpful earlier. Now it is going be your turn. Do I make myself clear?”

  To his surprise, Borys nodded: Virenque had anticipated some form of stubborn refusal. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so difficult after all.

  It was at this moment that Panich hurried back down the stone steps to join them in the cellar. He looked at Virenque and spoke in simple shorthand.

  “The man was already on his way. He should be here any moment.”

  “That’s very good. Because I was just explaining that the time was fast approaching when we were going to need to ask Borys to share some of his secrets.”

  Panich was looking at the red welts on Olena’s face.

  “What happened to you, my lovely woman?”

  “I am not your lovely woman,” she spat, her anger resonating in every word.

  “Oh, I think for the time being you are,” he said, stroking the red welt with a prosthetic finger. He too squatted down next to her. “All mine,” he said, smiling lecherously at her, his eyes wandering deliberately all over her breasts, her body, her legs and then back slowly to lock on to her eyes once more. “Don’t be under any misapprehension, Olena. “ he said, stroking her other cheek now, his finger wandering so that it tilted her head directly towards him. She had little choice but to look him directly in the eye. “Whether you like it or not, you will do anything and everything that we ask of you. You’ll see.”

  She shuddered, and Panich stood up. Whether it was the cold air in the cellar or the sudden movement or for whatever reason: Panich began to cough. It was the phlegm-filled cough of a smoker, rattling around deep within his chest, and it continued for several seconds. Virenque waited for it to subside, looking at Panich to check he was all right before continuing. Panich simply nodded, his body slowly gathering breath.